To Kiss An Idol

Chung-Ho even could not believe what he was seeing. He saw the Word file just a few minutes ago. They only left for lunch. No one went in or out. Only people from the Script department were allowed in the conference room then how did everything was gone?

Everyone kept staring at Chung-Ho and Nivritti. She was too shocked to even reply to Chung-Ho.

“Sometimes folders disappear, that has happened to me,” said Dae trying to be cheeky.

“Yes, but I didn’t lose folders, I lost one whole driver,” filled with anxiety, Nivritti ran her fingers through her hair.

“Do you want IT? Maybe they can recover your data,” suggested Jung-Hwa.

Nivritti inhaled and exhaled for a minute without saying anything. She kept thinking about something for a minute. Suddenly she shouted, “Oh, God! I am an idiot!” She immediately stood up and ran out of the room.

“What is happening?” inquired Bong.

“I have no idea,” replied Chung-Ho.

.....

Kyung-Soo wanted to run after her, help her solve her issue. “Where she went? Oh no! Did she run away from her problem? That she does. She is an expert in running. Should I stall the meeting and let her calm down? Oh, what if she is again crying in the stairwell? All big names are here for the update session, what will they say? Should I go after her?”

He kept shaking his leg due to anxiety. He wanted to go after her but couldn’t as he had no excuse to follow her. He didn’t want other people to talk about her. But to his surprise, she came right back into the room and to his shock, she was smiling.

“What the hell?” he thought. “Why is she smiling?”

She placed a hard drive on the table next to Chung-Ho and said, “may I?” signalling towards her laptop.

“Huh!?” Chung-Ho was extremely confused.

Nivritti smiled at him and informed, “it slipped my mind that I keep a backup of my every folder.”

“What?” shouted everyone but the loudest one was Dae. He wanted to bang his head on the wall with frustration. He was so happy till now, but Nivritti foiled his plan, again. Was she really a genius or just plain lucky, he could not figure it out.

“Yeah, once one of the folders vanished for a few seconds and after that day I made a point to backup every data every day,” smiled Nivritti.

Dae wanted to punch her teeth in. He was fuming with anger. Invisible smoke was coming out of his ear. He clenched his fist and kept hitting his thighs under the table.

Kyung-Soo on the hand was relieved after seeing that she was happy. Everyone knew she was intelligent but were more impressed after seeing that she was prepared for contingencies too.

She plugged in the hard drive and opened the Word file. Chung-Ho sighed with relief as soon as he saw the file. She then plugged in her laptop and showed the summary to everyone and explained every line.

“What?” shouted Bong. “Why is the number zero, King? Why haven’t you selected any scripts?”

“Because his selection will be final, Hu-ssi,” informed Chung-Ho.

“Oh, right, right!” nodded Bong.

Nivritti continued her update and after she finished, she looked at everyone for any questions they had.

“You said that the most genre you received is fantasy. So, would we need to find a location or construct it?” asked a person from the Location department.

Nivritti looked at Chung-Ho who nodded at her to reply. Nivritti gulped and said, “Ah… after reading only a handful of scripts, it would be difficult to tell you that. Until we read more and finalise at least 1000s of scripts, I don’t think anyone can answer that.”

“Just try. You know we all will only get one month for getting the location and actors,” said the person from the Art department.

“Answer them. What do you think?” nudged Chung-Ho. He had trust in her that she will think of something, and all will be satisfied with her answer.

“Okay! If you ask me, you know in my opinion…”

“Stop stalling,” shouted Jung-Hwa.

That made Nivritti smile, but she controlled her facial muscles and replied, “I think you all should look for an amusement park.” Jung-Hwa smiled at her answer.

“Why do you think that?” asked Bong.

“Sir, after the handful of scripts I have read, I don’t know about them, maybe their opinions can differ, but according to my two servers, I have seen forests, I have seen water bodies, I have seen something that resembles mythical flying objects and one can find rides resembling them in an amusement park. The location department can find something in that ballpark and the Art department can finish it off with a little touch-up. Most urgent work would be for the costume department, in my opinion,” replied Nivritti.

No one spoke for a minute. All waited for Bong to reply but he was busy in his thoughts. He kept staring at the table and kept rubbing his finger on his chin.

“Finance team! What do you say?” he asked.

“We will have to look into that,” replied the person from the Finance Department.

“Don’t give that. Tell me everything,” Bong insisted.

“Well, first we will have to check out amusement parks that fit with all the scripts. Then we will have to ask for permission. Of course, they will have to shut the park down for us for hours and we will have to work under the time constraint. Then we will need insurance, film permits which would come under Production Department’s purview,” replied the Finance team.

“Okay. Good, good,” said Bong and looked at Nivritti, smiling. “You were good, you can sit down. Who’s next?”

“That would be Seong-ssi,” announced Chung-Ho.

Nivritti unplugged her laptop and made way for Dae. She sat back in her seat and her eyes fell on Jung-Hwa. He was smiling at her and when she glanced at him, he mischievously winked at her. Nivritti stifled her smile and shook her head in no, stealthily, telling him to stop his mischief.

Kyung-Soo who never let his eyes wander away from her face saw that. He turned his head to look at the person she was smiling at. He rolled his eyes when he saw the person was Jung-Hwa. “Ugh… I will kill him one day. She never even looked at me and she is smiling at him.”

He took a deep breath and diverted his mind to look at Dae and his summary. He tilted his head and looked at his list with shock. Nivritti had a lot more categories than he had on his file. Even the number of scripts he read was way down.

After Dae was done with his summary, he looked at everyone. All were looking at him awkwardly. He waited for everyone to ask questions as they did with Nivritti, but everyone was actively trying to not look at him. His numbers were low and there was not much left to ask.

But there was one person who had questions and he was not happy.

“How long have you worked here, Seong-ssi?” asked Bong.

“More than six years, sir,” replied Dae.

“And you are the person who is the head of the Rencontre team, right?” inquired Bong.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what the hell is this?” shouted Bong. “Is this how you work? Why your numbers are low? You have read fewer scripts. You have selected fewer scripts. You have flagged the plagiarism to the minimum. You are the head you have to be always ready, always diligent. First, you have information leaking from your department and now this. How come your junior who has been here only for a month is better than you, you who has been here for more than six years? Have you learned nothing from your job? Have Choi-ssi taught you nothing?”

After Chung-Ho, Bong kept berating him. Dae was so happy just a few minutes ago when Bong recognised him. Dae thought he was finally going places. But his dream shattered when Bong too found him at fault. He was even holding him responsible for leaking the information.

“Sorry Sir, the thing is I have a family, they don’t. They can go home and keep reading the scripts while I cannot do that. My wife fights with me if I bring my office work to our house,” apologised Dae.

“Oh, my God! Are you making excuses?” yelled Bong.

“So… rry, sorry, sir,” Dae blurted out instantly.

“Get out!!!” screamed Bong. “Go to your desk. Keep reading till the end of the day. Before you leave, I need an update on your list. Make sure you add more numbers and make the total somewhat decent,” ordered Bong. “If you keep reading at this pace, how will we find a winner by the end of the competition? We have to find a location, get the costume ready, shoot the video, edit it, add animation, if any, fly the winners here. Do you think we have all the time in the world? You think our work confines to only reading and finding the winner?”