Adults Shouldn’t Act Like That
The entire thing had been carefully planned around the concept of a “crisis among geniuses.”
From the pre-interview questionnaire alone, Kim Siwon had planted little hooks everywhere, things the producer and writer would naturally bite on.
To be precise, Badugi had planted each one with painstaking care.
Specific details about the toxic clauses, along with recent developments hinting that they were being handled carelessly.
Just enough, though, that the tone remained stiff and formal, never exposing the fact that this was meant to be an emotional accusation.
Fortunately, the producer and writer made aggressive use of every one of those hooks.
“A pure, pitiful genius being bullied by a conglomerate? This could go viral.”
The production team focused the teaser entirely on Kim Siwon and cut it to air that same day.
His painful past at the orphanage, his life as a genius, and then an ending that baited viewers into thinking he had been swindled by a contract scam.
It was a very short teaser.
But the public response to that one clip was enormous.
Young women focused on Kim Siwon’s handsome face, young men on the strange business field, parents with children on the brain that had let him get into a gifted high school and Korea University through self-study alone, and older viewers on the heartbreaking position he seemed to be in.
Everyone prayed that they had not actually fallen for a contract scam.
It was the kind of teaser that made it impossible for anyone, young or old, male or female, to do anything but wait for the main broadcast.
“Hey. Remember that hackathon-winning team from last time?”
“Ah. Yeah. Of course. Why?”
“They were on TV already.”
“TV? What, did they do some kind of human-interest interview?”
“Not that. I’ll show you. Wait.”
It was already a solid program hosted by a national MC, and now it had the added weight of a story that had caught the entire country’s attention. Of course JH Medical couldn’t help talking about the teaser.
That was how Kang Sangyoon came across the video, halfway through lunch at the company.
“What? Why are these guys on this?”
“Right? Weird, isn’t it?”
Still smirking, Kang Sangyoon watched the teaser and slowly lost the expression on his face.
That was because every example term in the broadcast teaser about “startup investment fraud” matched the keywords inside the contract he had sent.
“From the teaser reactions, it looks like that startup team got scammed on an investment deal! If we step in and make the right investment around now, then push PR off that, wouldn’t it be amazing?”
A newcomer, blissfully unaware of the darker side of his own company, said something thoughtless.
Hearing that, Kang Sangyoon felt his stomach turn.
That was because he was the one committing the so-called investment scam.
Still, he couldn’t afford to look rattled in front of everyone.
He couldn’t go around blabbing about a confidential project.
“It’s just a broadcast. They probably aired a teaser to bait viewers.”
“Doesn’t look like it. The contract details they covered in the teaser were all strange.”
“Maybe the point is that they never signed it. Those clauses were toxic as hell, after all.”
“Could be?”
To anyone with even a little knowledge, it was the kind of contract that made you think, Surely they didn’t actually sign that.
That contract had been sent by JH Medical, and by Kang Sangyoon himself.
Even by his own judgment, it really did seem as though the one discussed on the broadcast was the same contract he had made.
“Team Lead Park from Legal isn’t on leave today, is he?”
“Team Lead Park? No, I don’t think so. I saw him getting lunch earlier.”
“I see.”
Kang Sangyoon spent the rest of lunch pretending to be calm, then went looking for the legal team the moment it was 1:30.
He wanted to find out whether JH Medical had any way to defend itself regarding the confidentiality agreement.
But the answer he got did nothing to calm him down.
“I don’t know exactly what was said on the broadcast, so there’s nothing we can do.”
“Come on, can’t you come up with something? Defamation, contract confidentiality, something?”
“You know legal problems come down to a hair’s breadth. At teaser level, there’s nothing concrete to work with.”
In the end, Kang Sangyoon had no choice but to set an alarm and wait for the main broadcast.
And while he waited, he hoped the show would be so boring that it would die off in the public’s attention.
But the full episode, released under the eyes of so many viewers, was a runaway hit.
A massive hit in every sense.
Everyone who watched the main broadcast reached the same conclusion all at once.
They wanted TA Medical to succeed.
And, as much as TA Medical succeeded, they wanted the conglomerate that had tried to stab them in the back to go down in flames.
When Kang Sangyoon saw the broadcast and the public reaction to it, he went straight to the legal team the next morning the moment he arrived at work.
“Did you watch it? The broadcast?”
“Huh? What broadcast?”
“The startup show I told you about yesterday!”
“I didn’t. Why? Did they mention us specifically?”
“Just watch it first. Then judge for yourself.”
“Sigh, I’m busy too.”
Kang Sangyoon hurriedly booked a meeting room and showed the legal team leader the clip.
But Team Lead Park’s reaction was lukewarm.
“There’s nothing there that specifically identifies our company.”
“No, there is! It’s being identified right now! Want to see the internet reactions?”
The public response was burning hot.
Very hot.
So many theories were flying around, and in the process JH Medical was being named as the most likely suspect.
After studying the reactions for a while, Team Lead Park still did not let his indifferent expression change.
“They’re all just guesses. There’s no concrete evidence.”
“But what if this makes our company look bad? We could get dragged into a negative issue.”
“There was no sign of intent like that in the broadcast, so it would be hard to attack legally. Like the comments say, if we try to go at it legally, it’ll look like we’re confessing.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“What else? People will move on. Don’t sit there panicking by yourself.”
It was all perfectly reasonable.
But even so, Kang Sangyoon could not calm down.
“Damn it, this feels bad.”
Kang Sangyoon tried to shake off his unease and return to normal life as quickly as possible.
But in the middle of all that, the person who would drop the bomb on this issue appeared.
The lawyer who had heard the full contents of the contract Kim Siwon received, along with the entire history behind it, was the one who did it.
More students than ever were now trying to break into startups, unlike before. And there were just as many companies now hunting those students. Big corporations searching for scapegoats among extracurricular events like hackathons. Why can’t the world think in terms of coexistence? Adults shouldn’t act like this.
There was no subject in the post.
No specific example, either.
But there was no doubt she had posted those words at dawn on the day of the broadcast for a reason.
And the netizens caught that reason instantly.
With that, JH Medical was slowly driven into a corner.
Smaller outlets began running stories clearly aimed at JH Medical, and those stories made the public suspect them even more.
Everyone involved began to feel a faint but unmistakable sense of crisis.
“That’s enough. They’ll move on, and we’ll contact the media outlets too. Don’t worry. The stock price is still fine.”
“The industry reputation has already taken a hit.”
“Do we sell consumer goods? We’re in healthcare. As long as the product is good, reputation isn’t that big a problem.”
In truth, this was as far as Kim Siwon had drawn the board.
Pressing down once on JH Medical’s reputation, and engraving his own presence firmly inside the company.
After that, his plan had been to grow TA Medical openly and move on to the next round of revenge.
But now a current stronger than that had begun to move.
I was scammed by an investment at the medical company that was currently the subject of public attention.
It was a post written by a former startup founder who had once been stabbed in the back by JH Medical.
Hello. I am a doctor who started a medical device startup, only to have to shut it down because of investment fraud.
A scam that had taken in someone smart enough to become a doctor.
That only made the public’s attention burn hotter.
He had not specifically written the words “JH Medical,” but since JH was the only company under scrutiny for investment fraud, everyone understood that the scammer was JH Medical.
There was no room left for any talk of neutrality.
The public dug up JH Medical’s past behavior too, and threw themselves into tearing the company apart.
Only then did JH Medical begin to have a real headache over it.
“Shouldn’t we just sue all of them?! Kim Siwon, that bastard, why the hell did he bring us up on a variety show?!“
“I told you. He didn’t specifically name us, and there’s no intent, so a lawsuit wouldn’t mean much.”
“Even if it doesn’t mean much, we have to do something!! Are we just supposed to sit here and watch the stock get crushed?! Sue that old startup founder too, the one doing the exposing this time!!”
“If we do that, the stock will really collapse. Calm down. Right now it just looks like a correction.”
“Then you want us to just leave it like this?!”
The legal team was busy calming the furious Kang Sangyoon down.
But behind the scenes, they were having serious, urgent conversations with their superiors too.
“We need to do something, don’t we? Is there any way?”
“At the moment, there aren’t enough elements to win, so filing suit would probably do more harm than good.”
“Then find another direction that won’t get us into legal trouble!!”
In truth, JH Medical had only one option in the face of this criticism.
It was a method they were already very familiar with.
“Looks like we’ll have to pin this on one person.”
The scapegoat had already been decided.
Someone at just the right level: not high enough to represent the company, not low enough to have no decision-making power at all, and not so unrelated to this matter that they could be ignored.