She said nothing for a while after that. Then, a quiet sigh slipped from her lips again.
“I suppose I’d have nothing to say if people accused me of trying to use my son to make money. But frankly, I want him to do lots of ads. Swimming isn’t as popular as baseball or soccer. It’s not like he can sign a yearly salary contract or anything. The only real money comes from championships and other events, and even those prize pools aren’t that big. At least in the US or Australia, there is a wider variety of events. But here? Not so much. Sure, there’s a pension for Olympic medals, but if you do the math over a lifetime, it’s not much. He trained like his life depended on it from such a young age. I just want him to be able to retire comfortably. Isn’t that what any parent would want?”
“Of course,” Jiheon said, nodding.
“I wanted the contract with Kavva because their offer was better than anything else on the table. There was just no comparison,” Mrs. Shim said, still sounding disappointed.
“But they insisted he be at next year’s Olympics. And Jaekyung had already decided against that.”
“Uh, ma’am... I was actually going to ask you about that,” Jiheon said cautiously. “Why is he not interested in the Olympics?”
“It’s not that he’s not interested in the Olympics, per se. He just doesn’t want to swim anymore. He wants this year to be his last,” she said, correcting him.
“Why? Has he been having a health issue, or—”
“It’s nothing like that. He just doesn’t want it anymore. From the start, his goal was to win four events in a single year. Once he does that this year, he’s done.”
That made it sound like he would have kept swimming through next year if he didn’t manage to pull it off this year.
“Nobody can talk him out of something once he’s made up his mind. Kavva wanted me to try, but if he were the type to listen, I would have talked him out of it already. He’s already done everything I could reasonably ask for by signing with an agency and agreeing to do ads. I can’t ask him to go to the Olympics on top of that.”
She says that, but I’d bet someone like her probably told him to go at least twenty times already. And Jaekyung had probably just ignored her.
“That’s when I knew it wouldn’t work out with Kavva. Both sides were too stubborn about what they wanted. We had to look elsewhere. And to be honest with you, ProEdge wasn’t even on my radar. Let me level with you. The signing bonus was just too small.”
“I see...” Jiheon said, a little sheepishly.
He had assumed the offer had been above average, but apparently it still hadn’t been good enough. Exactly how much were the other agencies offering?
It really drove home just how badly the industry wanted Jaekyung—and how much they were willing to put on the line to get him. And yet ProEdge, who had tossed out a half-hearted bid, was the one walking away with the contract. If the terms ever became public, there would be a real uproar.
“I was a bit shocked when Jaekyung told me earlier. But on second thought, this doesn’t seem so bad. I heard Jaekyung agreed to do lots of ads,” Mrs. Shim said, lifting her cup again.
“Oh. Yes,” Jiheon replied quickly, then hesitated.
“But how should I put it? He didn’t seem too happy about it. Apparently, he was only thinking of doing three at first,” Jiheon said.
“He only agreed to do three because I begged him,” she remarked, then took a sip of her black tea. This time, she kept the cup in her hands as she continued.
“So I figured he meant maybe one or two more than that, you know? After he told me he’d decided to go ahead with the contract and said he’d do more ads. But then I found out he said he’d do as many as he was requested. That was a shocker. I have no idea how you got him to say that.”
“Well, we didn’t do anything special,” Jiheon replied, letting out a laugh to cover how flustered he felt.
“He just... understood where we were coming from.”
“That’s what intrigues me. He wouldn’t even pretend to listen to the people at Kavva. And they must have brought it up twenty times, easily.”
Jiheon thought back to the Kavva rep he had overheard again. The man had sounded completely exasperated. For the first time, Jiheon felt a little bad for him.
“In any case, if it’s true, this is probably for the better. Instead of taking a signing bonus that doesn’t amount to much and doing only three ads, we might as well skip the bonus entirely and go for more ads. That seems like the smarter choice.”
Mrs. Shim no longer seemed interested in hiding her intentions anymore—or sugarcoating them. It wasn’t surprising. She’d already made it clear she was willing to be seen as a money-hungry mother if that’s what it took. She clearly hoped he’d end up doing at least one more ad than he’d originally agreed to.
Her behavior aligned with the agency’s interests. It made their job easier when someone could be so clear about their goals. It was far harder to work with athletes who were actually after money but refused to admit to it, only to complain about every decision the agency made later on. It was always better when people were upfront from the start.
“Jaekyung wants the deal to be finalized as soon as possible. And I feel the same way. You said you would bring the contract on Friday, right? If there are any corrections, the signing will get pushed back to next week. So once you’ve got the draft ready, just email it to me. We’ll go over it in advance and make any necessary changes. Then you can bring the original copy on Friday, and we’ll sign it on the spot.”
Mrs. Shim, it seemed, was someone who pursued her goals with remarkable decisiveness. Writing up the first draft of a contract was never the hard part. It was the negotiating that followed—the back-and-forth with the athlete, the endless revisions. That part could take months, even a year or more.
That was why Jiheon had only aimed to get the draft into Jaekyung’s hands within forty-eight hours. He hadn’t expected the contract to actually be signed by then. But now, with Mrs. Shim’s involvement, it looked like the signing might actually happen on Friday, without delay.
“Thank you. I know you are putting a lot of trust in us. We’ll do our best to deliver satisfactory results. And we’d truly appreciate your continued support,” Jiheon said sincerely.