Translator: Miri
키에- Fortune Killer Chapter 1 (Part 4)He did have confidence when it came to making coffee- due to his childhood dream of becoming a chef he was good at making both, food and beverages- but when he honestly raised his right hand in objection, wondering if he would be able to match the picky conditions, a light flashed through Edan’s deep-blue eyes.
"You, are you Chinese? Japanese?"
"I’m Korean."
"How old are you?"
"Like I said before, I’m 26."
"I’m 33. And Jerry is 55. Should I make it, or should I tell Jerry to go and make it?"
Listening to Edan’s logical and reasonable- but somehow a little bit odd- explanation, Lain withdrew his objection right away.
"……I should make it."
"Go on."
With these words, Edan finally used his chin to gesture towards the kitchen and Lain plodded towards the front door after putting down the Keepall he was holding on the sofa in the living room.
It was a very strange situation but Lain vaguely thought that it was natural for him to brew coffee and moved by instinct.
"Don’t worry and use this opportunity to look at your grandchildren’s faces to your heart’s content. Yeah, I’m okay. You don’t have to worry about me. It’ll be a bit uncomfortable but it can’t be helped. Yeah, I got it. Call me if there’s something I can help with."
Lain carried over the coffee beans that gave off a fragrant aroma, ground them and brewed the coffee with his clumsy skills. When he came out carrying three cups of coffee, Edan was on the phone with someone.
His expression was fairly gentle and even his way of speaking was attentive. Judging from what they talked about, the other party should be Melissa, however, Lain was extremely shocked by the difference in attitude compared to when he was dealing with him.
Carrying the cups, Lain first put one down in front of Jerry, one in front of Edan and slowly sat down after putting down a cup next to his seat. Edan who just ended the phone call hurled his cellphone and let out a long sigh.
"So, Melissa is away for at least 15 days and Alex for one month. Then Gale, Vince and Kyle quit, and Sean is also expected to resign?"
The moment Edan asked these things, Jerry nodded his head.
"Well, that’s what happened."
"Did something like 9/11 suddenly break out again? Why is everyone making a fuss and quitting? If you 1 hadn’t come out either I would have thought the villa vanished as a whole."
"Before that, why don’t you take a good look at yourself?"
"Why should I?"
"You should have been moderate when bossing them around."
"After giving them that much money they have to live up to the value."
"Edan, I’m telling you that people are not machines."
After listening to the absurd content of this conversation Lain intently stared at Jerry and Edan slowly took the coffee cup into his hand with a discontended expression on his face.
Lain watched him take a sip of the coffee with tensed shoulders and Edan slightly frowned but relaxed his expression once again shortly after. It seemed like the coffee was to his taste.
"Anyway, due to that there are only you, me and Lain inside this villa right now. Sean will immediately take his bags and escape tonight, so we’ll have to count him out."
"Right, tell me about it. But where did you pick this up?"
You know that I’m picky when it comes to choosing people, Edan added and Jerry shrugged his shoulders.
"Alex found him, so I don’t know about that."
"I’m gonna go crazy."
Edan mumbled with an expression as if he actually was going crazy. He really did not like it but the situation could not be helped right now.
Because everyone was busy, resigned or ran away, there were no people around him. However, that did not mean that he could live without anyone around him either.
Even when he just shortly stepped out to drink a cup of coffee, there had to be bodyguards following him, so it was impossible. But then again, Jerry was too old to tell him to work all alone.
"I’m annoyed so I’m suddenly getting hungry. Hey, make food."
"Pardon?"
"I’m going to the pool to swim for 30 minutes and I’ll come up after taking a shower, so within 1 hour, take my clothes to the dry cleaner’s and wash the underwear by hand. And make pasta after buying the groceries."
Opposing his fast, comanding way of speaking, Lain hastily raised his right hand in objection for the second time.
"Excuse me, I’m not a housekeeper though."
"How old are you?"
He was talking about age again. It was said that guys from the US did care about age at all but this jerk quibbled over age to the point it got annoying.
Lain did not know why in the world he, as a lawyer, should make coffee, do the laundry, go grocery shopping and cook but the atmosphere made him unable to refute.
"……I will do it."
"If you receive money, then don’t you have to work for as much as you receive? My schedule is free for the time being, so at least take care of stuff like cleaning, doing the laundry and cooking."
Looking at it like that, those words were true. And he also felt more comfortable doing things this way.
In any case, even if he did this and that, it was okay as long as he worked for the money’s worth.
Something was a bit weird but in any case, good things were good. This was how Lain justified the bizarre situation.
Without even realizing that his identity was faltering in its roots, Lain stood up and walked towards the laundry room.
Standing in the middle of a big supermarket, Lain blankly looked around his surroundings for a moment and asked himself.
Where is this? Who am I? The sudden identity crisis caused Lain to stand absent-mindedly in front of his cart.
Why did I come here again.
"Lain?"
"Ah, yes."
"I’m saying we should move quickly. Eddy hates tardiness."
"Pardon? Yes, yes."
Due to Jerry telling him about the dry cleaner’s and supermarket near the villa in detail, Lain who was currently a housekeeper intern hurriedly followed after him.
"Edan only eats organic food no matter what. Not only fruits but it’s the same for ham, cheese and everything else. If you go further to the inside of this shop, there’s an organic section.
He also only eats bread made from organic wheat, so make sure to remember this. And he never eats ingredients that are a day old, so you’ll have to shop for groceries everyday in the morning."
Lain was about to ask if money sprang out of his forehead but decided to put it a bit more nicely.
"He’s very picky, isn’t he."
"Well, in a way he is. Because health care is a matter of life and death for him. Oh, you have to blend juice yourself at home. Of course, the ingredients have to be organic. For bottled water, you have to buy Evian entirely and then filter it through a water purifier.
All water used for cooking has to be like this as well. You absolutely cannot use oil and when you need to use fat, just go for a little organic butter. He completely hates seafood. He also rather dislikes steak.
Sugar and syrup are a no-go too. To give things a sweet taste, just use a bit of honey."
Before the words ‘such a fussy bastard’ could leave his mouth, Lain stopped himself.
He had the strong premonition that he was going to dream of farming on an organic farm today. And a family business at that.
Edan would appear there as a picky customer and repeatedly say 'How old are you?'.
"He doesn’t like it when juice is too sweet or heavy either, it has to be easy to swallow. Salty things are prohibited because he hates them and if the spices are too strong, he’ll throw it."
That was very troubling, Lain thought. If Edan threw a plate, he would throw a fork. His personality was like that.
"Excuse me. It’s not that I’m complaining, I just have something I want to ask."
"You can ask me anything."
"Did Luke possibly do this kind of work as well? What I mean is, do personal lawyer do this kind of work?"
When Lain, who was unable to imagine not even anyone else but Luke Feltin shop for groceries and cook to match Edan’s tastes, asked in this way, Jerry broke into roaring laughter.
"No way. How could that be?"
"Right? This is weird, isn’t it?"
"Exactly."
In that instant, Lain finally felt relieved.
"That’s a relief."
"What is?"
"I was wondering what I should do if all personal lawyers were originally like this."
Lain who had briefly been thinking otherwise due to the extreme confusion regarding his identity, mumbled that it was truly a relief and as if he realized for the first time that Lain was actually a lawyer, Jerry apologized to Lain.
"I’m sorry to have a lawyer do things like this. But Eddy is quite peculiar by nature, you see."
"There’s nothing for you to feel sorry about."
Lain said that it was all because he was unlucky, he had already given up on himself.
He was lucky to at least have Jerry by his side, it made him feel relieved from the bottom of his heart.
There had to be at least one person giving him some tips from the side, if he was pushed to work in a shocked state and in a situation where not even the duties and responsibilities had been passed on properly, he would really be at his wit’s end.
It was a bit awkward to say but he was a person brimming with servile spirit.
He did extremely well on things he was ordered to do but was unable to work on his own accord. This was the harmful effect of the Korean method of teaching by rote.
Because he had spent his most important childhood days in Korea, rather than calling himself American, Lain was still closer to being a Korean.
"In any case, just like Edan said, I should obviously work for as much as I receive."
Because otherwise an enomous incident really is bound to happen, Lain thought in his mind.
He did not know how high Melissa’s annual salary was but he was still unsure if it was okay for a lawyer and housekeeper to receive 500,000 dollars as his annual salary.
To tell the truth, he still felt anxious in the current situation. What would he do if this was also insufficient and the money flew away, this was the only thought in his head.
He would live without it if he did not have it but after grabbing this once-in-a-lifetime chance, he keenly thought that he wanted to quickly pay back his student loan and become free.
It was 1 year. If he suffered for just 1 year, he would be able to repay more than half of the remaining student loan. Once he got these thoughts, enduring it for now did not seem so bad.
As if he had heard Lain’s thoughts, Jerry showed a relaxed smile
"So Alex chose the right person."
Even assuming that he just roughly picked him, Lain was rather amiable and sociable.
Ability was one thing but in order to closely interact with many people, especially in order to work with the difficult and sensitive Edan, one had to have a good personality and Lain was a tailor-made person for this situation, fitting in just right.
At first he had worried when looking at his age, academic background and work experience- because if he was an exceedingly stiff and conceited attorney, he would fight to death with Edan at once- but even though it had not been long since they met, Jerry quite liked Lain. What he liked more than anything was that he did not feel intimidated or was overly servile in front of someone like Edan who was a celebrity to the bone and had an overflowing aura.
"Then, may I request one more thing?"
"Tell me."
When Lain innocently answered while pushing the cart and moving to the organic section, Jerry was quiet for a moment and then slowly started speaking.
"To tell you the truth, the thing is that I have to take a few days off."
"What?"
"Ah, it’s nothing serious. It’ll be over in no time. I made an appointment for a physical examination one month ago but the thing is that people suddenly started quitting one after another.
I knew it would be like this but I thought if Alex was here he could roughly handle everything. Now that even Alex left, I was going to cancel my checkup but you 2 look rather trustworthy."
"Ah, if it’s a checkup you obviously have to take it. Don’t worry about me."
"Are you really going to be okay?"
"Yes."
"I’m thankful then. It’ll take me three days. His schedule is completely free for the time being, so you don’t have to worry about that. As long as you manage to keep Eddy inside the villa, there should be no problem."
TN:
1 - He calls him ajeossi(아저씨) which means middle-aged man, uncle, sir or mister but it all sounds so awkward, I just went with ‘you’.
2 - He literally calls him lawyer guy but that also sounds way too awkward.
It’s been a long time everyone~ First of all, Happy (belated) New Year! Second of all, I’m sure most of you guys know about this already but just in case you don’t:
Remember the teasers I posted ages ago? ‘Picked Up In Winter’ has officially been picked up by Ranka and will be posted on this blog as well! So in case you haven’t yet~
Anyway, I’ll try to be more consistent with updates in 2018 but I can’t really promise anything. (´ ꒳ ` ✿) haha
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