Become A Music Monster Overnight! [EN]: Chapter 134

Music Monster Overnight! Episode 125

“My *oppa* [older brother or male friend, term of endearment] has that many *sasaeng* [obsessive fans who stalk or invade the privacy of celebrities] fans?”

My younger sister, Hee-jeong, whom I haven’t seen in a while, widens her eyes, looking disbelieving. I shrug and nod, and she shakes her head as if she can’t understand.

“Seriously, it seems there are so many people in the world with nothing better to do. To be a *sasaeng* for someone like you.”

I chuckle at her mumbling, which is hard to tell if it’s a curse or not. Maybe it’s because we’re siblings, but it seems she doesn’t see any of my ‘serious mode’ or anything like that.

More than that, the fact that her once pathetic *oppa* is a star still doesn’t seem to register with her.

Well, sometimes I also have dreams of my pathetic past and wake up in a panic, thinking I’m late, so I can’t blame her for not understanding.

‘But still… what’s with her appearance?’

Thanks to me, her standard of living has greatly improved, and Hee-jeong decided to get her master’s degree in England.

Unlike other countries, the master’s program in England is only one year, so she went for it, majoring in business administration.

She’s been working as an intern at Lloyd’s of London, and it seems the work is quite tough.

Even when she was an undergraduate living on scholarships, she looked decent, but now, even though she’s tried to dress up, her condition doesn’t look good.

“Are you having a hard time these days? You don’t look so good.”

“Really… do I look that bad?”

“Yeah. What have you been doing lately to get so worn out?”

“Ugh~”

She doesn’t seem to like the word ‘worn out,’ and although her lips are pouting, she doesn’t say much, as if admitting that she’s not in good shape.

“Sigh~”

Instead, she lets out a long sigh again. I feel sorry for my sister, who seems to have tasted all the bitterness of life, so I cautiously ask her about her company life. At first, she tries to brush off the answers, but then she starts chattering away, as if her mouth is itching to talk.

“…It’s really not an easy place.”

“Hmm.”

To sum it up, there are two main things she’s struggling with.

One is that she’s feeling a sense of deprivation again among those annoying geniuses with talent who shocked her during her undergraduate years, and the other is that there’s more to study than she vaguely thought.

Even as an intern, she needs to have a certain level of knowledge required by the company to be of use.

At first, Hee-jeong was confident.

She thought she had become an expert in learning, having studied so much that she was sick of it, even going through a master’s program.

But Lloyd’s, famous around the world, easily surpassed her imagination.

They throw around terms that she wouldn’t even know if she hadn’t gone through the master’s program and deal with formulas she’s only barely heard of. The problem is that the interns aren’t all clueless.

“If Sam hadn’t helped me, I wouldn’t have even been able to come here!”

“Sam? The one who helped you was a guy?”

“Yeah. He’s really handsome. Wanna see?”

She shows me a picture she took with Sam, and I feel a white flash in front of my eyes.

‘This pale-faced guy has his hand on my sister’s shoulder!’

He’s a typical gigolo, skinny like a tall model.

His lips are red as if he’s wearing makeup, and the area around his eyes is dark, which is quite annoying.

‘Ah… I’m different. I’m doing it for work.’

This guy is clearly trying to pick up women.

There was a big difference.

My sister, unaware of my inner thoughts, chatters on, praising him.

“This one came out really cute too. Anyway, Sam might get a full-time job at Lloyd’s if he does well. And…”

“Yeah. And.”

Hee-jeong, tilting her head as if she finds my mechanical responses strange, continues.

“And… Sam is also a fan of Black Tiger. What was it called? Black Cat, was it? Right? Right!”

“Yeah, right.”

“Yeah. He likes my *oppa* so much. So he tried to go to the All-Stadium Tour last year, but he failed because it was so popular.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ah! Are you even listening? My friend is your fan, you know.”

“Yeah, he’s your *oppa’s* fan.”

“Ugh. I haven’t revealed that I’m your *oppa’s* sister yet. I’m going to reveal it this time.”

“…So?”

“What do you mean, ‘so’? I’m asking for a Wembley Stadium concert ticket, of course. A VIP seat, if possible.”

Seeing my sister acting cute and using the word ‘*oppa*’ after a long time, I feel a fire burning inside me. Of course, the answer to her request was obvious.

“No! I don’t want to.”

“What? Why! Why don’t you want to! What’s so precious about a ticket that you can’t give it to your sister! You stingy *oppa*!”

“Stingy or whatever, I don’t want to!”

“I’m telling Mom!”

“…Wait. Does Mom know Sam too?”

“Of course, she knows him. Why wouldn’t Mom know Sam? They’re so close!”

“I can’t believe it!”

I knew my mom had an open-minded personality, but I didn’t know she was this open. I can’t believe she’s thinking of this gigolo as a potential son-in-law.

But if even my mom, of all people, says they’re close, then he probably isn’t a completely hopeless guy.

‘Still, I don’t like it. I really don’t like it!’

People talk about realistic siblings and how they’re like enemies, but it’s different when there’s a big age gap.

There’s a seven-year age difference between Hee-jeong and me, and since she needed a lot of care after my father passed away, my affection for her was great.

So, for me, the appearance of this Sam or whatever is just shocking.

How dangerous the world is.

People complain that gender equality in Korea isn’t good, but that’s just nonsense from those who have never lived abroad.

In reality, there were a lot of son of bitches in this neighborhood.

‘Since Mom acknowledged him… I can’t help it.’

In the end, I gave my whining sister the ticket.

Wembley Stadium.

Queen, ABBA, Elton John, Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones… all were singers who performed at Wembley Stadium in London, England.

The commonality among the singers mentioned earlier is that they are world-class artists.

Performing at Wembley Stadium is not an easy task. You need to have that much global recognition to get permission to perform on the ‘dream stage.’

The Wembley Stadium we were going to perform at was a stage with such tremendous history and meaning.

We were scheduled to perform there for five days, which meant a total of 340,000 spectators would be mobilized.

I remember that the guy in my memory had never performed there either.

It wasn’t so much that the conditions weren’t right at the time, but by the time the conditions were right, he was heavily focused on the idol business.

Furthermore, he was in the middle of the Black Tiger reunion project, so he might have done it if my sister hadn’t died.

‘Ah~ Thinking about my sister makes me angry again.’

Today, I’m finally meeting that pale-faced foreigner named Sam, and it makes my blood boil. Thanks to that, my uncles kept asking me why I was so sensitive today.

But that interest from my uncles was only temporary.

Perhaps because it was the first day, my uncles were simply amazed and happy that they were performing at Wembley Stadium.

“Hehehe. Hey~ what are you doing! Pictures are what’s left. Take them quickly.”

“Damn it! I told you to hire a photographer if you’re going to do this. Do you know how difficult it is to take pictures of someone who doesn’t look good?”

“Don’t lie! You’ll be asking us to take pictures of you in a little bit.”

“Of course. It’s Wembley Stadium, isn’t it weird not to take pictures?”

“Are you going to take more pictures? Didn’t you take a crazy amount of pictures with your sister-in-law earlier?”

“It wasn’t just me. Si-young took pictures with his sister-in-law too!”

“No. The marriage talk hasn’t even come up yet… Isn’t it a bit much to call her sister-in-law?”

“Wow~ are you serious? You’re meeting a girl who could be your daughter and you’re not thinking about marriage? You have a problem with your personality?”

“She’s not old enough to be my daughter! Not old enough!”

“Do they have to be over 20 years apart to be your daughter! 16 years is enough to be your daughter. Back in our day, there were tons of kids who got someone pregnant in high school.”

Following Uncle Jang Tae-shik, there were more than one or two uncles who were dating late in life. Uncle Kwak Do-hoon was also flirting, and Uncle Kim Il was even talking about marriage with someone.

Among them, Uncle Park Si-young was dating a Korean-born lawyer who had immigrated to the United States earlier this year.

She’s an EP [Equity Partner: a partner who owns company shares] at a fairly well-known law firm, but her image is too gentle for that position.

It wasn’t just her image, but also her words and actions, which were a mix of well-educated manners, so I could see why Si-young, who used to hate women, had changed his mind.

‘Still, 16 years is a bit much.’

Well~ considering my uncles’ ages, this future sister-in-law isn’t exactly young either.

Anyway, perhaps because she’s a lawyer, the future sister-in-law, whom I met here after a long time, seemed a bit difficult to approach.

I was having useless thoughts and returned to the waiting room after doing the final check, and my sister was there waiting for me, having arrived sometime earlier.

“Wow! It’s amazing! Did you see outside? I don’t think it was this crowded even when there were important matches here!”

Hee-jeong, who had never seen me working, was making a fuss, but I couldn’t listen to her.

That’s because the pale-faced guy she had shown me on her phone a few days ago was standing in front of me.

Even though I told myself not to, I couldn’t help but look at him with sharp eyes, and for some reason, this guy named Sam was blushing.

‘Could he be angry? Even so, is he getting angry at his girlfriend’s brother at their first meeting?’

There was no other reason for him to react like that, so I gritted my teeth even more and tried to glare at him, but my sister squeezed in between us and introduced him.

“I showed you before. This is Sam. He’s a precious friend to me, so be nice to him. Sam, I told you about my *oppa*. Hey! Snap out of it!”

“Oh, oh. So this is what people call ‘serious mode.’ By the way… is YC really your *oppa*!”

My sister patted the shoulder of the guy who was making a fuss as if he was really a fan, and I clenched my fist without realizing it.

My sister, unaware of my feelings, pushed my back and told me to shake hands, and after that, I had to do everything from shaking hands to signing autographs and taking pictures.

After doing all those services, even though I was forced to, Sam teared up, perhaps because he was so moved. My sister approached Sam, patted his back, and said.

“It would have been nice if Tony had come too, right.”

“Yeah. Tony is also a fan of YC.”

“…Who’s Tony?”

I wondered if Tony was another boyfriend besides Sam, so I asked, and my sister told me a shocking fact.

“Didn’t I tell you? Sam’s boyfriend. He’s really kind and nice too.”

“……”

I felt like something was going wrong, so I had a small expectation and shared several stories, and then I cheered inwardly.

I realized that I had misunderstood Sam.

‘I can’t believe he was gay.’

Come to think of it, when I met him last time and talked about Sam, he did show that kind of nuance. However, I had prematurely assumed he was a boyfriend, so I didn’t catch it.

Anyway, once I found out that Sam was gay, I started to be kind to him in a completely different way than before.

I provided fan service by video calling Sam and Tony, who were greatly disappointed, and I also packed several goods for them.

As the performance was approaching, my sister returned to her seat.

“Okay! Let’s go. Black Tiger fighting!”

Perhaps because I had resolved all the misunderstandings, I was overflowing with energy and showed more fighting spirit than ever before, and my uncles looked at me strangely but soon followed along.

Anyway, I was going to be on the performance stage that I had missed, so I couldn’t help but feel energized.