A Master Director
Lee Chanhoo explained top actor Woo Jeongcheol, as seen through Search, to Ha Yeonji. His location, and what he looked like at that moment.
“A private room inside the club. Not a normal one either, some hidden place. Men and women all tangled together like beasts, and it’s a mess of booze and drugs in there.”
“And Woo Jeongcheol?”
“The biggest idiot among the beasts. Drooling all over himself. I can’t tell if he’s high or drunk.”
“Probably both.”
With a faint laugh, Ha Yeonji muttered while looking at the photo of Woo Jeongcheol she had already taken with her camera.
“At this point, there’s not much more to dig up. If we’ve got enough context and evidence, all we have to do is drop the article and stir up a scene. The police will take it from there. The irrefutable evidence is sitting inside Woo Jeongcheol’s body.”
“Okay, then we just report it straight to the boss.”
“Didn’t he say not to report it right away?”
“Yeah. He said there’s something he wants to get out of it before we blow it open.”
“I keep wondering what’s going through his head. Sometimes I want to crack the boss open and take a look.”
“Go ahead and try it. I’ll cheer you on.”
“You’re insane. You trying to get yourself killed?”
Still snickering, Lee Chanhoo narrowed his eyes further.
“But that’s weird. What’s a top actor like Woo Jeongcheol even missing that he needs drugs for? And in a club like that, too. Pathetic.”
Ha Yeonji lowered the camera she’d been holding and answered without much interest.
“Whether it starts with curiosity or a friend’s recommendation, the first time is always as quiet as possible. Something no one can catch. But humans adapt. The more it repeats, the sloppier they get, and above all, their sense of reason starts to blur. The drugs probably help with that too.”
“So the addiction gets deeper with the drugs, and that cuts off the reason?”
“Do you think drug scandals never stop in the entertainment industry for no reason? It’s right there.”
All at once, the expression disappeared from Ha Yeonji’s face, and she said calmly, “Addiction. We were the same way, weren’t we? In that other world. Sure, survival was on the line, and the world was different, but still.”
“...Yeah. I guess we were.”
They were talking about war, slaughter. It had been a completely different world, but they too had known a kind of addiction. The two of them thought of Kim Hoyeon. Even so, there was no danger of them falling apart now. Ha Yeonji said the reason out loud.
“Maybe meeting the boss early was a blessing.”
Lee Chanhoo gave a small laugh.
“With him and without him are two different worlds. Without him, we’d all be crazy bastards. With him, everything just gets sorted out.”
On the battlefield, once a commander’s head was cut off, the soldiers usually collapsed fast. Especially for the members of MEG, who all possessed abilities, Kang Jaeha’s existence was brutally important.
The instant he disappeared, some balance would break.
Then Lee Chanhoo started the car and muttered, “All right, shall we go report to the boss?”
After midnight, at the MEG office.
By the time Lee Chanhoo and Ha Yeonji returned, Kang Jaeha was sitting in the MEG office with his eyes closed. He was at a six-person table, arms folded. Go Chunseok sat beside him in a similar posture. It was not a sight they often saw, so Ha Yeonji smiled and put a finger to her lips. Lee Chanhoo nodded.
Then Ha Yeonji.
-Click.
raised the camera in her hand and aimed it at Kang Jaeha. The big-framed Go Chunseok kept getting in the way, but as Ha Yeonji watched the shot catch the boss with his eyes closed, she murmured to herself,
He’s kind of handsome, too.
Whether he’d woken up to the sound of their presence or not, Kang Jaeha, arms still folded, slowly opened his eyes. Ha Yeonji, suddenly face to face with him at such close range, gave an awkward laugh.
“Ah. Caught me.”
Go Chunseok, who had opened his eyes along with the boss, fetched some bottled water and set it before Jaeha. After a brief “thanks,” Kang Jaeha yawned and held out a hand toward Ha Yeonji. He wanted the camera.
“Did you check Woo Jeongcheol?”
Lee Chanhoo, seated across from Kang Jaeha, answered first.
“Yep. Just like you said, boss, he was completely drugged out.”
Ha Yeonji cut in.
“But hey, what are you doing over there, Chunseok?”
“Resting with the boss.”
“Ah. Boss, where’s Cha Chunghyun?”
“At home. I sent him to sleep. He needs to recharge.”
“Wow. We’re out here working overtime, and even the boss is working, and the rookie already gets off work?”
“Cha Chunghyun will still be coming in almost every day. Unlike you.”
With a small sigh, Lee Chanhoo lightly smacked Ha Yeonji on the head.
“What are you whining about? He’s even making sure everyone gets overtime pay.”
“I was just trying to lighten the mood. But you dare hit me on the head? That’s crossing the line.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“Okay, apology accepted.”
Kang Jaeha cut off their back-and-forth.
“Explain Woo Jeongcheol in detail.”
Soon Lee Chanhoo and Ha Yeonji briefed Jaeha on everything from the moment top actor Woo Jeongcheol entered the club to the segment where he was throwing a booze-and-drug party inside. Ha Yeonji tapped the camera Kang Jaeha was looking at with her index finger.
“If we blow this open now, Woo Jeongcheol is done for.”
“Looks that way.”
“Shouldn’t we drop it right away?”
“No. Not yet.”
As he answered, Kang Jaeha recalled the Déjà vu concerning master director Yu Giltae.
By the looks of the premonition, his new film is going to be a hit. But after the release, Woo Jeongcheol’s drug scandal breaks. Woo Jeongcheol is the lead in that new film. After that, well, he’s screwed.
In any case, it was highly likely that Woo Jeongcheol had already been chosen as the male lead in Yu Giltae’s new film. That actually made things better for Kang Jaeha. He lifted his head and met Lee Chanhoo’s narrow eyes.
“Chanhoo, you take this card and go meet Director Yu Giltae.”
“Hmm? You mean I can just walk up and meet a master director like that, and he’ll be happy to talk?”
“That’s why you’ve got to talk well.”
With a slight smile, Kang Jaeha laid out the plan he had prepared in advance for Lee Chanhoo. Lee Chanhoo understood quickly and nodded.
“So in the end, our MEG gets to slip into the master director’s new film?? No, wait, we’re getting the investment seat by saving the master.”
Master or not, it all amounted to MEG taking the wheel. After the discussion mostly wrapped up, Ha Yeonji handed Kang Jaeha a clear file.
“Boss, the agencies you asked me to look into.”
It was the list of entertainment companies he had told her to buy.
An hour later.
Lee Chanhoo, Ha Yeonji, and Go Chunseok had gone home, but Kang Jaeha was still in the MEG office. Well, that was the burden of being the boss. Right now, Kang Jaeha was
“Hmph-”
studying the clear file Ha Yeonji had given him with a serious expression. The list contained many agencies, all of them meeting the conditions Jaeha had set.
Small or mid-sized, on the verge of collapse or already collapsing, and ideally the kind with talent but no money.
Jaeha started pruning the candidates once more.
They can’t be too small.
If they were so underfunded that they were barely different from being newly created, he cut them out. He also excluded companies with settlement problems or serious trouble that had cropped up in the last few years. Then Kang Jaeha kept narrowing the field according to his own framework.
Before long,
Roughly this much, then.
Kang Jaeha had reduced the agency list to three.
- Lumia Entertainment.
- LX Entertainment.
- ZER Entertainment.
Three agencies with a decent size, a fair amount of history, and poor finances. Looking at the three chosen agencies, Kang Jaeha crossed his legs.
Hm. I want to see these three in person.
That was not especially difficult. If he scheduled the meeting for the afternoon and went personally, he could cover his face with a mask or some other disguise. The other side would not make a big fuss over it.
Anyway, Chanhoo will be the one doing most of the talking.
The next morning, the 14th.
The first person to arrive at the MEG office was, unexpectedly, Cha Chunghyun, still wearing the face of someone who had not fully woken up. He yawned as he looked around the MEG office.
“This isn’t my office, so coming here to work still feels weird.”
He sipped steadily from the iced tea in his hand and sat down at his newly arranged desk. On top of the desk, over the scattered documents, lay a clear file. A sticky note was attached to it.
The boss’s instructions were written on the sticky note.
- Find out the exact financial state of these three agencies.
The financial state included cash flow, and whether there was anything that could become a legal problem. Tax evasion, and so on. Scratching his chin, Cha Chunghyun stretched out long and murmured,
“This kind of thing is easy.”
At the same time, at Netflix Korea.
Netflix Korea was in the final stage of selecting writers for its one-act drama project. A total of six writers. In other words, six works were to be chosen, and now only one slot remained.
Inside the general director’s office at Netflix Korea.
A knock echoed through the room where bald General Director Heo Seongjin sat.
- Knock, knock.
Soon a female employee peered in.
“General Director, Writer Jongman is here.”
At the words “Writer Jongman,” Heo Seongjin reacted at once. Among the selected writers, he was by far the most anticipated one.
“Oh! Bring him in quickly.”
“But...”
“What is it?”
The female employee had a strange look in her eyes, and she seemed a little flustered. Frowning, General Director Heo Seongjin asked,
“What’s wrong?”
The female employee shook her head.
“I think it’d be better if you see for yourself.”
After the female employee left the general director’s office, a man with a fierce face slipped inside. He greeted them with an embarrassed smile.
“Good day.”
The moment Heo Seongjin saw him, he recognized him instantly.
“...Huh?”
The “Writer Jongman” standing before him was a face he knew well.
“Aren’t you the actor... Oh Jongman?”
Writer Jongman was none other than actor Oh Jongman, who had once made a name for himself in supporting roles. Startled, General Director Heo Seongjin ran a hand over his bald head.
“No, what is this—Writer Jongman was really Oh Jongman?”
He had wondered if it might be the same person, but for Writer Jongman to actually be actor Oh Jongman... With widened eyes, Heo Seongjin reached out first for a handshake.
“P-please, sit down first. I’m startled.”
Oh Jongman scratched his head, uncomfortable.
“Thank you for remembering me.”
“Even if you’ve been out of the spotlight for a while, anyone worth knowing remembers. What happened? Did you quit acting and switch over to writing?”
“Yes. It just kind of turned out that way, haha.”
Just kind of turned out that way? No, was this really something one could say so casually? At least from Heo Seongjin’s point of view at Netflix Korea, it was anything but light. A man who had spent years acting, then quit to become a writer.
At minimum, this is the first time I’m seeing it personally.
It existed in Hollywood. Actors who wrote scripts, or directed. Korea had a few as well, but they were directors, not writers. This was the first time he had seen something like this.
...Is it because of that incident? Either way, this is incredible.
Heo Seongjin also knew about Oh Jongman’s incident. And, of course, that he had been cleared of suspicion. Whatever the reason, the fresh shock made Heo Seongjin even more curious.
“How long have you been writing since you switched careers?”
“Not quite half a year.”
“...Half a year? Then the script you submitted to us must have been written over—”
“Excluding the revisions, about two months?”
“...”
Heo Seongjin’s eyes widened little by little.
He switched to writing, and not over years but in just a few months wrote something that good?
And on top of that, it had been selected first by Netflix Korea.
If he didn’t already have talent as a writer, this level makes no sense at all.
At that moment, Oh Jongman spoke up.
“I switched over to writing on someone’s recommendation. That person also told me about the Netflix contest. I didn’t have much time, but I wrote the script as fiercely as I could.”
The competition for this one-act drama project had been monstrous. He had come out on top. Having already read Oh Jongman’s script, Heo Seongjin felt a little chill run through him.
The person who recommended writing to Jongman. I don’t know who it is, but they’re an incredible benefactor.
With the corners of his mouth lifting, Heo Seongjin muttered to Oh Jongman,
“Writer Jongman... if this becomes public later, I think it’s going to be a pretty big issue.”
Then he corrected himself.
“No, not pretty big. It’ll be huge.”
Later in the afternoon.
The location was a conference room at a major film company. Inside the sprawling room, a man sat alone at a square-shaped table. He looked gaunt and wore round glasses. It was master director Yu Giltae.
“...”
Silently staring at his phone, a thick stack of papers lay before him, and right now he was waiting for one actress. Her name appeared as a news article on Yu Giltae’s phone.
[Star Talk] Yoon Dayeon, who got hot after the Busan International Film Festival, appears on a YouTube talk show and shows off her witty banter / photo
The actress Yu Giltae was about to meet was Yoon Dayeon. Of course, she was not the only actor he was meeting today; he had already held meetings with several actors since morning, and Yoon Dayeon was almost the last. The early groundwork for the new film was in full swing.
And since even Yoon Dayeon had said she was almost there with her manager, she would be sitting in front of him soon enough.
The lead casting is already wrapped up. Now it’s the supporting roles, and Yoon Dayeon is absolutely necessary.
That was when Yu Giltae was thinking about Yoon Dayeon with obvious appetite.
-♬♪
The phone in Yu Giltae’s hand rang. The caller was an unsaved number. Tilting his head slightly, Yu Giltae brought the phone to his ear.
“Yes, this is Yu Giltae.”
A man’s voice came through the line.
“Hello, Director. I’m Lee Chanhoo from MEG.”
“Lee Chanhoo from MEG?”
Frowning as he repeated the name, a thought flashed through Yu Giltae’s mind.
Ah.
MEG, which he had seen at the Busan International Film Festival, floated back into view. It was that investment company MEG he had seen in the ending credits of Gyeollo, and again at the closing ceremony. Director Kwon Seongmin had mentioned them in his remarks too. But why was MEG calling him?
With a question mark hanging over his head, Yu Giltae asked at once,
“Yes, but what is this about?”
“It’s about something very, very important. Could I meet you?”
Yu Giltae took a defensive stance first. He was one of the most respected masters in Korea. There were plenty of investors who approached him like this.
“...Hm. That’s sudden. I don’t have much time either. What’s the reason?”
“Even if you don’t have time, it would be better to meet.”
Lee Chanhoo went on in a remarkably calm tone.
“Because this is something that could ruin your new film if you’re not careful.”
Of course, that line had been chosen by the boss.