Jiheon arrived at work ten minutes before nine, as usual. As soon as he had sat down and put down his laptop bag, Nam Seungmyung, the assistant manager who sat next to him, asked.
“Mr. Jung, did you hear the news? About Gwon Jaekyung, I mean.”
Jiheon had seen Jaekyung in his dream. The morning news had mentioned Jaekyung, and even his one-night stand had brought him up. And now, someone at work was talking about him too. Jiheon felt trapped. Like he was the main character in a video game centered around Jaekyung. If someone made a video game like that, it would probably be a hit. It was a rather random thought. He turned on his desktop PC.
“The dating rumor? They seem to be denying it,” Jiheon said, purposefully sounding uninterested.
Seungmyung, however, drummed the desk with growing excitement.
“No, I wasn’t talking about that. The agencies are all fired up, trying to get Jaekyung to sign on with them. Our agency’s about to throw their hat in the ring, too. The CEO said something about contacting him, and Mr. Ko talked big, saying he knew someone who knew Jaekyung and would arrange a meeting.”
It was no wonder Seungmyung was practically banging on the desk with excitement. If this were true, this was news far bigger than the dating rumors, at least to the employees of this company.
“But I thought Jaekyung already had a contract with Kavva?”
“No. It hasn’t been finalized yet.”
Seungmyung lowered his voice and continued.
“Word is, Kavva said yes to everything he asked for—at first. But when it came time to draft the contract, they tried to change the terms. You know how they are.”
I sure do. That was their MO. They lured athletes in with massive contract offers and other extra perks, only to pull a fast one right before signing. Even when they knew they’d been lied to, the athletes would still hesitate. They would have already experienced Kavva’s little tricks over the past few days—like attentive managers, viral buzz, and the illusion of prestige. In the end, they would fall for Kavva’s claim that no other agency could match the treatment they offered. In many cases, though the initial signing bonus was not as high as Kavva’s, the other agencies usually paid out a higher proportion of the revenue to the athletes, making them a much better choice in the long run.
But even Kavva wouldn’t dare try that with Jaekyung.
“Jaekyung will sign with Kavva anyway. Everyone who talks to them ends up choosing them.”
“Hmm... You think so?”
“Yes,” Jiheon said with certainty. Even if Jaekyung didn’t end up going with Kavva, it wouldn’t be Jiheon’s agency. Plenty of agencies would take out loans to get Jaekyung to sign. Jiheon’s agency couldn’t even afford to do that. Jiheon did not say these things out loud, however. Seungmyung probably knew even better than Jiheon did.
“Well, just because he turns down Kavva doesn’t mean he’ll pick a new agency like ours,” Seungmyung said, smacking his lips.
Jiheon had expected it. While the security program loaded on his desktop, Jiheon opened his browser and scanned his inbox.
“Well, no harm in trying. It’s not like there are any requirements. But is it really necessary for the CEO to get personally involved?” he said offhandedly.
Jiheon actually doubted if an in-person meeting with Jaekyung was even possible.
The behind-the-scenes race to sign Jaekyung had been going on for three years. Right after his Olympic gold, the advertisement offers poured in, and the big agencies, both local and international, scrambled to get their hands on the goldmine that was Jaekyung. But none of them even managed to get in touch.
According to rumor, Jaekyung had turned them down himself, saying he didn’t need them. Apparently, that caused quite a bit of trouble for the people at Korea Aquatics. The various agency reps, frustrated by their wasted efforts, said all sorts of things about the young brat, but Jaekyung didn’t seem to care.
As far as Jiheon knew, people who knew Jaekyung had repeatedly told him not to miss this opportunity, and at the very least, to shoot an ad if he wasn’t going to sign with an agency, but he ignored them all. Instead, he had headed back to Australia right away and focused solely on his training. Unless it was a quick interview done on-site right after an event, or during an official team press conference, he didn’t even so much as spare a glance for anyone holding a camera. And yet Jaekyung had decided, after three years had passed, to finally sign a contract with an agency.
According to the first article that reported the news, Jaekyung had arrived early in Korea for the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships scheduled for early August in Incheon. Most athletes adjusted their schedules so they would arrive on site around a week before an event. Jaekyung had done the same until now, but this time he’d arrived nearly two months early. Most people had guessed that he’d hurried back a little earlier than usual because the event was being held in his home country, but the article claimed the real reason was a potential contract with a well-known Korean agency.
Soon after, another article revealed that the agency in question was none other than Kavva. Kavva had been trying to recruit Jaekyung for the past three years, so no one was surprised. The real surprise was that Kavva themselves admitted to contacting Jaekyung, but said it was too early to talk about a contract.
The news sent ripples through the industry. The bottom line was that there was no contract yet—but what truly mattered was that Jaekyung was finally showing interest. It seemed that various agencies had all taken it upon themselves to contact him as well, and tried to sign him, even if it meant taking out a loan. But to Jiheon, it seemed as pointless as praying to win the lottery. Jaekyung had begun his career as a national athlete when he was young, and all matters pertaining to contracts had been handled by his mother. Because he had so little interest in such things, he continued to let his mother deal with the relevant work even after he became an adult. As far as Jiheon knew—just as all the industry rumors indicated—his mother was logical, no-nonsense, and street-smart. She hated to waste time, and it was clear that she would have picked out from the get-go an agency that could offer the best terms and begun negotiations with them. And if that agency happened to be Kavva, the other ones realistically had no hope. No talks would even be possible unless someone could offer better conditions than Kavva, and that was simply impossible.
Kavva, which stood for K-Associates-something—a name nobody seemed to remember precisely—was actually not a Korean company. It was more of a Korean branch of a famous global corporation, and its parent company was a mega sports agency based in the US.
Of course, the industry was different in Korea than in the US, and because agencies hadn’t even really been established in the country in the beginning, Kavva had probably encountered considerable trial and error when they first got started here. In the end, however, it all came down to the large signing bonus, along with the various conveniences the agency offered. In that regard, Kavva, with its massive capital, was hard to beat. Jaekyung had probably known this and had begun negotiations, assuming Kavva would be their choice.
ProEdge, in comparison... Not only was it less than five years old, but the fact that it was Mr. Ko, of all people, who had taken it upon himself to arrange a meeting was not exactly promising.
Ko was an old man who, on the sole merit of having once served as a board executive at a large company, had taken up a position at his nephew’s agency, putting on airs while serving no real function. According to him—and only him—he was the lifeblood of the company, the one who kept everything running. But he knew next to nothing about how sports agencies worked and had very little interest in that regard.
Jiheon guessed that the old man had grown a little edgy after doing nothing for the past four years and spending his nephew’s money, if he’d promised to arrange a meeting. Who exactly did he know that could justify such a claim? Perhaps he would manage to nab the number, if he was lucky, but there would be no meeting.
“Just forget what he said. It makes no sense at all that Mr. Ko has promised what he has. I doubt the CEO expects much from him at all,” Jiheon said.
“I suppose,” Seungmyung said, smacking his lips again. He slowly turned his chair away. Then the phone on Jiheon’s desk rang. The blinking red light indicated it was an internal line.
“Assistant Manager Jung Jiheon from the Promotion Team,” he said.
It was Mr. Ko on the line, almost shouting at him.
“Mr. Jung, please come to my office immediately. As soon as you hang up. Hurry.”
The man hung up without waiting for Jiheon to answer.
Jiheon froze with the receiver still pressed to his ear. Mr. Ko had never called him directly ever since he had joined the company. And now that it had finally happened, it couldn’t have been a worse sign. In fact, Jiheon was loath to put down the receiver in his hand at all.