18. The Most Effective Way to Defuse a Bomb (3)

"Seven years. A full seven years I've been doing this."

Something in him seemed to have come unlatched — Seo Taehyun started pouring it all out.

"Even when they crammed me into 'Cherry Boy' and made me kill myself doing the same aegyo, over and over, when I said I wanted to try other songs and they just kept giving me the fresh-and-bubbly stuff — I put up with it. Didn't complain. Getting on stage at all was lucky."

"……"

"And then in the finals, they cut me for being too refreshing. Too fresh. Too kid-like. When they'd never even given me a chance to show anything else."

Boys of the World, probably. I called up the Seo Taehyun I'd watched on Boys of the World in a past life with pretty complicated feelings, and for now just let the kid vent.

"When the Head of Department had me running the event circuit nonstop, I took it. When he had me locked in the practice room while everyone else got to work, I took that too. Because I wanted to debut. Because I had to get on stage."

"If you're that good at taking it, you should've kept taking it a little longer."

"Taking it doesn't change the fact that I'm never going to debut!"

Seo Taehyun burst out, unable to hold his anger in. But whether it was the momentary emotion running away with him or not, he flinched at his own volume and sucked in a breath. Reaching for his lip again — remembering what I'd said — he hesitated, lowered his head, and his voice dropped deep.

"…Sorry. For yelling."

"……"

"I'm just going to quit it all. I'm sick of smiling for other people, reading their faces."

"Hyung, what are you talking about? You can't quit."

Seo Taehyun, swallowing his tears as he spoke, already looked like he'd made up his mind. Only Dan Haru, blindsided into hearing his hyung announce he was quitting, whined like a puppy trying to soothe him.

Meanwhile, I was thinking:

'What is this kid, really.'

Honestly, I'd suspected — very briefly — that this kid might be the Selreg. Of any trainee at Miro, he had the clearest motive to want to regress often, on a short cycle.

'But if he were the Selreg, he'd have just regressed and debuted instead of standing here going on about seven years. Not him.'

Which left option two.

As a companion I needed for a successful debut, was Seo Taehyun a fit? I'd run those numbers too, watching him asleep at the vet's the other day. For buzz alone, he was a guaranteed name.

'But I know his future.'

He doesn't make it. Didn't make it. I felt as bad as anyone that he hadn't — but that was what the past-life data said.

Which left one possibility.

'A bomb to remove. …And that one, unfortunately, was a real possibility.'

An idol trainee, unable to keep his emotions in check before he'd even debuted, had shown up at another agency and gotten into a fistfight with that agency's next boy group's main member.

Boys getting into a scuffle, nobody seriously hurt — you could say what's the big deal — but with an idol involved, that's a different story. If this blew up wrong, or word got around after debut, he'd be written off as a brawler and turned into open season in a matter of hours.

- wow being an idol is a sweet deal huh guy beats people up and still has fans defending him > rightttt lololol zero shame - honestly if it were a female idol she'd be canceled by now. the double standard lol > oh come on don't turn this into a gender thing > he's already getting plenty of hate what more do you want > ^this ngl…lol he's only getting off this easy because he's a male idol > saw ppl saying "boys will be boys, what's the big deal" lolol the defense is insane

'The community reactions were already a nightmare in my head.'

I absolutely had to have a 'successful' debut. If Seo Taehyun was a bomb, I had no reason to go out of my way to stop him from bailing.

And yet — the reason this kid kept nagging at me came down to one thing.

"Seo Taehyun."

"……"

"Why'd you hit Cha Minseok?"

Because the face he was making, saying he couldn't debut, looked exactly like a past-life me who'd given up on everything and buried himself in bed.

"Answer me. Why is somebody who should be at Miro practicing all the way out here beating up Cha Minseok?"

"……"

"Not going to answer?"

"That guy — I didn't hit him."

Depending on this answer, I was planning to decide whether to just let Seo Taehyun get 'removed' or not — but.

"We were talking and it got loud, that's all. A staff noona walking by misunderstood, and it blew up from there."

The hell was that statue?

A pale-white statue with a face that said 'this golden building was built for me' had at some point planted itself in the meeting room doorway, seething. Seriously handsome — and somehow familiar.

"…Minseok-hyung."

Ah. Cha Minseok.

Only when I heard Dan Haru's voice did he match up with the Cha Minseok I'd seen in past lives. A little more clean-cut and low-key than I remembered, Rene's next up-and-coming sculpture walked into the meeting room wearing a distinctly sour face.

Black coat, gray turtleneck pulled up to his chin — Cha Minseok's face was in better shape than I'd expected. No — not a scratch on it.

"What. I heard he beat you up?"

"Quit wasting your time on a kid who doesn't even have the guts to hit anyone."

"……"

"I said stop blowing this up and get out."

Mouth on him too. Seo Taehyun shot a sharp glare at Cha Minseok, who was snapping in irritation, then looked away like he couldn't stand the sight of him.

"Nothing good for me if it gets louder — just leave already."

Hey, this bastard, seriously—

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Can't you see I'm scolding a kid? Keep it down."

"You're talking to the victim right—"

"You just said it wasn't a victim thing, it was mutual. Just a conversation, right?"

"This is our company!"

"Did I say otherwise?"

At my snapping tone, Cha Minseok just blinked. Face like some imperial court prince, but the personality clearly hadn't come with it. Even after my line, he stayed planted, standing his ground — and a strange current ran between us.

Neither of us was saying a word, and the mood was tipping into ugly, right as—

"Let's head out. Come on. Taehyun, you — go get ready to be chewed out."

Good timing, or maybe he'd just wrapped up, but Ji Suho opened the meeting room door and called us.

With Ji Suho — basically a guardian to the trainees — talking like that, we couldn't keep digging in, and it was true we were the ones who'd charged in.

We had to clear out with a distinctly sour taste in the air.

"Seo Taehyun."

As Seo Taehyun headed out with Dan Haru, Cha Minseok stopped him cold. Seo Taehyun deliberately walked past like he hadn't seen or heard him, but Cha Minseok didn't leave it there.

"I'm confirmed for a June debut."

"…And what about it."

"If you don't want to have to call me sunbaenim, you'd be better off spending your time working on your vocals instead of showing up here."

"…What?"

"Not that any amount of practice is going to help you, of course."

This crazy bastard—?

The System marvels at 'Cha Minseok's astonishing display of character….

You sure that's the kind of thing you should be marvelling at?

I barely kept a lid on the urge to punch him first. Luckily Seo Taehyun seemed to have fully regained his composure — he silently tuned Cha Minseok out, turned, and walked resolutely out of the meeting room.

The kid's back was to me now, but I could see him biting down on his lip like it was about to split. This time, I couldn't stop him.

---

The walk to the parking lot where Ji Suho had left the car was blanketed in nothing but silence.

Seo Taehyun, reason now 100% restored, seemed to be slowly running the numbers on the fallout from what he'd done. His hollowed-out face could've been on a poster for despair itself. Ji Suho looked lost in thought, working out how to break it to the company.

And Dan Haru, who'd only wanted to eat tteokbokki with a hyung he liked, was on the verge of tears. Even so, terrified his hyung might actually up and quit being a trainee, he had a death grip on Taehyun's arm and wasn't letting go.

"Dan Haru. You cry, I leave you behind."

"…I'm not crying."

"Quit sniffling and talk, then."

When Dan Haru and I wedged Seo Taehyun between us in the back seat like we were hauling in a suspect, he visibly recoiled.

"The passenger seat's empty!"

"Hyung, from here on you're exercising your right to remain silent."

"Why are you exercising MY right to remain silent, Haru?"

"Suspect caught red-handed running his mouth. Alright, Team Lead — hit it."

Leaving the squabbling Dan Haru and Seo Taehyun behind, the car eased out of the lot. Everyone had plenty on their minds, and nobody said any of it out loud.

The car stopped at a red light. While Ji Suho was distracted reporting in to the company, Dan Haru asked quietly:

"Hyung, are you really going to quit?"

"…What. Sad I'm quitting?"

"Yes."

"……"

"I want to debut alongside someone like you, hyung."

Seo Taehyun paused at that. Then, only after a stretch of silence — as the car pulled off again — he finally spoke.

"…I just said it in the heat of the moment."

Only then did Dan Haru drop the sharp-edged posture and lean back, relaxed. Why this kid had gone all the way to Rene to raise hell was still a mystery, but he clearly wasn't in the mood to talk more today.

'Let it go for now. Buy him a coffee tomorrow and pry it out of him.'

It took all of twenty-four hours for me to realize that plan was a pipe dream.

---

"So nobody's been able to reach Taehyun, right? Got it. If anyone hears from him, let me know for sure."

Seo Taehyun had vanished.

This lunatic had straight-up cleared his stuff out of the dorm and bolted for real. His phone was still off; I'd tried the family home out in the provinces just in case, but even his parents didn't know he was gone.

'Wait, hold on. Doesn't this actually make things easier?'

Whatever Cha Minseok had said, the fact remained that Seo Taehyun had gone to another agency and made a scene. And I really had been thinking a debut dragging that kind of ticking bomb along would be rough.

'He walked out on his own with his bags packed — what am I supposed to do?'

Once I'd worked it through that far, I actually felt lighter. Turned out the fixed event in Seo Taehyun's life really was bouncing between debut lineups and eventually vanishing from the industry.

'Yeah. Guess in this life he was fated to leave like this. Live well, Seo Taehyun. Cutting your losses early might even be better for your future—'

"Let's go find him!"

"But… we don't even know where he went."

"I have a hunch."

So why was I sitting here now?

"Remember that place we all went to hang out before? Back when Minseok-hyung was still with us."

"Oh — wait, you don't mean—"

"That was the guesthouse his uncle runs, right? Bet he went there. Taehyun-hyung's close with his uncle."

"Hold on. Stop. Everybody shut it."

If I didn't cut in, Dan Haru and Ju Eunchan were about to launch a full-scale Retrieve Seo Taehyun operation, transportation and all. I waved my hand fast and cut them off.

This place — getting familiar now after a couple of visits — was Ju Eunchan's apartment. After practice, I'd been about to head home light on my feet when these two more or less kidnapped me here.

"Getting this out of the way now — I'm not going. Not going. Don't drag me in."

At my flat refusal, the two young lambs' faces filled with shock.

"What. Why are you looking at me like that? Why would I be the one going after Seo Taehyun anyway?"

"How can you say that, hyung!"

Dan Haru, now looking at me with something close to actual betrayal, cried out.

Hey — what did I even do…?