IJLMT 07

Chapter 7

“Yes, Baekil Real Estate, right? I’m looking for an apartment in Seonglim District. The price range? How much cash do I have right now…? Yes, cash. Full cash. I’m not looking for a lease, I want to buy. Yes. I have a schedule, but would it be okay if I visit in the evening? Ah, yes. Then I’ll do that.”

I hung up and left the house. The old man’s words came to mind.

—Remember. You can’t try to take everything for yourself. You have to share to grow.

“It’s grown too big, though.”

I muttered while looking at the onion. The Nova Girls members were getting into the car to be picked up. The onion had grown to about the size of a small melon. It was almost embarrassing to even call it an onion. On its top, the pink flower that had bloomed yesterday was still perfectly intact. It looked just like a lotus flower.

What is this onion anyway? Something that generates luck? Does the bigger it grows, the bigger luck it generates? But what exactly is “bigger luck”? It had made me pay 1.5 billion won, increased my salary by 30%, given me a 10-million-won bonus, arranged a meeting with the president, and even got me accidentally on TV. What more could it possibly do?

I didn’t know. I looked at the onion’s eye (which I drew, yet somehow moved on its own). Suddenly, I felt the onion was incredibly adorable. I recalled some words still lingering in my heart.

—I met you when you were twenty, and now you’re in your late twenties, right? I think it’s time to seriously think about this.
—Are you even thinking about marriage with me right now?

Despite these words swirling in my mind, I didn’t feel tortured at all—it was all thanks to the onion. I gently stroked the onion flower.

“Thank you. You brought energy to my life. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be working like a corpse, my self-esteem at rock bottom.”

Then, at that moment…

“Uh?”

A thin, long tendril started wriggling out from the onion flower. Just like an alien’s tentacle!

“Uh… uh? W-what is this! No!”

I couldn’t resist. The onion’s tentacle wrapped around my right arm.

“Uh? Manager oppa, you’re wearing a bracelet?”

“…Yeah.”

“Wow, it’s pretty. Did your girlfriend give it to you?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend. I bought it myself.”

“Oh, so you like subtle bling and lovely things?”

“……”

The pink tendril that came out of the onion flower wrapped around my wrist and became a bracelet. For some reason, it wouldn’t come off. The sparkling pink design made me a bit embarrassed… but I figured it was probably part of the great intentions of Teacher Yang.

Considering the situation, I thought the members would be flustered. But they looked fine on the outside. Everyone was dressed in outfits that didn’t show their faces well, they’d just washed and smelled of fragrant shampoo, and their expressions looked calm.

It didn’t take long to realize that calm was only surface-deep.

“Hee hee! Uh… unnie! Manager oppa!”

Nari covered her mouth with both hands.

“Speak quietly. Manager oppa is driving.”

“Ah, sorry…”

“What is it?”

“The… Spooky Pie music chart… do you know Korea’s weekly ranking 50?”

“No way… no way?”

“It’s Lens…”

“Gasp…!”

Dabin widened her eyes and clutched her head with both hands. At first, I thought she was a nine-heads-tall cool beauty, but the “cool” part was starting to feel questionable.

“Don’t get too excited. Did you check the artist? Maybe it’s another song with the same title? Getting into the top 50 is hard. You need international recognition too…”

“It’s real. The artist is Nova Girls… the main vocal Dabin Lim’s song!”

“Gasp!”

President Kim Seok-gu’s influence was huge. His moves were being noticed internationally, and the morning’s ruling-opposition meeting would have been reported abroad as well.

Then Mina spoke.

“But this is the song manager oppa likes best, right? Right? You must have some intuition, oppa.”

“But… the thing is, that was the weekly chart… the daily chart is currently 11th place.”

“Gasp!”

Dabin covered her mouth and stomped her feet to avoid shouting.

‘So the “cool” part is only in appearance.’

“What song is number one now?” I asked.

“Senior Lim Yu-ju’s Letter on a Snowy Day. As expected, goddess Yu-ju… we’re 11th, should we ask for a signed autograph?”

“Nari, be careful. We need to stay humble and quiet. Don’t get too excited, okay? It’s just that the president mentioned it, and the attention spiked. We still don’t know how it’ll turn out.”

“…Unnie’s right. This is all luck. Too much luck for us. We might suddenly crash. Manager oppa, fasten your seatbelt.”

“So… this day has come. I thought my voice was the problem… that no one would listen… sniff…”

“You said don’t get excited, unnie. You said it two seconds ago…”

Dabin sniffled. The other members looked similar. They’d endured about 1 year and 2 months of being unknown, so this opportunity was a huge deal. I waited for them to calm down a bit.

“Guys. It’s fine to be happy, but if you keep staring at your phones like this, it won’t work. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be insanely busy. You’re still tired from Sichuan, and if you keep worrying and can’t sleep or rest, you’ll ruin this chance.”

“Yes, we’ll remember.”

All the members nodded. Then Hayoung, who had been silent until now, spoke up.

“Oppa, your birthday is June 27, 1999, right?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah. How did you know?”

“The team leader sent the profile. Wow… so…”

I didn’t understand the “so” part, but Mina asked beside her.

“Unnie, did you see the fortune teller again? Did you check manager oppa’s horoscope?”

“Yes, it’s really effective.”

“Why? What did it say?”

Hayoung replied:

“Manager oppa and the four of us—our compatibility scores are all 100 points.”

“Isn’t that just giving good scores to make us feel good?”

I awkwardly said that, but Hayoung shook her head vehemently.

“With the previous manager, it was 16 points.”

“Really, all 100?! You can’t really get 100… Oppa, when I did it with my mom, I got 23 points.”

Mina chimed in too. Looking in the rearview mirror, I felt Hayoung staring at me intently. Maybe because of my lack of dating experience, I got nervous just from a pretty woman looking at me.

“Oppa, you have to keep being our manager, okay?”

All four of them stared straight at me, including Hayoung. I remembered a meme I saw online titled “No nerds allowed in this seat.” It was a photo of eight beauties staring directly at the person opening the door.

I swallowed hard. My answer was already decided.

“Ugh, so full.”

My mouth was filled with the rich smell of beef fat. I had come to feed the girls, but I also ate until I was stuffed. I don’t remember the last time I had beef. Maybe once, when I was very young, before my father’s business went under.

“But… is it okay for us to eat like this now? The price… we might have overdone it…”

Dabin asked.

“No, we actually ate less. The CEO said we could eat 1.5 million won worth, but we haven’t reached 40% yet. Not even 100,000 won per person.”

“Whoa, 1.5 million? Girls, we need to eat more. Who knows when we’ll get this chance again.”

Then the other members spoke:

“More here? Ugh, I’m full.”
“I think I could still manage one can of zero-calorie cola.”
“Unnie, my blood sugar’s rising, makes me sleepy…”

Maybe because they were idols, they all ate very little. I think I ate about 150,000 won worth out of 400,000 won.

Then…

Brrrrr

The phone rang. I thought it was a company call, so I picked it up immediately. You never know what emergency could happen.

“Yes, this is Yoo Hyun-jae.”

The caller started talking rapidly:

[Yes, sir. This is Baekil Real Estate. You said you have 1.5 billion won in cash. A 1.7 billion property just came up. If you’re thinking about a loan—]

“Wait, hold on.”

I hurriedly stood up.

‘This isn’t even a work call?’

“Fif… fifteen hundred million?”

I left Mina staring up at me and rushed outside.

…

“Yes, I haven’t thought about a loan yet, and I’m working right now. Please call again later.”

I said that and hung up. As I was about to return to the restaurant…

“Huh?”

A foul smell hit me. The smell of rotting mackerel… from my hand!

‘Onion!’

I checked the bracelet wrapped around my wrist. Until now, whenever I did something I shouldn’t, the onion released a bad smell. When I did something proper, it gave off fragrance.

‘It’s telling me not to go back? The girls are waiting.’

As I stepped toward the restaurant,

“Ouch!”

My skin stung. A thorn from the bracelet pierced me.

“What? What do you want me to do?”

Then a mouth sprouted from the bracelet. It moved like a compass, pointing somewhere.

‘This way?’

The bracelet was pointing to a truly strange place. A narrow alley beside the restaurant, barely wide enough for one person. Clearly not a place people usually walked. The entrance was stacked with garbage.

‘Really this way? No… everything worked before when I listened to Teacher Yang… don’t doubt it.’

I told Dabin to wait a moment, then pushed through the trash into the alley. The stench gradually faded.

The alley behind the restaurant was narrow and long. Further ahead, I saw closed entertainment business signs. In the distance, I saw trees, so it seemed to lead to a mountain path. How could such a path exist in the middle of bustling Seoul?

‘Nothing here… why here…?’

At the corner, I saw a shadow. At first I thought it was a sign shadow, but it moved, so it was a person.

“Mm… mm… sniff.”

‘What…?’

I stopped in fear. My wrist throbbed again.

‘Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll go.’

One step, two steps, three steps… As I rounded the corner, a dark figure came into view.

A man. Big, hunched on the ground wearing a black hoodie. Cradled in his arms…

“Mm… mm…”

A woman?

“Damn!”
“Eek!”

The man sprang up like a frog and lunged at me, holding a hammer! I froze in fear.

‘Am I going to die?’

No chance. My strength was honed by two years of AMD, but the man was slightly shorter yet much bigger. And he had a weapon…

‘Teacher Yang!’

I shut my eyes. Then—

“Ugh… agh! What? Smell, smell!”

The man screamed. When I opened my eyes, he was floating in midair. The hammer rolled across the ground.

No, my hand was holding his collar, lifting him. Logically, it made no sense. How could I lift a man with one hand?

Looking closely, a vine from the bracelet had wrapped around him.

“Smell! Smell!”

The man writhed in pain. It didn’t seem to hurt from being lifted…

‘Smell? Is the onion doing something? I don’t smell anything… did it control him? I… don’t know. For now…’

I twisted the man’s arm behind his back and pinned him to the ground. He was already subdued, but just in case. Then I spoke to the woman:

“Are you okay? Can you take your phone out of my left pocket so I can report this?”

I said that because she probably couldn’t speak properly. The woman, tears streaming down, replied:

“Sniff… thank you.”

‘Hmm? That voice sounds familiar…’

I turned to her.

“I’ll… sniff… report it.”

The woman was Lim Yu-ju, one of South Korea’s representative singer-songwriters.