Alexander pursed his lips, casually throwing his white shirt into the laundry basket. He made his way upstairs and looked in the medicine box in the corner mirror of his wide changing room. He took the cotton swabs and used all his strength to stretch his arm out to clean the wound on his back.
The pain brought an expression of discomfort to his face. There were some places he couldn't reach, and after a couple more unsuccessful tries, he eventually gave up. He closed his medicine box and stood half-naked in front of his floor-to-ceiling window.
The stars in the night sky, half-way up the mountain, were very clear. The shining lights above were dazzlingly beautiful.
Alexander stared at the sky for a while, until he saw a faint outline of Isabelle's face appear among the stars. At that moment, he was completely transfixed, but his phone suddenly rang. He abruptly snapped back to reality to find that it was all just an illusion.
He lowered his eyes, standing still in his spot, then headed to the bedroom. He picked his phone and saw a notification, the director of "Alluring Times" was calling. Alexander's fingers swiped the screen to accept the call.
"Mr. Smith, about the swing incident this afternoon, it's been investigated. When the stage prop crew were preparing the props, there was a mistake. They didn't notice that the rope was thinned out. I already gave them a good yelling. How would you like to proceed with this incident?"
Alexander's voice sounded slightly heartless when he asked, "Are you sure you've investigated thoroughly?"
"People from the stage prop crew said so themselves."
Alexander held the phone without saying a word.
Even though they were a phone call away, the director still felt Alexander's silence pressuring him to the point where it was difficult to breathe. His forehead was covered in sweat.
After a good while, Alexander finally said, "Since you've investigated thoroughly, I'll leave it to you to handle."
There was clearly no emotion in Alexander's tone of voice, but you could hear the director's weak heart in his. The director spoke in a tone you'd use for negotiations when he carefully said, "I'll fire them all right away for an entirely new crew, Mr. Smith. How does that sound to you?"
"That's up to you. I just hope that a situation like this will never happen again," Alexander spat out the ruthless words before hanging up.
~*~
When the director heard the 'doot doot' sound through the phone, he let out a long sigh of relief.
He turned his head and looked at Producer Johnson and Annabelle who were sitting in his room. He raised a hand to wipe away the sweat on his forehead. Then he looked over at Annabelle and said in traumatized voice, "It's not like you don't know that Mr. Smith has always disliked conflict amongst a crew. This time, for Chief Johnson's sake, I helped you cover this up, but if this happens again, I'll definitely not interfere."
Annabelle smiled sweetly at the director. "This time, thank you so much, director."
"Don't thank me, thank Chief Johnson." The director waved his hand, and said, "You'd better quickly get someone to pay-off those crew members now, whilst Mr. Smith isn't on set. Make them quickly go away to save yourself some peace of mind before anyone finds any flaws in the story!"
~*~
Even though there was a big incident on set yesterday, no one got hurt, and so they continued to shoot the next day as per usual.
Isabelle and Alexander were originally meant to have a scene together in the early afternoon. However, because some scenes were delayed yesterday, theirs was pushed back till later that afternoon.
The scene they had to shoot was to be shot in the city. Isabelle played the second female lead who had just found out that the second male lead, who she loved deeply, would be back from his trip abroad. The two of them would get in-touch again, and so she would be a little dazed as she walked down the street.
Alexander, the second male lead, coincidentally would see Isabelle and follow after her. Eventually, when she was about to cross the road, she'd be almost hit by an on-coming car because of her absent mindedness, but he would reach out and grab her.
The street for the shoot was closed off in advance. Pedestrians on the street were all extras from the crew.
Since they had to walk down the street that was about a thousand meters wide, they split the scene into three parts. The first part only featured Isabelle, the second featured Alexander looking over at her, following behind her. And finally, the last part would show Isabelle crossing the street and Alexander reaching his hand out to grab her.
The first two parts were shot in one take. However, when it came to the final part, just as Alexander raised his hand, ready to grab Isabelle's, who was about to be hit by a car, arm, he suddenly stopped. Who knew why, but when he raised his hand half-way up, he suddenly paused.
The director screamed out, "Cut". He creased his brows and asked in a loud yell, "Why did your hand stop mid-air?"
Alexander didn't say a word, his hand holding its position halfway-up. After standing for quite a long while, he slowly lowered his hand. He turned his head to the director and said apologetically, "Sorry, let's go again."
When he finished speaking, Alexander strode towards his first position of the shot. The make-up artist quickly circled him to fix the make-up.
After he was done and all of the props were re-positioned, the director called out, "Standby." Alexander raised his hand and pressed his shoulder before letting out a long sigh of satisfaction. Following the director's word "Action", he immediately got into character.
When Isabelle was about to get hit by the oncoming car, Alexander leaped forward like a tiger and reached his arm out. He forcefully dragged Isabelle back. The car in front of her flashed by, scaring her into turning her head and looking at Alexander in astonishment. He who was discreetly gritting his teeth to endure the pain in his back and staring back at her.
The two of them stared into each other's eyes for about ten seconds before the director screamed in satisfaction, "Good, not bad. Prepare for the next scene!"
The moment the director said his first word, Alexander ripped away from Isabelle's wrist. He stumbled back a little, then around and took quick strides away.
"Mr Smith ..." The assistant watched Alexander finish filming, and then immediately brought over a bottle of water for him.
Alexander didn't bother with his assistant, just continued striding towards his personal van. He slid open the door and sat down inside.
The assistant hurriedly followed him to the car, where he discovered that Alexander was pale white. He furrowed his eyebrows, and just as he was going to ask his employer if he felt uncomfortable somewhere, he took notice of Alexander's light blue shirt that he wore for the shoot. On the back, there were a few dots of bright red. The assistant's eyes widened. "Mr. Smith, why is there blood on your back?"
Alexander's eyebrows creased, but he didn't say a word. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off.
The assistant then saw that on the left side of Alexander's back was a large gash from his shoulder to his waist. The most serious part the deep gash was now bleeding.
"Mr. Smith, your hurt badly! Why didn't you say anything?" The assistant threw the water bottle in his hands aside onto the car seat. Then, he started rummaging through his body bag for an ointment. After looking for a while, he suddenly remembered that Mr. Smith had given it to Miss Davis yesterday. He grabbed straight for the car keys and said, "I'll take you to the hospital now and get some medicine."
"Not necessary," Alexander said in a cold voice to stop his assistant. Because of the pain, he took a deep breath before ordering him, "Don't let anyone know that I'm injured."
Since Alexander's mother had passed away, it wasn't like he'd never been sick before, but there was just no one who cared. He was already used to looking after himself.
At one point, grandpa had allowed for him to join the Williams family's New Year's Eve family dinner. When he went to see the fireworks with James that night, the latter had an accident. His fingers got burnt and were a little red. The entire Williams family circled him, some even blamed Alex for not looking after James well.
Everyone crowded around James when they entered the house, called a doctor and doted on their precious child. They left Alexander all alone in the courtyard. No one realized that the palms of his hands were blurred with flesh and blood. Compared to James, he was several times more severely injured, but they didn't look for it, so they didn't realize. No one bothered to care that if he hadn't used his hands to scatter the fireworks at the right time, then perhaps James would have been left blind.
Most of the time, after being neglected too often, one will just no longer want to let others know when they're hurt.
The assistant opened his mouth to try and persuade him, "But it's summer now. If you sweat, it will easily get infected."
"I'll handle it myself." Alexander's tone of voice was a little impatient, as though he didn't want to continue mentioning this problem.
The assistant couldn't stop worrying and was ready to try and persuade him again, but Alexander raised his eyes, glanced at him, and said, "Ah right. There's something I need you to help me investigate."
"What?"
"Yesterday, a swing broke during filming. Go investigate what exactly happened."
"Didn't the director say that it was the crew's fault?"
"If what the director said was true, would I bother asking you to investigate?"
"Understood. I'll definitely get to the bottom of this."
Alexander didn't say anymore. His head rested against the back of the seat. He closed his eyes. After a period of silence, he opened his eyes again and looked at the assistant. "Tonight, will Jake be treating everyone at The Royal Palace?"
"Yes, Mr. Jake just received an award, so he promised to treat everyone on the crew to celebrate." The assistant paused, then spoke again, "How about Mr. Smith, you don't attend it tonight? With an injured back, it's best not to drink any alcohol..."
"It's nothing," Alexander flatly interrupted the assistant and pointed at the seat in the back. "Grab a clean shirt from in there."
~*~
Jake booked a big party room at The Royal Palace. Everyone in the crew who were anyone turned up.
When Camila drove Isabelle over, the navigation system redirected them to the wrong route. They drove far off track, and coincidentally into traffic, so when they finally arrived at The Royal Palace, they were the only one's missing.
The sofas in the party room were packed full. Seeing Isabelle enter, Jake immediately got up and swept around the party room to welcome her. He saw that there was a seat by Alexander, and so he immediately pointed it out for her. "Isabelle, there's a seat by Mr. Smith."
Isabelle really wanted to sit next to Alexander, but she was also afraid that sitting by him would make her nervous. Summoning her courage, she went over and sat down by his side.
Now that everyone was present, Jake walked over to the dance floor at the center of the party room, grabbed the microphone, and gave a few polite words of thanks before walking over to a wide marble table. He held up a glass of wine and said, "But before everyone here downs their glass, we should wait on one more person."
"Who? It can't be your girlfriend, right?" said a male actor who was close with Jake. Hearing those words, eyebrows rose and a flurry of questions were thrown out.
Jake wore a bashful smile for a moment. He didn't beat around the bush but nodded straight away and said, "Yes."
In that instant, the atmosphere in the room became alive.
Jake waved his hands to signal everyone to not get excited. "But to protect feelings, I momentarily don't plan to go public with it, so please, everybody, help me keep this a secret first."
The moment Jake finished speaking, he pulled out his phone from his pocket. Then he made an apologetic hand gesture to everyone. He took a call, walking out of the private party room.
Not long after, he returned hand in hand with a woman in a light-yellow dress.
Isabelle and Jake weren't close, so she wasn't very interested in his girlfriend. She lowered her head and refreshed her Facebook.
The female celebrity sitting next to her complimented the girlfriend to the person sitting next to her in a low voice, "Jake's girlfriend is so pretty."
Out of pure curiosity, Isabelle raised her head to sneak a glance, and her whole body suddenly froze.
It looked like Alexander was sitting with a cold expression, looking at his phone, but in reality, he was paying attention to Isabelle next to him. Soon, he realized that the woman beside him had stiffened. He tilted his head and first looked at her, then traced her line of sight.