Chapter 107

Because there was practically nothing around the studio where the recording was being held, the three of them had to walk about twenty minutes out to the area near the station.

Squishy Bear's determination to buy the coffee was so fierce that Soda and Gwajam had no choice but to let the maknae pay for the drinks. Still, feeling weird about mooching off an eighteen-year-old, they both went with the cheapest options — an iced tea and an iced Americano.

"Whoa, Gwajam, you brought your camera?"

The second they got their drinks and sat down, Gwajam pulled a camera, a lens, and a memory card out of her bag. Laying each piece of gear out and starting to prep it, Gwajam nodded.

"Yeah. I've got a feeling. Our Hajin's gonna serve legendary today, I can tell."

Gwajam had been a born-to-shoot fansite from the moment Miro Maze's first profile photos dropped, going all-in on Kang Hajin. Since there'd been no official schedule to attend so far, she'd only been able to stan from her room, but….

But today — audience seat won, first in-person sighting finally on the table — there was no reason not to bring the camera.

"When I checked earlier, looks like the same security team from the 'Star Care 119' audience is running it today. I saw one of the guys from back then. They don't do intense bag checks, so I think we're good."

Carefully wiping the lens and tucking it into its case, Gwajam clicked through the DSLR body and turned the LCD monitor toward Squishy Bear and Soda.

"Check this out. The kids arriving this morning — I got these before you guys showed up."

"No way. Their morning arrival? You saw them?!"

"Yep. They came super early — I watched them come in, and since there weren't many people around, I just went back to my room and rested for a bit. Then Squishy texted saying she'd arrived, so I came back out."

"You really are something, unnie."

"Taking a semester off and pulling two part-time jobs — why do you think? Just so I can luxuriously soak up hot-people-serving k-pop, that's why."

"Unnie, do you stan girl groups too?"

"Yeah. But right now I don't have anyone specific…. I just hit up offline events for whichever unnies catch my eye at the moment."

Soda made an awed noise at that and shook her head like Gwajam was on another level.

Though for someone doing the awing, she conveniently forgot that she herself had been up until 3 a.m. editing Lee Doha gifs and had blitzed the assignment due today in a thirty-minute cram on the way over.

"Whoa, I knew you were good, but you're really good…."

Soda and Squishy Bear oohed and aahed, flipping through the arrival previews Gwajam had shot, one by one.

The trainees, bare-faced and in street clothes, still a little rumpled as they climbed out of the car and headed into the studio, had been caught in natural light — fresh and clear-eyed.

"Got some of Doha too — want the data?"

"No, no. Running the gif account alone is already…. Ah, or wait? Should I just grab them just in case?"

"Here she goes again."

"Just take the files for now. Keep them for personal use, whatever. I'll send them over back at the room later."

"Haa…. thanks. I'll give you the Hajin gifs I made for warm-up work. Fair trade."

"Unnie, any Siwoo?"

"Nah. Couldn't get Siwoo. Looks like they came in split across a bunch of cars. Either way early or late — didn't catch him. I'll grab a few shots during the stage instead, though."

Headcount done — from here on, it was pure wait mode.

The three of them settled in for a serious gab session.

"When are we eating lunch?"

"The shoot's at 4…. Eat too early and you'll be starving. Snack on something here, then head out around 1?"

"Yes, yes. Now spill. What were the kids like in person?"

"Guys, they're actual lunatics. You're gonna pass out today, for real."

Gwajam pressed a hand to her forehead like she was dizzy again just thinking about it and threw back her iced Americano. Genuine enough about it that she crunched through a piece of ice too. Then, flipping through her camera gallery, she pulled up one of the arrival shots.

"First — this. What Hajin and Doha wore in this morning."

"Damn. Doha in sweats — I'm dying."

"Wow. The physicality's insane, seriously. Doha, you could tell me he's an athlete and I'd buy it."

"Hajin, though…. He kind of dresses well, in a sneaky way. You know what I mean."

"A guy in a denim jacket and beige chinos coming to work at the crack of dawn? Just — I like him. I very much like him."

"Kind of like they're both PE majors, but Doha does a lot of practicals so he's mostly in training gear, and Hajin runs the class rep stuff so he has to be seen more, so he goes a little campus look."

Different ults or not, the trainees each of them had scooped into her basket pretty much overlapped. Sometimes, even liking the same trainee, differences in what specifically wrecked them or how they read the character would spark a clash. But there was a reason the three of them had lasted so long as fandom friends: their taste and their stan sweet spots ran almost astonishingly parallel.

"Ah, actually — I've got something to say."

After a long stretch on Doha, Wonho, and Siwoo, Gwajam laced her fingers together with the solemn face of someone about to make a major announcement.

"I've decided to take Yugeon in."

"No way, girl."

"For real? Unnie — honestly, same. I took him in a while back."

"Not ult-tier, but if he debuts with our Hajin, I could definitely look at him with loving eyes."

Gwajam's 'kid-into-my-basket bar' was, and had always been, purely passion, guts, and skill. Gwajam, taking Yugeon in? The two of them stared at her in shock.

"What? What? Something happened earlier, didn't it."

"Ugh…. no, just hear me out. I said the kids came in split across a bunch of cars, right."

Gwajam launched into the story, face dead serious.

"So two cars came in first. Out of the first car came Taehyun, Haru, and… who was it. Anyway, the maknae line. And it was literally kindergartners with their teacher. Seo Taehyun herding his little dongsaengs into a line and taking them in was the cutest thing. Wait, that's not the point."

"Save Seo Taehyun for later, later. So — go on, go on."

That was fangirl storytelling: too much to say, always. Without self-skipping or steering, whatever you'd actually meant to get to would inevitably run out of clock.

Grabbing her focus again, Gwajam picked the story back up.

"Anyway. So the maknae line played with us for a bit, took the letters and slogans and headed in, right? Then the next car pulls up, and this time it's the older kids. Hajin, Doha, Eunchan, Yugeon…."

"Wait, sorry to interrupt, but doesn't that mean they messed up the car split? First car sounds like they had room to lie down, second car sounds like they came in crammed on top of each other."

"Yeah, that's why the second car was a bigger one. Anyway — just listen for a sec."

"Okay, okay. Zipping it."

At Gwajam's mild scolding, Soda nodded, contrite.

"Okay so — first shock: Yugeon and the guys look way tighter than I expected. With Wonho especially — like, straight-up best-friend vibes."

"Oh, really?"

"Right?! That controversy was such a hit job, I told you! Way past a malicious edit."

Squishy Bear, who — since the unnies didn't seem to like Yugeon — hadn't been showing it, but who'd secretly had him in her own basket for a while, got heated. From back when the very first Yugeon attitude controversy dropped, Squishy Bear had been diligently posting clarification threads about him.

"So the kids are all heading inside together, and we were screaming, obviously, right? And apparently there was a Yugeon fan in our group. Somebody just full-lungs yelled Yugeon's stage is always a blast!"

"Oh no. I want to cry."

"But Yugeon was walking up front so he didn't hear it. Hajin was talking to a security guard, though, and he was in the back, so he did."

"That's insane too. Kang Hajin, what is he, a village puppy? Now he's chit-chatting with the security guard at the studio too."

Even though Hajin had come into Miro later than any of the other trainees, he'd shown himself on the broadcast getting along easily with basically everyone, and the Destis had taken to calling him "Class Rep Kang."

He especially had good chemistry with the maknae-line trainees; in nearly every Miro Maze scene, Hajin was locked onto one of the younger kids. Whether he was the one holding onto them or they were the ones tackling him for kicks, the picture of him effortlessly playing along was turning him — in a lot of Destis' heads — into a moe-fied, sociable big-breed puppy.

"So Hajin looked over toward us for a while, then took off running. What? Are we late? was my first thought — but then he comes back out with Yugeon. …ah, hold on."

"Are you crying? Wait, are you seriously crying right now?"

"Unnie, are you crying?"

"Ugh, thinking about it just now got to me."

Apparently the moment had come back to her — Gwajam's throat had thickened. Her face looking genuinely choked up threw Soda and Squishy Bear more than the story had.

"No, seriously — you'll cry when you hear this too. So he comes out with Yugeon, and…. he's smiling this really pretty smile, going, this is the stage you all protected, so please enjoy it! I've been having fun lately. And then he and Hajin both did 90-degree bows and made eye contact with each of us before going in."

"That's crazy."

"Wait, so — he already knew? He said it knowing?"

"Yeah, the vibe was that. When they were heading in, the other kids were kind of — mindful of Yugeon? That kind of feel too…. Anyway, I saw that and I took him in. If he'd been all beaten down and gloomy, I don't know, but that was a proper unbothered rakish grin. And put him next to Hajin — the visual match wasn't half bad either."

Gwajam's eyes turned damp. There was no need to hear anything more.

Her eyes were already Psyche's, the moment she lit the lamp at midnight and looked on the face of her husband Eros. Meaning: full of love.

"Yeah? Ah, should I take Yugeon in too…?"

"Unnie. I said, do Yugeon together with me."

"How did you even watch two episodes and end up locking in on Siwoo AND Yugeon. You're hardcore."

"Visual main vocal plus edgy swaggy main dancer? Unnie, this is a love the instincts dictate."

Soda mulled over what Gwajam and Squishy Bear had said for a beat.

'Sure, the controversy being a hit job — that part's real…. But him coming across as unmotivated and not being able to sing, those are still facts, no?'

Public opinion had flipped in an instant once Yugeon's family situation came out, and it was true that even Soda felt bad about having misjudged him. But bad enough to hand him the immediate get-out-of-hate-free card?

'Not sure about that…. Well, not that I plan on saying so.'

There was no need to relitigate Yugeon in this mood.

Even without her saying anything, the shield woven out of pity and sympathy was a flimsy one, and how the public would remember Yugeon once it lifted was entirely on him.

Time would tell in the end.

'Still, please, please don't let today's stage put him on the same team as Doha or Hajin.'

Soda wanted Yugeon to win the public over on nothing but his own merit — but she didn't want her ults' stages to be the proving ground for it. This was her first time seeing Doha and Hajin on stage in person, and the last thing she wanted was to be pulled away from focusing on just the two of them.

'Ugh, I can't wait to see the kids!'

Soda bounced on her heels, expectation and worry all tangled together.