Chapter 20

Chapter 20.

Being a coffee truck part-timer wasn't anything particularly special.

There was no obligation to provide the kind of elaborate service that would warrant Iseong bringing up Yuseong's part-time work experience.

“Hello, would you like a cup of Americano?!”

“Come get a refreshing iced Americano~!”

All they had to do was walk around wearing aprons, holding coffee in both hands, and handing it out for free.

That was the entirety of their job.

“Ahhh... Thank you! Oh my goodness...!”

“Enjoy your coffee~”

“You're really, really amazing. Seriously...”

The woman who received the coffee shyly raised her thumb.

Yuseong gave a friendly smile to the woman, who repeatedly thanked him.

Then he went back inside the truck and pressed the button on the espresso machine.

Espresso trickled into two shot glasses, releasing a rich coffee aroma.

Yuseong was the only person inside the truck.

Consequently, making the coffee was also his responsibility.

Everyone else was outside, serving passersby and handing out coffee.

'Even here, I'm being excluded.'

Press the button, wait, ice, two shots, water.

After repeating this process endlessly, his hands had begun moving on their own.

Yuseong had been assigned to prepare the drinks.

And it wasn't even a rotating assignment. He was doing it alone.

At first, he'd naturally assumed he would be serving customers and had been straightening his clothes,

But a staff member had promptly brought him into the truck, explained how to operate the machine, and appointed him the person in charge of preparing drinks.

“Hello, I'm Seong Iseong from Play ON~. I look forward to your support!”

Yuseong followed Iseong with his eyes as he cheerfully promoted himself.

Being outside certainly suited the purpose of this content better.

They were in the middle of Jamsil, Seoul.

Although it was a weekday, the area had plenty of foot traffic because it was downtown, making it an ideal place for promotion.

Their objective this time was to divide into eight groups, travel around Seoul, and spread awareness of Play ON.

They were supposed to spend two hours at each location, and an hour and a half had already passed.

So I just have to endure another thirty minutes here...

In other words,

Yuseong had spent the entire past hour and a half making coffee and would have to repeat the same task for another thirty minutes.

Trapped inside the truck... and perhaps doing exactly the same thing at the next location.

Fortunately, the truck had a wing-body structure, with its side opened wide enough for his face to be visible,

But it was a highly disadvantageous position because people could only see him if they approached the front of the truck.

Keep him as inconspicuous as possible.

That was probably why Yuseong had been assigned to prepare the drinks.

However, the reality was quite different.

“If you've received your coffee, please go around this way. Yes~”

“Please don't push over there!”

Two security guards stationed in front gestured toward the line outside the truck, calming the commotion.

The clicking of cameras taking photographs of Yuseong continued from all directions, even from far away—

And everyone stretched their necks as far as possible beyond the line, like baby birds searching for food, struggling to catch a glimpse of him.

“Hey, hey, did you see him? He's so fucking handsome...”

“Yeah, so I'm thinking of changing my dream job to being an apron. Fuck, he's amazing~! Did you see his forearms?”

Two high school girls who had just received their coffee and were leaving whispered to each other.

How satisfying...

The line had begun when a woman who was heading toward Iseong spotted Yuseong standing partially concealed behind him.

Unable to squeeze into the crowd gathered in front of Iseong, the woman had been pushed aside and happened to make eye contact with Yuseong as he placed a finished coffee on the counter.

She immediately fell under Enchantment.

After all, that was what making eye contact with Yuseong meant.

She pulled her companion by the arm and brought them over to the truck.

Others saw that and wondered, “Huh, is there something over there?” before spotting Yuseong.

When their eyes met his, they became enchanted and approached,

And then someone else saw them and came over...

The chain reaction continued endlessly, until the truck ultimately became the most conspicuous location.

The staff and security team evidently couldn't just stand by and watch, so they deployed additional personnel around Yuseong.

“Hyung~ Can I have a cup of coffee too?”

Iseong, who had approached at some point, leaned against the counter and rested his chin on his hand as he spoke playfully.

At his appearance, the people watching covered their mouths and swallowed their gasps.

“Certainly. That'll be five thousand won.”

“...You're charging me?”

“Of course.”

“Give me a discount~”

“Sure—fifty thousand won.”

Yuseong calmly traded jokes with him while handing a coffee to the fan who had been waiting.

He made sure to add that it was free, loudly enough for Iseong to hear.

Iseong acknowledged him but didn't leave. Instead, he stayed there and helped put lids and sleeves on the cups.

Thanks to that, they worked faster, but it also created the problem of dividing people's attention.

If anything, though, it was beneficial.

Even when their attention was divided, Yuseong suffered no significant disadvantage, and fans who had come specifically for Iseong also ended up seeing him.

Their collaboration, if it could be called that, brought the event in Jamsil to a successful conclusion.

At their next location in Gangnam, Iseong joined the drink preparation team, creating footage that received a favorable response.

“Come to think of it, hyung... what kind of part-time jobs have you done?”

On their way back after finishing the schedule,

Yuseong leaned his head against the seatback and rolled his eyes thoughtfully at Iseong's question.

What was it again...?

He recalled Soyuseong's phone, which he'd examined before.

He remembered finding the number of a former part-time employer saved under the business's name and looking it up.

“A bakery.”

“Ah—. Bakeries are nice.”

“Looks like Chan didn't tell you that much?”

When Yuseong asked casually, Iseong paused for a moment as though recalling something.

“Hmm... I heard you'd worked handing out perfume sample cards at a department store.”

“Ah...”

“Apparently, someone recently posted a sighting of you—saying they'd seen you working part-time at a department store. Chan hyung told me about it...”

What on earth is this now?

Yuseong didn't remember seeing anything like that online. It wasn't the kind of topic he would have forgotten, either.

Iseong continued, explaining that the post had received criticism almost immediately and had soon been taken down.

“There was a photograph of you taken secretly from a distance attached to it—. Things might be different now, but back then, you were an ordinary person. People criticized the poster for taking pictures of a private individual without permission, and while the person was trying to explain themselves... the post quickly disappeared.”

“...Chan really... knows an impressive amount of detail.”

“Isn't that only natural?”

“Pardon?”

“Hmm...?”

When Yuseong merely blinked, Iseong stared back at him blankly for a moment before tilting his head.

Yuseong brushed it off with a vague acknowledgment, and only then did Iseong look away.

'Kang Chan... must be addicted to the internet.'

Otherwise, there was no reason for him to know so much about Soyuseong.

Yuseong himself had been diligently searching his own name online and was confident he'd caught nearly all the news and reactions concerning the trainees.

For Chan to know even one thing more than he did... he must never have put down his phone during his days off.

Yuseong arbitrarily convinced himself of this and reached his conclusion.

At nine o'clock that evening, applications opened for audience attendance at the second mission.

At the same time, an event was held in which fans who had received coffee could enter a lottery for audience tickets by posting messages of support and photographic proof on social media with a hashtag.

The production staff announced that they would select the three trainees most frequently mentioned in the messages of support and give them gifts,

But even after the application period ended, no announcement appeared confirming that the gifts had been delivered.

__________

That night, during the meeting for the second mission.

“Very well. I'd like to present my proposal.”

Yuseong tapped the tablet screen twice to pause the video, sat cross-legged, and rested both hands on his knees.

“It's not as though we hadn't already established a general direction for the arrangement, and an idea came to me immediately, so I finished thinking it over pretty quickly. Now, from this point onward, I won't accept any objections. If anyone wants to object, please raise your hand in advance.”

The moment he finished speaking, Patrick raised his hand with a gentle smile.

“So you're saying you'd like to object.”

“Yes, I would.”

“Not allowed.”

The two looked at each other and laughed, “Hahaha—”

Although the laughter was deliberately artificial, it quickly turned into natural chuckling.

“I'm joking. Everyone, please feel free to disagree and share your opinions.”

The atmosphere, which had already been comfortable without any need to relax it further, became even more easygoing.

Once again, Yuseong had taken the leader's role, and his team hadn't experienced a single disagreement during their discussions for the second mission.

Everyone followed Yuseong willingly, and there was no one like Kim Hwanyeong to raise objections. If anything, they had grown closer.

More importantly, three of the members had already witnessed Yuseong's abilities up close,

So they had effectively entrusted him with all decision-making authority and placed themselves entirely in his hands from the beginning.

Naturally, Sia was no exception.

“...So... what do you want to do this time?”

At Kang Chan's question, Yuseong rewound the video and pressed play.

After showing them a few seconds of Born to I performing synchronized choreography to a powerful EDM beat, Yuseong began speaking.

“It's not something I realized specifically from watching this... but overall, the song has a lively, exhilarating feel, doesn't it? The tempo's fast, and the beat keeps pounding.”

“Exhilarating.”

“Doesn't the sound itself remind you a little of traditional instruments? The original concept is quite far removed from that, but... I thought it might be interesting to change it into something with the feel of traditional Korean music.”

Yuseong tapped his chin.

“For example... we could replace the whistling with the sound of a daegeum, a traditional bamboo flute.”

“Traditional instruments.”

Ijun, who had been repeating Yuseong's words as though learning new vocabulary, rounded his lips and said, “Oh.”

'SHOT' was an EDM trap song whose core appeal lay in a performance as powerful as its aggressive beat.

The long whistle sounds incorporated once each into the intro and bridge replaced the sound of flying bullets, adding an exhilarating sense of release.

To Yuseong, the spirited excitement conveyed by the song felt similar in character to traditional Korean music.

“And we're not the only team whose Pioneering direction is Dance, either. I think you'll all agree with this... If teams have the same song and the same direction, there's a good chance their finished performances will end up so similar that the Pioneering becomes practically meaningless. So I'd like to establish a clear distinction through our concept...”

“So... that's why you brought up traditional instruments.”

Once again, the words 'Source of Inspiration' in Kang Chan's skill description began flashing yellow.

“...You mean you want to make tradition the overall theme?”

“Exactly. The original song had a Western... gun-wielding hunter concept, so we could do something similar with an Eastern hunter....That's my idea so far, but I'd like to hear what everyone thinks.”

At that, Ijun shot his hand into the air.

“I agree.”

“No other suggestions?”

“Let's add words like 'Eolssu' too.”

“Sure, let's think about it.”

Then Sia hesitantly raised his hand halfway.

“I agree too... I think replacing the whistle with a daegeum would be really good, and personally, I think adding a geomungo or gayageum could work as well... Or drums!”

Patrick agreed.

“Wow, I really love traditional sounds too.”

Kang Chan, who had been quietly listening to their ideas, seemed to get a sense of the direction and nodded slowly.

“...It'll become something like fusion traditional Korean music. I think that would work well, since it's not an entirely unfamiliar style. But... there's a problem.”

“A problem?”

“I've never worked with traditional instruments, even as virtual instruments....I might not be able to produce the sound you want, hyung.”

Ah, I thought it was something serious.

Yuseong answered immediately, without the slightest hesitation.

“I know how to do it.”