EP 04: What A Sight
1859 Words
"You write playscripts?"
"Yeah," I replied to the director, a bit hesitant. "I used to write for our theater club way back in high school." I made sure to emphasize the past.
It's morning, and we're in the auditorium right now, unfortunately.
I tried to stop the pig, and told her that her wrist still looked bad, but because the director was coming, she insisted on going to recommend me as the playwright for their upcoming play.
Leo, the director, seems unsure about it.
A hope of rejection blooms within me.
Come on, director. Give me a firm, "No." I don't want to do this! At all!
He couldn't respond and only pouts his lips in deep thought while he taps his pants' pockets with his fingers.
I was getting impatient, and his continuous tapping was getting into my nerves, when he looked behind his shoulder and called for Zea.
Caly and I exchanged glances. It's their team's original playwright.
Zea, who was looking as grim as I am, approached us like a zombie. "What is it, Leo?" she asked, frowning.
"She said you guys know him, is that right?" the director confirmed, gesturing to me.
Zea only stares at me for about ten seconds before nodding.
That was quite uncomfortable.
"Caly recommends him as the playwright this time. What do you say?"
I held my breath. Say No. Say No. Say No.
"Well," Zea pauses to scratch her nape, "Do you have samples of your work?"
"No," I was about to answer, but Caly beat me to it.
"Of course!" she chirped and fished her phone out of her pocket. "I have them."
Makes me wonder how much that background check revealed about me.
"You're actually..."
"Good, right?" Caly intrudes at the awestruck Zea, who only bobs her head in agreement as she continues to scroll on the former's phone, reading a piece I wrote in high school.
I couldn't muster the strength to smile. Seeing how amazed their playwright looks, I'm definitely getting the job. Even so, I can't deny that my sense of pride as a writer grew.
Good grief. I'm on the fence about which to focus on: the inconvenience or the gratification.
Caly grins and says, "He's actually Live."
A crow seemed to pass above our heads as no reaction was drawn until Zea shrieked. "What?! That writer? My Sweet Sasin? Shine On?"
I glared at the smiling pig witch while Zea went to get a pen to get my sign.
"What, you'll have to be more credible for others to trust you," she says, shrugging, then went to point at my face with a sneer. "Besides, you're not really hiding it, you know?"
"What?" I deadpanned, covering half of my face with my hand.
"Even with your long hair, anyone can see your smiling eyes~ blushing cheeks~" she singsongs, tilting her head left and right in the process.
"Shut up."
Immediately, I was approved by Zea as this project's playwright. She also relayed to the staff and casts that I'm the famous children's fiction writer online, Live, and the creator of My Sweet Sasin.
The director and the coach were also surprised to learn about it, but I received the green light to revise and finish what Zea had started. Thankfully, she's halfway done writing it, so I was given four weeks to complete it, which is not harsh at all, since the story is not supposed to drag on for long.
What I think is irksome, is that I'm going to make subtle changes to the character of the protagonist to make it a role more befitting for the pig.
The day passed by like a blur, and now I'm supposed to be up and starting to work on the script, but my brain is telling me to gape at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling.
"I will do it...I will not do it...I will do it...I will not do it-"
Caly's door creaks open.
"What are you doing?" she asked, and I didn't bother to look at her as I lied, "Thinking about the changes I'll apply to the script."
"Liar," she muttered. Attempting to sit beside me to look at the screen of my laptop. But I quickly got up and left my warm seat to lean on the wall behind the sofa.
"Rude."
How many more negative adjectives should I hear?
She scanned the words and seemed to realize how hard it is to work on such a short table. She's got no dining table but a kitchen island and high stools, so there's not much choice but to resist discomfort in this position.
"Hey. I have a table in my room. Want to write there?"
Guess I'd rather do that than end up with back injuries.
"Don't enter when I'm inside," I told her as I set up my laptop on her table.
She entered the room anyway and protested, "It's my room."
With eyes like saucers, I twisted my neck to look at her.
"Don't. enter. when I'm. inside."
The startup felt foreign, which makes sense since I last wrote a script. Four? Or was that five years ago?
Anyway, it's like I'm lost. I didn't know where to begin. The protagonist's entry? Where Zea last left a line? From the beginning? All of these thoughts are pain in the neck, but I decided to get on with it.
Eventually, I started writing smoothly after days of being at loose ends.
Funnily enough, she knows her place when I'm doing her a favor. She follows my instructions, doesn't wake me up in weird ways, doesn't annoy me, doesn't call me bastard, dude, bro, or whatever she pleases - things appear to be worth the applause but is actually the norm for personal bodyguards.
"Knock, knock! You hungry?"
I sighed. She did it again. "I told you to stop that. You're making me lose my momentum."
"Okay~" The door closes again.
That dummy. She keeps doing it anyway.
Losing my momentum, I decided to take a short break and rest my back on the cushion of her swivel, accent chair. My eyes trained on the pictures and papers glued on the large memo board in front of me. If not bills, they're all about her career as a theater actress. I can clearly see how she's into this sphere.
Books, magazines, posters, DVDs - all of them in this room are tainted with her passion for acting. None of these spills that she's working as a personal bodyguard for elites, and it's not like she's dedicated to this job either.
Why did she become a personal bodyguard, then?
One of my brows quirked when I spotted my name on one of the post-it notes. In a heartbeat, I grabbed and bolted from the room. I caught her tending to her wrist, which has gotten a lot better now.
"What? You hungry?"
I lifted the small piece of paper. "What is this?"
"What's that?" she asked, squinting her eyes.
"Written here? Hitlist," I grumbled, clenching and unclenching my jaw. "So that's your plan all along?" I asked in a manner that made it sound like I was betrayed.
But Caly just laughs out loud.
"I'm- I'm not a hitman," she said between laughter. "Those are people who wronged me. I just don't want to forget them till my fists had them sucker punched."
I feel my eye twitching, face warming up in embarrassment.
"Fret no more," she declares with a big grin, gets on her feet, then snatches the note from my hand. She nears her face to mine, letting me capture her brightened features with my eyes, and not removing that cheeky smile on her lips, she says, "I'll remove your name now since you've become an ally."
"La la la la..." she sings as she skips to her room, while I stood there dumbly, all red, and feeling like my heart was about to burst in my chest.
"Ally?"
That day was... weird.
A week after I started writing, the first half was done. The auditions for the lead resumes, and Caly's wrist injury is almost reaching its full recovery.
"I've read it," Zea whispers next to me as we watch the audition take place. "It's perfect. It's a god tier version of the initial script."
Ah, this girl. She keeps flattering me.
"Thanks. Yours was good. I just tweaked a bit," I responded without tearing my gaze off the pig who was articulating her lines perfectly.
As expected, she's doing well. If she still fails, I'm totally mocking her even if she kills me.
"But I can see you're trying to get Caly the lead role."
I was quick to meet her eyes, since I was taken by surprise. But, ah. I knew it was going to be out in the open soon enough.
Without denying, I brought my eyes back on the stage.
"You're not denying it, huh?"
"Hope I still get the fee."
I heard Zea chuckle. "I'll make sure you will. Moreover, I'd like to see her playing the lead role, too. So maybe I can see her not crying at the backstage this time after the performance."
Right after she told me that, Caly just finished her audition. She gave me a 'How is it?" look and I sneakily conveyed a thumbs-up. She hits her chest with her palm, trying to tell me, "Of course, I did well," but instead uses the wrist with the injury so her face scrunches in pain.
My brows knitted.
Caly? Crying? What a sight.
By 5 pm, the crew decided to wrap up, but not after the announcement of roles. Sitting on the floor were the casts as they paid utmost attention to the coach.
"Now, for the lead role. Clap your hands for..."
From the back, I see Caly straightening her back.
She might just get the role now.
Then, like a flashback, I remember all the time when she stayed up all night reading and internalizing her lines and singing and dancing - to my annoyance - all night long.
Those notes on her memo board of “You can do it, Caly. You'll live your dream one day!"
Finally, those hopeful eyes she gave me the moment I told her I'd help her.
I chuckled.
Tucking strands of my hair behind my ear, I released a deep breath.
No.
She will definitely become the lead this time.
"Calysta."
As I clap my hands, I watched her get on her feet. She says something to them that I didn't quite catch, then heads to my direction. I couldn’t say a word when she strongly grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the exit.
"Are you trying to injure me as well, you pig?" I asked, irritated. She kept her head down, so I spit some more string of words. "Your grip hurts! You know-"
"Hey."
"What?!"
She finally lifted her head and all the curses in my mind fizzled out.
"Thank you."
I wasn't able to say anything as she gave me the warmest smile she could.
Caly? Crying?
What a sight, indeed.
- Writer
