Think Tank
Yeon-woo sat in the café on the third floor of the Saebyeol Building, giving one last review to the scenario submitted by the writer he was scheduled to meet that day.
He had already received word that Team Leader Gong Min-jeong had gone downstairs to collect the writer from the first floor.
Hmm… I wonder what kind of person they'll be.
Just then, the elevator arrived.
Ding—
The doors opened and Gong Min-jeong walked out, someone trailing behind her.
"Huh?"
The moment Yeon-woo saw the face of the person following Gong Min-jeong, a flash of delighted recognition crossed his features — only to give way almost immediately to a puzzled tilt of the head.
"Yu-ri noona? What are you doing here?"
"Oh, Yeon-woo. I saw the articles about you going to America — you're already back?"
Hong Yu-ri had been to the Saebyeol Building once before, but the place still felt unfamiliar. Running into Yeon-woo here seemed to steady her a little.
She went on, looking faintly embarrassed.
"I, uh… I have a meeting here today…"
Yeon-woo, who hadn't put it together at first, gradually began to understand how the pieces fit.
"Ah…?"
He checked the email address written at the top of the scenario he'd been reading.
Yu-ri-tok, number two. Ahh — Yuri Rabbit…
Only then did Yeon-woo realize that the writer of the scenario in his hands was Hong Yu-ri, and he laughed.
"You wrote this, noona?"
"…Huh?"
"That tracks. I probably could've figured it out from the email address if I'd thought about it — Yuri_Rabbit is your Woo's handle, after all."
"D-did you actually read my scenario?"
Had he merely read it? Hardly.
The news that Yeon-woo had been appointed as a judge wasn't scheduled to go public until after the final-round evaluations began, so even a devoted fan like Hong Yu-ri had no idea.
Meanwhile, Gong Min-jeong's eyes went wide at the nickname that had just left Yeon-woo's mouth. She looked back and forth between Hong Yu-ri and Yeon-woo, then spoke.
"Yuri_Rabbit? Wait — are you saying the writer is Yuri_Rabbit?"
"Excuse me?"
"That's me! I'm YeonwooBabyUju— ah."
Both of them had been fixtures of the café since Yeon-woo's rookie days starring in Summer's Closet — the old guard of Woo's.
Caught up in the excitement of the reunion, Gong Min-jeong had started to blurt out her own infamous Woo's username before realizing what she was doing and clamping her mouth shut. But even that much was enough for Hong Yu-ri to fill in the rest.
"Y-you're YeonwooBabyUjuju?!"
Hong Yu-ri's eyes flew open as she practically shouted it, drawing every staff member in the café to stare.
"Ah…"
Realizing she had just walked herself into a trap of her own making, Gong Min-jeong's face went scarlet in an instant.
After a brief bit of chaos among Woo's members who had somehow ended up meeting in real life, Yeon-woo and Hong Yu-ri sat down together in the café.
"So you're telling me the person who read my writing and reached out… was you, Yeon-woo?"
"Yeah."
Hong Yu-ri sighed at his nod.
"Ugh, of course. And here I thought I actually had talent."
"Hm?"
Yeon-woo tilted his head, then continued.
"What are you talking about? I contacted you because you have talent."
"C-come on. You just reached out because you know me, right?"
Yeon-woo huffed a quiet laugh and shook his head.
"No way. I didn't even know it was you who wrote it. All personal information gets blinded before it reaches me — I only get a contestant number."
"Th-then you really contacted me because you liked my writing? But I got eliminated in the preliminaries."
Hearing that, Yeon-woo thought of the association's dirty tricks. There was no need to burden Hong Yu-ri with the ugly truth, of course. Still, it struck him that the association's misconduct didn't just cost contestants their entry fees and their time — it could strip people of their confidence, leave them blind to talents they might actually possess, and make them throw away the biggest opportunity of their lives.
Once this contest wraps up, I should put some pressure on them — carefully.
Going after the contest itself wouldn't produce any real punishment, and as a fellow judge he risked getting dragged into the scandal alongside them. Better to put the problematic judges on the stand through the other crimes they'd already committed.
Having sorted his thoughts on the association for the moment, Yeon-woo looked at Hong Yu-ri across from him.
"The story needed a lot of polishing, of course. And if you're aiming for something that can be adapted for the screen, you'd probably need to study screenwriting more systematically."
Hong Yu-ri's face fell under the continuing critique.
But Yeon-woo kept going.
"Even so — there was a formative power in it that covered all of that."
"…Formative power?"
"The ability to create characters. Not just the protagonist — every single supporting figure came through with a clear, vivid image, like they were actually alive and breathing."
At the praise, color rose in Hong Yu-ri's cheeks again. Showing her writing to anyone was rare enough. That the anyone in question was Ryu Yeon-woo — and not just Ryu Yeon-woo, but the face of Saebyeol Media and a judge for the screenplay competition — made it almost unreal.
Watching her, Yeon-woo spoke again.
"Which brings me to this. The content market keeps diversifying, and the demand for original stories is only growing."
The sudden shift into serious territory snapped Hong Yu-ri to full attention.
"R-right. Content diversification… original stories…"
Yeon-woo smiled at the way she parroted the words back and nodded along, then continued.
"To stay competitive in that market, Saebyeol Media wants to gather outstanding writers and aspiring writers into a kind of think tank."
"…A think tank?"
It was something Yeon-woo, Saebyeol's working staff, and even Representative Kim Ju-seong — who was quietly wiping water glasses in the far corner, playing the part of an ordinary café owner — had decided together before Yeon-woo left for America.
A think tank, in the original sense, was a group that developed or researched the foundational systems behind a government or corporation's core technologies and policies. Saebyeol Media's version would be built from capable writers and directors, producing original content in-house and adapting externally acquired scripts or IP.
Producing everything ourselves is the safest approach.
Collaborating with outsiders had its benefits, but now that Saebyeol had grown, the number of people looking to keep them in check was everywhere — and with that came no small amount of risk.
Before heading to America, Yeon-woo had looked into Blue Whale Gate, the company producing Survival Island — Global Match, and discovered that most major American production houses maintained their own internal think tanks. That was when he decided Saebyeol should start building one of its own.
"I'd like you to be the first writer Saebyeol Media develops, noona. Full-time hire, with a salary. And for any content you produce, we'll draw up separate contracts with terms that more than hold up against industry standards."
As Hong Yu-ri listened, the only thought running through her head was that turning this down would make her an idiot. Beyond every condition on the table, she trusted Ryu Yeon-woo himself. He was not someone who would ever offer her a deal that could hurt her.
The think tank's official name was set as Saebyeol Creative.
Yeon-woo had casually suggested calling it "Saebyeol Tank," but the working staff's absolute refusal forced him to back down.
I mean… it's not like this is an organization that does public-facing work. It's just an internal label for use inside Saebyeol. Wouldn't something simple be better? Why go out of the way to call it "Creative"?
What on earth had made them react like that…
In any case, the organization was decided. Now he needed to build the roster.
We've already signed an MOU with Wisestone, where PD Joo Hyun-seok is, so there's no real need to fold them into the think tank for production purposes.
Joo Hyun-seok was a variety PD anyway — a fair distance from the films and dramas Saebyeol was focusing on.
Writers first, then.
The first person who came to mind was, of course, Kim Ju-hyeong. From the day they'd met, Ju-hyeong's passion for film had been extraordinary. His debut work — the stage play Mirror — had been a success, and he'd proven himself again recently assisting Director Lee Yong-su on the film Moon.
But if Yeon-woo simply asked him to join, Kim Ju-hyeong would almost certainly come running with both arms raised in triumph. So Yeon-woo decided to look for other writers first.
What he needed wasn't another aspiring writer like Hong Yu-ri or a relative newcomer like Kim Ju-hyeong. He needed a name — someone who could serve as a center of gravity for the rest. A flagship writer, so to speak.
Well. There isn't really anyone more of a name than her.
Phone in hand, Yeon-woo considered for a moment, then called Kim Jin-ju, the writer he was personally closest to.
They had first met as the lead actor and writer of Star Beyond the River, gone on to do joint fan signings, and later she had handled the adaptation of White Blood. She was also, among the writers Yeon-woo knew, by far the most famous.
Rrring—
The call connected.
"Oh? Yeon-woo-ssi?"
"Writer Kim. How have you been?"
They exchanged the occasional check-in call, but the last time he'd spoken with Kim Jin-ju had probably been two or three months ago. If she joined the think tank, she would make an extraordinary mentor for Hong Yu-ri and any other writers who came after. Kim Jin-ju was celebrated as a star writer with a string of hit dramas and films — and she was also a literary star who had won international awards in pure literature.
On the other end of the line, her bright voice answered his greeting.
"Me? Same as always. I watched that drama you just went into — it was great. How do you even know how to act like that? Born for it. Lately I've been wanting to write something that hits those kinds of emotional beats myself!"
The drama she'd just gone into — that would be Parabola. With its rival Daytona sunk by production-company scandals, nothing had been able to stop Parabola's late-season dominance. Episode 13 was airing this week, and the New York ending scene Yeon-woo had shot was already barreling toward next week's broadcast.
"Thank you. It was fun to shoot, too, in its own way. Oh — and if you ever write a scenario like that, show it to me first."
"Well, I'd love that. As long as the production company can cover Yeon-woo-ssi's guarantee, that is."
After trading a few more lighthearted updates with the bantering Kim Jin-ju, Yeon-woo got to the point.
"The reason I called today, actually, is that I have a proposal for you…"
"A proposal? What is it, what is it?"
She jumped on the word before he'd even finished. The last proposal he'd brought her had been the adaptation request for White Blood — and that series had gone on to become a worldwide Netflix hit. Of course she was interested.
"If you accept, Writer Kim, you probably won't have to worry about an actor's guarantee for anything you write going forward."
Saebyeol had plenty of A-list talent on its roster — and plenty of money, period.