Checkmate at Star Actors
Did he just… yell at me?
Director Shin blinked, utterly baffled. As the CEO's cousin, he had never once in his life been on the receiving end of the man's raised voice. If anything, the CEO was the one who walked on eggshells around him — Director Shin handled a mountain of the company's most important work, and the staff beneath him were fiercely loyal. Which was exactly why being showered with curses by his own cousin made no sense whatsoever.
Unbelievable.
While Director Shin stood there dumbstruck by the absurdity of it all, Hyun Jin-gae had the presence of mind to gather up the documents the CEO had hurled across the room.
"Director, here—"
Taking the papers from Hyun Jin-gae, Director Shin scanned the contents in a hurry. The thick bundle had come from the legal team at Wooyeon Entertainment, and its message was blunt: Yoo Seul-ho's exclusive contract with Star Actors contains numerous unfair provisions that deviate significantly from the standard exclusive contract template established by the Korea Fair Trade Commission.
From a revenue split that was grossly lopsided in the agency's favor, all the way down to outright poison clauses.
"Wh-what is this?"
Naturally, not a single person in that room — Director Shin included — was unaware that the contract exploited its actors. They simply hadn't bothered to fix it, because no one had ever made it a problem. Most of the talent who signed with Star Actors were so grateful just to have a contract at all that they bent over backward to keep working. No one had ever rebelled, and on the rare occasion some actor whined that the company was bleeding them dry, Director Shin himself was dispatched to handle it. A generous mix of You'll never get anywhere if you obsess over pocket change and Hey, at least you've got us, a good round of gaslighting, and the problem solved itself.
Which meant this was the first time an unfair contract clause had ever blown up into an official issue.
"This is all your fault!"
Red-faced with rage, the CEO dumped the entire blame onto Director Shin's head.
"What did I tell you last year? I said for Seul-ho at least, we should just use the standard contract like every other agency! I had a feeling something like this would happen! But no, you said you'd take responsibility!"
"You agreed to it too, hyung! I took one look at the guy and said he was a mental pushover, that we could sweet-talk him into anything, and you said great, raise his fees then!"
"Who the hell are you calling hyung, you little bastard?! I'm the CEO! Get your head on straight!!"
"Get your own head on straight!!"
The two brothers, flinging every shred of brotherly decorum out the window, screamed themselves hoarse at each other. Between them, Hyun Jin-gae quietly reviewed the documents.
It was a settlement proposal from Wooyeon, delivered in the politest possible language. They had found the cracks in Star Actors' contract, and the offer was this: settle quietly and hand over Yoo Seul-ho before they turned those cracks into a legal weapon.
Well, he's not wrong. That thing was exploitation, not a contract.
Hyun Jin-gae knew the truth of it as well as anyone, but the news had come so abruptly that he couldn't help feeling a little wounded.
He could've at least told me, couldn't he?
A bitter sense of betrayal toward Yoo Seul-ho welled up in him — and then a strange flicker of familiarity in that feeling made him pause, until he realized it was the exact sentiment Yoo Seul-ho himself had voiced to him just days ago.
Wow, I really…
Have no shame whatsoever.
"So what now? Are we just going to let Wooyeon steal him from us?"
"Don't be ridiculous! So it's an unfair contract — it's not like it's some catastrophic problem! Tsk."
The CEO clicked his tongue.
"Let's say this actually goes to court. Then it'll take years before there's a verdict — you really think Wooyeon's going to stand by Seul-ho's side that whole time? They're just testing us! Figuring we'd scurry off the moment they rattled our cage!"
Director Shin nodded along in full agreement.
"Exactly. The very fact that they think they can snatch away our one and only marquee star this easily is proof they're looking down on us. Fine — let's see them try."
"That's the spirit! Let's do it!"
Brotherly love restored, the two men beamed at each other. Hyun Jin-gae, who had been watching them with mounting anxiety, spoke up carefully.
"But, um — can we actually afford the litigation costs? I mean, the opposing party is Wooyeon, after all…"
"So what if it's Wooyeon?! Are you looking down on us too now?"
"No, no! It's just — I'm worried."
Hyun Jin-gae stammered, sweat beading on his forehead. The CEO glared at him and snapped.
"Wooyeon has zero intention of actually going to court, obviously. You think they'd lose anything by hitting us with legal action? And above all, a lawsuit would tie Seul-ho up by the ankles too. He'd be digging his own grave. Tsk."
Hyun Jin-gae nodded silently. The CEO and Director Shin were beasts, no question about it — but what they'd just said wasn't wrong. No matter how unfair the contract, the public wasn't going to look kindly on a young actor who tried to jump ship to a better agency the instant his career took off.
Seul-ho must have known that too, though.
It was far too foolish a move for the Yoo Seul-ho he'd watched operate over the past few months. He still couldn't wrap his head around it — but Hyun Jin-gae remained, as ever, the company's lapdog. He moved exactly as his superiors commanded.
"Counselor, could you look this over for us?"
Star Actors, which had never bothered to build a proper legal department in its race to cut costs, hastily retained a lawyer. After the attorney combed through everything several times to make sure there were no incriminating phrases to be caught on, they sent a reply to Wooyeon politely declining the settlement.
"Hyung, let's get ready to push the story to the press right away!"
"What story?"
"Yoo Seul-ho getting too big for his britches and trying to run off to another agency! We leak it to the reporters!"
At Director Shin's suggestion, the CEO hesitated. His face said, Ah… that might be going a bit far.
"Hyung?"
"Hey, use your head. Without Seul-ho, this year is going to be rough. How are we supposed to cover what we got in investments? The company's riding high right now because of him."
"So we take back the kid who stabbed us in the back?"
"Who works forever anyway? We smooth things over, keep him working for now. If we slap a traitor image on him, his public goodwill tanks and we can't use him anymore. We ride him until the sweetness is gone, then we cut him loose."
As furious as he was, the CEO's reasoning — that they had to act rationally above all else — held up. Director Shin knew his brother was right, yet he grumbled with resentment all the same, and in the end both men did their absolute best to make sure the reporters caught no whiff of anything.
But Wooyeon Entertainment did not back down so obligingly. Once more they offered a quiet settlement — this time volunteering to pay the penalty fee that would have fallen on Yoo Seul-ho themselves.
The CEO and Director Shin snorted the moment they heard it.
"Do these people think money buys everything?! Maybe if they offered several times the penalty amount! Over my dead body!"
Seething, they began casting about for every possible way out of the mess. And if Yoo Seul-ho dug in his heels and refused to come back, they were fully prepared to destroy him by any means necessary.
Their lawyer had this to say:
"If negotiations break down completely, the other side's only remaining option is a frontal assault. They'll file for an injunction to suspend the contract's validity."
"That's when the court temporarily freezes a contract's enforceability, right?"
"That's correct. There are precedents of entertainers who fought their agencies through this process. It takes several months to reach a decision, during which the artist cannot work at all. It's an entirely disadvantageous position for the entertainer."
At those words, the CEO nodded with deep satisfaction. Whatever move Wooyeon made next, they were ready for it.
Let them come!
While they sat back and waited, an envelope arrived by courier. Unlike the thick document bundles that had been flying back and forth, this one was so light he half-worried it would go airborne. Inside was…
"A USB?"
A USB drive, designed in the shape of an adorable little teddy bear. Suppressing his unease, the CEO checked the files within — and found himself staring at material so shocking that his jaw hit the floor.
"…Insane."
Video footage. Hours of it, showing the agency's CEO and staff mistreating Yoo Seul-ho — and even physically assaulting him.
The color drained from every face in the room the moment the screen lit up.
"Wh-what is this. That's our CCTV, isn't it? No — how the hell did they get their hands on our company's CCTV?"
"There are screenshots of our staff's group chats in here too. A private chat room they made just to trash-talk Seul-ho… How did they even find out about it?"
"And what's this audio file?"
When the CEO opened the voice recordings Yoo Seul-ho had made himself, he exploded.
"That sneaky little punk recorded me cursing him out! Lawyer! He recorded me without my permission — can we press charges over that?!"
The lawyer sighed at the sight of his client flying into a frenzy. He had taken off his glasses the moment he finished watching the footage, and he was now in a state of complete surrender.
"Recording a conversation you yourself are party to is not illegal. The victim recorded it to gather evidence of the harm done to him, and there's nothing we can do about that—"
"Victim?! What victim?! How badly could we possibly have hit him!"
Director Shin roared — but the words died an ugly death, because right there in the evidence were candid, damning scenes of Yoo Seul-ho getting smacked on the back of the head by agency staff, having his legs deliberately tripped out from under him, and suffering every other manner of "hazing." Whether someone had been diligently collecting it for the past year, the sheer volume of the evidence files was substantial.
The lawyer explained that all of it violated labor law, and that it was more than sufficient grounds to terminate the contract outright.
"Frankly, this is the kind of material that could support criminal charges. As long as the other side is sitting on this evidence, we are no longer the ones holding the leverage here."
The lawyer's words left everyone speechless. They had just taken a brutal, unexpected blow to the back of the head.
"When on earth did he prepare all of this?"
Director Shin let out a hollow laugh at a reality he couldn't bring himself to believe. No matter how involved Wooyeon was, there was no way the agency had gathered all this evidence on its own. There simply hadn't been enough time.
Which meant one thing: Yoo Seul-ho had set up this entire board himself.
How could one person prepare this much material?
It was impossible to comprehend.
And in truth, impossible it was — because Yoo Seul-ho hadn't done it alone.
The day Yoo Seul-ho confirmed that Director Shin was the one who had thrown the eggs, he had immediately contacted the Heungsinso — the private investigation agency. His request: gather every scrap of evidence of the abuse he'd suffered at the hands of Star Actors' staff. Whether that meant hacking the company's CCTV or the employees' phones, he'd told them to spare no method, and the organization's members had done exactly that.
A promise is a promise, after all.
The Heungsinso had never given an official answer to Yoo Seul-ho's request that they become his backer — but they had promised at the very least to help him become a fully independent man. And for Yoo Seul-ho to stand on his own, he had to break free of two things: his parents, and his agency.
"…We're royally screwed, aren't we."
The people who had never once imagined that someone might be standing behind Yoo Seul-ho could only murmur blankly into the air.
At this point, there was nothing left for Star Actors to do.
"Let's just settle."
At the CEO's exhausted voice, Director Shin trembled with fury.
"Absolutely not. I'm taking this to the end!"
Only Director Shin — the sole figure conveniently absent from the video footage — could still stand tall and shout.