I Spent a Night with a Top Star Actress Chapter 7 - An accident.

The meeting started like it had been waiting for us.

“I’ve already seen it in the report, but I wanted to hear it directly, so I called you both in.”

“….”

“Take your time explaining, please. General Director Kim Jang-hoon and Park Gyu-ri of Twenty’s debut group. The sponsorship between those two.”

It wasn’t quite a bed of nails.

But it was an uncomfortable seat, that much was true.

The air purifier was running and the air still felt stale somehow.

I hadn’t done anything wrong, and the mood in the Division Head’s office pressed on me like I was a criminal.

Strangely, though, I wasn’t nervous at all.

The company CEO and the Division Head were both sitting there, and I felt nothing. A strange thing.

Meanwhile Team Leader Ma Seok-du, voice tight with nerves, laid out the outline of the case.

“When we looked into Director Kim Jang-hoon, the sponsorship wasn’t only with Park Gyu-ri.”

“We also confirmed a sponsorship with Choi Seon-yeong, who our company recently brought over from A-Pal Entertainment….”

“And Park Gyu-ri of Twenty’s debut group, apart from Director Kim Jang-hoon, has confirmed rumors with a trainee idol at another company…”

Just as I’d expected, Director Kim Jang-hoon and Twenty’s Park Gyu-ri.

The private lives of those two hadn’t stopped at the two of them.

Director Kim Jang-hoon had a sponsorship going with another actress in the company.

Park Gyu-ri, confirmed for the debut group, had been spreading rumors around with a trainee at another agency.

“…. These are the materials.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon took the documents Team Leader Ma Seok-du held out and started going through them carefully.

How much time passed like that.

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon clicked their tongue briefly.

“…. Tsk. This is far more serious than I expected.”

“!”

“Team Leader Ma? This part, the sponsorship with another actress in the company. Could you explain that once more?”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du shot up from his seat and started explaining again.

Watching him blankly, I nodded.

‘Not bad.’

The mood in the meeting was better than I’d thought.

The expressions on CEO Baek Ji-won and the Division Head weren’t bad either.

If it ended like this, Team Leader Ma Seok-du would keep his team leader seat, and Director Kim Jang-hoon… well.

He’d be fired or he’d pay the penalty on his contract.

The flow of the meeting was wrapping up exactly the way I’d predicted from the start.

Relieved at that, I was lifting the coffee cup I hadn’t touched once.

The mood flipped.

“…. Chief Kwon’s help was a big part of it.”

“?”

“Chief Kwon found out about the sponsorship first, and he didn’t hold back on good advice either. If I’d tried to handle this case alone, I could never have done it.”

My eyebrows twitched.

I raised my head to find Seok-du hyung grinning away.

‘What are you doing, hyung?’

Why does my name come up there?

This stage, right now.

Isn’t this your chance to stamp the name Team Leader Ma into the number one and number two at the company?

I glared at him in disbelief and Seok-du hyung stuck up a thumb.

A hollow laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

‘Haa…. This guy, honestly.’

I knew he was a good person….

I hadn’t expected him to be good enough to hand his own rice bowl to someone else.

Meanwhile Division Head Park Yu-hyeon and CEO Baek Ji-won turned their attention on me.

“Chief Kwon?”

I cleared my voice and answered.

“Yes, Division Head.”

“I heard you took charge of the Twenty girls when you became chief. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And Chief Kwon, you were also the first to uncover the sponsorship between Park Gyu-ri and Kim Jang-hoon?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon set down the papers and adjusted their glasses.

“So here’s my question. How did you come to know those two were in a sponsorship?”

“….”

“Not one other team spotted it before Twenty came over to Team 5. Did you hear a source somewhere?”

I ran a hand back through my hair.

‘What do I make up?’

A decent excuse came to mind, but it wouldn’t organize itself.

Sitting there working on it, I could see how little sense the things I’d been through made.

‘By coincidence I saw the two of them in a sponsorship, and by coincidence I got photos proving it from an international sender….’

My brow creased slightly before I noticed.

How do I explain that to a Division Head?

Meanwhile the Division Head’s gaze on me got more and more persistent.

I couldn’t hold out against it, so I had to end my deliberating.

‘Well, nothing for it.’

No excuse came to mind, and I didn’t much feel like making one up either.

So I decided to tell the truth.

“I saw Director Kim Jang-hoon kneading the debut group’s Park Gyu-ri’s backside.”

“?”

Silence settled over the meeting room.

“…………?”

Next to me, Team Leader Ma Seok-du gaped at me, mouth opening and closing.

That look was exactly the look you give a lunatic.

‘I am a lunatic, fair enough.’

Reporting to a Division Head, and my choice of words…

The rating on it was a bit strong.

But the water was already spilled.

I laid on the iron plate completely.

Keeping my face as calm as I could, I looked at Division Head Park Yu-hyeon and CEO Baek Ji-won.

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon asked, sounding flustered.

“…So what you’re saying is, Chief Kwon, you saw Division Head Kim Jang-hoon kneading trainee Park Gyu-ri’s backside?”

“Yes, Division Head.”

“And that’s why you started investigating the sponsorship?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon let out a hollow laugh.

“Uh… um…”

“…”

“It’s a little startling, but being that direct has its good points. It lands immediately. But how do I put it….”

Trailing off, Division Head Park Yu-hyeon turned that hollow laugh into a real one.

“Aren’t you explaining something absurd far too calmly, Chief Kwon?”

Inside, I flinched.

…Did I lay the iron plate on too thick?

Now that I thought about it, I had put on too much of a calm act.

Feeling a little regret, I made an awkward face and lowered my head.

“I’ll correct it.”

“No, no. I didn’t say it to get an apology.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon waved a hand and looked at CEO Baek Ji-won.

CEO Baek Ji-won looked at me blankly for a moment, then drew her eyes away and spoke.

“Good work, both of you. I think you can go.”

I shot up from my seat and bowed.

Team Leader Ma Seok-du sat there dazed, then belatedly got up and chased after me.

“Kwon Chan, you lunatic! Don’t you take another step!”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du came after me, furious, but I ignored him.

That’s what you get for flipping a table already set for you.

This isn’t my fault, it’s Team Leader Ma Seok-du’s.

…I was busy justifying my thoughtless remark from a moment ago and washing off the shame when it happened.

The article broke.

-[Breaking] An unprecedented sponsorship exposé sweeping the entertainment industry. Baekhak Director Kim Jang-hoon’s private life!

The entertainment industry was turned upside down.

By the sponsorship article on Baekhak’s Director Kim Jang-hoon.

---

Entertainment news was turned upside down by three syllables: Kim Jang-hoon.

-[S Topic] Baekhak’s “Director Kim Jang-hoon.” Revealed to be in a sponsorship with a girl group debut trainee….

-The bare face of the entertainment industry? Sponsorships conducted behind closed doors.

-[Hot News] The industry’s top director “Kim Jang-hoon” has had sponsorships with numerous celebrities…

The provocative headlines drew the public’s attention.

The public read the articles and couldn’t hide their shock.

In no time the comments on articles about Director Kim Jang-hoon passed a thousand.

-Wow;;; what is this, seriously?

-This Kim Jang-hoon guy. He’s 40 and he wants that with a 20-year-old?

-Genuinely disgusting; hope I never see him on TV again.

-I thought entertainment industry “entertaining” died out after the 2000s, apparently not

-This Kim Jang-hoon is a big deal though; he made Hot Time, New Area, Dolphin;;

-Talented trash; that makes him even harder to look at.

That was only the mild end, because I was reading the top comments.

Looking at all the comments, you could find plenty of netizens cursing his parents too.

Every kind of insult, slander and criticism poured down on Director Kim Jang-hoon, literally.

At this level, Director Kim Jang-hoon’s career was effectively over.

Thanks to that, the mood in the company was running hot.

Every outlet there was had Director Kim Jang-hoon in it, so it was no wonder.

And in the middle of that chaos, I was going through an ordeal I hadn’t expected.

“That’s Chief Kwon?”

“They say he’s the one who uncovered the sponsorship.”

“I heard it was Team Leader Ma Seok-du of Team 5 who uncovered it?”

“How did he find out about the sponsorship?”

I’d become company gossip.

The champion of justice who exposed a sponsorship without flinching at rank.

The disloyal trash who reported his own superior at the company.

And people who were simply curious about the case.

Looks loaded with all kinds of feelings poured on me wherever I went.

Choked! I fled the office and smoked one cigarette after another on the roof.

“Hey, Team 5 pulled something off after all.”

“Right? They were getting chewed out constantly over the poor numbers lately.”

“But what kind of guy is Chief Kwon of Team 5? They say he did the whole thing, finding the director’s sponsorship.”

But the roof wasn’t much different.

My own story reached me from every direction, so in the end I went back down to the office.

The moment I sat down I made myself ignore the looks pouring in and checked the clock.

But…. my god.

It was still only two in the afternoon.

Four more hours until I could go home?

It felt like I’d been in this company a full day.

I couldn’t accept it and was glaring at my innocent wristwatch when it happened.

Jeon Hyeong-woo the road stuck his head in out of nowhere.

“Chief Kwon!”

I jumped and pulled back.

“Make some noise when you come. Some noise.”

“What noise, between us, heh heh…”

Jeon Hyeong-woo the road whispered next to my ear.

“Anyway, Chief. Do you know about that?”

“About what?”

“The Director Kim Jang-hoon case. It spread across our company intranet board like that, didn’t it?”

“What about it?”

“The truth is…. they say it was spread on purpose!”

My eyebrows twitched.

“Why would anyone spread it on purpose?”

“That I don’t know. But rumor is somebody upstairs released the information deliberately to finish Director Kim Jang-hoon off.”

I tilted my head.

“They’d go that far? Isn’t that a baseless rumor?”

“I believed that at first too…. but this source came out of the Division Head’s secretarial office.”

The Division Head?

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon?

“They say Division Head Park Yu-hyeon gave the order to leak it onto the company intranet board on purpose.”

“….”

“I thought it made no sense at first too…. but looking at how the articles broke, doesn’t it seem plausible? I mean, this was a case they could easily have covered up, and Baekhak made the board bigger!”

At Jeon Hyeong-woo the road’s words, I found myself agreeing.

‘Right. True.’

Honestly, this case.

If Baekhak had wanted to, they could have handled it quietly.

But Baekhak grew it.

First the intranet.

Then the press, then the public.

They used every means they could mobilize, literally, and finished Director Kim Jang-hoon off.

In that moment, a slight chill ran over me.

‘Isn’t this… a bit much?’

I’m not trying to defend Director Kim Jang-hoon.

It’s only that Baekhak’s response went past the line I’d drawn, and it surprised me.

“Chief Kwon. The Division Head’s calling for you.”

My shoulders jerked.

I turned my head to find Team Leader Kim Seong-hun, leader of Management Team 1.

I fixed my expression and asked back.

“The Division Head?”

“That’s right. Go on, quickly.”

The leader of Management Team 1 spun around and disappeared.

That retreating back gave off less of a chill than pure rudeness, and Jeon Hyeong-woo the road grumbled.

“Ugh, what a distasteful guy.”

Agreed.

Seeing the face of the leader of Management Team 1 kills my appetite.

But this wasn’t the time to worry about my appetite.

I got up from my seat, put on the jacket I’d taken off, and thought.

‘Why is the Division Head calling me?’

Wasn’t this case already over?

Was there still something left to check?

Any other time, maybe not, but having seen Division Head Park Yu-hyeon’s bare face just now, this summons didn’t sit well with me.

Feeling a craving for nicotine, I headed for the Division Head’s office.

The smartphone in my pocket rang.

I put a hand in my pocket without thinking and unlocked the background screen.

In that moment I saw a single photo that had come in from an unfamiliar number.

-[International sender (image attached)]

-[Music chart number one: Twenty / Youth Journey]

My pupils shook as I checked the message.