Accident
I woke up in a one-room apartment that hardly let in any sunlight.
"...Hmm."
I had slept well.
Considering the brutal insomnia I used to suffer from, it was a startling change.
"Wow, sleeping this well is weird in its own way."
I reached out and picked up the bankbook I had carefully set beside my pillow.
It was a NongHyup bankbook holding 1.4 billion won.
The corners of my mouth twitched.
"...Damn it. I really need to go on a dopamine detox."
The moment I saw a bankbook with 1.4 billion won in it, my brain turned soft and melted.
I shook my head and muttered to myself.
"Pathological. Totally pathological..."
I set the 1.4 billion won bankbook down with exaggerated care and took a shower.
After a clean shave, I pulled out a suit for the first time in a while.
I had bought it with my first paycheck after joining the company, but I had almost never had a chance to wear it.
Baekhak itself had a fairly relaxed dress code, unlike other entertainment companies, and back when I was still a road manager, I was always running around, so I wore tracksuits far more often.
But today was the day I was supposed to hand off the rookie road managers who had just come in.
Entertainment companies liked to talk about horizontal culture, but road manager teams still preferred a vertical one.
'Well, I guess that can't be helped.'
A guy who joined the company to see celebrities.
A guy who applied because there were no special qualifications.
Anyway, all kinds of people had crawled into this line of work.
That was why chief managers and veteran road managers dressed in suits on purpose when they were teaching rookies.
'Something about establishing discipline from day one...'
At first, I had not understood that culture, but now that I had enough years under my belt, I could only nod along.
With all the random people applying, the turnover rate was absurdly high.
So the ones who were never going to make it had to be pushed out quickly, starting from the first day.
That was easier for the people already settled in, and better for the ones who could not hack it, too.
When I arrived at Baekhak Entertainment in a suit for the first time in ages, people I knew spotted me and greeted me.
"What’s this? What’s with the suit today, Manager Kwon? Got a special day?"
"I’m teaching rookie road managers today."
"Huh? Manager Kwon is teaching rookies?"
The head of the PR team’s eyes widened.
"What! Has our Manager Kwon become a chief manager?"
"It’s not Manager Kwon anymore. Call me Chief Manager Kwon from now on."
"Kya-ha-ha! Chief Manager Kwon? That’s insane. Since when? Did you buy us promotion treats?"
"I became chief manager yesterday. Yesterday. What promotion treats..."
The PR team leader’s eyes curved into crescents.
"You’re grumbling, but you’re clearly happy..."
"When have I looked this miserable?"
"Come on! Ever since you took over Lee Ha-eun, you’ve looked like a corpse every day."
I tilted my head.
Not even in the same department, and yet the PR team leader knew my expression had been that bad?
'...I guess that’s true.'
Thinking about the chronic stomachaches and headaches Lee Ha-eun had given me, it was not exactly hard to understand.
In the meantime, the PR team leader thumped my shoulder and said, "You worked hard. That girl Lee Ha-eun has a hell of a personality. Looks like it’s finally time for our Chief Manager Kwon to start seeing some daylight."
I played along, then slipped away.
I headed into the management office on the fifth floor and walked over to my desk.
I put my bag down, took off my suit jacket, and just then Team Leader Ma Seok-du came up to me, iced Americano in his right hand and smartphone in his left.
"Chief Manager Kwon."
"Yes, Team Leader."
"The rookie road managers are down there. Here’s their interview paperwork... Take them and start the handoff."
"Yes, understood."
Ten seconds after sitting down, I was back on my feet.
On the elevator ride down to the first floor, I looked over the papers Seok-du-hyung had handed me.
One was a woman, the other a man.
Neither had any experience in this field, and both had graduated from four-year universities.
But the guy was older than me.
"Thirty?"
Only two years older than me, sure, but for someone who had come into this business as a rookie road manager, that was pretty...
No.
Way too much.
"This is a little worrying... tsk."
Being older was not a flaw in itself, but this business was this business.
Road managers had to bow their heads a lot, and older people often had a hard time doing that.
My bad feeling was not wrong.
"You’re surprisingly young for a chief manager, aren’t you?"
Rookie road manager Jang Hyeon-su.
My new junior, thirty years old, straightened his neck from the very first meeting.
***
There were two rookie road managers assigned under me.
'Thirty-year-old Jang Hyeon-su, and twenty-four-year-old Lee Ye-ji.'
The twenty-four-year-old, Lee Ye-ji, was not a big problem.
She was, how should I put it... a pretty standard rookie road manager.
The kind of kid who became a road manager because she wanted to see celebrities.
'This one... right. If she has any real knack for the job, there’s still room to turn her around.'
The problem was thirty-year-old Jang Hyeon-su.
He claimed to come from a security company, and with a build like a small mountain, he never stopped talking.
"Wow... Baekhak Entertainment still looks classy as ever. I used to work for a security company called 'L' and came in to guard Baekhak entertainers, but it doesn’t seem like anything’s changed since then!"
"By the way, Chief Manager, you’re twenty-eight? The chief managers I’ve met were all in their thirties, but you’re really young."
"What’s Lee Ha-eun really like in person? On TV she already looks like a goddess. Is she even prettier in real life?"
Even after I had finished giving them a quick tour of the company and brought them to my desk, he never stopped talking.
Because of that, the corner of my mouth crooked upward.
'Look at this guy.'
He pretended otherwise, but I could feel it.
Jang Hyeon-su was looking down on me, just a little.
He probably thought he was hiding it well, but there was no way he could get past the instincts I had built up over years of road manager work.
'If you’re going to act like that, at least do it in moderation.'
He kept spouting off half-baked industry trivia he had apparently picked up somewhere, and not a single thing he said was right.
I propped my chin on my hand and thought it over.
'What should I do?'
Normally, I would have just given him a warning and let it go.
In working life, it was better to stay smooth than sharp-edged; that caused fewer problems.
But right now, I did not really feel like doing that.
'A rookie road manager I’ll have to manage and control from here on out.'
And that rookie road manager was already making a show of his age.
If I let this slide, Jang Hyeon-su would overstep sooner or later.
I had already decided to resign, and I had no interest in seeing him cross that line.
In that instant, my normally rounded personality snapped back into shape, all angles.
"Mr. Jang Hyeon-su."
"Yes?"
"Isn’t that a little too much talking for someone who just started today?"
Jang Hyeon-su shut his mouth for the first time.
Lee Ye-ji, standing nearby, blinked in surprise.
"...""
The mood froze in an instant.
Slowly, I folded my arms and looked them both over.
Lee Ye-ji lowered her head, while Jang Hyeon-su still seemed to want to salvage his pride and kept his chin up.
The corners of my mouth lifted.
"Honestly, at first I thought you were being entertaining, so I listened. But do you know something? Everything you just said was a mistake."
"..."
"Even if you are a rookie, talking about how pretty Lee Ha-eun is and this and that when you’re supposed to be a manager... are you making a statement to me right now? Asking me to get rid of you?"
Jang Hyeon-su, who had been holding his head high, flustered and started to explain himself.
"N-no, I didn’t mean it like that..."
"If that’s not what you meant, then what did you mean?"
"..."
"Go on, say it. I’m listening. What were you thinking, going on about whether Lee Ha-eun looks good in person, whether she’s pretty, to me? Or did you come in without even doing basic research?"
"..."
"What kind of age are we living in? If you do even a little research, the answer comes right up. That a manager should never be rating the entertainer they’re in charge of."
After I had said my piece, I smiled on purpose.
Sometimes smiling worked better than frowning when it came to intimidation.
Thankfully, Jang Hyeon-su was not so oblivious that he missed the point entirely.
His lips parted slightly, and then he lowered the head he had kept so stiffly raised.
"...I’m sorry, Chief Manager."
"Sorry from the very first meeting?"
"...I’m sorry."
"You should remember that well."
"?"
"It’s going to be a phrase you live with from now on. Sorry. My bad. I’ll do better next time."
"!"
"You think I’m trying to scare you, right? Give it a week and you’ll understand exactly what I mean."
Jang Hyeon-su stopped breathing.
At least, that was how it looked to me.
Lee Ye-ji looked like she was on the verge of tears.
After staring blankly at the two of them, I turned my head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Road Manager Jeon Hyeong-u from Team 5 watching the whole thing.
"Mr. Jeon Hyeong-u."
"...Yes, Chief Manager?"
"You’re off today, right?"
"I am, yes?"
"Then teach Mr. Jang Hyeon-su in my place. I honestly don’t think I can do it."
"!"
"Lee Ha-eun has a schedule starting today, so just teach him a bit beside her. You know what I mean, right?"
Jeon Hyeong-u’s eyes went wide.
But I kept my face perfectly straight.
A moment later, the road manager’s mouth twitched upward.
"Heh... You’ll have to buy me a meal later, Chief Manager Kwon."
"I’ll definitely do that."
"At your service! Then I’ll be going."
Jeon Hyeong-u dragged the dazed Jang Hyeon-su away with him.
Watching their backs, I muttered, "That felt good... tsk."
Had I gone a bit too far on the first day?
A faint sense of guilt began to creep up on me.
Even if I didn’t look like it, I was a man whose bones had been saturated with Confucian values.
That meant I was actually quite respectful toward people older than me.
Which was why senior road managers tended to like me a fair bit.
In that sense, I could not shake the feeling that I had... been a little too hard on Jang Hyeon-su, who was older than me.
But I shook my head.
'If you don’t keep a tight leash on him now, he’ll cross the line.'
I finished the thought and looked over.
There was twenty-four-year-old Lee Ye-ji, who had lost her orientation buddy in an instant.
But Lee Ye-ji... something about her was off.
"...Hic."
A grown adult of twenty-four was letting tears stream down her face.
***
On the road heading toward Baekhak Entertainment’s Second Center in Sangam, I glanced toward Lee Ye-ji in the passenger seat.
"..."
Our rookie road manager, who had already started crying on her first day, was hunched in on herself.
She looked like a hamster whose sunflower seeds had been stolen from her... but if you only looked at the mood, it would seem like I had threatened her or something.
I clicked my tongue softly.
'She’s a little too timid.'
Better than Jang Hyeon-su, sure, but Lee Ye-ji was not in great shape either.
In this line of work, being timid was not a useful trait.
So I forced myself to speak and try to change the mood.
"The entertainers you’ll be handling from now on are the debut team members."
Jang Hyeon-su looked practically finished, but I could not just lose both rookies, could I?
For Seok-du-hyung’s sake, at least one of them had to be shaped into something resembling a human being.
"If the entertainer you’re assigned to is a pain in the ass... no, if they have a bad personality, then being a road manager gets rough too. But since they’re debut team members, it won’t be that bad."
Lee Ye-ji forced out a reply.
"...Yes, Chief Manager."
"What, do you have any questions?"
"Ah, no, I don’t."
"Then what are you going to do later if you make a mistake?"
"?"
"If you make a mistake, I’m the one who has to clean it up. Can you handle that?"
"!"
"You can make mistakes, but making them because you didn’t know something is not something I can deal with. It’s better to make a mistake while knowing what you’re doing."
Lee Ye-ji’s lips moved helplessly.
"...I’m sorry."
"No need to apologize for that. I’m just saying. I’d appreciate it if you could understand the position I’m in as the one teaching you."
"Ah, yes, I understand...!"
Lee Ye-ji raised her voice with obvious effort and started asking questions about this and that.
Most of it was material she had already been taught during preliminary training, but I answered her carefully anyway, appreciating the effort she was making to lift the mood even a little.
My explanation must have been more thorough than she expected, because Lee Ye-ji lowered her head with a brighter expression than before.
"Thank you, Chief Manager!"
I waved a hand, as if receiving thanks after doing the bare minimum.
After getting out of the car, I led Lee Ye-ji toward Practice Room 3 at Baekhak Second Center.
"Oh, Chief Manager Kwon?"
A half-bald man extended his hand.
"Visual Director Kim Jang-hun. Nice to meet you."
"I’m Kwon Chan from Management Team 5."
"Right. I heard about you in advance from the team leader. Should we go inside and talk?"
Visual Director Kim Jang-hun opened the practice room door.
My gaze slowly turned.
Under the bright lights.
Five girls were standing there.
"Is this our manager?"
To.Any, the idol group Baekhak Entertainment was preparing.
My first thought when I saw the girl group debut team they had spent nearly ten years preparing was simple.
They’ve got that MZ vibe.
I could not think of a better way to describe it.
The girls in To.Any’s debut team were just plain, unmistakably MZ.