Flame Entertainment Already Exists?
The rumors around Jo Yooshin were cleaned up without a trace.
"Haha, so about that photo..."
"Yes, it was just a harmless gag. I was playing a joke on my senior, and I guess someone happened to catch it on camera."
"Ah, and there's also talk of tension between you young actors... is there any truth to that?"
"Tension? Where would you get an idea like that? Honestly, I'm still a rookie, so I'm learning plenty from seniors like Jo Yooshin and Rion. Both of them are such wonderful people — we're having a great time on set."
"What about you, Rion?"
"Honestly, he still startles me every single time. Si-woo just walks up out of nowhere looking like *that* and goes, 'Sorry, senior' — and I swear, I nearly had a heart attack."
"Right? That photo got me too. He suddenly shows up looking like that and starts apologizing — I knew full well he was my junior, and it *still* gave me chills."
"Haha, Si-woo's got a sneaky mischievous streak, doesn't he?"
"But the rest of the time he's remarkably mature. So serious about his craft. He may be my junior, but I think there's a lot I could learn from him."
When it came to interviews, both men were consummate professionals. On set they tore into each other without mercy, but the moment a camera appeared, there was no closer friendship in the world to be found.
Even those hypocritical bastards from the orthodox sects would probably take one look at these two and find themselves calling them "big brother." They'd claim it was the first time in their lives they'd met anyone more shameless than themselves.
At any rate, with Rion joining me in vouching for the man, the "Jo Yooshin personality controversy" was quietly dying down.
Thoroughly deflated, Jo Yooshin devoted himself purely to filming after that. And from then on, neither he nor Rion would come within ten feet of me — at this point, I was being treated like a contagious disease.
Jo Yooshin I could understand, but what was *Rion's* problem?
The peace was nice, sure, but it left me with a strangely complicated feeling.
The drama was sailing along far more smoothly than I'd expected.
With each new episode, the ratings climbed meaningfully, and by episode nine they had finally smashed through the dreaded 20% barrier.
Better numbers than the *Genius Copywriter, Yoon Seoeun* I remembered.
And absurdly enough, Elder Yoon was still the one pulling the ratings along.
The no-mance between Kang Ji-woo and Elder Yoon was serving up yet another spectacle for the viewers, swallowing the buzz charts whole all over again.
Honestly, this part baffled even me. Apparently the pure, devoted Ji-woo — and the aching tenderness of Elder Yoon, who knowingly pushed her away, deceiving even his own heart — had completely captivated audiences.
From where I stood, I couldn't fathom how it had come to *this*, but PD Yoo and Writer Min were both nodding along as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Clearly this storyline had been engineered to provoke exactly this reaction.
"I never dreamed Elder Yoon would run this wild. And the ending, on top of everything..."
Speaking of the ending — now that was truly a thing to behold.
Elder Yoon, having at last rallied the goodwill he'd accumulated, drove out the complacent old guard of executives and convened an entirely new board of directors. Yoon Seoeun, too, had her abilities formally recognized, earning a two-rank promotion.
In the epilogue, set ten years on, Yoon Seoeun even takes office as CEO of Planet. At that point you might as well call the whole thing *The Elder Yoon Saga*.
Granted, the two male leads also rise to become executives who support Yoon Seoeun — but they're the leads, so fine, I can accept that.
But what's Elder Yoon's excuse?
When a single supporting character devours the entire spotlight like that, it genuinely makes the lead actors' blood boil. Honestly, if Jo Yooshin had launched a flying kick at me over this situation, I'd have considered it justified.
Had I not crushed his spirit early on, it might genuinely have happened.
"Filming's almost wrapped now, isn't it?"
"Yes, just two days left on Elder Yoon's storyline, right?"
"That's right. Which reminds me — here, this is a business card. These are the scouting offers that've come in for you. Look them over carefully and pick a good one."
"Ah, right. Will do."
"*Will do*...? Hey, do you have any idea how much of a headache I've had playing middleman for you?"
"I... suppose it must've been a lot? Thank you, truly."
With no agency or anything of the kind behind me, PD Yoo had been reluctantly fielding every inquiry on my behalf.
I hadn't wanted a scene breaking out mid-shoot, so I'd asked him to hold onto them for a while — and now that filming was nearly over, it was finally time to collect.
And it was no empty gratitude, either. I genuinely owed him.
With every scene of Elder Yoon that aired, and with every surge in the drama's popularity, the love calls raining down on me would only have grown hotter. Imagine how exhausting that must have been for PD Yoo, who already had a whole production on his plate.
The agencies had clearly judged that this was as low as my price would ever go, and there was no way they'd have sat on their hands. Judging purely by the fact that none of it ever reached my ears, PD Yoo must have blocked those calls with tremendous devotion.
He'd probably decided that a little extra hassle on his end beat watching my performance wobble because my head had been turned — and thanks to him, I really had been able to act with a clear mind.
"If you're grateful, then just come running the next time I call. That's all."
"If you call, PD-nim, of course I'll come. Yoobuhwa — *if PD Yoo calls, I must come* — isn't that right?"
"You're hilarious. One look at you and I know you're not that type of character."
"Hmm... I'll still come take a look at the role, regardless."
"Fine. That's probably for the better, honestly."
I don't know what kind of person PD Yoo took me for, but part of it was sincere. I wouldn't pledge Yoobuhwa with no strings attached — but given equal conditions, PD Yoo would win every time. If he ever asked me for a cameo down the line, I'd show up without a word of complaint.
Yes, I was the calculating type who ran the numbers on profit — but I was not the type to forget a debt of gratitude.
I thanked PD Yoo properly and took the stack of business cards he handed over. Back home, I spread them out to see just who had been trying to recruit me — quite a few well-known agencies were in the pile, including, unbelievably, one of the true giants.
Apparently the people in this industry had already recognized my value to some degree.
What really caught my eye, though, was that Jo Yooshin's SD Entertainment was in there too.
Good heavens. *SD?* What on earth were they thinking, slipping me a business card?
SD went straight into the discard pile, and I turned to the others at a more leisurely pace.
"Now this is a company I've never even heard of. Cheon Actor?"
Then one business card in particular jumped out at me.
It practically glittered, as though someone had gilded it by hand — a card I simply could not scroll past. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, which meant I had no choice but to look up what kind of company this was.
So I searched for Cheon Actor, and what I found was...
"Cheon Actor. CEO... Cheon Yua. Rostered talent: Cheon Yua... Wait, this is Cheon Yua's *personal company*? The name, too..."
It was a one-man agency — with Cheon Yua herself as CEO.
What even was this...
If it's a one-man agency, fine, stay solo to the bitter end — why were they throwing business cards at *me*?
Another one bit the dust. The Cheon Entertainment card went straight into the drawer, condemned to oblivion, and I turned back to the remaining cards.
"It really is an important decision. The agency."
With the shoot spinning along so strangely, I'd momentarily forgotten — but the whole reason I'd gone so far as to don seventy-year-old makeup for this drama was to land a good company.
A rookie actor signing through a standard agency audition with nothing to their name, versus someone signing after their abilities had already been proven to the world — the treatment they received was heaven and earth apart. Every hardship I'd endured until now had been for this very moment.
"A major label, huh. I suppose the big names come first."
The first place I reached out to was one of the comprehensive entertainment conglomerates everyone called a major.
Idols to start, then actors and MCs. They even had a hand in production. That was what made them a major — get in the door, and care beyond your wildest expectations was supposedly guaranteed.
SD had taught me that being a major didn't automatically mean being good at your job — but majors were still the dream of every aspiring actor, so I figured I'd at least hear their terms, and booked the first meeting.
"Hmm. Not going to work."
After meeting with two famous agencies whose names even non-aspiring actors would recognize, I decided the majors were simply off the table.
The stingy financial terms — the settlement ratios and the like — were exactly as I'd expected. I was promising, sure, but this was still a season where I needed to prove a great deal, and giving exactly as much as they'd received was, after all, the signature of a major.
The real problem was that I'd have zero authority over my own schedule.
In other words: *we'll make you a star, so you just do whatever we tell you to do.* And the majors had been notorious for their punishing schedules since time immemorial, which killed my appetite before the deal even started.
Granted, I'd entered this line of work to make money — but a life with no work-life balance whatsoever...
Frankly speaking, the Demonic Cult's monthly stipend had been insane, and not in a good way. Then again, the Cult was also an organization with a *terrifying* amount of money.
But seriously. What's the point of piling gold bars to the rafters in a warehouse if you never have a spare moment to spend them?
Having once been properly worked to the bone by a black-company employer, I'd learned that money matters — but other things matter more. Especially now, when I had a fair measure of confidence in my own abilities.
"So that leaves the solid mid-tier companies, then? Let me think what I remember about this side..."
Five years spent as an aspiring actor had taught my past self a great deal about agencies, too.
People might know an actor's name, but how many ever bothered to find out which agency that actor belonged to, or what kind of company it was? That was the kind of thing only industry insiders cared about.
Researching which companies were good was, of course, a basic duty for anyone in the business — but apparently I'd been a little too serious about it back then. Even now, plenty of companies remained vivid in my memory. And the one I'd rated the absolute best back in the day didn't even exist yet.
It would have been around my later years, maybe? That was when its name first started making waves.
"I suppose I should find somewhere to plant my feet for a while, and worry about transfers later."
Just as I was sinking deep into the realization that my best option didn't even exist yet, PD Yoo called.
He told me the wrap party had been scheduled, mentioned that a new offer had come in, and passed along one more contact.
"...Flame. Flame Entertainment already exists?"
And as it happened, the last contact handed to me was Flame Entertainment — the company my past self had once rated above all others.
I clearly remembered it being founded two years from now. Apparently its establishment had been in the works all along.
"This one I have to meet. It's *Flame*, after all."
Even in its infancy, Flame was Flame.
It was a name I simply could not refuse. I reached out on the spot and booked the meeting.