Scene Stealer
A scene stealer. One person had climbed to the very top on the strength of a single debut work, only to be wounded by excessive attention and fall from grace. The two people shaped by that influence, directly and indirectly, had endured and endured until they became the most recognized actors of their generation.
And now, Yoon Jay was acting again. The situation was a strange one indeed.
"Jay!"
"Well, then."
Yoon Jay gave the two of them a small nod and ran off toward the staffer who had called his name.
"Smitten, aren't you?"
"You want to die?"
In the end, Kwon Min-jae, having taken a solid thump on the back from Baek Da-eun, let out a groan of complaint.
"Thank you for having me today, everyone."
The role Yoon Jay was briefly appearing in was minor in screen time, yet the character even had a name. He was playing a new hire who had become a legend at Baekhwa C&T, the conglomerate featured in Big Company People—and his name was Park Shin-hwa.
"Oh no, it's us who should be saying that. You got home all right yesterday?"
"Yes."
"We got a great scene out of it thanks to you. They were right—a recommendation from that CEO is never wasted."
The director of Big Company People beamed at Yoon Jay.
It was a brief appearance, but Park Shin-hwa was a maddening character designed to hook viewers in the drama's early episodes.
The person you least wanted to face in a group interview—a man coiled tight with ambition who looked destined to claim an executive seat in the end. Anyone could see he was not an ordinary man.
"Ah, it'd be great if we had a scene where he introduces himself in a few different languages... Jay, you can do a self-introduction in English, right?"
"Other languages as well."
"Wh-which ones can you do?"
"Which one would you like?"
The way one eyebrow arched upward while the corner of his mouth curled—it looked exactly like Park Shin-hwa. Hypnotized by the sight, the director ordered the change.
"Then let's do English, plus French and Spanish..."
"Sure. Those are languages I happen to know."
"Really? Th-that's great?"
But could he actually speak them? Jay had been faintly skeptical—until the moment filming began, when suspicion turned to trust.
"Jay, I know you'll be brilliant today as always, but today I'd like your ambition to come pouring out even harder than yesterday."
"Understood."
"You've just joined the company, so I want that iron will—that obsession of a man determined to climb to the very top of this place! Like what people call the clear-eyed madman, you know..."
What's that supposed to be? Yoon Jay tilted his head slightly, but the set was churning too busily for questions. Fine. He would interpret it his own way.
Park Shin-hwa is a legendary figure, true to his name.
And to think one of the nation's top conglomerates handled its affairs like this? That disbelief was the point—a device to make the audience doubt. The cameo would run, what, about fifteen minutes?
Yoon Jay didn't mind in the slightest. Like Baek Jin-ri, the character was sharply defined, which made it easy to sink into. The production crew was already scurrying around him in response. Good.
Kwon Min-jae and Baek Da-eun stole glances at the sight of him.
Was there ever a time I had that kind of passion?
...He's a rookie. That must be why he's throwing himself into it.
And so filming began. Kwon Min-jae and Baek Da-eun played two new hires who, after an endless job hunt, had finally landed positions at Baekhwa C&T.
"Everything's in here, so start by getting up to speed with this."
"Yes. But won't you be joining us, sir...?"
"I'm a bit busy. Just look at that."
The two had arrived at work brimming with excitement, only to be left to fend for themselves in the office. They had already read every file on their computers three times over. And it was still only ten o'clock.
Should I kill some time pretending to go to the bathroom? Wait, am I even allowed to do that?
I'm starving... I was so nervous I skipped breakfast.
Just as the two were rolling only their eyes, someone called out to them.
"There's a face I don't know. New hires?"
"Yes! Looking forward to working with you!"
"Hey, hey, we're on the clock here."
"Oh!"
With the two rookies standing at rigid attention, the previously quiet office grew briefly lively. The man wearing a name tag that read Assistant Manager Oh Ji-wan led the two new hires toward the conference room.
"Oh Ji-wan's off to go meddling again."
"Sigh."
No wonder he's been stuck as an assistant manager forever... the office staff murmured under their breath. But none of them stopped him—they were too busy with their own work.
"I'm Oh Ji-wan, assistant manager. Just call me Assistant Manager Oh, nice and easy. And your names?"
"I'm Cha Si-won."
"I'm Im Na-eun. Um, is it all right for us to be sitting here? We were told to review the work..."
"Ah, right. It's your first day—no need to be so wound up. Just work hard starting tomorrow."
Assistant Manager Oh chewed thoughtfully on the paper cup his mixed coffee had come in.
"Anyway, if anything's got you curious, just say the word, whenever."
"Yes, sir."
Without a single question from the two of them, Oh reeled off story after story. The cafeteria's food was best on Wednesdays, apparently. Whatever you did, never use the sixth-floor bathroom at 10:10—that kind of urban legend made the rounds too. His gift of gab was so formidable that they found themselves pulled helplessly along.
"Speaking of new hires, that reminds me. You two know our company has a legendary rookie in its history, right?"
"What? Who?"
The close-up distorted Assistant Manager Oh's face through a wide-angle lens, as though the two of them were falling under the spell of his words.
"He was a strange one, that guy. One look and you'd think—nope. Get close to him and you're dead. The kind of person you never, ever want to cross."
"Do you know him well, sir?"
"Saw him once. At my own interview."
Here came the assistant manager's flashback—a scene Yoon Jay had shot before meeting Kwon Min-jae and Baek Da-eun. Oh Ji-wan's interview, plain and simple.
Into the ears of Oh Ji-wan, pacing anxiously outside the interview room and shuttling back and forth to the bathroom, drifted the whispers of a fellow applicant.
"Whoa, you see that guy over there?"
"Where?"
Following Oh Ji-wan's gaze, Park Shin-hwa happened to walk past. The screen lent him slow motion. Yoon Jay, as Park Shin-hwa, fulfilled the director's request to the letter: I want this man to radiate trustworthiness as a human being.
"Whoa... so that's what an interview fast-pass looks like."
"My motivation's already crumbling."
"How many from our group are getting in, anyway?"
"Please, just let me avoid that one person..."
And Assistant Manager Oh, through sheer bad luck, drew the short straw.
"Good morning. I am Park Shin-hwa—talent prepared expressly for Baekhwa C&T."
His thick brows arched slightly, as if to display his brimming confidence. A face that inspired trust on sight. Announcer-grade diction and pitch control. And staggering ability.
"He was unreal. Introduced himself in every language under the sun, claimed he'd traveled around the world on five million won, summited the Himalayas—this endless stream of outrageous stories... By the end, the head of HR was applauding him."
"Whoa..."
"But don't people like that turn up once in a while if you sit through enough interviews?"
Oh, just keep listening. Oh Ji-wan waved the doubt away.
"Anyway, even after he joined the company, he was anything but ordinary. He came in earlier than everyone else and handed out snacks from the break room to every single desk in the office."
And not just once, either—he'd first figure out who ate what, then tailor every round to each person's taste.
Ah, this one hates chocolate. Apple pie for him, then. This person doesn't touch snacks at all? In Oh Ji-wan's memory, Park Shin-hwa bustled busily about.
"Whoa..."
"And nobody even asked him to, but he tidied up the office and even tended the plants over there. Of course, he quit that once he found out we had a dedicated employee for it."
"They have a separate plant-care employee?"
"Oh, we do. Used to be homeless—saved the chairman's life, so now he's a manager in name only... I'll tell you that story some other time."
That sounded like its own fascinating story. The two new hires had shaken off all their nervousness by now, waiting only for Oh Ji-wan's mouth to open again.
"It was shortly after he and I joined. You know that incident, right? The Baekhwa C&T gate? When the chairman showed up to the prosecutor's office in a wheelchair and the whole country lost its mind."
"Uh... yes."
But is he really allowed to bring that up here?
"Because of that, our office got hit with a massive tax audit. The National Tax Service suddenly dispatched its investigation bureau, and..."
The three of them then turned to look out through the conference room's glass wall at the office beyond. It was a flashback scene, but shot in the same space.
The conference room lighting dimmed while the office brightened. Like a stage play, the three became an audience to the memory—and Park Shin-hwa became the protagonist on that stage.
"Sir, I keep telling you, it's not in here."
"It's here, right? They said the whole place has been surveyed..."
"Oh, for crying out loud..."
If that ledger falls into these people's hands, it's all over! An executive—a managing director, no less—trailed the audit team in an agony of suspense, and the office atmosphere turned grim.
Then someone made the first move. Park Shin-hwa. He hurried into the office.
"This is the computer with the ledger on it, right?"
"Uh—yes, it is, but..."
Whirr! With an electric screwdriver obtained who-knew-where, he set about clumsily dismantling the computer—and the instant he pulled out the hard drive, the audit team came storming into the office.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
"..."
Park Shin-hwa froze, hard drive clutched in both hands. A breath-stealing exchange of glances. And then... Park Shin-hwa kicked off from his spot and ran.
"You absolute—!"
"G-grab him!"
A broad-daylight office chase erupted. Yoon Jay ran and ran along the preset route, bit players cast as the audit team hot on his heels.
"Stop right there!"
At that, Park Shin-hwa flashed a grin. Devotion to the company? No. It was the expectation that pulling this off would surely bring a reward waiting on the other side.
"Where'd he go?!"
"There he is!"
This was a man who had summited the Himalayas just to land a job at a major corporation—and yet he still wobbled once, nearly toppling flat. That stumble was Yoon Jay's own addition; it seemed like the only way the tension would truly land.
"So? Did they catch him?"
"Nope. Never caught. The investigation bureau packed up in a huff and left, and forty minutes later he strolled back into the office."
And they looked upon the office once more.
Park Shin-hwa returned with the hard drive clenched tight in his fist, while the soundtrack swelled with Beethoven's Ninth—the Ode to Joy.
"There you are. You dropped your employee badge in the hallway, I believe."
"Ah. Thank you."
"Thanks to you, this company was saved...!"
Gathered into the executive director's embrace, Park Shin-hwa tilted his face to the ceiling and let out a magnificent, overblown Wahahaha!
And the camera cut back to the three in the conference room.
Yoon Jay, meanwhile, ducked low and slipped out between takes so as not to catch the frame. His stylist smoothed his hair back and draped his suit jacket over his shoulders.
"Word of the whole affair eventually reached the chairman's ears, and the kid got promoted two full ranks."
"What?!"
He got a two-rank promotion for pulling that stunt? He was still a new hire! Both rookies gaped, mouths hanging open. But Assistant Manager Oh's story wasn't finished.
"But you know what? That punk's family runs a computer shop in Yongsan."
"What?"
"Which means..."
The flashback restarted—but this time, it was different.
Even with pandemonium raging outside, he strolled unhurriedly into the office and dismantled the ledger's computer with practiced ease. Then, hard drive in hand, he glanced toward the corridor.
"I told you, they've already checked everywhere..."
"Ugh, seriously..."
The audit team and the executive director drew steadily closer—and Park Shin-hwa smirked. Petty. Utterly calculating.
"He waited, hard drive in hand, until the executive director could see him running off with it."
"Whoa..."
"That's how sure he was he wouldn't get caught. Total lunatic, right?"
"Th-then the employee badge too..."
"I'd say he dropped it on purpose. Beyond reasonable doubt, so to speak."
The two new hires leaned back in their chairs, awestruck. The afterglow lingered long after. How does a person like that even exist?
"So he still works at the company, then?"
The words were barely out when a murmur rippled up from the entrance. Assistant Manager Oh turned and tipped his chin toward it.
"There he is now."
Dun. Dun.
Against a swelling, majestic score, the camera panned slowly up Park Shin-hwa's body from his shoes. The handsome face finally revealed looked a touch older than before, thanks to the swept-back hair.
Park Shin-hwa
Deputy Head, Human Resources, Baekhwa C&T
The caption appeared in the stately script of a historical drama, and the man smiled with unshakable confidence, tucking his cufflink into place with the fluid grace of James Bond himself. The gleaming cufflinks were, naturally, designer.
"Whoa..."
Deputy head already, and he was only in his early thirties... Respect welled up without being asked.
"You two ever heard of the Vertikal App? You know, that office-worker community app?"
"Yes."
"You on it?"
"No."
Both of them flinched. In truth, they'd been agonizing over whether to sign up ever since the email had arrived.
"Signing up is fine. Just don't go writing anything careless on there. You think it's anonymous? It isn't."
"Sorry?"
Assistant Manager Oh turned and gestured with his chin toward Park Shin-hwa, who was waiting for the elevator.
"He sniffs out every single one of them."
Then the scene cut once more—to Park Shin-hwa, legs crossed with insolent ease, interrogating a hunched and cowed Assistant Manager Oh.
"Mr. Oh Ji-wan. At approximately 2:34 this morning, you posted 'I Don't Want to Work at a Company This Ridiculous' on the Baekhwa C&T board of the Vertikal App. Correct?"
"Ah—no, that is..."
While the two new hires stared blankly at Park Shin-hwa's back in dumbfounded disbelief, a middle-aged man stepped up beside him.
"Deputy Head Park. It's been a while."
"Director! How was your round of golf?"
"Splendid. You don't play?"
"I left something in the car."
He eased the director—who prized his solitude—comfortably into the elevator, then roughly loosened his own tie and headed for the stairwell.
Ambition incarnate. A man who bowed only when bowing would serve him—and when he bowed, he bowed all the way. The legend of Baekhwa C&T's new hires, and the scene stealer of Big Company People's first episode.
The director called out, his face lit with satisfaction.
"Cut!"
"Yes! That was fantastic!"