GGAS 32

Kim Abang, Seo Taerim, and Ha Bomi received a group text from Kim Gwanggong. The content was as follows.

Please gather in the living room by 10 a.m. 08:32 a.m.

For the first time in his life, Kim Abang received a group text sent by Kim Gwanggong. Unable to hold back his excitement, he bounced around and had already been sitting in the living room for thirty minutes. Meanwhile, Seo Taerim was eating breakfast in the kitchen as soon as he woke up when he received the text. He looked at it with puzzlement, dragged his slippers to his own living room, stood there dumbfounded for a long time, and only after receiving a call from Kim Abang did he hurry to put on clothes and head to Kim Abang’s place.

“Huh, Taerim-ssi! Your hair looks totally like a magpie’s nest!”

As soon as Kim Abang opened the front gate and saw Seo Taerim, he spoke in surprise.

“Ah….”

Seo Taerim, flustered, touched his hair.

“Sorry. I thought I combed it…”

“Ayy, no need to be sorry~. This actually worked out perfectly! I happen to have exactly what you need, Taerim-ssi. Can you lower your head?”

“Ah, my hair is a bit wavy so it won’t comb easily….”

Seo Taerim spoke awkwardly as he slightly lowered his head. Instead of the familiar feeling of his hair being tidied, he felt something plop onto it.

“…..?”

When Seo Taerim tried to touch what had been placed on his head, Kim Abang suddenly held up a small mirror in front of his face.

“Tada~ magpie’s nest complete~”

Kim Abang said brightly. Seo Taerim stared at the magpie-shaped cotton doll perched on top of his head in the mirror and was at a loss for words.

“Ayu~ the size is perfect too!”

Kim Abang tied the strings connected to both sides of the doll into a pretty ribbon under Seo Taerim’s chin as he spoke.

“..Kim Abang-ssi, what on earth is this?”

Seo Taerim asked blankly, with a magpie doll on his head and a big ribbon under his chin.

“Is it comfortable?”

“It’s cotton… so it does feel soft, but….”

As soon as Seo Taerim spoke, Kim Abang clapped his hands in delight.

“I’m so happy that Kkakka’s housing problem is finally solved! Thank you, Taerim-ssi. My family all love combing so much that listings hardly ever come out~”

These words reached Seo Taerim’s ears like this.

‘[Breaking News] Shocked by Kkakka’s homelessness, Kim Abang…, said to have been abstaining from food and drink all this time…’

Seo Taerim’s heart dropped. He hurriedly tightened and secured the ribbon he had been secretly trying to loosen without Kim Abang noticing.

“Then shall we go in? Gonggong has been waiting for you so much, Taerim-ssi~.”

Kim Abang excitedly grabbed and pulled Seo Taerim’s hand as he spoke. Seo Taerim, afraid the magpie doll might fall off his head, held it with one hand and followed behind Kim Abang with an awkward gait.

And with some effort, he managed to cross the garden and even change from shoes to slippers at the entrance without dropping Kkakka.

When they entered the living room, Kim Gwanggong and Ha Bomi were already sitting on the sofa. After exchanging a light greeting with his former secretary Ha Bomi, he sat down on the sofa.

“Then since everyone seems to be here, let’s begin the talk. Though… it does look like someone has brought along an uninvited friend.”

Kim Gwanggong glanced at the doll on top of Seo Taerim’s head as he spoke.

“Not a friend, it’s not a friend…”

Seo Taerim tried to explain himself reflexively. But at that moment, he accidentally looked into Kim Abang’s sparkling eyes.

“It’s my family. We share joys and sorrows together.”

“I see.”

Kim Gwanggong replied half-heartedly and placed a tablet on the wide table.

“Here is today’s agenda.”

What Kim Gwanggong showed was an internet article. The title was, ‘Seo Taerim and Kim Abang, is this okay as it is?’

“Is, is it not okay?”

Seo Taerim, flustered, unconsciously touched Kkakka on top of his head as he asked. Kim Gwanggong nodded as if it were obvious.

“The situation is serious. The articles this morning were the first time Kim Abang’s real name appeared.”

“Ah, that part….”

Seo Taerim felt a strange sense of relief, and Kim Gwanggong raised his eyebrows.

“Is there another problem?”

“…No.”

“Then let’s continue. As I said before, until now, although Kim Abang is not some devastating beauty, every media outlet avoided using his name and instead called him ‘a handsome man.’ We suspect my mother already tried once to silence them with money and status. But when yesterday’s press conference was canceled, the reporters rebelled together and exposed all of Kim Abang’s personal details, so my mother’s money has basically gone up in smoke.”

“Correct~!”

Chairwoman Kim, who was carrying water back to her room, shot a thumbs-up toward Kim Gwanggong as she passed by energetically. Kim Gwanggong almost got distracted by Chairwoman Kim’s appearance, but he continued speaking without turning around.

“…To sum it up, all of Kim Abang’s personal information has been completely exposed. Even if the team assigned to him, said to be on a reward vacation in Hawaii, comes back, they can’t handle this. Therefore, since it’s ruined anyway, our plan is to ‘at least make a lot of money.’”

“Money?”

Kim Abang asked with puzzlement.

“We’ll use the attention focused on you and CEO Seo to do noise marketing.”

As Kim Gwanggong answered calmly, everyone present except Kim Abang and Seo Taerim murmured among themselves. How could they use love to make money! Shocked, they soon poked their former boss Seo Taerim in the side.

“Ugh… does Hau Group really need to make money with such methods?”

Seo Taerim, holding his side, raised his hand and asked.

“Good question.”

Kim Gwanggong raised his eyebrows and swiped the tablet screen to the right.

“Abang-Garde Sales Report”

“Hut….”

“Ah….”

Ha Bomi and Seo Taerim, shocked by the graph scraping along the ground, turned to look at Kim Abang.

“Business hasn’t been going so well these days….”

Kim Abang said gloomily.

“As you can see, the one who needs money is not Hau Group but Abang-Garde.”

With that, Kim Gwanggong spread out across the table the materials he had pried out of Kim Abang early in the morning. Seo Taerim picked one up.

“What is this?”

He asked as he looked at a photo of something small and colorful.

“Ah, that’s one of our new products at the shop! Artist Heehee’s work!”

Kim Abang, regaining energy, spoke excitedly.

“It’s pretty. Is it a bag? Or a flowerpot?”

“A chamber pot!”

“…….”

“Ah, do you not know what a chamber pot is? It’s, back in the old days, for the toilet….”

“I know, chamber pot.”

Seo Taerim hurriedly cut off Kim Abang’s words.

“You know?”

“Of course. And so, this is….”

“Yes, yes.”

“…So it really is the chamber pot I know.”

“Yes. And also….”

Kim Abang leaned toward Seo Taerim.

“You can even carry it around like a handbag…!”

Kim Abang whispered cheerfully.

“…I see.”

Seo Taerim forced himself to calmly look again at the photo.

‘Do select shops these days… sell chamber pots too?’

“Do you like it? Should I give you one? I can even engrave your initials on it, Taerim-ssi~.”

Kim Abang spoke brightly. Seo Taerim answered with a faint smile and then looked at Kim Gwanggong, asking for help. Kim Gwanggong raised his eyebrows.

“Surprisingly enough, that chamber pot is not the cause of Abang-Garde’s sales decline.”

“…You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“I don’t particularly want to joke with you, CEO Seo. And in fact, strictly speaking, that’s a bestseller. It’s the item that sells the most.”

“……? Then what is Abang-Garde’s problem?”

Seo Taerim, genuinely curious, asked.

“This.”

Kim Gwanggong opened Stargram on the tablet and showed the Abang-Garde account. Seo Taerim hesitated a little, then tapped one of the recent posts that included the chamber pot photo he had just seen. Then he saw a long explanation written under the prettily taken photo.

“Wow….”

Seo Taerim read the post carefully for a while and then let out an exclamation. Kim Abang had written the post really well. There were no typos or awkward sentences, and the content was logically organized. He didn’t use unnecessarily difficult words, but he also didn’t use slang or internet memes.

Without a doubt, since he had first learned to read Korean, Seo Taerim had never read another text about the history of chamber pots that was this deep and informative. And it seemed this impression was not only his, as the comments under the post were full of elementary school students saying things like, “I’ll use this for my school homework^^ Thank you!”

“…Kim Abang-ssi, what is the purpose of this text? An encyclopedia? Surely it isn’t a product advertisement, right?”

Seo Taerim pointed at the post, which did not contain a single word of information about Abang-Garde’s new chamber pot, and asked.

“That’s right, it’s an advertisement post!”

Kim Abang said with a bright smile, and Seo Taerim returned it with a handsome smile. Ha Bomi, who had been Seo Taerim’s former secretary, thought to himself that Seo Taerim was holding back words like, ‘It is an advertisement post indeed. Kim Abang-ssi promoted every chamber pot except his own chamber pot. You even wrote about chamber pots that rotted away and disappeared centuries ago and remained only in historical records. That’s a promotion, alright.’

Seo Taerim turned his head and looked at Kim Gwanggong.

“Now I understand what Abang-Garde’s problem is. Then what is the new direction for promotion? How exactly will you do noise marketing?”

Seo Taerim asked. Kim Gwanggong swiped the tablet sideways and showed the project plan.

“We’re going to film a couple’s daily vlog set against the background of Abang-Garde. Kim Abang will work, and CEO Seo will occasionally help him. The products will be naturally exposed, so it will be quite effective as promotion. Of course, if you only date there every time, it’ll look like a contrived product placement, so we’ll mix in a few other things as well.”

“Oh… that sounds good.”

Ha Bomi spoke.

“I like it t….”

Kim Abang raised his hand high and spoke cheerfully, then stopped when he looked at Seo Taerim.

“……?”

Seo Taerim, who had been going over the project plan, felt the gaze on him and lifted his head. Then he saw Kim Abang tilting his head right, then left, looking at him as if he was seeing something unclear.

“So then….”

Kim Abang pursed his lips into a round shape and furrowed his brow.

“Hmmmmm….”

He squinted his eyes, leaned his head forward, then pulled it back again observing Seo Taerim more closely. Even then, as if something still wasn’t resolved, he tilted his head once more, wrinkled the bridge of his nose, and slightly scrunched his face.

“I don’t like it. On hold!”

Kim Abang shook his head side to side and declared.

‘….?’

Seo Taerim was flustered. Right now, Kim Abang looked exactly like someone who had found something about Seo Taerim unsatisfactory and changed his stance from agreeing to putting it on hold.

“On hold? Why? Is there a problem with my plan?”

Kim Gwanggong asked in puzzlement.

“Hm? No. There’s no way your plan has a problem.”

“Then why?”

Kim Gwanggong asked.

“I just want to think it over slowly. Didn’t you say that too? Break even a stone bridge before crossing it?” ¹

“Oh… that’s a cool saying.”

Ha Bomi nodded, then suddenly stood up from her seat.

“I’ll also put it on hold. We have to break the stone bridge before we cross it.”

Ha Bomi gave a reliable, bright smile like an insurance commercial model and gave a thumbs up.

What is all this breaking supposed to mean?

Kim Gwanggong felt wronged.

“Didn’t you say earlier that it was fine?”

When Kim Gwanggong asked her, Ha Bomi scratched her cheek and lowered her head slightly.

“But Director, it’s true you’re a bit strange today. Normally, aren’t you the kind of person who would bring option 2, then option 3, option 4, option 5, and option 6, and make it your hobby to overwhelm me? Why is there only one plan prepared today? It makes subordinates uneasy when they’d normally jump into fire pits just because you’re there.”

Ha Bomi whispered, intentionally not raising her voice, out of consideration for Kim Gwanggong’s face.

“That’s….”

Kim Gwanggong bit his lip, unable to find a reply. What Ha Bomi said was true. After having that nightmare, he had grown impatient and had not prepared as thoroughly as usual.

‘Ha….’

Kim Gwanggong thought for a moment, then in the end packed up the tablet and stood.

“Since two have put it on hold anyway, even if I and CEO Seo vote yes, it’ll just be a tie at 2:2. Let’s adjourn for now and meet again in three days.”

“Yes, thank you for your work! Then I’ll go first since the Chairwoman is calling me~”

Ha Bomi waved her phone.

“I’ll also use this time on hold to think about whether there might be a better solution.”

Kim Gwanggong nodded as he spoke.

“Alright. I’ll be going too~”

Kim Abang smiled wide, picked up his clothes and coat, and stood. Seo Taerim, unable even to cast a vote, was caught off guard watching the meeting dissolve at high speed. He hurriedly stood to follow Kim Abang.

“Kim Abang-ssi! Wait a moment.”

“Yes?”

“Where are you going?”

Seo Taerim asked as he rummaged in his coat pocket for his car keys.

“Hm? Why?”

Kim Abang stared blankly at him as if he had just heard something completely absurd.

“I need to stop by the hotel too, so if we’re going the same way, what do you think about going together?”

Seo Taerim kept searching his pocket, already thinking the car keys probably weren’t there, but for some reason he felt rushed and asked anyway.

“No, what kind of bother would that be!”

Kim Abang said something unclear, whether he meant he was a bother or that Seo Taerim was a bother, then with only his mouth smiling while his eyes did not, he slipped back toward the entrance as if using teleportation.

“Then I’ll head to work now. Sorry, but I’m in too much of a hurry! Taerim-ssi, go safely too and have a nice day!”

Kim Abang rattled off quickly, then went out, leaving the front door wide open.

“Wait…!”

Seo Taerim stretched out his hand and shouted, then awkwardly curled his fingers into a fist in midair. He lowered his arm, looked at the open front door with a restless face, then looked down at his own palm.

“…….”

Seo Taerim stared at his empty palm, his head spinning. It was the first time. The first time Kim Abang had gone off alone without pulling him by the hand.

1. Normally, the saying is “돌다리도 두들겨 보고 건너라” “Even when crossing a stone bridge, tap it first.” It means be cautious, double-check even things that seem safe. ↩︎