Chapter 103
Chapter 103
Translator: Penny
Chapter 103
"Dobin isn't crying, is he?" Gyeon Hajun muttered anxiously from his seat in my studio.
Our plan was simple: minimize Dobin's expectations for a surprise party and deliver it at the most unexpected moment.
I chuckled at Ryu Jaehee's text confirming their arrival at the dorm and replied, "Who cries just because they didn't get a surprise party?"
"Dobin."
A concise and undeniable truth.
Kim Dobin arrived surprisingly quickly, as if he'd raced over on a gust of wind, his expectations high. The moment he entered the studio, he thrust a USB at me, his eyes darting around the room.
"What's wrong? Looking for something?"
Knowing full well what the answer would be, Kim Dobin asked with a voice that feigned ignorance, his face still clinging to a sliver of hope.
"Hyung, where are Jaehee and Yehyeon Hyung?"
"Why would you look for them here? If their lessons are over, they're probably at the dorm."
After thoroughly scanning my studio for a long while, Kim Dobin finally abandoned the hope that Ryu Jaehee and Seo Yehyeon would suddenly appear with a cake.
To maintain the realism of the situation, I had Gyeon Hajun and Kim Dobin sit behind me while I refined the song a bit longer. Then, I stood up and gestured for them to leave.
"Hyung, aren't you forgetting something?"
"The cake? It's in the dorm fridge. Go eat it. Didn't you see it when I bought it last night? Well, you wouldn't know unless someone sets the table, would you? You wouldn't know unless someone sets the table."
As Kim Dobin trudged back to the dorm, his eyes still held a glimmer of hope, refusing to abandon his last shred of expectation.
Adding that extra route was a stroke of genius after all.
When he arrived, Seo Yehyeon and Ryu Jaehee were watching TV in the living room.
As expected, there wasn't a single balloon or even a cake in sight. Kim Dobin completely abandoned his hopes and collapsed onto the sofa.
"Is this how you're all going to be?"
"Hey, 'Is this how you're all going to be?' is too informal."
"Is this how you're all going to be? That's so mean! Was not preparing anything supposed to be the surprise?!"
A quick glance revealed tears welling up in Kim Dobin's eyes.
"Hey, hey, Dobin's going to cry! Quick, get the cake from the fridge."
A sweet potato cake was placed on the table. Kim Dobin, dragging his feet weakly, approached the table and let out a loud wail the moment he saw the cake, like a seven-year-old throwing a tantrum over dinner.
"Why does it have to be sweet potato cake again?!"
"I went to the bakery too late, and this was all they had left. Don't blame me. Blame the people who bought the other cakes first."
I retorted as I pulled out a chair and sat down. "At least it's better than mocha cake, you idiot."
"Eat quickly. We don't know when Manager Hyung will be here."
"Why Manager Hyung?"
"Oh, did I forget to mention? The stylist meeting got moved up, so we have to stop by the company."
We had barely finished half the cake when Manager Hyung arrived to pick us up.
As we rode the elevator to the conference room floor in the agency building, Kim Dobin wore a look of utter resignation.
I exchanged a quick glance with Ryu Jaehee and grinned secretly, out of Dobin's sight.
The moment Kim Dobin burst through the conference room door, Pop! Ryu Jaehee and I simultaneously detonated the firecrackers we'd hidden in our pockets, flanking Dobin on either side.
Startled by the sudden explosions, Dobin jumped like a cat whose fur had been raised in fright.
Seeing the conference room decorated with balloons and the lettering cake on the table, Dobin's eyes welled up with tears of emotion.
"I... I really thought you guys and Jaehee had forgotten...!"
"How could we forget when you practically announced the surprise? Unless we were deliberately ignoring it."
"No, seriously, you guys twisted things so many times! Sniff. You completely threw me off!"
"Until you'd completely killed all anticipation for the surprise party."
I chuckled, recalling the cameras hidden in the practice room, dorm, my studio, and the van, as well as Ryu Jaehee's phone camera secretly filming us on our way to the conference room.
This footage would be edited and uploaded tomorrow under a title like "Dobin's Birthday Surprise Camera."
The candles on the cake were lit, and everyone sang the birthday song together—the same song we had skipped when we were pigging out on sweet potato cake back at the dorm.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Kim Dobin! Happy birthday to you!"
As the song ended, Kim Dobin, now wearing a party hat, blew out the candles with a mighty puff.
Before we dug into the cake, we held the gift-giving ceremony, having brought the presents to the conference room beforehand.
The gift I had prepared was a money envelope, perfectly tailored to his tastes. The other members had done the same.
Kim Dobin, receiving four money envelopes, scratched his head with a sheepish expression and muttered, "I think I'm starting to understand why people give gifts instead of just money."
"You're saying that now, after we went to all the trouble of getting you something you'd like?" Gyeon Hajun asked slyly, as we ate a cake that tasted so bland it almost made me wish we'd gotten sweet potato cake instead.
"Dobin, the cameras were recording the whole time. You didn't swear too much when you were alone, did you?"
"Um... 'Damn it, you bastards' is okay, right?"
Typical Dobin, I thought.
After successfully throwing Kim Dobin a surprise birthday party, we returned to the dorm and posted on the official account at 11:59 PM.
REVEofficial @LnLreve
[Eden's Dream]
Happy birthday, Dobin! Congratulations on your last birthday as a teenager.
It feels like just yesterday you were a kid, and now you're turning twenty next year. Time really flies!
#HappyBirthday
#ShiningDobinDay
#Dobin'sNineteenthBirthdayAlwaysShining
(SurprisePartyGroupPhoto.jpg) (EdenDobin_Two-Shot.jpg)
Shares: 8,920 | Quotes: 1,101 | Likes: 17.9k
Watching the share count skyrocket faster than ever, I could really feel how much our fanbase had grown.
puppybin @puppybin
Yoon Leader finally discovered the existence of birthday hashtags!
Shares: 3 | Quotes: 1 | Likes: 11
I didn't have anything to say, but adding hashtags is the perfect way to make a short post look longer.
The title track had been released, and we'd mostly mastered the choreography, but a mountain of work still loomed ahead.
First, as it was a full-length album, we needed to include at least ten songs. Then there were the music video shoot, concept photo shoot, fan club kit photo shoot, and more.
Before we knew it, the calendar had flipped to June, and with our comeback date set for early September, we had to work tirelessly. We still had five songs left to record.
Still, thanks to our lessons, the two hopeless vocalists in our group had shown some improvement, which helped shorten our recording time compared to before.
Using the Chart Selection Ticket I'd pulled from the Item Selection Ticket, I opened the September charts to see who our direct competitors would be.
KICKS, the group that infuriated me the most, was nowhere to be found on the September charts, suggesting their activities didn't overlap with mine at all. Altair, my second-biggest rival, was positioned in the mid-to-upper tiers of the September charts, indicating they had made their comeback sometime in late August.
Musically, Altair posed a greater threat than KICKS, but when it came to sheer annoyance, KICKS took the crown.
Did Altair even have a song like this? I wondered, judging by its lack of recognition. Songs flooded the market every day, yet only a handful endure the test of time, remaining beloved and etched in people's memories.
Wow, this came out back then?
I swallowed hard, staring at the song that had topped the charts.
This duet song remained in the karaoke popularity charts' Top 100 even seven years after its release. Thanks to this song, a duet craze swept the nation for a time.
Reve needed to surpass this song to claim the top spot on the charts with their new track.
Our song turned out well, but the question is whether it can have the same longevity.
Given its concept, this song leaned more toward conceptual artistry than mass-appeal easy listening. Of course, conceptual tracks don't always lose out to easy listening.
If the song is well-crafted and captures the public's emotions, even a conceptual track can achieve mainstream success.
The problem was that Come to My Universe hadn't yet been proven to resonate with the general public.
Since worrying wouldn't change the fact that they couldn't re-record the song or reschedule their promotion dates at this point, they decided to simply leave it to the public's judgment.
I was confident in my song. After all, it was a masterpiece created by the legendary Yoon Eden after overcoming his slump. With G1's arrangement added, "Come to My Universe" was unstoppable.
Now it was time to go to a real styling meeting, not just one under the pretense of planning Kim Dobin's birthday surprise.
"My hair's going to fall out if you keep dyeing it! Please, just let me go with black hair this time?"
I desperately defended my hair from the stylist, who was trying to dye it again. My hair loss had already been alarming lately—another bleaching session would surely lead to baldness!
"Black hair would clash with Yehyeon's. You're already about the same height, and if your hair colors are too similar, it'll look cramped."
"We're only similar in height, though. Our builds are completely different, and our impressions are polar opposites."
"Eden, you look good with any hair color, but Yehyeon really rocks black hair. If you don't like bright colors, how about navy blue?"
"That still requires bleaching, doesn't it? Ugh, my hair! At this rate, I'll go bald."
Seriously? I've heard I look good with black hair too, so why does Seo Yehyeon get to keep his black hair while my hair color changes all the time?
Is this what it means to be discriminated against based on looks? How can anyone survive without an S+ visual rating?
In the end, I had to compromise and settle for a blue-toned dye. Apparently, dyeing my hair would enhance my visual appeal more than keeping it black. What choice did I have?
"Whoa, I'm getting bleached? Platinum gold? Silver blonde? Wow, I've always wanted to try blonde!"
Ryu Jaehee, who had always dyed his hair brown, seemed excited about bleaching it blonde. Great, another hair-dyeing frenzy at the dorm.
Gyeon Hajun, as usual, opted for a safe brown shade. Even I was starting to forget what he looked like with black hair. And Kim Dobin, the center of attention, declared...
"Phantom Thieves have silver hair! Silver hair!"
He was vehemently insisting on silver hair.
Why? If a thief's hair is silver, they'd stick out like a sore thumb and get caught immediately. It's like adding a special edition handcuff that matches your hair color!
And wasn't the Kaito Kid illustration Kim Dobin used in his presentation black or brown—you know, a normal East Asian hair color? Why the sudden obsession with silver?
"I don't think silver hair would suit Dobin well... How about toning it down to ash gray?"
"I want silver hair, like Eden Hyung had before."
"If you're going to copy me, at least do pink like I did before."
"A pink Phantom Thief would look weird."
"Whether it's pink or silver, a flashy hair color will get you caught just as easily."
In the end, Kim Dobin relented to the stylist's warning that his hair might end up floating awkwardly and accepted the ash gray color.
"Stylist, detectives will go for coats. Phantom Thieves wear suits with capes."
It was fortunate that Seo Yehyeon hadn't been assigned the Phantom Thief role. He had almost been chosen as the center Phantom Thief solely for his looks, but the high-difficulty choreography had forced him to pass the role to Kim Dobin. Now, he wore an expression of relief.
Meanwhile, Kim Dobin wore a look of 100% job satisfaction.
📝 Translator’s Note:
You may notice that certain lines or phrases in this novel appear both in their original Korean (or Hanja) form and in English translation.
This is intentional — these phrases are classical idioms, divine titles, or poetic expressions that carry layered meanings.
To preserve their original tone and authenticity, the raw text has been kept for reference, while the English interpretation is provided right before or after it. This helps convey both the literal and cultural nuance of the original work.
but if you guys dont want tha raw for future chapters or my future other novels u can just text me on discord and say so discord name Mr.Penny