| Episode 61. How to Resolve Friction with Your Superior (2)
School days—something any Korean must have gone through at least once.
A student trying to put the field line marker away in the storage shed discovers an inexplicable box in the corner.
When they open it, wondering if it would be all right to simply throw it away, inside are belongings left by unknown students—things that seem like they could be thrown away without much issue, yet somehow feel like they shouldn’t be discarded……
“……is the concept of this album package.”
With those words, my avant-garde presentation came to an end.
The conference room responded in various ways to the concept album, “The Secret Box Spark Left Behind.”
There were opinions ranging from “it’s too experimental” to “isn’t this too much effort for a first mini album?”
All of them were reactions I had expected. So I showed them, one by one, the unit price sheet I had painstakingly made, the references, and the social media and viral responses to albums with concepts.
As for the opinion that we might be putting too much effort into it……
“I think it would be an even bigger loss if we don’t put in the effort now and get swept away the moment we debut.”
That was how I refuted it.
Get a grip, people. If Spark tanks here, you won’t see the light of day for two years after debut.
As I stood quietly, hoping for a positive review, the CEO called me.
“Iwol.”
“Yes.”
“Open the page with the community reactions from earlier.”
When I opened the page, the CEO stared silently at the screen for several minutes. It seemed he intended to read every captured post.
Then, after a while, the CEO opened his mouth.
“Team Leader Jang.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have the entire planning team develop Iwol’s proposal and bring it back to me. If the timing works out, have Iwol sit in on the meeting too.”
It was an okay sign. My chest felt wide open.
Of course, that joy did not last long.
Because not long after the meeting ended, Manager told me Yu Hansu was calling for me.
When I heard Yu Hansu was looking for me, I didn’t think much of it.
At most, I figured he would vent his anger over his own proposal having become useless.
But the moment I entered the conference room, I knew.
This man was pissed as hell.
Yu Hansu, who had been sitting with his chair reclined so far back it was just short of tipping over, looked at me without even telling me to sit and asked,
“Hey.”
“Yes, Producer.”
“You think I’m fucking funny, don’t you?”
It was such raw emotion that it was hard to believe he was showing it to someone twenty years younger than him.
Fortunately, I had enough sense to answer in the negative here.
I clasped my hands politely and replied, “No, sir.”
But Yu Hansu did not believe me.
“What do you mean, no, you XXX. You think it’s my first day seeing little shits like you?”
Amazing. I thought he’d only learned how to act like a thug while working, but apparently he’d learned mind reading too.
As if to show me that he was angry, Yu Hansu let out a loud sigh.
I, Kim, a twenty-nine-year-old office worker who did not flinch at mere sighs, had to quietly wait for whatever Yu Hansu would say next.
What words would Yu Hansu use to attack me?
Does it feel good making your superior look like a joke? Or, did getting praised once make you think you were somebody?
Whatever it was, I had probably heard it at Hanpyeong Industries at least once, so I wasn’t particularly worried.
Just then, Yu Hansu opened his mouth.
“You. Be honest.”
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“Whose parachute hire are you?”
Wow. That’s a new one.
It was a fresh assumption, one he never would have heard from HR, who knew the employees’ personal details. I’ll give him extra points for creativity.
‘More importantly, this guy really is beyond saving.’
Yu Hansu did not even consider my plan being approved as something on the level of “I just got lucky for once.”
He simply saw it as me being recognized through someone’s backing.
Apparently, Yu Hansu had never seen a real parachute hire before.
In that sense, I, who had seen enough parachute hires to be sick of them and had never once lived the life of one, could confidently ask back,
“Pardon?”
Along with a sneer that said, What kind of bullshit is that?
Yu Hansu’s expression twisted when he saw my faint laugh.
“Did you just laugh?”
Yu Hansu asked.
Yeah, I laughed, you bastard.
Wouldn’t you laugh if you were me?
For the first time in my life, a historic moment had arrived when I was allowed to talk back to my superior.
It was absurd for him to constantly run his mouth and abuse his power while refusing to let a trainee playing the role of subordinate even laugh.
When I did not even say the “I’m sorry” that I had practically lived with on my lips until now, Yu Hansu’s face turned red.
“I knew you were this kind of bastard. You were in on it with the planning team leader, weren’t you? Since the CEO seems to favor you, you got a proposal from Team Leader Jang and passed it off as your own, didn’t you?”
Yu Hansu, who had risen from his seat, jabbed my shoulder with his finger as he snapped at me.
There was only one thing I could say to him.
“I don’t do things like that.”
I looked at Yu Hansu’s clenched fist, which was trembling, and continued,
“Though some people might.”
The moment I finished speaking, Yu Hansu pulled back the hand that had been touching my shoulder.
At the same time, with a dull sound, my face turned to the right.
For an instant, it was quiet, as if time had stopped.
But the sounds that gradually reached my ears allowed me to understand the situation even without looking ahead. Yu Hansu was breathing hard with rage.
With my head still turned, I carefully placed a hand on my left cheek.
The pain arrived slowly, belatedly.
Did this bastard really just hit me?
Why on earth? There was nothing he could gain by using violence in this situation.
Simply because he was angry and acted impulsively? A guy who had enough brains to leech off other people’s achievements?
Maybe because I’d been hit in the head, I couldn’t quite understand the situation.
But unlike me, Yu Hansu’s face was filled only with anger. No matter how hard I looked, I could not see even a hint of the confusion that might appear after hitting someone without realizing it.
When I lowered my gaze a little, I saw Yu Hansu’s fist, still clenched tight.
Even hitting someone with an open palm would be a huge problem, yet he had hit a person with his fist. In the face, no less.
And on top of that, my face was frozen stiff after being out in the winter wind. Was it all fine just because he’d been sitting in a warm conference room this whole time?
Let’s say it was me who got hit this time. Then was there any guarantee someone else wouldn’t be hit next?
The emotion that had only been irritation slowly changed into anger. Remembering Jang Junhu throwing the empty water bottle made me feel even more like shit.
I looked Yu Hansu straight in the eye and said,
“Producer, are you the kind of person who hits people?”
“What, you bastard?”
I do not treat the sort of person who hits others as someone deserving respect.
That was my principle and my belief.
“You seem to throw your fists out of habit. At this rate, you’ll hit me a few more times if things go wrong.”
“Hey!”
“I’m the one who got hit, so why are you the one yelling, Producer?”
When I asked, Yu Hansu flinched.
Fuck.
I don’t know how to describe this feeling. It was simply so goddamn sickening.
Yu Hansu, who had hit someone and then brazenly snapped at me as if I were the one in the wrong.
Department Head Nam, who, though he had not laid a hand on me in similar situations, had used document folders, pens, and every other method imaginable to get at me.
My parents, who had hit me until I came to loathe being struck with a dreadful intensity.
And me, who had only barely resolved to talk back to Yu Hansu after receiving a confirmation sign from that unidentified thing called the system.
In a situation where I had no device to record the current conversation, continuing to talk with Yu Hansu was meaningless.
But I could not endure the feeling that something long suppressed was bursting out. Like a screw had come loose, my mouth would not stop.
“Does the CEO know you go around assaulting trainees like this?”
“Assault? Don’t deliberately slap a strong-sounding word on it to make this bigger. You think I don’t know you’re scheming?”
“How am I scheming? Maybe it’s because I got hit with a fist, but my head isn’t working.”
The moment I finished speaking, Yu Hansu struck my cheek with his palm this time.
He even hit the same place twice. What are the garbage trucks doing, not hauling away this trash?
Whether I cursed him inwardly or not, my cheek went beyond burning and began to sting. The bones in my face throbbed.
As if even that had not cooled his anger, Yu Hansu grabbed me by the collar.
“You bastard. I’ll make sure you’re buried in this industry.”
“Buried?”
“I guess your pride still hasn’t been broken enough after being a trainee for only half a year, but burying a guy like you without a sound or a rumor is nothing. Got it?”
“Do I need to?”
I took out the MP3 player from my pocket, the one I only used when practicing vocals, whose only function was playing the songs I had put into it.
“With just this, someone other than me will be buried first, though.”
When I held up the MP3 player, which contained nothing more than a dozen or so songs, Yu Hansu rushed at me and forced my hand open.
Then, with a scream mixed with curses, he stomped on the MP3 player until the screen shattered.
Not long after causing that commotion, Yu Hansu finally failed to overcome his own anger and left the conference room.
Only after the sound of Yu Hansu’s footsteps had completely faded did a sigh filled with all kinds of emotions escape me belatedly.
“Hoo……”
It felt good to have pissed Yu Hansu off, but to suddenly become a trainee who had been slapped twice and lost his MP3 player—how pitiful could I get?
Still, I could not leave trash in the conference room, so while crouching on the floor and picking up the broken pieces of the MP3 player, I cooled my head and replayed what had just happened.
‘No matter how I look at it, he seemed pissed beyond what was necessary.’
For the type of person who feeds off other people’s achievements, image management is important. That way, there is nothing to hinder them from coaxing people with words.
There was no way Yu Hansu, who had only just come to a new company, would not know that.
I did not think someone like him would take on high catharsis, high return just because he heard a few words from me.
On top of that, the place he hit was my face.
Earlier, I had deliberately asked if beating people up was a habit in order to provoke Yu Hansu, but truly vicious bastards hit places that don’t show. In that sense, it did not seem like Yu Hansu hit people intelligently.
‘There’s definitely something.’
Something that made Yu Hansu throw a punch without even having time to care about the image he had managed so carefully.
As I thought about what sore spot of Yu Hansu’s I had touched, I carefully wrapped the fragments in scrap paper from the conference room so no one would get hurt by the pieces.
Then, after putting the bundle of paper containing the remains of the MP3 player into my pocket, I headed to the practice room.
I didn’t think he would go that far, but if Yu Hansu really worried that I might have recorded something and rummaged through the trash, only to find out this MP3 player had no recording function, that would be troublesome.
If that man found out he had been tricked, he might hit my right cheek and left cheek alternately.
My face was already far below the members’ in comparison, so I needed to at least protect it from getting scarred.
Thinking that I should take this trash all the way back to the dorm, I opened the practice room door.
The sound of music flowing out seemed to prove that the guys had not stopped practicing even while I was gone.
“Sorry I’m late. Were you practicing well?”
“No, it’s fine…… Hyung?”
The moment I entered, Jeong Seongbin ran over to the spare phone and turned off the music, then asked with an expression that had suddenly turned serious.
“Hyung. What happened to your face?”
My face? What about my face?
I brought my hand to the left side of my face, where Jeong Seongbin’s gaze was directed.
I felt my face sting sharply, as if electricity were running through it.
The other guys’ gazes were all fixed on my face too. A chill ran down my spine.
Right.
I had the kind of skin where it showed immediately when I got hit.