Pen and Paper Translations

Hyunseung frowned at the sudden shout and turned his body toward the door.

“What are you doing to my Sarah right now!”

Mateo, who had just entered the studio, was not only pointing a finger, he was fuming with a reddened face.

“You damned bastard, get away from my daughter right now!”

No, what on earth did I do?

Hyunseung looked at Mateo, who seemed ready to rush at him any second.

He knew Mateo’s feelings toward him were not friendly, but hadn’t they wrapped things up pretty well?

He even made sure he and Sarah Stewart were nothing, and he made it possible for him to work on songs with his daughter, so why was he suddenly blowing up?

Tsk, I really don’t know.

When he turned his head, Sarah Stewart was also looking at Mateo like he was ridiculous, her expression hardened.

“Your dad is really mad. Do you know why?”

“How would I know?”

“Still, you’re family, so you’d know better than me.”

At that, Sarah Stewart pulled her gaze off Mateo and glared at Hyunseung.

Her eyes were so sharp that it seemed best to stop joking around here.

“Old man.”

Before long, Hyunseung spoke to Mateo in a calm voice.

He held out his open palms as if soothing an enraged bull, clearly showing he had no intention of fighting.

“Why are you suddenly getting angry?”

At the question delivered with an innocent face, Mateo only worked his lips as if he were dumbfounded. Then he let out a hollow laugh.

“Ha ha, you’re asking why I’m angry?”

“Yes. I don’t understand.”

“I thought you seemed suspicious.”

Just as Hyunseung narrowed his eyes at those meaningful words.

Step, step.

Mateo strode over in long steps and snatched the pouch from his hand.

“How dare you give my daughter this kind of thing?”

At the same time, he flipped the pouch over, and the misutgaru scattered in a rush, puffing powder into the air as it fell onto the floor.

The pale, fine powder drifted through the air in the studio.

“What are you doing!”

At that moment, Sarah Stewart snatched the pouch back and shouted.

“HS brought it to give to me, so why are you throwing it away just because you feel like it?”

“You, do you even know what this is!”

“Of course I do! It’s my favorite thing in the world!”

Mateo clutched the back of his stiff neck, fuming.

But Sarah Stewart was busy scooping up the misutgaru spilled on the floor and putting it back into the pouch.

The studio suddenly became a total mess with misutgaru remnants, and heated emotions sent the temperature rising.

“Haa….”

Hyunseung felt drained before they even started working. He expected it to be fun, but he did not think it would be this loud and chaotic.

Ah.

First, he needed to calm down the misutgaru situation. It seemed like that was also the reason Mateo was angry at him.

“Hey, just throw that away.”

Hyunseung grabbed Sarah’s wrist as she crawled on the floor and yanked her upright.

“There’s plenty in the bag anyway.”

“Ah, still, it’s a waste.”

Mateo wedged himself between the two and forcibly pulled their hands apart.

“You, I told you to get away from my daughter!”

“Then you want me to just leave her while she’s picking up powder off the floor like a beggar?”

Hyunseung snapped back in a sarcastic tone, irritation surging up. At this point, he felt wronged.

Seriously.

This kind of treatment was new to him. He understood a father’s feelings, to a point, but still.

Wasn’t he also his father’s precious son?

‘I can’t even go tattling to Dad.’

Pushing away the childish thought, Hyunseung spoke calmly again.

“I think you’re misunderstanding something. That’s just grain powder.”

“You think I’m going to believe that?”

“You’ll know if you taste it.”

“So you’re planning to trick me like that and threaten me, right?”

“What would I be lacking that I’d threaten you, old man?”

“You’d demand money or demand my daughter!”

At those words, Hyunseung smirked like, Even if you gave it to me, I wouldn’t take it, then—

“Here.”

He pulled out a new pouch and held it out. The moment Sarah saw it, she bristled and charged in.

“You seriously thought I was doing drugs? Seriously, even if I’m your daughter, how could you think that…!”

“You be quiet.”

But she was quickly held back by Hyunseung’s hand.

“First check it, and if it really is grain powder, apologize to me.”

At that, Mateo, who was loosening the pouch to check what was inside, twitched his eyebrows and asked, “Me?”

“Yes. Apologize, and give me three cheers of ‘I am a bow.’”

Then he hurriedly pinched some of the powder from inside the pouch and brought it to his nose to smell it.

Smell it or not, the studio was already filled with the nutty scent of misutgaru.

“It’s grain powder, right? Then hurry and apologize.”

“Why should I do that?”

“You called me a damned bastard without even checking, and you even pointed your finger at me.”

“That was because I thought you were offering drugs to my precious daughter…!”

“I’m someone’s precious son, too. Apologize.”

When Hyunseung pushed back hard, Mateo flinched instead. Since he was also someone’s father, he could understand what those words meant.

Before long, Mateo offered an awkward apology.

“Ahem, sorry I misunderstood.”

But Hyunseung was not the type to let it go there.

“You’re going to end it with just an apology? You have to do the three cheers too.”

“What?”

“Give me three cheers of, ‘I am just a bow that helps the performance.’”

“That’s enough, why would I even—!”

“If you don’t want to see your precious daughter and me working together alone in a private studio, you’d better do it quickly.”

Yeah, he was a father, so he would understand what that meant, too.

In truth it did not mean much, and it was just a threat Hyunseung made because it was fun.

“F-fine….”

Mateo glanced at Sarah, who would not even look at him.

“…I am just a b-bow that h-helps the performance.”

“Again.”

“……I-I am just a b-bow that helps the performance.”

“A little louder.”

“I am just a bow that helps the performance… ngh, I am.”

In the end, he carried out the three cheers in a voice that trailed off, then frowned like it was unfair.

“Out of respect for the elderly, I’ll be considerate and let you off at this point.”

Hyunseung spoke as if granting a favor and smiled in satisfaction.

And then, right away.

“But that bouquet, don’t tell me you brought it to give to me?”

He pointed with his eyes at the bouquet in Mateo’s hand and asked playfully, making sure only Mateo could hear.

Sarah Stewart still did not seem to have noticed the bouquet in his hand.

“Ugh…”

Mateo bit his lip hard as if it infuriated him that everything had been seen through, but he could not say anything.

Tap, tap.

Hyunseung lightly patted Mateo’s shoulder, then added, his eyes gleaming.

“Let’s save the bouquet presentation for later, and since we’re delayed, shall we hurry and start working first?”

Hyunseung’s eyes looked like those of a beast that had finished preparing for the hunt.

---

Sarah Stewart alternated glances between HS and her father sitting side by side at the work table.

Of course, not openly, just slyly.

She never thought she would face Mateo again, and she had truly never, even in her dreams, imagined that Mateo and HS would work together.

On one hand it felt uncomfortable, but on the other hand, anticipation also bloomed.

Just then, Mateo pointed at the track displayed on the screen and asked.

“Then, do both of these songs, my daughter….”

He checked her expression once, then corrected himself.

“No, does Sarah Stewart sing them all?”

Her dad was someone who had never once lowered his head anywhere. Even if they were top singers, he was the kind of man who had never once humored them.

Even to her, he was always a father towering high like a huge mountain.

Someone she could not defy and could not escape from.

But she did not know why he looked unusually small today.

Watching her dad carefully check her expression, the phrase “a toothless tiger” suddenly came to mind.

In that moment, Sarah’s smooth brow crumpled hard.

‘Making people uncomfortable….’

Then, as HS turned his head, their eyes met.

HS stared for a long while with a dry face that showed no change, then withdrew his gaze again.

HS was always like that.

He pierces people with calm eyes like he knows everything, but he never reveals what he is thinking at all.

‘Making me curious…’

Sarah stared hard at the back of HS’s head. She wanted to know what he was thinking with that small head of his.

Seriously.

What kind of work was he planning to do by dragging in a father and daughter who were barely even worth less than strangers?

With the personality she knew HS to have, he would not have made this arrangement just because he wanted to try working on Mateo’s songs.

Of course, if they released it under Mateo’s name, the odds of achieving record breaking results on Billboard would rise…

But even that was not a reason she could fully accept.

Because these days, across America, HS’s popularity was climbing sharply, and there was no way he would not know that. 

Even without borrowing the name “Mateo,” he should be able to get meaningful results.

‘What’s he scheming?’

As Sarah’s curiosity swelled.

“Sarah Stewart will only sing the songs you make, old man.”

HS’s answer came back.

“Ah…”

Without realizing it, Sarah Stewart let out a sigh of regret.

Even if she had been forced into singing Mateo’s songs, deep down she had been hoping that maybe she could sing HS’s songs too.

And there also had not been any mention of recruiting another singer separately.

“Hmm?”

Hearing her sigh, HS turned his head and asked with a small smile.

“Now that I look at you, I guess you didn’t just drink misutgaru, you drank kimchi soup too?”

“What does that mean?”

“In our country, we say someone ‘drank kimchi soup’ when they’re holding onto a vain expectation.”

Sarah’s face flared red in an instant, like a fully ripened tomato.

See? I told you he sees straight through people.

“Seriously, it’s not like that.”

Sarah put on a calm act and snorted as she protested, then—

“S-So who’s singing your song?”

Unable to hold back her curiosity, she asked again.

“I already arranged it.”

“Then who is it!”

“It’s right here.”

“Here? Don’t tell me you’re going to sing it yourself?”

At Sarah’s shocked question, HS gently closed his eyes and shook his head side to side, as if it was absolutely not the case.

Then, right after that, he pointed with his finger at Mateo, no, at her dad, and added.

“Here, old man.”

At those words, both Sarah and Mateo’s gazes poured onto HS.

“Huh?”

“What?”

HS shrugged as if their reaction was what confused him and continued.

“You declared it yourself earlier.”

“Me? I declared something?”

“Yes. That you’re a bow that helps the performance.”

As if he had lost even the strength to argue, Mateo let out an empty, deflated sound.

“Huh…”

Then he muttered in a voice like he was suffering.

“He’s crazy. He’s insane. Telling a composer who’s written nothing but music his whole life to sing…”

But HS only smiled like an excited little kid, looking back and forth between Mateo and Sarah as he asked.

“Then which of you two would like to go into the booth first?”

To Sarah Stewart’s ears, it sounded like he was asking which one of them wanted to get whipped first.