Attending the Golden Eagle Awards was supposed to be simple: show up, smile, wave, take the trophy, say thank you, go home, and pretend the world didn't run on vanity.
The problem was that nothing in Alex's life was ever simple - especially when cameras, gossip, and half-buried history were involved.
The first awkward knot formed before he even set foot on the red carpet: he genuinely didn't know who he was supposed to walk with.
The idea of appearing beside Violet Grant never even had time to fully take shape. That would be pouring gasoline on a narrative that already circled his name like flies around ripe fruit. Violet was off the table. End of discussion.
But beyond her, there were two other women with official invitations. Emily, who played Samantha Burnes and who, at first, had been dismissed by plenty of people as "too pretty to be taken seriously." And Yasmim Banner, whose polished charisma felt tailor-made for gala nights - the right smile, the right posture, the right silence at the right moment.
During the Soul Society arc, Emily's performance had been competent, serviceable - nothing that screamed award season. People wanted her on-screen more for her presence than her dramatic weight. Then the Arrancar Saga happened, and with it that scene - the confession that, for reasons no one could fully explain, cut across the country like lightning and landed exactly where it hurt the most: the pride of thousands of men.
In a single week, Emily stopped being "the pretty actress" and became "the actress who made everyone swallow hard." She gained fan pages, viral edits, and - inevitably - an invitation to the Golden Eagle Awards. The organizers wanted the full cast, wanted a visual punch, wanted buzz.
That was the moment Alex realized just how massive a strategic mistake he'd made months earlier.
He'd recruited too many exes into the same project. Too many. Too much history in one place.
The only stroke of luck - bitter luck, but luck all the same - was that Talita, who played Captain Unohana, had limited screen time and hadn't received any nominations. If she'd been on the list too, the night would've turned into a bonfire with gasoline poured straight into it.
The flight - more than ten hours - was spent in silence and calculation. Alex stared at the plane's ceiling, bouncing between the mental script of what he should do and the raw exhaustion of what he could no longer sustain. By the time he landed and returned to Aurora Entertainment, his body was present… but his patience had been left somewhere above the Atlantic.
He was already cracked from the pressure of filming Death Note, on top of rewriting the final arc of Bleach. And then, seeing Emily and Yasmim in the same hallway, the same air, the same "we need to decide this now" tension - Alex felt something rare happen inside him.
He quit.
He stepped back in his own mind and let go of the wheel.
Whatever. Let it happen.
That tired, hollow, almost aggressive I don't care anymore - ironically - made room for the most surreal scene of the night.
On the Golden Eagle red carpet, the host began in that voice that sounded trained from birth to narrate celebrities like a military parade.
"And here we have the renowned actor, rising screenwriter, rising director, and also…" He paused automatically to read correctly. "Alex, whose first fully creator-led work, Bleach, has earned six nominations - "
The sentence died in his mouth.
Because Alex stepped out of the car with one hand on Emily's waist and the other on Yasmim's - like it was the most normal thing in the world - and right behind them was Violet Grant, trying to keep pace like someone who'd been dragged into an event far beyond her social survival manual.
For a beat, the host looked like he'd frozen from the inside out. His lips tightened. He blinked twice, quick, as if his brain had asked for confirmation.
But a professional was a professional. In under three seconds, he recovered, shoved the surprise under the rug, and continued as if he hadn't just announced a live grenade.
Beside Alex, Emily was already boiling. You could see it in the way she smiled with her mouth and not her eyes. And still - she never missed a chance to trend.
"Should we take a photo?" she suggested, sweet and venomous at the same time.
Yasmim was nearly at the same level, just in a different key. She had too much memory, and her memory was cruel. A scene from minutes earlier - inside the car - played back in slow motion: Alex leaning into Emily's chest without an ounce of shame, using it like a pillow he was entitled to… while his legs rested across Yasmim's lap, and he said, lazy as a king:
"Emily, massage my head… Yasmim, work my legs."
If Yasmim could've, she would've slapped him right there. A slap that would look good in photos. Clean angle. Perfect impact.
But she held it in.
She wasn't as sharp as Emily in the backstage war game… but she wasn't stupid either. One look at Alex told her everything: he was at his limit. Exhausted. Tense. Mentally distant. This wasn't a man playing - it was a man who'd gotten tired of managing emotional debris and decided to turn into stone.
His silent message was clear: If you want to come, come. If you don't, leave. I don't have the energy for this.
And as absurd as it was, that posture made both women pull back slightly. Because any explosion right now would hand the advantage to the other - and neither of them wanted to be the first to lose ground.
In the end, Alex's whatever turned - briefly - into a ridiculous kind of privilege: he walked with two stunning women hanging from him like a weary king, and they accepted the role because backing out would be worse.
Still, there were limits. It was hands held, waists held, poses for cameras. Any fantasy of "three in the same room" was exactly that: a fantasy. Alex might be bold, but he wasn't suicidal.
The funniest part was that the Golden Eagle broadcast usually didn't attract much attention from casual viewers. But the moment word leaked that Alex would attend, the live stream's popularity climbed like a rocket. And the second he stepped out with Emily and Yasmim at the same time, the chat turned into a war zone.
People losing their minds. People cursing. People laughing like they were watching a soap opera with a cinema budget.
And when they finally started walking, the red carpet - normally a thirty-second stroll - became an eternity. Emily and Yasmim kept stopping, turning, locking in smiles, adjusting angles, offering their best side to the lens like they were fighting a silent battle for every captured frame.
Violet, beside them, looked like a living statue. Pale. Stiff. Unsure where to put her hands - like someone had thrown a girl into a ring full of adults.
"Emily… help her," Alex murmured, tugging lightly at the actress's arm.
Emily shot him a look that said you are a disaster, but she complied. She pulled Violet in smoothly, positioned her inside the trio, and had her copy poses as if it were a speed-training drill.
Afterward came the signatures on the commemorative board. Violet wrote her name carefully, letter by letter, focused like it was an exam. Alex, Emily, and Yasmim scribbled theirs with the casual confidence of veterans too seasoned to treat the ritual as sacred.
Rookie and old hand didn't need to say a word. The difference was in the pen.
Inside the theater, on the way to the front seats, Alex ran into a familiar face.
Mark.
He arrived with an elegant actress - leading-lady presence, faint irritation on her face, like she was tired before she even sat down.
Alex lifted an eyebrow, malicious the way he always was when he met someone from the old circle.
"So… you stole your uncle's woman?"
Mark froze, his face darkening instantly.
"Alex, don't say that crap," he hissed, fast. "We did a new series together. Sabrina asked her to come with me… you know… boost exposure."
In other words: publicity dressed up as coincidence.
The actress looked at Alex like he was a walking problem.
"Hey, I have nothing to do with the guy you're implying," she snapped. "Stop making things up."
Alex raised both hands in mock surrender, but his eyes were still amused.
"Fine, fine. Just… avoid men who are way too old, alright? Late life gets rough."
Mark swallowed. A line like that could become a headline in five minutes if anyone wanted it to.
The actress, however, turned her eyes toward Violet and let a sharp little smile curl at the corner of her mouth.
"Good advice. You should tell that to the girl you brought with you."
Violet blushed instantly, like someone had switched on a lamp inside her face. Emily went rigid. Yasmim made a tiny sound through her nose - almost a contained laugh.
Mark was sweating. He was trapped between the most dangerous man to annoy and the most important star in his own company.
With no exit, he did what every professional does when the conversation heads somewhere nobody wants to go: he changed the subject.
"Alex… if we want Best Series, who do you think is our biggest competitor?"
Alex thought for a second, no drama.
"Operation Icebreak."
Mark nodded, recognizing it. A production stacked with veteran actors and solid performances - the kind juries loved because it was hard to attack on technical grounds.
"The Twelve Hours of a Griffin is strong this year too," the actress added, slipping into the conversation smoothly. "It won't beat Bleach, but it might steal one or two awards from you."
Alex shrugged like it didn't matter. Then he said, with a calm that sounded like a joke… but carried a hidden blade.
"Whatever. If they don't give me at least two major awards, I'll go back and shoot a new series just to roast them. And I'll announce I'm never coming to the Golden Eagles again."
Around them, a few A-listers went pale. Not because of the statement itself - because in Alex's case, it didn't sound like bluffing.
He had a reputation. He'd gone viral arguing with big names in interviews, and the clips still floated around like recent legend: the kind of person who didn't ask permission to "have an opinion."
When the night's host, Teacher Heleno, stepped onstage with the card in hand and that rehearsed smile, the entire theater held its breath.
"And the Best Actor of this year is…" he paused, theatrically, "…an award that, honestly, has no controversy at all. Alex, for Bleach."
Applause hit like thunder. Alex rose, adjusted his jacket, and started walking toward the stage.
And in the middle of the noise, a few people nearby swore they heard him mutter under his breath, genuinely irritated:
"They folded that fast? I won't even get a chance to make trouble…"
The words ran like a chill down the spines of the experienced ones. No one knew if he was joking, but everyone understood the message: don't poke him.
Alex took the trophy from Teacher Heleno, turned toward the audience, faced the sea of cameras and eyes… and delivered the first line of his speech.
"First, I want to thank Emily… Yasmim… and Talita," he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "If they hadn't agreed to work for the lowest possible fee, this series would never have existed."
The theater reacted with muffled laughter, swallowed coughs, and a kind of collective shock that had nothing to do with the award.
Online, the meltdown was immediate.
Because onstage - under the whole country's gaze - Alex had just done what no one dared do: he thanked his exes first, as if he were signing his own sentence… with a smile.
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