To Kiss An Idol

Chapter 12: The Feasibility

Kyung-Soo was too immersed in her presentation. He was not ready for her to speak. He thought Chung-Ho would give the presentation but to his surprise, she spoke the entire time. She was confident, well-spoken, held the attention of the room with ease, all in all, a good speaker.

He was fully engrossed in her idea. It was something new, they never did anything like that.

After she was finished with her presentation, no one spoke for a while, all kept thinking about it deeply. Chung-Ho was getting concerned as he didn’t want to see the idea getting rejected, it was after all a brilliant one.

Jae-Hwa looked at Nivritti, she was on the verge of biting her nail, but she kept standing stationary in her position waiting for an answer. Even Jae-Hwa’s heart was beating fast thinking about Nivritti.

Hu Bong crossed his fingers and placed his forefingers over her chin and suddenly spoke, “So, finance team, is this idea feasible?”

His voice made everyone think fast. Everyone was still pondering over her idea, some were still reading her idea again in the copy she provided them.

A grey-haired, smart-looking, bespectacled man from the finance team looked at Hu Bong and spoke up. It was clear that he was doing some calculations in his brain. “Um... Okay... if we bring 7 people to Korea, uh... first of all, we cannot even guess which countries they will be from so we cannot calculate travel expenses, for now, then 7 rooms for two days, their food and travel to local shooting sites, 7 different camera crew, maybe we need to hire a few actors that would depend on the script. Ahh... there are a lot of unknown variables for now. It looks expensive but we have never done anything like this, it will be something new that our fans require, so I’ll say yes, it is feasible.”

.....

The script department was happy to hear that. Then Nivritti interjected, “If I may, we have roughly 40 million ASDians paying $20 so the revenue generated will be $800 million. Let’s just say to be on the safe side, only 20 million ASDians participate then too we get $400 million. And why do you want to keep participants in separate hotel rooms, keep all of them in a single room; let them exchange their stories of how their biases treat them, what were their experiences, get their consent, send a camera crew inside and release the video as a bonus feature.”

Bong jumped from his seat with excitement after Nivritti’s explanation. “Oh... I love this idea. Also, we will be selling concert tickets, merchandise; it is feasible.” He clapped his hands loudly.

But Kyung-Soo was not ready to let Nivritti enjoy so soon. He looked directly into her eyes and smirked, “I don’t approve of this idea.”

Everyone was taken aback. The finance team was in, the CEO was in, then what happened to Kyung-Soo? Everyone looked at Kyung-Soo in disbelief. Nivritti was shocked as to why was he against her.

“What happened?” Bong returned to his seat and asked.

“Unfortunately, I’m in a position of power because I have to speak on behalf of boys, and I know they don’t like to act. They are performers, singers, dancers but not actors,” said Kyung-Soo directly staring at Nivritti.

She immediately remembered her power-dynamic talk she had with him a few minutes ago. She now understood everything. He was retaliating.

Nivritti thought, “he is taking revenge, well I’m ready too.”

She interrupted before anyone could say anything to Kyung-Soo, “No, you are not; you are not in any position because you are not their spokesperson.”

Every head turned from Kyung-Soo and looked at Nivritti. The new girl had guts, she was challenging Kyung-Soo.

“Yes, I am. I’m their leader,” protested Kyung-Soo.

“A leader’s job is to discuss things with his team, not impose his decisions on them and I don’t see you picking up your phone and discussing with them you are just assuming what they will say but I have trust that they would love to interact with ASDians,” challenged Nivritti.

Kyung-Soo’s eyes widen as she counteracted him in front of everyone. He was the leader of the most successful group in Korea and a new girl was lecturing him about what it meant to be a leader.

Kyung-Soo smiled at the back of his head and thought, “yesterday you were a puddle of tears and look at you today making me speechless.”

“She is right, let’s call boys and ask them their opinion, King,” exhorted Bong. “This will be good for us as we have never done such a thing before. You interact with ASDians in every fan meeting but letting them work with you for a day would be first among all K-pop groups. We could become a pioneer in treating our fans right.”

Kyung-Soo accepted defeat after Bong explained it to him. “Fine, I’ll give them a call.” Kyung-Soo stood up and went outside to call his group. He went next to a quiet area near the copy room and dialled Korain’s number.

Meanwhile, Chung-Ho looked at all the seats that were occupied and those that were not. He calculated the number of copies they would need. He stood from his seat and whispered to Nivritti, “we would need two more copies. Go, Run.” Nivritti nodded and Chung-Ho signalled Jaw-Hwa to go with her.

Nivritti and Jae-Hwa moved toward the copy room when Nivritti saw Kyung-Soo talking on the phone with his team members. She hesitated for a second but then went inside the copy room.

She placed the paper in the copier and printed the command to print two more copies. She noticed that Jae-Hwa was staring at her with astonishment. She wanted to ask something but had no idea how to.

“What?” asked Nivritti.

“How could you talk to King like that? Were you not afraid?” Nivritti was shocked yet impressed.

“What is there to be afraid of? He is just an employee like us,” she deliberately spoke loudly so he could hear.

“Hey! Lower your voice. He is just outside. What if he gets you fired?” said Jae-Hwa.

Nivritti rolled her eyes and raised her voice slightly, “I don’t care. If I get fired, I get fired. I don’t deal with childish tantrums. Let’s go.” She was done with the copier. She grabbed Jae-Hwa and forced her to walk toward the conference room.

Kyung-Soo came out of the corner and stared at Nivritti. He shook his head in confusion.

“Childish tantrums!!! When did I throw tantrums? And why does she keep referring to me as a child? What the hell is her age? 90?” mumbled Kyung-Soo. “God! I have so many questions.”

He followed them and went inside. She was placing two more copies around the conference table. The finance team and marketing team moved away from Kyung-Soo so that the whole boy band could seat together.

After Nivritti was done placing the copy of her presentation, she came back to her seat, and all started waiting for the ASD team to arrive.

Slowly they all heard a commotion outside the room as everyone was excited to see the whole team together before their eyes. One by one the whole team started entering the conference room and all the girls stood outside the room to have a look at them for once. The boys politely bowed down to everyone and took their seats.

Chung-Ho stood from his seat, opened the door, and just gave everyone a death stare. Every member of the script department returned back to their seat and the commotion died down.

The first to enter the room was Jee Jung-Hwa. The cute boy bowed down to everyone and sat next to Kyung-Soo. One by one every member started entering in taking their seat next to their team member. The last one to arrive was Kang Thae.

First, he bowed down to Bong and then Chung-Ho. Before he could greet everyone, his eyes fell on Nivritti.

He clenched his jaws and his fist as soon as he saw her. His blood boiled. All he could remember was that she hurt his dog. With flared nose and wide eyes, he stared at her. All the team members were sitting but he could not move after he saw her. His whole body froze with anger. He gritted his teeth and shouted at her, “how dare you stand in front of me after what you did yesterday?”

Immediately Young-Chul stood up and scolded Thae, “Kat, stop.”

“No,” Thae shouted. “I don’t want her here. I look at her face, I think about Yong, and I get angry.”

Kyung-Soo looked at Nivritti. She was looking at the floor, unable to look Thae in his eyes. He knew she was feeling guilty. Then he realised that she had no idea that the dog was fine. “Shut Up, Kat! Our Yong is absolutely fine, did you tell her that before shouting at her?”

She was silently listening to Thae because she knew she hurt the dog but as soon as she heard Kyung-Soo’s words, she looked at him. He was speaking while looking at her. For a few seconds, they keep looking into each other’s eyes as if he was telling her that none of it was her fault, and she was guilt-free.

“You scolded her because you thought Yong got hurt and again you are scolding her even when he is fine. Make up your mind Kat,” Kyung-Soo scolded him.