Chapter 114:

Chapter 114:

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 114

Woojoo approached Seo Jihyung, who was lying on the ground, and reached out his hand.

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, well... Yeah. I’m fine.”

He looked away at a distant mountain with an embarrassed face, then grabbed Woojoo’s hand and got up.

He seemed a bit upset.

Woojoo could understand why.

He was chased by a goat, and then he lost a chicken fight to a rookie idol here. He looked so pitiful that Woojoo handed him a bottle of water.

“Sunbae-nim, have some water.”

“Ah...”

“You look like your throat is burning.”

He glanced at the bottle and then looked up at Woojoo with a strange expression.

“Thank you.”

He nodded and walked over to the VJ.

“Director, what’s the ranking right now?”

“Uh, hold on.” The other person checked his phone and said, “Reflecting the two you just got, your team is now in the lead with fifteen.”

Maxi and Woojoo high-fived.

If they got one more here, it would be their victory.

But then, the VJ said, “Behind you, Team A has ten... Wait, what? They have sixteen now?”

“What?”

“They stole them from Team B.”

“...”

Then, Seo Jihyung, who was groaning, sprang up.

“What did you say? Team A is in the lead now...?”

“Yes, right now.”

“Wow, that’s awesome.”

He grinned and handed Woojoo the bottle of water, then started running toward the back mountain.

He left a cheeky remark as a bonus.

“Hahaha! I’ll go ahead!”

And a minute later, they got a call too.

“Hello...”

-Woojoooooo!

“Yes?”

-Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!

Oh, geez.

Ye Heeyeon shouted.

-Hurry uppppp! It’s the twenty-eighth spot!

Woojoo ran before he even hung up the phone.

Woojoo ran so fast that he caught up with Seo Jihyung, who had left earlier.

He widened his eyes as Maxi and Woojoo gave him a bright smile.

Woojoo greeted him rudely as a bonus.

“Excuse me!”

“I’ll go first. Trot trot...!”

***

At the same time.

In the dark night, the cast members wandered around the mountain with a huge flash.

The forest where the moonlight shone through the branches.

The wind that blew from somewhere was chilly.

But that annoying sight was heated up by the enthusiasm of over fifty people.

Of course, the atmosphere was different for each of them.

“Just dig anywhere!”

“The soil here looks fresh. What if we dig this and there’s nothing?”

“Ah, I’m hungry. Why does the soil look delicious?”

Team B, who lost the game with six keys, dug the soil with a hoe, holding back their tears.

And Team A and Team C, who figured out the location of the treasure chest, dug the ground passionately.

“Hurry up and dig!”

“Hurry up! Before we get caught up!”

Lee Kangjin, an actor of Team A, led the scene with sweat. The other team members also swung their hoes next to him, who pushed the soil with a big shovel.

They were the leaders.

On the other hand, Team C was struggling alone with Ye Heeyeon.

But even though she was alone, her speed was different.

Model Han Sora urged her members.

“Hurry up! Do it faster! That guy is too fast!”

When Team A was digging hard to widen the gap with Team C, who was chasing hard.

“We’re here!”

Finally, Team C’s reinforcements arrived.

It was Maxi and Woojoo, the leader of New Black.

“Hey! You should have come faster!”

“The road was too confusing. It took us a long time to get here.”

“Here, take this.”

Ye Heeyeon handed the shovel to Woojoo.

The people of Team A, especially the members of Around the World With Dice, tilted their heads at the sight.

It was strange.

Why did the character who wanted to do everything herself when someone else was working willingly hand over the shovel to that idol member?

Soon the question was answered.

“What’s up with him?”

“That, that, what...”

“Why is he so fast?”

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a fast speed.

Woojoo was digging at a moderate speed, neither fast nor slow.

But the amount of soil he lifted each time was different.

That slender idol member lifted as much soil as the whole Team A with one dig.

It was a truly strange thing that could not be otherwise.

Of course, if you looked closely, Woojoo’s digging was different from the others.

Unlike those who used only their upper body strength and quickly exhausted their stamina, he used the power of his thighs. Or he applied the principle of leverage when digging.

But no one in this place had the luxury to think about that in detail.

They just stared blankly.

Team A, who were mesmerized by the idol who dug the ground like a skilled laborer, came to their senses when they saw the pile of dirt that the other team was stacking up.

Yang Okbun, who held a hoe, urged Lee Kangjin, “Hey! Dig faster! We’re all being chased by them.”

Team A tried their best again, but the situation was not good.

It was because the rest of Team C joined in.

“Why are you so late?”

“Bijoo disappeared somewhere. He’s a road idiot, you know. He was going to cry alone in the valley, and we brought him here.”

“Whatever, just dig! We’re second right now.”

“Director, please give us a hoe too!”

The fierce competition began as all the members of Team A and Team C gathered in one place.

Thanks to Woojoo’s early digging, the depth of the two teams’ plates was soon similar.

A fierce battle.

When one team dug more, the other team dug more too.

The last-place Team B watched like spectators, chatting with popcorn-like faces, and the production crew captured the fierce competition of the two teams on camera.

“Ah, we’re almost there! We’re almost there!”

“Cheer up!”

“Travel voucher! This is a travel voucher!”

As they shouted loudly, the game was almost over, and both Team A and Team C were noticeably exhausted.

“This doesn’t look like a meter at all.”

“Cheer up! Kangjin, ah! Don’t spread out!”

When Seo Jihyung took over and dug, Team C was also noticeably tired.

And then.

Chop, chop.

Woojoo heard the sound of someone patting their cheeks. It looked like Bijoo was putting on a mask pack.

“I guess it’s because we’re not used to this place. It’s not our home.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s why.”

“Hey, guys. It’s not a home, it’s a lodge.”

“Oh, right.”

A chuckle came from the darkness.

“I feel like this lodge is my home now.”

“Don’t you feel more comfortable in the dorm, Hyung? Ah...! Don’t put your leg on my stomach.”

“It’s my choice.”

“Anyway, you two have the same mental age. So childish. Really.”

“Yeah, Mr. Smarty Pants.”

“...Don’t bother me, I’m going to sleep.”

“He always goes silent when he’s at a disadvantage.”

“I don’t care. Don’t bother me, I’m going to sleep.”

“Junghyun is quiet right now. Are you sleeping, Junghyun?”

“I’m not sleeping, Hyung.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was just thinking about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I was talking about music with Heysion Sunbae earlier. So I was planning the mixtape I’m going to make in the future.”

“Oh, work...”

Woojoo suddenly remembered the reality that he had forgotten for a day.

“Come to think of it, I have to work on the song when I go back to Seoul.”

“Oh, do you have any ideas?”

“No, I mean, I have a lot of beats and melodies, but I don’t have anything that I’m really satisfied with yet. I need to take some time and see.”

“Don’t rush it, Hyung.”

Chop chop. Bijoo spoke as he patted his mask pack.

“I know it’s not a title track, but a B-side. I wish you could work on it without too much pressure.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“By the way, since we’re talking about the B-side, how about we discuss it among ourselves?”

“Oh, that sounds good.”

They each shared their opinions.

“I don’t know about anything else, but I hope the B-side has some hard choreography. I’ve been practicing a lot of dance lately, and I feel like everyone else is suffering because of me, so I want to go hard...”

“How about a groovy vibe?”

“Let’s make the part distribution more tight and focused...”

It felt strange to talk about the song.

In a good way.

It felt like having an honest conversation in the dark, with a bit of embarrassment and sincerity.

Maybe that was why they chatted for a long time in a daze.

As people started to fall asleep one by one, and only the maknae and Woojoo were left.

The maknae whispered to Woojoo, who was about to fall asleep, “Actually, I was really scared today.”

“What was?”

“There were a lot of strangers, and it was scary. You guys are the only ones I can rely on here. There are no managers. So when I went to get the ingredients with the other seniors earlier.”

“Yeah, then.”

“I was so scared. I mean, it’s not that they were bad or anything, but they had this masked feeling. I guess it’s natural for a broadcast. There’s a difference between the broadcast image and the reality. But I was a bit scared of that. Maybe because I’m still young.”

“Yeah, you’re young. Jiho.”

“Hyung, are you sleepy?”

“...No, I’m not sleepy at all listening to our maknae.”

“Anyway, so I was. Earlier, when I saw Hyung’s face in front of the village hall, I was so happy. What do you call it? It felt like I was surrounded by people with masks, and I finally found someone without a mask?”

“...Oh, I see.”

“Hyung, are you listening?”

“...”

***

At the end of August. On a hot night.

Outside, the unfamiliar sound of crickets was loud, and inside, the laughter of people and the ticking of the clock were ringing.

In a room where five idols were snoring from exhaustion, Woojoo was dreaming.

A dream about music.

In his dream, he was at a masquerade ball.

To be precise, it was the terrace of the ballroom.

Woojoo could see the moonlit garden below, and he heard the sound of crickets and people laughing and talking.

Somewhere, there was also a discordant sound like someone dragging a chair.

But strangely enough, the dream was black and white.

And everyone around him was wearing masks, except him.

And the attendees of the ball treated him like he didn’t exist. They didn’t answer him when he talked to them, they didn’t react when he waved his hand.

It was a weird place.

Woojoo had a dream about the pigs he met on a tourist bus to Pyongyang. They were playing violins, and there was a banner on the ceiling that said ‘Mrs. Kim Deoksoon’s 2976th Rebirth Anniversary’ in Chinese.

And on the highest throne in the ballroom, his grandmother was sitting.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Kim Deoksoon!”

The masked people knelt down and kissed his grandmother’s feet, who looked at them and said they were more handsome than her grandson. Then she suddenly started telling them about her life’s hardships.

That was when he realized it was a dream.

There was no way his Kim Deoksoon would say someone else was more handsome than him.

As Woojoo thought that.

The door of the ballroom opened and someone came in.

At that moment, Woojoo opened his eyes wide.

It was as if paint was spreading, the light and color changed from the person who opened the door and came in.

And then the ballroom started to melt like chocolate.

“Ahhh!”

And Woojoo woke up from the dream.

“Huh, hah...”

It was a dream.

As soon as Woojoo realized he was back in reality, he fumbled for his phone on the bedside table.

Recording.

He had to record this.

He hummed the melody that the pigs had played in the dream.

His head was all tangled up.

He had to record this before it flew away.

He had no time, so he called someone who always recorded phone calls.

-Hello.

“Hey, Hyung.”

-What’s up at this hour?

“Seokhwan Hyung. I’m sorry... Is this recording? Listen to this song I’m singing. It’s my own composition.”

-What?

Woojoo sang as he pleased.

He was drowsy.

As he was falling asleep again, he blurted out something to him who was dumbfounded.

“Seokhwan Hyung, I’m sorry. I’ll buy you pork cutlet.”

Then he fell asleep again.

***

In a luxury house in Pyeongchang-dong.

-Seokhwan Hyung, I’m sorry. I’ll buy you pork cutlet.

The man who was drawing the notes of the melody he had just heard on his desk, looked at the phone screen and laughed.

“He’s something else.”

At first he was speechless, but soon he chuckled without realizing it.

He thought he couldn’t stop him.

“I’m not Seokhwan, I’m Gyuhwan...”

He muttered that and glanced at the notebook with the melody.

3:30 a.m.

The one who called him, mistaking him for Yoon Seokhwan, the director, was Seon Woojoo, the producer and composer of Lemon Entertainment.