IWDAR Chapter 3
by tsukkie𐙚Soohee sighed, completely dismissing Wooyoung’s excuses.
“Don’t even think about saying anything unnecessary to the President. If he finds out you’ve lost your mind, he’ll take advantage of the situation and try to control you even more. Do you understand?”
“But I don’t even know what this President looks like.”
“Oh, right. Where’s your phone?”
“My phone?”
There weren’t any of Wooyoung’s belongings at the hospital. He had jumped without his shoes, and his clothes were bloodstained from the impact of the fall, so they were all thrown away.
Soohee swallowed a groan, recalling Wooyoung’s situation.
She stared at Wooyoung, who was fascinated by a cute mug sold at the hospital cafe, as if it were the most intriguing thing in the world.
Something had been bothering her since she heard him say he was out of his mind.
Something had been bothering her ever since he’d been told he wasn’t in his right mind.
“So, you don’t remember why you jumped either?”
“Um. No, I don’t really know.”
Wooyoung, finally tearing his gaze away from the colorful, pretty things displayed in the glass case, smiled faintly.
“Maybe I just didn’t want to live anymore?”
“……”
Soohee involuntarily averted her gaze without realizing it.
Strangely, she had been feeling uncomfortable around the young man for a while now.
But no matter what, there were certainly things that needed to be clarified.
“I’m sorry, but no matter how difficult your situation is, there’s nothing I can do for you. I’m just a regular employee with a meager salary, and I just barely managed to get this job. I’ll be in big trouble if I get on the President’s bad side.”
“Don’t worry about me. I understand completely.”
Soohee wanted to scream at his innocent reply.
‘This doesn’t look like simple amnesia. Should I take him to a psychiatrist?’
But getting him professional help with her own money was out of the question; she was just an ordinary person living paycheck to paycheck, so she couldn’t afford to pay his hospital bills.
“So, what are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. The doctor said it’s a common aftereffect of the accident, so maybe it would be better to just wait?”
Although he knew he had no memories to return to, Wooyoung made a vague excuse, feeling sorry for Soo-hee, who had seemed troubled for a while now.
Aside from the joy of not having parents, Wooyoung also felt lost about what to do next, but what could he do? There was no immediate answer.
“……”
To Chae Soohee, it just looked like vague resignation.
‘How much did he hate it to jump from a building and erase his memories?’
How terrible and unbearable must it have been?
“haah……”
Just as Soohee let out a boiling sigh, her phone rang.
“Oh, shit.”
Soohee instinctively knew who the caller was.
The kind of person who would contact her during work hours was extremely limited.
[President Park Hyun-jong]
“……”
After staring at the three vicious syllables of the name for a while, Soo-hee, for the first time, declined the call without answering.
Then she opened an internet browser, searched for the expensive three syllables of the name, and handed it to Wooyoung.
‘I’m only doing this because I’m afraid that jerk will cause a huge problem if his memory returns and he goes ballistic.’
She definitely wasn’t helping him out of sympathy. She even convinced herself of that.
Mo Tae-uk | Entrepreneur
Affiliation: ON Entertainment (CEO)
“This person is…”
The phone screen displayed a man’s information. There was no picture, so the first thing that caught Wooyoung’s eye was the man’s affiliation.
Wooyoung’s eyes widened.
ON Entertainment was a company Wooyoung was familiar with. In reality, not many students majoring in vocal music, opera, or jazz actually made a living through traditional classical music.
Classical music was an expensive genre, and very few saw the light of day compared to the investment, and the prospects themselves weren’t that good.
Since passion for music alone had its limits,there were many cases where people abandoned their long-practiced singing style and explored new genres or auditioned for agencies.
Among them, ON Entertainment was a dream agency for undergraduates. It was a major company that expanded its label by recruiting idols, actors, models, musical actors, and even famous opera singers, and expanding its activities globally.
“ON Entertainment is here too?”
“Yes. He’s here too.”
Soohee thought she would never get used to Wooyoung’s strange way of speaking.
Wooyoung, fiddling with the phone, asked,
“Do you mean I should go see this CEO?”
“What? Even if you go to the ON Entertainment building, you’ll hardly get a glimpse of a single thread of Mo Tae-uk’s clothes. That man is incredibly busy.”
“Then, this is…”
“Memorize his name properly. He’ll be someone you’ll need.”
Wooyoung stared blankly at the phone screen in his small hand.
‘Mo Tae-uk.’
It wasn’t a particularly common name, but it felt strangely familiar as it rolled on the tip of his tongue.
“Do you remember how there isn’t a single decent large-scale concert hall in our country?”
Again, Wooyoung hadn’t lost his memory. But he gave up on explaining further and simply shrugged.
“Yes, I remember.”
Was there anyone involved in music in Korea who didn’t know about the state of concert halls?
There were small and medium-sized concert halls that were fairly well-equipped, but there were practically no ‘professional’ concert halls that could accommodate more than that number of larger audience members.
“ON Entertainment—that is, CEO Mo Tae-uk, has finally completed a concert hall he invested a fortune in, and the internet is buzzing about it. A completion ceremony is scheduled to be held soon, and even if he’s as busy as they say, he’s unlikely to skip the ceremony for something he invested in himself.”
“When is the ceremony?”
“Next weekend.”
“Aha. I’m supposed to meet him there?”
“Yes, although I’m not sure if you’ll even get to brush shoulders with him, given the infamous rumors surrounding him…”
The fact that there wasn’t a single picture of him easily searchable on the internet, even though he was the CEO of a major agency in this day and age… Just that alone indirectly showed the power of this crazy man, both inside and outside the industry. An ordinary person like herself would probably never get to meet him in her lifetime.
However, whether it was fortunate or unfortunate for Wooyoung now, President Park Hyun-jong was a tenacious man.
“The president will do whatever it takes to be hovering around CEO Mo Tae-uk no matter what.”
Because he had to sell Han Wooyoung. It was a dirty story to discuss in front of the person involved, so Soohee deliberately averted her gaze.
“When the two of you are left alone, ask him for help.”
“Ask Him for help out of the blue?”
Wooyoung tilted his head with a puzzled expression.
“But even if I ask for help there…”
“Right, he’s not a philanthropist. Do you think he’ll suddenly feel sympathy for a guy with broken bones just because he asks for help?”
Soohee leaned close to Wooyoung with a serious face, as if she were about to share a very confidential secret.
“I can’t guarantee how this great CEO Mo Tae-uk will react, but you have to do something in this situation, don’t you?”
Her tone suggested she knew how to persuade ‘that’ CEO Mo. But as Wooyoung showed no particular reaction, Soohee, seemingly frustrated, started hitting her own chest.
“Hey! You messed up your head because you hated being under President Park, but are you really going to pretend nothing happened and just stubbornly endure it?”
Wooyoung was puzzled.
He’d felt it for a while now, but Chae Soohee seemed quite concerned about this situation.
‘Whether I stubbornly endure it or not, what does it have to do with you?‘
He was bewildered by the fundamental question and the emotions he couldn’t grasp, but he couldn’t speak carelessly because Soohee was so serious.
For some reason, this woman named Chae Soohee wanted to help him.
‘I’m still not sure what benefits she gets from it, though.’
Wooyoung decided to play along for now.
Because the sight of Soohee striving to do something for him made his heart flutter.
“Then what should I do?”
“…If you get in there and meet CEO Mo, appeal to him as much as you can.”
The real reason why President Park Hyun-jong clung to Han Wooyoung, even resorting to unfair practices.
“That you were born in the Year of the Rabbit.”
｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ
The man, pausing his pen for a moment, looked up at the sky where dark clouds were gathering rapidly.
Having returned to his office chair after a long period of fieldwork, the man, back in the CEO’s office after a long time, had spent the entire day just processing the piled-up approval documents. When he came to his senses and saw that darkness had already fallen outside.
The man slowly moved his stiff shoulders, stretching his muscles. The black shirt that neatly fitted his thick torso perfectly was now nicely wrinkled, revealing his impressive physique. Just as he looked away from the piled-up documents and took off his rimless glasses, which he wore while working,
Tap, tap—
A sound came from behind him.
From beyond the very glass window where he had been looking at the sky just a moment ago.
Tap, tap—
“CEO Mo.”
Mo Tae-uk. ON Entertainment, headed by the CEO of the nation’s top agency, was a huge, glamorous building nearly 20 stories tall, located in the heart of Seoul.
His office, where he spent most of his day, was on the top floor of the 20-story building, and beyond his desk, the central area of Seoul was clearly visible through a large glass window instead of a wall.
Tap, tap—
“CEO Mo.”
So,
“It’s suddenly raining…”
It meant that it wasn’t a situation where someone could be hanging onto the window.
“Could you please open the door? Please, please.”
…And desperately begging.