Chapter 185

Lee Yugeon firmly laid out his reasoning.

"There's not enough practice time. For a debut song we're gonna have to lock everything in way tighter than we did for the survival."

"But…. November's basically the same situation. If anything, that timing overlaps with year-end stages, so we'd be even busier. If we just cut back on sleep a little and grind for a few weeks—"

At Seo Taehyun's pushback, Lee Yugeon — in his same indifferent tone — pointed at Lee Doha sitting next to him and said:

"This hyung already pulls all-nighters every night. How much less sleep are you saying he should get?"

Of the seven of us, Lee Doha's dance was the weakest, so lately he'd been drilling choreo fundamentals with Lee Yugeon every single day. On top of that he was working on his own music production — as his roommate, I knew better than anyone that the guy was basically living at the company, barely sleeping.

True — asking him to run debut prep on top of the current schedule…. that would be tight.

Lee Doha, apparently unable to deny it himself, kept his mouth shut and didn't push back. Then Lee Yugeon let out a short sigh and added one more line.

"I get you're anxious to debut fast, but not everyone's like you — where you just do it and it works."

Uh, wasn't that a bit of a dangerous line?

…the thought was barely done when our INFP-beast Seo Taehyun, eyes brimming with hurt and injustice, raised his voice.

"…what kind of thing is that to say? I'm not throwing a tantrum over wanting to debut fast right now."

"When did I say you were throwing a tantrum? I'm saying we should factor in skill gaps between members. Don't read into it."

"That's literally what you're saying right now. It's not like everything just comes easy to me either…!"

"Hey, cut it out. Both of you, stop. What are you doing, in front of the Bureau Chief?"

Left alone, these punks looked ready to actually start shouting at each other, so I cut in and shut it down. My loud voice was actually useful in situations like this.

Ji Suho shot me a brief look of thanks, then in that mediator tone of his gently smoothed the two of them out.

"Plan A or plan B — either way, the schedule's sudden and packed. The company's fully aware of that. But we've concluded the September debut is the better bet."

"……."

"Unless the November plan is overwhelmingly more relaxed and would meaningfully raise your polish, I think going ahead and letting you get that first taste of debut even a little sooner would actually help your motivation more…. what do you think?"

At Ji Suho's clean, well-reasoned pitch, Lee Yugeon silently looked over at Lee Doha. In the end, the person who'd have to bear the brunt of the tighter schedule was Lee Doha, which meant the call was Lee Doha's to make too.

Following his gaze, everyone's eyes turned to Lee Doha.

"……."

Even so, Lee Doha couldn't answer easily.

My guess was, it wasn't because the schedule looked too brutal or too much to handle. He was a former athlete — of the seven of us, his stamina and sheer durability were unmatched.

More likely than that….

He's wrestling with the question itself — whether he can pull a polished performance together in that little time.

That wasn't a question anyone else could answer for him. And it was one that was bound to come up sooner or later.

Everyone kept the quiet, waiting for Lee Doha's answer.

…everyone except one.

"Hyung! I'll help!"

Our baby-bunny hero was brave today too.

"I'm not a fast learner on choreo either…. so I've researched a lot of tricks to memorize moves more easily. If we do it together instead of alone, we could pick it up faster, right? And it'd be more fun!"

Positive on top of it. Yeah — the perfect protagonist material.

That brave kid, in a past life, had gone dark and rewound the timeline hundreds of times as a soft-fish regressor — and I was right in the middle of thinking how completely that rounded out the shounen-manga-protagonist cliché.

And then Lee Doha finally spoke.

"…I don't want to be a burden on the team."

"……."

"If it has to be done, I'll do it."

You couldn't get a more Lee-Doha answer than that.

At the spirited response, Ji Suho nodded with a satisfied smile.

"Good. Then the debut date is locked in for September 15th. Coming together as one team won't always be easy, but I trust you'll figure it out wisely."

At that closing line — which anyone could see was aimed at Seo Taehyun and Lee Yugeon — the two same-age punks awkwardly looked away. What on earth had happened during the break to make them this stiff with each other all of a sudden — it was actually starting to scare me.

Don't fight, you punks. Even if you fight tooth and nail, we've got seven years locked in together.

We'd all signed on the dotted line already, no take-backs. Blood's thicker than water, but the seal on a contract's thicker than blood.

I decided I'd have to ask Jung Siwoo soon and figure out what had gone on between those two. Meanwhile, Ji Suho — flashing his bright-toothed smile, one hand clenched into a fist — launched into his rally-the-troops speech.

"They say when the body gets worn out, the mind goes even more barren. I can't sit here and lie to you that it'll all be smooth sailing. It's going to be a genuinely busy, hard two months…. but let's each hold on a little more, look out for each other, and give the back half of this year everything we've got!"

We… were gonna be okay, right?

Suddenly I missed my mom.

---

"Hey, where's Lee Doha?"

"Ah. That hyung went to the studio. Said he wanted to work a bit more."

Dragging my worn-out body and mind, I was trudging over to head back to the dorm, but Lee Doha was nowhere in sight. When I asked Lee Yugeon — Lee Doha's own dance teacher, who'd already climbed into the car and was sitting with his eyes closed — the answer, sure enough, was another late night locked in.

"Isn't that guy overdoing it?"

That feeling of being chased — I knew what it was like, sure….

But even so, this Lee Doha punk was going too far with it. At month-end evaluations, and on Miro Maze — same thing. He had a tendency to make up for shortfalls in practice time by grinding down his own body.

I stood there, still not climbing into the car, thinking — is it really okay to just leave him to it? Then Lee Yugeon, still with his eyes closed, head against the window and arms crossed, answered flatly:

"Just leave him."

"Leave him? That big guy's holed up in the studio not eating, not sleeping? No — at least he should eat. And sleep a bit."

"…he needs to be doing at least that much for his own peace of mind, so just leave him."

Then Lee Yugeon cracked his eyes open, glanced at me — still standing at the car door — and said, with a slight bitterness in his voice:

"People like you wouldn't get it, hyung. How much being a minus in a group makes you want to run away."

Was that aimed at me just now?

I was about to have a word — you punk, why have you been in calm-before-the-storm puberty mode all afternoon — but before I could, Seo Taehyun, who'd popped up behind me, beat me to it by a step.

"Give me a break. Don't drag other people into your excuses."

Was our Cherry pissed…?

Frozen at a tone I'd never in my life have imagined from Seo Taehyun, Lee Yugeon — brow slightly knit — shot back sulkily:

"You're the one twisting what I said. I wasn't even talking to you just now."

"What did I twist? You're the one who keeps going negative — 'minus' this, 'minus' that."

"…you just don't like anything I'm saying right now, that's all. Are you actually in elementary school? Even my little Yurang doesn't act like this."

"What — elementary school? Yeah, sure, I'm in elementary school. Must be nice for you being in high school, huh?"

Wait — are these punks actually…?

"Freeze. Both of you want to run home to the dorm?"

"But he started it—!"

"Seo Taehyun keeps—!"

"Shhh? These little brats, spoil 'em rotten and next thing they know they're back-talking their grandpa like his word means nothing. Not gonna stop fighting, huh, you punks!? Want me to go live and broadcast you two fighting to the whole damn neighborhood?"

Only when I planted my hands on my hips and let real anger show did the two of them finally deflate. Their faces were still full of attitude, but soon Jung Siwoo and the maknae started climbing into the car too, and neither could say anything more.

Lee Yugeon straight-up pulled earbuds out of his bag, stuck them in his ears, and closed his eyes; Seo Taehyun climbed into the passenger seat and turned his head sharply toward the window.

"Hajin, you not getting in?"

Jung Siwoo, apparently picking up on the subtle current inside the car, looked back and forth between Seo Taehyun and Lee Yugeon with a meaningful expression before asking me. I did a quick calculation — should I go after these gloriously childish same-age punks first, or my roommate probably rotting in the studio.

These guys aren't getting untangled in one day anyway…. while there's still some slack, better to check on Lee Doha first.

For Lee Yugeon to weigh in like he knew something, the odds were high that Lee Doha's situation was tied into Lee Yugeon and Seo Taehyun's conflict too. Calculation done, I grabbed the car door handle and answered Jung Siwoo.

"Ah. I'm just gonna clock out with Lee Doha. Head in first, hyung."

"…got it. Don't be too late. Doha's been pushing himself too hard lately."

"Yes."

Jung Siwoo, apparently sensing Lee Doha's overload too, readily nodded at my saying I'd go separately. Before I closed the door, I caught Jung Siwoo's eye and gave a small nod toward Seo Taehyun and Lee Yugeon.

Roughly: these two seem to have something going on, so once you get back to the dorm, keep an eye on them. Our max-level-EQ Jung Siwoo caught the signal instantly, nodded slightly, and gave me a small smile.

Having at least one person on the team who could read the room was honestly a relief.

"Siwoo-hyung. Can we play music on bluetooth?"

"Eunchan-hyung, let's listen to that one. What's it called? That — Jinu-sunbaenim's song!"

"I was going to play the new Spia-sunbaenim track that just dropped….."

"Ah. Then, um, can we listen to that first and then that next?"

"Nah, let's do Jinu-sunbaenim first."

"Kay!"

And looking at Ju Eunchan and Dan Haru in the very back seat, oblivious to the cold front between Seo Taehyun and Lee Yugeon and completely absorbed in curating today's clock-out playlist, I quietly shut the car door.

…yeah. Our maknae just grow up bright, healthy, and lively.

One of them's a pro regressor and one's a premium young master — so what if they can't read the room a little.

"Hmm. Now, then….."

Time to go bear-hunting.

The steps I took back to the elevator I'd ridden down just minutes ago to leave felt suddenly weightless.

---

Lee Doha had the thought that he'd been through something like this before.

"Hey, Doha."

"…yeah, hey."

His roommate and groupmate Kang Hajin, who'd flung open the studio door and walked in, was grinning. Lee Doha blinked, feeling exactly like a bumbling new hire caught off-guard by a surprise visit from the CEO.

"We've got some talking to do, right?"

We do? What talking…?

Lee Doha's usually steady pupils rippled like waves.