Real Man-Chapter 786

Chapter 786

As Yoo-hyun furrowed his brows, An Seohee threw a paper bag on the floor and turned around.

Lee Jihyun sat on the floor and picked up the fallen clothes.

“...”

Yoo-hyun was speechless with disbelief.

The rest of the scene was nothing special.

Throughout the meeting, An Seohee pretended to care for Lee Jihyun with hypocrisy, and the more she did, the worse Lee Jihyun’s condition became.

Eventually, Jeong Da-hye stopped the meeting and took care of Lee Jihyun.

Thud.

Yoo-hyun put down his phone and closed his eyes, running his fingers through his hair.

“Sigh...”

He remembered what Jeong Da-hye had told him a while ago.

-It turns out that Lee Jihyun had dreamed of becoming a fashion designer when she was young. That’s why she was so passionate.

‘I thought she was opening up a bit...’

He felt like the clock had been turned back by this incident.

Yoo-hyun felt bitter.

Soon after, Yoo-hyun handed his phone to Jeong Da-hye, who came to the CEO’s office.

“It’s the CCTV footage from yesterday that I got from Aiwon.”

“Why CCTV?”

“Just take a look. It’s about Lee Jihyun.”

“Lee Jihyun?”

Jeong Da-hye, who tilted her head, played the video.

It didn’t take long to check the main parts that were put together.

She was not impressed at first, but she was startled when she saw the scene where she spilled coffee, and her face turned red when she saw the scene where she threw the paper bag.

Jeong Da-hye was excited after watching the video to the end.

“Ha. I didn’t think much of Seohee, but she’s quite an interesting person.”

“It seems like Lee Jihyun has a bad karma with her.”

Maybe it had something to do with why Lee Jihyun was shy of people.

Jeong Da-hye nodded in agreement.

“She must have been the one who bullied her. But this is really ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“Come on, how can you do such childish things in someone else’s office? And then what? She said she wanted to have a good relationship in the future? Ha, really.”

“She must have thought Lee Jihyun wouldn’t say anything. I wouldn’t have known either if I hadn’t seen the CCTV.”

An Seohee had a heated argument with Jeong Da-hye, who was in front of her.

The more he thought about it, the more creepy it was.

Jeong Da-hye, who was chewing over the situation, gritted her teeth.

“I already wanted to reject their weird proposal, but now I’m totally turned off.”

“Weird proposal?”

“They asked me to exclude LJ Commerce from the fashion review. They also added a clause that they could censor the reviews.”

It meant that they wanted to manipulate Reverb as they pleased, just for allowing them to write reviews.

Yoo-hyun snorted at the absurd demand.

“That’s quite a fresh abuse of power.”

“Exactly. I don’t think we need to respond to such requests.”

“Me neither. And we can’t just let Lee Jihyun’s case go.”

It wasn’t that they couldn’t write reviews without a contract with Yurim Fashion.

There was a risk of getting backlash from negative reviews, but they could just set some restrictions when writing reviews.

Even if there was a problem with the work, they couldn’t work with such an employee.

Jeong Da-hye felt the same way.

“Lee Jihyun is my employee too. I’ll take care of this.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to show them what kind of company we are.”

Jeong Da-hye’s eyes sparkled.

Jeong Da-hye first rejected Yurim Fashion’s proposal outright.

She revised the original plan and launched the fashion review in a way that completely excluded Yurim Fashion.

She promoted it by highlighting the collaboration with famous luxury brands and LJ Commerce, and increased the accessibility of the reviews by linking them with With Messenger.

Lee Jihyun, who had returned, helped with this process.

She worked hard without showing any pain, and as a result, people started flocking to the fashion review.

Just as they were about to take off, they heard a news that hit them in the back of the head.

-Yurim Fashion has launched a review page on its shopping mall, showing a customer-friendly move. The enhanced review system breaks away from the existing single-product review framework and covers all products...

Yoo-hyun sneered as he watched the news.

“They took everything.”

They even mentioned the content that they had revealed at the meeting with Yurim Fashion.

He wondered why they bothered to come to Reverb and listen to the explanation, but it turned out that they had approached them from the beginning to prepare in a similar way.

Click.

Yoo-hyun went to their shopping mall.

The newly created review page was identical to the overall concept that Reverb had proposed, and even had the same method of returning the advertising revenue generated by the reviews.

On the surface, they seemed to have followed Reverb’s system well.

But could they really imitate it inside and out?

Yoo-hyun shook his head.

Reverb was not a result of a short period of time.

They had gone through countless trials and errors under the name of beta version and reached this point.

In it, there were the creative ideas and efforts of the employees and the genius developers.

If they copied it hastily, they would get hurt badly, no matter how big Yurim Fashion was.

‘Come to think of it.’

Suddenly, a forgotten memory from the past crossed Yoo-hyun’s mind.

It was around the time when Yoo-hyun became the head of the strategy office at Hansung Group.

Yurim Fashion, which had illegally copied the designs of domestic small and medium-sized companies, tried to sue them with a counterattack as soon as they were exposed.

They tried to crush them with the power of a large corporation, but in the end, they were shunned by the consumers first because of the copy designs that failed to capture the detailed aspects of the original.

Eventually, they admitted to the plagiarism and Yurim Fashion, which had been on the rise, had to step down from the first place.

He had a feeling that this time would be similar.

Ring.

Yoo-hyun, who was thinking about the future of Yurim Fashion, picked up his ringing phone.

There was a message from Oh Eun-bi, the editor-in-chief.

-Yurim Fashion asked for a critical article on Reverb as a condition for giving us an advertisement. We’re not going to follow them, but a lot of small and medium-sized newspapers will.

They not only took the technology, but also did some nonsense.

They seemed to want to shut their mouths, but for Yoo-hyun, it was rather welcome.

He was already thinking of promoting it seriously, and their media play seemed to be a good opportunity.

He already had an idea of how to use this situation in his head.

Yoo-hyun chuckled to himself.

Knock knock knock.

Lee Jihyun entered the room with a knock.

Yoo-hyun went up to the rooftop with her, who seemed to have a lot to say.

The windbreak in the rooftop garden blocked the chilly wind.

She declined the coffee and opened her mouth cautiously.

“Um...”

“Take your time.”

“CEO, I think we should meet with Yurim Fashion again.”

“Hmm, did you talk to Director Jeong?”

“Yes. But Director Jeong is too adamant about rejecting them. I think we shouldn’t do that.”

She came to Yoo-hyun because Jeong Da-hye wouldn’t listen.

Yoo-hyun asked.

“Why do you think so?”

“I think there might be a way for us to help each other with Yurim Fashion. And... I made a mistake at the meeting before and messed up the work, so I want to fix it.”

“What mistake?”

“I spilled coffee, and I couldn’t present what I prepared for the meeting properly, and I stuttered, and we couldn’t finish the meeting properly because of me...”

Lee Jihyun fiddled with her fingers and rolled her eyes.

It was hard for her to recall the memory, but she tried to overcome it.

“It was because of Yurim Fashion’s unreasonable demand, not because of you. And.”

Yoo-hyun looked into her eyes and continued.

“You didn’t spill the coffee, did you?”

“Huh?”

“I know that An Seohee did it on purpose. She should have apologized there, why do you admit it as your mistake?”

“...”

Jeong Da-hye wanted to wait until Lee Jihyun spoke first.

Yoo-hyun knew how she felt, but he had learned from Won Gijun’s case that waiting wasn’t always the best.

He had to act on what he learned.

Yoo-hyun got closer to Lee Jihyun, who didn’t know what to do.

“An Seohee, you know her, right?”

“Well, that...”

“I don’t know what kind of past you have. But what I know for sure is that you have nothing to do with it.”

Yoo-hyun said firmly, and Lee Jihyun shook her head.

“No. It’s my fault. I’m so worthless.”

“You’re worthless? No, you’re not.”

“No, no. I’m still...”

“Don’t blame yourself. You’re a very special person.”

At Yoo-hyun’s words, Lee Jihyun let out her pent-up emotions and raised her voice for the first time.

Her eyes were red.

“I thought I had forgotten everything. I thought I had overcome it by meeting good people at work. But... sob sob.”

“...”

Yoo-hyun couldn’t say anything in front of Lee Jihyun, who covered her face with both hands and cried.

Flap. Flap.

The windbreak fluttered in the cold wind.

How long had it been?

Lee Jihyun, who had finally calmed down, confessed her hidden feelings.

“Actually...”

An Seohee was Lee Jihyun’s high school classmate.

She was also the person who had tormented Lee Jihyun and gave her a terrible trauma.

An Seohee had made her friends turn their backs on Lee Jihyun with her bullying, and lied to the people around her to make them point fingers at her.

Under her lead, Lee Jihyun had to spend her lonely school days alone.

In the end, Lee Jihyun gave up her dream of becoming a fashion designer and cut off from the world.

Yoo-hyun listened to her story quietly and looked at her.

He didn’t know if she knew, but her tense shoulders had relaxed a bit.

She felt like she had let go of herself by pouring out her words.

What should he say to her, who seemed to be back at the starting point?

Yoo-hyun called her.

“Lee Jihyun.”

“Yes, CEO.”

“Why do you want to work with Yurim Fashion when you have such a painful memory?”

“Well... it’s for Reverb.”

She met his eyes, which were shining softly in the tremor.

She wished Reverb would do better, even if she had to endure the pain.

Lee Jihyun had become stronger.

“As I said before, we drew the line with Yurim Fashion not because of you. They made unreasonable demands, and we couldn’t accept them, so we chose a different way.”

“We could also negotiate the demands. If Yurim Fashion goes on its own route with a similar concept, it will cause trouble for our fashion review.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t think they can do it well if they just copy someone else. Even if they do, we can do better. Then Yurim Fashion will have to admit it and join us.”

“...”

This was not a fight to win or lose.

If it was beneficial for Yurim Fashion to work with Reverb, they wouldn’t refuse.

She seemed to understand what he meant, and Yoo-hyun conveyed his will to her.

“I want you to be at the center of it.”

“Can I... do it?”

“You know you have reliable colleagues behind you, right?”

“Colleagues...”

“We’ll help you. Let’s do it together, us.”

Yoo-hyun’s warm words struck Lee Jihyun’s heart.