- the creation of adam -
“he’ll see you now.”
there’s still an air of ominousness to the secretary’s words, even now. even now, when he’s twenty-five years old (twenty-five???) and seasoned enough in the world of interacting with entertainment professionals and supposedly entirely unafraid of corporate big shots with the power to destroy his life with the swoop of a pen in spite of everything. yes, he reminds himself, somewhere deep down underneath his nonchalantly confident gait toward the ceo’s office doors, entirely. unafraid.
he pushes back his own flashbacks to the last time he walked through the shiny glass doors of a record company’s executive office, forces them to stay on the waiting room chair he’s only just vacated. this is not their moment. they had their moment years ago, when he was nineteen and scared and broken. he hadn’t spent hours sitting under the spray of lukewarm water until his fingertips were wrinkled and pale, washing the terrible looks on their faces down the drain for those memories to pop back up again at the moment he needs to be the most confident.
he keeps his shoulders back and his spine tall. he’s here because he wants to be. he’s here because they want him. he signed their cute little contract because he wanted to, and because he was kind enough to humor their want for him. they do not own him, these glass walls are not a cage, and the man sitting behind a desk and weeks’ worth of charmingly unkempt facial hair does not own him.
“you’re probably wondering why i’ve summoned you here today,” inho starts smoothly after he sits across from the ceo, the corner of his lips curling into a barley-there smirk to indicate the effortlessly uttered cliche it’s as much of a joke as it sounds. though what follows is less so.
“i’m not going to play this down for what it is. it’s groveling. or it will be. something like that.”
he makes himself comfortable, makes a point of it, crosses one leg over the other. it’s an intimidating office and his ceo is an intimidating man, but inho outgrew intimidating offices and intimidating men when he got up and brushed the dirt of their cruelty off his shoulders.
“i’m going to ask you, or, tell you, something that could change how you view me entirely. which is obviously insane, because you are absolutely way too busy and important to know my name. it’s okay,” his air is easy, professionally playful, “i know you’re sitting there, so very cool and rich thinking ‘what’s this one’s name again’? and that’s totally fine. as long as i get eventually get a stage name that’s at least half as cool as prhyme.” there’s a chuckle that follows, deliberately ambiguous so that it’s unclear whether or not there’s a mocking lilt or genuine admiration behind it.
then he moves slightly closer to solemn, shifts forward toward the front of the chair, balances arms on armrests, keeps his spine straight.
“there’s a talented someone you didn’t hire out of your talent contest. and i don’t mean me.”
it’s easy enough to lace seriousness with smooth hints of humor, years of acting and improvisation classes settle comfortably into his blood.
“he’s a trainee now. somewhere else. somewhere he hates. somewhere that kind of hates him, actually. and with all due respect, i think you made a huge mistake letting him end up anywhere but here. i don’t know what you’re planning, because i know i definitely don’t fit the mould of the typical trc artist, so i’m guessing you have some kind of trick up your sleeve. or something. you wouldn’t keep feeding us if you didn’t need us for some wild experiment or another.”
he gestures vaguely, nonchalantly, as if he hasn’t just compared himself and his peers to helpless lab rats right to his ceo’s face, all without missing a beat.
“but all i’m going to tell you is that his name is jin sungho, and that, if they lose him, which, at this rate, seems likely, then you’d be…” the only pause needed, to cycle through his vocabulary and find a word that isn’t too insulting in present company, “thoughtless, not to snatch him up yourself.”
he breathes out at the end of it, subtly, through his mouth, the deliberate beat after a monologue, the quiet aftermath of a storm.
he doesn’t want to wait for the response. the office and the desk and the windows make him feel like he’s nineteen again and sitting back in front of a panel of jeering executives.
“think about it, sajangnim. that’s all i ask.”
he stands, offering the ceo a customary bow from his waist.
“i’ll leave first. back to the island of misfit toys,” punctuated by an unbothered toss of his hair and a coy smile on his way out of the office, “or something like that.”
At first, all Tiger JK does is stare at you with an arched brow. When you’re done, he stops you from leaving without an answer, and lets out a powerful laugh.
“You got some nerve. I’ll give you that.” He shakes his head in amusement. “I like you. That’s why I agreed to this meeting to begin with - I thought you wouldn’t have requested it unless it was an emergency or some sort of groundbreaking idea. I really believed you wouldn’t waste my time… Instead, you waltz in here and basically tell me that my casting system is messed up and that you know better. You. A simple trainee, whose training bills are on me.”
He calls in an assistant through the phone before continuing. “You were my excuse to get out of a boring meeting with the financial department, and for that I am thankful. But next time you ask for some of my valuable and limited time, you better have a more interesting topic in mind than suggesting I steal a trainee from Katie Lee.”
The assistant walks in at last, and Tiger JK instructs her to scort you outside. “Find us some trainer and make sure they work with this gentleman on a dance routine all through the night. Inho here will be presenting this dance first thing tomorrow in front of the whole company; he thinks he knows everything there is to know already, so it’s time he shows it off on stage.”
As you leave, the CEO lets out one last amused sigh through his nose. “I know what I’m doing, kid. And if you’re so certain you know more about the industry than I do, feel free to quit wasting my money and leave to start your own damn company instead.”
The assistant is quick to find a trainer and schedule him to the all-nighter. When you’re left alone with the coach, he smacks you behind the head. “Great. Now I have to cancel dinner with my wife and work overtime because of your screw up. Well done, asshole.”
