| Episode 14. Resignation Interview (2)
What kind of presence was Jeong Seongbin in Spark?
When asked that question, the four members of Spark back then had answered in a single word.
“Our leader.”
Leaving aside how these inarticulate bastards had made me want to explode, Jeong Seongbin was, in his own way, recognized within that bleak group.
Even the fans, who had given all sorts of chaotic nicknames to the other guys, called Jeong Seongbin “Jeong Seongbin, our spiritual pillar.”
What would happen if someone like that ran away?
What do you mean, what would happen? Debut or whatever, it’d all be over.
It would be no different from trying to sneak onto a bus filled only with furious passengers and having to watch, with both eyes wide open, as the driver jumped out the window.
‘What do I do? Should I take him to Starbucks and start by feeding him a 6,800-won drink?’
I lifted my head, trying to remember whether there was a Starbucks nearby.
And only belatedly realized that it was pitch-black all around us.
‘Right. We came out at midnight.’
Fuck.
I rummaged desperately through the dusty inside of my head.
But no matter how far back I searched my memories, I couldn’t find a single scene where Jeong Seongbin had said anything like, “There was a time during my trainee days when I wandered, wondering if this path was right.”
Jeong Seongbin himself, meanwhile, immediately returned to normal. It seemed he hadn’t yet realized the deep, true darkness within himself.
I couldn’t let my guard down. People like this were more dangerous.
Because he was the type to work overtime until yesterday, then on a clear, sunny morning the next day, say with a smile, “Whew, I can’t do this anymore!” and announce his intent to resign.
In the same tone as if he were asking to grab a cup of coffee.
Judging from now, Jeong Seongbin was certain to feel disillusioned with life and begin contemplating what life even was within a month at most.
And two months later, he would leave our side.
At that point, saying, “What are you talking about all of a sudden! We were good together……!” would be useless.
Because by then, the resignation simulation would have already run through his head about three hundred times.
If I failed to stop this disaster, UA would end up making the face of a raccoon that had washed its cotton candy in front of the one and only leader material who had suddenly decided to quit the idol path.
‘I have to crush him in advance so he can’t even get to the “w” in worry.’
You think I’d let him run away alone, leaving behind four problem children? Absolutely not.
“Seongbin, want to talk for a bit before we go in?”
I grabbed Jeong Seongbin in front of the convenience store. I intended to act so pathetically clingy that he’d feel like he’d regret it until the day he died if he quit here.
* * *
A few minutes later.
We sat side by side on the swings at the playground, each holding a warm red ginseng honey tea. For reference, Jeong Seongbin had picked the drink.
A knife-like wind dug into my outerwear.
“Sorry, it’s cold.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Even at my forceful request for an interview, Jeong Seongbin smiled and said it was fine. Ha…… protect the leader at all costs.
“There’s something you’re worried about, right? Lately.”
When I carefully broached the subject, Jeong Seongbin looked over at me.
His face clearly said, How did you know? Unfortunately, it was way too obvious.
Jeong Seongbin barely swung on the swing, fidgeted his legs a few times, and then spoke.
“It’s just…… when I think about the evaluation results coming out soon, I feel a little uneasy.”
Then Jeong Seongbin smiled bitterly.
Objectively speaking, UA’s evaluation method wasn’t harsh.
But considering that, along with feedback, the trainees were ranked every single time, there was a high chance that Jeong Seongbin’s worries lay in those rankings.
What Jeong Seongbin said next didn’t stray far from my expectations.
“It’s not like the company has that many trainees, but at some point, the rankings barely changed.”
This evaluation had gone in the order of Bak Juu, Choe Jeho, I Cheonghyeon, Jeong Seongbin, and Gang Giyeon.
And that order was the ranking order from the previous evaluation.
Considering Gang Giyeon hadn’t been able to show his real skills and had received bad scores every time, it meant that if you looked purely at ability, Jeong Seongbin’s rank was the lowest.
Even lower than I Cheonghyeon, whose trainee experience was far shorter than Jeong Seongbin’s.
‘Of course he’d be anxious.’
It was the kind of thing that could happen when there were people around you who were too outstanding.
Inevitably, they took similar classes every day and invested similar amounts of time, and on top of that, he himself had a sincere personality that never cut corners in anything, so the blow seemed to have landed even harder.
Personally, I did think that the grit to clench your teeth and struggle on even beside geniuses was a talent in itself.
But saying that out loud was an entirely different matter.
So instead of opening my mouth rashly, I decided to give Jeong Seongbin a little time.
I, for one, have never seen an interview end well when management starts firing away first at the person who requested it.
“Drink your tea. It’ll get cold.”
“……Okay.”
With a slightly gloomy expression, Jeong Seongbin peeled off the plastic seal covering the bottle cap.
I fiddled with my bottle of red ginseng honey tea and thought about what I could do right now.
There were roughly three usable methods.
1. Lock him in praise hell.
A method of wrapping Jeong Seongbin in love by appropriately mixing in the fawning lines I had written on coffee truck delivery banners.
But if I, the greatest stiff-as-a-board awkward clod UA had ever produced, tried to execute it, I doubted it would be very effective.
Just like how I hadn’t been happy at all when Department Head Nam praised me in the past for organizing the break room very well.
2. Present a positive outlook with clear grounds.
Using the vast amount of data I had collected while organizing clues, I could explain from an objective perspective exactly which skills were improving and what kind of future growth potential could be projected based on that.
However, if Jeong Seongbin responded, “How do you know I sang that song, hyung?” it would immediately be a bad ending.
More or less…… wouldn’t there be a high chance he’d look at me with eyes that despised a creepy human being? Even I would find it unsettling.
3. Just run my mouth.
A method of saying that I had the ability to see the future, that he would definitely do well, that he would succeed and gain wealth and honor, and that at least until he was twenty-eight, he would be able to sing here and there.
In this case, there was the fatal side effect that if I said one wrong thing, I might be gently advised to seek hospital treatment.
‘How is there not a single useful thing to say?’
After getting the chance to rewrite my life, I’d thought my career at Hanpyeong Industries had turned into a useless line on my résumé, but looking at it now, that didn’t seem entirely wrong. I was once again realizing just how incompetent I was outside of the company.
I couldn’t see a bright future in any of the three cases, but I steeled my heart.
For this guy, his life was on the line; for me, my sister’s life and my own future were on the line.
“Seongbin. If you’re not too cold right now, can I say about…… five things?”
“Yes, hyung.”
I spoke as calmly as possible so it wouldn’t seem like I was exaggerating to encourage him.
“I don’t want you to be too disheartened just because the gap between you and the others isn’t closing right away.”
Jeong Seongbin, who had been about to drink his honey tea, reacted ever so slightly. Sorry for bothering you while you were eating.
“If you keep doing what you’ve been doing until now, the day will come when you’re recognized. I mean it.”
“You sound really certain, hyung.”
“Of course.”
At my confident attitude, I saw Jeong Seongbin, who had been smiling faintly like a deflating balloon, look flustered.
Gim Iwol, you can do this.
Your image or whatever is nothing compared to the saint of the idol scene, Spark’s ember, and the drama OST killer.
For this young friend to overcome his growing pains—no. For my own future, where I would be free from Hanpyeong Industries, I should just close my eyes and do it.
With difficulty, I opened my mouth, which even the red ginseng honey tea had failed to moisten.
“I…… know the future, you see.”
It was a shocking true story that wouldn’t have been out of place under the headline, “Gim Iwol, Age Twenty-Nine, Declares ‘I Know the Future’…… Controversy Ensues.”
The cold wind cut between Jeong Seongbin and me.
“……What?”
Damn it.
It was the most embarrassed I’d ever been since birth. Was this what they called secondhand embarrassment? Except I wasn’t the one empathizing—I was the person involved.
Enduring the heat rising in my face, I forced myself to continue.
“I saw—no, it appeared to me for a moment.”
Since saying I saw it implied that my will had been involved, I hurriedly changed the expression.
“Even though right now must feel too long and too hard for you…… in the not-too-distant future, you’ll come to think that you were able to become happy because of this time.”
After hearing my words, Jeong Seongbin let a long silence pass without saying anything.
He was probably weighing whether I was a guy who had lost his mind or a guy with a few screws loose.
Taking advantage of this gap, I pretended to be calm and wrapped up the conversation.
“If you don’t believe me, then don’t.”
“No. It makes me feel reassured.”
“Let’s lower the corners of our mouth before we lie.”
Fortunately, Jeong Seongbin’s face had relaxed considerably compared to before. It looked less like he’d been comforted and more like he’d been amused enough to get a change of mood, though.
Still, changing his train of thought was something. I barely held back the sigh of relief that threatened to come out about ten million times.
Steam was practically pouring off my body to the point that I wondered if there had ever been such a hot winter in the world.
The atmosphere on the way back to the dorm after leaving the playground wasn’t as heavy as it had been a few dozen minutes ago.
“What was I doing in the future you saw, hyung?”
Because Jeong Seongbin was asking all sorts of things with great excitement.
Until a little while ago, his lies had lacked sincerity because he was forcing himself to pretend he was okay, but now there was mischief hidden all throughout his words.
If I said here…….
“Yeah. You become the leader of a talented boy group, and after silently leading the team even in the rough entertainment industry, you finally see the light. Though you do disband.”
……and Jeong Seongbin ended up overtrusting folk belief and slacking off, that would be a huge problem.
Once again, I forced my brain to turn with difficulty.
Minimize the information and use synonyms, but choose a word that would make him feel enough responsibility……
“A ch…… chieftain?”
……Why exactly did I carry a head around?
When my brain refused to work to this extent, I felt I seriously needed to reflect on myself.
“What if I, pfft…… become the chieftain, and then the group collapses soon after?”
“No, it doesn’t. Without you, it fails.”
I don’t know where exactly it burst from, but in the end, Jeong Seongbin laughed joyfully, even covering the sound with his hand over his mouth.
Sis, are you watching?
Your little brother is living this desperately.
Until we arrived at the dorm, Jeong Seongbin’s questions didn’t stop.
For Jeong Seongbin, who seemed like the personification of diligence, this sort of absurd story seemed fairly refreshing.
Thanks to that, our conversation stayed at this level the entire way back.
“You can’t see the future whenever you want, right?”
“Right. I have to live my current life too.”
“If you think there’s something you want to see, does it appear in front of your eyes?”
“It must be like receiving a spirit or something. It’s not often, just sometimes.”
All of a sudden, I had to spend some time sincerely apologizing in my heart to every shaman in the country.
And I vowed that once I saw this kind and good friend debut, I would retreat into Jirisan or something and atone.
Whether it had been laughter therapy or not, by the time we returned to the room, Jeong Seongbin looked quite a bit lighter.
Either that, or he had been driven so far into a corner that he couldn’t even afford to have those stray thoughts once.
Still, the fact that Jeong Seongbin’s face had changed into one that said, “I’ll hold out again today……!” was a remarkable achievement.
Thinking complacently that it was a relief it had somehow worked out, I was about to lie down in bed when the space before my eyes glowed faintly.
It was the System. I wasn’t even surprised anymore.
But something was strange. It was a different type of message from before.
+
[SYSTEM] “Party B” is hereby notified of the “Personnel Disadvantage Clause.”
▷ Violation of internal regulations
▷ Violation of confidentiality obligations
▷ [Locked]
.
.
.
+
Words that looked ominous at a glance had appeared.
Feeling uneasy, I selected the “Violation of confidentiality obligations” item, which was blinking especially noticeably. Then a long piece of text appeared.
+
[SYSTEM] “Party B” is hereby notified of the “Violation of confidentiality obligations.”
▷ Matters that may affect areas outside of Spark’s successful activities, as well as all direct information related to future points in time, are regarded as confidential information requiring security.
▷ “Party B” is responsible for maintaining confidentiality regarding the above matters.
▷ The severity of the disposition will be determined after considering various factors, including the importance of the leaked confidential information and its potential to attract public attention, and punishment may extend up to “death.”
+
Surely it wasn’t warning me just because I had given one “Jo shall be king”-style bit of encouragement by saying, “Jeong Seongbin becomes the chieftain!” Especially when the maximum penalty was death.
If I’d known my life was on the line, I wouldn’t have made that humiliating leak of heavenly secrets either.
Not wanting to believe reality, I once again read the memo, which had a talent for pissing people off even at three in the morning, word by word.
But rereading the memo didn’t change anything.
Everything except calling father father was apparently forbidden to mention.
It was a story hard to accept unless you’d lost your mind.