I Spent a Night with a Top Star Actress Chapter 4 - An accident.

Before I became Lee Ha-eun’s manager, I went through quite a few celebrities.

I handled a girl group, I managed a boy group, I managed actors with names people know…. and by that experience of mine, the debut group ‘Twenty’ were Gen-Z.

Meaning they hadn’t shed the baby look yet.

‘They’re young.’

I’d heard their debut kept getting pushed back and every member is in her early twenties, so given that, it’s a fairly positive assessment.

In the idol scene, ‘freshness’ is mandatory.

‘So the visuals aren’t bad.’

My eye is set pretty high from working with Lee Ha-eun and other top celebrities.

Even by that standard, the Twenty girls’ looks were more than respectable.

Among them, the girl with the red hair had the classic look of an idol center.

I was rubbing my chin, analyzing the Twenty girls without meaning to, when it happened.

General director Kim Jang-hoon came over without a sound and asked me a question.

“How are they? Not bad, right?”

I pulled myself together and answered.

“All of their visuals are really good.”

“Well, look who directed them. Heh heh…”

“Why did the debut get pushed back for kids like these?”

Director Kim Jang-hoon let out a hard sigh.

“You know how it is, Chief Kwon. Our Baekhak Entertainment… whatever we’re good at, girl groups aren’t it. So it got pushed back, that’s all. Honestly, there’s even a rumor that if Twenty flops the CEO is going to take his hands off girl groups entirely…. It feels like these girls are effectively Baekhak’s last girl group.”

Director Kim Jang-hoon is right. Our Baekhak is unusually weak on the girl group side.

The internal evaluations are fine, but the public’s eye stays strangely cold. That’s how to put it.

Not having a single flagship girl group doesn’t dent Baekhak’s reputation, but from a certain angle it’s a matter of pride.

And in this industry there are times when that pride matters far more than immediate numbers or the practical problems in front of you.

In that moment I knew.

‘Tch… I’ve been handed a pain.’

The last girl group, with Baekhak’s pride riding on it.

The weight of that title pressed down on my shoulders, and irritation crept up over them.

‘No wonder they gave me chief so fast.’

I let out a hard sigh where nobody could see it and greeted the Twenty girls.

“Hello. I’m Kwon Chan, chief of Management Team 5.”

One of the five girls who’d been staring blankly at me asked a question.

“Are you our manager, Chief?”

“No. Your manager is this person here beside me.”

I casually pulled the frozen Lee Ye-ji forward.

Lee Ye-ji’s shoulders jumped, and her pupils quaked as she called out.

“H, hello! I’m the new r, road manager, L, Lee Ye-ji!”

I was mildly impressed.

Lee Ye-ji-ssi, how many times did your voice crack in a two-line greeting?

Even a stranger could see how nervous she was.

But that clumsiness seemed to land well with the Twenty girls.

“Whoa! Unnie, you’re our manager?”

“How old are you, unnie!”

“Do we get to be together from now on?”

“Unnie, unnie! What’s your Instagram ID? Can we follow you?”

The Twenty girls swarmed at Lee Ye-ji like fish that had found water.

Flustered, Lee Ye-ji had no idea what to do.

She sent me a teary look and a gesture asking for a little help, and I ignored it cleanly.

‘I need a cigarette.’

Lee Ye-ji-ssi doesn’t smoke, so I was two hours into a forced quit.

The nicotine craving was coming on.

‘Normally holding it in would be the right move…’

I glanced sideways.

There was general director Kim Jang-hoon.

Different division or not, a general director sits well above a chief like me.

The old me would never have dreamed of smoking while a superior like that was around.

But right now, I don’t know why.

The thought wouldn’t leave me: I’m quitting anyway, so do I really need to agonize this much over one cigarette?

In that moment, my rounded-off personality went sharp again.

“Director. I’m very sorry, but would it be all right if I stepped out for a smoke?”

“A smoke? You’re a smoker, Chief Kwon?”

“Sorry. I’ll be quick about it.”

“Ugh! Quit smoking! You won’t feel it while you’re young, but it’ll get you when you’re older.”

I got some nagging for it, but permission came surprisingly easily.

I bowed my head and headed for the smoking area.

I lit up and took a deep breath in, and the blockage in my chest opened right up.

“Ooh… now I feel alive.”

I pulled on the filter again and turned a fresh cigarette into a butt.

I ground out the fire and flapped the jacket I was wearing.

They aren’t debuted yet, but they’re still girl group kids, and showing up smelling of smoke wouldn’t do.

So I aired the smell out enough and opened the practice room door, and that was when it happened.

I saw Kim Jang-hoon’s hand groping somebody’s backside.

“?”

Was I seeing things?

No.

I couldn’t be, because Director Kim Jang-hoon was still kneading somebody’s backside now that I’d walked in.

I narrowed my eyes and a laugh slipped out of me.

‘Look at this.’

Twenty’s redhead.

The girl I’d taken for the center visual. General director Kim Jang-hoon was kneading her backside like dough.

---

Stay in this business and you see all sorts of things.

The entertainment world doesn’t have its filthy reputation for nothing.

So sometimes you have to pretend you didn’t see what you saw, and write off what you heard as nonsense.

And right now, I was standing at exactly that fork.

“Good work, Chief Kwon.”

“You’ve worked harder than any of us, Director.”

“Let’s have a meal sometime.”

“I’ll come find you with the corporate card.”

Director Kim Jang-hoon gave me a friendly smile and turned away.

I watched his back for a while and muttered.

‘That’s frightening.’

Right.

Literally, it frightened me a little.

That pleasant-seeming Director Kim Jang-hoon, kneading somebody’s backside in the open like that?

And a debut-group trainee’s backside, at that.

‘An affair? A sponsorship?’

Director Kim Jang-hoon is unmarried.

And Twenty’s center visual, the redhead, is barely twenty.

Twenty years between them. There was no way this was a love for the ages.

‘It’s a sponsorship.’

Not a common thing, but not a thing that never happens either.

I creased my brow slightly.

A situation that had looked light got tangled and complicated in one stroke.

Then Director Kim Jang-hoon suddenly turned his head and spoke.

“Ah, by the way… Lee Ye-ji-ssi starts tomorrow, Chief Kwon?”

I kept my face in order as I answered.

“Yes. They aren’t debuted yet, but she’s a new road manager, so I’ll probably have her come in every day to build some rapport.”

“Oh, thank goodness. There’s been nobody to look after the girls and it’s been killing us.”

A man like that kneads a debut-group trainee’s backside?

…I forced the thought away as soon as it came.

“I really will be going, Director.”

“Sure, sure. Get home. Traffic is terrible at this hour.”

I turned and left the practice room.

Lee Ye-ji, who’d been held captive by the Twenty girls, scrambled after me.

I glanced over and saw a day-one rookie road manager drained of every bit of energy, melted into a puddle.

I pushed Director Kim Jang-hoon and Twenty’s redhead out of my head and spoke to Lee Ye-ji.

“Ye-ji-ssi.”

“…. Yes? Chief?”

“Was it manageable?”

Lee Ye-ji’s soul-less eyes widened a little.

Like she hadn’t expected me to speak to her first.

“Uh, uh… yes, yes! It was manageable!”

“That’s a relief. I was wondering what I’d do if you couldn’t adjust.”

“The, the Twenty members treated me so well…! I think I adjusted just fine!”

The way she picked her words was funny enough that a laugh slipped out of me before I knew it.

Lee Ye-ji’s eyes went wide.

“Uh… Chief, you just laughed, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Because the way you talk is funny.”

“…. What? What do you mean, the way I talk is funny?”

“You weren’t going for it?”

“N, no! I wasn’t going for it!”

“Lee Ye-ji-ssi, you’ve got a talent for comedy.”

“You, you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

I deliberately didn’t answer.

Lee Ye-ji shot me a sideways look and watched for my reaction.

Once the tension left her, she turned out to be a woman with a very expressive face.

‘Right. She’s my team member as long as I’m at this company.’

Even if I can’t be good to her, I should at least pay attention.

On the way back to the office, I set my tangled head aside for a while and chatted with Lee Ye-ji.

“You looked incredibly nervous back there.”

“It was my first time seeing a celebrity right in front of me…. Ugh. Honestly, I was so nervous I could barely breathe.”

“Twenty aren’t celebrities yet.”

“Oh, uh… aren’t they?”

“They’re a debut group.”

“S, still…. they’re going to debut, so, semi-celebrities? Something like that!”

Lee Ye-ji’s eyes sparkled as she went on.

“And the Twenty members…. they were so pretty you’d never guess they were trainees. Especially Seol Chae-i-ssi, the maknae position, wow…. she was the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen!”

I turned the subject casually.

“The redhead.”

“?”

“How was the girl with the red hair?”

Lee Ye-ji tilted her head.

“The red hair, so… Park Gyu-ri-ssi?”

“Yes. The Park Gyu-ri who got picked as leader.”

“Hmm… I think Park Gyu-ri-ssi’s visuals were incredible too.”

“And?”

“…Honestly, I didn’t really get to talk with Park Gyu-ri-ssi, so I don’t know what she’s like yet.”

So she’s prickly.

I translated Lee Ye-ji’s explanation my own way, then stopped the car.

“You worked hard today, Ye-ji-ssi.”

“I, I’m the one who’s grateful, Chief!”

“I think you can head straight home.”

“Yes! Understood!”

I left a beaming Lee Ye-ji behind me and went straight home myself.

Of course, I only went home in the physical sense. Director Kim Jang-hoon and the redhead Park Gyu-ri wouldn’t leave my head.

“Occupational hazard. Annoying.”

In the end I gave up on forgetting it and sank into thinking.

How should I settle this?

‘The easiest and fastest thing is to report it to the company.’

But reporting it without hard proof would bring a backlash.

This is the general director of Twenty, which might well be Baekhak’s last girl group, running a sponsorship.

Touch it wrong and it won’t just be me, it’ll shake all of Management Team 5.

“So do I bury it?”

Judged rationally, yes.

Sponsorship or affair between the general director and Twenty’s redhead, I’m quitting, so what do I have to worry about?

‘The goal is Twenty’s debut anyway.’

If anything, a sponsorship means the debut is locked in, which is good for me.

It was obvious there’d be trouble afterward, but that’s not my business.

And yet, for some reason, the faces of the Twenty girls I’d seen today stuck with me.

The way they’d been delighted like children over getting a manager before they’d even debuted wouldn’t wipe away easily.

Conscience and guilt.

I stood somewhere at that fork and muttered.

‘If only I had hard proof.’

If I had solid evidence proving the sponsorship between Director Kim Jang-hoon and Twenty’s redhead, I could push the stakes a little higher.

‘But how do I find that proof?’

Right.

That’s the problem.

I don’t have proof of the sponsorship between the two of them.

So burying this is the right call.

That’s what I thought, at least until this morning.

I rubbed my puffy eyes as I woke up, and there was a text waiting.

-[International sender (image attached)]

-[Trainee Park Gyu-ri / Director Kim Jang-hoon]

A hollow laugh came out of me.

“What is this?”

A message that came in from an international number first thing in the morning, with the evidence proving the sponsorship between Director Kim Jang-hoon and the redhead attached.

Photos with the two of them all over each other, unmistakably.

In that moment, the decision I’d lost sleep over wavered.

But the incidents didn’t end there.

“…. Chief. That rookie road manager who came in yesterday, that Jang Hyeon-su guy, he’s gone AWOL.”

Our top star actress, Madam Lee Ha-eun, had set a record.

She’d driven off the manager assigned to her in under a single day.