| Episode 34. Chuno (4)
Among the five trainees, Lee Cheonghyeon had trained for the shortest time.
He wasn’t someone who had danced from the start like Choi Jeho or Kang Giyeon, nor had he learned to sing early on like Jeong Seongbin or Park Juu.
The only talent Lee Cheonghyeon possessed was classical music, the very opposite of popular music—and piano performance at that.
“You placed third in both the last evaluation and this one, didn’t you?”
And yet Lee Cheonghyeon always ranked somewhere in the middle during evaluations, sometimes even in the upper-middle range.
“It’s not really my place to say this when I’m dead last, but I think it’s no ordinary thing for you to get good results among those practice monsters. It’s not something you can do with talent and effort alone.”
“It might’ve just been luck.”
Lee Cheonghyeon immediately refuted me.
“That could be true. But what matters is that you ‘always’ produce results. In sports, they call that an ace. In an organization, they call it a pillar.”
I understood that Jeong Seongbin and Lee Cheonghyeon were going through turbulent times and spending their days emotionally unstable.
But the words the two of them needed were very different.
If Jeong Seongbin had needed comfort, then Lee Cheonghyeon needed…
“You. Last time, you asked me why I told Kang Giyeon to sleep at night but told you to write songs, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“It’s because I expect something from you.”
I thought it would be better to give him a kind of certainty.
“I think you’re the kind of guy who can do it if you try.”
Maybe because we were in the mountains, a breeze as ticklish as encouragement blew past.
“Well, if you hate hearing criticism, should I hold a ‘listening party full of praise’ for you? Among ourselves, we’ll only compliment you. To motivate you.”
“No, that sounds incredibly burdensome in its own way!”
“Once you go out into society, no one compliments you. Cherish the opportunity.”
“Why do you always talk like someone who’s tasted all the bitterness of society?”
“I wanted to live tasting only sweetness too, but life wasn’t that easy.”
The truth was, I wanted to tell him that if he didn’t want to, we could put using his self-composed song as the title track on hold.
After all, the person who wrote the song said he still wasn’t mentally prepared.
Even I would want to shove my nose into a washbasin if a PowerPoint I’d made when I first joined the company ended up becoming my lifelong portfolio.
Lee Cheonghyeon must have easily imagined such a situation as well.
Because of various circumstances—and more than anything, because of my stubbornness—things had turned out this way, and I truly regretted it.
So I did consider apologizing.
But if I apologized here, it would only sound like, “Sorry for pushing your song as the title track when it probably still doesn’t satisfy you!” so I gave up.
‘I can just shower him with praise instead.’
I was someone who had even complimented an intern who couldn’t find a downloaded file by saying, “I can see your hardworking attitude.”
If I made use of that experience, I felt like I could manage up to thirty compliments a day.
While I was seriously pondering this for a while, Lee Cheonghyeon, who had been sitting just fine, suddenly sprang to his feet.
His face had turned pale.
“What’s wrong?”
“H-Hyung. I think I left my bag down there earlier.”
“Your bag? This?”
Only then did I remember the bag I’d picked up right before running after Lee Cheonghyeon.
After catching up to him, I had put it down beside the bench for the time being, but apparently Lee Cheonghyeon hadn’t been able to see it from where he was.
“Gasp. When did you grab that?”
“I carried it when I chased after you while you were fleeing.”
“Then you ran up the mountain carrying that bag?!”
“It’s just a hiking trail.”
Try going around all the mountains in Seoul every weekend. Is this supposed to be hard?
After dusting off the dirt, I gently placed the bag into Lee Cheonghyeon’s arms.
Then I set both hands on Lee Cheonghyeon’s shoulders.
“Cheonghyeon.”
“Yes?”
“I rode a bus for an hour to find you and even brought your bag all the way here. In consideration of my hard work, won’t you give me just one chance to say something like an old geezer?”
“What… is it?”
“It’s nothing much. I want to see all six of us debut safe and sound, and looking cool.”
I desperately forced a smile across my face to keep myself from tightening my grip on his shoulders.
In contrast, Lee Cheonghyeon’s expression as he looked up at me grew more and more uncomfortable.
“So… whether you’re worrying or digging yourself into a hole, let’s resolve most things ‘at the dorm.’ Got it?”
As if he had properly understood that I was telling him not to make people run around on foot, Lee Cheonghyeon nodded passionately.
If he ran away from home again after this, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
And so, after filling the remaining thirty minutes with Lee Cheonghyeon, I took the long way back and returned to the practice room.
Since I had blindly rushed out with the thought that I had to catch the composer whose diligent work was guaranteed, I thought I’d be scolded, but surprisingly, there was no particular talk about it.
Apparently, Jeong Seongbin had tearfully pleaded on my behalf. As expected, the more diligent a guy was, the more trust he earned from the company.
If I had been the one to ask them to let it slide just once, I would already have been signing the contract termination papers.
Ah, there was also an unexpected surprise event.
The dance break choreography that Choi Jeho and Kang Giyeon had created together for the first time was complete.
“We haven’t shown it to the teachers yet… but it’s roughly like this.”
Along with those indifferent words, the choreography the two dance-line members showed us was, literally, incredible.
Faced with their possessed movements that seemed to tell clumsy people to give up early, I could do nothing but applaud.
Unaware of how I felt, Lee Cheonghyeon kept making a fuss about how amazing it was.
He seemed truly happy that the two of them had even created choreography for his song.
Because a notification popped up saying the task of securing our debut song had been completed.
+
[SYSTEM] A “task” has been completed.
▷ Reward: EXP (10) granted
▷ Accumulated EXP: 80
▷ Accumulated Points: 0
+
It seemed Lee Cheonghyeon had finished preparing himself to accept it if the day came when we debuted with his song.
Beyond the system window, I could see Lee Cheonghyeon, who had regained his lively smile, bouncing around beside Kang Giyeon as he chattered away.
“This is awesome! But can’t you make it even cooler than this?”
“If you do two tumbles in front, probably.”
“Should I? I can do one full rotation, you know? Special training starts today.”
Surely he wasn’t thinking of making all six of us do that tumble together.
My knee joints, which had been aching until recently, felt like they were starting to hurt again.
* * *
Though it differed depending on the company’s situation or promotional strategy, idol trainees were often exposed to the media even before debut.
They would appear in commercials or as backup dancers for senior singers, making their faces known early on.
As one example, in Lee Cheonghyeon’s case, he had appeared in a music video for a senior singer under the same company before debuting.
“…So this time, Cheonghyeon will likely be taking on the male lead role in Jang Junhu-nim’s music video.”
So it had been Jang Junhu’s music video. I hadn’t even thought about it.
‘It hasn’t been long since we recorded the guide, so I guess it is about time to shoot the music video.’
Like I cared about that bastard’s music video. Something like that didn’t matter at all.
If what we needed was the recognition we could gain from appearing in a music video, I’d rather work a night shift at a convenience store myself and use that money to put up the kids’ photos at Gangnam Station.
In my heart, I wanted to raise hell and say, “I don’t think it’s right to borrow the kids’ hands for the work of a workplace harassment perpetrator like that.”
However, it seemed like this matter required reaching a preliminary agreement with my colleagues before I danced with knives, so I decided to hold back for now.
Instead, the moment the manager left the practice room, we held an emergency strategy meeting.
Aside from Lee Cheonghyeon, the person directly involved, forcing a smile, the expressions on the five of us were… truly not good.
Even Jeong Seongbin, who lived by the principle that “if things are good, then they’re good,” looked pale, so that said it all. It was only natural.
In a situation where no one was opening their mouth hastily, I was the first to break the ice.
“First of all, I think the risk Lee Cheonghyeon has to take is too great compared to the benefit of sixty thousand views on MeTube.”
“Why sixty thousand views, exactly?”
“Because I remember that being around the average view count for Jang Junhu’s music videos.”
For a trainee who hadn’t even debuted, let alone sixty thousand, even six hundred views should have been something to covet.
But grinding down a kid’s mentality before he had even debuted just for that meager amount would be the bigger loss.
‘As expected, I should work night shifts and put up an ad at Gangnam Station…’
As I was seriously trying to recall how many convenience stores there were around here, Jeong Seongbin cautiously raised his hand.
“Um, then wouldn’t it be better if I went instead, since I’m more acquainted with sunbae-nim…”
“All right. Who has the next opinion?”
I cut him off because it wasn’t even worth hearing further. Was that supposed to be a suggestion, or Department Head Nam-level bullshit?
I acknowledged that his attitude of trying to protect a member was admirable.
However, sending Jeong Seongbin, who had suffered the most damage, was an issue that didn’t even warrant consideration.
‘Then there’s only one conclusion.’
I looked at Choi Jeho, who had been sitting hunched over and listening quietly, and said,
“Choi Jeho, you’ll have to go.”
“Me?”
Then should I go?
“We can’t send the kids. But it’s not like we have the authority to say no either.”
“I’ll even buy a recorder and keep it on me properly! I didn’t have as much contact with that person as Seongbin-hyung did, so everyone doesn’t have to worry too much…”
“No. If this were a normal situation, it wouldn’t even be something you guys had to worry about going or not going to.”
And reality was harsh as hell.
No matter how much he prepared a recorder, once filming began, it was obvious that every staff member, from the stylist to the cinematographer, would be watching everything, whether it was the fit of his clothes or his actions.
In that kind of situation, it wouldn’t be strange for any unexpected incident to occur.
In the worst case, if the recorder were discovered, he would obviously get showered with abuse like, “A punk who hasn’t even debuted is carrying around something weird at a place where he’s working with a senior.”
‘How am I supposed to send the kids to a set where problems we can’t prepare for might happen?’
Excluding the kids, the only person left was Choi Jeho, who was at least twenty years old and didn’t seem like the type to be easily pushed around anywhere.
However, Choi Jeho said, looking rather unwilling,
“You can go.”
“I can’t exactly apply to shoot a music video with my face.”
“Um… if you only look at your faces, you and hyung do have a similar vibe.”
Park Juu, who had been sitting quietly, said something I couldn’t sympathize with at all. So I didn’t pay attention to it.
“How are you going to persuade the company? If another trainee says he’ll go without any justification, they might not listen.”
At least Kang Giyeon made a rational point.
But I had already thought up a countermeasure for that part as well.
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll go and talk to them.”
“You will, hyung?”
“Yeah. I think I have a rough idea why they singled out Lee Cheonghyeon.”