"Beneath the Spotlight"
The rain tapped gently against the wide glass windows of the 33rd floor. Seoul shimmered in the distance, blurred by the storm, but Kang Jihyun didn't look up. He sat alone in his spacious office at Eclipse Entertainment, dressed in an all-black suit, surrounded by silence and glowing LED screens.
Stacks of audition profiles were spread across his desk—dozens of hopefuls, trainees, and dancers all fighting for a place in the next global phenomenon he was planning. Yet not a single one had caught his interest.
"Too practiced," he muttered. "Too perfect. Too fake."
His assistant, Han Minjae, entered the room, holding a tablet. "You've been in here for ten hours, Jihyun-ssi. You should rest."
"I don't need rest," Jihyun said flatly. "I need something different. Someone real."
Minjae hesitated. "Actually… there's one more submission. It came in late—an unregistered trainee, no agency background. I almost deleted it."
Jihyun gestured toward the screen. "Play it."
The video was raw—clearly shot on an old phone. A young man stood in an empty dance room, hoodie pulled over his head, hands shaking slightly. The moment he began to sing, the room seemed to fall away. His voice was cracked with emotion but full of soul. He wasn't perfect, but he was alive.
When the video ended, Jihyun leaned back in his chair, eyebrows slightly raised for the first time in hours.
"What's his name?" he asked.
"Lee Taemin. Twenty years old. No agency history. Just… one application, no explanation."
Jihyun stared at the screen where Taemin's face was frozen mid-note. "I want him at the next private audition. No press. No distractions."
Minjae frowned. "You think he's worth the risk?"
"I don't know yet," Jihyun replied. "But I know I can't look away."
That night, after everyone had left the building, Jihyun stood alone in the company's empty practice hall. The mirrored walls reflected his silhouette. He closed his eyes, hearing the sound of Taemin's voice again in his mind.
It had been years since anything stirred something in him. The industry had hardened him—contracts, scandals, lies. But that voice…
It made him feel something.
He didn't know then that the boy in the video would soon flip his world upside down.
He didn't know that love was about to slip through the cracks of his carefully built empire.
He didn't know that behind the spotlight… someone was waiting to change everything.