The Main at Dawn
The clock read three in the morning.
Most customers who had come to the host bar looking for fun had already left, leaving the host team scrambling to wrap up their shifts. Cha Ji-hoon and Shin Yong-geom had just stepped out of The Queen for a brief rest.
In the host waiting room, the senior hosts who rarely liked them made sure it was hard to relax.
Meanwhile, Kim Namhu was stuck in another room, unable to take a break because of a jimyung.
“Aigoo, this is tough.”
Cha Ji-hoon sighed, sipping on a sweet coffee.
Normally he avoided this kind of coffee that disturbed deep sleep as closing time approached, but there was no other choice now.
Entertainment with clients like friends was mentally easier than seducing women, but physically it drained everything.
Shin Yong-geom felt the same.
This was the first time he had worked as a host this hard.
Even hyping up a table for over an hour every time and repeating it was exhausting after just a few rounds.
The only reason he could keep going was that he was not alone. Both Cha Ji-hoon and Kim Namhu were putting in the same effort.
If the senior hosts had just poured drinks and danced and sung without caring, he would have quit long ago.
“Hyung Yonggeom. This really works.”
“It’s tough, but it works.”
They were both thinking the same thing.
They had heard that ten units of strength brought ten units of money. Now it seemed like they were using forty to earn only twenty.
In a way, the math was off.
“It’s weird, though. Even though it’s so hard, there’s a strange sense of fulfillment.”
“Yeah, same.”
They felt too embarrassed to admit why it was fulfilling.
But they both knew.
When female clients laughed and left after having fun, there was a different kind of joy from when they had actually slept together.
“I never thought I’d be able to do this kind of host work.”
“The seniors never taught us any of this.”
Even though they belonged to different factions, the lessons they had learned were similar.
How to stand out, how to charm a woman, how to secretly pour drinks, how to drink less, how to fuck well.
They had learned a lot, but no one had ever shown them how to make female clients this happy.
“Maybe we should call this one of the ways to do host work?”
“Probably. A secret method that other hosts don’t know. But you haven’t learned this side much, Hyo-woon hyung. Hyo-woon hyung makes money by playing with women.”
“It’s a completely different feeling from what we’re doing now. Maybe it’s just natural talent. You know those people? Born with charisma. They don’t force tension like we do, and women just stick to them.”
“Yeah, there are people like that.”
Cha Ji-hoon asked the question he had been curious about.
“What about Moon-ho hyung? Factually speaking, Hyo-woon hyung has taken the Ace spot more times than Moon-ho hyung.”
Shin Yong-geom’s face hardened.
He thought for a moment, then decided to voice his complaint about Choi Moon-ho.
He had built camaraderie by working hard alongside Cha Ji-hoon.
“Honestly, Moon-ho hyung isn’t that great of a senior.”
Cha Ji-hoon jumped, looking around.
If any other host from The Queen had overheard and reported it, they would all get in deep trouble.
Luckily, no one else was around.
And once Shin Yong-geom started talking, the complaints about Choi Moon-ho poured out.
“We get put into the same room, right? Then the other hosts are just fillers. In the end, we’re the only ones who earn money. That’s how we raise sales. And how much does he put on the act? If you do that, you won’t last as a host. Do it like this, do it like that. But when you listen carefully, it’s just him telling everyone else to boost his own sales from underneath him.”
Cha Ji-hoon did not know about these internal politics in the other faction.
“Whoa, then why does everyone work under Moon-ho hyung? If that’s the case, shouldn’t they just work on their own?”
“That’s why the guy secretly gives them allowances behind the scenes. Especially a lot more in the month when he takes the Ace spot. So if a host thinks it’s hard to make money on their own, they start cleaning Moon-ho’s shit and taking the extra cash as allowance. Once they get hooked, they live like that forever.”
Cha Ji-hoon felt a lot of things.
Jang Hyo-woon’s faction treated people humanely.
They taught a lot, and when things got tough they covered for you.
But fundamentally, they earned based on what they brought in.
The Moon-ho faction was basically created just to make Moon-ho the number one.
When Moon-ho took the King spot, he acted like ancient kings who rewarded their subordinates.
Meanwhile, Kim Namhu was using a different system: everyone worked together to raise sales and shared the profits.
‘Looking at it this way, Namhu seems even more amazing…’
Just as Cha Ji-hoon was thinking that, Shin Yong-geom spoke.
“I don’t know what the right way is or which one is best. But I like Namhu. Following Namhu means learning and gaining more than following Moon-ho hyung. I’d rather make money from a few allowances than whatever.”
And then Shin Yong-geom voiced his own dissatisfaction with Kim Namhu.
“He’s a real junior, but if he wasn’t so young, I would have called him senior or hyung and followed him easily.”
Cha Ji-hoon felt the exact same frustration.
He respected skill, but teaching a young junior with little experience was not easy.
They sighed in unison, sharing the pain of their situation.
But because of natural talent, neither Hyo-woon, who could not teach others well, nor Moon-ho, who only nurtured people under himself, could match Namhu.
And Cha Ji-hoon’s phone rang.
It was a message from Kim Namhu.
-Three clients just came in. Where are you?
They had been chatting and joking around so much that more customers had appeared.
Usually after three in the morning, no new clients showed up and no one was specifically looking for a particular host, but these three were different.
**Main’s Office.**
Lee Sang-soo was lost in complicated thoughts here.
In front of him sat Jang Hyo-woon.
Hyo-woon noticed the manager’s turmoil and spoke.
“No. If you’re worried, just say it. You called me over when you’re busy. What are you doing?”
“It’s three in the morning. You’re not getting regular customers and you’re about to finish anyway.”
“But why can’t hyung stay calm? Factually, the ones who were good last month are already earning and the bad ones have no choice. The system looks fairer than you think. Just tell everyone to work hard. Isn’t it over if the owner just tells you to do as he says?”
Jang Hyo-woon’s words were half-right.
As a Main who led hosts, he was ultimately just an errand boy who did exactly what the owner ordered.
Lee Sang-soo’s worried expression was because he was a sincere Main who truly cared about the hosts under him.
In the host industry, where most managers only thought about their own earnings, this kind of Main was rare.
That was why Hyo-woon sat quietly in front of him.
Even if he could not help much, just being there was comforting.
As they stared at each other in silence, closing time arrived.
A staff member knocked on the Main’s door with a thick stack of daily sales receipts.
“Come in.”
When the staff placed the receipts on the desk, Lee Sang-soo used a small laptop to record every figure.
Calculating the exact amount the hosts would receive was one of his most important duties.
He quickly entered the numbers from the day’s receipts into the laptop.
He had done this every day, so his movements were smooth.
Only after recording the full daily sales did he turn the laptop screen toward Hyo-woon.
Hyo-woon noticed that the chart was different from what the manager usually used.
Previously, Lee Sang-soo had only recorded the current month’s sales.
That was enough to calculate exact incentives for the hosts.
But now the previous month’s chart was also included.
On the table it showed how much each host had earned last month, how much they made this month, and how much more they still needed to reach target.
‘Hmm. The ones who actually work come out decent, while those who quit show right away.’
Host sales usually compared well and badly at the extremes, but this month the difference was even sharper.
The gap between those who worked and those who did not was painfully obvious.
Lee Sang-soo touched the touchpad to display the bottom of the chart.
“Look. How hard the newbies are working.”
**End of Chapter 66**