Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols

Since Kim Iwol had submitted his proposal to the planning team, his visits to the management office significantly decreased. Naturally, Min Jukyung, who worked in management, also had very few chances to see him.

 

That was until Kim Iwol requested a meeting through Lim Chanyoung, the manager of the trainees.

 

Meetings with people of the management were usually the same.

 

At most, the biggest issue was that they wanted to change the manager.

 

When Kim Iwol entered the conference room with a tired expression, Min Jukyung thought that he must have been busy recently or that he must have been feeling stressed because of his upcoming debut.

 

But the issue this young trainee brought up was unlike anything UA had dealt with before.

 

“PD Yoo hit you?”

 

Min Jukyung straightened up in his seat, repeating the question in disbelief. 

 

It wasn’t because he doubted Kim Iwol. It was because he couldn’t believe that something that shouldn’t have happened had happened.

 

Kim Iwol, who had hesitated and barely managed to speak, nodded slightly.

 

“When?”

 

“…A while ago.”

 

When talking to people, he always made eye contact and spoke clearly. Today, Kim Iwol could hardly raise his head.

 

‘Does he really think this is somehow his fault?’

 

Min Jukyung’s heart sank.

 

No matter how much the other person deserved it, hitting people was wrong, but even putting that aside, Kim Iwol wasn’t the type who would purposefully get into trouble.

 

Everyone at UA knew how polite and diligent Kim Iwol was.

 

Min Jukyung asked as calmly as possible so that Kim Iwol wouldn’t get even more nervous.

 

“What happened with PD-nim?”

 

“…To be honest, I don’t understand it either.”

 

Kim Iwol said with an awkward smile. That smile made Min Jukyung even more concerned.

 

At that moment, something flashed through Min Jukyung’s mind.

 

It was a conversation that came up during lunch with a colleague from the planning team a while ago.

 

‘Jukyung, be honest with me. Isn’t PD Yoo really a parachute?’

 

‘Why do you ask?’

 

‘That jerk is a total a**. He can’t do his job, he talks like sh*t, and he has zero awareness. How on earth the industry hadn’t caught wind of this?’

 

It was very well-known that after PD Yoo Hansoo came in, there was not a single day when the planning team’s expressions brightened.

 

From Min Jukyung’s colleagues alone, the number of complaints increased so much to the point that it made you wonder if this person’s nature had always been like this.

 

And all the frustration pointed toward Yoo Hansoo.

 

‘Team Leader doesn’t say it out loud, but I think Yoo Hansoo feels inferior to Iwol.’

 

‘Inferior?’

 

‘Yeah. He always picks fights with Iwol. And whenever he brings in a lousy idea, and people question the history behind it, it’s ridiculous..’

 

‘Come on, there’s a huge age gap between them.’

 

‘I am serious. In this meeting, PD Yoo’s ideas were all rejected and Iwol’s was accepted. Jukyung, you should have seen PD Yoo’s expression at that time.’

 

Kim Iwol’s idea was selected over Yoo Han Soo’s idea, his colleague clearly said that.

 

It wasn’t the first time something like this happened, but the complete rejection of the producer’s idea had spread throughout the company.

 

“Iwol, when exactly did PD-nim hit you?” 

 

Min Jukyung asked cautiously. He hoped that it wasn’t just a grown man hitting a twenty-year-old out of an ugly inferiority complex.

 

However, the answer he got in return was not what he had expected.

 

“A few days ago. Is the exact date important?”

 

“Not necessarily. I was just wondering if you remembered.”

 

“If I look at the calendar, I can tell the date. It was about three days after the meeting with the planning team, I marked down the meeting schedule on the calendar.”

 

The sight of Kim Iwol trying to speak calmly broke his heart.

 

As Min Jukyung was thinking about what to say, Kim Iwol hesitated and took something out of his pocket.

 

“I thought you might not believe me…”

 

Min Jukyung couldn’t say anything and accepted the item Kim Iwol handed to him.

 

As he unfolded the bundle of paper, small pieces of metal were revealed.

 

Min Jukyung wasn’t stupid enough to not know why Kim Iwol handed this to him.

 

Electronics in this country didn’t break so easily even if you stepped on them.

 

Min Jukyung let out a sigh. It was clear that this wasn’t a problem that could be discussed and resolved on his own.

 

* * *

 

Min Jukyung hesitated for a moment before asking for my permission and bringing in the team leader of the Artist Management Team.

 

The expression of the management team leader who came in with a bright expression also turned pale in 3 minutes.

 

If the company people showed a half-hearted response, I was going to make a fuss saying that Yoo Hansoo scared the other trainees. Fortunately, that kind of unfortunate incident didn’t happen.

 

Thanks to that, I only had to explain how hard it was to work under Yoo Hansoo, putting on a look of exhaustion on my face.

 

I was happy because I was in a position where I could vent my frustrations, something I’d never done at the Hanpyeong Industry, but the staff’s expressions got worse and worse.

 

When I told them the story of being on the phone call with Yoo Hansoo until 4 in the morning, I could see the faces of the management team leader and Min Jukyung turning pale.

 

The management team leader ruffled my hair and said,

 

‘He made kids see all sorts of dirty things.’

 

Don’t worry about that. I’m already a bitter member of society.

 

Standing next to the management team leader, Min Jukyung sighed deeply and asked.

 

“Should we tell the planning team that PD Yoo should be separated from Spark?”

 

“Of course. And while we also need to hear from PD Yoo’s side of the story, we also have to report this to the CEO.”

 

It was surprising. The company’s employees were trying to protect me.

 

No matter how hard I practiced my acting for this day, I never thought they would listen to the words of a low-ranking person so sincerely. They even believed what I said.

 

Even if it was just for show, it didn’t change the fact that this was something I’d never seen before in the Hanpyeong Industry. It was something you had to live long enough to see.

 

For them to care about me this much. It was really…

 

Troublesome

. I still had more to say!

 

“Uh, and…”

 

I took out the printed materials I had printed out in advance from my bag and handed them over. I was really in a hurry, but I tried to make it look like I was hesitating.

 

“I don’t know if I should show you this but… I think I have to tell you.”

 

“What is this?”

 

It was a document on Yoo Hansoo’s alleged corruption, painstakingly compiled by none other than me, a former HR employee and current trainee.

 

* * *

 

To explain how I ended up digging up all the dirt on Yoo Hansoo, I had to go back a few weeks.

 

At that time, Yoo Hansoo was dumping all sorts of work on me day and night. 

 

One of my tasks was to get estimates from vendors that he had told me to contact.

 

And in the process, I discovered it.

 

‘The amount is strange?’

 

Signs of Yoo Hansoo’s attempted embezzlement.

 

In order to make the most of the budget allocated to Spark, I had to save as much as possible.

 

So, I put in the legwork, selling anything that could be sold. I contacted multiple vendors, knocking on the same doors two or three times, and carefully organized all the quotes.

 

And then I discovered something peculiar.

 

When I first asked for quotes on my own, when I used UA’s name to negotiate, and when Yoo Hansoo connected me with vendors he knew—these three scenarios had wildly different prices for the same vendors.

 

Normally, you’d expect the highest price from individual inquiries, but strangely enough, the more I mentioned Yoo Hansoo’s name, the higher the prices got.

 

At first, I thought maybe Yoo Hansoo was blacklisted by some vendors, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t just one or two companies—it was happening with multiple vendors.

 

‘No way. He hasn’t even been with the company that long.’

 

Still, with a sense of doubt, I asked the vendors, hoping Yoo Hansoo wasn’t that hopeless.

 

‘How should I handle the payment?’

 

The answer I got was disappointing.

 

‘Just like last time, send the difference to his personal account.’

 

This wasn’t just a matter of character—it was something far worse.

 

In the end, an embezzlement issue didn’t happen in UA. This was because a completely different vendor was selected.

 

I thought I was going to die from all the effort it took to find a decent vendor untouched by Yoo Hansoo’s influence.

 

I wished I could report it immediately, but there were more than one or two things that got in the way.

 

The issue with Yoo Hansoo might cause a stir in the planning department, potentially delaying Spark’s debut. 

 

And if I acted rashly, it would be a problem if I got fired before Yoo Hansoo did.

 

Considering all the various things, the only thing I could do at the time was to somehow prevent Yoo Hansoo from finding a way to embezzle money.

 

However, I did record the series of events.

 

I figured that if something like this happened again or if I achieved my KPIs and left UA, I could report everything with confidence.

 

And not long after, on the day after I got beaten up by Yoo Hansoo.

 

I went to the production team with the intention of ending Yoo Hansoo’s life.

 

I took the pricing list of quotes I had gotten through Yoo Hansoo and planned to compare them with industry standards, hoping for some cross-verification from the experts…

 

‘PD Yoo Hansoo decided on the vendor, right? Then we don’t need to look. It’s all been discussed.’

 

What the heck.

 

The production team was acting suspiciously.

 

An employee was conspiring with a vendor to embezzle the budget.

 

But the relevant department pretended not to know about it?

 

In that case, there was no other way to explain this—they were in on it together.

 

Only then did I finally get the answers to all my questions. If there were people who were profiting from these schemes, of course, I would be seen as a thorn on their side, constantly getting in the way.

 

They weren’t working that closely together, so it must’ve been easy for them to hide their tracks on the surface.

 

At this point, I just wanted everyone involved to be punished and stop getting involved with Spark.

 

With that in mind, I stayed up all night, transferring the recording to a transcript and attaching an estimate until my eyes turned bloodshot.

 

There were likely more people connected to Yoo Hansoo than just those in the production team, but for now, I decided to cut off his immediate support first. I couldn’t afford to lose everything by trying to catch too many people at once.

 

That report I had poured my soul into was now in the hands of UA staff.

 

My heart was pounding. How would UA treat a whistleblower?

 

‘At the Hanpyeong Industry, it’s the whistleblowers who got the death sentence.’

 

As I was thinking that, I heard the sound of a chair leg roughly scraping against the floor. It was the sound of someone kicking their seat and getting up.