Jeon Nam-il set out on a long trip for the first time in a while. It was to meet Lee Duseok, who was like a teacher to him.
“Teacher, I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to come see you.”
He bowed a full ninety degrees to Lee Duseok, who had come to greet him all the way at the front gate.
“That’s enough, man. I’m grateful you made time to come see an old man like me when you’re so busy.”
Gently patting Jeon Nam-il on the back, Lee Duseok slowly led him into the garden.
“The weather’s warmed up. Shall we have some tea in the garden?”
“That sounds good.”
“I prepared the tea to my taste. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
The two sat cross-legged in a quiet pavilion. The tea table holding the cups was full of signs of age.
“Teacher, you’re still using this tea table?”
“Isn’t it still perfectly usable?”
“Even so, it’s so old. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“No, this is more than enough.”
It was the tea table Jeon Nam-il had given to Lee Duseok in thanks for the help he received when he first founded LS Entertainment.
“S-still…”
As he looked down at the time-worn table, he was overcome with guilt for not visiting often, always claiming to be busy, and he couldn’t raise his head.
“I told you, it’s fine.”
Lee Duseok gave Jeon Nam-il a kindly smile. Then, without a word, he took a sip of the steaming tea.
Clink.
Setting the cup down, he ran his rough, wrinkled fingertips over the corner of the tea table.
“These days, what’s got my touch on it is what’s most comfortable and pleasing, so don’t trouble yourself.”
Though the mother-of-pearl inlay was splendid, the tea table had suffered the scars of time—yet it retained its noble dignity and oriental beauty.
Lee Duseok truly loved this tea table and didn’t want to replace it.
He had even thought that perhaps he might sit before it, drinking tea, until the day he died.
“Anyway, what brings you today?”
Lee Duseok asked, looking at Jeon Nam-il, who was gauging his mood.
“Ah, it’s just….”
Straightening his posture, Jeon Nam-il began to speak.
“I came because I have something to consult you about, regarding a young man named Min Hyunseung.”
“A welcome name. But when I asked that kid to come play a game of go, he hasn’t been coming by lately?”
“He’s probably been very busy these days.”
Lee Duseok said, “I see,” betraying a hint of regret, but only for a moment.
“Not long ago he released a track for a rookie singer named Lee Hyoeun, and there wasn’t a single article about it, so I thought he might be resting but no.”
Nodding slightly, he recalled Hyunseung’s recent steps and added,
“That boy didn’t rest a single day this past year, and he’s still creating works like an ever-flowing spring.”
“Seems you’re more interested in him than I thought, Teacher.”
“Mm, perhaps I am. He’s a kid my eyes keep going to, strangely enough. Above all, his go skills are truly outstanding.”
Watching the pleased smile on Lee Duseok’s face, Jeon Nam-il quietly looked straight at him and then cautiously spoke.
“Since go’s come up, honestly I still can’t believe you lost a game of go, Teacher.”
“If you’re nitpicking, I did win once. The problem is, it was a victory more wretched than defeat.”
“A victory more wretched than defeat?”
“Yes, he’s the one who gave me my first ever hollow victory.”
For someone calling it a “hollow” victory, Lee Duseok’s face looked very satisfied.
And then, quite naturally, he poured praise on Hyunseung.
“Maybe born with such a style of play, that might be why the performances he’s shown so far are only the natural result.”
“Teacher, you’ve always been good at grasping your opponent’s style in a single match.”
Conversely, Jeon Nam-il raised up Lee Duseok as he continued.
“To tell the truth, I doubted the kid’s ability. In this field there are so many one-hit wonders, aren’t there?”
“Right. Between what we’ve seen and heard of, there are several truckloads.”
“So at first I wondered if he just pushed with bravado and got lucky.”
“You could think that. Naturally, from a CEO’s perspective, you have to be skeptical that way.”
“But one day…”
Jeon Nam-il slowly retraced his memory and went on.
“He got the famously closed-off president of Man Records to come to us, and now he’s gotten the high-nosed Austin of Unice Music Group to come as well.”
At that, Lee Duseok set down the cup he had been about to lift and gave a soft response.
“At this rate, he’ll have ties with all three of the world’s big distributors.”
On the back of Lee Duseok’s offhand remark, Jeon Nam-il layered on something to give it weight.
“Seeing how he laid down a line with Unice on an absurd distribution deal this time, it seems that day isn’t far off.”
“He’s doing what I couldn’t even do while I was in office.”
“Yes, it’s something I couldn’t achieve either, and I gave up thinking I’d never manage it by the time I stepped down.”
Locking eyes with Jeon Nam-il in midair, Lee Duseok spoke in a soothing tone.
“Still, didn’t you open a line with the notorious Sonia Music? That’s why I rated you so highly.”
“I remember being happy then, being recognized by you for the first time.”
Lifting his now-cold teacup, Jeon Nam-il continued.
“But now that I think about it, maybe pandering to the notoriously overbearing Sonia Music was the easy part.”
As he spoke, suddenly his grip tightened on the teacup.
“But Teacher…”
Because of that, the tea inside began to swirl ever so slightly.
“As my expectations for that kid grow, another feeling keeps trying to sprout alongside them.”
Just like Jeon Nam-il’s heart at that moment.
“So, shameless as it is, I came to seek your wisdom.”
In the end, without taking a single sip, he set the cup down.
“Mm….”
It was the first time Lee Duseok had seen him like this, so he was somewhat surprised, but he understood.
After rising to the lofty seat of CEO, this wasn’t a look you could show anywhere, nor a feeling you could betray.
‘He probably wants to confide in me, at least.’
Gazing steadily at Jeon Nam-il’s face, Lee Duseok asked,
“For example… what sort of feeling do you mean?”
“I’d thought I wanted to keep him within my fence and watch him for a long time, but… it seems the threshold of my fence is far too low to hold him.”
“Are you worried he’ll vault over your fence someday? Or do you feel fear?”
“To be honest, this feeling may be closer to fear than worry.”
Before dawn in a quiet cathedral, as if offering a private confession, Jeon Nam-il added calmly,
“What if one day he leaves this nest? What should I do? What if one day I have to face him as an enemy? What should I do….”
Uncharacteristically trailing off, he shifted his gaze far away for a moment.
“When I sink into such thoughts, from time to time a thing called fear coils itself up in my heart.”
For some reason, Jeon Nam-il’s voice was calm yet trembled, as if facing “fear.”
“Sometimes I even indulge the delusion that LS Entertainment will be absorbed by that kid and become HS Entertainment.”
“To be having such delusions… Jeon Nam-il, you must be getting old too.”
As if it were nothing much, Lee Duseok smiled and placed his hand on the tea table.
“Do you remember, on the day you founded LS Entertainment, you gave me this tea table and said you’d repay the favor on a larger scale?”
“Yes, of course I remember.”
“Is that promise still valid?”
“Naturally.”
Then he reached out and set his hand on Jeon Nam-il’s shoulder.
“Then, from now on, think of it as repaying me on a grand scale and treat that kid well.”
Startled, Jeon Nam-il blurted, “Pardon?” and asked back.
He knew well enough that Lee Duseok had his eye on Hyunseung…
But he hadn’t expected the words “treat him well” to come directly from his mouth.
“If you and that kid become enemies, crushing him by any means necessary would be nothing for you, wouldn’t it? Of course, it would come with enormous risk.”
Between his genial eyes, a sharp black gleam flashed as Lee Duseok added,
“However… until then, simply trust him and watch.”
Jeon Nam-il quietly waited for the rest. It felt like the final directive his mentor figure, Lee Duseok, was handing down to him.
“That way, even if one day he leaves your nest, he won’t send the nest you’ve built and protected crashing down.”
Somehow, those words set his heart down. It sounded as if the choice of whether or not the nest fell was no longer in his hands.
Presently.
As if he had said his piece, Lee Duseok shifted his gaze beyond the garden.
It was a look that seemed to dwell somewhere between coolness and warmth.
Following his gaze, Jeon Nam-il turned his head as well.
Sunlight that seemed about to blaze announced that summer was near.
Once upon a day….
Both Lee Duseok and Jeon Nam-il had been suns in that sky.
But they knew all too well that the sun shining up there now was not them.
Perhaps that was why they felt something like fear.
“I’ll do as you say, Teacher.”
“Wise decision.”
Because just looking up at the sun makes your neck ache.
As usual, with half-open eyes, Hyunseung showed up at the gym.
Of course.
There were times he wanted to rest, worn out and tired…
‘Feels good, though.’
He’d become addicted to checking how his body shape changed day by day; before he knew it, he’d already arrived at the gym.
“Your body’s starting to take shape now.”
“Do you think so too, Executive Director?”
“Even so, compared to me, it’s a child’s physique.”
Side by side in front of the mirrored wall, the two were showing off their fully pumped arm muscles.
“But you know this, right? Women prefer a body like mine to a body like yours, Executive Director.”
“You little punk, I’m a dad. If women liked me, that’d be a big problem.”
“Mm, it’s not necessarily because you’re a dad that they wouldn’t like you….”
For a moment, with a mischievous look, Hyunseung raked his eyes down Executive Director Park.
“Sir…”
As if something had come to him, he stopped Park, who was heading for the lockers.
“Are you heading straight up to start work now?”
“Of course.”
“Could you spare me just a moment?”
At that, Park stopped in his tracks and, wiping beads of sweat, asked,
“What is it?”
“Let’s do a challenge together.”
At Hyunseung’s sudden proposal, Park cocked his head and asked back,
“Huh? You want to film the villain daddy challenge too?”
“No, not the villain daddy challenge.”
“Then what challenge are you even talking about?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Hyunseung slowly parted his lips.
“The anti-malicious-comments challenge.”
Immediately, Park raised his brows and asked right back,
“Mm, isn’t that the challenge Lee Hyoeun is doing?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Lee Hyoeun’s in Team 2. Wouldn’t it look off for me to do a challenge to a Team 2 singer’s track?”
“If you nitpick, villain daddy is a Team 2 track too.”
“That’s… that.”
After a few affected throat-clearings, Park waved his hand as if to shoo him off. “Look elsewhere.”
“Executive Director.”
But at Hyunseung’s call, he had no choice but to stop again.
“When I asked Taeyeon and Taemin last time, they said they want to become idols when they grow up….”
Hyunseung had touched Executive Director Park’s Achilles’ heel: his children.
“Shouldn’t the ‘idol scene’ be more comfortable by the time your children debut?”
“Is a challenge like that going to make the haters disappear?”
“Even if it doesn’t make them disappear, it won’t make things worse.”
Then, to Park, who was snorting through his nose, he added,
“Above all, if the social mood is properly set, at least we can prevent some people from getting sick to the bone, those who try to endure indiscriminate butchery just because they’re celebrities.”
He tried to speak calmly, but as his intonation grew rougher and louder, he pressed his lips together.
“Ah…”
Executive Director Park looked steadily at him. It felt strange to hear such words coming from Hyunseung’s mouth.
“That could be Kang Hajun someday. And someday it could be my problem too.”
But this was something Hyunseung had mulled over for days before bringing up.
By temperament, he didn’t want to meddle like this…
“And in the distant future, it could be your children, Executive Director.”
Isn’t there a saying that even if you turn back time, the future doesn’t change? Hyunseung wanted to prove that wrong.
To do so, he felt, the essence had to change so that such incidents wouldn’t happen in the first place.
Yes.
Unlike in the past, Lee Hyoeun had met him and become a singer, then suffered from rumors, and now was carrying out an anti-malicious-comments movement (the challenge) in order to overcome it herself.
At first, when he heard Lee Hyoeun had posted the “anti-malicious-comments challenge,” he chalked it up to meddling again.
But not long ago, with his own eyes he saw that, though small, changes were beginning to happen because of the challenge.
Not only were celebrities who were mostly the targets of malicious comments joining one by one….
They were also raising their voices, saying they would respond strongly.
Of course.
There were also those who, like his past self, bottled it up and complacently thought time would solve it.
Right.
Without even realizing that their insides were rotting away and slowly becoming incurable.
So if he didn’t want to repeat his past life, he had to do something.
“Executive Director.”
For a moment, in a low voice, Hyunseung called to stop him.
“When your kids become idols someday, I’ll give them a song.”
In that instant, his face turned impish again and he grinned.
Playing along, Park relaxed his overly serious expression and struck a bodybuilder pose.
“Well now, it’s time to show villain daddy’s true lesson.”
“But looking at your body, instead of ‘beast man,’ I think you’d do well on NewTube with just a straight ‘beast’ concept.”
“What, punk? I don’t even talk to people who can’t total 500 on the big three anymore.”
“In that case, do you also refuse songs from guys who can’t total 500?”
“That’s… an exception.”
Amid the burning heat of the gym, a collaboration challenge between villain daddy and Flame-Mask Man was about to begin.
Leave a Reply