First Day as Team Leader
Monday morning.
13th floor of headquarters, right outside the PR Team office.
I paused for a moment and looked at the doorplate.
PR Team Leader (Acting) — Kim Dong-su
The new nameplate gleamed as if its ink hadn't even dried yet. Back from a branch assignment, and straight into the team leader's chair. Not just any team leader role, either — this was a position normally reserved for deputy general managers, one that required skipping the rank of manager entirely.
"Whew..."
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
The air inside the office was different from the sales department. If the sales floor buzzed like a battlefield, this place was calm on the surface but crackled with a sharper, edgier tension underneath.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Kim Dong-su, and as of today I'll be heading up the PR Team."
At my greeting, a dozen or so team members lifted their heads all at once. Curious eyes, wary eyes, and eyes laced with outright resentment. The gaze from the man seated in the very front row was especially sharp.
Deputy General Manager Choi Jin-ho. Until I arrived, he had been the de facto second-in-command of the PR Team — and the man widely tipped to be the next team leader. A parachuted-in outsider like me couldn't have looked good in his eyes.
"Pleasure to meet you, Team Leader. I'm Choi Jin-ho, deputy general manager."
He rose and offered a handshake, but there was no strength in his grip at all.
"I hear you did impressive work in the sales department. But this is your first time in PR, isn't it... I imagine it'll take you a while to get a handle on the work?"
There was a barb hidden in his words. You did a little sales and now you think you understand PR? — the mockery was smeared all over his tone.
I grinned and clasped his hand firmly.
"Which is exactly why I'm counting on you, Deputy Manager Choi. I look forward to working with you."
"Haha, of course. Well... if there's anything you don't understand, feel free to ask anytime. We handle all the actual work, so all you need to do is sign off on things, Team Leader."
It might as well have been a declaration of war. His plan was clear: turn me into a scarecrow — a figurehead who did nothing but stamp papers.
I took my seat and powered on the office PC. A message from Deputy Manager Choi was already waiting — the PR team's complete workload files.
When I opened it, there were hundreds of documents. Five years' worth of press releases, advertising proposals, budget execution records, all the way down to the agency rosters. It was enough material that even a month wouldn't have sufficed to absorb it all.
So the deal is: don't open your mouth until you've read every word of this, right?
Deputy Manager Choi's intent was painfully obvious. Under normal circumstances, I would have had to pull several all-nighters just to scratch the surface.
But I had a cheat code.
Time Pass+1
Effect: 9 hours pass in an instant.
Bonus Effect (Remember): All memories from the 9 hours remain fully intact.
Note: Usable once per week.
Monday morning. The most perfect timing there was.
I filled the monitor with files and shouted inwardly.
'Time Pass.'
The ability Time Pass has been activated.
The Remember function is now active.
My vision warped rapidly.
.
.
.
"Team Leader? Aren't you heading home?"
Someone's voice snapped me back to my senses. Outside the window, it had already grown dark. I checked the clock — 6:05 PM. Nine hours had flown by in the blink of an eye.
And then, all at once, a colossal torrent of information surged through my mind like a storm. Every PR campaign Daehan Bank had run over the past five years, the reasons failed proposals had failed, the agencies' commission rates — even the budget line items Deputy Manager Choi had quietly omitted. It felt as though an entire library had been crammed into my head.
I raised my head, pressing a hand to my throbbing temple. Deputy Manager Choi stood there with his bag slung over his shoulder, wearing an oddly knowing smile.
"Isn't that pushing yourself too hard on your very first day? With all that material, there's no way you could get through it in a single day. Take it slow."
I stood up from my chair and shrugged on my jacket.
"Oh, Deputy Manager Choi. Heading out?"
"Yes. You should get home too, Team Leader. I'll report on the work at tomorrow's weekly meeting. Well... though I suppose you'd need to know the material first for the meeting to go anywhere."
He kept the sarcasm going right to the end. I smiled sweetly.
"Oh, that reminds me — about the 2026 First-Half Brand Strategy on page 24."
"...Yes?"
"The agency commission line there is set 1.5% higher than last year. I cross-checked it against the original contracts, and a special clause is missing. Have it corrected before tomorrow's meeting, would you?"
Deputy Manager Choi's face froze in an instant.
"You... you've already gone through that? Wait, page 24, you said?"
"And bring me the failure analysis report for the 2025 Youth Support Campaign again. The budget execution figures and the results report don't line up."
"........."
Deputy Manager Choi stood with his mouth hanging open, unable to get a single word out. He couldn't believe it — that I'd absorbed that mountain of material in one day, and caught discrepancies on top of it.
I clapped him on the shoulder as I walked past.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow. They say you're excellent at the hands-on work, so I'll be expecting great things."
As I stepped out of the office, I could feel it — Deputy Manager Choi breaking out in a cold sweat behind me.
Preemptive strike: complete. With this, taking over the PR Team was only a matter of time.
The moment I got home, I collapsed onto the sofa. The Remember function of Time Pass was genuinely overpowered, but there was no avoiding that brain-overload feeling that came with it.
"Ugh... my head."
Still, I felt fantastic. From now on, there wasn't a soul in the PR Team who could look down on me.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong—
The moment I checked the intercom screen, I sprang to my feet. A woman in a pulled-down hat and face mask was waving at the camera.
It was Senior Hae-in.
The instant I opened the door, she swept inside, a large shopping bag in hand.
"Surprise!"
"Noona? How did you... wait, isn't it risky, coming here alone?"
"Nobody saw me. There's construction going on, so the place was empty anyway."
She slipped off her shoes with practiced ease and walked into the living room.
"Congratulations on the promotion to Team Leader! I couldn't show up empty-handed, so I brought some wine."
"Thank you. But honestly, you've got some nerve. A top star just waltzing into a single guy's apartment."
"Why? What are you planning to do to me?"
She narrowed her eyes and asked playfully. I gave an awkward laugh and pulled out the wine glasses.
"I mean... it's not like I couldn't."
"Oh my, would you look at this one? Getting cheeky, aren't we."
We sat side by side on the sofa and drank our wine. On the TV, a rerun of her drama was playing — while the real her sat right next to me.
"Dong-su."
"Yes?"
"About our trip this weekend."
"Yes. I took care of it. I booked a private pool villa in Namhae. It's completely private — no one will know."
"Really? Wow... Mr. Smooth over here."
When she smiled that sly smile, my heart plummeted.
"But... I'm a little worried about this upcoming ad shoot."
"Why's that?"
"They changed the concept. Apparently it's going with a romantic-couple feel now, but the male model hasn't been decided yet. The chemistry was best when it was with you... and the director said he was disappointed about it too."
"Aw, come on. I'm not even a professional model."
"Well, still — if you're the PR Team Leader now, you'll be able to be on set with me. Ahh."
When she laughed, the heart that had just dropped came pounding back to life.
***
The next day, at the Tuesday weekly meeting, Deputy Manager Choi hovered around me with the report he'd stayed up all night revising, watching my every reaction.
"I've corrected the parts you pointed out. And I've reconciled the budget figures as well."
"Good work. Now it actually makes some sense."
The meeting proceeded without a hitch. Every time I fired off a question that cut straight to the heart of the matter, the team members clicked their tongues, and the way they looked at me was steadily shifting from wariness to respect.
Just then, the conference room door opened and Department Head Park walked in. His expression was quite grave.
"Team Leader Kim, step out with me for a moment."
"Yes, sir."
Once we were in the corridor, Department Head Park spoke up, looking somewhat troubled.
"It's... about the Song Hae-in ad."
"Yes? Has something gone wrong?"
"The actor we'd lined up as the male model got a DUI story published yesterday. The shoot is this very weekend, and now it's fallen through."
"Ah... that's rough. That's a real problem. Have you found a replacement?"
"That's exactly the issue. We tried to find someone quickly, but there's no actor of the right caliber available. And if we use just anyone, Song Hae-in's side balks... while the director says he'd frankly rather go with an ordinary-citizen model again, like last time."
His gaze slid, none too subtly, in my direction.
No way.
"Uh... Director Park? That look... you can't possibly mean—"
"Team Leader Kim. What are you doing this weekend?"
"I was planning to visit my parents, actually."
"You can take leave to visit home some other time. This week, you're going to a film set."
"........."
"The director wants you. The last ad got such a great response that this time he wants to do a whole series with an actual storyline. I checked with Song Hae-in's side as well, and..."
"And?"
"If it's you, they said it's an instant yes."
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Senior... so yesterday you played innocent and didn't say a word to me?
"This time it's not some extra-level role. You'd be the main model, and you'd be paid an official appearance fee. Do us a favor and sacrifice yourself for the company one more time, won't you?"