To Kiss An Idol

The Test

Nivritti was shocked. Chung-Ho asked her something she never would have dreamed of in her life. She thought she was safe from personal questions in a professional setting. But she was wrong. She was not ready for the question, but she had to reply. She could not leave him hanging.

"Um... I needed change, Mr Choi," replied Nivritti and avoided eye contact with him.

"That's the code word for personal problems," commented Chung-Ho.

"You can say that," smiled Nivritti, sadly.

He understood that she was not ready to share her personal problems with anyone. So, he said, "Okay, then no more personal questions, let me help you get rid of these papers."

She looked around the conference table. There were a lot of papers lying around. She made over 15 copies of her presentation. "What are we going to do with these?" she asked.

"Recycle, of course," replied Chung-Ho. Nivritti just smiled. She was happy that K&Q was trying to think about the environment. But it would have been better to avoid paper altogether. As she was new, she didn't comment on it.

Suddenly Chung-Ho said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. You need to go to the IT department and get yourself a company-issued laptop."

"I have a laptop at my home," replied Nivritti.

"I am afraid you cannot work on a personal computer when the work is about K&Q," warned Chung-Ho. His tone was serious.

"What? Why?" asked Nivritti.

"Security issues. We have had a lot of incidents where rival companies have tried to sabotage or steal our ideas through people's personal computers," informed Chung-Ho.

"Corporate espionage??" Nivritti was shocked.

"You have no idea," Chung-Ho raised his eyebrows. "They will also give you an encrypted pen drive and a hard drive. Everything is encrypted in such a way that only our company's pen drive and hard drives can be used with our computer."

"Wow! Really?" Nivritti was impressed. She knew that stealing ideas was the most common offence in copywriting business. So, was aware of what media companies had to deal with.

"Yes."

"That's extreme," commented Nivritti.

"Just imagine what if your idea gets stolen," Chung-Ho presented her with a scenario.

"I would be devasted and pissed," replied Nivritti.

"Exactly, that's why so many precautions. So, after we are done here, go get your laptop," commanded Chung-Ho.

"Yes, Mr Choi," nodded Nivritti.

Nivritti collected her copy of the presentation, placed the paper that Chung-Ho gave her and placed all of them in a single file. She then shut down the laptop that was inside the conference room that everyone used for the presentation and started collecting the remaining presentation copies along with Chung-Ho.

They were in the middle of placing back the chairs and collecting the papers when the door of the conference room opened, and Kyung-Soo walked in. Both Nivritti and Chung-Ho looked at him with surprise.

"Yes, King, do you need anything?" asked Chung-Ho politely.

"Choi-ssi, could you step outside for a moment? Kat needs to talk to her," replied Kyung-Soo.

Nivritti's heart stopped. Her jaw dropped to the ground. Her mind started working overtime thinking about what Thae was going to talk to her. Was he going to take revenge? She shouted at him so was he going to shout at her again? What was going in his mind? Kyung-Soo knew that she was afraid of dogs, then why was he taking Thae's side?