[Prologue] Invitation From?
"Sir", a man in butler attire welcomed a blond man as he walked towards the entrance. The man's personal assistant hurried the driver off and he walked in. Once the man entered he removed his suit-jacket and handed it to the butler. The housekeeper with an apron walked over from the direction of the kitchen, a smile on her face as she announced the master arriving just in time for dinner.
The kitchen smelled of mung bean kalguksu and kkakdugi. The original pale faced man seemed to regain a sense of life, he sighed restlessly as he walked to the dining area.
"Sir, how was work?" The butler stood with one arm folded in front and the other folded behind as he stood by his master's left. A handkerchief had been prepared in his hand as he would obviously already know of his master's distress. As the butler who's watched the man through all years of his life, how could he not know?
The man groaned deeply and held his hand to the butler without a glance. He was handed the handkerchief and wiped away the sweat beads at his forehead before properly replying. "It was annoyingly eventful. I told Yejun-hyung not to even think about final decisions before I looked the plan over, but he still so foolishly guaranteed!"
Two maid servants came out of the kitchen and set the man's meal before him. He held the handkerchief out for the butler to take and continued with a pained look. "Seriously, the plan is god awful. It wouldn't be too harsh to call it dogshit, really. I can't understand what kind of businessman would agree to it," he frowned helplessly.
The butler understood his master's frustrations and meaning. He advised him as he tucked away the handkerchief, "Mr.Min is a very capable man, he is earnest and intelligent, however, perhaps he would not be suitable for his current position. He can't tell the difference between flattery and guileless." He spoke briefly, mirroring his master's unspoken words.
The meal was ready to be eaten and the man no longer cared to reimagine his day. He ate quickly and left quickly.
It was already half past 9 when the man finished bathing and dressing himself in night clothing. Though, he would not be sleeping yet.
The appearance of the man was frail and pathetic. His skin, an easily bruised pale white. Due to the energy drain of this afternoon's meeting, even now there were puffy bags under his eyes. Not from crying, but from the force of him irritatingly rubbing his eyes throughout the meeting.
His thin but toned arms stretched over his head as he yawned, his gray blue eyes squinted slightly.
The man pulled out his desk chair, sat, and turned on his home computer. Although he had the appearance of a physically and mentally fragile man, he wasn't like that at all. He even had a very well made constitution and was very fit, there was no problem with self-defense either. Why he looked the way he did could only boil down to genes.
Unluckily, his father's genes were overpowered by his mother's. While those younger half-brothers of his all resembled his father equally, he was the only one who seemed out of place.
Although he complains to have been born unlucky, it was no mystery to his relatives how he truly felt.
The man, Gim Woojin, loved his fragile face incomparably. Thanks to it, not only did his half-brothers and half-sister dote on him, so did his friends and his divorced parents. It was thanks to his face that he didn't have to join the family business, or take over the family, yet he could still be widely recognized as the Gim Daeseong's eldest son.
Who is Gim Daeseong you ask? Only the president of one of the most internationally praised modelling agencies in the world. His gorgeous face could rival that of the devil's, fans declared. One of the most handsome men... yet his first son was pitiful. A shame, but not really.
Gim Woojin was born with the delicate beauty of his mother, what handsomeness did he need? He was a peerless beauty, his associates would always brag on his behalf. Just the thought made Gim Woojin's cheeks redden with embarrassment and pride.
He shook away his thoughts and searched the web. He recalled the short chat he had with his butler a while earlier. He didn't want to react rashly to his partner's mistake, but after giving it some thought, he was more assured of his decision.
There is a difference between being filial and being submissive, and a businessman should not be submissive. For now though, he only needed to revise the plan from the afternoon into something reasonable and compromise from there.
As he was about to click out of the browser, a familiar S-pop group ad showed up. The group's name is "Ten Wings" and the ad was for their new song, "Find me a stranger". Gim Woojin was not a S-pop fan, nor was he all that into romance songs. But, this group and this song were very different from others.
As one could find out if they were a true fan of Ten Wings and his family's scandals, Ten Wings Lead Vocalist and face of the group is actually his half-brother, his mother's second son, Choe Seokjeong.
After his parents divorced there was no contempt. They were still very decent friends and since they were both professionals, their personal feelings never got in the way of each other's careers. When his father remarried soon after the divorce, his mother focused on her already blossoming popularity.
After she was crowned a nationwide beauty abroad, she returned with a son. What the hell happened that she ended up with a son, who knows. Following that, she remarried as well and her second son became very invested in music. He also inherited their mother's strong genes.
They had similarities in their appearances, though Gim Woojin got the short end of the stick as his half-brother seemed to have inherited his genetic father's tall and broad physique. He's one of the oldest members of Ten Wings and, being the son of a model, is obviously the best objectively looking one.
The last time they both talked was almost a year ago, right before Choe Seokjeong returned to his band abroad. It was a very leisurely night but, because Gim Woojin was stupid enough to drink, he ended up spouting nonsense about how badly he wanted a boyfriend.
It was really embarrassing to recall...
Gim Woojin chuckled to himself as he clicked on the ad and followed the video link to youtube. Choe Seokjeong always tried to be very versatile when it came to music, so he of course learned how to write it. After ranting, Choe Seokjeong told him he'd make him feel better by writing a song just for him.
This is a key example of the earlier mentioned doting. Seeing his already weak looking older brother distressed over a boring romantic life must have convinced him it was a good idea to write a song about it, and tell the whole world his brother was available and desperate.
Gim Woojin remembered his little half-brother texting over the song's context and meaning. He was definitely not a songwriter, so he didn't understand the point of his opinion. But he gave it and now.. the official result was actually sung by the whole group.
He almost wanted to explode from embarrassment. Instead, he played the video. As of right now there wasn't an official music video out, but there was the official audio. He listened and felt a little weird in his chest.
When discussing with his half-brother, Gim Woojin agreed to the idea of the singer repressing loneliness after several failed relationships and getting incredibly drunk, while drunk they have an epic Cinderella love-story before waking up not remembering much.
The melody is upbeat and melodramatic that turns into slow and stoical. The feeling it gave was hot, heavy, and begging, the singer's perspective was impatient, but it coined sympathy. What person out there did not desperately want to feel a connection? Platonic, romantic, sexual, the words could be interpreted.
The song is pretty much both the in-the-moment and after-the-moment feelings in the person's heart as they search for the unidentified man who made them feel the way they did, thus, needing to find a stranger.
Gim Woojin is not a music critic, whether the song was good or bad, he had no idea.
In his opinion though, it was very accurate to the way he ranted back than. It was just too bad he never experienced such a love-story, though he wouldn't want to be Cinderella anyways. He was not a manservant kind of guy.
The song had a few seconds left when a mail notification popped up.
Although this was a computer at home, he rarely used his computers for anything but important or work-related things. That would also mean his mail was very organized. There was a rare chance of getting spam, so he opened it expecting it to be sent by his assistant.
Immediately the screen was overtaken by a big invitating message. Gim Woojin narrowed his eyes and scrolled down.
At the top were the bold words "YOU'RE INVITED" surrounded by flowers and animated wishing stars, below were two sentences. "A multiversal competition for who will take the crown! Do you have the patience, wits, and courage to win?"
Below were two links, one labelled «@¢¢£pT(find out more!)» and the other «d£¢L¡Π£(Pass up the chance???)»
He stalled for a moment. It was surprising to find spam like this, so he was actually a little interested. The message sounded like an invitation for a worldwide video game competition, which Gim Woojin would never be able to win, but nonetheless.
One of his father's other sons had interest in games, and he was in a low mood these days. He thought about suggesting the competition to him, so he clicked «@¢¢£pT(find out more!)».
The computer screen started flashing and emitting a buzzing sound, then it completely went black and shut off.
"Shit!" Gim Woojin was startled and quickly started searching for any problem with his cords. After finding nothing, the computer lit up by itself.
He was shocked but didn't take any chances. He shutdown the computer and exchanged it for another one he had near. This was also a home laptop he used specifically for work, so it had the same files.
In fact, he probably had at least four computers/laptops at home for work, along with several other devices that were more portable or contained more specific files. The reason for that was very simple, Gim Woojin was bad with electronics. He knew how to use them more-or-less, but he was still quick to make mistakes that could damage the device.
According to Gim Woojin, that's his only flaw.
Because this was something he had prepared for, Gim Woojin didn't think much about the computer glitching and eventually forgot about the spam invitation. He opened his documents and started resolving his business problems.
---
The next day Gim Woojin woke up early, had a fruit salad breakfast, and left for work with his assistant. His assistant sat in the front seat and started naming a list of people. Last night, he had told him to search for potential partners from the local families that worshipped his father. He gave his assistant very specific traits he wanted in them which narrowed the original several hundred.
By the time they arrived at the company and were walking in, the assistant was still naming off decent families and their exceptional children.
The work day was pretty busy, but it ended soon enough. Gim Woojin had Min Jejun, his partner, arrange the meeting for a few days so he can update on the fixed plan. It would be better to talk in person. He chose a few people from his assistant's list that he would personally have a conversation with. Then, the end of the day rolled in.
It was 8:00 pm and the sky was getting dark. Gim Woojin was dressed in a different suit with his hair styled and a soft cologne on. His image was fragile yet manly, and he would, naturally, catch the attention of a room.
Not that he wanted to. It was just that he was going to an acquaintance's birthday banquet. This acquaintance was a little shy despite having a big party, so he planned to steal some of the attention from her. Currently, he was driving himself over the bridge that separates their two cities.
Everything was fine. Everything was normal. There were no signs of anything going wrong. But, for a second, Gim Woojin had thought he saw the bridge glitch, just like his computer last night. Before he could deny the thought, the bridge collapsed.