Chapter 54
Seoul, Korea
NuStarr Talent Management Headquarters
Associate Producer Si Seung sat in Chairman Hu’s office, waiting for his response. He was, once again, sent to deliver bad news to Chairman Hu from On the Moon Swing Love’s Producer Ha Min Ki.
What Producer Ha was demanding now was just rude and uncalled for, and it didn’t sit right with the young Associate Producer. Subjecting Myo Mi-Sun to the red carpet for the movie premier of her ex-fiancé that left her at the altar was a new low, in his opinion.
Chairman Hu looked at the invitation, one he knew his niece would grudgingly agree to accept, but at what cost? Her heart was already broken by Gang Moon, and now they wanted her to smile pretty on the red carpet at he and Gok Soo’s, the woman he left her for, movie premier?!
If Producer Ha Min Ki wasn’t careful, Chairman Hu would bring war to his front door.
“What is Ha Min Ki up to?” Jae asked at length, tossing the invitation on his desk.
Si Seung shook his head. “Sir, I don’t know. He was not happy I came back without the contract revisions signed. But this is different. He’s in a mood, bad fortune has come his way and this is his attempt to strike a blow, I fear.”
“What bad fortune has befallen him this time?”
He looked around to make sure they were alone still; it was after-hours and even the cleaning staff didn’t stay that late.
“Gang Moon and Gok Soo’s movie, the reviews for it are bad. Very bad,” Si Seung said in a rush. “So bad in fact, Producer Ha had to involve the legal team to prevent the reviews from being published! Bad editing, poor sound production, special effects that are amateurish at best, and the script left much to be desired and heavily relied on Gang Moon and Gok Soo to improvise.”
Jae laughed. “I see where the problem lies, in more ways than one. Gang Moon cannot improvise a line to save his life and Gok Soo can barely remember her own lines let alone make them up as she goes. Let me guess, Producer Ha blew the budget on their salaries and it left production scrambling to figure out how to do it with very little resources?”
Si Seung nodded. “So it seems. I haven’t seen the movie myself, but how irate Producer Ha was after the test screening I deduced it was very bad. Another box office bomb will ruin the production company!” he said in a rush.
“Calm down,” Jae scolded with a chuckle. “It won’t ruin the production company. Though, it will force them to cut the source of the loss so they stop bleeding money. I don’t approve of using Myo Mi-Sun as tabloid fodder on the red carpet simply to distract the public from a box office bomb. That isn’t fair to her, but I’ll let her decide. They can’t force her to go, especially to something tied to the very people that humiliated her in front of the nation and world. I will talk to her about it though.”
He bowed. “Of course. Thank you. Perhaps Myo Mi-Sun can bring her new boyfriend as a date, to show the world that she has moved on,” he suggested.
Jae gave him a look. “Boyfriend?”
“Yes, the man she was photographed with… You haven’t seen the photos,” Si Seung surmised. “I’m so sorry, Sir,” he said, bowing. “I… It’s most likely just gossip and nothing more. Friends that were dancing at midnight is completely normal thing that friends do…” his words trailed off. “Sorry.”
Jae fought to keep his temper in check. “Thank you for the information and heads up on this,” he said, tapping the invitation to the premier. “If there is nothing else, I have some calls to make.”
Si Seung got to his feet and bowed before hurrying from the office, closing the door behind him.
“What did you do now?” he asked, pulling up Ong Se-Ri’s gossip blog on his laptop.
Tacky and tasteless headlines putting into question Myo Mi-Sun’s mental well-being and propriety about being drunk and lewd in public were in bold fonts across the page.
“I expect more from you, Se-Ri,” Jae mumbled, reading through the scathing article that was obviously hastily put together and not edited properly.
On the front page were pictures of his niece smiling and dancing, laughing and just having a good time. She was barefooted and looked as if she had too much fun with her hair disheveled and clothing wrinkled. Jae wasn’t familiar with where the pictures were taken, but he was familiar with the man she was dancing and smiling with, and that was smiling just as much as she was.
“That is not what I am paying you for!” Jae snarled, slamming his fist down on the desk.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
“We are taking care of it, Chairman Hu,” Lula said; there was only one thing that would cause him to phone her at that hour, and it was something she had only seen herself thirty-minutes ago. “Our best tech guy is working on it and if you hit reload you’ll see what he was able to do.”
Jae was suspicious, but did as instructed.
When he reloaded the page, the article was still there but the pictures were slightly different; the face of the man wasn’t the one that it just was. It was someone else’s face that was slightly blurred so they weren’t entirely clear, but he knew it wasn’t the man he put his niece’s care and well-being in the hands of.
“That doesn’t solve the problem!” Jae snapped at her. “Merely changing the face from your brother to a stranger isn’t helping her reputation, it only saves yours!”
Lula took a deep breath, as if she was trying to keep her temper in check. “Sir, pulling the article will cause it to be posted all over again, and it will alert the reporter that we are keeping tabs on her and that we are onto them. This way, the person in the photos will only point back to a date. Nothing more and nothing less. They even ironed out her disheveled clothing and smoothed down her hair. The original photos on their system have been replaced with the altered ones. The man, he is a friend that will assist with this development until it has passed.”
Jae didn’t know what to think about this; he doesn’t like the idea of his niece being used as tabloid fodder, again, but that was exactly what Producer Ha was going to do…
He picked up the invitation to the premier. “Your friend, is he in Seoul by chance?” he asked with a smirk.
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