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

7. 193

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"Ah, the new batch of books arrived. This week, there are quite a few great titles. This one looks interesting and this one's cover is very petty. Oh, is this a thriller?"

A very pretty girl kneeled down next to a box and looked at all the books that they have received today. In her brown eyes, all of them looked very interesting.

"You should get to work instead of looking at those books."

As she was turning up the pages of one of the books, an old man appeared and stood behind her. He was the owner of the bookstore that the pretty girl worked at.

It was a part time job for her but as she was a fanatic about books, it was the best job she could get.

"Ah, boss, these just looked interesting. Can I read one of them while working?"

She pleaded and looked at the old man who shook her head.

"No, you do realise I don't pay you to read books."

"Yeah." She made a sad face and the old man squinted his eyes.

"I will let you read one of them during your break. Just you can't take them home without buying them. Read while you are here."

"Really? Thank you."

She excitedly said and walked towards the counter, hoping that her break would come soon. As it was only morning, the bookstore was mostly empty despite being the only one in the area.

But it didn't mean there wasn't any work.

The girl needed to clean up the store and arrange the books that were not placed properly and if a customer came, she needed to help them out.

It was much harder than people thought..

As she worked, a few people entered the bookstore, going through a few books. Observing them, she wondered when she would be able to read the books.

At that moment, one of the customers, a guy who looked like a teenager approached her.

"Excuse me, could you tell me where I could find Behind the scenes?"

"Ah, I don't know that one."

"The author's name is Aiden Silvereye. Don't you have it?"

The guy asked and the girl suddenly remembered that it was one of the books that had come just yesterday.

"Yes yes, we have it. That way."

She showed the guy the section where the new books were kept and he immediately bought the book.

But it didn't end there.

After a while, two more customers came to her to ask about Behind the scenes.

"Do you know where Behind the scenes is kept?"

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"Excuse me, we are looking for Aiden Silvereye's novel."

Soon, they also left after buying the book but it did make the girl wonder about who this author was. She had never heard of him before even if the name sounded familiar.

At that point, she didn't know that it was just the start.

As time went by, more and more people entered the book store just to buy Behind the scenes. Seeing the influx of people wanting to buy a new book, she wasn't able to understand what was going on for a moment.

It was only after she focused on the conversation between two customers that she got a bit more context on the whole situation.

"Do you really think you should buy it? I mean it's not by an author but a celebrity. I don't think the book would be any good."

"I don't know. It says here that it won an award. Don't you think it should be good?"

"Maybe but it's safer to just get an ebook. That's less costly."

"But I want a hard copy."

As the girl listened to the whole conversation, she understood why so many people were looking for that book.

'So, it's by a celebrity but it looks like a good novel.'

She thought in her mind and became curious as to how the novel would be. Going by the name, it looked like a story based around movies but that didn't make her lose interest in it.

It just increased over time, especially because people kept coming to buy the book.

Other books were selling too but Behind the scenes was selling way more than the other books. In the end, she frowned.

"Ah, I want to read the novel now. Why is my break not coming?"

As Behind the scenes released, online reviews from book critics quickly came up. Even readers' reviews could easily be searched up.

The novel wasn't too long and was a pretty short read, so those who bought it were able to finish it quite early.

Most of these reviews were very positive, especially from the book critics who called it 'An exciting debut by a talented individual'.

The book doesn't leave a lot to desire but it does make one question a lot of things. If you know you are going to die tomorrow, how will you act? Would you give up your morality? These questions resonated with me the most after going through the book. My score is 83 out of 100. A great debut!

-Grave critics.

Behind the scenes is a story that doesn't hesitate to show itself very realistically about the world of stars and darkness. The main character is the highlight and the ending of the book genuinely makes you cheer for him. Another highlight was the friendship between Harley and Rocco.

-Micha Eriskon from Retro novels.

The novel is one of the best debuts and it came out right at the start of the year. Pretty solid writing by a very talented individual who deserves every bit of fame he has.

-JK Fowling.

These reviews helped out a lot in getting those people to check out the book who were hesitating due to Aiden being a celeb. A lot of people also just bought an ebook copy of the book and if they liked it a lot, they got a hardcopy.

Behind the scenes was a story that might not be the best out there but it did resonate with people who have struggled in life and was a great social commentary on the movie industry as a whole.

An old filmmaker who read the book by chance tweeted about it on Sparrow, "Harley Wright is a character that is extremely rightly done. In my life, I have talked to a lot of struggling writers and he gave the exact feeling. One of his lines really stayed with me, "When I was little, I thought Hollywood was full of heroes but when I found myself in LA, I realised how wrong I was. Heroes can't exist here because they follow morality and the only place morality is present in Hollywood is in movies."

He even asked his followers to read the book and tagged Aiden in the post.

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All this made for a great opening for Behind the scenes and it was just starting out. With the word of how good it was spreading, Aiden's followers who were hesitating to get it decided to read it for themselves.

Vikings publishing also made MeTubers do reviews about the book, spreading it even more.

At the same time, Aiden started doing interviews with book magazines like 'The Yorker'. All this was slowly making the book become a big hit.

"Welcome."

A man entered the bookstore and looked around before approaching a female employee who was arranging a few books.

"Hello. Can you help me find a book?"

"Ah, yes."

The female employee looked at him but for a moment, her eyes were very surprised. The man in front of her was dirty in one word. His clothes had mud on them and he looked like he needed a bath.

Trying to not focus on it a lot, she pointed at a corner.

"You will find it here."

"Thank you."

After saying that, the man walked towards the display rack and soon found the book. A smile instantly appeared on his face.

He e examined the book for a minute in his hand, its cover and binding, opening it for a brief moment before closing it again, then flipping it to look at the reviews given by critics and other authors.

In the end, he took a deep breath.

'Somehow, I really want it to be good even though I have not written it.'

He thought and finally took a look at the first face and it was then, he froze for a second reading the words written there.

"Thanks to Harley Martin. Without you, this book wouldn't exist."

Those words were written in bold letters.

For a long time, the man was not able to say anything. He was actually Harley who had come to buy the book after a day of working as a crew member. The reason his clothes were dirty was because of that.

He has gotten dirty due to a scene.

'I never thought he would thank me like this…'

He thought in his mind as emotions overflowed him. In his life, he had only struggled and had never really achieved anything but seeing his name on the book, he felt that he had done something.

At least his life story was worth it to inspire a book.

Somehow, that much felt satisfying to Harley but before he knew it, tears were already flowing down from his eyes. He tried to control them but it wasn't as easy.

"Sir, are you okay?" The female employee walked towards him, noticing him crying.

"Ah, yeah… I'm fine. I want to buy this book."

"Yes okay."

The female employee took the book in her own hands while thinking of Harley as some sort of a weirdo.

It was only years later down the line when she would think that it was a very weird fate that she saw an A-lister actor in a dirty, crying state.

…

/DreamNote/

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As Behind the scenes was released, a lot of his friends and family congratulated him. Leo even tweeted about the book, and Omar personally sent him a photo of him buying the book.

Surprisingly, Dustin, who he had only recently exchanged numbers with, also told him he really liked it.

In all of them, Uncle Sam was a completely different case altogether. He had bought a dozen copies of the book and was distributing them among the customers in his restaurant.

Even though Aiden hadn't expected it, he was touched by the gesture.

From time to time, he kept an eye on the comments on the internet. There were a lot of comments about it on Sparrow, and Vikings publishing had even told him about a few book forums where people were actively discussing his book.

He was glad that most of these comments were positive, but it was not like there weren't any bad comments. He had come across several of them in which people hadn't really liked the book.

[Hogwarts dropout: I don't know why people like this book so much. It looked too boring for me, so I dropped it midway. Only that author's fans like it.]

[Following the religion of snu snu: I bought it because my girlfriend loved it, but I didn't enjoy it even a bit. The writing is fine, but the author really needs to work on how to engage the readers. Felt like a bad attempt at a novel.]

[Cat Cultivator: I hated it. I want my money back. The story of Hollywood could be more interesting. I thought it would be about making movies and having some smexy time with multiple actresses. Web novels are better at providing a better Hollywood story than this crap.]

These were just a few of the bad comments that he had seen, and Aiden was completely fine with them. He was never in the mindset of wanting to satisfy every single person with his novel.

In the first place, it was his first novel, and he had already done pretty well. At least that's what Richard had told him.

Yes, that old man had personally called Aiden as he had sent him a copy of the book.

Although his tone was still sharp, he seemed to at least think that Aiden had some potential as his final words were, "Don't get too ahead of yourself with one published book if you want to grow as a writer. When you get the right inspiration, write your next book and come see me if you have any problems."

He was clearly saying that he could come to him with a manuscript which was a pretty big thing for Aiden.

He even felt like the main character of a shounen anime. After all, he now had a mentor who was one of the highest-level writers in the world according to his system. .

Other than that, Aiden was also busy with his album work. As he had already completed the composing of 'Firefly', he decided to record it straight away.

The album wasn't going to come out till March, so he was going to record each song one by one. As he was collaborating with other singers, he needed to get the dates right too.

It was still fine currently, but if he got the role in [Disconnected, then it would be very tight for him.

For the recording of 'Firefly', Aiden was collaborating with someone he hadn't met for a long time.

When they contacted Cyco media with the offer, they showed interest in it, and in the end, it was decided that he was going to work with Rachel on the song.

Someone who he had a pretty complicated relationship with.

"I'm very nervous."

Rachel muttered as they got out of the car. Linda, who was next to her, shook her head a little seeing the always cold Rachel like this.

"I don't think you should be nervous. Aiden agreed to you working on the song. I don't think he holds any grudges against you."

"He might not, but it was disrespectful as to how I talked with him the last time I met. Moreover, I feel inferior to him like this."

Rachel muttered with a frown.

Even though she had won X-Star, her career was in a struggling phase, and Aiden, who she had beaten, was a young breakout singer. They were completely in opposite positions.

It had made her realise that winning a reality show was nothing in the context of the bigger picture. She had thought that she would achieve everything after winning it, but that hadn't happened.

"Don't worry too much. Just talk to him normally."

Linda said, texting someone that they had arrived at the destination, which was the recording studio that Aiden had rented for the recording.

Entering it, they were greeted by Tom.

"Hello, please come this way."

"Ah, yeah."

He led them through the lounge area and corridor to the main recording room. Noises of people discussing various things were coming from the room.

When Rachel saw the inside of the recording room, she thought that it looked very messy. Papers with lyrics written on them were scattered here and there.

There was a table on which boxes of pizza and beer cans were present. A few people who were specialists that Wade had hired for the recording were talking among themselves while focusing on the person who was outside the booth.

It was Aiden who seemed to have already started recording.

'He seems to have grown a lot. Not in looks but in the atmosphere.'

That was the impression of him on her, and at that moment, Wade stood up and greeted them.

"Hello, I'm Aiden's agent. Wade Spectre. It's our first meeting. Nice to meet you."

He shook Linda's hand, who nodded her head with a smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet you too. I'm Rachel's manager, Linda."

"It seems like you have already started recording." Rachel said, looking around.

"Yeah, Aiden wanted to try out a few things and do a little practice. Oh, he's coming out of the booth."

Wade glanced at the booth, and Rachel flinched, nervous about facing Aiden, but she took deep breaths and calmed herself down. Aiden walked toward them with a smile, and Linda was the first one to start a conversation.

"Hello, my name is Linda. I'm Rachel's manager."

"Aiden, it's nice to meet you," Aiden said, shaking hands with her and then turning to look at Rachel, who froze for a second before opening her mouth.

"It's been a while."

"Yeah, it's been more than a year. How are you?"

"Good."

Aiden didn't say anything after that and just stared at her for a second. Actually, he was checking her status and what he saw surprised him a lot.

'Why is she still at Intermediate Grade 2?'

Rachel was at the same level even when he had seen her in X-Star but even after winning the competition and getting a debut single out, she hadn't improved at all.

It was very weird and reminded him of how Cameron had not improved due to smoking and no practice. Was this a similar case?

"Why are you staring at me?"

"… Nothing."

Aiden said, coming out from his trance and looking at the recording booth. It was no point in thinking about why Rachel hadn't improved.

Instead, it was way better to focus on the recording.

"Can you work right away?"

He asked, and Rachel nodded hastily.

"Yeah."

"Then, let's first discuss the song. We never got the chance to have a proper discussion on it."

"Okay."

Like that, the work began for real.

"Don't worry, the role is going to be yours no matter what."

A sharp-eyed man who looked to be of Asian descent said as he looked at the person sitting in front of him. He was Franco Li, one of the most famous agents in Hollywood and a person whose every minute was important.

Currently, he was sitting in the back seat of the car with a bearded guy who was just nodding to his words. He was Seth Douglas, one of Franco's actors.

"How did your meeting with Jesse Ross go?" Franco asked, and Seth hesitated a bit before replying. In front of his agent, he always felt powerless.

"It went well. We discussed the movie, and he told me that he has another actor in mind too, so he was asking my opinion on additional auditions."

"He's a fool. Directors like him aren't uncommon. Black Line Cinema themselves would solve that problem and get you the role. Don't worry about it."

In Franco's eyes, Jesse was a very mid-level director who had good works but wasn't someone who had influence beyond a level.

He was nothing in front of Franco, and all this was just for nothing.

"After this movie's a hit, I would look to get you a lead role in a superhero movie. There's a new batch of them being discussed, and I think you would fit right in the commercial actor zone. You could play that role for years and get famous all over the world."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm already in talks."

Seth was very excited when he heard that. He wasn't interested in art movies, nor did he want to contest for Oscars. He just wanted to be a very popular actor, and a superhero movie was the one thing that could easily get your face across the whole world.

Several unknown actors had become worldwide stars because of them.

"Thank you, really. I don't know how to thank you."

At that, Franco just smirked.

"Don't worry, there are no donations in the film business. Everything is for a price."

…

/DreamNote/

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In Aiden's mind, composing was kind of like a maths equation. You put together different notes, hoping that they would sound good together and eventually reach an answer.

But there was a basic difference.

A maths equation might have one answer but composing has several and a composer needed to know which one was the right one that made the best song.

Normally, Aiden would rely on one thing to do it.

Instincts.

That was something special about him from a young age. He was able to pick up sounds and mix them well together and noticing that quality in him, his mom had pushed him to learn about music which would have eventually made him write songs.

But for the most part of his life, it was just a skill he possessed that might easily impress people.

That was until he reached America.

After getting a job in The Rabbit hole bar, Abraham told him that he would let Aiden perform on the stage if he would perform an original song after learning that Aiden was adept at composing.

Those days Abraham was looking for bar singers who could provide something more innovative for the customers.

For a few more cents, Aiden had become a bar singer.

Back then, he used to only compose songs that were easy to sing and write about but after X-Star, he had gotten very serious about composing and had started learning more about it, creating songs like 'Revolution' and 'Lost in the Sky'.

Now that he was making an album, he wanted to truly elevate his skills.

'Firefly' was a song that he had made trying to elevate his level. He was currently Level 7 in his composing and his goal was to reach Level 8 by the end of the album and Aiden had a feeling that he was very close to it. .

He had added a special touch that made the whole song seem more like something someone would perform during a broadway act.

The main idea behind the song was two lovers talking to each other about the struggles of them being together and how it was not possible in the long run.

It was a song in which two singers needed to sing different lyrics at the same time while being completely harmonised with each other.

It was not something easy and when Aiden began discussing the song with Rachel, she also found the song really hard to execute.

"I'm only looking at the music sheets but this song looks extremely difficult. I don't think we could record it without extensively practicing it. The whole chorus needs to be sung as a falsetto."

Rachel had said and to that Aiden had just replied.

"I always wanted it to be difficult. The theme of the song has a lot of emotions and it needs heavy gravitas. And why are you worrying about falsetto? Your speciality is high notes."

"Yeah but this might be difficult. I won't be singing alone."

"Let's go at it slowly."

Like that, they have begun to go through the song little by little. As both of them were focused on working, the awkwardness between them slowly lessened.

Rachel, who didn't know how to face Aiden, started to be more comfortable.

They practiced the song together, tried different ways to sing each verse and tried to only think of the way they could record the song perfectly.

After only a dozen hours of practicing the song, Rachel entered the recording booth to record it.

'The first verse is different for both the male and female parts. Rachel's part needs a bit more heaviness to it.'

Aiden thought, looking through the music sheets.

In front of him, Rachel was already standing in the recording booth, wearing headphones and warming herself up.

"Should we start?"

The sound engineer that Aiden had hired was sitting next to him. He looked up at Rachel who nodded her head and music started flowing through the speakers.

The soft keys of a keyboard started the song and got added with the strumming of a guitar sing. The sound of them was very low because the song was trying to focus more on the voice.

For 'Firefly', the voice was the biggest instrument.

It was then that Rachel started singing.

"I closed my eyes so I could reach."

"The world that could be mine and yours."

"Walking the path through the darkness only to reach your door"

"I'm on the path to do something that no one did before."

For the first verse, Aiden had decided to use the music like a whisper. The highlight was Rachel's voice which was almost like she was speaking instead of singing but that was also the perfect build up.

There was a very simple thing when composers would select their singers.

They would see which song suited whose voice. No matter how much one tries, there are songs that some singers can't sing properly no matter what. It was because it didn't suit them at all.

It was kind of like clothes.

Some were too big and some too small. Though, it was true that if they have great ability, they could still sing the song but they won't be able to reflect the soul.

In the case of 'Firefly', it was a song made for Rachel.

It started off slow and by the end of second verse, it picked up pace and then after that, a rollercoaster ride would begin when a singer needs to shift between low and high notes.

Due to her special skill, Aiden had chosen her.

"It was good but can you put more power in it? Like I want to see how it would sound if the resonance is a bit higher."

Aiden instructed after listening to the first verse and Rachel nodded from the recording booth.

"Okay."

She started singing again and this time, there was much more weight to the lyrics that Aiden liked more.

But it was just the start.

Normally, in recordings, a singer would sing one verse a lot of times. Sometimes, the sound engineer and composer want to add an effect to the voice or need the singer to sing differently.

As a professional, Rachel knew that kept doing what Aiden said.

Currently, their relationship was of a composer and a singer, so she needed to be as professional as she could.

'Can you focus more on the word 'doors'? It seems a bit lacklustre.'

'Rachel, you missed a word. The diction could be better too. It's coming off a bit weird.'

'I think that's pretty good. Probably the best one we got.'

Like that, they kept recording.

As Aiden was busy recording with Rachel and his book was doing well in terms of sales, a news broke out that excited a lot of people.

It was a news article by Pop Zap magazine.

On their website, they posted an article on Aiden.

Aiden Silvereye is apparently working on a full blown album. Collaborations with Cyco media and Neu Entertainment confirmed.

In this article, they talked about how an insider from both Cyco media and Neu Entertainment told them that they would be collaborating with Aiden on his debut album.

The young singer/songwriter was finally going to come up with a full album and they said how Grey had been confirmed to work on a pop song with Aiden.

At the same time, Cyco media was going to handle the distribution channels for Aiden.

After his song topped Melody charts, Aiden was very popular among record labels and a lot of people had already become fans of his songs.

It was not wrong to even say that he had more fans due to songs than movies because of how accessible songs are due to apps like MeTube.

When Aiden's fan group heard that news, they were also very excited.

[Your future step dad: Did anyone read that Aiden is coming up with a new album? It seems like he's going to work with top record labels on this one.]

[Stepsister, are you stuck: I did read the news. It broke out just a few hours ago but I don't think he's working with record labels on production. They are just going to collaborate on some songs and distribute. Most of the production would be done by Aiden.]

[Playboy Spidey: I am still reading Behind the scenes and he's now coming up with an album. God, he works too much. He's like my neighbour who my mom would taunt me about saying he works so much and I'm busy making memes.]

[Why is there Pokemon smut: Woah! It says in the article that Aiden and Grey would work on a song and even Rachel (Remember her?) would be doing a song with Aiden. Are they not on bad terms?]

[Koach: I don't think they are on bad terms. Just because they don't hang out together doesn't mean he's on bad terms. Come to think of it, does Aiden even hang out with someone? He seems to be just working and we don't know anything about his real life.]

[Depressed Author: My aunt lives in the same neighbourhood as him. She saw him a few times and he greeted her cordially and acted pretty nice. She told me that he's rarely home due to work and shooting and mostly, only his agent visits him. He seems lonely or an introvert.]

[Skyneves: Guys! Aiden just confirmed the album news on his social media. Apparently it will be released in March.]

[Hollywood Insider: That's a smart move as articles were already popping up about it. He doesn't have anything to hide, so it's a good way to get his fans excited and anticipate the album. The songs still need to be very good to work very well. #Aiden Fan]

…

/DreamNote/

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Aiden's attention wasn't garnered for too long by the news of his album breaking out. His team never had the intention to hide it for long as such news would always break out due to 'Insiders'.

They were media contacts inside companies who would never come out in the open but always provided secret information to media companies.

So, they decided to just confirm it to create anticipation among Aiden's fans. Even a lot of casual listeners to his songs were looking forward to the album now.

Aiden kept working on the song alongside Rachel.

The recording was pretty slow, but as they were making progress, no one was dissatisfied. Both of them felt like they were creating a great song and enjoyed the process a lot.

"Are you ready?"

The sound engineer asked as he looked at Aiden, who was inside the recording booth.

"Yeah, let's start."

"Okay."

Currently, he was going to record the third verse.

The one that was better-called pre-chorus. It was a special part of the song just before the highlights – the chorus.

He was being watched by both Linda and Rachel, who were standing in the back. Rachel had just finished a one-hour recording session and was now given a break.

"He's pretty hard working. There's a reason why he's doing so good in the industry currently."

Linda muttered, smiling, looking at Aiden. She had gotten a very good impression of him after watching him work on the song. As a manager, she had heard all sorts of rumours and not one of them was bad about Aiden.

"Yeah." Rachel just said that in reply, and Linda glanced at her.

"You don't like him?"

"It's not that. He's a good singer and very talented. Probably better than me. Just look at him.".

Rachel pointed at Aiden, who was singing in the recording booth. His soft voice was very clear, and emotions could clearly be felt just by listening to him. Moreover, the control he had over his voice was something that was missing from him in X-Star.

She, who had watched him closely during the reality show, was the best person to know how much he had improved in such a short time.

"He's probably better than me."

Rachel just said, and before Linda could reply, Aiden came out of the booth.

"Let's head for lunch now. We have been recording for a long time." He looked at both of them.

"Yeah, should I order something?"

"That would be good."

'The chorus would be the first difficult part to record.'

Aiden thought, taking a deep breath. Rachel was standing in the booth as they were recording her part first. She didn't look nervous and had a blank face.

Compared to that, Aiden was more nervous, knowing fully well that it was not going to be easy from here on.

"Let's start now, Rachel."

"Okay."

Muttering that, the sound engineer started the music and feeling the melodious tone, Rachel waited for a while until the part came when she needed to sing.

She opened her mouth with a breath and tried to put in as many emotions as she could. This was the part where a singer needed to be very expressive.

High notes and emotions – Two things that were the basics of 'Firefly'.

"So, why can't we be like fireflies?"

"Alive and bright, flying across the night."

"No one to hold us, no one to bind us in our skin."

"Just brightening the darkness within—"

As Rachel was singing, Aiden suddenly stopped the recording.

"Wait! I think it could be better. Can you do it again?"

Rachel looked at him with a confused expression but didn't say anything else. One thing she had gotten to know after working with Aiden was that he had very good ears.

Whenever the singing would start to get worse, he would point it out and sometimes, he would even tell what to do to improve it.

'The silver light was becoming very weak and almost became white.'

He thought in his mind.

Rather than good ears, he had the ability to see music and the singer's singing in the form of light, which made it easier for him to notice where the singing went wrong.

'It didn't start off good. Hope she improves.'

He thought in his mind but didn't mind it a lot. Rachel had sung well till now.

In the recording booth, Rachel began again. This time, she tried to focus more on the tone and keep it even higher.

But it didn't work out again.

She wasn't able to control the high notes, and the song just crumbled here and there because of that.

"Rachel, try to take a deep breath and slowly go on with the chorus."

Aiden said from outside the recording booth, and she nodded. The sound engineer started the music again, and she began singing.

"So, why can't we be like fireflies?"

"Alive and bright, flying across the night."

"No one to hold us, no one to bind us in our skin."

"Just brightening the darkness within."

This time, it was better, but the light still remained very weak. Even without it, Aiden was not really satisfied with it. The high notes were good, but she was not able to control them as well as he had hoped.

The emotions were lost halfway through the song too.

"Rachel, let's go again. Try to focus."

He said, and the recording began again, and even this time, it didn't come out good.

It looked like Rachel was struggling with it, but even she herself didn't know why she wasn't able to control everything in verse at the same time. It was like there was a mental block stopping her.

With no other choice, they could just keep going.

Sadly, no matter how many times they recorded it, it just wasn't working, frustrating both Aiden and Rachel. Even the sound engineer was wondering why Rachel had suddenly become so bad.

In the end, Aiden could just frown.

"Let's take a break. You should rest and try to go at it again. No point continuing it currently."

Rachel's expression was also not good as she came out of the booth. Aiden wondered if he should have a talk with her, but before he could say anything, Rachel opened her mouth.

"Can you give me a moment? I want to be alone for a while."

"Ah, yeah."

She left the recording studio, and seeing her like that, Linda, who was sitting in the back, muttered.

"Her mental state is really affecting her."

"What do you mean?"

Aiden picked up those words and turned his head to look at Linda. She hesitated a bit, wondering if she should talk about it or not before replying.

"It's just that Rachel's having a lot of problems these days. Even during practice, sometimes she would sing very awfully. It's not like her. Like she had forgotten how to sing. I thought she was fine till now, but again… it's resurfacing."

Hearing those words, the sound engineer also gave his thoughts.

"I think it's also because of how difficult this chorus part is. Maintaining a high note while portraying strong emotions is very hard. Singers learn to express more only after experiencing a lot of different things in life. It's something you get with age, and Rachel is very young."

Aiden agreed with his words and folded his arms to think about it.

'It's true that this part is very hard to execute. I had so many problems singing it, and I would still need a lot of practice to perform it in front of a live audience, but Rachel does have her skills. What is actually going on with her?'

When he thought about it, something stood out.

Her skill level.

He couldn't think of any reason why it hadn't improved in more than a year. Rachel had a hit debut single, and even her EP wasn't bad. He had listened to those songs to learn more about her singing style and had found out that it wasn't bad at all.

But it was indeed missing something.

It was like she was just singing it and wasn't able to give her all even if she tried to.

'It's really like she's having a mental block.'

Aiden had read something about it before.

Artists would usually go across a phase where they themselves would think they were not good enough due to various reasons. In those times, no matter how much they tried, their work would look lacklustre.

Just because they didn't believe in their talent.

'Maybe Rachel is going through something similar. Probably an inferiority complex.'

Thinking of it, he walked towards Linda. She was the person who was closest to her.

"Linda, can you tell me one thing?"

"What?"

"Have you noticed moments where Rachel would say things like 'I'm not good enough' or anything similar to it?"

Linda was surprised when Aiden mentioned it and nodded.

"Yeah, there are times like that. She's been under a lot of pressure, and Cyco media isn't really supporting her in this phase as they are looking for other singers. It was hard even to get the chance to collaborate with you."

"I thought they liked her?"

"They did, but the EP didn't perform so well, and there were questions about her as a performer. She's trying to work hard to improve herself, but as nothing is moving in her career, she's been under a lot of pressure."

When Linda explained all that, Aiden felt bad for Rachel.

She was a very talented singer, but due to so many reasons, she was losing trust in herself. It was very evident in how she wasn't able to sing the chorus properly. It even looked like it was sung by a complete newbie.

…

/DreamNote/

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

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"I'm sorry. I will try to do better now."

Rachel said after she entered the recording room again. Her hair was a little wet, hinting that she had probably splashed water on her face in order to calm herself down.

"Rachel, can I talk to you for a second?" Aiden asked after collecting his thoughts.

He felt like he would be able to help Rachel out a bit.

"Yeah."

"I was going through the recordings, and I noticed something. I feel like I would be able to help you sing the chorus."

Rachel widened her eyes hearing that. Her mood wasn't good because she was feeling like she would mess up the song again. So, Aiden's words gave her a bit of hope.

"What did you notice?"

"Well, take this and listen to it."

Aiden handed her the headphones and played the recording of the first and second verses. These were the easiest parts of the song, and Rachel had sung them pretty well.

Her voice was bright and powerful, creating a strong silver light.

"If you listen closely, your voice in it is powerful and confident. Now, let me play the recording of the pre-chorus."

This was the part where Rachel had a lot of trouble. It was only after an hour that they were able to get it right.

"In this, you sang well, but the confidence and belief that you showed before were very low. It's like you think that you can't do the part."

"What do you mean?" Rachel's face froze. "Are you saying I'm not a good singer?"

"No, you are an excellent singer.".

Aiden clarified before the atmosphere could take a wrong turn. The sound engineer who was listening to the whole conversation took a sigh of relief seeing Rachel's shoulder sunk.

"It's not about your skills. It's more of a mental issue." Aiden pointed at Rachel's forehead. "You do not believe in yourself enough."

"What?"

Rachel had an expression like she was wondering, 'what is this guy saying?' Without wasting any time, Aiden tried to explain as clearly as he could.

"Think about it a little. When the part is easy, your mentality is like, 'It's not going to be easy, but I can do it,' but when it's a hard part, you start to fear thinking that you are going to mess it up. You don't believe in yourself enough. It's completely different from when you were in X-Star."

During X-Star, Rachel was one of the most confident contestants. Not only did she not fear any other contestants, but she also sang every type of song perfectly. Even the songs that others had found very difficult.

She had dominated throughout the competition, and only Cameron was able to challenge her. In the end, she did win over him, even managing to throw him into depression.

"This is not X-Star." Rachel said, frowning.

"Yes, but you are still you. You just lost your confidence. Look, you are not going to get your confidence back just because I said some words, but try to believe in yourself. You are the person who eliminated me. You have enough talent to sing this song easily."

That was the extent of what Aiden could do. He wasn't a motivational coach or anything. He wasn't even friends with Rachel and was only speaking as another singer.

He didn't know how much effect his words would have, but he just hoped Rachel could improve.

"Thanks."

Rachel just said that and took a deep breath.

"Let me try it again." She looked at the sound engineer.

"Okay."

Standing inside the booth, Rachel's mind was chaotic. A lot of thoughts were moving in her head, but one thing she knew was that she didn't want to disappoint again.

She wanted to sing and sing well.

'You are the person who eliminated me. You don't believe in yourself enough. You have enough talent to sing the song.'

Aiden's words rang in her mind, and she closed her eyes to focus.

Belief.

Maybe that was really the thing that she was missing.

Rachel tried to make herself believe that she was a great singer and that this part won't be hard for her. She had sung much more difficult songs before.

She could do it.

Outside the booth, Linda and Aiden were having a conversation about Rachel. She had also heard what he had told her.

"Do you think she can do it now?"

"It's on her. I can't really say." Aiden replied. "Just I know she could do it if she just believed in herself. She's good enough to sing this song."

Linda didn't say anything after that and just focused on Rachel inside the booth. At that moment, the sound engineer started the music, and Rachel finally started singing.

"So, why can't we be like fireflies?"

"Alive and bright, flying across the night."

"No one to hold us, no one to bind us in our skin."

"Just brightening the darkness within."

This time, her voice had a bit stronger voice about it, and she also didn't straight go to a high note. Instead, she slowly elevated the level of it, from low to medium and then to a high note.

Like that, she was able to maintain the emotions in her song. Her high notes also didn't break and stayed intact throughout the verses.

At the same time, the silver light coming out was very bright. It was the brightest till now.

"She improved drastically."

Aiden muttered, and Linda was also smiling.

When the music ended, the sound engineer looked at her.

"It was very good. Way better than last time."

"Really?" Rachel looked a bit surprised.

"Yeah. Can we go at it again? I feel like you could do even better."

"Okay, sure."

As they were talking, Aiden secretly checked out something he was very curious about and found out that he was right.

'I was actually right.'

[Rachel Rose] [24 years]

[Singing level: Intermediate Grade 3]

[Special skills: High notes]

From Intermediate Grade 2, Rachel improved a level suddenly. He had felt like the silver light looked a bit thicker this time.

'So I guess it was really a mental block.'

Aiden's theory was that Rachel was already good enough as a singer, but she herself thought that she wasn't. Due to that, there was a mental block that was stopping her from levelling up, and he had proof now.

'At least the recording would be smooth now.'

He thought, taking a sigh of relief and focusing more on Rachel, who was emanating a silver light that filled the whole booth.

As Aiden was busy recording, Behind the scenes was selling a lot, so much so that just after a week, The New York Times listed it at number seven on their best sellers list.

It was a huge thing for a debut writer like Aiden.

He certainly hadn't expected such a thing when he had first decided to write the novel, but it was a welcome change, and due to that, Aiden also got experience in his writing skill.

Though, he was sure that it would take a while for it to gain another level.

But coming into the New York Times did help him gain more popularity as a few media outlets reported about it.

Aiden Silvereye's debut novel Behind the scenes got featured in the New York Times best sellers list. Another massive achievement for Aiden who's just piling them up for a year.

Is Hollywood seeing the rise of a multi-talented person? After featuring in the New York Times best sellers list, what is next for Aiden?

Vikings publishing owner, very happy with the New York Times feature for Aiden Silvereye's debut novel, said that his publishing house would be happy to work with him for a long time.

Aside from these articles, one more thing was that [30 days of Happiness] was finally coming out of the theatres in a week. The only reason it was still in the theatres was that Omar wanted to cross 100 million dollars at the box office.

Currently, the movie has grossed about 99.7 million dollars at the box office, which was a huge number.

In early December, the movie was still going very strong, but due to the holiday season, too many blockbuster movies had been released. These included movies from renowned superhero studios and franchises.

Just in the second week of December, a movie titled [The Elder Wizard] was released. It was a 120-million-dollar movie with the studio behind it, hoping that it could become a blockbuster franchise.

It also turned out real as in just two weeks, the movie earned 154 million dollars at the box office, taking most of the audience from [30 days of Happiness].

Then on Christmas, a superhero movie called [The Thunder God] premiered, becoming the box office giant due to the spectacle that it provided the audience.

As audiences were more likely to go for a VFX-heavy movie that could give them a fun 2-3 hours with friends, a small musical rom-com was easily overshadowed.

But it was also true that it actually managed to reach a good amount of audience. On a budget of 6 million dollars, it managed to earn nearly 100 million, and it was probably going to cross it soon.

It was a sleeper hit that no one expected.

Moreover, the total earnings from the movie would be way more as overseas rights and streaming platforms are a thing. Earning around 150 million worldwide wasn't going to be hard.

It also meant that Aiden was going to become a multi-millionaire because of having a percentage in the box office.

…

/DreamNote/

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

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After Rachel tried to believe in herself more, slowly, the mental block stopping her from progressing diminished. Because of that, she was able to do much better in the recording.

Though, the recording was hard not just for her.

It was very hard for Aiden too as he was also just in Intermediate Grade 3. There were parts which he had trouble with.

Especially the ones with high notes.

The only reason he was able to keep up with it was because the song proficiency was increasing pretty fast because he was the composer of the song. He knew the song way better than anyone.

Despite the troubles both Rachel and Aiden were able to eventually complete the song and with that, the first song of his album was finally done.

It was a great start for Aiden as he had recorded the most difficult song of the album already.

Due to working together, Aiden and Rachel also got a bit closer. Being in an environment where they weren't enemies certainly helped and it seemed like Rachel herself wanted to mend their relations.

"I didn't get the chance to say it before but I'm extremely sorry as to how I behaved when our songs clashed. I got arrogant after getting a bit of fame."

Rachel said, lowering her head a little and sighing. This was something she was hoping to say for a long time but she had only gotten a chance now when she was about to leave for LA.

A little distance away, Linda was already standing by their car. Their flight was in an hour.

"When did you become so soft?"

To her apology, Aiden was only able to reply with a bewildered expression on her face.

This was a very changed Rachel from the one he knew. .

"What do you mean?"

"You used to be someone who didn't think twice before insulting anyone. Now, you are apologising for something you did a year back. Are you sure you are Rachel?"

Aiden joked and in his mind, he thought of a certain movie in which clones were taking the place of a real person. Rachel's current behaviour was akin to a clone.

"Shut up!" She frowned. "You are joking when I'm apologising."

"It's just a bit unlike you and it's okay, I accept your apology. I understand what fame could do to a person. It's good that you experienced it early on."

"Uh, yeah."

The only reason Rachel had changed or in Aiden's words 'gone soft' was because she had experienced the cold reality of the showbiz world. Surviving in it, she had slowly realised that being cold and distant to everyone won't work out even if that was her personality.

She needed to learn how to maintain relationships and not just say anything because she felt like it.

Though, she was still the same to people she didn't know. She had come to warm up to a few people.

"Anyway, it seems like we are only going to meet after two months."

Rachel muttered, trying to change the topic before it became too awkward.

"Yeah, I would finish up other songs of my album by then and we could start practicing together for 'Firefly'. I want it to be the first song to be released on the album."

"Sounds good to me."

For a song like 'Firefly', live singing was going to be extremely hard and she needed to practice for over a month to master it. She wasn't going to be free after returning to LA.

"By the way, I watched [30 days of Happiness] coming here. I never knew you were such a nice actor." Rachel suddenly said.

"Thanks." Aiden smiled. It was always nice to hear praises about his acting.

"Are you going to do more movies? I feel like it suits you a lot."

Rachel said casually but Aiden's answer shocked her.

"I actually have a meeting with my agent in an hour for a movie I auditioned for. I would be back to the film sets in late January if it all went fine."

"What? When would you prepare your album then?"

"I'm going to do both the things at the same time."

Rachel didn't mutter anything to that and just muttered 'Monster'. She had heard of celebrities who have great acting and movie careers but she had never heard of anything doing both the things at the same time.

She didn't know that it wasn't too difficult for Aiden as he was already composing 'Lost in the Sky' during the filming of [30 days of Happiness].

The scale was just much more than one song this time.

"I'm sorry I'm a little late. The traffic was pretty bad."

Wade said entering the lounge area of the office. Aiden was already sitting there with Jody and Sasha next to him who were drinking coffee.

"How did the recording go? I'm sorry I wasn't able to focus on it. I was dealing a lot in the context of [Disconnected]."

Wade said, sitting down.

"The recording went well. I would send you the audio version of it. There still needs to be a bit of work I need to do on it but it looks good." Aiden said and asked the question that was roaming his mind. "What happened with [Disconnected]? I didn't get the role?"

"No, it's more complicated than that."

He muttered, getting the attention from Sasha and Jody. Wondering how to talk about it, he hesitated before replying.

"I managed to have a talk with Jesse Ross, the director and he liked you as the main character. Apparently, he even mentioned his intentions to the producers straightforwardly."

"So, Aiden got the role?" Sasha asked.

"No, I got to know that SGA has invested heavily in the project. They pretty much green lit the project and a lot of actors are there in the movie but they have a condition and that is—"

"Seth Douglas needs to be the main character."

Aiden completed his sentence, realising what was going on. He thought of Tyler Reed who had tried to take the role of Kai away from him just due to connections.

But the situation was much more complicated in this scenario.

"So, what happened next?"

Jody asked, frowning. He had seen a lot of things like these in Hollywood. This was a simple case of a packaged deal when an agency would invest in a project and want all their actors to be in it.

Like this, they have a lot of control over it.

"Jesse argued with the executive producer but nothing really came out of it. SGA straight up acted like a bully and told him that if don't get Seth on it, then he would be out of the project. Anyway, they have the script rights alongside Black Line Cinema."

Wade took a deep breath and continued.

"So, Jesse was very angry about it. He even talked about going to court and stuff but in the end, an agreement came up as he himself knows he's not really the person in power here, at least in the matters of casting."

In a movie, powers are mostly never with one person and it's very divided unless it's an indie movie. For example, in [30 days of Happiness, most of the power was with Leo and Omar as the director and producer.

Aiden also had power as the main lead and film composer. He even had a share in the box office.

The good thing was that they were able to cooperate with each other pretty well. That's the thing that was the mission for a movie like [Disconnected].

Black Line Cinema wanted to please SGA due to the investment and to be in their good books and SGA wanted to promote Seth Douglas as a lead to set him up to be an A lister.

They were not thinking of making a good movie.

"So I lost the role of Mark?"

Aiden muttered and sighed, his shoulders sinking. Wade nodded in confirmation and even Sasha and Jody had disappointed expressions.

He had liked the role a lot but in this case, Aiden knew he can't do anything.

It was not as simple as the case with Tyler Reed.

But suddenly, Wade opened his mouth.

"Yeah but there's something good that came out of it. As Jesse liked you a lot, Black Line is offering you the role of Andrew Kingston. It's basically the second lead and has a pretty meaty role. You just need to say yes as they are confident about your acting and need to do a basic audition."

Hearing that, Aiden was a bit surprised.

Andrew Kingston was a pretty great character but had a different character development than Mark. He was the person who actually believed in Mark when no one did and was an old friend of his from high school.

He was even the sole investor at first but as the story went, Mark would throw him out of the company and it would complete his arc of turning into a very scummy character due to the ambitions of attaining more money and fame.

'Andrew is a very sweet and timid character.'

From what he remembered, the character of Andrew was very soft spoken and even when he realised that Mark had backstabbed him, there would only be tears in his eyes as he would leave.

There won't be any anger or frustration.

It was designed in a way that at the end of the movie, the audience would start to sympathise with Andrew but the problem was that the character didn't have a lot of shades and was just too simple.

There was not a lot of challenge with this kind of a character.

…

/DreamNote/

Bonus chapter for reaching 3900 Golden Tickets goal

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Wade asked, looking at Aiden. In the end, the opinion was going to be his. In the agent's mind, there was also a probability that Aiden was just going to reject it.

After all, from what they have seen till now, the script and director might be good but there are indeed problems in the studio.

It was not a bad decision to reject it and just focus solely on the album.

"It's a tough decision really. I want to be in the movie but the role of Andrew was not something I was thinking of."

"Yeah I understand that." Wade muttered, frowning. He never liked his actors losing roles due to studios wanting a certain actor. In popularity, both Seth and Aiden weren't too different. Just Seth has a bigger filmography. "Just think about it calmly."

"Yeah."

Aiden leaned against the couch and pondered upon it.

Although the character of Andrew wasn't something challenging, it was a character that would surely be liked by the audience. So, Aiden was still not sure.

There were conflicting feelings in his mind.

There was anger, regret, disappointment mixed up with confusion. The rejection was still running in his mind but this was almost like a second chance but the question was whether it was worth it or not.

It was more so because he wasn't rejected due to not suiting the character but because SGA wanted to promote their actor. That made it more bitter as it was a scenario in which acting wasn't even considered.

'I really want to get back on them.'

Aiden thought. He felt that if he didn't do anything, other studios would keep doing something similar until he became popular enough to easily be considered for the part. .

But that would take a long time.

That's why, after thinking for a bit, he opened his mouth.

"Wade, I want to retaliate against SGA."

When the people in the room heard that, they were very confused. Retaliating against one of the top agencies in Hollywood? Was this a joke or overconfidence?

"Aiden, what are you saying? We are too small to do anything against SGA." Jody said, looking at him.

"Yeah, at most, we could spread rumors about the deal between SGA and Black Line Cinema but it won't help us in the long run. SGA might just decide to start conflicts with you due to that and that's the worst situation."

Sasha also added but Aiden shook his head. They have misunderstood his intentions.

"I'm not going to directly attack SGA. That's a fool's move and I know that well. I'm going to just do what I'm hired to do — Acting."

Aiden muttered and taking a breath, he explained what he was trying to say.

"Seth might have got the role but after reaching the set, SGA's influence would be way lesser and only his acting would count. So I'm going to beat him in that by giving a performance that overshadows his."

"Does that mean?" Wade raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I will do the role of Andrew Kingston. Anyway, it's not a bad role and it would be a challenge in itself to make a very simple character interesting. I feel like I would be able to really get into the role if I try."

It looked like Aiden had just agreed to the role due to being rejected and it was partly true too but one of the reasons behind it was also that he didn't want to lose out on a movie like [Disconnected].

It was a great addition to his filmography.

He didn't want any regrets and he also knew that it was going to be a big challenge to give a better performance than Seth Douglas. He knew that the guy was a good actor but this time, he was desperate.

After Aiden decided to go for the role of Andrew Kingston, Wade didn't wait a lot and informed Black Line Cinema about it and Jesse conducted an audition for Aiden himself and it went very smoothly after that.

The very next day, Aiden was casted in the role of Andrew Kingston. As soon as all the cast was selected, Black Line Cinema announced it and a few articles came up about it.

As Seth was a person with a good following and Aiden had just given a sleeper hit, the media didn't hesitate to use their names in the articles.

Black Line Cinema announced a very interesting project called [Disconnected] inspired by the lives of billionaires who created social media platforms. Headed by Jesse Ross, it would star Seth Douglas, Aiden Silvereye and Dustin Redford in lead roles.

Two promising young stars Seth Douglas and Aiden Silvereye teaming up together for a drama movie. Will this movie turn up as good as their previous ventures?

As [30 days of Happiness] crosses 100 million dollars at the box office, Aiden Silvereye announces his next movie. This is a big announcement after the album reveal.

"These media outlets really love you."

"More like they don't have anything else to publish. There's no scandal happening these days. Moreover, only 30 percent of them even mention me. Most of them are just about Seth Douglas."

"Ah, they're making it like he's leading it just on his shoulders. SGA has a habit of aggressive marketing. Don't worry."

Omar clicked his tongue while saying that. Aiden was currently sitting in his office as he had come to meet him after he had gotten his share from the box office of the movie.

His office was pretty clean and the one thing sticking out was the big poster of [30 days of Happiness] which was in a glass covering and was almost covering half a wall.

As the movie had crossed 100 million, it was immediately taken off from the theatre as Eternal life wasn't really earning so much everyday now to keep it running. Everyone has already watched it after all.

Because of that, Aiden who had a 9 percent share in the movie had also gotten his share which was 9 million dollars.

Yes, he was a pretty wealthy guy now. Though he still needed to give taxes on the money.

"You should go on a vacation or buy a million dollar luxury house or something with that much money? If you want, I even know high level escorts only millionaires use."

Omar asked but Aiden was quick to shake his head.

"No, I don't want to sleep with escorts."

"That's unfortunate. You don't know the amount of things they could do—"

Omar stopped his words noticing that Aiden wasn't the least bit interested in things like this. He could understand that too. As an actor, reputation was a big thing.

"Anyway, what about the house? That sounds like a good option."

This time, Aiden nodded. Real estate was always a good thing to invest in.

"Yeah, but not now. I'm going to be very busy with the shooting of [Disconnected] and recording songs for the album. Then, the album release and I also have another series I'm very interested in. I don't even think I'm going to be using my rented apartment a lot in the next few months."

Aiden explained. The shooting for [Disconnected] was going to happen in LA and for the album, he was going to visit a lot of places to promote it.

So, Aiden wanted to get all this over with before getting a house.

"That's fine. I know a few real estate agents if you want and even I would be very busy with other stuff. I'm starting work on my next production soon."

Omar said, surprising Aiden a bit.

"I didn't think you would get into another project so soon? You are the main producer?"

"Yeah, thanks to you, I became a full fledged producer. I met a good filmmaker a month ago and he pitched me the idea. It's a pretty good thriller and the director used to work as an assistant to an action director before, so stunts are pretty tight in this. Actually, it would release straight on Xtra prime."

For the record, Xtra prime was the same platform that had gotten the streaming rights to [30 days of Happiness].

Hearing that, Aiden suddenly thought of something and asked.

"Did you already get to the casting?"

"Not yet. I was actually wanting to cast you as the lead but your dates are booked." Omar said, frowning. He wanted to work with Aiden again as they were mostly on the same page regarding movies.

"If that's the case, then I have an actor I want to recommend."

"Who?"

"His name is Harley Martin. You will get his profile in the actor's guild. Trust me, he's really good."

Omar nodded hearing that with a smile. He wasn't going to reject a recommendation from Aiden.

"Don't worry, I will contact him myself and get him a good role in the movie."

"Thanks."

After that, they talked about more stuff on Omar's new production and how he had chosen to go with Xtra prime because it was a much safer bet.

In the end, the topic again shifted to [Disconnected] and Omar remembered something that he felt that Aiden should know.

"By the way, about Seth Douglas, I heard this in a party once but he's someone who's desperate to be in the limelight. That's why, he doesn't mind doing anything to get famous. You know people who crave attention, so if he saw you taking attention away from you, he would surely try to do something."

…

/DreamNote/

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

64c3e69bf75c4d1715a59001

Standing inside the recording booth, Aiden was feeling the music that was coming out from the speakers. The sound of guitar and piano was harmonised together and it was giving off a great feeling.

Taking a deep breath, Aiden focused and started singing.

"I often wonder what we are."

"Are we the story or just stage pelts?"

"Birds in the sky or the ice that slowly melts."

"Oh, life is a story…"

"Sometimes short, sometimes lengthy."

"It can be one of sadness or of glory."

"We never know what it's gonna be."

"But that's just our destiny."

He is currently recording 'Life is a story' for his album. When he had first made it, the song only had guitar as the instrument and Aiden's voice was everything. It was because he didn't have the necessary equipment back then nor the experience.

For his album, he had created it again and this time, he had added other instruments in it and even added a bright part to make the song even better.

He knew that the song wasn't something that was going to top the charts as ballads like this rarely works. 'Lost in the Sky' was just an exception and they don't happen everyday.

One thing he was sure of was that whoever would hear it would surely find it nice.

It was a great addition to his album.

"I don't know if life is written in the stars or the palm of our hands."

"Maybe, the answer isn't in these lands.".

"But I know one thing for sure."

"Oh, life is a story…"

For this part, Aiden focused on trying to create a bit of an echo effect in his voice. With the instruments supporting his voice thoroughly, the song was coming off great.

[You have gained experience.]

[You have successfully recorded the second song of your album. You are progressing well to achieve a great achievement.]

Those were the notifications he received after coming out of the recording booth. The sound engineer was smiling as he looked at him.

"I think this would be good enough."

Tom, who was sitting beside him, also nodded his head. He was present in the whole recording.

"Yeah, it's way better than the first few sessions you did."

"It's been a while since I sang it. So it took time getting used to it. Anyway, I'm glad we could get it over with. I think I could sleep well tonight."

Hearing that, the sound engineer tilted his head and asked.

"You are leaving for LA tomorrow right?"

"Yeah, I will be there for a month and a half. It's going to be a hectic schedule as Jesse is known to finish his movies pretty quickly."

Aiden said. As he was leaving tomorrow, he had tried hard to finish the recording of 'Life is a story'. Thankfully, it had ended on time.

"Good luck with that."

"Thanks. I think I will need it."

Aiden said and smiled. He really wondered how it was going to go with the shooting. He had practiced the character of Andrew a lot but he needed to know if it was enough to overshadow Seth.

Outside the Los Angeles International airport, Aiden was coming out of it with Wade and Tom following him. Both of them were accompanying him on the shooting.

"I think they said that they were going to send a car but I don't really see anyone here."

Tom said, looking around and Wade took out his phone.

"Let me call them."

It was at that moment that Aiden heard a familiar voice. He turned his head to look at the person who was giving off a bright aura.

"Aiden, here!"

It was Dustin Redford who was standing beside a van. His agent that Aiden had met before was also there.

"Dustin, what are you doing here? Your flight just landed too?"

"No, I came here yesterday. The crew was going to send a car for you so I said I will go pick you up. After all, we are going to work together on the movie now."

Aiden just nodded at that and quickly placed their bags on the back of the van before sitting into it. Dustin's agent was the driver.

As Aiden was thinking that Dustin was too friendly, the car took off.

On the way, Dustin talked about what he had done when he had reached here yesterday. His meeting with Jesse Ross about the character and even having a talk with the main lead, Seth Douglas.

When he talked about him, Aiden was very curious.

"What's he like as a person?"

"Umm, you could say that he's polite and nice. He mostly talked about the movie and we didn't deviate much from that." Saying that, he looked at Aiden. "I heard that Seth got the role due to SGA and Jesse wanted you."

"Yeah, but we can't do anything about it. Anyway, I'm finding the role of Andrew more interesting by the day and have no intention of acting bitter due to not getting the lead role."

Aiden said, shrugging his shoulders.

While it was true that he was angry and frustrated at most, those emotions have turned into resolve as time had passed by. He still had the intention to give a way better performance than Seth.

But he wasn't fixating on him too much.

If he cared more about his acting than his, then he won't be able to do justice to the role. Moreover, one more thing had happened that had made Aiden way more confident.

Just as [30 days of Happiness] has crossed 100 million dollars at the box office, he has gotten a few notifications.

[Your movie [30 days of Happiness] has crossed 100 million dollars at the North American box office. You have achieved a huge feat.]

[Congratulations on your first successful movie as the male lead.]

[You have gained a lot of experience.]

[You have advanced to Intermediate Grade 4 from Intermediate Grade 3 in acting skill.]

[Your charm has increased.]

[The probability of you reaching a 'Breakout scene' on your own has increased.]

These notifications have made him very happy and given him the confidence that he could put forward a great performance as Andrew Kingston.

A performance that would be better than any role he had done till now.

After they checked in their hotel rooms, Aiden had a whole free day ahead of him before the shooting would truly begin. Dustin wanted to roam around LA and do some sightseeing so Aiden just joined him.

Both of them were actors from New York, so LA was something that they would visit just for work and shootings.

Even Aiden had never truly taken a day off to sightsee LA before. So it was a nice change of pace and he also got to know a bit more about Dustin.

Apparently, his father was a Broadway director and he had started his career there before eventually coming into movies and series as he liked it more. Though, his father still wanted him to focus on theatre more.

The next day, the shooting for [Disconnected] truly began.

"Put that camera down there. Don't drop it while running now."

"Check for students who might be lurking around. Last time, I was working here. Some of them interrupted a shot."

"Hey, where's the assistant director?"

Like every filming crew, this one was noisy and busy too. Staff members were running around and the crew members in higher positions were ordering them around.

Jesse was planning how to shoot the scene with the cinematographer while Aiden stood in some distance listening to their conversation while glancing at his script from time to time.

"I think we should go for a side angle shot first with Mark just walking by and entering the bar. Then him, rustling around from a top shot."

"That's a good idea but then in the next scene, the main point is just going to be the conversation. This movie is really just about the characters and the situations they found themselves in. The tone needs to be very subtle in its heavy approach. Remember, the movie isn't about a billionaire but on the themes of loyalty, jealousy and human nature."

"I know Jesse. We have had discussions on it for months now."

Aiden kept an eye on both of them talking and just looked around the campus. They were shooting in a small college in LA that was going to be portrayed as Harvard University.

Interestingly, Black Line Cinema and SGA both had tried to get permission to shoot in Harvard but they were rejected because Harvard didn't allow any filmmaker to shoot in the campus since 1970.

Aside from this, they were also going to be shooting in a few different campuses, mostly meeting rooms and restaurants.

'My first scene is only going to be shot around Lunch.'

Aiden thought and at that moment, he heard some noises and turned his head, only to come across Seth Douglas walking in with a man who looked to be his agent.

It was Aiden's first time seeing him in person as he was staying in another hotel. The first thing that he did was to check his status.

[Seth Douglas] [29 years]

[Acting level: Intermediate Grade 4]

[Special skill: None]

'He's the same level as me.'

Aiden thought, not being too surprised. After all, Seth had worked for a few years in the industry now and had a lot of experience.

In the first place, he had thought that his skill level would be higher than his.

But as it was the same, Aiden took a sigh of relief.

'As we are on the same level, I have a lot of chances to beat him.'

He thought in his mind.

…

/DreamNote/

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200 Chapters Milestone

"So, what do you want to do?"

64c3e69bf75c4d1715a59001

"We have not gotten a chance to meet yet. You are Aiden Silvereye, right?"

"Yeah, nice to meet you."

"I liked your work in [30 days of Happiness]. You are a great musician and actor."

"Thanks."

"Come to me if you want to discuss our scenes together. If I'm not busy, we could go through them together."

That was a short conversation he had with Seth when he came to the set. From his tone, it was clear that he thought of himself as Aiden's senior.

It was true, too, as he had more work experience than him.

But he didn't act like someone who had snatched away Aiden's role for himself nor had any conversation about it. It was like it didn't exist.

That made Aiden feel like Seth didn't even think that he had done something wrong by snatching his role. It was already something natural for him.

"He seems like he's hiding something."

"What?"

When Aiden was in his thoughts, Dustin found him and sat next to him. He was wearing a sweater and jeans and looked like he was enjoying himself on the set.

His character was someone who was not in the initial parts of the movie, but as he had a lot of scenes on the campus, they were going to shoot them first and just edit them later.

"Seth, he's nice and polite, but he always acts like he's hiding something. Even now, he's not talking to anyone on the set other than Jesse."

"Maybe he's introverted." Aiden glanced at where Seth was. He was sitting with his manager, and Jesse was explaining something to him.

Dustin shook his head hearing that.

"No, I was at a party once where Seth was laughing and chatting loudly with a bunch of Zero International studio executives and some top actors. He looked like he was trying to please them.".

Hearing that, Aiden couldn't help but wonder one thing.

"Why were you focusing on him so much?" Dustin looked at him like he was asked something too obvious and replied with a sigh.

"He was sitting with top actors and studio executives. A lot of people were focusing on them to get something out of it. A female actress even left with a few executives."

Dustin explained, and Aiden nodded, knowing that this was very common at parties.

"Anyway, so what you are saying is that Seth isn't talking to anyone on the set because…."

"He thinks we are below him. In better words, there's no point having connections with us, so he's not really bothering with us."

"Maybe."

Aiden only muttered that to Dustin's words. Even if it was like that, he didn't mind that kind of attitude from Seth. He had experienced that before, and it wasn't a big deal for him.

Until he started causing trouble for him.

"It's your first scene, so just relax. Just try to get in your character, and we could do a few takes if you can't get it right."

Jesse said, looking at Aiden, who nodded his head.

His first scene was an introductory scene in which Mark Knight and Andrew Kingston would meet in a bar where a game would be broadcasted on the television screen. Being a fan of football, Mark would keep his eye on the game, and it was then that Andrew would start a conversation with him.

It was a very important scene in which Mark's arrogant nature would take a hit.

"Jesse, can I change Andrew's character a bit?" Aiden suddenly asked, making Jesse put on a confused face.

"Like how?"

"I was just going through his scenes and analysing him, and I feel like he should be a bit more expressive."

"Yeah, but his character is of a good-hearted, timid person."

"And a genius."

Aiden added. In the script, Mark was written as a usual genius with a lot of shortcomings and quirks. One of them was his misogynistic nature about women in the tech department.

It was actually taken from the fact that women actually face a lot of misogyny in the IT sector.

But Andrew was completely the opposite. He was a kind-hearted person who looked a bit creepy due to how he had no confidence.

At least according to the script, but Aiden wanted to change it.

"What will you change about him? We can't make him a confident genius because that will greatly change the script."

Jesse finally asked, and Aiden quickly replied without wasting any time.

"Yeah, I know that well. Just that I feel like he should at least be confident about things that he's good at. He's not an idiot for not knowing what he's good at, but even in those things, he seems to have no confidence. Moreover, I feel like he should be more vocal about the wrong things that Make does on the way to a billion dollars."

"Like the only morally good voice in the room?"

"Kind of but in a more subtle way."

Jesse and Aiden discussed it more, so much so that the cameraman needed to ask if they were taking a late shot, but in the end, the director was too keen on keeping his characters the same way.

He was the type who wanted his actors to follow the script to a T.

As Aiden wasn't able to persuade him, he had no choice but to just ask for one chance.

"Just give me one chance. If I couldn't do it right in a take, then I would follow the script."

"Okay." Jesse sighed, giving him a chance to get on with the shooting finally. "Just remember that If I didn't like it, you need to go back to your portrayal that you showed in the audition."

Aiden was standing in a bar that the production team had booked for the shooting, and around him, a lot of extras were present. There were cameras present everywhere to get a three-dimensional view, and Jesse was keeping a close eye on him.

Seth was also going to be in the scene, and he was sitting at one of the tables and taking deep breaths to prepare himself.

At a distance away, standing beside the assistant director, Dustin was giving a thumbs up to Aiden.

'I need to do my best.'

He thought in his mind, and at that moment, Jesse's voice came out, followed by the clapping of the slate.

"Ready. Set. Camera. Action!"

Clap!

Hearing that, Aiden closed his eyes, and the immersion started.

[DisconnectedJan 28-2017Act 1Scene 3Take 1]

In the noisy bar, Andrew was moving around, hearing groups of friends talking among themselves about various topics that started with studies and ended with girls. Naturally, there were mostly college students here as this bar was the place where they would frequent a lot.

Andrew was unable to find a seat because of how crowded the bar was.

It was mostly because everyone was gathered to watch the football game going on the TV. From time to time, a goal or a good pass would be made, and all the people in the bar would cheer.

At that moment, a voice called him out.

"There's a seat here if you want."

Turning around, he saw a guy with spectacles sitting there. Andrew quickly walked towards him.

"Thanks." He sat down and introduced himself. "Andrew Kingston."

"Mark Knight. Are you from Harvard?"

"No, I didn't make the cut last year."

That sentence was enough to make Mark's interest die down in Andrew. In his mind, he quickly put him as someone who was in a league lower than his.

Someone who would never be able to meet with people he was going to hang out with in the future.

Andrew also noticed the change in his atmosphere but didn't say anything. Mark focused his eye on the game, and Andrew followed suit.

On the screen, Barcelona was one goal behind Real Madrid, who had mostly dominated the game. Only five minutes were left, and fans could just hope for a miracle.

"Fuck, we are going to lose."

Mark muttered, angry at the fact. He was feeling awful as he was really hoping Barcelona would win this.

At that moment, Andrew commented.

"No, they are going to get a goal."

His words managed to attract the attention of Mark, who looked at him confused.

"They are clearly winning it. Don't you see their defence? No one is going to get past it."

"Yeah, it's tough, but Barcelona just made a substitute. They went for a tiki-taka formation with their main striker on the right wing. They will make a goal. Trust me."

Andrew said with confidence visible on his face. He looked like someone who couldn't be wrong.

Mark didn't think too much about his words and just focused on the screen. At that moment, something extraordinary happened.

Barcelona breached the defence of Real Madrid with their tiki-taka formation and made a goal. The commentators on the TV were going crazy with their Spanish commentary, and everyone was cheering in the bar.

It was like it got 4-5 times noisier in just a second.

"How, how do you know?"

Mark turned to look at Andrew, shocked he smiled.

"Instincts and I once saw that tactic live."

"But how can you tell it was the same?"

"I observe well."

Andrew simply said with a smirk and stood up from the bar and walked outside. Mark kept looking at his face, wondering what had just happened.

In the end, he decided to follow him.

"Cut!"

At that moment, the sound of Jesse came out as the scene ended.

…

/DreamNote/

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64c3e69bf75c4d1715a59001

After seeing the first scene of Andrew, Jesse agreed to let Aiden perform his version of the character rather than just sticking to the script. In his mind, it was just making Andrew a much better character on the camera.

Aiden's version had a certain charm that was hard to reject for Jesse.

Only Aiden knew that it was because his charm had increased a lot after his last project, which was the sitcom. It was really helping him in making a timid character stick out.

One's eyes can't help but fall on him.

As the days went by, the shooting progressed too. [Disconnected] was a movie with a lot of things going on at the same time.

There were intricate plots of Mark wanting to join a major club at Harvard to get to know rich and equally talented people. Because of that, he would even break up with his girlfriend and then try to make a website to find a new girlfriend online called SnapGirl.

On the website, he would upload pics of girls from blogs and community websites, and users could join in to find a girlfriend for themselves.

Andrew would then get to know about it and then would tell him that it's a good idea, but rather than a dating site, they should go for something bigger. Something that could make communication easier for people.

It was then that they would get the idea of Snapbook.

All of it was shot one by one, and the actors present on the set gave their best in each of the scenes. Jesse was a director that knew how to get the best out of his actors.

Moreover, it seemed like he had already visualised the whole story on his own and was able to explain every scene in detail.

But currently, Jesse was pretty angry, looking at his screen.

"Seth, I told you that your emotions aren't coming in. It needs to be a gripping scene, and you need to portray a wide variety of emotions well. You are not able to do it no matter how many times we do it."

On his computer screen, a scene was playing. Both Dustin and Seth were talking in a restaurant. It was the scene in which Dustin's character Sebastian Walker would go on a monologue about how his investment ventures had gone and would impress Mark before telling him to partner with him to get a billion-dollar valuation for his company.

Hearing that, Mark would have all sorts of conflicts and excitement, but Seth wasn't able to perform it well. .

He was already on the 13th take.

"I'm sorry. I will try to do it again." Seth said, frowning.

"I don't think you are even trying. You have a poker face going on for you, and it's not helping out a scene like this. Dustin is giving way better performance than you."

Jesse looked at Dustin, who chose just to stay silent.

"Let's take a break and come back to it. If we can't do it, let's shoot the scene sometime later."

He said, and everyone dispersed. Seth was constantly frowning and walked to sit back alone. There was anger and frustration on his face, and his agent and assistants were trying to calm him down and motivate him.

"It's a pretty hard scene. No wonder he's having a lot of trouble."

Tom, Aiden's assistant, muttered from beside him, and Aiden shook his head.

"No, Seth's having trouble only because he's thinking of the character of Mark in a wrong way. His analysis of the character is a bit flawed."

"What do you mean?" Tom raised an eyebrow.

"The scene is hard, but the monologue of Sebastian is a harder part, especially because it truly sets his character up as someone who's playing around in silicon valley and is arrogant to the core. Mark has a few lines, and it's more reaction, but in a way, that's more important."

Aiden chuckled. The first thing that he learned in acting was that acting is more about reacting. You need to wear the character as clothes and react the same as they would.

But Seth was going wrong in that.

"Seth is reacting like he would and not totally like Mark. Mark, as a character, is someone who does have doubts and second thoughts. There would be hesitation and conflict in his eyes because of that, but Seth shows more excitement and greed. Those emotions overshadow all the others."

When Aiden explained that, Tom's eyes widened, and after thinking about his words, he nodded his head. His words sounded professional, like he had a lot of understanding of the character.

"Do you think he would be able to give a good shot?"

"That's on him. He needs to truly become Mark and not just keep being Seth in certain scenes. He's a good actor, but he lacks character analysis. He would come through slowly."

Like Aiden had said, Seth did give a right take, but it was only after 19 takes. Jesse was already tired by that time alongside the other crew members, so they called the day off.

The next day, all of them were shooting around the college dormitories for the initial parts of the movies.

Starting from the scenes in which Mark Knight would build up his dating website to the scene of just him talking with his roommate.

These were very important parts of the movie, and thankfully, they got over them pretty fast.

"Are you nervous?" Dustin asked, retracting his eyes from the script and looking at Aiden.

"Why?" He asked, raising one eyebrow.

"This is literally the most important scene of the movie. The scene in which the idea of Snapbook would come out."

Dustin made a gesture with his hands, like saying, 'This is the scene!'.

"I know that, but I don't want to get too pressurised by thinking I need to really nail it down."

Aiden replied, and Dustin laughed.

"Just don't be like Seth, and it will be fine. Heard he got in trouble with hotel staff yesterday after the shooting because he was too frustrated."

Dustin glanced at Seth, who was chatting with a pretty female assistant director.

"Well, Seth's in the scene, so who knows. How did you even do 19 takes with so many lines?"

"I messed up a few times, but Jesse's attention was too much on Seth. He wasn't even focusing on me."

Both of them laughed and joked for a while, talking about Seth. They didn't notice a certain gaze on them from time to time.

[DisconnectedFeb 11-2017Act 3Scene 2Take 1]

The sound of footsteps came out as the door to the room opened, and Andrew walked in, draped in a black leather jacket and looked at Mark, who was typing a code on his laptop.

"Mark, how much did we get? I am hearing a lot of things about it."

"22k people are already on it from various campuses. They are rating each other on the app and writing about it on their blogs. I feel like I'm being a love guru of sorts."

Mark said, turning around. His website has truly taken off, and everyone on campus is now using his website to find their next dating partner.

"That's pretty nice," Andrew commented.

"Yeah, I am thinking about adding options like one-night stands, so people know what they are looking for and ratings for looks…"

Mark continued to talk about his ideas, and Andrew knew he had no habit of stopping once he stopped. At that moment, his attention got focused on the computer screen, and an idea started forming in his mind.

"I really want to connect all the people on the campus with this…"

"What? What did you say?"

Andrew suddenly widened his eyes.

"Which part?"

"The connect part," Andrew said and lowered his head, thinking of something. "You know what, I think I have an idea to really elevate it to the next level."

"What idea?"

Mark tilted his head, and Andrew looked for a piece of paper to explain his idea better.

"What are you doing?"

"Let me explain."

Excitement could clearly be seen in his voice, and his shoulders were moving up and down like shockwaves were going through his body.

He was sure of one thing.

This idea was going to be something that could be revolutionary.

Holding a pencil, he made a dot and looked at him. "Think of it as a person. Now…"

Andrew made several more dots with the pencil and connected them to each other. Then he looked at Mark.

"We need to connect everyone."

"That's what I'm doing by this—"

"No, the branding is wrong, and this could be much more than a dating app where people rate their looks and decide to meet. It's good because guys are having fun, and it's convenient, but we need a way better app, not for dating. Just to connect everyone."

Mark just kept staring at him as Andrew talked about his grand plan in excitement. There was an expression of confusion on his face as he slowly understood what Andrew was going for.

"Think of an app that has everyone in the world on it. They are meeting each other without meeting in reality. How convenient that would be."

"Will something like that even work?"

"Yes, Mark, it could work. Remember, you are a genius."

Andrew said, holding down Mark's shoulders, and as the scene was going on, suddenly a loud voice came out.

"Cut!"

Immersion broke in a second as Aiden stood confused.

'Did I do something wrong? I thought the flow was good.'

Aiden thought and looked at Jesse, but he wasn't looking at him but at Seth Douglas.

…

/DreamNote/

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64c3e69bf75c4d1715a59001

Everyone on the set was able to see that Jesse wasn't happy with the scene just now. It was going very well, but he had suddenly called 'Cut' and was now looking at Seth Douglas.

Not a lot of people had realised why Jesse hadn't liked the movie. Their eyes were too focused on Aiden, and they were thinking that it was going great.

Jesse's eyes were very disappointed as he glanced between the screen and Seth.

"Seth, you need to put on a better performance. You are getting overshadowed by Aiden. You are an important part of this scene."

He said, looking at Seth, who hadn't realised what had gone wrong. In his mind, he was giving a fine performance, but when Jesse said that, he subconsciously looked at Aiden.

"I will try to do better."

"Okay, this is just the first take. Let's go at it again."

Jesse said, and everyone went back to their position. Although the director was disappointed as they were getting a really good scene, he didn't mind it too much due to it being only the first take.

They started the scene again, and the sound of a clapping board came out.

This time too, Aiden put on a good performance. On the screen, only Andrew Kingston could be seen, and the way he portrayed 'An idea to connect the world' was pretty amazing.

It was almost like a comic book scene.

After the post-production, Jesse was sure that it would become one of the highlighted scenes of the movie.

On the other hand, Seth did display the confusion his character would feel when Andrew would be talking about his idea, but he was completely missing out on the part where Mark would realise how much of a valuable idea it is.

There was no line about it on the script, but one could guess that easily after reading the script and knowing about Mark.

But that was a big missing piece. .

On the side, two staff members who were watching the scene were talking among themselves in hushed whispers, taking care not to let their voices be caught up by the recording equipment.

"Hey, isn't Aiden a great actor? I always thought he's not that good, but he seems to have a sort of a charm. My eyes are constantly moving to him."

"Yeah, he does have that quality. Charism is pretty rare. Though, I don't think it's helping Seth a lot. He's basically being a prop in the scene who could talk."

"Yeah, the first take was bad because of that."

They talked as the scene moved forward. Aiden took out the paper and pencil and drew the chart, and explained that this idea could connect the whole world together – Something unprecedented before.

At that exact moment, Jesse again opened his mouth.

"Cut! It's not good."

His eyes were still looking over at Seth. He had no complaints from Aiden, and the only reason this scene of being bad was because of the lead. Pursuing his lips, Jesse walked up to Seth and tried to explain the scene again.

He even gave him ideas as to how the scene could be better.

"I understand. Don't worry, I will do great."

"Okay."

Seth convinced Jesse that it would be a good take, and the scene started again, but it was another bad take.

This started a series of bad takes that was the same as yesterday.

"Another bad take!"

"Seth, try to put more emotions and body moments in the scene. You look too stuck."

"Cut! Let's try another. I think we are getting close to a good take."

"Uh, again, bad take!"

"Seth, do you want a break or something? You are becoming worse and worse with each take."

It was already afternoon, and Jesse was frowning more and more every second. On the screen, the 16th take was going on, and there was a feeling that this might be a good take.

Aiden was currently on the last part of the scene.

"Yes, Mark, it could work. Remember, you are a genius." He said, and Mark, who was listening to his explanation, nodded.

"I know that, but connecting the whole world. Do you really think I could do it?"

"We could." Aiden smiled. "Every inventor and innovative person has second thoughts. It's normal, but I know we could do it. We already have a bit of an idea. Both of us could code it."

"Yeah, we…"

Seth suddenly stopped his sentence in the middle and frowned, coming out of the character. He stomped his feet in anger as everyone who was focusing on the scene wondered what had happened.

"Cut!" Jesse shouted. "Why did you stop in the middle?"

"I forgot my lines," Seth said and looked at Jesse. "Can't we just take it from here? This scene is too big anyway. We could fix it in editing."

Hearing that, Jesse's expression broke, and he couldn't help but glare at Seth. He wanted to do the whole scene in one shot instead of several small ones, but it looked like that was impossible.

"Yeah, I think we need to do that. After all, you can't act for more than 2 minutes on the screen."

Jesse insulted, and Seth, who hadn't expected it, wondered if he had misheard.

"What did you say?"

"If you are not deaf, you would have heard it."

The atmosphere froze!

Frustration and anger were clearly visible on the face of the director, who was already going through a lot of pressure. On top of that, Seth wasn't cooperating at all as the lead actor.

His attitude was also not serious, as Jesse had himself seen him spending more time talking with female actors rather than thinking of his role.

All of his frustration that was piling up was blowing out now.

"Hey, Jesse, let it go." The cinematographer tried to calm him down, but Jesse shook his head.

"You can't talk to me like that even if you are a director. Don't forget how you got the chance to direct this movie."

Seth fired back, unable to take in the insult. His managers quickly walked close to him, trying to pacify him a bit, but he was having none of it.

"I can talk to you like that, and let's not talk about how someone got the movie. You won't have a lot to show for yourself in that case." Jesse shouted.

'This is bad. I need to stop it.'

Aiden, who was just a spectator in all this till now, couldn't help but intervene at this moment.

"Seth, calm down. Jesse is just frustrated due to the bad shots. Every actor has a bad day—"

"What are you trying to say? Are those bad shots solely because of me? You are acting with me too, but he's not talking back to you at all. It's clear as day that he's trying to target me."

Seth shouted towards Aiden, but he didn't lose his calm.

'I can't lose my cool here. There are too many people watching the whole drama. It will be the headline of some tabloid tomorrow morning like this.'

He didn't want the audience to get negative news about the movie right from the start. Conflicts between directors and actors were never a good thing for a movie.

"Seth, no one is targeting you. Just calm down and don't let a fight start like a fool." Aiden insisted, but Seth didn't look to be in a mood to calm down.

"You are the fucking fool! I'm not someone who would run away from a fight."

"You will if you care a bit about your image. Look around yourself. Everyone is probably thinking of you as a spoiled actor who gets riled up due to a few words. You are ruining your whole career."

When Aiden said that in a whisper, Seth's manager also came close to him.

"He's right. It's too much of a public place. We can deal with this later in private." The manager said, but Seth didn't want just to walk away. He looked conflicted, but in the end, he just frowned and stepped towards the parking lot.

Fair to say, the shooting wasn't going to go on for the day at least.

"Everyone get to work. We might have an early end of the day today."

Jesse said, and everyone dispersed. He wasn't in a good mood as the shooting of his movie had stalled in the middle, but he was not able to help it.

He was just too bottled up with different types of feelings.

"Hey, Aiden. Are you okay?" Dustin quickly walked towards him, with Tom following behind him.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but I can't say the same about the movie." He frowned, thinking that all this would just ruin the schedule.

"Do you think Seth would walk away from the project?"

Dustin asked, but Aiden shook his head.

"A lot of the movie is already completed. Black Line isn't a top studio that they could afford to shoot with a different actor. In the first place, SGA is the main investor."

He said. There was even a lesser chance that Jesse was going to be replaced as he was the director and scriptwriter. Every director had their own style and idea for a movie.

Even if the studio somehow got another director, he would insist on shooting the scenes again. One can't underestimate the nature of a director.

"It's much more likely that they are going to just come to terms with each other just to complete the movie." That was Aiden's conclusion.

"Yeah, but Seth is still going to be very angry. I'm pretty sure he's going to let out his anger one way or another."

Dustin let out a deep sigh.

…

/DreamNote/

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According to reports, Seth Douglas had a fight with Jesse Ross on the sets of their upcoming movie [Disconnected]. Producers were not happy due to the fight, and the shooting had stalled.

What was the reason behind the fight? An insider who was on the set talked to our newspaper about it. Apparently, Seth Douglas was on the wrong side.

A major blow to the movie [Disconnected]. The drama movie might get delayed, or a major change could happen on the set. When we talked to one of the producers in Black Line Cinema, he refused to even acknowledge that a fight happened on the set.

"All this is bullshit."

Seth said, going through the articles that were on the table in front of him. He had been going through them, and they had left him very angry.

Apparently, someone had opened his mouth and talked in detail about the incident, probably for a small amount of money. In the story written by tabloids, they blamed him.

'Jesse was the one to insult me. How am I the perpetrator of this?'

He thought in his mind, and at that moment, one of his managers entered the room.

"What did Franco say?" Seth quickly asked.

"He will come to LA tomorrow to deal with the whole mess himself. He's in Korea currently on a business trip. Something about SGA trying to invest in the global K-pop wave."

"Did he look to be in a good mood? What does he think of all this?"

Seth asked with hesitation evident in his voice. He was hoping that Franco would side with him in this situation and he would not lose out his support.

After all, the other actors he was handling were already eyeing better resources from him.

"He wasn't happy. It blew out of proportion, and a lot of PR would go into burying it. As for Jesse, there's going to be a meeting with Black Line Cinema producers Franco and him. You need to be present there too. I don't think he would agree to sack Jesse off the project."

"Why? Doesn't he have that much influence and power?"

Seth squinted his eyes, frowning.

"He does but try to understand, it's not a good method." The manager picked up a newspaper and pointed at the headline about him. "These headlines are insider information, but there are no reliable facts. Not like the whole production team has spoken about it. If everything is solved between you two, then these rumours will die down. Try to understand."

"… Okay."

He wasn't able to say anything back to that. The manager was just speaking logic, and he would be a fool if he went against this.

But a part of Seth didn't want to let go of the whole matter.

'If I can't do anything to Ross, then at least I need to make sure my authority as the lead of the movie is intact.'

He thought as the face of one of his co-stars came to his mind.

'Don't start a fight like a fool.'

Those were the words said by Aiden to him, and it really angered Seth. Even before that, he was very annoyed by him because he never got the criticism from Jesse that he got.

Seth wasn't someone who couldn't properly see things.

He had seen the scenes later on, and in every second that Aiden and he had appeared together, he was overwhelmed by his presence.

His own eyes kept darting to him, and the whole production team was thinking the same thing. It was almost impossible for him to beat Aiden's charisma currently.

As the lead, Seth had certainly not liked it.

"Would Franco say anything if I try to do something to a co-actor?" Seth looked up at his manager, who didn't show any expression and just asked.

"Who?"

"Aiden Silvereye."

The manager thought for a bit before nodding.

"He's not from a big agency, so pretty easy target, but I don't think Franco would appreciate you doing anything before the shooting finishes. We are short on time here, and it's not time for personal conflicts."

"I know that, but don't worry, I am not going to do anything during the shooting. I'm just going to get a worse reputation like that."

"Then?"

The manager raised an eyebrow, and Seth smirked.

"I have a plan."

As the fight between Seth and Jesse stalled the shooting for a few days, Aiden had nothing to do. The actors had been asked to stay in LA as the shooting would start any moment. At least that's what was told to them.

So, he had a lot of time.

Dustin apparently wanted just to enjoy these few days and rest, but Aiden didn't have that luxury.

He needed to work on his album.

[Grey: The sample is pretty good. I feel like this song could be great. Try to complete it by the end of your shooting, and we can get to recording.]

[Aiden: When are you going to come back from Spain?]

[Grey: Around in three weeks. We could start the recording straight away in my studio. I'm excited to work with you again. People love 'Lonely' here a lot.]

Currently, Aiden was texting with Grey, who apparently was in Spain, doing concerts there. He had a big following in Spain due to a few collaborations with Spanish singers.

So, it was mandatory for him to do a few concerts there every now and then to maintain his stardom in the country.

[Aiden: Okay, I will send you the full track soon. After listening to it, can you write the lyrics of your part? I feel like you would be able to do it better.]

A reply soon came.

[Grey: Sure, leave it to me. Bye!]

Like that, the conversation ended, and Aiden let out a deep breath. Currently, he was working on two songs at the same time. One was with Grey, and another was a solo.

While the song with Grey was pretty much just a pop song with many electronic beats and something you could dance to at a party, the solo one was a pop and soul song, mostly about Aiden's fears as a celeb.

It was an interesting topic for him to make a song about, so he decided to go with it.

"I should finish up the Grey song first."

Aiden thought, looking at his computer screen and clicking on the audio file titled 'Shiver'. That was the name of the song that he was making with Grey.

The tune of it was kinda retro, and Aiden had randomly got it on his keyboard and had decided to follow it up.

Thankfully, Grey had liked it.

'I should add some bass and electric guitar to it. Kinda like a wave.'

Aiden formed the idea of the song in his mind and tried out different things in the audio sample. A pop song didn't have to be too complicated as people remembered them more for their catchy music.

They were also widely popular on short video sites because of that. It was because these tunes make up for a 30-second dance video quite nicely.

'What could be the theme of it… Umm, probably better to go with just a relationship…'

Like that, Aiden worked on the song nonstop during his short break.

A few days after the fight between Jesse and Seth, a meeting was held with both of them alongside the executive producer Rishi Suman and Franco Li, who were trying hard to mend up things.

In the meeting, Jesse cleared it that he understood he didn't have a lot of power during the casting process, but on the set, the director's authority was something that couldn't be questioned.

If the movie was a ship, then Jesse was the captain, and he was going to be angry if he felt like his actors weren't giving their hundred percent.

Surprisingly, during the whole meeting, Seth was only apologising for his behaviour and swearing that he won't try something like this again and how he had reflected on his actions.

He was obviously not saying all this with his heart.

Franco Li had already handled him before the meeting and told him to apologise for no matter what so that the shooting resumed.

Seth also understood that if this fell through, then SGA won't be trusting him again. They had spent a lot on this project to give him a solo hit before he moved on to claim a leadership role in a superhero movie.

It was all pre-planned, and he knew how important it was to follow it.

When he's big enough, he would have more control over this, but as someone on the lower spectrum of power, he could just do as instructed.

After the meeting, Jesse was satisfied and agreed to return as a director.

Just after it, SGA's PR Team was already active as a lot of articles popped up one after another.

Rumours about an alleged rift between Seth Douglas and Jesse Ross are a lie. Our sources have claimed that the pause in shooting is due to the rewriting of some parts of the script.

A photo of Seth Douglas and Jesse Ross appeared on his Skygram profile today, instantly making all the rumours about a rift die down.

It's not the first time such a rumour has started because of some false statements. Seth Douglas's agent said, "There's nothing between Jesse and Seth that is not good. They are very serious about the movie and are excited to present it to the audience.

…

/DreamNote/

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After the shooting resumed, Jesse didn't want to waste any time and told the cast and crew to give their everything to finish up the movie on time.

Black Line Cinema was pretty concerned that they would need to push the release date of the movie, and Jesse had given them confidence that he would be able to finish the movie on time.

So, the actors were doing their absolute best not to do a bad take. Even Seth was focusing way more on his acting and was giving good takes now.

In all this, Aiden's scenes were slowly coming to an end.

The movie time length was going to be around 1 hour 20 min, and Aiden had at least 40 minutes of screentime which was pretty good for a supporting character.

As Aiden had talked about his album and other stuff before signing the contract, Jesse and Black Line Cinema had agreed to shoot his scenes first.

That's why a lot of his scenes had already been shot.

Most of these scenes included Seth and Dustin, but there were also solo scenes like the scene in which Andrew would be talking to his girlfriend about the idea of Snapbook, but she won't agree to it, talking about their future and breaking up.

It was a scene to show that Andrew was willing to give up a lot of things for the idea.

Currently, he was in the last shot of that scene.

[DisconnectedFeb 23-2017Act 7Scene 2Take 3]

"I'm sorry, but I don't think you should go for this idea. I know you think it's achievable, but real life doesn't work like that."

"Why can't you believe in me for a change of pace?"

"I believe in you. I just want you to get a college degree and get a good job. You are brilliant. You know it. This idea and company could just end the golden years of your life."

"Or they could become the golden years of my life."

Andrew looked at the girl in front of him and tried hard to convince her. They were high school sweethearts, and if he wanted one person to support him, that was her.

But she didn't believe in the idea.

She wanted Andrew to be more stable in life instead of running towards a million dollars like a fool.

"Andrew, I'm sorry. I don't want you to do this. I know you met some silicon valley millionaire, and he taught you how to dream of a million dollars."

"A billion," Andrew said, but the girl shook her head and stood up. There was an expression of conflict and pain on her face, but she had made up her mind.

"Come see me after getting your billion dollars."

Saying that she left, and Andrew just sat at the table, sighing and wondering if it was actually worth it.

It was then that a voice came out.

"Cut! Good work!"

Finally, the take was a good one, and they could move on to the next scene.

"Aiden, go rest a bit. There are no scenes of yours till after lunch. Try to practise them so we can get over them quickly."

Jesse said, and Aiden nodded, having a small talk with the actress that had played his girlfriend and going to sit down next to Tom.

ɴ0,ᴠ,ᴇl But as he was moving towards them, he saw Wade standing there.

"You finally got the time?"

Aiden said, looking up at Wade, who nodded his head while shrugging his shoulders.

"I told you I'm going to be busy. There are just too many things to look through with the album coming up. The others are also working hard on it. Anyway, Tom was with you."

"Yeah, he was a lot of help."

Tom just smiled shyly hearing that.

There were tons of things to do for a full-fledged album, and getting good songs was just the basics. The planning, marketing, distribution, and promotions were the major parts of a successful album, and Wade was at the helm of it.

There were even talks of a concert going on after the album's release, so Wade was too busy with it.

That's why Tom was handling everything on site with Aiden and reporting back to Wade.

Aiden had finally understood why celebrities have assistants. It just makes the work easier.

"Anyway, I came because I thought there would be problems with Seth, but I guess he's behaving now."

Wade glanced at Seth, who was in discussion with Jesse.

"Yeah, he's solely focusing on work, so his acting is coming through. I don't think there will be any more drama."

"It's good if there isn't."

Both of them talked a bit more about the movie and what Wade had heard about the drama in New York, and how reporters had taken it.

Although SGA had worked hard to label it a fake rumour, those who were smart knew that it was a reality. Most people in Hollywood were already smart enough to realise which one was a fake rumour and which one was not.

"How's everything going for you on the filming side? I didn't hear a lot as SGA is pushing Seth a lot, so it's looking like he's the only guy in the movie."

Wade said, clicking his tongue. They didn't have a big PR team to promote Aiden and only had Sasha and Lia handling it. It completely lacked in comparison to a big agency.

"The filming is pretty nice. I'm getting more and more into the character."

Aiden said, thinking of the 79 percent affinity that he had with Andrew Kingston.

That was more than enough to give a good performance.

"Try to keep it up. You need to give a performance where people talk about themselves. Otherwise, they won't even remember you are in this movie because of the heavy PR."

"I know that," Aiden muttered and suddenly thought of one scene that was coming up. "I do have my worries about one particular scene, though. I don't know if I will be able to do it well."

"Which one?" Wade raised an eyebrow.

"The last scene of Andrew."

Movies are filled with scenes that connect various arcs, and many times, a movie may or may not be a hit at the box office, but some scenes are made in such a way that they stick with the audience no matter what.

Aiden could remember a lot of great scenes in the movie that really made him stare at them in awe.

They could be emotional scenes, action scenes, or scenes in which a character has finally conquered his fears and achieved his goals.

He still remembered a movie scene where a man would walk out of a building after finally getting a job. Walking through the crowd, there would be a huge smile on his face as he would have finally achieved the thing he wanted.

Those types of scenes stay stuck in the audience's mind.

The last scene in which Andrew was going to appear was such a scene.

In this scene, Andrew would come storming into the Snapbook office, demanding answers as, after a new deal with another investor that he was unknown of, his shares had been diluted completely while others still maintained theirs.

This was a big betrayal scene.

Andrew's character would still be calm about it and just would ask his answers before leaving after saying that his lawyers would deal with them.

No doubt, this was the most important scene for Aiden.

But there was something he wanted to change in it. That's why, after the day's shooting, he walked up to Jesse, who was talking to one of his assistants.

"Jesse, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Yeah, what's up?" Jesse said, dismissing the assistant director.

"The betrayal scene. I want to change it a bit. More like a lot."

Jesse looked at him like he wasn't sure of what he was saying but let out a sigh, knowing that Aiden always had his own ideas about scenes.

He had already discussed a lot of them with Aiden before.

"How do you want to change it?"

"Let's not continue Andrew's actions being so subtle and timid in this scene. It just seems like a big waste of opportunity."

Aiden said. A lot of characters often don't act like themselves or just go through a planned character development after getting betrayed.

That was just human nature. Trust was a very expensive thing, and not a lot of people could maintain it in their relationships.

"What do you want to do then?"

Jesse asked, walking and Aiden keeping up with him.

"Let him not suppress his emotions. I want to give the audience a shock as this would completely go against his normal behaviour and make it a way more impactful scene."

"The tone of the movie would change then."

"It won't. Just trust me on this."

Aiden said, determined to make Jesse convinced. Since he had gotten the script, Aiden had read it a lot of times. He had gone through the scenes of each character and how they connected.

Thanks to his writing skill, he was able to understand way better and even make some changes in a few scenes.

This was one of those.

When he had first read it, Aiden knew that it could be a scene that could actually make the movie for the audience. Jesse's version wasn't bad, but he thought that Andrew was much more likely to flare up.

After all, he had given up everything for it, and betrayal was something he hadn't expected.

In the end, Jesse just looked at him and said, "I have booked up a seat in a restaurant. Let's go eat dinner together and talk about it there."

…

/DreamNote/

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"Hey, I need more lightning here."

"Put that camera over there. Don't mess it up."

"Hey, do we have more extras? The office needs to look like a real company. There need to be more people."

The next day, the set was bustling with a lot of noise as usual. People were moving around here and there. Assistant directors argued with others who weren't doing their work fast enough, and a lot of people were stressed, wondering if it was good enough.

In a word, it was a pretty stressful environment.

But he had gotten used to it after a month.

'I love just being here. I am glad I got this job.'

、 Tom thought, looking around, drinking his coffee and letting out a breath. There was a constant smile on his face as he glanced at Aiden, who was currently in the middle of his makeup.

He recalled the last couple of months of his life and how things had changed for him.

When three months ago, Jody had told him about this job, Tom had been skeptical.

He still remembered each word of that conversation.

'Hey, Tom. I got a job offer. They are looking for a whole team, including an assistant, so I think we should go for it.'

'The whole team? Who's it from? Some agent?'

'No, it's from Aiden Silvereye. You have heard of him, right? I know his agent well, and it seems to be a good offer. Don't you always want to work with an actor anyway?'

That was something that everyone who knew Tom would know.

He loved movies, actors, their life and all the drama around them. It was his dream to work in an environment like that.

That's why he became an assistant to celebrities.

Before Aiden, Tom had worked with a social media influencer and a few singers, but it was nothing extraordinary.

So, when he got this offer, he immediately took it.

Like that, Tom, who was 24 years old, became the assistant of Aiden, a rising star in the world of Hollywood. Before getting the job, Tom had researched a lot about Aiden and his instincts were telling him one thing.

'He's going to become a big star. I need to get the first seat in his life which is bound to be filled with different sorts of dramas.'

As a fan of Hollywood reality TV shows like [Star Wives] and [Famous for being Famous, Tom was sure that it was going to be an exciting journey.

In his first meeting with Aiden, he witnessed it himself.

'I want to reach the top of Hollywood.'

Just that statement from Aiden was enough to reassure Tom that he had not made a bad decision. From that day, he followed Aiden's career very closely and noticed a few things.

Unlike the celebrities he had seen on reality TV shows, Aiden was very calm, composed and hardworking. Wade had informed him that he had a habit of jumping from one project after another like he was going to die before 30.

He was too serious about his career.

Tom saw it himself when Aiden decided to do a movie and work on his album at the same time. The surprising thing was that he had just released a book a while back.

It was then that Tom understood one thing.

'He's a bit crazy in the head in a good way. I guess all geniuses are.'

For the first month, Tom felt that everything was pretty peaceful. There was a lot of work as Aiden had interviews, singing gigs, ad shoots and auditions, but there was no drama.

Something that Tom craved for.

He got it when Aiden was rejected for the role of Mark Knight in [Disconnected] just because SGA, the main investors, wanted their actor in it. Tom felt that it was unfair, but he was also looking forward to what Aiden would do.

Would he get angry and just leave the movie? Would he try to give out an interview against Seth? Or would he do nothing?

In all this, Aiden had decided not to go for any underhanded methods and beat Seth into one thing that mattered — Acting.

It was a very interesting development for Tom, who had already proclaimed himself the only viewer of the reality TV show 'Aiden's Rise in Hollywood'.

When Tom had asked Aiden about it, an interesting conversation had taken place.

'Are you sure of beating Seth Douglas in acting? I have seen his work. He's pretty good.'

'I have seen them too, and I know he's really good.'

'Then, how will you beat him?'

'I don't know actually as I have not met him or seen his acting personally. I could only guess his level for now. Well, you could say that I'm confident because of one thing.'

'If Seth were really that good, Jesse would have never considered me in the first place.'

A solid answer.

Tom had prayed that Aiden would actually defeat Seth in acting after that, and the same had happened when the shooting had begun.

One thing Tom had to accept was that Seth wasn't bad at acting. He was good and experienced.

But Aiden was way more naturally gifted in the eyes of those watching them.

In every scene he would appear in, a certain charm would reflect, and he would own the scene. Everyone on the set thought the same, and Tom knew that because he had asked every staff member, he talked to.

'Can I ask you a question?'

'Yeah?'

'Do you also think that Aiden is way better at acting than Seth?'

'Ah, yes. His screen presence and acting really shine through. I'm pretty sure critics would praise him a lot when the movie is released. Even the director seems to appreciate him a lot.'

He had gotten similar answers from a lot of people, and Tom couldn't wait till the movie was released.

As the shooting went on, the fight between Jesse and Seth happened. Personally, Tom enjoyed it, but he wasn't too invested in it.

Aiden was just a side character in it, and it was just something that made the production team dislike Seth more and more. Of course, one could argue that Jesse was also responsible, but directors were often like that.

Even after the fight had settled, the production team's attitude towards Seth didn't change, and they treated him coldly.

Though, Seth didn't seem to care about it and just focused on finishing up the movie. It was understandable as Tom had heard rumours that SGA had warned him not to do something like that again.

Oh yes, one more thing that had happened over the months and something that Tom was very interested in was Aiden's love life.

Tom wasn't someone who liked to stare at other people's relationships, but as an assistant, he was bound to know about his employer's relationship, especially in a line like showbiz where things were hard to hide.

Even before taking the job, Tom had wondered if Aiden was a genius playboy — The kind that the media loved, but it turned out to be completely false.

Contrary to that, Aiden stayed away from having anything more than a professional relationship with a girl because he was scared that he would get cursed.

Once, Tom had decided to bring it up when Aiden was trying to know more about him.

'So, do you have a girlfriend? Is Katie Brooks really in a relationship with you?'

'No, not really. That was just marketing for the movie. I'm not seeing anyone currently.'

'Must be hard. When you are a celebrity, you get all sorts of attention. Particularly the female one.'

To that, Aiden nodded.

'Yeah, that's true, but the thing is, even if I like someone currently and get into a relationship, it's going to be extremely hard to keep it up. It would mostly be a long-distance one as I would move around a lot due to work. I don't want something that I might regret later on.'

That was a good enough answer that satisfied Tom. He once again reminded himself that Aiden was pretty mature and sensible as a person.

Though, his thoughts did shake when Rachel was working on a song with Aiden.

Tom was sure that there was something between them. Some sort of past conflict, or maybe they were even in a relationship before? There were indeed hints of that.

But on another look, his thoughts changed.

'Rachel is too cold towards Aiden even if I see her being conflicted from time to time. Rather than Aiden, she had a way better chemistry with her manager, Linda. Wait! Is she a lesbian? Could be…'

Those were his thoughts after observing Rachel for a while.

In the end, Tom had just turned to one conclusion after realising something.

'Ah, yes! Aiden is Indian. Half, but it still counts. Must be going for an arranged marriage. The stereotypes are not always wrong, huh.'

Thinking of all this, Tom finished his coffee and smiled as if he was in a good mood.

There was a reason behind it.

Just yesterday, he had heard Aiden's discussion with the director Jesse. Although he wasn't able to hear the whole thing, one thing that his ears picked up was something special.

'Jesse, just let me do it my way. I'm going to give a performance that would stun everyone in the scene.'

Tom glanced at Aiden, who had just finished up his makeup.

With anticipation evident on his face, he wished.

'I really hope I see something special today.'

…

/DreamNote/

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"Are you sure the modifications in the script would make it better?"

The cinematographer said, standing next to Jesse, who was checking up the scene on the script again.

They were currently shooting in an office that the production team had booked. It was actually the office of a company that went bankrupt last month, so the team had gotten it easily for a day.

"I hope it does," Jesse said, looking up at him. "Aiden was confident. Other actors were fine with it, so I don't think it matters a lot. It's all about how good he could act in the scene. You do know what I say about a good actor."

The cinematographer nodded.

"A good actor can even make the audience believe that he's a tree." The cinematographer chuckled. "I still don't think that's possible."

"Anything is possible."

Jesse said and looked around. There were three cameras that were going to be used from different angles. He did a simulation of the scene in his mind and how he was going to edit it.

Shots of Mark and Andrew, then a long shot of Andrew walking away. It was all in his mind.

"Let's get down to it now."

He said, and the cinematographer nodded.

The actors took their positions, and the lightning and sound equipment were rechecked to ensure everything was well.

After that, Jesse's voice came out.

"Lights. Camera. Action!"

The sound of a clapping board followed as Aiden closed his eyes.

'Immersion.'

[DisconnectedFeb 24-2017Act 7Scene 6Take 1]

The scene was of a new office where everyone was busy with their own work. Snapbook had gotten more than 7 million users, and it was just going to increase from now on as they had managed to capture the American and UK market.

Their valuation was now way more than a million dollars, and it had come out of nowhere.

Thanks to that, they even managed to move to a new office in California.

Step! Step!

Footsteps rang out as a person in a suit walked towards Mark, who was on his computer.

Sebastian, one of the shareholders, played by Dustin, looked at him and frowned.

"Andrew." He called him out, but he didn't listen. Not knowing what to do, he shouted, seeing that Andrew's attention was solely on Mark. "Mark is busy. Just leave."

"Oh, is he?"

Andrew just said that and reached beside Mark. In the next second, he picked up his laptop and banged it on the ground, with Mark looking at him in shock.

The whole office froze.

No one had expected something like this, especially from someone like Andrew, who was soft-spoken. Currently, there was anger visible on his face, and his eyes were a bit red, just realising that he had been betrayed.

Betrayed by the one person who he visualised the billion-dollar idea with.

"Call security," Sebastian said to an employee next to him as Andrew glared at Mark.

"What is this? You issued so many new stocks. The investors… Why wasn't I informed of it?!"

"You were informed that if new investors come in, the shares are gonna be diluted—"

"I was never informed that I was the only one whose shares were going to be diluted!"

Andrew shouted, looking at Mark, who didn't say anything. He knew what he had done, and there was no going back.

"You made a bad deal with Snapbook," Sebastian said, and Aiden turned around.

"It's my company, you douchebag. I have not signed any papers."

"We are going to get it."

Andrew laughed at that, finding it extremely funny. He was going to lose majority control of the company that was built on his own idea. A company that he owned 30 percent shares of which had been diluted to 0.2 percent without telling him.

He wasn't going to just let it happen.

,ᴄ-ᴏ-m "Why? Why did you do it, Mark? I thought of you as a friend."

Andrew asked Mark, who lowered his head and shuttered to speak.

"It was the best deal for the company. You forgot I created it."

"The company is mine," Andrew shouted. "I gave that idea when you were playing around your dating game. It would have never become this huge without me, and you know what, I bet the one thing you hated is to see me as a co-founder."

Andrew kicked his desk, scaring Mark, who almost stumbled out of his seat. Seeing that, he chuckled.

"You are always going to be a pretentious, narcissistic bastard who talks about having big goals, not for your personal gain but for humanity, but the truth is that you are just another addition to the long list of selfish millionaires."

"Security is here."

Sebastian said, and Andrew turned back, giving him a middle finger.

"I'm walking in."

As he walked with security, Sebastian suddenly thought of something and stopped him.

"You forgot something."

Andrew turned back, and Sebastian Walker took out a check from his pocket. Trying to pass it to Andrew, he smiled.

"Here, some thousand dollars. It would be enough to live for a while. Ask me if you need more. The company has a positive attitude towards donations."

As soon as those words left Sebastian's words, Andrew tried to punch him, but he stopped in the middle, seeing Sebastian walk back a few steps out of fear.

He gave off a light smirk.

"You know I understand why Mark betrayed me and not you. He probably thinks you make him look tougher."

Saying that he glanced at Mark.

"Lawyer up, douchebag. Hire the best lawyers you can because I'm going to get you everything. Remember every single thing!"

He walked away after that, sighing inwardly but having a cold exterior.

Andrew had played the friend part well, but it seemed like he needed to play the enemy part equally well.

At that moment, Jesse's voice came out.

"Cut!!" There was excitement in the voice. "That was a great take. Brilliant!"

[You have gotten a lot of experience.]

[You are close to breaking into Intermediate Grade 5 from Intermediate Grade 4.]

[A unique thing has happened!]

[You have performed a scene that has surpassed all expectations. As a result, you have gained a lot of experience.]

[You have achieved a 'Breakout scene' on your own.]

[Congratulations on achieving such a huge feat.]

[The affinity with the character 'Andrew Kingston' has reached its limit for your current level. You are slowly taking one step towards achieving absolute mastery in acting.]

After the scene, these notifications bombarded Aiden's vision, and he went through them one by one. Reading each message, his smile was just getting wider.

He didn't know that one could actually give a 'Breakout scene' without using the skill. It was a nice surprise for him.

Every 'Breakout scene' of his has always been praised as in these scenes, he would actually completely become the character, and any trace of Aiden would be gone.

Just in this scene, he was not supposed to kick the desk of Mark nor was there the last line in the script. It was completely made up by Aiden on the spot.

At that moment, Both Jesse and Dustin walked toward him.

"Aiden, that scene was great! It was completely out of my expectations."

Jesse said. Every director wished for actors to do something that could stun them. This was that, and it was a very pleasant surprise for Jesse.

"Yeah, I was scared when you broke that laptop. I barely stopped myself from getting out of character." Dustin said and squinted his eyes. "How did you even do that? Is it a secret technique?"

"There's no secret technique. I just wanted to make the scene a memorable one and just lost control of myself."

Aiden explained, and Jesse nodded his head.

"Yeah, that does happen, and this scene is surely going to be a memorable one. Just look at the reactions."

When Jesse said that, Aiden looked around and saw that the majority of people on the set were looking at him. The staff were in awe, and Tom was giving a wide smile.

Some extra actors were whispering among themselves, wondering if they would be able to give such a performance one day. The other supporting cast also looked a bit stunned.

"I'm kind of sad that this is going to be your last scene," Jesse said. "I feel like adding more scenes of Andrew on the screen now."

"I would appreciate that, but Jesse, you don't have a lot of time. I also can't give more time to the shooting."

Aiden said, and Jesse sighed, understanding what he was saying. He was going to start recording the rest of the songs from tomorrow and would only be available next when the promotions for [Disconnected] would be going on.

It was a pretty tight schedule that no one could do anything about.

"It's fine. I'm quite satisfied by the scene just now."

Jesse said, and they talked about it like that for a while.

In the distance, a gaze kept looking at them.

It was the gaze of Seth Douglas.

Looking at all the attention on Aiden, especially from the director, Seth was barely able to stop himself from frowning. He didn't like that a supporting actor was getting way more attention than him.

But he consoled himself, knowing who had the true power in the end.

'You might give a good performance, but in the end, SGA and Black Line Cinema have the power.'

Seth thought, jealousy building up inside of him.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to use your power stones and golden tickets to support this novel!

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The shooting of [Disconnected] was going to go on for another half month, but Aiden's scenes had been completed, so he left the set after a small farewell party.

But he didn't leave LA to go to New York.

He stayed there for another week to finish the recording with Grey, who had just returned from his Spain tour.

From the last time Aiden had seen, both of their careers had gone through quite a bit of ruckus.

Grey had successfully made a great comeback and had gone on to do housefull tours in Canada, France, Mexico and Spain. He had also released an EP which consisted of five songs which had done quite well on the charts, and the streaming numbers were also good enough.

Neu Entertainment, his record label, was promoting him hard as their premium artist and had no intention of moving on from him until Grey himself decided to start his own record label like so many other established singers.

That's why, when Aiden had contacted them for a song, Neu Entertainment was looking forward to it as it was another chance to cement Grey's position as a leading pop star all over the world.

Their only request was that the song needed to be a commercial pop song that would have all the necessary ingredients for it to get viral on short video platforms like Tiktak.

Record labels in recent times have found out how easy it was for a song to get viral on platforms like that. The song just needed to have beats and lyrics that would make an excellent 30-second video.

A lot of indie artists and songs had come up due to this, and it was touted as another phase in the music scene.

As for Aiden, he felt like it was going to mislead musicians into making more catchy and trendy music instead of a song that had a meaning behind it.

But he did understand how big of an opportunity it was for indie singers without any reliable connections.

So, he didn't mind taking up Neu Entertainment's request and made a catchy pop song.

In the past, Neu Entertainment had taken the help of short video platforms to popularise their songs, and it had worked as a marketing strategy quite well.

This time too, they were going for the same.

"I really think this would rule the charts for a long time."

Grey muttered, listening to the chorus part of the song and vibing alongside it. They had been recording since the morning; until now, only Grey's parts had been recorded.

"Let's hope it does. We are working hard on it."

Aiden said, and a man next to him opened his mouth.

"Can you sing your part next, Aiden? Just for a bit of practice. I think your vocal range has increased a lot in the past months. I kind of want to know what you could do at your current level."

The man was Toby Ellis, the sound engineer that had been actively working with Grey over the years. Aiden had earlier worked on 'Lonely' with Toby, and he was also the one to mention that Aiden was someone who was constantly improving.

Currently, he is assisting on the song 'Shiver'.

"Yeah, sure."

Aiden said and entered the recording booth.

Wearing the headphones, he picked up the paper on which the lyrics were written. As he was making more and more songs, it was getting harder for him to remember the lyrics of each of them.

He kinda wished that there would be a skill for that too.

"Should I go with the first verse?"

"Yeah. I will start the music."

"Okay."

Like that, the recording started, and Aiden took a deep breath feeling the music flowing. The retro piano beats came, and Aiden started singing.

His voice was followed by a silver light that he had mastered by now.

"When was the last time we were alone."

"Sitting beside the river, throwing stones."

"Just watching you."

"So, let's turn off the world tonight."

"Dancing under the moonlight with each other."

The song started off as a simple love song that has already become Aiden's natural style, but the music was completely different. Despite that, it suited the singing style, and it didn't feel off at all.

For this song, Aiden was going with a theme of a couple getting some time with each other after a long time. Though it started off like a love song, the song would slowly turn into a pop song with Grey joining Aiden at the pre-chorus.

The music would also become more cheerful.

The notes for the first verse were also in the low to medium zone as, unlike 'Firefly', this song needed to be easier to sing.

'He's certainly way better.'

Toby thought with an interesting smile on his face.

When he got the news that Aiden would be joining them to make another song, he tried to catch up on the songs he had released after 'Lonely'.

He realised that Aiden had improved a lot. His vocals really stood out when he sang a rock song like 'Revolution', and in 'Lost in the Sky', there were all sorts of emotions attached to each note.

In a word, Aiden was soaking up experience like a sponge and using it to increase his singing skills.

It was very fascinating to Toby, who had been in this business for years.

'Not a natural genius but a person who constantly improves.'

It was something very rare and needed a lot of hard work.

"Do you also feel that Aiden's voice has changed?" Grey suddenly said. "Like the voice itself, but he has gotten a lot of control, so he's able to change the voice a bit."

He had also noticed it. After all, he was an Intermediate Grade 7 singer with a special skill. He was one of the masters.

"Yeah, that kid is fascinating."

"I don't think he's going to stay a kid for long. 'Lonely' was released one and half years ago, and he's already a lot better than I had imagined."

Grey muttered and secretly thought that 'Shiver' was surely going to be way bigger than 'Lonely'.

"One, two, three…"

In a dance practice room, Rachel was practising her steps. Sweat was trickling down her forehead, but she still kept dancing.

Since the recording of 'Firefly', Rachel had made a resolve to get better by the time Aiden's album would be released. She still remembered a conversation she had with Aiden.

'I think 'Firefly' is going to be the main song of the album. We might have to perform it a lot because a lot of the marketing budget would go towards it.'

'Really? I thought you would go for a solo song for the main one.'

'Nah, 'Firefly' is the most complicated song, and it suits me the best.'

It was a short conversation but something that had motivated her a lot.

She was not going to perform just any song but the main song of an album. It was not her album, but in the last month, she had gotten attached to 'Firefly' a lot. She had practised it every day to get better at it.

Now she was confident that she would be able to perform it on stage.

As she was thinking all that, the music stopped, and Rachel stopped with it. Panting, she took deep breaths and sat down on the ground.

It was then that Linda walked in.

"Rachel, you are working hard today, too, as usual."

She smiled, and Rachel took a minute to respond. While tilting her head, she asked.

"You look to be in a good mood? Did something good happen?"

"Yeah." Linda nodded. "Yeah, I heard some good news. Aiden's album is confirmed to be released on March 18, and promotions are going to start just next week."

"Really?"

Rachel's expression brightened up hearing that. This was big news.

"It looks like you are going to need to shoot for the music video of 'Firefly' with Aiden. Apparently, they would be having music videos of 3-4 tracks and release the others by audio."

Music videos were a pretty good way to promote a song on MeTube, and some of these music videos would even get a billion views. There was almost an exclusive club of musicians whose songs have reached 1 billion views on MeTube because of how few songs do that.

Artists would usually hire actors for their music videos but sometimes, they would act on it themselves.

It mostly depended on what an artist wanted and how the record label wanted to promote him.

"Did you get to know about any shows? Which stages is he aiming for?"

"I don't really know a lot about it, but I'm pretty sure he's going to perform in a few music festivals. Even some award shows but going by the response; he might look for a bigger stage."

Linda said after thinking for a bit. There were so many stages all around America just, not to mention in other countries.

But a lot of it just depended upon the success of the album.

"What big stage?"

"Probably something like Radio City music hall. A stage that only top musicians could stand on."

New York City has a lot of stages that singers only dream of standing on. These were stages that were tourist attractions, and only top singers got a chance to perform.

Knowing Aiden, Linda was sure that he must be aiming for something like that.

…

/DreamNote/

Don't forget to use your power stones and golden tickets to support this novel!

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It didn't take a long time for Aiden to complete the recording with Grey.

Although Grey seemed like just another celebrity with his fair share of controversies and unique habits, he had a habit of never taking his work for granted.

Being an experienced and very professional musician, Grey gave all his time to the recording, and they managed to finish up the song just before March.

With that, only one more song was left to record in his album.

It was called 'Day', and it was a song about Aiden's fears as a celebrity and how he wondered he was going to change along the journey with all the fame and money coming his way.

It was a very soulful track with magical music, high notes and great lyrics and one that Aiden had finished during the shooting of [Disconnected].

After recording 'Shiver' with Grey, Aiden had straight returned to New York to complete the recording of the track and finally finish up his first album.

After that, he was going to get busy shooting music videos, promotions and then live shows would go on for a long time. Aside from that, there were also the auditions for [Sherlock of the Shadows] that were apparently going to happen in late April.

Thankfully, the project had been delayed a bit due to a lot of changes in the initial script of the series.

Otherwise, Aiden would not be able to do it with him being so busy with his album.

The next three months were going to be extremely packed for him.

"Aiden, can you go a bit higher at the end? I want to make the chorus a bit higher in volume too."

The sound engineer said, looking up at Aiden inside the recording booth. Behind the guy, Aiden's whole team was present.

It was because Aiden was currently on the final parts of 'Day', and the album was going to finally finish.

They wanted to witness it for themselves.

"Okay."

Aiden said, and the music started. He had used violin for the chorus of the song, an instrument that he rarely used before, but it had suited a lot to the feeling that he wanted to embed in the song.

Taking a breath, Aiden started singing.

"Would a day like that really come?"

"When I'm not speaking the truth when I'm just one in a group."

"Would a day like that really come?"

- "When I would wonder what it's like, to stand at the top with no one in sight."

"Ohh, I wonderrrr."

Like what the sound engineer said, Aiden tried to get the notes to go even higher at the end, especially at the last line.

Silver light burst out of him as he did that.

To the ones listening to it, Aiden's voice was really complimenting the music at the moment, even sounding magical at times with all the high notes and lyrics.

He had worked very hard on this song, and it was clearly showing.

Finally, after a while, Aiden stopped and got out of the recording booth. The white light slowly died down as he looked at the sound engineer who was listening to the last part again.

"It's good." He said. "I think we are done."

"Really?"

"Yeah, congratulations. You have completed your first album."

Hearing that, Aiden released a deep sigh and looked at Wade, who smiled back at him and laughed.

The other team members also cheered, and Jody quickly took out the champagne bottle that he had brought to celebrate.

"Haha, it's finally completed! You really worked hard on it."

"Yeah, all those 9 tracks were hard."

Aiden said, thinking of each of the 9 tracks.

'Firefly' was the main track made with Rachel.

'Shiver' was a pop song with Grey.

'Life is a story', 'I can't seem to forget' and 'Hold onto me' were singles he had released before, and he made them even better. this time

'Day' was an original that was very close to him because it was a song about his fears of the future.

The last three tracks were 'Are you okay?', a ballad song, 'Ghosts', which was a fusion song and 'Roles', a song about how society just pushes some roles on people even if they don't want it.

All three of them were the songs Aiden had made during shooting. It was a tough job, but he had managed to complete it finally.

"I never thought making an album would be so hard," Aiden said, sitting down to take a rest from all the singing.

"It's never easy. The good thing is that you completed it. Next will be just the music videos, and then we would just need to wait for the album to release. Trust me, it's going to—"

Ring! Ring!

As Wade was speaking, his phone suddenly started vibrating. He took it out and saw that it was a call from a reporter he knew.

'What happened now? Must be an interview call.'

He thought and picked it up, but the first words he heard shook him to the core.

"Hello, can you please give me an interview? I really want to know what Aiden thinks of his first Oscar nomination."

"What?" Wade made an odd expression. "What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you hear? Are you still clueless about it? Oscar nominations just came up, and Aiden's name is in it."

"What?! Wait! Let me call you later."

He cut the call like that, and Aiden looked at him, wondering what was happening. Sasha and Tom were also staring at him.

Jody and Lia were the only ones who were already drinking. George was also sitting next to them.

Ignoring everyone, Wade just opened the browser and searched for it. Oscar nominations were really out, and it was displayed on the official site of the Academy awards.

Scrolling down, Wade finally saw Aiden's name under one of the categories. For a second, he wondered if it was even true as his face froze.

He was not able to believe it.

"Wade, what happened?"

Aiden asked, and Wade's eyes glanced at him and his mouth opened before he knew it.

"Oscar nominations just came out. You are nominated for Best Original song. 'Lost in the Sky' is nominated!"

Oscar nominations were something very special every year as it was the award that everyone in the movie industry craved. Even though the craze for it had gotten less in recent years, it was still a prestigious award.

When the news came out that [30 days of Happiness] had won the 'People's choice award' at the Toronto film festival, a lot of people wondered whether it was going to get a nomination at the Oscars.

It seemed unlikely as the movie had a young cast and a debutant director. The Academy was known not to give out awards to young people in the industry, and one needed to have a lot of work behind them.

So, a nomination for Best Picture or Best Screenplay was something that was just a distant dream.

But a nomination in the 'Best Original song' category was different as it was not that famous in that category, and the competition was far less brutal too.

Moreover, [30 days of Happiness] was known more for his music than anything else.

So when Aiden got the nomination in the 'Best Original song' category, not many were surprised. Despite his age, the song that Aiden had made was something that was surely at a level of nomination.

The only reason why he might have even lost out on the 'Best Original score' nomination would have been his age and less experience.

Still, this news was something that was way too big for everyone involved with Aiden.

An Oscar nomination was a big thing that would get his name all over the world.

Soon, articles popped up about it.

Oscar nominations came out late this year, but we have some exciting names on the list. [DODA] and [Mad People] are in the race for Best Picture.

This year, Oscar nominations see a mixed group of people being nominated. There's going to be a lot of competition going on for the prize. Especially in categories like Best Actor and Best Picture.

Aiden Silvereye got an Oscar nomination for his song 'Lost in the Sky'. He might become one of the youngest to receive the award at the ceremony that is going to be held in April.

Leonardo Francisco lost out on a nomination once again. The youngest nominee is Aiden Silvereye for Best Original song for the movie [30 days of Happiness].

A lot of indie movies made up for the nominations alongside some commercial blockbusters that were a hit with both fans and critics. This year's Oscars are bound to be spicy.

Like that, articles kept pouring out one after another, and it soon started trending on Sparrow.

This year's Oscars was a bit late with the nominations due to various reasons, but when it finally came out, it made the news as most major Hollywood publications wrote articles on it.

Aiden was also talked about a lot as it was not just every day that a person who was not even American fully would get a nomination while being so young.

It was a huge deal.

As Aiden was too busy shooting and working on his album, he had not even realised that Oscar nominations were going to come. The other award shows had not been nominated [30 days of Happiness, so he did not really care about the Oscars this year.

So, it was like a bolt of thunder that hit him out of nowhere.

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If Aiden was being truthful, he had almost forgotten about the Oscar ceremony this year. It had nothing to do with the relevancy of the award show and was more so because of how busy Aiden's schedule was.

It was so hectic that he was living in a circle, from the set to making songs from his album. Those were the only two things relevant in his life, and he was not even in contact with his friends and relatives.

Still, the Oscar nominations were one of the surprises that he had liked a lot.

For a while, Aiden had not been able to believe that he actually had been nominated. It was kinda funny because, in his early days in America, he would often dream about winning an Oscar for Best Actor. Although he was nowhere near that category for now, 'Best Original song' was still a very big deal.

After all, he was one of the youngest to be nominated.

A nomination was a nomination no matter in which category.

Interview calls flooded him, and Sasha and Lia kept gawking, seeing the social media response. Of course, a lot of other nominees in more famous categories got way more hype, but on Aiden's social media handles and some celebrity forums, it became a huge deal.

Even in Aiden's home country, India, the news spread in the film fraternity and a lot of media houses covered it, even deciding to go to America to get an interview with Aiden.

After all, it had been over a decade since someone from India had been nominated in any category at the Oscars, so it was bound to be a big deal.

At least on social media, a lot of people were hoping for Aiden to bag the award.

Still, the chances of it were pretty low.

One of the journalists from Pop Zap magazine who covered the Oscar nominations wrote in his article, "For the 'Best Original Song' category, nominations were pretty good, and it's entirely on merit. The surprising part was still Aiden Silvereye, who composed and sang the song 'Lost in the Sky' that's now on the brink of winning an Oscar, but the chances of it are pretty low. Aiden, while talented, is pretty new to the industry and other nominees have more experience with equally great songs. He might just lose out because of those reasons, but the young man should be very proud of what he has achieved."

A lot of other people agreed with the point the journalist made, but the results were only going to be out in April.

Till then, all this was just speculation.

Aiden was already happy with the sudden nomination, and his mood brightened up quite a lot due to that. For a whole day, he was just busy handling the calls that were congratulating him.

"Yeah, Uncle Sam. I did see the list. Thanks. Yes, yes, I have a suit. What? It's pretty expensive too. I don't need another one."

"Hello, mom, you heard it too? Yeah, I will be attending the ceremony. I do think it's going to be broadcasted in India too."

"Leo, thanks. Did you get the invitation to the Oscars? Nice, then, let's meet there. I'm going to be busy this month with my album release. Otherwise, I would have come to LA to meet you."

Like that, a lot more phone calls came.

Omar, Cameron, Linchol, Zavier Lamb, Jesse, Dustin, Ray Hardy, Katie and even Rachel — Everyone congratulated him on the nomination.

Even his cousins from India called to congratulate him on the nomination.

It was that big of a deal.

Though the Oscars ceremony still had a month, the excitement was already building up.

Aiden's fan group was also very excited when they got to know that he had gotten an Oscar nomination. It was something that the majority weren't expecting.

Though, it was not the case with all, as some people were hoping for a nomination due to the People's choice award won at TIFF.

Older members such as Skyneves, Moaning Frodo, Chad Putin, Hollywood Insider, Young Fruit smiley were the ones that were the happiest. They had followed Aiden's journey since the beginning when he was just a fledgling on X-Star.

Just in two years, his destiny has completely changed.

The saying that life could turn any day was indeed true, as it was almost unfathomable that someone would go from driving taxis to getting an Oscar nomination in two years.

It was really a rags-to-riches story.

[Pikachu is my gf: What is happening? Why are there so many notifications? It happened as soon as I got my hands on the leaked video of— Anyway, what is going on here?]

[Papa Gorilla: Aiden apparently got nominated for Oscars. At first, I thought it was a joke, but it's actually true. It's on their official site and, by the way, link, please?]

[Pikachu is my gf: Damn, that's big news and no links, you horny bastard.]

[Skyneves: Yeah, it's very big news. I can't believe something like this happened. I really hope he wins.]

[Nacho Nacho: I doubt he would. The other nominees in the same category are pretty great. It's actually his bad luck that last year, there were few good musicals, so a lot of good songs were used in movies.]

[Husky Elon: Just a nomination is good enough, really. Knowing the academy, you need to be over 30 to be considered for the awards. Those jury members have some fetish in which they think inexperienced people can't win Oscars. I know young people have won it, but those are very rare, and at the time of winning, they already have an illustrious career.]

[Uncle Ben's soul: A happy day for me. Been following him since 'Hold onto me', and really glad his talent has been acknowledged. It gave me a reason to watch the Oscars this year.]

[Chad Putin: Ah, I don't care if he doesn't win. I will get him an award myself if he ever comes to my country. On this auspicious day, I might as well have a drink with my buddy 'The man from North Korea'.]

[Brother Suk yu: Is it only me, or are there too many political leaders here? The next is probably that white guy from Canada.]

[Reporter Huff: From what I'm hearing, Aiden could actually win the award. In the category he's nominated, it's mostly on merit and 'Lost in the Sky' was also a huge commercial hit, topping charts.]

[Hollywood Insider: Win or not, this is a big moment in his career. Until now, he was a guy who's everywhere, but people are waiting for him to fade as most eventually do. His Oscar nomination again made people realise his talent, and the performance of his upcoming album would decide if he's here to stay or not. In this industry, one bad project and you start struggling. #HappyFan]

Although the Oscar nomination was a pretty great thing for Aiden, he didn't really get a lot of time to celebrate it, and from his point of view, there was no point celebrating it until he had actually won.

So, from the next day, he focused on his album.

After the songs were completed, they still needed to get a good theme for the album cover and a name for it. Many singers would just go with their artist name as the album name these days, but Aiden didn't want that.

He wanted to show the theme of the album more in the name.

In the end, after a meeting, they decided to name the album 'Stories'.

It was named such because of the stories that Aiden had based the songs on. Some of the stories were inspired by his life and some by others, but the main theme was just that, and it suited the whole narrative quite well.

For the photo on the cover, they just decided to go with a dusky colour pallet with Aiden standing on a cliff. It was an artistic decision, and Aiden didn't mind it too much.

It took a whole day at a studio that they had booked to get the album cover done, and after that, he got busy shooting the music videos.

Music videos were very necessary to any album as if they got famous, a lot of people would go check out the album or at least stream them on Melody and other apps like that.

They decided to shoot music videos for 'Firefly', 'Shiver' and 'Day'. These were the main songs in the album, with two of them featuring other artists.

As Grey had other works, they just decided to hire two actors to shoot the music video for 'Shiver', and for 'Firefly' and 'Day', Aiden himself was going to feature in it with Rachel accompanying him for the former.

Wade hired a professional crew that was very experienced in shooting music videos.

Truth be told, if Aiden hadn't gotten the money from [30 days of Happiness, it would have been a bit difficult to shoot high-quality music videos.

It would have been fine still, as he was earning quite well with his movies and endorsements. Just for [Disconnected, he had gotten 300k dollars which was his highest paycheck from a movie till now other than [30 days of Happiness].

But having the backup of millions in his account, he was able to go for the best production team to shoot his music videos.

…

/DreamNote/

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

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"You need to move like that. Aiden, your choreography is simple, so just try to look graceful."

A choreographer said as she looked at Aiden, and he awkwardly nodded his head.

He was currently in a dance practice room that was booked for dance lessons for the music video that they were going to shoot. Rachel was also practising with him as she had flown over from LA yesterday.

"Look at Rachel, she has gotten most of the hard parts in the music video, but she's doing it so well."

She looked at Rachel, who was standing next to Aiden. A smile appeared on her face hearing that. She had been practising hard in her dance, so she was glad to get some approval.

"I just never danced before."

Aiden sighed. His body was slim but not flexible enough. He was also hesitant in his steps. It was to a degree where he didn't even have a dancing skill.

He was truly a beginner.

"It's just for the music video. You don't have to dance in a live performance." Rachel turned towards him and said.

For the music video, the director was going for the background of a circus with Rachel using ropes to dance and spin in the air. They were using a body double for the difficult and dangerous parts, but there were still a lot of hard ones that Rachel needed to do.

As for Aiden, his parts were pretty easy, and he just needed to give expressions with very minimum dancing.

"I know. I should have focused a bit on dancing before. Now that I think of it, it's an important aspect of a live performance."

Aiden said, and Rachel nodded her head.

"Yeah, that's why I learned it, but you are not a performer. You are a complete musician, and there's no need for you to dance to entrance the audience."

That was Rachel's thinking.

Although a lot of singers have ensemble dance crews and would give a complete performance whenever they appeared on stage like Grey, there were also singers who looked like the traditional image of a musician.

Artists who would hold a guitar in their hand and just sing. Just their voice was enough to captivate the audience in a trance-like state.

Aiden was obviously the latter.

"I know, but it's a good skill to have. I won't need it for my current album, but maybe in the future, I will get into it. It would also help in making my body a bit more flexible."

"Yeah. Maybe I can teach you some easy moves later on?" Rachel asked after thinking for a bit.

"Oh, that would be great."

Aiden said, wondering if he would get a dancing skill by that. Even a skill at Level 1 was good enough for him.

As soon as he got the skill, he would be able to level it up slowly like a video game character.

"Let's get back to practice now!"

The choreographer shouted, glaring at Aiden and Rachel, who were talking in the middle of a practice session.

She was a professional who had worked with a lot of music videos, so she wasn't caring about Aiden's or Rachel's status as celebs.

Like that, the practice went on.

Days went by fast as Aiden shot the music video for 'Firefly' and 'Day'. The former was a pretty hard music video to shoot for him, but the latter was pretty easy as it didn't have any dance movies.

A week before the album's release, they released the music video for 'Firefly'.

Aiden was very nervous about it as it was the first song out from his debut album. They worked really hard on the music video, and the song was good too, but he didn't know how it was going to be taken by the audience.

It was actually important for the music video to do well as on 17th March, there was going to be a showcase for the release of 'Stories'. Cyco media wanted to hold it as it was a good way to promote the album.

In the showcase, both Rachel and Aiden were going to perform 'Firefly', and even Grey was going to join him for 'Shiver'. So there was a need for the music video to be taken well by the audience.

Not only Aiden but his whole team was also very nervous.

They were a very small team and it was their first big project. They needed it to do well no matter what.

"Do you think this office is a joke? You need to work hard. That's why we have employed you. Not to just waste your time in front of a computer. I told you to get the reports done by today morning. Why are they not done yet?!"

"Sir, I told you a family emergency came yesterday. My relative had an accident—"

"I don't fucking care even if your relative dies. Do you understand?"

The man nodded and lowered his head, trying not to meet the gaze of his boss and his colleagues, who were sending him sympathising glances.

This was a morning routine for his boss. Picking anyone and just let out his anger on them for every small reason.

He simply didn't care that it was harassment and he was creating a toxic work environment. Due to inflation, the man couldn't even leave his job.

'Fuck my boss and the government.'

Thinking that he endured the scolding, and after it was over, he dejectedly sat down on his seat and started doing his work, but his mind was a mess.

He didn't like being belittled like this, but there was no choice.

"Fuck you. I'm glad your wife left you, and now you need to spend money on your divorce too. I hope you go bankrupt too."

The man muttered as he worked, but the scolding wasn't leaving his mind. Every word of his boss stung him in his heart, and he deliberated whether he should just punch his boss and leave.

It was at that moment that his phone got a notification, getting him out of his thoughts.

Frowning, he picked it up and saw that it was a notification from MeTube. One of the channels he followed had just posted a new video.

When he looked closely at it, he saw that it was from Aiden Silvereye, one of the artists he followed because he liked 'Lost in the Sky'.

- "'Firefly', is it a new song?"

The man muttered and looked around. His boss was nowhere to be seen, and at this point, he didn't actually care a lot.

Getting his headphones out off a desk, he plugged them into his phone and clicked on the video.

On his phone screen, the lights were dimmed, but the man was able to make out that it was a stage. At that moment, Aiden walked in, and music started.

Then Aiden opened his mouth.

"I closed my eyes so I could reach."

"The world that could be mine and yours."

"Walking the path through the darkness only to reach your door."

"I'm on the path to do something that no one did before."

The lyrics were only in a whisper, but the man was already hooked after the first verse. It sounded like a very beautiful song, and he just got lost in it slowly.

His mind cleared up as the thoughts of his boss and the embarrassment he felt finally stopped bothering him, and then the man just focused on the song.

At the end of the music video, the man had already decided to order Aiden's album.

A song had managed to make his day better.

Not only just the man, but other people all around the world were also noticing the song, and it was quickly spreading with the help of social media.

Aiden, Rachel and Cyco media each promoted it on their social media handles, and then their fans quickly watched the video.

The three-minute video was very beautiful, with Aiden's and Rachel's vocals standing out alongside the great music and lyrics.

Many people forwarded it on their social media and friend groups, and just on the first day, the video got over 6 million views which was a great start.

[Tired Author: Guys! Go and check Aiden's new song. It's very pretty. Damn! The music video looked awesome, and the song is great too. I'm pre-booking Aiden's album if all the songs are going to be that good.]

[Tate Jr: I never expected such a great song from Aiden. The high vocal and tonal shifts make it great. Man's a naturally talented composer. Respect!]

[Jerry's daughter: I really resonated with the lyrics a lot. The song about forbidden love really touched my heart. I didn't use to like Aiden before because he didn't look handsome, but I'm a fan from now on.]

[Lolicon hunter: I'm seeing Rachel after a long time. She's so pretty in those dance moves. I really wonder why she didn't have a single release for months. She was the main highlight for me in the song. I subscribed to her MeTube too.]

[Doctor Man: I forwarded the song to all my family, and they all loved it. My daughter even told me that my music tastes had improved.]

[The Rat King: I finally found such a good music video after so long. The theme of the song really comes through, and both the singers are really amazing. No wonder Aiden got an Oscar nomination.]

…

/DreamNote/

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'Firefly' popularity quickly spread due to a lot of reasons. The music video was visually great, and everyone could see that a lot of money had gone into it. The song itself was a great one, and everyone was mesmerised by it.

Aiden's fans had not thought that one day he was going to collaborate with Rachel, the person who had eliminated him on X-Star.

But it was a pleasant surprise.

A lot of people were astonished by Rachel's high vocals, which hadn't been used properly in her previous songs and were in awe of it. Her dance moves were praised a lot too.

As for Aiden, his style of composing suited 'Firefly' a lot and everyone could see that he had exceeded himself this time.

The high vocals, great lyrics and the way of singing — Everything was top-notch.

He was praised a lot for his composing too. One of the music critics tweeted, "Aiden Silvereye 'Firefly' seems like the song that clearly shows a great musician's potential. He seems to have a knack for getting better and better with each song. The Oscars might really be his this time. I'm going to get my hands on his first album and put it on my wall as I feel like this is the beginning of a legend."

Many thought that the tweet was exaggerated, but many appreciated it too. Though, the views on the music video were just saying one picture.

On the first day, it got 6 million views.

On the second, the number was up to 14 million, and on the third day, it finished at 21 million. By the end of the first week, the music video had already gotten 43 million views and was a huge hit.

It was slowly going towards the 100 million mark, and by this time, everyone was sure that no one would be able to stop it.

"We are getting a lot of great comments. Over 40 percent of them mention you. Some are even asking you to release more solo songs, and the subscriber count of your channel has also increased."

Linda said, looking up at Rachel, who, for a change, had a smile on her face. They were talking in a cafe.

"I saw. I read all the comments. It… it feels nice."

Rachel said. It was after a while that she saw so many comments about herself. The best thing was that most of these were very positive, and it felt like her resurgence in her career was finally happening.

"How's the company's response?" Rachel asked, and Linda gathered her words before speaking.

"It's pretty good. They are very happy that the song is doing so well." Linda said. "Currently, they are just monitoring all of it, especially comments about you."

"Are they going to finally give me another chance?"

Rachel asked, her eyes gazing at Linda's face. 'Firefly' was a huge opportunity for her not only because it was her first song in a while but also because it was her opportunity to prove herself to Cyco media that she was someone worth investing in.

Cyco media was also obviously keeping a close eye on how the audience would react to her.

"Honestly, I can't say for now. The music video is surely making an impact, but we will only know after all of your live shows with Aiden are finished. I'm hoping for positive news, though."

Linda said, and Rachel nodded her head, trying not to think about it. In the end, she changed topics.

"The showcase is tomorrow."

"Yeah, a lot of media reporters are called, and many fans that won the contest are also going to be there. So, the sales largely depend on the reception. Though 'Firefly' already managed to impress a lot of people."

Linda said. They held an online social media competition to get tickets to the showcase for 'Stories'. It got a lot of Aiden's fans interested, and a good amount of people were going to be there.

"Are you confident about giving a good live performance?"

"Yeah, I feel like I would be able to."

"Okay."

Linda muttered, and before she could say anything else, a group of friends sitting adjacent to them stood up and walked towards them.

"Hello, are you Rachel Rose?" One of the girls asked, and as soon as Rachel nodded, she became excited. "Oh my god! I can't believe I'm meeting you here. I'm listening to 'Firefly' on loop. I loved it. Can you give me an autograph?"

"Ah, yeah, sure."

Rachel was a bit surprised to hear that, but she didn't waste any time giving out autographs. Seeing all this, Linda just smiled to herself.

She couldn't remember the last time a fan had asked Rachel for an autograph.

Like many people who would get momentarily famous through reality tv shows, Rachel had also started to fade away in the last few months, but the last week had changed that.

The sight in front of her was proof of it.

'I'm so happy that she's finally getting a resurgence.'

The sky was as dark as it could be, and the rain gods were not holding it back today.

It looked like the whole city was going to drown today, and people wondered why it was raining when it was the month of March.

Inside the hall that was booked for the showcase of 'Stories', a lot of reporters, celebrity guests, and fans were present. A lot of security guards were walking around, making sure that no one tried to do anything funny today.

Especially with Aiden already being stabbed once in the past.

"Ah, this showcase looks pretty good. I didn't know Aiden Silvereye was going to become so big this quickly."

"Yeah, apparently, Cyco media is partnering up on the album with him and handling a lot of things. He lucked it out, getting good connections with one of the leading record labels."

"Yeah, but I think it's pretty much a mutual partnership. Business is one thing, but talent is unique. Going by how 'Firefly' is doing on the charts and MeTube, he's someone worth investing in."

Two reporters talked among themselves, standing in the showcase. They were from a Hollywood magazine and were talking about Aiden and his supposed rise in the music industry.

He was now treated as someone extraordinary in the music scene for being an Oscar nominee and a successful artist.

That's why a lot of discussions were happening about him among different groups of people present in the showcase.

Reporters were wondering about what questions to ask him and, at the same time, discussing the performance of the album.

"There's going to be an interview, too, right?" One of the reporters asked his senior.

"Yeah, they are going to conduct one after the showcase. Apparently, Grey and Rachel are both going to perform with him on different songs. I really wonder if they are going to sound great live."

"Ain't Grey a great artist?"

"Yeah, I'm not worried about him. Rachel is a better one to look into as she was rumoured to be disregarded by Cyco media. No one knows how she sounds live. So, we could write articles if 'Firefly' doesn't sound good live."

At another corner, a few reporters were having a similar discussion.

"'Firefly' is really making waves. I think it might hit the top 5 on the Melody charts like this. It's already top of the new song charts. They didn't even promote it a lot."

"They banked on Aiden's current reputation, and the Oscar nomination helped. As the song was good enough, it spread easily. Though, there were still doubts about the quality of other songs."

"What do you mean?"

"I heard that the other songs in the album are just sub-par. The one with Grey might be average, but there are a lot of chances that others might be total duds. He apparently made the songs in a few months, and he was shooting a movie at the same time. There's no way he would get all of them right."

"So, you are saying that 'Firefly' was the best one, and they are trying to salvage the album on just that."

"Yeah, everything will be revealed in the showcase."

As 'Firefly' was doing so good, Aiden was bound to be a hot topic. Because of that, a lot of discussions happened before the live performance between the reporters.

Some of them were sure that the album wouldn't do well, while others believed that rather than good songs, the album might do well because no other artist was releasing anything currently.

There was no current competition in the mainstream.

A lot of them had also come here just to get a chance to interview Aiden about his Oscar nomination, the drama on the sets of [Disconnected] and other things related to him.

For the album, they had pretty low expectations, mostly because Aiden didn't have the resources that a lot of top record labels had, and he had composed all the songs himself.

After all, he couldn't keep making good songs all the time.

But when the showcase finally began and Aiden and Rachel came on stage to sing, the reporters, who were ready to write articles on how the song couldn't be sung properly live, were dumbfounded.

The same sort of reactions came out with 'Shiver' and even when Aiden performed 'Day'.

"How can this be?"

"Why are all the songs in the album so good?"

"Damn! It sounds even better live. They surely have worked a lot on it."

"Hit! This is going to be a big hit."

…

/DreamNote/

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When Aiden first appeared on the stage, a loud cheer went up, with fans cheering him on. There were even a few from his fan group that were in the crowd, cheering him on.

The reporters were the only ones skeptical as Rachel and Aiden began their performance on 'Firefly'.

They were sitting at a separate stand where all the media personnel were.

As soon as it started, their faces went from mild shock to astonishment to thoroughly enjoying the performance.

Anyone with a little music knowledge would know that 'Firefly' was a hard song to perform live, but all doubts diminished due to the performance.

Both of their voices were great, the diction was as good as it could be, and the notes were touching the sky. The chorus was especially one that made people shocked with wide eyes.

It was clear that both of them had worked a lot on the song to sing it so well, especially Rachel, who seemed to be giving her all in the performance.

The reporters were not able to stop themselves from whispering.

"Hey, isn't that too good? They are performing it seamlessly. Who was the idiot who said that the song can't be performed live."

"You said that, idiot. Anyway, I think Rachel is gonna hit it big soon. She has actress looks, a great body and her voice is like an angel. Cyco media is stupid not to invest more in her."

"Yeah, I'm going to write an exclusive article on her as soon as the showcase ends. There's enough material with her obscurity after X-Star."

The event went on like that, and soon, 'Firefly' ended, and after a short break, Grey entered the stage to sing with Aiden. Before the song, the reporters were ready to compare it to their previous collaboration, 'Lonely,' but when they started, they realised that it was far better.

'Shiver' was a staple pop song with groovy music and lyrics that suited it, especially with the uniqueness of Grey's vocals and his energy with Aiden's pure voice that seemed to suit each type of song.

"Grey is going to rule the industry for five more years at least. He's the best in the pop scene."

"His last hit was also due to Aiden, and I think he could only do that with his help. Just look at him, this song is surely going to get millions of views."

"I would be surprised if it didn't."

Next was 'Day' which was going to be a solo of Aiden, and compared to the previous two songs, it started off pretty slow, being from a completely different genre and having a slow tempo initially.

But when it picked up, everyone felt a magical feeling.

There was a kind of mysticism in the song that easily touched the soul, with lyrics being one of the main features of the song. Aiden's fears as a celebrity were easily conveyed, and at this point, the reporters were convinced of one thing.

"This album is going to be a banger. A huge hit!"

"He's truly the next big deal in music. The rumours weren't exaggerated at all. With the Oscar nomination too, there's no doubt."

"Aiden Silvereye is going to rule the music industry for years to come!"

[You have gained a lot of experience.]

[You have advanced to Intermediate Grade 4 from Intermediate Grade 3 in your singing skill.]

[Your knowledge of singing has grown.]

[You have exceeded all your expectations. The skill 'Empathy' is becoming stronger.]

[A small gift has been given to you for your efforts. You have gotten the skill 'Lyric screen'. Now, you can check the lyrics of your song while singing.]

[Your level in instrumental skills has increased. You have gained a lot of experience.]

[More rewards would be given after the album release.]

Notifications blinded him as soon as all the performances in the showcase ended. It was to a point where Aiden nearly fell down due to them, but after getting a breathing space, he slowly read them all out.

When he saw that his skill level had improved, Aiden was obviously happy, but the thing that interested him was the 'Lyric screen'.

As all the skills from the system were something that helped him a lot, he was glad that he had gotten one more, and this seemed to be something small but significant as Aiden didn't want to forget his lyrics while on the stage.

The last notification screen also interested him as he wondered what he would get after his album would release at 12 AM, right after the end of the showcase.

'Let's check up on the skill.'

Aiden thought of the song 'Firefly' and a screen opened in front of him, similar to the ones on Melody. With that, he didn't have to worry about forgetting the lyrics of his song.

"Aiden, let's go. The press conference is beginning."

As he was checking up on the skills, Wade walked up to him backstage. The showcase also had a press conference where fans and reporters would be able to ask him questions.

Rachel and Grey would also join him.

"Coming."

Aiden said, deciding to think of his system later.

Now, as the reporters were sure that the album was a justified great one, they could no longer ask questions like 'The song is lacklustre. Do you think you rushed the album?'.

They could only ask questions related to the making of the album, Aiden's Oscar nomination and his acting career. At the same time, the reporters wanted to also focus on the controversies.

Just the first question they asked was about [Disconnected].

"I'm from Hollywood Weekly, and I want to ask about the recent controversy between Seth Douglas and Jesse Ross on the sets of [Disconnected]. As you worked on the project, what do you have to say about it? Did time on the set soured because of their fight?"

"I actually have nothing to say about that. I think that was already cleared a while back, and the time on the set was pretty good."

That was a basic answer, and Aiden refused to say anything else. In the first place, he wasn't going to restart the controversy as it could negatively affect [Disconnected].

Moreover, this was not a press conference related to the movie.

Thankfully, the next few questions were better.

"What do you think about your Oscars credentials?" A female reporter asked in a British accent, and Aiden took a while to answer it.

"I am trying not to think about it, actually. It's an honour to be nominated with another great artist, and I would be happy if I won. If I don't, I might try again next year."

After that, a burly reporter had a question with both Grey and Aiden.

"How did you two end up making 'Shiver'? How was the song idea produced?"

Grey was the one to reply first.

"Actually, Aiden called me about it, and I agreed quickly. A chance to work with him again wasn't something I was going to let go of. As for the production, it's better for Aiden to answer that."

Grey looked at Aiden, who smiled.

"Actually, I kept sending Grey a lot of samples, but he kept rejecting them. I got the main tune of 'Shiver' randomly, and thankfully, Grey liked it. It was a pretty hard process till then, but after I knew what sort of song we wanted to go with, it was very quick."

The reporter was satisfied with the answer, and they moved on to other questions. A lot of reporters from different publications asked tons of questions, and surprisingly, Rachel turned out to be bombarded with them alongside Aiden.

It was because reporters were interested to know how Rachel and Aiden ended up working together and how their relationship had changed since the reality show.

To that, Rachel had a simple reply.

"I actually never thought we would work together, and it just happened when he was looking for a female voice for 'Firefly'. I'm glad he isn't the type to hold grudges against people. Otherwise, we wouldn't have worked together."

She smiled as she hinted at Aiden's loss at X-Star to her.

After the press conference was over with the reporters, some of the fans were given a chance to ask questions from Aiden and others.

Compared to the reporters, the fans didn't hold back against asking any questions and just satisfied their curiosity.

One of those questions was from a female friend who looked too happy to ask a question from Aiden.

"Hello, can you tell me if you and Katie Brooks are actually dating or not? The media said that, but you have never given a statement on it."

Aiden also didn't hold back hearing that question.

"I never commented on it because we never dated. It's something that the media thought of themselves. Actually, I'm pretty sure they are going to link me up with other people, too, in the future. Maybe even Rachel." Aiden looked at her before continuing. "At this rate, I'm pretty sure I would be the last one to know who I'm in a relationship with."

His answer made everyone laugh, and a reporter who had already decided to write a link-up rumour about him and Rachel coughed to hide his embarrassment.

The media was infamous for making couples out of nowhere, and they couldn't even say anything against it.

The press conference went like that, and it ended up being a great showcase event.

As soon as it ended, the album was released, and coincidentally, the rain also ended then with the clouds opening up to reveal a bright morning.

…

/DreamNote/

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The album 'Stories' already had 20k pre-sales before the release, but when all the songs were released and the first reaction of the press about it was made public, it truly blew up.

Aiden Silvereye's debut album 'Stories' is a fresh surprise from the talented musician. You won't regret giving it a listen as it truly blends all sorts of genres together with some truly chartbusters.

'Firefly', which is slowly rising on the charts and is now at 1 on the Top 50 new singles charts, comes out as the best song in the album, but the others are not going to disappoint.

Rachel Rose, Grey and Aiden Silvereye gave out sizzling performances on the showcase of Aiden's debut album 'Stories'. This one is surely one that would cement his place as a mainstream musician.

Aiden Silvereye and his musical talent shine on the showcase of his album. His new songs are quickly rising through the ranks and are becoming more and more famous.

The music video of 'Shiver' was also released at the same time, and 'Day' was going to be released a week later. With all the good media coverage, the album was bound to get eyeballs.

A lot of people streamed new songs like 'Roles' and 'Day' on Melody and liked them a lot. Knowing that the songs were great, they didn't hesitate to buy the album.

The age of physical vinyl was already gone, so digital albums were the ones that were selling the most. In the first place, songs were accessible to the public, and they could just watch the music video on MeTube or stream all the songs on Melody.

The artist would earn mostly from the ad revenue in that case.

As for the charts, 'Firefly' was already dominating the new singles chart and was at number 7 on the Top singles chart in America.

'Shiver' opened up at number 16 and 'Day' at 21, and his other songs also opened up quite close, but most of them made it to the Top 50 on the charts, and this wasn't just the case in America.

Earlier, Aiden's songs had spread to other countries quite later, and the major popularity was still based in America, but this year, his album's songs dominated other countries' charts too.

'Firefly' was even at 10 in the UK and 17 in Canada. They had just been released a while back, and with just more and more people getting to know them, their popularity was just going to increase.

At this point, it was not wrong to say that 'Stories' was going to be a massive hit, and the executives in Cyco media were already dancing in joy, knowing that they had made a great decision by partnering up with Aiden.

The comments on Sparrow and other online forums were abundant, as a lot of people were talking about it.

[Penguin leg fetish: Why is 'Firefly' trending on Sparrow at 24? What is that even?]

[Lego Girlfriend: @Penguin leg fetish You can make a tweet about it but can't just click on it to know what it's about? How weird are people these days? Anyway, that trend is about a song, and the singer's fans are trending it. I don't mind, as the song is pretty much chef's kiss.]

[Goats are cool: I ordered a digital album just today, and I loved every song out of it. Aiden is truly a genius songwriter. I hope he achieves more success and gives way better songs as he truly has the talent.]

[Rachel's Simp club President: After listening to 'Firefly', I hereby announce that the dead fan group of Rachel Rose is truly revived. She still has the voice and most certainly the face, arm, feet and… cough! My friends, let's spam Cyco media social media handle, demanding a single by Rachel.]

[Jesus's Grandma: My grandson doesn't like today's music, but even he liked 'Firefly' and 'Day'. I ordered a physical copy of the album to give him on his birthday.]

[Aiden's wife: Does anyone have tickets to Aiden's shows? Preferably in New York? I am willing to buy it at twice the price or thrice. I just need to be a part of his show.]

[Chinese novels hater: I only liked 'Day' and 'Shiver' out of the whole album. The other songs are pretty meh, but they are still average. I was expecting more, but I understand how hard it is to make a good song. At least Aiden took his time and didn't make his songs trashy like certain novels.]

[Phobia of having phobia: I was there on the showcase, and damn! It was some event. The live performances were great, and in the fan questions round, Aiden really acted sweet with the audience while taking jabs at the media. By the way, Rachel is gorgeous.]

"80,000 freaking sales in just a week. Man's a fucking freak."

A man said, sighing and looking at the ceiling wall. It looked white and blank with dust in the corner. Pretty much how his life had become.

"I know right." One of his colleagues said, putting down a water bottle and sitting next to him.

Both of them were employees from Cyco media working in the HR department. 'Stories' being such a big hit was the talk of the whole company, and everyone was talking about it.

"How much do you think Aiden would earn by it?" The man looked at him.

"Probably a million but a lot less after taxes for sure." His colleague said after thinking about it for a bit. Singers earned a lot from sales and streams, but stuff like sponsorships and concerts pay way more.

So, the number was surely going to be in tens of millions.

"Even I don't like taxes." The man frowned. "If I had a million dollars, I would just leave for Las Vegas, get some strippers and just enjoy being there for a month."

"Knowing you, you are going to lose all that in a week in gambling."

The man laughed and turned the subject back to Aiden and the magnificent sales of his album.

"You know our company hit the jackpot by getting a deal with him. The last big album of ours failed, but this one really hit it out of the bag."

"Yeah, I remember other record labels laughing at us when we made a deal with Aiden, saying that now we are at the level of working with indie artists, and now they are crying."

"After all, he's a mainstream indie artist now."

Big record labels rarely work with artists other than theirs, and Aiden's case was very peculiar as Steven, the owner, had a good impression of him, and he had an identity as a composer too. The logistics and planning team had deemed it a very good deal with a high chance of getting back the investment.

In the end, it worked out.

"Man, I heard they are even giving bonuses to the marketing team that worked on the song. I wish I was in it." His colleague said. "Rachel, who was thrown out a few months ago, is also benefiting a lot from it."

"Really?"

The man raised an eyebrow at that.

"Yeah, the PR team has been getting too many calls for a week now about Rachel. Reporters are very excited to know her next move, and the department is very happy about it. They did think that Rachel is a complete package, and now, she's finally living up to expectations."

"True, she was very lucky, but I guess she deserved it."

"Yeah, she's one of the better ones. Though you don't know when they would become arrogant out of nowhere. Celebs do get everything easily if they are famous."

They talked a bit more about Rachel before the man talked about a very interesting rumour that was currently circulating in the whole company.

"Apparently, they are trying to contact Radio City Music hall for a performance there. It's one of the biggest places in America. They don't normally give out the hall to anyone, but this time, they are trying their best. Apparently, Aiden would get into acting again in May, so they tried to end the live shows with a big bang. Though, I'm pretty sure he's going to go for a world tour after his acting gigs."

In an office room, two men in suits were talking to each other. From their posture, it was a business discussion, and they looked pretty serious about it as they talked.

If Aiden was here, he would have recognised one of the men as Steven McDonald, the owner of Cyco media, and the man in front of him was a director.

Currently, they were talking about Aiden.

"Steven, I really think you should talk to Aiden once. That guy has great talent and everything that our company needs. We should try to get him as he's not in a contract with anyone."

The director said, but Steven shook his head.

"I told you I have tried before. Aiden doesn't want to be under anyone, no matter how good of a deal it may seem. That guy is resolute and very special. He's the only person I know who didn't even reach the grand finale of X-Star, but so quickly rose through the ranks."

"You are not thinking for our benefits."

"If you want, you can try it. It's a good thing if he agrees. I don't think you're going to stop it until he rejects you."

Steven said, frowning. He was tired of the director's constant cribbing about giving Aiden a contract.

"Okay, I will do it myself. Anyway, I don't plan to talk to Aiden in the first place. I heard he and his agent are pretty close. It's easier to persuade agents."

The director smirked as he said that.

…

/DreamNote/

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As the album was doing so well, a lot of people were talking about Aiden. He had a lot of events to promote his album, so whenever he went, he met a lot of people.

All of them had only positive things to say about him.

"I love your album. The concept, music videos and your voice. All of them sound so perfect. I'm really glad it's working so well."

"Aiden, can I get an autograph, please? My playlist is filled with your songs, and I listen to them before sleeping every day. They really give off such peaceful vibes."

"I've been following you since I saw you on X-Star. You have really come a long way since. Do you mind clicking a selfie with me? I will cherish it all my life."

These types of compliments were given to him almost every hour as he went from one show to another. At the same time, more and more event companies were trying to book him for a show.

Unfortunately, Aiden was only going to do the live shows for a month, and in between that, there were Oscars and the audition for [Sherlock of the Shadows] too.

Wade and he had decided that if they passed the audition, they were going to focus on it and hold off a singing tour that was now already pending. If they didn't pass the audition, they were going to start the tour straight.

In between this, one of the major music magazines, 'Record', posted an article on Aiden.

The article managed to get famous as a lot of people read it and agreed with it.

Aiden Silvereye — The birth of an indie mainstream artist that vows to take the world by storm.

Singers who become stars normally have a lot of things in common. A highly documented life, a large number of fans, a few scandals, great songs and in some cases, drugs and criminal cases.

One more thing that is common is the record labels that handle them.

Even though the popularity of record labels has diminished since the 2000s, with apps like Melody coming up, it's still undeniable that they hold most of the major singers in the country and other parts of the world. Their connections and resources are still something one can't fight against.

Although indie artists get a lot of support from apps like Melody and MeTube, most of them can't break down the big wall standing between them to finally become a mainstream artist.

But in just two years, one singer managed to achieve something countless others weren't able to.

Aiden Silvereye, who came out of nowhere, managed to do things that none had been able to accomplish before. Was it luck? Or he's just a genius born once in a century? We believe that it's a mix of talent, luck and the persistence of a person who knows how to take an opportunity with both hands.

Let's look at his career after he was eliminated from X-Star.

Our reports suggest that during that time, a record label had contacted him and given him a contract, but he had rejected them, citing reasons that he wanted to focus both on his singing and acting.

His career blew up after that with viral songs and a few movie offers, but most people got to know him when he made the news for protecting one of his bandmates during an attack on stage; his persona changed in front of the public.

After that, Aiden played one right card after another by composing his own superhit movie soundtrack to making giant strides in his acting career…

The article got very famous for writing down Aiden's career till now and providing answers to his current popularity. One of these was how Aiden was a fresh change for a celebrity.

He was someone who didn't show off the stuff he had on social media. In fact, his social media was mostly dead until one of his projects came up. This made people see him as someone mysterious. There were almost no real-life photos of him on social media as he was a very private person.

The audience had also gotten tired of seeing the same type of celebrities and hearing bad things about them, so they gave Aiden a chance, and his content spoke for itself.

His songs were great, roles were well-liked, and he got the parts that had the potential to become classics, and he thoroughly owned it.

In the end, the article ended with a question asking if Aiden was able to maintain his popularity. After all, it was way harder to maintain popularity than to get it.

Relevancy was the key to a celebrity's career.

"Aiden, that was great!"

"I love you. Please make me your girlfriend."

"You are so handsome."

Spotlights of different colours fell on Aiden as he looked at the crowd, cheering and waving their hands in front of him. It was a spectacular feeling to be standing here, performing in front of them.

Something that was hard to explain.

As he grew in stature, the stages on which he performed just became bigger and bigger every time.

"Thank you for coming here today. I'm now going to perform 'Firefly'. Hope you all would like it."

Another cheer went up hearing that.

He took a deep breath and started singing again with the music accompanying his vocals. This was his 4th show of the day, but he was feeling energised like it was still his first.

"With that, it's over. I will go to sleep right away. No, I feel like I might just sleep in the car."

Aiden said, leaning against his seat and glancing at Wade, who was driving the car.

They were just returning from another show, and it had been another exhausting day. Shaking his head, Wade muttered.

"I would drop you at your home fast. I want to rest too. Tomorrow is a big day, after all."

"Yeah, the Oscars are tomorrow."

Aiden said, looking outside. The sky was pitch black and was covered with clouds.

The Oscar ceremony was going to be held tomorrow, and Aiden was very excited about it, so much so that he was dreaming about winning an Oscar even in his dreams. Though, for some reason, every time, the award was given by a black, eyepatch-wearing guy.

"You booked Miranda for tomorrow, right?" Aiden asked, looking up at Wade, who nodded his head.

"Obviously, I'm not going to make any mistakes. It's your first Oscar appearance and nomination. You need to look the best out of everyone. A good impression is a great way to start, and you will probably meet most of the big wigs tomorrow. A lot of them would want to talk to you at the after-party, and I won't be there with you. You need to handle everything yourself."

"Leo and Omar are going to be there too. Katie had gotten an invite too."

Aiden replied, but Wade shook his head.

"They would be there in the ceremony, but after that, there's a lot of chance that you are going to go to separate after parties. From what I know, Leo has a project with Interactive Movies next, so he's probably going to go to the party hosted by them."

Interactive Movies was one of the Big 6 studios in the current Hollywood landscape. Zero International and Titan studios were the two others that Aiden had previously worked with.

After [30 days of Happiness, Leo had hit it big and was now directly working with a giant.

Oscar after parties were very diverse, with different studios and some big magazines. In this, the Vanity Magazine party was the big one, but there were other parties too.

"I don't even know if anyone is going to invite me to an exclusive after-party. I would just take a look around the Vanity Magazine one."

"Someone would surely invite you. You are shining brightly currently, so people want to shine with you."

Wade said, but Aiden just gave him an odd look.

"That's a weird analogy."

"It is what it is. Anyway, if you win, you will get invites to most parties. Even if you don't, some would surely invite you and try to just be careful of people and not give any promises."

"Promises?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, there's a story about an actor who was too drunk at an after-party and just promised to do a movie with a producer. The producer actually got his signature at that party, and even if the actor didn't like it, he needed to do the product. There was even a court case about it."

"That's kind of messed up."

Wade just shrugged, saying that it's Hollywood, and those things happen a lot here. Just the industry was like that.

Aiden didn't think a lot about it.

In the first place, the after-party was not in his mind. He just wanted to focus on the Oscar ceremony first.

The big question was whether he was going to win the award or not. If he was being honest, the award wasn't in a category he wanted to win an award in. His goal was to win in the Best Actor category, but he knew that it would take a long while to achieve that.

The only reason he was even able to get a nomination in 'Best Original song' was that his composing skill was pretty high.

Actually, it had increased in levels after his album had been released.

[Your composing skill has advanced to Level 8 from Level 7.]

[Congratulations on achieving a huge feat.]

[Your skill 'Lyric writing' has advanced to Level 7.]

[Your instrumental skills have increased.]

…

/DreamNote/

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

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The Oscars was a big annual event in Hollywood, and like previous years, it was star-studded this year, too, with popular actors and actresses being invited to the ceremony. Aside from them, directors, producers, editors and people who worked on the technical side of a movie were also present.

But the limelight was obviously on the people who were nominated this year.

People were curious about which movie would win the prestigious award this year and who would be the best actor. What impact today's ceremony would have on the whole world?

Because of how big the Oscars were, just when the red carpet event was going on, it started trending on Sparrow at number 3, getting more and more tweets with the coverage of the red carpet.

On the red carpet, a lot of reporters were standing here and there. Some were interviewing famous celebrities while others were busy clicking their pictures and discussing among themselves.

Every time a big celebrity would appear, whispers would go on.

"Hey, that's Ray Hardy! He's nominated for [Black Symbiote]. Oh, he looks so handsome in real life. I wonder if he would give me an interview."

"There's Tobey Glutton with his new girlfriend. Hey, doesn't she look too young for him?"

"No, no, she's 23, his previous one was 21. She's too old for him. That man's 50, but his girlfriends are just getting younger. Let's hope we don't see him on the cover page of a newspaper as a child molester in the coming years."

"Oh my god! That's Kiara Kendall, she looks completely different."

"Apparently, she got botox and stuff. Funny because she talks about being happy with your looks and personality and loving yourself. At least she's only presenting an award tonight."

"Here he comes! John Reeves, the nicest guy in Hollywood."

"Is he really that nice?"

"Yeah, he's very humble. Though there are exaggerated stories about him saving an aeroplane and other things, but he's mostly a great guy."

Like that, the reporters talked about the top stars in Hollywood walking down the red carpet. It was at that moment that some of the reporters looked at a young guy walking out of a car.

He was in a clean black suit, with short hair and a clean shaved face. He looked very handsome, especially with a charming smile on his face.

Whisper again started seeing him.

"Hey, that's Aiden Silvereye."

"He looks pretty great in real life. Talent and looks — God probably loved him too much while giving him those talents."

"Do you think he will give us an interview?"

"Hard to say. I have not heard about him being rude to reporters, but we need to be careful as celebrities are choosy about who they are giving interviews to."

As they talked like that, one reporter almost sprinted towards Aiden like he was waiting for him to appear all night.

Reaching near Aiden, he quickly opened his mouth.

"Hello, I'm Julian. A big fan of yours. Can I take your interview?"

Julian was someone who had risen in the ranks among the reporters due to taking Aiden's photos at the event of [Shadows of War] when no one else knew him.

After that, he did the same in the Indie Music awards.

He even followed Aiden to different events, taking his photos and selling them to different magazines until he landed a job in a popular magazine, 'Hollywood Muse,' and became an actual reporter from a paparazzi.

His superiors sent a whole team of reporters to cover the Oscars, and as soon as he saw Aiden, Julian couldn't help himself from walking close to him and asking for an interview.

Fortunately, Aiden replied positively.

"Yeah, sure. Ask any questions you have."

Hearing that, Julian wasn't able to control himself and quickly spoke the first question that came to his mind.

"What do you think about your chances of winning the Oscars?"

"I can't really say that," Aiden said, thinking about it for a bit, "I would love to win it, but in the end, it's really not in my hands. If I win, it's good, and if I don't, that's fine too."

"Won't you feel disappointed?"

Julian raised an eyebrow, and Aiden smiled.

"I would, and that's why I'm trying not to expect anything. In the end, it's an award. Actually, there's something my uncle told me long ago." Aiden said and then tried to imitate Uncle Sam's deep voice. "Awards are just trophies in the end. It's good to have them, but it's not like your life will get any worse if you don't have a piece of trophy sitting around in your house for a lifetime."

That was something that Aiden had understood much better after seeing Aaron Hart. He was so obsessed with an Oscar that his personal life was ruined. Even he himself was ruined with so many mental health issues.

Aiden would be much better by not treating an award as everything. Oscar was good, but it was not the peak of one's career.

"That's good advice."

Julian said, and just as he was about to ask another question, a voice called out to Aiden.

"Hey, Aiden. Over here."

Turning back, he saw Leo and Omar standing there. Both of them were wearing suits, with Leo wearing the normal black one and Omar donning a cream-coloured suit that actually looked good on him.

"I'm sorry, but can we continue this later?" Aiden said to Julian, who was a bit disappointed but nodded.

"Yeah, thanks for your time."

Aiden nodded, and just as he was about to walk away, he looked like he remembered something and paused to look at Julian.

"By the way, it was nice to meet you."

He said and pushed his hand forward, which Julian quickly grabbed. He hadn't expected Aiden to say anything like that, but that small gesture came off as very sweet.

"Likewise. I really hope you win the award today."

Aiden talked with Leo and Omar for a while about the nominations, and they said that they were rooting for him to grab the award. He also met Katie and posed with her for some pictures.

After that, everyone was directed towards their seats.

He was seated in the middle, and it was a pretty good place to sit in his eyes as he was able to see the stage clearly. At the same time, Aiden felt a little weird seeing all the famous top actors and directors sitting in the same place.

He had thought that he had grown used to seeing famous people in his small career, but it seemed like it wasn't the case at all.

As he waited for the award ceremony to start, Aiden just looked around and tried to remember the movie of the director that was sitting adjacent to him or the biggest hit of the actress in the front row.

It was a small game that helped him pass the time, and finally, the show started and the host appeared.

"Hello, everyone, my name is Russell Geravis, and I'm your host for tonight. Yeah, isn't it great? America's best comedian hosting the laziest award show in history."

A square-faced man with a beard came on stage and said. He was one of the most famous comedians all over the world. He was also hosting the award show for the first time tonight.

"Don't say it's not lazy just because the press calls it the biggest award show on the planet. The awards are as lazy as your movies because movies aren't movies anymore. They are not even about acting. It's just people in tight suits wearing caps, looking jacked. Unfortunately, we don't have the 'Best Jacked up Body' award yet. Maybe next year?"

Russell said, looking at an actor who was famous only due to his superhero movies. The actor didn't know how to react to that and just tried to give off a smile, knowing that the camera was panning towards him.

The show went on like that as Russell made more remarks like that, completely roasting all the people present inside the hall.

"Now, a warning. Take jokes as a joke. I don't want an angry guy coming up to me and punching me because I'm the type to punch back. People are watching in their homes and I'm trying to do comedy at your expense which isn't really hard." Russell smiled. "After all, the only thing I need to do is to speak the truth."

For the next thirty minutes, Russell made jokes on every famous person that his eyes landed on and he touched the topics that no one else had dared to before.

From talking about an actress's child molesting case to an actor paying off a famous college to get his daughter in. Everything was covered from top to bottom.

In a few jokes, Aiden was happy that he was still not someone who had crossed the line of morality in Hollywood. With fame, power, and so many people validating you, it was very easy for someone to just find himself becoming a worse person day by day.

Fame was a power that everyone wanted, but only a few could control.

In a way, Russell also talked about it in one of his jokes.

"You know, I don't understand why we are idolising you all. You all make movies. More like you all make one good movie and try to milk it by making countless sequels and spinoffs. On top of that, a lot of you have cases running, multiple reports of bad behaviour and Aaron here; oh wait, he's still in the mental hospital. Lucky guy, he didn't have to face me tonight."

…

/DreamNote/

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

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The roast continued for a while as Russell Gervais made no attempts to give any respect to the celebrities present here. He wanted to give the people watching the Oscars in their homes a good time, and that certainly happened.

The celebrities could also not do anything, even if they were offended by his jokes.

The show was live, and they had to smile.

Omar, who was sitting next to Aiden, would snicker and laugh from time to time, saying that he was glad he was invited to the Oscars this year. Watching a roast like this live was one of the best things of his life.

As for Aiden, he was also enjoying the show a lot.

The jokes were obviously funny, especially for someone who knew the industry and the rumours going around it pretty well. Russell Gervais' comic timing was also impeccable.

On the internet, people were also having fun watching the show and continuously talking about the roast. It was so good that it got people's interest in the award show back.

[Stark's illegitimate dead kid: I just tuned in to Oscars, and damn, Russell Gervais is cold as ice. He's roasting everyone with a straight face and not caring about anything. I wish they call him back next year, and these celebs are at least smart enough to know how to take a joke.]

[Let's go to the mall: I love their faces, wondering to themselves whether they should laugh or cry about it. They could just smile while wondering why they decided to attend the Oscars today.]

[I miss my exes cats: I really wonder where the world is going when comedians don't have to be funny to make people laugh. They just need to tell the cold, hard truth. These delusional people in the crowd don't know what to do.]

[Billie Eyelash: Waiting for Russell to make a joke about someone's wife and get punched. Knowing him, he will punch back, and we will have the Oscars edition of wrestling.]

Like that, people enjoyed the show a lot, and after the roast ended, the presentation for every award began, starting off with the awards in the technical categories.

As soon as the awards started being given out, Aiden's shoulders tensed a little, wondering what was going to happen. Taking deep breaths, he tried to calm himself down.

As the winners of each category were slowly announced, there were varied reactions.

Some just started crying on stage, while some others were too happy that the smiles weren't going out of their faces. One of the actresses who won the award for 'Best supporting actress' even slipped while climbing the stairs.

What was worse was that she slipped twice, and Aiden was sure that the moment was going to be recorded in One of the funniest accidents in Oscars history.

Like that, the event continued, and finally, the award for 'Best Original Song' came up.

To present the award, one of the famous directors of Hollywood came forward with an envelope in his hand. Standing in front of the mic, he started speaking.

"Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This award is special as it's for the musical pieces that truly became the soul of their movies and made the audience feel that music has a way of storytelling that no other form could master. The nominees for 'Best Original song' are…"

As he said that, the screen behind him began to show the six musical pieces that were nominated this year.

'Grayland' by Anthony and Joe Miles

'No time to live' by Hains Mirza.

'Lost in the Sky' by Aiden Silvereye

As soon as Aiden's name came up, he smiled.

Omar patted his back, and Leo gave him a smile. The moment was here. At the next moment, it was going to be revealed who won the award.

'It's going to be fine.'

Aiden said to himself, and the names of the three other nominees came up with the camera zooming on them. A camera also landed on Aiden, but he was too tense to notice it.

"Okay, now that the nominees are clear. Let's see who among these talented musicians is going to receive this award." The director said, opening up the envelope, a light smile reflecting off his face as he said the name out loud.

"'No time to live' by Hains Mirza."

At that moment, Aiden lost what could have been his first Oscar.

Splash! Splash! Splash!

Cold water hit Aiden's face as he tried to cool himself off from all sorts of emotions that were going on in his mind. Looking at his face in the mirror, he saw a disappointed expression that he was barely able to conceal.

He had lost.

That was the truth, and no one could change it.

It was not something he could change, and the only thing he could do from here on was to accept his loss and move on.

Aiden knew that very well, but it was still not going to be an easy period for him.

Everything had been going great for a while now. His singing career had officially taken off, and he was doing different roles in his acting. Aside from that, he had even successfully published a book.

But if things were going too good, a bad period was inevitable.

It was kind of like a circle, and Aiden needed to deal with his loss one way or another.

"It's just an Oscar. I need to remember what Uncle Sam said."

He muttered and walked out of the bathroom to join Omar and Leo in the hall. The event was not over yet, and the three main awards were going to come next.

"Are you okay?" Leo asked as he sat down.

"Yeah, don't worry about me. I will be fine."

Leo didn't say anything else, and Omar just gave him a sympathetic look. After that, the 'Best Actor in a leading role', 'Best Actress in a leading role' and 'Best Picture' awards were given out.

The 'Best Picture' award went to a movie called [Land of the Brave, which was a movie based on a group of tribals who wanted to protect the lands that their ancestors had given to them.

Aiden had watched it and felt that it was a good movie. Though, it was certainly a very toned-down movie that kind of ventured into a documentary mid-way.

After that, the event was finally over, and Aiden wondered what he was going to do next. As he had not won an award, he could easily slip past the media and leave for home. The media was mostly going to focus on the winners.

It was then that Omar whispered to him.

"Come with me to the party hosted by Titan studios."

"Huh? I don't know if that's a good idea."

Aiden said, not in the mood to go to the after-party. Although Wade and he had talked about it, he felt like missing out this time.

"Just come. You will meet some people and just leave if you don't want to be there after some time. A lot of people just go to show their faces and leave anyway."

Omar shrugged, and Aiden wasn't able to reject him that time. Nodding, he left with Omar in his car.

As he had thought, the media did not bother him a lot, and he and Omar were easily able to make their way to the parking lot.

The part by Titan studios was hosted in a place called the Blue Ruby hotel.

It was one of the places in Los Angeles where only the super-rich could enter.

As Omar had worked with Titan studios in the past, he was able to get a pass to their party. Outside the hotel, a line of paparazzi was already present, taking photos of celebrities who were appearing at the big event.

Their eyes were particularly focused on the new actors appearing at the event.

These were the people who might appear in the next big blockbuster by Titan studios.

As Aiden entered the party, he noticed that a lot of celebrities were present at the party. There were also a lot of people he didn't recognise and hence, needed to be careful against.

Omar introduced him to a few people, but the conversation was pretty simple as he just greeted people, and they moved on to someone else. A few people seemed interested in talking to him, but it was just some praise about his work and them wishing to work with him one day.

It was very common talk, so Aiden didn't think a lot of it.

Half an hour into the party, Aiden was already bored. Contrary to him, Omar was socialising with everyone at the party.

Although there was a smile on his face, it felt more like a smirk to Aiden, knowing that his friend was a shrewd businessman.

Not having anything to do, he just took a glass of wine and decided to drink it on the balcony while looking at the sky, but as soon as he took one sip from the glass, he heard some steps approaching him.

'Who is it?'

Thinking that he turned around and instantly froze.

A woman was standing in front of him. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and with a small face and intricate features, she looked like an actress or a supermodel.

At the same time, there was something graceful about her, clearly hinting that the woman was older than Aiden. Probably in her late 20s.

Now the question was, who was she, and what was she doing here?

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Once, Aiden watched a Korean drama as he had heard a lot of talks about how they had a very fairy tale kind of romance in their shows. It had interested Aiden a lot, and he still remembered a scene from that drama.

It was a scene that was shot from the perspective of the second male lead, whose eyes had landed on the female lead for the first time. The scene was shot in such a way that Aiden was clearly able to resonate with the feelings of the second male lead.

Though, in the end, that guy died from leukaemia at the end of the drama, and the female lead married a rich guy.

For some reason, Aiden thought of that scene, looking at the woman in front of him.

'There's no way I wouldn't remember her if she was an actress.'

Aiden thought, blinking his eyes.

It felt as though sexiness and innocence coexisted perfectly when he looked at her. She was pretty yet had unique features.

She was a kind of beauty who people would praise naturally. Out of all the people Aiden had seen in real life, including top actresses, she was the prettiest.

It was to the point that there was an enormous gap between the first and second.

As he looked at her, the woman was also a bit surprised to see him there. It was only after a few seconds went by that Aiden managed to open his mouth to break the ice.

Unfortunately, it still was very awkward.

"Hello."

"Ah, yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't expect to see someone here. The party was getting pretty boring, so I came here to take a breather."

The woman said as she walked toward Aiden. It looked like her surprise had gone away, and she was now able to speak casually.

"I came here for the same reason."

Aiden said, trying to shake off all the thoughts in his mind.

"I'm Aiden Silvereye. I'm a—"

"I know you."

As he was introducing himself, the woman suddenly said. He wasn't too surprised about it and just waited for her to complete her words.

"I was actually at the Oscars too, and even before that, I have heard of you. A lot of things are there about you."

"Hopefully, good ones."

The woman didn't say anything to that and just introduced herself.

"My name is Ava Adler."

"Are you an actress?" Aiden asked, wanting to satiate his curiosity, but Ava shook her head with a light smile.

"No, I'm a director at Titan studios. I am not carrying a business card with me currently, or I would've given it to you."

Ava said, and for a second, Aiden wondered if she was lying.

She didn't look that old, and in his mind, the director was a big executive position, especially in a Big 6 studio. Only old people acquire that position after working for years.

The woman in front of him had acquired it at such a young age.

"You look a bit surprised. Do you think that I'm lying?"

Ava tilted her head and smiled, and Aiden quickly replied.

"No, it's not that."

"Actually, I'm also working on [Sherlock of the Shadows] as a producer. I heard that you are very interested in auditioning for it."

That was the second surprise of the tonight, and Aiden barely controlled the emotions that were showing on his face.

Wade had told him that Titan studios was producing [Sherlock of the Shadows] with Zetflix, but he didn't know that he was going to meet one of the producers here, but it did make sense when he carefully thought of it.

Zetflix was only considering a few actors for the lead role in it, and Wade was continuously in talk with their production team, so it was obvious for a producer to know about him being interested in the project.

"I didn't expect to meet a producer here like this," Aiden said. "And yeah, I'm very interested in the series. It feels like something very unique to me."

Ava seemed satisfied hearing that and leaned against the rails of the balcony while casually glancing at him.

"We try to bring in the best group of people to make a good show and talk about a lot of ideas. In the end, that one stuck with us, and we decided to go with it."

By the way, she was talking, it felt like she was very involved in the project. She talked about [Sherlock of the Shadows] for a while longer, and Aiden just listened to her.

In the end, Ava glanced at the wine glass in his hand and suddenly asked.

"By the way, were you here to drink alone because you lost out on the Oscar tonight?"

Hearing that question, Aiden wondered what to say but decided to just be honest. There was no need to hide it when everyone knew that he had lost tonight.

"Yeah, I was thinking about it. I was prepared to take it lightly whether I would win or not, but I still felt disappointed. Failure isn't an easy thing to master even when I am used to it."

"It isn't. It's never going to be. It's a strong emotion, after all." Ava said and then added. "Actually, I think you should celebrate failures more."

"Why is that?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.

Ava smiled like she was thinking of something before replying.

"Because failures sometimes give you time to reflect, especially in showbiz. They might even open new doors that you never knew existed, and you can think about why you failed and if there was a way for you to pass. I myself have gone through failures, and I think I might go through more of them in the future, but it's just a part of life. Anyway, it's a little boring if one just keeps winning."

Aiden wasn't able to say anything to that for a while before just nodding his head. Her words made a lot of sense to him.

Thinking about it, the song that won the award was a mixture of a lot of genres and was done beautifully. The composer of it, Haines Mirza, was one of the best in the business, and he had secretly checked his composing skill during the Oscars.

'Level 9'

He was at the level where Aiden didn't think he would reach soon. Just reaching Level 8 had taken a lot, and if Level 10 was the top, then it would take at least a few years.

"You are right. I think I was just thinking too much into it."

Aiden said, looking up at Ava, who just gave a smile.

"Anyway, I think I need to go now. Some people would already be looking for me. It was nice meeting you." She said and stepped towards the door that led to the hall but then she stopped and turned back. "By the way, I really like your songs."

"Thanks."

She left after that, and Aiden was left alone, looking at the moon in the sky. Tonight's sky was very clear, and there were even stars that could be seen.

'That was a weird meeting.'

After the Oscars event ended, there was a lot of buzz around it online. [Land of the Brave] that had won the Oscar immediately got millions of views as people watched it to check why it had won the Oscar.

All the prize winners got more prestige in the industry, and the interest in their next project also increased massively.

The person who won the award for 'Best Director' immediately got a 150 million dollar fantasy movie by Zero International, and it even trended on Sparrow.

At the same time, Aiden's fans were also disappointed that he had lost out on the Oscars, but the disappointment was very short-lived as Aiden's album 'Stories' was still selling like hotdogs in New York City.

Just three weeks after the release of the music video 'Firefly' got more than 100 million views, and although it had slowed down, it was still going to reach 200-300 million easily. 'Shiver' also crossed 40 million views, and it was particularly a hit on streaming platforms.

The digital and physical albums continued to sell worldwide, with them crossing 200k sales (30k being physical copies). It was a massive thing for Aiden, and his social media team repeatedly sent out 'thank you' posts on his social media handle for the fans.

He also got a lot of calls from some reality TV shows related to singing. One of them was 'Celeb Dancing', which actually invited both Rachel and Aiden as a pair for a season, but they rejected it, not wanting to spend months on a reality TV show.

Aiden instead focused on live shows in both small and big places where fans could come to meet him.

He didn't let Oscar's disappointment bother him for long and just focused on his work.

They held autograph signing events and fan meets and even got Aiden to sing for kids in a hospital as part of the album activities. It naturally got him more and more goodwill from the public, and his album sales continued to rise.

It was not only in America but from all over the world, there were companies who wanted Aiden to hold a show in their country, but they put off a world tour at this point.

[Disconnected] was going to release next month on May 3rd, and they had finally gotten a full script and date for the audition for [Sherlock of the Shadows].

From singing, he was now again moving to acting.

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"See this review from our latest boxing drama series [Knockout]. This one is pretty hilarious. '[Knockout] is not a sports romantic drama but a fantasy series in which every other teenager is ripped, and winning a high school tournament is akin to being a world champion. Add it with every character coming from a dysfunctional household, and you can see how the makers have tried to make the cast diverse. By giving them mental illnesses'. It's really true that bad series and movies produce some hilarious reviews."

An old man laughed as he went through the reviews of Zetflix new teen sports drama [Knockout]. The employees in front of him didn't know if they should laugh or cry hearing that.

After all, that comment was coming straight from the Executive of Content creation in Zetflix. The old man was one of the directors, and he was laughing at his own product.

"Director, don't you think it's very alarming?"

"Is it?" The old Director made an amused smile.

"Yeah, our subscriber count is falling. Bad reviews are just increasing, and other platforms are easily going to take over our monopoly like this in a year. It's extremely bad for our company."

Hearing that, the old Director nodded.

"I know that well. I have seen reports, and the shareholders aren't happy. That CEO is constantly putting pressure on the content department to make better series, but the thing is, this is something I have warned everyone against. Targeting teens is one thing, and giving them the same dumb content in different wrappers is another thing."

Zetflix strategy for original content from the last few years had always been teen content and movies. It was because one of these series had worked wonderfully once, and then it just created a streak of it.

Moreover, it was pretty easy to make.

You just need to buy the rights to adapt a popular fiction novel that's the rage on online websites among female teens and make a script out of it. The production value wasn't much, and they were getting the numbers.

It wasn't like they didn't make anything else. From sitcoms to spy shows and documentaries — They tried to delve into a lot of other genres, too, but they never came out as good as they had hoped.

It was then that other platforms came up. Dream with his superhero shows and Xtra prime with unique stories that seemed very fresh to the people. Zetflix slowly lost its dominance like this and was now desperate.

The old Director had already told the bigwigs in the company that they should try to evolve with time and create better shows. He even had grand plans like delving into making whole franchises and universes.

But the board didn't like it.

"Director, we all know what happened, but we need to do something. All the blame is just going to come on the content department as we are the easy target."

A female employee said. She was the assistant head of the department and looked extremely worried due to [Knockout] failing badly.

"I know. That's why [Sherlock of the Shadows] is a big series for us. This is not a show for only teens and all age demographic. Moreover, we have a great production team due to our partnership with Titan studios."

For the record, Titan studios had a 23 percent stake in Zetflix, and that's why they were trying to work with them.

"Do you think one project would be enough?"

"It would be a start. The board is worried, too, and they are letting me do whatever I want without any restrictions for the first time. So if we pass, the board is going to give us full freedom to make whatever we want."

The old Director said, smiling to himself. He didn't care about shows like [Knockout]. He was never happy approving them, but [Sherlock of the Shadows] was a unique attempt at the detective genre, and he wanted the show to create a trend.

"For this show, we have already got a great production team and director. The only thing we need now is great actors. Actors who can actually make people in their acting. If they see a ghost, they need to make it believable like they are actually seeing one."

'Now that I took a look at the script, I'm a bit scared.'

Aiden thought, looking through a particular scene in the script. Wind from the opened window was messing up his hair as the car drove, but he didn't care a lot.

He was thinking about a particular problem that's going to arise with him acting as the male lead in [Sherlock of the Shadows].

"You look a bit weird. Are you not good today?" Wade asked, glancing at him, and Tom, who was sitting in the back, also looked at him. "If you are not good today, we can schedule the audition sometime later."

"No, it's not that." Aiden shook his head.

"Then?"

"What do you think about the horror elements in the series?"

Wade made an expression like he understood what Aiden was saying. Horror movies were very tough to shoot due to many of them just featuring ghosts. If they are in human form, then an actor could play that part.

Otherwise, one actor had to just give off expressions alone in front of a green screen. It was very tough to imagine it, and many times a lot of takes are necessary for one scene.

[Sherlock of the Shadows] mostly focuses on a detective in a fictional town, slowly solving cases with the help of ghosts. The supernatural aspect was very vivid in the script, and it plays a big part, and some of these scenes were very horrific.

One could even say that [Sherlock of the Shadows] was a horror detective series. Though, it also had comedic moments in its narrative.

"Horror elements would be hard to portray. Not like the ghost in the script even had human forms. Most of them are just deformed creatures that would be made by the VFX team. Just try to imagine them as best as you can. You never did horror movies before, so I'm pretty sure the director would let you take your time even if you can't do it properly."

'The problem is that I might just do it too perfectly.'

Aiden gulped down his saliva.

His immersion made it easy for him to get into the scene as the world practically changed to the movie's world. Once when he did his death scene in [Shadow of War, he literally felt that he had died.

It was that strong, and the level had increased since.

He was sure that he might just see a real ghost this time due to immersion. Aiden didn't know what to feel about that.

It was a challenge as an actor and his path to becoming even better, but at the same time, he didn't know how it would affect him mentally. Kai was the character that had affected him the most till now, but he now had most of the control over it.

Even then, Kai was just a crazy gangster. He, at least, wasn't some supernatural being.

'I could just hope that my system won't let me go crazy with this.'

Aiden thought, frowning, wondering what was going to happen to him.

At the Zetflix office in Los Angeles, Aiden and Wade were currently meeting with the main people behind [Sherlock of the Shadows].

"It's very nice to meet you."

Aiden shook hands with a scrawny man who looked to be in his early 40s. He gave off a pretty serious expression, something one would expect from a director of his kind.

His name was Phineas Flinch, an Emmy award-winning director who had directed almost everything in his 15-year-old career. He was a very respected figure who was known for moving from one project to another, citing reasons that he doesn't like to continue a story for more than a season or the first movie.

He was against sequels as he felt that they ruined the original product.

Moreover, he was also one of the writers of [Sherlock of the Shadows].

"You look better than your photos. I liked whatever I have seen of your work till now, young man."

An old man next to Phineas said. He was one of the Executives in Zetflix, handling the content department.

"I think we should go straight to the audition." A female voice said as Aiden looked at her with an awkward expression.

"Aren't you in a hurry?"

"You could say so. I'm curious to know if Aiden here would be ideal for the role or not."

The voice was of Ava Adler, the woman who Aiden had met at the Oscars after party of Titan studios. One could say that they were acquaintances, if not friends, but currently, Ava had a blank expression on her face that even came out as cold.

Aiden wasn't surprised to see her here as she was one of the producers handling the project from Titan studios, but her attitude was certainly more work-oriented than casual.

'I should not think a lot about it and just focus on the audition.'

They walked towards the audition room after that, with Phineas exchanging pointers about the script with Aiden.

As the director, he wanted to know how much Aiden had understood the character.

When they reached the audition room, where some staff members were already present, and cameras were set up, Phineas opened his mouth.

"I think we should begin with the scene in which the main character sees a ghost for the first time."

Hearing that, Aiden froze.

…

/DreamNote/

Privilege prices will be lowered, and more chapters will be available for advance reading from tomorrow

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'How was his immersion going to affect?'

That was the question in Aiden's mind as he stood in one of the audition rooms in the Zetflix office. It was easy to say that he was curious and scared at the same time.

For the first time, Aiden was going to face something that would be a big challenge for him.

But he knew that he didn't want to run away from it.

He at least needed to know how his immersion was going to affect him this time. Otherwise, he would just keep being skeptical about it without any proof.

"It seems like you have studied up on the character quite well."

Phineas Flinch said, scanning Aiden's clothes. He was wearing jeans, a black shirt and a baseball jacket on top of it. In the script, it was written that Finn Wheeler, the main character of [Sherlock of the Shadows, was an avid baseball fan.

Aiden had picked it up and gotten a jacket that he thought Finn would wear in the show.

"Okay, so it's just going to be pretty much a one-man show this time. So, don't worry, even if we have to do a few takes. It's all fine until you can project the fear and distress of Finn when he first gets to see an example of his powers."

Phineas explained, and Aiden nodded his head.

"I will do my best."

After that, he took his position, and the staff members got the cameras ready, and a guy picked up the clapping slate that was going to be used to start the scene.

Aiden took a deep breath and wondered what was going to happen.

The curiosity and unease of his immersion were still there, but instead of focusing on that, he tried to get his mind into the character of Finn Wheeler.

After all, it was an audition, and he needed to do his best to bag the role.

'Just think of Finn. His personality, relationship with other people, his doubting nature, and always feeling like he's different and special from everyone else. In this scene, he would get a live proof of it.'

In the script, Finn Wheeler was a high schooler with a very sharp brain but a doubting nature that stopped him from getting too close to people, mainly coming due to reading a lot of detective novels since he was a kid.

He strived to become a detective and followed a simple mantra.

'Nothing in this world is without any reason. Everything has it. If you can't see it, then you just need to dig deeper.'

Aiden tried to chant the mantra in his mind to prepare himself.

He could see the old executive, Phineas and Ava, looking at him like they were examining him. His eyes stopped at Ava for a second, and he could see her smiling faintly.

Though, it was hard to say if it was a mocking smile or not.

At that moment, the staff member clapped the slate, and with that, cameras started rolling, and the scene began.

Taking a breath, Aiden closed his eyes.

'Immersion.'

Aiden took a deep breath as a sense of unease flowed through his body. He was trying to focus on his surroundings cause if his immersion wasn't powerful enough, the whole scene was just going to fall through.

Thankfully, it had worked well as Aiden found himself in the middle of what looked like a basement.

The scene he was doing was after Finn would get his powers. While trying to investigate a kidnapping case that had happened in his neighbourhood, he would break into his neighbour's house as he would hear some sort of weird noises from there.

Strangely, it was only him who could hear these voices.

Unable to get it out of his head, he had come here to know exactly where the voice was coming from.

'I need to be careful.'

He thought to himself, slowly losing his sense of identity and becoming Finn Wheeler.

He moved his legs, looking around, searching for the voice. In his mind, the whole basement looked messy, like no one had entered it for several decades. A weird stench was in the air, too, like there was a dead rat lying around.

Aiden tried to make as little noise as possible. Even his breathing was not noisy, and he was in a position where he could escape anyone attacking him out of nowhere. It was then that he heard the strange voice again.

A wave of unease swept him as he moved his head to look around.

The voice was like a hiss, almost in a whisper. The words were intangible, like it was speaking in a language that was out of this world. Aiden was feeling a bit scared because of it, but he didn't stop and kept moving.

He needed to look for the voice.

In his mind, he was wondering what was going on in the basement. What was this voice? And why did it sound so weird, like it was not even humane?

Slowly, he reached the end of the basement room and saw that there was nothing. In a corner, a dead rat was lying, and the stench was coming from it. He guessed that a wild cat might have entered the basement and killed it before leaving.

Aiden took a sigh of relief, thinking that everything was fine.

It was at that moment that he felt something brush past him. Aiden immediately turned around and even nearly fell down. A chill went up his body as he struggled to understand what had happened.

Whatever had passed through him felt cold, like he was literally touching ice on his bare skin.

Gulping down his saliva, he called out.

"Is anyone there?"

Normally, he wouldn't have said that but whoever was in the basement room other than him already knew about his existence. It was better to be direct in this case.

Currently, he was already making a few possibilities in his mind.

'It could just be a wild animal, I don't know or maybe a human who's trying to prank me? I feel like whatever it is, it might be connected to the kidnapping.'

Thinking that he walked around the basement, trying to find out who was there other than him.

At that moment, he again heard the voice, and this time, he quickly looked to his left, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

A shock went through his body as he looked at whatever was in front of him. The first thing that came to Aiden's mind was darkness.

The being in front of him was made entirely out of the darkness. It had two eyes and a mouth, but Aiden wasn't able to see more of his features. Everything was covered in darkness, and it was almost floating in thin air.

Aiden froze, seeing the being, which he could only identify as a ghost. He tried to move his legs, but they were shaking. As if the ghost enjoyed it, he came close to Aiden and out of nowhere, a limb came out.

One of the fingers of that limb touched Aiden's face, almost caressing it as the ghost opened his mouth to reveal its sharp and disgruntled teeth.

Fear, anxiousness and every type of uncomfortable feeling in the world ran through Aiden's body as he screamed, and without wasting any time, he ran, not caring about anything, but at that moment, one of the limbs gripped his leg and made him fall.

A sharp pain went through his leg, but he quickly turned to get out of the grip of his hand. Just as he was about to touch it, sharp needle-like fangs grew out of his hand, one even hurting him as blood started coming out.

Aiden took a look at the ghost that was looking right back at him. Slowly, it walked towards him, and in a fit, Aiden just tried to crawl out of the basement somehow.

"Help! Someone, please!"

"Please save me!! There's a ghost here!"

"Ahhhh!"

Screams repeatedly came out of his mouth as he struggled hard just to get out of this situation alive because he was sure that the ghost wasn't going to let him stay alive.

A weird sense of thought was roaming in his head.

Aiden wanted to continue the act as Finn Wheeler, but at the same time, he just wanted to get out of the immersion. Break away from it just so he didn't have to look at the atrocity that was crawling towards him, donning a wicked smile.

"Please. Just let me go."

He pleaded to the ghost, but the ghost simply hissed in response. Aiden didn't know if he could understand him, but he clearly had no intention of letting him go.

The ghost finally came close to Aiden and stopped. Another hand came out of nowhere and directly held Aiden by the collar and lifted him up to focus on the ghost.

For a second, both the ghost and Aiden just kept looking into each other's eyes, different feelings reflected off their faces.

The ghost opened his mouth again at that time, and this time, Aiden was able to understand the language. It was much more than a hiss.

"Human… I'm going to…"

Immersion broke at that time as Aiden felt himself coming out of the basement. The scene turned into the audition room in the Zetflix office, and several notifications came in front of him.

[You have been forcefully taken out of your immersion because it was reaching dangerous levels where it could have easily affected you for a lifetime. Your skill level isn't deemed high enough for you to control the scene and maintain your sanity.]

[The Safety protocol of the system has been activated to protect the user during scenes like this.]

[Warning: There are still going to be after-effects of portraying a role like this, but they won't be as severe.]

…

/DreamNote/

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'What the heck did I just watch just now?'

Phineas Flinch thought, looking up at Aiden on the ground. The scene had ended just now as he had stopped acting, but the audition he had watched kept repeating in his mind like it was on loop.

He kept asking himself what he had just watched till now.

The hairs on his arms were standing, and although he knew that there was no ghost in the room, Phineas felt that there was really something.

Aiden's performance had made him and the other people in the room believe that.

If he was being honest, he wasn't expecting too much from Aiden. He was a director that only wanted perfection and nothing else. Aiden was a good actor in his eyes, but Phineas believed that he was different from what he imagined Finn to be in his mind.

That was something that was not easy to go away as, like every other human, Phineas also had his own biases. There were better actors that he had worked with before that suited the role more.

At least that's what he thought before the audition that was merely a formality for him.

Aiden's performance truly managed to change his views.

When the audition had first started, Phineas had focused on Aiden's body language, expression and how real he looked in the scene, and he wasn't doing badly.

His looks were good enough for an 18-year-old character, and he seemed like someone who could imagine things well, but everything really changed in the second part of the scene.

The scene in which Finn would see the ghost at the same time.

The exact feeling when one sees a horrid ghost was something that was hard to portray.

In [Sherlock of the Shadows, ghosts were of different types depending on what they had done when they were human. The first ghost that Aiden would encounter was a very dark spirit that was deadly and horrendous.

Just the powers it held were the creepy kind.

One can't just imagine meeting such a monster and getting it right on the first try, but Aiden did it. The expressions on his face were one of fear, struggle and helplessness.

Phineas had been keeping an eye on Aiden's body; his legs were shaking a bit, and his eyes were fixated on something in front of him.

From the director's viewpoint, there was only air, but Aiden looked like he was actually facing a ghost.

Then his attempt to run away while falling and even the acting of something holding his leg was too realistic. His shouts were filled with a lot of pain and fear. Moreover, it didn't come across as over the top and felt very real and genuine.

Especially in the last scene, Aiden looked like he was about to cry due to the pain and distress he was feeling. The acting was so good that Phineas actually thought that he really saw a ghost.

Otherwise, it was hard to explain it.

'This guy's a bloody genius.'

Phineas thought and took a look around. Ava, the director from Titan studios and the old Executive, both of them were stupefied and shocked.

The old Executive even looked like he was a bit scared after seeing Aiden's performance.

The staff members were in the same condition, and it was only Wade who came out of his stupor and quickly ran towards Aiden as he was still on the ground.

"Aiden, are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah."

Aiden, who was still looking at the system notifications in front of him, nodded, hearing Wade's voice.

'I feel weird.'

He thought, thinking of the scene that he had just performed. Due to how much the immersion had gotten stronger, his heart rate had increased dramatically, and his back was soaked with sweat.

He took deep breaths to calm himself down and felt himself becoming better. He didn't know that the effect of a horror scene would be this much on his body and mind.

'That ghost looked too real.'

Thinking that, he got up from the ground, and Wade opened his mouth, his face filled with concern.

"Aiden, you looked a bit possessed there."

"Possessed?"

"Yeah, like there really was a ghost there. I actually believed that you were hurt for a second due to your painful scream."

Hearing that, Aiden looked down at his leg. In the immersion, the ghost fangs made him bleed, but there was nothing at that moment.

His jeans weren't even ripped.

'It's good that I don't have an actual injury.'

As he thought that, Phineas and Ava walked close to him with the old Executive just behind them.

"Aiden, that was too good. I almost fell off my chair due to your performance. It looked too real."

Phineas said, laughing. It looked like he was really happy with Aiden's performance, as a wide smile was constantly on his face.

"Yeah, I was surprised."

Ava said, having returned to a blank face, but Aiden could see that her eyes looked a bit different while looking at him. He had really made a good impression.

"He almost gave me a heart attack. I might not watch the show if there are scenes like this in every episode. Need to take care of myself."

The old Executive said, and Aiden tilted his head.

"Does that mean—"

"Yeah, I think we should all agree that you are the best person for this role. Just look at all the staff members. They are all affected by your acting."

Aiden took a look around, and indeed, the staff members looked like they were deeply affected. A lot of them were glancing at him from time to time.

The old Executive then looked at Phineas.

"Don't you think the same, Phineas?"

"Yeah," Phineas said with a determined expression. "I do want Aiden to perform a few different scenes, but I don't think anyone else would be able to perform even a fraction of what Aiden did. The actors who auditioned before him certainly weren't able to pull it off on the first try."

Phineas said, thinking of the auditions he had before with other prominent actors from the industry. All of them were young but hugely talented.

Still, Aiden's performance was too close to being real.

"I think the same. I'm pretty happy with the audition, and I don't even think I need to see more. So you can rest assured that the role of Finn Wheeler would be yours."

Ava said in the end with a smile.

Aiden took a sigh of relief hearing that. He had gotten the role quite easily and on the spot too. It was the first time that it was happening to him, so he felt that it was worth it to get scared by a ghost.

Before, he needed to fight for the roles, but this time, that hadn't happened, thanks to his strong performance.

Though, he did know that most of it was because of immersion.

For a series like [Sherlock of the Shadows, the world of the story mattered a lot and what made it unique. Having the ability to literally transport into this world was the biggest power Aiden had.

'I just need to be very careful that it doesn't start to affect me mentally.'

He thought, leaking out a sigh.

If not for the system security protocol that Aiden didn't even know existed, he would be unable to break out of the immersion when it was just getting dangerous. Thanks to it, he at least wasn't going to lose his mind because of his skills.

Anyway, it was going to be extremely difficult for him to pull off this role. He was sure that the ghost parts would be something easy, but Finn was a character that had a lot of shades and quirks.

At the same time, his powers would be slowly explored more as the story goes on, and his personality would also go through a lot of change.

'I need to work very hard on this.'

He thought in his mind.

"So, you are the one that Aiden recommended? You look good in that hoodie."

Omar said, looking up at the person standing in front of him. He was a tall, lanky guy wearing a hoodie. There was a light smile on his face as they talked.

Obviously, he was Harley Martin.

"Yeah, thanks for giving me this opportunity again."

"Don't bother with all that." Omar waved his hand around. "The director praised you a lot, saying you are a terrific actor and gave you the role because of merit. Aiden's recommendation just gave you the audition."

Omar looked around the set. It was the first day of shooting, and they were in a building. The movie's name was [Dark Eyes, and it was an action thriller with a simple premise of a chase between a former FBI agent and an assassin that was sent to hunt him down.

Harley was playing the role of the cold assassin.

"Still, I'm very grateful. It's my first big role."

"Then just act like it. Give a great performance that elevates the level of the script. It's a simple story, so performance matters a lot."

Omar said. The movie was something that relied more on the well-choreographed action scenes, good cast and fast-paced storyline, making it a very cool movie that ticked a lot of boxes despite being very cliche in the premise.

Hearing that, Harley just smiled.

"Don't worry, I heard a lot of times that I was a little crazy. I just need to project it in front of the camera."

…

/DreamNote/

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

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Step! Step! Step!

Aiden was running as fast as he could. In front of him, a dark mist was formed, and it was hard to see where he was. A weird kind of darkness surrounded the whole place.

He turned his head back to look at the figure that was chasing him. It was the same ghost from the audition. But, this time, he had brought friends, and all of them were salivating while looking at him like he was going to be their dinner.

One of them had its gaze fixated on Aiden's legs like he was going to eat it first.

Having no choice, Aiden kept running while wondering where he was and what he was doing. He had suddenly found himself in the middle of nowhere, and these ghosts had attacked him.

As he ran, he suddenly noticed that the surface was changing. Rocks had started to come in his way. Big, large rocks, and he needed to dodge them to escape the ghost.

'Fuck! What is going on? Did all my luck end after such a long time? Am I going to die here?'

He thought and fell down suddenly, tripping over a small rock. Looking back, the ghost saw me like that and snickered.

"Human, we are going to eat you."

One of the ghosts hissed, and the other two nodded like they were his lackeys.

"Fuck off."

Aiden said, and suddenly, the ghost rushed towards him to attack with their claws. He closed his eyes, thinking that it was over, but at that moment, a gunshot was heard.

Two more gunshots followed, and when Aiden opened his eyes, he saw that the ghosts were nowhere to be seen and in their places, there were bullet marks on the ground.

He looked around, wondering who had fired them, and his eyes landed on a guy who was standing just a few spots away from him.

He was a black guy with an eyepatch and a gun in his hand. Looking at Aiden, the black guy muttered.

"Those creatures were something else, mother—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Aiden threw a rock at him, and the world suddenly turned to dust.

The next moment, he woke up.

"That was a very, very weird dream."

He thought, panting and looking around his bedroom, making sure that there was no one other than him there. Touching his forehead, he realised that he was sweating a little.

He turned on the lights with a sigh and got out of his bed.

It was still early, with the clock showing that it was 4 AM in the morning, but he wasn't in any mood to sleep.

It's been three days since Aiden had given the audition for [Sherlock of the Shadows, and although he was mostly fine, he had started getting incredibly weird nightmares involving the ghost that he had seen in his immersion.

He could only think that it was an effect of being in such a realistic immersion involving ghosts.

'Should I opt for a therapist?'

He thought, drinking water. A lot of actors would take psychological help to get out of the effects of being in character for too long. Some actors' personalities would even change due to it, and they would start having difficulty adapting to normal life.

Most of these cases happen with method actors.

There were actors who got a habit of drugs due to portraying characters who actually took drugs, and it was safe to say that it didn't end well for them.

Aiden's case was a bit different because rather than getting issues due to a character, it was mostly because of immersion which was difficult to explain.

He just hoped that it would become better as the shooting went on. Finn Wheeler was someone who would get better control of ghosts and his other powers as the show went on.

He could only hope that it applied to him too.

Otherwise, he would have to opt for psychological help, which was fine too, as a lot of projects were hyped by the producers marketing the fact that the actors were so involved that they got mental health issues.

Shaking his head, Aiden wondered what he could do at 4 in the morning. His work wasn't going to start till 9, and his first show for today was going to start at 10.

Aiden was still promoting his album as it was still the middle of April. By the end of it, they were going to stop the live shows, so Aiden could focus on the release of [Disconnected] and then the shooting for [Sherlock of the Shadows].

'Should I just exercise? Or play a video game? Am I not really hungry yet? There's a lot I could do so early in the morning.'

He thought, and at that moment, an idea struck his mind.

He moved towards his laptop and DAW (Digital audio workstation) that was set up in a room in his apartment. He had done it in case inspiration struck him when he was at home.

Sitting in front of it, he thought of the time when he had seen that ghost.

The darkness of his body, the eyes that seem to be looking everywhere and the hiss of it. All of it wasn't going out of his mind, and he felt that he could use it to make music.

Something unique that he hadn't done before.

'The hiss of that ghost. I wonder if I could replicate it.'

He thought, trying to imitate the hiss, trying to let out his voice in a high pitch, but it was a hard thing to do as he wasn't really trying to be melodious.

It needed to be screechy, scary and a bit creepy. At the same time, it needed to sound good.

It was an extremely difficult task.

Aiden recorded his hissing voice and tried to add several effects to it. Trying out everything he could to make it similar to the hiss that the ghost was letting out.

He felt that if he could replicate it, then it could become a very different kind of music than what he would normally make.

Other ideas also started coming to his mind as he thought of the other sound effects that a horror movie would normally have. The sound of a clock ticking, footsteps, the voice of an owl — If he could include all this in a track, then it might just become a unique piece of music.

Aiden Silvereye's shows are getting sold out repeatedly after the massive success of his debut album. According to media reports, the star singer is looking to end his live shows with a bang. Details are still not out, but there are a lot of rumours floating around.

[Disconnected, which stars Seth Douglas, Aiden Silvereye and Dustin Redford, to have its premiere on 31st March. The movie opened up to the public on 3rd April.

Youth icon Seth Douglas is mostly seen doing the promotions of the movie along. Only a few times the whole cast is seen giving interviews. Reportedly, the marketing strategy of Black Line Cinema is to focus more on the main character.

Wade shook his head, reading the news related to Aiden. Most of it was about [Disconnected] as the media articles were including his name as one of the cast.

Black Line Cinema had only asked them to do a few interviews, which Aiden had already completed. Most of the promotion strategy revolved around Seth Douglas and Director Jesse Ross.

The agent didn't mind it as anyway, Aiden was pretty busy in his shows and in his eyes, the movie was good enough that it would get a good box office record due to word of mouth and SGA heavy promotion.

"I'm sorry I was running a little late."

Wade raised his head to look at the square-faced man who seemed a bit stoic. He recognised him as he was one of the shareholders and a Director in Cyco media.

But his meeting wasn't going to be with him.

"I thought Mr McDonald was going to meet me today. We were going to talk about the show in Radio City Music hall."

"Steven was busy in a meeting. It was a kind of emergency, so I came. Anyway, it's not a big meeting or anything."

The director shrugged his shoulders, and Wade nodded, keeping his calm intact.

Both of them sat down, and the director opened his mouth with a wide smile.

"Let's start with the good news first." He said. "Radio City Music hall accepted our offer to let us use it for Aiden's last show this month."

Wade was visibly excited hearing that.

Radio City Music hall was famous for only letting top singers hold their shows in it. It was one of the biggest halls in America and was often given out to large theatre groups.

"That's great news."

"Yeah, we are going to bring in dance groups, the best musicians to support Aiden throughout the concert, and the promotions of it will start as soon as possible. It's going to be a big event, and we need to sell every ticket."

"Yeah, that's going to be a hard part."

If Aiden managed to fill all the seats in the hall, then no one would doubt his credibility as a top singer in the country. Both the director and Wade talked a bit more about it, discussing how they were going to go along with it.

It went on peacefully like that for a while until the director suddenly changed the topic.

"Anyway, there's something I want to talk to you about."

"What?" Wade tilted his head.

"I have an offer. How about you and Aiden move to Cyco media? We are the best record label in the country and have access to everywhere. We would also let you handle Aiden's acting works and would even promote it. I think he's a great talent, and he's going to be wasted without any big company promoting him. You would also start getting a higher paycheck. How about it? You convince Aiden, and I give you whatever amount you want? If you want something other than money, that could also be arranged."

The director said it without stopping. A smirk was plastered on his face.

Money, girls or something else, he was willing to give anything.

"The offer is good, but…"

Wade opened his mouth with a blank face.

No one knew what happened in the meeting after that, but from that day on, the director stopped trying to poach anyone from anywhere.

He even stopped taking Aiden's name.

…

/DreamNote/

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A wind rustled past him.

"What?"

The old Executive muttered, looking around here and there, wondering if there was anything around. A scared expression was on his face.

It was only after a while that he calmed down.

Seeing him like that, his secretary couldn't help but ask.

"What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just that after seeing that audition, I actually believe that there are ghosts around. Even the wind is able to scare me now. Kind of like how one would not be able to sleep without lights after watching a horror movie."

The old Executive explained, and his secretary quickly understood which audition he was talking about.

Those who watched the audition weren't able to stop themselves from talking about it in the company.

"You are talking about the audition of [Sherlock of the Shadows, right?"

"Yeah, that kid really scared me." The old Executive said, then smiled. "I'm actually glad that he managed to pull that off. I mean, I at least know now that the acting won't be bad in the series. It's giving me more hope that it would be a great product from Zetflix."

"You look very confident."

His secretary couldn't help but comment. The old Executive was a pretty casual guy who never hesitated to speak what he wanted to say, even if it was something bad about his seniors, so he was genuinely looking forward to the series.

"If I'm not confident, then others obviously won't be, and even if I think about it rationally, we got an award-winning director, a great production team that had worked on a lot of movies, and the main character looks like a perfect fit. I'm even going to ask them to increase the budget of each episode."

The current budget allocated to the first season was 2 million dollars per episode. It may look like a lot of money, but the show had usage of special effects, and there were going to be 9 episodes in the first season, so overall, it would only go upto 18 million dollars.

For a streaming giant like Zetflix, 18 million dollars was not a lot of money.

In a bid to get a better library of shows and movies, Zetflix had even hired a big director duo last month for an action movie worth 150 million dollars. Compared to that, [Sherlock of the Shadows] was very much an experimental project.

"I think that they need at least 3 million dollars per episode. We can't be stingy when we have a great idea."

The old Executive muttered, giving out his opinion.

"Will the higher-ups agree?"

"They would most likely. They don't have a long-term vision, but they are not idiots. They know that having capable people work on a project pretty much guarantees that it won't be too bad. Anyway, if they don't allow it, I will show them the audition footage. If Aiden could scare me for days, then he would do the same with them."

In an interview room, two people were talking to each other with smiles evident on their faces. One of them was Seth Douglas, who was currently giving an interview to a magazine to promote [Disconnected].

None of the other cast members joined him for the interview as SGA wanted the magazine to just focus on Seth and promote him as the next big thing in Hollywood.

They were doing a lot of PR for him this time, confident that [Disconnected] would do great business at the box office.

"What's really your way of choosing projects? Do you choose them because you like a particular character or just the overall story? Do you consider the box office estimates, and do they affect your judgement in choosing a project?"

The female interviewer asked, and Seth thought about it for a bit before replying.

"The focus is a lot on how good a story is and what type of character you are offered. If they connect with me, then I would go with a particular movie. The box office just comes after that, and you can't think too much about it."

"So, you would be fine even if [Disconnected] flopped?"

The female interviewer smirked, and Seth quickly retorted the question.

"I don't think it would. It's a great movie, and we have given it our all. I'm very confident that it's going to be a huge hit. Probably the best of my career."

"What if it didn't perform as you expected?"

"I will think about it when that time comes."

Seth kept answering questions with calmness. His team had made him practice all the questions that might be asked of him in the interview, and he had prepared hard.

A good job here meant more people being interested in the movie.

After so many interviews, he had become used to giving answers as the questions won't deviate a lot.

"Thank you for your time. The interview is over now."

The female interviewer said after it finished and Seth stood up, shook hands with her and then walked out of the studio. Along the way, he remembered something and took out his phone.

[Seth: Will you be able to handle what I requested before?]

A message quickly came as soon as he asked that.

[Franco Li: I did tell you not to worry about anything. Black Line Cinema and SGA are the ones responsible for the editing of the movie. Jesse had submitted his own cut, but we are going to edit it furthermore.]

[Seth: There won't be any problems, right?]

[Franco Li: Obviously not. Are you in the industry for a week? You do know that the studio controls what makes up for the big screen and not the director. That's how the business works. Jesse Ross can't say anything, and we are going to go for the version that's the best and one in which you could truly shine.]

[Seth: Thanks.]

[Franco Li: Just do your job and leave everything else to SGA.]

Seth smiled, reading those messages.

After the shooting of [Disconnected] had completed, Seth talked about his concerns with Franco about how he felt like other characters could take up a lot of screen time from Mark Knight.

It would have been bad news for SGA as they needed this movie to be all about Seth, so they could increase his rank in the Hollywood hierarchy and get him a few commercial blockbusters.

So, Franco Li made sure that SGA was going to be involved in the editing of the movie. The trailer that had been released just last week was according to what Jesse wanted, but after that, SGA and Black Line Cinema had taken the reins.

As the producers, they had full control of the post-production and directors were often disregarded when it came to post-production.

In one sentence, Jesse was powerless.

'I'm pretty sure my career is going to change after this movie.'

Seth thought, smirking.

The shooting wasn't a great experience for him, but he was ready to reap the rewards.

"This is a very big stage."

Aiden muttered, his eyes looking down on the seats. A lot of staff was working here and there, checking up on different things. Cyco media had worked hard to get him a chance to sing in Radio City Music hall.

Apart from arranging the backstage team that would be pivotal in handling things during the concert, there would be a whole dancing crew and a band that would accompany Aiden.

A few small singers from Cyco media were going to do the opening act of the concert, and then Aiden was going to sing all the songs from his album alongside Rachel, who would be a guest artist.

"It kind of looks surreal. A few days from now, there are going to be a lot of people there, cheering you on as you sing."

Wade said, walking towards him. Aiden was currently on a break from practice for the concert.

"I thought you were helping out on the backstage arrangements with George."

"I left it to him. He's the expert; he has planned a lot of concerts for a lot of big singers."

Wade said and shrugged. They both stared around the hall for a while before Aiden asked something that he was thinking these days.

"When we first started working together. Did you believe that we were going to go this far so quickly?"

"Not really," Wade answered honestly. "Hollywood doesn't work like that. Some become stars, and some get nowhere. It's not about talent until you are a genius that only appears once hundred years. Even then, it's a lot of luck and connections. I took a chance with you, and it paid off pretty well."

Hearing that, Aiden chuckled and didn't say anything. Then, Wade asked.

"Did you believe that you are going to become such a big star so soon?"

"Not at first. Definitely not after leaving X-Star but as time went on, I got more and more belief. I knew I would become something."

What he was saying was partly true. Most of the belief had come when Aiden had started feeling himself becoming better and better as time went by. The new skills had also increased his confidence.

If he hadn't done anything with that, then he was the one at fault.

"Let's hope that the concert gets sold out and [Disconnected] becomes a bit and you are appreciated. You have gotten ahead in your singing career, but a lot has to be done in your acting career."

"Yeah, I know that."

…

/DreamNote/

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It was quickly announced that Aiden was going to hold a concert on 29th April. Moreover, the venue was going to be Radio City Music hall, one of the biggest theatre halls in New York.

The news quickly spread as tickets started getting sold out left and right.

Singers would earn a lot from album sales, but concerts and shows were still one of the best ways to earn millions of dollars in a single night. Singers that were popular worldwide would even sell out more than 100k tickets for a big concert in a stadium, and the prices of some seats would be extortionately high.

That was one of the reasons why Cyco media was so aggressive with the idea of having a concert in Radio City Music hall.

With the capacity of 7k people, it was going to be a great experience.

After the announcement, a lot of established singers took note of it, and some even became worried.

Aiden's success was just too quick.

Radio City Music hall was a place only for top singers, and if Aiden had the capability of doing a show there, then it was a sure sign of his popularity as he was just starting out; it was still a long time before he was going to reach his saturation point.

Some records wondered what to do with it as they all wanted a piece of Aiden's popularity. In the industry, if one was popular, then people's behaviour toward him would surely change.

That was something everyone knew.

A lot of record labels wanted to get their hands on Aiden because of that, but in the market, everyone knew that Aiden liked to be independent.

Although he was in a partnership with Cyco media, he had refused to be under them. It also made sense as he had the label of the only independent mainstream artist currently, and it was slowly becoming a title.

If he could keep it up for a few years, then Aiden was going to be a huge inspiration for independent artists.

For now, the record labels could only just watch.

As for the fans, a lot of them were buying up tickets for the concert, especially the young teenage demographic. They all wanted to see Aiden live, and Radio City Music hall was the best venue.

His fan group was also discussing the possibility of going to the concert.

[iPhone Founder: Is anyone going to Radio City Music hall on 29th April? I wanted to go, but I'm going on a business trip in a few days.]

[Cigar Lover: I'm going, and I'm very excited about it. My girlfriend, who's a huge Aiden fan, just broke up with me yesterday when I was about to give her tickets to the concert. Now I'm going to go alone with a homie and send her a lot of photos. I want her to cry, regret and feel everything I felt when I got dumped. I'm making other plans to get revenge too.]

[Walls can hear: @Cigar Lover Man's became a supervillain after getting dumped. Funny thing is that it's still a better origin story than half of superhero movie villains.]

[The Martian: I want to go, but I also am in the mood of crashing the stock market and bantering on Sparrow that day. Then, I would be meeting with the President to talk about the plans to bomb Mars with nuclear weapons to make it livable.]

[Young Fruit smiley: I'm going! I got tickets! Wish me luck! Though I would be on the back and would barely be able to see him but something!]

[Dead Woke jokes: I'm going. I convinced my father to buy tickets to the concert, and it turns out he's a fan too. He even got a Kai t-shirt, so we both would be there.]

[Aiden's wife: I can't go, sadly. I wanted to, but the tickets are too expensive. Until I can get free tickets, I won't be able to go. Poverty really sucks. What about you, Insider? @Hollywood Insider.]

[Hollywood Insider: I won't be able to make it. Anyway, I'm busy tracking down new news about Aiden. It seems like he got cast in a Zetflix series, from what I heard. Won't share details, but it's not another rom-com from them and something that would at least be decent. #Know it all]

"Check the lightning again."

"Is the fog machine working? We need it during Aiden's entry."

"The background dancers need to stay hydrated. The concert would go on for a long time. We need to make sure they can perform for a long time."

"Are we going to have fan interactions between songs? The security needs to be extremely tight."

Ruckus was everywhere backstage as Aiden made his way towards Rachel's room. It was half an hour before the concert, and 'Firefly' was the song they were going to open with.

Rachel was going to stay for a few more songs.

As he moved, a lot of busy staff members greeted him, and some even asked for autographs, not knowing if they would be able to get them again.

A lot of people were working backstage, so it was not possible for him to give everyone an autograph.

"You are here."

When he finally reached Rachel's room, it was open, so he directly entered it and saw that she was in the middle of her makeup.

Linda was standing in the back with a stylist and some makeup artists.

"Are you ready? The opening act will start soon, and then we need to enter. If the first track isn't up to the mark, then they won't be excited. We would need to give our all."

"I know that."

"Are you nervous?"

Aiden tilted his head, looking at her. She had a blank expression on her face that he had seen a lot during X-Star.

She shook her head and replied, "No, I mean a little but not that much. It's kind of similar to the grand finale of X-Star, so I think I would be fine."

He recalled watching the broadcast of it. The X-Star finale was touted to be a grand spectacle as the stage prepared would be very big. He himself performed 'Lost in the Sky' on it in the last season.

It wasn't Radio City Music hall, but it was certainly something that could prepare you for a concert.

"Are you nervous? The tickets are sold in your name after all."

"No, I'm not."

Aiden replied quickly, showing no hesitation in his answer. He had thought that he would be nervous about a big concert, but he had a lot of experience doing live shows now.

The attendance of them wasn't in the thousands, but it was something. Contrary to what many people would think, he felt like this was the moment that was lacking from his singing career.

He was excited to give his best.

The opening act of the concert was by a young male singer from Cyco media who had made his debut just last year and was slowly making a following for himself.

He actually sang one of Aiden's previous songs, 'Revolution', and even Aiden had to say that the young guy's voice suited a vocalist of a rock band.

He gave his all to the performance, and the audience was pretty pumped up after it.

It was then that the lights in the hall dimmed so much that people weren't able to see a lot. Suddenly, one of the lights highlighted someone standing on the stage.

It was Aiden.

Seeing him, the audience went wild as a loud cheer went up.

He smiled, seeing such a reaction and took a look around. It looked jam-packed with people cheering everywhere; his eyes wavered.

All of them had come to see him, and taking a deep breath, he made a resolve that he wasn't going to let them go home disappointed.

He glanced at the band that was standing just behind him, and they nodded. In the next second, the music of 'Firefly' started to come out.

Silver light came out with it as the audience cheered and waved the glowsticks in their hands. Some of them were recording it on their phone, and a few guys were even live streaming it.

Though the quality was undoubtedly going to be bad with the lights dimmed and so much crowd.

Slowly, he started singing.

"I closed my eyes so I could reach."

"The world that could be mine and yours."

"Walking the path through the darkness only to reach your door"

"I'm on the path to do something that no one did before."

As he sang, people went quieter and quieter by the second as his voice was just like a soft whisper, making them want to focus on it.

Aiden put a lot of emphasis on each word as he poured out all the emotions he had felt while making the song. It was also working as the silver light was strong and looked to slowly reach every spot in the hall.

After the first verse ended, another spotlight fell on the spot, and Rachel emerged. A cheer again went up. This time, a little less than before, but as she started singing, everyone in the hall was mesmerised.

Like that, the concert began, and people couldn't help but think.

"Oh my god, they sound so good."

"The studio version was great, but why do they sound so real live? I'm glad I got the tickets for the show."

"I feel like I'm getting affected by the lyrics. Aiden's a genius!"

…

/DreamNote/

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