The Butterfly Effect
The day after the exposé on Choi Su-hyeon’s affair broke.
After wrapping up my morning work, I called Reporter Seo.
Reporter Seo clicked his tongue.
Park Hui-won, in this case, was the top actress from that picture-perfect celebrity couple Choi Su-hyeon had been sleeping with.
"So you really didn’t know about Park Hui-won?"
"Got it. Thanks for your hard work. If you put out any follow-up pieces on Choi Su-hyeon, send me a message."
After ending the call, I sank down onto a bench.
With a cigarette between my lips, I muttered, "So the article about that picture-perfect celebrity couple wasn’t Reporter Seo’s doing."
I lit it and drew in a long breath, then fell into thought.
Did the exposé on Choi Su-hyeon throw the whole plan off?
What Reporter Seo and I had planned was strictly Choi Su-hyeon’s affair.
But once the revelation that he’d also been involved with Park Hui-won exploded, the scale of the scandal ballooned far beyond what either of us had expected.
- [EXCLUSIVE!] Rising star Choi Su-hyeon of Chungmuro has been caught in an affair with celebrity couple Park Hui-won...!
If I exaggerated only a little, the current scandal had the kind of ripple effect that Kim Jang-hun’s incident once had.
A top actress having an affair with a rookie actor.
The public, always starving for drama, wasn’t going to let a meal like that slip away.
Thanks to that, Baekhak had been put in a rather awkward position.
Not long after the Kim Jang-hun scandal broke, this affair scandal had landed on their heads too.
"...Still, Baekhak’s position is none of my business."
I wasn’t exactly overflowing with company loyalty.
Baekhak being in a tight spot had nothing to do with me.
"What bothers me is that the follow-up article blew up and messed with the plan."
Was this what they meant by the butterfly effect?
The phenomenon where a butterfly’s tiny flutter could trigger an enormous, unexpected result or wave of consequences.
That was exactly how I felt right now.
I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe I’d exposed the Choi Su-hyeon article too early and made things bigger than they were supposed to be.
And the fact that I couldn’t control the situation made me feel suffocated.
It feels like a coincidence, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth...
I put a fresh cigarette between my lips.
I needed a little nicotine before my head would start working again.
That was when a new set of visitors came to the rooftop smoking area.
A few unfamiliar office workers with cigarettes in their mouths started chatting among themselves.
"Hey, hey. Did you hear about Team 1?"
"Yeah. I heard it’s chaos because of Choi Su-hyeon, the guy they just brought in."
"Team 1’s leader really stepped in it this time."
"Seriously... Who could’ve known the actor they signed as a free agent was a cheating bastard?"
"But am I the only one who thinks Team 1 kind of had this coming?"
Without meaning to, I pricked up my ears.
"Totally. Honestly, Team Leader Kim Seong-hun was way too full of himself."
"To be blunt, Team 1’s numbers were high less because of Team Leader Kim’s ability and more because he had so many actors under him. He still walked around like he owned the place."
"Think this’ll knock some of that arrogance out of him?"
My eyes widened.
"Serves him right, honestly. He should’ve been nicer if he didn’t want this kind of thing to happen."
After finishing their gossip, the office workers left the rooftop smoking area.
Now alone again, I muttered, "Serves him right, huh..."
Yeah.
Maybe that really was the right way to look at it.
Kim Seong-hun, and Choi Su-hyeon from Chungmuro.
If they hadn’t built up that kind of karma, this situation would never have happened.
If Choi Su-hyeon hadn’t cheated, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
In other words, this was something that was going to happen sooner or later anyway.
At that thought, the pressure in my chest eased a little.
"...Right. Why am I making this so complicated?"
Might as well just treat it as an accident that was bound to happen.
There was no reason to dig so deeply into it.
Once I lightened my own mood, my tangled thoughts began to loosen too.
But the situation kept moving.
"...We’ll have to hold a press conference, right?"
"What’s the PR team doing about it?"
"The evidence is so ironclad that they’re saying there’s nothing to do except lie flat and take it."
Team 1 was handling the fallout with heavy sighs and exhausted faces.
"Goddamn it, what the hell is going on, seriously..."
"Because of Choi Su-hyeon, we’ve been pulling overtime for days now?"
"But if you think about it, doesn’t some of this fall on Team Leader Kim too?"
The PR response team, who hadn’t gone home in a week, looked half-dead.
Then Division Director Park Yu-hyeon personally came down to the management office and delivered new instructions.
"Check the private lives of your assigned celebrities and submit your reports by the end of this week."
The management department let out a collective groan.
No, the entire Baekhak headquarters did.
The aftershocks of Choi Su-hyeon’s scandal had shaken the entertainment industry giant to its core.
My gaze naturally drifted toward Team Leader Kim Seong-hun.
"He got wrecked."
The proud shoulders of the once-arrogant Team 1 leader looked utterly ruined.
And yet, for some reason, his eyes looked a little... unhinged.
Is he about to do something stupid?
The most dangerous person in the world was the one with nothing left to lose.
But had Team Leader Kim lost everything?
No, not really.
Team 1’s reputation had tanked because of this mess, sure, but it was still the company’s top-performing department.
And to be fair, this scandal couldn’t really be pinned on Kim Seong-hun.
Honestly, who could’ve known the actor they signed as a free agent was this kind of cheating bastard?
He was getting dragged through the mud because of his old reputation, but given time, Team Leader Kim would probably claw his way back to where he was.
As for the shoulders getting wrecked... yeah. He should take it as karma.
Who told him to get greedy and take Choi Su-hyeon?
Or, you know, he could’ve just been a decent person in the first place.
And that was how Choi Su-hyeon’s scandal reached its happy ending.
The cheating bastard had been dealt with, and thanks to Team Leader Kim’s crushed shoulders, work life had gotten a little more comfortable too.
All that was left now was to focus fully on the To.Any showcase.
But maybe it was because the company atmosphere had turned so grim.
My work speed wasn’t as fast as I’d hoped.
The low, heavy mood hanging over the company seemed to drag my own energy down with it.
And that was how I ended up stamping myself into Baekhak headquarters again today with that same bad feeling in my gut.
"Chief Manager Kwon!!!"
My name rang out through Baekhak headquarters.
And just like that, the company atmosphere flipped.
With its final broadcast, Queen of Joseon had pulled off another miracle.
The exact opposite kind of accident from Choi Su-hyeon’s scandal, and one that felt very, very good.
***
Queen of Joseon, the Wednesday-Thursday mini-series, had finished its three-month run and, in the final episode, somehow reached 30% viewership at last.
The response was overwhelming.
Praise poured in across social media, communities, and the comment sections of every major media portal.
In particular, Lee Ha-eun, who gave a feral, almost supernatural performance in Queen of Joseon, wasn’t just praised. She was worshipped.
And the agency she belonged to was Baekhak.
The day after Queen of Joseon finished its run, Baekhak headquarters turned upside down in the literal sense.
"Wow... so it really did it. It actually did it."
"At this point, you have to admit it. 30%? Is that even real?"
"No, seriously, it’s not even a 20-episode drama. How does this even happen?"
"Chief Manager Kwon... I’m jealous!"
The dreary headquarters atmosphere had become a festival.
My own mood, which had been stuck at rock bottom, shot up with it.
Congratulations came flying at me nonstop.
"Chief Manager Kwon! Congratulations!"
"You really hit the jackpot this time."
"Wow... 30% viewership, seriously?"
"Damn, I’m jealous! Share some of that script luck with us, Chief Manager Kwon!"
Even employees I barely knew came up to congratulate me.
After dealing with that sudden morning chaos and arriving at the management office, Team Leader Ma Seok-du, who had just gotten back from an outside appointment, hoisted me up onto his shoulder.
"Bwahahahaha! This bastard’s the one who picked the script that hit 30%!"
I nearly fainted on the spot!
What are you doing, hyung?!
Why was he suddenly carrying me like this?
I was so flustered I couldn’t even speak.
Meanwhile, the management department people watched Seok-du hyung’s impromptu piggyback show with pleased smiles and applause.
"If it hit 30%, he deserves a reception like that!"
Unable to withstand the humiliation, I pounded on Seok-du hyung’s shoulder.
"Team Leader! Put me down already!"
After finally escaping Seok-du hyung’s arms, I bolted into the PR team’s office.
But even here...
It wasn’t much different.
"Chiiiief Manager Kwoooon!"
"?"
"You adorable little thing! I’m losing my mind because of you!"
The PR team leader grabbed my hand and started dancing around with me.
...I stared blankly, opening and closing my mouth like an idiot.
No, why was PR team freaking out too?
"Of course we’re freaking out! Thanks to Queen of Joseon, the affair story got swept clean away!"
My eyes snapped wide open.
The Choi Su-hyeon affair story got swept away?
I hurriedly ran through the possibilities in my head.
And then...
I slowly reached a conclusion.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Until a few days ago, the entertainment media had been savagely beating Baekhak over the Choi Su-hyeon affair scandal.
But once Queen of Joseon crossed 30% viewership, they were now singing the praises of Baekhak’s flagship actress, Lee Ha-eun.
The affair article that had shaken Baekhak...
...had been forgotten by the public because of Queen of Joseon.
At that moment, I understood.
So that’s what happened.
The company atmosphere had changed in an instant.
The congratulations everyone had been throwing at me.
All of those events finally made sense.
A low sigh escaped me before I could stop it.
This is... really the butterfly effect, isn’t it?
If I hadn’t changed the timing of the Choi Su-hyeon exposé...
None of this would have happened.
The Choi Su-hyeon exposé and the end of Queen of Joseon had happened in complete opposition to each other.
That was when the PR team leader shouted, "Did you just hit the jackpot, Chief Manager Kwon?"
The PR team leader looked like he was dying of envy.
"How much of a bonus are you getting out of this? Isn’t this enough to be a year’s salary in one month?"
My eyes flew open again.
...Wait. It turns into that too?
"Ah, but honestly, that’s fair. This time, you really did deserve something."
"..."
"Everyone was dying over the Choi Su-hyeon coverage, and then Queen of Joseon saved us, right? The company should compensate for that kind of thing."
At the PR team leader’s banter, I found myself nodding before I knew it.
Looking at the situation alone... yeah.
Surprisingly, his words made sense.
If you looked at how everything had played out, it wouldn’t have been strange at all for the company to hand out a huge bonus or performance reward, just like he said.
So this... really works out like this??
A tiny flutter of wings had brought in a storm.
A storm of performance pay and bonuses.
And the next day, my expectations became reality.
"The Division Director wants to see you! Hurry up and go, Chief Manager Kwon!"
Hopping along like a rabbit, I headed for the Division Director’s office.
***
The first time I’d visited that office, I’d been nervous beyond words.
But now, for some reason, my heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.
Thump-thump!
The sound of my heartbeat hammered in my skull.
Dopamine and adrenaline were exploding nonstop through my body.
I forced myself to calm down the excitement threatening to spill over and looked at Division Director Park Yu-hyeon.
The corners of the Division Director’s mouth, which were usually lifted with a faint smile, were oddly drooping today.
Did the mask crack?
This was definitely different from his usual self.
That made him a little scary.
At the same time, my expectations were exploding.
For Division Director Park Yu-hyeon to be unable to keep his face in check like that meant the fallout from the Choi Su-hyeon scandal had been enormous.
My guess proved exactly right.
"You saved us thanks to Queen of Joseon."
"!"
For the first time ever, Park Yu-hyeon dropped the honorifics when speaking to me!
"That bastard Choi Su-hyeon had the whole company, inside and out, in an uproar..."
The corners of Park Yu-hyeon’s eyes curved pleasantly.
"But then Queen of Joseon came in like a relief pitcher and pushed us past 30% viewership, and the company mood changed overnight. It was like a lie."
Calm down, Kwon Chan.
You have to be humble about this!
I answered in a controlled voice.
"I was surprised too. I didn’t think it would go past 30% viewership..."
"I heard otherwise."
"Pardon?"
"The CEO apparently said Chief Manager Kwon would get it past 30%."
"!"
For a moment, I was speechless.
Park Yu-hyeon let out a low laugh.
"Are you really the type to play humble like this, Chief Manager Kwon?"
...In the end, I answered honestly.
"I did expect it to do well, but I thought it would need some major buzz behind it."
"Either way, you predicted 30%, didn’t you?"
"..."
"You’ve got a good eye. Queen of Joseon was a promising project, sure, but predicting 30% isn’t easy."
Park Yu-hyeon leaned forward.
"Well, that’s not the important part, so let’s move on."
"!"
"The CEO, while on a business trip in China, said it himself."
There was force in Park Yu-hyeon’s voice now.
"He told us to make sure Chief Manager Kwon is properly rewarded for turning the company sentiment around."
Excitement surged through my veins, and my shoulders twitched.
"So I was thinking of giving you that reward now, and..."
Park Yu-hyeon trailed off, then tossed out a question.
"Chief Manager Kwon, what car do you drive?"
The gift I hadn’t seen coming dropped out of the sky.