This Time, a Business Trip to America
It was obvious that Team Leader Park had been buzzing around the office all day, telling everyone that Young-hoon would be dropping by.
Seeking to defuse the awkwardness of the moment, Young-hoon greeted the staff first.
"Hello, everyone."
President Lee Jae-man stepped forward to welcome him warmly.
"Welcome, Mr. Chairman. Please, come into my office."
Once they were inside and seated on the sofa, Director Kim Jong-seok followed them in. Team Leader Park and Jin-man lacked the seniority to join them.
Yoo Hyun-kyung, the office's female staffer, came in with freshly brewed coffee, and her face was positively glowing.
"Miss Yoo Hyun-kyung, is something good happening? You look awfully cheerful."
"It's because I get to see you for the first time in a while, Mr. Chairman. And I received a bonus of twenty million won in a single month. I understand that was thanks to your special consideration."
"Oh come on, don't be embarrassing. Tell that to President Lee Jae-man, not me."
"Still, thank you so much. If there's nothing else you need, I'll head back out."
Once Hyun-kyung set down the coffee and left, the real conversation began.
"Mr. Chairman, how was your trip to China?"
"It went well, thank you. In China I met Wang Mimi of Shanghai Music and Xu Linhong of Zhonghua Music. They were both pressing me to hand over the music files as quickly as possible."
At that, Director Kim Jong-seok stepped in to explain.
"Allow me to fill you in, Mr. Chairman. We drafted the contracts on November 25th, confirmed the down payments were deposited on the 30th, and sent the music files to each company yesterday. As for 'Returned Love,' we'll dispatch it the moment their payment comes through. It should arrive within a day or two."
"Understood. So going forward, you'll be backing up all the China-related work, Director?"
"Yes, that's right."
President Lee Jae-man judged that once the broad strokes were settled, this was the point to break off the conversation. The topics coming next would need to be shared with the other staff in a proper meeting.
"Why don't we move to the conference room? The rest of the staff are waiting for us."
Eight people, Team Leader Park included, were already seated in the conference room. Several of them Young-hoon was meeting for the first time. As he took his seat, each person stood up and introduced themselves in turn — though Young-hoon's memory wasn't quite sharp enough to retain every name.
With the introductions over, the meeting began in earnest. First came the division-of-duties chart: President Lee Jae-man would act as representative while bearing overall responsibility for company operations; Director Kim Jong-seok would oversee all overseas affairs; Team Leader Park Sung-ho would manage domestic operations and company finances; and Assistant Manager Kim Jin-man would handle the finance desk under Park.
Once the assignments were set, the November financial report followed. Adding up the OST down payments from early November, the tips from the Chinese buyers, Five Girls' event fees, the Chinese music licensing payments, and music revenue, the total came to over fifteen billion won. An enormous sum to have earned in a single month.
Partway through the report, a sudden question occurred to Young-hoon.
"Team Leader Park, sorry to interrupt the report, but when are we settling up with the Five Girls girls?" When Park hesitated, President Lee Jae-man stepped in to answer.
"Let me take that one. The industry standard is quarterly settlements, but we decided to settle monthly wherever a monthly cycle works, and handle the rest case by case as the situation calls for."
"Good thinking. What's the point of us sitting on the money? We have to pay it out eventually — give it a little early and the girls will be happy."
"Then how shall we handle your share of the settlement, Mr. Chairman?"
"Keep mine in internal reserves. We need to lease another floor for the office, and hiring Producer Yoo Sung-hoon means replacing all his equipment. That won't come cheap, will it?"
"We're drawing up the budget for that now. It should come to around two billion won."
"Only that much? Then let's proceed on that basis."
"Yes, sir."
President Lee Jae-man felt sorry watching the former LK Electronics trio living like bats, scurrying in limbo, and was eager to absorb them into Girin Entertainment as soon as possible. So he raised the question with Young-hoon.
"By the way, Mr. Chairman — when should we process the start dates for Director Kim, Team Leader Park, and Assistant Manager Kim?"
"I can't say exactly, but they'll need to formally resign from LK Electronics first. Let's set their start date for next Monday and backdate the pay accordingly. Director, what do you think?"
"That seems like the cleanest way to handle it, for our part."
After that, Young-hoon dispatched the remaining agenda items with brisk efficiency. Seeing the three from LK Electronics settle into their places so quickly left him quietly pleased.
The Five Girls were as busy as ever. He had hoped to buy them a meal today, but they'd traveled to the provinces for an event and wouldn't return until late at night. So Young-hoon resigned himself to lunch with the staff, then headed over to his own office on Teheran-ro.
He had barely sat down at his desk when PD Shin Hye-yoon called.
[Hello, Chairman Kim. Did you have a good trip to China?]
"Ah — yes. I did, thanks to you."
[Hmm~ I hear you overdid it over there. Is your back all right?]
"I'm sorry — what? How would you even…"
[Chairman Kim, did you forget I have spies in China too? They say Wang Mimi drew a bath and waited for you all evening — and you spent the night with a different woman?]
"Ah, that was just Wang Mimi teasing me."
[Oh, don't worry. I'm not the type of woman to hold that kind of thing over your head.]
"I— sorry, what exactly do you mean by that…"
[Oops! That just slipped out. My apologies.]
No, it wasn't. Young-hoon was quite certain that was no slip of the tongue.
"So, what brings you calling…"
[Chairman Jang came to our company yesterday.]
"Chairman Jang did? Why on earth would he visit you there?"
[He said it was because of me. Our CEO nearly fell over himself. So I'm going to be joining the production of 'Love Met Again.' I'll wrap up my work here first, then join the team over there. Not right away — but from the next meeting on, I'm in.]
"Thank you. I was worried sick wondering what we'd do if you couldn't be part of it."
[Then you'd better treat me well. Let's go on a date sometime.]
"I— a date?"
[Oh dear, another slip. Anyway — PD Lee Hyo-young is joining too. He's in charge of editing the drama now, so he'll come on board around late January. But don't call him today; he's on pins and needles over tomorrow's premiere. Send him a text instead.]
"Understood. I hope tomorrow's ratings go through the roof."
[Of course they will. And isn't that good for you too, Chairman?]
"Thank you, truly. Call me whenever you have a free moment and I'll come running, no question."
[I'll hold you to that. And do thank Chairman Jang for me — he came all that way on my account.]
"I'm seeing him shortly, so I'll pass it along then."
[Then I'll see you next time.]
"Right. Take care."
While talking with Young-hoon, Hye-yoon had deliberately let a sliver of her heart slip through. If he had any sense at all, he would have caught her meaning.
If he didn't, he was a complete blockhead. But the sound of his shock suggested he'd caught nothing whatsoever.
How on earth am I supposed to tame this man? The Five Girls girls had certainly been looking at Young-hoon with anything but ordinary eyes, too. The thought of competing with a pack of twenty-somethings made her heart sink.
Wang Chenchen, Chairman of Shanghai Media Group, had been carrying a heavy burden of late. A year ago he had laid out a grand plan to break into the American market, and after months of negotiations to acquire PBS — the Public Broadcasting Service, one of America's television networks — the deal had stalled dead.
At the very start of the acquisition talks, securing a 51% stake had been easy enough. But then Michael, PBS's largest shareholder, who had agreed to sell his shares, abruptly reversed his position and dug in: not for sale. Michael held 37% of the network, and without those shares the entire acquisition would collapse into nothing.
He had poured every effort into the deal for months, and to find out why the man had suddenly changed his tune, he hired private investigators and had them dig for nearly two months. Their findings: the reason Michael refused to sell was that he had lost his will to live.
So he spent another month investigating the cause of that. And just yesterday, the final report arrived at last. The reason was none other than this: the man had lost his function as a man.
Well, Michael was over seventy — a natural consequence, really. But when you stopped to think about it, the age gap between him and his Korean hyungs was essentially nil. With the power of the elixir, winning Michael over would be no problem at all.
So just now he had fired off an SOS to Chairman Choi in Korea — would you come to America with me? — and Choi had readily agreed. A few conditions were attached, but none of them difficult. One was that they were to be picked up and escorted personally. That was nothing: he could simply stop in Korea briefly on the way and they'd cross to America together. No problem there.
Then, they must stay at the finest hotels, and they absolutely must ride a white horse every day. Naturally, call accepted — he would, after all, be riding the white horse himself.
And they wanted two bottles of the elixir at forty billion won apiece. Obviously, call accepted. The whole point of the trip was to restore Michael's will to live, and without the elixir the mission was dead on arrival.
The last condition was a bit trickier: arrange meetings with major distribution companies on America's East and West coasts. But his younger brother Wang Qianshu had a friend who ran a huge distribution firm in New York, so an introduction there would do nicely. For the West Coast, he'd heard the PBS chairman had a junior colleague running a distribution company in LA, so he'd arrange an introduction through him.
With every problem handled, Chairman Wang wanted nothing more than to fly to America tomorrow. But the Koreans insisted on departing Sunday. Waiting until Sunday was pure agony.
Meanwhile, Young-hoon — blissfully unaware of Hye-yoon's feelings or not — went straight from his phone call to Chairman Jang's office. Chairman Jang and Chairman Choi appeared to be at odds over something, bickering back and forth.
"What are you two fighting about?"
"Kim! You're here. Well, this rascal wants to drag us off to America this time. What a headache."
"Chairman Choi, what's this about America?"
"Ah, well — the Wang fellow's taking a business trip to the States, and he wants us to come along."
"If Chairman Wang's going to America, why should we?"
"The Wang fellow's trying to buy the American network PBS, and the negotiations seem to be going nowhere. So he plans to push it through with the elixir, and now he's asking us for help."
"Doesn't Chairman Wang know what the elixir can do? He knows perfectly well, doesn't he?"
"That's exactly what I said."
"You fool, who doesn't know that? In the Wang fellow's mind, giving up what he already has stings, so he wants to buy fresh elixir instead — and while he's at it, have us lend him a hand. And how do you refuse a request like that? Besides, he's offering to fly us over and back on his private jet. What reason is there not to go?"
"Hmph! Who doesn't know your real motive? You just want to ride a white horse again, don't you?"
"And the Wang fellow's covering the full course, top to bottom. What's there to refuse? Then you stay home! Kim going is enough!"
"Kim, don't fall for that smooth-talking candy-seller."
Young-hoon, who had been quietly lost in thought, finally spoke, as if a decision had crystallized.
"Chairman Choi, how about we play an option on Chairman Wang?"
Young-hoon's plan, with the American market in his sights, was just beginning to sprout.