Chapter 55
Not how they looked in the practice room.
Our girls had clearly put a lot of effort into getting dressed to go out, so of course their beauty shone brighter than ever.
[Seong Se-ri, SS]
[Lee Da-young, SS]
[Eun Hee-ju, SS+]
[Gil Min-seo, SS+]
Grades never lie.
“Uh. Uh, um. Do you, do you perhaps know Hyun-woo…?”
I could tell from the way my friends, stunned by Always’s sudden arrival, had momentarily forgotten how to speak.
No.
It wasn’t just my friends who were flustered.
If you casually looked around, quite a few people at the other tables were craning their upper bodies out to stare at us.
Naturally, the group at the next table had gone completely silent.
“Hello. I’m Seong Se-ri!”
After introducing herself, Seong Se-ri confidently took the seat between me and my friend from the fashion company, who’d been sitting in the very corner.
“I’m Eun Hee-ju.”
Eun Hee-ju naturally claimed the spot beside me, as if she weren’t particularly interested.
“I’m Lee Da-young.”
Lee Da-young greeted them coolly, then sat across from Seong Se-ri beside Choi Kang-gyu, the cafe owner.
“I’m Gil Min-seo! Leave the energy to me!”
Min-seo sat beside the bald Seo Jong-hak, wearing a smile of pure happiness.
“Wow. Look how unfazed you are.”
Seong Se-ri, sitting between Won Mun-guk and me, sounded incredulous.
I answered nonchalantly.
“You came after checking the GPS on Hee-ju’s phone, didn’t you?”
“Huh? You knew?”
“Hee-ju asked for my permission and set it up.”
Early in her trainee days,
Hee-ju had asked my permission to track my GPS, saying Jo Yu-na might still come looking for her and harass her.
I’d told them I was drinking near Sindae Station, but
they’d found me so quickly that there was no other explanation.
“You came to surprise us?”
“Well, we were bored. Team Leader. I mean, what were we supposed to do at home without you, Oppa? We all have different hobbies and tastes. And it’d be a waste to go to bed.”
“And we can legally have a drink or two?”
“Yes.”
Just like I’d expect from Seong Se-ri.
What a sly fox.
“But it was a good thing we came, right, Oppa? You were really about to throw that glass just now.”
Seong Se-ri smiled brightly as she filled my empty glass with soju.
I nodded.
“If I’d hit them with my fist, I might’ve killed them.”
“My, how scary. Why are you such a sweet, mild-mannered person at work, then?”
“Is being alone the same as having you girls around?”
That sounded cool and all, but
I’d be in serious trouble if I pulled that kind of shit at work.
Still, if throwing a soju glass started a fight, I figured the worst that’d happen was a trip to the police box nearby and a settlement.
And though I seemed mild-mannered at work,
I only held back because I figured I’d win in the end.
They say the stupid are the brave.
I wasn’t particularly clever or patient.
‘I’ve gotten a lot better at this after getting some real-world experience, though.’
I wasn’t the sort to throw a punch before saying a word,
but if I really lost my temper, I’d throw hands.
“I don’t know what happened, but we’re here now, so calm down.”
“I’ve already put it out of my mind.”
“I’ve worked at a bar, so I know. There are a lot of seriously crazy people in this world, way beyond anything you could imagine.”
“There are plenty of crazy people who aren’t even drunk.”
I’d seen a few in this industry, too.
And more than that,
“I’ve seen them too, unnie.”
“Yeah. You know about it too, Hee-ju.”
“There are a lot.”
Hm?
So there were people other than Jo Yu-na, too.
I didn’t know that.
[You’ll see for yourself if the opportunity comes up later.]
Really?
Well, all right, then.
What mattered was right now.
“All right, everyone! Our cute little sisters came all this way to keep us old guys company, so let’s have a good time. Bottoms up!”
“Bottoms up!”
“Pfft. You really sound like an old man! Bottoms up!”
Clink—.
Even when it had just been me and my friends, we’d gotten carried away and raised our voices.
But now we had aspiring idols here.
And not just any aspiring idols—every one of them was at least SS rank.
“Ah!”
“P-please order anything you want! It’s all on us tonight.”
“You little punks. A minute ago, you told me to pay.”
“What are you talking about? We should pay today. It’s the code of the martial world.”
The code of the martial world, my ass.
“Oh my. Then I won’t hold back.”
“Oh, come on, Ms. Se-ri. Order whatever you want.”
Hey.
You picked the wrong person.
Maybe not the others, but
you shouldn’t have said that to Seong Se-ri, who used to make a fortune working at a bar.
“Then would it be okay if I ordered a bottle of liquor that costs 280,000 won?”
“……”
My friends flinched for a moment, but
then they exchanged glances.
[That look said they could handle it if they split the bill. Wow, it was like Morse code written in their eyes—I could read it without even trying.]
“Sounds good.”
“Yes! Boss, could we get two bottles of the Friendship Beer Special Edition?”
“T-two bottles?”
You idiots.
Seong Se-ri was crazy about luxury goods and money.
Did they think she’d be satisfied with just one bottle?
‘We’re looking at at least a million won just for tonight, aren’t we?’
At least the good thing was
“You guys said you were paying, right?”
I licked my lips and smiled, imagining I’d get to wet my whistle with the kind of liquor I’d only had a few times in my life.
But then something else surprising happened.
“Two bottles is fine!”
“No, four bottles is fine!”
“Anything is fine!”
I finally understood why so many hardcore idol fans went crazy and bought a hundred or even two hundred albums.
[If I had to analyze your friends’ faces, their happiness is at 100… no, over 1,000 percent.]
No matter how much money they spent, my friends seemed perfectly happy.
They just kept grinning from ear to ear.
“Here’s the Friendship Beer Special Edition.”
When the red-labeled liquor, which looked delicious at a glance, arrived,
“Oh.”
Everyone let out a collective gasp.
“Ah! Now this is the stuff! How long has it been since I’ve seen liquor like this?”
With the liquor in front of her, Seong Se-ri’s energy climbed another notch.
“Team Leader, can I get drunk today, too?”
“If you want to, go ahead.”
“Okay.”
Eun Hee-ju was simply leaning her head against my shoulder and rubbing against me,
while Min-seo looked excited, since it’d been a while since she’d had a drink with Seong Se-ri.
Lee Da-young just had a calm expression, like she was thinking, ‘It’s been a while since I had a drink.’
“All right, Oppas. I’ll pour everyone a drink! A woman pouring it is what makes it taste best.”
“O-oh. Th-thank you?”
My friends looked bewildered and unsure what to do as Seong Se-ri cheerfully poured them each a drink.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, it’s just that these days you have to be a little careful about this sort of thing. Haha.”
“Oh, gender equality. Hey, don’t worry about that stuff. She said she wanted to pour the drinks herself.”
Seong Se-ri nodded, too.
“Of course, Oppas. You’re even buying us such expensive liquor. I can’t refuse to do at least that much for you, right, girls?”
“Well, she’s not wrong.”
“That’s right! We’ll enjoy it so much! Thank you, so, so much! This is the first time I’ve ever had Western liquor.”
“I’ll only do it for Team Leader.”
In fact, each girl was pouring liquor into the glass of the person sitting beside her.
Then Seong Se-ri gave me a sidelong smile and whispered in my ear.
“Wow. Your friends are so innocent. I bet they’d buy me luxury goods if I showed them my breasts once—not even joking.”
“I’ll strip you all right here.”
“Oh, no, you can’t. I can’t throw my life away for one luxury item, can I? Ah, though I do always let Oppa see me naked.”
Did my friends know
just how lewd our girls were?
They didn’t, and now they’d become idiots who’d fallen for idols for the first time, grinning from ear to ear.
‘Still, seeing my friends so happy makes me feel good, too.’
All three of them gave me a thumbs-up.
They were practically worshipping me as a god, weren’t they?
“Bottoms up again!”
“Bottoms up!”
Clink—.
I clinked liquor glasses—not soju glasses—with the others, then let the liquor sit in my mouth as I savored it.
“Whew. This is good.”
“Haa. This is the stuff. How long has it been since I’ve had this? Seriously, even counting the times I drank behind your back, Oppa, all I ever had was soju.”
“I knew and let it slide, you brat. Who do you think cleaned up the empty soju bottles in the corner of your closet?”
“I drank it knowing you’d let me get away with it.”
And so the drinking party began.
“Oppas! Are you happy?!”
“Yes! We’re happy! We’re happy because you girls like us!”
It seemed like the party would continue happily, the unpleasant incident at the table beside us forgotten.
Thump, thump—.
After just two glasses of liquor, Eun Hee-ju was already revving like a motorcycle, still pounding my shoulder to pieces.
“Hwaaang! Unnie, chu-chu!”
At least our resident cuddle machine didn’t cling to men,
and only went around pressing her lips against the girls.
“Oh, yes. I used to perform in theater in Daehak-ro, and now I’m a trainee at N&P. Yes, yes. Oh! Yes, thank you. If I ever get cast as an actress, I’ll be sure to let you know through Oppa. Yes, yes. Thank you.”
Lee Da-young, surprisingly, wasn’t drunk at all and was chatting perfectly normally.
[She’s the kind of person who never lets her guard down around people she doesn’t know well or feels uncomfortable with.]
So when she’d been drinking before and called me Master and all that,
it was because she felt comfortable with me.
That made me a little happy.
“This is great. The liquor tastes amazing tonight!”
“It sure does!”
“Ah, let’s get into it!”
The party was in full swing, and we were downing the liquor one glass after another.
-♬♪♬♪
It wasn’t one of Always’s songs playing in the bar, but
when a song the girls often practiced to came on, their ears perked up instinctively.
You could call it a sort of occupational hazard for idol trainees.
It was so ingrained that even Hee-ju started following the choreography a little.
“Yeah!”
“Woohoo!”
Seong Se-ri and Gil Min-seo got even more excited and started singing along, too.
Seong Se-ri was singing as the belle of the bar where she used to work,
while Gil Min-seo was just a girl who loved to sing.
“Wow. They’re really good.”
My friends just stared blankly at our girls in amazement, completely entranced.
They were hooked.
I didn’t have to worry about them buying 300 albums.
For the record, them singing along wasn’t particularly loud.
The bar did get noisier as time went on,
but we weren’t making enough noise to bother anyone.
And yet,
“Ah, this place is ridiculously loud! Hey, could you keep it down a little? Please! I can’t even drink with all this noise. I can’t drink!”
“……”
“……”
The table beside us yelled at us again, as though they’d been waiting for just this moment.
“Now they’re bitching even when we’re just breathing?”
Honestly, I didn’t know what they were trying to accomplish.
Maybe they wanted to feel like they’d won after seeing us back down again,
or maybe they were simply jealous of us.
Or maybe they were just being jerks because they were drunk.
“Are those bastards out of their minds?”
“They think we’re just going to sit here and take it?”
But this time, there was no way we’d just sit there and take it.
If anything, I was the one who stayed put.
Because
“Boss!”
“Yes? What is it?”
Seong Se-ri had sprung to her feet and called for the owner.
“Over here!”
“Yes!”
“Is this the kind of bar where you’re not allowed to talk loudly?!”
She was shouting so loudly, you’d think she had a microphone all to herself.
The owner, who came hurrying out of the kitchen, was so overwhelmed by her forceful presence that he ended up shouting, too.
“Of course not! You can be loud! This is a college bar! It’s been open for over ten years! We host university events here all the time!”
“Exactly! But the people sitting next to us keep telling us to be quiet!”
“What? What do you mean?”
As the owner looked baffled,
people at the other tables, who’d been quietly drinking, all stood up and turned to look at the table beside us.
“Wait, they told you to be quiet?”
“Are they crazy?”
“Then everyone playing Strawberry Game here should just get the hell out.”
“Are they students at our university?”
“What department are they in?”
“Get in touch with the seniors in their department. Who the hell are those assholes?”
Murmur, murmur—.
Public opinion immediately swung in our favor.
And that wasn’t all.
“Ignore that bullshit! You can be as loud as you want!”
Some of the more forward guys had only just noticed how pretty our girls were, and they even got up to come over.
The owner saw them and hurried over, then
“Please leave. The food’s on the house. And don’t ever think about coming back to our bar.”
“……”
It seemed like the whole thing would end with them being thrown out in disgrace, but
that would’ve been a shame.
‘Nobel. Put a curse on them. A strong one.’
This was an order.
[Would hair loss and erectile dysfunction be enough?]
‘Add chronic headaches, too.’
[Got it.]
Nobel nodded without hesitation at my request.
And then.
“Since we’re the ones who ruined the mood, we’ll take responsibility and sing a song here!”
The evening’s finale was an impromptu performance by the girls from Always.
With spoons stuck into soju bottles in place of microphones, the four girls’ performance sent the drinking party’s mood soaring again.
“Encore! Encore! Encore!”
I had no idea then.
I never would’ve guessed that this moment today would rack up not 1 million, but 10 million views.
“Make some noise!!”