Refusal
Refusal
Perhaps because she was dressed in a neat suit and wore glasses, the woman standing at the door had an intellectual air about her.
She had knocked hard several times, but there had been no response from inside — so had that made her angry?
She brought her hand down on the door so hard it seemed like just a little more force might break it, then flung the door wide open.
"Director."
"Please knock before you come in."
"I did. You just didn't hear me, Director."
The intellectual-looking woman, who had entered holding a tablet PC, let out a sigh.
Every time she knocked on the door loudly enough to break it before entering, the room's owner, the CEO, had massive headphones clamped over her ears,
so she couldn't hear any outside sounds at all.
Occasionally, if she was lucky, she'd feel the vibration and glance toward the door — that was the extent of it.
So from the perspective of the employee bringing approval documents, it was nothing but a sigh every single time.
"Couldn't you just take your headphones off?"
"No."
The CEO flatly refused and shifted her gaze to her computer monitor.
Her focus and sharp eye had grown this company into what it was, but to the employees who worked closely with her, it was nothing but a headache.
The fact that the company CEO, of all people, was like this
meant that approvals didn't get processed quickly, and that was the problem.
"Then could you at least focus a little when I bring the documents?"
"Ah, alright, alright."
After being prodded several times and shot pointed looks, the CEO finally turned to face her employee.
That kind of CEO was exasperating, but the employee just sighed deeply and set down the tablet PC she was holding.
"What kind of documents are they?"
There weren't really any documents to approve, nor anything that needed signing off, so the CEO, wondering what the matter was, looked at her employee.
The employee just shrugged and gestured at the tablet PC already on the desk.
"These are documents related to Yoo Seong-hwan's appearance on a KGB variety program."
"From a broadcasting station? And not even cable, but terrestrial?"
No matter how many subscribers Yoo Seong-hwan had, he was a long way from the variety show world.
In the first place, his genre was cooking YouTube, so there weren't really any programs on terrestrial broadcasting suitable for him to appear on.
On the contrary, if it had been an appearance on a cable channel,
there were plenty of programs where his presence wouldn't feel out of place, so they would have just thought, "Ah, that figures." But looking at the documents, the CEO and the employee could only tilt their heads in confusion.
"It seems that with his subscribers recently surpassing 15 million, even the terrestrial broadcasters have been paying attention to him."
In any case, because of Yoo Seong-hwan's popularity, which was approaching the number one spot for individual Qtuber subscribers in the Republic of Korea, a massive number of copycat channels had sprung up.
Among them, some had grown into large Qtubers maintaining a million subscribers, but there were also channels that, despite high-quality content, couldn't even hold onto 100 subscribers and fell away.
Among those were channels where you could catch a glimpse of the broadcasting stations' greed for a piece of Qtube.
They were programs that stitched together food-related content and variety programs produced in a Qtube video style,
but they failed to catch anyone's attention and tanked spectacularly.
"Hmm... since Qtube keeps growing, they're planning to use Seong-hwan-ssi as bait to try to get their own piece of the pie, aren't they?"
The CEO was frankly annoyed.
The terrestrial broadcasting station that had fabricated and spread strange rumors back when the entertainment agency said it was running a Qtuber MCN
had done a complete about-face and was now pulling this kind of thing, so it was impossible not to be annoyed.
Back then, how enormous had the agency's losses been from those speculative, bizarre rumors?
New talents who hadn't yet signed contracts had been asking to terminate their agreements.
"There's no other reason to call Seong-hwan-ssi, if not that."
The employee seemed to find it equally laughable.
She had nearly let some rough words slip, but she held them back and let out a deep sigh.
"What should we do?"
"What do you mean, what should we do? We have to ask Seong-hwan-ssi."
Since it was the CEO who had taken the contract from the legal team, revised it here and there, and handed it to Seong-hwan, handling matters concerning him had become the CEO's job.
Because he had the right to refuse any work the company assigned.
In particular, for shoots coming in from places like broadcasting stations, you could call it his exclusive prerogative.
"I'm not confident."
"Same here. You're the one who gave Seong-hwan-ssi that freedom, Director. You handle it, Director."
The CEO, unable to talk back to the employee whose words had burst out in rapid fire, hung her head low.
Because there wasn't a single thing wrong with what the woman had said.
She had brought it all on herself, so she felt bad about foisting it onto the employees too.
"Haa... why do I have to be calling a married man early in the morning..."
"That's what I'd like to say, Director."
The employee, as if performing in a comedy sketch, finished her business and walked out.
The CEO picked up her phone and watched her go, sighing.
*
"No."
- Well, if Seong-hwan-ssi says no, I won't force you.
"Really?"
- Isn't it written in the contract that way?
I was a little suspicious of the Director for agreeing so readily, but what could I do.
Without fail, the Director's call had come early in the morning.
I'd wondered what it was this time, and apparently, some variety program from a major broadcasting station wanted me to appear.
In any case, I had no intention of going on terrestrial broadcast.
It was the KGB broadcasting station that had tormented Yeji and me over the incident that happened at my old place.
I'd been so annoyed back then that I'd uploaded a protest video to my Qtube channel,
and it was laughable that a broadcasting station with a track record of officially apologizing to me during the news now wanted me to appear.
"You know that back then, if I hadn't done that, Yeji Nuna would have been dropped from every channel and kicked out of her group, right?"
- I'm well aware. That's why I was also fuming about it.
"Why the hell would such a dogshit... no, I'm sorry. I got too heated for a moment."
- No, it's fine. Everyone knows that Yeji protected Seong-hwan-ssi.
What would have happened if I'd opened the door without thinking back then —
even imagining it still terrifies me.
It was Yeji who saved me from that, and that broadcasting station had tried to bury her.
"If they want me to appear, please tell them I'll go on if the station chief comes and performs a deep prostration bow."
- Really?
"Yes, really. Put it in writing, too. So I can immortalize it on Qtube."
Given what they'd done, what could they possibly do about it.
They wouldn't be able to raise any objection to my actions now.
"Seong-hwan-ah."
"Did you wake up, Noona? You should sleep more."
"No, I'm all slept out. Hyaam....."
A-ra let out a big yawn and stretched. I gently stroked her hair.
Was it because I'd just been angry?
A childish longing welled up inside me, wanting to be held a little.
"Want to be held?"
"Yes..."
"Here. Come into Noona's arms."
A-ra spread both arms wide and cast me a glance, telling me to leap into her broad embrace.
I hugged her tight and lay down on the bed with her.
"Hnnng... Seong-hwan-ah, why is that place already, in the morning..."
"Jjoook....... jjoook......"
"Haaung... if you do it hard, it hurts..."
As if a small child were longing for his mother's breast,
I took her chest into my mouth.
"You act like it's nothing when we do it in the living room during the day, so why are you so sensitive in the morning?"
"Tha... that, even I... haaung... don't know..."
"Hmm... a woman's chest really is a fascinating thing."
I removed the thing I'd been sucking from my mouth and flicked it lightly with my finger.
As the pink nub bounced slightly, A-ra's hips gave a little jump too.
"Noona plays with my thing like this nipple every single day. So bear with it."
"Hnng... th... then you're giving me permission too, right?"
"Huh?"
I was in trouble.
I'd gone and given A-ra justification again.
***
"Fifteen million must really be something fearsome..."
"What's going on?"
"Young-PD, have you ever seen something like this? A broadcasting station scheduling airtime to officially apologize to a Qtuber."
"What?"
Young-PD took the phone her fellow PD held out.
On it was a video uploaded of a major broadcasting station officially apologizing on air to an individual Qtuber.
The comments were unanimously saying it was an apology that should have been made long ago,
that it was a broadcast that relieved the resentment of everyone who had been harmed by speculative rumors up until now,
and they were lavishly praising the Qtuber Yoo Seong-hwan.
"Wow... never thought I'd see a video like this in the Republic of Korea..."
"Right? In many ways, Seong-hwan-ssi really is an incredible person."
"Isn't this almost the first time? Even the president probably never got an apology like that."
"That's what I'm saying."
The agency employees, too, all chimed in with amazement, as if they'd witnessed something astonishing.
They were professionals who earned their living going back and forth between broadcasting stations and agencies, so they knew well what kind of impact this incident would have.
"Still, Seong-hwan-ssi aside, I suppose they were also conscious of A-ra-ssi, right?"
"A-ra-ssi's channel is ranked number one among individual channels in the Republic of Korea, after all."
She commanded a subscriber count shining at a full 20 million.
So the married couple occupied first and second place together, and if you combined both of their subscriber counts,
it became a staggering number greater than half the population of the Republic of Korea.
No matter how boldly a broadcasting station might operate, it was a number they couldn't ignore.
"We mustn't antagonize Seong-hwan-ssi and A-ra-ssi."
"If you want to live in the Republic of Korea, you'd better not."
The women's words, half-joking and half-serious,
made everyone nod their heads automatically.