03. In Search of a Lost Dream (1)

Did that go well?

Even after he'd finished singing, Hajin studied the judges' unreadable expressions and pressed his lips together. He'd walked in braced to be rejected, but if they cut him with zero hesitation it'd still sting a little — so he'd fallen back on his signature song, the one he'd drilled over and over throughout his old trainee days. He'd been confident going in, but maybe he should have picked something safer?

"Mm. Yes. Thank you, we've heard enough."

The woman sitting in the middle spoke slowly. "Did you prepare a dance too?" At his nod, the MR track he'd sent in ahead of time started playing.

'He dances, too?'

Chief Jang propped her chin on her hand, deliberately hiding her mouth behind it, and bit the inside of her cheek to keep the corners of her lips from creeping up.

Soon a pop song with a hard hip-hop beat came on. The kind that had gone viral thanks to easy lyrics and a catchy melody.

Chief Jang watched number 71 ride the rhythm at a slow build, unable to hide her rising anticipation, and finally gave up — hand over her mouth, she broke into a wide grin. Eleven years in New Talent Development, and she was sure of it: this kid could dance too.

Turn it up!

Let's pop it up!

Dropped the beat,

I never gonna screw it up!

"Not bad, honestly."

Sure enough, every clean, easy motion he threw down on the main beat carried unmistakable rhythm. A few clunky moves suggested he'd choreographed it himself. Nothing technically difficult enough to qualify him as a lead dancer, but the way his body moved — you could tell this kid had dance DNA in him.

"Should we ask him to stay?"

Right when they'd all been thinking today's audition was a bust, the staff, spotting an uncut gem, whispered to each other while watching Chief Jang for a cue. On top of everything, the trainee pool had already been thinned out over the whole next-boy-group-debut mess, and they needed to refill it fast.

"……"

"Chief?"

Chief Jang stared at number 71, who'd finished the dance and was catching his breath, quietly waiting for the verdict.

"……?"

"Ah — number 71, Kang Hajin?"

"Yes."

Normally, Chief Jang would have called out "Next!" or "We'll be in touch" before the candidate had even finished dancing — but she was taking longer than usual, and question marks started floating over the staff's heads too. She flipped through 71's application one more time, mouth opening and closing as if she were about to speak.

'Shame, though…'

She'd been mulling something over the whole time she watched Hajin dance, and now she tapped the corner of the application with her pen. Voice, good. Looks, respectable. Dance, solid. Just one thing was catching.

"……"

"…Chief?"

Chief Jang deliberated, then deliberated some more, and finally made up her mind.

"Well done. Really impressive."

"……"

"Please stay behind and wait for us."

At her decision, every staffer nodded, faces brightening.

"When you head out, one of the staff will show you to the lounge where you can wait."

"Oh, yes. …Thank you."

---

Was this really happening?

Hajin stared blankly at the cocoa the staff had brought over for him while he waited. At least two more hours of waiting ahead of him, and here he was, just sitting.

"…This is really happening."

He kept muttering the same thing. It didn't feel real, and his fists opened and closed on their own. Then again, thinking back, he'd always made it this far pretty easily.

Even though he'd been sure he'd fail, he must have been more tense than he'd realized — his shoulders were stiff.

The agency's signature color scheme, aggressively pushed everywhere — white base with gold accents — was almost hard on the eyes. A perk of being a major agency, maybe? Off in one corner, an artificial waterfall was roaring away.

Seriously, was this a temple…?

He blew across the steaming cocoa to cool it, taking in the wall-mounted photos of Rene Ent's artists. Not a single face here that wasn't chiseled.

Sitting in this lounge as someone who'd once wanted to be one of them, and then later wanted to be the one making them, felt oddly complicated. He was biting his lip against feelings he couldn't quite put into words when the woman who'd clearly been the final decision-maker walked into the lounge.

Wait, hold on — I can't actually end up a trainee here.

"Hello, Kang Hajin."

"Yes, hello. I'm Kang Hajin."

Even at this life-or-death moment when he might be the sole human dropped among the Greek gods, he still had to greet her politely. He reflexively pulled on his interview smile and felt the woman watching him closely.

"I'm Jang Seoyoon, Chief of Rene's New Talent Development Team 1. Nice to meet you today."

She handed him a business card, crossed her legs, and cut straight to the point.

"I'll be honest with you."

"……"

"If you sign with us, debuting might be difficult."

Ah, right…

Not that I was planning on signing, either.

---

"What? Why?"

Assistant Manager Yoon was the least senior member of today's audition panel — and rare for her, she raised her voice at her senior on the panel.

As a diehard fan of single-eyelid faces and a veteran fangirl of cough years, in her eyes number 71, who had just walked out of the audition room, was clearly the kind of face with a fan base this industry kept overlooking.

Sings well, dances well, and single-eyelid on top of it? Single-eyelid is the whole ballgame!

Snatching up kids like him and molding them into the next Rene sculpture had been her whole reason for joining! Which was exactly why she couldn't wrap her head around Chief Jang walking out with her brow furrowed, calling this walking jackpot "hard to place," or Senior Kim from Team 3 clicking her tongue like she'd seen it coming.

"To me, he seemed great… He'd fit right in with the New Renez guys."

"That's the problem."

Senior Kim shook her head firmly.

"Where would you slot him? There's no position in New Renez to bump anyone from, and he's too old for the group after that."

Ah. Assistant Manager Yoon finally shut up. Framed that way, it was a whole different story.

"The only member you'd realistically squeeze out for him is Jeonghyeok. And with the looks and the group dynamic they've already got, there's no real reason to drop Jeonghyeok to put him in."

Ugh. Assistant Manager Yoon's mouth pressed shut a second time. In this brutal double-lidded-Greek-Agrippa-sculpture Renaissance, the grievances of a single-eyelid partisan in the minority were boiling over.

Sure, he wasn't exactly a Rene face… but still…!

"From our end, the best case is Jeonghyeok stepping up. I mean, we could just get him under contract and hold onto him, but… in good conscience, it's better to send kids like him somewhere else."

If they wanted to play dirty, keeping him as a trainee just in case wasn't out of the question. But Rene was a major agency; hundreds of hopefuls flocked to them every day, chasing stardom.

They were long past the point where a trainee or two mattered — no reason to waste energy holding onto a kid with no debut path.

"Anyway, if the Chief said stay behind, she's got a plan. Are you clocking out now?"

"Oh… no. The New Renez boys are practicing today, apparently."

"Working weekends, huh. Great job today."

Assistant Manager Yoon crunched through the gimbap she'd brought for lunch but never got to eat — cold now — and swallowed her grief along with it.

Single-eyelid angel… if you'd shown up three months earlier!

---

"So — a little surprised, right?"

He hadn't expected her to jump straight to the point like that, so yes, he was surprised, but he'd already braced for something along these lines, so he shook his head — and the woman jolted.

"Oh — I don't mean you don't have potential, Hajin —"

She'd probably tacked it on to soften the blow, but of all words, "potential" grated on some part of him he thought he'd gotten past.

Right now, though, there was something more pressing. If they weren't going to debut him anyway, why had she made a point of keeping him here?

"I don't usually go out of my way like this…"

The woman kept hesitating. It was more attention than any random applicant, let alone a non-trainee, had any right to expect — but he was waiting for a specific sentence.

"Anyway, if you're open to it not being our agency, there's somewhere I'd like to introduce you to."

And at last, the name he'd been waiting for came out of her mouth.

"Have you heard of Miro Ent?"

Miro Ent. A mid-sized agency run by a CEO who'd cut his teeth as a manager at Rene for years — one of the candidates on his list. And,

'The place I actually needed to get into.'

Over the past five years, everything Miro Ent had put out had hit, and the company had been growing at a breakneck pace. And whispers of a "guardian spirit of Miro" behind that success had been spreading fast through the industry.

'Word is the entertainment-stock guys are calling him the Midas Touch of Miro.'

A producer who came out of nowhere and turned everything he touched into a hit? Wasn't that a setup he'd read a hundred times over?

'I need to figure out whether this guy just has serious instincts, or whether he's tangled up with this insane regression business.'

Auditioning at Rene, where there was zero debut path for him, had been all about getting into Miro Ent. He knew the two companies traded trainees like this every so often.

title: [Discussion] Cha Minseok from New Renez was originally a Miro trainee? True? - That's the Miro practice room, right? I'm doing background research these days and I recognize their practice room lolol how ridiculous is that [photo] [photo] - yeah yeah he was a Miro trainee > Debut lineup, I think? > Wait, seriously? Why didn't he debut? > Minseogi was originally practicing with the Endup boys but left Miro because of an injury ㅠㅠ > Face genius Min-sseok, remember him, everybody, he debuts next year on ★June 12★ with Lanion, plz show love

Even the Apollo-statue kid Rene had been openly pushing as center for the next debut group had originally come from Miro. There was talk the reason he hadn't debuted at Miro wasn't really the injury, but unverified rumor could stay filed away for now.

What mattered was him. Would this Rene-to-Miro shortcut — much faster and more certain than a general audition — actually open up for him?

If it opened, it was his best shot at slamming the revolving door of the third-round-of-military hell shut in one clean move.

"They're currently looking for male trainees too. So if you're open to it, I'd like to connect the two of you. What do you think?"

Nice!

Feeling the private inside him let out a war cry, he worked hard to keep his face neutral. First impressions mattered — ideally he'd come across as calm and mysterious.

"…I'll need to talk it over with my parents first."

"Oh, absolutely. If you're interested, reach out to the number on my card. If you mention Number 71 by text, even better."

"Got it. If there's nothing else, may I go?"

"Yes, yes. Same door you came in."

"Thank you. I'll be in touch soon."

He bowed politely to the woman, who was watching him with a strangely pleased look on her face, and stepped out of the Rene building.

"Huh. Way easier than I thought."

Why had he shaken so hard over stuff like this when he was younger? He looked down at the business card in his hand with satisfaction. As he thought through how to break the news to his parents at home and lay out his strategy for the Miro audition, he found himself already at the subway station.

Ha. Selreg, you little bastard — you wait. Hyung's coming for you.

---

Chief Jang stood at the window watching Hajin carry that business card — which looked like less than a quarter the size of his own hand — outside as if it were made of glass, and thought absently:

'…Like a well-socialized wolf cub.'

Back when she'd brought up Miro Ent, it had genuinely looked like an invisible tail was wagging like a propeller behind him. She actually regretted not getting to pat his head.

'No — more like a Doberman, maybe.'

Still trying different animal comparisons on the retreating back of him, Chief Jang waved off the little cloud of daydreams billowing above her and stood up. She needed to call her contact over at Miro Ent before the day was out.

---

"Absolutely not."

Fuck.

"You're about to be twenty, Hajin. Twenty. I won't allow it."

Ah… somewhere far away, someone was calling me… boot camp… boot camp was calling me…

"You were the one who said you were giving all of that up to focus on studying. We only let you take a retake year because you wanted to figure out what you wanted to study. And now, out of nowhere? I'm a little thrown, honestly."

Mom's face was so calm and her words so unmistakably genuine that there was really nothing to say.

"Anyway… I'm against it, Hajin."

The entrance to the carousel of my life, which had just started to close, flung its gates back open.

Never dreamed the gatekeeper would turn out to be my own mother.

Just as the imagined carousel morphed into privates in full combat gear circling the parade grounds, the system window drove the final nail in.

title: Emergency Quest! A child's wound is a parent's scar. Win back your mother's heart and get her to accept the dream you've reclaimed.

Mom… your son… if he doesn't become an idol… will live {forever…}(#81jysyn1401a)

Not that I could really explain that to her.