Hans rubbed his chin as he looked over the contract in front of him.
"Hmm… these terms are pretty good, but we never planned on joining an agency in zhe first place."
Despite his words, he didn't look entirely reluctant to sign.
"Ember is planning on branching out into a few different genres of music, and having you guys around for the rock side would be amazing. You delivered on Tuesday."
Hans nodded slowly, then glanced between his two brothers. Otto and Paul both looked willing to join Elric's agency.
Hans's gaze roamed upward, refocusing on Ember as she finished cooking something in the kitchen.
"Well, it's just fun for us, but I think that girl is going places."
Grabbing his pen, Hans scrawled his name on the bottom of the contract.
"Even if it's just for a time, we'll be recorded as her bandmates. Hah, this'll be something to brag about in a few years."
Otto and Paul followed his lead, and Elric's team suddenly expanded four-fold.
After some discussion with his father the other day, Elric decided to have them technically as part of his father's company, but he would be entirely managing a new branch of it.
Essentially, aside from handling taxing details, Elric was on his own.
There was a lot to know when running a business of any kind, and while he could ask his father for help with it, Elric also had other resources.
After standing up from the table and heading over to check how the food was coming along, he pulled out his phone and messaged into the villainous channel of the group chat.
-Villainous GC-
SecretlyKind: @Dargonrunner you do management stuff for college sports, correct? Have time to give me some tips?
-
After a few moments, Elric received a private message from the fellow manager.
Dargonrunner: You are that dude with a talent agency, right? What's up?
Elric quickly typed out his circumstances to Dargon, but the answer he received wasn't quite what he'd been hoping for.
Dargonrunner: If your father knows a lot about the business, then it's best to ask him instead. My stuff is a bit different from yours, and I'm pretty busy.
A moment later, another message arrived.
Dargonrunner: Though, if you do have some extra time in the next few weeks, I can bring you along for some of my management stuff, I'll give you some tips as we go. I'm managing a couple of runners for the track season, and my athletes for a few other sports also need some attention.
After thinking for a moment, Elric accepted his suggestion.
Aside from school, there wasn't much he needed to do in the upcoming weeks, other than looking for more singing opportunities for Ember.
If he could get better at management right now before he got too busy, it might make his life infinitely easier in the future.
After confirming plans to meet up with Dargon after classes, Elric went back to helping Ember finish up making breakfast.
They had to prepare enough for the entire Wagner crew as well as Pelsiton, who was still asleep.
"I'll go wake him up, can you set the table please?"
Ember nodded as Elric headed for his father's room. When he pushed open the door, the middle-aged man was already awake.
Pelsiton had a conflicted expression on his face as he stared at his computer screen, and his mouse moved quickly over the document on it.
"Dad, is something wrong? You never get up this early on your own."
"It's fine, nothing to worry about. I'll be down for breakfast in a few minutes."
Elric quietly closed the door, then headed back to the dining area.
"Let's start eating first, it looks like it'll be taking him a while, some business stuff."
The Wagner crew didn't need any more motivation than that, immediately starting to scarf down the food that Ember had brought over.
Ember and Elric took seats beside each other, but it was impossible to have any sort of romantic mood with the three dudes eating noisily across the table.
Ember leaned over, her face reddening a bit as she whispered in Elric's ear.
"It almost feels like we have kids right now…"
Elric looked up to see Otto miss his mouth with a fork full of scrambled eggs, sending the tasty yellow food falling down to his lap.
"Yeah… it's kinda terrifying, though. A bunch of dudes in their thirties, as kids…"
The dejected expression on Otto's face as he placed the eggs back onto his plate and tried wiping his leg off summed up the entire situation perfectly.
"We'll have to work on making some younger ones later, then."
Over the past two days, Ember had been getting much more aggressive. She seemed to forget her innocence around Elric, though she did still get embarrassed just as easily as before.
Elric was about to say something, but he was interrupted by Paul.
"Miss Ember, can I please have another strip of bacon? Mine was smaller than the others'…"
She let out a long sigh, but still passed one of the pieces on her own plate over to the drummer, and was rewarded with a bright smile on his face.
"Thank you!"
"Sure."
Seeing the pouty expression on Ember's face, Elric couldn't help but chuckle a bit. Bacon was her favorite part of the meal.
"Hm? What are you laughing about?"
Elric shook his head as he transferred some of his own bacon to Ember's plate, and her eyes lit up in excitement.
Before any of the others could ask her for it, she quickly stuffed it into her mouth, grinning as she munched on the perfectly-cooked strip.
By the time they finished their meals and started preparing to head off to school, Peliston still hadn't come down to eat.
After transferring his food into the fridge, Ember pointed at Hans and his brothers.
"Alright, that food is for Peliston! No eating it while I'm gone!"
She received a chorus of nods.
"And no making a mess in the house! I don't want to have to clean up when I come home!"
More nods.
As Ember continued listing things for the Wagner crew not to do, Elric couldn't help but rub his chin as he watched.
'She said that she doesn't have any siblings… I wonder where she picked up on this, then.'
After she successfully got the kids (Wagner Bros) to agree to do their homework (Work on adapting the songs better), the couple finally headed out for the day.