The Articles Came Out Amazing
That same evening, in the CEO's office at Nine Entertainment.
Director Choi Yoona rose from her seat and reached for the blinds.
A sharp rattle — and the view from outside was cut off.
It was rather late, but the first broadcast of You Are My Straw had landed well enough that the staff had been pulling overtime two days running. Though whether ordering pizza and jokbal, tearing into them, and waiting around to watch TV really counted as overtime was another question. It was probably more accurate to call it organic scheduling, adapted to the industry's peculiar rhythm.
The entertainment business ran on a clock quite different from the rest of the world. The Ghost, too, once I'd conveyed that I wanted a private word with Director Choi Yoona, was watching TV at his ease out on the office floor. Of course, if he put his mind to it he could pass straight through the closed door and eavesdrop — but that wasn't the Ghost's character.
At any rate, having arranged the conditions for a reasonably private conversation, Director Choi Yoona sat down across from me. Her expression was stiff. I didn't particularly react. She opened fire first.
"Im Jinseo..."
"Yes."
"I don't like her."
Director Choi Yoona stated her position in a fairly firm tone. When she'd contacted me beforehand to talk one-on-one, I had briefly indicated what it was about. The topic had already been disclosed: a discussion on whether or not to attempt re-signing Im Jinseo.
I nodded at once.
"Understood, then."
"...That's really it? Just like that?"
"Yes."
At my words, Director Choi Yoona let out a long sigh, then sat me back down as I started to rise.
"Personally, that's how I feel... but I'll hear you out."
"Understood."
The moment I answered, Director Choi Yoona — having just said she would listen — started talking first again.
"If I say I don't like Im Jinseo, is that really the end of it? Or... is this some kind of strategy? Like bluffing at the negotiating table... that sort of thing?"
I looked at Choi Yoona's stiff face for a moment, then answered without a scrap of ornament.
"I wouldn't bluff at you, Director."
"Why not?"
"Because the people I take care of include actors, but they also include you. Meaning you are not a negotiating counterpart."
The answer seemed to land well. Her stiff lips twitched several times before Director Choi Yoona spoke again, sighing.
"...Aigoo. Fine. Tell me why you brought up recruiting Im Jinseo. Start with the reason."
"Because it's an appropriate time to bring an actor in."
"Hmm... because the atmosphere is good?"
Director Choi Yoona lifted the end of the sentence, answering like a question. I corrected her immediately.
"Because the atmosphere is the only thing that's good."
Bullseye, apparently. The stiffness left her face, and so did the look of someone fighting a smile with the corners of her mouth. What showed instead was genuine surprise.
"...You really do know everything, Team Leader Lee."
"Yes. Honestly, it'd be hard to pretend I don't."
"It's not that bad, though. It's not just the atmosphere. Actor Bong Tae-soo is in the lead, so we're generating revenue on our side proportional to our share, aren't we?"
I didn't pick and choose my words. I spoke at once.
"That's all there is."
The same answer I had given a month ago, when I asked her to find writer Na Malchul. At present, Nine Entertainment's revenue stream really was just that.
We had gotten our name onto You Are My Straw as a co-producer, but it was literally just our name on it — our share of the drama's rights was vanishingly small. The fact that they had given us even a sliver of a share at all told you what a decent man Bureau Director Yoon Hyunbae was.
I kept going, addressing a Director Choi Yoona who could not answer.
"Actress Ha Eun-yul's filming has wrapped."
"..."
"Actor Kim Hyunjun's promotion has ended as well. The film did reasonably well at the box office, but that's a finished piece of business too."
"..."
I delivered the finishing blow to Director Choi Yoona, who still could not respond. A fact both she and I already knew.
"Actor Ki Seongchan dropping all his variety shows is the biggest hit."
"Ki Seongchan... dropping the variety shows... that was a decision we made knowing what it meant."
"Even if it was a knowing decision, the fact remains that the short-term revenue structure has been broken."
I looked into Director Choi Yoona's eyes. People look into each other's eyes during conversation for all sorts of reasons, but I mainly use the eyes as a tool to read what is inside a person. The eyes are one of the organs in the human body that send quite a lot of signals.
Choi Yoona's eyelids trembled, however slightly, and her pupils could not stay fixed in one place. She averted her gaze several times, as if uncomfortable. Meaning my statement that the short-term revenue structure had been broken was true.
And it could not have been otherwise. Nine Entertainment may have contracted, but they had never neglected the care of their actors. The staff had shrunk, yes, but they had not even cut the remaining personnel to match the situation. The same went for employee salaries.
For a company or an organization to take shape and hold that shape, money is absolutely necessary. Whether a corporation or an individual, from the standpoint of treating a business as a separate legal person—
Money is, in the end, blood.
Nine Entertainment was a company whose blood had been circulating by force, on the back of Ki Seongchan, their one ox. And Choi Yoona's refreshingly human decision had, in effect, piled a sudden weight of fatigue onto her own shoulders. If the fatigue increased from here, and the money started drying up further, Nine Entertainment could take a short-term shock.
Director Choi Yoona stared at me with eyes that could not hide her discomfort.
"So we need a name actor, is that it? And the actor who's caught Team Leader Lee's eye is Im Jinseo?"
"Yes."
"Why Im Jinseo of all people? I don't think someone like you, Team Leader, wouldn't know what Im Jinseo means to Nine Entertainment."
"It isn't 'of all people' Im Jinseo. She simply fit the category of actor suitable for our company. And I also found out that Im Jinseo's current situation is unstable. If that's a reason, that's the reason."
As of now, it was not appropriate for Nine Entertainment to recruit Rookie-level actors. Cultivating a Rookie did not cost as much as training an idol. But it was not as if no costs were incurred.
Styling, wardrobe, hair, makeup. Promotion. Acting and vocal training. The bump in personnel support and maintenance costs that came with adding a single actor. Recruiting a Rookie, assuming they were properly taken care of, had to be viewed as a cost increase in the short term.
So if you wanted revenue to rise the moment someone walked in the door, you needed an established actor. Among those, one who had already arrived at a certain level would be ideal. Recruiting an actor with the profile I wanted — one who would bring the company immediate revenue — was not an easy task even for me.
That was why I had thought Im Jinseo was a suitable actor. She was already a Top Star who had established her place... and I had found out she was wavering.
I laid out the rest of it for Director Choi Yoona.
"From the outside, it's true that Nine Entertainment looks like it's in a good atmosphere. But it's hard to see that as a sign the company has fully recovered after the bank-run-style mass contract terminations."
"..."
"Meaning the outside world's view hasn't changed that much. In that situation, recruiting a Top Star isn't easy."
"Even if we somehow get a loan..."
I held out a hand and stopped Director Choi Yoona mid-sentence.
"Supplying liquidity through borrowed funds is a last resort. Is this a last-resort situation? It's not that far gone, is it?"
"..."
"Recruiting an actor who can generate revenue immediately. That's the best option right now."
At my answer, Choi Yoona hung her head with a pained look.
"Haa... I understand everything you're saying, Team Leader Lee... but I still don't like Im Jinseo."
"Understood. If it's all right, I'll look into the loan side as well."
Even if Choi Yoona was still lacking, still immature — Choi Yoona was the head of Nine Entertainment. That was why I had wanted her confirmation before proceeding with Im Jinseo's recruitment. This was something that should not change even if I could see more than Choi Yoona and make wiser decisions.
As I stood up from my seat, Choi Yoona stopped me with her voice again.
"Im Jinseo didn't betray the company. She betrayed Uncle Taewoo."
I answered as I walked toward the window with the blinds drawn.
"That's irrelevant."
"Team Leader Lee can talk like that because you have nothing to do with Uncle Taewoo... but I really, truly cannot do Im Jinseo."
"Understood."
I spread two slats of the blinds at eye level with my fingers. Behind me, Choi Yoona appealed her frustration and asked,
"It's pathetic that I'm only asking this now. And it feels even more pathetic because I keep asking only these kinds of things and just adding to your burden. Did you bring this up because you can actually recruit Im Jinseo?"
"The odds are fifty-fifty, I'd say. We might be able to. We might not. But the probability of recruiting another actor of Im Jinseo's caliber is currently quite low for Nine Entertainment. Low enough that it'd be faster to go around to the banks looking into loans than to waste energy trying to recruit someone else."
"Then why did you bring it up?"
True to form, I replied without any particular emotion.
"Because you're the decision-maker, Director Choi. There are things I can keep you in the dark about, but there are also things the decision-maker has to decide before the work can proceed. Like now."
I felt Director Choi Yoona flinch behind me, but my gaze stayed forward.
Through the gap in the spread blinds, I could see the Ghost watching TV. Director Choi Yoona had said I had nothing to do with it — but the Ghost, with whom I now had a great deal to do. And in the middle of all that, he was laughing. Was there something that funny on the television? I had to wonder whether I could be that positive if I were in his position. He was so unguardedly cheerful it was almost empty-headed.
Director Choi Yoona's answer came from behind me.
"All right. Give it a try. I'm the one who should be asking you, and here I am acting like I have no sense."
"Understood."
"And thank you. For respecting even a pathetic person."
A snap — I let go of my fingers, and the two slats of the blinds I had spread knocked together with a sound. As the blinds covered the view again, I turned around and looked into Director Choi Yoona's eyes.
"Understood."
"...Isn't this the moment you're supposed to say you don't think I'm pathetic?"
"I'll be going now."
"...Oh, for crying out loud."
I left Director Choi Yoona behind and stepped out of the CEO's office.
Just in time for episode two of You Are My Straw to air.
After episode two finished airing, General Manager Kim Misook clicked her tongue in amazement.
"Wow... a familiar flavor is a scary thing..."
"Right? It's so good, what do we do? How are we supposed to wait a whole week?"
The ones reacting immediately were mostly the women. Which was not a bad thing at all. Romantic comedies had always had women as their primary viewership. It was fair to say we had hit the target dead-on.
Assistant Manager Kwak Eunji jumped into the conversation between General Manager Kim Misook and Manager Kim Nakyung.
"It's a familiar taste, but it feels new. Especially Jeong Yunna — she's so much like me?"
"Oh my! I thought she was like me?"
"Me too."
"Same here."
A protagonist setup so general that every female employee chiming in could relate. To my eye, the female lead's setup was a bit much — but because it was a bit much, there seemed to be that many more points to project onto her.
Beside me, the Ghost said with an inscrutable smile,
"Everyone feels like their own life is rough, that's why."
I said nothing.
"Writer Na Malchul probably didn't intend it, but she really nails a universal sentiment. Inferiority complexes, jealousy. Moderately pathetic. Scrambling to survive, working every part-time job they can get. Family circumstances that look like they have something when they don't, not really. Most people have one or two of those sides. And yet the drama doesn't paint the female lead as all that bad. So they think, that's me — the identification is fast."
There was that, too. And the overall composition of the shots was just too good. I was still no expert in this field, but I had been studying, so I could see it. There was not even a hint of something shot in a rush and edited in a rush. Of course, it was practically live broadcasting, so who knew how it would go as the episodes piled up.
At that moment, Manager Kim Nakyung, who had been habitually refreshing articles on her phone, let out a cheer.
"Wow! The articles came out amazing!"
I picked up my phone to check the articles as well, then first looked at a message that had just arrived.
Ha Eun-yul.
The Ghost, who had been about to look at the articles himself and checked the message along with me, smiled bitterly.
"Eun-yul seems anxious."
She did. Lately the number of times she contacted me about deciding on her next project had gone up quite a bit. This Ghost, who seemed to stand at the complete opposite pole from me, appeared to have been having more influence on more people than I had expected.
The reason Ha Eun-yul's reaction had changed was not that she could not pick a next project. And it was certainly not that some attachment to me had deepened. This was, in the end, a reaction based on the hope that I might be able to fill the Ghost's absence. Wanting to find in me the shadow of the Ghost — that is, of the person named Manager Kim Taewoo.
"If you read too many synopses at once, the words stop going in, just like now. It's too late today... and tomorrow is Tae-soo's shooting day too... If you're free on Sunday, would you like to go see Eun-yul together?"
To the Ghost who was worrying about Ha Eun-yul like that, I typed a message on my phone and asked.
"...What are you even saying... all of a sudden? Why would an actress date a manager, hahaha..."
The Ghost's expression was saying something entirely different from the words coming out of his mouth.