Hyunseung’s morning was perfect.
He had slept deeply for the first time in a while, so his body felt light and his mind was clear. And for some reason, his face looked especially handsome too.
So he put on the suit his father had bought him. And even the tie he usually tied so clumsily came out neatly knotted.
And that wasn’t all.
The omelet Hyuna made was strangely delicious.
Of course.
The moment he said that out loud, he got smacked on the back.
Anyway, even the traffic lights matched up perfectly, so from the commute itself, his mood was at its peak, light enough to feel like flying.
Yes, it definitely had been…
But seeing the man standing in front of his car with his head bowed, his mood sank again.
“I’m asking you.”
“I prepared as much money as I possibly could, so you won’t feel slighted.”
Hyunseung looked down at the man who had introduced himself as the CEO of Utopia Entertainment, then irritably tugged at his tie.
Ah, it came out nicely today too.
“You should go now.”
He was just about to pass by him, looking like he couldn’t be bothered dealing with him, when.
“Our kids are kids who really shine like jewels. It’s just that the world still doesn’t know their worth.”
The man stopped his steps and continued.
“If they succeed, we’ll repay you greatly. Please, just help us this once. We came all this way after finally steeling ourselves with the resolve to stake everything on this album.”
He had heard those words so many times they made him sick.
If there was anything a little different….
It was that this one was a bit more brazen and stiff.
Actually, if he had clung to him pathetically enough to look desperate, Hyunseung wouldn’t have listened at all.
Maybe because he himself knew he had no shame, the man kept pleading like he was reciting lines, without even meeting his eyes once, and that strangely got on Hyunseung’s nerves.
“How many times do you think I’ve heard that?”
Hyunseung looked down at him and asked in a cold tone.
“If you’re someone like Composer-nim, then probably countless times.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it exactly enough for pus to start leaking out of my ears.”
His voice didn’t rise or fall, but there was mockery mixed into the tone.
“To the point that I start wondering if all of you went to the same line academy together and learned the same script, because every single person says the exact same things.”
How could it be otherwise?
“‘We’ll compensate you so you won’t feel slighted. We’ll repay you greatly when we succeed. Our kids will make it if they just meet a good song. We’re staking our lives on this album.’”
If he counted from his previous life, he had heard requests like this thousands of times.
And on top of that, his previous life started heading for ruin because of requests like this.
“…If you don’t give us a song, I’ll die.”
Is it the same thing repeating again?
Is it an unavoidable fate?
Should I just toss them a song and be done with it?
“But every time I hear it, this is what I feel.”
His head was a mess with all kinds of thoughts, but Hyunseung kept his tone down as much as possible and continued.
“It feels like none of you come to me to get a song. You come to get success out of me.”
“Well, that’s because the songs you make are just that good….”
“It seems like all of you think I’m some kind of ‘god.’”
But his patience wasn’t very long.
“And if they flop with my song, then what? Are you going to come back with loan shark contracts instead of a bag of money and tell me to take responsibility?”
Hyunseung asked, his voice rising little by little in agitation.
Only then did the man finally lift his head and wave his hands.
“No, no. How could that possibly happen? If they fail even after receiving one, then I’ll blame myself.”
“Then just go back and tell the kids it’s your fault.”
Now that the man had finally thrown away his pride and started clinging to him desperately, Hyunseung answered without mercy.
“Tell them the reason they’re not doing well is because they met a CEO like you.”
He had regained his calm again, but he was cold enough to be cruel.
“If the kids really are jewels that shine that much, then won’t someone open the box and discover them?”
Then he snorted and added the next words.
“Why don’t you wait for that day?”
The man hurriedly bowed his head as low as if it might touch the floor.
“I’m sorry…”
Then he bent his stiffly upright body low, like he might flatten himself against the ground at any second, and continued earnestly.
“I know very well that I’m being terribly rude right now. That’s why I did nothing but agonize over it for nearly a year. Then I heard you had gone to America, and I felt like this really was the last chance, so after worrying over it again and again, I came to see you despite knowing full well I had no right.”
It wasn’t that Hyunseung couldn’t understand the man’s feelings at all.
That he had come feeling like he was clutching at straws.
That he had come to find him in frustration and desperation.
He understood all of it in his head.
“Even if things don’t work out, I won’t blame you. If that happens, I really do plan to cleanly give everything up. So could you please, just this once, show a little mercy for the last time?”
But he also knew that if he didn’t give them the song they wanted so badly, they would not understand him.
Probably.
They would spit and turn away, or curse and turn away.
Or else….
“…If you don’t give us a song, I’ll die.”
They would threaten him.
“Sir.”
“Yes?”
“If it doesn’t work out, how are you going to take responsibility for my career?”
I won’t get taken in anymore.
“There isn’t a single song I’ve released so far that hasn’t passed break-even. So if your kids fail to pass it, people will say all sorts of things, like I lost it after becoming a CEO, or I went to America and lost my touch.”
With what could only be called an intimidating face, Hyunseung stepped closer and closer to the man.
“What will you do then?”
Pressed down by that force, the man trailed off, “Th-that…,” and avoided Hyunseung’s gaze.
Was it because he was the CEO of a tiny entertainment company?
If it had been CEO Jeon Namil, then no matter how Hyunseung acted like this, he wouldn’t have even blinked once.
Seeing him trembling like a lamb, it didn’t feel very good. It just made Hyunseung feel like a bad person for no reason.
Then.
Looking at the man’s fluttering suit sleeves, Hyunseung thought:
This man lost weight rapidly.
How did he know?
Because you don’t deliberately get a suit made too big unless it’s a school uniform, do you? Maybe if it were a very young man just starting out in society, it would be different.
But for a middle-aged man, even more so.
So that meant this man must have lost weight rapidly, recently.
“And the way you asked was wrong from the start.”
Hyunseung knew, because in his previous life too, when his panic disorder hit, he had once lost weight rapidly.
“If you wanted to win over someone like me, you shouldn’t have brought a bag of money. You should’ve brought the instruments themselves right in front of me and made them play first.”
“Excuse me? The instruments?”
“Well, who knows? Maybe I might get bewitched by the sound of the instruments and hand over a song on the spot.”
That was why.
“The thing is, I’ve got a schedule, so I’ll be going now.”
Because those fluttering sleeves were bothering him.
Of course.
If the instruments were bad, it would just turn into meaningless false hope.
Meanwhile, Daniel sat on the sofa in the living room, blankly staring at the intercom.
“He acted like he’d come every day.”
Just in case Hyunseung might show up.
“Seriously, no persistence at all.”
Since he had dropped by out of nowhere that first day, then come again the next day, and the day after that, Daniel had thought he’d come again today too.
But there had been no word at all.
[ Don’t come today, seriously. I’ve got a schedule. ]
Daniel sent the text first. To be clear, he absolutely was not sulking.
He really did have a schedule.
Ah.
Not an outside schedule, though.
Click, click.
Soon Daniel skillfully turned on the TV and connected it to his phone.
Because he wanted to watch the saved video on the TV screen.
Gulp.
For some reason, Daniel felt tense, and leaned his upper body forward as he swallowed dryly and waited.
For a moment, only the buffering icon spun on the black screen.
—“What kind of person is Daniel Parker?”
Then Hyunseung appeared on the screen, sitting there with that awful helmet pulled over his head.
—“Mm….”
Instead of answering the woman’s question, the bastard just let out a thoughtful hum.
‘This is hopeless.’
Apparently he had so little to say that there was about three minutes of dead air.
So much so that even the camera trembled slightly like it was flustered.
—“W-would you like a moment?”
Suddenly losing strength, Daniel let his body sink back against the sofa.
What exactly had he expected from that guy?
“Tsk.”
The truth was, the very day after Hyunseung did the personal interview, Daniel had immediately contacted the staff in charge and gotten the video file.
Because he couldn’t endure the curiosity.
Still, he had held back and waited because he had promised.
But now he wasn’t sure anymore.
“Be sure to check when it comes out on Netflix.”
He wasn’t sure he could keep the promise he’d made with that guy.
So… Only today, in the end, he finally checked the interview video…
—“Daniel Parker is a very immature person. It’s already well known, but he really likes alcohol.”
He should never have watched it.
—“So much so that he asks to be allowed to drink while recording.”
Yes, it might really have been better not to know.
—“And is that all? The way he likes women, the second there’s a short break, he gets lost in memories of the women he used to date…”
And for good reason, because on the screen Hyunseung was mercilessly tearing him down in a teasing tone.
—“And honestly, he’s a little old too, isn’t he?”
This brat, seriously! Daniel grabbed his phone like he was about to call Hyunseung and give him a piece of his mind right away, when.
—“But as I worked with him, I started thinking that…”
All of a sudden, Hyunseung’s voice in the video turned serious in a way that did not suit him.
—“It’s because he never really grew up, because he did exactly what he wanted…”
—“That he was able to become the Daniel Parker of today.”
At those words, Daniel rubbed at the tip of his nose, which had grown oddly tight.
Ah.
He absolutely wasn’t crying. Why would he cry after hearing that savage string of insults first?
Sniff.
Just as Daniel swallowed back his snot and reached for a tissue.
—“Ah, and there’s something I wanted to say. Is it okay if I say it here?”
The interview, which had seemed over, continued.
—“Y-yes, of course!”
The woman answered as if she were excited.
—“Through this video, I’d like to say thank you to Daniel.”
Hyunseung, awkwardly enough, actually put the word “thank you” in his mouth.
—“What exactly are you thankful for?”
That’s it!
At the question the woman tossed out, Daniel excitedly snapped his fingers like she had scratched an itch for him.
—“Actually, I became a composer because I listened to his songs and was influenced by them. In a way, he’s the one who decided my path for me.”
Before long, the answer Hyunseung gave was not what he had expected.
They had worked together for quite a while, though not for that long.
But it was something he had never heard before.
—“More than anything, I’m truly grateful he let me be part of his final work.”
For a moment, the smile slowly vanished from Daniel’s face.
—“And I really hope we can go to the island together, watch the sunset, and share a drink.”
Little by little his face crumpled, and then he buried it completely between his knees.
To say it again.
It absolutely was not because tears were coming.
“On my name, I’ll definitely take you there.”
It was because, maybe, just maybe, he suddenly felt afraid that he would really end up unable to keep what he had said.
“Yeah, I’ll definitely take you.”
Yes.
A man had to keep the words he spoke.
Before long.
When Daniel raised his head, he felt as if Hyunseung in the video was looking straight at him.
—“Let me correct that.”
No, it wasn’t a feeling.
—“We are definitely going together. We promised.”
Those words were definitely said while looking at him.
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