Chapter 65: Welcome to the Kindergarten of Destruction! (65)/ 789 |
TL: Hanguk
PR: MiniPixelZ
“Cuengi, thanks for brewing the coffee. Everyone, great work today.”
Sejun spoke to Cuengi and the other staff members of Cuengi Cafe.
Cuengi Cafe’s business hours were from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Finally, the day’s business had come to an end.
A moment later.
“Oh! Daily sales of 120 million won! Our Cuengi is amazing?”
Kuehehehe.
After checking the sales on the POS machine, Sejun praised Cuengi. It was thanks to Cuengi brewing 10 cups of coffee at a time.
[Dad, then how many Tower Coins did Cuengi earn?]
“Hmm. About 60 Tower Coins?”
Huh? That’s too little?
Once it was converted into Tower Coins, the amount suddenly felt small.
Our Cuengi’s weekly allowance is 100 Tower Coins…
Sejun was worried Cuengi might be disappointed, but
Kuehehehe. Kueng! Kueng! Kueng!
[Hehehe. If Cuengi works every day, Cuengi can earn 420 Tower Coins a week! Cuengi is rich now, so Dad, tell me anything you want! Cuengi will buy it all for you!]
The positivity king Cuengi was happy imagining not just a day’s pay but a week’s worth of earnings.
“Puhuhut. Cuengi, then I, Vice Chairman Theo… meow?”
Sejun covered Theo’s mouth. Theo would definitely ask for something really expensive without considering Cuengi’s wallet.
Just then,
“Cuengi, could you brew seven iced Americanos?”
Park Se-dol asked Cuengi.
About five minutes later, a van pulled up in front of the store.
“Se-dol!”
“Brother-in-law, hello!”
“Brother-in-law~”
From the van, Kim Serang and the members of Moonlight Fairy came rushing out, calling out to Se-dol.
Moonlight Fairy, a girl group in their 10th year since debut. Although they didn’t go public with it, unofficial relationships were allowed, so the other members were aware that Se-dol and Serang were dating.
“Yeah. Hey girls, nice to see you. This is my older brother.”
Se-dol introduced Sejun to the members of Moonlight Fairy.
“Hehehe. Hello. I’m Park Sejun.”
Sejun greeted them as well.
“Puhuhut. Nice to meet you, human females! I am great subordinate of Chairman Park….”
Just as Theo was about to introduce himself,
“You’re the deadly dragon-clawed hybrid golden cat, Park Theo! Nice to meet you! I’m the cat butler of Moonlight Fairy, Cha Yuri! Can I touch your paw?”
Cha Yuri interrupted Theo’s introduction and spoke instead. For reference, Cha Yuri was also a member of Theo’s fan club, Meow-Meow Club.
“Puhuhut. Fine….”
Just as Theo was generously about to allow it,
“Kyoo-kyoo- no!”
Theo-nim is mine!
Iona expressed her discomfort. She had already tolerated him taking pictures with other girls earlier, but now they wanted to touch his front paw?! That was physical contact!
“Aigoo! The hamster talks!”
“So cute!”
“Can I pet your fur?”
“Would you like some nuts?”
The attention that had been on Theo suddenly shifted completely to Iona.
“Tsk.”
“Meow.”
And so the two of them drifted out of the fairies’ attention.
“Se-dol, when I go to Paris for the photo shoot this time, let’s go together.”
“Shall we?”
Feeling bored, Sejun sat at the table where Se-dol and Serang were chatting.
Thud thud thud.
Following Iona, who was hanging onto Theo’s tail, who in turn clung to Sejun’s lap, the other members of Moonlight Fairy came over and sat at the table.
Once everyone was seated,
Kueng!
[The coffee is ready!]
Cuengi brought over coffee and cake.
“Wow~!”
“So cute!”
“What is this place?! Too many cute people!”
“I might die from an overdose of cuteness!”
The members of Moonlight Fairy went wild again.
While the members were distracted,
Nom. Nom.
“Se-dol, this was made by your brother-in-law, right?”
“Yeah. Eat lots.”
“Okay!”
As expected, the cake made by my brother-in-law is the best! It’s so delicious.
Serang was eagerly stuffing herself with cake. If the other members touched it, her portion would decrease.
At that moment.
“Huh?! Serang unnie is eating all the cake!”
The youngest and biggest glutton, Oh So-young, shouted.
“How sneaky!”
“I want cake too!”
The members of Moonlight Fairy grabbed their forks and dove into battle to eat the cake.
“Wow.”
Sejun’s illusion of celebrities shattered completely.
“There’s more, so take your time.”
He began treating the Moonlight Fairy members more casually.
“Our brother-in-law’s cake is the best, right?”
“Brother-in-law? Sejun brother-in-law, can I have another piece of blueberry cake?”
“Ria-chan, you’re not allowed to call him brother-in-law! Se-dol is mine!”
“Ah. Is that so? I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
It was total chaos.
“Puhuhut. Humans, aren’t you curious about the legendary story of how great hybrid Chairman Park and I, Vice Chairman Theo, first met?!”
Kuehehehe. Kueng!
[Cuengi also wants to tell the story of the first meeting with Dad!]
Kihihit. Kking!
[Hehe. Great Blackie wants to go first! Actually, before the butler was even born, great Blackie had already marked him as his butler with saliva!]
Jingle! Jingle!
[To think you marked him before Sejun-nim was even born! As expected of great Blackie-nim! You’re truly incredible!]
Of course, this side was no less chaotic.
While Sejun’s group and the Moonlight Fairy members were chatting noisily,
“Huh?! A bell sound?”
Kurosaki Ria, who was called Ria-chan by Serang, heard Kkobangi’s bell and played a song on her smartphone.
Jingle. Jingle.
(Have you had a hard day again today?)
The song started playing.
“Huh?!”
“This is?!”
Everyone’s attention turned to the song at once.
The reasons were different, though.
For Sejun and his group,
It’s our song!
Because it was the song they had composed.
As for the Moonlight Fairy members,
“Huh?! Sejun-nim, you know this song too?!”
“Of course he would. It hit number one on the Melon chart and made the news for hitting 1 million cumulative streams on Workfy in the shortest time.”
“I heard it’s also getting a huge response on AppleTunes.”
“But how could someone come up with such a concept?”
“The person who composed this song must be a genius.”
“Pinky Girls are so lucky. Getting a song like this….”
“I heard CK Entertainment’s composer Jo Kyung-su made it.”
“Jo Kyung-su? Never heard that name before.”
“Ah. I’m so jealous! If only we had received this song….”
Because it was the hottest song these days. And since they were people in the industry, they were more attuned to such trends.
After a while.
When the song ended,
“Guys, we have to go now! If we stay any longer, we’ll be late for the next shoot.”
The manager rounded up the members of Moonlight Fairy, and they disappeared. As they left, each of the departing Moonlight Fairy members carried two boxes of cake under the excuse that you’re supposed to support new openings by buying a lot.
“Se-dol, take care of closing the shop for me.”
37.150.24.137
Sejun asked Se-dol to tidy up the store.
“Okay.”
Se-dol quietly nodded at Sejun’s unusually serious expression.
He had only seen that kind of serious face from Sejun once before, when Sejun had vowed to get back the money taken from Se-dol by neighborhood bullies. Of course, he didn’t get the money back and came home with a bruised face.
And then they went to eat tteokbokki together…
While Se-dol was lost in nostalgia, Sejun and his group stepped outside.
“Theosun, you’re ready, right?”
“Puhuhut. Great detective Sherlock Sejun’s trusty assistant Theosun is ready to catch the bad human, meow!”
Kueng!
[Detective Cunan is also ready to catch the song thief!]
Kking!
[Butler! Detective Kapang is ready too!]
A team of master detectives. They were off to catch Jo Kyung-su, who had stolen their song.
“Then Taecho will be… Detective Taechoping!”
Taecho quickly came up with her own detective name and joined in the detective play.
***
“Ah. These days feel like a dream.”
“Same here.”
“I can’t believe we’re number one.”
The members of Pinky Girls chatted excitedly as they traveled in a car for an interview.
They had been so busy lately that they were only getting two hours of sleep per day, but the joy of rising from a second-tier girl group to a top-tier group erased all their fatigue.
And then.
“Ahem. Who brought that second wind?”
Pinky Girls’ leader, Rosa, proudly placed her hands by her ears and said with a smug expression.
“Rosa unnie, stop it. You’ve said it more than a hundred times now.”
“Only a hundred? I’m gonna say it a thousand times!”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Your Majesty Rosa.”
“But it’s true that thanks to Rosa unnie being the first to hear the song Jo Kyung-su composer uploaded and leaving a message, we got it.”
In the A&R team group chat that Jo Kyung-su had posted in, CK Entertainment’s celebrities were also present.
“Hehehe. Normally, I would’ve brushed him off as a parachute composer, but strangely, that day I really wanted to listen. And that feeling turned out to be right. The moment I heard it, I just knew, ‘this is ours!’ So…”
“So our Rosa unnie sent a message saying ‘Me!’ with 100 hand-raising emojis to show how badly she wanted it, right?”
“Hey! I was gonna say that!”
“Hmph. Too bad.”
While Rosa and her rival Kiru were bickering,
“But seriously, Composer Jo Kyung-su… I had zero expectations because I thought he was a parachute hire, but to think he had that level of talent hidden.”
“I know, right? That’s why everyone was so surprised.”
The members chatted about Jo Kyung-su.
“Anyway, when we had to cancel the MV shoot the day before filming and hurriedly record a new track and redo the choreography with barely any sleep, I really wanted to cry, but now I’m just so happy!”
“Same here. But thank goodness we didn’t end up filming that MV. If we had, we wouldn’t have been able to sing this song.”
“Right. Manager oppa said that if we’d shot that MV, the song would’ve gone to Phoenix instead.”
“Seriously, thank goodness.”
“By the way, when is Phoenix coming back?”
“I heard they’re scheduled to make a comeback next month. And apparently, the five songs Composer Jo Kyung-su uploaded next all went to Meteor.”
“Wow. We actually snatched a song away from Phoenix and Meteor sunbaes…”
Just then.
“Girls! We’re number one on both Workfy and AppleTunes!”
The manager, who had been checking the music charts on his smartphone, shouted.
““Kyaa!””
The car was filled with the happy screams of Pinky Girls. Meanwhile, the car quietly arrived at the interview location.
***
[CK ENTERTAINMENT]
“Is this the place?”
Sejun looked between the map app on his smartphone and the building as he spoke.
“Puhuhut. Looks like it, meow! Let’s hurry and go catch Jo Kyung-su, meow!”
Kueng!
Kking!
“Dad, leave it to Detective Taechoping!”
The group was fired up with motivation.
They had already memorized his face from all the media coverage. Despite stealing their song, he seemed to have zero conscience and had proudly given a ton of interviews.
“Guys, hide yourselves.”
At Sejun’s words, the group used stealth skills to conceal themselves. For Blackie and Taecho, who didn’t have stealth skills, Iona cast invisibility magic.
“Who are you here to see?”
As Sejun tried to enter CK Entertainment’s building, a security guard blocked his way and asked.
“Jo Kyung-su.”
“Composer Jo Kyung-su? Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Then please make an appointment and come back.”
“Okay.”
Sejun backed off without a fuss. He had expected this method to fail from the start.
Alright. Time for Plan B.
“Iona, use invisibility magic and blink magic for me.”
“Kyoot kyoot kyoot. Okay!”
Swoosh.
With Iona’s magic, Sejun easily entered CK Entertainment.
“Now, where could he be?”
Remaining invisible, he began leisurely searching for Jo Kyung-su.
***
“Hehehe.”
Jo Kyung-su, as usual, was lying on the recording studio couch giggling while looking at his smartphone.
There were two things different from usual.
First, instead of lunch, he was eating a late-night snack while lying down. Last night, he’d been out drinking late with the CEO of CK Entertainment, who thanked him for producing a great song, and he came to work in the late afternoon.
His uncle, who had gotten him into the company, insisted he work at least eight hours a day, so he had no choice but to show up.
The other difference,
-Hello, Composer Jo. This is Daniel, leader of Meteor. We really love all five songs you sent us! The members are totally satisfied. Let’s work together on the next album too!
-Hello, this is Lee Kyung-tae, Director of the A&R Division at DD Entertainment. If you’re available, I’d love to grab a meal…
Was what he was seeing on his smartphone. In the past, all he looked at were community posts and webtoons, but now he was checking messages from people reaching out to him.
Thanks to that, Jo Kyung-su’s self-esteem was skyrocketing.
“But why aren’t they sending any more songs lately?”
He had already told an employee to forward any files from sjbb Music directly to him, but he hadn’t heard anything.
Should I start making contact and push for new songs?
Honestly, he hadn’t expected things to go this well, so now his greed was growing.
So,
-Hello, this is Jo Kyung-su, composer from CK Entertainment. I’m contacting you regarding the song you sent. If you’re open to it, how about grabbing a meal to talk about the music?
He sent a DM to the sjbb Music account.
And then.
Bzzz.
A vibration sounded right next to him.
Right. A talk sounds good.
Sejun, standing right next to Jo Kyung-su, checked his smartphone and grinned.