Once, Aiden watched a Korean drama as he had heard a lot of talks about how they had a very fairy tale kind of romance in their shows. It had interested Aiden a lot, and he still remembered a scene from that drama.
It was a scene that was shot from the perspective of the second male lead, whose eyes had landed on the female lead for the first time. The scene was shot in such a way that Aiden was clearly able to resonate with the feelings of the second male lead.
Though, in the end, that guy died from leukaemia at the end of the drama, and the female lead married a rich guy.
For some reason, Aiden thought of that scene, looking at the woman in front of him.
'There's no way I wouldn't remember her if she was an actress.'
Aiden thought, blinking his eyes.
It felt as though sexiness and innocence coexisted perfectly when he looked at her. She was pretty yet had unique features.
She was a kind of beauty who people would praise naturally. Out of all the people Aiden had seen in real life, including top actresses, she was the prettiest.
It was to the point that there was an enormous gap between the first and second.
As he looked at her, the woman was also a bit surprised to see him there. It was only after a few seconds went by that Aiden managed to open his mouth to break the ice.
Unfortunately, it still was very awkward.
"Hello."
"Ah, yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't expect to see someone here. The party was getting pretty boring, so I came here to take a breather."
The woman said as she walked toward Aiden. It looked like her surprise had gone away, and she was now able to speak casually.
"I came here for the same reason."
Aiden said, trying to shake off all the thoughts in his mind.
"I'm Aiden Silvereye. I'm a—"
"I know you."
As he was introducing himself, the woman suddenly said. He wasn't too surprised about it and just waited for her to complete her words.
"I was actually at the Oscars too, and even before that, I have heard of you. A lot of things are there about you."
"Hopefully, good ones."
The woman didn't say anything to that and just introduced herself.
"My name is Ava Adler."
"Are you an actress?" Aiden asked, wanting to satiate his curiosity, but Ava shook her head with a light smile.
"No, I'm a director at Titan studios. I am not carrying a business card with me currently, or I would've given it to you."
Ava said, and for a second, Aiden wondered if she was lying.
She didn't look that old, and in his mind, the director was a big executive position, especially in a Big 6 studio. Only old people acquire that position after working for years.
The woman in front of him had acquired it at such a young age.
"You look a bit surprised. Do you think that I'm lying?"
Ava tilted her head and smiled, and Aiden quickly replied.
"No, it's not that."
"Actually, I'm also working on [Sherlock of the Shadows] as a producer. I heard that you are very interested in auditioning for it."
That was the second surprise of the tonight, and Aiden barely controlled the emotions that were showing on his face.
Wade had told him that Titan studios was producing [Sherlock of the Shadows] with Zetflix, but he didn't know that he was going to meet one of the producers here, but it did make sense when he carefully thought of it.
Zetflix was only considering a few actors for the lead role in it, and Wade was continuously in talk with their production team, so it was obvious for a producer to know about him being interested in the project.
"I didn't expect to meet a producer here like this," Aiden said. "And yeah, I'm very interested in the series. It feels like something very unique to me."
Ava seemed satisfied hearing that and leaned against the rails of the balcony while casually glancing at him.
"We try to bring in the best group of people to make a good show and talk about a lot of ideas. In the end, that one stuck with us, and we decided to go with it."
By the way, she was talking, it felt like she was very involved in the project. She talked about [Sherlock of the Shadows] for a while longer, and Aiden just listened to her.
In the end, Ava glanced at the wine glass in his hand and suddenly asked.
"By the way, were you here to drink alone because you lost out on the Oscar tonight?"
Hearing that question, Aiden wondered what to say but decided to just be honest. There was no need to hide it when everyone knew that he had lost tonight.
"Yeah, I was thinking about it. I was prepared to take it lightly whether I would win or not, but I still felt disappointed. Failure isn't an easy thing to master even when I am used to it."
"It isn't. It's never going to be. It's a strong emotion, after all." Ava said and then added. "Actually, I think you should celebrate failures more."
"Why is that?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.
Ava smiled like she was thinking of something before replying.
"Because failures sometimes give you time to reflect, especially in showbiz. They might even open new doors that you never knew existed, and you can think about why you failed and if there was a way for you to pass. I myself have gone through failures, and I think I might go through more of them in the future, but it's just a part of life. Anyway, it's a little boring if one just keeps winning."
Aiden wasn't able to say anything to that for a while before just nodding his head. Her words made a lot of sense to him.
Thinking about it, the song that won the award was a mixture of a lot of genres and was done beautifully. The composer of it, Haines Mirza, was one of the best in the business, and he had secretly checked his composing skill during the Oscars.
'Level 9'
He was at the level where Aiden didn't think he would reach soon. Just reaching Level 8 had taken a lot, and if Level 10 was the top, then it would take at least a few years.
"You are right. I think I was just thinking too much into it."
Aiden said, looking up at Ava, who just gave a smile.
"Anyway, I think I need to go now. Some people would already be looking for me. It was nice meeting you." She said and stepped towards the door that led to the hall but then she stopped and turned back. "By the way, I really like your songs."
"Thanks."
She left after that, and Aiden was left alone, looking at the moon in the sky. Tonight's sky was very clear, and there were even stars that could be seen.
'That was a weird meeting.'
***
After the Oscars event ended, there was a lot of buzz around it online. [Land of the Brave] that had won the Oscar immediately got millions of views as people watched it to check why it had won the Oscar.
All the prize winners got more prestige in the industry, and the interest in their next project also increased massively.
The person who won the award for 'Best Director' immediately got a 150 million dollar fantasy movie by Zero International, and it even trended on Sparrow.
At the same time, Aiden's fans were also disappointed that he had lost out on the Oscars, but the disappointment was very short-lived as Aiden's album 'Stories' was still selling like hotdogs in New York City.
Just three weeks after the release of the music video 'Firefly' got more than 100 million views, and although it had slowed down, it was still going to reach 200-300 million easily. 'Shiver' also crossed 40 million views, and it was particularly a hit on streaming platforms.
The digital and physical albums continued to sell worldwide, with them crossing 200k sales (30k being physical copies). It was a massive thing for Aiden, and his social media team repeatedly sent out 'thank you' posts on his social media handle for the fans.
He also got a lot of calls from some reality TV shows related to singing. One of them was 'Celeb Dancing', which actually invited both Rachel and Aiden as a pair for a season, but they rejected it, not wanting to spend months on a reality TV show.
Aiden instead focused on live shows in both small and big places where fans could come to meet him.
He didn't let Oscar's disappointment bother him for long and just focused on his work.
They held autograph signing events and fan meets and even got Aiden to sing for kids in a hospital as part of the album activities. It naturally got him more and more goodwill from the public, and his album sales continued to rise.
It was not only in America but from all over the world, there were companies who wanted Aiden to hold a show in their country, but they put off a world tour at this point.
[Disconnected] was going to release next month on May 3rd, and they had finally gotten a full script and date for the audition for [Sherlock of the Shadows].
From singing, he was now again moving to acting.
