Awakening Begins
As Lee Seonghun walked toward the cafe, his head was full of self-reproach.
He had faced his own inadequacy for the first time and felt powerless. He was embarrassed that he had cried in front of someone younger than him. He was confused about whether the path he had chosen was even the right one.
In the end, all of it had curdled into blame turned inward.
“Seven iced Americanos, please.”
No matter how positive Lee Seonghun was by nature, there had always been an edge of urgency beneath him.
He had tried to walk a path suited to his aptitude and interests without making his family anxious, but it felt as though that road had suddenly collapsed beneath him.
“I’m jealous.”
By the time he received the drinks at the cafe, his emotions had already moved past self-reproach and settled into jealousy.
Kim Siwon.
The man who, despite a harsher environment than his own rise from poverty, had remained the top student in Korea University, and who was somehow just as good at market analysis and marketing planning.
Seonghun’s head was full of fundamental doubt and a strange emptiness at the sheer impossibility of a person like that.
“Those feedback points were completely evidence-based. He didn’t waste a single word. And he even encouraged me.”
But the more he replayed his conversation with Kim Siwon, the harder it became to find any reason to resent him or feel negatively toward him.
Siwon had given feedback with no fluff, focusing only on the points that needed immediate discussion or confirmation, and he had asked questions that helped Seonghun notice things he himself had overlooked.
So the more Seonghun thought about Siwon’s feedback, the more things he realized still needed to be addressed.
“He said we should make the target group more specific, right?”
Little by little, his view shifted away from emotional spiraling and back toward the actual problems he needed to solve.
“Specific. Specific. We need to specify the target. Why?”
Identify the problem, find a solution.
If the solution wasn’t right, identify the problem with the solution.
It was a very simple sequence of thought, but one that was easy to overlook.
Still, Lee Seonghun had been accustomed to thinking that way since childhood.
It was the one thing his father had always emphasized as important in business, even if he himself had never managed to uphold it.
“Seven Americanos are ready~”
“Ah, yes. Thank you~”
Taking the coffees, Seonghun kept thinking all the way back to the club room.
As he considered each element that had gone into the PPT, he found himself wanting to tear up the entire structure and start over.
And with that urge came the drive to dismantle the whole thing and build a better plan from the ground up.
With that drive, Choi Yeonghun gradually found his balance again.
And then he was able to look straight at the goal that had seemed to collapse.
“All I have to do is learn well from Kim Siwon and become a good CBO.”
Having finally gotten his mind back under control, Lee Seonghun arrived at the club room, handed out the coffee, and immediately opened his laptop.
“Mr. Seonghun, aren’t you leaving work? Did Mr. Siwon give you something to do right away?”
“No. There’s a lot I need to fix, so I’m going to make the revisions and get Mr. Siwon’s approval again.”
“Oh, man.”
Because Jeong Hyeonwoo was a developer, he seemed to interpret the situation as the kind of extra work that came from a bug.
So he patted Seonghun’s arm sympathetically.
But from Seonghun’s perspective, all of this was merely a means to reach his goal.
In fact, he felt better because Kim Siwon’s feedback had increased the odds of achieving the result he wanted.
“I think I should start by revising the estimate of market size on the third slide, including the pharmaceutical company market.”
Lee Seonghun’s ability to understand, absorb, and apply information was formidable.
Because he was fundamentally someone capable of analytical, step-by-step thinking, he could spot problems beyond the ones Kim Siwon had pointed out.
It wasn’t for nothing that Lee Seonghun became a legendary CBO in his previous life.
“Then we need to build the plan around this market.”
In effect, a new PPT had been born, but Seonghun didn’t feel the least bit attached to the old version.
He only wanted to show it to Kim Siwon as soon as possible and get feedback on his new plan.
“Man, I’m hungry.”
The meeting with the professors had gone on quite a while.
A meeting scheduled for under two hours had stretched beyond three, which said enough.
It was because every professor Shin Dongjin had introduced me to loved animals and loved veterinary medicine itself.
It had definitely been a good networking opportunity, but missing the normal meal time like that was a pity.
“The others must’ve all gone home by now. Then I won’t be able to order delivery.”
My stomach growled as I opened the club room door, and even though it was well past six, Seonghun hyung was sitting there alone.
The moment he saw me, he smiled with obvious relief, though his eyes were badly bloodshot.
“What, you got here early?”
“E-early?”
I checked the time on my phone again.
No matter how I looked at it, after seven o’clock was not early.
“Didn’t you go home, Seonghun?”
“No. Are you leaving now, Siwon?”
“No, I have to be back here by 7 a.m. tomorrow, so I’m planning to sleep here tonight. Why?”
“Ohh.”
At my answer, Seonghun hyung reacted with genuine delight.
Was this hyung planning to stay late too?
“Then I’ll sleep here too. Tell me where the shower room in the building is later.”
“What?”
I glanced at Seonghun hyung’s laptop screen.
A PPT on a similar topic to the one from before, but with an entirely different structure and content, was open on the screen.
“Mr. Seonghun, don’t tell me you’ve been revising that meeting material the whole time?”
“Yes. There’s still a bit left, but if you have time later, could you take a look?”
He was insane.
He was completely insane.
His eyes were shining with a kind of intensity that made it impossible to believe this was the same person who had cried earlier.
“If you’re doing this because you think you need to be careful around me, you don’t have to.”
I spoke quickly, worried he might have stayed late because he was worried about me.
But he immediately shook his head.
“No. I ripped it all apart because I wanted to rip it all apart.”
At his firm tone, I gave an awkward laugh.
He was doing this because he genuinely wanted to make something he liked.
It drove home the fact that he hadn’t become successful in his previous life for nothing.
“Well, in that case, should we order dinner first? I haven’t eaten yet.”
“Sure. I haven’t eaten either.”
Watching him stand and stretch, I found it oddly impressive.
He ought to have been discouraged or angry, but instead he looked even more energized.
Then I remembered what I had vaguely heard about him from Shin Dongjin professor last time.
His passion for marketing and planning work.
And at the same time, his anxiety over a path outside his major.
“It’s already past work hours, and it’s just the two of us, so can I just call you hyung?”
“Of course.”
“Hyung. Were you in a bad mood today?”
Knowing how desperate he was, I found myself asking again about his condition.
I had completely fallen apart when the business I had poured my heart into failed, so seeing him become even more passionate instead made it impossible not to ask.
“My mood? Yeah, it was bad.”
“Ah.”
“I really felt like I was such an idiot. So from now on, I’m going to be less of an idiot.”
The positive, forward-looking mindset made me laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
“No, no.”
“You’re laughing because you’re remembering how I cried, aren’t you?”
“No, no! Seriously, I’m not!”
It was such a simple sentence, and yet there was nothing better than that kind of mindset.
I needed to build my own mindset so that when the business started to wobble, I could think that way too.
“Hyung, you’re definitely going to become a big deal.”
I told him the potential I saw in him.
I said it sincerely, partly because he might be acting as though he was fine when he wasn’t, and I wanted him not to blame himself.
“Yeah. Then help lead me there.”
Fortunately, it seemed hyung had already sorted out his thoughts in earnest.
In a situation where he could have been proud, he instead asked a younger person like me to lead him, and it was almost admirable.
“You said you were hungry. Let’s eat something.”
“Ah, right. Should we get chicken?”
“I’m fine with anything as long as it’s not fried only.”
“I’ll order half and half.”
As soon as we ordered food, we each turned to our laptops and got back to work.
Hyung seemed to be getting serious about the planning in a way he hadn’t before.
While I was amazed by his mental stamina, I also thought through any possible complications.
It looks like hyung is really trying hard right now, so I think we should get at least one promotional piece done as quickly as possible. There’s a conference coming up soon.
You asked me to check the materials today. I’m sure he’ll finish them tonight.
What should I say if the revision still needs a lot of work?
I can’t calculate every variable for you. When you check the materials later, just tell me what I said.
I thought carefully about how to guide hyung as he grew step by step.
It was hard to think of a method when this was an area with no perfect answer, especially since it was an area where I had never exactly done brilliantly myself.
Knock, knock, knock.
“You ordered chicken delivery, right?”
“Yes, thank you~”
In the meantime, the chicken had arrived.
“Our office’s biggest advantage seems to be how easy it is to get rid of food waste.”
“Right. There’s a place down the hall where you can clean everything up right away.”
“Still, we are moving offices, right?”
“Yeah. There’s a separate office space on campus for founders. Once the notice goes up, let’s apply for it. And we should also look into whether there are better options.”
While we ate, we talked about completely different things.
The office move, our separate hobbies, family matters, and other small stories.
It was a process of watching out for each other so neither of us ended up choking on dinner.
But the moment dinner was over and the chicken box had been cleared away, hyung called my name as though he had been waiting for it.
“Siwon. Do you have time right now?”
I could feel his seriousness immediately from the way he shut off his private mode and switched straight into business mode.
“Yes. Send me the file.”
The file I received by email felt like an entirely different document.
The design elements were weaker than before, but everything else was better.
At this point, he’s not a newbie anymore. He’s at least around the level of a decent junior. He’s awakened.
Even Badugi seemed to think it looked much better.
“I left out the design elements. Since the deadline was today, I thought it would be better to tear the plan apart a little less prettily than to let the schedule slip.”
As I read the PPT seriously, hyung muttered with a tone that made it clear he was a little disappointed.
But from my perspective, I was only grateful that he had made such the right call.
“That was the right choice. And from a quick look at the PPT contents, it’s way better than before.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Please explain the rest, Seonghun.”
“Yes. I skipped the index introduction and will start right away from the third slide, the market research section.”
It was a revised PPT that took into account the points I had mentioned in passing, and even elements I had never brought up.
Badugi hadn’t praised him for nothing.
“That’ll do.”
I was really glad I had brought him into our company.