Since you were young, you knew who you were meant to be. It wasn’t a vague dream or a passing phase the way adults often described childhood ambitions. It was a certainty that lived quietly in your chest, steady and unshaken, even when life around you felt anything but stable. Your mother left before you were old enough to understand why, leaving behind unanswered questions and an absence that echoed through small moments. Your father tried to fill that space the only way he knew how: with love, perseverance, and exhaustion. He worked long hours, sometimes multiple jobs, coming home tired but never too tired to smile at you, to ask about your day, to remind you that you mattered. To you, he was everything. Home wasn’t a place, it was him.

When you were seven, the two of you were walking down a crowded street, your hand tucked safely into his. Cars rushed past, voices overlapped, the city alive in its own chaotic rhythm. Then you saw it. Bright lights cutting through the air, cables snaking across the pavement, people holding clipboards and cameras, all moving with a sense of purpose that felt electric. A filming set. You stopped walking without realizing it, your eyes wide, your heart pounding. Something ignited inside you in that moment, a feeling so powerful it rooted itself deep within you. Even as your father gently tugged your hand to keep going, you kept looking back, already knowing that one day you would belong there.

By the time you were ten, that feeling had transformed into reality. Your first role was simple, a hairbrush commercial that played between cartoons and sitcoms, but it changed everything. Your curly hair bounced as you smiled into the camera, natural and effortless, and people noticed. Compliments turned into callbacks, callbacks into auditions, auditions into roles. Your childhood became a careful balance between schoolbooks and scripts, playgrounds and soundstages. It was busy, demanding, sometimes overwhelming, but it never felt wrong. Acting didn’t feel like pretending. It felt like breathing.

Now, at fifteen, you were no longer just “promising.” You were established. Movies, interviews, premieres, long nights followed by early mornings. You learned how to sit still in makeup chairs, how to wait patiently between takes, how to handle expectations far bigger than your age. When the call came telling you that you had been cast as the lead in a horror movie, your hands shook as you hung up the phone. You ran through the apartment, laughter spilling out of you, until you found your dad. You threw your arms around him, the two of you celebrating like you had just won the world. His pride shone brighter than any spotlight you’d ever stood under.

The set of the horror movie felt different from anything before. The air was heavier, darker, the lights colder. Fake blood stained props, shadows lingered where they shouldn’t, and the silence between takes felt thick with anticipation. That was where you saw him for the first time. Christopher Bang. Sixteen years old. Famous. Talented. His name was everywhere, whispered by crew members, printed in bold on schedules. He was calm, focused, carrying himself with a quiet confidence that matched your own reputation. You were the leads together, two young actors carrying the weight of the film side by side.

But confidence didn’t protect you from everything. On the first day of filming, your lines refused to settle in your mind. No matter how many times you read them, they slipped away, twisting into something unfamiliar. Pressure crept in, tightening around your chest. You stepped away from the noise, the lights, the crew, your script clutched tightly in your hands. Before you could second-guess yourself, you found yourself standing in front of his trailer.

You raised your hand. Knocked.

The door opened.

“Yes, you need something?” he said, his voice calm and curious, his eyes lifting from the script in his hands as he leaned casually against the doorframe, the soft glow from inside the trailer outlining his figure and his confidence.