Chapter 532

When he arrived home, it was nearly midnight. He almost had to take a taxi from Seoul to Suwon if he was just a little late. He went to the convenience store near his house and bought a triangular rice ball and a ramyun. He was hungry since although he had some bread for lunch, he didn’t have anything for dinner. Thinking that going on a diet without a clear objective was really hard, he ate the rice ball and the ramyun.

After leaving the convenience store, he walked as he stroked his full belly. When he walked for a bit, he saw his house. He climbed the stairs and arrived in front of his door. Maru entered the passcode before opening the door.

“You’re late, have you had dinner?”

He saw his mother coming out of the bedroom.

“I did. Go to sleep already and don’t worry about your son.”

His mother nodded before closing the door. He took a light shower before going to his room. Parents were people who would worry about their children even if they were fully grown up if they couldn’t see their children for a while. Her son, who was still a minor, was walking around late at night, so it was no wonder that she was worried. Even though he understood how she felt, he felt a little frustrated whenever he saw her peeking out with a tired face. She could be a little more at ease.

Usually, Maru would have read a book before sleeping, but there was something he needed to check today. He turned on the PC and opened a browser. He searched ‘New Semester’ and went to the TV station’s website. He saw the internet forum for the viewers right next to the replay service.

Click.

After he clicked and the page loaded, he saw titles decorated with all sorts of special characters. It was practically unreadable by those not familiar with the internet.

“O...ur, Giwoo...oppa….”

He interpreted those words as he kept reading. When he read for a while, he learned a few familiar patterns, which gave him some speed. There were nearly 3000 posts, and there were new articles popping up even as he read them. Maru opened another browser before searching New Semester again. He scrolled down to find some articles about it.

“18% viewership, succeeding the lineage of youth dramas. Talented acting from fresh actors. Popular with students. Unexpected love from the soldiers. Oh, what?”

New Semester’s broadcasting time was 5 p.m. When he thought about how the soldiers would finish their weekend work and then watch New Semester in their barracks, he pitied them. At the same time, he sighed when he thought that he would have to enter the military in a few years.

That was for later, so he decided to forget about the military for now. He looked at the rest of the articles. Most articles talked about three child actors, and there were quite a few articles that were written in an interview style. He didn’t know about this. The difference in treatment of the lead actors and support actors was quite high. No one asked Maru to do an interview regarding New Semester.

After reading those interviews, Maru closed the page.

“Yeseul is unexpectedly popular.”

There was Giwoo as well, but a lot of the articles talked about Yeseul. There was also an article talking about how the cosmetics she used in the drama became popular among middle school girls. It seemed that they gained satisfaction from following an actress that they could relate with rather than top stars - the article ended with that.

Maru returned to the TV station website. He rested his chin on his hand before going to the next page. When he scrolled through about 10 pages, he understood what Dongho was talking about on the set.

They were all about Giwoo and Yeseul. There were especially a lot of requests that went ‘please let them start dating’. There were articles cheering for Lee Chan, but it seemed that his popularity wasn’t as high as Giwoo’s since he grumbled quite a lot during the story.

Maru’s opinion was that the rebellious Lee Chan was much more attractive than the bright and sincere Giwoo, but from the proportion of the forum posts, Giwoo was overwhelmingly ahead.

“The interpretation of the character became a little strange, I guess.”

Through the screen, Lee Chan looked less like a rebellious kid and more like a nagging kid. Thi