Meet Iris Muhly, American star of the hit international TV show Shattered.
Just kidding. Ingenue Iris definitely acts in the show, but the vibe? Less ‘star’ and more ‘character the fans hate most’. Bad enough on a normal show. But on a show where fans literally vote to control the plot? A disaster bad enough to potentially kick her all the way out of Korea since her work visa expires the moment her contract does.
Arriving home on a freezing December night to find her agent in the process of moving a Jpop star into her apartment? Hardly a vote of confidence. And that’s before a package explodes on Iris, literally showering her in death threats.
If only the fans loved her enough to vote for her to stay. Heck, right now she’d settle for a place to stay tonight.
Or a vote (of confidence) from, say, Max Kang, hotter-than-hot lead villain in the cast of Shattered…
A dark, flirty paranormal romance full of forced proximity and fake relationships: the perfect read to chase away holiday blues.
Chapter One
A decade or two ago my dark, chocolate-brown hair might have drawn some attention as I got off the bus near Gongdeok Station in Seoul. My skin was a little too pink to be native, my height still a few centimeters taller than the average Korean woman’s, my eyes double-lidded and noticeably western European. Today, no one seemed to notice. A few teens glanced at the bedraggled black and purple wig in my hand and the water-damaged fan sign for the hit TV show Shattered, but if they thought anything it was probably that I was a fan who’d gone to see the cast in their final appearance of the penultimate season four.
Absolutely no one shouted out “Wysha!” as I passed, even though that was the name of the purple-haired, mortal-turned-immortal I’d played since the season three finale. Even fans would have struggled to remember my legal name – Iris Muhly – simply because I was, as they said in Hollywood, an ingenue.
Unknown.
A random extra who wound up playing a major character for one season and was destined for a gruesome on-screen death if I didn’t get things fixed.
Bitter cold winds rushed ruffled overhead holiday banners lining the alley as I hurried to my Yeonnam-dong apartment. It had been another very long day, with a four am call time so the principles of the cast could do a six am morning show followed by the teaser trailer for the upcoming fan vote. I’d escaped that at ten and rushed to the salon to get my poor, bleached hair treated, re-colored back its natural brown, and then headed home as the sky turned dark. It was only a little after five in the evening, but it was a bitingly cold December day and the sun was setting.
Somewhere over the rushing cars I could hear someone learning that sound doesn’t carry well when it’s -20C outside. No, not even for cheery Christmas carols or romantic pop ballads about first kisses stolen between snowflakes. The winter weather this year consisted of a freezing drought, brutal winds, and none of the romantic snow the Koreans were all expecting.
“Fine by me,” I muttered as I eyed the frozen blue sky. I had a plane ticket for a red-eye out of Incheon airport heading straight back to the good ol’ US of A. Home sweet… spawn point?
It was less about going home to somewhere good or safe and more about being in a place where my work visa wouldn’t expire as soon as I was fired. Because my first acting gig was rapidly going from Going To Get Fired to Going To Get Fired And Blacklisted.
Hugging my black coat around myself against the cold, I glanced both ways along a narrow street and dashed across the street in a way most likely to 1) get me hit by a passing car and 2) get me fined if any of the CCTV cams were working. Which, they weren’t. The agency I’d signed a twelve-month contract with was paying for the apartment here in Seoul and they weren’t springing for a luxury penthouse for someone who wasn’t an actual star.
I ducked past the shops lining the ground floor – convenience stores, noodle shops, and pharmacies – fighting the wind with each step. Plastering myself to the side of the building, I tugged off a thin gray glove long enough to punch in the six-digit door code.
The tinted glass door slid open with a soft whoosh of warmer air.
For the first time all day I could almost breathe easy. Granted, there were fourteen CCTV cams pointed along the entry way for the apartment building and two more doors to get through to get to the communal mail hall, but at least I was safe-ish when the doors locked behind me with a click.
It sounded delusional, but for the past week or more I’d felt like someone was watching me.
I’d pushed it off as a delayed response to eighteen-hour work days on set in front of cameras. Compared to the last fourteen months of filming and promotions, this past week had been comparatively easy. The cast had split the interviews and appearances, I’d only been in six of the fourteen live things, done four signings, and only been physically threatened, oh, maybe a few thousand times.
With a glance at the heavily tinted windows, I went through the next set of doors to the common area where a bank of TVs displayed everything from the local weather channel and the stock exchange to the celebrity news.
The same picture was on half the TVs: a Korean man so handsome my breath caught even though I’d spent the past fourteen months in close proximity with him. “Michyeosseo,” the word slipped past my lips in an angry huff and I wasn’t sure who was crazier, me or the fans on screen screaming “J’aime Max!” and “Max Kang, je suis délicieux! Épouse-moi!” and the old stand-by, “Sauve-moi, roi des gargouille!”
I wouldn’t stand out in the cold to wave purple-and-black dragons at a camera for anyone. Not even in Paris where all the rosy-cheeked teens were. Not even for pay.
Okay, well, that was a lie. Because I could unreservedly cheer for Max Kang for pay and absolutely had during at least one alternate-universe scene this season.
Shattered, the multinational television show that let viewers write the ending to the universally acclaimed series that had started with the novel All These Broken Seasons, was all about merging alternate universe and looking at what could have been. The whole premise was two realities collided and the death of some fey[1] princess meant the people in normal Earth suddenly were confronting the people from a magical Earth.
Max Kang, easily one of the hottest men on the planet, played the big, bad villain: Zjarr Aabo. On the screen of the lobby TV, Max was seated right next to the breathlessly hungry host who was eyeing his thin, black silk shirt with the undone buttons as if she could make the others fall off by wishing alone. He probably wasn’t currently sporting the chiseled Abs of Treason he flashed at least once a season, because getting that definition involved extreme dieting and dehydration that wasn’t healthy to maintain, but most of the audience didn’t know that.
Not that Max needed chiseled muscle to make him delicious.
He was a man who’d built his fame playing classic bad guys, and one of the highest grossing Korean actors. Black hair that somehow always looked sexily tousled, wide-set black eyes, heavy eyebrows, a broad and expressive face, and the muscles of a man who spent every spare hour in the gym or with the show’s fight trainer. The fact that he could dance and sing was just icing on the slice of Hallyu Wave perfection that was Max Kang.
Light loved him.
There was a glow, and a natural presence that survived even the camera’s harsh glare. When Max stepped into a room, every head turned. His dramatic baritone voice was rich and low enough to send a shiver up anyone’s spine.
The evil demon of a man certainly didn’t need to look directly into the camera with his ridiculously incomparable dark eyes and wink as his lips curled into a perfect come-hither smile that all but melted everyone in his line of sight.
No, he didn’t need to do any of that.
But he did.
I rolled my eyes as I pushed the button and waited for the elevator. All of this was to sway the vote. No, make it The Vote. With sparkly letters and fancy fonts and everything.
All These Broken Seasons was the best-selling fantasy series of the mid-21st century, but it had a little problem… The ending didn’t exist.
Years ago the author had rudely died, or run away, or been kidnapped by Bigfoot. Something like that. One day they were in full contact and posting daily teasers for the untitled final fifth novel, and then they vanished. The jury was still out on what really happened.
Shattered was the answer.
Some studio had the rights, the author’s sudden disappearance gave them an opening, and they ran with it. Four big-budget seasons followed the books with a gratifying amount of accuracy[2] and now the fans got to vote on which ending we would shoot.
Since most the fans currently wanted to shoot me, the ending that promised my brutal death on screen was winning with eighty percent of the votes. Angel Xi, Shattered’s leading lady and the primary love interest of the hero, had oh-so-not-kindly told me that in Cantonese the word Four sounds like the word Death. Angel’s a sweetie like that.
The elevator opened and was empty, thank goodness. I stepped in and stabbed the close button before anyone could hop on.
Most of the building’s residents were polite enough to pretend they didn’t know me. Koreans weren’t fans of small talk as a rule, especially in Seoul, but things had been tense since the tabloids had snapped pictures of Kim Jihun crying.
Tears weren’t the problem. Men could cry, and Jihun often did as the tortured, lovelorn hero of Shattered. The problem was that the tabloids had been snapping pics of me and Jihun hanging out for the past year and the world was convinced we were dating. If Jihun was smiling, I’d done something to make him happy. If Jihun was angry, it was my fault. If he was crying, I ought to die for hurting The World’s Darling.
Despite all the tabloid rumors, Jihun and I had never shared more than heartfelt glances on screen. He was my type, but I wasn’t his, and I was smart enough not to chase a man who didn’t want me.
“Shake it off,” I muttered to myself. “Shake it off.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d been in a bad situation at work. It wasn’t even the first time I’d moved to start job hunting before I was officially kicked out of—
My brain froze as the elevator opened to my floor, the hallway stuffed with boxes.
Someone in the depths of cardboard was yelling in what sounded like angry Japanese.
Someone yelled back in Korean.
“Hello?” I held the elevator open as I peered down the hall towards my door. A quick double-check said this was the right floor and the right side of the hall. The elevator opened both ways. Some floors, like mine, had one apartment on either side. Others had two or three smaller apartments per side. But this was my side, my hall, and not my moving boxes.
“Iris-shi?” A tiny Korean woman with neon-yellow hair cut into a severe chin-length bob popped her head around the corner. “Ah! Iris-shi! You’re here.”
“Ye, Yoon Seoah-shi,” I said with an abrupt bow. Yoon Seoah – call me Sue! – was the agency’s apartment manager, which meant I’d seen her when I moved in, the time the washing machine had flooded the floor, and the first time someone snuck in and left dog poop smeared on my door because it the headlines read JIHUN OFF THE MARKET?.
“Iris! My dream!” she said in English as she hurried toward me on six-inch gold heels, her leopard-print skirt was as loud and noticeable as she was. At some point Seoah had decided to stop fighting her height-restricted genes and made her personality big enough to suit her big dreams. “I was looking for you!”
I nodded and tried not to wince. She was LOUD.
Yoon Seoah stopped in front of me to look me up and down. “Why are you here? I thought you flew home yesterday.”
“I had the broadcast this morning. My flight leaves in a few hours. I was goin—”
“No matter,” she said with a quick wave of her hands. “I’ll grab your suitcase and box.”
“Box?”
“It’s no trouble. We’re only moving someone else in. We’ll worry about your housing for next season later.” Her smile was stretched.
So was mine. “Thanks.”
“Not a worry at all, my crumpet!” She waved a hand and toddled off. “Let me get your things!”
Down the hall, another face poked her head around. Even without her usual makeup I recognized a popular Jpop singer who had recently taken time off for Vocal Rest.
In Korean a man’s voice said, “You can stay here until the baby is born. Six months off won’t hurt.”
“But people will see,” the singer’s voice echoed a little off the empty room. Enough that I could pick it up.
“No one here will care. There are bigger scandals.”
Yeah, like my failed romance with Jihun, the relationship that never was currently hitting the headlines.
“Here!” Seoah-shi trilled happily as she brought out my purple suitcase, the hat I’d forgotten, and a package.
“What’s this?” I took the box from her and looked around for an address label. There was one, on the side and smudged by spilled water so it was illegible.
Seoah shrugged. “Someone handed it to me when I headed up. It’s a delivery for you.”
“From who? All my mail goes to the agency office, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe from a real friend?” Seoah suggested with a shrug. “A family member?”
“Unlikely.” But I didn’t bother correcting her, because then I’d need to explain just how unlikely that was. My family would need to know my legal name before they could do anything else, and that was as about as likely as me taking up swimming in lava. Which is to say, not impossible, but unlikely outside of the realm of fiction.
With a little shrug, Seoah shooed me towards the elevator. “You want a cab to the airport?”
“I’ll take the trains,” I said. “Look, Seoah, I know I’m not likely to come back to Seoul but,” I took a deep breath, “I am – I am coming back, right? For my death scene at the very least. Right?”
Her gaze darted everywhere but to my face.
“Seoah-ah. Unnie.” I could feel my paycheck slipping away. “At least for flashbacks or something, right? A couple days of filming?” With my contract that would mean I’d get at least a percentage of the season’s earnings[3].
My ability to buy groceries was slipping through my fingers because an overzealous fandom thought I was responsible for a man’s emotions.
I didn’t make Jihun cry.
Screaming that it was unfair wasn’t going to do anything but convince Seoah-shi that I was a raving lunatic.
Taking a deep breath, I pinned a smile in place. “Don’t stress it. I’ll call Molly. She’s my main agent. Maybe they’re filming in a new location next season?”
“Mianhae, I don’t have the answer for that.” Seoah patted my shoulder as she apologized, gently urging me on the direction of the elevator. “Have a safe flight, hmmm?”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” I dragged myself back to the elevator, trying hard not to think about how little the agency had to care to throw me out before I’d even officially lost the job. If there was any way to stay on Shattered, my agents would be all over it.
But, who knew. Maybe they’d been told Shattered was filming elsewhere. We’d started the year in Turkey, filmed in Croatia, Ireland, New Zealand, and Oregon before coming to Korea to finish the season. Maybe we’d start filming after the lunar new year in Brazil.
That was probably it, I convinced myself. Iza Serra was a newlywed, she’d probably campaigned to film in her home country. I would have, in her shoes.
Half convinced I had a future job, I found my tiny box cutter of doom attached to my key chain and cut the previously damp box open as the elevator trundled downward.
The smell of decay hit my gag reflex like a roller derby queen ready to score.
I dropped the box.
A spring sent a pile of fur and rotted flesh splattering onto the elevator floor, along with a flurry of pictures. Of me. Dressed as my character Wysha.
On every single picture were the words “Wish-ah this was you.” written in English.
The elevator pinged happily as the doors opened on the ground floor.
“Right.” I stepped over the box o’ death threats. I was a big girl. I could take a hint from the universe.
I wasn’t wanted. By anyone.
Time to leave.
[1] Fae? Fairy? Whatever. She was the typical All Powerful Magic Girl and she died at the end of the first book.
[2] I hadn’t read the books until after I’d been cast, and I really didn’t appreciate how much work went into adapting a book into a screenplay until I met some of the script writers. Suffice it to say, they deserved all the awards they kept winning and the full adoration of the fandom. Other fandoms wish they were this lucky.
[3] Scenes I’d filmed previously could be used, but I didn’t earn anything from them unless it was brand new material.