Chapter 257:


    Trantor: MarcTempest


    Editor: Rxel


    Chapter 257


    Monday morning.


    The staff member sitting at the counter of the family restaurant nced over the reservation book.


    ‘Let’s see. Three groups for lunch. Five groups for dinner. And…’


    There was one group in the morning.


    The group of guests marked as ‘Seon Woojoo and 15 others’ were the ones she had personally taken the reservation from.


    They said they woulde with four children along with the adults.Keeping an eye on the outside as the reservation time approached, the staff member spotted two men approaching the store.


    ‘Are those the people?’


    She felt a visual shock at the moment she looked closely.


    “Watermelon?”


    The green and red were so intense that she mistook the fashion for a watermelon at first.


    A Hawaiian shirt with red and green roses intertwined and white pants.


    Plus a mask and sunsses.


    He looked like a businessman who would pull a ferry at a port somewhere, with a perfect outfit for that.


    But the proportions were…


    The outfit was middle-aged, but the body was model-like. She felt a moment of awe at the extreme contrast.


    Ding.


    The two men opened the door and came in.


    “Hello.”


    The man with the sunsses greeted her with a smile.


    “I made a reservation. The name is Seon Woojoo…”


    “Oh, yes… I remember your reservation, sir. Are yourpanions on their way?”


    “Yes, they’re alling.”


    She asked with a friendly smile, “Are the kids still on their way?”


    “Yes, they’re on their way. One of them is here.”


    “…?”


    At that moment, the staff member gasped.


    She had been distracted by the Hawaiian shirt and didn’t notice the shadow behind him.


    A navy blue shirt and ck pants.


    He looked like a bodyguard with sunsses and a taciturn expression. He was even chewing gum like a rock.


    “Did you say our kids before…”


    “Yes. This is our kid.”


    The Hawaiian shirt wrapped his arm around him and showed him off like a ‘ta-da’.


    He offered him a jelly with a warm smile and said, ‘Do you want some jelly?’


    She unknowingly ate it as if she was bewitched.


    When her head was getting tangled up, fortunately, he took off his mask and sunsses and the question was solved.


    “Ah… It’s hot. Junghyun.”


    “Yeah. Hyung. Should we just go inside?”


    “No, let’s wait for the kids and go together. But why aren’t theying? Bijoo said he got lost again?”


    “No. On the way, Jihyo found a doll machine.”


    “What about the others?”


    “…They’re doing it too.”


    “How old are they? All of them. Junghyun, can you change the jelly to a different color for me?”


    The staff member widened her eyes.


    ‘Wow!’


    He was a celebrity.


    The face of the idol leader who had generously released his dark history on Shintokist week came to her mind.


    What was his name? But…


    “Yes.”


    He chuckled at her surprised expression.


    “We’re New ck. Woojoo.”


    “I’m Junghyun.”


    When she came to her senses, she was taking a selfie with them, and soon the rest of the guests poured in.


    “We’re here!”


    “It’s not even hot, why did you take off your mask? Ah… You were acting like a celebrity again.”


    “The road is reallyplicated. Here.”


    The idol members who came in chattering with the managers and staff.


    She calmly guided them to their seats and ran to the kitchen as soon as she turned around.


    “Wow! Do you know that a celebrity came in?”


    “A celebrity? Who?”


    “New ck. Idol.”


    “Oh! Them?”


    “Wow. Can I get an autographter…?”


    The kitchen staff wereughing happily at first.


    But theirughter stopped abruptly after three seconds.


    “Wait a minute.”


    “That wasn’t a kid…?”


    Everyone’s eyes shifted to the cake that was carefully decorated.


    “Can we erase that?”


    “If we erase it, it will look like a mess.”


    “…”


    “…”


    There was a phrase written inrge chocte letters on it: ‘Kim Bijoo, child! Happy birthday!’


    “…”


    “…”


    They were stunned as they approached their reserved table.


    Colorful balloons.


    Four colorful children’s chairs.


    “…”


    When they stood still at the table, Minki Hyung, who was filming with a handycam, burst intoughter.


    The other staff also rolled around withughter.


    Rihyuk’s cheeks trembled and he turned his head sharply.


    “How did you make the reservation?”


    “No, I’m sure I did it right…”


    “You did it right and these chairs came out?”


    “Well, at least they’re not for babies.”


    “…”


    Rihyuk made a sour face, Junghyun said ‘interesting’, and Jihyo wrapped the balloon string around his finger and liked it.


    “Hahaha!”


    The birthday boy, whoseughter barrier was 1cm today, startedughing.


    “…Sorry. Bijoo.”


    “No, Hyung.” Bijoo waved his hand and said, “I think it’s going to be a memorable birthday.”


    The staff member that Dowon Hyung called ran over and apologized, saying he would change the chairs.


    Woojoo smiled awkwardly and said, “We can just sit, but our kids have short upper bodies.”


    “That’s usually what people say when they have long legs. You, sir.”


    The staff member turned his head slightly and bit his lip.


    They weren’t small, but if they just sat down, their legs would be too long.


    Jihyo said, “No one can sit on this. Junghyun Hyung needs two chairs.”


    “Two is reasonable.”


    True. Bijoo barely fits.


    “Isn’t it weird to begin with that adults want to sit on children’s chairs?”


    …When they heard that voice, their heads turned at the same time.


    Then, something shed in the minds of the four of them, like a light bulb turning on.


    “Uh…”


    “Uh…”


    “This is it.”


    They asked the staff member who was taking away the chairs for permission.


    “Wait, please.”


    “Wait, please. We’ll take care of thest one.”


    When their eyes turned to him, Rihyuk shuddered and shook his head vigorously.


    “No, I really won’t sit. No way. Don’t do this!”


    “Rihyuk.” Woojoo said seriously, “Just sit once. It’s my wish.”


    “Please, don’t waste your wish on something like this.”


    “Rihyuk. You have to manage your expression. There are other people nearby. Don’t you care about your image?”


    “Rihyuk Hyung hasn’t seen the bitter taste of celebrity sightings yet.”


    “You haven’t seen it either. The bitter taste.”


    When Rihyuk tried to stick to his ‘I can’t sit’ stance, Bijoo’s eyes met his.


    Sparkling.


    “…”


    “Hyung, it’s my wish. Rihyuk.”


    “…”


    “Right? If you sit on that, maybe our next album will be a hit?”


    “Ah, stop doing that!”


    He finally gave in to the words that the next album would be a hit.


    Rihyuk closed his eyes tightly and sighed deeply as he looked at the blue children’s chair. He took a deep breath.


    Then he slowly sat down on the chair.


    And…


    Swoosh!


    If there was a sound effect, it would be something like that. He fit perfectly into the chair, like a piece of Tetris.


    “Puhahaha!”


    They all burst intoughter and pped like seals.


    “Hey, really! I knew you would do this!”


    One of the customers who was eating pasta nearby started coughing as he heard themotion.


    Meanwhile, the person in question was ring at them with a red face.


    “…You better be prepared when I write my autobiography. I’ll only leave your names in thest footnote, in 4-point font size.”


    He looked so petty as he plotted his timid revenge that they just smiled.


    “Ah, today is already fun.”


    Bijoo, who was sitting in the front seat, pped his hands softly and looked happy.


    He seemed very d that they all went out together today. His eyes sparkled as Woojoo handed him a hat.


    “Bijoo, here’s a cone hat.”


    “Wow… This is so pretty. I don’t think I should wear it.”


    He put on the colorful cone hat and they took amemorative photo for his birthday. Then they all ordered their menus.


    “Oh… This is delicious.”


    “Mm-hmm. Hehe.”


    It was his first time at a family restaurant and it was better than he expected.


    If he had known it was like this, he would havee sooner.


    Woojoo didn’te here much because someone told him in elementary school that this was a ce where people usually went with their parents.


    The steak was savory and melted in his mouth as he cut a piece and put it in.


    Woojoo turned his head and looked at Bijoo, who was slurping spaghetti.


    “Is it good?”


    “Yes, it’s very good.”


    “Tell me if you have anything you want to do or wish for today. I’ll do anything for you, except for not wearing floral prints.”


    “Oh… Oh! I want to try thatter too.”


    He talked about things he wanted to try, like sticker photos or arcades, and Woojoo smiled.


    He must have had a lot of things he wanted to do.


    It seemed like they would have to run around all day to do all of this.


    Not only Bijoo, but the other siblings also nodded their heads eagerly at Woojoo’s suggestion.


    They must have had a lot of pent-up desire to y, since the music show was longer than expected.


    Well. It was okay for today.


    Woojoo decided to take a break today and put aside the thoughts of future activities that kept popping up in his head.


    Tat-


    The lights where they were sitting went out.


    Bijoo stopped eating spaghetti and opened his eyes wide at the sudden ckout.


    “…?”


    As he dropped the noodles from his mouth, Woojoo winked at the siblings.


    ‘Let’s start.’


    Junghyun raised his voice.


    “Huh, what…?”


    “Wh. What’s going on?”


    Kim and Seo. Don’t ever act…


    Thud-


    Jiho dropped the fork from his hand and made a sound like he was choking.


    “Wh, what is this? Why did the lights go out all of a sudden?”


    …Don’t do it too well.


    Woojoo rubbed his temples as he saw the youngest making a grim expression like he was in a disaster movie.


    The restaurant staff came over with a cake with a candle on it.


    “Wow…”


    Bijoo put his hand on his cheek and made a squeaky sound as they quietly got up from their seats.


    They sang the birthday song together.


    “One, two, hot two, three four!”


    A staff member with a guitar and another with a tambourine. And the other staff members joined in to sing the song.


    “Happy happy happy day! A happy day, a good day…”


    It was easy to sing along since they memorized the lyrics beforehand.


    But as they sang, the staff raised their voices more and more. They seemed to enjoy singing very much.


    “Congrattions…!”


    They seemed to be having fun as they raised their voices along with them.


    They were all getting more excited.


    Jiho was dancing with napkins in both hands, and Junghyun was adding rap ad-libs in between.


    Woojoo saw the staff singing and sweating.


    They looked like they were having a st.


    It was like apetition to see who could have more fun. Whenever one side raised the mood, the other side raised it even more.


    “Bijoo, happy birthday!”


    When the song ended, it was time to blow out the candles.


    “Make a wish!” one of the staff said.


    Bijoo smiled after thinking for a moment.


    “I wish everyone would stay by my side like this.”


    The candles went out softly.


    “Congrattions!”


    As they gave Bijoo the gifts they prepared together, Woojoo thanked the staff who were wiping their sweat.


    “Thank you. Our kid really likes it.”


    “Haha… yes.”


    But they allughed awkwardly at Woojoo’s gratitude. They also seemed to look at him with a strange expression.


    Why were they acting like that?


    Woojoo wondered, but soon he heard someone calling him and went to Bijoo.


    「I’m going to spill the tea about the celebrity who came to my part-time job…」


    I work part-time at Olive House


    This morning, we had a group of customers who were New ck


    I thought they couldn’t be as crazy as they are on the History Discovery show, but they were for real… for real…


    It was one of the members’ birthday, but their leader made a mistake with the reservation and we prepared for a children’s event


    Anyway, we finished with a twist… and I went there with the cake


    Oh, by the way, our store is that one


    The one that won the first ce in the birthday celebration contest among all the stores.


    We were all confident in having fun and doing these events, but today we met our match…


    They said they wanted to sing along, so our manager said, sure, go ahead! But that was a wrong choice


    They harmonized and hummed among themselves, and our voices were drowned out


    They danced and sang, and they were amazing


    The rapper added a rap in the middle, and it was so awesome that I almost pped


    The youngest, who said he was the worst, had more volume than all of our voicesbined… crazy


    But you know how it is, you getpetitive


    We tried not to lose and sang hard, but they were having more fun and stepped up their game.


    It reminded me of that story


    There was a bear and a martial artist, and the martial artist who trained his whole life threw a punch with all his might, but the bear thought he was ying and enjoyed it


    Today will be remembered as the day our store’s pride was tarnished


    –??????you got owned


    –????why do the staff look so exhausted in the proof shot


    -Look at the sweat; did you do crossfit or something


    -But how can they sing so well?


    -[OP] I understood why they were famous as soon as I heard them. I will never underestimate singers again


    -Nice?


    -[OP] They were nice, but I felt some distance. They had an aura that made them hard to approach as celebrities. You guys would freeze too if you saw them in person


    -Huh they seemed friendly


    -[OP] They look friendly, but they are different in real life


    -What’s the children’s event?


    -Go to ourpany’s sns and see. Our manager asked me to upload a video separately


    Around the time the inte was buzzing with the news of The New ck’s visit to a family restaurant, a video was also posted on Olive House’s official SNS.


    @Olive_House_Korea


    (A video of New ck members singing in a space with children’s balloons)


    Who are the special guests who visited Olive House?


    #The_family_restaurant_that_even_the_trendy_idols_visit #New_ck


    As the video of the idol’s birthday party that made you excited just by watching it spread silently.


    A few hourster.


    Olive House’s US headquarters SNS ount retweeted and posted a picture that looked like a meme.


    @Olive_House_Official


    (On the left, there is a calm children’s Woojoo picture with ‘Before’ written on it, and on the right, there was a picture of adults dancing happily with ‘After’ written on the space picture.)


    Trante: This Korean kid grew up and dances and sings at Olive House. Our restaurant makes customers happy. Good response. Thank you. Like New ck. Like K-pop.


    Meanwhile, the news of that day’s video and SNS also reached the idolmunity.


    Along with a captioned capture of the live video where Woojoo said with a sad expression to the Soufflés, “I made a mistake with the reservation…”


    [The idol who made a buzz with their birthday party today.youknowho]


    -I only clicked on the article because of the headline “Birthday Party is Now a Hot Topic”


    -So, what’s the news about New ck today?


    -ck again;


    -You little coals, hurry up and give me the information


    –??????Do you just ept it as science now?


    -The bed is science-grade


    -Is that a floral lecturer? Is he from outer space?


    -That’s why he posts close-up shots of his home often…


    –????But he did a really fun birthday event


    -Olive House is famous for doing good events???But I didn’t know they would do it with such high tension


    -He’ll get promoted to branch manager??He did a good job of promoting


    Bijoo’s birthday ended happily.


    They spent the whole day running around, taking sticker photos, and going to arcades. They also ate shaved ice that he always wanted to eat.


    They yed almost ten days’ worth of fun in one day.


    They almost had trouble when some fans barged in, but luckily, Dowon Hyung handled it well.


    They finished by going to the subway ad their our Soufflés gave to Bijoo and taking a proof shot.


    “Wow…”


    One of the golden-handed Soufflés made a beautiful ad out of a scene from the History Discovery Team.


    Bijoo, with his fine golden hair, wearing a coat and a hat.


    He looked like a young schr who passed the civil service exam in the ad, and they all marveled at him with wide eyes.


    They went to several ces like a tour from there.


    They stuck post-its everywhere they went, but…


    They made it so that if they put one letter on each post-it, it would make a sentence of gratitude, but someone took it off in the middle, so when they put it together, it became a weird sentence like “Offer a sacrifice to the Soufflés” and they were flustered.


    It was a satisfying day overall.


    “I really enjoyed today…”


    They all felt proud of the grateful face of the person who said this.


    Well. Until then, Woojoo thought they had a normal birthday.


    -Woojoo…


    A few dayster, Seokhwan Hyung asked Woojoo with a dumbfounded face on the video call.


    -You guys went to have a birthday party, right?


    “Yes.”


    -But why did a TV ade in…?


    “Uh, well…”


    -You guys didn’t go to the headquarters and do business after saying you were having a birthday party, did you?


    “No. It’s not like that.”


    They exined earnestly to him who looked at them suspiciously.


    The promotion on the inte was so good that they got a request to be the TV ad model for the family restaurant ‘Olive House’.


    Junghyun said, “It’s amazing. We went to sing a song and got an ad.”


    “I have a good idea, Hyungs,” Jiho said with his eyes wide open. “How about we go to a cell phone store and y next time? We might get a tel ad.”


    “Yeah. Let’s go and dance with balloons.”


    While they were exchanging nonsense withughter, the manager just smiled.


    After talking about this absurd but good situation for a while.


    They heard about the schedule.


    -You guys are done with the music show next week, right? I’ve sorted out the ad requests that came in during that time, so you can just shoot those first.


    They were finally going to shoot the ads that they had postponed because of the music show activities.


    They heard that there were about six ces in total, including this Olive House. There were also a couple of TV ads.


    They admired the names of the major brands while we heard other requests.


    -There’s a K overseas concert next week, remember? You guys pack your bags in advance. Don’t pack your bags while doingundry all night like you did in Singapore.


    “Yesss…”


    -Who packs their bags while running the washing machine all night?


    They were invited as performers to the K overseas concert that will be held in Osaka, Japan next week.


    They had to pack their bags in advance this time.


    They made a firm resolution while they heard about their personal schedule.


    -By the way, Woojoo, you have a pre-meeting with the ‘Men Go’ team in a few days, so go and do well.


    “Yesss…”


    -The shooting schedule is roughly aroundte June to July. It could be moved up.


    “…”


    Woojoo was happy to hear about the ads, but he was gloomy at the news after that.


    This year, he had to go to the reserve forces and the military variety show.


    Woojoo was so excited when he heard that they got a TVmercial deal with a lenspany, but his mood quickly deted.


    His siblings noticed his gloomy expression and tried to cheer him up.


    Woojoo said it didn’t matter if they weren’t chosen, and that he would take one of them anyway, but they all turned their heads away with a snort.


    “Guys, let’s go to rehearsal!”


    The manager’s call interrupted Woojoo’s phone call with Seokhwan Hyung.


    Woojoo walked with a heavy step.


    He checked the mic pack on his waist and adjusted the head mic angle to fit his lips.


    As he walked, loosening his throat, he saw the members of the rookie boy group Iris nearby. They bowed their waists to greet him.


    “Hello! Sunbae-nim!”


    “Hi, hello.”


    They nodded their heads and smiled brightly.


    “…”


    But their reaction was awkward.


    Woojoo thought they had a good senior image, but why did it seem like it didn’t work? They had worked hard on their image management.


    Woojoo walked past the Iris members, who looked at him with confused eyes, with a gentle smile.


    “Street Boys are making aeback today, right?”


    “Yes. That’s right. They said they woulde to our waiting roomter. They want to see our room too.”


    It was Thursday, the second week of their Flower Dance promotion and the seventh week of their music show. Street Boys had made aeback with a new album.


    They had charted yesterday, and Woojoo heard they were doing well. He hoped they would seed.


    He saw their concept photos and music video, and they all had a lot of muscles. He wondered what they would look like in person.


    …Speaking of which, there was also someone who debuted today, someone Woojoo didn’t want to run into.


    Woojoo shook his head as he got on the elevator to the first floor.


    They say if you talk about the tiger, ites.


    At the corner of the hallway, he saw the eyes of a five-member idol group turn to them as they got on the elevator.


    “…”


    And before anyone could react, the tallest one among them saw Woojoo and widened his eyes.


    “Uh…!”


    Woojoo quickly got on the elevator, seeing his eyes flicker with madness.


    Don’t call me weirdly. Don’t call me weirdly.


    “Sergeant!”


    “…”


    “It’s me, Sergeant!”


    Woojoo’s siblings looked stunned as someone ran towards them, and he pressed the close button on the elevator.


    “Who is that?”


    “Someone I don’t want to run into…”


    From below the rising elevator, Woojoo heard a thud and a scream.