Cutting Off Their Tail
"Yeah. JH Medical isn’t some hole-in-the-wall shop, right? It’ll be fine."
Kang Sangyoon spent the whole night rationalizing things by himself, then dragged himself into work in a foggy, half-awake state.
He could feel the people riding the elevator with him stealing glances in his direction, but he forced himself to believe it was nothing.
He sat down at his desk, powered up the dead computer, and began the dull, ordinary ritual of checking the work his yesterday-self hadn’t managed to finish.
Once his full office-worker mode clicked into place, Kang Sangyoon finally started to calm down.
"There aren’t any emails today. Guess it’s a slow day."
Relaxed at last, he let out a long sigh as he checked his inbox and found no new messages.
Then, all at once, he felt a presence behind him.
"Manager Kang."
"Oh—geez, you scared me."
It was Deputy Manager Woo from HR.
A person who worked on the floor below ours.
What was he doing here when it wasn’t even hiring season?
"Yes, Deputy Manager Woo. Hello."
Kang Sangyoon’s mind immediately filled with fresh anxiety, but he kept it off his face and greeted him with a smile.
But Deputy Manager Woo from HR met him with a very small, very serious voice.
"I’m here because the executive director wants you upstairs right away."
The moment he heard that, Kang Sangyoon felt as if his heart had dropped straight into his stomach.
"What’s this about?"
"I think it’d be better if you heard it directly."
"At least give me a hint. You’re making me nervous."
"There are other people who can hear us here. Let’s talk on the way."
By then, Kang Sangyoon’s head was full of every worst-case scenario imaginable.
Still, he carefully went back over the things the legal team had said to reassure him.
Right. I’m the only one who can give a detailed report on Kim Siwon right now.
That’s why they called me.
Calm down. You’re just a loyal company man who did what he was told.
"Understood. Let’s talk upstairs."
Kang Sangyoon left his seat with a perfectly unconcerned expression.
Then he went into the executive office.
"Good morning, Executive Director."
The executive director looked at Kang Sangyoon’s proper, respectful greeting and smiled.
But that smile only made Kang Sangyoon even more uneasy.
The executive director didn’t smile often unless he was making an especially unreasonable demand.
"Did you see the article?"
That one short sentence made Kang Sangyoon’s hands begin to tremble.
Even so, he forced himself to stay in control and answered as calmly as he could.
"Executive Director, are you asking about the history behind TA Medical?"
But the executive director cut him off with a firm shake of his head.
"We’ve already reviewed the history. Everyone on the executive team knows it."
Kang Sangyoon could no longer keep the awkward smile on his face.
He realized they hadn’t called him here for an explanation, but to shift the blame elsewhere.
"There were even suggestions to fire you on the spot, but I said no. You’ve worked hard."
"Then what kind of disciplinary action is being taken?"
"For now, you’ll go over to Sales Support."
At those words, Kang Sangyoon’s eyes went so wide they looked ready to pop out of his head.
"Me? You’re saying I’m being transferred to Sales Support? From the New Business Development TF to Sales Support?"
"You caused a mess in that TF. There’s nothing we can do."
"What? You know I didn’t do anything on my own, don’t you?!"
"Then are you saying the company ordered you to do something illegal? When exactly did we tell you to corner startups with illegal contracts?"
Watching the executive director play innocent, Kang Sangyoon clenched his fists before he even realized it.
"Be grateful you’re not getting fired after something like this."
Kang Sangyoon wasn’t being cut loose entirely.
They couldn’t sever his income stream completely, because no one knew how he’d react if they did, so they’d settled for a departmental transfer as punishment.
But for Kang Sangyoon, being stripped of a department that had once been considered part of the company’s core and sent somewhere completely unrelated to his career path was a shock beyond words.
Of course, he fought the transfer order with everything he had.
"Executive Director! This—this is temporary, right? You know how I got up to this point from the moment I joined as a new hire!!"
"Has anyone here not worked hard? You should have done better."
"I did do well, exactly as I was told!"
"Oh, now we’re saying we told you to do it? Who was it who couldn’t handle a single task properly and ended up causing this kind of issue?"
Kang Sangyoon screamed until he was hoarse.
But naturally, it did nothing.
While all this was happening, HR was busily gathering and organizing the company email and messenger logs Kang Sangyoon had used for internal communication.
They were making sure the evidence wouldn’t pile up, in case he decided to blow the whistle.
"Executive Director. I can’t get into the company messenger on my phone right now—are you seriously scapegoating me?"
"I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped dragging the company into your own mistakes."
Of course, Kang Sangyoon realized he was the one being scapegoated.
As someone who knew exactly how dirty JH Medical was, he wasn’t stupid enough not to understand what this suspicious chain of events meant.
That only made him more desperate.
There was no moral or social standard that could predict what kind of action JH Medical would take next.
"So I’m just supposed to sit here and watch my annual salary get cut in half by withholding tax calculations?"
"Stop speaking emotionally."
"Fine. I’ll think about how to handle this rationally."
Kang Sangyoon slammed the executive office door behind him and let out a bitter laugh.
If he agreed to this transfer, the for incentives and everything else would change completely, and his actual take-home pay would drop by nearly half.
After finishing that calculation, Kang Sangyoon impulsively picked up his phone.
"Hello? Oh. This is President Kim Siwon, right?"
The first target of his frustration was Kim Siwon.
He was the type who bullied the weak and groveled before the strong, and his instinct was to blame whoever seemed easiest.
"If you didn’t like the contract terms, you should’ve contacted me directly. You don’t get to stir up something illegal like this."
― "Stir up something illegal?"
"Yes. The company is already reviewing this legally. If you can, post some kind of explanation right now."
― "Why would I do that?"
But Kim Siwon was nowhere near the weak side of the board.
The very fact that he was calling like this out of nowhere meant Kang Sangyoon was backed into a corner, and there was no reason for Kim Siwon to be afraid.
"W-Why would I? Do you not find JH Medical scary at all?"
― "Oh. Is this a situation where I’m supposed to be scared? Should I call my lawyer and ask what the proper response is based on this recorded call?"
"You—!!"
At Kim Siwon’s innocent-sounding question, Kang Sangyoon suddenly shouted.
"Right now, is that really what you’re saying?! Do you have any idea how much people are suffering because of you?!"
― "Well, from the public reaction, it looks more like Manager Kang Sangyoon is the one making more people suffer."
"Don’t act clever and drag this out. All you have to do is write an explanation saying what you said on broadcast wasn’t aimed at JH Medical."
― "Ah. So you’re trying to induce the spread of false information?"
Kim Siwon’s uncooperative reply made Kang Sangyoon grind his teeth. He shut his eyes tightly.
He had said this call was being recorded, and only then did it sink in that one wrong move could send him straight into the abyss.
"No. I’m sorry. I was just worried President Kim Siwon might get tangled up in something legally annoying."
― "Ah~ You were worried about me. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it myself."
"Yes. Thank you for your hard work."
Naturally, Kang Sangyoon’s anger didn’t vanish.
If anything, it only grew.
So he decided to make one last desperate move.
But because so many people had already been hurt by Kang Sangyoon, the comment section turned into a stage for exposing just how low he’d sunk.
While that was happening, a notice about Kang Sangyoon’s transfer was posted on the company bulletin board, and a flood of confused messages came pouring in.
Among all those messages, the one that caught Kang Sangyoon’s eye was from the head of the legal team.
The post, which had done nothing but cause noise, spread into the legal team’s hands in no time at all.
It meant the entire company was putting real effort into monitoring the situation.
Then the scale of the lawsuit would be enormous as well.
Isn’t there anyone who’ll look at me and feel sorry for me? Isn’t this a violation of labor law?
Kang Sangyoon asked in a trembling voice.
He knew the other side wasn’t someone he could appeal to emotionally, but he still wanted to try.
If you try to push this legally, the company will push everything you’ve done up to now right back at you.
The answer that came back, as expected, was cold and merciless.
Kang Sangyoon, who had spent his whole career running like a dog for the company’s benefit, had no choice but to close his mouth.
In the end, he accepted the transfer.
Meanwhile, JH Medical immediately pushed out PR articles to handle the issue.
As expected, the public response was lukewarm.
Because they had been complacent and failed to seize the narrative from the start, it was hard to turn public opinion back around.
Of course, this wasn’t an event that would make JH wobble dramatically overnight.
But it was definitely a valuable blow from nothing more than Kim Siwon—a startup founder and college student.
And in the middle of all that noise, TA Medical began receiving a number of promising investment proposals.
After all, Kim Siwon’s medical devices for animals and humans were both genuinely innovative ideas.
They also received no small number of calls from professors in Korea and abroad who wanted to verify the products’ performance firsthand.
"It really is starting now."
At last, the groundwork for the business had been laid—noisy, yes, but solid.