Chapter 1
Three years ago, around that time, the worst things in Haein’s life started happening one after another.
“Watch out for men!”
Haein had been working as a drama assistant writer for six years, and all she wanted to know was when she’d finally get her shot at debuting. With the contest results looming and her anxiety spiking to a fever pitch, she’d gone to see a fortune teller.
“Ma’am, I’m not here about my love life.”
“You’re going to get caught up in a scandal because of a man, miss.”
The place was supposedly insanely accurate—that was the word among the broadcasting crowd—so she’d tagged along with a friend. But it looked like they’d come to the wrong shaman. Sensing Haein’s foul temper starting to swell, her friend jumped in first.
“Ma’am, my friend here works in broadcasting. The contest results are coming out any day now. Is that going to go well for her?”
“Hmm.”
The shaman stared at Haein’s face, clearly displeased. Then she tsked—rude as anything—and shook her head.
“I told you to watch out for men. Your work’s going to tank because of a man, and you’re going to get dragged into some ugly mess because of a man. For now, don’t so much as speak to one!”
Ultimately, the root of the problem was men, men, and men.
Haein had been on edge to begin with, and she left the fortune teller’s in an even worse mood. She felt like she’d just been branded some man-crazy slut.
“How am I supposed to not talk to men when I’ve got a whole squad of assholes at the network already on my case?”
As it was, the producers, showrunners, and writers who made Haein’s life hell were all men.
“What, should I quit working too? Change my gender while I’m at it?”
On top of that, her sex drive was on another level. When work wore her down, and the stress piled up, she’d blow it off with sex. Not with anyone in the industry, of course—just talking to those people was more than enough. She wouldn’t give them a second glance.
And at some point, even that had stopped doing the trick, more often than not. Haein got prickly, like someone had walked in on her most private moment. She wasn’t ashamed of liking sex, but it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to broadcast to a stranger, either.
“Aw, Haein. Let’s just go grab a drink somewhere! Forget the fortune fee—this unni’s buying, and I mean the good stuff.”
Mina, who’d tried so hard to line up a good reading for her, watched Haein’s face carefully.
“Wanna hit a club? A club?”
On a normal day, she’d head straight to a club and start scouting for a decent-looking guy. On days when her head got this crowded with junk, nothing cleared it out like a good, satisfying round of sex.
But Haein was too rattled to bother.
“Nah, I want to go home. I feel hollow. I just want some of my mom’s cooking.”
“Hey, it’s going to work out. I’ve read hundreds of scripts—contest entries, broadcast pitches, all of it. This one of yours is really going to land, so quit worrying.”
“Thanks. Still, it was nice getting some fresh air, thanks to you, Mina.”
Haein pulled the apologetic Mina into a big hug. The walk home felt unbearably heavy.
It was early fall, the summer heat not quite gone, and Haein didn’t head inside until a long, long walk had left her sticky with sweat.
* * *
The world really was brutally cold.
“Going to get my fortune read when I don’t even believe in that stuff—that was my first mistake.”
‘You have not been selected for the 12th Studio Lion Screenplay Contest. We hope to work with you on a stronger project in the future.’
It was her fifth rejection already. By now, not making it wasn’t even news.
Haein sat alone in the cafe where she worked, reading the words that carried the bad news over and over. No matter how many times she refreshed the page, the status remained the same: ‘Applicant: Oh Haein’ and ‘Rejected.’
“What am I going to tell Mom and Dad?”
Her parents had vehemently opposed her decision to pursue a career as a drama writer, especially since she had already been accepted into a major corporation.
Mom, just three years! I’ll debut within five at the very latest, I swear. I’ll do whatever you and Dad want—go back to job hunting, get kicked out of the house, whatever. Can’t you please just wait that long? If I give up now, I think I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
Back then, Haein had been certain she’d regret it to death if she didn’t write. Every character and story that came out of her kept knocking at her chest, and she couldn’t let the dream go.
Ever since she was a kid, Haein had been told she had a gift for writing more times than she could count. She was getting a later start than most, sure, but she’d figured three years would be enough. She knew that even her parents, who’d been against it, had trusted her and waited—because she was the daughter who could pull off anything she set her mind to.
But the world wasn’t that fair, or that smooth.
“Excuse me. I’d like to order.”
A customer’s voice pulled Haein’s wandering mind back into place.
The fallout would hit her later, but for now it was better to keep moving. She’d lucked out that the cafe job she’d picked up to scrape by after ending her miserable assistant-writer days actually suited her pretty well.
When things finally slowed down, Haein checked her phone. Ten missed calls, all from Mina.
“Heeey, Mina.”
—“Hey—fuck! Seriously!”
“Girl, you swear at me like that, you don’t think I’m gonna jump?”
Mina, who normally couldn’t even manage a curse word, was cussing with real bite today. She’d obviously seen the contest results too.
Grateful for the friend blowing up on her behalf, Haein kept it light.
—“Haein, do you have any idea how unbelievable this is right now? Jang Seokwoo—is he actually out of his mind?”
“What’s Deadwood’s deal this time? Him throwing a fit is hardly breaking news.”
Jang Seokwoo, hailed as a giant of action-thriller writing, had a temper so unpredictable that he’d earned the resentment of PDs and assistant writers alike.
And that wasn’t the half of it. He’d been Haein’s last mentor—supposedly—and the man who’d left her with nothing but the worst memories of her assistant-writer days. “Oh Haein, if you’re going to write garbage like this and tarnish up my work, go sell your body somewhere. That’d get you to chaebol status a whole lot faster.”
The female characters Jang Seokwoo wrote had even been praised for being in step with the times, but in reality he handed out outdated, sexist remarks like a reflex—and sexual harassment along with them. The reputation he enjoyed had been built by the assistant writers he’d ground into dust.
Haein was one of the ones who’d stormed out on him, silently swearing he’d regret it.
—“His next project was such a piece of shit they scrapped the whole thing, and then he lands a broadcast slot with a brand-new manuscript, right? Wow. I knew he was trash, but how could he do this to you?”
A chill crept over Haein, and she went quiet. Into the silence dropped a bombshell.
—“That bastard ripped off everything you submitted to the contest!”
For a second, her vision went white.
* * *
The moment she heard the news from Mina, Haein headed straight for Studio Lion headquarters.
They said that when a person got angry past the breaking point, they only turned colder, and that was exactly right. Her head had gone ice-cold while her chest burned.
With murder in her eyes, even the staff who used to nod hello to her back when she worked there couldn’t bring themselves to say a word.
“Writer Jang, this one’s going to be another hit, isn’t it? The story was good.”
“We’ll see once we actually run with it. Director Choi, throw some weight behind the casting. I’ve been liking that Ahn Woohyun kid lately.”
“It’s your script, Writer Jang. Of course I’ll look after it. Book us a room somewhere—it’s been a while.”
“I’ll have them line up the prettiest aces they’ve got.”
Haein stepped straight into the middle of that nauseating conversation.
“Writer Jang Seokwoo.”
“…Oh Haein, you still hanging around here? What is this, you delivering coffee now? Look at you—that’s actually pretty funny. Suits you, kid.”
Rage had wiped her mind so clean she’d walked over still wearing her cafe apron, and that had become the joke. Haein wanted to drive her fist through every one of Writer Jang’s teeth as he grinned around his vape.
“I heard you got a new broadcast slot.”
“Why, you looking to come back as my assistant? Hey, once you’re out, you’re out. Plenty of people are dying to work under me besides you.”
He jabbed at Haein’s forehead with his index finger, again and again. Each time her head snapped back, she ground her molars raw.
“Why would I come back as your assistant? You’re the one who should be working under me.”
“What? What the hell are you on about?”
“Does it feel good, taking someone else’s work under the excuse of judging it, then landing a broadcast slot off it?”
Haein hurled the words out, dragging the breath up from the pit of her stomach—loud as a soldier bellowing on a parade ground.
Director Choi, who already knew about Writer Jang’s plagiarism, glanced around to gauge the reactions, and employees passing by and people in the conference room began poking their heads out, one by one.
Haein had assumed Writer Jang, who prized his reputation above all else, would drag her somewhere out of sight to cut a deal.
“Ah-hahaha!”
Instead, Writer Jang doubled over, clutching his stomach, crooked teeth bared as he roared with laughter. Then, just like that, the laugh died. He walked off and came back with a wad of paper.
Haein knew exactly what it was: a screenplay that had made it to the final round, missed the cut, and been thrown out.
And of course, the one he’d brought had Haein’s name on it.
THUD!
He dumped the last of his coffee over the script where it had landed at her feet.