The Conditions for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader - Chapter 63
As soon as he opened the conference room door, he was hit by the roar of the PD barking at someone as though he were wringing a rat by the tail.
It hardly seemed like the right time to leisurely grab a drink.
"Unless you’ve lost your mind, why would you try to ruin someone else’s broadcast?"
The back of the head of the person the PD was bullying so mercilessly looked far too familiar. Sure enough, it was Bae So-jin. No, what the hell was he doing to someone from another company?
The manager, after confirming Bae So-jin’s face, spoke up with a displeased expression.
"Did one of our staff do something wrong?"
"Manager Kwon, I think your company needs to take a hard look at its employees! This is the kind of thing that can sink a broadcast and hurt your own artists, too! That song overlap from a while back? That was because of this one. There are places to go tattling, and places not to!"
Bae So-jin kept her head bowed and said nothing. Her face was hidden by how deeply she’d lowered it, but she was clearly trembling.
So Bae So-jin was the one who leaked it.It came out this pathetically.Well... somehow, it made sense.
She had been hanging around the area and turning up often enough to catch the eye, and because she was connected to Ju Dong-yun, there had always been something suspicious about her.
Still, officially speaking, she wasn’t a broadcast station employee but a staff member of this company, so wasn’t it wrong for the station side to just drag her out and punish her? At the very least, they should have gone through the company and gotten permission in advance.
The manager’s expression wasn’t bright either. Regardless of fault, an outsider arbitrarily hauling away a company employee to discipline her was blatant overreach.
The PD had worked in broadcasting for years; there was no way he didn’t know that. And judging by how unnatural and excessive his anger looked, it felt like he was putting on a show for their benefit.
Either he had something to hide and was planning to throw Bae So-jin to the wolves and cut her loose, or he genuinely wanted to make his displeasure known. A lone staffer couldn’t really do anything on her own, so it had to be the former.
While he was at it, he could also vent his anger by making a scapegoat out of someone from the same company whom he considered easier to crush, instead of the surface-level victim who was taking the blame for him after getting cursed out to hell and having the broadcast twisted out of shape.
Bae So-jin seemed genuinely unable to believe she’d be forced to confess what she’d done right in front of the members. He couldn’t tell whether that was her real face or not.
Seeing how often her eyes kept flicking toward Cheon Sa-yoon, it was obvious she was conscious of him. Maybe because they’d once been fairly close.
Of course, Cheon Sa-yoon only wore a faint, gentle smile around his lips and didn’t even glance her way, as if he had no idea who she was.
"Young-in, you say something! If you think about it, you’re the direct victim here. We can’t just let this slide. Right?"
The huffing PD shot Go Young-in a glare, as if telling him to speak if he had anything to say.
He knew it was wrong, but the whole situation of gathering around one person and tearing into them together was uncomfortably distasteful. They were going to hold a disciplinary committee anyway, so why bother doing this now?
Or maybe it was just because it was the PD saying it and he didn’t want to hear it. The way the man only ever raged at other people’s mistakes while never sparing a thought for his own was the textbook behavior of a bully who preyed on the weak and feared the strong, and that made him unpleasant to watch. In the end, he had been the one to exploit the whole thing for the broadcast.
"She’s an employee at our company, so I’ll discuss it separately with management."
He hadn’t exactly done anything right himself, and now he was trying to cut her loose at this late hour while dumping the problem onto an innocent... well, not exactly innocent, but still—he was really going to throw a fit at someone else’s company employee like this.
Maybe he believed the loudest voice won, because if all he was doing was shouting now, it honestly felt like Zero One could’ve just let this guy sing instead. His lungs were incredible.
"I already said there’s nothing else to discuss. She came here on her own, scared out of her mind, and confessed. What more do you want?"
"Even so... I’d like to talk about it separately, PD. Not here."
Bae So-jin looked stunned, as if she’d never expected Go Young-in to speak up for her directly. The Go Young-in she knew was not the kind of person who defended anyone. If anything, he probably wouldn’t have paid her any attention at all.
"...Fine, then. Both sides made mistakes, so let’s settle this amicably."
Only then did Go Young-in realize what the PD had been after. Since your side made a mistake too, let’s let it go at that. That was the point. He’d been talking so long because he’d been looking for the right moment to say exactly that.
"It was just one staff member acting on her own, right?"
The PD emphasized it again.
"So let’s say neither side bears responsibility."
After everyone left, the main PD—alone in the room—couldn’t hold back his anger and kicked over a chair. With a crash, it toppled and clattered across the floor. After raging by himself for a while longer, he dragged out the remaining chair and sank into it with a thud.
"Haa..."
If Zero One had shown up as briskly as usual, it would have been a disaster. He was lucky. He didn’t know what had made them late, but whatever it was, it hadn’t been bad news for him.
At least the situation had been patched up, which was a relief. He wasn’t exactly satisfied, but since it had been brushed aside for now, that would do. The PD had already been fined and forced to submit a written apology over the previous broadcast he’d handled, after being disciplined for a separate incident there as well.
On the surface, it was easier to contain because this had not exploded during the broadcast itself but out in the external world, unrelated to the program.
This wasn’t even the first time something had gone wrong like this. Most of the public would lose interest quickly once a statement went up and everyone pretended not to notice for a few days.
But internal damage control was a little different. Because they were dealing with people face-to-face, it was always more troublesome.
Fortunately, this time, Bae So-jin had made it easy to slip through.
While he’d been waiting for Zero One and thinking about how to smooth this over, Bae So-jin had shown up on her own.
The PD had looked down on her. She wasn’t even a broadcast station employee to begin with, just a low-ranking staffer. More accurately, he hadn’t even known she existed.
Normally someone as low-level as her wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near a private conversation like this, and the fact that she had barged into the conference room so rudely had already irritated him.
And then that insignificant little underling had opened her mouth with the gall to say something arrogant the moment she arrived.
What? She knows about the kickbacks? The hospitality? How the hell...?
When Bae So-jin, out of nowhere, started spilling everything about the money she’d received from Chairman Son and even the hospitality arrangements, the PD had thought she was trying to threaten him with some flimsy blackmail.
Of course, it was common knowledge that the PD and Deluxe Music’s Chairman Son, who was in charge of Triple Shot, were acquainted, and that they had been asked to do certain favors in broad strokes.
But saying it directly in front of the person involved was a different matter entirely.
Just as he’d started to rise and kick her out on the spot, Bae So-jin had coolly offered an alternative to the problem he was currently fretting over.
She would take the blame herself, so he should make a token show of scolding someone and use the fact that both sides had made mistakes to bury the issue. When he’d asked what gave her the right to stick her nose into this and what she wanted in return, her answer had been different from what he’d expected.
He’d assumed she’d at least ask for money to keep her mouth shut.
"Those fucking bastards. They think they can move my broadcast around however they like?"
He’d learned that Bae So-jin had been acting like a bat between Triple Shot and Zero One’s agency on Chairman Son’s orders.
More precisely, Deluxe Music had told Bae So-jin’s superior that if she acted as an industrial spy during this broadcast and relayed Zero One’s information in real time, they’d make sure she got a good position on their side—but to the PD, it was all the same.
She said she was helping her boss, who had promised her a position in exchange. What was the difference?
He’d been furious enough to lose his mind that something like this had been going on behind the scenes of his broadcast without his knowledge.
The PD felt betrayed by Chairman Son. No matter how small a token of gratitude he’d received or how much help he’d agreed to give, he was still the person in charge and director of this broadcast.
After more than ten years in the industry, the PD took immense pride in his work.
On top of that, he had already been dragged in and chewed out by Jung, his junior in the past but now his superior and executive producer, because of this very incident, so his pride was already badly dented.
He tells me to quit pushing it or I’ll get disciplined? That bastard climbed one rung higher and forgot everything about his roots. He just pursues whatever’s safe now. And compared to the other CPs, he’s only at deputy-director level anyway, the bastard.
It was my broadcast.
And then they casually cross the line like this? Fuck. Their low-life nature never changes. I set the stage for them, just to give some no-name idiots with no fundamentals, no idol presence, a shot, and they still don’t know their place.
For the time being, he had already exchanged favors with Chairman Son, so cutting ties right away was awkward. But the fact that they were trying to meddle so much in the program also annoyed him.
He was still grumbling to himself and suppressing his irritation when—
Knock, knock.
"Um, excuse me."
Someone on the other side of the door knocked cautiously, unable to hide their nerves. The voice was familiar enough, hard to forget, so it was easy to identify them.
"Oh, Sa-yoon. What is it? We already finished talking earlier. Why aren’t you leaving?"
He wasn’t exactly a welcome face at the moment. The Zero One guys had already caused trouble, and he was still irritated because of Bae So-jin from their company.
Since things had turned out this way, he decided to open the door and blow off some steam while he was at it. Cheon Sa-yoon stood there in the exact posture of someone who had just knocked.
Cheon Sa-yoon lowered his eyes and looked down at the PD in silence. When he’d heard him through the door, his voice had clearly sounded frightened, but now he somehow carried himself with a lofty air, as if rejection simply wouldn’t be accepted.
"I have something I’d like to discuss with you, PD."
The PD, who had been about to snap first and ask what the hell he wanted, faltered. But when he looked at Cheon Sa-yoon again, the other man was wearing that same people-pleasing face as always, as if nothing had happened.
It was only for a second, but being overpowered by nothing more than a mere contestant left a bad taste in his mouth. He’d been planning to chew him out for his manners—why come personally instead of sending an assistant director or manager?—but Cheon Sa-yoon beat him to it.
"I’m sorry for coming by without warning. I need your esteemed opinion on something important. I’m worried a problem between the contestants might interfere with filming, and..."
He looked gloomy, as though something was troubling him. To anyone who didn’t know better, he seemed so forlorn that it would naturally invite sympathy. So the impression he’d gotten earlier must’ve been mistaken.
"Sa-yoon, is this a kindergarten? The contestants should handle things between themselves."
"Yes... that’s true. It was a bit sudden, wasn’t it? I thought no one could resolve it except the PD, who’s responsible for the broadcast, so I rushed over too quickly. I’ve heard that on set, the PD’s word is practically law..."
His authority had been infringed on, and that had left him in a foul mood, but seeing the other man humble himself while praising him just enough made the annoyance that had been building inside him quietly ease. Looking at him again, the things he was saying were actually rather pleasing.
Besides, however abrupt it might have been, the instincts of a PD who had spent years in broadcasting were telling him that this story would somehow help with the problem he was currently weighing.
He cleared his throat with a fist pressed to his mouth, pretending it had just been a cough, and went on.
"All right. Let’s hear it."