Ambition and Jealousy
Inside the elevator heading up to the CEO’s office, I folded my arms and muttered, “Is this the third time I’ve been summoned?”
Strangely enough, every time I went up to the CEO’s office, my state of mind had been different. When the Kim Jang-hun sponsor scandal broke, I’d been scared stiff. When it was time to discuss Lee Ha-eun’s next project, I’d been confident. And now... my heart was pounding with a thrill so bright it almost hurt.
“This is insane.”
Was this really the way a company employee was supposed to feel when the CEO called them in? The thought made me let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
Still, if I thought about it, it made sense. The opening of a present I’d been waiting three months for was right around the corner.
“...Still, let’s keep my face under control.”
I forced my smiling face into something more neutral. A quick look in the mirror told me the expression was finally presentable.
After a few steadying breaths, I got off the elevator. Kim, the CEO’s secretary, recognized me at once.
“Ah, Chief Kwon.”
“Hello, Secretary Kim.”
“The CEO is inside, so you can go right in.”
I gave a light bow and knocked on the CEO’s office door three times.
“Come in.”
At Baek Ji-won’s deep, distinctive voice, my heart started pumping again. I barely managed to rein in my rising excitement before opening the door.
The office was spacious, and in the center of it, Baek Ji-won stood looking out over the Gangnam streets through a wall of clear glass.
Her style caught the eye immediately. A purple suit. A sharp bob with soft waves. And bright red heels to match. Her polished bearing made it easy to forget she was forty-five; confidence simply poured off her.
She wasn’t flashy, and she wasn’t trying too hard, and yet there was something about her that made her look undeniably right. Was that what it meant to be born with presence?
I pulled myself out of my thoughts and bowed slightly at the waist.
“I heard you asked for me, CEO.”
“Yes. Sit down.”
A faint smile touched Baek Ji-won’s mouth.
“Coffee? Green tea? What would you like?”
“Coffee, please.”
Instead of calling the secretary, Baek Ji-won walked over and began making the coffee herself. Shocked, I started to get to my feet.
“Ah—CEO?”
“Sit still.”
“I... but—”
“You’ve done something worth celebrating. At the very least, I should treat you to a cup of coffee.”
“...!”
My eyes widened.
By then, she had already finished brewing it. Baek Ji-won held out a cup to me and asked, “I heard the news this morning. To.Any hit number one on the music charts?”
“!”
“Congratulations, Chief Kwon. You won our bet.”
My pounding heart finally felt as if it burst. A shock of exhilaration I couldn’t even put into words ran down my spine, and I forced my mouth open.
“Thank you, CEO.”
“How do you feel?”
“Pardon?”
“I mean right now. How do you feel, Chief Kwon?”
How did I feel?
I felt like I could die happy!
If this hadn’t been the CEO’s office, I might have shouted loud enough to shake the windows.
Fortunately, I had enough sense left to keep my composure, so what came out was a calm answer.
“I still don’t quite know how to process it.”
Baek Ji-won smiled faintly. “That’s a rather bland answer for you, Chief Kwon.”
“...I’m sorry.”
She rested her chin on her hand and studied me. Her eyes, half black and half brown, seemed to pin me in place.
Under that strange gaze, it felt as if my soul were being laid bare.
Then Baek Ji-won spoke.
“The one thing Baekhak was missing was a girl group.”
“...!”
“Everything else is at least respectable enough not to be embarrassing, but for some reason, our girl groups were never even at that level. I wondered if we were cursed, or if my fortune was just bad. I even went to have my fate read by a shaman who was supposed to be brilliant. But if something won’t work, it won’t work.”
Her eyes curved as she looked at me.
“And yet you made that girl group succeed?”
“!”
“Even a shaman with divine inspiration couldn’t do it, but Chief Kwon did, and that saved my face.”
Baek Ji-won crossed her legs and continued, “So I’m curious. Did you expect it?”
“Pardon?”
“Did you really think To.Any would take first place on the charts?”
I thought about her question.
Did I think To.Any would hit number one?
Of course I did. I’d glimpsed the future through those future text messages.
But... I had no confidence in explaining that.
How was I supposed to explain future text messages to Baek Ji-won?
So I gave her a convenient excuse.
“I had a feeling.”
“A feeling?”
“Yes. A feeling.”
A peculiar smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. “A word that makes sense and doesn’t make sense at the same time.”
“...”
“A feeling... yes. In this business, feeling matters. Whether you sink or rise, it’s often that feeling that decides it.”
She nodded and suddenly held out a white envelope.
My eyes widened slightly.
“CEO, this is...?”
“Baekhak stock.”
“!”
“At current prices, it’s probably worth about a hundred million won.”
My mouth fell open a little.
One hundred million won?
Then could it be...?
The gift Baek Ji-won had prepared for me was Baekhak stock?
I was shocked, and a little flustered by the completely unexpected present.
But why stock? If she was going to give me something, wouldn’t cash have been better?
Why give stock as a gift?
As if she had guessed my confusion, Baek Ji-won explained.
“Giving you Baekhak stock means something important to me.”
“?”
“From now on, you’re one of my people. So let’s grow Baekhak together. This stock is... yes.”
She trailed off and gave a small nod.
“A symbol that you’re mine.”
“!”
“And yet... this is the first time I’ve given that symbol to a regular employee.”
“...!!”
“You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Chief Kwon?”
Her lips curved into a strange smile as she asked the question.
At that moment, a feeling I couldn’t put into words washed over my chest.
Baek Ji-won leaned forward just a little and said, “Black Bride is starting its read-through soon, isn’t it?”
“...It’s scheduled for later this month.”
“Soon, then. You can do well again this time, can’t you?”
She tapped the nameplate on her desk as if to make a point.
“You need to climb higher fast.”
“...”
“The way I see it, Chief Kwon, you’re not the kind of person who stops here.”
At that provocative gesture, I took a short breath.
What was this feeling inside me?
Joy? A thrill?
No. It wasn’t that kind of feeling.
This was... ambition.
And then I understood.
The gift Baek Ji-won had prepared for me wasn’t stock at all.
“You can do it, Chief Kwon?”
The real gift Baek Ji-won had given me was recognition from a living legend in the industry.
That was the present.
***
I left the CEO’s office and returned to the management floor. Kim the secretary looked at me with interest, clearly dying to know what I had talked about with Baek Ji-won.
I ignored her and went back to the management office.
At my desk, Team Leader Ma Seok-du and the road managers from Team 5 were gathered around.
“Huh? Chief Kwon’s back!”
At one road manager’s shout, a ridiculous number of eyes turned to me.
“Wait, Chief Kwon. What did the CEO call you up for this time?”
“Was it because of To.Any hitting number one again?”
“Hey, hey, Chief Kwon! What kind of trouble did you get into now?”
“If it wasn’t that... hehe. Did she call you in because she wanted to see the Star Manager again?”
“Stop laughing and tell us! We’re dying of curiosity!”
I waved away the noise and the pressure coming at me from all sides.
“It’s nothing. She just called me up because To.Any hit number one on the music charts.”
“Really?”
“Of course it’s real. She congratulated me on the chart-topping result and gave me a cup of coffee.”
At my words, Seok-du let out a huge breath of relief.
“Whew... seriously, that’s it? I thought you’d done something crazy again, you punk!”
Our gullible Seok-du was easy to fool, but the sharper road managers kept pressing me.
“Chief, with the CEO’s personality, there’s no way she’d just let this slide. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Come on! We’re on the same side here! What did she give you? A house this time?”
“Honestly, you took a grand slam with a girl group that had already struck out three times. It doesn’t make sense if they don’t give you a bonus.”
Yeah.
They had given me something.
But could I explain it with words?
In material terms, I’d received stock. In emotional terms... I’d received Baek Ji-won’s recognition.
Leaving aside the stock, how was I supposed to explain that I had earned the CEO’s acknowledgment?
So I played dumb and flatly denied it.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t get anything.”
“No way. Your face says you got something.”
“What, am I the kind of guy who goes around bragging even if I did? So let me rest for a bit. I met the CEO first thing in the morning, and I’m drained to death.”
As soon as I started whining, the people gathered around me clicked their tongues and backed off.
The gazes that had been hidden behind the Team 5 managers now slammed into the back of my head.
Lee Jae-min from Team 3, looking irritated.
The sharp, watchful stares of the other team managers.
And the complicated looks from managers with nearly ten years more experience than I had.
My unsettled mind snapped awake under those eyes.
With a quiet laugh in my head, I left the management office and went up to the rooftop.
When I opened the rooftop door, the wide-open summer sky spread out before me. But autumn was beginning to creep in, and the wind had turned pleasantly cool.
I lit a cigarette and walked slowly over, resting my arms on the railing.
Gangnam stretched below me, the center of the country, or so people liked to call it.
“...When was that again?”
Probably when I won the lottery.
Back then, I’d come up to a rooftop and stared out at the towers below, thinking I could do anything.
And surprisingly enough, that thought had become reality.
“From that point on, everything started falling into place.”
Of course, it hadn’t been all smooth sailing. There had been crises. But looking only at the results, I had succeeded at everything I’d sworn I would.
“Weird. What changed, exactly, that made things start working so easily?”
Future text messages?
The lottery?... No.
The future messages and the lottery had both helped me succeed, but they weren’t the main reason.
Confidence.
Yes. The difference between me then and me now was confidence.
Because I had the reliable backing of the lottery, I could keep succeeding.
“But now it’s not just the lottery giving me confidence.”
To.Any, who had reached number one on the charts. Black Bride, the project I was personally handling and that was becoming a huge topic. Baek Ji-won’s recognition. My reputation at the company.
It wasn’t just the lottery anymore. Now... too many things were giving me confidence.
So I found myself wondering all at once.
“How far can I go?”
I’d climbed this far by relying on the lottery alone.
But now that I had even more solid backing than that...
How high could I really rise?
In an entertainment industry where nothing was certain, I could just as easily crash as climb.
But... yes.
Right now, I didn’t have any confidence in crashing.
I might stumble a little, but I was confident I’d reach the finish line.
Before I knew it, I heard myself murmur, “How about I really do it?”
Up until now, I’d been working by making excuses to fit whatever situation I was swept into. But after earning Baek Ji-won’s recognition, I wanted to do it properly.
I genuinely wanted to succeed in this business now.
“I’ve got no reason to quit anymore, do I?”
Lee Ha-eun, who used to keep tormenting me. Company life, which had only ever annoyed me. Everything had returned to normal.
So then... a little higher.
Couldn’t I see this success through to its dopaminergic end?
In that moment, I had the strange feeling that the open streets of Gangnam lay beneath my feet.
My mouth curved into a refreshing smile.
“Yeah. Why not? Let’s do it.”
Baek Ji-won had lit the fire, and my ambition blazed up again.
Just as I was exhaling hot breath and reaching for the cigarette in my mouth to light it, my smartphone rang.
[International][sender][unknown] (attached image file)
A new future message had arrived.
***
A vacant living room submerged in darkness. Through the door across from me, a faint light leaked out.
["The youngest, Seol Chae-i, is the prettiest visually, I think."]
["Rei... should I call her a foodie?"]
["Nova is the mood-maker. The kind of friend who lifts your spirits every time you see her."]
["She’s not my favorite, but Ga-eul especially listens to me."]
On the floor of the room where the light was leaking out, dozens of scripts were scattered everywhere. They were covered in black pen notes and handwritten interpretations.
Sitting cross-legged among those scripts, the top-star actress stared blankly at the television with a lifeless expression.
["Ga-eul is dangerous...!"]
Lee Ha-eun, holding the remote, replayed the same scene from a moment ago.
["Ga-eul is dangerous...!"]
["Ga-eul is dangerous...!"]
["Ga-eul is dangerous...!"]
Once, twice, three times.
After replaying it ten times, Lee Ha-eun’s mouth finally curved upward.
“Hah.”
She clicked her tongue softly, and at the end of her gaze was the face of the woman in Kwon Chan’s arms.
The woman’s flushed red face invited all sorts of improper thoughts.
Lee Ha-eun tossed the remote aside and let out a hollow laugh.
“Look at this. I stepped away for a moment, and bugs crawled in everywhere.”
Life surged back into the face of the top-star actress, which had moments ago looked like a dried-out wax doll.
Jealousy, annoyance, and possessiveness.
In a voice thick with venom, Lee Ha-eun muttered, “How am I supposed to go to Hollywood like this? There are so many people trying to covet what’s mine.”
Flames snapped in the eyes of the top-star actress.