Noelle was staring at her laptop screen. The cursor was flashing next to the last words she had written - for the hundred-fiftieth time. Every time she wrote them over the past week, she hit the keys way too hard. The poor keyboard wasn't to blame, but she needed something to absorb her frustration. These were the words that brought her here – and drove her mad.
Yeong Ye-Jun.
She was proud of one accomplishment though: she was officially repulsed by him. Finally. He was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Arrogant, lofty, controlling, toxic, always ready to mock and sprinkle free irony on top. Noelle wanted nothing more than to stay away from him, but somehow, she had managed to drag herself into even deeper trouble.
The moment she declared she was "excited to learn more about the industry" and agreed to "observe him closely" following Chloe's advice, she ended up being designated as Yeong Ye-Jun's assistant on set.
Yeah...
She still had no idea how that happened, but on her second day on set, she was informed of this 'great' news by Mr. Yeong Ye-Jun himself. It had been awkward. Like everything around him.
She remembered exactly how stunned she'd felt when she heard it.
"Christmas, I got news. You'll get the opportunity to add a unique experience on your CV. Starting today, you will be my assistant on the set! My personal assistant!" he had said, thrilled with himself.
Noelle had looked from Mr Yeong, to Mi-Suk, and back again, trying to figure out if this was a joke. Mi-Suk – that traitor – already knew. She just stood there with a silly smile plastered across her face. Was this what she and Chloe had meant by "we'll figure out what else you can do"? Why hadn't she warned her?
Noelle had asked Mi-Suk: "I don't understand... Why do I have to assist Mr. Yeong?"
Mi-Suk didn't even get the chance to reply because Mr. Yeong jumped in: "You're an intern. What did you expect? A management position?"
Noelle felt her cheeks burn. She dropped her gaze to the ground. That was from where she should start her way up. Right here, on the bottom rung.
After that terrible nickname incident, she was now known as Christmas. Her parents had chosen her name because she was born on Christmas Day during a cold winter. Luckily, she had grown to like her name. It was short and cute, but in elementary school a couple of kids made fun of it. Kids can be cruel. It left a small scar, and she never liked explaining the origin of her name, especially to non-French speakers.
And now, out of nowhere, a mediocre actor had branded her with a nickname. He called her Christmas out loud every time he addressed her. Everyone else on set continued using her real name, but she'd overheard plenty of them referring to her as Christmas when talking about her or looking for her.
And lately, they were looking for her a lot.
Mr. Yeong had described her job profile extensively. He had informed her that he would report back to Chloe the moment she returned from her trip, and he would tell her how great they were doing if Noelle just did as she was told and helped him around. He explained that every protagonist needed an assistant. The lead actor was a critical role and needed support to be prepared and keep things moving.
He began his list of tasks with his hydration needs. Noelle was to keep him hydrated at all times. That meant he needed to have cold water available whenever he wanted it. The production team wasn't stupid – there was cold water everywhere. But no, he wanted a specific brand of mineral sparkling water. So, Noelle had to run to a nearby store before arriving on set, and sometimes during breaks, to get him bottles of that specific brand.
She was carrying them under the unusual heat of that year. Noelle blamed climate change, global governance for doing nothing about carbon emissions, herself for using too much electricity, and even her parents for not recycling properly. She kept reminding herself that there were far more serious problems in the world than her situation. But all that philosophical awareness evaporated the moment she reached her "master".
That smirk of his... she wanted to wipe it off his face. And when he took a sip of what she had brought and exclaimed "Not cold enough!" she forgot all the miseries troubling planet Earth and simply cursed fate for placing that man in her way.
Another task she was "honored" with (his words exactly) was carrying a bag full of his "essential" items. She received a so-called "quick training" to memorize the position of every item and retrieve it within two seconds. At least, that was the target he had set. Yeong Ye-Jun had demonstrated proudly, but when he asked her to do the same, she grabbed the bag and walked away. Like she would entertain him by performing tricks on command.
Later, he began calling for items:
"Sunglasses!"
"Sunscreen!"
"Script!"
At first, she failed to retrieve them fast enough and received a disapproving shake of his head. Still, she became faster day by day without even trying.
No room for comments now, huh?
Immediately she hated herself for feeling the tiniest proud for that performance.
Her days on set so far were full of tiresome tasks. She was asked to run errands, search for people, fetch items, deliver messages... Anytime someone needed anything and Yeong Ye-Jun overheard it, he simply went: "Christmas can help!"
Since she was, indeed, just an intern, she never protested and did as she was told. It didn't feel right, but complaining to Chloe would only blow up in her face. Chloe would probably interpret it as unwillingness to step out of her comfort zone or as an excuse not to work hard, and Noelle absolutely didn't want to give that impression. Besides, she couldn't reach Chloe anyway. Chloe was somewhere between China and Japan. Sending an email felt inappropriate. She would return. Any day now.
That Friday, she had agreed with Mi-Suk to skip the set. Yeong Ye-Jun was dissatisfied with her absence—he'd come to expect her there every single day. But she was desperate to make progress on her paper, so she stayed in the office while Mi-Suk ran errands.
For the first time, she was completely alone. With Sang-Jun always in meetings, the space was hers. She scattered her notes across the desk and began typing furiously.
She was thrilled by the sheer volume of information she had gathered. There was so much input for her thesis that she was struggling to keep it under two hundred pages; she could easily write three hundred. But she wanted to include everything.
The problem was, she felt like she was missing the core of the thesis. Mountains of data. Zero conclusion. She still didn't know what the heart of her thesis was supposed to be.
Chloe had shared tools, company reports, and high-level strategies, but not the master plan. Files labelled 'Confidential' remained out of reach. Her task, as set by Professor Hwang, was to find the story within the selective data she had. She had to reverse-engineer the logic behind every career move—each song, each role, each public appearance—and divine why the team chose path A over path B. She had to extract meaning from what was available, but the grand pattern still eluded her.
She finally took a break from drafting paragraph 2.3, 'Fandom and Community Building,' and headed to the kitchen for coffee. On her way, an idea surfaced: she needed to map everything on a timeline. Plotting his career milestones against data points like popularity spikes and revenue growth might finally reveal the bigger picture and lead her to her conclusion.
As she entered the kitchen, she nearly bumped into Dan-Bi.
What is she doing here?