A College Student Who Knew Nothing
“One company?”
“Yes. One company.”
“Ha... how are we supposed to make a show with these bookworms?”
The broadcast appearance for Kim Siwon’s club had been decided by the production team in what could only be described as an accident.
The scheduled guests had dropped out one after another, and the staff had suddenly found themselves scrambling to fill the empty slots.
So the producer had reached out first to Siwon, who had been the most eager to appear.
All they really needed was to expand on Siwon’s suggestion; they didn’t even have to come up with a separate idea. That alone was enough to build an episode around.
Still, the producer couldn’t shake the worry that the result would turn into a boring show about extraordinary geniuses spouting difficult technical jargon.
“I feel bad for the kids, but I think I’ll send them out with a bit of a weird-genius image.”
“Yes. If they come across as complete oddballs, people will probably find them interesting.”
“Right, right.”
“The pre-interview questionnaire came in. Do you want to take a look?”
“Of course, of course.”
With no expectations at all, the producer and writer opened the email and read through the questionnaire answers with blank expressions.
Then, after a moment, they looked at each other and smiled.
“If we prepare a little, this could go fairly well.”
“You mean because of number four?”
“Obviously.”
Their expressions were now the brightest they had worn all day.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The studio was packed with cameras we had never seen before and a swarm of staff members rushing around in every direction. Our club stood there alone in the middle of it all, a little dazed.
“Wow. There are seriously a lot of people here.”
“Right? I thought talk shows only had one or two cameras.”
“The lights are brutal. They’re really blasting the set.”
We had arrived at the set for Our Strange World, though I couldn’t help thinking of it as the Trouble Show, and we stared quietly at the TV studio in genuine awe.
While we were still standing there blankly, the producer suddenly came running up to us.
“President Kim Siwon, everyone, hello!”
“Ah, Producer! Hello!”
“President. I need to talk with you about the pre-interview questionnaire responses. Could you come over here for a moment?”
The producer smiled broadly and led me off to one side.
The pre-interview questionnaire.
Before the broadcast, I had received a questionnaire by email.
Since they were rushing to fill an unexpected opening, it had been sent on very short notice.
Because of that, the questions were all fairly basic.
How I had prepared for college entrance exams, how I had ended up in computer engineering, how I had brought the club members together, and so on.
So I had slipped one unusual item in among the ordinary ones.
“As I understand it, this time you also received an investment proposal from a large corporation.”
“Ah. Yes. But the investment hasn’t been finalized yet. We’ve only received the discussion contract.”
“Yes, yes. But would it be all right to mention that a large corporation contacted you, even if we don’t name the company?”
Thanks to that, the situation I wanted began to unfold.
“It would make sense to say that you were already chosen by a big company at the pre-startup stage!”
“Ah, yes. If the company name isn’t disclosed, then of course that’s fine.”
“Great. Then I’ll personally guide you to the waiting room. Your colleagues should be there already.”
I obediently went to the waiting room and smiled at the club members.
They all knew what I planned to do, so they only lifted the corners of their mouths awkwardly.
“You’re really doing it?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Won’t we end up causing ourselves problems?”
“You all saw the script, didn’t you? Don’t worry.”
“Your personality is honestly kind of bizarre.”
After thirty pleasant minutes of waiting, we went on set.
Standing at the fully prepared stage was Yang Junhyeon, the nation’s MC, already in place.
We exchanged brief greetings, and without any further conversation we went straight into filming.
“Hello, everyone. I’m Yang Junhyeon from Our Strange World, where we explore the world through unfamiliar perspectives.”
The recording began with Yang Junhyeon’s lively greeting.
“We’ve been told there’s a startup club made up entirely of scholarship students, founded by the top student in Korea University’s computer engineering department! TA Medical! Please say hello to our viewers.”
“Good day.”
At the start of filming, the conversation was perfectly ordinary.
How we had ended up at Korea University, how we had become close to one another, what the new transfer student Seonghun-hyung was like, and so on.
Then the focus shifted to me when my personal history came up.
“Self-studied into the top of a gifted high school, early graduation, early admission to Korea University! Do you know how shocked I was when I heard that?”
“Ahaha. Yes.”
“No, really, how did you enter a gifted high school as the top student? I’ve heard it’s a place you have to start preparing for in elementary school.”
“Honestly, self-study was my only option. I was growing up in an orphanage, so it was difficult to spend money above a certain level.”
The old me had been desperate to hide a story like that.
I had thought it was something shameful, something that absolutely had to stay buried.
But since I knew it would eventually come out somehow anyway, I decided to bring it up first.
Besides, from where I stood now, I knew it was the kind of growth story that could firmly plant a “genius” image in the public mind.
“Wow. So in a sense, you’re actually the youngest one here?”
“Yes. But there are a lot of people who enter Korea University early. Hyunwoo did too. So at Korea University, if you’re the same class year, everyone just treats each other like friends.”
“Which means Lee Seonghun, who transferred in, gets to be called the older brother as the oldest one?”
“Haha. Yes. The age gap is more than three years.”
MC Yang Junhyeon looked impressed, while I played the part of someone embarrassed by the attention.
After a few rounds of praise-laced jokes, the topic I had most wanted finally came up.
“TA Medical really is something unusual. I heard you’ve already received an investment proposal from a large corporation?”
“It’s less that we received an investment proposal and more that discussions for reviewing the investment have only just begun. Really.”
I gave a slightly awkward smile, the kind a student might make when faced with something too big for him.
As expected, Yang Junhyeon grew more animated and continued to pile praise on me.
“Even so! You haven’t even filed the startup application yet, and you’re already in investment discussions with a major corporation! And this isn’t even your first investment-related contract, is it?”
“No. We already have an investment and collaboration contract in place with Professor Shin Dongjin from Korea University’s veterinary medicine department.”
“Ah, so you’ve even collaborated with a professor from the country’s largest university!”
Now came the question I had been waiting for.
“How does it feel? Is contracting with a professor from your alma mater very different from contracting with a major corporation?”
I pretended to think for a moment.
Then I delivered the line from the script I had wanted to say.
“Yes. There were definitely more clauses, and a lot of terms I’d never seen before.”
“For example?”
“Well, they asked for access to the administrator page used by developers, and they also included a clause prohibiting any borrowing of more than 100 million won in company funds without the investor’s prior consent. It seemed like they wanted very detailed control.”
“Ah...”
“I also saw the term ‘special redemption right’ for the first time. And ‘put option’ as well.”
The MC made a very sympathetic face.
Those were terms he probably hadn’t known until just before this shoot either.
That was fine.
The fact that he was now wearing the face of someone who understood everything was proof that the broadcast was going exactly as I had planned.
“Actually, this was one of our pre-interview questions, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, yes.”
“You haven’t signed the contract yet, have you?”
“No. I thought I should look into it carefully. We only got it a few days ago, so I don’t really know much about it.”
“Wise choice. What you described is actually quite frightening.”
It was frightening, yes.
It was all the stuff about looking into our product code and internal workings, interfering with nearly everything we did, and even inflating the investment amount so they could demand it back before we’d even made a profit.
But I put on a flustered expression, as if I had no idea.
“Pardon? Frightening?”
“Yes. This is the kind of issue we’d like to help you with as quickly as possible, so we’ve invited a lawyer who can give a short, simple explanation of these points!”
All of us on the club looked startled or confused.
Then we gave awkward applause when we saw a lawyer in a suit come up onto the stage.
“Good day. This is my second appearance. I’m lawyer Kim Mungyeong.”
“Cut! We’ll set up one more seat and keep going!”
The stage I wanted was now fully built.
The producer had taken the bait.
“Hey. It really turned out exactly like you said.”
Choi Yeonghun, seated next to me, whispered in a voice full of wonder.
Our Strange World was a bland talk program that had conversations with people placed in all kinds of different circumstances.
Its stated purpose was to look at one side of the world and another, or something like that, but in the end it was a show that needed to slip in a few warm, hooky moments here and there.
In other words, it was a program that tried to dig up anything that would earn applause from the public.
“Yeah. It’s the kind of show that loves staging scenes like this.”
A poor genius college student who only studied and coded might end up in trouble because of toxic clauses.
That was the image I had chosen for myself.
There was a risk that I might look foolish in front of the public, but in Korea there was a special factor at work: people usually didn’t dismiss Korea University scholarship students as idiots.
From the producer’s point of view, it was the perfect setup to stage a scene where the show would seem to say, “We’ll help these genius fools who only know how to code!”
“Wait, don’t tell me you also came on this show because you were aiming for this?”
“Of course. If this airs tomorrow, they’ll start revising the contract immediately. The person who planned this will get fired.”
“What if they just cancel the contract altogether?”
“Then we pick among the companies loudly proclaiming, ‘We’re ethical!’ while waving a contract in our faces.”
“Will that actually work?”
“It will. We’re geniuses with a product even a Korea University professor has acknowledged.”
The moment I finished explaining confidently to the club members, filming started again.
“All right. First of all, the keywords you mentioned are very typical toxic-clause terms. Could you explain them in a little more detail?”
“Uh... in what way?”
“Let’s start with the term ‘put option.’ I’ll explain that first.”
Kim Mungyeong explained each legal term in exhaustive detail.
She also gave concrete examples of how each toxic clause could create dangerous situations.
I didn’t know how much of it would actually make it into the broadcast.
But the fact that they had brought in an outside expert to elaborate on the issue made it clear they intended to keep the contract discussion no matter what.
“Thank you. Those were really dangerous terms.”
“If you ever need a review of the full contract, please contact me. I’ll provide legal advice for this matter free of charge.”
“Thank you!!”
“Wow, will we see a review post on your blog later, lawyer?”
“Haha. If you allow it!”
What’s more, the lawyer the program had arranged was a semi-influencer with a fairly large blog following.
That meant this wasn’t someone we could just laugh off and let pass.
Once the broadcast aired, netizens would be angry on my behalf and start wondering which company had made the investment.
And if Kim Mungyeong later dropped even the smallest hint that could identify JH Medical?
For JH, that would be a real disaster.
“Really, sincerely, thank you. I’ll finish my urgent exams this week and come ask for your advice right away.”
“Haha! Talking about exams suddenly makes you sound like a real college student.”
So then. How would JH Medical deal with these kind-hearted college students?
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