“Hey, hold on. You’re willing to do ads, right, Jaekyung? I mean, Mr. Gwon.”
Jiheon caught himself mid-sentence, blurting out Jaekyung’s name while doing the math in his head.
“Just try to be consistent, all right? It’s a little distracting.”
“All right, Jaekyung. Are you going to do ads?” Jiheon said, giving up on the pointless formality.
Jaekyung stared at him like he couldn’t believe the question.
“Of course. That’s the whole point of having an agency, right?”
But his expression said otherwise—he clearly hated the idea. He wouldn’t be doing this for himself. Knowing him, he’d probably agreed to a few just because his mother had begged him. Maybe even told him it was her life’s wish.
“How many?” Jiheon asked.
“Not that many.”
“Okay. So how many?”
“Maybe three.”
Of course.
Just what Jiheon had expected. He let out a laugh, and Jaekyung gave him a puzzled look.
“Look here, Jaekyung.”
Jiheon tapped on the table with his finger, speaking far more gently than necessary.
“Even if we stick to the industry standard, at your level, that’s at least a billion won. We can’t go lower than that. Sure, it varies by sport, but we can’t slash the value of the top athlete in his field, someone ranked #1 in the world. That would send shockwaves through the entire market. Other athletes would be affected. It would set a dangerous precedent that bad actors could take advantage of.”
Jiheon spoke as if he were talking to a child. It was pointless, of course. Jaekyung didn’t even respond. He just stared at Jiheon like he was thinking, And why should I even care?
Jiheon pretended not to notice and kept going.
“Now, let’s say we offer you a billion as a signing bonus. The moment the contract is signed, we’ll begin covering the costs of your training, travel, and other activities. Later on, you will either reimburse us for those expenses, or we’ll take a percentage of your prize money—based on terms we agree on in advance. But in swimming, even the biggest events don’t offer much in terms of prize money. And if you choose to retire after the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, that means we won’t see any prize earnings from you at all. So the question is: how do we recoup the signing bonus?”
Jaekyung still didn’t say a word. No surprise there. Jiheon answered his own question.
“Ad revenue. Every time you shoot a commercial, we take a commission from what you’re paid. For league athletes, we would arrange a contract with a club, and take a cut from that. But since you’re not a league—”
“All right. I will do more than three,” Jaekyung said, cutting him off.
“What... Really?”
Jiheon blinked in disbelief. He had explained all of that, but he didn’t really expect Jaekyung to actually take it in. What did he just say? Is this the same Jaekyung that I know?
“What...? How many more?”
Don’t tell me you’re going to say three, because that’s double. Jiheon waited with bated breath, eyes fixed on Jaekyung across the table.
“I’ll do as many as you like.”
Another unbelievable line from Jaekyung.
“As many as we’d like you to?”
“Yes.”
“Even if we say ten? Or even twenty? You’ll do all of them?”
“That’s right,” Jaekyung said, clearly irritated.
He pushed his hair back from his forehead, then he added.
“You think there will be that many offers in the first place?”
It was an absurd question, and it made Jiheon chuckle to himself. He has no idea how popular he is, does he?
It was just like Jaekyung. But the idea of working with someone like him already felt exhausting.
“I’m telling you, you’ll land at least twelve ad campaigns with that gesture alone,” Jiheon said.
“What gesture?”
“That thing you do with your hair. When you push it back. You just did it.”
Did I? he seemed to think. Then he got up.
“I guess it’s done, then. As for the other conditions, just make them identical to the ones offered to other athletes. Send me the contract by tomorrow.”
“Hey, a contract can’t be written overnight! You need to give us at least three days—no, two.”
“Fine. You have forty-eight hours. If you’re late, I’ll assume you’re not interested and go looking elsewhere.”
Jiheon had always known him to be someone who never really cared about others, but this was cold—even for him. Without waiting for a response, Jaekyung went on.
“We need to get it over with and make it public. Otherwise, Kavva will never get off my back.”
Jaekyung said it as if he knew exactly what Jiheon was thinking. It wasn’t surprising, since Jiheon had sighed out loud. But even so, he hadn’t expected Jaekyung to actually explain.
Who knew he had that in him?
Jiheon watched him with something close to wonder. Jaekyung had surprised him more than once today.
Well, ten years ago, he barely even said hello, and we saw each other all the time back then. The conversation he had had with Jaekyung today was deeper and more varied than everything they had said to each other over the course of an entire year back then. It was only natural that Jiheon was leaning new things about him.
“All right. I understand you’re in a hurry. We’ll get things ready as fast as we can.”
Speaking of which, this wasn’t the time to be sitting around. Jiheon jumped to his feet.