New Normal - Chapter 11

“Sorry?”

Seung-jo asked back, confused. Jung-eun just smiled sweetly.

“Shin Jisoo. Fire her.”

Her voice was so calm and cold that it left Seungjo speechless. Gi-ryang, seeing the tension, quickly stepped in to smooth things over.

“Professor Jung, with all due respect… that staff member was only recently assigned and doesn’t have any direct link to this issue. Besides, the forgery rumors are already calming down. If we fire someone now, it could stir up unnecessary backlash inside…”

“That’s right,” Seung-jo added. “Ms. Shin is diligent and very capable — she’s one of our key people. She’s supposed to transfer to the new Modern Art team soon too.”

Jung-eun looked at Seung-jo, her eyes unreadable, then slowly glanced between him and Gi-ryang. She folded her hands on her knee.

“Oh, right. Manager Jung — do you know Yang Jiseon from J University? She just moved to the National Museum as a researcher. I ran into her at the last conference — such a polite, passionate scholar. Honestly, too good to be stuck at a college.”

Seung-jo froze. Cold sweat rolled down his back at the sudden mention of her name. He realized too late that he shouldn’t have tried to cover for Jisoo at this moment. Jung-eun’s face didn’t change at all.

“She said she knows Kang Susan too — she seemed really worried about him when all this happened.”

“Ah… yes…” Seung-jo’s voice was small.

“Well, of course, she’d be concerned. She’s your niece, right? If family gets tangled up, anyone would feel uneasy, wouldn’t they?”

Seung-jo’s forced smile faded completely, but Jung-eun just gave him another sweet, perfect smile.

“I just… as a board member, I’d like this to end quietly before it blows up any bigger.”

“Of course. You’re absolutely right…” Seung-jo’s voice trailed off.

Jung-eun took her eyes off Seung-jo and locked them on Gil-ryang instead. Her stare was sharp, demanding what she wanted without saying it outright. Gil-ryang swallowed hard.

“And Director Gil-ryang, you don’t need to worry too much about the National Assembly,” Jung-eun said sweetly. “My husband’s aide actually used to work with the Ministry of Culture. So there’s… connections here and there. I’ll do whatever I can to help smooth things out.”

She paused, letting her eyes drift slowly across the table. Everyone held their breath, waiting for what she’d say next.

“But in the end, this has nothing to do with one person’s diligence or not, right? This is about the museum’s credibility as a whole. Someone still needs to take responsibility, don’t you think?”

Her calm but firm tone made Seung-jo clasp his hands together nervously and lower his head. That’s when So-young, who’d been silent until now, spoke up carefully.

“Then… what if we remove Shin Jisoo from the curation office for now and reassign her directly under the Director’s Office?”

Jung-eun’s eyes narrowed.

“The Director’s Office?”

“Yes. We’re about to set up a task force for the new Jeju Second Museum project. It hasn’t fully started yet, so for now, we could just have her handle some market research, internal data organizing— simple tasks. If she works there for a while, then later we can process her transfer quietly. It won’t stir up any gossip among the staff.”

Jung-eun looked down, like she was weighing something, then lifted her head again and gave a slow, sweet smile.

“Good idea. We can say it’s external support work. Bury it quietly… She’ll be out of sight for at least a year.”

Seung-jo, who’d been listening, looked uncomfortable. The Jeju museum hadn’t even broken ground yet. Calling it a ‘TF team*’ sounded nice, but everyone knew it was basically exile — babysitting a hysterical director for two or three years at best.
TL/N: *Temporary project team.

He hesitated, then spoke up.

“Um… Reassigning a permanent curator to unrelated admin work without her consent — the union might…”

Jung-eun rolled her eyes and let out a deep sigh before she could even answer. Gil-ryang shot Seung-jo a sharp look instead.

“Manager Jung, what’s the problem? We need to be realistic for the sake of the whole museum right now. And the Jeju project is going to get full backing from the group anyway, isn’t it?”

Another board member jumped in to support him.

“This is perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.”

“Exactly. Right now, we need to show we’re taking responsibility and cleaning things up inside. We need an outcome the public can accept too.”

A few other members nodded, backing the TF team plan. Seeing the mood settle, Jung-eun stood up, wrapping it up like it was final.

“Good. If no one has any other objections, I’ll take this as the final decision. Well then — I have other things to do, so I’ll be leaving first. Good luck, everyone.”

“Yes, we’ll report this to the Director as decided. Please get home safe.”

Giving them a short, polite smile, Jung-eun turned on her heel and walked out without a backward glance.

As soon as the door closed, Gil-ryang straightened his back, his smile gone. He swept his eyes around the room.

“The Director wants this handled quickly. I expect everyone to do their part so this doesn’t blow up any more than it already has.”

The moment Gil-ryang finished, the remaining board members and managers got up, quietly reading the room as they filed out of the conference room one by one.

Only Seung-jo stayed behind, swallowing hard and letting out a long breath.

It was one of those moments when someone’s unnecessary sacrifice was the easiest way out.

***

Jisoo stopped in front of the small office, balancing a box full of random stuff in her arms. Above the old, dull door, a flimsy piece of paper flapped awkwardly.

⸻

Jeju Second Art Museum Special Project TF Team

⸻

“What a fancy name for this,” she muttered, letting out a deep sigh. She stood there for a while, unable to bring herself to go in. Just then, she locked eyes with someone from the PR team passing by. He gave her a small nod and quickly looked away, as if he knew exactly why she was here at this late hour. Jisoo forced a faint, bitter smile at his retreating back.

The annex was a single-story building next to the main one. She’d come here plenty of times before for work with the PR or External Relations teams… but now this was actually going to be her new workspace — she still couldn’t believe it.

Jisoo, who’d spent half her twenties working at OOM Museum, knew this room had once been used as a storage space. The musty smell leaking out through the doorframe reminded her of the archives in the main building’s basement.

“Mm, the reason I asked to see you separately, Shin Jisoo… well, you know how noisy things have been lately. It’s been a mess.”

Because of the Kang Susan incident, the museum ended up deciding to put the planned exhibition on hold for now. While handling the scandal, Jisoo also got dragged into the talks about who was responsible, so of course, she had to sit through a one-on-one meeting with Chief Yoo Inhye in a conference room.

“Lee Sunhee has been back and forth helping out even though she’s on leave, so it hasn’t been easy for her either. Anyway, the bottom line is — after an internal meeting, we decided to temporarily transfer you to the Jeju Second Museum special task team. You know this team reports directly to the director, right? Well, there aren’t any other team members yet, but we’ll add people soon. There’ll be more chances for attention, so this could actually be a good step for your career too… Anyway, we still need your signed agreement on the transfer, so get this done and hand it in by the end of the week.”

Chief Yoo Inhye was unusually sweet when she gave her the transfer notice — almost too sweet for Jisoo’s liking.

“‘Good for my career,’ my ass. It just means be thankful they didn’t fire me.”

She muttered under her breath, but there was no one to answer. Just a moment ago, she’d still been up in the main building’s second-floor curatorial office — now she’d been shoved off to a tiny side building where there wasn’t even anyone to talk to.

“Whatever. At least I’m far from the director’s office now… Wait, no. The only person I’ll be working with is the director? Oh, no — the director doesn’t even do any work, so I guess it’s just me. Alone. Great.”

Mumbling nonsense to comfort herself, Shin Jisoo grabbed the door handle. She felt half out of it, but the cold metal made her shiver for a second.

 Creak—

The door opened with an eerie sound, and the empty office came into view.

A few old desks, one lonely computer, an ancient landline phone, and stacks of dusty paperwork were there to greet her.