A Welcome Meeting
As Yeon-woo ate, he looked across the table at John McCallan.
After a more detailed investigation with Han Hae-un, it had become clear that John McCallan's influence over the American broadcasting industry was growing year by year, and there were plenty of signs that he was preparing to expand into Asia.
He's probably planning to use Global Match with me as the bridgehead for that.
John McCallan's Blue Whale Gate Studio (BWGS) seemed intent on using the launch of this show as an opportunity to open the floodgates for supply contracts not only with Netflix but with other broadcasters across Asia as well.
In that case a huge piece of the pie will fall to the domestic market too. It would be best if Saebyeol could handle it...
At the table, Bernard Fenton and John McCallan were heaping praise on Yeon-woo. The two men were discussing the works he had starred in, sharing their admiration for his acting and the stories from a producer's point of view. The very fact that both had entered the field before becoming businessmen meant they each possessed a certain content-enthusiast streak, so they seemed to be talking about it with genuine enjoyment, quite apart from business.
Hmm...
Watching them, Yeon-woo stroked his chin. Their goodwill toward him was a positive in any case, yet the focus remained locked on "Actor Ryu Yeon-woo." Right now John McCallan saw him as the actor who was Jay, Jeong Do-jin, and simultaneously the champion of Survival Island—but Yeon-woo was also the practical head of Saebyeol.
I need to draw his interest toward the parts of me that go beyond acting.
Just then John McCallan handed documents to both Yeon-woo and Bernard Fenton. Yeon-woo took his and examined it; it was a proposal for Survival Island – Global Match.
"There aren't that many things decided yet, so the contents of the proposal can still change at any time. For now we've settled on an island between Cuba and Florida as the location. I went there myself, and it looks like it'll make for a very fun game."
Hearing McCallan's words, Yeon-woo asked back,
"Between Florida and Cuba—you mean the Bahamas?"
John McCallan's eyebrows twitched as if surprised.
"I didn't expect someone from Asia to be so well-versed in Central and South American geography. Honestly, if you handed me a map of Asia I wouldn't even be able to tell one place from another. Strictly speaking, it's north of the Bahamas."
Yeon-woo nodded quietly. Recalling the emerald seas and coral-reef-filled landscapes of that region, he nodded again.
It's a good place.
During a secret operation to intercept arms deals between Cuba and North Korea, he had thought that if it weren't for the bullets flying from every direction, there would be no more beautiful paradise on earth.
"North of the Bahamas... Nassau doesn't have the space to build that kind of arena, and considering recent relations with the US I doubt filming permits would have been granted. And it's closer to the east than the north, really. In that case there aren't many places a plane could land..."
McCallan's eyebrows twitched once more. It had been a short deduction based only on McCallan's offhand remark about being "north of the Bahamas," yet it successfully planted the impression that Yeon-woo was no ordinary actor.
After thinking for a moment and reaching a conclusion, Yeon-woo scanned the materials he had reviewed, handed them back to McCallan, and continued.
"Then it must be in the direction of the Berry Islands or Abaco. If it's there, we'll be sweating quite a bit while we suffer through the tropical climate during filming. Haha—shouldn't you be throwing in some extra pay for that?"
McCallan's eyes widened as he hurriedly examined the materials that had been returned.
"Wait—did our staff happen to write information about the location in the materials I just gave you?"
But no matter how hard he looked, there was no mention of the place.
"Hmm, the location definitely isn't written down, so how did you know? Did you really make that quick a guess just from the direction I mentioned?"
At McCallan's reaction Yeon-woo scratched his head and brushed it off casually.
"Well, I played a bit of Blue Marble when I was a kid."
"...Blue Marble?"
"Ah, I guess Blue Marble was a Korean game... Think of it as the American Monopoly."
McCallan and Bernard were both surprised at once.
"Oh, as expected of Korea—they get early education in all sorts of ways from a young age. Most of us Americans only care about our own state and are complete novices when it comes to world geography. Someone even calls that geographic illiteracy."
If any other Korean had been present, they would have shaken their head vigorously from side to side. Blue Marble was absolutely not that kind of game, and no one memorized the small island chains of Central and South America.
In truth, the game Yeon-woo was referring to was not Blue Marble at all. Back in his previous life, when he had served as an instructor in the overseas division, he had personally devised a training method for black-ops agent trainees. It was a game that a small number of civilians now enjoyed under the name GeoGuessr: based on just a few photographs, you deduced which country and region of the earth it was, then pinned the location on a world map; the one closest to the actual place in the photo won. The direction of the road lanes, the signs and national highway numbers, and if there were people in the photo, even racial characteristics. If there were commercial buildings, you analyzed the lettering on the signs, the phone-number system, the direction of the sun, and the position of rivers or seas to figure out which country and region it was—and as the creator, Yeon-woo was of course unmatched in skill. Even now the NIS trained the same way, yet the record Yeon-woo had set twelve years earlier still had not been broken.
Having planted a strong impression on McCallan with just a short conversation, Yeon-woo naturally took the lead in the dialogue and spoke.
"By the way, the production company I run only ranked twenty-first in the domestic company rankings selected by the economic magazine Type this time. Focusing on domestic business must have made the evaluations for global-related items harsh, resulting in a low ranking."
Yeon-woo dangled the bait and cast it with a flick. Looking at the information on BWGS that he had investigated with Han Hae-un, even though the scale was worlds apart, there was one commonality with Saebyeol. McCallan bit hard on the fishing hook cast on that basis.
"Hmm, we're the same in that regard. Honestly it feels a bit like self-praise so it's hard to say, but I think our influence in North America and Europe is top-tier, yet because we haven't started services in Asia or South America yet, our evaluation slipped to fourth."
At that moment Bernard Fenton, sitting beside them, naturally picked up on the nuance in Yeon-woo's words and stepped in with a landing net to help reel in the big fish that had taken the bait.
"John. Did you know? Mr. Ryu's influence in Asia goes without saying, but surprisingly his recognition in South America is quite substantial. The new smartphone SL Electronics released this time achieved the number-one market share in Brazil through marketing fronted by Mr. Ryu."
John McCallan's eyes lit up. All the keywords that could hook him were there: Asia, South America, market share.
"...Oh? Is that so?"
Having finished a constructive conversation over lunch with John McCallan, Yeon-woo moved to handle his final schedule in LA before returning home.
"Min-su hyung. Did you enjoy sightseeing?"
"I wandered around really excitedly. With our reliable head of security sticking right by you, Actor, I couldn't have been more at ease."
Kim Min-su, who always had to stick close to protect (?) Yeon-woo on every overseas schedule, this time toured Hollywood to his heart's content as if truly enjoying a vacation.
He could have toured freely even without Park Jung-hyeon around.
In fact, on overseas schedules Manager Kim Min-su never needed to drive, and since Yeon-woo was far better with languages no interpreter was required, while security was essentially meaningless. If someone wanted to harm Yeon-woo they would need at least a professional sniper for a stealthy shot—how could Manager Kim Min-su possibly stop that?
"By the way, it's been quite a while since we visited Chrissy's house, right?"
The last time they had visited was to appear on an American talk show, which had been around when White Blood launched. Nodding at Yeon-woo's question, Kim Min-su recalled the previous visit to Chrissy Monroe's house.
"I wonder how that kid is doing. Her name was Lily, right?"
"You mean Chrissy's daughter. Hmm, she must be about the age to graduate middle school now."
Meanwhile Lily, Chrissy Monroe's daughter, had finished school and was in a meeting with the friends she usually hung out with.
"Sophie. Did the shoes you ordered last week arrive?"
When Lily asked, Sophia—called Sophie—shook her head.
"No, I'm starting to get worried. What if they don't arrive before the party?"
"Come on, no way. You said you even paid extra for the express shipping option."
These days Lily and her friends gathered in one place after school to chat because of the prom. Originally the event held upon graduating high school was called a prom, but for the past few years holding a dance party during the transition from eighth to ninth grade—that is, middle-school promotion—had become standard.
Lily was closest with the friends chattering right in front of her about the dress code, yet last year their friendship had nearly cracked. The main cast of White Blood had visited her house, but no matter how many calls and messages she sent her friends they didn't answer, and only called back after everyone had left. Only then did she tell them who had come and what had happened, but they refused to believe her, saying she had a severe case of compulsive lying.
Well, even I think it was an unbelievable thing.
She thought that way now, but at the time she had been so wronged and hurt by her friends that tears welled up. In the end, only after the dance challenge that Ella, Akhenaten, and Lily had filmed together in the show was uploaded to Dong-ha's official TikTok account did they believe Lily's words, and it had taken several days to resolve the residual hurt feelings.
"Then today, like we talked about yesterday, let's go to Lily's house and match our dress codes and concepts."
"Okay."
With her friends, Lily headed for her house. Even on the way the conversation topic was solely about the dance party—who had started dating whom, who had dyed their hair and how she wanted to dye hers the same color but was hesitating because it would look like she was copying, and so on. Chatting about such trivial things as they walked, they soon arrived home.
"Hmm? There are cars parked that I've never seen before today."
It was a quiet suburban neighborhood where outsiders rarely came, so seeing unfamiliar cars after always only the usual ones stood out. Suddenly the events of last year flashed through Lily's mind.
"C-could it be...?"
Lily hurriedly ran toward the house. Her friends walking with her tilted their heads and then ran after her.
"Lily! Why are you running all of a sudden?"
"H-hurry up and come!"
And Lily flung open the front door with force.