Accident
Before I became Lee Ha-eun’s dedicated manager, I had worked with quite a few celebrities.
I’d handled girl groups, managed boy groups, and even looked after some of the biggest actors in the business. Based on all that experience, the debut team, To.Any, still had a lot of that MZ energy.
In other words, they still hadn’t shaken off the look of kids.
Young.
I’d heard their debut had been delayed, and that every member was in her early twenties. Taking that into account, it was actually a pretty generous assessment.
Freshness was a must in the idol world.
And the visuals aren’t bad either.
My standards were high after working with top-tier celebrities like Lee Ha-eun, and even through that lens, To.Any’s looks were more than respectable.
Among them, the girl with red hair had the textbook face of an idol center.
I was absentmindedly analyzing the girls, chin in hand, when Director Kim Jang-hun approached without a sound and asked,
“What do you think? They’re good, right?”
I came to and answered,
“Their visuals are all really good.”
“Who do you think supervised them? Heh.”
“Why were girls like this delayed?”
Director Kim let out a long sigh.
“You know why, Chief Kwon. Our Baekhak Entertainment... we may not be bad at other things, but when it comes to girl groups, we’re hopeless. That’s why they got pushed back. In fact, there’s even talk that if To.Any flops, the boss will give up on girl groups altogether. Honestly, they feel like Baekhak’s last girl group.”
He wasn’t wrong. Baekhak really was weak in the girl-group department.
Our internal evaluations were fine, but for some reason the public’s eyes stayed cold. It wasn’t as if lacking a flagship girl group would sink Baekhak’s reputation, but in another sense, it was a matter of pride.
And in this industry, that kind of pride could matter far more than immediate results or practical concerns staring you in the face.
At that moment, I had a bad feeling.
Ugh... looks like I’ve been handed something annoying.
Baekhak’s last girl group. The weight of that title settled over my shoulders, and irritation started creeping up before I could stop it.
So this is why they were so quick to make me chief manager.
I let out a quiet sigh and greeted the To.Any girls.
“Hello. I’m Kwon Chan, chief manager of Management Team 5.”
One of the five girls who had been staring at me blankly asked,
“Are you our manager, sir?”
“No. Your manager is this person next to me.”
I naturally pulled the frozen Lee Ye-ji closer.
She flinched, her pupils shaking as she shouted,
“H-hello! I’m Lee, Lee Ye-ji, the new road manager!”
I was a little startled.
Lee Ye-ji’s greeting had stumbled that badly in just two words?
Even a stranger could tell she was nervous.
But that awkwardness seemed to work in her favor with the To.Any girls.
“Huh? Our manager is an older sister?”
“How old are you, unni?”
“So we’re living together from now on?”
“Unni, unni! What’s your Instagram ID? Can we follow you?”
Like fish who’d finally found water, the To.Any girls rushed toward Lee Ye-ji.
Panic flickered across her face as she looked helplessly at me for support.
I ignored it cleanly.
I need a cigarette.
Lee Ye-ji was a non-smoker, which meant I’d been forced into a no-smoking zone for two hours straight. The nicotine itch was starting up.
Normally I’d just deal with it, but...
I glanced sideways.
Director Kim Jang-hun was there.
Different division or not, a general director sat far above a chief manager like me in the hierarchy.
In the past, I would never have even dreamed of smoking in front of someone like him.
But for some reason now, with resignation hanging over my head, I couldn’t stop wondering why I should have to agonize this much over one cigarette.
Then my usually round personality sharpened into a corner again.
“Director. I’m really sorry, but would it be all right if I stepped out for a cigarette?”
“A cigarette? Chief Kwon, you smoke?”
“My apologies. I’ll be quick.”
“Hey, quit smoking! Maybe it’s fine when you’re young, but once you get older, it’ll kill you.”
I got a bit of a lecture, but he surprisingly gave permission easily.
I bowed and headed to the smoking area.
Once I lit the cigarette and drew in a deep breath, my clogged chest finally opened up.
“Ah... that’s more like it.”
I took a long drag, then crushed the cigarette down to the filter.
I stamped it out and flapped my jacket a few times.
They hadn’t even debuted yet, but I’d still be screwed if the girl-group trainees smelled smoke on me.
After airing myself out enough to wash off most of the smell, I opened the practice room door.
That was when I saw Director Kim Jang-hun’s hand busy fondling someone’s butt.
“?”
Had I seen wrong?
No.
Because even as I walked in, Kim Jang-hun was still kneading someone’s rear end with abandon.
Focusing my gaze, I let out a dry laugh.
Well, look at this.
The red-haired girl from To.Any, the one I’d decided was center material, was having her ass thoroughly kneaded by Director Kim Jang-hun.
***
When you live in this business, you see every kind of obscene thing imaginable.
There was a reason people said the entertainment industry was filthy.
Sometimes, that meant you had to pretend you hadn’t seen something. Sometimes, it meant you had to write off something you heard as nonsense.
And right then, I was standing at exactly that kind of crossroads.
“Good work, Chief Kwon.”
“You too, Director. You’ve had a hard day.”
“Let’s grab a meal sometime.”
“I’ll come see you with the company card.”
Director Kim Jang-hun turned with a friendly smile.
As I watched his back, I muttered under my breath.
That’s terrifying.
Yeah.
Terrifying, in the plainest sense.
That man, Kim Jang-hun, who looked so harmless, had casually been massaging someone else’s butt out in the open?
And not just anyone’s. One of the debut trainees’ butts.
An affair? A sponsor relationship?
Kim Jang-hun was unmarried.
And the red-haired center candidate from To.Any was only twenty.
With a twenty-year age gap, there was no way this was some century-spanning love story.
It’s a sponsor relationship.
It wasn’t common, but that didn’t mean it never happened.
I frowned slightly.
What had looked like a trivial scene had twisted into something complicated in an instant.
Then Director Kim suddenly turned his head and said,
“Oh, by the way... is Lee Ye-ji starting right away tomorrow, Chief Kwon?”
Maintaining my expression, I answered,
“Yes. Even though they haven’t debuted yet, she’s a new road manager, so I’m planning to have her come in every day to build familiarity.”
“Good. I can finally breathe. We’ve been dying because there wasn’t anyone to take care of the kids.”
And yet that same man had been massaging a trainee’s butt?
...I forcibly erased the thought that had just surfaced.
“I’ll head out now, Director.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get off work quickly. Traffic will be awful at this hour.”
I turned and left the practice room.
Lee Ye-ji, who’d been cornered by the To.Any girls, hurried after me in a fluster.
Glancing back, I saw the newly minted road manager from day one looking completely drained, practically melting into the floor.
Erasing Director Kim and the red-haired girl from my head, I spoke to Lee Ye-ji.
“Ye-ji.”
“...Yes? Chief Manager?”
“How was it?”
Her exhausted eyes widened a little.
As if she hadn’t expected me to speak first.
“I-It was... manageable! Yes!”
“Good. I was wondering if you’d have trouble adjusting.”
“T-the To.Any members were so kind to me...! I think I adjusted pretty well!”
The way she chose her words was funny enough to make me snort before I realized it.
Lee Ye-ji’s eyes went wide.
“Uh... Chief Manager, did you just laugh?”
“Yeah. Your way of talking was funny.”
“...What? Funny how?”
“You weren’t doing it on purpose?”
“N-no! I wasn’t doing it on purpose!”
“Lee Ye-ji, you’ve got talent for comedy.”
“Y-you’re teasing me, aren’t you?”
I deliberately didn’t answer.
She shot me a side-eye and checked my expression carefully.
Once her tension eased, she turned out to be a very expressive girl.
Well. She’s still on my team while she’s here.
I should at least take care of her, if not spoil her.
On the way back to the company, I set my tangled thoughts aside for a while and chatted with Lee Ye-ji.
“You looked really nervous earlier.”
“I’d never seen celebrities up close before... Ugh. To be honest, I was so nervous I could barely breathe.”
“To.Any aren’t celebrities yet.”
“U-um... aren’t they?”
“They’re a debut team.”
“E-even so... they’re going to debut, so they’re kind of pre-celebrities? Something like that!”
Lee Ye-ji’s eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“And To.Any members... they’re so pretty that I didn’t even feel like they were trainees. Especially Seol Chae-i, the maknae center position? Wow... She was the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen!”
I casually shifted the topic.
“The redhead.”
“?”
“What about the red-haired one?”
Lee Ye-ji tilted her head.
“If you mean the red-haired one... Park Gyu-ri?”
“Yeah. The one who was chosen as leader, Park Gyu-ri.”
“Hmm... Park Gyu-ri’s visuals were incredible too, I think.”
“And?”
“...Honestly, I didn’t really get to talk to her much, so I can’t say what kind of person she felt like yet.”
So she’s sharp-tongued.
After translating Lee Ye-ji’s assessment into my own terms, I stopped the car.
“You worked hard today, Ye-ji.”
“M-me too, thank you, Chief Manager!”
“You can head home right away.”
“Yes! Understood!”
I left Lee Ye-ji smiling brightly behind me and headed home myself.
Of course, I said I went home, but Director Kim Jang-hun and the red-haired Park Gyu-ri wouldn’t leave my head.
“This job-related habit is annoying.”
In the end, I gave up on forgetting it and sank into thought.
How should I handle this?
The easiest and fastest thing would be to report it to the company.
But if I did that without evidence, the backlash would be brutal.
It was the sponsor relationship of To.Any’s general director, for all I knew the last girl group Baekhak might ever have.
If I touched this the wrong way, it wouldn’t just be me; Management Team 5 would get shaken up too.
“At this point, should I bury it?”
Logically, that seemed right.
Whether the general director and To.Any’s redhead were in a sponsor relationship or having an affair, why should I care when I was on the verge of quitting?
My goal is To.Any’s debut anyway.
If it really was a sponsor relationship, the debut was basically secured, which was good for me.
There would obviously be problems after that, but that wasn’t my concern.
And yet, for some reason, the expressions on the To.Any girls’ faces from today kept bothering me.
Even though they hadn’t debuted yet, they’d looked thrilled like kids because a manager was assigned to them, and that image wouldn’t leave my mind.
Somewhere between conscience and guilt, I muttered to myself,
If I had solid evidence.
If I had undeniable proof that Director Kim Jang-hun and To.Any’s red-haired girl were in a sponsor relationship, then I could widen the board a little more.
But how am I supposed to find that evidence?
Right.
That was the problem.
I didn’t have any proof that could establish the relationship between the two of them.
So the right move was to bury this incident.
At least, that was what I thought until this morning.
When I rubbed my swollen eyes and woke up, there was a text message waiting for me.
[Attachment: Image]
[Trainee Park Gyu-ri / Director Kim Jang-hun]
I let out a bitter laugh.
“What the hell is this?”
It was proof attached to an international message that had arrived from a foreign number first thing in the morning, proving the sponsor relationship between Director Kim Jang-hun and the redhead.
A photo, clearly showing the two of them all over each other.
At that moment, the resolve I’d made after a sleepless night began to waver.
But the incident didn’t end there.
“...Chief Manager. That rookie road manager who came yesterday, the one named Jang Hyeon-su? He ran off.”
Our top actress, Lee Ha-eun, had just set a record.
She’d driven off her assigned manager in less than a day.
---