Episode 27. Why Don’t You Just Try Bypassing Him? 4.
Kim Inseop opened the door and came in.
Seeing him walk in with a haggard face, then collapse onto the sofa and go limp like a rag, Yang Gyeonghun felt his heart drop.
“How did it go?”
“Hey, newbie.”
“Yes, Manager.”
“Open the second drawer of my desk. There’s a calming pill in there, so bring me one.”
“Yes, Manager.”
He brought the calming pill and gave it to him.
Kim Inseop tore open the wrapper with trembling hands, bit off half of it, and chewed.
Yang Gyeonghun watched him in silence, his chest tight with anxiety.
He desperately wanted to press him and ask what had happened, but he didn’t dare.
Kim Inseop was in no state to be questioned.
Just what on earth had happened in his showdown with the president…?
After swallowing the calming pill and letting out a long breath, Kim Inseop finally straightened his posture.
Hyeonu, who had been standing by, quickly brought him a cup of water.
“Um, Manager. Water.”
“Mm, right.”
Kim Inseop took a sip of water and exhaled heavily.
“Hoo… I feel a little more alive now.”
“……”
Kim Inseop glanced over Hyeonu and Yang Gyeonghun, then finally opened his mouth.
“It worked. We… got ourselves a line to the president.”
Seeing Yang Gyeonghun staring blankly at him with a dazed expression, Kim Inseop gave a faint laugh.
“You punk. A minute ago you were coming at me with your eyes all rolled back like you were going to eat me alive… What? Now that it’s turned out like this…”
Kim Inseop, who had been speaking, flinched and stopped.
It was because Yang Gyeonghun had suddenly started crying.
“Hey! You… What’s wrong with you?”
As if embarrassed, Yang Gyeonghun quickly buried his face in both palms.
But his shoulders were trembling.
“Sob, fuck, why the hell am I crying over this? Seriously, why are there so many embarrassing things happening today? Sob.”
At the sight of Yang Gyeonghun like that, tears also gathered faintly at the corners of Kim Inseop’s eyes.
“This punk… making a scene… Whew… you idiot…”
“I know, sob. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
They quietly waited as Yang Gyeonghun cried.
Only after crying a little longer did Yang Gyeonghun raise his head and wipe away his tears.
Then, with reddened eyes, he bowed his head to Kim Inseop.
“Thank you, Manager.”
“Ahem. You worked hard too.”
“Thanks, Hyeonu.”
“Not at all, Team Leader. You were the one who worked hard.”
The corners of Hyeonu’s mouth lifted.
For some reason, it felt good that Yang Gyeonghun had called him by name for the first time.
Getting on President No Hyeoncheol’s line.
All of it had been a picture Hyeonu had drawn.
And Yang Gyeonghun and Kim Inseop had moved well according to that picture.
In truth, Hyeonu had not the slightest desire to succeed by clinging to a line.
But through the SHS matter, the inner thoughts of Gu Hyeongjun and Yang Gyeonghun, the two from the same intake, and this case, he had realized that office politics were far too severe.
Severe enough that one couldn’t even work properly.
Yet Yang Gyeonghun had no political sense whatsoever.
Judging from how Yangu Bio had been stolen from him and M-Biotech handed over instead, his direct superior, Kim Inseop, was the same.
That was why Hyeonu had created this situation.
If they wanted to work properly without being pushed around by office politics, it seemed they needed a line too.
And since they lacked political ability, it had to be an extremely powerful line.
At a glance, the strongest line was No Hyeoncheol.
So he had made them go to him.
Besides, he was the only one who held the key to resolving this matter anyway.
The problem was that they could have gone to President No Hyeoncheol and come back empty-handed, with nothing accomplished.
Everyone would hesitate because of that, but given the circumstances, the chance of failure was extremely low.
Hyeonu had judged that anyone who would sit still after hearing about Executive Director Choi’s tyranny could not have risen to that position.
Countless unexpected things happened in the world, so he could have been wrong, but he thought the odds were more than good enough to wager on.
If it had failed, he would have thought again about the best method in that situation.
Because as long as you didn’t get swept away by emotion and flounder, and as long as you didn’t have a mental collapse and give up, a new path was bound to open.
Kim Inseop seemed thirsty as he stood up holding the empty paper cup and said,
“You can go now. Go and submit the sale request right away.”
Yang Gyeonghun and Hyeonu stood up.
“Understood, Manager. You worked hard.”
“Right. You two worked hard too.”
They were leaving the sofa and walking toward the door when the phone rang.
“Yes, this is the head of Sales Department Three. (…) Understood. I’ll go now.”
As he set the receiver down, he thought to himself.
[That son of a bitch Executive Director Choi. Damn, he called fast.]
When Kim Inseop rose from his seat, his face no longer looked like wilted cabbage, and he wasn’t intimidated either.
It seemed to be the power of reliable backing.
* * *
When he opened the door and entered, he saw Lee Taehyeong, the head of Sales Department Two, sitting on the sofa with Choi Jeonggeun.
It was a truly nauseating scene he had seen many times before.
“You called for me?”
Lee Taehyeong, who was junior to Kim Inseop, was brazenly sitting there, but Choi Jeonggeun didn’t even tell Kim Inseop to sit before pressing him.
“Did you go around me?”
“I’m not sure what you mean…”
“Did it feel good going to the president behind my back?”
“Ah, is that what you mean? My people went to M-Biotech, and apparently they were shown an experiment report made with manipulated data. We were completely had. I figured we had to quickly dispose of the shares first, so I was running over to the Financial Planning Office when, would you believe it, I happened to run into the president. He asked me why I was running, so I had no choice but to tell him. It was a coincidence… Go around you, Executive Director? I’m not that kind of person.”
It was an obvious lie that both he and the other man knew.
But this was how one had to say it.
Because the basics of politics were that no matter what excessive thing you had done, you never let words that could be used against you come out of your own mouth.
“Heh. Our Manager Kim has really grown up.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Executive Director.”
“Haha, look at this. Listen to the way he talks. All of a sudden, his tongue’s slick with oil.”
Choi Jeonggeun, who had been sneering with a fishy expression, wiped his face clean of it.
“You know this is going to make things uncomfortable for both of us, right?”
Kim Inseop bowed slightly at the waist.
“If I made you uncomfortable, please forgive me. But what can I do? It happened because I was trying to do my job well.”
“…Fine. I understand your position. I get it, so you can go.”
Kim Inseop bowed politely and turned around.
After taking a couple of steps, he suddenly stopped and turned back again.
His cold gaze, having moved back and forth between Choi Jeonggeun and Lee Taehyeong as if wondering what was going on, came to rest on Lee Taehyeong.
“Hey, Lee Taehyeong. Is that the best you can do?”
Looking at Lee Taehyeong, who was bewildered by the sudden rebuke, Kim Inseop opened his mouth again.
“Hey, you bastard. My people went there just once and found out the experiment report used manipulated data. So what the hell were you doing all this time? Is the company a joke to you? Is work funny?”
“Uh, no, that’s, no…”
“And you, I hear you even called the head of the Financial Planning Office to tell him to sell the shares over the M-Biotech CEO’s misconduct? You even submitted documents with your signatures proudly on them.”
Lee Taehyeong, who had been stammering in confusion, now no longer even dared answer back and just hung his mouth open blankly.
“You worm-like bastard. No matter how rotten a person is, shouldn’t he at least keep the bare minimum of business ethics? If there was a problem like that, you should have run to me and reported it first. Instead, you tried to quietly suck up the credit? Isn’t playing cheap like that exactly why your company life becomes uncomfortable? You son of a bitch.”
The person being cursed at was Lee Taehyeong, but Choi Jeonggeun’s expression twisted.
He had just told Kim Inseop that things would be uncomfortable, and Kim Inseop had thrown the words right back at him.
Which meant that although he was cursing Lee Taehyeong, the true target was Choi Jeonggeun himself.
“Do your job properly from now on, you bastard! And stop living so filthy.”
After spitting out those final words, Kim Inseop bowed to Choi Jeonggeun again.
“I’m sorry, Executive Director. I just offered a word of advice to a junior who has neither ability nor conscience. If you’ll excuse me.”
Kim Inseop turned and walked out.
After leaving the executive director’s office, Kim Inseop walked down the hallway with an excited look on his face, talking to himself.
“Wow— that felt damn good. I had no idea office life could be this fun. Whew... I should’ve done this ages ago.”
It felt as if natural narcotics like adrenaline and dopamine were pouring through him.
To calm his pounding heart, he thought he might have to finish off the remaining half of the Cheongsimhwan.
* * *
Yang Gyeonghun and Hyeonu entered the partitioned area of Sales Team 9.
Song Gaeun asked with a worried expression, the corners of her eyes and mouth drooping downward.
She was a woman who really knew how to put on just the right expression for the situation.
“What happened? Did it go well?”
Yang Gyeonghun’s eyes briefly caught sight of the wall clock.
It was almost time to get off work.
“There’s something urgent, so I’ll tell you after I finish this. Hyeonu, come here.”
“Yes, Team Leader.”
Yang Gyeonghun sat down at his desk and gestured.
“Come stand beside me.”
Hyeonu stood close beside the seated Yang Gyeonghun.
Yang Gyeonghun opened the document template file on his PC, then clicked on the sale request form.
“You write this up.”
“Me?”
“Then should I do it?”
“No, understood, Team Leader.”
“In the reason field, write: ‘High likelihood of CEO misconduct and fraudulent new-drug development, raising concern over a severe decline in equity value.’”
“Yes.”
“Put my name here, then your name underneath... And print it out, sign by hand after your name, and bring it to me. Got it?”
“Understood, Team Leader.”
“It’s almost time to get off work, so hurry up and bring it over.”
“Yes, Team Leader.”
Hyeonu hurried over and began drafting the document.
Yang Gyeonghun, catching a glimpse of Kim Byeongjun and Song Gaeun watching him and Hyeonu, opened his mouth.
“What are you staring at?”
Song Gaeun cautiously asked back.
“It went well, right?”
Yang Gyeonghun answered with a pleased, middle-aged-man smile.
“Yeah. Completely.”
Song Gaeun was delighted, even clapping her hands in tiny seal-like applause.
“Oh my~ That’s wonderful. I was so worried. I was really on pins and needles, afraid something might go wrong.”
Kim Byeongjun also added a word.
“That’s a relief. I was worried a lot too.”
“What’s there to worry about over a little thing like this? You guys don’t trust me?”
“How could I not trust you, Team Leader? I’m just saying.”
Kim Byeongjun turned his head toward Hyeonu.
“Congratulations, Hyeonu. Your first project worked out well.”
Perhaps because Yang Gyeonghun had called Hyeonu by name, Kim Byeongjun naturally called him by name as well.
“Congratulations, Hyeonu.”
“Thank you.”
“After work today, chicken and beer are on me.”
Hyeonu spoke while drafting the document.
“No, Team Leader. Today I’ll buy beef. I sold my stocks, and I got a bonus too.”
“Forget it, punk. Just eat chicken. I’m paying.”
“Aww~ I want to eat beef.”
“I don’t have the money to buy you beef.”
“Hyeonu says he’ll buy it.”
“Yes. I’ll buy.”
“I told you to hurry up and write the request form! What kind of rookie thinks he can take out his wallet?”
“Aww~”
Kim Byeongjun quietly looked around at the lively, cheerful scene of Sales Team 9.
The corners of his mouth naturally rose, and for some reason, he felt good.
He could no longer even remember when there had been a moment when it felt as if something terrible was about to happen.
Ever since Hyeonu came, things seemed to be changing little by little.
In a positive direction, of course.
Right then and there, Kim Byeongjun suddenly made up his mind.
He would try challenging himself once.
He would put the heart he had set aside back into his chest and try challenging himself.
After work, what they ended up eating was neither beef nor chicken, but samgyeopsal.
That was often the way life flowed.
You agonized over whether it would be this or that, only for it to end up being neither this nor that...
In truth, whatever it was, that did not seem all that important.
Because what mattered more was what kind of heart you had and how you acted in the process.
And within that, you would discover yourself having grown another step.
In any case, that day, after pleasantly sharing samgyeopsal and a glass of soju, the members of Sales Team 9 each went their separate ways.