After sending Sung Wooyoung back to Korea once more.
“Hmm.”
Hyunseung had called a man in to resolve the situation.
But once the man actually appeared before him, he was not exactly pleased to see him.
“Wow, I never even dreamed I’d get to come to America on a private jet.”
First of all, he was noisy.
“Is this really not a dream?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Composer-nim is… no, no.”
He was someone who laid everything inside him bare.
“It seems like you aren’t happy to see me?”
Still, he could not answer “That’s right” to someone who had come all the way to America.
“Happy or not happy, does that really matter?”
And because of his personality, he could not offer an empty polite lie and say he was glad to see him either.
“We are both busy people, so let’s put the personal part aside and only talk business.”
He cut the conversation short and went straight into the main point.
However, the man did not seem willing to obediently follow his intent.
“I cleared out all my cases and came to America, so I’m free.”
“I am not free.”
“I’ve thought this since before, but you’re really like a hedgehog.”
“A hedgehog?”
“Yes. A hedgehog that lives with its spines raised high on purpose to look scary so no one will touch it.”
Just as Hyunseung was about to retort.
“Lawyer.”
Executive Director Park opened his mouth.
“We didn’t bring you here on a private jet to play with you, so how about you stop talking and get to business?”
The man immediately smiled brightly and said, “Shall we?” Then he took out a tablet and notebook from his bag and neatly placed them on the table.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of case it is this time.”
His face had become quite serious.
Right.
He was this kind of person, which was why Hyunseung had called him despite not being happy to see him.
“For some reason, I get more excited when I work with all of you.”
He was Attorney Lee Eunwoo, who was called the problem child at the major law firm Gaon.
And he was also someone who had already handled about two of Hyunseung’s matters before.
“Why would you get excited?”
“Because there are no boring laws.”
“You sound like a pervert.”
“I hear that from time to time.”
He did seem a little strange, but…
He was a top graduate from Korea University, and even at law school, he had been a famous genius.
There had been widespread rumors that Gaon had scouted and brought him in as soon as he passed the bar exam.
Of course.
Now, because he occasionally caused trouble with clients, he was called “the problem child of the legal world.”
But people even said that any case he took had a 100 percent win rate, so his skill was certainly clear.
“You really have a strange personality.”
“You really have a prickly personality.”
Watching Lee Eunwoo refuse to back down and snap back at Hyunseung’s words, Kim Woohyun and Executive Director Park thought the same thing.
Perhaps, maybe….
Since one problem child had met an even worse problem child, couldn’t this become mirror therapy?
That sort of hope.
“Anyway!”
At that moment, Attorney Lee Eunwoo clapped his palms together, rubbed them lightly, and asked,
“If you called me all the way to America, I assume the scale of the request must be enormous?”
He looked as excited as someone waiting for a new extreme sport.
In a way, wasn’t this also one of the “jobs” he had to handle?
Still.
Seeing him get excited ahead of himself like this, he really did not seem normal.
“Ahem, hm.”
Kim Woohyun cleared his throat to draw attention, then brought up the main point.
“Currently, Sung Wooyoung, the CEO of Utopia, has received an injunction lawsuit from the idol group he raised to suspend the validity of their exclusive contracts.”
Attorney Lee Eunwoo quietly listened to Kim Woohyun for a moment.
“Utopia? It’s the first time I’m hearing of them…”
“It’s a very small and tiny place, so it makes sense you wouldn’t know it.”
“Small and tiny? If it were me, I wouldn’t want to smile either.”
He kept adding his own opinions.
“Could you please listen until the end?”
Kim Woohyun gave Lee Eunwoo an displeased sideways glance, but continued in a calm tone.
“It seems the members were tampered with by another entertainment company.”
“But in truth, doesn’t that happen more often than people think in this industry?”
“That may be true, but we called you because we want to stop it, didn’t we?”
In the end, Kim Woohyun sharply fired back.
But Lee Eunwoo instead looked disappointed and asked back.
“I thought the scale would be quite large, but it’s more boring than I expected.”
“What?”
“Then what company is it that carried out this tampering?”
“That is…. Huh?”
Kim Woohyun was about to answer at once, as if arguing, but for a moment he was left speechless and waved his hand through the air.
Now that he thought about it…
He hadn’t asked which company it was.
“JN Entertainment.”
That was when Hyunseung, who had been sitting quietly, answered in his place.
“What? JN Entertainment?”
“J-JN, then….”
At those words, Executive Director Park and Kim Woohyun asked back in surprise.
“It’s Director Kim Wooseok of JN Entertainment.”
Hyunseung continued, keeping his gaze fixed only on Lee Eunwoo.
“Oh, JN Entertainment is an enormous agency on par with LS Entertainment, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Keu, as expected! You never betray my expectations.”
Lee Eunwoo waved his thumbs repeatedly for a moment.
“Then do I only need to get the injunction to suspend the validity of the exclusive contracts dismissed?”
He suddenly asked with a serious expression.
“If that were all, we wouldn’t have called you all the way to America.”
“Ah, your personality really is refreshingly direct, isn’t it?”
“Weren’t you just saying my personality was prickly?”
“Well, isn’t that basically the same thing?”
Following Lee Eunwoo, who was smiling slyly, Hyunseung also secretly let the corner of his mouth twitch slightly without anyone noticing.
“These are the evidence materials collected by Utopia.”
Then he handed Lee Eunwoo a neatly organized file of documents.
“Would this be enough?”
“To get it dismissed?”
“No. I’m asking whether you can properly show them what happens when they dare touch HS.”
Instead of answering Hyunseung’s growling words, Lee Eunwoo quickly scanned through the document file in one go.
Flip, flip.
Before long, a bold smile returned to his lips.
“Revenge…”
His face looked quite similar to Hyunseung’s when he was recording.
“That happens to be my specialty.”
After Lee Eunwoo left.
Only Hyunseung, Executive Director Park, and Kim Woohyun remained in the CEO’s office, and silence lingered for a while.
“Hyunseung.”
The one who broke that silence was Executive Director Park.
Normally….
Brat, punk, kid, you little….
For a person who usually called him things like that to quietly call his name felt this unsettling.
“Why?”
Hyunseung put on an expression as if he were frightened and rubbed his arms.
“Why didn’t you say it was JN Entertainment?”
“What would have changed if I said it?”
“No, it’s not that it would change anything….”
As Executive Director Park trailed off, looking troubled, Kim Woohyun immediately followed up.
“Hyunseung, that isn’t what the executive director means. Samwoo Enterprise acquired JN Entertainment not long ago, and for this to happen now of all times….”
“Right, you punk. Even if their reputation falls behind LS Entertainment, their capital power can’t be ignored.”
Executive Director Park also added to his words.
The sight of them looked like parents taking turns trying to coax a teenage son.
“So what we mean is that if we carelessly clash with a place like that, innocent people like us might end up bleeding.”
Hyunseung listened to them quietly for a moment.
“Attorney Lee Eunwoo was boasting earlier, wasn’t he?”
He answered briefly with a clear face, without any worry.
“Hah.”
The two simultaneously wiped their dry faces and let out a breath they had been holding.
Instead of mirror therapy, it felt like the “problem child power” had simply doubled.
But they could not easily tell him to go ahead and do whatever he wanted for this matter.
“No matter how much that person is an undefeated lawyer, going against a conglomerate like Samwoo will be hard!”
The thing was, the copyright to the song could be handled by stopping service provision at any time if Hyunseung, the original creator, requested it.
So was there really a need to get involved in another family’s legal fight and risk getting hurt?
Of course.
The fact that Kim Wooseok of all people was involved did make his anger boil a little, and it also made him cautious.
“Let’s think it over one more time.”
They wanted to avoid anything that could harm VINCIS, which had only just begun to grow.
Right now, it was time to think of their company rather than personal feelings.
“Mom, didn’t you say we’d have to properly show them one day what happens when someone touches my song?”
“That’s…”
“Dad, didn’t you say you’d need to check the other side’s face?”
“Ah, no, that…”
However, neither of them could easily answer Hyunseung’s questions.
They had said those things boldly before, so they could not now ask if it had all just been talk.
But they also could not gladly tell him to go ahead.
Tak.
At that moment, Hyunseung suddenly pressed down on the armrest of the sofa with a sound, stood up, looked slowly at the two of them, and asked.
“It’s not anyone else. It’s Kim Wooseok again. Are you really doing this because you’re afraid of Kim Wooseok?”
“It’s not because we’re afraid of that guy.”
“He tried to take one of my people, and when it didn’t go his way, he picked a fight and got scolded, yet he still hasn’t come to his senses. So what, we should just leave him alone?”
In Hyunseung’s voice as he asked that was an emotion called anger, something he had never shown in his life.
He was not making any sound, but judging from the way his tightly clenched fist was trembling, he was spewing out tremendous fury through his whole body.
“Hah, this kid…”
Executive Director Park looked at Hyunseung as if a little surprised, then shook his head as if there was no stopping him.
“All right. Then, as you want, I’ll make sure to properly teach that bastard a lesson this time.”
“Then should I step back and watch from behind?”
“What, punk? You’re going to pull out by yourself and make it boring?”
The two simultaneously let out a scoff and burst into laughter.
But there was exactly one person in that room who could not laugh.
That was…
Kim Woohyun, who had been unable to lift his head for a while now.
Tremble, tremble.
His mountain-like shoulders shook, trembling slightly.
It was because the words “my person” had come from Hyunseung’s mouth.
Although Hyunseung had not said directly that it meant him.
He could tell.
Hyunseung knew everything about the fact that Kim Wooseok had tried to scout him.
And he had not forgotten that fact. He remembered it.
That was why he was going out of his way to step forward this time too.
On one hand, he was grateful.
And…
On the other hand, he felt sorry.
The fact that he had once, even briefly, tried to leave Hyunseung.
The fact that he had wavered even slightly over Hyunseung.
And because of that, the fact that Hyunseung had sensed it and been made to care about it.
He was sorry.
And in the middle of all this, he was sorry again because the fact that he was Hyunseung’s “person” made him shamelessly happy.
“I’ll show him too.”
Kim Woohyun said in a voice thick with tears.
“What happens when he touches you.”
Then he opened his reddened eyes wide and added.
“I’ll show that bastard properly.”
It was something like a resolution.
Of course.
There was no way Hyunseung would accept something this serious properly.
“Are you crying?”
“No, I’m not crying.”
“Executive Director Park, Director Kim is suddenly crying.”
“I said I’m not!”
“From what I see, he can’t just rely on his physical strength. He needs to exercise too. His heart is so weak, honestly. This is all because nobody exercises anymore, so their tear glands have gotten weak.”
“I-I’m seriously not crying!”
And so, the three of them ended up chatting their way to the gym out of nowhere.
“Now begins full-scale tear gland strengthening training!”
“No, I didn’t cry, so why do I have to go too?”
“E-Executive Director, you’re really misunderstanding. I didn’t cry, really!”
Of course.
Of the three, two looked like cows being dragged to the slaughterhouse, but…
Still…
At least their expressions looked happy.
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