The Brothers Are a Windfall

What a windfall of brothers.

The production team of Backstage went on high alert when the call came through out of nowhere.

"It's Astra?"

"Yoon Jay? For real?"

The one who had taken the call puffed out his cheeks, visibly struggling to hold back a grin, and finally spoke.

"For real."

"Whoa!"

"Ha... we finally got past one hurdle."

"If word gets out that Yoon Jay's in, some people will definitely take an interest, right?"

The "people" they meant were the supporting actors who would fill out the ensemble cast.

Backstage had been a scenario full of twists and turns. Production had been stuck in limbo, snagged on the negative keyword "idol drama," and things only began to change when a handful of top-tier idols—who were drifting toward solo careers—started showing interest.

Among those top-tier idols was Yoon Do-jun.

"That's not all, is it? Yoon Jay's investors are all major players."

"Oh, come on, the funding's already solid."

"Then what about scheduling... wouldn't it be better to at least get a late-night slot? You know, with Vice Chairwoman Cho Youkyeong on our side?"

"No way... would a lost broadcast slot really get re-secured just because of one actor?"

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Thanks to all this, the funding was rock-solid. The scheduling, however, had failed—due to the genre's particular baggage.

Fortunately, the idols were famous enough that overseas rights discussions were moving along briskly.

"I'll go pay a visit to Ji Gwanghyun himself!"

One staff member shot to his feet.

"Why Ji Gwanghyun?"

"He said if a genuinely good actor takes the lead role, he'd consider it."

"Ah, right, he does have a soft spot for talented juniors."

Go Gwang-il, Moon Chang-min—it was the same story across the board. In any case, news of Yoon Jay's casting set the stalled casting process moving again in earnest.

"What a windfall of brothers."

Yoon Do-jun had cracked open the door to investment, and now Yoon Jay had filled out the thin cast lineup—and might even get them a rescheduled broadcast slot.

These days, Yoon Jay had the highest name recognition of any actor in his thirties. He wasn't the type to stockpile project after project for future release, and shrouded as he was in an air of mystery, plenty of people were dying to know what his next work would be.

On top of that, his chemistry lit up no matter who he was paired with, making him the number-one topic in fantasy casting discussions among drama fanatics.

"We've secured that actor ourselves, actually."

The head of production chuckled to himself.

But the festival atmosphere didn't last long. Because of an article that popped up out of nowhere.

To be fair, it was a combination of an actress who'd been drawing great responses lately and a writer with plenty of controversies—but who had, nonetheless, churned out hit after hit. Articles poured down in a steady rustle, and the community ignited instantly.

The real problem was that Yoon Jay wasn't joining this drama. His shooting schedule for Backstage overlapped with it.

Kwak Do-hyun, who had ambled into the office with takeout coffee in hand, clutched his head at the unexpected news.

"Director, it turns out Jay won't be doing 'Pure Operation Corps.'"

"Haah... yeah, figures."

Kwak Do-hyun saw through the whole scheme in an instant.

Apparently, writer Choi Eun-ji of 'Pure Operation Corps' had fixated on Yoon Jay and hammered it down as gospel: no one but Yoon Jay could be the male lead of my work.

Writers wield enormous influence on a drama set. Controversial as she might be, she was a powerful name, so the agency had been inclined to look at it fairly seriously.

"The synopsis is decent, but there's something a bit iffy about it."

"Iffy in what way?"

"Well... she is a plagiarist. It's not like we're short on offers."

More importantly, now that Lee Seo-won knew Yoon Jay was Yoon Jae-hee, he was reluctant to put him in any project that might chip away at his reputation.

It fell to Kwak Do-hyun to smooth things over. Since she was still an influential writer, they couldn't flatly refuse, so he'd said they'd review it positively—then kept withholding a final answer until, clearly, her side lost patience and fired off the preemptive article.

Not that casting rumors like this took long to flip anyway.

But when an actor already has a confirmed project, an article like this coming out first is far from ideal.

"Oh, Team Leader. You saw the article, right?"

(Director Kwak. Don't tell me you leaked it on us?)

"Of course not. We only just finished wrapping up the final contract negotiations—when would we have had the time?"

A sigh of relief came through the other end of the line.

(So it was them doing the work, then?)

"Yep. It's a headache for us too. All because our actor is just too hot right now... Anyway, that being said—would it be alright if we circulated the press release for 'Backstage' sooner rather than later?"

(That's fine by us.)

The voice on the other end brightened.

Yoon Jay was an actor beyond the usual boundaries of a rookie. Which was why the agency managed him the way they managed any A-list star.

A-list actors, as a rule, delay announcing a project until the absolute last moment before they go into shooting—even after it's been confirmed. There's always the chance something even better will come in during that window.

Yoon Jay's casting in Backstage had been confirmed too, but kept under wraps. But with news breaking that he was "positively considering" a completely unrelated drama, there was nothing left to do.

He'd been maintaining a strict no-comment policy ever since the controversy over his past broke—that alone had convinced some people he was confirmed for it already. With the 'Pure Operation Corps' article too, if the agency stayed silent again, everyone would simply assume it was settled.

His name recognition was at an all-time high between last year and this year, so plenty of people were interested in Yoon Jay, and plenty of fans had attached themselves to him.

And the bigger the stage, the more backseat drivers showed up to coach him.

Did the agency have no sense, or did the actor himself have no sense? The community burned itself out trading one theory after another.

Those who found Yoon Jay's success hard to stomach were busy sprinkling every kind of seasoning on the narrative that he simply had no eye for choosing projects.

Then the fight spilled over into the fandoms of the idols already confirmed for Backstage.

And one person found himself an unexpected winner in all of it.

"Hyung, they're saying Yoon Jay isn't doing 'Pure Operation Corps.'"

"Really?"

"Yeah. Apparently he's doing some idol drama instead..."

The truth was, Im Ji-hwan had also been eyeing the lead role of 'Pure Operation Corps,' and when word spread that the writer wanted Yoon Jay, he'd grown so anxious that he'd thrown a subtle dig at him when they crossed paths at the awards ceremony.

So he took my advice after all?

Not a bad junior at all, really. Im Ji-hwan arrived at a rather curious misunderstanding.

The year-end awards season passed, and the new year dawned.

Backstage had finally completed its full casting.

And plans were already in place to release Backstage through an OTT platform under the KE Group umbrella.

Cho Youkyeong certainly hadn't been sitting idle—not for Yoon Jay's first-ever drama leading role.

Thanks to that, while it wasn't quite prime time, the drama landed an actual broadcast slot. The production team let out a collective cheer, and the press began peeling back the layers of Backstage's premise one by one.

Yoon Jay would play Seo Geonwoo, a director parachuted into a failing entertainment agency. Branded the fixer of his parent company and known for his cold-blooded M&A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠campaigns, Seo Geonwoo would grapple with an impossible mission: pull off a successful comeback for a chaotic, ragtag idol group on the brink of disbandment. His daily battles were the heart of the story.

They hadn't even held the table read yet, and already opinions good and bad were flying back and forth.

But that so much talk was happening at all meant interest in the drama was huge. If people genuinely didn't care, none of these conversations would even exist.

The lineup of members playing Icarus, the crumbling idol group in Backstage, was actually quite glamorous.

Lee Junseo of INB—the group whose members had begun solo activities during their military-enlistment lull—was cast in a near-lead role. INB, like Buster, was a top-tier idol group firmly within the top five in the industry.

Surprisingly, Yoon Do-jun's role was a middling supporting part. Why had he chosen such a minor role for his debut?

"Hyung, did you seriously decide on this drama because of me?"

"What do you think?"

What Yoon Jay had weighed against Backstage was an anticipated project from a blockbuster writer. Yoon Do-jun, who had been receiving crash-course acting lessons from him, had been watching him carefully.

"I just... that project didn't really grab me. And the writer has a lot of baggage."

The script was good, but somehow the feeling hadn't been right.

Yoon Jay had decided to trust that strange instinct—the one that had saved his life more than a few times in the past.

He looked at the bright-eyed Yoon Do-jun. His brother had a strong head on his shoulders and a sunny disposition, but he wasn't a thoughtless kid.

He wasn't the type to just tag along because his older brother was acting. Chances were he'd been interested in acting all along.

A shrewd choice, that's for sure.

Roles with more weight than anything in Backstage must have come his way in the meantime—so choosing to start with a modest supporting part meant he'd rather build slowly from small roles than ride his brother's influence straight into a big one.

"Ah—hey, what was that for!"

"Nothing."

It was just that he was so damn proud of him. Yoon Jay gave Yoon Do-jun's hair a ferocious ruffle.