Chapter 8.6

“What is it this time?”

Sangwoo was getting irritated. Jaeyoung couldn’t believe how he had found himself in this position. Sangwoo was the one who had pushed ahead with an unreasonable schedule, so why was he the one at fault? He couldn’t stand it because it was like he was made out to be an inexperienced designer without skills. Jaeyoung jumped up and grabbed the table with both hands.

“I won’t say much.”

Sangwoo slowly looked up at him from his seated position.

“Give me one more day.”

It was a formal request because he was going to push for it with or without his permission. However, Sangwoo discreetly avoided his eyes and sighed.

“I understand.”

‘Oh, I thought he’d reject me immediately.’

Was Chu Sangwoo such a pushover? When Jaeyoung stared at him, Sangwoo coughed and organized the documents. Jaeyoung peeked at his profile, his angular fingers, and his bony wrist, and walked towards the door. As he was about to leave the conference room, he heard Sangwoo’s voice.

“It’s hard to work with you, sunbae.”

“Look who’s talking.”

He didn’t even need to ask when the next meeting was.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

It was a little after 5 p.m. Jaeyoung had originally planned on going clubbing after grabbing dinner with his friend, but he immediately headed to the practice room instead. The hoobae next to him looked surprised when he appeared. That was because Jaeyoung had applied to use the practice room, but rarely had been using it recently since he didn’t have any work to do. He sat down and turned on his old unused PC and snapped his fingers.

“Hyung, what’s up?”

“I have some work to do. Where’s Choi Yuna?”

“I don’t know. She was here earlier.”

Jaeyoung looked up game rankings in the applications market while he was waiting for his computer to reboot. There was no way there could be a game for children among such provocative games. Above all, the concepts wore unsuitable clothing. Jaeyoung opened the documentation program and wrote the title as soon as the desktop turned on.

‘Pro ject pro posal’

That’s what would happen if he liked the format that much. Jaeyoung had simply not thought the format was important, but it wasn’t like he had failed to take notice of it.

Page 1. Market research and popular game analysis

Page 2. Proposal for a change of genre

Page 3. Proposal for changing the title

Page 4. Concept & plot

Page 5. Drafts for the background, characters, weapons, mobile character

His fingers moved rapidly. His gaze’s attention was on his cell phone and the monitor. While his analysis was conducted in one corner of his mind, the new project was being carried out in the other corner. And in that gloomy spot, he howled over his crushed pride.

Jaeyoung finished analyzing the market in no time at all and defined ‘side scrolling shooting game’ as a new genre. It was described as a retro game with platform jump actions, and the new title was left blank. Perhaps it was because he was angry, but he came up with good ideas.

He pictured a huge farm where meteorites had fallen, contaminated by cosmic debris. The only thing that could suppress mutant animals that had turned into bizarre shapes, were mutated vegetables the meteorites had strengthened and enhanced. The plot was about a scientist who was bent on winning the Nobel Prize in Biology, so they approached the center of the farm to conduct research.

After pulling out any paper he could get his hands on, Jaeyoung drew something depicting a mad scientist wielding a lethal carrot as his weapon. Upon really digging into this project, Jaeyoung was able to tap into his creativity and let the ideas flow. Once the floodgates were open.  he drew one setting after another:radishes as blunt weapons, corn as rifles, seeds as bullets, pumpkins as dynamite, potatoes as grenades, lettuce as booby traps.

Scribble. The pen was moving frantically. Jaeyoung was so immersed in it, that he hadn’t noticed he was getting a call. Sungjin, who sat next to him, shook his shoulder and informed him that someone was calling him.

“It’s probably Choi Yuna. Answer it, and tell her I can’t go.” Jaeyoung replied without looking at him.

“Ok! Ah, hello? Noona. It’s Sungjin. Jaeyoung says he can’t go. Don’t you know? He’s working really hard on something. I don’t know what it is. No, I don’t think he’s insane yet. Hyung. She wants to talk to you.”

“Tell her I’m not going.”

“Yes. Noona, Jaeyoung hyung says he isn’t going. I don’t really know either. Curse at him yourself, please. Yes. I don’t really know either. Really, noona. I’m hanging up… Bye. Yes.”

Sungjin held the phone out after the call.

“Yuna noona says she’s going to kill you, hyung.”

Jaeyoung accepted his phone and looked through the market for similar concepts. Right. There couldn’t be another project that was this original. He returned to sketching with a confident look on his face.

“Wow, that’s so fucking cool. What is this?” Sungjin, who was stretching his head over Jaeyoung’s shoulder, exclaimed.

“My study abroad fund.”

Jaeyoung smirked after saying that. What was this? It was because he felt funny about breaking his promise and being immersed in it. Chu Sangwoo, who had pulled a prospective graduate who was frigid out of laziness, was a great guy. Jaeyoung was really confident this time. He was confident that it would make compliments pour out of that annoying mouth. He clenched the pen with his teeth.

⌘W