I Returned as a High School Girl

Chapter 88: Sold-Out Parade (2)

Kang Ra-Eun sighed from seeing how doubtful Park Seol-Hun was.

“You have that little faith in me?” she asked.

“It’s not that, but I’m just worried because I don’t think those gangsters would obey you just like that.”

“Why? They’ve been listening to me just fine.”

“Have they?”

Seol-Hun had barely seen the loan sharks faithfully following Ra-Eun’s orders with his own eyes because she used Ma Yeong-Jun to relay her orders to the loan sharks. Seol-Hun had never been present in her meetings with Yeong-Jun, so he was doubtful of whether or not she could control the loan sharks like she had claimed.

“I can’t get the possibility off my mind that those gangsters might ruin our profitable business. I can’t even focus on work like this,” Yeong-Jun stated.

It was natural for him to feel that way because he was working with people who had once tried to harvest his organs.

“Okay. Just a second,” Ra-Eun said as she pulled out her brand-new smartphone.

She searched for Yeong-Jun’s phone number in her contacts and called him right in front of Seol-Hun.

“Hello? It’s me, Mr. Gangster.”

Seol-Hun gasped.

- What is it this time?

“It’s about that mister with a scar on his face.”

- Du-Chil?

“Yeah. I happened to hear that he keeps following little Mr. Park to his meetings. Tell him not to do that if possible since he would only make the air of the meeting menacing and scare the others. That goes for you as well.”

Ra-Eun purposefully left out the fact that Seol-Hun had told her to reassure Seol-Hun, who was terrified that he would get on Yeong-Jun’s bad side for snitching. However, Yeong-Jun also had something to say.

- The contract would only progress swimmingly if we’re there.

“What does that mean?”

- There are negotiations that can’t be handled with words. Don’t you think it’d be of help if we’re there to convince them?

“That’s not convincing, that’s threatening.”

Threats were not necessary when managing a business. There were of course times when it could be used as a last resort, but it was not needed 99% of the time. Contracts were born from trust; however, trust established through fear was easily broken.

“Leave the contract signing with other businesses to Mr. Park and the other employees, and you guys do what you do best. Got it?”

Yeong-Jun fell silent for a moment, and answered as if it couldn’t be helped.

- Understood. We’ll do that.

“Okay. Make sure you keep what I just said in mind. I’ll trust you.”

- Don’t worry.

Ra-Eun hung up and said to Seol-Hun as she put away her smartphone, “Did you hear that, mister? It’ll be alright now.”

“I wonder if those gangsters really will do as you say...”

“Call me if they don’t. I’ll take care of them.”

For the sake of peace in the company, Ra-Eun was willing to step up with both her sleeves rolled up.

***

.

One week had passed. Seol-Hun hurriedly prepared for his meeting with a dietary food manufacturing company.

“You packed the contract, right, Mi-Yeong?”

“Yes, sir.”

Park Du-Chil was piqued by their conversation.

“Are you heading out for a meeting?” he asked.

Seol-Hun flinched.

“Y-Yeah, I am...”

“Okay. I guess I should go with you.”

Du-Chil had been getting bored, so the timing was perfect. He got up from his seat to follow them to the meeting place. However...

“Du-Chil,” Yeong-Jun’s deep voice echoed throughout the office. “Finish what you were doing.”

“Huh? But boss...”

Yeong-Jun was the one who had said that their presence in the meeting would help in getting the other party to sign the contract more peacefully, but he had suddenly changed his mind.

“Leave the meetings to Senior Managing Director Park from now on. Make sure you tell everyone else who isn’t here as well.”

Du-Chil could not understand his boss’s sudden change in the course of action, but had no choice but to follow his order.

“Yes, boss.”

Yeong-Jun gestured to Seol-Hun.

“Have a safe trip.”

Things really had gone exactly as Ra-Eun said they would. The menacing gangsters were completely submissive to a university girl. Seol-Hun could not figure out what had happened between them.

***

It was well past midnight. Ra-Eun in her cafe uniform quickly turned the corner into an alley in the dead of night and called out to Han-Seok across from her.

“Manager!”

The camera focused on Ra-Eun out of breath. Han-Seok walked toward Ra-Eun with a surprised face.

“What is it, Seon-Hye?”

“U-Um...”

Ra-Eun acted to be hesitant despite calling out to Han-Seok. She then mustered up the courage after being indecisive.

“I wanted to... give you this.”

She had secretly prepared a small gift.

“What is this?” Han-Seok asked.

“You said you lost your handkerchief last time, so I got you a new one.”

The handkerchief was blue, the manager’s favorite color.

Ra-Eun continued with an awkward smile, “I’m not sure what’s been bothering you lately, but I hope you can cheer up. I’ll help you in any way that I can.”

Kang Seon-Hye had prepared the small gift to cheer up the manager who seemed down due to his family circumstances. Han-Seok’s gaze was fixed on Ra-Eun. The camera was positioned to capture their two-shot.

A very important scene was about to be played out. It was the kiss scene that Ra-Eun hated more than anything else. However, they weren’t really going to kiss; they just needed to pretend.

The male protagonist felt emotions that were difficult to express in words from Ra-Eun’s... no, the character Seon-Hye’s thoughtfulness. He would then do something impulsively: a surprise kiss. He snatched Ra-Eun’s thin wrist with one hand and wrapped the other around her waist to pull her toward him. And then, their lips “touched”.

A camera was positioned at the back of each of their heads to angle the shot in a way to make it look like they were actually kissing. The camera across from Ra-Eun filmed her eyes that were startled from the surprise kiss. She was surprised at first, but she then slowly closed her eyes as if she was accepting the manager’s feelings. They awkwardly stepped away from each other after the short kiss.

Han-Seok spoke first, “I-I’m sorry, Seon-Hye.”

“N-No! It’s okay, Manager. I-I...! I should head back! Sunbae might be looking for me... I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Ra-Eun ran out of the alley in embarrassment. Han-Seok stared blankly in the direction that she had disappeared to, and then immersed himself into acting like he was reproaching himself while hitting his head.

“You goddamn idiot!”

This marked the end of the scene.

~

“Okay, cut! Let’s end the shoot here. Thank you for your hard work, you two.”

“Thank you, Director.”

“You as well, Director.”

They could not cheer out loud for the end of the shoot because it was past midnight. They commended each other for their great jobs as quietly as they could.

Han-Seok asked Ra-Eun to check something, “Are you okay? I thought I yanked you a bit too hard.”

He checked if her wrist and waist were okay. Ra-Eun assured him that she was with a smile. However, she was more concerned about something else.

“Our lips almost touched for real back there, sunbae.”

“Th-They almost did, didn’t they?”

Han-Seok had embraced Ra-Eun so abruptly that their lips had almost touched. They managed to stop just a centimeter... no, a millimeter away from each other, almost causing Ra-Eun to make an NG cut.

“You didn’t do that on purpose because you actually wanted to kiss me, did you?” Ra-Eun said teasingly while narrowing her eyes.

Han-Seok’s face turned as red as a tomato.

“N-No, I didn’t! I swear!”

He had no such intentions. Of course, he wouldn’t have minded if their lips had actually touched. He had felt it was a bit of a shame, but he had no intention to kiss someone without their consent. Han-Seok roughly knew how sensitive an issue kissing was to Ra-Eun.

He quickly brought up something else to change the subject.

“C-Come to think of it, about the sportswear sets that you and I wore last time.”

“The ones that we wore on episode 12?” Ra-Eun asked.

“Yeah, those.”

They had filmed a scene on episode 12 where they exercised at a fitness center while wearing the sportswear sets sponsored by Levanche.

Han-Seok asked in curiosity, “What happened to them? I saw that you guys were offering some sort of promotion for them.”

“Are you asking about their sales?”

“Yeah.”

Having the blood of an entrepreneur flowing in his veins, he was naturally interested in sales.

“They were sold out before even a day had passed since the promotion,” Ra-Eun replied.

“Really? That’s good. That’s been on my mind lately.”

Han-Seok couldn’t not worry about it since he sincerely hoped for Ra-Eun’s business to succeed.

“Wasn’t Do-Dam Group also planning on releasing a new product?”

“Yeah, we decided to release a new topping yogurt series, but the sales aren’t as high as we’d expected them to be. It might be because we have a lot of strong competitors.”

Those in the food industry were always at war against one another due to the enormous amount of competition. Ra-Eun decided to help Han-Seok who had a lot on his mind.

“Sunbae. Can I upload that topping yogurt product on my social media account?”

“On your account?”

“Yes. I advertise my newly-released products there. I found it to be pretty effective since I have a lot of followers.”

Whether they were clothes or shoes, Ra-Eun held a sold-out parade whenever she uploaded photos of herself wearing them. She was also curious whether or not she could replicate the effect with products other than her own. She wanted to test her theory for the sake of Do-Dam Group and Han-Seok since she had been helped by Han-Seok several times.

“I’d love for you to do that. I’m sure my grandpa would love the idea if it meant the sales would increase.”

Chairman Ji’s happiness was exactly what Ra-Eun was aiming for.

“I’ll do my best for you and the chairman.”

“Thank you, Ra-Eun.”

Han-Seok decided to borrow the power of the goddess who made everything that she touched sell out, for the sake of the product’s sluggish sales.

1. Topping yogurt is a pack of yogurt with toppings included in the pack.