Edited by: Kuro, Lille, and Nyxx

---

Damien has been Alec’s manager for four years. He was 24 when they first met. In those four years, Alec’s popularity was steadily increasing. Even though he always played the role of villains, he still had a fanbase that supported him with every movie and show. From time to time, people asked him for romance movies, like Stairway to Love, and things like that, but he had always rejected them thinking that he was not good enough for those roles.

At first, he stayed with Alec due to his boredom in job picking. He thought that within a year, Alec would do something to piss him off, and then he would leave and never look back. That never happened, and he stayed because he empathized with Alec.

Alec could not take care of himself. He didn’t know how to cook, do laundry, manage his money, and he was easily swindled. It was amazing that Alec lived to the age of 18, the age he signed up for acting. Then he found out about Alec’s adoptive family. His parents owned an internationally renowned company and were always traveling due to business. Alec had no idea what his parents did for a living, he just knew they were rich. The people who took care of Alec were nannies who came, cleaned, made him food, and left him alone in the large house. Alec didn’t complain as he had food, money, and shelter.

He also did his schooling online at his own pace so he could stick to his acting career.

As for whether the adoptive parents cared for Alec was something he did not know about. After Alec turned 18, Alec rarely contacted his adoptive parents. They called on the holidays, asked him how he was doing, and that was it. Since they remembered to call him, Damien could only hope that Alec’s parents cared about him.

Maybe it was because of how Alec grew up, but he didn’t know how to get in touch with his feelings outside of acting. It made Damien want to take care of him.

Damien was someone who had everything, family, education, and no shortage of romantic interests. Having everything made him feel bored with life. He did all that he needed to and then ran off to do whatever seemed interesting. Becoming a manager was interesting. Helping someone get famous sounded interesting to a certain degree. Maybe everything else was so boring that he needed something to do that he’s never done before, which was why he picked up the manager’s job. His family thought he had finally gone crazy.

Maybe he did, but now he knew that maybe it was fate that he became Alec’s manager.

6 months ago, everything seemed to change. Something changed within Alec and it had changed for the better. Alec became more expressive in his own way. It was like the spark of life that was dormant in him came out and was ready to fly away. He took on jobs that he would always reject, like roles in romance movies.

He didn’t know how someone he took care of every day could change within a night. For months, he had thought that something happened to Alec without him knowing. After hiring some detectives, they found nothing suspicious. What could have happened to Alec that could change him so much?

Nothing seemed off about Alec. He was just a bit more expressive, that was it. Maybe something sparked within him, like a story or movie. Whatever it was, he hoped that Alec was not hurt in the process.

He had been watching over Alec for 4 years. If he didn’t watch over him, he felt as if no one else would, and then Alec would truly be alone in the world.

Then he suddenly got a friend. Alec’s world seemed to expand past the horizons and showed sides of himself that he, Damien, didn’t know Alec had. He was a little jealous that he wasn’t the person to bring out the emotions within Alec…

“Damien, ready to go?” Alec calmly asked Damien who was sitting on the couch in Alec’s living room with his eyes closed. It seemed that he had done too much thinking and didn’t realize where and what he was doing.

Damien got off the couch and grabbed the keys that were next to him. “Yes, let’s go.” He walked into the kitchen and grabbed the food that he left on the counter. “I got you some breakfast so you can eat while we are on the way to the studio. You are doing Stairway of Love today. You don’t have anything else after that.”

“Okay, thank you.” Alec was always polite to him and never put on any airs. That was probably why Damien was so drawn to him.

Sometimes, he worried that Alec was too obedient. He did everything that Damien said to the point he felt like Alec would hurt himself in the process. Of course, he would never do anything to hurt Alec, but he felt anxious leaving Alec alone. At the very least, Alec knew when to say yes and no when it came to picking roles, so maybe Alec was more conscious than he thought. Still, he would protect Alec just in case.

Alec would be acting in small clips, almost like quick memories.

As usual, Alec was taken to the dressing room where they got a suit ready. He wore a navy blue suit, white dress shirt, no tie, and brown dress shoes. They slicked his dark hair back with gel. He had to change suits for every scene, so they had them all laid out and ready to be put on. Luckily, his hair still would be the same.

It took some time, but the crew members were able to set up the five areas that Alec would be going through already.

Director Eleanor started rushing people to get started when Alec finished getting ready. “We are going to start in the office. Hand Alec the bouquet. It’s going to be super cliché so we will be using red roses.”

.

.

.

.

.

Raymond walked into the office earlier than usual. He came an hour earlier than his workers. He held a bouquet of roses in his hands. He was gentle with them, afraid to smush them. In the bouquet, there was a letter that was placed neatly in the center. 

He walked over to Alexis’s desk and stared at it for a good moment. Her desk wasn’t the cleanest and he didn’t want to be rude and move them without her permission. Should he leave it on her chair? What happens if she is so tired that she sits on it instead? She could hurt herself if there were still thorns on the roses... Would it be fine to just cover her materials with the bouquet? 

After a whole minute of staring at her desk, Raymond lightly placed it on top of her desk. He tried to make it so that the flowers were not on the keyboard, so it was slightly hanging off the desk. 

When he was done making sure that the flowers wouldn’t fall, he quickly left the area as he knew people would start coming in sooner or later. 

~~~~~~

The next day,  he placed a slice of cake from her favorite cafe on her desk. He didn’t stalk or investigate her, but he had overheard her talking about the store with her coworkers as he walked by. He hoped she liked it. 

~~~~~~

The day after that, he ordered some food from a restaurant that she had always wanted to try but didn’t have the money or time to go to. Of course, he tried it out to make sure it was good and he found the food to be quite pleasant. 

.

.

.

.

.

After a week of gift-giving, Raymond walked by the area Alexis was working at. He took his time, greeting people as he walked over to his friend’s office. 

In the distance, Alexis sighed. “Another gift? This person has been giving me a gift every day already.” She purposefully talked a little louder so the secret admirer could hear her if they were in the room. 

“From your secret admirer again?” Her deskmate looked over and saw Alexis holding a box of chocolate. “Aren’t you a lucky one?” 

As her desk mate, she knew that Alexis gave away all the gifts the person gave her. She felt it was a little unfair.

“Lucky? I wouldn’t say that… It’s quite troublesome for me. There’s someone I love so I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.” 

“What? This is the first time I am hearing of this someone! If you don’t want the box of chocolates, I will happily accept it for you.” 

“Thank you for taking these off my hands. I hope this person stops…” She felt flattered but her heart was with her childhood friend. Even though they haven’t confessed just yet, she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about her. She didn’t eat or bring home any of those gifts. That was why she had stayed single for all these years. 

After hearing that, Raymond walked away heartbroken. He looked like he wanted to cry, but he held it in as he walked over to Benny’s office. 

.

.

.

.

.

Damien had a lot of words at the tip of his tongue but he knew that they could not see the light of day. Watching Alec, expressing his love in different ways, only to be rejected. Nothing hurt more than to watch Alec, dejected, after the heartbreaking news.

He wanted to go over to the man, hug him, and tell him that he was loved. That he should just get over that person who was not worth their time. It was a strange feeling, something he’s never felt before. He has never found someone so precious to the point that he would lose rationale from wanting to protect them.

His train of thought was ruined by someone’s voice.

“Why do I suddenly feel bad for Raymond?” Director Eleanor called cuts and contemplated if this was the vibe she wanted. At first, she wanted Raymond to be a discarded second male lead, but now she wanted nothing more than to have him find love as well.

All the other staff members looked like they wanted to run over to Alec and hug him as though he was truly heartbroken.

“Was that part not good?” Alec asked, his head slightly tilted confused. It was a look of confusion but he also looked disappointed, even depressed.

“No, no of course not! Your acting was impeccable as usual. It’s just…” Words were running through her head at a mile a minute. After seeing Alec’s acting, for some reason, she wanted to change the whole script to fit her idea. She suddenly had a vision about the movie and wanted to start over from the beginning.

She grabbed the producer and huddled together to do some brainstorming. After hearing what Director Eleanor had to say, the producer’s eyes lit up in excitement. Alec couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but the longer they talked, the more heated the two got.

Alec looked over at Damien, utterly confused at what was going on. Damien had no clue what to say so he just scratched the back of his head and said this was normal for people like the Director.

“Perfect, this is perfect! Get the scriptwriters, we will be changing some scenes of this movie!” By the end of their brainstorming, Director Eleanor, sweating a little, looked like she was happy to have won a marathon.

“Everyone else can go home. Actors will be given their new scripts in a week. Be prepared for some changes in roles!” Director Eleanor was known for her crazy, spontaneous style of directing. One of them is changing the script to best fit all the actors, even if they were halfway through with filming. It was a pain for everyone else but she was the one in charge...

The producer and Director Eleanor looked pleased with themselves as they talked to the scriptwriters. Everyone else seemed to have disappeared from their world.

“Well, let’s get going…” Damien said as he patted Alec’s shoulder as a job well done.

Whatever was going on in Damien's heart, he knew that he needed to keep it to himself for a while. He was afraid to let Alec know how he truly felt about him.

Ah, he really was in love with Alec.

As for the script, let’s just say, they had a new main character.