“Hyunjae, you look so handsome today!”
“Really? I got a perm—doesn’t it look weird?”
“No! It’s so cute!”
“Hahat, thank you.”
By now, he was used to chatting with fans on his commute to and from music broadcasts.
“Do the heart challenge one more time!”
“The heart challenge? Ah~ Okay. I’ll film it for you next time when I’m dressed up nicely.”
“Today!”
“Today? I have dance practice today, so I can’t…….”
At the mention of dance practice, everyone let out surprised noises and murmured at once.
“Dance practice?”
“Dance?”
“Ah~ I’ve been practicing whenever I have time lately because of the upcoming fan meeting prep.”
He’d been preparing for the fan meeting bit by bit since a while ago.
“Oooh~”
“What song?”
“What song, you ask?”
“Yeah!”
“It’s a secret. Hehe.”
He couldn’t spoil what he was doing.
It had to be revealed suddenly to create surprise and fun, so he didn’t say.
“Aah~”
When he didn’t tell them, the fans let out sounds of disappointment.
“If you’re curious, come to the Seoul fan meeting!”
“I can’t go.”
“I can’t either……”
“Ah, you’re all so busy…… That’s a shame.”
He wanted lots of fans to come, but why couldn’t they?
“No tickets!”
“Huh? No tickets? Why not?”
“It’s sold out.”
“Sold out?”
He hadn’t even known the fan meeting tickets had gone on sale, and they were already sold out.
“Wow~ Sold out, that’s a shame…… It’d be great if you could come—really can’t?”
He pouted in disappointment as he spoke, and the fan in front nodded as if entranced, then resolved with a firm nod.
“……I’ll find a way to go.”
“Huh? There’s a way you can come? Then definitely come!”
“Hyunjae, we have to go now.”
Hayoon said, lightly tugging at his clothes.
“Aaah~”
“Oppa, just a little more time please~”
Since Hayoon was always stuck to him like glue, the fans were used to him and treated him friendly.
“Ah, but we can’t…….”
And Hayoon couldn’t be firm with the fans.
“Aaah~”
“We have an appointment with the choreographer, so we have to go. I’ll work hard, so come watch!”
After bidding a regretful farewell, they headed to the parking lot where the car was parked at the broadcasting station.
“Uaah~ I’m gonna get scolded by the teacher again today, right? Learning dance is way harder than learning action scenes.”
“But that song and choreo are really popular…….”
“Hyunjae!”
Right before getting in the car, someone called his name and came running—it was none other than Yongmin.
“Uh…….”
Last time they’d run into each other, he’d pretended not to know him, but this time he even followed to greet him.
“Wow~ It’s really been a while.”
Anyone watching would think he was greeting an old friend with how warmly he acted, making Hyunjae wonder why he was like this.
‘We’re not that close, are we?’
He hadn’t contacted him once since sending Hyungcheol away, and even when he was briefly his manager, he’d treated him like he didn’t exist.
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
“You acted like you weren’t interested in acting back then, but I saw you on dramas and variety shows. You’re doing really well these days, huh?”
Hearing praise that didn’t suit him felt strange and uncomfortable.
“You know each other?”
Hayoon asked him, and before he could answer, Yongmin jumped in first.
“Hahaha, I was Hyunjae’s first manager.”
“First manager?”
Hayoon, who hadn’t heard that he’d been with an agency, looked back and forth between him and Yongmin.
“I was with a place briefly.”
“Haha, but we’re connected like this~ Running into each other here.”
“Yeah. But what brings you here?”
It was weird that someone who’d shown no enthusiasm for manager work kept showing up at the broadcasting station.
“I’m in this line of work too, like you.”
“This line of work?”
“Finding hidden gems.”
If he meant finding hidden gems, it sounded like agency work, but no matter how you looked at it, it didn’t seem that way.
‘Those people don’t look like broadcasting staff.’
The people sitting in front of Yongmin were all bowing their heads to him like they were groveling.
“Hyunjae.”
Hayoon signaled that they had to go, and he had no intention of talking more anyway.
“I have my next schedule.”
“Yeah yeah~ Sure, I come to this broadcasting station often, so see you next time.”
The “see you next time” bothered him, but he brushed it off as just polite words.
And then, at the exact same broadcasting station, in the exact same spot, he ran into Yongmin again.
“Hey hey~ Hyunjae, here for MC duties? Nice to see you, nice to see you.”
This time, he even initiated skinship he’d never done before, acting all chummy.
“What brings you here today?”
“Me? I’m here to meet people for business.”
He glanced over at the table where he’d been sitting, and the person there was staring holes through him.
‘He wants to flaunt his connection to me in front of that person, huh?’
He could roughly guess the situation.
He’d seen enough of these types flocking around as popularity grew.
But it being Yongmin made it unsettling.
“Then do your business well.”
They weren’t close enough to chat idly anyway, so he drew the line.
“Huh? Busy? Yeah yeah, work hard~”
Normally, he’d have cursed him out right there for being rude, but he smiled and waved.
Though he couldn’t fully hide his gritted teeth.
“What kind of business makes him commute to the broadcasting station like that?”
Having run into him twice in a row, Hayoon found Yongmin suspicious.
“Who knows. I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s nothing good.”
“Huh?”
“My old company wasn’t as normal as you might think. And I wasn’t on great terms with that manager either.”
“You?”
Hayoon looked puzzled at the idea that he wasn’t on good terms with that guy.
“You’re the first person I’ve seen you not get along with…….”
“Lots of people hate me.”
“R-Really?”
Hayoon seemed to think of him like an angel.
“Anyway, he’s not someone worth getting close to, so if you run into him by chance next time, ignore him too, hyung.”
“Yeah, got it.”
***
“Ah! Writer-nim~ Hello!”
“You’re in early today?”
“I messed up a bit last time~ I came early to prepare perfectly this time!”
“Ay~ That mess-up~ Everyone was going crazy saying it was cute.”
Cheongdam-dong barbecue restaurant.
“Yaah~ Kim Hyungkyu, you’re so cheap. You’re trying to get away with just pork belly?”
“Just pork belly? Do you know how much one serving costs here?”
In a high-end private room at the barbecue place, Hyungkyu was with two men around his age.
“You should at least spring for beef, right? You’re in ads now, and variety reactions are good.”
“It’s not at that level yet?”
“Not at that level my ass…… Hey, he turned down more ads that came in.”
“Damn— You’re turning down ads?”
The two were shocked at the mention of turning down ads.
“Not turning down, just filtering out weird ones.”
“Weird ads like…… He turned down a yogurt ad.”
“Yogurt? Dude, dairy ads are ones you jump on—how dare you turn down yogurt?”
The two ran their own actor agencies and had grown together with Hyungkyu, starting as managers.
“That’s the company with the power abuse controversy. You guys don’t take ads from there either. It’ll just ruin your image for nothing.”
“We’d think about it if they came in, but they don’t—how can we turn them down if they don’t come~”
“Come on, enough—let’s toast to this. You were all twisted up after sending Hyera off, and now you’re finally shining.”
The guy in the middle with glasses raised his beer-filled glass as he spoke.
“Yeah, man. I told you not to go all-in on Yoo Hyera and to groom some juniors, but you didn’t listen…….”
“Hey, why bring that up…….”
Hyungkyu flared up at his friend’s words and tried to set his glass down, but he shut his mouth at the quick placating words.
“I’m just saying it’s a waste. Launching a rookie without pull from above is so hard—if you’d done it earlier, you wouldn’t have struggled this much.”
“Yeah, anyway, congrats on the end of your hardships!”
The three clinked glasses, celebrating Hyungkyu’s success.
“It’s still far off. We’re just at the name-recognition stage.”
“Your next project is ‘Love Some,’ right? I heard the writer changed and the scripts are turning out great?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“You can’t survive here without that much intel.”
Unlike their neighborhood uncle appearances, they had eagle eyes.
“So what? He’s going into Director Seo Incheol’s film this time.”
He’d approved the appearance, but he was still honestly uneasy.
“I was puzzled when I saw the article—how’d he end up in that?”
“The director said it had to be our Hyunjae—what can I do?”
“Bragging?”
“Does this look like bragging?”
“But that director has an unbeaten box office myth! He makes killer films.”
It was common knowledge in the industry that Incheol had built an unusual unbeaten box office streak in films.
“That was years ago…….”
“Yeah, true. He went too far off.”
“But it’s an independent film—it’s not made with box office in mind from the start. It’ll be fine~”
They peppered Hyungkyu with tiny consolations.
It was behavior born from knowing it was too late to turn back once the stamp was on.
“And he said he’d do it no-guarantee and gave the entire fee he got back to the director.”
At the mention of no-guarantee, the two who’d been consoling him quietly downed the drinks in front of them.
“Some do no-guarantee, while others demand 70 million per episode…….”
“70 million per episode? Who?”
Seeing them lumped with Hyunjae, it seemed like similar level, but curiosity naturally arose at the outrageous 70 million per episode fee.
“You haven’t heard? DreamEn’s Bae Jinwook. He’s demanding 70 million per episode for the drama he’s entering now.”
Bae Jinwook had debuted about two years before Hyunjae and got attention right away for his decent acting.
“He’s only done sub-male leads so far?”
But even so, 70 million per episode was way too much.
“He’s the lead this time.”
“It’s a push to raise his status. DreamEn’s got Han Jeongwoo’s spot empty lately, so they’re inflating the juniors’ fees like crazy.”
“They approached our kid too.”
He clearly remembered what happened last time.
He held back from responding to their provocation since it wouldn’t help, but if it happened again, he had no intention of holding back.
“No business ethics at all.”
“This time, they snatched the ‘Music Day’ MC spot our Minwoo was in.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he was good at it and was set to rest for three months then return, but they somehow sweet-talked and gave it to a DreamEn rookie.”
Honestly, it was a spot Hyungkyu had coveted too, so hearing DreamEn took it didn’t sit well.
“Lately, DreamEn’s collecting every script out there for Han Jeongwoo’s comeback project.”
“Ha, really doting on their bloodline.”
“That’s why they’re hoarding scripts and not letting them circulate. Directors wait anyway, thinking even if it’s a fish farm, Han Jeongwoo’s a top star so maybe.”
So that’s why.
Incoming scripts were sparse, so he’d been looking broadly with auditions in mind, but strangely, scripts weren’t circulating.
In the middle of their serious conversation, the phone of the guy across from Hyungkyu rang.
“Sigh, I gotta take this.”
He stepped out to answer and came back after a while.
“What? What is it?”
His bad expression prompted the question.
“Some bastard put our actor’s photo in a reading room ad? It’s a mess contacting the lawyer over it.”
“Scammer?”
“Yeah, watch out. You know this happens more during rising phases than at the top?”
At his friend’s words, Hyungkyu thought Hyunjae wasn’t at that level yet and just let it slide.