Versatile Superstar Rise In Hollywood

by Stayrr

"To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it." ... Two years ago, Aiden came to the United States to experience the American Dream. But after sleepless nights of struggle, just when he was on the verge of giving up, a translucent screen flashed in front of him - it was a System! A System that would make him embark on a journey to Hollywood. And today, he takes his fir

5. 129

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Chapter 129.RadioShow (lll)

"The reactions of the listeners are pretty good today."

The Production Director said, glancing at the Station Manager and then looking at Aiden and Andrea talking with Hector inside the booth.

His eyes stopped at Aiden for a while longer.

"Yeah, it's mostly because of how diverse these two are in terms of their journey. Andrea got success quite quickly while Aiden had truly struggled, and his story of doing so well after getting eliminated from X-Star is pretty dramatic."

The Station Manager said, and one of the interns added.

"I think it's also because he's an actor and has pretty good stories to tell for himself. Most of the comments are about him too."

He glanced at the comments that people were leaving. Another person added.

"Yeah, a lot of fans of Andrea came, but as Aiden's story is more fascinating, he's easily stealing the show."

This was one of the risks in an interview which had more than one person. Even in talk shows, when there is more than one person invited, the most charismatic one would easily steal the show.

When people would talk about that particular episode, they would only talk about the guy who had more interesting stories, or they found themselves attracted to.

The same was happening at the same time.

'It's also because of their way of talking. Andrea is just saying everything like a robot as she had already talked about these things before in a lot of interviews. Aiden, on the other hand, is making answers on the spot. He has the fresh factor to him.'

The Production director thought, his eyes focusing on the question Hector was asking both of them. .

"What do you think about fame? Do you feel bad that everyone recognises you and feel like it would be better if your face were not so famous?"

Hector asked. It was a very basic issue that a lot of celebrities would deal with. It was surely not easy when everyone on the street knew you and wouldn't leave you alone.

"I think it's just a product of my work." Andrea was the first to answer. "A lot of times, I don't like it. I even hate it as people could act out of line, and you don't get private moments, but that's just a part of being a celebrity."

A basic answer.

The Production Director thought in his mind. Her words were true, but a lot of celebs would say the same thing, so it won't create a big reaction with the listeners.

He turned his head to look at Aiden after that.

"What about you, Aiden? You hate it too?"

"Uh, actually, I don't hate it as I'm working very hard daily to get recognized." Aiden smiled and paused like he was thinking of words. "I always had a love for acting and then music. So, I naturally knew that if I actually did something in this field, my life would be for everyone to see. I'm not too comfortable about it, but I have tried to embrace it as much as I can."

Hearing his answer, Hector seemed to be impressed. When the Production Director looked at the comments streaming in, he found that most of them were talking about Aiden.

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[Herpes free since 2003: I needed to listen to this show while driving my daughter to her school because she's a fan of Andrea Hales, but the guy with her is very interesting. His answers are very entertaining.]

[Vampiric British Queen: I feel like I'm becoming a fan of this guy. He really seems like he knows what he's talking about.]

[Cereal killer: I'm a big fan of Andrea, but damn, she's getting overshadowed. She should really think about being more eloquent in interviews.]

[Have sex: Feels nice to see Aiden here. Been a fan of his since [Black Saints]. Not a big fan of a lot of his music, but his interview is pretty good.]

[Thor – God of jokes: Finally, I'm seeing some talented people on this show. Weed-smoking rappers and twerking hip hop artists are good and all, but I really like more traditional artists.]

Seeing the comments, The Production Director thought that this episode would get good ratings no matter what now.

Like that, the show continued.

The interview part ended pretty quickly as it was only for 20 minutes. The whole show was going to be an hour long with 20 minutes on the interview and another 20 minutes taking questions from the listeners.

The rest of the 20 minutes was commercials and songs.

As everyone kept an eye on the proceedings, the next section of the show started.

[Hello, I'm a small-time musician in London. It's been more than ten years since I started this career, but it's going nowhere. I can barely pay my rent, and sometimes I don't even earn money in a month. My girlfriend gives me money, and she wants to marry me for a long time, and I want the same, but I'm nervous because my career is nowhere. She told me to give up on my dream and marry her, or she would leave. Do you two have any advice for me as to what I should do?]

As the man finished speaking, Hector looked at the two of them with a smirk on his face. This was a good question to start the section.

"What advice do you have?"

Aiden began thinking about his answer, but before he could say anything, Andrea had already opened her mouth.

"You must have a lot of experience if you have been working as a musician for so long. I think you should keep pushing as eventually you will get success. In this industry, one song is all that it takes to become famous. Try to use social media as a medium to spread your music. Just don't give up, and if your girlfriend really loves you, she will give you some more time."

There was a proud smile on Andrea's face as she gave out her answer.

But Aiden shook his head.

"While I do agree that one song could be your way to success in this industry, I also think that you should look at the problem more practically. Tell me one thing, you must be in your 30s already, right? And your girlfriend is the same age as you?"

[Ah, yes. We are the same age, actually.]

The man's voice came out, and Aiden nodded.

"Then, try to think from your girlfriend's perspective. I'm pretty sure she thinks that she doesn't have a lot of time left and is at the phase of her life where she wants to settle down. If you really followed Andrea's advice here, your relationship might be at stake. Think about what is more important for you, and I'm not saying to give up on music. You can get a job and try to settle down while keeping music on the side. It would be hard, but you would be able to both get married and keep music."

After saying that, Aiden looked at Hector, who nodded in agreement with his advice. Only Andrea looked to be a bit annoyed as clearly, Aiden had clearly overshadowed her this time.

She was just a teenager and was too eager to make an impression, so she gave out a rushed answer, considering a lot of things.

[Thanks for your advice, man. I will think about it hard and get to a decision.]

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The man said, and the call cut. Hector checked the comments appearing on screen and smiled in delight. Most of them were positive.

"Okay, let's get to the next caller. Today's episode is just becoming more and more interesting."

"Okay, this is mostly done now! A lot of people tuned in today. Seems like it's going to be a good day as the morning went so well."

The Music director that was assigning the songs that were going to play next muttered, glancing at the clock on the wall.

Only 5 more minutes were left of the interview.

"Yeah, we got lucky that we called two very different singers. That helped make the episode turn out this good because of the difference in answers."

The Production Director said. He didn't care if one of the guests completely dominated the show or the other lost out. He only cared about the ratings and listeners' reviews.

As they were talking like that, the door suddenly opened, and a staff member came out, panting.

It seemed like he had run all the way to here. There was a worried expression on his face as he walked toward the Production Director.

"What happened?"

"Justin Frank… his van had been in an accident."

"What?"

Everyone in the room looked at the staff member, hoping that he was joking, but his expression was as serious as it could get. Feeling stares on his body, he quickly explained what had transpired.

"He was coming to the radio station, but his van got in a small accident on the way as another car slammed into them. It seems like it was a case of a break fail. It should be on the news soon."

"How is Justin?"

One of the interns who was a big fan of his asked.

"He's fine, but his manager is injured. He refused to come to the radio station and went to the hospital as they are very close. His record label just informed us."

The Production Director's eyes widened with worry hearing that. It was a very critical situation, and it was a good thing Justin Frank was good.

But the radio channel was seriously in a lot of trouble.

'Fuck. What are we going to do about the next program then? We promoted it too much already.'

The Production Director thought, rubbing his forehead.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your powerstones

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Chapter 130.Lostin the Sky (l)

After the show finished, Aiden came out of the booth with a smile on his face. He had thought that it would be much harder, but he had really enjoyed himself.

Unlike a few of the interviews he had in the past, Hector was more of the listener type, and he also had insight into music theory, so the talk had gone pretty smooth.

The only dissatisfaction was Andrea, who sometimes tried to butt in when he was talking, but after a few times, she had stopped it.

"I really enjoyed working with you. When you are releasing a new song, please come back to the show. I think it would be a fun conversation."

Hector said, patting Aiden's shoulders. He had talked to a lot of musicians both on and off his show, and he truly felt that Aiden was one of the more mature ones out there who truly understood what he was doing.

The episode had been fun for him.

"Thanks."

Aiden said, and before he could talk any more, the Production Director called Hector to talk about something.

It was then that Aiden noticed something weird in the atmosphere.

'Why is everyone's expression so weird?'

He thought as the door opened and Wade walked in. He was absent during the recording but currently had a smile on his face, like something good had happened to him.

"Where were you?"

Aiden asked, walking up to him.

"I was out trying to get some coffee, but I bumped into a TV producer who I have known for a long time. He was a bit free, so we talked for more than an hour.".

"You missed the show."

"Don't worry, I was checking up on reactions online from time to time. It seems like you did great." He asked, then turned to look at Andrea, who was talking about something with her agent. "Did she bother you?"

"Yeah, a bit, especially at the start. She's kind of a brat, but she acted professionally for the most part in the interview, so it was fine."

Aiden said, but Wade didn't fully believe him, mainly because, from time to time, Andrea was glaring at Aiden. He was sure that if there was no one else in the room, she would have already started a fight.

"I don't think she likes you a lot."

"I don't think she likes anyone a lot."

Aiden said and chuckled. They talked a bit more about the radio show and then their schedule for today. Fortunately, it was not that packed today, and Aiden could take it easy.

At that moment, the Production Director approached them.

"I'm sorry, but do you have a minute? We need a bit of your help."

He said, putting off an anxious face.

'It's a pretty troublesome situation.'

Aiden thought in his mind.

The program director had just finished explaining their situation. How Justin Frank was going to reveal his new song on the radio station and how his van had gotten into an accident.

As he was not going to come to the radio station today, they needed to fill slots somehow.

"We are already promoting Justin Frank releasing his new song at our radio station for a week, so tons of people would tune in. Way more than what we would get normally."

The Music director said, frowning. It was really not an amicable situation for them.

"Can't you just say that he's in an accident? I think people won't be too disappointed as it's not something that could be helped."

Wade asked, looking at the Production director.

"We will do that, but last time, one of the boy bands was going to do an acoustic version of one of their songs here, but they cancelled it at the last moment. The radio station's reputation took a hit then."

"Yeah, even if we explain that Justin Frank got into an accident, people will think that these types of things happen a lot in Red Ant FM. We will lose all our credibility, and you do know reputation is one of the most important things in this industry."

Hector said, and Wade agreed with what he was saying. The radio station was very unlucky in this regard.

He knew how big of an opportunity it was to have Justin Frank's new song being released by radio. But now, everything was a mess.

"So, you need someone to slot in, in place of Justin Frank?"

Aiden asked, and everyone around him nodded.

"Yeah, we have an interview with an actor later on, and we could just do that a bit early and insert time here and there, but we still need someone to sing a song. At least for ten minutes. That's the utmost we could do in damage control at the moment."

The Production Director said, his words felt like he was pleading.

They had asked Andrea Hales' agent first about it as she was a bigger star, but her agent was quick to reject them, the reason being that Andrea had a pretty tight schedule today.

Their only hope was now on Aiden. As he had been received pretty well in the interview by the listeners, everyone felt like he would be a good choice.

Anyway, it was far better than contacting some small-time musicians.

"Can you give us a while to talk about it in private?" Wade asked, and the Production Director was quick to nod.

He and Aiden went to a corner to talk about it. Though they didn't have a tight schedule today, a sudden performance on a radio which is broadcasted all over America could easily ruin Aiden's reputation if it didn't go right.

It wasn't something they could agree on without talking about it.

"What do you think?" Wade asked.

"It's a good opportunity, especially because it's a chance to do a favour on a radio station. It would help us a lot later on, and articles could spread after this as Justin Frank is a global star. If it works, it's a good opportunity for my career."

"Yeah, I know. That's why I want to agree but are you sure you can give a good performance? And which song are you going to sing?"

Wade raised an eyebrow. He didn't doubt Aiden's capability, but this was still a very quick and unexpected situation.

"I'm confident," Aiden said. "As for the song, 'Revolution' is undoubtedly my biggest hit, but it's hard to play it without a band, and I don't have the instrumental on my phone. Moreover, it's a pretty hard song."

"The song 'Hold onto me' won't suit the situation, and 'Lonely' is thought of more as a Grey song than yours. We need to think of something else."

Wade sighed, and suddenly, the gears of Aiden's mind started turning as an idea struck him. An idea that could let him use an opportunity in the best way possible.

He thought of the one song that he could perform here.

"Let me sing 'Lost in the Sky'."

It was a song which he could easily perform on a guitar. Moreover, it was one of his best compositions and its atmosphere even suited a radio.

"We were planning to release it a month before [30 days of Happiness] premier. If we released it right here, it would mess up our plans. That's never a good thing, especially with the song being so important for the movie." Wade said, shaking his head.

"No, I think this is the right opportunity. I have a plan."

Aiden said, attracting Wade's attention. Instead of rejecting his plan straightaway, he squinted his eyes, knowing full well that Aiden won't have a stupid plan.

"Tell me what plan you have."

"This is the last commercial. 30 seconds to the broadcast."

Everyone in the room became more and more nervous hearing that as they stared at Aiden, who was standing inside the recording booth. He was holding his guitar and was just waiting for the signal to start singing.

"Do you think it will be fine? It's a sudden performance, and he just started last year, right?"

The Production Director asked Hector, who was standing next to him.

"I think it would be fine. He's young, but he seems mature. Moreover, look at his agent." Hector glanced at Wade, who was smiling. The Production director's eyes followed.

"He looks calm."

"Yeah, he's the only person in the room who is calm," Hector said. "That means he is very confident in Aiden's skills. Don't worry, we don't have any other choice either. So, just wait and see how it goes."

The Production Director nodded and brushed off the sweat gathered on his forehead. It was then that the commercial ended, and one of the female announcers present in the booth quickly explained the situation.

"Today, Justin Frank's new song was going to be released here, but just an hour ago, he got into an accident. He's safe, but the program is unfortunately cancelled. But we have arranged something else for you. You must know Aiden Silvereye, he just finished his interview with Hector Burn a while ago. He's going to sing his new song, 'Lost in the sky'."

Now, it was all on Aiden.

'I need to do my best.'

He thought and slowly started strumming the strings of his guitar. A unique yet soft melody came out. The tempo of the rhythm was pretty normal, but it gave a warm feeling to the listener.

Taking a deep breath, Aiden started to sing.

"Please tell me if this is an illusion."

"Why am I still finding the reason?"

"Oh, am I just searching for something that isn't there?"

"Reaching my hand out to nowhere."

Through the radio, the strong silver light coming out of Aiden's music spread to the whole of America.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your powerstones

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Chapter 131.Lostin the Sky (ll)

[Today, Justin Frank's new song was going to be released here, but just an hour ago, he got into an accident. He's safe, but the program is unfortunately cancelled. But we have arranged something else for you. You must know Aiden Silvereye, he just finished his interview with Hector Burn a while ago. He's going to sing his new song, 'Lost in the sky'.]

A couple looked at each other weirdly as soon as they heard those words coming out of the radio. Currently, both of them were on a drive and had remembered that Justin Frank was going to be releasing his song on Red Ant FM today.

Both of them were big fans of him, so they decided to listen to it but hearing those unexpected words, they were quite surprised.

"Let me check the internet. I'm pretty sure I will find something on Justin's condition." The girl said, taking out her phone and looking up Justin Frank.

He was already trending on Sparrow, and it seemed like the news about his accident had spread like a forest fire. Tags like 'Justin Frank', 'Accident' and 'Hospital' were at the top spots.

The girl quickly checked it and found out that Justin Frank was really safe and it was only his manager who had gotten injured.

"He's safe. His van apparently got stuck by another car whose brake failed. No one got seriously injured, so it's a minor accident."

The girl said, taking a sigh of relief.

"It's good that he's fine, but it's kind of a bummer that we won't be able to hear his new song today. Let me change the radio channel."

The guy said, putting one of his hands away from the steering wheel and trying to change the channel, but at that moment, he heard the melody coming out of the speakers.

His hands stopped in midair, and in the next second, lyrics came out.

"Please tell me if this is an illusion."

"Why am I still finding the reason?"

"Oh, am I just searching for something that isn't there?"

"Reaching my hand out to nowhere."

The guy's eyes widened a bit as he heard the first verse. He felt a certain kind of vulnerability that the voice seemed to reflect. The lyrics thoroughly matched it. .

He felt like he was listening to something different after a long time.

"Let's not change the channel. This song is good."

The guy said, turning to look at his girlfriend, who nodded her head. She also felt that the song was truly good. The melody coming out from the guitar had a sad tone to it, but it wasn't completely sorrowful.

It was like someone had written the song after facing a failure, but in his heart, he was still a bit hopeful that someday, he would succeed.

'This song is really very good.'

She thought in her mind and looked outside the window. Sun was high up in the sky, giving her a warm, fuzzy feeling.

That day, the couple who were fans of Justin Frank became fans of Aiden Silvereye.

"Take my hand, let's go find ourselves in the dark."

"Running away from the sharks."

"Oh, who am I?"

"Just dust flying lost in the sky."

"Trying to fly high with the fear of falling driving me mad."

An old man was sitting in his study room, and there was an astonished expression on his face as he stared at the song coming out from the radio that was set up next to his work desk.

The old man was a writer, and he had a habit of listening to songs on the radio while writing down his novels. It was a habit that he had kept for decades now.

There was just something fun about discovering new songs for him on the radio.

Songs that might give him inspiration.

That's why he still owned one of the most antique versions of a radio. Today, he was struggling to come up with words, so he decided to listen to what was playing on the radio.

Thanks to his luck, just the first song he came across was Aiden's and listening to it, he couldn't help but stop writing for a minute to stare at the radio in pure astonishment.

It was because the song was giving him a feeling that he had not felt in so long.

As a writer, he was clearly able to feel the meaning behind the words. The songwriter was clearly writing it from his own experiences as the song was both asking questions and answering them while, at the same time, questioning the worth of humanity itself.

The line 'Just dust flying, lost in the sky' symbolised exactly that.

An existential crisis.

At the same time, the old writer guessed that it also was telling people to be humble as in the end, under the vast sky, people were nothing more than dust.

So instead of being arrogant and bragging about things they had, it was better to stay humble.

"I am loving this song. The lyrics are so good."

The old writer muttered as the next verse after the chorus came up.

"Maybe, all the doubts are true."

"But I believe I will make it through."

"Maybe, I'm just reading the page with lots of sorrow."

"So, let's turn the chapter up, trying to reach a better tomorrow."

Hearing those lines, the old writer couldn't help but lean against his chair a bit, straightening his posture and just closing his eyes, trying to thoroughly enjoy the song before it ended.

The song reminded him of so many things, like the time when publishers had rejected his romance novel more than 20 times.

That had made him question his skills and just give up on everything. It was truly a very hard time for him.

At that time, he had consoled himself by saying the same words.

'It's just a bad chapter of the book called life. Good ones are surely coming soon.'

That had helped him stay sane and try to push more. In the end, he succeeded and managed to become a successful writer.

His overnight success had taken him years of failure.

The song reminded him just of that, and even if the song had an overall sad and fragile feeling to it, it was making the old writer feel good thinking of the fact that he hadn't given up on himself at that time.

"The announcer said that the singer is Aiden Silvereye, right? I really want to meet him now."

Muttering that, the old writer took out his phone and opened up Skygram. His granddaughter had taught him how to use it.

Grinning, he searched up Aiden Silvereye and followed him.

That day, Aiden got all sorts of fans.

'He's so good.'

That was the thought inside Hector Burn's mind as Aiden sang inside the booth. Not only him, everyone in the room either had their eyes widened, or their jaws were dropped listening to Aiden.

Even Wade had an impressed expression on his face.

Everyone knew that Aiden was good.

He had good songs in the past. He was a great composer but the song he was singing at that moment was something completely different.

It was making Hector feel like the strings in his heart were getting affected by the emotions coming from Aiden's music, making him remember all sorts of things.

He felt like he just wanted to close himself in a room and just listen to the song all day, not wanting to get disturbed by anyone.

"Ooh-ooh-ohh."

In the booth, Aiden was currently humming as he enjoyed himself. In his eyes, the whole room was already filled with sparkling, silver light.

His notes were affecting everyone that was listening to the song, having an effect even greater than when he had sung in during the shooting.

He knew that this was partly because of the boost on the song that he had gotten later on, but he was nevertheless very happy about the reaction.

"There will be times when you will find yourself crying."

"Calling out different names."

"Don't give up on that time as times will pass."

"And only the happy memories are gonna last."

He sang the next verse with a lot of emphasis on each word. The tone of the guitar was still the same, but there was a little brightness to it, like a single candle illuminating the whole dark room.

His voice was also bright as he was singing the parts of the song where Arthur had found the answers and was more confident in himself, trying to see the brighter aspect of life too.

That's why there was a lot of humming involved in this part.

"So, take my hand, let's go find ourselves in the dark."

"Running away from the sharks."

"Oh, who am I?"

"Just dust flying lost in the sky."

"Trying to fly high with the fear of falling driving me mad."

The silver light intensified as he again sang the chorus. This time, the chorus was bright, not sounding depressed.

The vulnerability, fragility and softness were slowly leaving the song as it transformed to give the listeners a happy end to a sad song.

That was the whole point of 'Lost in the sky' for Aiden, and everyone listening to the song could see that he had really nailed it.

Though Aiden only had a little idea currently, 'Lost in the sky' was being played in most of the cars travelling in America at the moment.

It has truly made everyone lose themselves in it.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your powerstones

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It took only a few hours and soon, 'Lost in the Sky' was trending at 7th place on Sparrow in America. The song which had been sung hastily in an emergency situation had truly won everyone's hearts in a short time and was quickly on his way to become another viral sensation of Aiden.

A lot of people who had heard of it in their cars tweeted about it and with that, the song spread all over social media. One of the reasons was also Red Ant FM posting a whole story about how Aiden had taken over on a minute notice after Justin Frank got into an accident.

They even posted the video of Aiden singing 'Lost in the Sky' on the radio station which quickly went viral.

This was all a part of Aiden's plan and he had only agreed to help Red Ant FM if they agreed to post the video and do a press release about the situation immediately.

He didn't want to waste any time.

He had done it to get benefits from Justin Frank's situation. He knew how big his fandom was and how the news of him being in an accident would surely make headlines.

In that case, if he sang in his place and the news got out, the various media outlets would surely cover him too, making it the best chance to release 'Lost in the Sky'.

Just the coverage of the song he would get because of that would be something extraordinary.

Aiden knew the quality of 'Lost in the Sky' pretty well, but he also knew how hard it was for songs to get a good amount of coverage in this day and age.

One could just look at music charts like Melody charts. Over half of the songs in the top 10 would be from famous artists with a lot of fans and the other half would be songs that came in the genre of hip-hop, rap and pop. .

A folk song or a ballad would rarely even come in the top 20 on the charts, and it won't get a lot of views. This had happened even with established artists in the past.

The reason behind this was the mentality of people and what was trending in the market. These types of songs were very easy to sell too because they could easily be used in a lot of short videos on social media sites.

Because of this, the artistic and creative aspect of music has taken a hit.

Just take Aiden's last song 'Revolution'.

It was a great rock song but until Aiden's incident, it was not even top 3 on New Top 50 singles charts on Melody. If not for the incident, it wouldn't have gotten over a 100 million views.

That was just the reality of the current music age.

Aiden knew this well and that's why, although he understood that it was a tad bit early to release the song, he still took the chance. The comments on social media were proof that it had worked in the right direction.

[Step sister/mom: Did you all hear 'Lost in the Sky'? My husband and I were on our way to a grocery store when we heard it. Feels like the best way to start a day.]

[Thanos left hand: I loved that song. Feels like there's still in the world that is worth not killing like that song. If my plan really succeeded, I might not get another song like that.]

[Rayden Silvercry: I didn't expect Aiden to release another song like this. Was really really unexpected! But it was so good. I'm watching the video posted by Red Ant FM on repeat.]

[Snappy snap: I just read through the article. It was really an impromptu decision to sing the song live on radio. Aiden handled it like a boss, especially with singing a song that he never released before live on radio. Got my massive respect.]

[Lucifer with balls: The lord of hell approves of the song.]

[Tin man: I really want a studio version of the song or at least a digital version. It's not on Melody or any other streaming platforms, so it's safe to say it's one of the songs that was going to be released in the next few months. Glad to hear it so soon. Can just hope they release it officially soon.]

[Justin Frank's lover: I was so excited for Justin's new song today but was really worried when he got into an accident. But Aiden handled it so well. Heard his interview today too. He looks very mature and knows what he's doing. I feel like I will be his fan too, I guess.]

[Twerking kitty: Is it only me who thought the song was very average? I didn't understand a lot of the lyrics? Are they deep, and I'm dumb?]

[Barking Bear: @Twerking kitty, Yes, you are.]

[What in the Woody Fallen: It seems like this is a song for a movie that Aiden's a part of. Seems like he has composed the whole soundtrack of it. What a talent! With both acting and singing.]

[Sorry, I'm sick: Damn, the song's already on trending, and it's only been a few hours since it was sung on radio. Justin Frank's fans are really thanking Aiden and helping get the trend going, and as more and more people are discovering the song, they are talking about it too. Way to go for Aiden. Guy always makes adversities into opportunities. He's gonna get stabbed and thrown out of a reality TV show, but he's going to make sure he gets to the top of the ladder in Hollywood.]

"It seems like our gamble paid off."

Wade said, driving the car and smirking. They had just gotten out of the radio station as the Production Director, and Hector Burn kept thanking him for the help and they ended up spending a lot of time there.

"I thought it would but it's working better than I thought. Anyway, this is just the first step." Aiden said, looking at Wade. "Did you talk to Omar about the situation?"

"Yeah, I explained everything to him. Actually, Leo was also there, so we had a long conversation. They are going to release the official studio single tomorrow on all platforms."

"A music video?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.

"Not really. The only thing they could use is the last scene from the movie, but Leo doesn't want to not let the audience witness it in the theatre. They are just going to release some footage of the movie like a small teaser alongside a lyric video. It's a great opportunity for the movie to get some eyeballs before the release. Though, there's a long time to that."

If they could, the best way was to get an actual music video, but there was no time to shoot one and they can't foolishly show important footage from the movie.

Originally, the whole album was only going to be released before the film festival in an audio version and a music video would have come after the release of the movie.

This opportunity has changed all their plans, so they are trying their best to make use of everything they could show despite not having a lot of time.

If they waited too much, the trend would just pass away.

"How did you even get such an idea? I didn't think of using this like you did."

Wade asked suddenly, slowly driving through a two-way lane.

"It was just when I saw the desperate faces in the radio station, my first thought was to help them, but I thought a bit deeper into it as to how I could work this in my favour. I have learnt that staying in this industry. Things like this have happened before, but I wasn't in a lot of control, and I knew that I won't be lucky everytime, so I deliberately sang 'Lost in the Sky', knowing how many teenagers are in his fan group."

Teenagers were pretty much the worst and best ones anyone could have because they have all the time in the world compared to an average adult, so celebrities with a lot of teenage fans easily get an advantage in social media numbers.

Especially in the trending sections.

It was one of the reasons why K-pop groups or just boy bands in general tend to target teens and people in their early 20s.

"Well, your plan is doing pretty well currently. A lot of Justin Frank's fans are very appreciative of you, so their tweets are naturally making the song reach more people. Though there are over a million views on the video posted by Red Ant FM already, we will know for sure once the official single is released."

Wade said, a bit nervous as to how this situation was going to go.

It could just be a random trend that ends after a day or two as social media is very fickle, so they need to be very smart and fast.

They needed 'Lost in the Sky' to be Aiden's best song in terms of popularity after they had taken a chance to release the song early. Anything less than that was surely going to make them a bit disappointed.

'I need to do my best as an agent to make this work.'

Wade thought in his mind and let out a deep sigh.

It was going to be a pretty relaxed period for them, but it seemed like peace was not for them. Thinking about something, he smiled and opened his mouth.

"I think it's time to contact some of the reporters I know and also Justin Frank's agency."

…

/DreamNote/ (16 July 2022)

Because of sudden change in weather here, my health has gone bad. The chapter release will be 1-2ch/d for this week. We will get back to consistent 2ch/d as soon as I recover.

Please support this novel with your power stones and golden tickets

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"This is definitely one of the most interesting stories these days. Aiden Silvereye really hit it big. Ain't he very close to being a mainstream artist now?"

A man with a rugged beard and messy hair said as he let out a puff of smoke. He was talking to his group of his colleagues who were all taking a break to smoke.

They were reporters working for a media agency that mostly focused on Hollywood, both movies and the music industry.

Though, the company focused more on cheap, controversial news like who was sleeping with who and which celebrity was hiding a secret. The media agency would even hire freelancing paparazzi to follow around celebs and because of unruly behaviour, they have been handed a lot of lawsuits in the past.

"Not close. He's pretty much already a mainstream artist. Just, he doesn't get invited to a lot of talk shows, morning reality tv shows or have a very powerful PR to promote him all the time. His singles are mostly only present digitally too because of lack of connections. So, the public perceive him as that but his numbers are putting mainstream singers to shame."

A man with black hair said, looking at his colleague. Other people standing there also added their opinions on him.

"Yeah, everyone knows that. His songs are doing extremely well for not having a lot of marketing. If he was with a record label like Cyco media or Big Apple label, they would have already made people label him as the new voice in music who will rule for the next decade."

"The record labels do love those sorts of taglines."

"Yeah, and from what I know, the guy itself is pretty easy to get along with. He's not arrogant and has a good head on his shoulders. Maybe that's why he chose to not sign up with big labels."

When a pretty short guy said that, the reporter who had started the conversation about Aiden in the first place asked.

"How do you know that?"

"I know his agent. Actually, he told me to do some articles on Aiden and the whole situation that's going on these days. I did write a few and they were received pretty well.".

"Did his agent send you the entire story of how it went by in the radio station?"

"A bit of the stuff he said was not in the official press release, so yeah."

Normally, PR teams has good relationship with reporters and they normally send them information about the celebrity they want the reporters to write about.

It was a pretty mutual partnership.

Aiden didn't have that but he did have Wade who had made crucial connections with reporters over the course of his career.

"What else did you get to know? Give us some details. I was already thinking of doing an exclusive article on him."

The guy with messy hair asked. Everyone else standing there also looked at him and the short guy smirked, liking the attention he was getting.

Although he considered telling them everything he had learnt, it was not a good choice when you are a reporter.

Extra information was the key to stand out from other reporters.

"Not a lot is there. Just what you find in the media. I do know that Aiden is trying to focus more on his acting career than singing and is actively looking for more projects. One more thing is that an album could be on the way."

"Album? You heard that?"

"No, but I guessed it."

The short guy said and then taking a glance at everyone's probing faces, he explained.

"I mean, he has more than a few songs now. He could create some more and add his other songs he created during X-Star to the album and he might be one of the few artists to have a successful album in the days of singles. That's the most obvious path I could see."

"That's true but an album is a huge investment, especially if he wants to not just do a digital album."

As the conversation progressed, a tall, lanky man standing in the corner also opened his mouth.

"By that I remember that 'Lost in the Sky' is a part of a movie's soundtrack. [30 days of Happiness] is the name, I think. They are going to release an album which is the official soundtrack and all of those songs are from Aiden."

"Really? He's getting into film composing now."

"Yeah, that's what I know. He's very talented and he's surely not shying away from trying his hand in tougher things. It's helping him come out as a very versatile artist."

They discussed it like that for a while. A new artist emerging out of nothing was always a story that was going to sell and as reporters working around the lanes of Hollywood, it interested them a lot because it was very rare.

Anyway, Hollywood loves people with a lot of skills and these people are normally called 'Triple threats' as they can sing, act and dance.

Aiden hadn't shown any dancing skills but he did have composing going on for him and who knows, in the future, he might actually show his dancing skills.

As they were talking, the phone of the short reporter rang. It seemed like a notification. He took it out and saw that it was a notification from Sparrow.

"Who's texting you?" One of his colleagues asked.

"No one. I actually got news about Aiden. A new one."

"What is it?" Everyone looked at him with curious faces.

"Justin Frank just uploaded a pic with Aiden and his record label also sent out an official press release."

"It came and it has finally conquered!"

Leo said, taking a look at the social media that was buzzing with the office version of 'Lost in the Sky'. They had only released it a few hours ago but it had already crossed 1 million views.

This was already in the zone of top artists that have their world tours totally booked up.

"I expected a good response but it's beyond that. We really got a lucky chance and Aiden made sure to grab it with both of his hands."

Omar said, happily tapping his fingers on the wooden table. They were currently in a conference room in the office of Green Finance that was in Los Angeles.

Other people like staff from marketing and planning departments were also there.

"With Justin Frank's record label cooperating with us, it gave us a great tool to market it."

One of the employees from the marketing team said.

"Yeah, they needed to. They are extra careful about Justin Frank's image and he's touted to be a very nice person, so it's just their way to not let that image die down. Moreover, Aiden did save their asees as Red Ant FM would have surely come hard at them if Aiden hadn't stepped in."

Omar explained, smirking. Justin Frank's record label was quite big but not big enough to walk over a big radio station. So, they have quickly agreed to let Justin and Aiden meet in the hospital where Justin's manager was admitted for photos and release a press statement, thanking Aiden.

This had helped hype up the song more and Aiden's good image was just getting better. He already has a clean white image but now, it was becoming brighter, slowly going into the category where people would automatically think that he was a good person when someone mentions his name.

"So, how are we going to go with it next?" Leo asked. "Wade had already cleared up Aiden's schedule for the next two weeks."

"It's very simple. We need to promote the song as much as we can. Because of it, people would get more interested about the movie too."

"Yeah, but the best scenario would have been if the movie was next month. The hype would slowly be nowhere when it releases after the film festival."

Another employee said this was a worry of a lot of people, including Omar and Leo as they simply felt like it was a bit of a pity. But they also knew the other side of it.

Even if the hype died down by the release of the movie, they could earn back a lot of investments just because of the album. Maybe, even all of it if they were lucky.

"We can't worry about that. We need to sell the music as much as we can. A lot of record labels are already contacting us for album distribution. We can directly distribute it in the market through them. Though, the digital one would earn us way more."

Omar said and for a long time, all of them discussed a lot about how they could market the song better and how they could market the movie along with the song as a lot of people still didn't know that it was from the soundtrack of a movie.

But slowly, it was surely going to spread.

"It's better if we can get Aiden to perform it in a lot of places all over America next month. Maybe even the UK or Canada but that's very far-fetched. I'm trying my best to get him a slot to sing it on talk shows. Though they are a bit unresponsive at the moment."

When Omar said that, the people in the room frowned but soon, he told them about something that he had discussed just in the morning.

"Though, we got a call from X-Star."

…

/DreamNote/ (17 July)

Hi guys, so turns out I have typhoid. Well, fuck the weather. The updates will be 1ch/d until I can fully get back up. Apologies.

Please support this novel with your powerstones and golden tickets.

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As 'Lost in the Sky' was released officially with a lyric version, it got over 10 million views in three days, making it trending on number one on MeTube in the music section.

This was the first time something like this had happened with Aiden.

Moreover, it started as number one on Melody New Top 50 single charts and also in other charts, it mostly started as number three before eventually climbing its way to the top.

This was a first for Aiden and like that, there was even hope for the song to eventually enter Top 10 in the Hot 100 singles charts which was one of the most prominent music charts.

He will only know once the charts update after a week but for now, Aiden was doing his best to promote the song as much as he could.

He knew the significance of the charts more than anyone. It was a ladder and each step ahead meant that the song was being heard by more and more people, getting trendier.

A high ranking on the music chart also meant that he would get better and better offers for shows which offered more money and visibility.

"Maybe, all the doubts are true."

"But I believe I will make it through."

"Maybe, I'm just reading the page with lots of sorrow."

"So, let's turn the chapter up, trying to reach a better tomorrow."

Aiden sang in a slow, mellow voice as the bright, silver light in the air slowly started to melt away as the song finished. The audience waved their hands slowly as the melody also died down soon enough. .

After that, a thunderous applause rang out as people clapped and praised Aiden.

"You are the best!"

"I love the song so much. Thank you for making it."

"Please sing it again."

"You are great!"

To all this, he just responded with a thank you and left the stage. Even though he wanted to spend more time interacting with the audience, his schedule was pretty tight.

He needed to keep the time in check every time he performed.

On the backstage, Wade was already present there. He gave Aiden a bottle of water and patted his shoulder on doing a good job.

"Only 1 more show to go. Then, we can just get on the flight to LA, rest for the entire night and get on with the shooting tomorrow."

Wade said and Aiden nodded his head with a smile.

"I'm more excited about it than I thought. It's been a year since I have been on the set of X-Star."

The shooting they were talking about was obviously X-Star. They have gotten a call from their production team, asking Aiden to sing 'Lost in the Sky' in the grand finale that was going to happen tomorrow.

This year, X-Star was in its fourth season and as Aiden was one of the most popular contestants last year, they wanted him to sing on the finale. The popularity of his latest song was obviously a big part of it.

"Well, you lost there before but now they are calling you as a guest, it already says a lot about how much you accomplished. So, feeling good about it is obvious." Wade said, shrugging.

"Yeah, but I never really caught up with the current season. Will there be any problems?"

Aiden asked, giving an awkward smile. He never had time to do anything because of the shooting and soundtrack, so he was mostly out of touch with this season of X-Star.

"Don't worry about it. Just watch some performances of the finalists. Not like they want you to judge the show. You are just going to perform."

"True." Aiden said. "Let's hope it helps the song. We are aiming high with it."

"I know but it's our best shot to truly be mainstream." Wade said before smirking. "Though, our real problems are going to start when we become mainstream."

"What will be that?"

"Trying to stay mainstream. That's way harder."

As 'Lost in the Sky' was doing so well on streaming platforms and MeTube, a lot of people were talking about it. This also included a lot of online media websites and tabloids.

But no famous and well reputed magazine has written about it or Aiden yet. It was because they were still looking over the situation and in their eyes, Aiden was still not that big of a star.

In the first place, a lot of these famous magazines would never write about independent artists simply because big record labels are the only ones to have connections with them.

Even with some of them covering Justin Frank's accident, they only briefly mentioned Aiden in one sentence.

Small artists generally never have PR, so even if they have a good song out, it won't get a lot of attention from anyone and even magazines focusing on music would ignore them.

But with 'Lost in the Sky' doing so well, there were all chances that one of these magazines would write some kind of an article on the song and Aiden.

A day before the X-Star grand finale shooting, one of the most famous music magazines, Record did release an article titled 'The unexpected and unprecedented Rise of a Star'.

[If anyone is on social media in the past week, they will at least have seen the name of the song 'Lost in the Sky' as it's been trending all over Sparrow and the official version of the song has already gotten more than 10 million views by the time this article is being written.

So, one might ask, why are we doing this article?

This song has just reached 10 million views, not 1 billion. It's not even from an ultra famous artist, those types who have world tours every other year. No, the song is from Aiden Silvereye and this article is only because of him.

Who is he one might ask?

The guy who was driving taxis two years ago, the guy who got eliminated from a reality show last year and now, the guy who's slowly becoming the next big sensation in America.

You see the rise there.

From being a nobody to making one wonder if he is going to be the next big thing and Record thinks the time is now close. The patterns dictate that.

Over the last year, Aiden's social media and streaming numbers are just increasing everyday. His MeTube channel is slowly moving towards the 2 million mark and now, even MeTube is promoting him on its own by recommending his songs.

It's clear as day that he's very sellable.

There's a lot of reasons behind it but the main ones surely lie in his personality, image and style of his music.

Aiden doesn't look like the guy who one would think has a special aura and he's on another league but someone who you could have some drinks with and laugh.

At least that's what it looked like when you looked at him in X-Star's third season, the place where he was first seen but after being in the industry for a year, one can easily notice an aura about him that a lot of stars have.

His charisma is slowly coming out as he's reaching higher stages in his career, making more people attracted to him and his image is something that has actively made people support him.

Despite being an indie artist, he knows how to take advantage of a situation he finds himself in and his versatility with him trying to make it in acting too gives one all the reasons to think of him as the next big thing.

This belief and the fact that Aiden keeps experimenting with his music and nailing it everytime does help his cause a lot…]

[Saint Broshep: Did you all see? Record put out an article about Aiden, calling him the next big.]

[Aiden's wife: Yeah, I read it. 'Lost in the Sky' is really giving him a lot of popularity. It's way better than the time 'Revolution' was released. Back then, most of the articles only talked about him being stabbed and how security should be more tight in open shows.]

[Gayson: I'm happy he's getting his due. A lot of people are appreciating him for stepping in for Justin Frank. It seems this fangroup itself got a lot of Justin's fans.]

[Suing my parents: That I can confirm. My girlfriend joined the group and she's a huge Justin fan.]

[Sex is overrated: Did you all heard Aiden is going to appear in X-Star?]

[Sleepy Joe Jr: Why is he going back there? Did they invite him as a guest or something?]

[Brick in my face: Yeah, their social media team confirmed. Singing reality shows usually call back their most famous ex contestants as guest singers. Though Aiden didn't even reach the semi final, he's the most famous out of the ones in the last season.]

[Mark, you see this: Yeah, I hope he gives a great performance and beats the top songs on the charts. It's kinda satisfying to see an indie artist doing so well mainstream.]

[Dramatic dog: Will he stop being indie after becoming mainstream?]

[Hollywood Insider: @Dramatic dog Not really, indie simply means someone who doesn't have a label. These artists just create their own label while being mainstream means being very popular and have a lot of commercial success but it's mostly hogged up by top labels as they easily get to top of charts and have big PR and marketing teams. That's why, there's not even one proper indie artist who's very mainstream.]

[Gossip girl: So, it means Aiden has a chance to be the first of his kind.]

…

/DreamNote/

The chapter was unedited because of lack of time. Apologies.

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"It's good to see you again."

Marlo Aniston, the host of X-Star said, shaking hands with Aiden. Both of them were meeting each other after a year and the last time they had talked to each other was when Aiden was eliminated from the show.

This time, they were meeting for entirely different reasons.

"Yeah, it seems like you are doing good. I heard the ratings of the show are all time high this season too." Aiden said, sitting down on the sofa.

They were currently in one of the lounge rooms. As they were meeting after a long time, there was a lot to catch upto to.

"It's just hanging around the same ratings as the last season. We are not able to beat it this season but we are way above par, so the channel is pretty silent about it."

"I thought it was different since I heard a lot of good things."

"Good things don't equate to good ratings." Marlo shrugged but knew that this wasn't anything surprising in the reality show industry. "We even decided to invite old contestants from last season because of that."

Panther TV wasn't putting any pressure on the X-Star production team this season, but Marlo knew that the third season of the show was its peak. Every show had it and after that, no matter what they did, they would stay below it.

These sometimes become reasons for shows to get cancelled, especially ones like X-Star.

"No one else responded positively?" Aiden asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They are already involved in other schedules. Cyco media has Rachel running hard and she's not even in the US and Cameron straight out refused when we contacted. Only you responded well and now, we are here."

Marlo leaned back on his seat with a smile. Aiden was always one of the contestants he wanted to do good for himself and he was doing pretty well. .

It made him feel nice because he had seen Aiden moving up from the bottom.

"Seems like you all are in quite a tough situation."

"Yeah, Gary, the producer, wants to top the ratings of last season anyhow, so we invited a few celebs to fill the guest list. Used all our connections, but we still there's no full guarantee. Last year's finale was watched a lot and it was even trending number one on Sparrow."

"In that case, we could only do our best."

Aiden said and Marlo agreed.

After that, both of them discussed things about the shooting and the rehearsals. As it was the finale, there needed to be a lot of rehearsals to make sure that the performance was good enough.

When Aiden was in X-Star last year, he had been eliminated before the finale, so he never got the chance to truly give a performance at the level of a concert. For this one, there was going to be a whole band assigned to him.

Though, it wasn't really necessary as 'Lost in the Sky' didn't need a lot of instruments.

To discuss all these things, Marlo and Aiden had a lot of discussions as to how the latter wanted the things to be done.

Time passed by very quickly as Aiden worked around the X-Star set, doing rehearsals for his performance and eventually getting it on with the actual shooting.

It was time consuming but a part and parcel of the business.

Aiden tried to just have fun with it and it was indeed nice to talk with the judges that he had seen for the first time last year. He noticed that there was a bit of a difference as to how they were treating him now.

It was because in their eyes, Aiden was a rising mainstream singer now.

Not just another contestant.

He also got to talk to the contestants that have reached the finals this year. Though, it was a brief talk, he was able to check their skill levels and he was pretty surprised to see that not one of them was Intermediate Grade 2.

Four of them were on Basic Grade 10 and only one was on Intermediate Grade 1, which Aiden guessed would be the winner.

He related it with the fact that this year's ratings of X-Star hadn't been great and thought that it was because of how rare a contestant at Rachel or Cameron level was.

It was already very lucky that both of them entered the competition at the same time last year.

Aiden was sure that X-Star wasn't going to get that lucky anytime soon again.

Like that, the shooting went on as Aiden performed his song on the stage. All in all, it took almost two days for the shooting of the finale to complete before they wrapped up another season of the show.

On 3rd August, Aiden and Wade were sitting in a cafe, talking about things while keeping an eye on their phones.

Today was the day the finale of X-Star was going to be released.

"How do you think the response is going to be?" Aiden asked, sipping on his coffee.

"It's the finale, so obviously a lot of people are excited. I saw a lot of discussions about it on internet forums. People love to discuss who's going to be the winner."

"I'm not talking about that. The ratings? Do you think they are going to surpass last year?"

Wade put a hand on his chin and thought about it. He had kept an eye on the response the show had gotten last year, so he knew how hard it was.

"It's not impossible but it's very close to that. You need a great viewer response initially to pull in more audience as the show goes on. A lot of people are going to watch it, the problem would be to keep them glued to their seats."

In grand finales of reality shows, many would just start watching it at the last moment to know who the winner is. It was also because of this reason the winner reveal segment gets peak viewership.

"They called other celebs as guests for that." Aiden said, thinking of his meeting with the other celebs that were present there. Just some singers and rappers.

"I don't think you should be too worried. Your performance was pretty good. Just wait and watch how people take it. Anyway, 'Lost in the Sky' is already closing in on 50 million views on MeTube."

Wade said with a smirk.

"Yeah, it's really getting a lot of love. A lot of them are also buying the hardcopy of the single." Aiden smiled. "No other song of mine has this sort of reception."

Omar had already made deals with a music distribution company about 'Lost in the Sky' and they have already started producing it and promoting the single.

"Your value is rising, so your songs are performing according to it." Wade said then suddenly, hesitated a bit before changing the topic. "Anyway, I got something for you."

"What?"

"Another audition."

"Another movie?"

"No, a TV show. I think it's good to have a mix of both movies and acting."

Aiden widened his eyes hearing that. In Hollywood, TV actors are generally seen less than movie actors and there was a big pay gap in their salaries.

In the 90s, any established movie actor won't even think about starring in a TV series as it was thought that it's going down a level.

It was true to some extent but the discrimination was very blatant.

It was only later on that more famous movie actors started taking roles in TV series and the gap between movie and TV industry lessened.

Nowadays, it was not uncommon to see a big movie actor coming out with a TV series. Though, there are still actors who just focus on movies or TV and won't try to get outside their comfort zone.

"What type of TV series? Is it a new series? Another main role?"

Aiden opened his mouth, having all sorts of questions in his mind. He was very curious about the audition Wade suddenly brought up.

"It's a sitcom. Not really a main role."

"Oh, so a side character?"

"No, they just want an actor to play a character for some episodes. I don't think they plan to bring him up later."

Wade said and Aiden nodded his head, satisfied. If it was going to be a role that would be very long, Aiden would not have been a lot interested.

After all, he didn't want to be bound by a role for several years.

This was something that a lot of TV actors would suffer from. A TV series will go for a lot of seasons, making actors bound to one role, making them unable to try other opportunities and get stuck to one role.

Many famous actors will leave shows because of this.

It has its own advantages and disadvantages but at this stage of his career, Aiden wanted to focus more on doing different roles.

"I will tell you more about the whole thing tomorrow." Wade said, picking up his phone which had suddenly started buzzing. "X-Star finale is starting."

On one of the famous celebrity online forums that was simply called 'Gossip sub', a person made a post titled, "Is anyone watching the grand finale of X-Star?".

As soon as the post was made, over 2000 comments were made on it, discussing their favourite contestants and how the episode was going on.

But compared to last year, a lot of people said that there wasn't a lot of spark in this year's finale.

All that changed when Aiden's performance came.

…

/DreamNote/

Update on health: Well, it's not a good news. The doctor did many tests and they found out I have kidney stones too. I will get a laser surgery (idr the exact name of it) in a week or two once my typhoid is cured. The update schedule will remain like this for some time.

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On the online forum 'Gossip sub', a lot of people talked about X-Star and its grand finale that was getting broadcasted tonight.

But most of these comments came off in a pessimistic way.

No one was very excited about X-Star. It was not just X-Star but the craze of reality shows has slowly stagnated and this year, the contestants weren't that well liked by the audience.

[Pan_Demic: I don't even remember the last time I was excited about a reality show finale. A lot of them are fixed and the contestants somehow have the same personality. Moreover, most of them fade away after the competition and new ones come up.]

[Jock Shock: Yeah, I used to get the feeling that this guy or that girl could be the next big singer but now, it feels like they are factory made singers that are going to get dumped after the competition.]

[Semi Dead: Last year X-Star was good though. It was amazing when Rachel Rose won as I was supporting her from the beginning.]

[President Small Hands: Yeah, last year's contestants were really great but this year one felt like they were trying too hard and the rounds were pretty boring too. But I think I will watch a bit of the finale just if it is really going to be bad.]

[I Shoot You Die: I heard this year they invited a lot of people, even Aiden Silvereye who was a contestant last year. I want to watch it just to see the interaction between Aiden and the judges.]

[Fire In The Hole: Yeah that would be very interesting. Aiden got eliminated pretty soon but he made it so big X-Star needed to invite him to the show. Would be fun to watch that.]

[Cumet: Wait, I didn't know that. I might watch it just for him then.]

[Itchy and scratchy: I don't think even calling celebs and getting old contestants back would do a thing. A lot of people left watching this season halfway through.

[Text me back: Who knows? Aiden's song is currently on my loop. It's very good and makes me calm when I'm anxious. It's even getting recommended by MeTube in their official playlist.]

[Robot cat: Let's see if Aiden's popularity actually helps the show. I'm pretty sure it won't have any effect nor will the other celebs.]

[Sick of living: Guys! The show is starting.].

After the commercial break on Panther TV, the logo of X-Star appeared at once on television screens.

With the accompanying background music, the introduction clip ran. The three judges each made an appearance in it and a voiceover told the story of how the show had gone from the first episode, the contestants that had managed to enamored people, the contestants who were eliminated and finally, those who made it to the finale.

The finale of X-Star has started!

At the same time, many people were waiting in front of their televisions.

"Dad, I don't really want to see this. It's pretty boring to watch."

A 10 year old boy said, looking at his father who had just changed channels to see the finale.

"I thought you were a fan of the show." The father asked, tilting his head.

"Not anymore. I got bored of the same songs getting sung and the same reactions. It's better to watch a movie. Why can't we turn on Zetflix?"

"Let's do that after a while. It's the finale. I want to see how it will go. I'm pretty sure they won't make it boring."

The kid wasn't able to say anything to that and just sighed, turning his eyes to the TV as there was no other option.

He was too tired of his video games too.

On the TV, the host started the finale by doing a small introduction of the celebs who are watching the show as a live audience today and then, one by one, the finalists were each called on the stage, presided by their introduction video.

In the introduction video, the finalists just talked about their journey and how desperate they are for winning the competition.

Then, they start performing with backup dancers amplifying the level of the performance with their movies. Every finalist sang two songs as the kid and his father saw the audience going wild over the performances.

Even the celebs and judges were appreciating them.

But both of them didn't think that it was really something amazing.

"Last year's performances were better. This doesn't give me the same level of excitement." The father muttered, sipping from the can of beer. "I should have just watched a movie."

"Which one though?" The kid asked.

"Well, we could watch a comedy. That's the best. Zetflix has some good sitcoms." The father said, knowing fully well that his wife would scold him if he went for a gore filled action movie which he typically liked.

"Okay. Let's watch [Searching for the One]."

As the kid said that, his years suddenly heard an announcement that the host of X-Star, Marlo was doing.

Wearing a golden suit that surprisingly didn't look bad on him, he said, "Now that the performances are done, I would like to call someone special on the stage. Someone who was there at the contestants place last year but in just a short time, he's a big singer that's doing very well for himself. Please welcome Aiden Silvereye on the stage!"

When both of them heard the name of Aiden, they both were a bit surprised. They were longtime viewers of the show and had watched the last season too.

The kid was even supporting Aiden throughout the competition before he got eliminated.

'I heard he had a fallout with the production team of the show, but I guess those were just rumors.'

The father thought in his mind. The thought of watching the sitcom stalled in his mind as he looked at his son.

"Should we watch his performance? You like him, right?"

"Yeah, let's wait till his performance ends."

The kid nodded his head and both of them started watching X-Star seriously for the first time since the start of the competition.

On the TV, the lights went off and a bright spotlight fell on Aiden who was standing in the middle of the stage with a guitar in his hand. He was looking at the judges, like he was reminiscing about his first audition.

Then, slowly music started to play around in the background. Soft piano music mixed with guitar instantly attracted the kid and his father.

Both of them have not heard 'Lost in the Sky', so they felt the same as they would feel when Aiden would bring out new songs in every round.

As Aiden started singing the song, the father and son felt like they were hit by a shocking feeling.

"Please tell me if this is an illusion."

"Why am I still finding the reason?"

"Oh, am I just searching for something that isn't there?"

"Reaching my hand out to nowhere."

This was it!

As the father and son got lost in the song, they realised that this was the feeling that was missing from X-Star this season. Even though the songs and singers were great, no one was able to immerse them in their songs.

The feelings didn't reach them and emotions were thoroughly lacking.

Aiden who has the skill 'Empathy' was master in portraying emotions, making him easily look like a singer who has gone through so many things and has tons of experience. This skill worked best with a song like 'Lost in the Sky'.

He was able to portray the emotions of a confused, teenage boy perfectly and at the same time, his notes were hitting all the right places, making it evident that he had practiced a lot.

As they were getting lost in the song, a lot of people have started talking about Aiden online.

"Is anyone watching the X-Star finale? If you are not, go and watch it asap!"

"What's going on in it? I thought it was pretty boring."

"Most of it is but a guy is singing a great song currently. What a fucking soothing voice he has and the song is great."

"Hey, that's Aiden Silvereye."

"I have been hearing about him and his songs a lot these days. Turns out it's really good."

"Why didn't he win last season? Ain't he the best out of all of them?"

"He got eliminated pretty early on."

"That's a pity but if he had won, who knows if he would turn out so good. I feel nice that his career trajectory is on the rise after facing failures."

"Yeah, it gives me a lot of confidence that I can pass again after failing my exams."

"Oh, fuck. I missed the performance. Changed channels five minutes before his performance. Does anyone have any clips?"

"Pretty sure, X-Star will release it on their MeTube channel. Aiden is already trending on Sparrow as a lot of people are suddenly talking about him."

"I heard people talking about him in a saloon I was in. X-Star was playing on the TV and everyone was staring at it, including the barber when Aiden started his performance."

"Damn! Ain't this song becoming too big too soon?"

"It's just a great song with deep meaning and sung beautifully. I'm happy such songs are getting recognition."

"Like this, Aiden is surely going to be on the top of Melody charts."

After the X-Star finale ended, a lot of articles came up about the show. But rather than talking about the winners, many of them were just about Aiden and his performance.

Aiden Silvereye wins hearts on the eve of X-Star finale.

The ex contestants turns up on the stage where he was eliminated to truly own it.

'Lost in the Sky' was the soul of X-Star grand finale last night.

…

/DreamNote/

Please support this novel with your power stones and golden tickets

Thank you Omar for your generous gift. And to everyone for your constant support.

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It was the scene of a cafe and a lot of people were talking among each other. Most people were here with their friend groups or office workers.

But today the atmosphere was a bit different.

Most of them were staring at the TV that was broadcasting the finals of X-Star right now. Aiden was currently performing his song and everyone in the cafe was mesmerised by it.

"He's so good."

"Damn what a song. I feel my soul cleansing just listening to it."

"That guy sings as good as me. I should go to X-Star next season too. I might become like him."

"Dude, shut up. You look like a three day old burger and your voice is worse than a baby's crying."

"I'm not that bad!"

"Shut up, you two. Just listen to the song."

A group of friends on a table talked among themselves like that. All of them have varied reactions to the song but they all felt that it was very soothing.

On another table, two girls were also talking about Aiden.

"He's so handsome and his voice is so calming."

"I've been following him for so long but this is his best song. Now, I'm going to sleep listening to the song."

"Ah, I feel like I'm falling in love."

"Girl, you fall in love every other day. Cupid arrows would have ended long ago if there were more people like you.".

On the table to the left, a group of colleagues who had just left their office were also looking at the TV and at Aiden's performance.

"This guy is really good. Why have I never heard of him before?"

"He's an actor I think. I saw one of his movies and his acting was very scary. Made me a fan. Didn't know he was a singer too."

"I follow him on Sparrow. He's very good looking and talented."

All these conversations were also heard by the waitress that was working in the cafe. Her brown eyes stared at the television screen as she looked at the guy she had first met a year ago.

She was actually Michelle who had been with Aiden in X-Star and had been appointed in a group called Symphony. After being eliminated, her group disbanded as they didn't feel that they had a future together and she joined a college and started a job as a waitress.

As for singing, she had mostly given up on it as she felt like she was no good due to her elimination.

The disappointment had hit her hard and now, she would rarely even sing.

But listening to Aiden on the TV screen, she felt like something under her was rising. 'Lost in the Sky' completely mesmerized her and hearing the lyrics, she felt like she was able to relate to the song.

She has faced failures and had always questioned if she was good enough. If her efforts were even worth it but in the end, there was no answer.

Currently, she felt like this song was her answer.

"Maybe, all the doubts are true."

"But I believe I will make it through."

"Maybe, I'm just reading the page with lots of sorrow."

"So, let's turn the chapter up, trying to reach a better tomorrow."

As those lyrics hit her, Michelle took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking and there were droplets of tears in her eyes as she tried to imagine the things she had gone through.

'Will I also get a better tomorrow?'

She thought in her mind.

In front of her, Aiden who had been eliminated at the same time as her was doing so well and here, she was being a waitress, completely giving up on her dream.

She felt a bit ashamed of herself at that moment.

"Michelle, are you okay?"

The manager walked up to her and suddenly asked, looking at Michelle. She looked very odd.

"No, I think I will leave the job."

"Huh? Why? What happened?"

"I think I want to try pursuing music one more time."

She said, this time her voice was a bit determined.

The Morning Herald: Aiden Silvereye shines through in the rather lacklustre finale of a record breaking reality TV show.

Hollywood Weekly: Christina Barrymore wins the fourth season of X-Star but Aiden Silvereye took most of the praises.

Variety Times: X-Star finale is teaching the reality TV industry that they need to bring in more innovation to keep people's interest intact. Other than few moments, everything fell short.

Los Angeles Daily: The finale of the fourth season of X-Star comes close to breaking it's predecessor record ratings.

The Dawn: 'Lost in the Sky' by Aiden Silvereye sees a spike in daily watchers after yesterday's broadcast of the X-Star finale. The young singer is walking one step at a time to success.

Seeing the pile of newspapers and tabloids in front of him, Aiden couldn't help but read through each of them. All of them were about the X-Star finale.

The event has really made people talk about it a lot.

It was trending on Sparrow at number one position after the broadcast with Aiden's name coming as close as the third position in the rankings.

This was a very good thing. After the broadcast, 'Lost in the Sky' views also escalated a lot and now, it was very close to crossing the mark of 100 million views.

"All of these newspapers and tabloids talk about me a lot. I got more coverage than even the winner."

Aiden said, picking up one of the tabloids which has his photo on the front.

"Yeah and it's also because I only picked up articles that wrote about you a lot."

As Wade said that, Aiden's face stiffened a bit but he didn't say anything, knowing full well how he was usually.

Currently, both of them were sitting in a cafe that was on the second floor of the building where Bradley Carell productions was situated. Aside from them, Aiden could see a few more actors sitting here and there with their agents.

The audition time was still two hours away and all of them had come early.

"Anyway, let's keep aside all these newspaper articles. What do you know about the director and producer of [Searching for the One]? Or the role? It's kind of hard without a script."

As he heard that, Wade put the tabloid in his hand on the side and got serious.

"You already know about the sitcom, right?."

"Obviously."

[Searching for the One] was a show that Aiden had watched a lot during his days as a taxi driver. Sitcoms were best for some laughs and they could easily make you feel better and not let you think about your bad situations.

This was one of the major reasons why most of the sitcoms are very famous if they manage to click with the audience.

"Well, in the last few episodes, more than the last few episodes actually, the ratings are pretty down and I heard IBC is not really happy. At least that's the rumours that's coming down from the top brass."

For the record, IBC was the channel that distribute [Searching for the One].

"That's why, they are doing auditions for a new character in the middle of the season. Even though they are in a hurry, they have kept things pretty tight lipped and no scripts were given out. I just know it's a pretty quirky role."

"What about the director? Amelia Fryman is directing this season right? What do you know about her?"

TV shows sometimes were directed by a lot of directors. Some directors would just direct some episodes while others would take over for the entire season. For [Searching for the One, there were already four directors over six seasons.

Amelia Fryman was a veteran TV director who had directed the first two seasons before another director had taken over.

"I hear she's pretty good as a director and is great in comedy. Just the typical director. She's good at making feel-good romantic comedies, so she's a big hit in these types of genres."

"Working with her would be pretty fun then. I heard female directors have a distinct style."

"You will know if you pass the audition. Anyway, there's a lot of producers involved in the sitcom, but Bradley Carell is the main one. He's attending the audition too. He was there when the idea was pitched back then and pushed hard for it. That guy is very desperate."

Wade said, telling Aiden every detail he knew.

As Aiden had watched the series, he knew about the tone of the series and what were its main attractions that got people to watch it. All he needed to do in the audition was to impress the main people behind the show.

"You seem to know him?" Aiden asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he used to visit my old workplace a lot. Smoked a bit with him. Was a pretty depressed fellow back then as none of his projects were working. [Searching for the One] was the jackpot for him and now, he's a top TV producer. That's why, he is even trying to let the show run for as much as it could."

"You were able to get this opportunity for me because of that."

Wade nodded with a smile.

On the day Aiden was doing the radio show, Wade had met Bradley Carell in the lobby and they had started talking.

Bradley had accidentally mentioned about the show getting another character for a few episodes and how they were scouting for the perfect actor.

The burly agent had managed to show Bradley Aiden's profile and after that, it had been pretty easy as Bradley had liked Kai a lot.

So, his opinion of Aiden was pretty good.

"Don't worry, I think you will be able to impress them. You look handsome, especially in that suit you are wearing." Wade took a look at the black suit he was wearing. It gave Aiden a suave touch. "And remember, this is just the first round of auditions. Basically a look test to see if you fit the feel of the character they have in mind. The real test will come when you meet the cast members. Chemistry is everything in a sitcom."

As both Wade and Aiden talked about the show and the audition, the door to the cafe suddenly opened.

…

/DreamNote/

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64c3e69bf75c4d1715a59001

Chapter 138

A white man with blonde hair, a bit of beard and a square face walked in. He looked a bit burly with his body shape but he was smiling in confidence.

Besides him, a rather small guy was there.

The other actors present there started muttering among themselves seeing the guy. It looked like they were wary of him.

"Hey, isn't he Dustin Redford? That actor from [Sunlight]."

"Isn't he a movie actor? What's he doing here?"

"He started his career from TV, so maybe he's interested in the role. Sigh, I thought it would be a bit easy to get it."

"He has a lot of popularity and is a veteran. I'm pretty sure the role would go to him."

Hearing the actors whisper about him, Dustin smiled proudly, thoroughly enjoying it.

"We should get a table. There's still an hour until the audition." The short man beside him said. He was Dustin's agent.

"Yeah, okay—"

As he was speaking, Dustin's eyes suddenly landed on Aiden who was sitting in a far right corner, immersed in his conversation with Wade.

His eyes sparked a bit and without wasting any time, he quickly made his way up to Aiden's table.

"Hello, aren't you Aiden Silvereye?"

"Uh, yeah.".

"I really like your performance as Kai. Makes me want to play such characters myself and your songs are really great. You are very talented."

Dustin blabbered on and for a second, Aiden thought that he was just another fan. They have increased after 'Lost in the Sky' became so famous.

But suddenly, Dustin's expression changed as he saw that unlike him, Aiden wasn't recognising him.

"Do you not recognise me?" Dustin asked and Aiden made a confused expression.

Seeing that, Dustin wasn't able to stop himself from frowning. He was very sure that Aiden knew him. After all, the other actors who were here had shown good reactions seeing him.

"I'm sorry but who are you?" Aiden finally asked.

"Dustin. Dustin Redford. You must have at least heard of me."

Aiden tried very hard to remember if he knew of the guy or had at least heard of him. On the side, Dustin's agent was already sighing with a hand on his face.

It looked like he was used to seeing these things. Wade on the other hand was laughing, like he was amused.

'I do feel like his face is familiar.'

Aiden looked closely at his face and at that moment, Dustin's expression finally broke.

"I appeared in [Sunlight]. The movie was nominated for Oscars and even in the TV series [Metal kings]. You must know them."

"Ah, yes, I remember you."

After getting the clues, Aiden finally realised who the guy was. Though, at this point, Dustin was already struggling to smile. He had thought that at least other actors would know of him.

"It seems like you have a bad memory. Anyway, what are you doing here? Are you here to audition for [Searching for the One]?"

Dustin asked, changing the subject quickly to not feel embarrassed.

"Yeah, are you auditioning too?"

"Yes, I was actually in talks with Zero International for a hundred million dollar project but my agent here recommended taking this audition as it was going to be a short role. It seems like a good opportunity to get my face out there. It's been a while since my last project. Anyway, I'm very sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Yeah, now that I'm here, the role is obviously going to me. So, you might go home disappointed."

After talking about Dustin for a bit, Aiden understood one thing.

That the man in front of him was an absolute blabbermouth who didn't know what to say and what to not. At the same time, his personality was best described as narcissistic.

Dustin loved to talk about himself in a higher position than others but by his tone of words, Aiden knew that he didn't mean bad.

As soon as they got down to talking, Dustin started talking about how he had started in the industry and how for the first few years, everyone had failed to see his excellent acting and had ignored him.

It was only after his first breakthrough role that he started getting more and more attention.

Somehow, his story was pretty good but it was very repetitive as Dustin would say the same time again and again and soon, Aiden was already bored of his talk.

He even gave advice to Aiden about how to go with his career. It seemed like Dustin was seeing himself as a senior who was trying to give advice to his junior who was new in the company called Hollywood.

Other than that, Dustin was also very confident in getting the role in [Searching for the One]. It was because he had earlier starred as a lead in a very popular TV series and felt that the producers won't look anywhere else after his audition is finished.

Aiden didn't really reply to that whereas Wade was just trying to stop himself from chuckling. .

On the other hand, Dustin's agent was the only one with a pale face and he was continuously sighing. It seemed like he was very used to Dustin's narcissist personality.

From time to time, his agent would even look at Aiden and mutter a soft 'Sorry' in a whisper.

"Please don't take his words to heart. He's, uh, just peculiar. He's always been like that and I know it doesn't give off a good image but he's not a bad guy."

"It's fine. I understand."

"Thank you. Good luck with your audition."

"You all too."

After whispering that, Dustin's agent quickly followed him outside the cafe. It seemed like Dustin's audition was scheduled earlier than Aiden.

Every actor was given a certain time. It was faster that way as not a lot of actors were actually called for the audition today.

"He's surely a very weird guy."

Wade muttered after Dustin and his agent left.

"Yeah, his words sound very narcissistic and rude sometimes but he has this goofy atmosphere about him that makes people not take him a lot seriously, so they get along."

"That's true. I heard he's actually way better in reality TV shows than acting. He once got very good reception after appearing on a talk show but he's more inclined towards acting."

Wade explained, telling Aiden the history behind Dustin and he did agree that someone like Dustin suited a goofy, entertaining guy hosting reality TV shows.

That type of concept did seem to work with him.

'He's rude but he doesn't really give off a vibe like Tyler – Someone shady and spoiled. Rather than that, he seems like someone people could get along with if they could get used to him.'

Thinking that, Aiden suddenly felt that Dustin was very interesting as a character. Once, Uncle Sam had told him that the best thing one can do to better his acting is to listen.

Listen to stories of people and just observe their personality. As every person contained a story with them, it was a very effective way to know different characters.

Once you get to play a character, you could integrate their quirks into that, making the character more interesting.

He felt like Dustin was one such character.

"I don't think any of these suit the guy in my mind. Do we need to do another set of auditions? We don't really have a lot of time."

Mason Stone, one of the main writers and creators of [Searching for the One] said. Next to him, Amelia Fryman, the director sighed.

"Let's hope not. We need to start shooting soon as we are in the middle of the season. This is the first time I'm even experiencing this type of situation and wasn't Dustin Redford good? His acting skills are already proven by his filmography."

"He's fine but he doesn't give me the feeling that he's the guy we are looking for. You do know this character is very peculiar. I want someone who could think out of the box."

"You say that but even you don't know if this character will be liked by people or not as you and the others wrote it in a hurry. You don't even seem to mind if an actor portrays it completely differently than what we discussed."

Mason just smiled awkwardly hearing that.

Amelia wasn't wrong. Unlike the other characters in the show, this one was written in a hurry with the sole purpose of getting the show on the track.

After that, the character was going to be disregarded so everyone would be happy enough if they could just get a good actor on board to do this.

They weren't expecting it to become a character that would be talked about a lot and become a fan favourite. They were happy with the bare minimum.

"If you two aren't satisfied by the actors who we have auditioned till now, maybe the next one would change your mind. See his resume. He's pretty famous."

Suddenly, Bradley Carell, the executive producer of the show, sat down next to them and slid a resume towards Amelia.

She looked at him and even Mason turned his head to glance.

"Aiden Silvereye. Isn't he a singer? My daughter is a big fan of his. Is he trying to act so early in his career?"

"No, he actually played roles before. Didn't you watched [Black Saints]? He played the role of Kai."

Amelia and Mason's eyes widened hearing that.

"I didn't know that. I never really saw his face and just heard his songs."

"Same for me."

"Well, you will know when he comes in. He's next. Let's hope he does well in this audition."

As Brandon said that, Aiden walked in the audition and every pair of eyes that was in the room looked at him. He stood in the centre and the audition started after he introduced himself.

With that done, Amelia started off with a question.

"How will you envision a playboy character?"

….

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets

64c3e69bf75c4d1715a59001

"How will you envision a playboy character?"

When Aiden heard that, he thought that he was getting some information about the character he was playing for the first time. Wade had just told him that it was a quirky character, but that was obviously not good enough.

Now, he had one more character trait which was him being a playboy.

"What type of playboy?" After a bit of thinking, Aiden asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there are different types. Those with that suave look about them and great charisma. Then there are also those who just play around for fun. A simple playboy could be played in many different ways, you know."

Hearing that, Amelia pursued her lips. She hadn't really decided on a certain type.

"You can go with whatever you want. Just give me an insight of what you think of a playboy character in the world of [Searching for the One]."

By world, Amelia was talking about the tone of the whole show, the vibe it gave out and how the characters revolved around it.

'The world of the sitcom is pretty simple, fun and even eccentric at times.'

Aiden thought in his mind.

[Searching for the One] was obviously set in the real world but unlike something like [Black Saints] which has a serious and dark theme, the sitcom had a pretty light one with the world mostly revolving around the characters.

It was obviously very basic for a sitcom to have a light theme..

The main characters were pretty much simply written but had their own fair share of eccentricities. Even the supporting cast was like that to add a silly and wacky element to the whole show.

'If in this world, I need to put a playboy character, his personality can't be something you would see in a romantic drama. He could be charming but it's way better if he's very flawed, maybe even problematic but knows how to get girls.'

Aiden thought in his mind and got ready to give his answer.

"I think it suits the theme of the show but there's no need for him to be like this guy who always knew how to get girls from high school and just continued it till middle age. So, I won't go for a character like that."

"Why is that? A lot of movies follow that." This time, Mason asked.

"Yeah, but you need to really give a good reason behind him being like that. Being a playboy and going from one girl to another sounds cool but it's very exhausting if you think about it emotionally. You never settle in and it's like a competition if you could keep getting more girls after a point. A guy with average IQ won't do something like that if he's an adult without any proper reason. Movies do show it but they rarely explain it, making people not connect with the character."

Everyone in the room seemed impressed by Aiden. He has really given a good analytic answer in just a short time.

Actually, after getting the writing skill, Aiden had been able to read characters and scripts way better, like he was able to actually think like an author.

"So, what type of a character would you go for if you get to act like a playboy in the show?"

Brandon Carell asked, squinting his eyes to observe Aiden's expression.

He thought about it for a bit, as to what type of character he would make in this situation. It should be noted that Branden was simply asking about his perspective which could easily be taken as a very odd question.

Aiden guessed that maybe, the role he was auditioning for was just roughly written.

It made sense when he thought of the rumors that the ending of the current ongoing season of [Searching for the One] was being changed.

'A type of a playboy I would want to play. Well, first of all, his entire personality shouldn't revolve around getting girls. It should be more than that and he needs to be unique and a bit eccentric.'

When Aiden thought till then, an image formed inside his head. It was actually very similar to Dustin Redford who he had met just before the audition.

'He's certainly someone who I could take a lot of traits from for the character. Narcissistic, rude but a goofy edge to him.'

After finishing up the character model in his mind, Aiden looked at the people sitting in front of him and opened his mouth.

"I will probably go for a narcissistic guy who doesn't really care about other opinions and is very stubborn and thinks highly of himself."

"How will you make such a character likeable?"

"Well, these would more or less be just an outer surface. He needs to have a playfulness and goofiness, enough that people are instantly attracted to him. At the same time, he should have weird hobbies that one won't expect of him but somehow suits the character."

"Weird hobbies?"

"Yeah or catchphrases. A good sitcom character has great catch phrases that become synonymous with their characters."

Aiden explained his point for the next 20 minutes as to how he envisioned a good playboy character in [Searching for the One].

Actually, the question was never supposed to become a full length discussion. It was just meant to be a question for Amelia and Mason to get some insight to Aiden's understanding.

But as his answers and ideas were pretty great, they couldn't help but talk more about it.

'His ideas are certainly going to make a good character.'

Mason, the main writer of the show thought as he discussed with Aiden.

Originally, he was going to go for a suave and a bit strong looking guy but listening to Aiden, he felt like his ideas were way better.

"Your ideas are certainly great but let's go ahead with the audition now. We have a scene prepared for you. You would be given five minutes to prepare."

After half an hour of talking with Aiden, Amelia said.

The audition took more than half an hour, the longest out of all the people that were asked to do an audition. It was because Aiden was asked to do a few scenes and Mason and Amelia were constantly asking him about the scenes and how he would approach them.

At the end of the audition, Bradley Carell, the producer, even told him that he was the most interesting actor who had auditioned today.

"So, you feel like the role will be yours? You spent a long time there."

Wade asked as they were driving out of the production house parking lot.

"I can't say that. You do know how the industry is. Things change at the last minute but I think the audition went well." Aiden replied with a smile.

"It's better for us if you get the role. Though our schedule would be very tight then. You would be a lot busier then."

The Toronto film festival is starting next month and [30 days of Happiness] have already been registered to have a premier there. In the meantime, if Aiden got the role in [Searching for the One, he would be able to quickly finish up the shooting.

After all, the production team of the sitcom was also in a hurry to finish the shooting of the changed ending.

They didn't want to delay the show when they were in the middle of a season.

"I'm already busy and it's nice being busy to be honest. It's way better than the time when I have no work. Now I have a bit of fame, my acting career is going pretty well and I even won an award."

"If that's the case, I hope you are busy every day of the year."

Wade said and chuckled.

It was at that moment that notifications suddenly appeared in front of Aiden out of nowhere.

[Your song 'Lost in the Sky' has gotten more than 100 million views on MeTube and Melody. Congratulations on achieving such a huge feat.]

[Your song has reached the top of the music charts.]

[You have advanced to Intermediate Grade 3 from Intermediate Grade 2. You have gotten a lot of experience.]

[You are advancing levels at a very fast rate. Congratulations on such a great feat.]

As Aiden read those words, a smile plastered on his face automatically.

He quickly took out his phone to see if it was actually true and saw that the views on MeTube had actually crossed 100 million. It was the same for Melody where the streams were already over 100 million.

It was even on the list of Top Global songs.

When he opened up the charts, Aiden saw that the song was number one on Top 50 singles charts.

Number one finally!

This had happened for the first time in his music career and for a second, Aiden's heart thumped wildly as quickly took a screenshot of the charts, scared that the song won't stay there for long.

"What happened? You are suddenly smiling." Wade asked, finding his behaviour a bit strange.

"We are number one on the Top 50 singles charts on Melody. The list just got updated."

"What??"

Wade shouted hearing that.

He turned his head quickly to stare at Aiden who just showed him his phone. Looking at it, Wade's expression quickly turned into a joyful smile.

"Bloody hell! Finally! We did it! I knew the song would be a massive hit!"

He shouted as he quickly changed directions to move towards a bar.

They have finally done it!

Without a big record label promoting them, they have managed to achieve the first place on the most important music charts.

No matter how they see it, it was the biggest achievement of Aiden's career.

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Melody mostly had 3-4 most relevant charts, and out of these, the Top 50 singles chart was the main one.

It was updated every week and listed down the most popular songs in recent times by their popularity on social media, streams and how much it was selling.

Being first on this chart was literally every singer's dream as it meant that their popularity was really high enough to stand at the top.

Every week countless songs would be released all over the world, and it was a very hard thing to topple over all these songs.

Obviously, Melody wasn't present in every country and was more focused on America and Europe with some parts of Asia, too, but their global reach was still a lot.

Moreover, other charts had also crowned 'Lost in the Sky' as the number one song on their respective charts.

It was a very big thing.

The achievement becomes bigger when one thinks about how Aiden was without any proper backing and had come this far on his own.

Just in a year, he had done things that no other indie musicians had been able to accomplish.

The highest number an indie song got in the last ten years was 3rd before this, and it was a song by a very famous band who had marketed it a lot.

Aiden had made a huge leap and had become the first indie singer in the last ten years to top the charts.

Even then, he had done this with a ballad. Not even a pop folk song but a ballad, a genre that was rarely counted as popular.

This was almost an impossible task, and Aiden had somehow managed to do it.

By luck, chance or just with a full-fledged plan, no one cared how he did it, but the moment 'Lost in the Sky' became number one on the charts, a lot of articles came out about it.

Taking it as the right moment, the team of [30 days of Happiness] also released the whole soundtrack as an album, and in just a day, it sold over 10k copies online.

The streams on the other songs in the album 'Take me back home' and 'Journey' also started increasing. They weren't as good as a song like 'Lost in the Sky', but they weren't bad either. .

Because of the soundtrack's music, many media articles even started mentioning [30 days of Happiness].

'Lost in the Sky' reached the top spot on Melody Top 50 singles charts and even other charts from companies like Record, Pop Zap magazine and others.

Aiden Silvereye became the first indie singer to give serious competition to mainstream singers. Is he the next big Global star?

An accident changed the whole career of an indie singer. Written and composed by Aiden Silvereye, 'Lost in the Sky' has a lot of heart and soul.

Aiden Silvereye trends on Sparrow once again after his song reached the top spot on Melody charts. Is the next thing from him going to be a full-fledged album?

The soundtrack of [30 days of Happiness] gets released. While probably having the best film album in recent years, it would be interesting to see whether the indie movie would be able to impress the audience.

Aiden Silvereye – The guy who's truly making his own place in an industry ruled by giant corporations.

The scene was of a room. Exquisite furniture that seemed antique covered the room. Paintings and portraits were on the wall, and the room was big enough to be many people's whole apartment.

It gave off a very royal feeling like it was a room in the mansion of some kind of royalty.

On the side of the room, there was a piano which was currently being played by a blonde-haired guy.

He was Cameron.

A low note covered the room. Sitting in front of the piano, Cameron was calmly manipulating his left hand.

A main lyrical melody was in the forefront, and behind that, there was an endless continuation of another melody as the accompaniment.

Glancing at the piano, his right hand seemed to be moving with an emotional pace while the left hand flew across busily and appeared peculiar.

He was busy focusing on the emotional part of the song, and his eyes were focused as his hands danced around, creating a great atmosphere.

It was only after 2 minutes that the instrumental song he was playing ended. As the song ended, a voice came out from behind him.

"You are improving a lot."

"Thank you."

Cameron turned to look at the old man who was sitting on the sofa. The old man's face was covered in a white beard and his hair was the same. He gave off a calm, gentle vibe, obviously happy with his grandson's performance.

His name was Joseph Bryce, a famous composer who had worked in a lot of blockbuster movies during the 70-90s.

"Grandpa, do you think my emotional expression is getting better?" Cameron asked.

"It is getting better. Earlier, you were lacking a lot, and your voice has started becoming scratchy too, but now, I feel like you are doing way better."

Joseph said, feeling glad that his grandson had managed to come out of his depression and eventually leave depression behind.

After he had come here, Joseph made Cameron get a therapist to deal with his depression, and after that, he started practising a lot and learning more about music.

"I think you are ready to go back to your career as a singer. You have been on a break for a long time."

Joseph said after a while.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, in this age, people don't wait and move on to other artists, so it's better if you can create a name for yourself soon. You have the necessary talent and just need to put in the effort."

"Thanks, I will talk to Uncle Jeff about it."

They talked like that for a while, and Cameron looked happy that he had managed to impress his grandpa. It was then that Joseph suddenly remembered something and asked.

"By the way, your friend, Aiden, I heard his songs. He's pretty good."

When his grandpa suddenly mentioned Aiden, Cameron was a bit surprised, knowing full well that his grandpa won't talk about someone without any reason.

"You listened to his new album? He made the entire soundtrack of a movie."

"Yeah, I did. A lot of people I know texted me saying that a new kid is doing pretty good and is now at number one on the charts. Made me interested as I have heard you mention him before."

"It seems like you liked his music a lot."

Cameron said, noticing that his grandpa was smiling while talking about Aiden.

"Yeah, he's a good singer, but I think he's better as a… composer. His style is very distinct, and he knows how to play with different types of sounds."

What Joseph was saying was true as Aiden's composing skill was on Level 7, which was pretty high considering that there were only 10 skill levels. It was also a reason why Aiden's composing skills weren't increasing despite his songs doing so well.

"Actually, his music reminds me of someone. One of my friends was very excited about him because of that." Joseph suddenly said, making Cameron raise an eyebrow.

"Who?"

"Just an old friend." Joseph pursued his lips. "You know, in the future, help me meet him. Aiden might be able to help me solve something."

Cameron made a confused expression hearing that. His grandpa's words were sometimes strange, and this was one of those times.

"What help do you need?"

"I will tell you when the time comes. Currently, it's just something I'm still not sure about, but I'm pretty sure Aiden won't turn down the opportunity when I finally get to meet him."

As 'Lost in the Sky' was once again on everyone's mind, the production team of [Searching for the One] were in the middle of a meeting to finalise an actor from the pile of auditions they had taken in the last two days.

Producers, writers, directors, marketing team members, and even some crew members were present in the conference room.

On the table, piles of resumes were placed, and all of them had gone through a lot of audition tapes of the actors who had managed to impress them a bit in the audition.

In the end, the answer was pretty clear.

"Aiden Silvereye – He's the one."

"Yeah, we can't look beyond him for this role. He's excellent."

"His stature really suits the character, and his comic timing didn't look bad in the audition."

"He's just the only one who left a great impression during the audition. The others were lacking one thing or the other."

The team of [Searching for the One] was pretty united in their decision to choose Aiden. Normally, there would always be people who would think some other actors are better.

It was common for producers and directors to argue for days about an actor.

But in this peculiar case, nothing sort of that happened.

Aiden was able to convince everyone by his insight that he was the right choice to play the role.

"But you know, since we are going for Aiden, many people would probably take it as another celeb cameo and accuse us of using his current popularity to get our ratings up."

One of the writers suddenly said, starting a discussion in the conference room.

"Those are there every time a celeb comes on the show."

"It's justifiable, too, as we do call celebs a lot to make a cameo every time the rating starts to fall."

"Yeah, but it's different this time. He's a full-fledged character. He won't appear in many episodes and is there just to get the show on the right track, but he's a good character. People would stop criticising it after watching him."

Amelia Fryman said, giving her perspective on it. The only reason she even thought that the controversy would erupt was that the public thought of Aiden as more of a singer than an actor.

It's pretty clear as to how they saw him.

Many people who listened to his song didn't know that he had acted before and had a great screen presence.

"If we are talking about controversy, there would also be people who would doubt his comic abilities. Even people who know him as an actor don't know if he's versatile enough, so they are going to doubt him until he proves himself."

Mason added, making several people nod their heads. He was right, as only two of Aiden's acting works had been released yet.

Unlike songs which were several, his acting was clearly behind.

Hearing all these discussions going around Aiden, Bradley Carell couldn't help but comment.

"These things would help us if we could get Aiden to deliver a good performance. If people are doubtful, they at least will watch the show to confirm if their doubts are true. It will give us more viewers. Personally, I feel like Aiden as Alan Geller is perfect."

…

/DreamNote/

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"Aiden!"

"Aiden!"

"Aiden!"

Joyous cheers erupted in every corner of The Rabbit Hole bar as people chanted Aiden's name. The festive atmosphere was all around the bar as everyone drank.

Aiden smiled, standing on top of the stage.

He had just finished the third encore of 'Lost in the Sky'. After his song had reached the top of the charts on Melody, Abraham had called him to the bar to celebrate, even going as far as to offer free drinks today.

The old man was very happy and excited about Aiden's success as he felt that Aiden was a talent that had come out of his bar. It was a very big deal for him as he had always dreamed of something like this happening.

One of his bar singers hit it big, and with that, the popularity of his bar also went up.

After 'Lost in the Sky' had reached the top spot, a lot of reporters had already visited the bar to get more information about Aiden to write up a good article on him.

All those articles would also mention the bar, and its popularity would obviously increase.

"Thank you for listening to me tonight. All drinks are on me today, so drink till you pass out!"

Aiden said on the mic, and another cheer erupted. In the crowd, he was able to see a lot of people that had supported him from the start. Even Valerie, his old landlady, was here, talking to Abraham in a corner.

Finishing his performance, Aiden climbed down the stage to find himself a drink.

This was the day of celebration of his hard work. There's no way he was gonna not enjoy it.

"Jeff, give me the usual."

Aiden said, sitting in front of the bar. Jeff, the bartender, nodded his head and smiled at him. .

"Give me a minute. Many people are asking for a drink today, thanks to you. Everyone is happy for you." Jeff said, then paused as if thinking about something. "Well, except one person."

"Who?" Aiden tilted his head.

"Amy, the Boss's niece. You remember her, right?"

Realisation dawned on Aiden's face hearing that. He certainly remembered meeting her to reject her record label deal, only for it to turn ugly.

'You are just a name in the long list of failures.'

Aiden still remembered the words that she had told him. In the end, he had amounted to more than a failure.

"I do remember. How's she doing?"

Aiden asked, and Jeff couldn't help but chuckle.

"She's a mess. When you rejected her deal, she got some other singer to sign up with her and her record label spent millions to create an ED (Extended play), but it flopped like a balloon with a hole in it. At the same time, you kept going higher and higher, so she looked like a blood-sucking vampire every time I saw her. There's a lot of anger and frustration on her face."

"When you put it like that, I want to see her."

"You won't be able to today. She knows you will be here today, so she won't appear no matter what."

Aiden laughed hearing that. He felt a bit about Amy, but it was not like he hadn't seen something like this happening to Amy. She was too full of herself and only wanted to exploit singers to earn money.

He knew that most corporations were like that, but he also believed that karma would catch up to them one day.

As he talked with Jeff about random things and how his life was going, the door to the bar suddenly opened.

Wearing a suit, Wade walked in, and after looking around for a bit, he walked toward Aiden.

"Get me up the most expensive drink you have."

He said, sitting down next to Aiden and putting his phone down in front of him.

"You are late." Aiden looked at him.

"Sorry, I was on a call."

"Something important?"

Instead of replying, Wade gave a bright smile which made Aiden feel a bit creepy. Due to how Wade had the deposition of an alcoholic guy whose former job was being a hitman, his smile looked every bit creepy to Aiden.

"Well, I got a call from Bradley Carell productions."

He finally said, and Aiden got all serious, knowing what it was about.

"They responded pretty quickly. So, what's the result? Is there going to be another audition, or did I just get rejected?"

"No, there's no second audition."

"Huh?"

"You got the role."

Aiden blinked his eyes, hearing that. He was sure that the first audition was not going to be the last one as Wade himself had said that it was more or less a look test.

But he got the role.

"It went like they were going to do one more audition, but they were so sure about you that they didn't feel the need to do that. They are low on time, so they didn't waste any time and contacted me. Tomorrow, we will sign the contract. You will appear in three episodes and get 50k per episode. We could negotiate on the price, but I think it's pretty good."

Aiden nodded, hearing that.

Television actors would generally get money according to their popularity. If the show worked, their salary would obviously go higher.

That was the way of the industry.

Some actors would even go from 10k per episode to 1 million per episode. As for Aiden, he was still counted as a newcomer, so 150k for three episodes was a pretty good price.

"I feel like only good things are happening these days. I'm probably going to run out of luck at this point." Aiden said, chugging down a glass of wine.

"That's because you are working hard and keeping to yourself. These two things, mixed with luck, take you a long way in Hollywood. Though, I really hope your luck stays like this for a while."

"Anyway, let's enjoy the night tonight."

Wade nodded his head, and suddenly, his phone rang. He picked it up and saw that it was a call from a reporter.

Picking it up, he opened his mouth.

"Hello, what's up?"

He talked on the call for a few minutes, and eavesdropping a bit, Aiden was easily able to tell that he was talking about him with the reporter.

"What happened?"

Aiden asked after the call ended.

"Well, it got leaked somehow."

"What did?"

"That you are going to play a character in [Searching for the One]. I'm pretty sure articles are going to pop up as a new character is added in the middle of the season, and it's even you who's ruling the entertainment news at the moment."

Aiden Silvereye to join the cast of [Searching for the One] as a special character in the finale episodes.

Breaking news! IBC is not happy with the ratings of one of their most popular shows [Searching for the One]. Reportedly, the ending of the seventh season is scrapped, and a new ending is written with a new character being added into the mix of things. New music sensation Aiden Silvereye is going to play this character.

News report says that [Searching d the One] could be scrapped after the seventh season got very low ratings. One of the executives from IBC said that they are trying their best to retain a public interest in the show and to make it as satisfying as possible for the audience.

"What is this? I really lost the role."

Dustin Redford looked at his agent in front of him and said. There was an expression of disappointment on his face as he sighed.

In his hand, he was holding his phone, which was swarming with articles about Aiden being selected for a role in [Searching for the One]. This meant that Dustin lost the role to a much less experienced actor than him.

"I told you chances were grim. The response wasn't that great."

"You said chances are grim. There was still hope that I would get the role. I really wanted it too."

Dustin never liked not getting roles that he actually wanted to play. He was a big fan of the sitcom and always wanted to be a part of it.

Sadly, it was not meant to be.

After a bit of sighing, Dustin composed himself and shook his head.

"It's fine if I don't get the role. I'm pretty sure there's a bigger role for me out there. Maybe they will call me next season. Oh yeah, I have a better idea. We should pitch a show to IBC with me as the main character. What do you think?"

"I don't think it's going to work. We are not writers or producers, you know." His agent chuckled.

No matter how Dustin was as a person, he was very positive. Even if he lost out on a role, he would always say that it's because there's a way better role out there for him that's waiting for him.

Just because of this attitude, he survived even after a lot of failures in Hollywood.

"By the way, what reason did they give for my rejection? It can't be my age as Aiden and I don't look too different in age."

Dustin enquired, and his agent's face fell. This was a question he wanted to avoid at all costs.

"It's just because Aiden left a deeper impression in the audition. That's what I heard."

"Really? I'm pretty sure I left an impression too. Isn't there any more reason? I was the most experienced and popular actor there. They would have at least told you in detail why I was rejected."

"Well, there was one more thing."

"What?"

His agent hesitated a bit when Dustin asked that. In his mind, he wondered how to avoid this, but in the end, he knew Dustin's stubborn attitude well.

"They said you weren't handsome enough."

"…"

….

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote this novel with your power stones and golden tickets

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These days a lot of good things were happening for Aiden at the same time. Not only did 'Lost in the Sky' reach the top on Melody charts and other different charts, but the soundtrack album of [30 days of Happiness] was also selling great.

Omar had even told Aiden that it might easily sell over 200k copies, and the numbers would just go higher if the movie was a success.

This was very rare as with MeTube and Melody, a lot of people would just listen to music there. It was just too accessible, so they would rarely buy physical album copies.

At most, digital albums would sell more.

If one makes comparisons, just last year, a very famous boy band released their fourth album. All of the songs had gotten hundreds of millions of views, but only 7 million physical copies were sold.

It was very low as over half of the songs had gotten over 100 million views.

This was just the reality of the world filled with streaming platforms. That's why the soundtrack selling so many copies was a very big positive matter.

Other than that, Aiden was also announced to be on [Searching for the One, a very popular sitcom.

Due to all this, his fan group was buzzing with different news every day. A lot of people were giving their views about Aiden and his strings of projects.

[Fedora the explorer: I just read about Aiden being cast in [Searching for the One]. Is he making a guest appearance in it? I thought only veteran and more popular celebs did that.]

[Man Eats Pants: It's confirmed that it's not a guest appearance. It's a full-fledged character. Apparently, they started to shoot again as the original season ending was not up to the level according to IBC.]

[Skyneves: It's also because of the plethora of negative reviews and regular viewers leaving. Though, I never expected this. I thought Aiden was busy enough with his song reaching the top spot on Melody.]

[Writer of Morbius: He's trying to do a lot of things at the same time. It's a very exhausting approach as he's basically juggling being an actor and singer, but it's working very well for him. I'm just a bit surprised due to how many projects he has been in since the start of the year.].

[Doomsday manager: It's definitely not the typical Hollywood formula. Purely talking about acting, actors are often advised to just show themselves enough. Not more nor less. That's why most actors don't do more than 1-2 projects in a year and have good gaps between each of their movies. Aiden doesn't have that gap.]

[Hope the quality is still the same: Yeah, but the increased visibility is really working for him. He was in [Black Saints] at the start of the year and has a festival movie next month. His appearance in a sitcom makes it three acting projects in one year. Actually, it seems more like he's always in the news because of his music. I really wonder why people are not exhausted of him till now. Does anyone know?]

[Hollywood Insider: It's mainly because he doesn't have a PR, so he's not pushed down people's throats deliberately. Moreover, his projects are diverse enough. He plays a crazy, psychotic guy like Kai and then goes on to appear in a sitcom. Completely different types of things. One more thing is that people still don't know a lot about him aside from his projects, as he isn't that active on social media. Mysteriousness is a major factor as to why people like stars. Despite all of this, his image is squeaky clean. That's why his different approach is working in Hollywood.]

"I have only seen this set on TV before. That's the street where the end of the first season happened, and that bar is the infamous place where the main characters gather to talk about their days."

Aiden muttered, looking around the set. [Searching for the One] was set in New York, and the shooting was also happening here. For the shooting, the crew was using an old bar that they had renovated, and at the same time, there were sets made out of houses.

There was even space for the live audience.

It had been two days since Aiden had met the cast of [Searching for the One] in a script reading session. After that, he was directly on the set to start shooting.

"Yeah, we always wanted to make it look authentic, so not a lot of parts are shot in a studio."

Amelia Fryman, the director of [Searching for the One, said. She took another look at the staff that was working around the set, the actors talking on the side and the studio audience.

They were all called back to reshoot the last few episodes, but none of them looked to be complaining. There was a slight disagreement with the actors before eventually, they agreed as the new ending was much better than before.

All of them also wanted the show to work well.

"Are you nervous? We will be starting with your scene. A lot of actors take time to adjust to the live audience."

Amelia asked, looking at Aiden. Unlike other directors he had worked with, she was the type to get close to her actors to make sure they weren't troubled by anything.

It was a pretty good thing as actors were able to relax and execute their roles without any pressure.

"Not a lot. I did theatre in India, so I'm kind of used to performing in front of an audience." Aiden replied with a smile.

"Theatre experience generally helps a lot. Anyway, just relax while acting. We can do reshoots and just try to emulate what you did in the audition."

"Yes, I will do my best."

Aiden said and Amelia talked a bit more before walking over to check up with the props director.

'The introductory scene won't be easy.'

The first scene that Aiden was doing was the introduction of his character — Alan Geller.

He would meet up with Frank Russel in the bar that is present in the show from the first episode.

For the record, Frank Russel was the main character of the sitcom.

Then, Alan would forcefully make Frank listen to his playboy ways to set up his character as a narcissistic sociopath who just wants to get laid and have a fulfilling life.

Of course, this was just the outer layer of his character.

More layers would be shown to the viewers as the episode went on. The reason why the writers chose this scene was to directly make the audience know about Alan's character traits in an attempt to make him likeable from the start.

Though, portraying a narcissistic playboy as likeable was a very hard thing, and Aiden had to be very convincing in his performance.

'I can do it.'

[Searching for the OneAugust 15-2016Act 8Scene 1Take 1]

"So, you have a bad breakup. Not the first time, obviously. You are getting older, life is going nowhere. You try to find salvation in a relationship only to wonder if that girl was really the one? Am I right?"

"Yes… but who are you?"

"Does that even matter? If it does, then I'm the guy god made you meet for a greater purpose. I have decided that I will be your wingman, so you can have the most amazing, fantabulous, legendary night of your life!"

Frank Russel, a guy in his mid-30s, looked at the waxed-haired guy in a black suit who had suddenly come to sit on his table and was now acting excited on his own.

It had been a bad day for him as he had again broken up with his girlfriend and was now seriously considering whether she was actually the one for him. As he was drinking alone in a bar, this guy suddenly came to sit in front of him.

"Again, who the hell are you?"

Frank asked, squinting his eyes with a confused face.

"Alan Gellar, nice to meet you."

At his question, Alan just shook his head as the strange atmosphere in the air still remained.

"Frank Russel and I have one more question? How do you know I have a breakup?"

"It's easy." Alan smiled, putting his hand on the table. "Your facial expressions, body stature, the act of drinking alone. All of it points toward only one thing — Breakup. Though you getting erectile dysfunction was another option, I would rather not go there."

Alan shrugged his shoulders as Frank kept looking at him like he was an idiot. He wanted to sit up and get some other place to drink in silence, but every other table was occupied.

He was kind of stuck with the weird guy who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Yeah, okay. What were you saying earlier?" Frank asked, taking another sip of the alcohol.

"I was talking about getting a legendary night for both of us. Me and you get girls. I help you get one and I don't really think you can help me get one as I'm amazing enough to get a girl myself," Alan said like it was obvious.

"How?"

"By talking to a girl. Are you not listening to what I'm saying?"

Frank chuckled hearing that. The man in front of him was acting like someone who had experience with all types of girls. If getting laid was such an easy job, then people won't be sleeping alone every night.

"How will you even get laid? Pickup lines are embarrassing and old-fashioned."

Alan smirked like he was just waiting for that question.

"You don't keep up with trends. Change with the world. If you just do that, getting laid is the easiest thing." Alex explained, then asked. "Do you watch movies?"

"Yeah, what do movies have to do with getting laid?"

"Everything, my friend. People are as smart as the type of content they get. Movies are getting dumber and dumber with time. People follow that, so it's not rocket science. If you just give me one chance, I will get you a night that would be talked about in legends."

As soon as Aiden finished the sentence, Amelia's shout rang in his ear as the immersion ended.

"Cut! That was a great shot."

…

/DreamNote/ (25 July)

Bonus chapter for your continous support in these trying times

My surgery is scheduled on 27th, the chapter might come late that day if I fail to time to. Cheers!

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[Searching for the One] had a very basic premise about a guy named Frank Russel, who was in his 30s, troubled by the fact that he wasn't settled in his love life and doubted whether he ever would.

His insecurities were there because he always believed that he would earn a lot by the time he was in his 30s and would be married to his soulmate.

But nothing like that had happened.

So, the basic plot was all about him finding the right person for himself and his friends helping him in this quest.

Even though the basic premise seemed very simple, the execution was something that made the show stand out among the plethora of other shows.

When the show first aired, the characters instantly became fan favourites. The jokes were very good, and every gag made sense in the world that the writers had tried to create.

With every episode, more and more traits of the characters were revealed and by the end of the first season, the show was slowly becoming another giant hit from IBC.

But the second season of the show was what defined it as the ratings topped every other program running at the same time as [Searching for the One]. The nomination and eventual win in the Emmy awards were just icing on the top.

Several Hollywood magazines and critics started calling the show one of the top sitcoms of the 2010s. One critic from Vanity Magazine even wrote, "There are a lot of sitcoms that come around in this age, but only a few stayed and within those few good sitcoms, [Searching for the One] might be the best just because it refuses to become another sitcom with raunchy humour and choose to embrace pure love and gives it a lot of substance."

This continued till the fourth season, but after that, fans and a lot of other people felt that the show was getting more and more repetitive. Even though a lot of episodes had gone by, the main character didn't seem to have gotten close to what he calls 'The right person'.

For him, it was just one break-up after another, and fans eventually got tired of it.

The girl who would eventually become his wife was originally supposed to be shown at the end of the fourth season, but that never happened as the show was extended to not end at the fifth season. .

As the show was extended without any good planning, the character's personalities eventually started going further away from what made them likeable and fun.

The writers were definitely at fault here, but it also happened because of the pressure from the channel and no big breaks given in between seasons. Exhaustion eventually made them do bad work.

Currently, in the seventh season, the show had truly lost its soul as characters seemed to be a caricature of what they used to be.

Originally, the seventh season ending was Frank having another breakup with Hazel, the girl he had a crush on since the first episode. Throughout the show, the relationship between them had been pretty on and off.

At first, viewers liked it, but soon, it was very evident that Hazel wasn't the right person for Frank. From what Amelia told Aiden, they wanted them to break up and have a good friendship between them, but because of how the characters had lost their personality, it had all become very messy.

It was there that Aiden's character, Alan Geller, came into play.

The character was written solely for the reason to make the characters realise the mistakes and wrong choices they had made, in an attempt for the main characters to have a reboot in their personality and go back to being what they were.

The sole purpose of Aiden's character was that.

In the three episodes that he would feature in, which would also be the last three episodes of the seventh season, he would have an encounter with each of the four main characters.

The encounter was a clever way for the writers to get the show on the right track.

"It seems like they gave you a lot of good scenes. They look funny too. Are you sure your character isn't going to become a mainstay later on?"

Jason Radnor, the actor who played the role of Frank Russel, looked at Aiden, who was sitting next to him. He was a veteran TV and theatre actor in his 40s who was also one of the highest paid in the TV industry.

"I'm not really interested in becoming a mainstay character. At least not currently."

Aiden replied, and an actress named Elison Harrington, who played Hazel, added.

She was a British actress who was very well liked around the set.

"So, are you the type of guy who wants to be a big movie actor?"

"No, it's not that," Aiden said. "I'm just wary of playing a character for a long period of time. It has nothing to do with the TV or movie industry. It's more like I want to keep growing by challenging myself to play different roles."

"Ah, you know, I was like you when I first started in theatre." Jason said, smiling to himself. "Wanting to hone the craft and become a great character whose filmography is filled with different roles. You know what happened next?"

"What?"

"I learned that stability is a very good thing, especially in this world. For me, movies are like 5-6 months contracts. You do one and go to another. If they fail, you might not get your next role. It's like you are a freelancer, but TV at least is more stable. TV series are started keeping in mind whether they will go for next season or not. Of course, audience response is essential, but if it does take off, it's a gig for 8-9 years. When you get out of it, you have enough money to not care whether you're gonna get your next role or not."

When Jason talked about his experience, Aiden couldn't help but agree with him. Elison, who was listening to their conversation, also nodded her head.

The movie business was way riskier, and Aiden understood that breaking into the TV industry might give him a great amount of stability. Two or three years ago, he might even have tried to get a long role in a TV series.

But there was another reason why he was so wary of doing the same role for a long time.

It was because of his system.

Aiden had noticed that playing different roles was the only way to increase his acting skills faster. If he got stuck in one role for a long time, his affinity with that character might increase a lot, but he didn't know if it would make him level up faster.

'Portraying different types of characters is important if I want to increase my acting skill level.'

He thought in his mind.

"I understand that. Stability is something I like to do, but currently, I just want to see if I can stretch my talent."

Aiden replied to Frank, to which he laughed.

"I understand that, kid. Every actor thinks of doing that, but only a few are able to do it."

"Then, I could just hope I become one of the few who achieved it."

[Searching for the OneAugust 15-2016Act 8Scene 4Take 1]

The scene was of a bar. People were drinking in groups, and every table was occupied. In front of the bar counter, a pretty girl was silently drinking alone.

She gave the impression that she was waiting for someone. From time to time, a guy would approach her, but he would be turned down.

Two men were looking at her from a table.

"Don't look at her too much. It's creepy. Just look from the corner of your eyes. How's she for a target?"

"She's pretty, but how are you even going to talk to her? She's refusing every guy who's approaching her."

Frank asked, glancing between the girl and Alan.

"Frank, my friend, you underestimate me. There're a lot of ways to get every type of girl. But first, you need to know which type of a girl you are going for."

Alan said and stared at the girl with peering eyes like he was trying to sense something about her. Seeing his weird behaviour, Frank frowned.

"You told me not to stare creepily. Now you are doing the same."

"I'm not staring creepily. I'm trying to sense what type of a girl she is."

Alan said, thinking to himself that it would take a long time before Frank would get used to his methods.

"How does that even work?"

"I don't know about you, but it works for me because I'm awesome. My senses follow that." Alan smirked and then tapped the table. "Anyway, she's the wannabe Skygram model type. One of the easier ones."

"You can't know that."

"I can. See her mannerism. Every five minutes, she clicks a photo and checks her phone. I'm guessing it's not because she's looking for a text. She's just checking if her likes have increased. Anyway, getting these types is simple."

When Alan said that with utmost confidence, Frank couldn't help but have too many questions in his mind, but he asked the one that he wanted to know the answer to the most.

"Okay, I don't believe you. So, prove it. Tell me and show me how the hell are you going to get that girl?"

"It's very simple, my friend. I will show you."

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets

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[Searching for the OneAugust 15-2016Act 8Scene 4Take 3]

"You know, Frank. Every few decades, civilisation changes. New things come up. The way people do things changes but let me tell you, a massive change happened when social media came."

"How so?"

"The change was people becoming dumber. Do you understand how good of a thing it is for me? Us?"

Alan was speaking like he had the whole thing planned out already. Confidence was clearly shown on his face, but he also gave the impression of a scammer.

When Frank looked at him, he did feel like Alan had the look of a scammer. His hair was set up very neatly, and he was wearing a black suit, making him seem like someone who had just been in an important meeting.

But his words were something that would make anyone doubt him.

"How do people become dumb by social media, and what does it have to do anything with that girl over there?"

Frank finally asked, and Alan smiled like he was waiting for him to ask that question.

"Social media made people base their lives on how many likes they are getting on every post. Girls with very bad issues, " Alan emphasised the last part, "They are the ones who started treating it as a tool to show off how perfect their lives are no matter how hollow their childhoods were, and this is why it's so easy to get them to sleep with me. You just need to play around with that."

Even though Alan explained his tactics, Frank seemed confused, mixed with a feeling of being completely weirded out. Knowing that he couldn't explain it in words, Alan sighed and put out two fingers in front of Frank.

"Choose one."

"What do they even mean?"

"Just choose.".

Having no choice, Frank sighed and chose the middle finger. Alan smiled like a supervillain whose plans were finally going to come true.

"Okay, Climate activist."

"Climate what?"

"My job. Anyway, leave it. Just wait here and let me show you."

After saying that, Alan rose up from his seat and walked towards the pretty girl who was quietly drinking by the bar.

It was then that the sound of 'Cut' came out as the scene ended.

"Okay, cut!"

The shooting of [Searching for the One] progressed like that. As the whole crew was working with a deadline hanging on their heads, they worked without any breaks.

Every day, Aiden would get up early and straight away leave for the set. After a whole day of shooting, he would return back to his apartment and sleep. Then return to the same process.

The only salvation was that, unlike other actors, he wasn't sleeping in hotels as he lived in New York.

As the shooting progressed, Aiden got more and more into his character as his affinity rose. He, Amelia, Mason and some other writers would even talk a lot about some scenes and how they could get the character of Alan to shine even more.

Aiden really enjoyed those talks, but one thing he got out of them was that a character like Alan Geller was kind of wasted as a character who was there just to fix the personalities of the main characters.

The whole character was written as a deeply flawed guy who was scared of being alone. After Aiden had added some character traits to him, he had really become a great character with a lot of potential.

Sadly, his role was short, and only a bit of the personality and background of Alan would be shown.

There was no compromise on it, as IBC just wanted the show to be back on track without any trouble.

But it didn't stop Aiden from thinking deeper into the character he was playing. About his backstory, his life other than being a playboy. How he had become a playboy and his other relationships. Even the place he worked at.

There was a lot of ambiguity around his character as not a lot would be revealed in the three episodes that he would appear in.

So, Aiden was obviously left without answers.

Even if he asked the writers about it, they didn't have a clue as Alan's whole character was made in a hurry, and they never really gave a lot of thought to his background other than a few things.

In a way, there was no backstory for him.

"Move the camera a bit more. I want a very long shot to start the scene; then we will do a close-up. Check the sound and lighting properly. We are shooting at night, so it needs to come up perfectly."

Amelia Fryman shouted in her mic as everyone on the set quickly checked everything. The moon was hanging in the sky, and the atmosphere was slightly cold.

Currently, they were shooting a very important scene.

In this, Frank would run out of the bar after Alan managed to set him up with a girl due to remembering memories of Hazel, who he had just broken up with today. Alan would follow him, and they would have a conversation on the stairs of the bar.

This was the scene that would come at the end of the episode and would act as a medium for Frank to realise that he was doing everything wrong.

At that moment, he would have a change of heart, and the episode would end with him contemplating his life choices.

It was one of the scenes which would get the audience to know that Alan had more than a playboy side to him as well as giving a bit more insight into his actual thoughts.

Yawn!

"Your eyes look very sleepy. Are you sure you would be able to do the scene well?"

"Yeah, don't worry. It's already midnight, so I can't help but feel sleepy. I don't think I will ever get used to midnight shoots."

"You will get used to doing it. The industry has a way of making actors get used to a lot of things."

Wade said but still looked a bit concerned about Aiden's sleepiness. As everyone was already tired, he was hoping that Aiden could give good shots and end the shooting for the night.

After all, only one scene was left.

"Anyway, you know I was thinking that the IBC and production team of the show is kind of wasting Alan's character. He deserves way better."

Aiden said, trying to start a conversation in order to stop himself from sleeping.

"Actually, I felt the same way after reading the script. He didn't really get a good closure, or anything is vividly explained about him, but he's that kind of a character, made to get the plot ahead. We can't really do anything."

"Yeah, I know that, but I was thinking that there's a lot of characters like him. My role in [Shadows of War] was like that too. Directors and studios could do a lot of things with those types of characters."

"They won't, though. It really comes down to popularity, and that sells in the market. Even if a character is really well written, if he's not popular or important to the plot, he won't get a lot of scenes, especially on TV. You see popular characters coming back a lot because of fan demand."

Aiden nodded his head, hearing that.

Like he had thought before, Hollywood was more or less a business. Even if, as an actor, he liked a character a lot, he might be disregarded depending on the public opinion of him.

'All this really makes me wonder how the audience will take Alan or will he even be popular.'

Aiden thought as he felt a wind pass him by.

[Searching for the OneAugust 17-2016Act 9Scene 4Take 1]

Frank walked out of the bar and frowned. The memories he had with Hazel were in his mind and how they had fought again before breaking it off for good.

All that still pained him. Even a night with a girl was not going to give him some relief from the pain.

"Frank, why did you run out of there? Everything was set up. The girl was all over you."

As Frank stood outside the bar, Alan came out and looked at him, wondering what was going on with him.

"I'm sorry. I don't really want girls."

"Really? Are you really—"

Alan stopped in the middle of his joke as he saw that Frank actually looked sad. Instantly recognising that this was a serious matter, he let out a deep breath and looked at his friend, who he had only met two hours ago.

"What's going on with you?"

"Ah, I… I lost the only girl who I thought was the one for me. We fought again, and this time, we broke up. I really want to go back to her and patch things up, but I know for sure we are going to fight again."

Frank said, lowering his head and constantly sighing like he was unable to process his emotions.

"Why do you think she's the right person?"

"Huh?"

"How do you know she's the one?"

When Alan asked that, Frank was a bit stunned by the question. After hesitating to reply for a bit, he finally said.

"She's pretty, totally my type. She understands me, and I understand her. We are great together. I like spending time with her and—"

"Have you never felt all that with any other girl?"

Alan interrupted Frank and asked. Unlike the playboy he was in the bar, this time, his atmosphere was completely different, and there was a slight smile on his face, giving off a very reserved aura.

This was the opposite of what Frank had seen in the bar, and his question was something that made him unable to answer it for quite a while.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets

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[Searching for the OneAugust 17-2016Act 9Scene 4Take 1]

"Have you never felt all that with any other girl?"

When Alan asked that to Frank, memories resurfaced in the latter's mind as he became unable to answer the question straightaway.

He hesitated to answer, not because he didn't have a reply but because it was an answer that he was running away from. However, it was true that other girls had made him feel like this before.

But the feeling was the most impactful with Hazel.

Somewhere in his mind, he knew that Hazel wasn't for him, but he had never acknowledged it. More like, he was scared of accepting this fact because he was tired of being alone.

"Why are you silent? Answer me." Alan insisted. "Have you ever felt all that with some other girl?"

"Yes… yes, I have."

This time, Frank replied, staring at Alan.

"Then, my friend, I don't think the girl you broke up with is the one you are looking for."

"You don't know that."

"I do. Okay, sit down. Let's have a talk."

Alan said before literally pushing Frank down by his shoulder. The latter protested a bit before eventually sitting down on the stairs of the bar.

People were still coming and going out of the bar, but both of them just looked at the sky, which was covered with clouds, before looking at each other.

"You know, I was once like you." Frank raised an eyebrow when Alan said that. "A foolish romantic like you, trying to get a perfect girl for myself who might make me feel complete.".

As he said this, the tone of the scene completely changed to one of a deep, sombre one.

"What happened after that?" Frank asked.

"Well, it didn't work out, obviously. I lost my chance. That's why I decided to stop looking for a girl and be awesome instead."

At the sudden narcissism at the end of the sentence, Frank chuckled.

"No, really, what were you saying earlier? Why isn't she the girl I'm looking for?"

"Oh," Alan realised that he had gotten out of the topic for a bit and quickly said, "Just because she gives you the same feeling that other girls in the past have. Now, you might say this is the feeling that the right person would give you, but there are not so many right persons. There's only one. And she's not that.

"If she was, you wouldn't be sitting here with me."

Alan shrugged like it was obvious. Frank thought about his words for a second and asked.

"Don't you think she would become the right person with enough time? Maybe she's not the one right now, but you won't know in the future."

"That's a compromise." Alan straightly said. "Your girlfriend won't become the right person with time if she's not the one to begin with. It happens instantly like you see it, and you know it. You get that special feeling which is the most distinct one in the whole world."

"What are the chances that I might actually get this person? Maybe I will never meet her."

"No, you will. Everyone does. Maybe in passing, but they do. It's on you if you recognise that this is the person and then you put effort to stay by her. Every relationship, every single one, needs a lot of effort, but in the end, it's worth it if you are happy. Think about it yourself. Are you actually happy with your current girlfriend?"

As Alan said that, the camera panned for taking a long shot of both of them. And another one took a close-up shot of both Frank and Alan's faces.

It was then that Amelia's voice sounded out.

"Cut!"

As the shooting of [Searching for the One] was going on, Leo was busy rechecking everything from editing to the colour pallet of [30 days of Happiness].

Next month, the Toronto film festival was going to start, and he wasn't exactly calm about it. In fact, he was so nervous that he watched the movie every day, trying to see if there were any big mistakes.

His nervousness was mostly because of the fact that it was his first movie, and he didn't want it to fail.

Leo was continuously dreaming of a scenario where his movie would get bashed by reporters as they call him the worst director to appear in the last decade. At the same time, Rodrigo and Harold would be laughing at him.

No matter what, Leo wanted to avoid a scenario like this.

Because of this, Leo had become paranoid, and he was even wondering if his movie was even good enough for a release. Maybe, it was better just not to release it.

All these thoughts were resurfacing in his head as he kept doubting himself.

[Do… do… do… do… do…do…]

Suddenly, his phone rang as Leo was going through the beginning of the movie for the umpteenth time on his laptop.

Pausing the movie on his laptop, he picked it up and saw that it was Omar.

"Hello, what happened, Omar? Anything important?"

"Nothing much. I have prepared your visa for the Toronto film festival. Check everything and make sure everything is perfect. It's going to be a big moment for us next month."

Omar's cheerful voice came out from the other side of the phone, and Leo just gave a nod.

They were going to leave for Toronto, Canada, next week. Omar wanted to leave early as it was the first time he was financing a whole movie alone.

As for Aiden, he was going to come to the festival a bit later after finishing up on his current shooting.

"Okay, don't worry, I will be careful of all that."

It was then that Omar noticed some oddity in Leo's voice.

"Are you okay? You sound depressed." He asked, and Leo shook his head.

"Yeah, I'm. Just worried about how the movie would perform at the festival. Whether we would get a good distributor and the response from the critics and reporters there, I am very worried that the movie won't impress them. Moreover, if it really fails to impress people, Aiden's efforts will all be for nought."

There was a sigh at the end of Leo's sentence.

Thanks to 'Lost in the Sky' becoming so popular, a lot of attention had also been diverted towards the movie, and a lot of people were now anticipating the movie's release.

Even a lot of reporters and critics were supposed to be at the premiere of the movie.

"You are still worrying about it?" Omar's frowned on the other side of the phone. "Look Leo, the movie is good. I watched it myself. You don't need to worry about it."

"That's different, Omar. Critics and reporters would judge it as harshly as possible, especially if they don't like the movie. If the initial reviews are not good, we might have major problems getting a distributor. Even if we got one, the audience might not turn up. There's so much worry in my mind."

Omar didn't say anything for a while. It was pretty common for directors and actors to worry about the reception their project would receive, especially with a newbie director like Leo.

He could easily tell that Leo was going crazy with self-doubts.

"Leo, you made a good movie. Your job was that, and it ended there. As for the results, we can only wait and watch."

"What if they are not good?"

At that question, Omar casually replied.

"It would be good no matter what."

[You have improved your comic timing.]

[You have gotten a lot of experience.]

[Your understanding of the character has increased. Your affinity with the character has increased.]

Aiden smiled, seeing the system prompts in front of him. He had returned to his apartment two hours ago after the shooting had ended.

Wade had quickly left after dropping him off.

As it was already late, Aiden hadn't bothered making dinner and had just ordered takeout from a nearby restaurant.

On usual days, Aiden would have slept directly or read the script again in an effort to increase his affinity with the character he's currently portraying.

But today, he was just sitting in front of his laptop with a blank document opened.

For the past few days, Aiden had been thinking about the writing skill that he had received from his system. When he got the skill, Aiden realised that his system contained things other than acting and singing.

In a way, it had shocked him.

Unlike acting and singing, where he kept getting involved with one project after another, writing was something that was a completely different field, and he had never even tried writing a novel or a script before.

Though, he did want to try it.

Aiden very well knew how miraculous his system was and how it could help him become a good author in no time. But first, he needed to grind levels on it.

That's why, currently, Aiden was trying to think of a novel idea to write. He had indeed thought about a few topics he could write about.

But when he had actually started to write, his mind would go blank, and even if he wrote a few pages, he deleted it afterwards, thinking that it wasn't good enough.

As he was unable to think of a theme to write about, Aiden started going through his system prompts.

'I really need to decide on a topic. Maybe a romance book? Or an action spy series? It's better to start off with a short novel as I'm new to this rather than a full-fledged feature novel of hundreds of pages.'

Aiden thought in his mind as he kept staring at the blank document.

It seemed that writing a novel was not going to be easy for him.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote this novel with your power stones and golden tickets

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The set was bustling with life and excitement as crew members worked hard.

The Props director was talking with a few crew members, and the cinematographer was explaining how he wanted to shoot the scene with Amelia as both of them went over the storyboards.

Few assistant directors were listening to some actors, and the sound engineer was checking up on the sound equipment to avoid any troubles later on.

On the side, the crew members that had finished with their work were resting and waiting for one of the assistant directors to give them their next work.

This was the typical scene of a set that he would see every day.

For the last ten years, his life has been moving from one set like this to another. He would wake up every day, go to a set, stand on the back, eat lunch on the set and leave.

Then, he would repeat the process every day till the movie or series he was working on ended. Then, he would find another project like that.

It was exhausting but not a bad life. At least he was not going to sleep hungry.

But there was one thing that would always make him doubt himself.

Despite working in the industry for years, no one knew his name. No one ever believed he was an actor, and he never got the respect he deserved. That was the part in his line of work that hurt him the most.

"Hey Harley, are you listening to me?"

"Huh? What? What are you all talking about?"

Harley Martin turned his head and looked at the burly guy in front of him. He was just like him, an extra who had worked in the industry for a long time, hoping for a rare break.

Next to him, a rather young guy who looked like he had just got out of high school was sitting on a chair.

He was a young theatre artist who wanted to chase glory and fame in Hollywood.

"You are really not listening. We were talking about that new guy — Aiden Silvereye."-.

The burly actor said, his eyes glancing towards Aiden, who was just talking to a gangster-looking guy who everyone recognised as his agent.

"What about him?"

"He's just like us. I heard he got rejected a lot before getting his big break. Don't you find it cool? Maybe there's really hope for us."

At those words, the young actor added.

"I heard rumours that he's actually the son of an executive in a big studio, and that's how he got easy breaks. He's nothing special. If only I had his connections, I would surely be bigger than him."

The arrogance was clearly heard in his voice, but Harley just snorted after hearing that.

"Don't believe those rumours."

"What?"

"Those come and go. From what I know, Aiden Silvereye got good visibility through a reality show. Singing helped him out. Only after that was he able to get a good enough role. I don't know if he's really from a rich family, but there is enough proof to show that he never had it easy."

The burly actor nodded.

He was the oldest guy; according to his experience here, it was easy for him to tell if a rumour was true or false.

The rumour the young actor was talking about seemed like those that people would spread because they were jealous.

"Yeah, his singing skills are pretty good. Having a big following helps get a role in Hollywood, and his last role made him pretty famous, so he has a recency factor to him. Damn, I'm very jealous of him." The burly guy sighed and then turned to Harley. "Dude, what is your opinion on him?"

When Harley heard that question, the first thought in his mind was.

'I feel jealous. Very jealous.'

Harley was in his 30s starting this year, and he was close to being exhausted and giving up on his dream. He couldn't help it.

It was tough to stay hopeful after a decade of failures.

Compared to him, Aiden was a few years younger and seemed to be on his way to making a name for himself in Hollywood, if he already hadn't made one. There was a bit of admiration there for him, but the feeling that filled his heart was undoubtedly jealousy.

But Harley didn't say that.

"I like his acting. He seems focused, and it's true that he came out of a different country and is now doing good in Hollywood. We all know how the industry discriminates. So, it's commendable."

"Ah, I actually think the same too. He seems like a good bloke who's respectful."

The burly guy said that slapping his thighs and Harley just nodded, leaning against his seat.

Closing his eyes, he decided to wait until he had a shot.

"Can we go over the scene? It's a short scene, but I think it would be easier for both of us if we go over it once."

Harley blinked as he raised his head to look at the guy standing in front of him. He was the same person about whom he had a conversation with the others not too long ago.

'Aiden Silvereye.'

He thought in his mind for a second as his expressions froze. He had never expected Aiden to approach him like this, but he quickly shook his head and replied.

"It's fine with me, but it's just a small scene, and I only have a few lines, you know. I am pretty sure it would be fine even if we don't rehearse."

"Yeah, but it's just better to be prepared."

Harley nodded when Aiden said that. Though, a dazed expression still covered his face.

It was the first time an actor who was playing an important role had approached him like this. It was a surprise for him.

Normally, these types of scenes won't require a lot of practice. At most, a few words would be exchanged as being an extra; Harley only had a few lines.

He was sure that in the final cut, his scene wouldn't encompass more than 30 seconds.

"Are you okay? You look a bit weird."

Aiden asked when he saw Harley being in thought.

"No, it's just the first time a big actor has approached me like this to rehearse a role. Small actors like me are generally ignored, you know."

"I don't really think I'm a big actor, and an actor is an actor. It doesn't really matter how big their roles are. Anyway, I'm Aiden Silvereye. What's your name?"

When Aiden casually asked, Harley hesitated a bit before replying.

"Harley Martin."

"Nice to meet you, Harley."

While saying that, Aiden suddenly had a thought in his mind and opened up his system to check up on the skill level of Harley.

[Harley Martin] [31 years]

[Acting level: Intermediate Grade 3]

[Special skill: Len's darling]

'What the fuck?!'

Aiden stared at Harley in front of him with wide eyes as his status came into his view. He couldn't believe for a moment that Harley even had a higher skill level than him in acting.

On top of it, he even had a special skill.

'What does Len's darling mean? Is it something along the lines of him getting some kind of boost in front of the camera lens? And why the hell is this guy acting as an extra with so much skill?'

He couldn't help but have so many questions in his mind.

Aiden had only approached him casually to go over the scene, but he didn't expect to come across something like this.

"Ah, are you fine? You have been staring at me for a while."

Harley asked, feeling a bit weird.

His words were enough to get Aiden out of his thoughts, but it still took a while for him to collect his thoughts. Taking deep breaths, he composed himself.

"Yeah, sorry. Let's get over the scene."

Harley nodded, and for the next 10 minutes, both of them talked about the scene. It was the scene just before Alan would meet another one of the main characters of the show.

He would be trying to hit on one of the girls when an angry guy played by Harley would suddenly grab him, accusing him of sleeping with his girlfriend, which Alan obviously was guilty of.

One of the main characters of [Searching for the One, Rod, would save him, and that's how Alan would get to know another main character of the series.

As Harley said, it was a very small scene.

'Why did he suddenly look to be in so much thought. Is it his way of getting himself into the character?'

As they rehearsed the scene, Harley couldn't help but feel like Aiden was acting weird.

But he didn't think too much into it and pinned it on Aiden thinking about his character.

On the other hand, Aiden was not able to stop himself from thinking about Harley and why he was working as an extra while having so much talent.

'Has the industry really gotten blind to not seeing his talent?'

Other than having a good enough skill level, he even had a special skill, so Aiden pinned him in the same league as Rachel or Cameron.

Though, unlike them, Harley was nowhere in his career.

Although there was a lot of curiosity in Aiden's mind about him, he was also thinking of something else.

He was thinking of Harley as the solution to a problem that had recently plagued his mind.

'Maybe Harley is the topic I'm looking for?'

…

/DreamNote/

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[Searching for the OneAugust 27-2016Act 12Scene 3Take 2]

The scene was of a supermarket where people were busy checking out things. There was a long line in front of the counter as employees worked.

On one corner of the supermarket, Alan was squinting his eyes at Hazel, acting like he was in the middle of a big negotiation.

His eyes were constantly checking her facial expressions.

"How about this? We will go to your house if you don't want to go to mine."

"I'm going to no one's house."

"So, you like some outdoor action. I have dealt with girls like you before — Ouch!"

As Alan was in the middle of his sentence, Hazel hit him with a bottle of perfume and started walking away.

She was just shopping for supplies when Alan came out of nowhere and started hitting on her.

"C'mon, you are acting like you don't feel anything after seeing my amazing and handsome body?"

Alan quickly followed her up, and Hazel clicked her tongue.

"No, I don't."

"How could that be? Are you sure you are a girl — Ahh! Stop hitting me with that bottle. And why are they making perfume bottles so sturdy these days!"

Alan winced in pain as the live audience chuckled, seeing his expressions. It was then that Amelia's voice came out, and the scene ended.

"Cut! It's a good take, but I think we could do it better. Let's take another take and see if we can top this one up. Yeah, but after a ten-minute break."-.

Everyone around the set nodded, hearing her words. It was very common to take multiple takes of the same scene, so everyone took it very naturally.

"You did well. I feel like I need to put in more effort to match your energy and expressions."

Elison Harrington said, giving Aiden a smile.

"I'm just trying to keep up with you, actually."

"Now, don't be humble."

Elison knew that Aiden was constantly trying to add new things to Alan.

It was evident in how he acted around the set, constantly having discussions with the directors and writers to add new things to his character.

His behaviour had even made her try to give more focus to her acting, especially because she realised she was taking her character for granted after playing her for so many years.

It was inevitable as she had gotten a bit lazy and had not tried to do more than the bare minimum.

Both of them talked a bit more about the scene before Elison walked toward the makeup artist. Aiden also returned back to sit with Wade, who gave him a water bottle.

"You are doing good," Wade said as Aiden gulped down the bottle of water. "By the way, I got a text from Leo. The whole team is already in Toronto. A lot of them are visiting the Toronto film festival for the first time, and it seems like they are having a good time."

"That's nice. We will be there in a few days. The shooting is in its final act now."

"Yeah, if everything goes well, your appearance in [Searching for the One] will be broadcasted right after the film festival."

[Searching for the One] had a weekly broadcast on IBC, and it would have its finale at the end of September, a few days after the Toronto film festival ended.

It meant that two of Aiden's projects were going to be released around the same time.

'He's still working around on the set.'

As Wade and he was talking, Aiden's eyes glanced toward Harley, who was helping to carry a prop.

Every scene he was going to appear in had been shot, but the reason he was on the set was to earn a bit more money by working as a crew member.

When Aiden had asked Harley about it, he had said that he liked being employed, even if it was for a while longer.

'I keep thinking about his story. He's talented, but he's still out of work.'

Aiden thought in his mind.

He knew that the only reason he had gotten interested in his story was because of what the system had shown him — His skill level and special skill.

Despite having those, he was struggling.

For some reason, it made Aiden think about himself before he had gotten his system. If he didn't have a system, he might have been like Harley.

"Why are you looking at that guy? Do you know him?" Wade suddenly asked when he followed Aiden's eyes.

"I talked to him before. I feel like he has a lot of talent."

"I can't say that. He's good-looking and stands out a little, but I felt his acting was subpar. Though, his scene was too short for me to judge."

Wade gave his reasoning, and Aiden glanced at him, hesitating before asking a question that was running through his mind.

"Do you think there are a lot of talented people in Hollywood that never got any chance?"

"Obviously. This is Hollywood. One thing it doesn't lack is talent. Actually, every industry has a lot of talented people but rarely does someone get famous. There are too many factors other than being talented."

As an agent, Wade had seen a lot of people becoming famous, even helping to make people famous as an agent. But one thing was very clear.

Unless one was an absolute genius, he needed a lot of luck and connections to get anywhere.

He even felt that some people were just destined to achieve success while others weren't.

"I don't think you should think a lot about it." Wade suddenly said, looking up at Aiden.

"What?"

"Knowing you, you feel bad about him and want to help him out. But currently, you are at that stage of your career where you should help yourself out first. A flop or two, and you would be sidelined, so think about yourself."

Aiden realised that Wade thought he wanted to help Harley.

But that wasn't really the case.

He knew that he was nowhere near powerful to help other actors.

"I'm not really thinking about helping him." He explained. "It's more like I'm very interested in his story."

"His story?"

"Yeah, I was thinking about it. There are just too many struggling actors in Hollywood, especially those with a lot of talent. No one has actually talked or written about them in an extensive way. Those extras are just in the background, and no one remembers them. I feel like they have a great story hidden in them."

Aiden explained the thoughts that he had been thinking of since he had talked to Harley.

As he was thinking of a topic for his first writing project, an idea struck him.

'A story about an extra in movies. A background actor who never gets his dues.'

He wanted to base his first story on that as he felt like it was a topic that was very close to his heart. As an actor who had struggled himself, he knew how hard it was to keep faith when nothing worked out.

"Writing about them? Are you thinking of becoming an author?"

Wade asked, finding his words very strange. Aiden had never mentioned something along these lines.

"Not exactly. I just wanted to write as a hobby. Thought it might help me get my mind off work."

Aiden lied, not telling Wade about his real intentions of not wanting to waste a skill. Fortunately, it seemed like Wade accepted his words.

"That's not a bad idea. You even have that author look at you if we get you glasses." Wade squinted his eyes at Aiden. "Anyway, if you can actually write a novel, it would give you another edge and would add a lot to your 'Talented young guy' persona."

The shooting of [Searching for the One] continued as Aiden decided to talk to Harley about his life story after the wrap. Harley was luckily going to continue working as a crew member, so he had time.

With that settled, Aiden focused more on his acting.

Unlike his previous characters like Kai August or Arthur Reeves, Alan Gellar was way more eccentric and perverted, and Aiden didn't use a lot of method acting while portraying him.

It was because one scene was shot a lot of times, and it was pretty exhausting for him to continue it with method acting, so in the end, Aiden didn't really go for that.

He instead went towards Classical acting, which is commonly used for stage performances in theatre and was always considered too over the top for the screen, but because the whole character of Alan was over the top, this acting method really fit the character in some scenes.

But in other scenes where there was a need for more emotional depth, Aiden went for a more emotional performance that was very subtle.

Though, his immersion helped him out a lot no matter what type of scene he was doing.

Like that, the shooting continued.

Finally, on 31st August, the final scene of the shooting was shot perfectly.

"Okay, everyone, it's a wrap! You all worked hard!"

Amelia shouted after giving an okay to the last scene, and everyone showed excited expressions at the end of the shooting. A lot of people clapped as a joyous atmosphere covered everyone.

The shooting was finally over after so many days.

Everyone congratulated Aiden, too, as he was the actor with the most number of scenes during the whole shoot of the last three episodes and he had worked very hard.

But he just casually thanked everyone for their support and walked toward Harley, who was clapping in a corner.

…

/DreamNote/

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"You want to know about me? I'm sorry, I'm not really—"

"I'm straight. I just want to know about how you started as an actor in Hollywood. How your journey went and your aspirations."

Aiden explained before Harley could get any weird thoughts about him.

Both of them were currently sitting in a cafe close to where the shooting of [Searching for the One] had ended. The other crew and cast members, alongside Brandon and Amelia, had gone to a bar to celebrate the wrap.

They had invited Aiden, but he politely refused, lying that he had another schedule.

Amelia insisted a lot for him to come, but he had no choice.

As he was going to take the flight to Toronto tomorrow, he wanted to talk to Harley as soon as possible. He didn't know when he would get another chance if he missed this one.

"Why do you want to know about all that? Are you planning to become a journalist too?"

Harley raised an eyebrow, finding the situation very weird and funny, but it was interesting enough for him to give it a bit of his time. Not like he had anything else to do.

If Aiden hadn't invited him to talk, he would have gone to the bar with others and left after a few drinks. Something he had done a lot throughout his career.

"Not a journalist but a writer. Actually, I am writing a book. More like a short novel about a struggling actor."

"Oh." Harley widened his eyes. Aiden didn't seem like a writer to him, but he knew that he shouldn't judge on looks. "That's an interesting topic, but why me? You yourself struggled in Hollywood, right?"-.

"I did, but I got my break after two years. It's a short time when I compare it to other actors. You can say I was a bit lucky."

In his mind, Aiden added, 'And I got a system too'.

"So, you are asking other people about their journey to gain more insight into the struggles of an extra?"

"You can say so."

As he said that, a waiter came with two cups of coffee at that moment. Aiden thanked him and sipped on the hot coffee while looking at Harley, who seemed to be in some sort of thought.

'It's not a big deal, and no one ever asked me about my story till now.'

Harley thought in his mind after careful deliberation.

"Okay, I can answer any questions you have. I will take it as an interview." He nodded his head, and an instant smile blossomed on Aiden's face.

He would have been in trouble if Harley had rejected. Without wasting any time, he took out a small notepad in which he had written down some questions he wanted to ask him.

In those, he decided to ask the most important question first.

"How did you exactly get into movies and acting?"

"It was love at first sight." Harley chuckled. "The first movie I watched was [World of Cinema]. You must know about it. It instantly attracted me to movies and acting."

"That's a good movie."

Aiden said, and Harley nodded, nostalgia clearly visible in his eyes.

[World of Cinema] was a movie released in 1992. It was about a young guy's friendship with an old director and how he got introduced to movies and decided to become an actor in the end.

It was a very inspirational movie and one of the best coming of age stories, so much so that it managed to win the Best Picture award at the Oscars and other award shows that year.

"Anyway, the movie instantly attracted me towards acting. I became crazy about movies. I actually begged for a job at a DVD rental shop to watch free movies on break. That was my salary, actually."

Harley said excitedly, and Aiden just listened, asking questions from time to time.

"I got into theatre after that. It wasn't any good role. I just needed to stand in the back, but there was a lot to learn. I would listen closely to the talks of lead actors, trying to get clues to become a better actor. That went on till high school before I got too impatient and ran to LA."

"You ran away from home?"

"I left a letter. My old man wasn't happy as he wanted me to be a policeman like him, but I was busy chasing my dreams."

Harley let out a sigh at the end of the sentence as from then on, the story became a bit depressing as he finally experienced Hollywood for himself.

"In one word, it was rough. Extremely. For the first few months, I was homeless before a good man gave me a job in his store. I was at least able to eat after that. I still made rounds of studios and saved money to register myself in the Actor's guild, but it wasn't much help. Every open audition, I was rejected."

"You never got a good role?"

Aiden asked. He felt like Harley's passion must have moved at least one person.

"I did. More than once. But they were mostly taken away for more popular actors or even actors who were related to some of the producers or the directors. They said that it's Hollywood. Don't believe you are in a movie until you see yourself on the big screen. My life moved like that, and I eventually settled for being an extra."

Aiden recalled what had happened with Tyler Reed and him when Harley said that. He felt like he was very lucky that he had managed to hold onto the role of Kai.

"You never thought of giving it up? Maybe doing something else? It must have been very hard on you."

"I thought. I still think about it every day, but it's not an option. I have given too much to it, and I want proof that I have succeeded. I'm still trying. I have not gone home for the last few years during Christmas because I have nothing to show for myself. I don't even know if I will be able to go back home or not because my career is stuck…"

After that, Harley and Aiden talked for more than two hours. In the middle, Aiden also talked about his struggles and how he would sleep in his taxi early on.

But most of the talk revolved around Harley.

He extensively told Aiden about everything he had done to get a better role. He had tried to get into a talent agency and also a free market agent, but more often than not, they had turned out to be frauds.

There were even times when he had signed a contract for a supporting role in a movie, but a more popular actor had torn it and kicked him out of the movie because both of them had an argument on the set.

As he was without any connections, he didn't have any power to do anything despite being right.

He talked about another incident with a girl he used to know a long time ago. She was like him, a struggling actress, but after getting rejected for years, she had broken down in front of him and had cried her heart out.

The next day, she left LA, giving up all hope of ever making it as an actress.

At the end of the talk, Harley looked at Aiden and gave a weak smile.

"You know, I'm very jealous of you. You are in the spot I have always dreamed of. I know it's a lot to do with talent and luck, but you achieved what I always wanted to—getting my own identity in Hollywood. But it's not only jealousy. I admire you, too."

Aiden lowered his head when he heard that and took a deep breath. His thoughts were a bit jumbled after hearing Harley's life story.

'One of the major reasons why I'm here is because of my system and the chances I got. Without it, I might be worse than you.'

Aiden thought in his mind and decided one thing.

'I will write a great story about Harley, so at least people will read about his struggles. That's the least I could do.'

Something inside him was really coming out at the moment. It was like the writing skill was telling him to write the best book he could about Harley. To tell him that his struggles weren't for nothing.

At that moment, some system prompts suddenly appeared in front of him.

[You have taken a step towards being a writer.]

[A small amount of experience has been given.]

[You have listened to the life story of a person you are taking inspiration from to write your story. A unique skill has been unlocked thanks to your actions.]

[The skill 'Synchronisation' has been unlocked.]

[Now, you can get into the same mentality as the character you are writing about if you know about him enough.]

[Congratulations on unlocking one of the rare skills of the system. Your writing talent will get a huge boost thanks to 'Synchronisation' if the right conditions are met.]

Looking at the system prompts in front of him, Aiden couldn't help but blink his eyes in surprise.

He had never expected to get a skill like this right out of nowhere just because he had listened to the life story of Harley.

In his heart, he got the feeling that this skill was similar to 'Immersion' and 'Silver light'. Both of those skills came due to 'Empathy'.

But this one was different.

Still, he felt like it would help him as much as the other skills.

…

/DreamNote/

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It was early September.

The hotness and humidity of summer were still a bit in the air, but there was also coldness, making it a perfect atmosphere to go out.

Especially in a place like Toronto, Canada. Yes, Aiden and Wade finally took their first steps into the Toronto film festival.

After his discussions with Harley, Aiden had spent a sleepless night thinking about the idea of his novel.

The next morning, Wade dragged Aiden to the airport, and he slept throughout the flight.

Yawn!

"You are still sleepy."

"Yeah, I was thinking about my novel the whole night. I slept on the flight, but it seems like it wasn't enough."

Aiden said as he and Wade walked through the airport.

He was able to see a lot of reporters here and there and people from different countries. Although the Toronto film festival focused a lot on Canadian movies, it was highly rated all over the world.

Though, it was not among the top three film festivals.

Despite that, Vanity Magazine has quoted, "Although the Toronto film festival is not too old, the importance and quality of movies along with the number of stars that grace it make it the best film festival after Cannes."

That's why, for Aiden, it was a crucial chance to show the movie he had worked on for months. -.

"I told you a hobby is good but don't let it ruin your sleep. Thankfully, the premier of [30 days of Happiness] isn't today."

Wade said as they walked.

"Yeah, I was planning to go watch some indie movies. A lot of big actor's movies are also premiering in the film festival."

"You can treat it as a break to watch movies if you want to. You deserve it."

Wade said, and at the moment, a commotion occurred from a distance. Both stopped in their tracks and turned around to look at what was happening.

A swarm of reporters was getting excited and taking photos of a man coming out of the airport with a whole entourage following him. He was wearing a very expensive-looking white fur coat and had an annoyed expression on his face.

"Aaron Hart."

Aiden muttered, looking at the man.

At the same time, he experienced the difference between himself and an A-lister actor. Only a few reporters had even recognized Aiden and clicked a picture of him.

It was completely opposite to the scene in front of him.

Aaron Hart was the same actor who had acted in [Shadows of War] and had always behaved rudely with Aiden. He had done that movie only to get an Oscar, but due to his scandals, he had fallen out of favor from the jury and had lost out on it.

"You two acted together in a movie, right?" Wade asked, glancing at Aiden.

"Yeah, but we never really talked. He was rude to most people on the set, and only the director knew how to handle him."

"He has worsened since then, especially because he lost out on Oscars. He really covets it. There are a lot of rumors he's becoming more and more abusive after that and would divorce his wife soon too. Apparently, he assaulted her physically."

Aiden's eyes widened when Wade finished his sentence. Then, suddenly, he understood one thing.

"So, reporters are swarming him because of all those negative rumors."

"Yeah, it's not because he's an A-lister. Though, the rumors escalated so much because he's one. His team had been a mess trying to get him a better image."

Aiden nodded his head, understanding the whole crux of the matter.

"Which movie of his will be at the film festival?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"[Blood Valentine]. Apparently, it's very highly rated according to rumors and internal screening. The director is very famous in Canadian film circles. Aaron literally did the movie to get critical acclaim through film festivals before going for the Oscars. All his life, he mostly did commercial movies after all."

"Then, he must be after the People's choice awards."

The People's Choice Award is one of the main awards in the Toronto film festival. Moreover, it is called a ticket to the Oscars as movies that had won this award in the past had gone on to win Oscars eventually.

The lead actors in the winning movie had also gotten at least nominations, if not the award.

"Yeah, well, don't think about him a lot. Try to avoid him if you come across him. Media is going to surround him no matter where he goes, so he will be in a bad mood and might just start a fight."

Aiden nodded his head, very well aware of Aaron's tendencies. However, he felt like he should be with a therapist instead of being at a film festival.

"I will just try to enjoy the film festival. It's a chance for me to watch a lot of movies."

Aiden said as he and Wade walked out of the airport. A car was already waiting for them to take them to their hotel.

As the Toronto film festival was going on, a lot of reporters had also reached Canada to attend it. Reporters from famous magazines and movie critics were going to write about all sorts of exciting movies that would be seen in the festival.

Obviously, American critics would be harsher than the rest, as Canadian critics are known to not heavily criticise the movies premiered in the festival.

A lot of critics and distributors would also be looking out for the next big movie, which could be a box office hit. Though, even good movies from the festival rarely equate their success to the box office.

Especially movies in niche genres that don't appeal to a lot of people.

Among all the reporters that had come to the festival, there were also those from Vanity Magazine.

One of them was Gordon Lee, one of the most well-known critics in Hollywood film circles who often interviewed big Hollywood superstars and had a lot of connections in talent agencies and studios.

At the same time, he was known to be very aggressive.

He was also attending the Toronto film festival, and just a day before the movie screenings began, he wrote an article about the movies that people attending the film were excited to watch.

The article with a basic headline got a lot of reads thanks to Gordon's popularity.

Movies to look out for if you attend the Toronto film festival.

The Toronto film festival is the biggest movie fest in Canada, and on Thursday, many popular Hollywood celebs and recognized filmmakers graced the festival with their steps.

Some of them were there for the premiere of their movie, and others were simply visiting as guests. But there were undoubtedly early signs that this year's festival might give us some of the best movies of the decade. Some might even go on to win an Oscar or become a box office hit.

There were also those young, budding filmmakers trying to get a distributor for their movies that have been made on a low budget and a lot of passion.

In this article, let's talk about the movies which might get recognition through the festival.

When I entered the film festival, the one movie people were talking about was [Blood Valentine] due to the people involved with the project. Many are also calling it the winner already, but the niche genre of it might stop people from spending too much on it if it is released worldwide.

But for a festival movie, there's no stopping it.

After a string of controversies, Aaron Hart might also be looking to make a good comeback with this movie.

Other than that, there are also [Dark] and [December Snow]. Both of these movies are by people who have won awards in Toronto before, and they are helmed by the biggest Canadian actors.

I even heard many good things about [Buried Alive, a thriller that might interest people a lot.

These all are parallel cinema and niche movies that would have a bigger release at the festival, but their faith lies solely on if they could convince the audience of their story.

On the brighter side, If one is more interested in romantic musical comedies, there was also much to talk about [30 days of Happiness]. Although it has a freelance production and few connections in the festival, people have gone wild for the music album that has already been released.

Thanks to the music album doing so well, many distributors might bet on it as it's a movie that is easier to sell.

That gives the hope that the movie might turn out good, but it's also true that it's a complete mystery as no one could judge by the quality because the director is new.

There is no past work to look back at, so one could only tell after watching the movie.

The main actors are also more or less rookies. One of them, Aiden Silvereye, is more of a singer than an actor and is just trying to make his way to movies to gain wider recognition. Although he did well with the soundtrack, one can't expect him to helm an entire movie on his shoulders.

In my view, he's too raw to be the lead.

The female lead, Katie Brooks, while being the most famous of them all, her commercial roles haven't gotten any wide acclaim for her acting skills, and this movie might be her trying to rectify that.

But what I have seen of her. She's not a good actress, and this movie might prove that.

For me, it's going to be either hit or miss.

…

/DreamNote/

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On the big screen in front of Aiden, a handsome man was crying, holding his chest. He was sitting on the floor of a room that was burning.

His eyes kept looking at the portrait of a woman in front of him.

Pain and agony could clearly be visible in his eyes as he awaited his death.

The fire engulfed the man slowly as he smiled, not hating the death that was slowly embracing him. Clearly, he had given up on living and accepted his death, but in his eyes, it was worth it for his love.

As the man burned to death, the screen turned black as it revealed the movie's title.

[Blood Valentine]

[A movie by Vincent Mongrel]

The credits rolled after that as some people in the audience clapped. Many of them liked the movie, and Aiden, sitting in the audience, had to say that the performances and the plot were pretty good.

'Aaron Hart does have great talent. Only if he was mentally normal in his head.'

He thought in his mind as he accompanied the audience on their way out. Besides him, Leo, who was watching the movie with him, was sighing.

"What happened to you? You didn't like the movie?"

Aiden asked, noticing Leo's sour mood.

"It's not that. The movie is good. That's the reason why I'm even like this. I am pretty sure it will be the movie to win the People's choice award. See the number of people here. It's too much. Every press is talking about the movie. Even Aaron Hart's negative publicity is helping it."-.

Leo took a look around the theatre. It was jam-packed with people.

[Blood Valentine] premiered just yesterday with the press already writing a lot of good articles on it. So the publicity it was getting before the release was already a lot, but now, the public reaction was also out, and it was very positive.

"Well, the media is one thing, Leo," Aiden said as they left the theatre. "The People's Choice award doesn't really have a jury, so media and connections won't help. It's all about people's reaction towards the movie."

"I know that. But I heard more than 90 percent of the people loved the movie. That's a lot. I don't even know if we will get our seats filled. We are not getting a lot of good press to make people aware of our movie."

"I think you are just paranoid. Katie is already doing a lot of interviews. Even I did a lot of them yesterday. We know the movie is good, so after the premiere, many people would probably come to watch it."

"I don't know."

Leo still frowned even after Aiden tried to console him. His paranoia was at its peak since [30 days of Happiness] was going to be released tomorrow.

There will be two screenings, one with the press and then with the audience who had visited the film festival. Both of them were very important to them, especially the screening with the press.

A good review from the press will go a long way.

"Let's hope it all goes good," Leo said, taking a deep breath. "Anyway, you have another interview today, right?"

"Three of them."

Aiden frowned. He thought he would have time to check out every movie getting a premiere here. But after getting to his hotel, he discovered that many interviews were scheduled for him.

It was to get some attention from the media before the movie. Though it wasn't as much as top stars or acclaimed directors' movies, [30 days of Happiness] was still getting a bit of attention thanks to the soundtrack.

He had consoled himself by saying his situation was much better than Katie's.

Apparently, Katie's agency pushed her to do every interview possible, so she could be in the limelight. That was maybe the bad side of being from a big agency.

"I know it's hard, but I'm also doing a lot of interviews. You even look calm, like you have been roaming around film festivals for years. Heck, why do you look so calm?"

Leo suddenly asked, staring at him while Aiden just scratched his cheek.

"I'm nervous too. It's my first movie as a lead. You know they say it's all about showing. I do feel nervous but I'm trying not to show it."

That was the absolute truth.

Aiden was almost as nervous as Leo, if not more. But he was not showing it, so he appeared very calm.

"If you say so. Anyway, get done with the interviews and prepare for tomorrow. It's going to be a big day."

Leo said, and Aiden nodded.

As the premier of [30 days of Happiness] was one day ahead, Aiden's fan group was buzzing with people who were excited about the film's release. This was mainly because of how good the soundtrack was.

Their expectations and faith in Aiden were sky high due to that.

The fan group also has a lot to do with the fact that 'Lost in the Sky' and Aiden had trended on social media as they have promoted it hard, so seeing it do so well on music charts was something great to see for them.

[I am the driver who murdered: Is anyone in Toronto going to the premier of [30 days of Happiness]? Their social media team posted that the premier is tomorrow.]

[Jumping Octopus: I'm in Canada but in Vancouver. Sadly, I will miss the movie premiere but praying it does well at the festival.]

[Young Fruit smiley: I will probably watch it as I will be visiting Toronto in a few days. Hopefully, they are screening the movie then. Really hoping it will be as good as the soundtrack.]

[GTA 6 releasing in 2099: I won't have a lot of expectations. The soundtrack is great, but I feel like the movie would be mediocre. Kai affected me so much that I might be anticipating when Aiden would kill the person next to him, even if I know, he is playing a different character.]

[Do a horror movie: I will be waiting for the premiere. I really hope they have a huge release, at least in North America.]

[Hollywood Insider: They will have for sure. The title and songs make it easy to say that the movie is straight in the middle of what is commercial. It would interest the distributors, but they could opt for an OTT release, considering the movie could tank at the box office due to no box office pull. #Business minded.]

[Hakuna Matata: I don't really care about a theater or streaming release until I can watch the movie. I'm really craving some good rom-com.]

[The IT girl: I will watch it in Toronto. Low-key hoping at the end of the movie, Aiden said fuck it to the girl and turned to the path of a gangster due to feeling betrayed by love, eventually becoming what we know as Kai.]

[Chad JpNovel Reader 34: Sadly, it's not called 'I was rejected by my crush, so I became a gangster'.]

Aiden finished up his interviews quickly after parting ways with Leo. In the interviews, most of the questions were pretty dull, and almost every interviewer focused purely on the soundtrack of the movie.

It was like they treated Aiden as a singer rather than an actor despite him being the lead.

This was something that Wade had warned him about. Despite his acclaimed role in [Black Saints, the media didn't take Aiden as much of an actor, mainly because he did not have a lot of work to show for himself.

This was an issue that would only disappear with time as more and more movies of Aiden would come out, and people would see him equally as an actor and not just a singer, trying his hand out in acting.

The next day, Aiden woke up early to prepare himself for the premiere. The press premier was scheduled at 9 AM, and the audience premier in the afternoon.

He didn't know why it was so early, but he had to comply with it.

Early in the morning, he wore a suit and got ready. Wade had already hired a makeup artist and stylist to take care of his look.

Aiden wore a black suit that looked neat and proper. Alongside it, he got glasses, which Wade gave him, saying it makes him look a bit cooler alongside the suit.

Then, he got into a car in which Katie was already sitting.

"Are you nervous?" Katie asked, looking at him.

"A bit. What about you?" Aiden said, turning his eyes from outside the window to her. It seemed like they were pretty close to the venue.

"I'm a lot, but I have attended many red carpet events before, so I'm a bit better. This time, the focus will be on me as I'm the lead, so I guess it's a bit different."

"Don't worry. It will be fine. At least, the Canadian reporters would be a bit polite."

"That's true."

Katie chuckled, and at that moment, Wade, sitting in the front, opened his mouth.

"We are close to the venue. Many reporters and critics are there, so we will do a small press conference with them before the release. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, it is."

"My agent told me to prepare for it, so I'm fine."

Both of them said, and Wade nodded.

"Okay, let's hope everything goes damn right."

….

/DreamNote/ (29th July)

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On the venue of the premiere of [30 days of Happiness, a lot of reporters and critics were present.

Originally, there were a lot of screening venues in Bell Lightbox, located in Downtown Toronto which was the location of the Toronto film festival but a lot of the main venues are only for movies with a lot of connections and critically acclaimed people behind them.

For a movie like [30 days of Happiness] which clearly lacked connections, was only able to get a venue that could accumulate over 800 people.

For the press release, the outside of the venue was jam-packed with reporters. A lot of those were from small media companies that had barely gotten into the film festival, while 10-20 of them were from highly popular and well-connected media outlets.

For example, Hollywood Weekly, LA times, Movie Fare and Vanity Magazine.

Among them, Gordon Lee, who had written an article about the movies to look out for in TIFF was also present. Even though he didn't have a lot of hopes for the movie, he was there as it was one of the movies on his list.

At the same time, the magazine wanted him to interview Aiden Silvereye and Katie Brooks to add to their next monthly issue of the magazine.

"Fuck it, why is the premier not starting? They called the press for a conference, but they didn't even come on time."

Gordon Lee said with an annoyed expression as he looked around the venue. But, unlike him, other reporters and critics looked calm.

"Sir, it's still half an hour to the premier. I think they will come in the next ten minutes."

The cameraman standing next to him said, but Gordon clicked his tongue.

"I know that, but those are new actors. Rookies should come before the press and critics. Even the director is no one. I might be wasting my time here today."

In his words, the cameraman stayed silent, knowing it was far better to not say anything. Gordon had a habit of treating people with respect only if they were famous or had lots of good performances to show for themselves.

He thought of everyone else as beneath him. -.

It was an elitist mentality that he had gotten because he had made contacts with a lot of big shots throughout his career.

'I just hope everything goes well. This bastard has a habit of asking rude questions to young rookies.'

As the cameraman thought that in his mind, a small commotion started in the red carpet event as two people got out of the car.

They were Aiden Silvereye and Katie Brooks.

Behind them, another car stopped and other people, including the supporting cast and the director Leo Shaw appeared.

Click! Click!

White flashes suddenly appeared everywhere as all the cameramen started clicking their pictures.

At that moment, Aiden was glad he was wearing glasses.

'My eyes would have gone blind otherwise.'

He thought and moved on the red carpet with Katie.

A lot of reporters took their pictures together, wondering silently in their minds whether anything was brewing between them.

Though there was no proof, it was something worth writing about as a lot of celebs would date while working together. The chances of the arrow shot in the dark hitting the bullseye wasn't too far-fetched.

At least in the mind of the reporters.

Some reporters who had no shame and just wanted some good headlines even started asking about it the two of them.

"Are the two of you dating?"

"Please give a scoop on your relationship. Just a bit."

"Can you kiss in front of the cameras? Just for the movie?"

"Hey, someone get this guy out. He's asking just anything."

Like that, the red carpet event went on, and soon, a staff member escorted Aiden, Katie, and Leo to their seats for the small press conference before the premiere.

The supporting actors were too busy giving one-to-one interviews to other reporters, and anyway, the media was more focused on the leads and the director.

"Hello, I'm Amanda Bailey from the LA times. My question is for Aiden." The first question was asked by a middle-aged lady. "Do you think this is a very big risk for you to be the lead of a movie, considering you are two movies old?"

It was a very good question, and Aiden smiled, taking his time to answer it.

"I did think of it. It was a risk. My agent and I discussed whether it was better to play supporting roles for a while before going for the big role, but in the end, I really believed in the script, and I liked the character so much that I didn't want it to go to someone else." He said before adding. "And not like people in this industry have gotten ahead by playing it safe."

She quickly wrote down the answer on her notepad, and after that, more and more questions were asked by reporters.

"Do you think the movie will succeed? Are you confident?"

"The soundtrack you composed has been called one of the best to come out in the last few years. Do you think being the movie score's composer gives you a certain edge in playing the lead?"

"Director Leo, this was your first movie? There were rumors of a disagreement between you and Night Hawk studios. What do you have to say about that?"

"Katie, how was the experience of going from playing supporting roles in big commercial movies to shouldering a movie? Do you think it will get good ratings from critics?"

Like that, the press conference continued.

As the questions were asked, Aiden became sort of relaxed as most of these questions were related to the movie. Once in a while, a reporter would try to ask a question related to their private lives, but it wasn't something they couldn't handle.

At that moment, Gordon Lee raised his hand.

"Hello, I'm Gordon Lee from Vanity Magazine, and my question is from Katie Brooks." When Katie nodded toward him, he gave off a smirk. "Do you feel like your real acting skills would come out in this movie?"

"What?"

The question made Katie widen her eyes toward him and even other reporters felt like the question was a bit crass.

"I mean, we have seen you mainly in commercial movies. There, You didn't quite show your acting chops, and it was clear that other actors were overshadowing your performance. Do you think in this movie the same thing would happen? Or would we see a side of yours that could act well? Do you regret taking a project that might need acting skills instead of going for another commercial one?"

When Gordon finished his question, he was smirking, appearing like he had not asked anything rude. He had asked it with a very polite tone but the words were full of thorn.

The other reporters were silent, and Katie's mind had gone blank.

Not getting praised for her acting was one of the biggest stigmas of her acting career. The actors she worked with had too much charisma that overpowered her easily, and she was said to be a flowerpot character.

'What should I say?'

As she was thinking of it, Aiden, who was next to her, suddenly opened his mouth.

"First of all, I think you are rude. Second, no, she doesn't regret it, and yes, you will be blown away by her acting skills in the movie."

When Aiden said that, everyone in the venue froze. No one had expected him to say anything like that, but he had really dared to do so.

Gordon, who was stupefied, not expecting Aiden to give back an answer, wasn't able to say anything for a second. He had only asked the question to target Katie and make a good headline, but Aiden had publicly called him rude.

"How am I rude? What are you saying?"

"You are not? Is the meaning of rude changed in the dictionary without people telling me?"

Aiden turned to Katie like he was seriously asking that, and she just chuckled in response. Other reporters and critics in the venue were also not able to stop themselves from laughing at the blatant sarcasm.

Some people even clapped, appreciating Aiden defending his co-actor.

All this happened while Gordon stood there, unable to say anything. He wanted to talk back to Aiden, but everyone in the venue was already laughing at him.

"Okay, everyone. Let's end the press conference here."

One of the staff members said as he showed everyone the way inside the venue where the premier was going to take place.

In all this, Katie looked at Aiden and muttered, "Thank you."

"It's no big deal. We are friends, and that guy was really rude."

"We do get people like him sometimes."

As both of them made their way inside the theatre, Gordon Lee just stood outside, anger overtaking all other emotions like sanity in his mind.

The event had a lot of reporters, and it was recorded too, so getting roasted by a rookie like Aiden would surely make its way among the circle of entertainment reporters.

At that time, the embarrassment he would feel would be way more.

"That fucking Aiden."

Gordon cursed in the end, stomping his feet on the ground.

The cameraman beside him couldn't help but shrink back a bit, seeing his anger. He very well knew that Gordon wasn't someone to hang around with when he was angry.

'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! That damn brat! I'm a senior reporter from Vanity Magazine, and he dares talk back to me like this. It wasn't even a question for him. Let's see how his movie is. Even if it's Oscar level, I will give it the worst score possible!'

Gordon thought in his mind as he dragged himself inside the theatre.

…

/DreamNote/

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The theatre room was silent as the critics sat down to watch [30 days of Happiness]. All of them had different thoughts in their mind in the theatre.

Almost all of them have been to the premier of movies like [Blood Valentine] and [Dark]. They knew that despite being from niche genres, they were masterpieces.

Compared to them, the musical romantic comedy they were going to watch now didn't seem to share the same wavelength. It was an entirely different movie with a lot of commercial aspects to it.

Even though people think that making a commercial movie was easier than an art movie, it didn't hold much weight.

Both of them have different traits and making a good commercial movie could be as difficult as making a great art movie. Not everyone could execute it well.

Because of that and the cast and director being comparatively new, the critics and reporters had already lowered their expectations.

'Let's hope it's an enjoyable experience.'

'I don't think the movie would be great technically but it might have a good heart going with the music.'

'I have already completed three different types of articles on the movie. Flop, mediocre and good. So, I could just sit back and enjoy the experience.'

These were the thoughts inside the mind of reporters and critics. At that moment, the light in the theatres dimmed as they understood that the movie was about to start.

Slowly, the screen lit up and the title of the movie came out.

The reporters and critics leaned back in their seats and stared at the screen. Gordon Lee was also one of them who was just looking at the screen with a frowning expression on his face.

Other than him, Amanda Bailey from LA times had a smile on her face as the movie started. She was a fan of the movie's soundtrack and felt like Aiden could be one of the few big actors in the future, so she was keeping an eye on whether he could deliver with this movie. -.

Suddenly, after the title of the movie, the screen went blank. As people wondered if there was any technical difficulty, the sound of soft humming came out.

A kind of a tune that Amanda recognised to be similar to 'Lost in the Sky'.

It was then that on the screen, Aiden's figure appeared. Unlike on the poster of the movie, he had a beard and was holding on to a guitar, giving him a bit more mature look.

He seemed to be in some sort of an interview. The interviewer was introducing Aiden as Arthur Reeves, a budding musician whose song had just been nominated for a Grammy.

"So how did you get to writing this song? How long did it take you?" The interviewer on the screen, a middle aged woman asked.

"4 years. I was actually 14 when I started writing this song and for most of the time, I felt like I would never complete it. It was hard, very hard. I gave up in the middle and even felt like I wasn't good enough."

"So, how did you complete the song then?"

"That's a whole story in itself actually."

Arthur said, a nostalgic expression on his face as he smiled. It was then that the movie cut to the time Arthur was in the last year of his high school.

The older Arthur was narrating his life in high school and how he was mostly a kid who never stood out and how he liked it like that. It gave him the moment to work on his music, something that was very precious to him.

The one thing that maybe was more precious for him was Claire, a girl living in his neighbourhood that he had a crush on since he knew the meaning of a crush.

But by the time the last year of high school came, he had already given up on both Claire and music.

Thankfully, things started changing for him on a certain day.

'It's starting off as a typical rom com.'

Amanda thought, thinking of the start of the movie. Until now, it wasn't a storyline that she had not seen before. But the music part of it was something different.

She felt like it was added to make the movie stand out from the rest.

As the movie went on, her thoughts didn't change as both Claire and Arthur met, she told him about her boyfriend and then asked his help to find her boyfriend who she felt was cheating.

Though hesitant, Aiden would agree to help her.

They would find her boyfriend's car and have a conversation. Till this point, everything was going normal but as soon as Arthur brought out eggs and tomatoes, Amanda felt that something interesting was going to happen.

As Arthur and Claire started throwing eggs and tomatoes on Claire's boyfriend's car, Amanda couldn't help but chuckle out loud.

The scene went more funny as Claire's boyfriend Sam came into the picture and Claire aimed eggs at his face perfectly, making for a hilarious scene.

Especially, because the whole time, Arthur was urging her to cuss at him.

"Let out all your anger at that bastard. He deserves it. Don't think and just let out. You will feel better. Trust me!"

As Arthur said that on the screen, Amanda couldn't help but laugh. Other critics and reporters were the same as the scene was truly hilarious, making up for a perfect situational comedy.

'At least the movie gets the comedy, right.'

Amanda thought in her mind as the movie continued.

After the initial slowness of the movie, it quickly picked up pace as Arthur and Claire started a road trip to find Charlie Morgan, the guy who used to write love letters to Claire's grandma.

It was the point where the movie truly started to shine, especially the cinematography as beautiful locations in Europe were properly shown.

The connection and friendship between Claire and Arthur also shone through as the audience got to know more about their characters.

'The characters are really well done. The acting shines out.'

Alexander Hooch, one of the oldest movie critics from Hollywood Weekly thought as his eyes stayed intact on the screen.

It was close to halfway through the movie and Alexander had already started making up his review in his mind. He felt like the movie was a breath of fresh air in dialogues and characters.

He especially liked when Arthur talked about his love for stories and how he wanted to portray them with his music. The portrayal of a budding artist was done perfectly in Alexander's eyes.

Like that, the movie continued.

He chuckled on the scenes when Arthur and Claire went off against gangsters and barely survived. He also felt that the montage of them travelling through Europe with the song 'Journey' playing in the background was really beautiful.

It was a rare thing to do in Hollywood, but it truly stood out in Alexander's eyes.

After that, as the movie entered its second half, the tone and pace of the movie changed slowly. Thankfully, it didn't happen quickly and the movie took its time.

Maybe because of that, it felt more natural.

Alexander felt the frustration, heartbreak and sadness in Arthur's eyes when he realised that Claire still loved Sam, her ex was portrayed very well.

It happened in the scene when Arthur would accidently look at Claire's phone in which she had typed out a long message to Sam but had never sent.

Realising it, it would break him.

This would eventually lead to a fight in a restaurant and after that, Claire would reject him by saying that he never was more than a friend and Arthur's hope for a relationship would be lost.

They would take different paths here.

It was only then that he would accidentally come across Charlie and in spite of being heartbroken, he would call Claire and tell him about him.

This was close to the ending of the movie and the scene after this was something that Alexander felt was one of the best.

It was one where Charlie and Arthur would have a talk about relationship and life.

Alexander felt like it was a very heavy scene done well and the contrast between Arthur and Charlie could clearly be seen. Despite not getting any happiness, Charlie would urge Arthur to not give up his hope.

In his sadness, Arthur would take out the song that he had only half completed and would try to complete it, thinking of the advice that his father had once given him.

'Every great musician has gone through heartbreak and has learned about love. They were able to portray love well because of that, their music has made a place in people's heart as they experienced the strongest emotion in the world.'

Using the advice, Arthur would try to complete the song but would be in a fix, until Charlie would help him out after listening to Arthur humming the song.

He would tell him that the first half of the song is pretty much a guy trapped in a box with a lot of questions and Arthur is trying to keep him in the box in the second half too, so the song is not getting completed.

The guy trapped needs hope.

He needs to think about the good parts of life and that he would move on from the negativity.

That advice would work as Arthur, who was still dealing with heartbreak, would be able to complete the song.

It was after that the scene that would shock Alexander would come up.

…

/DreamNote/

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On the screen, Arthur was looking down on the people gathered to hear him sing live. This was the last scene of the movie in which Arthur would sing the song that he had just completed in front of an audience that would include Charlie and Claire.

It was the accumulation of all that Arthur had went through in the movie and how he had matured as a person.

'His eyes are a bit different.'

Alexander who has his sights fixed on the screen thought.

Throughout the movie, the emotions in Arthur's eyes were pretty subtle and hidden, like he didn't want others to know what he was feeling. He was a very reserved character and his eyes portrayed that very well.

But in the last scene, there was a brightness in his eyes as Arthur started his performance, like he had finally found the hope he was looking for.

Although there were still a lot of questions in his mind, he now has hope that in the end, everything will be fine. That was clearly signified when Arthur started his performance.

'Ah… this is…'

For a moment, Alexander was only able to widen his eyes in wonder as Arthur started singing. It was because he felt a deep, heavy silence in his whisper-like voice.

That immediately reminded Alexander of how Arthur was as a character when the movie had started. Cold, unsure, finding a reason to hold onto things.

The singing was clearly displaying that but as the song went on, the voice slowly became brighter. The cold whisper changed to a ray of hope, like Arthur was getting the answers of the questions he was looking for slowly.

'I have never seen something like this.'-.

Alexander thought in his mind.

Not only him, every other reporter and critic in the theatre hall was thinking of the same thing. None of them have experienced something like this in their life.

Although no one other than Aiden was able to see it, a strong silver light was flowing all over the theatre. There was a spark to the silver light which had come due to Aiden using both his singing and acting talent at the same time.

This was making the audience feel very strong emotions.

Everyone of them had watched a lot of movies. Even musicals but none of them had ever felt like this. This wasn't something of a visual spectacle but it was clearly something that was touching their hearts.

Like every note was striking their soul.

As the song went on, it became brighter, especially when the chorus ended. Alexander was clearly able to feel the words that Arthur on the screen was trying to portray.

The lyrics literally meant to keep their hopes up even if something bad has happened. Even if you are having a bad day, smile. Even if you have gone through a heartbreak, don't be sad because life would give you another chance.

All this was also clear in the journey that the movie had been.

And Alexander didn't even realise that the song had ended. When he blinked his eyes, he saw that the movie was over.

Credits were rolling.

"What just happened?"

He muttered and looking around, he saw that other people had the same reaction. The whole movie had been very enjoyable for him but the last scene was truly something out of ordinary.

It was simply magical.

Alexander felt that even if the movie wasn't good, the last scene was worth it to watch it again. It was such a scene where one would feel a plethora of emotions at the same time that you won't be able to control yourself.

Some people in the audience were already crying without realising it themselves.

The whole romantic comedy was very emotional. It has the fun parts, the chemistry between the leads, the emotional parts and then finally, acceptance that some relationships are never meant to be.

The best part about the movie was maybe that.

The maturity of Arthur to move on and finding hope when he was the saddest was something that truly touched everyone's hearts.

And him singing 'Lost in the Sky' at the end of the movie was the highlight. Something that the audience would never forget.

That's why, after a while, a person in the theatre stood up and started clapping.

It caused a chain reaction as others also followed suit. One by one, everyone was up and clapping as it was the only form of thanks they could give to the movie.

When Alexander saw people standing up, he followed suit. He had definitely seen way better romantic comedies, but [30 days of Happiness] had truly managed to touch his heart.

Because of that, he clapped as hard as he could.

Sitting a little distance away from him, Amanda Bailey also stood up. There were already tears in her eyes due to the last scene but she clapped, her eyes looking towards Aiden who was smiling seeing the reaction.

Maybe the only person in the room who was not standing was Gordon Lee and even he had been affected by the movie.

It had managed to make him emotional but due to his clash with Aiden and ego, he refused to stand up.

"Aiden, they are giving us a standing ovation. A standing ovation!!"

Leo who was sitting next to Aiden said, his hands shaking due to the excitement he was feeling at the moment.

"I can see that, Leo. They loved the movie."

"Yeah, we did it! We fucking did it!"

Saying that, Leo stood up with the whole cast and faced the audience that was giving them a standing ovation.

The effort he had put in for months had bore fruit and he couldn't stop his tears from falling out.

Once, he had felt that everything was over due to Rodrigo backing out of the movie but now, things have changed.

His decision wasn't wrong.

The standing ovation that he was receiving was proof of it.

As soon as the press release of [30 days of Happiness] ended, rumors spreaded all over the Toronto film festival.

Some people weren't able to believe it. After all, [30 days of Happiness] was not a movie that people were looking forward to a lot. They were doubtful if the movie would be good or not.

A debut director was someone that could not be trusted easily, especially with an independent production and a young cast.

The only reason people even knew about it was because the soundtrack had gotten very popular. Despite that, everyone believed that the movie would be very average.

That's why, when they heard what had happened in the press release, they weren't able to believe it. Many even thought it was a joke.

The movie got a 5 minute standing ovation!

It was a very big deal as it proved that the movie was one of the best to premiere at the Toronto film festival.

It should be noted that only [Blood Valentine] had gotten a 5 minute standing ovation till now. [Dark, a noir thriller did get a standing ovation but it was only for 2 minutes.

This meant that the movie was as good as [Blood Valentine, a movie that was in the lead to win People's Choice Awards.

It was a huge thing for the cast and crew of [30 days of Happiness].

In their minds, they were now directly competing with a big movie.

Other than that, a lot of reviews from the critics also came up. This included reviews from big media outlets working in both America and Canada.

[30 days of Happiness] starts out as an average rom com that one might watch if they are bored but when the movie picks up its pace, it shows what good writing and characters are capable of. It keeps moving in his narrative and the best part about the movie is that both the main character's growth is clearly seen. Aiden Silvereye stands out as Arthur Reeves, especially in the last scene. This might become the big solo movie of his budding career.

-Amanda Bailey, LA times.

A movie with a lot of heart in it, just the right emotions and actors that we might see a lot of in the coming years. Despite a fairly good plot which is predictable at places, the movie shines. The performance of Aiden Silvereye and Katie Brooks are one of the best in a rom com in a while, especially the former. The musician and actor clearly showed everyone that he's here to stay. I might rewatch the last scenes a couple of times again. It's definitely worth it!

-Alexander Hooch, Hollywood Weekly.

Last month, Aiden's Silvereye track 'Lost in the Sky' rightfully got viral all over the month and when I found out that it was a track from his upcoming movie, I really wondered if the movie would have stuff other than great music and yes, it do have a lot of stuff. In a well made romantic comedy, music and Aiden Silvereye steals the show. It truly brings back the feeling of old romances where as an audience, you would directly feel the characters emotions.

-Fredie Wilder, The Box Magazine.

In his directorial debut, Leo Shaw truly shows that he had given his everything to the movie. It proved to be a surprise package in the already good amount of movies to watch at the Toronto film festival but [30 days of Happiness] might just leap over those movies to achieve something that no one had dreamed of. Other than [Blood Valentine, this movie is surely the contender of People's Choice Award.

-Ibrahim Jaffer, Canada Tomorrow.

Like that, a lot of critics who have been present during the release wrote their reviews but one person was missing.

Gordon Lee hasn't posted any review yet.

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The bright laptop screen was flashing in front of Gordon Lee.

For the last half an hour, he was typing and deleting words, unsure of what to do. He was obviously trying to write a review for [30 days of Happiness] despite his unwillingness to do it.

But he had no choice.

Vanity Magazine had especially asked him to write a review of every movie that he was going to the screening for. Their next issue was going to be all about the Toronto film festival.

On top of it, the other critics and reporters that had been to the screening had already posted their reviews, praising the movie a lot. So, there was pressure on him to finish the review.

Just the humiliation he had felt during the press conference was stopping him from doing a review. Aiden's expression was still vivid in his mind as he was insulting him.

If the movie was bad, Gordon would have already written a full review on it, roasting the hell out of everyone involved with it, especially Aiden. But the reality was quite the opposite.

The movie wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was a refreshing change in the world of cliche rom coms.

Gordon as a veteran reporter and critic was clearly able to see that but the words didn't come out in praise from his mouth.

Even if it was a good movie, his ego won't let him write something good about him.

That's why he was in turmoil.

"What should I do? Should I just praise the movie while ignoring Aiden or I just say that he brought down the movie a lot…"

He muttered, holding his head in frustration. -.

[My heart's a radio… It sings for you, so listen close…]

It was at that moment that his phone suddenly rang. He picked it up and saw that it was a call from an unknown number. He picked it, wondering who it was and a rough voice came from the other side.

"Hello, is this Gordon Lee from Vanity Magazine?"

"Yes, who are you?"

"I'm Aaron's Hart agent. I wanted to talk about something important with you if you are free."

Gordon raised his eyebrow in wonder when he heard that. Why was Aaron Hart's agent calling him? He didn't have any interview scheduled with him but he still listened, interested in what the agent was going to say.

"Yes, yes, I'm free."

"Well, we have heard that you are reviewing the movies in the Toronto film festival for the next issue of Vanity Magazine and we have a request. More like an offer for you…"

After the initial press screening and the audience screening, [30 days of Happiness] really became famous all over the Toronto film festival. Even people who would randomly come to watch a movie or two in the festival would hear about it and try to get inside the screening of the rom com.

But they would realise that it was all booked. The show was housefull. Even the next show was like that.

Undoubtedly, [30 days of Happiness] was really spreading among the audience.

One of the reasons behind it was that it was a light hearted movie that was guaranteed to give a good experience.

Compared to more heavily themed movies like [Dark] and [Blood Valentine, Canadian audiences like it much better.

After all, art movies are more famous in Europe, not in Canada.

That's why, despite only getting 3-4 screenings every day thanks to being an independent movie, the craze of it spreaded all over the festival in just a few days.

Compared to it, [Blood Valentine] was getting 9-10 screenings everyday. That was the advantage of an accomplished director and big actors being attached to a project. The management of the festival had naturally given them more screens.

Even they didn't imagine that [30 days of Happiness] was going to do this good.

"I'm so tired."

Aiden sighed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Raising his head, he saw Wade sitting in front of him who was looking at him with an expression of sympathy.

"We can't do anything. I'm getting constant calls for interviews one after another. Hollywood Weekly, US Weekly, Canada Tomorrow, Movie Frenzy… every major magazine and media outlet wants an interview of you. It's better to do them as this is the time to increase your popularity. Every critic mentioned you in their review, calling you the highlight, so all the attention is on you."

"Yeah, but a lot of them are also because of how important music was to the movie. As I did it, it attracted more attention."

"That's just lucky for us. I originally never thought the movie would be received like this, so it's a golden chance for you to evolve from a golden worm to a butterfly."

Aiden chuckled hearing that. For some reason god only knew, Wade loved comparing him to a worm. He was almost treating it as a joke now.

"Can't you get over that worm thing?"

"Why?"

"Because it's weird."

"It's funny." Wade chuckled then shook his head. "Anyway, at first, I was excited for this movie because I thought it would add nicely in your filmography as an independent movie. Success of it at the box office is something that can't be predicted, so I was just hoping for it to have good critical acclaim but I think we should change our plans a bit now."

The original plan that Wade had made was making [30 days of Happiness] a good addition in Aiden's filmography. As the budget of it was pretty low and the soundtrack had already became a hit, the movie was not going to lose money.

With success at Toronto, it would be easy to sell it for a good price to an ott platform even if it don't work on the box office.

"Are you thinking of going for the awards?"

Aiden asked, trying to guess what was going on in Wade's mind and the burly agent nodded.

"Yeah, I heard the reviews and the way people are talking about [30 days of Happiness]. Omar is even trying to talk to the management of the festival to give us more shows. Going by it, we might have a really good chance at the People's Choice Awards."

"That won't be easy. Considering it's pretty much the ticket to Oscars and you do know what goes on behind the scenes of Oscars."

Though the Oscars was called the most prestigious award in the movie industry with everyone wanting to get their hands on it, it was a known fact that the Oscar jury was not the most righteous when it comes to selecting movies for nominations and awards.

All of them have their own biases and because of that, if you want to win best picture, making a good movie isn't enough. You also need to have connections with the jury.

"I'm not saying that [30 days of Happiness] would win an Oscar. It's a good movie but it's not on the level to get the prestigious award, especially with no connections. Still, getting the People's Choice Award is doable."

Wade explained his point of view. The People's Choice Award was an award that didn't have a jury and to select the winner, an audience balloting happens every year.

This award was one of the reasons Toronto has grown out from the shadow of other festivals.

"Yeah, I know that. In the past, even independent movies have won the award but we are competing with [Blood Valentine]. That movie has a lot of audience and critic approval." Aiden said, then suddenly thought of something. "Though, I'm pretty sure they will be pretty panicked at the moment."

"What do you mean?" Wade raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, [Blood Valentine] was already touted as the winner even before the festival began, so it must be a shock to them that [30 days of Happiness] is doing so well. Especially Aaron Hart, I really wonder how he's taking it."

Smash!

The sound of something breaking came out as Aaron Hart looked at the pieces of his phone on the ground.

Next to him, his agent was slowly getting away from him, knowing that his violent tendencies were coming back.

It was never a good thing to stay close to Aaron when he was like that.

His agent had already gotten a few bad experiences.

"That fucking nobody."

The reason Aaron was so agitated was because he was going through the online reviews of other movies at the festival and saw a lot of positive reviews for [30 days of Happiness]. When he asked his agent, he told him how he had come off as a surprise.

When he had asked about the actor, his agent had told him about Aiden and Aaron instantly remembered who he was.

He still recalled how Aiden had overshadowed him in that one scene in [Shadows of War].

After that, he always hated him.

"Aaron, calm down. You can't break your phone every time you get angry."

His agent calmly said, trying to get Aaron to relax but he just turned towards him and asked.

"Is that movie a threat to us?"

"Ah, no. I don't think so. It's doing good but there's no powerful person backing it. It's pretty much an independent movie and only got lucky. I'm already trying to halt its momentum, so it won't become a rock on our path."

His agent explained. Knowing that this award was very important for Aaron, he was already moving to make sure everything went well.

"What did you do?"

"Just check the reviews of Gordon Lee, a critic from Vanity Magazine and a few other well known critics. We contacted them and…"

As his agent narrated his plan, Aaron Hart started calming down.

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As [30 days of Happiness] was doing so well in the festival, the management organising it was completely in pressure to increase its shows.

It was because a lot of people have complained that they weren't able to watch the movie because of no seats and too few screenings.

On 14 September, a long line of people were standing outside one of the screenings of [30 days of Happiness] and in the end, they didn't even get to watch the movie as the screening ended.

They were all left disappointed.

Because of this, a lot of people complained about it on the website of the Toronto film festival.

Seeing the public interest towards the movie and Omar, the producer of the movie also requesting for additional screenings, the management was unable to refuse.

It was a bit unfair to the other independent and low budget movies that were screening at the festival but they all understood that [30 days of Happiness] was only getting more screenings due to it getting widespread recognition.

It had managed to strike a chord with the audience and that was undoubtedly the way of success for a rom com movie.

At the same time, a lot of people were discussing the movies being screened at the Toronto film festival on online forums that focused on movies.

One of these forums was 'Gossip sub'.

A very popular member of the forum 'Young master no 69' posted a discussion thread on the forum, titled "Is [30 days of Happiness] screening at Toronto worth watching?"

Alongside it, he posted a screenshot of one of the reviews by critics for [30 days of Happiness].

He also posted a link to the whole review.-.

This movie is one of the worst you would see. Though the technical aspects of the movie are good, the story and cast don't match each other at all. The songs randomly come up and make no sense. It's like the movie is confused if it wants to be a musical or a rom com. Aiden Silvereye isn't convincing as a high school student and his character seems like the guy who will fail at music and become a serial killer. He certainly has the looks of it. Aiden should seriously consider focusing on singing more as acting is sadly not his forte.

-Gordon Lee, Vanity Magazine.

His post quickly garnered a lot of comments as people who have heard and watched the movie came out.

[Heaven defying Crocodile: I haven't heard of the movie. Don't really watch festival movies.]

[Great Young Uncle: It's the movie that features 'Lost in the Sky' right? I wanted to check it out but it looks like the reviews are pretty bad.]

[Manually sick: Don't listen to reviews. I watched it with my girlfriend last week. It's a top class movie. We are going to watch it again after it releases at the box office. It's really good.]

[Only grandma: Yeah, I watched it too. It's pretty good. The critical review you posted is one of the few bad ones. I saw tons of good ones. Don't listen to it.]

[Hulk is dead: Dude, never listen to Gordon Lee. He's not that good of a critic. I never saw him criticising certain actors while he has problems with every actor with no booking. I work as an intern in Vanity Magazine and he's not well liked.]

[Doraemon's girlfriend: I say, go watch the movie for yourself and decide. I don't trust reviews or ratings. You can't trust anyone even if they are a critic.]

[Aiden's wife: Damn, that bastard of a critic dared to say that Aiden doesn't have a forte in acting. Well, that critic doesn't have a forte in reviewing movies, it seems.]

Like that, people talked and on the website, the post became one of the highly talked about in just a short time as everyone gave their own opinion.

"Gordon Lee just posted his review in the morning. He wrote very bad things about the movie and you. He focused on you a lot."

Aiden, who was typing on his laptop, raised his head to look at Wade who was going through reviews on his phone when he said that. He still remembered Gordon Lee and how he had been rude to Katie.

"What did he say?"

"He wrote, 'It's pretty clear that Aiden Silvereye came to America to find work as he was probably rejected by every director in India because of his acting.'

Aiden wasn't able to stop himself from chuckling hearing that while Wade just clicked his tongue.

"That bastard is clearly paid."

"Paid? I thought he just hates me after I talked back to him during the press conference."

"There's that too but most of the critics and reporters who watched the first screening gave good reviews. He's also from a very big magazine, so even if he hates you, he would have given it 3 stars out of 5 and had just downplayed your performance and praised everyone else but he wrote a fully negative review. It's very easy to tell which review is paid or not."

Wade had a lot of experience in the industry and as he mainly handled actors, his eyes were very proficient in finding out which review was paid or not.

It was an ability he had gained after years of experience.

"So, what do you want to do about Gordon Lee? He's a senior reporter and critic in Vanity Magazine. From now on, he will be after you. Should we send a press release out about him and talk about what happened at the press conference?"

Wade turned to look at Aiden and asked. Personally, he didn't like people getting away from doing things like paid reviews but that's just how the industry ran.

There were too many immoral things.

"No, let's not do anything." Aiden said. "At least not yet. I don't think it's the right time."

"Why?"

"Because Gordon Lee would want us to call him out or talk about what happened at the press conference, even if we have the upper hand. He doesn't fear a fight. People like him want it. Moreover, if there are paid reviews going on against us, then it means people are shaken by how good our movie is doing."

Aiden very well knew that critics are also people and have their own biased opinions. Even if they tried to judge a movie purely on quality, it wasn't easy.

As for Gordon Lee, he felt that it was better to wait for an opportunity to say anything back against him.

'I need to play the waiting game here. It's not good to be rash.'

That was the thought in Aiden's mind.

It wasn't wise to start something in the middle of the festival, especially when it could shift the attention from the movie to the drama.

"You are right. Let's handle this bastard later on."

Wade said and at that moment, his phone vibrated a bit as he got a message on it.

Reading the message, he looked at Aiden.

"We should go meet up with Omar and Leo. They want to discuss the distribution offers they have received."

One of the main reasons why [30 days of Happiness] was registered in the Toronto film festival was to find a good distributor for the movie. It was a tactic a lot of independent movies would go with.

Omar and Green finance were reliable in investing but that was it. Having a distribution channel was a completely different thing.

It was a privilege that only some studios in Hollywood had.

"Well, we got 8 offers from different studios for distribution in North America. We need to decide on one soon."

Omar said, looking towards everyone who was present in his hotel room.

"That's a lot. It seems like a lot of people are interested in the movie." Aiden said, a bit surprised.

"A lot of them are also after the selling rights of the soundtrack but that deal has already been made. Anyway, [30 days of Happiness] is way more commercial than the other movies in the festival. It gives us an edge."

Omar explained as the meeting went on. All of them were in this movie from the start, so them talking about distribution rights seemed like they have achieved a lot from where they have started.

They talked about different distribution companies and which ones were better to make a partnership with.

It was a one time thing, so they needed to be really careful.

In the end, they all decided on three studios that were better than everyone else.

"Searchlight media is the biggest studio out of the three we have decided on. They are masters in distributing independent movies and have a lot of success with it. They are a very safe choice in my eyes."

Omar said, looking towards everyone. Searchlight media was actually a studio that only focused on independent movies and they would generally pick up movies from festivals every year.

As their PR team was pretty good, the movie would reach their potential audience.

"They are good but Searchlight has already picked up a few other independent movies like [Dark] and [Before or After] from Toronto. Even if they are a safe choice, they won't divide all their resources towards us. We will actually have a disadvantage as the director of [Dark] is pretty successful with indie movies. They would surely give him more resources."

Wade gave out his opinion and Omar pursued his lips, thinking seriously about it. Only Leo didn't speak as he was not good at business deals whereas Aiden silently listened.

"That's true." Omar said. "Then, should we go with Owl studios?"

"They are risky though…"

"Yeah, but the studio is pretty good and we would have more control as they would cooperate well with us."

Like that, both Omar and Wade talked but their discussion would always end in confusion as there were good and bad aspects about all the studios.

In the end, Omar looked at Aiden who was just silently listening.

"Aiden, what do you think?"

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'Umm, all three of them are interesting choices.'

Aiden thought, analysing the three studios that they have finalized in his mind. As he had a share in the movie, Aiden was being very careful as different distribution companies would have different marketing strategies and resources for them.

If they choose the wrong one, the movie could fail at the box office, even if it was praised a lot by people in the film festival.

In the past, there were surely cases like that and now that the market was more volatile than ever with people wanting to see more high budget, cgi filled movies that are a spectacle.

Because of that, even small budget movies are not able to work. Especially because people could watch a good TV show or movie in their home now.

'Searchlight media is a studio that at least won't get us a loss but the film might not reach its potential then. They already have too many movies. Owl studios are good but they hold a very weird record with half their movies being successful and half being total disasters. Last is Eternal life movies. They have a good record but their last five movies are big flops. They are on verge of bankruptcy, so this might be their last chance.'

After thinking everything in his mind, Aiden looked at Omar and Wade to ask a question.

"Are we going to market the movie for the Oscars?"

Hearing that question, Omar was surprised for a bit but he soon understood where Aiden was coming from. The last three winners of People's Choice Awards at Toronto had gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars, with the cast getting nominations.

"I do want to but I'm pretty sure they are going to reject the movie in the main categories."

Omar gave out his verdict and Leo who was silently listening to the whole conversation raised his eyebrows.

"Why?"

"Because we don't have a lot of connections. Even if movies that won in Toronto got awards during Oscars, they all belonged to big studios like Zero International and Titan studios."-.

Aiden said and everyone in the room nodded. Award shows were more complicated than people think, especially Oscars.

"So, what do you think we should do? Just give me your honest opinion."

Omar asked and Aiden didn't spend a lot of time thinking of a reply.

"I think we shouldn't actively go for Oscars. If we win the People's Choice Award, then the attention would be on us but we very well know that we won't get big nominations, so it's better to focus on getting a good box office right now and then, eventually do PR to win awards at other award shows like Golden Globes."

"So, you are saying to go with…"

"Eternal life movies. They are the best in my eyes."

Aiden said and as he knew that he needed to explain the reasons behind his decision, he took a breath and explained.

"Actually, Owl and Eternal life both are fine choices. Both of them are giving us a good deal and have a good PR that could help us bag some awards, but I went with Eternal life just because they have nothing to lose."

"You are going to take advantage of the fact that they are desperate and we are their last choices. They would probably pour everything to make [30 days of Happiness] a success."

Wade said, his voice getting brighter by every word.

"Yeah, that's my opinion. Though you could discuss more among yourselves. I only know a little about the film business."

Aiden looked at Omar and said but it seemed like the decision was already made.

After the meeting went on for more than 2 hours, they finally decided on Eternal Sunshine as the distributor for the movie in North America.

Obviously, Omar needed to do more negotiations with them but that was not something Aiden needed to care about.

He knew that Omar was a pretty good negotiator.

At the same time, The Toronto film festival was also coming to an end slowly. It has already been 10 days since the festival started and on the 11th day, the award ceremony was finally going to happen.

Throughout the film festival, Aiden was pretty tired as everyday, he would do one interview after another with most of the reporters asking the same kind of question.

It was very exhausting after a few times but he needed to still maintain a smile.

At the same time, whenever he would get time to watch a movie, reporters would surely follow him around, trying to ask questions. These were the reporters that were unable to get an appointment to do a private interview, so they had no choice but to follow Aiden around.

This was only happening because at the moment, Aiden was the lead of one of the few movies that could potentially win the People's Choice Award.

Due to that, he even joked with Wade that he was experiencing what A listers go through on a daily basis in advance.

Just like that, the award ceremony finally came.

"Oh, god. I'm so nervous. I feel like I would make some clumsy mistakes due to how nervous I am. I even nearly tripped on the red carpet."

Katie muttered, sitting next to Aiden. Around them, a lot of celebrities that have attended the film festival were present. They were chatting among themselves and a few of them had even talked with Aiden and Katie, very appreciative of their movie.

"You are already done with the red carpet. You can calm down now."

Aiden said, trying to assure her but she shook her head.

"No, I can't. What if we won the award today? I might slip on my way to the stage. That's how nervous I'm. A movie that I'm one of the leads of is on the verge of winning a prestigious award. I just can't seem to calm down."

"Well, if you really fall, then, we will make an interesting picture in the newspapers the next day. Trust me, being a meme is a pretty great way to get famous."

Aiden chuckled and Katie just glared at him, clicking her tongue. At that moment, the phone in Aiden's pocket suddenly rang.

He quickly took it out, afraid of causing a disturbance in the award ceremony and saw that it was a call from Uncle Sam. Looking around him, he guessed that the award ceremony still had a bit of time to start.

"Katie, I need to take this call."

"Ah, okay. Just don't take too long. The ceremony will begin any minute."

He nodded and strodded off towards the lounge area where he could talk peacefully. On his way, he picked up the call and Uncle Sam's voice came out.

"Hey, Aiden. Did you already win the award?"

"No, it hasn't begun yet and you do know that there's a lot of chance I won't win. And are you drunk? You sound a bit weird."

"Yeah, I got expensive wine as your movie is going to get an award today."

Aiden shook his head hearing that. His uncle had a habit of celebrating things even before it happened.

It was one of his old habits.

"Well, Uncle, like I said, there are other good movies here too. Anyone could win the award."

When he said that, Uncle Sam went silent for a moment before frowning.

"Try to believe in yourself a bit more. If it was some other award, I won't be certain but balloting is something that only takes the audience's opinion to decide the winner and from what I heard, your movie undoubtedly created a place in the audience's hearts."

"I know that, uncle."

Like that, he talked to his uncle for a while in the corridor. It was just a normal talk but when he got off the call, he suddenly heard footsteps coming towards him from a corner.

Aiden thought that it would be a staff member but soon, someone surprising came out.

It was Aaron Hart.

'Why is that crazy bastard here? He even has a whole bottle of wine in his hands. Was he drinking it in the lounge area?'

So many questions went up in Aiden's mind when he saw Aaron Hart approaching him with a bottle of wine in his hands. There was a faint surprise in his eyes as he didn't expect to see Aiden here.

His steps were a bit staggering like he would fall any second and his eyes were clearly drunk.

"We are meeting after a long time." He said, staring at Aiden.

"Yeah, it's been almost a year."

"Is it? Time is passing by too quickly for me these days. Anyway, I watched your movie." Aiden raised his eyebrows at that. "It was bad. It's too early for you to take lead roles. Try to spend some years doing small roles first and hone your acting. Hollywood has too many people like you."

At that blatant insult, Aiden didn't say anything straight. It was because he was examining the situation. There were no other people in the corridor and there was a wine bottle in the hands of Aaron.

'It's bad news. He's a mentally crazy If I go by the rumours. He's even drunk. Even before that, he has a history of hitting people. I don't want to repeat the stabbing incident again.'

He thought in his mind as Aaron Hart walked close to him.

"Hey, why are you not saying anything? Are you dumb?"

"I'm not but it seems like you are pretty drunk. You should go find your agent and attend the award ceremony."

"I will do that later. You know from the first time I saw you, I never liked your face. It carries an arrogance that I don't like. I feel like changing its shape for a bit."

At that, Aiden sighed and glared at Aaron.

"Don't go there, you psychotic bastard!"

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Chapter 157.People's Choice Awards (2)

"Don't go there, you psychotic bastard!"

As soon as those words left Aiden's mind, Aaron's eyes changed as without wasting any time, he swung the bottle of wine in his hands.

Thankfully, Aiden who was already on guard crouched down to dodge it and slammed Aaron onto a wall, holding him against it.

Thud!

With a thud, the wine bottle fell and broke with the little amount of wine left in it flowing out. Aaron glared at Aiden and tried to get out of his hold but it was for nothing.

"Let me go, you fucking cunt!"

"Keep shouting and someone will come up and see what is going on. You really crossed your lines now."

"You can't prove it. I can sue you for assault. Do you know how much money I have? I even know a senator."

At that threat, Aiden just shook his head, thinking how much of a fool this guy in front of him was. Aside from not being able to control his anger and libido, he also didn't know how to use his brain.

Sighing, Aiden opened his mouth.

"Raise your head and look at the camera right there."

Aaron followed his line of sight and saw the camera just above his head. It was easy to guess that it had recorded everything that had happened in the corridor.

It was Aaron who had tried to slam a wine bottle in Aiden's head first and his actions were just defending himself. It was clear for anyone to understand if they watched the recordings.

"If I just call the festival management and police and tell them what you did, then your career that is going downhill would be crushed. You can't keep getting work if it comes out that you have a habit of hitting other actors but first, you would be in jail."

Aiden gave emphasis to each and every word of his and slowly, Aaron's eyes became a bit clear as he lowered his head, like he was accepting defeat. -ɴ(0)ᴠᴇʟ.

"I'm sorry. Let me go now. I promise I won't do anything."

He said that and Aiden nodded, releasing his hold on him but just the next second, as soon as Aaron got released, he again swung his fist at Aiden.

He was probably thinking that he would take in Aiden by a surprise attack but suddenly, Aiden's atmosphere changed.

He quickly thought of Kai in his mind and his eyes got a strange glint. His legs moved quickly as he dodged the punch coming at him.

Without wasting any time, he punched Aaron straight into a wall as he lost consciousness.

'Ah, that was close…'

He sighed as he quickly got out of the character of Kai but it left a certain weird and indescribable feeling in his heart, making him a bit sick. But it was something that Aiden had experienced before, so he didn't think much of it.

It was just an after effect of switching between the characters he had played. Especially a gangster like Kai.

"Now, what to do?"

He thought, taking a deep breath and walking close to Aaron's unconscious body. He checked his pulse and thankfully, it looked like he was okay and had only lost consciousness for a while.

He was even mumbling things like 'Bitch' and 'Bastard' from time to time.

But the question was what would Aiden do now.

He obviously can't just leave Aaron like this.

'It will be pretty easy to just pass it off as him getting too drunk and passing out by calling security to take care of him. But the security camera must have all the footage already.' ɴ(O)ᴠᴇʟ

Thinking of that, he glanced at the security camera.

'Now, I can't really let him be as he assaulted me out of nowhere too.'

A plan quickly formed in Aiden's mind. A way for him to use this situation.

'Wade.'

He quickly dialled Wade after thinking of a good plan.

'Im fucked.'

Aaron Hart's agent thought as he looked at the screen. A recording of what had happened in the corridor between Aiden and Aaron was playing in it.

In the room, other than him, Wade and Aiden were also present. Both of them were giving smiling glances to each other.

Aside from them, the managing director of the Toronto film festival and other executives were also present.

ɴ(O)ᴠᴇʟ All of their faces were frozen with shock as they looked at the camera recording.

Only one thing was going in their mind.

'If this goes out, the festival's reputation will surely be in trouble.'

As for Aaron Hart who had started this trouble, he was already sent to a hospital to do a routine check, just to be sure that he was all okay.

"Aaron Hart, one of Hollywood's A lister assaulted a rookie actor who he was competing with for the People's Choice Award. He appeared to be very drunk and tried to attack with a wine bottle. How's that for a headline in Hollywood Weekly tomorrow?"

Aiden said, looking towards everyone and Aaron Hart's agent flinched.

'Aaron's career might end if something like that really happened.'

In Hollywood, a lot of celebs would get out of very bad scandals and would still get movies. Even If Aaron had assaulted his wife in the past, it could easily be solved outside court.

After all, it was very easy for celebs to handle these things. Even movie studios won't care a lot about it as there were too many problematic celebrities.

But there was still a line.

If the word got out that Aaron had assaulted Aiden, then it won't just end as a lawsuit. Aaron might go to jail and might become the next victim of Cancel culture on the internet.

Not only that, he might even lose his movies as actors would think twice before working with him. Studios are getting more and more sensitive towards these things too.

Moreover, the worst thing would be Aaron losing his sanity more and more.

'I might even lose my job.'

The agent thought, thinking of that scenario and gulping.

"Mr. Silvereye, how about we talk it through? I'm very sorry about the conduct that Aaron did but there's no need to go to the media right?"

His agent said and Wade who was waiting for this opportunity smirked.

"No need. My actor nearly lost his life. Take a look at the video again. If the wine bottle had hit his head, he would have serious injuries. Do you think it's something small?"

"I know that but we all are mature people here. A solution would surely come up if we all talk it out."

In those words, the managing director of the film festival walked towards Aiden. He was a man with hair that looked to be dyed black to make him look young but the wrinkles on his face were easily giving away his age.

Unlike others, he was a bit calm.

"I really think we should have a talk about it. It's not good for anyone's reputation if it went public. The festival would be under scrutiny too. Please try to understand and not make a rash decision."

"What about Aaron Hart? I can't let him get away with this."

Aiden asked and the managing director nodded before glaring at Aaron's agent.

"Obviously, he won't get away with this. The Toronto film festival would never tolerate an assault of this level. Aaron Hart would surely get his due and I would even talk to the Academy about his actions."

Hearing that, Aaron's agent's face paled.

"Where were you?"

Leo asked as he saw Aiden walking in to sit next to him. He had a worried expression on his face as he had been looking for Aiden for a long time.

Even Wade was nowhere to be seen.

"Were you talking with your uncle for over an hour?"

Katie also asked, curious.

"No, I just got a bit busy. Sorry. Anyway, it looks like I'm on time." Aiden said, sighing.

The conversation with the managing director and Aaron's agent has halted due to him needing to attend the award ceremony.

Wade was currently handling it on his own as Aiden attended the ceremony.

"You are just on time. The jury awards are already given and only the People's Choice Award is left. Next one is that."

Leo explained, brushing the sweat off his forehead. Even though AC was on, he was so nervous that he was sweating.

'I thought I would miss the award due to that bastard.'

As Aiden thought that in his mind, the host called the presenter of the next award.

"So, now let's move on to our next award. This one is very special as it's chosen by the people itself. Only the films that got the most attention from the public during the festival are the contenders of this award and to present it, I would like to call Chris Grant."

As the host announced, a very muscular and fit guy, wearing a suit came out to present the award. Aiden recognised him as he was one of the most popular actors in the world.

Thanks to his role in a superhero franchise, he has become a worldwide sensation.

"Good evening, everyone. It's a wonderful night and we have awarded one of the best movies to come out this year but this award is very special. I do want to talk more but I could see all of you are anticipating it a lot, so I would straight away get to the point."

He chuckled, then opened up the envelope in his hands. He looked around the audience, smiling at their nervous expressions.

"The winner of People's Choice Award is [30 days of Happiness]."

….

/DreamThree/

Don't forget to vote this novel with your power stones and golden tickets

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Chapter 158.A Great End

"The winner of People's Choice Award is [30 days of Happiness]."

When Chris Grant announced that, all the attention suddenly fell on the spot where the cast of [30 days of Happiness] was sitting.

Literally everyone in the room looked at them.

The director of [Blood Valentine] and [Dark] did the same. An independent movie with a debut director had won? With a younger cast at that.

The producer of [Buried Alive] was not even able to say anything. He had come here expecting to lose as [Blood Valentine] was the most likely winner but a dark horse had suddenly come up out of nowhere.

How could it be? Does that mean this musical rom com would go on to win the next Oscars?

All sorts of questions were in their mind.

It was truly a miraculous moment!

"A-Aiden, did Chris Grant really take our movie name or am I just hallucinating due to being too nervous?"

Leo turned to Aiden and asked. Besides them, Katie was already beginning to tear up.

"No, it's true. We won. We actually won!"

As soon as Aiden said that, thunderous applause rang out as everyone started clapping for them.

The reality finally started to set in.

They have won and there was no denying it. The movie had gotten the best audience review out of any other movie in the festival and had come out on top. .

Slowly, they all stood up and walked to the stage. Their heartbeats were rising every second as they took a single step. Especially Leo and Katie.

Omar was also walking with them, showing a very confident expression like he had already expected it. He was a shrewd businessman and knew that he needed to show off a confident self right now.

This might be the big moment for his investment company.

As for Aiden, the incident with Aaron Hart had made him a bit blank but the applause slowly brought him back to reality. It was settling in that the movie he was the lead of had won a very prestigious award.

"Congratulations."

"T-thank you." Leo said as Steve handed him the trophy.

After taking him, he faced the whole audience and tried to remember the speech that he had remembered, in case they would win.

"Hello, everyone, first of all, I would like to thank the Toronto film festival for giving my movie an opportunity to showcase it to the people. I was very surprised when the movie was so well received by the audience and at this moment, I really don't know what to say."

His each word was hard to let out for Leo but he did. The audience smiled seeing him. He was a young director but they were sure that in the coming years, he was surely going to get more famous as a filmmaker.

"When I first pitched the movie to Aiden, the script was completely different." Leo glanced at Aiden as the audience whispered among each other, not knowing about this information. "He really helped me modify it and it became what you all saw. I'm extremely grateful to him as without him, this movie won't be possible."

Saying that, Leo passed the mic to Aiden who held it in his hands and wondered what to say. He hadn't really prepared a speech as mostly, directors or producers would address the audience after the win.

Taking a deep breath, he faced the audience.

"Thank you for your kind words, Leo." He glanced at Leo. "The thing is the movie has a lot of people's efforts behind them. From the crew to all my co actors involved with it. I could just be grateful that the audience liked it so much. Thank you!"

He finished it with that and everyone clapped.

With that, The Toronto film festival was truly ending. The surprising part of the whole festival was obviously [30 days of Happiness] which had managed to win people's attention when it was mostly considered a small movie at the start of the festival.

It was truly unpredictable!

After the winners' names from the award ceremony were revealed to the media, they were all in a big frenzy.

The winners of Jury awards were the same as what they had thought but the winner of People's voice award truly made them widen their eyes.

It was a victory for the dark horse.

Something that was very rare these days in Hollywood. So, the media quickly started to pour out articles after articles on the award ceremony.

At the same time, all of them were trying to contact the cast and crew of the movie, hoping to get more information about the movie.

[30 days of Happiness] wins the People's Choice Award in TIFF. Is this movie going to shatter more expectations and go on to win the Oscars? Although it seems improbable, history does gives a lot of hint of it.

As the articles were flooding the internet and the Toronto film festival award ceremony was trending on Sparrow, someone was gritting his teeth while reading the news on his phone.

He was Rodrigo Burke, one of the producers from Night Hawk studios.

Currently, he was sitting in a bar with some of the other producers from the studio, chatting about Hollywood and other work related gossip. It was then that the news of the award ceremony had broken out.

Naturally, he was stupefied when he learnt that Leo and his movie had won the award.

The movie that was going to be his!

"Rodrigo, this Leo Shaw. Weren't you working with him on the same movie? I saw him going in and out of your office a couple of times."

Suddenly, one of his friends who was also checking his phone asked. Others also looked at Rodrigo as they all knew it was true.

"Yeah, but the project fell out."

Rodrigo said, feeling both disappointed and regretful at the moment.

"Why?"

"Well, the thing is…" Rodrigo struggled to form words and in the end, decided to lie. "He doesn't have working morals and we have a lot of clashes. You know me, I only work with those who are good to work with. Not just anyone."

Although he said that, the other producers didn't find a lot of truth in his words. They all looked at him with sympathy and sighed.

"If only you had not let him go, you would be standing in Toronto, taking that award. Your career might have taken wings if that had happened."

A bespectacled producer said and Rodrigo couldn't help but curse.

'Bastard, I know that well.'

Despite cursing in his mind, Rodrigo maintained a smile on his face.

"It's in the past anyway. Anyway, I have read the script. It's no good actually. It may have worked in Toronto because the soundtrack turned out to be good but it won't work if released at the box office."

"Really?"

"Yeah, trust me, it will fail. Anyway, festival movies rarely work at the box office even with commercial factors in it. The cast doesn't have the star power to pull in people to the theatres."

Rodrigo said, believing his words more and more as he talked. After all, he was sure that Aiden and Katie aren't big enough actors to get people to watch the movie.

Even if it got an award, it was nothing extraordinary.

Several movies who get awards don't amount to anything at the box office.

He told himself all those words to feel better about his situation.

"You know after I told Leo I don't want to work with him, I searched up better projects and found a better one."

Rodrigo suddenly said, changing the topic.

"Are you talking about [Leap in the Sky]? Ain't that your next movie?"

"Yeah, if I had sent it to Toronto, it would have won the award too. Sadly, it's still in the editing phase currently and we are going to release it anytime around October or November."

"The release date ain't fixed?"

"No, I'm being careful to not clash with big movies. You know the market these days. Anyway, when it releases, I'm pretty sure it will earn way better than [30 days of Happiness]."

Confidence was clear in Rodrigo's words. Even if he regretted losing over [30 days of Happiness] in his heart, he truly believed that [Leap in the Sky] was a way better movie than it.

He had poured his everything in the movie and had even gotten big actors with great star power to star in it.

In his heart, he believed that when it would release, it would become one of the highest rated rom com.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote this novel with your golden tickets and power stones !!!

Next mass release: 15th August!!

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"2 million dollars should have already reached your bank account. Now that you have gotten the money, please sign the NDA."

The scene was of a cafe in Toronto. Wade and Aiden were meeting up with Aaron Hart's agent.

Even after the festival had finished, Aiden needed to stay around to deal with the problem that was Aaron Hart.

After his assault on Aiden, the management of the festival had held a meeting which had decided to ban Aaron Hart from Toronto film festival for the next five years.

At the same time, the management had thanked Aiden that he had not called the police and had decided to deal with things in the background.

If the police were called, it wouldn't be good for the image of the film festival.

The only reason Aiden had even decided to deal with this without going to police or court was to get more benefits from it. Going to court might have given him more popularity but he didn't want that type of popularity.

Moreover, it was pretty messy as he would need to pay lawyers and stuff.

He and Wade had decided that it was far more beneficial to make a deal. Hence, after negotiations, Aaron Hart's agency agreed to give 2 million dollars for them to sign an NDA.

It was a lot of money and something that Aiden required at this point to take the next few steps in his career.

"Here, I signed it."

Aiden said, passing over the documents to the agent who checked it up once and nodded his head.

"With this, I hope the whole situation is over and you won't keep it in your heart.".

"Trust me, I don't want to. I rather not even see Aaron's face again."

The agent didn't say anything at that and left. His job here was done and there was no need to spend more time.

After the agent left, Wade turned to Aiden and whispered.

"You are a millionaire now."

"Yeah, it must be the easiest two million one would have made."

"X-art agency that Aaron belonged to is pretty rich and his contract still has two more years in it, so they were bound to compensate us. He's one of their few A-listers after all. Though, they probably will leave him after his contract ends."

"Only if he doesn't ruin his career already by then."

One of the reasons why Aiden had not gone to the police was because he knew that it would ruin Aaron's career for a lifetime. But that was not something Aiden wanted to be a part of.

He knew very well that his career was going to ruin sooner or later on his own.

After all, Aaron Hart was a classic example of fame destroying someone. If one doesn't control things like fame and money, they easily lose their sanity.

In the past, Aiden had even heard about one of the celebrities that have run into traffic and has kept yelling while holding a gun, causing a lot of panic.

Later on, he was detained by police.

Seeing how Aaron Hart was being, he was surely going to do something insane too. Aiden was sure that he must have already been very angry after knowing that he got beat up by Aiden and his movie lost the award.

"Anyway, our flight is at night. We will finally be back in New York City."

Wade said, changing the topic and Aiden nodded. He was missing New York now after being away from it for two weeks.

It was the same feeling he had felt when he had left India for the first time.

"Let's hope reporters don't bother me there too."

"They will obviously. You should just get over the interviews one by one and get a rest day." Wade said, then added. "You can take some days off to finish your novel and then, focus on the release of [30 days of Happiness] at the box office."

Wade said and Aiden thought about it for a bit. It was the middle of September and Eternal life was going to release the movie in October to get help from the momentum of winning the People's choice award.

Aiden was obviously excited about it as it was going to be his first lead movie.

'I'm pretty close to completing my novel too.'

He had already completed half of it. As it was only going to be around 50k words, Aiden was taking his time with it and getting to learn more about his new skill 'Synchronisation'.

He had decided to show it to Wade and Uncle Sam after completing it. And obviously to Harley also as he was the inspiration to write it.

But at the same time, Aiden felt like he was forgetting something.

"What happened?" Wade asked, seeing his expression.

"Nothing. I just feel like there's too many things in my mind and I'm forgetting something important due to that."

"Oh." Wade put a hand on his chin and thought before realisation struck his face. "You are forgetting [Searching for the One]. I think today's episode would be the one where your character is going to make an entry."

"Ah, yes!"

Aiden had completely forgotten about the sitcom due to how busy he was during the film festival.

[30 days of Happiness] winning the People's choice award was everywhere on the internet and for a brief moment, it was even trending at 17 on Sparrow.

It obviously meant that Aiden's fan group had also gotten the news that the movie had won an award.

They were excitedly talking about it and also about Aiden appearing on [Searching for the One] tonight.

[Lilith with benis: I was so terrified that [30 days of Happiness] won't be good but it seems like my worries were for nothing. If it won a prestigious award, it would be good.]

[Benedict Cucumber: Does anyone know when the movie will be released in Texas? I'm waiting for it after the songs.]

[Skyneves: I saw an article saying that Eternal life movies got the distribution rights, so they might release it as soon as possible. I checked their website and they have no releases in the next three months, so probably you could expect them to release it in the next three months.]

[Young Fruit smiley: I'm pretty excited to watch it in the theatre. By the way, did you all see the teaser for the next episode of [Searching for the One]? Aiden was finally revealed.]

At that question, the topic of discussion changed in the group as more and more people started talking about it.

The teaser was released a day before the episode would air and it was just a 30 second clip, containing Aiden's character meeting up with Hazel in the show.

[Alon Musk's sister/niece: Yeah, I saw the teaser. It seems like the rumors saying that it's more than a celeb appearance are true. It does seem like he will have a full fledged character role.]

[Yeet the yeet: Yeah but the season will end in three episodes. I don't think the character could make a lot of impact in that. It could be that Aiden is playing a family of one of the main characters. Otherwise my guess is that the makers are introducing the character and he's going to be a mainstay in the next season.]

[Chad Putin: If that's the case, then I think it's time for those makers to visit the great country Russia. Just for 'Sightseeing'.]

[Boris Johnson's hair: Let's hope it's not like that. Although I have not seen the show in so long, Aiden coming on it is making me want to watch it again. He has a way of making things better.]

In a bar, four friends were sitting and talking about their lives. Every weekend, they would meet like this to talk about what had happened with them through the week.

It had already become a habit.

As they were too busy with work life, they could rarely meet. So it was a perfect solution for them.

While talking, one of the friends, a red haired girl, suddenly changed the conversation to a sitcom that she binged last week and how disappointed she was at the end of it.

"You know I was watching [Searching for the One] last week. I binged it but the last two seasons weren't that good. I was really disappointed."

"Ah, I know that one." A guy said quickly. "It's pretty good but as the quality is dropping down, fans are hating on the writers every week on social media, saying the show lost its soul."

"I can understand that but I really hope they get the quality back."

"Sitcoms rarely get the quality back once they lose it. After hitting the peak, a show could only fall. It's rare to keep going up."

As they talked, a guy who was normally the quiet one suddenly raised his finger and pointed at the television screen.

"I think [Searching for the One] is going to start airing soon. They have IBC on."

Everyone looked at the television screen and realised it was true. The girl who had first started the conversation couldn't help but smile.

"We have a good angle from where we are sitting. I think we should watch the show."

"Like you said, the quality isn't up to the mark. Isn't it better to finish up here and try to do something else. The night is still young."

"That's why, I'm saying we should watch it. We could just leave if we don't like the episode. I want to watch it now as I don't think I will get time again."

At that, everyone sighed but eventually nodded.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets

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In an office, a few interns were doing overtime. All of them worked for a media company that covered entertainment, news, and politics. Nearly everything that might sell.

It had already been two hours since every other employee had left the office but the interns didn't have that luxury. They were asked to do extra work.

It was obviously a sign of a toxic work culture but all of them had no choice. They needed jobs to sustain a livelihood and they knew that after getting promoted to a regular employee, they could take it a bit easy.

As they were working, one of the employees with blonde hair stretched his hands, feeling in his fingers and back from sitting and working in front of a computer for hours.

Glancing at the time, he realised that it was already close to 11 PM.

"Ah, fuck. I'm going to lose another episode of [Searching for the One]. This damn job is really giving me depression."

"It's giving all of us depression and ain't that show ended yet? It's been running for years now."

A short guy sitting next to him asked, raising his head to look at the blonde haired guy.

"No, it's still running."

"Yeah but it might get cancelled after this season. The ratings are the lowest this season out of all. I was actually writing an article on sitcoms failing now with people's tastes changing. [Searching for the One] is a big example in it."

Another intern who was wearing glasses replied.

"Is that so? I still liked it." The blonde haired guy replied.

"Well, the majority of the fans hate it a lot these days online. Social media really brings out the hate. They even changed the ending of the show this season due to how much people were hating on it. I actually go to this forum where fans of the sitcom just roast the actors and writers. Let me show you the comments."

The glasses wearing intern said, picking up his phone from the desk and opening it up but at that moment, his eyes suddenly went wide as he noticed something strange. .

"What happened?"

The short guy asked, seeing his expression and even the blonde haired guy tilted his head.

"Nothing. I just got a notification that [Searching for the One] is trending on Sparrow." He said. "Fans must have been super angry for it to trend."

He opened up the app and clicked on the trend but the first tweet he saw made him doubt his eyes.

'How could this be?'

He thought in his mind and the blonde haired guy asked.

"What happened?"

"Somehow, people are saying that today's episode was one of the best."

In the bar, the four friends who have decided to catch up to the episode of [Searching for the One] weren't able to stop their laughter as their eyes glued to the screen.

On the screen, Aiden's character Alan was talking about one of his weird theories on relationship with Hazel, one of the main characters in the sitcom.

"Do you know that relationships have a thin line between romance and insanity? It's true, trust me."

"How?"

"Take an example. Two people who are in love and one person do a grand romantic gesture like say, stand outside one's window with chocolate and dogs or cats. Whatever one likes. That's sweet if two people are into each other but even one isn't, you are a serial killer who is very creepy."

A laughter track ran out after he finished the sentence and the four friends couldn't help but chuckle out loud.

"Wow, that's actually true."

"That's actually genius if you think about it."

"Hey, I have experienced it before."

"What? No way."

Like that, the four friends talked among themselves as they watched the episode. They have never imagined that one character would make such a difference in an otherwise dying show.

It was like a fresh breath of air.

The show that had become dead due to the character's personality taking a turn for the worse finally had gotten a character that seemed to be truly unique.

With a goofy smile on his face and his playboy tactics, Alan Geller was easily winning hearts.

Even if he was a playboy with questionable morals, one can't refute his logic. He truly knew how to take disadvantage of a lot of things in the world and had all sorts of weird theories.

As the friends watched the show, even other people in the bar started to look at the TV as they were curious why they were laughing so much.

Though a lot of people in the bar didn't know the context, they still laughed at some scenes.

Currently, scenes like these are happening all over America.

On the internet, [Searching for the One] was spreading like a frenzy and for the first time in a while, it wasn't because fans were angry with the show.

If one looked practically, by this time, fans have already lost any hope that the show would get back on track. The least thing they wanted was for the show to get on with the ending and finish it.

That way, at least the show would end up on a high note.

But the producers and the channel were hell bent on continuing the show till they suck off all the popularity of the show and ruin it. Fortunately, today's episode was a fresh change in the linear plot of the season.

The fans who have almost become haters at this point were very surprised.

It's been a while since they have enjoyed the episode so much. They laughed so much.

On Sparrow, a lot of fans and casual viewers who have watched the episode were talking about it.

[Plastic Kim: Did you all watch today's episode? I was genuinely surprised by how the jokes landed. They were pretty funny and damn, I never knew they still had such a character. They are somehow revealing him at the end of the season.]

[Father of Joker: Not gonna lie, the episode was one of the best. Playboy characters in sitcoms are really the best.]

[How you doing?: Finally a worthy competitor!]

[Infiuencer running for President: Why the hell is Aiden Silvereye everywhere? I just saw him in the news because of winning some awards. Last month, his song was all over the internet and now, he's appearing in my favourite sitcom. What is he? A ghost.]

[Gossip Trump: Ah, I love the ending of the episode. Alan finally tells Hazel that she has issues with her family that makes her never have a good relationship with someone. Until she solves it, nothing's going to work out.]

[That Martian on Sparrow: I accidentally watched the episode today because my wife was watching it and forced me to watch but I was genuinely surprised. An hour well spent. I Will probably check out the next episode too. Alan Geller Rules!]

[Kung fu Bear: I'm going to use 'A legendary night talked about in legends' from now on. Loved the episode.]

[Fan of sitcoms: Finally, [Searching for the One] is back! I hope the writers keep it up and Aiden Silvereye is too talented and versatile.]

As the episode was airing, the crew, writers, producer, cast and director of [Searching for the One] was also keeping an eye on it. All of them knew how big of an episode this was going to be, so Amelia had called everyone and gathered them to watch it together at her house.

Only Aiden wasn't here as he was still on the flight coming to America from Canada.

As the episode went, the crowd enjoyed it, especially the cast who once again realised how well Aiden suited the role of Alan.

At the same time, they were also keeping an eye online, trying to see live reactions.

"In a while, I'm not seen any hate comments. It seems like people are really liking the episode."

"I know right. People are loving the chemistry of Elison and Aiden."

"Let more episodes air. They will love Aiden's chemistry with other actors too. He really gave some life to the show."

Director Amelia Fryman said, smiling to herself. Undoubtedly, she was the person who was the most pressured due to falling ratings and bad reviews. If even today's episode would have ended with fans getting angry, then it would have become a dent on her career.

She didn't want the title of the person who ruined a famous sitcom.

After all, fans would be quick to blame the director.

"Wow! I checked a forum that actively talks about [Heaven's sake]. Today's episode of it isn't getting well received and a lot of people are turning to watch our show. Even people watching the show on streaming platforms are getting less and less."

One of the people in the room said and everyone cheered hearing that. [Heaven's sake] was a rival show that aired at the same time as them about a girl dying and waking up in heaven accidentally when she should have been sent to hell.

"It seems like I was worried for nothing. I'm pretty sure our old ratings would be back with this. The fans would surely spread the word around and the channel would stop giving me threats."

Brandon Carell said, taking a sigh of relief. He was getting tired handling the executives in IBC who were worried about the ratings everyday.

"What do you think would be the ratings of today's episode?"

Amelia asked him and he thought for a bit before replying.

"I'm pretty sure the initial rating would be the same as the previous episode but I'm hoping for a good peak rating. After all, we finally have a good episode loved by fans after a long time."

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to vote with power stones and golden tickets

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