Pen and Paper Translations

Kim Seunghun hurried down the back stairs.

A black sedan.

He saw Go Jinhun in the driver’s seat and Gyeong Chanhyeon in the passenger seat.

He yanked open the rear door of the sedan and jumped in, and the hulking figures who had chased him came into view.

“Stop right there, you bastards!”

“Those sons of dogs. Get them!”

Without any sign of fear as the bruisers closed in, Go Jinhun smoothly pulled the car out of the rear lot and shot back onto the road at full speed.

“Wow, you drive really well.”

“He used to be Yeonji’s all-around manager. He drove a ton for two years. And those guys are only big. They have no guts.”

In contrast to his flashy driving, Go Jinhun gave an awkward smile.

Gyeong Chanhyeon, sitting beside him, grinned too, then looked back at Kim Seunghun with concern.

“Hyung, you said he hit you. Are you okay?”

“Huh…? How did you know that?”

“When I told Jinhun about you, he said he had turned someone over on the entertainment side. But when the mood went south, they contacted us right away. People say you can hear the truth even through the grapevine. We floored it because of that.”

“Ha ha… thanks…”

The way they looked did not match the awful thing that had just happened, and it made Seunghun smile without meaning to.

For him, a skilled director and the head of a brand-new agency had personally driven over.

At the thought that his relationship with these two could be something entirely different from what he had known, his heart pounded.

“But hyung. Have you decided?”

At Gyeong Chanhyeon’s question, Kim Seunghun nodded.

“Yeah. I’m going to do what you said.”

“You really thought it through, right?”

“I thought about it way too much.”

He looked out at the scenery passing by the window, then let a relaxed smile spread over his face.

---

“We lost him… sir.”

At his subordinate’s report, Hwang Jesun rose from his seat and slapped the man across the face.

The man who had been slapped toppled, then scrambled back up.

“Who puts food on your table?”

“You do, sir…”

“And you cannot catch one punk?”

“There was a car… waiting outside.”

“Then you should have blocked the car and dragged him back!”

Hwang Jesun slapped him again and ground his teeth.

“For now, all of you, get out. Ha…”

After he watched his subordinates leave the office, Hwang let out a long sigh.

His head started to ache.

He might officially sit in the CEO chair at Goodness Entertainment, but…

At the thought of reporting the situation to Baek Jincheol, the man who pulled every string from behind the scenes, a chill ran down Hwang’s back.

“Whew…”

He carefully pressed Baek Jincheol’s number in his phone.

“So, Jesun. The renewal with Kim Seunghun went fine, right?”

“Hyung, sir. The thing is…”

When Hwang dragged out his words, Baek sighed deeply.

“Just say it.”

“It did not go well.”

…

Baek said nothing.

But in that silence, Hwang could feel the weight of Baek’s anger.

“Come to the club right now. Come and explain exactly what happened.”

At that heavy command, Hwang froze solid.

“Not going to answer?”

Shocked back to himself by Baek’s sharp tone, Hwang answered in a rush.

“Y-yes! Sir. I will come at once.”

---

Baek Jincheol.

He had been indicted in The Film H embezzlement case, but thanks to his ties in the legal world and petitions from stars in the film industry, he had gotten out with a suspended sentence.

Even so, his power was not what it used to be.

“If you touch film again, I cannot keep you out of prison. Get out of film completely. You barely got that suspended sentence. Keep your head down for a while.”

So said the former prosecutor–turned–defense lawyer who had always covered for him.

But now there were warning signs squeaking in the entertainment business.

With the money he siphoned off just before his film venture went under, he had purchased a talent agency.

By luck, that agency had Kim Seunghun, and Seunghun’s contract still had more than three years to run.

He had planned to keep squeezing him dry but now came word that his golden goose had flown.

Kim Seunghun.

His film business had been wrecked because of Gyeong Chanhyeon, but ironically one of the actors had become a star thanks to that very film.

By sending him to events in Japan and night stages, he had wrung what he could, but now it seemed even that had slipped away, and Baek ground his teeth.

“Ha…”

Sitting in his club office, he kicked his feet up on the desk and lit a cigarette.

With the general atmosphere sour lately, Baek’s head was a tangle.

Now that idols were the trend, he was making easy money by pocketing the “training fees” from idol parents.

Stand a few kids who could kind of sing in a row and teach them singing, line up a few who could kind of dance and teach them choreography, and the tuition per head came out to over two hundred.

But thanks to that damned GO Entertainment, even that revenue had taken a hit.

They used “proven professionals” as a marketing hook and, at the same time, spread information that would tempt parents of trainees at other agencies.

How to verify whether someone was a real professional, exactly what they would teach you. The number of people asking those questions had gone up.

And if the answers were not satisfactory, more and more trainees got up and walked right out.

“Damn it…”

Baek ground his cigarette into the ashtray, then closed his eyes as if to meditate.

But before long, a knock on the door broke his concentration.

Knock, knock.

“Come in!”

The door opened and Hwang Jesun bowed at a right angle.

“I am sorry, sir!”

“Ha… tell me what happened.”

Hwang explained what had just taken place, and as he listened, Baek’s anger surged.

It all tied back to Gyeong Chanhyeon again.

The rumor that Gyeong had raised a second-year manager to CEO was all over.

“Whew…”

The real body behind GO Entertainment had to be Gyeong.

He probably had a figurehead like Hwang to front for him while he pulled the levers from behind.

“You let Kim Seunghun walk out after he came into your office?”

“The thing is…”

Baek picked up a baseball bat that lay beside him.

“Is this what I taught you?”

“I-I am sorry, sir!”

Whack!

When Baek brought the bat down across Hwang’s back, Hwang clenched his teeth and endured it.

Regardless, Baek kept swinging until some of the fury drained out.

After countless blows, Hwang’s legs gave, and he plopped to the floor.

Then, eyes already gone wild, Baek aimed the bat at his head.

Terrified, Hwang dropped to his knees, rubbed his hands together, and whimpered.

“I am sorry, sir! I will, somehow…”

“At what, somehow what?”

“First, I will crush that punk, Kim Seunghun. I will send the boys out and…”

“You idiot! Are you trying to send me to prison right now?”

Grabbing the bat again at that thoughtless reply, Baek snarled.

“Do you not get that I cannot be connected to anything anywhere right now?”

“Urk! Sir…”

Just as the merciless beating was about to begin again, Hwang blurted out in a panic.

“S-sir…! I will start calling media outlets right now. With some old photos from his past and a few of his friends turned, there will be no one who will take him in!”

“…”

It was something Hwang had thrown out in a rush to avoid a beating.

But on second thought, it did not sound half bad.

Goodness Entertainment still had a few profitable actors on the books.

If they spilled Seunghun’s shame and made the traitor pay a clear price, they could also carve a lasting example into the minds of those who remained.

If you betray Goodness Entertainment, you plunge into the abyss.

“Start making calls right now. Make sure no one else even thinks of getting out.”

“Yes, sir!”

---

GO Entertainment, CEO’s office.

Kim Seunghun still seemed dazed. He sat there without saying a word.

“Hyung, you are sure you are okay, right? You do not need to go to the hospital?”

At my question, Seunghun smiled and nodded.

“It was just one smack on the back of the head…”

“Good thing Jinhun had planted someone in there. If it were not for him, this could have been really bad.”

At my words, Seunghun exhaled and spoke.

“From here on it gets truly dangerous. You never know what those guys will do. He said it to my face. Was I okay with my surroundings getting wrecked…”

“You do not have to worry too much about that.”

Smiling, Go Jinhun eased Seunghun’s concern.

“The person we turned said he will report their every move.”

Jinhun was thorough.

So thorough it was almost startling, as if he had prepared precisely for this moment.

“Jinhun. The reason you are going this far, is it perhaps…”

“A kind of payback. Ha ha.”

They looked at each other and smiled, as if they shared an understanding.

“Payback…? What happened?”

“Goodness Entertainment. They tried to approach Yeonji with some kind of offer. The stench was strong, so I blocked the meetings any way I could.”

Thinking back seemed to irritate him; Jinhun’s face tightened a little as he went on.

“Each time I used a stopgap trick. But before long they started barging in one-sidedly. They even beat me.”

“What…?”

“I got beaten to a pulp that day. Like dust in the rain.”

“You should have reported it. You just stood there and took it?”

At my words, Jinhun gave a bitter smile.

“You know what happens if you report guys like that?”

“Huh…?”

“The remaining eggs hatch like cockroaches and come for revenge. If you report them to the police, they are the kind who come after you with knives.”

At that, Seunghun quietly nodded from the side.

“Right… those people are scary.”

I could not wrap my head around it.

I had heard that the entertainment world and gangs were often intertwined, but I had never imagined it was this serious.

“What kind of people are they…”

“Filth.”

With a bitter smile, Jinhun laid out, point by point, what Goodness Entertainment was.

As I listened, a name that was anything but unfamiliar reached my ear.

“Baek Jincheol is there?”

“Yeah. He keeps his own name out of sight and uses Hwang Jesun as a figurehead.”

“Unbelievable…”

I had been sure he was up to something somewhere.

But I had not dreamed the line would connect this directly.

I had suspected he was doing something dirty somewhere.

He was a guy who had made quite a name for himself in film and entertainment.

He had already been driven out of film, but to learn he was operating in entertainment under a borrowed name…

“Baek Jincheol. Can you nail him for sure?”

At my question, Jinhun showed an easy smile and held up a thick stack of documents.

“That punk Baek Jincheol had lots of ties to you too. So I did the homework in advance.”

He sorted the documents into several piles and handed them to me one by one.

“Assault, injury, property damage, intimidation, and if he moves the way our turned person said, we can even make it solicitation of murder.”

He had finished every preparation: which witnesses to use, how to wrap the net around him.

His meticulous readiness left my mouth hanging open.

“For the time being, it would be best to lie low a bit. We do not know how those guys will move.”

My admiration for Jinhun’s thoroughness lasted only a moment.

“Right. But we cannot only lie low.”

It was not enough to leave it all to Jinhun. It was time for me to move as well.

While Jinhun prepared to ensnare Baek Jincheol, what could I do?

I thought for a moment, and then a good scenario flashed through my mind.