Chapter 14 · 10 min
Chapter 14
Chapter 14
“What are you so surprised about?”
“...”
Park Songmin turned his gaze back to the laptop, his eyes trembling rapidly.
[Hello, Author MiniSong. We are Aces Media, a web novel management company.]
“A-Aces Media contacted us...”
Aces Media.
Just looking at their roster of authors told you how enormous they were.
More than half the authors near the top of Today’s Best were signed with them, and they ranked number one in the industry for IP commercialization.
Most importantly.
‘That’s where author Dallogansudal is signed.’
The author who had inspired him to start writing web novels.
Dallogansudal belonged to Aces Media.
Having his name under the same management company would practically mean living beneath the same roof under the same sky!
And Park Songmin had once submitted his own work to that dreamlike Aces Media.
All he’d gotten back was a rejection email that looked suspiciously copy-pasted.
[After reviewing the work you submitted, we have determined that at this time it does not align with the direction of our management company, and we regret that we will be unable to work together. We wish you continued success in your writing.]
That was the kind of place it had been... and now they had contacted him first.
‘...How does this make any sense? Hyung has never even written a novel before...’
The moment he returned to Korea from America, Park Songmin had immediately tried becoming a web novel author.
He studied genres, analyzed cliffhanger structures, and even made notes on the pacing patterns of popular works.
And despite all that, the results had been poor.
Yet his brother succeeded on his first attempt through sheer instinct.
...The overwhelming gap in talent made a sense of relative deprivation wash over him.
“W-We absolutely have to sign with them.”
“I’m not signing.”
“...What?”
Park Songmin felt his insides twist.
“A-Are you crazy?!”
“Why.”
“What do you mean why?! It’s Aces Media! Dallogansudal sunbae is there!”
“Who’s that.”
“Never mind if you don’t know!”
For once, Park Songmin’s voice was growing louder in front of Park Songhu.
“Just signing with Aces Media would raise the name value of MiniSong!”
Park Songhu remained perfectly calm even now, arms crossed.
“I wrote it. Whether I sign is my decision.”
“...”
“MiniSong is your pen name, but I wrote that novel.”
“...”
“And the reason Aces contacted us is my work itself. Nothing else.”
That hit the mark.
There was no argument against it.
But after thinking about it, Park Songmin realized he did have something to complain about.
“MiniSong is my account! My pen name! The ‘Mini’ comes from the ‘Min’ in Songmin, then I put Song after it to make MiniSong!”
“...”
“You’re Park Songhu, so make yourself a new pen name like HuniSong!”
“Sure. I’ll do that. Then I guess I have no choice but to contact Aces and tell them I probably can’t sign under the MiniSong name.”
“That... you can’t do!”
Signing with Aces Media had always been one of Park Songmin’s deepest dreams.
Sure, it hurt that the work they had contacted was his brother’s, but either way, the brand value of the MiniSong name itself would rise.
‘And I’d be under the same management as Dallogansudal.’
Just imagining it made his heart race.
They absolutely had to sign with Aces under the MiniSong pen name.
Actually, there was another major reason too.
The Trojan Horse plan.
Use his brother’s novel to open the door, establish MiniSong as a name inside Aces, then receive their editorial support.
His character writing had already been validated, so if he could just fix his pacing, he had a real chance!
“Um, hyung? You know...”
Park Songmin, who had been scheming darkly to himself, carefully started speaking.
He had already become servile, but Park Songhu mercilessly rejected him.
“Yeah, I’m not signing.”
“Ah, seriously!”
“Well, if...”
“...If?”
“If you start acting, I might consider it.”
***
JH Entertainment.
If there was one name hotter than any other inside the building these days, it was Park Songhu.
The buzz from his comeback appearance on <Our Hospital> had carried through the <Scene & Cut> interview and all the way into his cameo in <Hwain>, and rumors had begun spreading through the company as well.
“Hey, seriously? Writer Seo Hayoung added lines on set?”
Two actors under the agency whispered in the hallway.
“Yeah. But the crazier part is, apparently Seo Hayoung praised Park Songhu’s acting to the skies.”
“...Wow.”
Among the actors at JH, Park Songhu’s acting ability was almost as famous as his looks.
The only question was whether the rumors were actually true.
“But did he really change? Can someone change that much after a one-year hiatus?”
“I want to see for myself too. Whether those rumors that he’s become a different person are true.”
“By the way, didn’t they say he’s coming to the company today?”
“Yeah. He’s meeting the CEO in the lounge about his comeback project.”
“...Meeting the CEO directly.”
“Hey, even if he fell off hard, his name still carries weight.”
“Should we go? Maybe grab some coffee nearby and take a look.”
At that moment, the sound of dress shoes echoed from the end of the hallway.
It was Han Seungryeol, the general manager of JH Entertainment’s actor management division.
“Ah, hello, Chief.”
“You were talking about Park Songhu, right?”
Han Seungryeol had heard the story before the rumors spread this far.
From Park Songhu’s road manager, Jo Yonggi.
-Songhu hyung has really changed completely!
At the time, Han Seungryeol had snorted.
Park Songhu changed?
Well, Jo Yonggi had been with him for five years. He was the kind of guy who’d make a huge fuss about Park Songhu changing if he so much as picked up his spoon with his left hand.
Besides... wasn’t Jo Yonggi rumored inside the company to have Stockholm syndrome?
The fact that he had survived five years under Park Songhu was hard to explain otherwise.
‘Still, one thing was kind of interesting.’
On the day the <Scene & Cut> interview ended, Han Seungryeol had personally called Park Songhu.
Since he oversaw JH’s entire actor division, he needed to start paying attention to Park Songhu now that he had returned.
So he called to check in, and Han Seungryeol had flinched.
The voice on the other end was definitely Park Songhu’s, but something about the texture was different.
‘His whole atmosphere softened. Almost like he suddenly became a loser.’
You could feel it even through his voice.
And then, at the end, he actually said “thank you.”
That was the first time Han Seungryeol had ever witnessed Park Songhu voluntarily use the word thanks.
‘...Still too early to tell.’
If people changed that easily, this industry wouldn’t work the way it did.
Han Seungryeol glanced at the two actors.
“You know Park Songhu’s coming today, right?”
“Yes, to the lounge...”
“I’m going too. You guys are going, aren’t you?”
“Ah, we were just going to get some coffee...”
“Cut the bullshit. Just don’t stare openly.”
When they reached the lounge, Han Seungryeol took a table near the coffee bar.
Far enough away to be unobtrusive, but close enough to faintly hear the conversation.
A perfect spot to spread out some documents and pretend to work.
The actors took the next table and ordered lattes.
“Act natural.”
Han Seungryeol warned in a low voice.
“Yes.”
“And don’t stare.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You never know what Park Songhu might say if he notices.”
“...”
***
JH Entertainment lounge.
Park Songmin arrived with Jo Yonggi.
He had felt countless gazes on him from the moment he entered the building.
‘Please, nobody talk to me...’
He lowered his head and walked quickly.
The lounge was spacious and comfortable.
Sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling windows, with sofas and tables placed throughout.
There was a staffed coffee bar near the entrance, and the seats became more private farther inside.
CEO Baek Hoseon was sitting on a sofa toward the back.
Several scripts were laid out on the table.
“Oh, Songhu. Sit.”
‘He’s here.’
Chief Han Seungryeol was sipping an Americano.
He had documents spread in front of him, but hadn’t turned a single page.
At the table beside him, several agency actors were sitting in a row, and somehow there was one more than before.
‘...Why are there so many people here at this hour? Don’t any of them have work to do...?’
Cold sweat began forming on Park Songmin’s back.
He had no idea they were all there because of him.
“I’ll get straight to the point.”
Baek Hoseon gestured toward the table.
“You’ve received offers for your comeback project.”
Five scripts were spread out like a fan.
“To be honest, no lead roles yet. Since you don’t exactly have an image as a skilled actor, I think the industry is still skeptical. And your public image hasn’t completely recovered yet either.”
Baek Hoseon didn’t sugarcoat it.
“But one notable thing is that these offers came to us first without us even circulating your profile.”
“...”
“That wasn’t common even before your fall from grace.”
“...That’s right.”
Absolutely.
“Since your comeback, the flow has been good so far. Which means what you choose here will determine where things go next. Whether you climb higher, or stay where you are.”
Originally, this meeting wouldn’t have existed.
Baek Hoseon was someone who never gave Park Songhu a choice when it came to projects.
The reason was simple.
Every project Park Songhu personally brought in saying he wanted to do it had bombed, and whenever Baek Hoseon loosened the reins, he created trouble.
So for years, he had eliminated the choices entirely.
Yet now he had spread five scripts across the table and was asking, “What do you want to do?”
It was also a test of sorts.
He wanted to see what the supposedly changed Park Songhu would choose.
‘What he picks today will decide whether I let Park Songhu choose his own projects from now on.’
Park Songmin looked down at the scripts.
Honestly, artistic quality or character depth didn’t matter to him in this moment.
He was searching for one thing.
Filming period.
The shortest one.
The one that would end fastest.
Park Songmin was terrified simply standing in front of people.
He was the kind of person who belonged shut in a room writing novels.
Whenever he stood in front of a camera, his heart felt like it would explode, his mind went blank, his palms sweated, and his legs gave out.
Just remembering how sweaty his hand had been when shaking Actor Yoo Yeonjae’s hand on the <Hwain> set made his face burn.
He quickly skimmed the scripts.
At the same time, he was assessing their thickness.
He assumed that the thinner the script, the shorter the filming period.
‘This one’s a little thicker.’
Then something at the edge of his vision caught his eye.
One script sat slightly apart from the five arranged like a fan.
Half-buried under Baek Hoseon’s pile of documents at the corner of the table.
‘That one looks really thin.’
“Could I look at the one over there too...?”
Baek Hoseon followed his gaze.
“Ah, that one wasn’t offered to you. It came to the company. The production side asked us to attach a suitable actor.”
A so-called casting request.
Instead of making an offer to a specific actor, the production company sent the script to a management agency and asked them to connect any suitable actor on their roster.
“Well, there’s no harm in looking.”
Baek Hoseon pulled it out and handed it over.
The cover was simple.
White lettering on black.
<The Weight of Ash>
Park Songmin quickly skimmed the synopsis.
The story of a young day laborer barely surviving in a tiny-room village on the outskirts of Seoul.
A man with no family, no friends, no future, whose life changes when he meets a young girl in the exact same situation.
‘...This actually sounds kind of like me. I lived alone in a tiny studio for years too.’
Then he found the estimated filming period.
...It was the shortest of all of them!
“I’ll do this one.”
Baek Hoseon’s eyebrow rose.
“<The Weight of Ash>...?”
“Yes.”
...Why was he looking at him like that?
“You know who the director is, right?”
“...?”
“This project has been delayed for over three years because he hasn’t found an actor who fits the character... and you’re saying you want to challenge this? It wasn’t even sent specifically for you.”
“...”
Only then did Park Songmin check the director’s name.
“!”
...Jung Jaeseung, the legendary director!
‘Holy shit, what is with that ambition?’
Han Seungryeol and everyone else eavesdropping on the conversation couldn’t hide their shock.
Every one of them had their mouths hanging open.
Then Jo Yonggi spoke with an expression of sudden understanding.
“...Songhu hyung’s gotten confident in his acting lately. That’s probably why.”
Baek Hoseon looked at him proudly and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Good. You’ll probably have to audition for this one.”
“...”
“Yeah. I like that attitude, Songhu.”
“...”
He had accidentally chosen the hardest possible road.
The Genius Actor Is Hiding Twins