Watching Jin-hyeok return to his seat, Seok-hun felt a wave of unease.
Because Jin-hyeok, whom he had expected to come back thoroughly chewed out over the Etoile incident, was sitting there with an endlessly serene expression.
Two days ago, the Division Head had asked to meet Jin-hyeok the moment Seok-hun submitted the Mullae-dong report.
Although the Division Head had said he was calling him in to ask about the Etoile matter, Seok-hun couldn't shake the nagging unease of “what if.”
“Manager Kang. Step outside for a second.”
Dragging Jin-hyeok to the break room, Seok-hun asked.
“What did you talk about for so long?”
“The Etoile Sillim branch. He asked me why I made that decision.”
“And what did you say?”
“I simply shared my thoughts. That I only did what I judged to be right.”
“Ha-. You spouted that crazy nonsense right in front of the Division Head too? When even showing remorse wouldn't have been enough?”
Seok-hun let out a scoffing laugh in disbelief, but Jin-hyeok didn't waver in the slightest.
“What is there for me to show remorse for? Have you not heard? How much the group's public image improved as word of the Etoile Sillim branch event spread? Is that not the very mutual growth our group preaches?”
Sure enough, the guy was a crazy bastard.
Seok-hun had known he was an inflexible bastard, but he had never imagined he would spit out talk like that right in front of the Division Head.
“You still haven't come to your senses. The Division Head must have been rotting inside listening to you. Tsk.”
“Well, for someone rotting inside, he seemed quite pleased with my answer. In fact, he entrusted me with a new assignment.”
At the mention that the Division Head had handed down an assignment directly while bypassing him, Seok-hun's face twisted into a scowl.
“The Division Head gave an order directly to you? Are you kidding me?”
“I am not kidding. The Baristas Gimpo Janggi Branch. He told me to find a way to revive it.”
The Baristas Gimpo Janggi Branch.
The moment he heard that name, Seok-hun burst out laughing.
“Puhaha. Don't tell me you actually think that's a good thing?”
Not long ago, the Franchise Operations Team had contacted him saying they were going to have to declare that store beyond revival.
It was a handcrafted ice cream shop whose commercial district analysis Seok-hun had conducted himself.
Not that it mattered much to him.
Because closing down five years after opening had no impact whatsoever on his performance evaluation.
And the Division Head had dumped that onto Jin-hyeok?
In Seok-hun's eyes, Jin-hyeok was laboring under a massive delusion.
“That's poison, punk. It's a bowl of royal poison, I tell you. Tsk.”
Seok-hun genuinely believed that.
That the Division Head, frustrated after talking with Jin-hyeok about Etoile Bakery, had handed him an impossible assignment to put him in his place.
It wasn't a place where a fluke like the Etoile Sillim branch would work.
A prime spot located less than ten meters from a subway station exit, backed by a massive apartment complex.
Unlike Etoile, the Baristas Janggi Branch already stood in the best possible location.
The only reason business was failing was that the trend for high-end handcrafted ice cream had ended.
From discount ice cream shops in every apartment commercial building to the major competitor that had cemented its dominance with thirty-one flavors.
The Baristas Janggi Branch was a place no one could save, no matter who went there.
However, Jin-hyeok replied calmly, as if none of that mattered.
“Why would that be poison? All I need to do is analyze whether revival is possible.”
“Haha. Listen to how carefree you sound. Telling you to analyze the possibility of revival means he's telling you to bring back a way to revive it. You've worked at a company for ten years and you still don't know that?”
Jin-hyeok knew that, of course, but he had no intention of forcing an impossible answer.
If he saw a way to save the store, he would report it as such, but he didn't plan on straining himself to manufacture one if none existed.
He had made his stance clear to the Division Head as well.
He was a commercial district analyst.
He had thought it would be enough to simply conduct a proper analysis suited to the situation.
And yet, why was it?
The moment Seok-hun openly scoffed at him, a fierce desire to pull it off no matter what surged up inside him.
“I will not jump to any conclusions before visiting the site in person.”
“Pfft. Yeah? Nice to see you never change. Let's see how you do, then. Kekeke.”
Patting Jin-hyeok's shoulder as if amused, Seok-hun returned to his desk.
Left alone, Jin-hyeok clenched his fist tightly.
The Division Head, who had openly handed him a test assignment to prove his words, and Senior Manager Kim Seok-hun, who was gloating that he had been handed poison.
Before quitting the company, he wanted to show them.
That there was no place a commercial district analyst who had worked harder than anyone else couldn't save.
***
The next morning, at the Janggi Station intersection.
On a weekday morning, the streets were remarkably quiet.
Seongun's handcrafted ice cream specialty shop, Baristas, was no different.
Leaving the empty store be for now, I opened my laptop at a second-floor cafe overlooking the intersection.
The very first thing to do was foot traffic analysis.
What a convenient world we lived in.
Information that required pounding the pavement ten years ago could now be checked with just a few clicks.
In addition to the Small Enterprise Information System and local government foot traffic tallies, there was even big data like Geovision Puzzle operated by telecom companies.
It provided cross-analyzed data showing which age groups and genders were concentrated by day of the week and time of day.
Looking at the data alone, it wasn't a bad location at all.
The surrounding environment was the same.
Centered around the intersection, it was a bustling commercial area with a large-scale apartment complex and a restaurant alley.
It was a situation where the answer didn't come easily, yet I didn't feel frustrated in the slightest.
Things were different from the past, when I had to run around all over the place.
Because I had a diary app that could show me the future.
I turned on my smartphone and recorded a fake diary entry.
[Thursday, March 12th. It's not like I had some magic solution either. Coming out here in person made it clear: there is no answer for the Baristas Janggi Branch. Just as the Franchise Operations Team did, I'll have to declare it beyond revival too.]
There were two reasons I wrote down an entry I didn't actually mean.
If it was truly impossible, I didn't want to waste my energy; and if it was possible, I wanted to pull it off no matter what.
-Ding.
The instant I pressed save, the diary app reacted.
[Month 00, Day 00. I visited the Janggi Station intersection for the first time in a long while. Looking around the area, a wave of regret suddenly washed over me. Why didn't I see it back then? The new ice cream shop that opened at the entrance of the restaurant alley had an endless stream of customers. Why didn't I think of this?
If I had been just a little more careful, the Baristas owner wouldn't have given up on her life. To think I brushed it off so carelessly when such an easy solution was right there. Was I bewitched by something? I resented my past self so much.]
A diary entry with no date recorded, as though it were from the distant future.
I had just read an insane record.
The Baristas owner was going to take her own life?
It was only a hypothetical future brought about by my fake entry, but even the thought of it was horrifying.
Biting my lip hard, I deleted the fake diary entry about declaring the store beyond revival.
The future diary entry slowly faded away.
Another reason to save Baristas had just been added.
A reason that neither the Division Head's test nor Senior Manager Kim Seok-hun's mockery could even begin to compare to.
The solution written in the record was remarkably simple.
Move Baristas over toward the restaurant alley.
Thinking that as I looked down at the intersection, a banner diagonally across the street caught my eye.
A clothing store with huge letters reading that the owner had gone crazy.
As could be seen from the banner alone, that place also seemed to be preparing to close down.
The two stores had been placed completely backward.
Only a single intersection separated them, yet the difference between the two spots was stark.
Behind the clothing store, the restaurant alley began, while behind Baristas towered a massive apartment complex.
Ice cream was an impulse-buy business where people bought a treat on a whim, whereas clothing was a planned-purchase business that people sought out only when needed.
No wonder the clothing store owner was going crazy.
No one tries on clothes with a full, bulging stomach right after eating a meal.
And even fewer people buy clothes while drunk.
I left the cafe and sat down at a convenience store next to the clothing shop.
There were limits to foot traffic checked only through data.
Checking the flow of people by time of day, I watched and listened in person.
Not just their age and gender, but their likely occupations and even what kind of conversations they were having.
When lunchtime arrived, white-collar office workers poured out onto the street.
Nine out of ten walked past the front of the clothing store and into the restaurant alley, not toward Baristas.
It was the same for the elementary, middle, and high school students who appeared one after another after lunch, as well as the housewives who came out for a breather after finishing their housework.
There wasn't even any need to stay and watch what happened in the evening.
This was a spot where you had to sell ice cream, not clothes.
Observed at the same time, Baristas across the street was in the exact opposite situation.
Elderly residents didn't cross the crosswalk, only strolling around the vicinity of Baristas.
Just looking at that was enough to tell.
People wouldn't pass by over there until evening rush hour.
Hungry office workers who only wanted to get home as quickly as possible.
After entering the data I had gathered into my laptop, I headed over to Baristas.
I was going to make this work no matter what.
This had become a matter of saving a human life, not just saving a store.
When I opened the shop door and stepped inside, a sweet vanilla scent brushed past the tip of my nose.
“Hello, ma'am.”
Having served only five customers all day long, the female owner let out a sigh and sat down across from me.
“You are here?”
Just like when I had called her earlier, her voice had no energy in it whatsoever.
With her lease nearing its end, she must have had a lot on her mind.
“Do you have a moment to talk?”
“Yes. It is embarrassing to say, but as you can see, there are no customers at all. What brings someone from the Commercial District Analysis Team here, though?”
It was a natural reaction.
Once the Commercial District Analysis Team drew the rough sketch, the Store Development Team and the Space Design Team carried it out.
Everything after that was entirely the job of the Franchise Operations Team.
That was why she found my sudden visit puzzling.
“I had somewhere to stop by nearby. If you do not mind, may I offer you a consultation? I heard your lease is ending soon.”
“A consultation?”
Her eyes were filled with suspicion.
Her disappointment with headquarters must have been just as deep as her regrets.
There were people like that.
People who believed that as long as they secured a Seongun franchise, they would at least be able to make a living.
However, reality wasn't like that.
The harsh reality of franchises that everyone eventually came to realize.
Franchisees were merely a means to fatten a conglomerate's belly.
Surviving was entirely up to the individual.
To begin with, it wasn't structured so that headquarters suffered a loss just because a store owner was in the red.
Whether business boomed or tanked, the franchise fees remained unchanged.
And to add insult to injury, there was constant pressure to replace the sign or remodel the interior every few years.
That was why she felt wary of my sudden offer of a consultation.
“I am not trying to charge you a consulting fee or anything like that. I only want to give you some advice. Could you tell me about your situation in detail? What are you planning to do once your lease ends?”
“···I really do not know. My children are still young, and I have so much debt to pay off, and then my husband even got hurt not long ago…….”
Even without hearing the rest of the details, it was clear she was suffering from severe financial hardship.
Which explained why she would be driven to make such a tragic choice in that future.
“By any chance, have you considered relocating? I came out here this morning and analyzed the commercial district, and no matter how I look at it, this spot is really not good for your business.”
“…Relocate the store?”
Worry filled the female owner's face.
The worse business goes, the more time you have to think.
She must have mulled over every conceivable option.
Yet in a mind filled only with frustration, no hope would have come to her.
However, I already knew the way forward.
“You see that place over there, right? The one with the banner saying the owner has gone crazy. That spot is a goldmine. It is the worst possible place to sell clothes, but for you, ma'am, it could not be better.”
Had I delivered a line that sounded way too much like a con artist?
The female owner stared at me as if she were looking at a crazy person.