— Karma points acquired!

I barely registered the chime in my ears.

When did she… grow up so much!

My first intense physical contact with Seo-ryeon.

Even in the dead of winter, Seo-ryeon and the others were in shorts for their dance routine.

Seo-ryeon in my arms felt different again from the girl on stage.

Being a girl group’s center and its visual isn’t a job just anybody can do.

While I hadn’t been looking, she’d grown in a lot of places(?).

“Hnnngh… hic.”

Seo-ryeon sobbed in my arms, heartbroken.

Anyone watching would think I was the worst bastard alive.

“S-Seo-ryeon… you know him?”

Seeing, with my own eyes, an idol I’d known about since my past life was something special.

Ju-min, the group’s leader, looked completely bewildered.

Ju-min, with her sharp jawline, was the same age as me.

“Uh-huh… sniff… he’s my oppa.”

“Your oppa? Unnie, you’re the eldest in your family, aren’t you?”

Yun-na, who had a reputation for being prissy, still didn’t get it.

“I said he’s my oppa!”

Girl talk is always hard to follow.

“…Don’t tell me it’s that oppa???”

Mi-na, the innocent-looking girl with long hair, stared at me with big eyes.

“That’s right. This is the Jang Tae-san oppa I told you about. Hee~.”

It struck me all over again that Seo-ryeon was a woman too.

As if she’d never been crying, her face bloomed into a smile.

“Whoa…”

“Oh my Gooood!”

The members looked back and forth between Seo-ryeon and me, their mouths hanging open.

I stared right back at the girl group.

In my life before the regression, I’d never once seen a girl group up close.

FOB breaks up in 2018.

Apart from Seo-ryeon, who becomes an actress and a solo singer, only about three of these members make it.

Getting to see FOB in their debut days was a blessing.

With the celebrity buff—a girl-group buff, no less—the girls sparkled like jewels.

I could tell for sure their aura was something else.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jang Tae-san.”

Before, my face would have turned red and my heart would have pounded so hard I couldn’t have said a word.

But not now.

“My oppa’s handsome, right?”

Seo-ryeon looked at me proudly and asked the girls.

“Unnie, why did you lie!”

Mi-na, the long-haired girl, protested hard at Seo-ryeon.

“L-lie about what!”

“You said oppa was just so-so looking! That he was a neighborhood nerd who was only good at studying!”

A-jeong, the youngest, piled on too.

What? So-so? Me?

“Heeheehee. Well, my oppa is so-so looking. Two eyes, one nose, two ears, one mouth too. Just your basic male human.”

Seo-ryeon mumbled her way around it.

Everyone but Seo-ryeon knew she was reaching.

“Oh my God… Unnie, how could you do this to us…”

“Seo-ryeon, that’s total betrayal!”

Complaints rained down on Seo-ryeon from every side.

Seo-ryeon had become the poster girl for betrayal.

“Hmph. What betrayal? I only tell the truth. Right, oppa?”

Seo-ryeon had turned into a real fox.

Her bandmates’ complaints didn’t faze her one bit.

“Did everybody like the food?”

The mood needed changing.

“Oh! Right! Oppa, what’s with the outfit? And what do you mean, the food? Don’t tell me this is oppa’s treat?”

Seo-ryeon, sharp as ever, asked.

“I told you I’d buy you a meal.”

“A meal? Don’t tell me tonight’s party was…”

“My mom had her reunion, so I invited you. And I kept my promise to buy Seo-ryeon and her members a meal while I was at it.”

“…Whoa.”

“That’s insane.”

They were kids, so they said exactly what they thought.

They looked at me with eyes full of shock and respect.

“S-so you paid for all of tonight, oppa? Even our performance fee?”

“Yeah.”

“Oppa…”

Seo-ryeon looked at me, overwhelmed.

Her eyes looked big and bright.

She seemed to have had a little inner-corner eye surgery while I hadn’t been looking.

That was nothing compared to the surgery addicts.

“But Seo-ryeon, how long are you going to stay like that? Don’t you know if there’s a scandal, we’re finished?”

Ju-min, the leader, warned Seo-ryeon, who was nestled in my arms.

“Hehe~ I’m just so happy to see him after so long…”

Seo-ryeon, looking sheepish, slipped out of my arms.

My chest suddenly felt cold.

A wistful regret washed over me.

“You’re twenty, right, Tae-san?”

Ju-min asked my age.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s drop the formalities, you and me.”

Ju-min was pretty cool, just like the showbiz rumors used to say.

She looked at me boldly and suggested we talk casually.

“Sure.”

I nodded and agreed.

Reeking of cool was my specialty to begin with.

“Then you’re our oppa too?”

“If he’s Seo-ryeon’s oppa, he’s our oppa too~. Right, Tae-san oppa?”

Ah! I must have saved a child in my past life to be blessed like this.

Every member of FOB was calling me oppa, gazing at me with shining eyes.

How can I describe this feeling?

It was like buying the figure I’d had my eye on and winning a special bonus—the whole series.

My heart just pounded and did cartwheels.

“I’m warning you all—you go after my oppa, and it’s you or me!”

Seo-ryeon’s defenses were airtight.

Eyes blazing, she fired off a warning at her members.

“Oh dear, what to do. I think I’ve already truly fallen for Tae-san oppa~ How about you girls?”

“Me too! I like him too!”

“Oppa, you’re totally jjang!”

The word jjang, slang for the best, was just catching on in 2008, and hearing it felt strange and nice at the same time.

“Shut up! I called dibs on Tae-san oppa two years ago!”

I saw and heard for myself what a girl group’s racket is like.

They were bubbly girls in their late teens, and everything they did bounced.

“Hey, friend, are you really paying for all this?”

As the oldest, Ju-min, the leader, asked again.

She couldn’t seem to believe that I, a brand-new college student, had paid tens of millions of won in performance fees.

“I made some money in stocks.”

“I thought you were a law student?”

“At Hanguk University.”

“Ah.”

There was no need to say more.

Hanguk University law students are monsters no ordinary person can reach anyway.

“Oppa, but how did you win over our manager? He’s so prickly nothing usually works on him.”

Seo-ryeon had left my arms but stuck right by my side, guarding me from her bandmates.

“I have my ways. From now on, if you want to eat something or need a rest, tell me.”

“What’s with that tone? Are you a major shareholder in our company or something?”

Ju-min seemed quick on the uptake too.

KNB Entertainment, the company that had built FOB, was still new.

It had finally scored a modest hit, but in that world it lived like a mayfly.

I’d already dangled the bait.

Through Attorney Jo Yun-tae, I’d offered three billion won or so in exchange for fifty-one percent of the shares.

At three billion, the company rolled over.

Even SM, the giant-to-be, had its stock crawling along the bottom about now.

The talk about the financial crisis coming out of America was getting serious, and money was seizing up everywhere.

Three billion was no small sum, but compared with the heart Seo-ryeon had shown me, it wasn’t much.

It wasn’t a losing investment, either.

FOB hits it big with their second album.

I thought of it as a long-term investment.

Not that I had any intention of revealing I was the investor.

Being the Daddy-Long-Legs watching over them from behind the scenes was enough.

“My mom has some money.”

“Hmph, so it’s your mom’s money.”

Ju-min pushed out her lips a little.

Ugh, I finally got why girl groups stole the hearts of middle-aged men.

Every little thing they did picked a guy up and put him down again.

A quick read of the members’ faces told me they had the peach-blossom star and the red-flame star several times over.

When people say someone has star quality, in fortune-telling or face reading it means they have plenty of the peach-blossom star or the red-flame star.

When a person’s own charm grows fatally strong, that’s the peach-blossom star; when men flock to them easily, that’s mostly the red-flame star at work.

None of them had ordinary faces.

To become a celebrity, you need at least two of the peach-blossom or red-flame stars.

The star quality they’d lived with in past lives was showing up in this one too.

That didn’t mean they were fated to hard lives.

In the Joseon era, people would have whispered that they were fated to be gisaeng. In this world, though, if you use those stars well, you can make it big as a celebrity. (TL Note: Gisaeng were the entertainers of the Joseon court and the gentry — women trained in music, dance and poetry, and of low social rank.)

Of course, a fortune like that makes it hard to settle down with a family.

It’s only natural for every butterfly and bee to swarm a flower brimming with fragrance.

Seo-ryeon’s face is the best of them!

Of all the members, Seo-ryeon had the finest face.

Her haughty charisma had clearly drawn on the peach-blossom star’s energy.

Her fine, straight nose said Seo-ryeon was proud and a hard worker at the same time.

The eye surgery had softened her somewhat harsh fortune and brought it into balance.

For people whose lives keep getting tangled, I’d recommend plastic surgery.

Since ancient times, beautiful women have been praised and paid attention to.

It’s been scientifically proven that people with attractive faces and looks earn more on average.

“I asked your manager to clear your schedule tonight. So relax.”

I treated the girls easily, like an older brother.

I may look twenty, but you can’t fake a mind that’s a thirty-something middle-aged guy’s.

“Oppaaaaa! Thank you~! Mwah mwah mwah~.”

A-jeong, the youngest, blew kisses.

“Where do you get off blowing kisses! Stop it!”

“Unnie, didn’t you say good things should always be shared?”

“Wh-when did I say that!”

“When unnie took our face masks and makeup, remember? You said sharing good things doubles the happiness.”

“Right! Seo-ryeon unnie brainwashed us that friendship in our crew starts with sharing!”

The girls ganged up on Seo-ryeon.

Seo-ryeon went pale.

It looked like she’d brought it on herself, but I couldn’t step in.

“That’s different from oppa!”

Seo-ryeon was desperate.

“What’s different? Oppa, it’s not different at all, right? Right?”

Seon-mi winked as she asked.

She’s seventeen this year… how is she so mature?

What did your mother do for a living!

In my head, I answered, Sure, people are things too, and good things should be shared.

Zzzt.

Seo-ryeon glared at me.

This is why I could never say it out loud.

I just enjoyed the moment with a smile.

“How’s school? Haven’t you been to your freshman orientation or anything?”

Ju-min stepped in to settle things down.

She showed she hadn’t become leader just because of her age.

“I’m going soon.”

“I want to go too. A college orientation…”

“Hanguk University law’s orientation must be something special, right?”

The girls had a lot of fantasies about college.

With their busy schedules, girl-group members could barely even get their high school diplomas.

More and more minors keep flocking to become idols and girl-group members.

“Do you want to see it?”

“Yeeeeees! We want to go too!”

Maybe because they were still in their innocent prime, they were full of pure energy.

Then, as a friend and an oppa, I’d just have to pull a few strings.

Something clicked into place in my head.

My second college orientation.

Unlike last time, I didn’t want it to start with booze and end with booze.

“Hang on a second.”

These girls were walking a path of thorns that only looked like a path of flowers, trying to make it young. I wanted to make some memories with them.

— Sunbae, can I prepare our group’s talent-show act on my own?

I texted Senior Kang A-rin.

— Really? You can do it alone?

The reply came right away.

— As long as nobody interferes.

— Okay. I’m counting on you. Whenever I tell the kids to get together, they all blow me off. Sigh… the last undergrad class is already going the way of their seniors. Outsiders.

At her reply, I smiled to myself.

Hanguk University’s business school was famous for sticking together.

A different contest against them.

In this life, I never wanted to lose to anyone again.

Even if it was just an orientation talent show!

(End of Chapter 92)