Chapter 94

The third mission was 'free choice.'

As long as they used the assigned item and special effect, everything else — from song choice to the team name itself — was 'up to them.'

"Alright, so the team name is…?"

"Jung Siwoo and the Kids."

"Ah, come on."

"Then how about Kang Hajin and the Boys?"

At Hajin's joke, Siwoo let out a small sigh. Then he passed on the team name they'd agreed on earlier to the assistant writer.

"Blue Flare."

"Got it. Ah, have you all decided on a leader?"

"Me."

"Hajin's doing it."

"Yep."

Leaving behind the minimum number of stationary cams, the crew got ready to pull out. Checking the time, the segment PD announced to the scattered Blue Flare members:

"You all know how to use the self-cams, right? Song selection and concept — we're going to film that separately tomorrow, but if you meet or practice today, just turn the self-cams on and record it."

"Wait, so are we going in as if everything's already decided? Or do we have to act like we're deciding from scratch?"

Hajin, who'd been sprawled on the practice-room floor toying with Eunchan in an arm-wrestling match, sprang up at that and asked the PD.

Before he could get up, Eunchan — arm snapped down in a split second for the K.O. — wore a look of pure devastation. And the segment PD, hearing Hajin's question, matched his energy with an equally floored expression.

"Hajin-ssi, you really haven't worked in broadcast before? You just said everything I was about to say."

"…haha. I like it, so I watch a lot of it. A true viewer of this era."

"Anyway, this team's backstory is already busted, so we can keep the meeting stuff light. Sort things out among yourselves today, and tomorrow just act it out well enough. Can you manage that?"

"Full confidence. You just saw our team's exceptional acting talent, didn't you?"

The PD had reached for broadcast jargon without thinking, but Hajin caught it in stride and lobbed a joke back. Still sprawled on the floor from the shock of losing to Hajin, Eunchan looked up with a curious face.

"'Backstory's busted'… what does that mean?"

"Huh? …ah, you know how they run a VCR reel before a stage? It means we've got enough footage for that already."

Hajin naturally rolling right into the annotation only deepened the crew's suspicions.

"…Hajin-ssi, you really haven't done broadcast work?"

"Uh, sunbaenim Yu Taeseok said it that one time on a variety show. Something like 'the opening's busted'—"

Hajin looked away unnaturally. But no one imagined that inside the body of a 20-year-old trainee sat the past life of a 29-year-old, four-year-veteran broadcast PD.

"Hmm. Anyway, that's it for filming today, so keep meeting and practicing as you need. See you all tomorrow~."

"Yep. Alright, everyone. Let's give thanks."

"Thanks for the hard work!"

"PD-nims, see you tomorrow!"

"See you tomorrow~."

Still, it was a relief that the mood at the end was warmer than when they'd first gathered.

The staff — who'd watched Hajin not just shatter an ice-cold atmosphere but turn it into gripping television — left the practice room shooting him no small looks of interest.

"Ugh, Hajin-ssi, I'm putting all my trust in you here…."

Blue Flare's assigned writer even discreetly grabbed Hajin on her way out to thank him in a tone that, converted to emoticons, would have carried about twelve ㅠㅜ.

Truthfully, he thought his contribution today deserved the praise. So Hajin just enjoyed the reactions and told her to get home safe.

'The reason they're filming the meeting scene separately tomorrow is probably the team mood too.'

If the atmosphere turned even a little serious and the standoff between Jung Siwoo and Lee Yugeon surfaced, there'd be no reining it back in. Thanks to the game the mood had loosened up, but Siwoo and Yugeon still hadn't exchanged a single word.

And so, once all the staff had cleared out, only Blue Flare was left in the practice room.

When Hajin turned around to start plotting out the practice plan going forward—

"……?"

"……?"

"…Lee Yugeon, what are you doing?"

"Wasn't filming over?"

Lee Yugeon was packing up to leave.

No — he was actually already at the practice-room door, right where Hajin was standing, about to walk out.

"…haaa."

As if he'd seen this coming, Siwoo sighed. Wonho, technically on Yugeon's side, looked at the two of them with a troubled expression. It seemed Hajin was the only one who couldn't make sense of the situation.

"So, right now. You're going back to the dorm? Not practicing?"

"Not the dorm, but there's somewhere I need to be. We haven't even picked the song yet, so we can't practice anyway."

"So we pick the song without you? You go back to the dorm and hang out?"

Hajin pressed him, and Yugeon — thinking it over as he lightly scratched his chin with a forefinger — met Hajin's eyes and let out a big sigh, as if he too found this awkward.

"Hyung, you saw the last broadcast, right?"

"What's that got to do with any of this right now."

"I don't have any particular ambitions for parts, and whatever you throw at me I can carry my share. So just give me the leftovers."

"……"

"If you really need my opinion, I'll send it by text. Use that for reference. And honestly…."

"……?"

"…honestly, it's more comfortable for you guys to talk without me there, right?"

Well then, I'm off.

Yugeon smiled playfully, slung on his backpack, and drifted casually out of the practice room.

Hajin didn't try to stop him.

---

Even with Yugeon gone like that, the rest of the team couldn't just head back to the dorm too.

"So that's how that is. What do the rest of you want to do?"

Hajin turned back around looking more unbothered than expected and asked the remaining teammates for their opinions. Of course, everyone was on the side of staying to keep meeting and practicing, so Blue Flare decided to relocate.

They came down to the café on the first floor of Miro's new building, each grabbed a drink to their taste, and settled into the cushioned chairs. (Eunchan reflexively pulled out his brother's card, but Jung Siwoo paid, saying there was no way he could accept coffee from a kid who hadn't even finished high school. In the process, everyone but Jung Siwoo looked at Hajin.)

"So — the concept's basically decided, right?"

On a piece torn from Lee Doha's notebook (which he carried everywhere in case inspiration struck), Hajin wrote in big block letters:

〈SEX Y〉

"With harnesses and lasers, going for cutesy and refreshing would be funny too."

"…for an 18-year-old, is sexy really the call? Not sure."

Half-worried, half-joking, Siwoo tilted his chin toward Eunchan. For all that Eunchan had a good build for his age and a face with some edge to it, there was no denying he hadn't quite shed the high-schooler look.

Suddenly on the receiving end of every hyung's gaze at once, Eunchan opened and closed his lips uncertainly, then clenched a fist. (Learned it from Hajin.)

"I-I'll do my best to learn."

The trap being that there wasn't really anyone on the team qualified to teach him.

'Sexy… isn't really my specialty either.'

Hajin quietly shook his head with a slightly at-a-loss expression.

'Might actually be better for someone like Shin Kyungho — clueless but overflowing with confidence.'

You know, the kind of kid who — figuring it must read as devastating — flicks his tongue out first and asks questions later. Quietly scanning the team lineup, Hajin looked at the person on it least suited to that keyword.

"But wait. Eunchan came in because he didn't know what a harness was, sure. But hyung, why'd you come in here? You said you knew what a harness was."

Called out, Jung Siwoo took a sip of piping-hot herbal tea and answered.

"This one was better than the other two."

"What were the other two, though? Feathers don't get hints — I'm so aggrieved my tiramisu won't even go down."

"Hyung, you finished it already."

"Shush, Eunchan. It's a figure of speech. You ever hear of a metaphor?"

"You two doing a bit? Is this the roommate chemistry we're getting?"

While Hajin and Eunchan went back and forth, Siwoo dug out the keyword cards he'd received and set them on the table. Then he calmly began to explain why he'd picked Room 1.

〈Room 1 — Harness / Laser〉

〈Room 2 — Flowers / Confetti〉

〈Room 3 — Goggles / Air Shot〉

"I was second, and Taehyun was first, right? The second I saw him go into Room 2, Room 2 was out. It was obvious he had a clear picture of what kind of team he wanted to build."

"Fair. Flowers on their own, sure, but Seo Taehyun plus flowers?"

Didn't need to see it to know — he'd gone straight for his specialty. The very icon of fresh-cool-kitsch-flashy, living up to his Cherry Boy name.

"Air Shot wasn't bad either…. It was just that Harness fit my image better than Goggles. And, being second, I had to factor in which teammates were likely to end up where."

"So — did you call it right?"

"Honestly?"

Hajin balled his fist into a fake microphone and held it out in front of Siwoo like an interviewer. Siwoo, confirming the self-cams weren't rolling yet, shrugged.

"Except for Lee Yugeon, they were all the teammates I'd expected. I thought he'd pick Goggles, but come to think of it, he's a Feather so he didn't get a hint. That was my miss."

"Then couldn't you have closed before Yugeon came in? I was after Lee Doha, Lee Yugeon, and Lee Parang."

"…ahaha."

At Hajin's counter, this time it was Wonho who cleared his throat.

"That was me. I said let's wait, in case you came in."

"Me?"

"We needed at least one more solid vocal besides Siwoo-hyung. And the dance felt a little light too."

"But it wasn't me — it was Lee Yugeon."

"Yeah. Yugeon was thrown too. …it was right after that thing with Siwoo-hyung hadn't smoothed over."

Wonho brought it up while checking Siwoo's expression, but Siwoo rested his chin on his hand and gave a lazy smile as if it didn't matter.

"You can speak freely. It's his attitude as a teammate — I don't dislike Lee Yugeon the person."

"……!"

The tone made clear he kept business and personal cleanly separate. And in fact, whenever cameras were rolling, Siwoo would talk to Yugeon without any visible discomfort.

At those words, Eunchan's pupils quaked slightly, as if he'd realized something — but nobody noticed. Siwoo went on.

"Anyway, once Yugeon was in, I couldn't just call close right there. He was going to be barely participating, like now. If someone at your level or Jaeyoung's came in, I figured it was still a bet worth taking."

"But then Lee Parang went into Room 2 and it closed, and I came into Room 1?"

"Whoever it was, once one more person came in I was going to call close. Getting stuck with all the remaining slots — nobody wants that disaster, right? And since it turned out to be exactly who I'd been hoping for, from my end there was no reason not to close."

The frantic 'triple-close' Jung Siwoo had shouted earlier had apparently come from that calculation.

Thanks to that, this no-hope party at least hadn't dragged in any extra baggage (say, Shin Kyungho, or Shin Kyungho, or someone Shin-Kyungho-like).

'Shin Kyungho was right after me in the order.'

The remaining Feather trainees got auto-assigned to Room 3. Hajin pictured Gong Seok — currently, no doubt, offering up his stomach lining to Han Seongwoo's henchmen numbers one, two, and three, for whom bullying was basically a way of life.

'Thank god at least Jayden's there. When I run into him at the dorm later, I should buy him a hot chocolate.'

If it came down to it, he was even willing to hand Gong Seok the screencaps of Shin Kyungho's KakaoTalk he still had saved.

"Alright. So — we need to actually have the meeting now, right? Concept is sexy, decided. For the song, better to take some time and search around, yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm not expecting much, but Lee Yugeon did say he'd send input by text."

"How about we nail down positions first? If everyone's clear on which strength they want to lean into, the song search will have a direction too."

Siwoo, reliable in the way of an older brother, delivered his opinion and steered the meeting's direction steadily. Since coming to Miro, this was the first time a meeting had run smoothly without Hajin driving it.

'At last, an express-lane driver's stepped into my life?'

That alone was more than enough, but Jung Siwoo went further — he even showed the consideration to defer to Hajin, the official leader.

"Of course, if you had a meeting outline in mind, we can go with that. It's just that I always start by breaking down each teammate's strengths, so I brought it up."

"No, that sounds great. 'Sexy' as a keyword is pretty broad anyway, so let's do what hyung said — everyone talks about what they want to lead with."

Truthfully, though, Hajin figured he could roughly guess everyone's answers without asking.

'Lee Doha will be rap. Kim Wonho and Lee Yugeon, dance. Siwoo-hyung on main vocal…. Eunchan, dance? Or rap?'

Just then, Eunchan — who'd been quietly listening to the hyungs' conversation — worked up the courage and shot a hand up.

"Hyung."

"Yeah, Chan-ah. Right, actually I was about to ask — you want to do rap, or dan—"

"I want to do vocals."

"Alright then… huh?"

The hyungs' eyes turned to Eunchan in unison.

Eunchan, with the same calm, self-assured voice he'd used the day he'd fired that clapback at Han Seongwoo, looked Hajin and Siwoo straight in the eye and said,

"I want to do vocals. Give me a vocal part."