05. In Search of a Lost Dream (3)
05. In Search of a Lost Dream (3)
Let's take a moment here to look back at my life so far.
—…and so, to everyone who came to see the recital of us children, who have grown so vibrantly under the love of our parents and teachers, we extend our heartfelt thanks.
It started off light: MC of my kindergarten talent show, reciting a memorized script word for word — the photo of me doing exactly that took the first page of my kindergarten graduation album.
—I agree with the opposing side that self-restraint around cell phone use isn't easy for students. But the essence of the cell phone is contact and communication.
—Rather than confiscating students' phones outright over one function — the entertainment side — wouldn't it be more productive to teach them proper usage and build their capacity for self-restraint?
Back when I got roped into being a friend's debate-competition partner by the bribe of a sweet-potato pizza, I swept every award in sight.
—I believe life is a continuous series of choices and regrets. From a young age I've lived by making countless choices, and each time, those choices turned out to be either the best or the worst.
—So? Are you saying you'll regret choosing this department?
—If regret is inevitable either way, then I intend to make my current choice the best one. And now, applying to this department, I'm confident I can make this the proudest and wisest choice I've ever made.
That answer of mine — thrown out completely off the cuff when they asked at my admissions interview if I had any last remarks — apparently kept getting brought up over drinks by my tenured professor long after I'd graduated.
That professor — the one who kept circling me for a shot at recruiting me into his graduate program — used to clap me on the shoulder and say, "If you play your cards right, I bet you could talk a department store down to half list price."
Point being: whatever else I couldn't do, running my mouth was one thing I could do. Those "For presentations, Kang Hajin's your guy" comments all through college weren't for nothing.
"…Even deciding to take another shot at a dream I'd once given up on wasn't easy for me. I thought about it a lot."
"Kang Hajin's Life Plan Presentation" was drawing to its close. Dad had honestly seemed uninterested in pushing back from the start; Mom, for some reason, was watching in silence with an expression I couldn't read.
I'd unloaded every scrap of material packed with objective metrics to persuade my parents. All that was left was my sincere resolve. My mouth felt dry, so I swallowed once for no reason.
"This being an important time in my life, I'm not saying I'll give up on studying. But now that the chance of an audition has come, I'd rather try — even if I fail — go as far as I can, and fail there."
Lie. I was too far into being twenty-nine to have my heart start racing all over again at the words "find your lost dream." There was no way I'd break through countless rivals and debut as an idol, and even if I did, no guarantee I'd succeed.
But I had to audition to stop the regressions, and I had to stop the regressions to get my family out of this godforsaken winter.
If picking up a dream I'd once thrown away was the way to end all this, then fine — playing a teenage boy chasing his dream was hardly beyond me.
"You know I'm good at this. Just one year — if it doesn't happen, I'll really give it up."
Either way, if this audition didn't land me a trainee spot, it was straight into another regression, no mercy. I put on a smile I could tell was fake even to myself. To my parents, it probably just looked like a smile brimming with drive.
I'd played every card I had. With the final slide displaying "Thank you," I waited for my parents' verdict. A brief silence stretched out.
"Hajin."
Dad had long since handed the choice over to Mom, saying it was hers to make. Mom said my name once, then took a long time picking her next words.
"…I know how good you are."
"……"
"I mean it."
Wait — this was dangerous.
I know how good you are. That single line from Mom felt like it slammed down on something inside me. Days from my first life — over four years past now, distant enough to feel like a dream — flashed through my head.
"And even if you weren't, that would be okay with me."
The Kang Hajin who, after quitting his job, had done nothing but lie in bed and drift through his days came back to mind. That Kang Hajin — doing nothing, sunk in the self-loathing of believing he couldn't do anything, afraid to step out into the world — was still there inside me.
There was no way the Mom in front of me right now could know what her son would look like ten years down the line.
"I just… I want life not to be hard for you. I want you hearing praise, only good things about yourself. I want you to live your own life without any regrets. That's all."
And yet somehow her words landed like they were speaking directly to the Kang Hajin of that time, comforting him.
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. deadline: Tied to SQ 01 (D-46) penalty: Life-five regression probability +75% Quest complete. reward: A Trait viewing pass for one designated target (self excluded)An alert popped up on the system window announcing the quest was complete. From that I could tell I'd successfully persuaded Mom, but somehow I couldn't quite bring myself to celebrate. The alert also mentioned something about a special reward for being moved by my passionate presentation, but I wasn't especially curious.
The fist I'd hidden behind my back tightened.
I would end these regressions this time around, no matter what.
⟨Chief, still no word from that kid?⟩
⟨If we can't submit our report this week either, it's going to be really rough for us ㅠㅠ⟩
Chief Jang of Rene Ent's New Talent Development team sighed as she looked at the texts from the Miro Ent staffer.
'He'd looked so excited when he took the business card…'
She'd assumed 71 would reach out soon, but there'd been no word since that day.
Wondering if maybe his message had been filtered as spam, she'd combed through her phone and her email, but all that turned up were one-way ads.
Honestly, you can't force a good thing on someone who doesn't want it, and Korea had no shortage of kids dreaming of the entertainment world; one hopeful going radio silent shouldn't have been any real problem. But for some reason, both Miro and Chief Jang were pacing like anxious servants whose master hadn't picked them.
⟨Sure. Let's just call⟩
Chief Jang, about to fire off a text in a moment of pique, quickly came to her senses and calmly hit backspace to erase it.
Cha Minseok, the trainee Miro had sent over last time, was now indisputably the ace of New Renez. Miro had bent over backwards for them on Minseok's contract termination, so this time it was Rene's turn to return the favor.
⟨Our team lead is saying he absolutely has to see this kid ㅠㅠㅠ⟩
At what was almost a wail, Chief Jang finally clutched at her hair. And of course, being an open audition, personal info like addresses and phone numbers had been shredded the same day. No way to track him down even if she wanted to.
'Instead of just handing him a business card and sending him off, I should have gone with him and gotten his parents' permission then and there…'
Chief Jang — who actually had a track record of casting Sphere's maknae that exact way — wiped away tears of regret and considered just switching off her endlessly buzzing phone. Damn Miro, they wouldn't let up…
⟨This is Number 71. Leaving a text since you didn't pick up.⟩
If someone doesn't pick up, you take it as they didn't pick up — why bother leaving a text on top of it?
"…Oh, my god, hallelujah Jesus Christ holy…"
Face full of irritation, Chief Jang had been about to mechanically dismiss the text notification — then realized this text was to be her salvation, set the phone down, and clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Huh. Is that 71?"
Assistant Manager Yoon, who worked at the desk across from Chief Jang's, read the situation from her reaction alone and shot up from her seat. Chief Jang had noticed that Yoon took an unusually strong interest in the topic of 71, but at the moment she needed someone to share this euphoria with, so it hardly mattered.
Chief Jang quickly composed herself and gestured for Yoon — still fussing — to be quiet. The quick-witted Yoon shut her mouth right away.
Ring—
She cleared her throat, cleared her mind, and pressed the call button. Timing mattered for this kind of thing. This was Rene, and Miro too — no need to come out of the gate acting like she'd been sitting there waiting from the start.
Playing a little bit busy, playing that she didn't quite remember who he was, playing that they had nothing to be sorry about…
—Hello?
"Hello, Hajin. This is Jang Seoyoon, Chief of Rene Ent's New Talent Development Team 1. Sorry to be getting back to you so late."
Blown.
The instant Chief Jang heard the voice that had been showing up in her dreams, she caught her introduction pouring out of her mouth and knew instinctively that the opening power play was completely blown. Even Yoon, watching the call unfold with bated breath, had a "my condolences" look on her face — that pretty much said it all.
Ha, I'm not usually like this.
—It's fine. If anything, I'm the one who's sorry for reaching out so late.
"Oh, please. Late? Perfect timing."
He was late. Fucking late — but what did that matter now? Chief Jang kept her voice pinned to a soft G to sound gentle and pushed the call along.
"Miro Ent wants to have a look at you, Hajin. They asked if it could be as soon as possible, so I've been waiting for your call."
Keeping the call gentle and composed, Chief Jang hammered out a message on the internal chat and shot Yoon a look.
⟨cotnact miro minsseok set up a meetign ASAP⟩
—Yes, thank you. So how should we go about it?
"Uh, well…"
When she glanced over to see how it was going, Yoon had apparently finished her end already and was frantically scrawling something on a Post-it, holding it out.
⟨Miro Ent, Friday 5 PM⟩
"Friday! I'll send you Miro Ent's address. Friday, 5 PM. Does that work?"
—Ah, I do have school…
"Hmm, then…"
—No, the college entrance exam is already over anyway. So Friday at 5, Miro Ent — is that where I should go?
"Yes, yes. I'll be going with you, so give me a call when you get there."
Yes, thank you. The call ended with that composed voice. Before Chief Jang could even catch her breath, Yoon's eyes were sparkling.
"What'd he say? Is he coming? Is he in?"
"Yoon — you're really invested in 71, huh."
"Chief, I swear to god, our company being a nation of double-eyelids is the great sorrow of my life."
Not that Yoon actually wanted 71 to push Jeonghyeok out and debut in his place. In her own way, she had a soft spot for New Renez and Jeonghyeok, who'd been her first trainees.
But taste was taste. If it meant getting 71 debuted, Yoon was willing to throw company loyalty out the window and defect to Miro.
"So single-eyelid means you're always into them? I mean — I do think 71's not bad myself. It's just, for someone you only saw briefly, you're pretty into him."
"Right. She was giving me an earful that day too. Kept asking why we weren't taking 71."
Senior Kim from Team 3 was passing through and joined the fray. Chief Jang, who had in fact been waiting anxiously for 71 herself, was rationalizing that it wasn't quite at that level yet, was it?
"Hmm. No, it's not like I like every single-eyelid guy…"
Yoon tilted her head and shrugged. Well now — how was she supposed to explain the instinctive favorite-radar built up over n-n years of K-pop stanning?
"My taste's just an evergreen thing."
Yoon gave up trying to explain and laughed. Chief Jang didn't push it further either, just nodded and said, sure. He was about to be someone else's kid anyway, so it wasn't much of an issue.
…No, wait, was it?
"Hello. I'm Kang Hajin."
Friday, 5 PM.
Looking at Kang Hajin, who'd shown up alongside the Miro Ent staffer, Chief Jang briefly had that thought.
'Screw New Renez, screw the whole thing — shouldn't we have just kept him for ourselves?'
Unlike the sleek straight hair and inoffensive outfit at the open audition, he'd apparently been styled fresh — hair swept back lightly, a black leather shearling coat that suited him surprisingly well. On audition day she'd thought, for a nineteen-year-old this kid's on the quiet side; today he had a hint of edge to him, too, giving off a different vibe entirely.
"Hajin — finally we meet. We'll be running a quick audition today; you were briefed on what it'll involve, right?"
"Yes. Chief Jang filled me in."
"Good. Try not to be too nervous. Chief, why don't you come in with us as well."
What was this. What was with this kid. With that look in her eyes, Chief Jang followed the two of them into Miro Ent for now. The water was already spilled.
'Selreg — you bastard with mental fortitude weaker than a sugar cube…'
At that moment, Hajin was in fact seriously pissed. The edge Chief Jang thought she'd picked up on wasn't in her head. He really was pissed.
And the cause was clear.
title: Single Quest 02. 'The Craziest Bastard on This Turf Is Me!' You've entered (or are about to enter) Miro. Weather the suffocating politics and rivalries playing out inside, meet the allies who'll help you, and debut successfully. (Defusing the hidden bombs lowers regression probability and raises quest success rate.) limit: 6 months reward: A clue for tracking the Regressor penalty: Life-five regression probability +85%What — 85 percent? Maybe I should just kill them.