How a Loan Shark Survives as an Actor — Episode 55
'He's really tall.'
Since waking up in Yoo Seul-ho's body, I'd almost never had to look up at anyone.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I stole a quick, subtle scan of the man across the table.
'Let's see... maybe 192 centimeters?'
Which meant he was practically the same height as my old body.
'Wow.'
Now I understood why the guys in my organization had been scared of me.
I thought back to all the young crew members who'd tiptoed around me every time I so much as breathed.
'Then again, at least I had the build that suited a loan shark.'
This man was, apparently, just an ordinary office worker.
The sheer intimidation he gave off—a presence that would've had no trouble passing for a gangster—was genuinely fascinating.
"Please, have a seat. I ordered coffee and tea—which would you prefer?"
"And which one are you having, Team Leader?"
"Either's fine with me."
"Then I'll take the coffee."
The man nodded with a smile, took his seat, and laid his business card neatly on the table.
'Ahn Jin-bae.'
Unusual name.
The more I looked at him, the more clearly he seemed like anything but an ordinary man, and I found myself choosing my words with extra care.
Whether he picked up on my hesitation or not, he smoothly opened with a bit of small talk to break the ice.
"I watched the drama and enjoyed it immensely. The character you played—Kang Min-woo—was the one who drew my eye the most."
"Thank you. Please, feel free to call me by name."
"Of course. Seul-ho-ssi."
Our drinks arrived right on cue.
After a sip of coffee and a few exchanges, the atmosphere loosened up quickly.
'Rough exterior, but a soft-spoken talker. Interesting.'
It was the first time I'd ever met someone whose personality diverged so completely from their first impression.
"Good. So, who was the first celebrity you ever managed, Team Leader?"
I'd toss out this much small talk before getting to the real business.
It was a question tossed out without much thought—a question I honestly wasn't even curious about.
The answer that came back, however, was genuinely surprising.
"Lee Yeon-jae."
"...? Really?"
"Yes. The actor would have still been in elementary school back then. How time flies."
Team Leader Ahn smiled gently.
Lee Yeon-jae was currently the most successful male actor in all of South Korea.
Ever since I'd resolved to make serious money off Yoo Seul-ho's face, he'd been the celebrity I'd adopted as my role model.
'They said his appearance fee was no joke, too.'
Running Haru Finance, I'd heard stories about him a few times.
Perhaps because he was the celebrity's celebrity, the rumors about him were almost uselessly abundant.
'Most of it was meaningless talk, though.'
Loves his drinks, loves his women—things like that. Which is to say, he was a man with none of the fatal flaws that could wreck a celebrity career.
I'd actually thought once, seeing how much money he made and how little he spent of it, that if that were me, I'd have blown through it already.
'I knew Lee Yeon-jae was with Wooyeon Entertainment, but I never dreamed I'd be sitting across from one of his inner circle.'
The man in front of me became several times more interesting.
Which meant this person had... watched the entire process of an ordinary elementary schooler transforming into the blockbuster superstar now sweeping up all the money in the industry, hadn't he?
That, in turn, meant he'd have a fair understanding of how an actor actually becomes successful.
For someone currently shopping around for a new agency, that was a point I couldn't afford to miss.
"Even back then, when he was still in elementary school, I could tell at a glance what he'd become. When we evaluate actors, acting skill always comes first."
Team Leader Ahn's calm eyes turned toward me.
"You debuted young too, Seul-ho-ssi. It was a very long time ago, but our CEO says he actually saw you once."
"On a set?"
"No. At the Wooyeon building. Yoo Tae-ho-ssi and Lee Seul-myeong-ssi once paid our company a visit."
There was steel hidden in that last remark.
The moment I caught that strangely weighted tone, I broke into a small smile.
"Actually, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. I've heard there's some history between Wooyeon Entertainment and my parents, but unfortunately I have no memory of any of it."
When I asked whether he could tell me more, Team Leader Ahn answered with the measured smile of a seasoned adult.
"My recollection is that it was not a particularly pleasant episode. Every actor has their own pride, and an agency has its own recruitment standards to weigh. On that front, it proved difficult for Yoo Tae-ho-ssi and Lee Seul-myeong-ssi to move over to Wooyeon."
He'd dressed it up, but strip away the diplomacy and it boiled down to one sentence.
'Neither side was satisfied!'
Yoo Tae-ho and Lee Seul-myeong hadn't liked the numbers or the contract terms Wooyeon offered, and Wooyeon—matching their egos stride for stride—hadn't rated them highly enough to bend.
"And to think our—no, that my parents once wanted to move to Wooyeon. That's news to me."
I kept my voice level, but inside I was burning with curiosity.
Fine, so nobody was happy. So who walked away first in the end?
'Please tell me Wooyeon was the one who walked. Please.'
I had my pride too. I had zero interest in picking up the scraps of Yoo Seul-ho's parents' humiliation.
Fortunately, the team leader's next words were exactly what I'd hoped to hear.
"I believe that, on their side... as long as the terms could be negotiated favorably, they would still welcome the move even now. They reached out again just last year, in fact."
"I see. Then how likely is it that they actually end up at Wooyeon? Because if the odds are high, I can't work with Wooyeon Entertainment."
"May I ask why?"
You couldn't exactly tell a stranger you'd met today that you'd decided to freeze out your parents for the rest of your life.
So I put on the most professional expression I could muster and improvised.
"As you know, Team Leader, my existing image is deeply entangled with my parents. To escape the word 'nepo baby,' sharing an agency with them is the very first thing I have to avoid. I need to prevent any possibility of misunderstanding."
"Then I'd say you have nothing to worry about."
Team Leader Ahn smiled and lifted his teacup.
After taking a silent sip, he added quietly:
"As much as Yoo Tae-ho-ssi and Lee Seul-myeong-ssi have their pride, our CEO has his own."
Translated directly from the diplomatic phrasing that followed, the story went something like this.
First: Yoo Tae-ho and Lee Seul-myeong had indeed visited the Wooyeon office.
Second: in the middle of contract negotiations, the two of them, absolutely enraged, cursed the Wooyeon CEO out.
Third: the profanity was so vile that the secretary waiting outside the CEO's office had to physically cover her own mouth.
Fourth: the scene escalated and escalated until it was beyond control, and only barely calmed down short of someone calling the police.
'Huh.'
Listening to Team Leader Ahn, the picture just wouldn't form in my head.
Yoo Tae-ho and Lee Seul-myeong might be trash as Yoo Seul-ho's parents, but as celebrities, their image management was freakishly good.
'They're absolutely nothing like that child, Woo Jun-seo.'
In fact, the two I'd met in person at the family home were remarkably skilled at concealing their true selves.
Those people caused a scene bad enough that the police nearly got called?
"The friction back then was severe enough that I assumed the two sides would never speak again. But five years ago, contact started coming from the actors' side, asking whether the contract terms could be discussed anew."
"Did you meet with them again?"
"No. It was settled at the CEO's level."
Ah, so that's how it was.
When I nodded, Team Leader Ahn gave a wry smile.
"I apologize for getting into all of this while courting someone who may soon be family. But if you did join us, it was something we'd have to address sooner or later."
"Not at all. I'm the one who asked."
Still, I was dying to know exactly why Yoo Seul-ho's parents had blown up like that.
But Team Leader Ahn, apparently unable to share anything deeper with an outsider, papered over it with a smile.
"For those reasons, we had never once considered a contract with you, Seul-ho-ssi. Last year, before you transferred to Star Actors, you met with any number of agencies—and we weren't on that list. So we assumed you had no interest in us, either."
Is that so?
'So Yoo Seul-ho never coveted Wooyeon?'
Nothing in the diary mentioned it, so there was no way to know for certain.
'Did Yoo Seul-ho even know about the connection between his parents and Wooyeon?'
Chances were high that he had.
And if so, an even bigger question remained. Why didn't he go to Wooyeon?
'For management purposes, they're practically the top of the pyramid.'
Wooyeon Entertainment was a massive agency known as one of the three great management firms in the industry.
Lee Yeon-jae, Lee Jung-hyun... With so many of the biggest names in Korean entertainment under its roof, its power was staggering.
'He went looking for a place his parents' hands couldn't reach, and ended up at Star Actors—so why did he never even take a meeting with them?'
Wooyeon stood right there, incomparably better than that garbage agency. Why no meeting? None at all?
I tilted my head, unable to make sense of it—until the answer belatedly clicked.
'Ah.'
It was right there in what Team Leader Ahn had said earlier.
'When we evaluate actors, acting skill always comes first.'
There it was.
'Yoo Seul-ho couldn't act.'
Remembering the personality I'd come to know through the diary only made it clearer.
'The kid wasn't the shameless type.'
Yoo Seul-ho was someone who, if something didn't work out, let it go. He was not the type to push his way into a meeting on the off chance of maybe, possibly making it work.
But what if Yoo Seul-ho had possessed even one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of Woo Jun-seo's shamelessness?
One thing was certain: he'd have severed ties with his parents long ago.
I was still lost in these idle thoughts when Team Leader Ahn smoothly brought up the real subject.
"That's why I was a little surprised when Director Baek reached out to us. It never once occurred to me that Wooyeon might be on your radar."
"It's true I was cautious in the past. But things are different now."
I ran a rapid profit-and-loss calculation in my head.
The moment a conclusion took shape, I decided this had to be laid out bluntly, no wrapping.
"Team Leader, I'll skip the diplomacy. I'm looking for a company with the power to terminate my current agency contract early. A company like Wooyeon Entertainment."
"There are more companies than just us with that kind of power, no?"
"That's true. But there's only one place where an actor can be an actor."
Team Leader Ahn stared straight at me.
Gulp.
'Can he tell I'm bluffing?'
I had no lofty reverence for the art of acting. I was moving agencies to make more money, and frankly, all that other stuff couldn't have interested me less.
But I instinctively knew what this man valued.
'This guy is as serious about acting as the actors themselves.'
Which meant that, in front of him at least, the right move was for me to act that way too.
"Wooyeon wants a good actor, and I want a good agency. I already know Wooyeon is a good agency. Whether I'm a good actor, though—that part, I suspect you're not so sure about."
No matter how legitimate my reasons for transferring, from the agency's side, gearing up for conflict with another agency was no small commitment.
Worse, it risked drawing wary eyes from plenty of agencies this whole affair had nothing to do with.
Did they really need to take me on despite all that? Was I worth that much? The judgment couldn't be easy.
"But the possibility isn't zero. If you were at 0 percent, you wouldn't have come out to this table today. I imagine you wanted to meet me in person and see with your own eyes."
I leaned my body slowly forward, closing the distance between us.
"So..."
The instant my reflection filled Team Leader Ahn's eyes completely, I threw my winning card.
"How about it. Do you feel certain now?"