| Episode 65. New Year’s Wish (1)
The Planning Team leader called Min Jugyeong’s name.
No more words were exchanged. The team leader simply took my report and left. If I had to guess, they must have communicated how to handle the situation with nothing more than a few glances.
I fixed my gaze on the desk and waited to hear what would be said.
Then Min Jugyeong took both of my hands, which had been resting on the table, in hers.
“You must have been so busy, just barely done adjusting and preparing for debut. You’ve worked so hard.”
“……Pardon?”
The unexpected words flustered me. I was supposed to say I was sorry for doing something no one had asked me to do, but I even missed the timing to answer.
“I’m sorry. I don’t even know that much, and yet I…….”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“I feel like I acted disrespectfully toward people who have been working here far longer than I have. And it seems like the team leader was angry because of me, too.”
“That’s not it, Iwol.”
Min Jugyeong’s voice was gentle, yet firm.
“The team leader left because this is a really serious problem. He went ahead so he could report it to the higher-ups quickly. Thanks to you, the company found out before it suffered losses, so you don’t need to feel sorry at all! Got it?”
“……Yes.”
“And about what happened between you and Producer Yu.”
Min Jugyeong let go of my hands.
I took that as a signal. A signal that from here on, the conversation would unfold a little differently.
‘So what do you expect me to do? HR is under Management Support, so is it really that hard to do a few favors for the department head?’
‘Assistant Manager Kim, you’re really young. Your thinking is immature. You should assume there’s a reason when a superior acts that way. To put it bluntly, how long have you even been in the workforce?’
The things I had heard at Hanpyeong Industries seemed to change, one by one, into Min Jugyeong’s voice.
But Min Jugyeong still acted differently from what I expected.
“We failed to look after you carefully enough. It’s shameful that the Management Team couldn’t even take care of something like this. I’m sorry.”
Min Jugyeong lowered her head and apologized.
What was I supposed to say at a time like this?
I didn’t know, because I had never once received this kind of apology before. I could only hope that UA was not a company that, because it had no tolerance for employee mistakes, forced people to apologize with perfect courtesy whenever a problem occurred.
Unable to endure that unfamiliar atmosphere, I hurriedly said I would go practice now and rushed out of the meeting room. I felt strange.
* * *
When I flung open the practice room door, five heads turned toward me at once.
Jeong Seongbin, not even thinking to turn off the music, asked over the cheerful dance track playing in the background.
“How did it go……?”
I raised my thumb and answered.
“I ratted everything out.”
“Waaah!”
Lee Cheonghyeon clenched both fists and shouted. Maybe because of the background music, the scene felt almost like a festival.
“What did the company say?”
Kang Giyeon asked while wiping away his dripping sweat.
No sooner had he finished speaking than the guys clamped their mouths shut as if they had never been making noise, and looked at me.
“Nothing’s been decided right away. But we probably won’t be working with him for the time being.”
“That’s possible? You said there probably wouldn’t be any major measures since we’re right before debut.”
“I was afraid of that, so I reported the corruption issue too. Before he starts giving advice to our side, won’t he have to get some reeducation himself first?”
“Corruption?!”
Their eyes went round. It wasn’t exactly something nice enough to explain in detail, so I didn’t say more.
“So from now on, let’s stay sharp and practice. Seongbin and Juu, you’ll make up amicably after practice, right?”
At my words, Jeong Seongbin smiled faintly and answered, “Of course.” Park Juu was also smiling lightly.
At the same time, a system window shone above Jeong Seongbin’s face.
+
[SYSTEM] “Task” has been completed.
▷ Reward: EXP (50)
▷ Accumulated EXP: 100
▷ Accumulated Points: 1
+
* * *
Fifty EXP was a number that clearly showed just how much of a piece of trash Yu Hansu was.
Still, thanks to getting over that difficult mountain, I was able to raise my dance proficiency.
On top of that, I confirmed that while I hadn’t been looking, my vocal proficiency, self-PR, and adaptability within the organization had each gone up by one.
+
Performance Evaluation (100)
― Vocal Proficiency: 8(▲)/20
― Dance Proficiency: 7(▲)/20
― Self-PR: 13(▲)/20
― Attendance Management: 18/20
― Adaptability Within Organization: 11(▲)/20
+
There was another change too.
With Yu Hansu’s mission over, the “Accumulated EXP” section that had been below my résumé disappeared.
Since my proficiencies had reached the limit to which they could be raised manually, the function seemed to have naturally vanished.
After driving Yu Hansu out, peace came to the practice room.
To state the conclusion first, Yu Hansu was not fired. Instead, he was disciplined.
In addition, he was no longer able to involve himself in anything related to UA’s idol business division.
As long as he remained at UA, he would probably spend the rest of his life planning only Jang Junhu music videos, the work he had been so proud of.
The Production Team leader was relieved of his position. His rank was lowered to deputy team leader, and the team leader position became vacant. I could only hope that vacancy would be filled quickly.
To me, it was a satisfying conclusion, but it apparently did not look that way to the others, because for a while I heard them grumbling quite often.
Jeong Seongbin and Park Juu had fought for a long time, so they were somewhat careful with their words, but Lee Cheonghyeon and Kang Giyeon held nothing back.
Whenever those two came back to the dorm, they took turns venting their anger over whether the punishment Yu Hansu received was far too light.
“I mean, if he hit someone, shouldn’t he be fired immediately?”
“It’s already something that we won’t have to work with him. Do you think a company gives out disciplinary action easily?”
After I went to the trouble of calming Lee Cheonghyeon down like that……
“He didn’t seem like the type to reflect just because he wrote one letter of explanation.”
Kang Giyeon immediately found fault and latched on. They never let up from either side.
“What’s visible on the surface is probably about the letter of explanation. Since he even received disciplinary action, that man’s salary will probably be frozen or cut next year.”
“Hyung, when you say you’re doing reference checks, you’re not just looking up stuff like that, are you?”
Lee Cheonghyeon asked, sending me a suspicious look. It’s because this is the only kind of thing I saw and learned at Hanpyeong Industries. What about it?
After telling them to go to their room and play, I focused again on what I had been doing.
Because now that Spark’s debut was imminent, I had to write the press release to distribute to media outlets.
It wasn’t as if it would give me EXP, so I had intended to leave something like a press release to UA……
But they looked ready to stuff in everything from the members’ pointless award histories to the music video that hadn’t even been released yet, so I said I would just write it myself. Better to die than suffer through that.
I was used to writing this kind of thing. Whenever the executives got tangled up in lawsuits, I had mechanically churned out press releases like “Hanpyeong Industries Selected as One of the Top 1,000 Best SMEs to Work For” in order to push the articles down.
I still have no idea who on earth called a shitXhole company like Hanpyeong Industries a good SME to work for.
Or maybe there were about seventy million companies even worse than Hanpyeong Industries. Whether it was the former or the latter, there was no way to know.
Just as I was writing “UA Ventures Into a New Business,” someone suddenly hugged me from behind.
“Hyung! Hyung, do you have plans on January 1st?”
“You scared me……!”
The culprit behind the back hug was, as always, Lee Cheonghyeon.
I clutched my chest and nagged at him.
“Cheonghyeon. Do you know or not that I’m someone who gets startled out of his wits by even little things? What would you have done if I’d made a mistake and hit you with my arm?”
“That’s why I gave you a super strong hug of love. The binding force was no joke, right?”
“I wonder if you’d still be saying that if I hit your chin with the back of my head.”
“I will be thoroughly careful from now on.”
Lee Cheonghyeon covered his own chin with his hand. He should have done that from the start.
“If it’s New Year’s Day, I don’t have any schedule. But why?”
“Oh, then let’s all go see the sunrise together!”
The sunrise?
What kind of talk is this, suggesting a workshop from the very start of the year?
* * *
Mountain climbing.
A hobby that had become the very soul of superiors, one that would make department heads all across the country climb a mountain today even if the world were to end tomorrow.
A devilish group activity that had infiltrated everything from job interviews to post-employment clubs and exerted its influence there.
This mountain-climbing craze swept through Hanpyeong Industries without fail as well.
Then, with Department Head Nam fanning the flames, the executives of Hanpyeong Industries went so far as to create a bizarre organization called the “Health/Teamwork Recovery Committee.”
And I, who had been forcibly fused into one body with the heads of those organizations, also followed them from mountain to mountain every weekend with two 1.5-liter bottles of water on my back.
The moment they made me carry all that when it wasn’t even water I would be drinking, that committee was already rotten to the core.
Regrettably, contrary to my wish that the “Health/Teamwork Recovery Committee” would hurry up and collapse, it continued for a long time.
I thought we would only be crossing mountains, but later, they even crossed the water to Jeju Island.
Of course, I booked all the ferry tickets to Jeju Island too. Paid out of pocket first, processed through the budget later.
It was to the point that the only goal I ever proactively set at Hanpyeong Industries was “Abolish the Hanpyeong Industries Mountaineering Club.”
At least, the one joy I had in that process was stamping my achievement marks in the 200 Famous Mountains series……
“Hyung? Why did you suddenly stop talking?”
That was what it had been.
I was overwhelmed by a shock so great that I couldn’t answer Lee Cheonghyeon’s question.
My famous mountain stamps.
The one and only driving force of my freedomless weekends, which had made me rationalize to myself, “Still, collecting stamps is fun,” even while being dragged along on that damn mountain climbing.
Those stamps, which could be called everything about my life at Hanpyeong Industries, had just come to mind.
Should I ask the system? Whether my stamps were still alive?
The moment I thought that, the system appeared.
Its response speed was so incredible I wondered if there was a separate customer service team……
+
[SYSTEM] A work order from “Person in Charge” has arrived.
▶ Assistant Manager Kim, that pen on your desk, was it one you treasured? I used it because I was in a hurry, but it broke. Buy a sturdier one next time.
[SYSTEM] As “Eul” has moved to the past, all achievements previously accomplished by “Eul” will be invalidated.
+
……ed.
Damn it, give me back my certification stamps!