Chapter 114. The Little Ball Anna Set in Motion
Jung Tae-jin, Seo Hoe-dong, and I sat together in Jung Tae-jin's office, where only half the lights were on, slowly discussing the documentary 〈Blue Moon〉.
Calling it a discussion was generous.
The atmosphere was practically silent.
After everything we'd done, shouldn't Seo Hoe-dong and I be treated like national heroes who had saved MVN?
They should've been playing a victory march for us.
Instead, the place felt like a funeral home.
"I heard Root Entertainment has been completely devastated. Apparently, they were planning every stage from beginning to end so they could raise the overall quality. The trainees who were supposed to participate had even been practicing intensely with the final competition stage in mind. Then the whole thing was suddenly canceled, so they're practically ready to hunt Chairman Shin down."
"That's terrifying."
Jung Tae-jin filled us in on what was happening with 〈Deep-Rooted Girls〉.
So they'd designed every competition stage themselves to avoid another manipulation scandal.
Apparently, they had planned to grind the trainees into dust and create a masterpiece.
No wonder it eventually spread into a boycott of entertainment agencies.
PD Seo Hoe-dong, who had been listening, spoke.
"CEO Do Jun-hyeok has nothing to do with this incident, but if we're making entertainment-industry content at a time like this, viewers are obviously going to make associations. So instead of making the documentary only about the Blue Moon members, I'm thinking of fleshing it out by making Mr. Do Jun-hyeok one of the central figures too."
"If you're replacing 〈Trainee School〉, you've only got a little over a month left. Can you revise it in time?"
"Yes. CEO Do Jun-hyeok already found all the staff for me."
"We'll probably need our own people to keep tracking the situation too. We'll follow the news about those trainees and keep an eye on how things develop. If anything unusual happens, we'll pass it along."
It hadn't spread into a full boycott yet.
Still, both Seo Hoe-dong and I already knew that viewers would probably start seeing me as Villain Candidate Number Four or something.
That guy probably works trainees to death too, then stabs them in the back the moment they stop being profitable.
That sort of thing.
Personally, I wanted every single frame of the documentary to be filled with Blue Moon.
But if this angle was necessary because of the boycott...
I'd do a bunny dance in front of the camera if I had to.
"This will be our filming team."
I handed Jung Tae-jin the business cards of the Prime Film producers who had been active during the strike and already had experience producing a Blue Moon documentary.
Not that staring at the cards would tell him much, but Jung Tae-jin examined every one carefully.
Maybe the text wasn't going into his head anymore.
He lowered his head and sighed.
"Haa. So this is what it feels like to barely survive. It's not particularly pleasant. I almost tore myself apart trying to ride the trend."
"Not at all. Planning a show to go head-to-head with 〈Deep-Rooted Girls〉 was an extremely bold decision. Chairman Shin Hyung-geol is practically worshiped as a master in our industry, and even he didn't know about the narrow-mouthed frogs. You were just unlucky."
At my reassurance, Jung Tae-jin looked at me.
"Exactly. Even Chairman Shin didn't know about them... So how on earth did you know, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok, that idol competition shows were about to become impossible? I've already started seeing comments online saying people are sick of competition shows."
I'd already warned Jung Tae-jin that distrust toward idol competition programs would grow.
Enough that 〈Trainee School〉 would completely flop.
I'd also subtly hinted at the Ma Cheol-seong situation.
At this point, he probably saw me as some kind of prophet.
The only prediction left was the social backlash becoming severe enough that idol competition shows couldn't even be made.
And now that we'd come this far, he had almost no reason left not to believe me.
Seo Hoe-dong gave me a puzzled glance.
He was probably wondering whether I hadn't told Jung Tae-jin about the frogs.
I hadn't.
I'd used different strategies on the two of them.
With Jung Tae-jin, I needed to establish that my instincts were absurdly accurate.
With Seo Hoe-dong, I needed him to decide to leave Watflix as quickly as possible.
But there was no reason to tell Jung Tae-jin that I'd supposedly predicted the cover-up of the narrow-mouthed frogs.
For one thing, I hadn't actually predicted that.
More importantly, in Jung Tae-jin's eyes, I needed to become someone who never got even the smallest detail wrong.
Which meant Seo Hoe-dong needed to watch what he said.
Maybe Jung Tae-jin noticed the intense eye contact passing between us, because he asked,
"By the way, weren't you originally at Watflix, PD Seo Hoe-dong? I think I saw an article saying you'd moved there. Don't tell me you resigned just for this documentary."
Seo Hoe-dong nodded.
"Yes. I've watched CEO Do Jun-hyeok work for quite a few years. Even if you don't believe in superstition, it's still rational to visit a fortune-teller if everyone says they're frighteningly accurate."
As expected of PD Seo Hoe-dong.
The rumors that he never became intimidated even around people in high positions were apparently true.
When you were that skilled, resigning wasn't particularly scary.
Even if he worked with me for a while and later wanted to return to broadcasting, he could go almost anywhere he wanted.
Of course, I couldn't imagine another broadcaster looking more attractive than working with me.
"Understood. Our original premiere date for 〈Trainee School〉 was February 29. We'll need continuous production briefings, and the show has to be fully broadcast-ready at least fifteen days before that. Once again, I'm genuinely grateful to both of you. Even if this is technically an outsourced production, we're the ones receiving help, so don't try to handle every problem yourselves. Tell us if something comes up. We'll help. We have plenty of capable people at our station too."
"Understood."
Before leaving the office, Seo Hoe-dong asked,
"What about the staff who were originally planning 〈Trainee School〉? Aren't they upset?"
"Ah. They're very upset."
Jung Tae-jin answered without trying to hide it.
Honestly, it wasn't something he could conceal from a PD anyway.
There wasn't actually a boycott yet.
Canceling the program had been Jung Tae-jin's decision.
The 〈Trainee School〉 planning team would obviously think he had panicked prematurely and unfairly canceled their show.
They'd already been thrown into frantic production work from the planning stage.
Then suddenly, because of one narrow-mouthed frog issue, everything they'd done vanished.
How empty would that feel?
To Jung Tae-jin and me, 〈Trainee School〉 had been scheduled to air.
To the PDs, it had already been in production.
"I understand how devastated the producers must feel. Canceling production was my decision, so the company will absorb the loss. We plan to pay compensation too. And... ah, you know we have that veteran rookie who's been here for twenty years? He's pretty good at acting cute, so I'll tell the rookie to make sure everyone stays in a good mood."
In that case, there was nothing to worry about.
After returning to the company, I quickly assembled a temporary internal response team for Prime Film and PD Seo Hoe-dong.
Apparently, it was going to be a mockumentary, and a script would be coming soon.
Looking at the production schedule they reported, it seemed possible to shoot as many as four episodes before mid-February, the generous deadline Jung Tae-jin had given us.
After dealing with the urgent work first, I was checking online reactions to 〈Deep-Rooted Girls〉 when someone suddenly threw open my office door.
"Do Jun-hyeok. We need to talk."
There was no one in this company who could call me by name alone.
Even former CEO Oh Soo always added -ssi after my name.
But I knew exactly who it was from the voice.
Kaiser.
No Ji-hye.
I quietly took the hwatu-themed soju glass sitting on my desk as decoration and placed it inside a drawer.
"Looks like you don't have any schedules today. What brings you here?"
No Ji-hye strode over and sat beside me.
She was holding some kind of paper.
