Episode 3
While wandering through communities of job seekers in entertainment agencies, I realized something I’ve overlooked.
Right now, I’m not an A-grade employee who has achieved numerous accomplishments as the head of Flower Entertainment; I’m just a high school graduate who has completed military service and is unemployed.
The management system that is like a cheat key and the decades of experience leading the company are impressive, but there was no way to show it.
The only visible qualification I had was a driver’s license.
And let’s be real, with just a driver’s license, it’s nearly impossible to survive on the cutthroat job market in Korea.
I was confident that if I could just get to the interview, I could dazzle the interviewers with insider knowledge only experienced folks would know.
But the problem was I couldn’t even get that interview with this pathetic resume.
Doesn’t the agency hold some kind of blind test?
Nope, I searched high and low, and found nothing.
What a sad situation it was.
To clear my head, I took a walk across the bridge, deeply contemplating my thoughts.
Ah, I really hate the idea of being a road manager at a tiny agency…
I genuinely didn’t want to do it, but that’s the only option that came to mind.
I figured I might have to just roll with it for 2 or 3 years and think of it like I was dead.
As I walked, pondering which agency that would accept someone like me, who finished high school, I spotted a girl hanging off the railing.
She seemed to notice me too, as our eyes met.
At that moment, just as if someone was waiting for this cue, a status window popped up.
[Name – Han Gyeoul (Female)]
[Appearance – A – Potential A+]
[Vocal – C – Potential A+]
[Dance – D+ – Potential A]
[Rap – D- – Potential B]
[Acting – E – Potential C-]
[Variety – D – Potential A+]
[She is suitable as a sub-vocalist. Strongly recommended for recruitment.]
Oh, she’s packing some serious first-tier potential.
I couldn’t help but let out a little admiration.
With that kind of talent, she could easily make it to debut in any agency.
But I was a bit curious about why someone with such talent would be attempting suicide while hanging off a bridge.
Of course, it was only a ‘little’ curiosity.
From past experiences, I knew all too well how tiresome getting involved in such matters could be, so that little curiosity was quickly squashed.
I hurriedly dismissed the status window.
She was glaring at me with an ominous vibe.
It seemed like she misconstrued my standing still while checking the status window.
Perhaps she thought I would start lecturing her and try to talk her out of jumping.
What a completely unnecessary worry.
If it were me before the time loop, I might have intervened, but right now, I had no intention of wasting my money and time on such matters.
Whether she falls or not is her own problem to deal with.
At that moment, a cheap notification sound rang, and a quest window appeared.
[Cheon Jong-hoon, the person in charge of SS’s new girl group project, is struggling to find the last member. Let’s leverage hopeful Han Gyeoul and strike a deal with him!]
Let’s do this!
[Reward – Future Fragment ‘Middle’ (No monetary gain restrictions)]
It was a rather outrageous request to sell the girl I just saw committing suicide.
In an era where slavery doesn’t exist, how on earth can one sell a perfectly alive person?
By the way, the new girl group project from SS? Cheon Jong-hoon?
Wait, I’ve definitely heard this somewhere before…
As I rummaged through my memories, a piece of information struck me like lightning.
One year from now, Cheon Jong-hoon’s first project, SS’s first-line girl group Alcest, will debut.
Originally, Alcest was planned to be a five-member girl group, but the final debut was made with four.
Cheon Jong-hoon left behind a backstory about this in his autobiography.
According to his autobiography, he faced significant hurdles in choosing the last member.
Since this would be his first girl group to manage, he wanted to maintain Alcest’s unique cold and sharp color while ensuring that the members were top-notch.
However, he could hardly find a trainee who possessed both the color and talent to fit in with four members, so he opted to change it to a four-member group instead of degrading Alcest with mediocre members.
Although Alcest achieved substantial commercial success, he always felt a sense of regret as a producer, believing it should have been a five-member group.
Right now, while he’s in the midst of gathering members, that sense of regret would only have grown.
What would happen if I introduced that suicidal girl to someone like him?
In my book, F is talentless, D is dull, C is average, B is talented, and A is genius.
I had seen the status windows of all the Alcest members in the previous chapter.
As if to prove that Cheon Jong-hoon’s perfectionism wasn’t a lie, all four members were geniuses maintaining main abilities at the A level.
However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the potential of the girl I just saw might rival theirs.
By average standards, she actually looked to be a step ahead.
And it’s no wonder, as her latent abilities in both vocals and dance were in the A range.
With this level, she seemed to match what Cheon Jong-hoon desired.
What about the ‘color’ that he was so particular about?
Well, the way she looked at me was as cold as if I were an insect, so the color seemed to fit roughly.
It was perfect.
If I introduced such a flawless trainee to him, who was feeling disheartened enough to change to a four-member group, he wouldn’t be able to deny her abilities.
If I then made a small request afterward, he likely wouldn’t easily refuse.
I was confident of this, as I had maintained a fairly long relationship with Cheon Jong-hoon as a friend.
It would be best to get her into SS, but even if that doesn’t happen, it’s okay.
That might be quite an imposition on him as well.
“There’s someone with an eye for talent. Just give her an interview.”
That’d be the only hint I’d need to drop to the appropriate parties.
Then, a person who finds it hard to ignore Cheon Jong-hoon would reach out to me.
If such an opportunity arises, I can cook up the rest with my experience.
If I get the chance to run, I can grill the rest with my experience.
It’s possible to have a demo show for the product called the Returnee Manager.
Even if the situation gets tangled and I miss the opportunity, the rewards presented by the system were valuable enough to try.
Since I had previously seen the winning numbers for the lottery with that future shard in the last round, the contents were likely to result in immediate gains.
(The phrase “no monetary gain restrictions” must imply that.)
It works. This really works.
This quest must be followed no matter what.
As soon as I felt certain, I turned back and ran the way I came.
Worried that I might drop something while running, I shouted loudly.
“Hey, student! Stop! It’ll hurt if you commit suicide!”
I don’t know if my nonsense had an effect, but she stopped the action she was about to take.
“Ugh… Huh.”
I hurriedly tried to catch my breath from running.
She passed by as if uninterested but suddenly turned around and looked at me as if I were an idiot.
Her gaze seemed to say I should look down immediately, but it wasn’t as spicy as how Ban Seong-cheol gets treated.
First, I had to stop that woman’s suicide attempt.
What’s the most effective way to stop someone from wanting to end their life?
My head was spinning while I searched for the answer.
I pondered over persuasion, threats, violence, empathy, humor, and so on to find the best response.
Humor can backfire if the code doesn’t match.
Threats or violence could provoke a backlash and create the worst outcomes.
Persuasion would require overly theoretical discussions.
I arrived at the best conclusion among all the assumptions.
Let’s go with empathy.
“Life isn’t easy, is it?”
“….”
“It must be surprising for a weird guy to suddenly show up and say something like this. You might feel furious and think, ‘Who does he think he is?’ But what if you considered that there’s another person here who’s hurt too?”
“….”
“It’s not a secret. I’ve tried to commit suicide too.”
I rolled up my shirt and showed her the scar on my wrist.
It was a scar from a piece of rock that hit me while I was trimming grass in the military.
At first glance, it looked like a wrist-cutting scar.
“I took a lot of sleeping pills and ended up doing it in a hazy state. I couldn’t really tell if it was a dream or if I really cut my arm, which made it pretty dangerous.”
Of course, that was a lie.
“Naturally, you might think it’s different because it was done in a not-sober state, but the buildup to it was real.”
This, too, was a lie.
“Life seems really tough. What I thought was best can lead to the worst results, and even when I tried in hopeless moments, it might worsen.”
“….”
“No one helped me or cared, so I felt the despair of being abandoned by the world. But there must be someone who can help you.”
Even as I spoke, those words didn’t resonate with me at all.
If anything, it would be lucky if a guy like Ban Seong-cheol didn’t stab me in the back.
However, I thought what a suicidal person needed was not a bleak reality, but dreams and hope, so I kept rambling nonsense.
“If you can’t think of someone right now, I’ll help you out. I’m an adult, so I might be of some use. So, how about you come down from that ledge and we talk?”
Her eyes shook all over the place.
I couldn’t tell if that was a positive or negative sign.
I just hoped it was a precursor to her coming down from the ledge.
“…Um.”
She closed her eyes tightly, as if making a decision, then opened her mouth,
“I wasn’t trying to commit suicide.”
“…Huh?”
As if nothing happened, she stepped down from the ledge and stood up normally before continuing.
“I wasn’t trying to commit suicide.”
Ah, it was a misunderstanding.
Only then did I get a good look at her.
Her hair was a home-dyed bleach job that looked like a mix of black and blonde, with a pink hair roller in the front for curls, and her red Adidas jersey was so clean it looked brand new from yesterday.
Her school uniform skirt was so short it was a wonder it didn’t get caught on anything, and her sharp face, looking like she chewed gum for breakfast, had eyeliner drawn so thick it seemed to have a deeper scholarly curiosity for soju and cigarettes than for textbooks.
Finally, she had a butterfly tattoo on her neck.
She was practically the poster child for a delinquent.
She looked way too full of life to be someone wishing to end it all.
Realizing the situation, I quickly apologized.
“Sorry for misunderstanding.”
She was glaring at me not out of suspicion for trying to stop a suicide, but because she probably just didn’t like my face.
But one question remained unanswered.
“Then, why were you trying to jump over a ledge high enough to definitely kill yourself if you fell?”
“That’s….”
She trailed off, clearly reluctant to answer the tricky question.
While I pondered how to convince her to join me in introducing her to Cheon Jong-hoon, she suddenly started to cry.
“Wah… wahhh, kihhh, waaaah!”
“Hey, why are you crying? Talk to me; I’ll help you.”
She was blubbering with tears and snot, rambling incoherently.
“Wah… my wallet slipped out of my pocket… while I was trying to pick it up, I accidentally pushed it… wah.”
I focused intensely to make sense of her words.
According to her, it seemed she had come up from the countryside for an audition and accidentally knocked her wallet over the edge while trying to pick it up.
I asked her to confirm if I understood correctly.
“So, you were trying to pick up the wallet that you pushed off, hoping it got caught in that suicide prevention net, is that what you’re saying?”
She nodded, whining like a total loser, completely at odds with her delinquent appearance.
Grasping the situation, I bluntly said what popped into my head.
“Have you ever thought about just calling the police…?”
Someone almost died trying to pick up a wallet.
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