January 7, 2020

  "I can't believe I'm doing this." Leon sighed, staring up at the towering building in front of him.

  With a deep breath, he stepped inside and made his way to the front desk, where a receptionist was busy typing on her computer.

  "Hello, I'm here to see Park Dae-Hyun from Luminate Agency."

  The receptionist looked up. "Are you Reed Leon?"

  Leon shifted slightly, feeling awkward at the sound of his full name backwards. "Uh, yeah, that's me."

  "Park Dae-Hyun has been expecting you. He’s on the third floor."

  Leon thanked her and headed for the elevator. As the doors opened on the third floor, he was surprised by the sight of several staff members working busily. It didn’t look like the struggling agency he had imagined.

  He approached the least occupied employee. "Excuse me, do you know where Park Dae-Hyun is?"

  The staff member barely glanced up, pointing toward an office door before returning to their work.

  Leon knocked on the door.

  "Come in."

  Leon stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Park Dae-Hyun was sitting at his desk, eyes focused on the computer screen. When he finally glanced up and saw Leon, a broad smile stretched across his face.

  "LEON! You're here!" Park Dae-Hyun immediately stood up, crossing the room to greet him.

  After a brief exchange, they both took their seats. Leon got straight to the point.

  "I thought you were struggling, but I saw a bunch of workers running around like crazy." He raised an eyebrow.

  Park Dae-Hyun let out a dry chuckle, leaning back in his chair. "Yeah… it looks that way, huh?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "Back when things were good, I hired more people—managers, PR staff, even assistants—since I was planning to expand, I even rented two floors of this building for it."

  Leon nodded, waiting for him to continue.

  "But after the actors left, most of their managers and assistants had no reason to stay. Some quit on their own, and honestly, I don’t blame them, but many of them choose to stay."

  "So… what are they doing now?" Leon asked, glancing toward the office door.

  Park Dae-Hyun exhaled. "For now, they’re scouting for new actors, handling paperwork—basically keeping the agency running until I sign someone new. But without actual actors, there’s not much work. Some of them are probably just pretending to be busy. I know keeping them on isn’t the smartest financial decision, but... I couldn’t fire the ones who stayed."

  "I see..."

  Before the mood could settle, Park Dae-Hyun smirked and tossed a stack of papers onto the desk.

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  "Enough of that. Here’s your contract."

  Leon picked up the papers, skimming through them as Park Dae-Hyun spoke.

  "Only you and I know that you are acting as an actor. Once you sign, everyone here will assume you’re a real actor, so they’ll treat you like a rookie actor."

  Leon frowned slightly after hearing him. Leon continued scanning the document and was surprised that it was more detailed than he expected.

  The contract stated he would be an exclusive actor under Luminate Agency for a year. Unlike standard contracts, it was surprisingly flexible—he wasn’t forced to take roles but was encouraged to audition when possible. The agency would take 20% of his earnings from dramas, movies, commercials, and other acting-related work. In return, they would manage his schedule and provide whatever he needed to succeed. Most importantly, there was a termination clause allowing him to leave early under specific conditions.

  He looked up at Park Dae-Hyun, who grinned.

  "What do you think? I made sure it's flexible enough for you not to worry about. Plus, you’ll still get a monthly paycheck even if you don’t land any roles."

  Leon sighed. "I'm fine with this contract, but are you going to hire an acting coach? I at least need to learn how to not embarrass myself when auditioning for roles."

  "No can do."

  "Why not?" Leon's eyes widened in shock and confusion as he stared at his cousin.

  "If I bring in a coach and they realize you don’t know anything about acting, the coach could potentially spread rumors about my agency signing a contract with an actor that doesn't know how to act. My agency’s already in a bad spot—I can’t afford to make it worse."

  "So, I have to learn on my own?" Leon crossed his arms. "Didn’t I already say this was a bad idea? You should have looked for an actual actor. Won't rumors spread when I start acting in auditions?"

  "Relax, I have a plan to make sure no one catches on."

  Leon gave him a skeptical look before sighing. "Whatever. Just don’t blame me when this whole thing falls apart."

  With that, he grabbed a pen and signed the contract. Park Dae-Hyun’s grin widened as he took the papers.

  "Great! Now, focus on practicing. I’ll handle the rest. Oh, and did you quit your job?"

  "Yeah. Since I need time to be an 'actor'."

  "Perfect. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day—we need to make you look like a real actor."

  Leon frowned. "What does that even mean?"

  "You’ll see."

  Leon didn’t like the sound of that, but he let it go. After exchanging goodbyes, he left the agency and returned home.

  Leon had barely changed into comfortable clothes when the doorbell rang. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

  Confused, he went to open the door.

  A delivery man stood there, holding a thick envelope.

  "Delivery for Reed Leon," the man said, reading off a clipboard.

  Leon sighed. "That’s me."

  The man handed over the envelope, gave a polite nod, and left.

  Leon shut the door and stared at the package in his hands.

  Curious, he tore it open and pulled out a script. A sticky note was attached to the cover.

  "Call me when you get this - Park Dae-Hyun"

  Leon exhaled sharply, flopping onto his couch as he began to call him.

  "Hello."

  "I received a script from you."

  "Ah, it already has arrived. Well, that's the script you will try to audition for in 2 weeks."

  "Do you really expect me to get the role in 2 weeks with no acting experience?"

  "No, it's fine if you don't get I'm not expecting that. It's just this is the script I had planned for the other actor I used to have. I only want us to go there so I can build some connection. You can use this moment to practice acting and experience how auditions work or if you want you can just leave after being there for an hour or two without acting at all."

  "Well, I guess that's fine."

  "If you have time try reading a bit before going to bed so you get the gist of the story, it's not a lot since it's a small role. Make sure to wake up early tomorrow I made lots of appointments for you."

  "Okay."

  They both hung up as Leon stared at the script he left on the table. He reached for the script, and got rid of the sticky note that was stuck to it, and flipped the page.

  Right as he was about to read it, he found something odd on the page. He saw in the right top corner being black. It looked like fresh ink was spilled on the corner of the page as it slowly expanded, but when it reached a certain size, it would shrink back and repeat the process slowly on that small top corner.

  Leon flipped threw all the pages, and he saw the same phenomena for each page. Some were on the left top corner and others were on the right. And on the cover page, he saw it on the right corner as well.

  He used his thumb to see if he could get rid of the weird ink. As soon as he had contact with it the whole room turned black and empty. He fell down as he was no longer sitting on the sofa.

  He looked around to see he was in some dark empty room.

  'Where am I?'

  Leon stood up and looked around as he felt panicked. He then noticed something shining. He turned to look at a square floating item shining in the darkness.

  As he got closer to it he saw some words on it.

  "Isn't that the title of the script I got?"