Actress Kim Si-a (1)
First-week album sales—the number of copies sold in the seven days after release.
In this era, even a boy group cracking a hundred thousand was called a smash hit, a badge of pride for any fandom. And yet some idiot had walked into the interview room and started bragging about a girl group moving two hundred thousand.
I couldn't exactly blame them for looking at me like I was an idiot.
Right about now, Grace—the girl group JK Entertainment is pushing—becomes the first female idol act to sell a hundred thousand in the first week.
"CEO. You know JK Entertainment, right? They have a girl group called Grace."
"JK Entertainment…?"
JK Entertainment. The idol-focused agency Lee Jong-seok hated more than anything else in the world—no, despised. The company where Park Jongguk sat as CEO.
The two of them had started out as managers at the same company, eating from the same pot. For various reasons, they wouldn't even look at each other now.
"Yes. JK Entertainment's Grace. Their second album is coming out. That album… will probably be the first by a Korean girl group to sell a hundred thousand in the first week."
Bang! At my absolute certainty, he flushed red and slammed the table.
"…You can guarantee that?"
"Of course, sir. That's where the times are headed. The track is strong, and so is the choreography. Simple, with a clear wow factor. It'll hit with teens and twenties—guys and girls both."
"What…?"
"And decisively, their Japanese members are an excellent selling point."
Album sales, honestly, had almost nothing to do with the general public. They came down to how wide idol fans were willing to open their wallets. And the Japanese members in Grace were more than charming enough to empty those wallets dry. Whoever was handling fan management and the hardcore collectors over at JK was doing a terrifyingly good job of it.
Trembling—he was shaking hard enough that I could feel it even from across the room, that was how furious my words had made him.
"How the hell can you guarantee that…? No—how would you even have heard a song that hasn't been released yet?"
Ah, crap. Claiming I'd already heard a track that wasn't out yet made no sense.
Think. Think. Who did I know at JK…
In a flash, the face of a certain con artist who'd once been under JK popped into my head.
"There's… Manager Kim over there, isn't there? I have a connection with him. He asked me to do a blind evaluation."
Sorry, Manager Kim!
If memory served, he caused some kind of incident this month and emigrated to Hawaii. Right—Manager Kim had already gone dark and bolted for the islands. Even setting that aside, there was no way CEO Lee Jong-seok would call up JK Entertainment over some nobody interviewee.
"That little weasel Manager Kim…? You've got connections in this industry?"
"N-no, sir. I just ran into him through a music club."
"Hmm… Is that so? You've got a decent eye, then. For that weasel to hand you a blind eval…"
He scanned my résumé again, studying my face. There was nothing special on it, but of course he was curious—curious about someone who thought the same way he did.
Around this time, Jong-seok hyung was definitely thinking the exact same thing I was.
"Military service done, too… Interesting. All right—you're hired! You're working under me."
At the word hired, I shot up from my seat and bowed at a perfect right angle, dipping my head low enough for him to see the crown of my skull.
"Thank you! Thank you, hyu—I mean, CEO!"
"But! If Grace doesn't sell a hundred thousand… you know what happens, right? You're done working under me."
Aigoo, our Jong-seok hyung. Same as ever. Still hadn't kicked that habit.
No—of course not. I'd come back to the past, so of course it was the same.
I swallowed the laugh trying to escape and nodded.
"Understood. But if they do sell a hundred thousand, what then? I put my neck on the line… shouldn't I walk away with something?"
"You insolent little—hey, are you out of your mind? Do you even know where you are?!"
This was the part where the bootlicker was supposed to shrink. You clueless, useless Manager Jeong Man-sik.
Wait—was he still only a deputy manager right now?
At my attitude, far too cocky for an interviewee, Deputy Manager Jeong Man-sik screeched at the top of his lungs. But he still had no idea what kind of man Jong-seok hyung really was.
"Hahahaha… Why, that's adorable! Hey—I like that confidence. What do you want? This hyung'll take care of it!"
"Well… if I win, I'd just like a meal. At the marketplace hangover-soup place right up the street…"
I remembered it. After TPX—the group we'd poured our hearts into—wrapped a triumphant concert at the Olympic main stadium, hyung and I had sat alone at that marketplace hangover-soup joint and shared a bottle of soju. Back then… that soju had tasted so damn sweet.
"No, no! You said you were betting your neck… Hang on. Here—if you win, this watch is yours."
He unfastened the watch from his wrist and held it out in front of my eyes.
That watch…
The exact watch he'd fastened around my wrist the year I turned thirty. The gold Rolex he'd bought with the first real money he ever made gleamed under the light.
Shit… way to hit a guy right in the chest.
Back then, I'd made a big promise in front of him, hadn't I? That I'd pay him back with a watch far better than this one.
This time I'll keep that promise. Just you watch, Jong-seok hyung.
"Gladly! That watch… I'll be taking it for sure!"
We clasped hands without either of us needing to go first, smiles at the corners of our mouths. And just like that—along with a bet against the CEO—I nested myself at JS Entertainment once again.
Figures. I was never cut out to be the protagonist.
In novels and movies, after you bet your neck against the CEO, the natural next step was landing in the department you wanted and showing off your skills to your heart's content. So why the hell had I ended up as this guy's errand boy?
"Yo~ Rookie's here?"
"Yes, hyung-nim. Sorry I'm a little late—I was parking the car."
Of course, I'd actually clocked in thirty minutes early.
Kim Young-cheol. Rank: assistant manager. But nobody around here went by rank. It was usually just so-and-so's manager, hyung-nim, dongsaeng. Anyway, this guy was the manager assigned to Kim Si-a in Actor Team 1.
A beautiful actress like Kim Si-a certainly beat a pack of dark-skinned boy idols. The problem was that this guy ran with Jeong Man-sik's faction—and I'd already gotten myself on Jeong Man-sik's bad side.
"Whoa, our Minhyuk's got sense… You grabbed a good one, right? If it's a Carnival, Si-a's going to be in a foul mood all day."
"Come on, of course it's a Benz. Who do you think's riding in it…"
He played the nice guy, but he was the kind of slippery operator you saw everywhere in the working world. Your credit is mine, my credit is obviously mine—but my screwups? Those are yours~
A pig who stole credit from the people under him to fatten himself up. Plenty of clueless junior managers had gotten burned by this guy… myself included, in the past life.
Kim Young-cheol, you pig bastard… not this time.
I looked him dead in the face with a bright, sunny smile.
"We've got a sharp one joining Team 1! Let's go. Si-a's coming straight to the car."
All right then—time to go see Si-a noona's face for the first time in a while.
I grabbed the various things I'd prepared for her and hurried down to the basement garage.
Kim Si-a. Purely by face, she was a guaranteed S-Class—and that was about all she had going for her as an actress. A classic ice beauty, radiating cold elegance from that polished, urban mask. Which was why the roles that came her way were always the same: the cold heiress of a chaebol family, a doctor, a lawyer—professional types, mostly.
As if that guy could ever handle her properly…
People didn't know. Behind that sophisticated, haughty face, she was actually painfully shy and painfully timid. Her quietness wasn't arrogance—it was severe social anxiety. Once you got close, she could chatter for hours; classic whirlwind-girl energy. In the end, she'd make her name not in heavy thrillers or melodrama, but in romantic comedies. That ditzy side of her, so at odds with her looks, created a gap moe people went crazy for… or so they said.
About five years from now…
In the past, once we'd gotten fairly close, she used to tell me things like that. That she wished she'd discovered her talent a little sooner. That if she had, a few ten-million-ticket films might have made it onto her filmography…
If that idiot Kim Young-cheol had just picked better projects, her rise would have come a little faster. In the end, her real takeoff only started after she left our company.
Si-a noona. Let's do this right together this time.
First, I had to make her take off and burn my ability into everyone's minds. Only then could I build the idol group I wanted—the one for her.
Uncle's going to protect you this time for sure… Minji.
Seo Minji… the girl who had become nothing but a lingering regret.
Well. That's still a long way off…
I shook off the old memories staining my thoughts, opened the car door, and filled the interior with the perfume I'd prepared for Si-a noona.
When you're building a connection with someone, first impressions matter enormously.
In the past life, I hadn't known. Si-a noona absolutely loathed the smell of cigarettes on her managers. The reason she hated the Carnival wasn't that it looked low-class—it was the cigarette stench soaked deep into the upholstery. She wasn't calculating enough, or rude enough, to care about something like status.
So today, to make a good impression, I'd sprayed a fairly expensive brand of perfume through the car. A little pricey, sure—but when you needed to win over the person you'd be working with, small considerations like this were necessary.
Click, click, click. Kim Si-a came into view at the far end of the parking garage, walking toward us in her heels.
"Hey! Si-a. Over here, over here!"
Noona barely acknowledged Kim Young-cheol, just dipped her head in a short bow.
"Yah… why the foul mood again? Choi, did you mess with our Si-a?"
That useless bastard still had no idea. The reason she was in a bad mood was the stale cigarette reek coming off his own body.
I smoked too, but that guy had less consideration than a speck of dust.
I set the slippers I'd prepared at her feet and spoke quietly.
"Please put these on. The shoot location is far—wearing heels the whole way will be uncomfortable."
"Who…?"
"Ah! Introductions. This is our rookie manager! The slippers were my—"
"If the fatigue builds up in your feet, your condition will tank that much faster. I prepared them in advance. Shall we get going, then?"
I cut Kim Young-cheol off mid-credit-grab and slipped in cleanly.
Not a chance… You were just going to snatch it and shut your mouth afterward anyway~
There was zero reason to suck up to this guy. He was a greedy pig who didn't know the meaning of gratitude. No matter how much I helped him, he'd only ever look out for himself—he'd never lift a finger for me or pull me up.
Kim Young-cheol cleared his throat awkwardly and climbed into the passenger seat. Si-a noona seemed amused by the whole thing; a faint smile touched her lips as she settled into the back.
"Hmm… smells nice… I like this perfume…"
That's why I sprayed it, noona. It's the one you wear every single day.
At her praise, Kim Young-cheol shot a sidelong glance and opened his mouth again.
"Ah. That! Nice, right? Oppa got it because our Si-a loves—"
Sorry, but I was faster this time too.
"Ah—I prepared it because I thought the actress might dislike the smell of cigarettes."
"Oh, right! I told this kid—"
"I read it in a magazine. That you love this perfume."
I kept chattering, slicing his words off before he could even get them out. His cheeks quivered with anger as he turned on me.
"Yah… Kang Minhyuk. What the hell do you think you're doing?! Who cuts off their elders mid-sentence! You have no idea how scary I get when I'm mad, do you? Haa… I'm losing my mind."
"I-I'm sorry. I was a little slow on the uptake."
Bow the head once, right here.
I deployed the ultimate technique available only to a fresh-faced social novice.
Play dumb…
I bowed my head, playing the clueless rookie, and Kim Young-cheol started barking and dressing me down. How cutting people off was rude, how I must have learned workplace manners out of my ass…
Of course I knew. Cutting people off—superiors or anyone else—was bad manners.
I did it all to mess with you, Young-cheol. Go on, yell a little louder~ That way our Si-a noona will lose every last scrap of affection for you…
She hated loud voices and people who browbeat others. One, two, three—
Exactly as I'd predicted, our actress, thoroughly displeased, opened that beautiful mouth of hers and personally came to my defense.
"Oppa… stop it. He's a newbie. It happens. Why are you going after him like you're catching a rat over something this small."
She barely ever spoke at length, so when she laid into him with that much discomfort written all over her, Kim Young-cheol froze and shut his mouth on the spot.
"Don't be like that. You and I were both like that once. Can't a frog remember when it was a tadpole?"
However timid her personality, she'd already spent years grinding through this industry. To low-level managers like Kim Young-cheol or me, she was the absolute top of the food chain.
Young-cheol, when someone like Si-a noona actually gets angry… she's genuinely terrifying. Not you—her.
Tap… tap… Our timid Si-a noona started quietly glaring at Kim Young-cheol, idly rocking the slippers I'd prepared for her.