The Rain-Soaked Supernova
In 2022, they went independent.
Seven actors, five staff members. A tiny company.
Leader Actors.
By 2025, Leader Actors was in crisis.
Jang Choongwon, the flagship actor who was supposed to be the company's lifeline, had watched two dramas in a row close out with ratings in the 1% range, lost his drive, and now clocked in at the fishing grounds every single day. The staff alone could no longer cope with the fresh fish that arrived weekly in a cooler box.
Gam Seongbeom, the CEO, heaved a sigh.
"Soohan, don't tell me that's spicy fish stew again."
"Just eat it, hyung."
"Damn it, this is a management company, not a fish market!"
Then it was Do Jaeyeon who spoke up — she'd started as a temp and now handled every odd job in the office, and had been monitoring dramas back to back, half in disbelief that anyone could manage to land 1% twice in a row, desperate to fish something out of it.
"Just eat it already."
"No, there's a limit! How many meals in a row is it now — raw fish for dinner, spicy stew for lunch? Guys, let me treat you. It's on me!"
Sensing an eruption brewing, Do Jaeyeon flared right back at him.
"Then what about the poor fish?!"
"Somebody pity me for once!"
As the two of them launched into yet another round, Gam Soohan, the VP, who had been simmering the fish stew, said mildly,
"Jaeyeon's twenty-six and she eats whatever she's given, and you're turning forty the day after tomorrow. What's with the picky eating?"
So there they were, bickering over the same old thing as always, when the doorbell rang — and all three went pale at once, turning to stare at the intercom. CEO Gam Seongbeom said to Do Jaeyeon,
"Hey, hey, Jang Choongwon already came and went yesterday. Why is that bell ringing again... I can't eat any more fish. My wife's asking if I ran an agency into the ground just to get a job at a fish market."
"Honestly, fish show up in my dreams now. For real — live ones, swimming..."
The two men shuddered, and Do Jaeyeon, who'd been doing design work, clicked her tongue and checked the intercom.
Then she tilted her head with a small huh? and opened the door. Only once the door swung open did Gam Seongbeom ask,
"Who is it?"
"No idea."
"Wait, Jaeyeon. You don't know who it is and you're opening the door?!"
"He's obviously gorgeous even from a distance, so I figured somebody here must have signed him."
"Ha, damn it. You're making me cuss way too much these days."
"Hyung, watch the language, you'll hurt the feelings of anyone who followed you into it."
Even the endlessly mild-mannered VP Gam Soohan said this while quietly untying his apron, when footsteps sounded from beyond the frosted glass door.
At any rate, word that the visitor was good-looking had raised everyone's expectations. CEO Gam Seongbeom hurried to the automatic door, and when it slid open, standing outside was a child-actor-turned-young-actor in worn, rumpled clothes.
The three people watching from inside and the one standing outside said nothing, moved nothing — and the door closed on its own.
The moment it shut, all three turned to look at one another almost in unison.
"What's with that kid? Who signed him?"
"Not me."
"I was a temp until a few days ago."
After all three had owned up to not being the one, VP Gam Soohan said calmly,
"Hyung, think about it. Even if we were casting, would a kid like that come here? That's a face that should've collected hundreds of business cards by now."
"Right? Then why would a kid that pretty come to a place where nobody signed him?"
They were still murmuring back and forth when the child actor — who couldn't get in because the door's face recognition wouldn't register him — knocked on the glass.
"Excuse me."
Only then did CEO Gam Seongbeom dash back over and open the door.
"Ah, sorry, sorry! Come in! Why are you soaked to the bone?"
"It started raining out of nowhere."
"Right, that must be it..."
Lee Heeyoon had, quite literally, a clean face. He'd come in drenched from the rain, yet up close he looked like he'd still carry the scent of fresh laundry.
A face that held thousands of different countenances — and yet, in the end, a beauty that existed nowhere else in the world.
That was the first impression all three founders of Leader Actors, Gam Seongbeom included, shared.
They couldn't exactly leave a rain-soaked kid standing there, so they dug out some dry clothes lying around the office and sent him off to the shower room to wash up first.
Afterward, they put their heads together over why on earth this kid had come here, and at the end of it, CEO Gam Seongbeom declared with grim conviction,
"I've got it. This is fate from a past life."
"Don't spout nonsense with that much confidence, please."
Do Jaeyeon scolded him, while VP Gam Soohan clapped his hands and chimed in,
"Hyung — he's not your son, is he?"
"Oh, could be? No wonder he looks like me."
"He looks nothing like you. Anyway, didn't I tell you to seriously focus on dating for once?"
With nonsense flying from both sides, Do Jaeyeon pressed her throbbing forehead with her palm.
But even Do Jaeyeon knew: there was no realistic reason imaginable for that uncast supernova to fall into a company the size of a mouse dropping — none except things like this.
Just as the past-life-fate theory was quietly gaining ground, Lee Heeyoon emerged from the bathroom, having patted the moisture from his hair and skin.
The supernova was so dazzling that CEO Gam Seongbeom shielded his eyes with a hand and said,
"Right. My son he is absolutely not. My conscience wouldn't allow it."
Then, in the next instant, he wondered if he'd misseen something, and lowered his hand.
Beneath the loud, graphic-print T-shirt — one of the CEO's own, since room and board came with the job — were marks that anyone could see were traces of abuse.
"Hey. What happened to you?"
The face of Gam Seongbeom, who'd seemed completely unhinged all this while, crumpled.
Seeing dead people again was never exactly a pleasant reunion.
I looked back and forth between VP Gam Soohan, who had died at the moment I regressed from, and Do Jaeyeon, the incoming director.
Even if they were alive, they were people I'd never cross paths with again.
...That's a lie, actually.
Truthfully, the moment that automatic door slid open — and when those three idiots predictably put their heads together to investigate why I'd come — I felt something like relief.
In my whole life, I had never once cried for a reason other than acting. I didn't even cry at Gam Soohan's and Do Jaeyeon's funerals.
And now I felt like crying. Must be a problem with emotional regulation, being in a teenager's body.
Even the familiar smell of fish I hadn't encountered in so long felt like something I'd missed.
"I said, what's wrong with your arm?"
I was so lost in the longing that I hadn't heard a word, and CEO Gam Seongbeom's raised voice made me take an involuntary step back. VP Gam Soohan caught instantly that I'd read him as a threat and reacted, and hurried over to my side.
"No, no, it's fine. He's not angry. Heeyoon, right?"
I was still far shorter than Do Jaeyeon, who stood at 170cm. She was staring at me with a stricken face.
Well, I was equally shocked. Do Jaeyeon is exactly ten years older than me, and she's twenty-six. When I first joined this agency, she'd seemed so adult — now she looked like a total kid.
A kid like this was the one who had thrown her whole body in front of my uncle's family, again and again.
By the way.
The last thing Do Jaeyeon ever said to me was that I was a bastard of an egalitarian and a damn piece of work, so I don't really know what to say. Where do you think I learned that piece-of-work attitude? From the unhinged Gam Seongbeom? Or from the mild-mannered Gam Soohan? Every bit of it, I learned from Do Jaeyeon. It's unfair, honestly. Who was it that taught me swear words to use whenever my uncle showed up threatening?
Anyway — handing that exact profanity out equally to the small-fry agency boss was the process by which my life got gloriously uprooted. So I'll just shut up about it. Except when I'm acting.
The hot-tempered CEO Gam Seongbeom said,
"We're going to the police station. Right now."
"I already went. My uncle's a police officer, so it wouldn't mean much."
"What kind of garbage is that?! A kid got beaten to this state!"
"That's not why I came here."
As expected, I have no patience, and the irritation was creeping up on me.
"I came here looking for an agency."
"And now's the time for you to be working—"
"I'm insanely good at acting."
Ugh, damn it. Watch your mouth, Heeyoon. Watch it.
At the words that had slipped out, the three of Leader Actors stared at me, brows drawn. Well — two of them frowned, and VP Gam Soohan, having opened a window to air out the fish smell, was gazing off somewhere far away.
I know Gam Soohan. He's obviously choking back tears right now. The man is practically a human tear gauge.
That's why it was so good to read scripts with him. There were plenty of times I couldn't tell what was supposed to be sad, but VP Gam Soohan would read along and then burst into tears, and from that alone I could roughly gauge whether a script's emotional arc was well calibrated — whether it was sad, whether it was moving. Do Jaeyeon loved that sensitivity of his.
I'd tried so hard to forget, but apparently the only good memories I have are the ones I made with these three.
From the most absurdly trivial little things to the joy of success and the sting of failure — not one of it has faded. I suppose that's the occupational hazard of being an actor. Far too much of everyday life lodges itself in the brain. Far too many scripts, far too many other people's lives. Everything refused to be forgotten.
CEO Gam Seongbeom fought down his temper with visible effort and said to me,
"Fine. You're the victim, of course you're not in your right mind. The adults will handle it, so you just go to — what's it called — a protection center. Yeah. Let's start by finding you one of those."
"Hyung."
Right on cue, VP Gam Soohan — face streaked with tears, exactly as predicted — turned around and said,
"He's starting with the agency."
"Are you nuts? Look at the state of him! Is now the time to be job hunting?!"
"Doesn't he know better than we do what he needs right now? Sit him down and watch him act first. The kid's good."
Being decent is hard. Being decent in the entertainment industry is harder. And how strong a person has to be to stay decent in that — I couldn't even begin to measure it.
Gam Soohan was exactly that strong, and that's why he was the first to recognize what I needed. So how did a man like that die so fast?
Thinking about it now, things were starting to feel off. Sure, a company can fail. But how could two of this company's founding members end up dead, and the third go missing?
And come to think of it, it wasn't just these three — even Jang Choongwon, arguably a founding member himself, had lost his life right after I left the company.
...That's getting stranger and stranger, isn't it?
Leaving me and my deepening thoughts behind, CEO Gam Seongbeom's voice reached me.
"...All right. But we're photographing all of that. You have to keep evidence."
"Yes."
That was a pretty good idea. They were pieces of evidence I'd be using eventually, after all.