Chapter 137

When Hajin slowly turned his head, the one looking back at him with a what on earth is this kid? expression was — fortunately — Siwoo.

"Ha, holy shit…. thank you…."

"Every time you do this, I really don't know what to do with you."

Wake the guy up with a tap and he startles loud enough you'd think he'd seen a ghost. Then, in the next breath, turns around, grabs your hands, and starts thanking you.

Siwoo let out a small laugh at Hajin, who really was impossible to predict, and slipped his hands free.

Then he glanced at the clock, checked on Haru and Seok — who still didn't look like they were going to wake up any time soon — and cocked his head at Hajin in a let's step out gesture.

"I'm gonna run to the convenience store for a coffee. Was wondering if you wanted to come."

"Convenience store? Uh, well…."

At the sudden outing invitation, Hajin worked the stiff muscles in his neck for a moment and thought.

Ah, convenience store at this hour of the morning… dangerous.

Not physically dangerous. Psychologically dangerous.

A pleasantly cool night breeze, quiet streets after dark, the leisurely rhythm of feet padding along.

With all three of those elements clicking cleanly into place, the mouth of an F-type human like Hajin (51% F is still F) tended to run itself indefinitely loose.

I'm the kind of person who, if the silence gets awkward, will grab at any topic that comes to hand and end up disclosing exactly how many chopsticks are in my family's kitchen drawer.

Get talking like that, and out slipped the other person's secret you'd regret knowing, the acquaintance's love life that got interesting the moment you heard it, and the seriously infuriating stuff being said behind your back that you'd rather have never found out about…..

…wait. Isn't that actually a good thing?

Played right, wasn't this a chance to hear even this iron-fortress of a hyung's buried thoughts?

Dan Haru had rocketed up as a Selreg candidate, sure, but the need to know more about Siwoo was still there.

He wanted to cut down on variables the way he hadn't been able to with Yugeon, and — for someone as good as guaranteed a debut spot as Siwoo — he couldn't keep finding him this hard forever.

And….

If we get to talking, maybe I can ask a little about Seok-hyung too.

Even without Thirteen saying anything, Hajin was plenty worried about what was going on between those two.

If you got right down to it, he was essentially the one who'd made them do this endlessly competitive survival show in the first place.

Their stress wasn't entirely down to Miro Maze, sure, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that he'd saddled them with pressure and strain they otherwise wouldn't have had to carry.

title: Sudden Quest! The foundation of any idol group is teamwork! Take some time to shake off the uncomfortable feelings between teammates, and hear what's really on each other's minds. Who knows — it might even turn into a chance to look back on your own heart, too? reward: — Beautiful harmony from perfect chemistry between teammates ♬ — Unexpected good fortune ^♡^ — Unconscious Space entry side-effect offset ×1 penalty: — Morale drop from teammate discord ㅠㅁㅠ

As if he'd caught wind of Hajin's inner tug-of-war, Thirteen — who'd gone dark on him — popped right back up with a carrot in hand.

I think this every time — no matter how you slice it, this kid is running an idol-raising sim with me as the character.

Still, judging that rewards at this level were no loss, Hajin quickly took Siwoo up on the offer.

"Sounds good. Let's go."

"…why so grimly determined about it?"

Jung Siwoo made a slightly put-off face, but Kang Hajin, unbothered, let ambition light up his eyes.

Tonight, using every last bit of this pre-dawn atmosphere as leverage — he was going to shake this hyung down clean!

---

But the one always getting shaken down was me.

This damn spill-your-guts reflex of mine — that's the whole problem.

Slumped on a white plastic chair outside the convenience store, Hajin gripped his head and drowned in self-loathing.

Over the walk from the dorm to the convenience store, Hajin had — from an anecdote about his elementary-school days to the most recent movie he'd genuinely enjoyed —

been shaken! completely! down!

And on his own initiative, too!

"Here."

"Oh, thanks."

Siwoo came out of the store carrying two cup ramyeon with a hotbar stuck into each. Hajin took one of the cups, snapped his disposable chopsticks apart, and immediately lifted the lid to loosen the noodles.

"…you literally just poured the water in."

"Ah, I can't stand the noodles getting soggy."

"Pretty extreme taste, that."

Hajin slurped down a mouthful of the barely-loosened noodles in the hot broth.

Siwoo watched Hajin tuck into noodles that were less undercooked than outright crunchy like they were the best thing he'd ever eaten, and let out another I-can't-figure-you-out laugh.

Then he pulled out his phone and held it up for Hajin to see a photo.

The whole reason he'd dragged Hajin out on the excuse of a coffee run, then gotten the two of them eating cup ramyeon at this hour on the excuse of being a little hungry.

Hajin took another bite of ramyeon and looked at the phone screen.

A single sheet of old-looking sheet music, scanned.

"What's this?"

"A candidate I want to use for our mashup — but that I've been going back and forth on."

"Oh. It looks handwritten, though — don't tell me you wrote this, hyung-nim?"

"No. My father wrote it."

"Puh—! Guh, kkuh!"

"Every time, it's some point I don't expect that catches you off guard."

You're the one always catching me off guard at unexpected points, hyung-nim.

With no idea what was coming, Hajin — who'd been happily gulping down the sports drink he'd picked up with the ramyeon — sprayed it right back out, and took the handkerchief Siwoo held out.

And got surprised again.

"…you carry a handkerchief around?"

"Ah, {habit."}(#44p621io4379)

Answering it lightly, Siwoo tapped his phone on the outdoor table again.

"My father was an unknown singer. This is one of the songs he wrote back in the day. Just happens to fit our piece really well."

"Ah…. I, I see."

And Hajin — who already knew this same father had died of illness four years ago — somehow couldn't bring himself to look up. He just kept his eyes fixed on the phone on the table and ducked his head lower.

"Honestly, this song came to mind the second you first brought up the mashup idea…. I've just been a little stuck on it."

"On what?"

"…I don't want to reveal it's my father's song. I don't especially want to talk about my father on air, either."

"Ah."

Hajin gave a small nod as if he understood. Eyes still on the old sheet music on the phone screen.

He hadn't actually played it, but running his eyes over the notes to rough out the melody in his head and humming the lyrics under his breath — the song really did seem to fit this round's theme.

"The lyrics are lovely. …tender."

"I like the lyrics too. It's a letter he wrote to me — told me to open it any time life felt hard to get through. Which is why I thought it might fit our theme even better, and why I wanted to ask what you thought."

"I — mean, I like it. But hyung-nim, are you okay with this?"

"With you saying you like it, now I'm even more torn."

The thin smile still at his mouth, Siwoo — a trace of loneliness in his face — gazed off somewhere far. The wistful cast of his eyes and the soft ruffle of his hair in the faint night breeze made you forget it was early summer.

Hajin set the disposable chopsticks in his hand down and, watching Siwoo's mood carefully, asked cautiously.

"…can I ask? Why don't you want it known that it's your father's song?"

As if he were taking in the cool breeze fully, Siwoo was silent for a moment.

Then, taking off the ball cap he'd pulled down low on the way out — worried someone might see him — he set it on the table and opened his mouth.

"Well, you can probably guess — it's not a fun story."

"If it's hard to talk about, you don't have to."

"Nah, it isn't the kind of secret or complicated story either. …just borrowing a mood like this to say it out loud once, I guess."

Or maybe I actually wanted a mood like this to lean on so I could say it.

Hajin diplomatically pretended not to hear Siwoo's small mutter and waited for what came next.

Along, of course, with the sentimental thought that anyway — all of this was on that damn spill-your-guts reflex.

"You know my mother's a pianist, right?"

"How could I not."

"It's an obvious story. Famous-pianist wife, unknown-singer husband. The wife was too remarkable, the husband had been tired too long. My father hated the version of himself that shrank in front of my mother, and my mother said it tore her up to see the man she loved shrinking because of her."

"……."

"In the end, a marriage made in blessings went bust after twelve years. The son who got left behind followed the money and went with his mother… but in the end, chose not my mother's piano, but my father's acoustic guitar."

Siwoo laid out his own story with total composure, like he was telling somebody else's.

A story with a lot of things left out — but even from that alone, Hajin could understand why Siwoo didn't want to talk about his father on air.

This is prime material for reporters to spin fiction out of.

Just off the single fact that his father had been an "unknown singer," people were going to have all kinds of things to yammer about.

Hajin fully understood Siwoo's dilemma.

And why, exactly, he'd brought his father's story to him now.

Guessing at that intention, Hajin drummed his fingers on the table and carefully picked his words.

Siwoo brushed his fingertips along the ball cap and shrugged.

"So — I'm a little stuck."

"…what if you just said you wrote it? It looks like an unreleased piece."

"I thought about that too. But that also doesn't sit right in its own way. This is the one unreleased song out of everything my father had. His other songs never really hit either, but…."

This might be the one chance one of my father's songs ever gets to go on air — to actually be heard by people.

At the added line, Hajin let out a deep sigh too.

He could suggest looking for another song, sure, but Siwoo's heart already seemed to be leaning toward wanting to use this one.

"Then — how about we ask the other teammates in the morning first, before deciding? Before recording starts."

"Ask the others?"

"I like this song, but Haru or Seok might have picked out other songs too. I'll think about it more tonight on my end — how to use this in a way that won't reflect badly on your father's name."

At Hajin saying he'd think it over together with him, Siwoo — expression a little more relaxed now — nodded that he understood.

"Hyung, though — can you sing a little of the chorus for me? The song looks good just from the sheet, but."

"I'll do it properly tomorrow with the guitar. It's been a while, so it's hazy for me too."

"So — you learned guitar from your father?"

"Mm. And how'd you end up learning piano?"

"When you're on a church praise team, you pick up the basics of most instruments."

The conversation continued in a much easier mood.

They talked about each other for a while longer like that, and around the point when Siwoo, too, gave himself over to the pre-dawn atmosphere and leaned back in his chair —

Hajin carefully broached it.

"…hyung. Can I ask one thing?"

"Yeah. Go ahead."

"Seok-hyung…. is he really that uncomfortable for you?"

It was a question that was going to stretch this pre-dawn a fair bit longer.