A Contract Too Good to Refuse
Flame was a company that ran on a lean, select roster.
The actor pool wasn't large, but every single name on it carried real weight. Small in scale, yes, yet their connections with investors and production houses ran deep, which meant that a Flame actor appeared in practically every worthwhile project that came along.
Slipping a famous actor into a good production might look easy from the outside, but it was impossible without the discerning eye to tell which projects would actually take off and the negotiating power to back it up. Doing both, consistently, was another matter entirely.
But what pleased me most of all was that the company treated its artists a little differently than everyone else did. They genuinely put the actor first — the very thing every agency out there shouts like lip service.
How is that even possible in a capitalist world, you ask? Flame was the agency that had turned that impossibility into reality.
Maybe that was why not a single actor under Flame had ever voiced a complaint about the company.
"So you're saying this Flame sent me the call?"
Honestly, it did puzzle me a little. So much time had passed that I couldn't remember which actors had been with Flame back then, or even who the company's first signing had been — I only knew that everyone under its banner was an extraordinary performer.
And yet this Flame had reached out to a complete nobody like me?
That must mean they rated my potential pretty highly. Or maybe — since this Flame hadn't even been founded yet — they were still looking at actors with a lighter touch than the company I remembered.
"Best to meet them first and decide. Just in case."
After all, I couldn't rule out the possibility that this was an entirely different company that just happened to share the name. There was still some time left before the Flame I knew would be established, so it made sense to keep every possibility open and meet their representative anyway.
"Hello there. I'm Seo Kyuhyuk, Management Team Leader at Flame Entertainment. A pleasure to meet you, Actor Baek."
"Hello."
The man waiting at our meeting spot was a dapper fellow in his thirties. He'd introduced himself as Seo Kyuhyuk, the management team leader.
With that stiff expression and those glasses pressed firmly down his nose, he looked like the type who wouldn't bleed if you stabbed him with a needle — and yet for some reason he seemed even more nervous than I was, which put me in a rather odd mood.
Was this really a meeting that warranted nerves? On whose part, exactly? A genuine mystery.
"The name Flame is unfamiliar to me. Are you a new agency, by any chance?"
"Ah, yes. That's right. Flame, you see..."
Listening to Seo Kyuhyuk's explanation, the pieces lined up pretty closely with the Flame I knew. The vision and the operating philosophy were almost identical to the company in my memory.
"Artist first" is the kind of slogan every agency bleats until you're sick of hearing it, but coming from a Flame representative, it somehow rang true. In reality, only a handful of companies — Flame included — had ever actually lived up to it.
Besides, if it really was Flame, then the name alone suited me perfectly.
The sun and the moon — and fire. Those were the symbols of the Sun Cult. Fire in particular was the symbol revered by the Cult's combat forces.
As a former member of the Mana Sun Cult myself, the word Flame — fire — had a certain familiar warmth to it. A gut-level pull, something like that?
Look at me. I'm the guy who spent years ripping on the Cult as a sweatshop cult of all things, but the moment something like this crosses my eyes, I find myself feeling fond. Human nature for you.
Not that I'm saying I miss the Cult days. Absolutely not.
"So, what are the terms?"
"Ah, yes. If you'll look at this contract..."
Curious to know just how much value Flame placed on me, I asked to see the contract conditions. Then, one by one, I went down the list of terms they'd prepared...
"...Wait. This."
"Yes? Is something the matter?"
"No, it's not a problem, exactly. It's just... remarkably generous, isn't it?"
"You can take it as a measure of just how sincere we are about you, Actor Baek."
It was more generous than I'd expected. Far more.
The five-year contract term was perfectly ordinary. But three hundred million won as a signing bonus? Where on earth had that number crawled out of?
Granted, a signing bonus is essentially just debt in the end — but no agency had ever handed a rookie that kind of money. If you made it big, they recovered it; if you flopped, that money was simply gone. That's the gamble a signing bonus represents.
And above all — the profit split. What company on this earth signs a rookie at 8:2 in the artist's favor?
Not only that: once they recouped the three hundred million, the split shifted to 9:1. Even S-tier celebrities topped out around 9:1, and while 10:0 wasn't strictly unheard of in certain cases, no one threw a contract like this at a rookie.
Granted, I was something of a guaranteed winning lottery ticket, but still — offering terms like these?
The scheduling terms were equally staggering: every single item on my schedule required my final personal confirmation. If the actor didn't want it, it simply didn't happen.
The only condition attached was that once a year I'd take on a schedule the company wanted — and even that was a request, not a requirement.
What kind of operation were they running over there? This had strayed so far beyond my common sense that even I felt my grip on reality slipping.
"This isn't a scam, right?"
"Haha, hardly. So — the terms are to your liking, then?"
"Yes. Who on earth wouldn't like these?"
"Glad to hear it. Shall we give you some time to think it over?"
"Hmm, think it over..."
It wasn't that I was free of suspicion — the terms were suspiciously good, after all. But if this company really was the Flame I knew, it made a certain rough sense. If Flame was the best-conditioned agency in the industry, as everyone said, then terms like these were entirely within their power.
No matter how I turned it over in my head, refusing those terms would make me an idiot.
"Do we sign right here?"
"Oh, goodness, no. You'd come to our office, meet our CEO, and sign then. We'll give you a copy of the contract — have a lawyer look it over, and bring it back with you."
"Oh, I see."
Signing at the office would make it all the more certain. Come to think of it, I'd never heard anything about Flame's headquarters. I wondered if their building was as impressive as everything else about them.
They were only just getting started, so it might still be some modest little place.
"By the way — am I your first actor?"
"Ah, actually, there is one other. We're in the middle of coordinating terms, but it's all but confirmed. The announcement will probably break through the media soon enough. I imagine you'll be quite surprised when you hear it, Actor Baek."
"Really, now."
Well, that tracked. If Flame was gearing up in earnest, they'd have landed at least one heavyweight. Nothing announces a newborn agency's name better than the capture of a major star.
The honor of being Flame's first actor had apparently already slipped through my fingers — but oddly, that only set my mind at ease. My name value was far too meager to be anyone's flagship signing, no?
If I were the lead-off batter, I'd have had to question whether this was really the Flame I knew at all.
"Then I'll review everything and get back to you in three days."
"Very good, Actor Baek. We'll be waiting."
Legal matters demanded caution, always — so I'd check the contract first, and if nothing was wrong, sign with these people. No amount of shopping around was going to turn up better treatment anywhere else; of that I was quite sure.
Me, joining Flame. Back in the day, that was the sort of thing that existed only in daydreams.
Live long enough, and truly anything can happen, I suppose.
The president of the married couples' hiking club, one of my shop's regulars, happened to be a lawyer — so I asked him to look over the contract. His verdict: it had been a long time since he'd seen one this clean, not a single toxic clause anywhere, and I should sign it without hesitation.
So much for that. Clearly not the sort of low-class outfit that plays games with its paperwork.
"Well then, no reason to agonize over it any longer."
With the contract verified, there was nothing left to postpone. When I called Team Leader Seo and told him I'd sign, he set up a meeting on the spot. The way he booked it instantly — as if he'd been waiting by the phone — told me they'd been counting the days until I joined. It felt pretty good, honestly.
The venue Team Leader Seo wanted was Flame's headquarters. I was curious about the place myself, so I didn't bother changing it.
After all, one look at a company's office tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it? They were a brand-new operation, so I wasn't expecting much — but a company should at least keep up appearances if it wanted to be trusted.
Right on schedule, I set off for Cheongdam-dong, where Flame was supposedly located.
"Cheongdam, huh. Fair enough — the entertainment agencies do cluster around here."
Cheongdam-dong was home to a fair number of talent agencies. On these streets, you could barely cross a block without tripping over one.
Passing agency after agency, I followed the address Team Leader Seo had given me — and found myself deeper into a residential neighborhood than I'd expected.
"...Hmm."
There it was. Arriving at the appointed destination, I spotted a single, immaculately kept eight-story building.
Something had been done to it — the whole structure was sheathed in unbroken black, and it had that pristine sheen of a brand-new build. Yet not even a common signboard hung anywhere on it, which lent the place a strange, quiet tension. An odd spot, all things considered.
"...So you're telling me Flame is in that building."
Whoever had designed this thing had, in my expert opinion, absolutely no sense of style, I grumbled to myself as I slowly stepped toward the entrance.
The fact that the entire structure was pitch-black gave it an uncanny resemblance to Cheonma Hall — the Heavenly Demon's palace — which didn't exactly put me in a cheerful mood.
But the building itself was solid and respectable, which meant the company's finances weren't in bad shape, so I decided to take it as a good sign. Good was good, and the more impressive the headquarters, the better, as far as I was concerned.
Worst case scenario, an oddly designed but newly built building beat the hell out of being wedged between dingy storefronts any day of the week.
Nodding to myself, I stepped inside and set about trying to figure out which floor Flame occupied. Team Leader Seo had apparently slipped up — he'd given me the address but never told me the floor.
I hadn't bothered to ask, figuring I'd find out once I arrived, but the building was bigger than I'd anticipated, and it seemed I'd be wandering in circles if I didn't ask someone.
"Huh... there's nothing in here, is there?"
No directory. No reception desk. Nothing. The only things this lobby had to offer were those men over there wearing vests marked Guard.
And as luck would have it — burly, yellow-haired Westerners.
The exact variety of foreigner I felt a desperate, primal urge to avoid on sight in the middle of downtown Seoul.
"What business brings you here today?"
"Ah... yes. I'm here for Flame Entertainment..."
"Would you happen to be Actor Baek Si-woo?"
"That's me."
"Then please, follow me."
While I was still tilting my head, the one who seemed to be the leader of the pack approached me. Then, displaying Korean fluency indistinguishable from a native's, he swept me up and escorted me along.
He even knew my name — Flame must have given them advance notice. But what on earth had this man eaten to speak Korean this well?
Watching a butter-branded Yankee brute command the language better than the foreigner at my own neighborhood store produced a genuine case of cognitive dissonance.
And besides — what was this building, that it needed guards crawling all over it like that?
From the building to its staff, nothing about this place seemed entirely normal, I mused as I followed the Yankee into the elevator.