“Uh-oh,” Shin muttered, his arms folded tight across his chest as he watched Zeno step forward.
A tense silence had fallen over the set.
From the side, Moby entered cheerfully with two iced Americanos in hand. “I got the co—”
He froze mid-step, the smile sliding off his face.
Jace’s eyes were bloodshot, cheeks flushed from humiliation. Zeno looked like he was ready to kill someone. Moby’s eyes widened, and he attempted to go to his artists.
However, Shin caught Moby’s shoulder and held him back.
“Let’s play it out,” he muttered.
On the other side, Misha had taken a step back. She looked toward Zeno, still wary about what was going to happen. Next to her, Sora gently held onto her hand.
“Don’t worry,” Sora whispered. “Zeno will handle it.”
Misha hesitated.
’Will he really?’ she thought. Or will he just pile more onto the humiliation?
Sangwon smirked from where he stood before a quiet chuckle escaped his lips.
“Interesting,” he muttered.
Victor was still processing what he had heard. He stared at Zeno, stunned by both his question and his audacity.
“What… did you just say?”
Zeno turned to face him, his annoyed expression turning into a smirk.
“You’ve failed for ten years,” he said evenly. “Probably even more than that. But you kept going, didn’t you?”
Victor’s face stiffened.
Zeno stepped forward, one hand casually in his pocket.
“And now that you’re up here, you think it gives you the right to call people out—to tell them what they can and can’t do? To tell them to quit?”
He tilted his head slightly.
“You’ve become the very thing you suffered from.”
Victor’s lips parted slightly. He looked genuinely shocked.
Of course, he had expected Zeno to appear down. That was a bonus to this all—for him to show such a pitiful expression.
However, he was retaliating instead? Did he have a death wish on his career?
“What are you talking about?” Victor finally snapped.
His hand waved toward the crew. “Let’s just go. Escort this player out,” he said, pertaining to Jace, “and we’ll continue filming this afternoon.”
Two-stage assistants took a tentative step forward.
“Oh, but you might want to hear more of this,” Zeno said calmly.
“You didn’t have a good life.”
Victor flinched just slightly.
“Most people said you didn’t have talent.”
Zeno’s tone was cold.
“You went through hell. And you heard a lot of times that you weren’t going to make it.”
He took a step closer.
The crew was frozen, and Victor stood still.
“And now? Now that you’ve clawed your way up, you look down and decide who deserves to rise?”
He cocked his head.
“The world is cruel? Hell yeah. It’s built that way.”
“But you know what makes it worse?”
Zeno stared right into Victor’s eyes.
“Humans like you.”
His line hit harder than the iconic lines in the script of the show.
No one dared move. Not even the makeup girl standing at the back with her powder brush still in the air.
Victor’s face turned unnaturally red. In fact, he looked purple, like that fat dinosaur who was too positive about life.
Nobody had ever seen someone speak like this against Victor PD after becoming successful with The Ninth Circle.
Yet here stood Zeno—utterly unfazed. He looked like he was waiting for this moment.
“You were nothing,” Zeno continued, stepping forward. “Until you become something. Until you clawed and scraped your way into a position of power. You know what it’s like to be ignored. To be overlooked. To be starving while someone else who got lucky eats off your plate.”
Victor’s hand went to his blazer, tugging it closed to shield him away from Zeno. But it couldn’t hide the growing rage in his eyes.
“Without me, everything turns to nothing!” he shouted.
Gasps rang across the field. That was also the first time Victor had lost his cool like this. They covered their mouths in shock.
“I made this. This show. This stage. It will not function without me.”
Zeno looked past him toward the crew, the cast, the extras, and the assistants frozen in place like statues.
And then he began.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t work without them.”
He gestured with an open palm, eyes scanning every face in the field.
“These people—the ones you ignore—they’re the backbone of every single thing you’ve ever made.”
“The cameramen who work ten-hour days without breaks. The lighting crew who stand on ladders just to make your stars look the way you envision them. The extras who get shoved screamed at, and still show up again the next day, paid dust, just so someone’s fake world can feel real.”
He paused.
“You humiliate them. You talk down to them. You act like they should be grateful to exist under your shadow.”
Zeno’s words hit hard.
Even Misha, who had spent months thinking she knew exactly what kind of person Zeno was, felt her breath catch.
Was this really the same man?
The one who used to walk off set quietly, barely speaking to anyone? The one she had dismissed as cold and arrogant?
He wasn’t just standing up for Jace. He was defending everyone.
Victor’s breath came fast now.
“You are not above everyone else,” Zeno said quietly.
But Victor snarled back.
“But I am!”
He was finally showing his true colors.
He jabbed a finger in Zeno’s direction. “I have the capacity to remove you. Right here, right now. You want to test me?”
Zeno gave a small shrug.
Victor’s mouth opened, but no words came.
He was speechless.
And worse—furious.
His hand shook. “I will!” he shouted finally. “You think I won’t? This is defamation! This is a breach of contract!”
Zeno simply smirked.
Victor’s chest heaved. And then, just as Victor opened his mouth again, Zeno interrupted.
“Sure,” Zeno said lazily, sounding bored. “Try it.”
Devon, who had been lingering near the monitors, finally rushed over. His voice was a hushed whisper meant only for Victor.
“Don’t be rash, sir. Zeno is important,” Devon urged. “He is the only one who can play #25 perfectly.”
“Bullshit,” Victor said. He was too far off in his rage to stop now.
“We can just re-shoot everything,” he said, squaring his shoulders. That caused murmurs to erupt.
“Is he serious?”
“I don’t know what to feel about this.”
Zeno, on the other hand, had no interest in whispering.
“Go ahead,” he said out loud. “Remove the two of us. Me and Jace. Cut us out.”
“But trust me,” he said, voice colder now. “You’re not going down with us. You’ll face an even bigger downfall.”
“What is he spluttering about?” one crew member whispered.
But Zeno walked even closer Victor without a hint of hesitation.
Victor’s body stiffened when Zeno reached him.
And then, with the whole set watching, Zeno leaned in, placed a hand over Victor’s shoulder, and whispered just loud enough for Victor to hear.
“I see that you still like foreign women.”