Chapter 980: I Am the King of Singers, But...? (15)

So the beginning of the whole incident was actually simple.

“You’re saying it all started because you made calls scouting locations?”

“Yeah.”

PD Gu Jaeyoung answered with an awkward smile.

“There’s more preparation involved in restaurant variety shows than most other programs. Especially because you need government permits, so cooperation with local officials is essential.”

“Right.”

“So we contact places ahead of time. If a region doesn’t seem very enthusiastic, we move on to another one. Though honestly, it’s rare for anyone to actually dislike the idea....”

Jiho raised his hand.

“So you contacted places all around the country?”

“No, no.”

PD Gu Jaeyoung waved his hands frantically.

His mountain-bandit-like face somehow looked wrongfully innocent.

“We really only contacted a few places. Just the locations we thought would work well as candidates....”

“So what happened after that...?”

“Well, word got out. Rumors spread everywhere that NewBlack was opening a restaurant in a tourist destination....”

From there, we could basically imagine the rest.

Apparently, to tourism regions across the country, PD Gu Jaeyoung’s words had sounded something like this:

Ah yes. The NewBlack Inn, you say? Very well then. Let us hear your proposals for where it should be built.

Tourist regions across the nation buzzed noisily.

Who is this arrogant fellow?

They say his name is Gu Jaeyoung, originally from the great TBC Sect, but after suffering false accusations he defected to the Lemon Cult ruled by the Heavenly Demon Composer.

I heard the NewBlack Inn could overturn the balance of tourism across the nation once established. No wonder he acts so boldly!

And then regions that NewNiverse had never even contacted started appearing too....

“They kept begging us to at least hear their proposals even if we didn’t choose them....”

“So that’s what happened.”

“Which is why regional representatives are currently attending presentations at the company.”

I could already imagine CEO Park Gyuho sitting in the conference room.

Government officials from every province staring at him with blazing eyes like they were saying Choose me!

Kids.......

Hm?

For some reason it felt like I could hear the CEO’s voice in the distance.

Save me.......

Feeling like I could genuinely hear that desperate hallucination, I quietly turned my head away.

“The CEO’s handling it well.”

“He’s the one who built Lemon Entertainment into a company this big. I believe in his outstanding abilities.”

“Go CEO!”

I firmly believed he would deal with things wisely.

Here lies a skeleton.

“CEO?”

“Kids.......”

“CEO!! Your face...!”

When we returned to Korea and visited the company, the CEO looked like he’d lost half his body weight.

CEO Park Gyuho’s cheeks had become hollow.

“CEO, what happened to you exactly.......”

“It was terrifying....”

“What was?”

“The government officials.......”

We burst into laughter at his answer.

Rubbing his stomach like someone suffering from severe gastritis, the CEO groaned.

“My stomach’s been burning from stress....”

“But why are government officials scary?”

Junghyun asked innocently, and Jiho answered instead.

“Hyung, businessmen are always most afraid of people sent by the government.”

“Really?”

“My dad’s terrified of prosecutors and the National Tax Service. Whenever he dreams about the tax office showing up, he whines that he doesn’t want to go to work.”

I could vividly picture Chairman Wang Hyuntak throwing a tantrum at home because he didn’t want to go to work.

Well, the situations were slightly different.

But after dealing with local government officials from every region, CEO Park Gyuho looked completely drained.

“How was the presentation meeting?”

“Everyone prepared incredibly well. Every single region promised the highest level of support....”

The CEO politely handed us a USB drive.

“I recorded the presentations, so you should probably watch them yourselves too.”

“Thank you, CEO.”

CEO Park Gyuho chuckled warmly and offered encouragement.

“Right. Choose carefully. This restaurant project needs to become another ratings explosion. We already passed ten percent with the driver’s license arc, so this time let’s hit twenty!”

“Ooooooh!”

“And once we hit twenty percent!”

“And then...!”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all went to Antarctica?! Hahahahaha!”

“.......”

The smiles slowly vanished from our faces.

The grand reward for breaking the all-time cable variety ratings record was a trip to Antarctica?

Watching our expressions darken in real time, the CEO panicked.

“W-Well, we could always stop at 19.9 percent instead.”

“!”

“!!”

That sounded surprisingly tempting.

“That actually sounds good. We just need to hit 19.9 percent.”

“A magical number where we break the ratings record without going to Antarctica...!”

Then Junghyun asked—

“But wouldn’t that basically count as twenty percent anyway? Our first-week sales were 1.99 million albums and we still called it two million.”

“What are you talking about, Junghyun?”

We stared at him in confusion.

“Our first-week sales were 1.99 million.”

“Two million? Hyung, numbers should be counted accurately. We sold 1,999,827 copies.”

“Good grief, Kim Junghyun.”

We laughed watching Junghyun look unfairly wronged.

Of course, even while joking around, we all knew it was impossible.

If the show actually hit 19.9 percent, we’d obviously have to go.

At that point refusing would basically be mocking the viewers.

“Who can we blame? We can only blame ourselves.”

“!”

Ignoring the outrage of Why are you dragging us into this when you made the promise?!, we headed up to the sixth floor.

Then we gathered in the lounge and watched the presentations.

[Hello. We are from Gangwon Province.......]

Starting with Gangwon Province, presentations continued in alphabetical order.

What support NewBlack would receive if they opened a restaurant there.

What kind of synergy the region could create.

And so on.

“Wow.......”

“The quality’s insane.”

Watching the thoroughness of adults with real work experience was genuinely impressive.

Some presentations attacked completely unexpected angles to appeal to us.

Others pointed out surprisingly sharp considerations.

After roughly watching through the videos, the members gathered together in a meeting formation.

Which region should the restaurant be opened in?

That was the agenda.

Ri Hyuk pulled out the previous meeting notes and spoke.

“First, let’s think about the points we originally discussed with the production team.”

A restaurant variety show set in Korea.

The image we originally wanted was something like this:

Wait! Korea had tourist spots this beautiful?! The place where NewBlack opened their restaurant is gorgeous!

A restaurant surrounded by beautiful forests near a relatively lesser-known tourist destination.

Customers would visit through reservations for several days, {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} and after operations ended, the place would transform into a café welcoming future tourists.

The region itself would become trendy, helping the local economy.

And we’d get to run a restaurant against a gorgeous scenic backdrop.

A win-win situation.

“Let’s see.”

First, we looked through the recommendation list prepared by the TF team.

Regions they believed were the best candidates after analysis.

“Well then.......”

I brought up the most important first condition.

“The food has to be good. Tourism matters too, but the restaurants around the area need to generally taste good.”

“Why?”

Junghyun tilted his head, so I explained.

“Okay, Junghyun. Stand up.”

“Yes.”

“Imagine this. You visit a tourist area because you saw the NewBlack restaurant.”

“Yes.”

“But now you’re getting hungry. And you keep thinking about the food from NewNiverse. So where do you go?”

“I’d look for nearby restaurants.”

Junghyun closed his eyes and imagined it.

“Hmm... there’s a knife-cut noodle place and a cold noodle place. Which should I choose?”

“Just go anywhere.”

“After much thought, I enter a soy milk noodle restaurant. The grandmother owner looks really kind. Grandfather apparently went to the next village and will return later.”

“But the food tastes terrible.”

“Ah... nooo!”

Exactly.

Taste was crucial.

I laughed.

“We’re doing a restaurant project. Ideally the nearby local restaurants should also be good. That creates positive synergy for the overall image.”

“That makes sense. If viewers crave NewNiverse food and then visit nearby restaurants only for them to suck....”

The younger members nodded and circled regions on the map.

We’d traveled all over Korea like wandering merchants—from My Hometown Right Now to all kinds of regional festivals.

So we marked places where we’d previously thought, Wow, every restaurant here is delicious.

Ri Hyuk asked—

“What’s the second criterion?”

“Tourism. Places with lots to see, but which still receive fewer visitors compared to major famous destinations.”

Which immediately ruled out already ultra-famous tourist spots like Yeosu and Tongyeong.

As for Jeju Island....

“Hmm. Jeju actually has more hidden tourist spots than I expected.”

“Yeah.”

Since Jeju itself was huge, there were plenty of surprisingly beautiful locations we hadn’t known about.

Many of them would’ve been perfect visually for what we wanted.

But....

“Hmm.......”

As I hesitated, Biju spoke up.

“What if we exclude Jeju?”

“?”

“We already filmed our reality show there, and we’ve gone several times for shoots already, so it feels familiar. I think filming somewhere new would create a fresher atmosphere.”

The others nodded immediately.

“Jeju’s nice, but somewhere else might be better.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll have plenty of chances to go to Jeju later anyway.”

Watching them naturally remove Jeju from consideration made me strangely emotional.

They were clearly trying to accommodate me because I preferred avoiding flights whenever possible.

Feeling awkward for no reason, I rubbed my knee with my fingers.

Then Biju asked—

“So where should we choose, hyung?”

“Hmm.......”

I began checking the conditions one by one.

“It still needs to be a reasonably large-scale tourist destination. Eliminate places with too little to see....”

“I’ll narrow it down using tourism statistics.”

“Transportation has to be convenient too. Somewhere easy to reach by train.”

“Got it.”

“And nearby accommodations need to be sufficiently secure.”

Because guests would likely stay several days due to the nature of the project.

If security was weak, sasaeng fans could potentially break through.

After filtering through every condition—

“There it is.”

“This is the place.”

The perfect candidate finally appeared before us.

A region where we thought the food was excellent.

A place boasting breathtaking scenery thanks to Jirisan Mountain and Hwaeomsa Temple’s magnificent architecture.

A place accessible through KTX high-speed rail.

[Gurye County, Jeollanam-do]

The greatest candidate we had found.

After relaying our restaurant location opinions to the NewNiverse production team—

We returned to everyday life after coming back to Korea.

“Wooju hyung....”

“Biju, save me....”

“Just a little longer, hyung. Let’s practice a little more.”

“Wooju hates this. Wooju’s gonna run away.”

We practiced choreography for UBiz’s WAVE ahead of the upcoming music video shoot.

“We discussed it too. Gurye seems pretty good.”

“Did they secure the location already?”

“Yeah. Apparently they found a perfect site, so we’ll probably operate there.......”

We held meetings with the NewNiverse staff about the restaurant project.

“The merchandise for NewBlack Friday came out. What do you think?”

“We just need to choose between final draft A and B, right?”

“Right.”

“Hmm.......”

We also thoroughly prepared for Souffle Week, which would soon celebrate Souffle’s fourth anniversary.

On top of that came final work for the Sound of Sun musical numbers and additional work related to Overcook.

Honestly, I was deeply impressed with myself these days.

“Well done, Sun Wooju.”

Even with schedules packed practically minute-by-minute, I was still preparing for the competition.

Once group practice with the members ended, I’d secretly sneak into the trainee floor on the second level and practice my individual song alone in empty rooms.

Sometimes rehearsal rooms still had lights on even at dawn.

It was probably Ji Hyuk practicing choreography he felt lacking in.

Seeing him strangely reminded me of my younger self.

“Phew.......”

I drank from a water bottle while feeling my stamina gradually running out.

Just survive this month, Sun Wooju.

June had already been absurdly busy, and if I just survived this July too, things would finally ease up by August.

[Mission Singer Competition]

For now, this was what mattered.

“Beating Ri Hyuk honestly won’t be easy....”

Objectively speaking, defeating Ri Hyuk would be extremely difficult.

The kind of thing that would require outrageous luck.

And besides, I wasn’t even entering the competition to beat Ri Hyuk in the first place.

Sun Wooju VS Seo Ri Hyuk

The point was creating buzz through that matchup.

Making people focus on both our vocals together.

Of course, to do that, there was one thing I absolutely had to achieve.

Advance to the finals.

That was my goal for this competition.

And—

I genuinely believed I could do it.

Because while Ri Hyuk had been practicing, I hadn’t neglected my own vocal training either.

Honestly... I thought a lot of people, including Mrs. Kim Deoksun, were probably going to be shocked.

My goal was to make it to the finals and scare the living hell out of Ri Hyuk.

And—

Also force that profile picture to change.

KingGodKimDeoksun [♥Our Grandson♥]

“Fufufufufu.”

I sat there trembling with sinister excitement by myself when—

Click.

The door opened.

“It’s meee.”

Jiho bounced energetically into the room.

“How’s practice going? Think you can beat Ri Hyuk hyung?”

“We’ll only know once we try.”

Jiho peeked over the arrangement sheets I’d prepared.

Then his eyes widened.

“Whoa.......”

“Why?”

“Ri Hyuk hyung’s gonna suffer. You really came prepared.”

“Of course. You can’t face Ri Hyuk with half-hearted determination. You need to give it your all.”

Jiho grinned.

“You’re honestly just pissed off because of Grandma, right?”

“.......”

I smoothly changed the subject.

“So why are you here?”

“Oh, Part 2 of Mission Singer starts soon. I came to ask if you wanted to watch Ri Hyuk hyung becoming King Singer together.”

“I’m okay. I need to manage my condition.”

Jiho laughed.

“Why?”

“Ri Hyuk hyung said literally the exact same thing. Said he was managing his condition today.”

I smiled faintly at hearing Ri Hyuk had said the same thing.

That’s right.

This competition would be Full-Condition Sun Wooju versus Full-Condition Seo Ri Hyuk.

Competition day.

“Huuuu.......”

Seo Ri Hyuk climbed into the car with a tense expression.

Thanks to sleeping early the night before, his face practically glowed.

But his stiff expression remained unchanged.

“Good morning, Ri Hyuk-ssi.”

“Good morning.”

After greeting the manager, Seo Ri Hyuk fastened his seatbelt.

He reached toward his phone—

Then stopped himself.

‘No. Mental management first.’

Part 2 of Mission Singer had aired the night before, but he still hadn’t checked reactions.

Because he knew himself very well.

‘I have a glass mentality.’

Whether positive or negative, he wanted to avoid anything that might shake his mental state.

The important thing was composure.

To sing without wavering no matter what happened.

Of course, his eyes still kept drifting toward the phone....

Fortunately, there was someone nearby distracting him.

“Thank you.”

“Hm?”

Seo Ri Hyuk spoke to the person sitting beside him.

“You didn’t need to come with me today though.......”

“No, it’s okay.”

Seeing Sun Wooju smiling warmly, Seo Ri Hyuk suddenly felt guilty.

‘He even made time just to support me.’

Today, he thought he should treat him especially well.

Ri Hyuk asked—

“Hyung... did you watch yesterday’s broadcast?”

“Me? Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want it affecting you.”

For a moment, warmth filled Seo Ri Hyuk’s chest.

“Competition should be fair after all. Fufufufu....”

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing. Well then~ Shall we get going?”

Their car headed toward TBC headquarters in Sangam-dong.

Unlike before, there was no longer any need to hide his identity.

Seo Ri Hyuk confidently walked into the station.

“I watched yesterday’s broadcast! Ri Hyuk-ssi!”

“Thank you.”

“The final performance seriously made me cry.......”

Ri Hyuk responded gently to greetings from station staff as they passed by.

And finally they arrived at the Mission Singer studio.

A spacious room labeled [Production Preparation Room].

And attached to the door—

[King Singer Waiting Room]

[For King Singer “King Sun Wooju”]

“Woooow.......”

“Wow. It’s huge.”

The waiting room used directly by the reigning King Singer was impressively spacious.

Even the staff admired it while muttering, So this is the King Singer waiting room.

“King Sun Wooju-nim! We’ll start filming the VCR first, so please get ready!”

“Yes!”

After light makeup, Seo Ri Hyuk put on the mask and the King Singer crown.

He filmed playful VCR footage giving challengers a sort of Fufufu! You insignificant fools! energy.

Then after a hectic morning of recording—

Seo Ri Hyuk looked toward Sun Wooju, who was preparing to leave the waiting room.

“Where are you going?”

“Mm. I’ve got a schedule for a bit. I’ll probably come back later.”

“Ah.......”

That made sense.

Sun Wooju was always absurdly busy.

It would’ve been nice to keep hanging out together, but the other person obviously had his own schedule too.

“See you later.”

“Yeah.”

Then just as Wooju was opening the door—

“Oh right, Ri Hyuk.”

“Yes?”

“I’m really proud of you.”

“!”

Seo Ri Hyuk’s face instantly burned hot.

His ears felt like they were on fire.

“I mean it. You became King Singer against competitors this fierce. I hope you stand on today’s stage with confidence in your own abilities.”

“Th-Thank you.”

“Yeah. I just wanted you to know in advance how much I respect you as a vocalist.......”

“?”

“I’m doing all this for your sake.”

“??”

After speaking in strangely cryptic riddles, Wooju waved his hand.

“See you later.”

“Yes.......”

Ri Hyuk pressed the back of his cool hand against his burning cheeks.

‘Damn it. What’s gotten into him?’

Why would he suddenly praise someone like that and make them embarrassed?

Maybe because he was so flustered—

He failed to notice several staff members and the manager leaving the room alongside Sun Wooju.

All he felt was warmth.

‘Seriously such a good person.......’

Lost in thought for a while, Seo Ri Hyuk soon began diligently writing a handwritten letter.

A letter to give Wooju later.

Of course—

Seo Ri Hyuk had absolutely no idea that when Wooju said See you later—

He had meant very soon.