Prologue

“Jieun, papers are in!” Jieun’s manager shouts in joy. “It might be the most interesting offer for you this year.”

It was eleven in the evening. She's resting at her house, she's lying down on her bed while jamming to Big Bang's songs. Her manager is with her as he 's organizing her schedule at her living room until he suddenly barge into her room with a wide smile on his face and some handouts on his palm. 

Jieun eyes on her manager before taking the bunch of compiled papers off of his hands. She examines these papers that look like contracts. Probably a new CF. She pause for a while as she didn’t want to open the content of these papers yet. She predicts, more like fifty-fifty percent chances that it’s going to be another CF offer of soju and chicken or hopefully, oh hopefully, that it's some other contract that will interest her. She whines at that thought of another CF offer. She thinks she might hit her manager if it was one.

“What’s taking you so long?” her manager complains as he is impatiently waiting for Jieun to read the papers.

“Calm down, it’s just that… I feel kind of nervous.” She puts her hands on her chest feeling her heart rapidly beating as she clenches her fists.

Nervous? IU, singer-songwriter, the "nation’s little sister", nervous? Well, maybe sometimes at stage, but nervous over a pile of paper? How ridiculous. Now, she thinks she’s an idiot being all so anxious about a piece of paper.

She didn’t contemplate any further and hastily flipped the pages to see what was written in these mysterious papers.

“Well, will you look at that.” Jieun’s manager pops up his head beside her.

Jieun’s eyes widen at the sight of what was written in these papers—which is actually a crucial document. It was a lovely sight to see.

“Looks like director Kim Kyu-tae-ssi wants to cast you to be the main lead for his new drama! How exciting is that?!” Jieun’s manager exclaims which looks like he is more excited than the future leading lady for a new drama. “Look, look at the casts. They’re approval of being casted in the drama may still be pending, but wow, that line up! Lee Joon Gi, Nam Ju Hyuk, Ji Soo, Kang Haneul!!” he continues to squeal in excitement.

“I know oppa, I know. Please calm down for just one second?”

Her manager shyly smiles at her and finally shuts his mouth for a long moment.

It's official, she wants to scream on top of her lungs. Her hands are cold and trembling, is dry and her heart is still beating fast. She's truly happy. 

Jieun tries to calm herself down too because if she and her manager were expressing too much excitement, it would be total chaos. Like total chaos. Too much screaming and jumping may happen, and of course, Jieun doesn't want to interupt her neighbors that's why she really tries to remain very calm.

When Jieun's hands stop trembling, she scans at the chosen casts that were listed. Most of them haven’t approve of being in the drama yet, but so far Lee Joon Gi, Kang Haneul, Kang Hanna (where she doesn’t even know who she is, she guessed that this Hanna girl is a rookie actress) and a few more gave their consent of being part of the cast.

“Moon lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo. What an interesting title.” She smiles. A few moments later she decided to read the plot and Hae Soo’s character description, who she believes that Hae Soo is going to be the heroine of the story.

“Hae Soo….” She reads a loud the fictional character’s name. It was a nice name for a historical woman, she thinks. She then give another scan at the documents and spotted a very familiar name. A name wherein everyone knows who this person is:

“Baekhyun-sshi” Jieun’s manager finally spoke after a few minutes of being silent. “I didn’t know he can act.”

Jieun stares at Baekhyun’s name the longest. She remembers that this guy is a part of a famous boy group EXO.

She had met EXO a couple of times already. One was at MAMA 2014 where she sat beside Suho while watching the night's performances. When it come to socializing, Jieun admits she at it. She's very introverted and refuses to talk to someone first. Her introvertedness happened during MAMA, she utterly do not want to interact with the person sitting beside her because first and most importantly she's avoiding a backlash of hate from EXO-Ls. A small interaction might cause a turmoil. But small talks can't be avoided, Suho was the first to approach her, they had small talks like literally small talks that lasted for only 30 seconds for the whole night. Next one was way over 2011 or 2012 where she once MC with Kai in Inkigayo, but they never talked when the cameras were off. The rest of the memebers she doesn't have any interaction with them especially with Baekhyun. Suzy, on the other hand had collaborated with Baekhyun and she once told her that he is a very nice person and a very charming young man.

Jieun thinks Baekhyun is a good singer—no, scratch that—a great singer. She likes his voice very much. He is such a great singer that she might consider inviting him soon in a duet as well. But she does not know his capacity in acting. This is probably his first time and she’s nervous for him. She assumes maybe there’ll be a possibility he won’t act for this drama. She remembers the first ever drama that was offered to her (this was before director Lee Eun Bok casted her in Dream High) which she declined because she thought she doesn’t have enough acting experiences to deserve a leading role. It was better for her to decline it rather than ruin the show.

“It’s going to be his first drama. I feel like he’s going to bail.” Jieun says casually.

“Well, that sounded kinda...” Her manager replies with a dissatisfy expression.

“I’m just basing his decision on my experience when I first got offered a leading role in a drama. It’s very common for a newbie actor to decline a big project if he is afraid to ruin the show.”

Her manager eyes on her. "Well Baekhyun-sshi is not you. You're underestimating him."

He's right. Jieun underestimate the soon-to-be idol-actor. Baekhyun is not that kind of person. She heard from Suzy (cause she likes to talk about cute boys that attract her attention) Baekhyun is strong-willed, always determined and hard working. He’s the type of person that would be very eager to learn new things. Suzy also mentioned that he's very fun to work with.

That night the media reported that IU, the singer-songwriter-actress was casted as the main role for the most hyped drama of the year. Few hours later the soon-to-be idol-actor EXO’s Baekhyun was the next one to be reported that approved his role. 

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A/N: I swear, i do not know how i mange to write this. it's 2am and i think im half awake when writing this. (been desperate in writing a beaku fic cuz this ship needs more love)  altho i am sorry but i haven't even thought of a proper flow of this fic lmao but i'll try my best to sort this fic out. stay tuned!