Chapter 929. Crank Up 4

He handed the last mug to the last fan. As this was his first time using a coffee machine, he was awkward at first, but thanks to the kind explanation from the café owner, he was able to do it with ease towards the end.

“Please become popular quickly so I can brag to my friends in the future that Han Maru made me coffee.”

“That doesn’t really depend on me. You know, don’t you? Everyone must give me lots of attention so that I can play a good role.”

Maru left the counter, also holding a mug in hand. He found out that it was pretty decent to drink. That was the power of recipes. Even rookies like him could make good coffee like this.

“Why don’t we take a group photo with the coffees?”

Sora struggled and moved the tables away. The fans also moved away the chairs to make space. One of the fans, who volunteered to be the photographer, took out her camera and stood at the front. It didn’t even take a few minutes for her to open up the tripod and set up the angle. She smelled like a pro, so Maru asked her in passing if she ran a photo studio. He was asking half as a joke, but the reply was a stunning yes. Apparently, she was running a photo studio that specializes in taking baby photos with her husband.

“Shouldn’t I pay you for this?” Sora asked as she took out her wallet.

The photographer reached her hand out as though she was waiting. The people watching started laughing. The photographer also smiled and took away her hand.

“I don’t plan to accept money for doing something I like. This is something that is part of my resolve as a fan. If you really want to pay me, actor Han should come to our studio and take a photo. We’ll put it on the main display.”

“I’ll make some time to go.”

“You promised, okay?”

After finishing the setup, the photographer joined the group. She raised a small remote control like a conductor’s baton and pointed at the camera. Maru raised his mug, and the fans followed suit.

“Doesn’t this feel too much like a company get-together occasion? It’s way too orderly.”

When someone said that, everyone burst into laughter. That was when the shutter could be heard. The photographer pressed it without any warning. People erupted in complaints everywhere, about how they had their eyes closed, had an ugly smile, or were covering their faces.

“This is much prettier than looking stiff.”

The photographer brought the camera over. Maru was the first one to see the photo on the screen. Not a single person was looking at the camera. They were all looking at each other and smiling joyfully. It was a very liberal photo, and also something that made him smile just by looking at it.

Instead of the front, the people’s gazes were focused on the woman wearing a pink blouse in the middle row towards the right. It was obvious where the source of the laughter came from.

“Look at this, I have my eyes closed.”

“Heck, that is still better than me. Look at me, my mouth is wide open.”

“I think I came out quite pretty. I had a hunch that something like this would happen, so I tensed up.”

The fans shared their opinions while looking at the photo. Maru thought that the fan meeting would proceed without a problem even if he disappeared. They got along so well that they would probably have fun without Han Maru at a ‘Han Maru fan meetup.’ He would be sweating profusely if people spoke intermittently in a stiff manner, but they thankfully got along with each other like long-time friends, which put him at ease.

“It’s a good thing that we did this, huh?” Sora remarked in a small voice from the side.

Maru nodded without hesitation. He felt that he would have regretted it if he didn’t do it. Just the fact that there were so many people cheering for him like this made him energized. Unless the acting was done for self-satisfaction, actors were bound to pursue the love of the audience. This moment would probably push his back in the future when he started to feel regret about becoming an actor or became exhausted; it was the motivation to allow him to think that he can do a little more.

“Actor Han! I have a wish for you.”

“As long as it’s not to reenact what I did in the talk show, then anything is fine.”

“How quick-witted. I was going to ask you to do that.”

“Please spare me. It’s been giving me nightmares ever since it spread around on the internet.”

“Then how about a song instead?”

When the fan that brought it up started to say ‘sing, sing’ in an urging manner, the other fans around followed suit. Just a minute ago, he was proud to see the fans unite, but now, he was slightly sad that there was not a single voice of opposition.

“Then I’ll try singing my favorite song. I’m not that good, so don’t expect too much.”

He used a straw as a microphone and started singing. Although he wasn’t even good enough to be called a good singer, it wasn’t unpleasant to the ears, perhaps thanks to the fact that he practiced his vocalization every day. His innate voice wasn’t too bad either. As singing was a part of acting, he didn’t feel that repulsed by it. After all, he had sung quite a few times on stages when things were delayed. He couldn’t exactly pull out when his job was to keep them interested.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment to remember the lyrics he couldn’t remember and opened them again. A familiar scenery folded out in front of him. Camera lenses gleamed instead of human eyes.

Maru continued singing as he started walking around. The cameras followed him, which made his prankster nature kick in and made him start running around everywhere. The cameras followed him busily. If Sora didn’t grab him by the arm midway, he would’ve tried going upstairs too.

“Now you’re enjoying it, huh?” Sora said.

He couldn’t deny that. Now that the pressure had lessened, his mouth and body became lighter. He was reminded of the joys of talking to strangers during the days he drove a bus.

As he moved around busily while singing, he was sweating by the end of it. He marveled at how professional singers and dancers could do their job for hours for a concert.

“Should we let actor Han rest a little and watch the video prepared? It’s a video prepared by Miss Yoon Youngseon.”

While he made another cup of coffee, Sora was installing a monitor on one of the café tables. It seemed that she intended to use the laptop for the speakers and have the video come out through the monitor. The fan who created the video inserted a USB stick on the laptop. Maru watched the monitor half with expectations and half with worries because he didn’t know what was in it.

“I’ll turn the lights off.”

The café owner pulled down the blinds and turned the lights off, and it became pretty dark. The fan controlled the laptop along with the words that she was going to start. The video window popped up, followed by some relaxing music. Was it something touching? He was weak to things like that.

‘Han Maru’ - The three characters that made up his name popped up on the screen. Along with some white noise, the play he did for the acting competition when he was in high school was played back. Maru leaned forward and watched the screen. He, as well as his friends from several years ago, were there. His memories told him that his acting was pretty decent, but now that he actually saw it, it was very awkward.

“Where did you get this?”

“Someone uploaded it to the fan café.”

He never knew that there were things like this in the fan café that he didn’t even visit that frequently. He felt grateful and apologetic at the same time. This wasn’t the only place that had the fans he had to look after. Although the fans wouldn’t know because of the low resolution, Maru felt like it was vivid as though he was there. This was a big gift for him. Although not everything that happened was good, it seemed to have become good memories, and he smiled the whole time. The following clips were from the movies and dramas that he shot. Some sound effects and subtitles were added throughout as well. Producers always told him that shooting was nothing compared to editing. Maru thanked the producer of this video once again. Not only did she find all sorts of clips to stick together, she also added all sorts of effects so that it wouldn’t look boring. It must not have been an easy job. Maru was thankful that she did it purely because she was a fan.

After the act that received good reviews in Doctors, a soundtrack that seemed to signal the end flowed out. Although he watched calmly the whole time, he was quite touched on the inside. There were many occurrences behind the acting that happened on the surface. The stories that the fans wouldn’t know about made his nose tingle. He was an adult, so he couldn’t just start crying on the spot. He pressed down on his palm to calm down his emotions. He could see himself smiling calmly.

“It’s not over yet.”

And just as he had expected, what replaced the emotional code at the end was his figure during the talk show. Even the things he did in the kal-guksu restaurant were mixed within. As though to show that her editing skills hadn’t been maxed out yet, the video displayed a splendid level of editing skills.

“I was wondering where that went.”

He had somewhat become immune to it and had mostly given up on it, so he was able to laugh with the others. He even got swept up in the mood and danced along with the video. Although he was overwhelmed with regret by the end of it, it was already a thing of the past.

After the commotion died down, Sora left the café, saying that she had something to prepare. Maru talked to the fans that looked at him.

“It looks like I’ve talked enough about myself, and above all, that video seems to have compressed my life into the whole thing, so I wish to hear about you all now. I don’t care what it is. If you have anything you want to tell me or want to discuss what you’re going to eat for dinner, talk to me about it. Heck, even talking about the global oil prices is fine.”

Chatting all at once was no pressure, but getting attention seemed to be a little too much for them as no fan spoke up easily. Just as he thought that he should talk about an episode that happened during a shoot, one of the women raised her hand.

“It’s nothing amazing, but I just want to say that you gave me a lot of energy through your acting.”

“Through my acting?”

The woman introduced herself. Her name was Eunhye, and she worked at a middle-sized company with a terrible salary.

“It was back when I couldn’t pay rent for two months and was having a hard time. As you know, it feels terrible when you have to pay utility bills and rent but you don’t have any money in hand. It wasn’t even my fault either as the company just wasn’t paying me, so it was frustrating. But in dramas, people who supposedly lead hard lives live in huge houses and ride expensive cars, even though the ones who really lead hard lives can’t even dream of such things. That was when I saw you in Doctors. Of course, there were many dramas that talked about the sorrows of young men and women, but your acting combined with the story made it look really genuine and consoling.”

After talking smoothly, the woman stuttered at the end, saying ‘I just felt like that.’ It seemed that she was flustered because she didn’t know what to say. Maru followed up so as to not put her in an awkward spot,

“I think that was the biggest compliment I received this year. There are no words more valuable than what you just said to an actor. I was consoled, I was able to laugh, I felt my heart ache — by looking at your acting. I’ll try my best to become an actor like that in the future as well, so as to not disappoint all of you here.”

Although his comment had been forged through business statements, there was no lie in his meaning. The fans applauded. When people started talking heatedly about Doctors again, Sora appeared with a huge box in her hand. When he asked, she answered that it was some hand cream and some sun cream packaged into neat boxes.

“You should hand them out, seonbae.”

“When did you get something like this prepared?”

“I ripped them off of Sooil-oppa. I asked if he could prepare some gifts for your fan meetup.”

“I guess I should thank him later.”

“Try calling him on video right now.”

“If I do, this place will turn into a Yoo Sooil fan meetup, you know? It’s my fan meeting, so it should be about me.”

“You know, you get jealous quite easily.”

“It’s because this is my first fan meetup. Satisfied?”

Maru smiled and took out the gifts from the box.