Chapter 52

At the unexpected result, everyone stared at Hajin in shock — but Hajin himself, looking perfectly composed, was silently clapping toward Seongwoo, his battle opponent. Seeing that, the other trainees slowly picked up the applause too, still tilting their heads in confusion and glancing back and forth between the two.

"Alright, then."

But astonishing result or not, recording pressed on. Steadying the room, Seo Taeil called out to the trainees in a solemn voice.

"We'll now unveil the new Wings ranks, combining trainees' existing scores with the benefits!"

〜〚WINGS OF MIRO MAZE〛〜

Jung Siwoo Han Seongwoo Lee Yugeon

Gong Seok Kang Hajin Seo Taehyun Yuki

The Wings-class lineup had shifted. Pretty big movement for a first-mission result, and the trainees stirred. Even amid the churn, Hajin kept his eyes only on his own name on the scoreboard. Very still. Very quiet.

"Congratulations to all the trainees newly entering the Wings class, and to those who held onto their Wings-class spots."

The timing called for applause, but everyone stayed silent. And then, the lighting shifted.

"For the trainees newly entering the Wings class, the brooches that confirm your rank…"

Seo Taeil dragged the pause a beat, then let the next line out almost like a sigh.

"…please receive them directly from trainees Ju Eunchan, Dan Haru, and Lee Doha, who have fallen out of the Wings class."

Wow, these {Voluntary-Resignation}(#wcsx1kkpb0cm) demons.

Hajin marveled internally and shook his head. Beside him, Wonho was just running his mouth about how lucky he was not to have made Wings, thank god. The lighting shifted, swinging over to where Seok was standing.

"Trainee Gong Seok, please walk to the trainee of your choice."

It was just picking up a brooch, but Seok couldn't make up his mind and stood there shifting foot to foot. After a while wrestling with it, he shuffled hesitantly toward Lee Doha — the one he figured he'd gotten at least a little closer to through the last month-end evaluation.

"D-Doha-ya. I'm sorry!"

"Hyung, you won, so what's the apology for?"

With a face that honestly seemed to have no idea what he was being apologized for, Lee Doha calmly unpinned the brooch and handed it to Seok. Seok rushed back to his spot like a kid who'd just been caught in the act, and the lighting shifted again.

This time, it was Hajin's turn.

"Trainee Kang Hajin. Please proceed."

Hajin thought for a moment, then set off before long.

'Whoever I pick, I'm going to catch flak.'

Taeil watched the direction of Hajin's steps and swallowed a small worry. Plenty of storylines out of a first shoot was a good thing in a lot of ways, but…

'Whoever's brooch he takes, the picture's not going to be pretty.'

On top of it, Hajin had lost his battle. The score didn't sit right, but the result was the result. Small mercy the team had won — if he'd lost the team battle too, then short of the main PD stepping in to rescue him deliberately, Hajin would've been torn apart by every flavor of hater.

'Rough right out of the gate.'

Taeil, secretly wanting Hajin to debut, let out a worried sigh without meaning to. But he snapped back to remembering this was still a recording and clamped his facial muscles tight again.

And whether or not he was aware of Taeil's concern, Hajin — who'd been walking slowly — finally came to a stop.

"So."

With Eunchan and Haru exactly on either side of him, Hajin stood in the middle. Both boys watched him with slightly nervous faces. After holding the pause a beat, Hajin flashed his signature open smile and said,

"A precious dongsaeng who'll wholeheartedly congratulate hyung-nim on making Wings class."

Then he spread his arms open.

"First come, first served — one spot."

"……!"

"……!!"

What's this hyung up to now — the thought crossed Eunchan's and Haru's minds, and then their eyes lit up. 'First come, one spot.' Somehow, it felt like whoever lost it lost.

"Me! Me! I'll give him mine!"

"Suddenly I really don't want to lose this."

The two of them scrambled to hand off their own brooches, each pushing his on the other — a rare sight. Contrary to what production had set up, the two of them fighting to be the one giving up his brooch cracked open the ice-cold recording floor, and laughter finally broke out.

"…Alright, you take it."

"Yes! Thank you!"

Right as it was about to escalate into an on-the-spot dance battle over who got to hand the brooch to Kang Hajin, Eunchan finally caved to the cute pleading eyes of Haru — a year younger — and forfeited.

"Seriously. Worried for nothing."

Seo Taeil shrugged, watching the three of them with an incredulous look. Beyond those three, the mood among the crew watching the floor wasn't bad either. Is that what you'd call natural sense? Taeil marveled quietly, watching Hajin — who'd turned himself into the center of gravity in a single beat.

"……"

Haru, having finally landed the chance to hand his brooch to Hajin, stood in front of him. He looked at the wing brooch in his hand, then at Hajin standing before him — once each.

"…Hyung."

"Yeah."

"Hyung, you really are something."

Wearing a bright smile, like he'd been mulling something over and had just landed on the answer, Haru held the brooch out to Hajin. Congrats on making Wings. At the sincerity in his voice, Hajin nodded too.

"Yeah, watch and learn."

The silver wing brooch was pinned to Hajin's chest. Unlike the silence that had hung over Seok's moment, this time natural applause and cheers broke out.

"There we go."

And beyond the camera's frame, watching all of it — one more person, clapping harder than anyone.

"Got the star of Episodes 1 and 2."

PD Kwon's eyes on Hajin's face on the monitor gleamed like a predator that had just found its prey.

---

After recording wrapped, the trainees still couldn't head back to the dorm — they were waiting on individual interviews. Confirming his turn was still a good ways off, Hajin double-checked that the audio pack on his mic was off, and slipped away.

"Seo Taehyun, if anyone's looking for me, call."

"Hyung, where are you going?"

"Need some alone time."

"…Sometimes I don't get you, hyung."

Leaving behind Seo Taehyun — question marks pretty much floating over his head — Hajin headed for the individual practice room on the fifth floor. It was the one place where being alone wouldn't raise questions, the soundproofing was solid, it wasn't cold, and there were no cameras mounted anywhere.

The moment he shut the door behind him, as if it knew what he was here to do, a System window popped up in front of him.

The information the 'Fixed Regressor' is permitted to access is limited.

"So how far can you explain?"

......

"Just try. As far as you can. Full effort. I need to know some things now."

The identity of every one of these weird phenomena.

At Hajin's words, arms folded and glaring, the System window loaded for a beat, then pulled up a familiar-looking popup.

title: Single Quest 03. 'Want to Be Special?' contents: The trainer team is still paying little attention to you, a rookie chick trainee. Turn heads with an outstanding score at the month-end evaluation and make it into the special class! Quest complete. reward: A clue for tracking regressions & Ally recruitment Claim reward? (Select reward to claim) — A clue for tracking regressions — Ally recruitment

The reward from a quest he'd tried to claim before and hadn't gotten to. Watching the System window quietly, Hajin nodded as if he'd more or less caught the intent, and tapped the claim button for Reward 1.

Paang—.

"Ah, seriously, can this thing not get a patch?"

My eyeballs are about to fall out, please.

Grumbling aside, once again a sun-bright light wrapped the space.

'What are you going to show me now.'

Loaded with countless questions, another someone's memory unfolded.

---

'The kid' had always been unhappy.

An orphan of unknown parents. Two adoptions, two returns. In the end, the one who took the kid in was an orphanage director who felt sorry for him.

Among immature children, 'different' was sometimes read as 'wrong.'

Naturally pale-colored hair and eyes.

Unusually white skin, tinged pink.

The absence of parents.

The kid's difference became a reason to be shunned.

—Anything happen at school today?

—No, it was fine.

Even so, the kid was — mostly, always — fine.

—You really don't want to go to college? Even now, if you—

—No, it's okay. Running the orphanage is already so much for you. Just raising me — I'm grateful for that.

Even though he hadn't been able to properly go through school, and had spent his days working every kind of part-time job, the kid was always fine.

—Just live today, and one day, a time will come when you look forward to tomorrow — for you, too.

Believing the director's words, he lived one day at a time, waiting for a tomorrow worth looking forward to.

—Ah, cut it out, I said!

—Sir. If you're going to do this here—

—You! Who the hell are you, being all uppity with me!?

That day had been too hard.

At his late-night bar job, he got hammered by a totally drunk customer throwing a fit. In the scuffle getting the guy outside, his one and only pair of shoes caught on something and the sole ripped off.

—Ah, rain, out of nowhere….

Right when he was clocking out, rain started coming down out of nowhere. The umbrella he'd grabbed on the fly from the bar happened to be broken, and the kid got, just a little, down.

—Hello?

—Yeah, it's raining out. Did you take an umbrella?

—Yeah. Grabbed one from the bar.

—It's the middle of the night, could be dangerous — should I come meet you?

—How old do you think I am? Just go to sleep.

At the call from the director, the kid didn't have the emotional room to answer as warmly as usual. The rain kept coming down, and he still had a good ten minutes to walk before reaching home. The old-model phone he'd finally scraped together the money for kept getting wet, and that nagged at him too.

—Still, in the middle of the night, if anything happens… want to just grab a cab home?

—I'm almost there, what cab. I'm seriously fine, so just go to sleep, please. I'm okay.

The kid hung up in an irritated voice. Everything about the day was too exhausting. It suddenly crossed his mind:

'Ah. Should I just die.'

If life is this, wouldn't it be fine not to have a tomorrow. And in that moment, the director called again.

—I said just go to sleep, I'm seriously fi—!

—Excuse me. May I ask your relation to the owner of this phone?

And that night, the director died.

—I'm sorry…. I'm sorry….

Drunk driving, hit and run. The site of the accident was a dark, rough alley. Also — the same alley the kid always walked through on his way home from work.

—……

—Are you okay?

—…No.

The kid was in pain. Everything hurt. For the first time in his life, everything stopped being okay. He no longer wondered about tomorrow. All of his time was frozen on the 'yesterday' he couldn't set right.

Want to go back, then? To the moment you were happy.

That was when the kid heard the voice that would change his fate.