Chapter 32

“...All right. I’ll teach you one thing at a time. Ha.... Given your circumstances, it probably won’t be much. Don’t worry about it for now.”

Baek Hanje sank into the chair in disbelief. Then he crooked a finger lazily at Gowon, who was still standing.

“Let’s do this the easy way. Sit down.”

“.......”

“Like I said earlier, accept the company’s help. You don’t have to tell them as much detail as you told me... No, forget it. I’ll go with you when you tell Kwon Taeyoung. You trust Taeyoung as an adult, at least, right?”

“...Yes. The division head is....”

“What, then what am I?”

“.......”

Gowon silently drank the rest of his wine.

He knew Baek Hanje was a good person too. He simply had no desire to say it aloud right now....

In fact, even before meeting him today, Gowon had watched his old performance videos over and over again.

Every member of the legendary Young Ace was extraordinary, but Baek Hanje in particular seemed favored by the god of music. Not only could he compose every title track and album track, but he could play instruments and possessed both an ear-catching vocal tone and remarkable singing ability.

Of course, he was incapable of saying a single thing without mocking someone, and he had a gift for infuriating people that made Gowon feel as though his insides were bursting every time....

Gowon drained the fresh wine Baek Hanje had poured for him. The carbonation popped against his tongue, leaving a bitter taste. The turmoil that had been boiling violently inside him cooled a little.

“I think I understand why people drink when life gets hard....”

“Kh—Ahem. Oh, wow. You really are all grown up....”

Baek Hanje, who had been drinking another wine, suddenly broke into a coughing fit. The smell of alcohol coming from him was a little stronger than Gowon’s.

“Hey, but I still don’t get it. Why the hell didn’t you want to go to your family home in that situation?”

“Whenever I go home, Grandma and Grandpa keep trying to give me their bed in the main bedroom.”

“Oh, look at you. What a devoted grandson.”

“.......”

As the pressure released from Gowon’s tightly wound mind, his entire body sagged until it ached.

Far too much had happened today. His tangled emotions drained away all at once, as though Baek Hanje had pulled the plug from a bathtub. His head spun like the resulting whirlpool.

Gowon realized this must be what it felt like to be drunk.

“I should get going.”

“Where are you going?”

“...I learned thoroughly enough why I can’t go back to my accommodations. I’ll go somewhere else.”

The rigidly formal way he always spoke in front of the distinguished senior artist had softened before he knew it, and not merely because he was drunk.

Regardless of the fact that Hanje was a good... senior, Gowon had shown another person every side of himself that he had never intended to reveal in his lifetime.

He had tried to buy cup noodles and ended up being treated to expensive meat.

He had cried in terror outside his accommodations, then acted absurdly stubborn.

He had come to Hanje’s home, raised his voice, had his insides laid completely bare, and even gotten drunk.

As he recalled each disgraceful act, his face heated again.

Gowon gave an awkward farewell and stood. He was stumbling, but the apartment was also so large that it took him quite a while just to reach the front door. When he had entered earlier, he had been too distracted by the interior to look properly, but even the doors in an expensive apartment looked impressive.

Gowon pressed the button shaped like a lock. The bolt turned and the door opened.

Beep.

Whirr—

“......?”

The door locked again.

Beep.

Whirr—

“You said you were leaving.”

When Gowon turned around, Baek Hanje was tapping his phone every time the door locked.

“...Why are you doing this?”

“Good question. Why am I doing this?”

“.......”

“Why am I doing this, Gowon? ...It isn’t even a quest.”

“What?”

Gowon had almost never understood Baek Hanje’s words or actions, and this time was no exception.

“Hey, Gowon.”

“...Yes.”

“Stay here for the time being.”

“What?”

“Don’t say anything. No matter what you say, I’m not letting you leave. I have plenty of spare rooms, so live here.”

Baek Hanje strode toward the entrance, planted himself directly in front of Gowon, and crossed his arms at an angle.

“This is a threat, an order from a senior artist so far above you he might as well be the heavens, and an abuse of authority from someone in the division head’s direct line. So forget whatever opinion you have and just obey.”

He was so unreasonable that Gowon wondered whether Hanje was the one who was truly dead drunk.

Even so, Gowon found himself utterly overwhelmed by Baek Hanje’s force of personality.

“U-until when...?”

“What do you mean, until when? Until the day your profit settlements begin. There’s no telling what kind of ridiculous idea that tiny head of yours might produce, so stop arguing and live here.”

[Pre-Chorus 1]

yACE Free Board (since 201X)

My boyfriend said that if I love him, I should send him a photo of the back of my credit card, so I did. Is that okay? ㅠㅠ

Lunch menu

Banquet noodles + rollsRice cakes, fried snacks, and blood sausageToo many carbs, so take care of your health

3. Salad

↳ LOL, my lady, we’re too old to fall for tricks like that now.

↳ Early-era fans had enough time to get a boyfriend, break up, and come back by now....

2X0329 Cha Yensu selfie—his beauty reaches a new peak yet again

(Photo) (Photo)

Why does this man never age...? He still has the exact same face as when every music video made him shed one perfect tear;

↳ There’s a reason Cha Yen“su” was the muse of fanfiction back then.

My ladies, it has been a while. Gather your broken plate shards and let us convene in the forum once more.

We now commence the ancient vote passed down since antiquity.

Older obsessive top VS younger obsessive top

Ho ho. The venerable vote continues into its twelfth year. As always, I cast my vote for the younger obsessive top.

↳ I think this will only end around the time Young Ace starts doing dinner shows and we make Cha Yensu choose between Kwon Taeyoung and Baek Hanje... ^^

Where else can you find a trio of faces as deranged as Taeyoung X Yensu X Hanzel?

A handsome man of ascetic control

A pure and elegant beauty

A handsome born delinquent

In the beginning, there was much fanfiction, but this was where the deranged love triangle began.

I still thought K-Dom’s Snow White beauty lineage began and ended with Cha Yensu.

Then they somehow went and found Gowon.

(Photo)

Fucking gorgeous.

(Photo)

His eyelashes and jawline look even more incredible from the side.

(Photo)

How did anyone receive gifts like these?

??? Is he K-Dom’s new recruit??? I’m drooling.

Ladies, the rookie’s stage name is <Gowon>,

and he is a true direct junior artist recruited by Leader Kwon, with the youngest member writing, composing, and producing his title track.

We all know you ladies have risen high enough at work that nobody gives you trouble for wearing earphones, so please stream while you work.

Oh, he was our brother-in-law?~ ^^ I’m off to become a perfectly legitimate dual fan.

I have emerged from Gowon’s board. IㅅO) Spades, please excuse the intrusion!

Our <Gowon> is currently accepting suggestions for his fan-club name. Please share plenty of good ideas for our younger brother’s fan club. Thank you!

We’ve been called Young Ace’s “young ladies” for so long that I forgot what Spades even meant.

↳ Cute. I just visited someone else’s board and pretended to be an innocent newcomer for a while.

I opened my eyes at some hour I could not identify.

“Ah.”

Then I closed them again.

I had not drunk in a while, and my head felt as though it were splitting apart.

So, I had brought Gowon home, drunk three bottles—maybe four—stopped him from leaving, and then....

I had only meant to get him drunk enough to speak freely, but Gowon’s alcohol tolerance had been a far stronger opponent than expected. I had ended up overdoing it along with him.

“Ha....”

After a deep sigh, I dragged myself upright. The weather apparently intended to be offensively clear today, because sunlight poured through the enormous windows as soon as I left the bedroom.

Gowon was sitting on the living-room sofa. He did not appear to be asleep, but his deeply bowed head did not rise.

I left him alone and went to the kitchen in search of water. After filling my stomach with great gulps of cold water, my dizzy head began functioning a little better.

“...Is it always like this?”

“Huh?”

“When you drink, does your body always feel this strange the next day?”

The question was so fresh it could have been delivered directly to a luxury department store.

“What feels strange?”

“My head is throbbing, and I feel nauseated....”

“Wow. Youth.”

Wasn’t that practically nothing? Maybe his young body was good at detoxifying alcohol too, because his face was not swollen at all.

Gowon let out a deep sigh without making the slightest effort to hide it anymore.

“Hey, want ramen for your hangover?”

“Yesterday you said that even during the off-season, eating sinful food was forbidden.”

“Right. What an excellent senior I am. I went and said something correct again yesterday.”

“.......”

“But ramen is the only thing I know how to cook. The housekeeper probably stocked the place with ingredients, more or less.”

“What ingredients are there?”

The voice came from close by. When I turned, Gowon had somehow approached right behind me and was examining the contents of the refrigerator with a remarkably serious expression.

His pitch-black eyes scanned the ingredients one by one from the top shelf downward before meeting mine when I turned.

“......!”

He immediately scrambled backward.

Anyone watching would think I had been about to eat him for breakfast. He was the one who had pressed himself so close, so why was he reacting like that?

“Want to order soup and rice?”

Gowon answered a beat late.

“...It looks like you have everything needed to make soup. Do you have rice?”

“Do I?”

“.......”

“Do you know where people normally keep rice in their homes?”

“Isn’t this your house, Brother?”

“Oh, you’re not backing out of calling me Brother. After the way you snapped at me and tried to put up walls yesterday, I thought I might be back to Hanzel.”

“.......”

Pretending not to hear, Gowon turned away and pointlessly opened and closed the cabinets around the sink.

“I don’t know where anything is either. I’ve never even turned on this induction cooktop myself.”

“You suggested ramen earlier.”

“Cup noodles.”

“.......”

“I’m just ordering soup and rice.”

Why go out of my way to suffer when I could enjoy the work of trained professionals in my own home?

“Ah, what were you originally planning to do today?”

“I’m not telling you.”