| Episode 63. How to Resolve Friction with Your Superior: Get Rid of the Superior (1)
Our strategy was as follows.
#Take 1.
Lee Cheonghyeon joins Jeong Seongbin and Kang Giyeon midway on their way home, and the two youngest members interrogate their leader-hyung about what happened.
Cheonghyeon: Hyung, has something been going on lately?
Giyeon: I wasn’t going to say anything because it seemed like you were trying not to let it show in front of us, but I’ve been worried…
Like that, as if they’d been watching the older members’ moods lately and had finally worked up the courage to bring it up.
Then the softhearted Jeong Seongbin would surely give them some kind of answer. Jeong Seongbin wasn’t the sort of person who would be any less kind to others just because he himself was troubled.
#Take 2.
At the same time, in front of the water dispenser in the practice room hallway, Choi Jeho awkwardly speaks to Park Juu.
Jeho: You, uh… Did you… fight with Jeong Seongbin?
Choi Jeho’s delivery isn’t very smooth, but let’s call it a directorial choice meant to make him seem more hesitant.
First of all, Park Juu will be surprised. The number of one-on-one conversations between Choi Jeho and Park Juu converges on zero.
Though Park Juu will also hesitate for quite a while, he’ll answer.
The more information the better, but it’ll be a success if Choi Jeho manages to fish out even one key factor.
I don’t expect to hear the A to Z of the incident from a silent bastard and a silent pushover. So just figure it out and extract only what’s important.
#Take 3.
Once Jeong Seongbin is called away by the manager, and Park Juu enters the vocal practice room, everyone except those two gathers and shares their results.
“So? Did you find anything out?”
The first to answer was Lee Cheonghyeon.
“Wow, Seongbin-hyung kept his mouth shut more than I expected.”
Damn. We’re doomed from the start.
“You should’ve shaken Seongbin’s heart even if you had to put on a crying act. Are you kidding me?”
“I was ready to poke myself in the eye if I had to and make myself cry, okay? But Seongbin-hyung looked so tragically pitiful while changing the subject!”
“Honestly, he looked so sad I couldn’t ask any more.”
At Lee Cheonghyeon’s indignant cry, even Kang Giyeon, who had been sitting with his arms crossed, nodded and spoke.
“Then tell me what you did hear for now. Cheonghyeon, you first.”
“He said he didn’t have some huge fight with Juu-hyung. Just that they had a bit of a difference in opinion.”
“Then what does it look like to you, Giyeon? You share a room with both of them.”
“To say they didn’t fight… they really don’t talk much in the room.”
Kang Giyeon, whose back had been completely blown apart by his hyungs’ cold war, shrugged.
“But then again, it’s ambiguous to say they fought.”
“In what way?”
“It feels more like they’re avoiding each other. Usually, when you fight, you’re angry at the other person or something.”
That point was indeed unusual. There was a clear difference between leaving because you couldn’t stand the sight of someone and avoiding them because you didn’t have the face to see them.
Kang Giyeon continued.
“Seongbin-hyung also said he thought he might’ve misspoken.”
At that, Lee Cheonghyeon added to Kang Giyeon’s words.
“That hyung isn’t someone who’d make a verbal slip unless it was really unusual. Maybe there was just a misunderstanding between them?”
“True.”
I agreed with Lee Cheonghyeon’s opinion too.
Then, from a side I hadn’t expected anything from, an unexpected remark came.
Choi Jeho, of all people, had brought back a useful answer.
“They are uncomfortable with each other.”
“What?”
“He said they were talking, and both of them ended up saying things harshly.”
I was so flustered that I even forgot to ask, “What does that mean?” and just blinked.
They said things harshly? Not anyone else, but Jeong Seongbin and Park Juu? Those two, whose hearts were like soft tofu?
When we pounced on him, Choi Jeho began recounting the conversation he’d had with Park Juu.
‘You fought over whether to tell the company about Kim Iwol’s situation?’
‘…Yes.’
‘Didn’t that discussion end because Kim Iwol asked us to bury it?’
‘I think Seongbin kept worrying about it.’
It seemed Jeong Seongbin had tried to persuade me one more time somehow.
And Park Juu had stopped him.
“He said they shouldn’t pry too much when they don’t know what circumstances you might have.”
“……”
I was grateful that he’d stopped Jeong Seongbin from bringing that issue back to me.
But the reason Park Juu had suddenly spoken up while taking my position into consideration was unclear.
If there was anything I could point to, it was that Park Juu was the member who’d unintentionally heard the most conversations where my family circumstances were revealed.
But I had no idea how far Park Juu’s imagination had gone just from hearing that I couldn’t go to college because I had no money—though that was his misunderstanding—or that I didn’t get along well with my family.
If anything, I could understand Jeong Seongbin’s position now.
It wasn’t that I agreed with Jeong Seongbin’s opinion that we should report Yu Hansu.
But if a friend you’d been getting along with strongly opposed something you believed to be right, wouldn’t that be enough to leave you flustered?
“Seongbin must’ve felt hurt.”
“Is that something to get hurt over?”
“He was already troubled, and then even his friend stopped him from the side. I doubt his heart felt at ease.”
When the teammates you thought you could rely on betrayed you by siding with Department Head Nam, it really was that emptying.
In any case, the emergency countermeasure committee, having found the cause of the problem, neatly disbanded before Jeong Seongbin and Park Juu returned.
And somehow having become the seed of discord, I took the opportunity when those guys came back to practice to activate the relationship-line function.
It was a function similar to peeking into someone’s heart, so I’d been refraining from using it until now, but since this wasn’t something that had arisen from a private issue between the two of them, I decided to use it for the public good this time.
[SYSTEM] Please enter the combination name.
▶ [ ]
‘I think the fans called them Main Vocalz… but I feel like something like that would be rejected for being too trite.’
This system was a nasty bastard, after all.
Wasn’t it the very thing that had rejected my combination names until it finally let me bind Choi Jeho and Kang Giyeon as “Sandpaper Cuties”?
Sure enough, this time too, I had to face countless windows saying, “This is an inappropriate combination name.”
The combination name I barely managed to get approved was something that sounded like a game nickname from an internet meme my classmates used to share now and then.
[SYSTEM] The combination name has been confirmed as “LongTailedTit2.”
I named it that because they were the two in this team who looked the most harmless, but… I could only hope no one would ever find out about my naming skills.
The relationship line I’d managed to open with great difficulty gave off exactly the sort of aura I’d expected, screaming, “I’m hurt!”
[Jeong Seongbin — I wish he would treat me more like a comfortable friend → Park Juu]
[Park Juu — I wish he would let go of some of the burden → Jeong Seongbin]
What a touching friendship.
As expected of friends who had stayed by each other’s side for over seven years before too. Though this time, because I got involved, it had nearly all gone to shit.
If I were a person with any sense of moral responsibility, I had to resolve this smoothly even if it had nothing to do with my KPI.
As I joined the practice formation, I thought I should call yet another emergency meeting, though I had no idea how many times we’d already held one, or how many more we’d hold before debut.
* * *
The next day, after practice ended and the members had returned home, I gathered everyone in the dorm living room.
“Today’s agenda is… I didn’t tell you in advance, but I think you all know.”
At my words, Jeong Seongbin visibly flinched. Park Juu glanced at Jeong Seongbin, then immediately turned his gaze the other way.
“Before that, there’s something I want to say.”
At my words, the members looked at my face.
“A few days ago, I should’ve first thanked you all for worrying about me, but I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
First, I apologized to prevent an atmosphere from forming where Jeong Seongbin would be blamed for worrying too much. The goal today wasn’t to tell any one person that they’d done wrong.
They seemed a bit flustered, as if it was an introduction they hadn’t expected, but I didn’t stop and moved on to the next step.
“My thought that it’s better not to tell the company hasn’t changed. But I didn’t want you all to feel uncomfortable because of my decision. That’s why I made a place for all of us to talk together.”
“……”
“It’s been a few days, so everyone’s cooled their heads, right? First, let’s discuss whether we want to tell the company about Producer Yu Hansu’s matter.”
My plan was to put whether we wanted to report Yu Hansu to a vote, then if the votes were divided, hold a discussion to bring our opinions together and talk about that plan.
However, the vote was almost meaningless.
Because the five of them, excluding me, agreed that we should report Yu Hansu.
If I’d known these guys would come out like this, I should’ve at least taken a photo on the day I got hit. It made me feel ridiculous for having nagged Jeong Seongbin to leave evidence.
When I looked regretful, Park Juu asked,
“Do we really need evidence? We all saw your face that day, hyung…”
“He’s more than capable of denying it. It’d be lucky if he doesn’t claim the trainees plotted together to drive him out.”
At my words, Park Juu’s face turned pale.
It was unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped. What was I supposed to do when that bastard Yu Hansu had meticulously called me into a meeting room without CCTV?
“Still, it’s not like there’s no evidence at all.”
I pulled out the bundle of paper I’d prepared in advance from my pants pocket.
It was the remains of the MP3 player Yu Hansu had smashed, the one I’d bought secondhand.
I’d kept it in case I could at least connect the mainboard and use it somehow.
Though the battery, the memory, everything had been split in half, making revival impossible.
“This is my MP3 player, and the producer broke it. I picked it up separately in case someone stepped on it and got hurt.”
Looking at the pieces of the MP3 player, Jeong Seongbin asked with a face gone blue.
“The producer broke this?”
“Yeah. I bought it secondhand, so it didn’t cost much, but the company should at least know that someone who breaks other people’s belongings isn’t normal.”
The guys’ expressions darkened as they looked at the shattered pieces, now so far gone it felt apologetic to even call them an MP3 player.
Lee Cheonghyeon furrowed his brow and asked,
“What do you even have to do to make an electronic device end up like this?”
“It turns out that’s what happens if you step on it a few times. And didn’t I tell you not to wrinkle your face?”
“Are wrinkles important right now?”
Isn’t that obvious? In idol history, there’s nothing as important as that.
“Anyway, if that’s what you all think… I’ll try to resolve it with this.”
As I said that while gathering the MP3 fragments back up, Kang Giyeon shrugged.
“Will you be okay? From what I’ve heard, that producer sounds like complete trash.”
“Then I just have to act like even worse trash.”
They seemed not to know how sharp an office worker who’d suffered abuse of power at work could become.
“Then, Seongbin, sorry during practice, but I’ll step out for a bit.”
“Where are you going?”
“Where else? The Artist Management Team.”
At those words, Choi Jeho’s eyes widened.
“You’re going right now?”
“Yeah. You said we should talk about it even a day sooner, didn’t you?”
At my words, Lee Cheonghyeon wore an oddly anxious expression.
“Is it okay not to make some kind of plan?”
“I’ve thought all that through, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
It would be troublesome to keep practicing with the teamwork damaged any further and the atmosphere sunken like this.
Now that we’d reached a conclusion, it was time to move. I brushed myself off and stood up.
“Wait, hyung. How are you going to talk to them?”
Jeong Seongbin asked with a worried face.
I smiled brightly so that Jeong Seongbin could rest easy and sleep soundly tonight.
“How else? I’ll make it so the company people can’t listen to my story without crying.”