Life, Once Again!

After Story 92

“Please wait a moment. The president usually handles exclusive contracts himself. He said he’ll be here soon, so please wait for just a little as you drink this.”

Maru received the cup and spoke, “Please don’t mind me and do your work.”

The hesitant employee eventually closed the door to the guest room and left. Maru looked at the foggy yellow drink in the cup before putting it against his mouth. It seemed like some kind of tea with a fruity smell added on top of a green tea base.

When he kept sipping on it, he found himself finishing it in no time. He wanted to know what brand of tea this was.

He reached out to the shelf to his left. There were various magazines ranging from news topics to culture. He grabbed a random one, and it was a travel magazine. When he went past the ads at the front, he saw an article written by the head editor. It was an article about how traveling on bikes is such a taxing thing, written with some jokes. The writing was good, and it made him read without looking at the passage of time.

“Sorry to make you wait.” Junmin opened the door and came in.

He was wearing a navy blue jacket and a white t-shirt with a round neck. He had a young fashion style that couldn’t be seen from someone nearing sixty. It seemed that Junmin was at the epitome of self-management even in this life.

“Thinking of going traveling?” Junmin said as he sat down.

Maru closed the magazine. “If I have the leisure.”

“Personally, traveling is most fun if you go without any time or money. If you have room, it might be more comfortable, but it might be lacking on the fun side.”

“I personally prefer enjoying a relaxing stay at a hotel.”

“At your age, don’t you dream about going overseas with a single backpack? People around your age prefer guest houses over hotels. I recently found out that people use their personal houses to run lodging businesses. One of our employees rented someone’s house in San Francisco and went on a tour there.”

“Such romantic aspects are good too, but each of the things you have to do is an obstacles. If you look closely, being romantic might be synonymous with going through hardships. I’ll choose to sleep quietly on a comfy bed.”

“Actually, that is for the best.”

Junmin gave him the file that he brought with him.

“Call it a jinx, if you will, but I found that signing the contract here usually makes the actor do well and not run into accidents. I don’t believe in god or any other religion, but as a businessman, I ended up following old habits.”

“There’s no need to change what’s perfectly fine.”

“Are you religious, Mr. Maru?”

“I’m not religious, but I do think that god exists. Oh, that doesn’t mean that I believe in him though.”

“You admit the existence of god but don’t believe in him?”

“Yes. I feel like I’m making losses if I do. If things go well, it’s my effort. If things go bad, then it’s my fault. That just makes things easier for me.”

“You’re similar to me in that regard.”

“It’s not fun to think that someone you don’t know the face or name of is dictating your life.”

Maru opened the file. He saw two copies of the exclusive contract. He took one out of the file and had a closer look.

“If I leave aside the normal stuff and talk about the important things, the exclusive contract period will be 5 years and the contract deposit will be 50 million. The revenue split will be 70-30. You will take 70, Mr. Maru. When it comes to sales distribution, every profit made through your activities as an actor will be split according to that ratio between you and the agency after deducting expenses. As for expenses, it refers to everything that requires money while the actor works.”

“Managers, styling, makeup, fuel, meals, lodging, profiling, and the like, I see.”

“Yes, those kinds of things.”

“Taxes arising from the profits will be on the actor, right?”

The other clauses were all in accordance with the norms of the industry. The contract deposit though, was slightly large considering that it was for a new recruit. Considering that many agencies signed the contracts without any form of deposit, it could be seen how much JA Entertainment treated their new actors.

The most important thing was tax. Most of the time, new actors made less than 10 million won per year, so there was no need to worry about taxes. In fact, with some proper procedures, the actor might receive tax refunds. The problem was when the profit went over a certain point.

According to the tax rates, once the money earned was in the hundreds of millions, the NTS, National Tax Service, would take more than the agency.

It might look like he was thinking too far ahead into the future, but since he had the knowledge, he couldn’t help but be meticulous. Haneul also took this into consideration, which was the reason she gave up on the exclusive contract fee and reduced the contract period. With the confidence to grow big, it was much more beneficial to reduce the contract period.

“Usually, that’s how it’s handled.”

Maru nodded. He had already made the decision anyway. As long as there weren’t any malicious clauses in the contract, he was going to sign the contract without a second thought.

JA Entertainment, that is, Lee Junmin was worth doing so.

He recalled back to his previous life. He actually offered 300 million won to a person like this. It was rather funny that Junmin even accepted it.

“Is there a problem?”

He chuckled due to thinking about the old times. Junmin asked because he saw his expression.

“I just remembered what happened to someone I know. President, what would you do if a new actor who has nothing on him wants you to buy his time for 300 million?”

“If it’s someone I’ve taken a liking to, I will listen to him. Then I’ll contemplate whether that fellow is worth the 300 million or not.”

“If you find the value in it, would you give it to him?”

“Sure. It’s not a problem since I can just make more off him later. Do you also want 300 million won?”

Maru smiled and shook his head. Back then, the 300 million won he received wasn’t something he got after proving his worth. It was the price of selling his time. It was a guarantee for fully throwing himself into acting. He was in a different situation back then.

Maru got ready to take out his name stamp and read the last page. Clauses related to contracts were laid out, and at the end was the clause about tax. He leaned forward and read the tax clause at the end once again. He thought he had read wrong, but he didn’t.

“This tax clause at the end. This isn’t a typo, is it?”

“Why, unsatisfied?”

“No, it’s way too good that I’m doubting it.”

Taxes weren’t handled by the actor. Under a certain amount, the actor was required to pay the taxes, but as the tax rates increased, there were parts that the agency would pay in the actor’s stead.

This was a method that agencies used when they didn’t want to miss top stars. Either they would adjust the revenue split to 90:10, or 100:0 in extreme cases, or pay a portion of the actor’s taxes.

“I might not be able to give you profit immediately, but the more I earn, the more the company will lose.”

“It will not be a loss if you become an actor recognized by everyone, Mr. Maru. It’s true that an actor’s guarantee in their work is one of the forms of income for JA, but that’s not all. There are many more cases where the actor’s name value becomes much more desirable. Investors look at the names of the actors affiliated with JA, not the title of JA itself.”

“I do know that to a certain extent, but I didn’t know you’d include this clause for a new actor.”

“I have to give the proper treatment if I want to grab hold of a good actor. Now then, what would you do? It’s okay even if you take it home and read through it a little more.”

Maru put the two copies of the contract together and spoke, “I see no need to wait. I want this company to get a hold of me.”

He took out his stamp from his pocket. These conditions were much better than he had initially anticipated. He was even worried that the contract might be changed here.

“Let us fill the gaps before the stamping process.”

Junmin smiled and gave him a pen. Maru put down the stamp he clenched in his hand and grabbed the pen.

* * *

“It’s really cold.”

Seungah gathered her hands together and blew warm air into them. As there was news about the worst cold in winter in many years, she felt like everything from her toes to her hair was going to freeze. Had she known that thing would be like this, she would’ve packed some hot packs beforehand.

“Hey hey! Catch him.”

Jichan, who was running outside the restaurant, fell on top of the pavement. Seungah, who was watching, covered her mouth. The production staff all rushed out and looked at how Jichan was doing.

“It’s okay, I didn’t fall over that hard,” Jichan said as he showed them his hand, which had gotten cut.

Director Cha shouted to put more sand on the ground.

The shoot halted for a moment.

Seungah got on her tiptoes and looked at Jichan surrounded by the staff members. He was getting ointment and a band-aid put on him.

“Director. This won’t look that off, will it?” Jichan asked as he showed the band-aid on his palm.

“It shouldn’t matter. But are you really okay?”

“Of course. I’ve fallen over on stage many times, so this much is nothing.”

“You aren’t holding back even though it hurts, are you? It’ll be much bigger trouble if it turns out that you got a fractured bone or something and it swells up later. You can go to the hospital now since it’ll become much more troublesome later.”

“I’m really okay. I’m a real scaredy-cat you know? If I was hurt, I wouldn’t be here like this. So you can continue the shoot. We should go through the scenes we have to do today.”

Jichan dusted himself and stood up. Watching him smile, Seungah thought that Jichan was pretty decent. He had a pretty face that was fairer than most girls, so he didn’t look like he was suited to be a crime investigator, and she thought that his acting would be awkward, but seeing him on set, it felt quite different.

His attitude towards acting was also rather serious.

“You can’t take it off right away, so let’s reshoot the previous cut. We’ll pretend as if you had that on you the whole time.”

“Yes.”

Seungah also got ready when she heard that the previous cut was going to be reshot. A staff member turned the gas stove on. The camera also entered the restaurant again.

“We’re shooting this again because of me. I’m sorry.”

Seungah looked at Jichan sitting at the table. She felt embarrassed because he was apologizing for something he didn’t have to.

“It’s not that weird during shoots. But rather than that, are you really okay?”

“Yes. I’m really okay. But it’s such a pity. It would’ve been good if I didn’t fall over. I just had that feeling you know? Ah, I’m going to look cool if I run like this! But hey, I guess I fell over.”

“You should watch out. The ground’s frozen solid today, so you might get in big trouble if you fall over.”

She got to converse with a Korean Wave star like this. Seungah smiled before thinking about her line. It was a cut that already received an ‘okay’ from the director, so it shouldn’t be a problem this time either.

“Did I go this way last time?” Jichan asked as he grabbed the table.

Seungah pointed to the right.

“Yes, you turned around there and ran out.”

“Thanks.”

As they were going through the lines, she saw Han Maru among the staff members walking by. She did hear that he had a shoot today, however, she heard that it was in a different place, and it was supposed to be at night. And 10 a.m. was definitely not night.

She waved at Maru. Maru was greeting the director and didn’t see her.

“Oh, he’s here,” Jichan said.

She wondered who he was referring to and found out that his eyes were on Maru.

She asked in reflex, “You know Maru?”

Jichan turned around. He looked like he was asking her if she knew him.

“He’s a friend of mine.”

“Really?”

Jichan reached his hand out as though he was happy. A handshake even though they introduced themselves to each other a long time ago? She was rather taken aback, but she grabbed it anyway.

Meanwhile, Maru came over.

“What are you two doing?”

“Maru, I heard you are friends with this person, right? That makes her a friend of my friend, so I was saying hi,” Jichan said.

Friend of a friend? It shouldn’t be that actors who work on the same set would definitely become close, but Maru and Jichan looked like they were long-time friends.

“Hyung, you’re too cruel, telling me to come and watch early if I don’t have anything to do.”

“That’s why I’m thanking you like this.”

Jichan stood up and hugged Maru. He swayed left and right and smiled brightly.

What the heck was up with this? Seungah looked at the two of them in puzzlement.

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