Self-Indulgence

2. Unpleased to Meet You

I had spent all of my first day in New York alone in my hotel room. Half of the day was spent sleeping because the jet lag was killing my last few brain cells and the other half scrolling through twitter, reading people's reactions to my acting role after the company released the news. My fans and the Korean media had been extremely excited for me, but the western media had some questions about why some Asian kid was replacing the great Elijah Davis.

"Yin! Wake up! It's time to go!" Minki banged on the door to my hotel room.

"I'm already awake!" I yelled back.

"You're what? Did you say already awake? Stop lying to me." Minki stated as he let himself into my room. He stopped in his tracks when he saw that I was indeed awake and very ready to leave.

"I told you I was awake." I smirked at him. He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Why are you being suspicious?"

"I am not." I scoffed at him.

"You are never awake early. Not to mention with the time difference you would be sound asleep if you were in Korea." He eyed me suspiciously.

"I don't get why you're being so paranoid. I'm just excited." I grinned at him. Truth was, I hadn't slept since yesterday. After I woke up from my nap at around 8pm last night I had just stayed up watching youtube videos.

***

The set for filming wasn't much different from the ones in Korea. I had done a few cameo roles in Korean dramas and films so this wasn't anything too new. However, it was going to be my first time having such a major role.

"Yin! Hi, it's so nice to meet you." The director held his hand out for me to shake.

"Pleasure to meet you Director Carrillo. I look forward to working with you." I gave him my most enthusiastic smile. He just stared at me for a moment in confusion before his eyes lit up in excitement.

"Sorry, the Australian accent surprised me for a second. This is great! We have an Australian Noah everyone!" He called out to the rest of the crew. I looked at my manager in confusion.

"Didn't you read the script I gave you? Noah is the name of the character you're playing. I guess they didn't realise you were from Australia when they cast you." Minki explained.

"I did read the script, but I don't remember my name being Noah. Wait, if they didn't know I was from Australia then how did they know I speak English." I asked.

"Beats me." Minki shrugged.

"Come, come, Yin. Let me introduce you to the main cast members. You will be mainly working alongside them." Director Carrillo beckoned to me. The first person we met was Mikaela and she jumped up from her seat when she saw me.

"Yin! It's so nice to meet you! My sister and I are huge fans of your group." Mikaela exclaimed.

"Thank you Mikaela, that means a lot! I'm a huge fan of you and your works as well!" I matched her excitement with my own. We exchanged praises for a while more before Director Carrillo had to drag me away to meet Luka.

"Luka, meet your new Noah. This is Alecson Wei-Yin Hsiao." Director Carrillo tried his best to pronounce my name properly but I internally cringed at how bad he had butchered it.

"Alecson Wei-Yin Hsiao. Pleased to meet you." I pronounced my name properly and held my hand out for Luka to shake. He just stared at my hand blankly before nodding and turned to Director Carrillo.

"When are we starting?" He asked. I just stared at him in shock. Had he just completely ignored my handshake? And my greeting? What an asshole. I had heard people say he was a pleasure to work with so what the hell was this?

"I take that back. I'm unpleased to meet you." I muttered under my breath. His eyes briefly darted to me in surprise before the blank look was back on his face and he turned to walk off. I hadn't meant for him to hear me, but I guess I was kind of glad that he had.

"Yin, are you okay to start filming right away or did you want to observe for today?" Director Carrillo asked me, unfazed by Luka's asshole behaviour.

"I can start today. You are already behind schedule because you have to refilm all of the scenes Elijah had done already right?"

"Yes that's true. You are so considerate. I can sense it will be wonderful working with you." Director Carrillo said before turning to the rest of the crew.

"Okay everybody, are we ready to start?" He called out.

***

I stood next to Luka who had been blatantly ignoring me the whole day. It shouldn't have pissed me off that much, but my problem was that he was only acting that way towards me. He was extremely friendly with the other staff members and the crew. The only time that friendliness was directed to me was when we were acting a scene or when he spotted a camera filming us. Seriously, what did this guy have against me?

The character I played, Noah, was best friends with, Caleb, the character Luka played. The two characters had a lot of bromance between them so I had to be close to Luka the whole day. To make matters worse, Director Carrillo thought the chemistry between us was so intense, he had upped the amount of bromance.

"You have to give the fans what they want." He had explained when I glared at him for suggesting Luka carry me bridal style out of a collapsing building for a scene. Unfortunately, my glare must have not been threatening enough because he insisted we film the scene anyway. To my surprise, Luka had not objected to any of the increased bromance scenes. Didn't he hate my guts? In fact, when I had complained about one of the scenes, he had even criticised me directly. It was his first words to me.

"Why don't you concentrate on your acting instead of complaining so much?" Were his exact words.

"Why don't you concentrate on ignoring me for no reason like you have been all day?" I had scoffed at him. He had rolled his eyes at me and muttered something which didn't sound like English under his breath before going back to ignoring me for the rest of the day.

"Alright that's a wrap for today. Good work everyone. See you all tomorrow." Director Carrillo called out. Luka almost immediately moved away from his position next to me and went around thanking the crew. I ignored the subtle feeling of hurt before turning in the other direction to thank the crew on that side first.

If Luka fucking Plevnik wanted to avoid me for no damn reason then I sure as hell wasn't going to try getting him to like me.