May It Be a Dream, May It Not Be a Dream

[Exclusive] Actress Song Hwa-young breaks through 2000:1 audition odds! Snags female lead in Hollywood co-production.

Front-page articles aggressively flooded the internet. For days, her name dominated the real-time search charts, refusing to budge from the top rankings.

Eun-jae stared blankly at the actress’s photo accompanying the article. It was an audition she had applied for herself; in fact, Hwa-young had been in the exact same casting group, auditioning right alongside her.

From the very beginning, Hwa-young had looked like someone dragged there against her will. She remained completely lukewarm throughout the entire process, hadn’t properly prepared her monologue, and delivered a disastrous performance even with the designated script.

Yet, against the staggering odds of 2,000 to 1, it was Hwa-young who was chosen as the leading lady. As the granddaughter of J Airlines and a VVIP at Club M, she was already notorious in the industry as the ultimate flower of the “sponsor” world, rumored to change partners constantly.

“Haaah.”

Eun-jae let out a heavy sigh. She had marched toward her dream without letting anything shake her, but at times like this, her resolve didn’t just waver—it felt as though her entire willpower was crashing to the floor. No matter how much praise she received for her acting in the audition room, or how many looks of approval she garnered for fitting the character’s image perfectly, the ones who ultimately passed were always the ones with money and backing. Just like now.

It wasn’t something she had experienced only once or twice. She had been through it so many times she ran out of fingers to count them on.

‘Let’s not get hurt anymore.’ No matter how many times she reinforced that vow, a bitter taste of defeat left her heartbroken every single time she was eliminated. To someone who possessed absolutely nothing, the entertainment industry loomed like an insurmountable, colossal wall.

“You say you don’t have a sponsor or a backer? Then I’ll be your sponsor, your backer.”

Suddenly, Woo-gyeom’s words flashed through her mind. His voice—which she had briefly forgotten, or rather, had intentionally suppressed to avoid dwelling on it—echoed vividly in her ears.

Eun-jae desperately tried to force her thoughts elsewhere as she fit her key into the lock and pushed open the heavy door.

Creak. The rust-red door made an unpleasant sound as it gave way inward. Eun-jae stepped over the high threshold into her home.

Her bag dropped heavily to the floor. The cheap faux leather was already worn out and discolored from long use.

“I know perfectly well it was just an empty remark, so why make a joke sound so incredibly genuine?”

The brilliant G-brand dress she had worn at the commercial set seemed to overlap visually with her discarded bag. Shaking her head to dispel the image, Eun-jae fumbled for the switch by memory and flipped it on. As the dark room lit up, the raw reality of her tiny home was laid bare.

It was a space barely spanning thirty-six square meters. Even that was on a monthly lease, though it was still a step up from the semi-basement apartment she had lived in a few years ago.

“I’m home,” Eun-jae offered a gentle greeting to the empty house. It was her small way of comforting herself.

Eun-jae had been an orphan her entire life. There wasn’t a single definitive piece of information to tell her whether her parents had passed away or simply abandoned her. The only things she knew for certain were her name and an arbitrary birthday assigned to her by the orphanage that first took her in.

Even though Eun-jae had never once seen her parents’ faces, people would constantly blabber on under the guise of a compliment, claiming her parents must have possessed exceptional looks. Admittedly, she had benefited quite a bit from those looks before reaching adulthood. The children at the orphanage all envied her, and every adult seemed to adore her.

However, the exact moment Eun-jae turned of age and stripped away her minor status, the gazes surrounding her shifted—as if they had been waiting for that very moment.

As she neared the legal adult age, she had to leave the orphanage and become independent. When she did, the kind adults who had once stepped forward volunteering to protect her suddenly began viewing her as a woman. In severe cases, they even attempted to lay hands on her.

The moment she realized that the people she thought were warm-hearted all harbored insidious hidden motives, Eun-jae found herself unable to trust anyone. Consequently, she naturally came to feel more comfortable in a moldy, single-room apartment as long as it was a space where she could be completely alone. She believed it was only right to earn clean money, even if it meant working three part-time jobs a day without a single moment of rest.

That belief held true even now. Even though her circumstances were unfavorable and she had recklessly chosen to chase a dream of becoming an actress, she wanted to achieve that dream through righteous means—despite the fact that doing so should have been a given in the first place.

The very first thing Eun-jae always did upon returning home was turn her bag upside down and empty it out. Business cards—which she couldn’t bring herself to throw onto the streets and had stuffed into her bag instead whenever she walked through public spaces—showered out in abundance today as well.

There were several cards from road managers of other agencies who didn’t even know who she was, and significantly more from managers of high-end bars. Though they were mere business cards, they were inscribed with looping, cursive handwriting that snaked around as if tempting a person straight into a pit of pleasure.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Eun-jae swept the pile of cards into the trash can.

“Hand them out a hundred more times, I am absolutely never doing it!”

Contrary to her firm tone, Eun-jae wore a sorrowful expression. Even though it was a routine occurrence, it still cut deep.

Ding-dong.

Simultaneously, the phone inside her bag chimed.

Could it be a project offer? With a trembling heart, Eun-jae pulled out her phone. Despite feeling deeply upset about what had transpired at the set, she hoped the message was from Dong-hyun, her sole connection to the industry.

However, what awaited her was an even greater wave of disappointment and despair than before. The hand holding the phone dropped limply to her side.

[Hello, Lee Eun-jae-ssi. If you have any intention of taking on a sponsor, please contact this number.]

It was a sponsor solicitation text—something she had completely forgotten about since they had become infrequent lately. She had long stopped wondering how they managed to obtain her number and name. Initially, she had been terrified enough to report them and inform Dong-hyun, but his reaction had been entirely indifferent. That indifference only made the situation feel more sinister.

Eun-jae immediately pressed the spam report button. While doing so wouldn’t bring any real punishment upon them, it was the absolute limit of what she could do.

“Just how long is this going to…” Eun-jae murmured like a dazed person, staring blankly at the business cards filling her trash can.

A single sponsor text—which she usually deleted without a second thought—suddenly brought the entire day’s events crashing down on her like a tidal wave. The emotions she had been rigidly suppressing erupted in an instant. The memory of Dong-hyun’s furious face and the tiny bikini clutched in his hand caused a profound sorrow to well up inside her.

“Why me…”

The words she had consistently held back—believing that uttering them aloud would be tantamount to admitting her own wretched misfortune—threatened to burst out.

“No, it’s fine. It’s okay!”

Instead of finishing her sentence, Eun-jae bit her lip hard, forcing the rising words back down into her depths. She rubbed her eyes roughly with the back of her hand as if they were merely itchy; she refused to waste her tears on people like that.

She wished this entire reality was nothing more than a drama script. She thought it would be wonderful if this situation could simply end like a performance captured within a single frame. Swallowing her tears once more, Eun-jae endured another day.

Bzzzzz.

From early morning, the phone vibrated frantically.

Typically, phone calls were a rarity; Dong-hyun’s calls comprised the vast majority of them, and even those were usually for administrative matters rather than schedules. But this morning was entirely different.

Eun-jae, who had drifted off to sleep right where she had collapsed on the floor the previous night, pulled herself up from her awkward position. Although her schedule yesterday had consisted entirely of a single aborted commercial shoot, a lingering fatigue left her entire body aching.

“What is it this early in the morning?”

Barely managing to open her eyes, Eun-jae mumbled as she fumbled around the floor. Snatching up the phone she had tossed nearby, she turned on the screen.

Over a hundred text messages had arrived.

“What on earth is all this?”

She snapped completely awake. Fearing she might have unknowingly committed a critical blunder or that this was the catastrophic fallout of yesterday’s incident, Eun-jae spun a web of negative scenarios before finally checking the contents.

More than half were messages filled with pure curiosity, while a few were a mix of intrigue and congratulations from a handful of acquaintances.

“Delight?”

Furthermore, every single message contained that one common word.

“There’s no way. That’s absolutely impossible.”

Uttering the words flatly, Eun-jae immediately brought up a browser screen. Before she could even type in a search query, Delight appeared on the real-time trending charts. Right below it, her own name appeared in succession.

– Rookie Actress Lee Eun-jae signs exclusive contract with top-three entertainment giant ‘Delight’! – Who is rookie actress Lee Eun-jae, newly signed to ‘Delight’—famous as Lee Se-hun’s agency?

“What in the world does this… Those words were real?”

Eun-jae didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She sat there completely frozen with an ambiguous expression, entirely unable to take any action.

Right on cue, her phone rang. It was Dong-hyun.

As a rookie actress with very little work, she usually welcomed Dong-hyun’s calls. Today, however, she couldn’t bring herself to answer easily. While Eun-jae sat staring dazed at the device, the ringing stopped. The number of missed calls next to Dong-hyun’s name ticked up by one.

“What should I do?”

Should she call him back, or simply pretend she hadn’t seen it? In the middle of weighing a bold dilemma she would never normally consider, the phone rang once more.

This time, it was an unknown number.

It was a tiring routine. Normally she would have shut it off instantly, but today, an strange sensation washed over her. Her hesitation was brief. She swiped the answer button immediately. Only a quiet breath echoed through the line.

“Hello?”

- Lee Eun-jae-ssi?

Even though the voice traveled through a mere phone speaker, it carried an immense sense of gravity. The voice, laced with a hint of sharp irritability, possessed a deep, resonant undertone.

Intimidated as if entirely overwhelmed by it, Eun-jae asked cautiously.

“CEO Kim Woo-gyeom?”

- I didn't expect you to recognize me by voice alone.

“Were those words yesterday… truly genuine?”

- Did you honestly take them for an empty remark?

“But I don’t do sponsors…”

- In this business, the agency is the sponsor. What exactly do you think a sponsor is? I have zero interest in charity work.

“Excuse me?”

- I have no intention of running a charity, which means I expect you to execute your role as an actress perfectly, Lee Eun-jae-ssi. Otherwise, I end up completely humiliated.

There wasn’t a trace of amusement in Woo-gyeom’s voice. He was delivering what was fundamentally a request, yet framed strictly as a warning.

An agency and a sponsor.

Eun-jae hesitated at the unfamiliar pairing. She found herself asking in return.

“Why me?”

In truth, it made no sense to her. Even if it had been an empty remark, she belonged to a class of people who never expected to hear such words in the first place.

Having asked the question reflexively out of sheer bewilderment, Eun-jae became flustered by her own boldness. She fidgeted anxiously, barely managing to moisten her dry lips.

A suffocating silence ensued.

Because Woo-gyeom offered no answer, Eun-jae’s anxiety spiked. Shaking her head frantically, she retracted her previous question.

“Never mind! I just said it without thinking, so you don’t need to pay it any mind!”

- I am currently looking for that reason myself.

“What?”

- Why it has to be Lee Eun-jae-ssi.

The words weren’t exactly directed at her. Woo-gyeom’s quiet murmur, sounding almost like a thought spoken aloud to himself, struck her ears with a strange intensity. Hearing her own name slip from his lips felt distinctly dangerous.

Another silence stretched out. Feeling compelled to say something—anything—Eun-jae shut her eyes tight and spoke.

“I will work my absolute hardest. I look forward to working with you!”

- You certainly should, naturally.

For the first time, a faint trace of laughter caught on the edge of Woo-gyeom’s words—exceedingly low, exceedingly deep.

With that, the call disconnected. It was a brief, clean exchange where both parties stated only their intended business.

Yet, Eun-jae remained seated blankly, her phone still clutched in her hand. An unfamiliar eleven-digit number and a call duration of just a few minutes were clearly displayed on the screen.

“If this is a dream, please don’t let me wake up,” Eun-jae murmured to herself. Yesterday, when she had desperately wished it was all a dream, and today, when she desperately hoped it wasn’t, stood in stark, vivid contrast.

Eun-jae collapsed face-first into her blankets. The moment she lay down, the phone began to ring relentlessly once more. She snapped her head up. Dong-hyun’s name flashed continuously across the screen.

With a definitive movement, Eun-jae flipped the phone face down.

A tiny act of rebellion—ignoring Dong-hyun’s call—and that small detail alone caused the corners of her lips to curve upward into a faint smile. Her heart felt volatile yet strangely at peace. It was a bizarre feeling.