My Hollywood Life Is Not That Easy!

Koreatown, Los Angeles, USA.

A place where immigrants, broke artists, and minimum-wage workers lived shoulder to shoulder.

Neon lights buzzed over 24-hour diners, old motels, and mom-and-pop shops that never really closed.

The rich came to indulge, the desperate came to scrape by, and the forgotten just blended into the background.

Vincent was one of them.

Evening was fading, as the last traces of sunlight swallowed by the creeping dark.

Street lamps flickered to life, casting long shadows across the cracked sidewalks as Vincent walked, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets, ignoring the emptiness in his stomach.

A small corner store caught his eye, a dingy little shop with a half-broken neon sign, its fluorescent lights buzzing faintly.

The best thing about these places was how cheap everything seemed, seemed being the key word.

An illusion.

For someone like him, even the cheapest things could feel out of reach.

Inside, the air smelled of stale bread, old newspapers, and something faintly metallic.

The shelves were lined with cans of beans, packets of ramen, and half-empty cereal boxes, a graveyard of forgotten groceries.

Vincent made his way to the counter, scanning the small selection of food.

He grabbed a braid of bread, cheap, enough to last him a couple of days.

It wasn't much, but it would keep him from starving.

He stood at the counter, fingers tapping absently against the wood as he waited.

The cashier wasn't there. He glanced around.

Then, his eyes landed on a carton of milk sitting next to the register.

His throat tightened. Milk. He hadn't had any in week.

The thought of it, cold, smooth, actually filling, made his stomach twist with longing.

His fingers brushed the bills in his pocket, counting without looking.

Not enough.

Not if he wanted to eat tomorrow.

His hand curled into a fist, then withdrew.

No. He couldn't afford it.

The cashier, a tired-looking woman, emerged from the back.

Vincent placed the bread on the counter.

"Just this."

She rang it up without a word. The total was barely a dollar. Even that felt like too much.

He took the change, stuffed it into his pocket, and shoved the bread into his jacket before walking out.

As he stepped onto the street, a thought surfaced.

He still had to clean his room.

Vincent's studio on South Vermont Avenue was barely a step above a closet, a six-story building with more than 50 rooms.

Ten minutes later.

Vincent finally reached his building, a cramped studio complex in Koreatown where over fifty people shared the same narrow entrance.

The air inside was thick with the scent of old cooking oil and damp carpet, the walls stained from years of neglect. The ground floor was Martha's domain, a cluttered office filled with second-hand furniture and the lingering scent of cigarettes.

And she was waiting for him.

Martha, his landlady, was a Korean woman once named Kang Joo-hee, before she converted to Christianity and changed it to something more "American." Her husband didn't liked the way her old name sounded.

Her arms were crossed, posture rigid, her eyes narrowed in that same look of disappointment that had become a permanent fixture whenever she saw him. It made her look less beautiful, or maybe Vincent had just stopped seeing the good in her.

He didn't say anything as he approached. He wasn't in the mood for another argument. But it was coming.

Martha crossed her arms tighter, her face flushed with anger.

"Where's my rent, Vincent?" Her voice was sharp, cutting through the hallway noise. "I heard you've been renting clothes. Seven times this month! That's at least sixty dollars a pop. And you've been eating well too! But damn, you bastard, you 'forgot' to pay your rent?"

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who claw their way to survival and those who are born into comfort, never knowing the taste of real struggle.

By the 1990s, orphanages across America were shutting down, leaving thousands of kids like Vincent lost in a system that valued paperwork over people.

Children like him didn't get lucky breaks. Foster homes weren't sanctuaries. They were temporary placements, a revolving door of strangers who called themselves family but never truly were.

Vincent was fifteen when the orphanage he lived in shut down.

What followed was three years of bouncing between foster homes, never staying long enough to put down roots.

By the time he turned eighteen, the system spit him out like rotten meat. No safety net. No family. Just a handful of crumpled bills and the cold truth that no one gave a damn.

That's why he couldn't afford to lose this apartment. Finding another place would be hell.

"Mrs. Martha, I'll clear the dues in one week. Just give me some more time,"

Vincent pleaded. He hated how desperate he sounded, but he had no choice.

Martha scoffed.

"One week? What the hell? I've been more than patient with you! This is the third damn month you're late. You think you can just keep living here for free?"

"I… I'm doing the best I can," Vincent said, eyes on the floor.

The real reason Martha had rented him the apartment was because of his looks.

At first glance, she had assumed he was the rebellious son of some rich white family, slumming it in LA until his parents came looking for him.

But to her cursed fate, this guy wasn't faking it. He was really an orphan. Really broke.

"Best you can? Hah!" Martha scoffed, stepping closer. "You're just a lazy kid who thinks this world owes him something. I don't care about your excuses. You have three days, Vincent. Three days to pay up, or I'm throwing your stuff out on the street. Got it?"

Three days.

"I'll pay… I just… I need a little more time. One week, I'll even pay you twenty dollars extra."

Vincent's heart sank. He took a slow breath.

Martha shook her head, disbelief in her eyes.

"You've been saying that for months. I've had enough of your sob stories. Three days, Vincent. Don't make me repeat myself."

She turned on her heel and stormed down the hallway, leaving Vincent standing in the doorway.

Vincent stood frozen in place.

Then, slowly, he climbed the narrow staircase to Room 126 and stepped inside.

The room was barely livable. A single flickering lightbulb overhead. A thin mattress on a metal bed frame, shoved into the corner.

A few boxes stacked haphazardly against the wall.

A broken typewriter sat on a wobbly wooden table.

On the wall, a faded Arnold Schwarzenegger poster curled at the edges.

Vincent sat on the bed, rubbing his face.

Three days.

Three days to come up with five hundreds of dollars.

Three days before he was homeless. Again.

The boy was no stranger to challenges, yet he, once the cherished son of loving parents, raised in an era of comfort, couldn't deny the tremor in his heart.

But only for a moment.

For this was his chance. 

A chance to carve his name into the world, to prove his worth, even if the family he yearned for was nothing more than a ghost lost to another timeline.

"Is piracy the only path left for me...?"

The boy stared at the broken typewriter, his expression unreadable. He took a bite of the dry bread in his hand, chewing slowly, as if it were the most precious delicacy.

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( End Of The Chapter)