Real Man

Chapter 77

He finally opened his mouth.

“I have something prepared. Can we talk about it after you see it?”

“What is it?”

The water had already spilled.

The situation had suddenly turned out like this, but he had no choice but to use the backup card he had prepared just in case.

“This is the concept of Channel Phone 2 that we propose.”

“Team leader!”

Manager Shin Chan-yong tried to stop him, but it was too late.

“You should have told me sooner if you had something like that. Get ready right now.”

Manager Kim Sung-deuk gestured quickly, and Laura Parker nodded slowly.

Team leader Oh Jae-hwan picked up the phone.

And exactly five minutes later.

The conference room door opened.

It was Yoo-hyun and Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo who entered.

As soon as they opened the door, they felt the suffocating air.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo sat down and greeted lightly.

“Hello. I’m Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo.”

“I’m Yoo-hyun.”

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo tried his best to look relaxed.

It was because of what Yoo-hyun had said.

-Laura Parker hates people who bow their heads when greeting. She thinks they are not prepared. You should greet her with confidence and simplicity.

-She prefers to have the data in one simple page that shows only what she wants.

-Oh, and don’t try to show off your expensive clothes or watches just because you’re meeting with a luxury company. She hates it when people flaunt their wealth too obviously.

He had said he had watched Laura Parker’s interview, but he was too detailed. 

But there was no reason not to listen to Yoo-hyun’s words.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo hid his nervousness and tried to look as relaxed as possible.

Then he quickly connected his laptop to the projector.

Then a screen with a large LCD panel drawn on it appeared.

There was no table of contents, summary, introduction or anything else.

It was just a panel image with the main specs highlighted.

At that moment, Laura Parker’s angular glasses slid down to her nose bridge.

Yoo-hyun let out a very short sigh of relief.

He had passed the first hurdle at least.

He was worried that Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo might be too nervous, but fortunately he showed a confident appearance.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo regained his pace and explained clearly.

“The panel we propose is…”

On the other hand, Yoo-hyun looked around.

He could imagine how the previous meeting went by looking at the people who were not used to the changed atmosphere.

The fact that Yoo-hyun came here meant that the meeting went as he expected.

But he was more glad than that.

‘You’re still the same as when you were young, Laura Parker.’

She was a vice president and he was a marketing manager back then.

They met in different roles like this.

They looked very different from then, but their purpose was the same.

They had to make a proposal that would appeal to her heart.

While Yoo-hyun was organizing his thoughts, Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo calmly explained the specs.

“If I explain the specs in detail…”

Laura Parker showed a slight change in her expression and listened attentively to his presentation.

Was it because of her different reaction?

Manager Shin Chan-yong, who was anxious, bit his lower lip lightly.

He wanted to intervene right away, but the situation was not right for that. 

He looked restless.

Yoo-hyun smiled triumphantly at him.

He must be frustrated.

He didn’t expect them to reveal the concept of Channel Phone 2 like this.

-You should think about Manager Shin’s position too. He has to take full responsibility if we propose first without any agreement and get rejected. But just in case, prepare something. Only prepare.

Before the meeting with Channel, team leader Oh Jae-hwan patted Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo’s shoulder and said that.

It started from Yoo-hyun.

Yoo-hyun casually asked Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo if he should connect the Channel Phone 2 concept meeting with the PDA backup.

The conversation reached team leader Oh Jae-hwan through Deputy Director Kim Hyun-min.

But Manager Shin Chan-yong opposed it.

He said it was impossible to propose first without any detailed negotiation with the client.

He also added that the PDA panel itself was not stable yet.

He said that, but it was obvious that he wanted to take all the credit later.

‘Too bad for you.’

Yoo-hyun smiled lightly at Manager Shin Chan-yong, who was confused.

How would he interpret this smile?

His expression hardened, as if he was not feeling very good.

‘Smile?’

Manager Shin Chan-yong felt an unpleasant feeling as if the newbie was looking down on him. 

He was annoyed.

He wanted to scold him right away, but it was not the time.

He quickly sorted out his thoughts.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo could never handle a high-level customer with his level.

He just showed the PDA panel specs without any detailed adjustment. 

How could that work?

In the end, Channel would choose a competitor, and someone had to take responsibility for that.

‘If only Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo hadn’t done that useless presentation…’

He could have fixed it if he hadn’t come in.

It was his fault for bringing that useless PDA panel.

Yeah. 

That’s right.

Manager Shin Chan-yong finished his scenario in his head, when he saw Laura Parker’s subtle movement.

She clearly nodded her head.

She leaned forward and focused on Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo’s words.

She never did that when he presented.

It must be a coincidence.

Or, Laura Parker was completely mistaken.

Manager Shin Chan-yong felt a strange sense of uneasiness and looked around alertly.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo stopped talking.

“Is that all?”

Laura Parker’s cold voice echoed.

I knew it. 

It was never going to work!

Manager Shin Chan-yong shrugged his shoulders and prepared to intervene.

It was time to cover up this twisted situation with Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo.

“I…”

It was when Manager Shin Chan-yong was about to open his mouth.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo spoke in a rather loud voice, as if he had made up his mind.

“I thought it wouldn’t be enough to just tell you, so I prepared something else.”

“What is it?”

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone’s eyes turned to Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo.

Yoo-hyun nodded at Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo and got up from his seat.

Then he placed the box he had brought on the middle of the table.

Laura Parker’s eyes naturally went to the box.

It was a black metal box with a faint light shining on it.

Yoo-hyun pushed the box towards Laura Parker and said,

“Would you like to see it?”

“A little. I still have a lot to learn.”

As Yoo-hyun spoke in German, Laura Parker’s eyes widened.

He was not just imitating, but speaking with a fairly accurate accent.

She looked at him again.

His expression, breathing, and eye contact were flawless.

He exuded elegance in his neat attire and courteous posture.

“Very good. Where did you learn it?”

“I wanted to go to Berlin someday, so I taught myself.”

Berlin was her hometown.

She had changed her nationality, but her heart was still in her homeland.

She insisted on using German for the same reason.

“Berlin… It’s a very beautiful city.”

Was that why?

Laura Parker’s eyes slightly closed and the ends of her thin eyebrows drooped.

She made a unique expression that she showed when she had a pleasant imagination.

Seeing that, Yoo-hyun slightly lifted the corners of his mouth.

‘It worked.’

Thanks to the surprise effect, he was able to win her heart more easily than he expected.

“Can I see what you prepared?”

“Yes, of course.”

As expected, Laura Parker’s voice became a tone brighter when she opened her mouth again.

The atmosphere that was cold became peaceful in an instant.

Clank.

And when she opened the box, a phone appeared on the red velvet.

The phone made of aluminum case was extremely thin and beautiful.

She picked up the phone with fascinated eyes and unknowingly exclaimed.

“Wow… Beautiful.”

The people in the conference room were surprised by Yoo-hyun, who was conversing in German so naturally. 

Moreover, they were shocked to hear praise from Laura Parker’s mouth.

‘What the hell is that!’

Everyone’s eyes turned to the phone in Laura Parker’s hand.

That was not a phone.

The people from the mobile phone division and the LCD division product planning team could not be unaware of the phone in this place.

Even if there was such a thing, how could they make it so thin with aluminum material!

In the noisy atmosphere, Park Seung-woo looked at Yoo-hyun.

-Laura Parker’s hometown is Berlin, Germany. She doesn’t like using English very much.

-She doesn’t believe anything unless she sees and touches it herself. So I thought I’d prepare some mockups.

He said he had nothing to do after the seminar and fiddled with the mockups here and there. 

He even went to the company and made a case.

At first, he thought it was pointless to do such unnecessary work, but he didn’t expect it to work so well.

“I’m going crazy.”

Park Seung-woo muttered very quietly without realizing it.

It was impossible to explain it with just having a good sense.

Yoo-hyun acted as if nothing happened and kept a calm expression, but he sighed with relief inside.

He didn’t make anything difficult.

He just separated the panel from the existing mockup and covered the edge of the separated panel with an aluminum case that he requested from the company.

He replaced the connection part with a thin cable, but that was not difficult either.

It was natural that it was thin and light when the battery and image output parts were removed and only the panel remained.

But because he only modified the existing one as little as possible, there were some sloppy parts.

He was worried, but thanks to paying attention to the packaging as well, he seemed to overlook the minor mistakes.

Rather, she seemed to like it more than expected.

‘Maybe she was frustrated.’

She was not an electronic industry worker, but a person who had been marketing luxury clothing for over ten years.

She was also a person who understood products with emotion rather than data or specs.

How frustrated she must have been trying to draw a picture of the product while receiving reports filled with all kinds of technical terms.

She requested today’s meeting herself for that reason.

She pretended to use the schedule as an excuse to tame the LCD division, but she secretly wanted to take over the production of the phone.

It was an old story, but it was so big that it remained vividly in Yoo-hyun’s memory.

Shin Chan-yong used HPDA3 panel as an excuse to overcome the crisis at that time.

But he couldn’t do that now.

Park Seung-woo already mentioned HPDA3 backup plan first, and if he accepted it, he had to take HPDA3 as a whole.

He was stuck in a situation where he couldn’t do anything about it.

‘Go eat shit.’

Yoo-hyun smiled coldly inside.

While Yoo-hyun was thinking, Laura Parker kept touching the mockup without stopping.

Yoo-hyun waited patiently until she asked him a question.

There was no need to rush to judge.

Curiosity made her more focused.

Soon she asked him.

“This is not a finished product, is it?”

“No. It’s just a mockup with a case on the panel. I pulled the power and signal lines down with a cable.”

“Does it work?”

“It’s a simple demo, so there’s not much functionality. You can flip through the images by pressing the button below.”

Following Yoo-hyun’s gesture, Laura Parker pressed the button at the bottom of the mockup.

Then, a background image with channel logos appeared on the screen, and icons of the same tone were placed on top of it.

It felt more like a phone when the screen was on.

“Wow, it looks like a completely new feeling. I think it would be great to apply it to the new channel phone.”

“The panel is so well made that I emphasized the panel as much as possible by separating it from the body. That’s why you feel that way.”

“I like it.”

“The shape of the buttons is similar to the existing channel phone concept.”

“Yes. I like it.”

It was thinness and material that could not be made with current technology.

But that was not important to Laura Parker right now.

What mattered was whether the thing in front of her stimulated her imagination or not.