Koreatown wore the evening well. Ronan came up the block with his hands shoved in his pockets, the light gone amber over the storefront signs — Hangul stacked over English, English stacked over Spanish.
For a neighborhood that carried the name, there were more Latino faces on the sidewalk than Korean ones; that was just how the place had always been, everybody pressed in together, the Korean part more a matter of the businesses than the people walking past them.
And the businesses were doing fine. The Korean spots were the ones with lines bunched at the door, steam fogging the windows, noise spilling out onto the street every time somebody pushed through. He made for one of them — a restaurant with PARK EATS lit up over the door.
Inside, the place was already packed, every table going, the whole room loud with talk and the clatter of dishes and thick with the smell of grilled meat and garlic.
A man in his forties caught sight of him from across the floor — Korean, aproned, a loaded tray balanced on one hand. Mr. Park. He owned the place, and he was Ronan’s boss on top of it.
"Ronan, you came." Park lifted his chin toward him. "Here for your shift? I already give it away, to somebody else — like you told me to."
Ronan smiled at him. "Not tonight, Mr. Park. I’m not here to work — I’m here as a customer for once." He nodded toward the kitchen. "Can I get a bibimbap? And some kimchi. I’m starving."
Park went still a second, reading his face, and then something clicked behind his eyes. "Ah. I know this look." A grin started up under his mustache. "You got a role. Didn’t you?" He said it like he’d already settled the answer. "Looks like Mr. Park don’t have you around much longer, eh?"
Ronan let out a small laugh. "You might want to sit down for this one. It’s not just a role, Mr. Park. I got the lead. In a limited series."
Park’s eyes went wide. The tray tipped in his hand and he snatched it level before it could go. "You? No — no way." He stared at him. "You actually got a lead? You? Ronan Mercer — the one always, always landing the extra part?"
He’d said it loud enough to carry, and across the room two heads came up.
Both of them knew Ronan. The tall one was Alberto, Latino; the other was Carlo, a Filipino kid — and the second Park’s words reached them, they dropped what they were doing and came hurrying over.
"Hold on, hold on." Carlo got there first. "Am I hearing this right? Ronan’s getting a lead role?"
"For real?" Alberto looked between them. "That’s actually true?"
Ronan nodded, grinning now despite himself. "It’s true, all of it. The director and the writer — they’re the ones who asked me. They want me for the lead."
Park set the tray down on the nearest table and pulled him into a hug before he’d seen it coming. "Ronan! This is a miracle. A miracle! You get the leading role — I am so happy for you!"
Carlo’s whole face lit up. "That’s amazing, man! You’re really getting the lead? Bro, you’re gonna be famous!"
Alberto jabbed a finger at him. "Okay, but you don’t forget about us little people when you blow up, huh? When you’re some A-list big shot — you take me with you, make me your personal chef. That’s the deal. You hear me?"
Ronan laughed and waved them all down. "Guys — come on. Why’s everybody acting like I’m gonna be a household name by tomorrow morning? Relax."
That got a laugh out of all three of them.
Park clapped him on the shoulder. "We are just happy for you, that’s all. It’s a big moment. Your big moment — you let us be happy about it."
Then Alberto’s face shifted, like something had just caught up with him. "Wait, though — hold on." He frowned. "You don’t have an agency anymore, right? So how’d you even land a lead?"
Park shot him a look for dragging the mood down, but Alberto only shrugged. Far as he was concerned, it was a fair thing to ask.
Carlo picked it up. "Yeah, and no agency means nobody’s repping you — that’s rough, man. I know a little about how this stuff works. Back home I did some small-time stunt work, action pictures, so I’ve seen how this business chews people up and spits them out."
All three of them turned to Ronan, waiting on the answer.
Ronan smiled and put a hand up. "Relax, guys, it’s handled. The director liked my read enough that he put me onto a friend of his — an agent. I’ve already got the guy’s number. Long as nothing goes sideways, I’ll have representation again real soon."
That settled it, and the good mood came right back — right up until a voice carried across the floor from one of the tables, calling for somebody to take an order.
"Right away!" Carlo was already moving.
Alberto didn’t budge. Park rounded on him. "Alberto. Get your ass back to work."
"Yes, boss." And off he went.
That left Park and Ronan more or less to themselves. The older man looked at him a beat longer than he needed to.
"Ronan. Listen to me." The joking had gone out of his voice. "This chance the heavens gave you — you don’t waste it. We have a saying back home." He said the Korean slowly, like it carried weight: "물 들어올 때 노 저어라. It means — when the water comes in, you row. The tide, it don’t wait for anybody. It comes, and then it goes again. So when it comes, you row with everything you have." He held Ronan’s eyes. "This is your tide, Ronan. So you row."
Something moved over Ronan’s face, harder to put a name to than plain gratitude. "I’ll remember it, Mr. Park."
Park seemed satisfied with that, and for a moment neither of them said anything.
Then Ronan cleared his throat. "Mr. Park... my order?"
Park jolted. "Ah — ah, right! I forget completely." He was already turning for the kitchen. "I get it for you right now, right now. You wait."
Ronan huffed a laugh and watched his boss bustle off. Then he dropped into an open chair and let the noise of the room settle back over him, turning Park’s words around in his head — and from there, the way it kept going lately, his mind slid to the thing that had started all of it. The «Immersion System».
’What even is it, though — really?’ He turned his water glass slowly on the table. ’It drops me into that world like it’s actually happening to me. The pain, the cold, the whole thing. My body moves like it belongs to the part — faster, surer than I’ve ever been in my life. Even the feelings come through, like they’re the character’s and not mine.’ He frowned down into the glass. ’But it’s not the whole story. It doesn’t just flip a switch and turn me into someone else. Under all of it I’m still me — I still have to reach for the performance, still have to act it. The system builds me the world. It doesn’t hand me the acting.’
He glanced at the air in front of him, half-expecting the pane of light to be hanging there. Nothing. No system, no panel — just the restaurant, the full tables, the clatter of dishes. It only ever surfaced when he stepped into a role.
He wanted to understand it. Where it had come from, where its edges were, how far it could carry him. But it wasn’t giving anything up tonight.
Before he could chase the thought any further, Park was back — carrying the tray himself this time, setting the bibimbap and the kimchi down in front of him in person.
Ronan thanked him and dug in. Half-Japanese as he was, it was Korean food he’d come to love more than any other — healthy, hearty, exactly what he wanted after a day like this one. He cleared the whole bowl.
When he’d finished, he said his goodbyes to Park, to Carlo, to Alberto, and stepped back out into the evening.
A short walk took him home — a rundown complex a few blocks over, the Kenmore Arms. This deep in Koreatown, rent ran a lot easier than it did across most of Los Angeles; his came to around $1,080 a month.
It was 2014, and for a city like Los Angeles, that was close to a steal — though one look at the beaten-down face of the building told you plainly enough why it went for so little.
Inside, his apartment was small but livable — a bed, the basics, enough to get by on.
He pulled in a long breath, sat down at his computer, and woke it up to call home over Skype.
The call connected, and his sister’s face filled the screen. She was striking — blond hair, and the same ocean-blue eyes as his. But where he’d come out looking mostly American, her features leaned the other way, toward their mother’s side: the softer bone structure, the shape of a pretty Japanese girl’s face and eyes. Blue eyes set in all of that — and somehow it worked on her. Worked beautifully.
And yet, pretty as she was, her expression slid into a smirk the second she laid eyes on him. "Oh. Ronan. You actually called." The needle was already in her voice. "So what is it — you run out of money again?"
Ronan let out a dry little laugh. Two years younger than him, his kid sister, and she still had a mouth on her that could take the skin right off a person.