17. The Most Effective Way to Defuse a Bomb (2)

Ji Suho pulled off the impressive feat of making it to our meeting spot in thirty minutes. For someone who'd hung up on me so abruptly, he came over pretty politely, then said through gritted teeth:

"What the hell was all that, out of nowhere…?"

"You asked what was going on. I just gave you the facts."

"I nearly had a heart attack thinking someone else at the office might've heard."

Always felt this — for a guy carrying the title Guardian Spirit of Miro, he was surprisingly soft.

Right now I was at a nearby burger place, eating a combo meal with Ji Suho, who really had come running the second we'd hung up. Is it okay for an idol trainee to eat this? — I'd hesitated for a beat, but faced with the savory smell of the fries, the hesitation lasted about a second.

Eh. If it bugs me, I'll just do ten laps around the field before bed.

"Head of Department, promotion — where's all this pie-in-the-sky stuff coming from?"

To Ji Suho — sitting there with those wide rabbit eyes, still totally lost — I laid out everything I'd dug up, start to finish. The brazen things the Head of Department was pulling, the abuse he was piling on the trainees. Just in case, I kept Ju Eunchan's and Dan Haru's names out of it.

"…I had absolutely no idea."

"Well, you've been on Enderway from the start, Team Lead Ji."

"Still — being at the company all this time and having no idea…"

Ji Suho clenched his teeth, looking genuinely sick about it.

"Anyway. I'm thinking of taking this chance to cut the Head of Department out of Miro entirely."

"How? It won't be easy. He may be treated inside the company like his line's been cut now, but he's still one of the founders."

"……"

"People say he's lost his touch, sure, but plenty still say his eye for trainee talent is as sharp as ever."

Problem is, he uses that fine eye to pick out which trainees to swindle.

I picked out the longest, crispest-looking fry, dunked it deep into my milkshake, and shrugged.

"Team Lead Ji."

"Yes."

"Know the fastest way to defuse a bomb?"

The fry I'd taken a bite out of dropped back into the milkshake. A little of the half-melted shake splashed up.

"Blow it up. That's the surest way. No worry about it going off later, no worry about botching the removal."

"…That's not exactly safe."

"Then what's the safest way to blow up a bomb?"

Isn't the moment you blow it up already unsafe? Whether Ji Suho was saying that with his eyes or not, I kept going.

"You get the guy who planted it to blow it up."

"That's not remotely safe."

"I'm safe."

"……"

"It's not on me to worry about the wellbeing of a Head of Department who preys on minors."

Whoever planted it should be the one to clean it up. At my softly smiling delivery, Ji Suho went stiff. Was that really what that saying meant?

"So what are you actually planning to do?"

Curious in spite of himself, Ji Suho asked, wearing a face that clearly said he had no idea where I was going with this.

Naturally, I'd come prepared for that. I slid over the stack of A4 pages I'd had tucked into a folder next to me.

"What is this?"

"Read it."

"…He Who Would Reach the Sun, Take Flight?"

"Below that, too."

"Working title: In Search of Miro's Icarus? This is?"

To Ji Suho — dumbfounded, flipping through to the last page in seconds — I threw a bright, straight-down-the-middle fastball.

"A survival show. An in-house survival that decides Miro's next boy group."

Who's qualified to debut? Who could ever actually decide that?

But the public can. And with Miro's die-hard fans — locked into full-on 'agency loyalty' thanks to every boy group having a clear concept and steady demand — there's even less reason not to.

"That's the pitch you'll be bringing to the CEO at the next meeting, Team Lead Ji."

"A new Miro survival show!? With what money?"

"Ah, all handled. Flip to page eight, would you?"

At my prompt, Ji Suho flipped to page eight as if in a trance. On it were the contact details for a handful of investment firms already interested in the proposal, big brands open to sponsorship, and broadcast-station PDs and outside production houses who could run the whole thing.

"I did some broadcasting work back in my first life."

"You said you were an idol trainee?"

"That was just briefly in my teens. Bailed pretty fast and went looking for a real living."

"Didn't you also say you worked at an agency?"

"That was during a college leave of absence, just for a bit."

Ji Suho thought a moment, then asked seriously,

"…is there anything you haven't done?"

"Hmm. Idol?"

At my breezy answer, Ji Suho — apparently taking that as reasonable — turned back to skim through my proposal one more time.

Watching him read and reread was making me tense. Like I was waiting for a sign-off.

"The Head of Department has zero interest in the next debut group anyway. If anything, he's hell-bent on pulling all the decent kids out before the debut group even gets decided. So — let's play defense before he can pull any moves."

"A survival show… is defense?"

"You're not going to debut every current trainee anyway. And frankly, the way things are right now, the kids who didn't make it into the special class don't even get a shot."

Sure, in-house survivals sometimes had the winner locked in ahead of time, but the whole point of a survival was still, first and foremost, 'getting on TV.'

Get cut from a debut group in-house and nobody remembers your dream — but get on TV, and it's a different story.

"Even if you don't debut, you at least get your face out there in front of all those K-pop wanderers desperate for the next new act."

Just show your potential and the opportunities can go anywhere — from a stronger position at your own agency to offers from other companies.

So this was the 'fair chance for everyone' I'd promised Ju Eunchan.

"The proposal aside — how'd you land these investors?"

"That's a trade secret."

Ji Suho looked like he was dying to know how I'd pulled off the investment offers, but I had trade secrets of my own.

"Knowing gets you hurt."

"It's not illegal, right?"

"…No. For now."

In any case, no one was actually cutting checks — just expressing interest. Better to save the finer details for after the proposal actually got greenlit inside Miro.

"I'll review it first. It's not exactly easy to just walk in and pitch, and it'd be Miro's first survival either way."

I wasn't planning to bark 'get this done' at him like he was some foot soldier, so I nodded. One down — next, we needed to hash out the specifics of how to actually blow up the bomb—

Bzzz—

"Ah, sorry. Phone."

"No, all good. I'll keep going through this."

Who's calling now? I checked my phone — and there, right on the screen, was Dan Haru's number, saved not long ago.

'……? I didn't summon this kid?'

I hadn't even recruited him as a companion yet — why the call? A bad feeling shot through my radar. Ah, my gut was always sharp on stuff like this.

"Hello? What is it?"

—Hyung, please help Taehyun-hyung!

"What are you talking about, out of nowhere?"

—Taehyun-hyung's at Rene right now. Sounds like he went after Minseok-hyung and they got into a huge fight!

"What?"

The kitten who'd been out in the rain had finally snapped. Ha, fuck me.

---

"Dan Haru!"

"Hyung…"

"Ah. Chief Jang."

"Meeting again over something like this, Team Lead Ji. Should we step aside for a minute?"

It was my first time in Rene's new building, and sure enough, the meeting room gleamed like a Greek temple.

Of course, the one waiting to greet us on arrival was Rene's Chief Jang Seoyoon. Leaving the messy cleanup to Ji Suho, I stepped into the meeting room where Seo Taehyun was, Dan Haru in tow.

Cherry Boy — the one everyone always went on about for his fresh smile — was sitting in the corner of the meeting room with a face that carried every ounce of the world's rebellion, like every one of those smiles had been a lie.

Watching Seo Taehyun avoid my eyes with a gaze still full of rage, something started to boil up inside me. Looked like there'd been a real fistfight — his always-immaculate face was scraped up.

I'd only seen him a few times — had I gotten attached that fast? Every kind of nagging thought was racing through my head.

You out of your mind? An idol hopeful beating on people? On your day off, when just parking yourself at home marathoning Netplus wouldn't be enough — what the hell? What if you actually debut someday? Are you the kind of guy who beats people up? A thug? Is this what all that gritted-teeth practice has been for?

And out of all those thoughts, the first thing that actually came out of my mouth was this:

"Seo Taehyun."

"……"

"Did you win?"

No, wait, that wasn't it—

"…Hyung?"

"……"

Sparkles, obviously, and even Seo Taehyun looked up at me with round eyes. Honestly, the one most rattled by what I'd just said was me, but there was no walking it back now, so I played it as breezily as I could.

"Don't tell me you lost."

"…I won!"

"Sure. Real thing to brag about, kid."

"……"

One poke and he was already flaring up — this kid was a textbook stormy nineteen. God, teenagers, seriously.

"Good for you, Taehyun. Beating Cha Minseok."

"…Don't be sarcastic. Like you know anything."

Nothing polite was going to come out of a Seo Taehyun this fully committed to being a punk. Dan Haru was watching with a stunned face, like this was his first time seeing this side of Taehyun. But personally, I found this easier to deal with than the forced-smile version.

"Yeah? What don't I know?"

"……"

"Anxiety about getting shoved out of the concept-and-position fight and missing your debut, just like on Boys of the World?"

"The panic that your prime already flared bright and burned out?"

Seo Taehyun met my eyes with a face that said, how did you look inside my head? Chin still propped on my hand, I lined up the next uppercut, in no hurry at all.

"Or if not that — the pure rage at the Head of Department threatening you'll never debut, and at Cha Minseok bailing on you for Rene?"

"…Hyung, don't tell me you heard everything that day?"

"So — what don't I know? Tell me. I'd like to keep it in mind."

Turned out the read I'd pulled by shaking out even past-life memories was dead on — Seo Taehyun bit down on his lip hard enough to turn his whole neck bright red. This kid — seriously, no idea what his own body's worth.

I kicked him in the shin.

"Ow! Are you insane? Why are you kicking someone's leg!?"

"You're an idol trainee, aren't you?"

"……"

"Ease up on your mouth. Scar splits your lip, you gonna Photoshop it out one by one yourself?"

Seo Taehyun's face said 'shit' — he hurried to check his lip, then, catching himself mid-full-rebellion-mode, dropped his hand back down roughly.

"…I'm not debuting anyway. So what if I chew up my lip a little?"

All twisted up, the real feelings Seo Taehyun had finally let out were even more shredded than I'd guessed. Tears must have been welling up — his cracked voice dropped even deeper.

"I'm not debuting anyway. I'm quitting."

Seo Taehyun declared it, face set. It was the complete opposite of what he'd done in his past life.