I Spent a Night with a Top Star Actress Chapter 8 - A bet.

My head was hot, but I managed my expression and knocked on the door of the Division Head’s office.

“This is Kwon Chan from Team 5, Division Head.”

“Ah, come in, Chief Kwon.”

I opened the door carefully to find Team Leader Ma Seok-du, who’d arrived ahead of me and was waiting.

‘No sign of CEO Baek Ji-won.’

Small mercy, I suppose.

Reading the room, I took the empty seat.

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon put on a friendly smile and opened.

“You both saw the articles, didn’t you?”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du answered quickly.

“Yes, Division Head. I heard Director Kim Jang-hoon was fired….”

“Oh, he’d be lucky if firing were all of it. He probably paid an enormous penalty too.”

“…. Haha. Is that so?”

“Of course. Think how much money went into the Twenty girls debuting this time.”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du let out an awkward laugh.

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon’s attention came to me.

“How are the Twenty girls? Chief Kwon?”

I have no idea.

Honestly, since that first meeting I’d left them to Lee Ye-ji-ssi and hadn’t seen them once.

But I couldn’t say that straight out, so I made up something suitable.

“They were confused at first, but they seem to be doing well now.”

“Look after them properly. It’s a big thing to happen right before a debut.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon crossed their legs.

“I didn’t call you in today about Director Kim Jang-hoon. I called you because there’s something to discuss with Team 5 regarding the Twenty girls.”

This was a conversation I needed to listen to closely.

But I couldn’t concentrate.

The spam message I’d seen a moment ago wouldn’t leave my head.

“It’s good that Team Leader Ma and Chief Kwon prevented a major accident before it happened, but…. Twenty’s debut schedule itself has been completely wrecked.”

For a while I’d forgotten the international texts from an unknown sender entirely.

No wonder, with how intense the incidents that kept happening were.

Even now, the countless looks pouring at me around the company were killing me.

And then the international text I’d forgotten completely came flying in again.

“The schedule is already all locked in, and even pushing it back gets us a month, two months. If the debut timing slips here, the Twenty girls might not debut at all. But we can’t debut a girl group missing its center visual and main vocal, can we?”

Why? For what? How?

The first time I could write it off as coincidence. Not now.

Someone with a purpose was clearly sending me spam messages.

‘That alone is a problem, and…. what the hell is this one?’

The photo in the spam message was music chart results.

Music chart results for Twenty, who hadn’t even debuted.

‘Is this guy insane? Faking chart results for a girl group that hasn’t debuted and sending them to me?’

It crossed a line for something to dismiss as a prank.

Goosebumps were crawling up my spine and my palms were damp when it happened.

One line from Division Head Park Yu-hyeon punched straight through the head I had lost to the spam message.

“You do know Team 5 can’t be called free of responsibility in this situation, don’t you?”

My mind, sunk in delusions, came back to reality.

I felt my face harden and raised my head.

There was Division Head Park Yu-hyeon, that friendly smile still at the corner of their mouth.

“Honestly, if you’d wanted to prevent this case in advance, you could have, couldn’t you? Team Leader Ma?”

The corner of my mouth twisted.

---

It’s a line that means nothing.

“Cut the parts by Park Gyu-ri, who’s been dropped, and re-record…. Aigoo. The music video will need a new edit too, won’t it? Team Leader Ma, talk with the new director who’s coming in and set an internal evaluation schedule.”

So why did that one line grate on me so much?

[‘You know Team 5 can’t be called free of responsibility, right?’]

Sure.

We can’t be called free of responsibility.

But does it have to be said like that?

Honestly, if it hadn’t been for us, wouldn’t this have spread further?

One trivial line kept putting corners on my round heart.

In the middle of it, I also remembered what I’d heard about Division Head Park Yu-hyeon before coming to the office.

‘If Twenty’s schedule slips and they hold Team 5 responsible, how would they do it?’

Would we end up taking responsibility the same way Director Kim Jang-hoon did?

The head that had run hot over the spam message cooled fast.

Feeling my runaway reason gradually come back, I muttered.

‘I’m being too sensitive right now, aren’t I?’

No, sensitive is right.

Bad enough that one meaningless line ruined my mood: I was extremely sensitive right now.

‘The spam message. That’s the problem.’

I wiped the spam message out of my head.

The effect was tremendous.

I could feel myself in a more rational state than a moment before.

“Team Leader Ma knows too, but Team 5’s numbers have been bad lately, right?”

Right.

I was rational until I heard this line from Division Head Park Yu-hyeon.

“So Team Leader Ma threw a fit at the last meeting and took Twenty, which means whatever happens, you have to take responsibility for it, don’t you?”

“…”

“Twenty’s overall debut plan, the schedule. Team 5 takes responsibility, draws it up, and submits a report. Mistakes from here are genuinely fatal, so put some care into it.”

Responsibility.

That one word grated on my nerves again.

So before I knew it, I let a line drop.

“That responsibility, how should I take it? Division Head?”

“…?”

“If you tell me, I’ll do my best to take it.”

One minute.

For one minute not a word passed in the Division Head’s office.

Team Leader Ma Seok-du shouted, belatedly.

“Hey, hey! What are you saying, Chief Kwon!”

At the urgency in Team Leader Ma Seok-du’s voice, I realized, belatedly, that I’d caused an accident.

My sensitive mood settled low, back to normal.

‘Ah… what did I just do?’

What kind of bullshit did I just say to a Division Head?

A late sense of danger crawled up my forearms.

Then Division Head Park Yu-hyeon spoke.

“You’ll take responsibility and manage it?”

I cleared my voice and answered.

As politely as I could.

“Yes. If you set the direction, I’ll handle it as far as I can.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon folded their arms and tilted their head.

“You’re a very unusual type, Chief Kwon.”

“?”

“At the last meeting you looked like a man desperate not to be noticed, and now something’s gotten into you and the passion is blazing away.”

“!”

…I was slightly dazed.

The way I’d looked a moment ago was full of passion?

‘I only blurted it out in anger.’

Meanwhile Division Head Park Yu-hyeon propped up their chin and said.

“You asked me to set the direction, didn’t you? Let’s see….”

“….”

“Now that I think of it, do you both know that at this internal evaluation, the Twenty girls’ early debut numbers were put in the top five of the music charts?”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du opened his mouth quickly.

“Yes, yes, I’m aware, Division Head!”

“But the case happened and the girl handling center visual and main vocal is gone, so aiming for the top five seems like a bit of a stretch, doesn’t it?”

“Th, that is…”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon turned sharply and looked at me.

“Chief Kwon, take responsibility and get the Twenty girls into the top five of the music charts.”

“!”

“Get them into the top five and I’ll speak to the CEO directly and hand out performance bonuses.”

My eyes went wide as saucers.

‘Make Twenty’s debut numbers top five?’

It’s an unreachable target.

This was Twenty without their main vocal and main visual.

Bring in the best director in the industry and getting a girl group like this into the top five would still be impossible.

But somehow.

I was feeling that the impossible target was possible.

‘The girl group Twenty’s “Youth Journey.”‘

If the photo in the spam message wasn’t faked… Twenty’s debut result wasn’t fifth on the chart, it was first.

Meaning the top five Division Head Park Yu-hyeon was proposing wasn’t the issue.

In that moment an unexplainable chill crawled up my forearms.

Tingle, tingle…

I couldn’t get a grip on the situation.

But one thing seemed clear.

The crisis had become an opportunity.

In that moment my mouth opened on its own.

“I’ll do it, Division Head.”

My voice, answering without hesitation, had far too much force in it even to my own ears.

Like it was trying to hide the tremor and excitement pushing up at me.

Maybe they felt that emotion.

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon’s brown eyes wavered with interest and expectation.

“I’ll believe in you, Chief Kwon.”

“…. Thank you.”

“You’ll have plenty to do, so go on. Oh, and….”

Trailing off, Division Head Park Yu-hyeon held out a thick envelope to me and Team Leader Ma Seok-du.

“It’s a cash gift from the CEO for handling this case well.”

Division Head Park Yu-hyeon gave a warm, human smile.

“There’s plenty in there, so take your team out for dinner. You both worked hard.”

It wasn’t an empty phrase.

The envelope Division Head Park Yu-hyeon handed over was startlingly thick.

---

The moment we left the Division Head’s office, Team Leader Ma Seok-du dragged me into the emergency stairwell.

“You lunatic!”

“….”

“Why would you talk back to the Division Head, talk back! If it had been the Division Head of another department, you’d be writing an incident report, you punk!”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du’s nagging went in one ear and out the other.

My head was so full of what had happened in the Division Head’s office that nothing else could get in.

‘What is this?’

The situation had fit together frighteningly well.

The spam message arriving out of nowhere.

My own mood, sensitive in a way it usually isn’t.

The Division Head’s sudden proposal.

Pull them apart piece by piece and there’s no link between them.

And yet those pieces meshed and produced an opportunity.

‘Seriously, what is this?’

My common sense couldn’t make sense of it.

But one thing was clear.

It was the same when the first message came.

The moment I thought I needed evidence, a spam message carrying that evidence arrived.

‘A fixed future? Or precognition? What is it?’

I still couldn’t understand it.

It felt like some huge current was dragging me along.

Which should have me shaking with fear…

Right now, I was enjoying that frightening situation.

I found myself so absurd that a hollow laugh came out.

‘This is driving me crazy.’

Right.

The situation is running crazy, literally.

I let out a heavy sigh and spoke.

“Seok-du hyung.”

“?”

“The spam message that came from an international number. Is there a way to trace it?”

Team Leader Ma Seok-du, who hadn’t stopped nagging, jerked at the shoulders.

“…What kind of bullshit is that now?”

“It’s not bullshit, so answer me seriously.”

“How do you trace a spam message from an international number? Did you sign up for a betting site or something?”

So there’s no way to trace it after all?

I stroked my chin and turned around.

“Team Leader Ma Seok-du. I’m going out on field work this afternoon.”

“Hey, Kwon Chan!”

“I’m going to the Sangam training center, so write that in the afternoon log.”

I could hear Team Leader Ma Seok-du shouting something after me, but I ignored it and headed for the parking lot.

I fastened my seatbelt and started the engine.

“Right…. first.”

Everything else aside, checking comes first.

Whether the photo in the spam message is real.

‘”Youth Journey,” number one on the chart. Let’s start by checking whether the song actually exists.’

Direction set, I drove for the Sangam training center.