In Destined with You, Mr. Gong is Hong-jo’s new team head who holds a grudge against her. Hyun Bong-Sik plays the role of Mr. Gong.
Hong-jo finds out that she is being transferred to City Hall, and the news does not make her happy, as a man named Mr. Gong works there. The fact that she might be part of his team worries and scares her, as Mr. Gong has to settle an old score with her.
An old grudge
When Hong-jo had just become a civil servant, she had reported Mr. Gong to the Audit Team. It was Hong-jo’s third day as a civil servant, and she did not know that Mr. Gong’s mother had died on the very same day.
Mr. Gong was receiving condolence money from others, but Hong-jo mistook that money for something else and reported him. Due to this, Mr. Gong never got promoted, and the chances of him becoming a manager in the future are also very low.
As fate would have it, Hong-jo gets transferred to the GreenWay Building Division and is made to work in Mr. Gong’s team — the Park Maintenance Team. Mr. Gong, who is now her team leader, claims that he is not going to punish her for her past actions, but it becomes clear very soon that he intends to do exactly that.
He keeps reminding Hong-jo of how she wronged him in the past and assigns a lot of tasks to her on her first day there. The other members of the team are loyal to Mr. Gong, so no one is friendly to her.
Mr. Gong and the team always make it a point to exclude Hong-jo. She is never invited to team dinners, and she is made to have her lunch all by herself. Hong-jo, who has no family and eats alone at home, does not wish to eat alone at work, so she tries to win Mr. Gong’s favor.
When a man dies at a haunted shrine and his parents demand that the shrine be demolished, Hong-jo offers to get it demolished, a job that no one wants to do. Although she manages to get it done, she still does not get in Mr. Gong’s good books.
In fact, her team goes to celebrate without her, and Mr. Gong makes it obvious that they do not want her there just to hurt her. Later, even when Hong-jo sincerely apologizes to Mr. Gong, he does not hear her out.
It becomes evident that Mr. Gong is a petty man who is not going to let bygones be bygones. Instead, he is going to misuse his authority to bully Hong-jo for her past mistake just because he can do that.
Also Read: Kwon Jae-gyeong: Destined with You character explained
