Page 18 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
It was galling. Six months into his attempts to get real answers for the status of what he owed versus how much he had paid down and an itemized listing of how the debt had been accrued in the first place, yet he was no closer to an answer. All records prior to his time in the military were just missing. He suspected they’d been sent to his father. That was who Bak always told him to ask.
Not that his father had left any contact information. Appeals to Bak Gyeong for said contact information had yielded nothing. The man insisted he would not come between his good friend and his son in a personal matter.
But it wasn’t personal. Or maybe it was. He wasn’t even sure anymore. He wasn’t sure he had anything to his entire identity anymore that was personal except for maybe…Damian Sathers.
His phone beeped, and he hurriedly logged into the email he’d been using to message lawyers.
There was just one reply: “Dear Sir, We regret to inform you that we cannot open an investigation on a single individual’s behalf into the financials of a company. If you suspect fraud, we suggest seeking the assistance of the police. We wish you the best.
So much for lawyers, and now so much for forensic accountants. That had been Yohei’s idea. He’d phrased it so carefully too, worried about this response, asking only for his own paperwork to be gone over, but still, door to face.
His messaging app he used just for Damian bounced a notice on the screen. He opened it up, smiled at the little icon, and started to read. Noise at the end of the hall startled him. Without even turning off the phone, he yanked out the SIM card, ripped the battery free, and tossed the phone in a drawer, shoving the SIM into his house shoe. The battery rattled into the rubbish bin next to the bag, not in it.
The door to his room opened right after he’d shoved the papers he was looking at away and opened his notebook of lyrics instead. He looked up and blinked at the brighter light of the corridor invading his tiny room.
It was Bak Gyeong. Behind him in the hall were two of his favorite seconds. More bodyguards and valets than anything else. Maybe if BBB3 went down to just one goon instead of two for their CEO, then it wouldn’t be so far in the red?
“Junseo. Junseo.” Bak put his hands on his hips. Jun turned in his chair. He would have stood, but the room was so small and Bak had already advanced so far inside that there really wasn’t room. He pushed his chair back, using the wheels, and scrambled to his feet.
“Boss.”
Bak shook his head. “I thought I’d be hearing from you this morning, but look.” He held up his phone. “Nothing. After all these years, everything we’ve done for you, I come to you telling you what your family needs, and what do I find you doing this morning instead?” He reached into Jun’s desk, snagging one of the statements, ignoring the open notebook of lyrics. “Are you still doubting me? After everything?”
Jun swallowed, hard. “There has to be a mistake. 5N is an economically viable product. There’s no reason BBB3 is in the red.”
“Junseo!” Bak shook his head and rubbed his face, looking back at his goons as if to say see what I have to deal with. They shook their heads.
Bak put his hands on Jun’s shoulder and pushed him down into his chair, standing over him. “You’re shaming us, Junseo. BBB3. Me. Your bandmates. The other groups. People talk. I know you’ve been asking lawyers to investigate your accounts. And now a forensic accounting firm? What are kids watching these days? This isn’t a Bollywood film. This is real life. Actions have consequences.”
Jun’s face burned.
“You know what the problem is, and you know how to buy us time.”
“I’m not doing that. How can dinner with him be enough to get us out of debt?”
“He knows people. He has the connections. And money. Stop being a child, Junseo. Save that idealistic shit for your music.” Bak jabbed his finger at Jun’s notebook.
Jun gritted his teeth, keeping back a growl only by dint of knowing it would do no good and only cause himself more pain and possibly others as well. That notebook and Jun’s music had made Bak a lot of money over the years. He’d written hundreds of songs, not just ones used in BBB3 groups like 5N but ones licensed to other groups as well, in and outside of South Korea. That was one of the perks of being able to write in multiple languages and compose tunes that appealed to a global audience. And unless Bak was extremely stupid, royalties from all those songs should have been keeping BBB3 afloat. Because that was more money Jun wasn’t seeing. He hadn’t realized how much money it should have been until recently. Bak had always told him songs were cheap and almost worthless until produced. But they weren’t. Not at the volume he’d been writing.
“What he wants is indecent,” Jun bit out. In some deep part of himself, perhaps the nine-year-old boy who’d first met Bak and believed his promises, he still hoped that if he just phrased it the right way, made the man realize what was really being asked, then he’d rescind his demands and talk, for real.
“It’s dinner.” Bak’s eyes narrowed, daring Jun to talk back.
Jun’s nostrils flared. So much for being polite about an impolite matter. “He wants to fuck me.”
Bak’s hand connected with the side of Jun’s face. Jun’s ears rang, and he blinked at the wall ninety degrees away from where he’d just been looking. His cheek burned.
Slowly, he turned back.
Bak’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes flared. “Careful before you smear a good man’s reputation, boy. He is a highly respected member of government.”
Jun narrowed his eyes.
Bak’s chest heaved. “You may be like a son to me, Junseo. I’ve looked out for you for seventeen years, but I will do what I have to save this company. You will go to dinner with him, you’ll do whatever he wants, and you’ll do it again until your debt is paid off to BBB3, or I will find a way to make you. You will not take us down with you.”
Doubt that had been niggling for weeks at the back of Jun’s mind flared into full technicolor.
“I don’t even know why we are in ruin!” Jun spread his hands over the paperwork. “Because we should be doing well. I fucking work every day, Bak. Me and the others, we all do. Tour after tour. Album after album.” He stood, pushing the chair back all the way to the wall. “If other companies can make a go of it with similar numbers or worse, why aren’t we? Why aren’t we profitable? Where’s the numbers, Bak?”
