The Agency We Will Own
Yoon Seo-ah called out to her sister in a trembling voice. “Aura Entertainment… Ji-ah?”
Only then did the situation start to sink in. Yoon Ji-ah rose with a pained expression, fixing her with a cold, icy glare.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“S-sorry.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? I just touched you while you were sleeping and you suddenly try to break my arm?”
Yoon Seo-ah’s judgment was swift. That meant her instincts were razor sharp—especially when it came to survival. She immediately realized that a quick apology was the only path to staying alive. If she acted out like usual, her allowance would be cut off and all support would vanish.
In the Yoon family, Yoon Ji-ah reigned supreme. If she decided something, their father Yoon Jung-ho and mother Chae Kang-hee would simply nod and assume there must be a good reason. The usual minor pranks and teasing were only tolerated because Ji-ah allowed them. This time, she had clearly crossed the line.
Seo-ah immediately slid off the bed and dropped to her knees.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was having a nightmare about ghosts, and the second you came up behind me it felt like something was attacking me from the back.”
“Ha… you really are something else.”
Yoon Ji-ah let out a deep sigh and rubbed her wrist. Just moments ago she had been ready to unload a tirade and demand medical bills plus emotional damages, but she held back. Seo-ah’s appearance made it impossible to stay angry.
“What kind of terrifying dream makes you sweat that much? If it’s a nightmare, you should wake up properly. Your clothes and blanket are soaked. Do you think our ancestors are going to pay the laundry bill?”
“…If there’s a way to realize you’re in a nightmare and wake yourself up from it, could you please teach me?”
Yoon Ji-ah clicked her tongue and gently wiped the sweat from Seo-ah’s forehead. Despite her grumbling tone, her concern was obvious. Seo-ah, still caught in the aftermath of the nightmare, didn’t seem to notice.
“…Anyway, why did you come in? Is something wrong?”
The apartment the Yoon family lived in had excellent soundproofing. No matter how much Seo-ah groaned, if the door was properly closed, nothing could be heard from Ji-ah’s room directly across the hall. In other words, Ji-ah must have come for a reason.
“It’s time to go to school.”
“…?”
She had finished filming on Sunday morning and returned home around lunchtime. She had closed her eyes for a moment. And now she was opening them again. But… time for school?
“Are you kidding me? How many hours did I sleep?”
“Nineteen hours? Anyway, hurry up and get ready. It’s already eight.”
“What? Hey! I won’t even have time to shower and eat!”
Yoon Seo-ah let out a scream and sprang out of bed. She had sweated so much that she definitely needed to wash, which probably meant skipping a meal. But in Seo-ah’s dictionary, the words “skip a meal” simply did not exist. She planned a military-style quick shower and decided to eat something in the car.
She was about to dash to the bathroom when—
“Calm down. It’s eight in the evening.”
“What the—?”
Yoon Ji-ah, now seated calmly at the desk, added, “Oh, and it’s Monday.”
Yoon Seo-ah stared blankly out the window. That meant she had slept for nearly thirty hours straight. Sure enough, it was already dark outside.
“Mom tried to wake you but you were sleeping so soundly that she just let you rest. She called the school too.”
“…Whoa.”
She had avoided an unexcused absence, but she had lost an entire day.
“By the way, was the ghost thing from Kkureogi Tamheomdae a personal effect rather than a show-wide one? An advertising offer came in and the amount was pretty substantial. Still, it’s not time yet. Let’s wait a little longer on CFs. The best offers will come right when the drama ends.”
Even if she had just read manhwa after school, she could have finished thirty volumes in that amount of time.
“Anyway, we should start looking at agencies soon. There’s a limit to how much I can pass along PD offers to Dad and connect you. It’s getting inefficient.”
Not to mention she had missed dinner the night before, plus breakfast, lunch, and dinner today.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Four meals in total. That day, Yoon Seo-ah’s world collapsed.
“Unnie!”
Yoon Seo-ah was completely out of it. Her face looked like a citizen who had just lost her country.
“I said, are you listening?!”
“That’s not important.”
“…?”
“Four precious moments of happiness have evaporated. You heartless capitalist demon.”
Yoon Seo-ah pounded the bed and wailed. An eight-year-old’s appetite was far more desperate than any adult dignity.
Yoon Ji-ah picked at her ear with a bored expression and replied casually, “Braised short ribs.”
“Huh?”
“Mom made braised short ribs and japchae for you in case you woke up.”
“Nice!”
“But I should tell Mom you looked sick and ask her to make porridge instead.”
“What?”
Yoon Seo-ah’s anger vanished in 0.1 seconds. She dropped back to her knees immediately.
“Ji-ah, I’m sorry. The little Yoon Seo-ah inside me couldn’t endure the hunger and… You understand, right? You can pick the ads yourself… Agency? Yeah, you can just… pick that too. I trust you completely!”
Yoon Seo-ah shot out of the room like lightning. The savory aroma of braised short ribs really was filling the air.
“Seo-ah, you’re awake? What’s with sleeping so long? I was worried something was wrong and almost took you to the hospital.”
It was 2002. A remarkable era in which people believed that if you were sick, you should just endure it and grow stronger instead of going to the hospital. Even sleeping for thirty hours was dismissed with a simple “Well, growing kids need lots of sleep sometimes.”
That didn’t mean they had ignored her. While she slept, both her mother Chae Kang-hee and sister Yoon Ji-ah had checked on her dozens of times. They had only left her alone because her expression looked peaceful and she had been tossing and turning normally. The cold sweat and nightmare had only lasted for the brief moment when Ji-ah entered the room.
“I guess I was tired from the mudflat Olympics. I’m fine now! Where’s the food?! Where are my ribs and japchae?!”
“I just need to heat the rice and the stew. Want to eat now? Go wash your hands.”
“Yes!”
Yoon Seo-ah answered brightly, ducked into the bathroom, then charged straight to the dining table. Chae Kang-hee had gone to clean the bathroom and run a bath for Yoon Jung-ho, who would be home from work soon. That left only Yoon Seo-ah and Yoon Ji-ah at the table.
Seo-ah placed a steaming piece of braised short rib in her mouth along with the tiniest bit of rice. If she ate too much rice, she couldn’t eat as much meat. But without any rice at all, the rich sauce would have nowhere to go and would just linger and disappear on her tongue. Each individual grain of rice captured that deep flavor, washed away the greasiness, and served as the perfect bridge to the next bite of meat.
In Seo-ah’s opinion, the true completion of flavor was impossible with meat alone. The collaboration between meat and rice was the real gourmet experience. She continued her meal by carefully balancing large chunks of meat with precisely the right amount of rice, only occasionally touching the japchae.
The unpleasant feeling from thirty hours of empty stomach melted away like snow. Heaven itself seemed to appear before her eyes.
Braised short ribs are a god. Rice is invincible.
Yoon Seo-ah stuffed her cheeks until they bulged, chewing vigorously. Yoon Ji-ah had been watching with a warm smile, but the moment their eyes nearly met, her expression instantly turned cold again.
“Look at this while you eat.”
Yoon Ji-ah tossed a document onto the table.
Aura Entertainment Corporate Analysis Report
“…What is this? Why are you suddenly giving me a report?”
“It’s a failing company. The CEO is buried in debt and about to take down the sign any day now.”
Yoon Seo-ah stared at her sister in disbelief. She had said they should join an agency, but she never imagined Ji-ah would push a crumbling one on her.
Ah, is the plan to become the major shareholder and control it from behind?
Before Seo-ah could finish organizing her thoughts, Ji-ah pressed on.
“Like I said earlier, we’re going to sit on the advertising offers for now. Your value is only going to keep rising anyway. The moment you set the highest record among all child actors in history, that’s when we’ll stamp the contract. First, we need to build a fence.”
“…So I join this place, and you become the major shareholder?”
To Seo-ah, it sounded exactly like the kind of plausible plan Ji-ah would come up with. But that was underestimating her sister.
“What are you talking about? We’re going to acquire it.”
Cough! The piece of short rib she had been swallowing nearly flew out.
“Buy? Buy what? The company? At eight years old?”
“The CEO is an idiot, but the working-level staff inside are actually pretty decent. The truly talented ones left for other agencies early on, which is a shame, but the ones who stayed have proven their loyalty. That’s actually better.”
While Yoon Seo-ah had been going back and forth between the Kkureogi Tamheomdae and Sarang-i Pineun Jeongwon filming sites, Yoon Ji-ah had already completed the full plan and preliminary research. She had even consulted with their father Yoon Jung-ho, persuaded him, and prepared a nominal CEO.
Yoon Seo-ah stared at her sister in a daze. They were both living their second lives—how could the difference be this extreme? While Seo-ah had simply returned and gone “Hehe, gender-bender life is awesome” and enjoyed herself, Yoon Ji-ah was on a level where it would be believable if she said she was going to swallow the entire Republic of Korea as a reincarnated third-generation chaebol.
“Hey… what exactly did you do in your previous life? Who were you? I feel like if you just gave me the name I’d know who it was.”
“Hm. There’s a pretty high chance you would.”
She gave a small smirk but absolutely refused to reveal her past identity.
“You were an economic criminal, weren’t you? A felon? Don’t tell me you were actually a traitor to the nation? Why won’t you tell me!”
“Think whatever you want. Anyway, you agree, right?”
She didn’t even wait for an answer before gathering up the documents. The sight felt slightly ominous, but Yoon Seo-ah simply nodded. Since her sister was going to properly secure her rice bowl, there was no reason to refuse. It was a hundred times better to work under a contract ratio designed by her sister than to be treated like a slave and have thirty to forty percent of her earnings taken by a major agency.
…She’s not planning to use me like a slave, right? No matter what, we’re family. She’ll at least give me an 8:2 split, won’t she?
For some reason, she was starting to feel uneasy.
“But what about Dad? He’s just going to quit his perfectly fine company and become a nominal CEO because you told him to?”
Yoon Seo-ah asked while chewing on the ribs. Even with her mouth full of food, her pronunciation remained crystal clear—an undeniable proof that she was born to be an entertainer.
“I told you we already finished talking about it. He was always anxious about Mom being the only one in the dangerous entertainment industry. So I said we’d acquire one company and he could become the CEO and act as our fence. He agreed right away.”
“Wow…”
Yoon Ji-ah’s preliminary work had been thorough. She had precisely targeted paternal love. Of course it worked. No—Ji-ah was not the type of person to make a plan that wouldn’t work in the first place.
She makes it sound so easy, but it couldn’t have been just a day or two of persuasion.
No matter how capable Ji-ah was, an eight-year-old daughter talking about acquiring a company was not something a father would immediately accept and approve. Or so Seo-ah thought.
…It couldn’t be.
No matter what achievements Ji-ah had stacked up, she believed their father Yoon Jung-ho would not have stepped into something this big without careful thought.
……It couldn’t be, right?