“Huh? Mr. Cheonghyeon, I think this is the first time you have smiled since you came here. You must like this house.”
They happened to be looking at the opposing team’s listing, so all the panelists’ eyes fixed on him, but Cheonghyeon simply smiled calmly and let it pass.
“You like this? This is not you, Mr. Cheonghyeon, right? It is a thirty-minute walk to the subway station.”
“Hmm, but first of all, it is very close to the friend’s workplace, so I do not think the subway station is that important. Both of them have cars, so there is no need to insist on a loud and expensive area near a station. And since the applicant is a cooking YouTuber, being close to a big supermarket is a big advantage… The neighborhood has lots of cafes, conveniences, and franchise shops, so it seems like a good area for young people to live. There is a neighborhood park behind it too, so it is nice for walks.”
When Cheonghyeon spoke gently, the opposing team got excited and clutched their bellies laughing, and Yeong Eunsu put on an even more exaggeratedly crestfallen expression.
“Mr. Cheonghyeon, are you not on our side? How can you do this?”
Eunsu sprang to his feet, strode over, and made a motion as if to grab him by the collar, and Cheonghyeon froze in surprise, staring up at him.
“But I really do think that house is good…”
As he looked at Eunsu, the overhead lights flashed in Cheonghyeon’s eyes, and Eunsu flinched.
How is a boy’s skin this white? Is it the lighting? But then why are his eyes so clear and pretty?
“Hold on. Looking at this kid’s face, I feel like I am going to become the bad guy. PD, just a second. Time, time!”
Having approached so boldly, Eunsu returned to his seat with his face red, and the opposing team even stood up and laughed out loud.
“You are the bad guy, right. Why are you forcing someone to speak ill of a good house.”
When the opposing panelists put Eunsu on the spot, Cheonghyeon felt needlessly sorry.
He is still on our side; did I go too far?
Eunsu’s deflated look was nothing but exaggerated acting, but because it was his own teammate looking like that, it kept bothering Cheonghyeon somehow, and he squeezed Eunsu’s hand and whispered softly.
“It is okay. We saw lots of prettier, nicer houses too. I only meant that among the ones that have come out so far, this is the best.”
Cheonghyeon intended to speak quietly, but the other panelists were already keeping an eye on him. There was no way they could not hear.
When the panelists made a fuss about what a magnanimous person he was and that they should switch team leaders, Eunsu went along saying he would hand over the leader’s spot. Then he made a big fuss about how soft his hand was, saying he thought a cloud had sat on it.
Then it felt like his own face was going to turn red. That is because of the former Gi Cheonghyeon… This guy did not study or practice dance properly, so somehow there is not a single callus on his hands…
The camera caught Cheonghyeon’s slightly rosy cheeks in a solo shot. And the camera director involuntarily zoomed in and let out an admiring comment.
Wow, this kid’s skin is no joke.
As the warm atmosphere carried them toward the end of the shoot, the PD suddenly declared a halt.
“Let us take thirty minutes and then continue. Just a moment.”
A little later, at the PD’s call, Eunsu went outside. It did not feel good.
“They say their house does not stand out, so we have to shoot the first listing again. How are we supposed to explain this to the client?”
“Ha. Does that jerk think the show is his playground?”
After talking with the PD for a while, Eunsu spoke to the panelists in a low voice, and the others also twisted their expressions.
“What if we get on their bad side and Yeonggyeong pulls all their ads? Just shoot it. Then we have to ask the PD to make sure this never happens again.”
“But are we supposed to lie? All of this will end up on YouTube and then we are the ones who will get beaten up while he just sells his house and that is that? As it is, in the last episode we showed the third listing and people ripped into us asking how on earth that price made sense. They said it was all a rigged game of Go-Stop.”
The MCs were annoyed, but they did not have the courage to say anything to the advertiser coming back in with the PD.
A very deflated mood, unlike earlier, wrapped the studio. The PD forced a smile and informed them that the earlier footage had been lost, so they would reshoot only the first house. The client and her friend rolled their eyes around, unable to adjust to the suddenly changed atmosphere.
In that sunken mood, filming resumed. As a kind of protest, none of the MCs spoke first. While they were all just watching each other, Cheonghyeon suddenly opened his mouth.
“The Han River view is the Han River view, but with just a bit more work it could be really nice.”
The panelists, whose feelings had been hurt to the point that they had been holding their tongues, stared wide-eyed, but Cheonghyeon continued unfazed.
“It would be good to remove the old island table and the mattress that are only taking up space in the living room now. They will have to remodel the kitchen anyway because of the tiles, so how about removing the table and designing it in a U-shape. Then you can eat on the opposite side and the traffic flow becomes shorter, right? When there is a lot of furniture, a home also looks small.”
“The greatest strength of this house is the wide floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on the Han River. But there is no veranda, so the light reflected from the river is going to be very strong. The client said she is a cooking YouTuber, so if she films during the day, the colors will come out very pretty without using separate lighting. If furniture blocks that, the humidity will go up and you will not be able to receive the light beautifully.”
In the annex of the Ivory Palace where he had stayed, there had been a pond nearby, and in summer the strong sunlight would make his eyes open on their own from the morning. But if you asked whether it was dry thanks to the sunlight, that was not true either.
Little toad-like things made noise from dawn, and a strange fishy smell and unpleasant dampness lingered. So he had planted flowers in the annex to cover the fishy smell and even tore open the ceiling to use it only as a picnic spot.
But you cannot tell someone to tear an apartment open like the annex where he used to live and plant grass. Fortunately, the structure itself was not bad, so if they removed only the odd add-ons the homeowner had stuck on and did a little work, it seemed it would be quite decent.
He felt like he understood why there had been a lot of mold in the corners when he first went. Even just a pond had made it damp, so how much would the humidity rise in summer with that huge river. Since large pieces of furniture were blocking things, mold would naturally have risen.
That said, you cannot tell them to run an air purifier and air conditioner all day long. The client was not coming here because she had money to burn but had pooled money with her friend as hard as they could for a nest to live in for life. After a moment’s thought, Cheonghyeon spoke.
“I actually do not think this house suits the client.”
At words that were like dropping a bomb, everyone looked at him in surprise, but he continued in an even tone.
“There is only one reason. It is too far from the friend’s workplace.”
At what followed, the PD and MCs let out sighs of relief. You could not even call that a flaw. The advertiser was not trying to sell the house to this particular client anyway.
“Still, if we are speaking for other viewers who might want to buy this house.”
When Cheonghyeon drew on the tablet in front of him, the PD, quick on the uptake, shared his tablet screen. Cheonghyeon sketched the layout without hesitating.
“Unusually, the structure is a straight rectangular line of entry door, then the small room. Then the main bedroom connected to the small room, the kitchen, and the living room that holds the wide window looking over the river. You cannot see the river from the small room or the main bedroom, but I think that is a stroke of genius.”
Another panelist chimed in.
“I see. You can enjoy the river view from the living room and a different view from the bedrooms, right.”
“Yes. So if you change the interior like this, it could be nice. And I think this house would be great for newlyweds. They could share the main bedroom, and the small connecting room could be used as a study or hobby room. It would suit a couple more than friends who each need an independent space. Of course you could block the doorway, but even then the rooms are only separated by a single wall.”
He kept furnishing the house in his imagination. Put a large planter here, and over here add a bookshelf of this feel… The capable PD would probably find similar images to what he was describing or build it in 3D and put it up as reference footage.
“Mr. Cheonghyeon, have you worked part-time at IKEA by any chance? Changing it like this makes it brighter and so much nicer.”
He laughed bashfully at the panel’s admiration. In truth, when he had been a prince, he had had too little to do, so he passed the days in the Ivory Palace tearing down and remaking the palace with the attendants for fun. Even just changing the position of a vase on a desk gives a new feeling, so how fun would it be to change an entire palace. Furthermore, he only had to imagine it and roughly sketch it out to tell them, and without him moving a finger, the attendants would rearrange the rooms back and forth to delight him, so interior design was one of his few hobbies. What began in his room gradually expanded to the whole palace, and he even began to lay his hands on the garden.
Once, while out walking, the Empress had seen his garden and come to ask who the gardener was. The palace and gardens prettied exactly as he had envisioned were truly splendid even to his own eyes. The only problem was that there were no guests to boast to, since no one came to his part of the palace.
Cutting off the old memories on purpose, he only smiled bashfully. The advertiser’s expression also looked very pleased. Seizing the chance, Cheonghyeon decided to try a little deal.
“Still, thirty hundred million is too steep. Could the production team contact the homeowner right now? It would be nice if they could subtract the interior costs and the price of the options that will be disposed of.”
Although it would later be edited appropriately in the broadcast, there was no one who did not realize he was actually speaking to the advertiser in front of them. A small tension spiraled through the set.
The advertiser, perhaps liking that his house was being highlighted and improved, readily knocked two hundred million off on the spot.
The advertiser would know too. If it went out like this, not only would he not sell the house, he would only be pummeled. That idol kid had just created a story for his dying house. He had to accept this script.
Soon the writers pretended to connect a phone call and acted it out. A moment later, when they announced that two hundred million had been subtracted, the panelists cheered over the top, saying the homeowner was truly generous.
They said that perhaps because he owned a home embracing the Han River, his heart was big. In truth, even lowered like that, it was still more expensive than neighboring homes, but at least it wrapped up warmly.
It was a shoot that ended with smiles from the client, the advertiser, the PD, and the MCs alike.
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