To Kiss An Idol

Dae rolled his eyes at her. “Ah… she is so annoying. Only she can come up with good ideas. Our ideas are all wrong. Learn to take compliments. Seriously? She is getting unbearable every day.”

Nivritti sat down to work again. Her anger was gone for now. Now, she could concentrate on her work. She opened the server and started reading the scripts. A few more copied scripts, that she found, she transferred them into the new folder. Now she had to wait for approval from the CEO for the new software.

After around an hour, Chung-Ho again called for the Rencontre team, “Rencontre team!”

All three again stood up and looked at him. Dae was unconsciously chewing on a pencil, but when Chung-Ho called him, he took it out of his mouth and grabbed it in his wrist. “Did you find any more copied scripts?” asked Chung-Ho.

“I have,” replied Nivritti.

“Not till now. But I am on the lookout,” replied Dae.

“Me too,” answered Jae-Hwa.

“Okay, then, Nivritti, get ready for another presentation in front of Hu-ssi,” informed Chung-Ho. Immediately the pencil in Dae’s hand snapped into two.

.....

“Excuse me!” shouted Nivritti, shocked.

“What? You already have given a presentation before him and then you had that talk before him. Why are you scared now?” asked Chung-Ho.

“Scared? Who is scared? I am not scared,” scoffed Nivritti and started laughing. But it looked like she was hyperventilating.

“Yeah, right. I can see that,” teased Chung-Ho. “He will be here in half an hour. I want you three inside the conference room.”

“Yes, Choi-ssi. Yes, Mr. Choi,” all three nodded simultaneously.

The whole department started working diligently after hearing that the CEO was soon going to visit. After half an hour Chung-Ho’s phone rang. He picked it up and nodded for a few seconds. After talking on the phone he turned around and spoke loudly, “guys! Get in. He is arriving in minutes. Ritti! IT team is also coming. You can tell them what you want. Software, extent, whatever.”

“Extension, Mr. Choi,” she corrected him.

“Yeah, yeah, that,” smiled Chung-Ho.

“Don’t be rude,” scolded Dae.

“How is she rude?” asked Chung-Ho.

“It’s not nice to correct someone, Choi-ssi,” replied Dae.

“Since when is correcting someone, rude? She is teaching me something. We old fossils should learn from youngsters. Then only we can speak at their level. Do you know what is GOAT, Bae, TTYT? Kids tell us these things,” explained Chung-Ho.

“GOAT, Bae, TTYT?” muttered Dae. Jae-Hwa and Nivritti started laughing. Nivritti grabbed her laptop and moved to the conference room. She hooked the laptop to the projector and opened the folder that had the plagiarised scripts.

The Rencontre team was waiting inside the conference room, all ready. The door of the room opened, and Chung-Ho entered first. He stood at the door and welcomed Hu Bong inside. He was followed by a young woman and a middle-aged man.

“Ah, Indian!” instantly the middle-aged man shouted. She looked at him and saw that he was Indian too. She smiled at him.

All three bowed down to the Rencontre team and the Rencontre team returned the greeting.

“Hu-ssi, you remember Seong Dae, he is the script editor. This is Jae-Hwa and…” said Chung-Ho.

Before Chung-Ho could introduce Nivritti, Hu Bong looked at her and asked, “how are you, Nivritti?”

“Huh?” Nivritti was taken aback that he remembered her name. “I am good, sir. Thank you for asking,” she bowed down to her.

Dae felt a gut punch as soon as Hu Bong recognised Nivritti. “I have been working here for ages and he still needs my introduction. This girl came here just days ago, and he remembers her. Who is she? Is she related to him? That must be it. It is impossible that he remembers her just because she made a good impression,” sulked Dae.

He was so wrong. Of course, he remembered her after she made an impression on him. He just remembered her face after she gave the idea for Rencontre. But after the day she saved K&Q from scandal, he remembered her name. The long-lasting impression was made after Bong noticed Kyung-Soo staring at her.

“Rencontre team, this is Alice Yang and Ravi Kumar from IT,” introduced Chung-Ho.

“Annyeonghaseyo,” all said to each other.

“Wah! Indian! Choi-ssi, you never informed me that you hired an Indian,” Ravi moved forward and joined his hands in namaste and greeted Nivritti.

“Namaste!” she greeted him too.

“When did you join?” asked Ravi.

“A few weeks ago,” replied Nivritti.

“Okay, you can have a get-together later. Should we do what we are here for?” said Bong.

All were seated in their seats and Nivritti shut down the lights. The presentation started.

“These are a few of the scripts that I have found. First, it started with similar storylines or similar scenarios, and then scripts started having the same words. For example, look at this script. It was submitted on the 7th. As this was received first, we can assume that this is the original script.” She gave a few minutes time to everyone to complete reading the script.

After they were done, they nodded at her. “Now, look at this,” she opened the copied script. “It was received on the 13th. I think the writer thought that they could copy an old script, and none will be wiser. The gap was just a few weeks, so it was easy to spot. Think about what would happen in months. Definitely, we will forget about the old scripts we read.” She again gave them a few minutes to read.

“Woah! That is word by word,” noted Alice, shocked.

“This is only one script.” Nivritti showed them the folder that had the plagiarised scripts. “Half of these are originals and half are copies.”

“So many!” said Bong.

“Yes, sir!”