Top Management

I thought I heard a sound somewhere. The sound of ice breaking.

Songha didn’t have any reaction when they insulted her but when they changed their target to Seoyoung, she wrinkled her brows. When Songha was about to step forward, Seoyoung grabbed her arm.

“I guess we were shallow. Then let’s see each other during the Next K-Star filming!”

After making the mood into an icy winter, the Sugar Cats members gently waved their hands and disappeared. With the same slightly smiling faces. What was more, they even bowed politely at me.

Like… if you don’t like them, then just swear!

Spit! Fight! After a fight, at least you would be refreshed!

This felt worse because it felt like we were beaten up by a shadow fist.

When I first saw them, I thought they were bright, kind girls. For their insides to be so black. As expected, my eyes were fish eyes.

That was that but I had to do something about Seoyoung whose head was lowered. Songha kept wriggling and kept giving signals to do something.

I didn’t have any experience in comforting a grown woman but since I had a lot of experiences comforting young girls…

“Seoyoung.”

“I’m fine.”

Before I could do anything, Seoyoung raised her head. I was worried she might be crying but her face was fine.

“It’s not the first time. I don’t pay attention to those words.”

Seoyoung spent the longest time away from her parents as a trainee and W&U was her third company. I now knew that that wouldn’t have been easy. That was probably why she was strong enough to endure her past colleagues’ sarcastic remarks.

I put away comforting her and said in a half-joking, half serious manner.

“Just where do kids like them come from? I should have fought them for you.”

Seoyoung’s expression slowly relaxed. She patted my back with her small hand.

“You can’t. We are just now getting popular, we can’t get into trouble because of me. At a time when we can’t be too careful.”

“Next time, I butt in quickly and clear them away. Do they have excess energy? Why do always come to fight you?”

“It’s best to just ignore them. Oppa, have you ever heard the word, ByungMukGeum[1]?

I saw it on the internet.

“…Don’t feed assholes?”

“Yup, it’s that. I am only going to work hard on the things I need to do. I bet if I succeed, they would probably lie sick in bed due to anger.”

“Would they? Then after we place first, let’s go visit them at the hospital.”

I was 100% serious.

“Ehahahaha! I really wish that happens!”

The vigorously laughing Seoyoung grabbed Songha’s hand who was following behind us.

“Don’t worry about them and forget it. Don’t go create a fight. Okay?”

Songha’s expression was still a bit sour.

“Why aren’t you answering me? Okay?”

“Okay.”

Eventually, Songha wasn’t able to resist any longer and nodded her head.

We returned to the waiting room and ate our fill to relieve ourselves. When Seoyoung ate a large amount of snacks she usually wouldn’t even touch, the traitor poked my side and asked.

“Did something happen outside?”

“Nothing much.”

Ah. There was one next to me, a fellow with black insides.

The traitor backed away with a puzzled look. I looked at the traitor’s back differently. Although I kept calling him a traitor, the shock from my first day was slowly starting to fade. Since the traitor I have seen so far was a good natured guy who worked hard at his job.

Perhaps if I didn’t see the future on my first day, we would be really close?

Although I was trying my best not to let my guard down, my thoughts were getting more complicated. If Reporter Song didn’t say, ‘so that person was like that before,’ I might have considered it to be the greed of a new recruit and let down my guard already.

Just how was the traitor living 20 years from now?

Since Reporter Song, who was an entertainment reporter, knew of him, it seemed like he probably still worked in this industry…

It was complicated. There was a limit to by brain capacity but there were too many concerning words and people. I needed a day to organize them all before they overload.

After eating snacks, I left with the girls for their dress rehearsal. With a nametag the size of an A4 paper on their chests.

When I first saw it, I found it funny but it was a must-have item here. For groups with a lot of members, especially with new groups, it was impossible for the producers to memorize all their names.

Hyunjo had an external meeting so he was absent and the traitor and I took pictures of the rehearsal with our phones. Since it wasn’t a stage they were comfortable with, we would take pictures at different angles and then they would adjust their expressions and choreography accordingly. To show the audience a more perfect performance.

And that was how we spent our waiting time as the live broadcasting time approached.

While we were waiting for Hyunjo after we had finished our preparations, we heard a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

I thought it was someone who came to greet us but when I opened the door a camera popped in.

“We came to film the VCR.”

“Sorry?”

“The video to introduce the next group. It’s only 15 seconds so could you all gather here for a second.”

Before he left, Hyunjo said that they would come film an introduction video, so it was this.

A female writer or someone handed the girls who were in the middle of practicing a palm-sized script and explained.

“First introduce your group, the song Neptune is going to introduce is Kim Jongsu’s ‘3 Falls’ and Sky’s ‘Don’t follow me’. You just need to talk in order and…”

She scanned the four girls’ faces and picked Songha.

“Ms. Songha, at the end, please act like you’re walking in your spot and quickly turn your head and say the title of the song, ‘Don’t follow me’. Everyone else can act like they are following her and stop. It’ll be cheesy if everyone is too serious, so just have fun with it.”

“Yes!”

I saw it a lot when I was monitoring music broadcasts. No matter how they did it or who did it, the introduction video would always be cheesy.

The girls memorized a one-sentence dialogue and filmed the 15-second introduction video. They started with ‘Hello, we are Neptune!’ and introduce Kim Jongsu’s lovely emotional ballad, ‘3 Falls’.

Seoyoung sweetly said.

“And the next song is from the one who returned as a bad girl, Sky’s.”

Lastly. Songha walked in place and the other girls acted like they were stealthily following her. She suddenly stopped and turned her head.

Her waving hair gently fell down and…

“Don’t follow me.”

They immediately said, ‘okay’. The satisfied camera team left the waiting room and the traitor and the girls high-fived each other saying that they thought it went well.

I couldn’t join them and blankly stood there.

Because… I was looking at Songha.

You’re good at acting!

After that day, I observed Songha.

It wasn’t stalking, more like stealthily watching Songha’s every move?

I watched their music video and the behind the scenes video tens of times. I reduced my already insufficient sleep and the result I came to after my analysis was that Songha was never to the point of being called terrible at acting.

In fact, in my perspective, it looked like she was really talented.

Although I wasn’t a professional, there was even a scene where the music video director specifically pointed out Songha and gave her a compliment.

But why didn’t she get a good assessment during her acting lessons?

I even found out the name of the teacher who gave Songha acting lessons and investigated his background. Just in case he was a sham… but he really was someone who W&U trusted and used. He even taught a few actors from other companies.

I once again sneakily brought up acting a few times but I only ended up seeing Songha’s escaping figure.

A day, two days… a few days went by without any improvements.

And today.

I finally got a call from the PR team and was on my way to the fifth floor. I pushed down my excitement and tightly held the coffee box. It was the coffee Team Leader Park said to buy if I wanted to receive what I asked for.

As soon as I got the call, I almost flew to the coffee shop and bought the largest size. To get the anticipated Writer Hong Jumi’s synopsis in my hands, coffee was nothing.

“I brought the coffee!”

I handed out the coffee as soon as I entered the PR team office. The employees and Team Leader Park happily picked theirs.

I scanned the desks with my eyes but I couldn’t find the synopsis. Where was it?

“Team Leader Park. Sy…”

“Aha, here’s what you asked for.”

As I gulped down my saliva as I waited, Team Leader Park put a small paper bag on top of my hands.

Huh? It was smaller than I expected.

The moment I put my trembling hands in the bag, my excitement died down.

“4 signed Blackout CDs.”

“Ah…”

Right. I did. I did ask for these as well.

A few days ago, when I met Team Leader Park downstairs, I remembered my nieces and nephews and asked if I could get some. Since it wasn’t one or two but four copies, I told her that if it was too much of burden, it didn’t matter if she couldn’t get some and left.

Since Team Leader Park especially got them for me, I couldn’t show that I was disappointed and quickly changed my expression.

“Thank you. My nieces and nephews are huge fans. They would probably faint if I gave it to them.”

“Well, we are co-workers. It’s not like you asked for Blackout member’s phone numbers and getting signed CDs aren’t undoable favors. And…”

With a sly smile, Team Leader Park placed something on top of the paper bag.

A clean stack of papers with no creases.

On the front page, it had the title, , and at the very bottom were the names of the director and the screenwriter.

Writer Hong Jumi.

“This…!”

“They say they are doing it on TVL? This is the one you asked for, right?”

“Yes. It’s this. Thank you!”

“If you’re thankful, then just buy us coffee next time.”

When I treated the synopsis like a treasure, the female employee tilted her head.

“But it looked like Mr. Manager’s senses were wrong? I read it first and I found it a bit childish.”

“Right. And the whole ‘animal repaying the debt’ theme is a bit worn-out.”

Harsh reviews came out of the two employees’ mouths.

“When you just read the synopsis, it didn’t really draw you in, right?”

“Well, sorta like an ‘it really is a cable drama’ feeling?”

It was the same in the future I saw. They said that everyone who read the synopsis said it was childish and stale.

This really was it.

I said my farewells to the PR team employees and left with a quick pace. And I sat down in the fourth-floor lounge and read the first page.

Aha. After reading the first few pages, I understood.

Why the synopsis didn’t get good reviews.

The synopsis was the same as a preview, they had to write it very interestingly to get investors and actors captivated by it. They would have to word common and stale parts as something special and occasionally put in an overseas location that was never scheduled.

It was to the point where there would be a writer who would solely work on the synopsis.

And classic examples of that were Time Slip and Mermaid out of Water.

But this synopsis was written too honestly. It wasn’t a catalog designed to sell to others but just plainly organized out, like homework for example?

I didn’t care about the lack of polish and focused on the plot.

A cold winter. An ordinary female lead picked up a collapsed cat on her way home. Its outward appearance was filthy but it was a cat with pretty blue eyes. The female lead devoted herself to take care of the cat but it died on the next day.

And then the cat came back as a ghost to repay the female lead who let it die peacefully.

So that was why the title was Cat Guardian Ghost.

From then on, the ghost cat would interfere with the female lead’s daily and love life, sometimes being helpful and other times, causing trouble. Well, it was a romantic comedy where in the end she became respected at her work and ended up in a relationship with a handsome superior due the cat.

Just looking at the synopsis, it really deserved being called childish and stale.

Ah, but there was an interesting twist in the cat and the female lead’s relationship.

A twist where the cat came overseas from the US. Due to some circumstances, the cat ended up collapsing in Korea and dying but in any case, because of this, the ghost cat could only speak English. And the female lead would get butterflies in her stomach when she spoke English.

So the female lead had no choice but to hire an interpreter to talk with the cat guardian ghost…

Huh?

Wait.

What was this?

I flipped to the character introduction page. The female lead, the male lead, cat… and at the bottom, something I couldn’t believe was written there.

Interpreter.

[1] Koreans sometimes shorten a phrase by taking the first character of each word.