#106
While Gyo-ha was having an exciting second meeting with Ok-ja’s family, BK Entertainment kept running busily. Ongoing projects had to continue with substitute personnel if necessary. Thanks to Gyo-ha bringing in successful programs one after another, the PR team was involved in more projects than ever before.
Some tasks made people wonder, “Is this really PR team work?” In previous iterations, Lee Gyo-ha, who was an Executive Director rather than a team leader, lacked a clear concept of team divisions. To higher-ups, sales team, PR team, or operations team—they were all the same.
As the work marathon continued, complaints about the new team leader naturally piled up. Especially Assistant Manager Lee and Manager Kim, who had been caught gossiping by Gyo-ha himself, assigned excessive meaning to each of his actions.
“Don’t you think Hwi-kyung is… you know?”
“Yeah, circumstantially, it seems so. It looks like they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.”
“I heard Hwi-kyung took unpaid leave because his grandmother is ill, and the team leader seems to have followed him there.”
“They say it’s a family matter, but who knows.”
At 10 minutes before the regular office hours, in a quiet break room, Assistant Manager Lee and Manager Kim were brewing coffee in their tumblers while speculating about Gyo-ha’s whereabouts.
Though they knew there was nothing to gain from being interested in other people’s business, such events were essential to endure boring company life where assigned tasks increased but the work remained the same. If a boss suddenly takes a whole week off, it’s only human nature to gossip a bit.
The reason complaints were minimal was because all the programs Gyo-ha had brought in had been successful. Chairman Lee Baek-gyeong, who had always favored his youngest son, began openly supporting BK Entertainment as Gyo-ha kept succeeding. He seemed convinced that the shaman’s blood he worshipped had been passed down to Gyo-ha.
With Chairman Lee Baek-gyeong keeping an eye on BK Entertainment, incentives were given to all employees. The incentive deposited to celebrate the success of “The King of Trot” was essentially a direct gift from Gyo-ha to the employees.
Because of this large incentive deposit, Gyo-ha avoided being labeled a traitor despite suddenly bringing in more work and taking a week of unpaid leave.
However, money is money and work is work. Numbers in bank accounts quickly disappear to credit card bills or rent. Gyo-ha avoided becoming a traitor, but couldn’t prevent subtle rumors because he hadn’t fully paid his karmic debt.
“So is there someone in our team who got in through corruption?”
“Didn’t Hwi-kyung come through open recruitment? I saw his resume, and it was quite impressive.”
“Come on, it must all be fabricated. We don’t even do blind hiring.”
“Really? Everyone was surprised by how many language certificates he had.”
“Aren’t those the kind of certificates you can get after just two hours of online courses?”
It was a pattern similar to the thirteenth iteration. The pattern where Hwi-kyung becomes the scapegoat whenever Gyo-ha does something. It was safer to attack a new employee than the chairman’s son. However, unlike the thirteenth iteration, Hwi-kyung had no energy to care about such rumors. In fact, without the system window, he only found out about the scandal later.
Now that there was no condition of going back in time if he didn’t get a job, he could just quit before completing a year like the impatient young people of today if things got really bad. Hwi-kyung had only joined BK Entertainment because of Gyo-ha; he could get a job at any company if he wanted to.
But unaware of this fact, Assistant Manager Lee and Manager Kim whispered about when the capable Employee Jung had become gay.
“His appearance is kind of… like that, right?”
“True. I’m not sure about the team leader, but Hwi-kyung definitely has that vibe.”
Corporate culture is ultimately created by the people in it. So if nine out of ten Korean companies are “black companies,” it can be said that it’s simply an issue with the people working there.
People, while pretending otherwise, enjoyed gossiping about others. When someone successful appeared, they wanted to tear them down, and they used those they considered beneath them to solidify their own position by criticizing them.
Hwi-kyung was perfect prey for such people. He was good at his job but didn’t have an impressive family background, and he didn’t seem ill-tempered enough to catch and condemn those who gossiped about him.
With his quiet face and rumors about being involved with the male chairman’s son, it would be stranger if people weren’t talking. The Cinderella story, in any version, always captured people’s interest.
“Are you two gossiping about strange things again?”
“Oh please, what strange things…”
“Se-young, you’re early today?”
“It’s not courteous to do this to someone who’s already suffering because of his grandmother.”
“…Your tone is quite harsh. Suddenly?”
“What are you saying? If someone heard, they’d think we were openly criticizing Hwi-kyung to his face.”
“If you said it to his face, at least he could deal with it. Don’t you know it looks bad to always gather like this and whisper?”
Of course, not everyone participated in such gossip.
Yoon Se-young, the former youngest member of the PR team who had posted narcissistic articles on Blind in other iterations causing others to cringe, really hated this backbiting culture. That’s because she had been the main victim of gossip before Hwi-kyung.
She was already furious that the chairman’s son she had tried to seduce already had a partner; she couldn’t possibly enjoy others adding their two cents about it.
Though she didn’t get along well with assistant managers or managers, Se-young was favored by those at department head level or higher, so she wasn’t afraid of the people in front of her. She always created friction with some people in any group.
Irregulars like Se-young, who stood out in groups, instinctively knew which line to walk to survive longer. It was a matter of survival instinct, as otherwise they would be weeded out first.
Her calculation was quite meticulous. She judged that Jung Hwi-kyung would be more helpful for her future company life than Manager Kim or Assistant Manager Lee.
So Yoon Se-young’s defense of Jung Hwi-kyung wasn’t simply out of kindness or goodwill. After many calculations, Se-young keenly realized that scoring points with Jung Hwi-kyung was more profitable than siding with Assistant Manager Lee and Manager Kim.
“Wouldn’t it be bad to show that you talk a lot? I’m just saying this because I’m concerned too.”
Assistant Manager Lee and Manager Kim, who were looking at Se-young with disdain, quickly grabbed their tumblers and hurried back to the office. Now they would be gossiping about Yoon Se-young instead of Jung Hwi-kyung for a while.
But unlike Hwi-kyung, Se-young didn’t bat an eye at such rumors or slander. She was a terrible narcissist and believed that people badmouthed her because she was too good.
Normally, she should have been at odds with Hwi-kyung. If Hwi-kyung had met Se-young in another iteration, the two would never have become close. Se-young, like Hwi-kyung, didn’t personally like rigid people.
But company life is full of reversals. Just as Kang Moon-chul, whom Hwi-kyung thought was on his side, coolly betrayed him, Yoon Se-young had become his ally without Hwi-kyung even knowing.
“Anyway… if only the team leader wasn’t gay, I would have tried something.”
Nothing in the world is absolute. Everything seems to flow unchanged but changes countless times. Jobs thought to be lifelong don’t last a year, while jobs thought to be completely unsuitable are kept for 10 years.
The same applied to people. You end up falling in love with someone you thought you’d never get along with, and never meet again with someone you believed was close. All events were difficult to predict before they happened.
So even Ok-ja’s death, which Hwi-kyung believed was a fixed event, could change. Ok-ja had undergone surgery faster than in any other iteration and was recovering in the best hospital.
* * *
Ok-ja’s recovery progress was more positive than in any other iteration. Despite losing a quarter of her stomach to remove the metastasized cancer cells, Ok-ja said she had an appetite and ate better than before.
As Ok-ja’s body improved, color returned to Hwi-kyung’s face as well. It was thanks to Gyo-ha, who stuck to him like a leech and made sure he ate.
“Did you really get proper leave?”
“Of course. You don’t trust me enough.”
“It’s safer not to trust you when it comes to company matters.”
“That’s harsh. But aren’t you glad I’m here?”
“…”
“You’re not denying it.”
Gyo-ha regularly brought clothes and food for Hwi-kyung, who was eating and sleeping at the hospital. No supporting spouse could have been more supportive. He was completely stubborn even when Hwi-kyung said he was fine and told him to go to work.
In reality, BK Entertainment was running perfectly fine with or without Gyo-ha. It was too large to fail just because one person was absent. Hwi-kyung knew this, so he didn’t harshly drive Gyo-ha away.
Being with Gyo-ha was physically comfortable. Gyo-ha had pushed in another patient bed into the private room because Hwi-kyung said he was uncomfortable. This was only possible because it was a spacious single room.
The one who liked this eccentricity the most was Ok-ja. She found Gyo-ha, who insisted on not letting Hwi-kyung lift a finger, quite admirable.
Though he now knew all the rules of Go-Stop (a Korean card game), Gyo-ha always lost to Ok-ja when they played. That too was part of his strategy to score points as a grandson-in-law.
Ok-ja, completely won over by her grandson-in-law who acted like a gentle fox, frequently made progressive statements that in today’s world, a male daughter-in-law wasn’t so bad either. Why would she object when he wasn’t just a boyfriend but a chaebol boyfriend? Even without providing a dowry, he already owned several houses…
“Kyung-ah, this relationship is the result of all the good deeds I’ve accumulated.”
“…”
“A rich boyfriend, huh? You need to hold on tight. You need to keep him in line so he can’t look elsewhere.”
Hwi-kyung’s surroundings were too two-faced. At the company, people whispered about him dating a man, while those close to him only said how lucky he was to be dating a rich person. In Korea’s half-opened mindset, Hwi-kyung was always confused.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
