Chapter 104

The first place Hajin headed once he'd steadied himself was the shower.

His body was in the exact state it'd been in when he'd washed up and gone to bed yesterday — but what the 'real' Hajin actually felt was a different story.

"……"

He washed himself clean and changed into fresh clothes. The 'normal' daily routine he'd been shrugging off with the excuse of 'I'll just regress again anyway' — he put each piece back in place. Even the breakfast he'd kept skipping because he hadn't had the headspace to eat, he choked down. By the time all that was done, the clock was pushing toward 11 a.m.

'Alright, now….'

The day he'd repeated countless times was rolling along in exactly the same way today. Because Hajin still hadn't made a single new choice to change it.

'So there's… about an hour left.'

Yugeon — whom he'd conspired with Siwoo to lock into a room to cool off — always packed his bags and slipped out of the dorm right around that time, whenever his push to drop out didn't land. That was when it was lunchtime and the trainees and staff had all cleared out.

What do I do with an hour.

Would an hour from now even come?

What if somebody did something and everything went off script?

And what if that meant regressing again?

Once a thought started, it bred more thoughts, each biting the tail of the last like a chain until they'd taken over his head. Coiled like snakes, those thoughts had turned into shackles, wrapping around Hajin's body and clamping tight.

Why that particular line came to him right at that moment, he had no idea.

—My grandma used to say. When you're so scared from thinking too much, that's when you just stop thinking.

But who had said that again? No — before that, was it even possible to not think?

Hajin was someone who had to think, endlessly. Someone who lived by understanding everything, worrying it over, calling it up. Which was why the situation right now was unbearably hard. There was just too much he had to keep hauling up.

'When… when did I stop thinking, before?'

Hajin thought again.

Then — in the countless days he'd repeated over and over — the moments he'd shaken off stray thoughts most easily came back to him.

Hajin stood up and headed somewhere.

"……"

He'd arrived at one of the 5th-floor practice rooms.

〈!Knock before entering! (※Especially Doha-hyung※)〉

〈♥Welcome to the Candy Crush team's love-filled practice room♥〉

Above the door, incongruously cutesy handwriting filled a piece of paper. Hajin knocked.

Three good raps: tap tap tap.

Immediately, the sound of someone running to the door came from inside.

"Who is—? Huh? Hajin-hyung?"

"Haru-yah."

"Yeah?"

"Say something funny. Hyung's depressed."

Banging on the practice-room door and demanding a funny story out of nowhere — that was Hajin, and it had Haru blinking his round eyes. What, who is it? Taehyun came out behind him and walked up to the two of them.

"Hajin-hyung just told me to make him laugh!"

"What? …aigoo. I don't even need to look. Come in first."

Taehyun — who'd already gotten the gist of things from Eunchan and Yugeon — pulled Hajin into the practice room. Practice had been in full swing inside; the trainees on Taehyun and Haru's team greeted Hajin.

"Guys, let's show Hajin-hyung our stage. That okay?"

"Whoa, seriously? Hajin-hyung's scary though."

"Heee? Hajin scary desuka?"

"No way! What if Hajin-hyung's a spy!"

Just as Hajin had figured, Taehyun's Room 2 team was loud and lively across the board. Hajin, tugged along by Taehyun's hand, was seated with his back to the practice-room mirror. The touch of that cool — no, cold — surface against his back somehow made him feel alive.

The stage Candy Crush had put together was surprisingly fun and cute. Maybe they'd wanted to lean into having the youngest average age of any team, because sweet, refreshing energy poured out of every section.

'Our team's stage is fun too, though.'

Watching them, he thought back to the stage they'd been preparing.

The choreo Wonho had finished with Yugeon's help was, even to Hajin's eyes, impressive.

Doha and Yugeon's rap was starting to lock in, and for trainees who still felt awkward with sexy, Yugeon's instinctive, feral gestures made a great textbook. Above all — Yugeon in the center, choker on, pouring out intense energy — he looked good out there.

"……"

While he was lost in thought, Candy Crush's song ended.

Panting, catching their breath, the little chicks watched Hajin with eyes that held both hope and dread. We did good, right? We were good, right? — pride mixed with worry over the razor-sharp feedback Hajin had been dishing out since the B-team days.

Hajin took in each trainee's expression, then rose from his seat.

"Hajin-hyung! What did you think?"

Haru asked with sparkling eyes, wagging a tail that wasn't there.

The corners of Hajin's mouth lifted in a pretty curve.

"Nicely done. You'll take first, kids."

"……!"

"Whoa. Thank you!"

"…if you weren't up against our team."

"……!!!"

Aw, hyung!

At Jaeyoung's aggrieved voice, Hajin slipped back into his usual mischievous face and gave his neatly-groomed eyebrows a small waggle.

"Get salty and show off your abs like~ us."

"How are we supposed to show abs with our concept!"

"Wait, you're doing abs? This is a scam! Foul!"

"He really was a spy after all! Watching our stage and leaving — that's low, hyung!"

Casually ignoring the noisy reactions coming his way, Hajin walked out of the practice room without saying goodbye. As he made his slow way back toward the dorm wing at a lazy pace, the timing landed about right.

Hajin took familiar steps toward the emergency stairwell.

Wheels rattled — a rolling suitcase.

Last time, that sound had made Hajin snap and lunge at Yugeon, and he'd ended up tumbling down the stairs. Because the regression hadn't kicked in right away, he'd had to nurse a hairline fracture in his shin for a few hours.

Those things were, of course, all gone now.

"On your way out?"

"…ah."

Yugeon — sneaking down the stairs with his suitcase — flinched at Hajin's voice and stepped back. The move nearly sent the suitcase, which had slipped from his hand, tumbling down the stairs, but Hajin smoothly caught the handle and set it upright.

"…I'm sorry to you hyungs. I'll be sorry about this for the rest of my life."

Hajin hadn't even said anything yet, and Yugeon was leading with an apology.

Now, for the first time, Hajin saw it.

For however many times he'd done this — Yugeon's first word had always been 'sorry.'

…only now did he see it.

"Yugeon-ah."

"……?"

"Before you go — have a meal with me. Just one."

That was why Hajin had decided, this time, to try a choice that would change today.

---

"……"

"……"

The silence wasn't awkward for Yugeon. The situation was.

Me and this hyung? Alone? Having a meal? Jeyuk-baekban, of all things?

"What. You don't like jeyuk?"

"Ah, no. I'm not picky."

"Eat up. You'll need some fuel to drag that thing all the way home."

Hajin gestured with his chin at the suitcase beside Yugeon.

What is this? Is he screwing with me?

But for that, Hajin's face was remarkably relaxed. He layered lettuce, perilla leaf, and pickled radish, wrapped it into one massive bite, and threw it in his mouth with real skill. He ate so ravenously that even Yugeon — who hadn't had an appetite since the episode 3 broadcast — found himself getting hungry just watching him.

'…if someone's buying you food, only an idiot doesn't eat.'

Unable to hold out against Hajin's one-bite-wrap offensive, Yugeon naturally picked up his own chopsticks to follow. He was about to just grab a big piece of meat and pop it in his mouth — no vegetables for him — when in a blink a perilla leaf had draped itself over the meat. Snapping to, he realized he'd become the sort of guy who eats his meat wrapped in a perilla leaf.

"……?"

"Wrap it, punk. It'll digest better that way."

"You worried about my stomach right now?"

"You take digestive meds all the time. Because your digestion sucks."

For a line delivered while calmly scooping doenjang stew into his mouth, it sounded a lot like someone who'd been watching Yugeon closely as a matter of habit.

As Yugeon watched him with a 'what is with this hyung' face, Hajin dipped a cucumber slice in ssamjang, crunched into it, and let out a small laugh.

"Then who did you think was leaving the pain relief patches and digestive meds in our practice room every day?"

"That was the manager-hyung, wasn't it…. Ah."

The New Talent Development staffer in charge of Yugeon and Blue Flare had been fired in the aftermath of the last incident.

For now another staffer was covering both the Candy Crush team and Blue Flare, but the fact that Yugeon sometimes asked for digestive meds after meals was something only that fired staffer had known.

"So you were the one leaving those, hyung? Why?"

"Siwoo-hyung told me to."

"Huh?"

"Siwoo-hyung knew. That you take digestive meds sometimes, and that you always spray on the pain patches before practice. Saw it during the special-class and A-team missions."

"……"

That was unexpected too.

The way Yugeon saw it, Jung Siwoo was the trainee on his team least likely to have any interest in him. No — if Siwoo just didn't hate him, that'd be a win. Yugeon knew perfectly well that because of him, ugly things had ended up sticking to Siwoo too.

That Siwoo — that Siwoo, of all people — had known Yugeon's habits and even asked Hajin to look out for him hit Yugeon fresh.

"Ever… ever done any part-time work?"

"Part-time? Why now?"

"I did a barbecue place. You ever done a barbecue place?"

"…are you seriously flexing your part-time résumé at the reigning part-time champion of the era?"

The tension in Yugeon's shoulders — braced for whatever line Hajin was about to use to try to talk him around — went slack.

What was going on? Had he really come out just to grab a last meal with him?

In a way it was nice, in another it was a little disappointing. Still, since Yugeon had nothing to offer to any pitch about staying on the team, this kind of conversation was easier for him.

Once the flow got going, it just rolled.

Hajin had an exceptional knack for drawing out all sorts of conversation without putting the other person on guard.

And in truth, Yugeon wasn't the type who disliked talking to people. It was just that everyone had been intimidated by Yugeon's face and pre-emptively decided not to strike up a conversation with him.

"All done."

"Sure am."

"Wrapping it makes it taste better, right?"

Hajin ended up wrapping every last piece of meat for him while Yugeon polished off two bowls of rice.

At that point Yugeon could easily have started wrapping a few pieces himself — but Yugeon, being Yugeon, had dug his heels in and kept doggedly picking at plain meat until it ended up this way.

'Slipping vegetables onto the meat so I'll eat them. Even my baby tigers grew out of that by elementary school.'

Thinking of his younger siblings (Yuho and Yurang), Yugeon's movements slowed.

Once he'd had a solid meal and set the complicated stuff aside for a minute to talk about ordinary things, the practical realities finally started coming back into focus.

'If I quit the show… the appearance fee gets cut in half, huh. And I'll have to leave the agency, so living expenses too…. Maybe dropping school really is the move? Should've held onto the convenience-store shift. Gotta call the manager back—'

As the worries closed in on him, one after another, his vision went dark.

But at this point, walking back and saying he'd changed his mind wasn't easy either.

He still had no intention of debuting, reality was still grinding him down, and he had no confidence he wouldn't keep letting that same attitude show going forward.

'These hyungs, too… what they've got a problem with is the hole I'd leave — not that they need me.'

Everyone on that team was talented — he was sure they'd patch a hole his size soon enough. Right now they were only holding onto him because they felt cornered over how to fill it — once they actually ran a practice with five, they'd probably think it was for the best.

Hajin spoke up right as those thoughts were curling up around Yugeon and starting to gnaw at him.

"Yugeon-ah."

Was he going to tell him not to quit again? To cut the irresponsible talk and get back to his spot and practice?

The truth was, Hajin had never actually said any of that to him — but somehow, Yugeon found himself a little afraid of whatever was about to come out of Hajin's mouth.

"Wouldn't it be a waste?"

"……?"

"If you really quit here — wouldn't it be a waste? Our stage?"

"……"

But against his fears —

"I'd hate to waste it. Our stage."

The words Hajin offered him, and the voice they came in, were warm and gentle.

Maybe exactly the comfort Yugeon had needed most.