Fortune Killer

Translator: Miri

With a content face, Lain truly recalled the words that humanity was blessed by G.o.d and gazed at the man. He was walking towards this side with every Hollywood actor’s must-have item, Louis Vuitton’s KeepAll, hanging over his shoulder, then came to a sudden stop, nimbly took off his sungla.s.ses and fixedly stared at Lain.
His eyes were very blue. They were a deep blue shade that sparkled like gems. But it was different from sapphire.
A Lapis-Lazuli (Eng in raws) that hid countless golden twinkles within its mystic blue colour. His eyes looked just like azure stones (靑金石). 1

They resembled the star-filled sky at dawn and even the blue ocean sparkling as it reflected the sunlight.
They were different from any deep blue eyes he had seen until now.
While he was blankly staring into those eyes, feeling as if he was getting sucked in, the owner of the azure stones lifted his hand and pointed at Lain.

"What is this?"

From his long, beautiful fingers and sweet voice, to his p.r.o.nounciation which was clear and distinct while at the same time being elegant and graceful.
Hearing the voice he had only known from television, Lain opened his eyes widely with an unbelieving expression on his face and Jerry who was standing next to him hurriedly introduced Lain to the other party.

"Our new family member. Seems like you didn’t listen to the message Alex left you before you came."

Even after Jerry’s introduction, Edan continued to scrutinize Lain from head to toe with a meaningful look in his eyes.
His eye colour was extremely beautiful but the somehow b.l.o.o.d.y spirit made Lain stare at him while blinking his eyes. The other party once again pointed at Lain using his fingertips and questioned Jerry.

"This (Lain) is going to work? Isn’t this a high schooler?"

"What do you mean ‘this’. He’s called Lain. Say h.e.l.lo, Lain. This guy is Edan."

After what Jerry said, Lain was just about to stretch his right hand out. However, right before his hand went forwards Edan’s brusque voice reached his ears.

"Are you joking with me? Isn’t he underage? You think that wearing a suit is everything?"

"Lain Jang. Korean-American, age 26. No doubt that he’s an adult."

Jerry patted Lain’s shoulder as if he was really satified with him and introduced him in his stead.
However, Edan still continued to scrutinize Lain in an unbelieving manner.
Nicely dressed up in a suit and standing there blankly, Lain clearly had an adult’s physique but his slightly lowered fringe and unusually big eyes made him look considerably young.
Although there no way that the meticulous Alex got scammed, which meant that his age should be true, he was still somewhat doubtful.

"He’s really not underage?"

"I already he told you he isn’t."

Edan intensely looked back at Lain one more time, then averted his eyes as if he had lost all interest and asked Jerry.

"What about Vince, Kyle and Gale?"

"They quit as of yesterday."

At those words, Edan nodded his head like he understood and mumbled "So that’s the reason this showed up.", before once again asking Jerry.

"What about Alex?"

"He’s gone to witness his child’s birth. He mentioned before that Jane’s due date is tomorrow."

"So that’s why only you and Sean came right now?"

"For the moment. And to tell you one more thing, Sean is also quitting today. His contract period is only until today, so he is going to return to his hometown tomorrow."

Hearing about this fact for the first time, Lain abruptly turned to Jerry who then patted his shoulder as if telling him not to worry.

"For the time being, let us get out of here. Before someone recognizes you."

After glancing at the people who were whispering while looking into their direction, Jerry started to rush them and Edan who was standing still with a displeased face threw the bag he was holding at Lain.

"Take my bag."

"Excuse me?"

"I’m telling you to carry my bag."

Edan’s behaviour clearly seemed like he was handling hotel a.s.sistance, so after taking the bag for the time being, Lain asked again with a slight frown on his face.

"I’m not a porter/ luggage guy though?"

Do you know that from today on I am your spokesperson and lawyer, just as Lain was about to confirm this once more, Edan who had gone ahead of him turned his head and looked at Lain while coldly asking back.

"So what?"

"Pardon?"

"Right now, because you’re not a porter, are you possibly asking Edan Blake to carry the luggage?"

Just when Lain was about to ask if Edan Blake did not have arms, the intense stare over the sungla.s.ses caused him to answer in a low voice as if bewitched.

"……I’ll hold it……."

Hearing the soft reply, Edan could finally be seen breaking into a grin.
Apparently his mood suddenly improved rapidly because he smiled brightly, turned around and started moving with quick footsteps.
Right after he started moving, Sean and Jerry sticked to both of his sides and started carefully checking his surroundings.
Now that there were bodyguards escorting him, the previously glancing bystanders started speaking noisily as if they noticed something.
From within the people who were chatting between themselves, saying things like "Who is that? A model? An actor?", a scream broke out.

"It’s Edan!"

Followed by a shriek, the airport lobby was thrown into turmoil in an instant.
The people who just came out of the gate and even the ones waiting in front of the gate flocked together and took out their cellphones and cameras.
Avoiding the people who gathered one after another, Jerry grabbed Edan’s arm and started walking quickly.
Lain was left behind alone in the blink of an eye and showed a terrified expression, almost feeling like he had seen a colony of ants swarming towards a piece of candy.
Who had said that New Yorkers were cool and chic. These people usually pretended not to notice even if they saw someone on the streets or at most spoke in whispers from far away but as soon as one person started following, they all flocked together as if some kind of group madness had broken out.
While Lain was frozen in place for a brief moment due to their extremely scary vigor, Jerry was working his way through the crowd, turned around and threw something towards Lain.
Lain who had accepted it on the spur of the moment finally realised that it was the key of the van they had driven on their way here and gave Jerry a nod.
He came to his senses at last, hung the KeepAll strap over his shoulder and started moving his feet diligently.
Avoiding the people blocking the front, Lain escaped to the side and was the first to get on the van they had left in the parking lot. He started the car and waited for the others to arrive.
He had never driven a car as big as this one but it was not like he could not do it. According to his driver’s license, it was possible, Lain consoled himself.
Having started the car and put on his seat belt, he waited while stepping on the brakes. Soon, three people breaking out from a crowd came into his field of vision.
The people who came out dragging a group of clouds 2 behind them arrived at the van shortly after, got on the car and closed he doors.

"Quickly go. You can drive, right?"

"Yes. Most likely……."

Lain slightly slurred his words and hurriedly honked the horn in order to avoid the crowd. After he strongly honked the horn as if to intimidate them, he took his foot off the brakes right away and the car slowly started moving.

"Say, how nice would it be if you use the VIP gate? Or at least inform me in advance and wait inside. Then I can at least put some safety personnel on standby."

Inside the car that was slowly leaving the parking lot, Jerry was continiously nagging and Edan who was sitting in the back in a carefree manner curtly replied.

"I just took any plane I could get. In any case, it’s fine as long as I came back."

"You have a point there, I also didn’t expect you to actually come back. Give Alex a call some time. He was in monster mode after getting run over and stepped on everywhere since yesterday."

He seriously resembled the hulk, Jerry muttered and in the back, Edan continued talking like it was no big deal, as if to say, why would someone get mad over such a small matter.

"What’s with all this fuss just because I slipped out for a bit during the drama meeting? It’s not even like it’s decided yet."

"Alex has a lot of expectations for this drama. You should also cut him some slack. You know just how hard he worked to get you that one role."

"I told you I’m not doing dramas."

"Why?"

"If you get tied down once, you’re done for. I’ll have to film a minimum of five seasons but I don’t want to work like that and just how many years did it take me to get rid of Ash’s image for me to go down that path again?"

Hearing those words, Lain p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. It seemed like finally something he knew about came out.

"Ashton McConaughey from Rain Vill?"

Back then it had been called the “fearsome viewer ratings monster”, the teen drama Rain Vill (Eng in raws) was Edan Blake’s success work and at the same time it was the teen drama that had recorded his whole growth process.
It had been broadcasted for no less than five years and had enjoyed the highest popularity all throughout, however due to Edan dropping out and attempting to transform into an adult actor it had eventually come to an end.
The broadcasting station had started airing a spin-off of Rain Vill called “Snow Vill” instead but the spin-off series had received both horrible ratings and harsh criticism from critics and finally had experienced the agony of being cancelled in only one season. When Lain had come to the US, the drama had already reached its end but through the infinite reruns on cable, he had mastered English by watching the drama and become closer to cla.s.smates- especially female students- by talking about the drama, so he had a good idea about just how popular it had been.
At the time, there had been exactly two kinds of people in the US. People who knew Rain Vill and people who did not know Rain Vill.
In the drama, especially Edan Blake, or rather Ashton McConaughey had been every teenager’s role model at the time and because he had been the ideal figure parents wanted as their son, his approval rating amongst parents was said to have been enormous as well. As he recalled the events from already 13 years ago, Lain b.u.t.ted in on the conversation and Jerry who seemed to find this amazing, asked him.

"You’ve watched Rain Vill? As far as I know, you don’t belong to that age group though?"

"It’s because when I came to the US, if I didn’t know Rain Vill, my friends wouldn’t have let me join them."

He could not say that due to this reason, he had forced himself to watch the series he disliked and learned English at the same time.
At that point, Koreans had still been uncommon in New York and in order to get closer to other people of the same age, he had had no choice but to follow their culture code.
To tell the truth, he really hated Rain Vill.

"Ohh, yeah? Then you must have wanted to become like Ash."

"No."

"How come?"

"I found him shameless."

Lain blurted out very honestly and stopped the car in front of the traffic light.
For a moment, a strange silence enveloped the inside of the car. As he was wondering if he had said something wrong, Jerry once again asked from the back.

"You are quite unusual. Everyone used to say they wanted to become like Ash, you see?"

Well, that would have obviously been the case.
In the drama in which New York’s upper cla.s.s was used as the background, Ash was the rugby club’s quarterback, the student president and an honor student who even stood up for outcasts, he was portrayed as a kind-hearted, perfect student with a good personality.
Looking at this, Lain had thought that even taking into consideration it was a drama, the character was awfully unrealistic.
Originally, if someone was good-looking and smart, he was bound to have a bad personality. There was no way that there was a man who was handsome and even had a good personality and if there was, it would be irritating.

"When someone’s handsome, good at studying, has a nice personality and even his family is rich, that’s just unlucky. 3 "

When he briefly revealed his honest feelings from back then, Jerry burst out laughing.
The sound of laughter easiy relaxed his mind. Edan was a little bit difficult but he very much liked Jerry. His impression was one thing but he was a very good person. He made others feel comfortable.
Rush hour had pa.s.sed, so the traffic was not that bad. As it was his first time driving such a big car, Lain was concentrating on driving and turned the wheel, when right from behind someone asked in a low voice once more.

TN:

1 - All of this sounded a lot more lyrical in Korean… Sorry about that. lol

Azure stones look like this:

2 - I have no idea whatsoever how to translate this into English, so I just gave you the literal translation. You get the gist of it.

3 - I’ve seen it translated as shameless,arrogant,unlucky… so basically what he’s saying is that he plainly doesn’t like how that character is perfect in every way.

Once again, sorry for the late update! Someone even asked if I was dropping this, so I realized I was very very late. ㅠㅠ Don’t worry, I’ll definitely translate this until the last chapter, I’m just going at my own pace~~ Next update will probably take a while too ㅠㅠ

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