14. The Trainee Who Refuses to Debut (5)

"Man… why am I already this wiped out…"

"Because you burned it all off teasing Eunchan-hyung."

"……"

We didn't start the real 'bomb-defusing' meeting until a solid two hours after we'd gotten to the house. Since we'd met, we'd been running ourselves ragged in practice nonstop, so I hadn't realized — but I actually seemed to click pretty well with these kids ten years my junior.

'Is that a good thing.'

From the first time I'd regressed until now, I hadn't had many chances to laugh this freely. My head knew this was no time for that, but apparently my body had been chasing bright, cheerful energy on instinct anyway.

"Alright, let's get to the actual business."

"Yeah."

"First off, we need criteria."

"Criteria?"

"Yeah. Criteria. Who to hit first, and how far to take it."

At the line I dropped out of nowhere, Ju Eunchan and Dan Haru — mid-way through picking meat off a piece of chicken — went silent like they'd bitten their tongues.

"What you want — is it kicking out the Head of Department and the plant, or is it a fair debut with no plants?"

"……"

"They might look about the same, but they're actually different. Depending on what the goal is, the means and methods change too — think it through before you answer."

I watched the two of them mull it over. Whatever they said, I was planning to sweep the Head of Department out of the company either way. That was the quest.

'But hunting down the plant is a different story.'

Which was why I had to hear these kids out first. Like it or not, they were joining my Head-of-Department-removal project.

"I…"

Someone finally spoke into the quiet. Ju Eunchan, who'd been fiddling with his cola glass the whole time.

"I just want the people who deserve it to get fair treatment."

"If I don't debut because I'm not good enough, or because I'm not the kind of talent the company's looking for — that's fine with me."

"But someone's dream getting stomped on for any other reason — that's just not right."

God, what an idealistic little speech. But the look on Ju Eunchan's face as he said it was as sincere and serious as it got.

"Taehyun-hyung, too… Taehyun-hyung's the same. He works really hard."

"Seo Taehyun?"

"Taehyun-hyung's nickname is Switch. Because he's the one turning the special-class practice-room lights on and off every day. But he's the one who never gets any of the special-class perks."

"……"

"He can't even get a chance, just because the Head of Department doesn't like him. That's insane, isn't it?"

Hajin had thought that way once too. That there was a world where good crushed evil, where justice won, where karma came back around. That values changed the world, that effort was rewarded.

But the twenty-nine-year-old Kang Hajin knew reality didn't always work that way, and he couldn't easily just tell Ju Eunchan he was right when he was spilling out dreamy words like these. If anything, Hajin tended to dislike idealists like this. The type who dreamed without ever looking at reality — sometimes he found them exasperating, even a little pathetic.

But.

"I just… I want the people who deserve to debut to be the ones who debut. I want to be judged on my own ability, nothing else."

But the twenty-year-old Kang Hajin also dimly knew — sometimes it took 'ideals' like that to keep the world turning the right way.

"…Alright. I hear you."

"……"

"So you're saying your debut doesn't have to be locked in?"

"Right. If the chance is fair, I'm confident I can pull it off."

Having gotten confirmation twice, I finished doing rough math in my head and grabbed some more chicken. Fancy-neighborhood fried chicken — maybe that was why it was still good cold. Dan Haru just stared at me blankly, a face that said 'why is this hyung stopping mid-serious-talk to shovel down a chicken wing,' but honestly, what I'd wanted to cover today was about it.

"…But how are you actually going to do it?"

"Well, still thinking. I'll fill you in once it's more concrete. For today, just give me a bit more intel."

"Intel?"

"A fight is always an information war. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution era, that's what matters most."

"I get that you're being innovative with your jokes, at least."

I was basically asking them to spill some 'dirt.' I hadn't really expected these two — sitting in a vaguely-frozen-out spot among the trainees — to have every last piece of company gossip. The dirt I actually wanted to hear about was something else anyway.

"Why did Cha Minseok end up going to Rene?"

"Ah."

Take Cha Minseok's transfer story, for instance — the one that had been reported to the public as some kind of injury thing.

"We're in the same boat now, right? You've got to tell me everything you can. I need info if I'm going to build a strategy."

"…For the details, honestly your best bet is Taehyun-hyung. We just heard it secondhand ourselves."

Seo Taehyun? The person of interest was back on the board. Cha Minseok and Seo Taehyun — a combination I'd never heard of in any past life.

"Taehyun-hyung only came to Miro because of Minseok-hyung in the first place. Minseok-hyung called him in."

"They knew each other before?"

"I heard they trained at the same academy for a long time. Then Taehyun-hyung went on Boys of the World, and Minseok-hyung signed with Miro."

So how had one of them ended up at Rene locking down center of their next group, while the other got stuck at Miro without so much as a debut?

"Minseok-hyung was originally in the Enderway debut lineup. Then he got pushed to the next group over a back injury… That's why he called Taehyun-hyung in — so they could debut together…"

"Then a plant showed up, the debut lineup got reshuffled, and Cha Minseok booked it to Rene?"

"There's also a story that the Head of Department was the one who hooked Minseok-hyung up with Rene, but either way, only Taehyun-hyung knows the details."

"Dan Haru, if you're going to crash, go brush your teeth {first."}(#vv003j2e8qn4)

"Yeah, okay."

Sleep must have been catching up to him — Dan Haru was nodding off next to me like a sick hen, so I stuck a toothbrush in his hand and sent him off. Huh. This drama's better than I expected.

"After Boys of the World ended, Taehyun-hyung did all sorts of stuff for a while. Event circuits, stage appearances…"

"I bet."

"But after Minseok-hyung went to Rene, all he does is practice. He's in the special class, and he gets none of the perks. Something must have gone down between him and the Head of Department, but he doesn't really want to talk about it."

Ju Eunchan, feeding me info while he rubbed at his eyes, was slowly losing the battle with exhaustion, his words getting slower. Thinking about Seo Taehyun must have brought his mood down again — his eyebrows sank.

"Hey, don't cry. I don't have the energy to comfort you. Go wash up already."

"…Ever since I first got to Miro, Taehyun-hyung's been the one who looked out for me the most."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you two are close."

"But since the concert thing, it's been awkward with him. He says he's fine, but I just feel too embarrassed and pissed off."

"Sure, makes sense. Dan Haru, if you're done brushing, lie down. And you — go splash some cold water on your face already."

"'Kay."

Once Dan Haru came back — teeth thoroughly brushed — I pressed his forehead down onto the futon spread across the living room, and gave Ju Eunchan, who was busy spiraling, a shove with my foot to get up. Ju Eunchan shot me a look that said I was being genuinely awful.

"What. What do you want."

"Hyung, do you actually have no feelings?"

"He said he was fine."

"That's…"

"Don't be sorry so easily."

"……"

"If you keep saying you're sorry, all Seo Taehyun can say is 'it's fine.'"

That was what I'd always hated most. Keeping the rest of it behind my teeth, I gave Ju Eunchan another shove with my foot and got Dan Haru laid out. Ju Eunchan, hearing me, shut his mouth tight and stood up with a thoughtful look on his face. Once he was gone too, the huge living room — where three grown guys stretched out flat still had plenty of room to spare — finally settled into silence.

"…Hyung."

"What."

"…Hyung, you really do seem like an adult."

Dan Haru, whom I'd thought was already asleep buried under the covers, was mumbling quietly like he was talking in his sleep.

"You dissing me for being old?"

"I want to be like you too, hyung."

"Like me how."

"…You just — you seem solid, hyung."

Every time that young voice — the kind that sounded like it hadn't fully broken yet — called me hyung, every one of my lives across every regression came rushing back, and my conscience twinged.

'Come to think of it, this kid should be about nephew-age to me. No, wait — I didn't just get younger on my own, I went back ten years, so more accurately he really would count as being around my age…'

I barely got the brakes on that stray thought and reminded myself. Remember, Kang Hajin. You're twenty, an age that could devour youth itself. Not twenty-nine. Not twenty-nine+α. Twenty — where even the blood boiling in your veins still runs blue.

"This is the first time I've said it out loud… I'm glad I told you, hyung."

"Quit sleep-talking and get to sleep."

"'Kay…"

Once Ju Eunchan came back too — decked out in silk pajamas — the living room lights went out. Watching this kid insist on lying down out here with us when he had a perfectly good bed in his own room, I closed my eyes too.

Maybe thanks to the brutal practice, sleep came almost instantly, even in an unfamiliar place.

---

'These idiots…'

An afternoon with the rain pouring down. Head of Department Son Hyunggu swallowed a curse as he headed for the smoking area.

At today's planning meeting, they'd held a session where everyone submitted anonymous ideas for the next debut group and gave feedback. It was a method the CEO had proposed for flatter, freer brainstorming — everyone submitted a proposal in the same format, then they all read them together, the idea being to draw out more honest opinions.

And today, Head of Department Son's proposal had racked up a whopping thirteen 'no' votes out of fifteen!

'Like they know anything about idol planning? A&R this, A&R that. Not one of them has ever pounded the pavement making an album the way I have.'

Nothing had been going his way lately, and Head of Department Son Hyunggu was slowly getting fed up with all of it. If things had gone according to plan, he should already have a company with his own name on it and be hearing people call him CEO by now. And this was the treatment he got instead?

'I've got to wrap this up before serious prep on the next group kicks in, damn it.'

Irritation topped all the way out, the Head of Department couldn't hold it in and stomped his foot down hard. On a day like this, he had to grab someone — anyone — and take it out on them.

"…Hello, sir."

Someone like, say, a defenseless trainee he happened to run into at an otherwise empty smoking area.

"You smoke?"

"…No, sir. I came to take the trash out."

"Tch, never mind. Wouldn't make any difference now anyway, right?"

Watching Seo Taehyun's stony face bite down on his lip with nothing to say back, the Head of Department felt satisfaction. Flicking Taehyun's sweat-damp bangs aside with a careless finger, he gave a nasty smile.

"As long as I'm at Miro, you're never debuting. You know that, right?"

"……"

"That's what you get for pulling a pointless stunt like that. If you'd just done what I said, none of this would be happening."

"…I'll be going, sir."

"Cha Minseok was smart enough to find his own way out. Unlike you. Idiot."

The moment Cha Minseok's name came up, Seo Taehyun flared — and watching him, the Head of Department felt a faint sense of victory. There'd been a time he'd pulled every string he had to hang onto this kid. Now, three years rotting at Miro with nothing to show for it, Seo Taehyun was a briefly-glowing survival-show star and nothing more, nothing less.

"Keep at it, then."

Deliberately clapping Seo Taehyun's shoulder hard, he set off toward his own smoking spot with a slightly lighter step. All Taehyun could do, left behind, was swallow every bit of that humiliation and gnaw at his lip until it was one bite from splitting.

In his head, the worst moments Taehyun had ever lived through were playing back on their own, over and over.

—Hey, Cha Minseok. What the hell?

—…

—I said what the hell. Are you actually going to Rene?

—Later. Let's talk later.

—Hey!

There are memories that come back stronger the moment you close your eyes. Taehyun forced his eyes wide open, almost defiantly.

His first survival show, three years back, came back to him. The moment the dazzling spotlight had shone on him alone, when a crowd of fans had gone wild for his stage. Every time the thought hit him that that might have been the last moment he'd ever shine, Taehyun genuinely couldn't take it.

"Ah, I have to head up to the practice room."

Don't want to go in.

Don't want to go in.

…I want to run away.

Mid-thought, gnawing at his lip.

"Hey."

"?"

Startled by someone calling him, he snapped his head up — and there was the new trainee Eunchan had introduced him to the other day, soaked in the rain, calling out to him. Why him? Before Taehyun even had time to be alarmed at the thought that this hyung might have caught his whole exchange with the Head of Department—

"You got any cash on you?"

"Sorry?"

Was this a shakedown?