Theater Group Saebyeol
The interior was unmistakably luxurious, its modern design striking at a glance.
Beyond the windows, the panorama of Los Angeles unfurled like a painting from the hillside, so breathtaking that the thought came unbidden: if heaven existed, it might look exactly like this.
Yet Jake sat in the middle of that heaven with his head clutched in both hands.
"Goddamn it. This is a complete joke."
Not once had he imagined Alliance would lose the number-one spot.
It was supposed to be nothing more than a stepping stone—a way to lock down distribution for the films that would follow.
Of course Hollywood had other distributors besides Snowbish Mount. But no matter which of those companies had taken the job, securing first place for Alliance should have been the bare minimum, nothing more and nothing less.
From an ordinary person's perspective, sure—White Blood was entertaining enough to deserve the top ranking. And fans of the original wouldn't stop watching just because Alliance came in second.
But the professional world didn't work that way.
A first-rate distributor was supposed to hold its ranking by any means necessary. The moment that symbolic number-one position crumbled, Snowbish Mount's reputation plummeted straight into the abyss.
And for Jake, who had only been CEO for a few short years, it was a disaster that absolutely could not be allowed to happen.
Word had already reached him that the shareholders and the board were starting to question his competence.
Riiing—.
His smartphone buzzed. Still gripping his head against the headache, Jake gestured behind him.
"Bring it."
"Yes, sir."
His executive secretary fetched the phone from the table. Jake snatched it roughly and checked the screen.
Bernard Fenton
The moment he saw the caller's name, Jake's face twisted as if he had bitten into something foul.
"…Yes. This is Jake."
"Hahaha. It's been a while. Almost a year, hasn't it?"
"I suppose so."
Fenton's sly voice slid through the receiver.
"How have you been lately? Still young—nothing wrong with your health, I hope? My back's been giving me a little trouble these days."
"What do you want?"
"Ah, busy, are we? I was just calling to say hello."
As if anyone would make a courtesy call at a moment like this.
Fenton's shameless tone only soured Jake's mood further.
"We're not exactly the kind of people who exchange pleasantries, are we?"
"Whoa, whoa. No need to get so prickly. In this business there are no eternal enemies and no eternal allies. That youthful fire of yours is a strength, Jake, but if you could cultivate a little more magnanimity to go with it, you'd be even better. Hahaha."
Jake hung up without listening further and hurled the phone against the wall in a fit of temper.
"Huuuh. That rat bastard Fenton!"
Behind him, the executive secretary quietly shook his head.
Rich people really are different. Throwing it at the wall? No matter how mad I get, I always aim for the sofa or the bed.
The friends arrived at the address Yeon-woo had sent.
"This is the place, right?"
They had walked quite a distance after getting off at Hyehwa Station. The app insisted this was the correct address.
The building was old; its gray granite walls were stained here and there with orange patches of rust. The first-floor shopfront, still labeled "Engineering," had long since gone out of business—nothing left but peeling stickers and an empty interior.
Looking at the slightly gloomy staircase that led underground, the friends hesitated.
"We're going down to the basement?"
"The address matches. Let's just go down and see."
Kim Jun-su took the lead; Woo Seong-sik and Kim Ju-hyeong followed.
As they descended, Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han's voices drifted up.
"Aaaah."
"How is it? Acoustics okay?"
"Yeah. Pretty good."
Hearing familiar voices beyond the door, the friends relaxed and continued down.
"This has to be it. Let's go in."
Clack—.
They opened the door and stepped into the small theater.
Yeon-woo had arrived a little earlier with Jin Yu-han to check the facilities and look around. Spotting his friends, he waved.
"You're here. Found it pretty quick."
"Whoa—outside it looked sketchy, but inside it's clean."
Kim Jun-su glanced around, nodding. It was his first time in a small theater, and he still felt a little awkward.
Yeon-woo smiled at them.
"Look around. This is where we'll be for the next six months."
His friends' eyes went wide.
"Huh? Six months?!"
They had assumed from the group chat that he had rented it for a single day.
"If we're going to rehearse and actually put on a play, we need at least that much time, generously speaking. I rented the whole place, so we can practice whenever we want. The first floor is empty, so even if we rehearse at night there won't be noise complaints."
"…Wow. Is this what a world-star flex looks like? We barely started talking about it and you already locked in half a year?"
Yeon-woo grinned at Woo Seong-sik's remark.
"If you're going to do it, do it properly."
In truth, taking a break before choosing his next project had been partly at CEO Kim Ju-seong's suggestion, and partly because he wanted to try theater with his friends. But there was another reason as well.
One way or another, while filming Star Beyond the River and White Blood I ended up blocking every single one of Baeksol's interference campaigns aimed at LN Entertainment. So before they start paying attention to me, I need to drop off their radar for a while.
Of course it was impossible for Baeksol to discover Yeon-woo's true identity. The very premise of reincarnating into another body was absurd, and the process of cleaning out the moles they had planted had left no outward trace of his involvement.
For now they'll just think they had a run of bad luck.
Still, if the actor named Ryu Yeon-woo began to catch Baeksol's eye—whether they decided to keep him in check or tried to recruit him as a disposable pawn—either outcome would be troublesome from Yeon-woo's perspective.
I can't just sit there with my eyes open and take the obvious schemes, but it would also look strange if a twenty-something actor somehow never fell for the tricks they put real effort into.
From that angle, spending half a year simply enjoying a hobby wasn't a bad idea at all. It would also give him focused time to guide the operations already underway through Han Hae-un until they were firmly on track.
Compared to film or drama work, this play left him with far more free time. There was no fixed shooting schedule to follow. In the remaining hours he would methodically advance the tracking and countermeasures against Baeksol with Hae-un, step by step according to plan.
Not that I plan to half-ass the play itself.
Yeon-woo had loved acting broadly even in his previous life, but if he had to choose, theater and musicals had always been a little closer to his taste. During his postings in Europe he had gone to see performances every week.
He watched his friends poke around the space with awkward expressions.
"Yu-han and I got here early and checked everything. The acoustics are solid enough that we probably won't need mics except for special effects."
Jin Yu-han nodded in agreement.
"It looks shabby from the outside, but the interior was built with real care. Feels like an architectural acoustics specialist fine-tuned the delay. If we project properly, we won't need to wear microphones."
The other three, who had no idea what any of that meant, simply nodded along.
"This space used to belong to the theater company Jeong Cheol-min taught with when he was young."
"Ahh, Uncle Dipangdal?"
Yeon-woo laughed and nodded at Woo Seong-sik's question.
Kim Jun-su looked around again.
"So this whole place is just for us. Feels like we've got our own hideout. Kinda exciting."
"Oh, you're right. Thinking of it as a hideout makes it feel cozier somehow."
Yeon-woo snorted at the two of them.
"Come on—calling a sacred stage a hideout? We've got a real hideout of our own, you know."
"Huh? We do?"
"Follow me."
Yeon-woo led them upstairs.
It was the office once used by Yu Ho-cheol, Jeong Cheol-min's old colleague and the theater's current director. Since they had rented the entire building for six months and he had no reason to come in, Yu Ho-cheol had simply told Yeon-woo to use the second floor as well.
Creak—.
They opened the door onto an office that looked out over the quiet streets of Hyehwa-dong. Warm sunlight poured in. A large sofa sat in the center; a single fold-out bed and a refrigerator occupied one corner. For five college students, it was the perfect hideout.
"Here. Our office."
"Ooooh! Jackpot!"
"This actually feels like a real hideout. Yeon-woo, you're the best."
Kim Ju-hyeong dropped onto the sofa, buzzing with excitement as he looked at his friends.
"Then shouldn't we come up with a group name or something?"
"A group? Like an organization?"
Kim Ju-hyeong shook his head at Woo Seong-sik as if the idea were ridiculous.
"No! We're a theater company now."
"Hmm. True."
It was a tiny company of only five people, and a temporary one that would dissolve in six months—but they had decided to put on a play, so a theater company it was.
"Then let's decide right now while we're talking about it. What should we call ourselves?"
At Yeon-woo's question, Jin Yu-han thought for a moment.
"People say a name carries weight. Names have power. Better to go with something that has a genuinely good meaning instead of something flashy for no reason."
Yeon-woo recalled that the original company here had been called "Myeongseong"—Fame—and that, ironically, its fame had long since vanished. He smiled faintly.
Everyone agreed that the name should carry a good meaning.
Kim Jun-su spoke up after some thought.
"A name with a good meaning… so something that just feels good when you hear it? Like Happiness, or Joy."
"Happiness Theater Company, Joy Theater Company? Those sound terrible as names. Kinda like something you'd find in North Korea."
Woo Seong-sik shook his head.
Jun-su turned to him.
"Okay, then what words make you feel best when you hear them?"
"Me? Hmm. I dunno… ‘ADC carry, absolute facts'?"
"……"
Jun-su gave him a look that clearly said he had asked the wrong person, then shook his head.
"Is there anything in that head of yours besides games? Yeon-woo, any words you like?"
"Words I like…"
Since his debut, countless articles had been written about him, but one headline had stuck with him.
In his previous life he had ended his days as a nameless star on a desert hill no one ever sought out. Seeing the title "new star" had made him truly feel that he was living a new life.
"New star?"
"Oh? That's good."
"But four syllables is a bit long. How about shortening it to Saebyeol?"
At Yeon-woo's suggestion, everyone nodded in satisfaction.
"Sounds nice. So we're Theater Group Saebyeol?"
And just like that, a tiny, temporary theater company that would soon shake the entire nation of Korea was born.