Damn Idol - Episode 67
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It was in elementary school that Onsaemiro first became aware of “difference.”
Thinking back on it when he was older, that difference was “class.”
“I’m going to Busan this summer!”
“I’m going to Japan!”
“I already went there in the winter!”
There were two kinds of people in the world.
Those who went on family trips during vacation, and those who didn’t.
Onsaemiro found that strange and told his parents they should go on a trip, only to be met with curses spat from cold faces.
Then he understood precisely.
It wasn’t that there were those who went on trips and those who didn’t.
It was divided between those who could go on trips and those who couldn’t.
And Onsaemiro’s family was clearly the latter.
Because they were desperately poor.
He didn’t particularly want to think about what came after.
A family’s poverty wasn’t a problem a teenage boy could overcome, so nothing changed even as he grew older.
The only thing that changed was that at some point, Onsaemiro too became someone pouring water into a bottomless barrel called poverty.
Studying was out of the question; he was too busy scrambling from one part-time job to the next.
“I have nothing.”
Onsaemiro always thought that.
Poor, uneducated, and without his family’s love.
There had been a time during his school days when he filled his self-esteem with his looks, but that too ended quickly.
There were things you naturally learned while working at construction sites.
Whether you scraped your face off in a work accident, lost your youth to endless misfortune, or had your vitality blown away by despair.
You learned that looks didn’t last long.
So when the construction workers often said things like, “I was handsome like you when I was young,” he would laugh at them inwardly.
That didn’t change your class one bit, so why the hell do you envy me?
Such an Onsaemiro had a talent he realized only later.
Singing.
He had never known, but he possessed a gift for song equal in magnitude to the misfortune he had been given.
From then on, he wanted to become a singer.
Rather than a burning desire to sing, he wanted somehow to escape this place.
Passing a trainee audition at an agency wasn’t very difficult.
Although he was darkly tanned, he had a decent face and excellent singing ability.
But while moderate poverty is the spice of a Cinderella story, desperate poverty robs one of the role of Cinderella.
He skipped practice to work part-time jobs and was cut from the agency after doing manual labor under the blazing sun.
In four characters: poor attitude.
It was unjust.
If his attitude had truly been poor, he wouldn’t have spent what little money he had on sunscreen.
He wouldn’t have secretly applied it while getting cursed out by his parents for buying it.
Because that was the only care he could manage.
When this happened repeatedly, all that remained with Onsaemiro were a few newly learned songs and a few dances he could perform.
Around that time, he learned about Coming Up Next and auditioned.
Surprisingly, he passed.
Of course, the writer was more interested in his misfortune than his singing ability, but it didn’t matter.
It was a program to debut Take Scene, and Team B’s participants would be used as ratings fodder, but it didn’t matter.
Because he would receive an appearance fee.
But the broadcasting station’s appearance fee was smaller than expected, and surviving on that amount was impossible.
Just when he thought it was the same cycle repeating, PD Gang Seoku showed him mercy.
“We’re considering you as Team B’s main participant.”
“We’ll advance you as much of the appearance fee as you need, so let’s confirm your appearance.”
And so Onsaemiro joined Coming Up Next and, for the first time in his life, harbored hope for the future.
Because it felt like his life was about to change.
But then.
Han Sion appeared.
After hearing Han Sion sing, the first thought that came to mind was that it was unfair.
What kind of life had he lived to be able to do that so easily?
Had he never experienced life’s hardships and lived only for music?
“I told you I’m not a trainee. I’m not signed to any agency.”
“Yes.”
“How many hours a day do you practice singing?”
“About eight hours, I think.”
At first, he thought that might be possible.
And he thought that if he tried tirelessly, he could catch up.
If talent came in proportion to the size of one’s misfortune, there was no way he could be worse than Han Sion.
So he listened to “Under the Streetlight” and sang I Hyeonseok’s “Toothbrush.”
Because they were songs of a similar vein.
But he was completely defeated.
More bewildering than the defeat itself was that Han Sion felt nothing whatsoever toward him.
Not even a competitive spirit.
“Why?”
“You sing well, don’t you?”
“You… sing better.”
“Who said that? It’s not like we even sang the same song.”
Had that not been the case, there was no way he would have conceded the main vocalist position so easily.
After that, Onsaemiro harbored a competitive spirit toward Han Sion, but a competition never materialized.
“If you’d been greedy?”
“I would have competed. The two of us.”
“What do you think the result would have been?”
“I would have lost to you.”
“Isn’t that a good thing, then? You kept the main vocalist position.”
“But I lost without even getting to compete.”
Han Sion was too far above and didn’t even look down at him.
Even Coming Up Next, which had been his only opportunity, seemed like nothing to Han Sion.
“Do you think it wouldn’t matter if you dropped out?”
“It’s not like that. Why?”
“You don’t know how the world works. The probability isn’t even 100%, yet you don’t seem to care.”
“I believe it’s 100%.”
“Then… that’s a relief.”
Nevertheless, PD Gang Seoku pushed Han Sion as the protagonist of Team B—no, of Seodalbaegil.
Against the initial promise.
Around then, his competitive spirit turned into jealousy.
He was hurt by such feelings himself.
Because even his only talent was ultimately being used to compare himself with someone.
He shouldn’t do that.
In the end, it was nothing but something that made him miserable.
Fortunately, while preparing “Seoul Town Punk,” he was able to cast aside his jealousy for a moment.
Because the stage was so good.
After the broadcast, the whole world revolved around Han Sion, and malicious comments increased too.
Onsaemiro had lived his whole life being blamed by his parents, “We became poor because of you,” but he had never grown used to it.
He had never grown used to being blamed by his friends, “Why do you always leech off others?” either.
But Han Sion was different.
“I appreciate the concern, but this much is nothing.”
“How can it be nothing? Other people’s criticism.”
“Try thinking of it as interesting. In a way, I’m manipulating people, aren’t I? I’ve made people who wouldn’t have acted this way if I didn’t exist act like this.”
Manipulated by me?
Parents who scream that they wouldn’t have been poor if only he hadn’t existed?
Yes, he might not be wrong.
Because if he really didn’t exist, they might not have done that.
Around that time, jealousy sprouted again, and the jealousy that reared its head once more was a little more damp.
Onsaemiro mocked Han Sion.
Because he had never once experienced hardship in his life.
Surely, if even a little hardship came his way, he would fall and be unable to get up.
That’s what he thought.
But he was wrong.
“Y-you! Brat who doesn’t even know your parents! What did I do to your father…!”
A man said to be Han Sion’s paternal uncle by marriage came to the filming set.
“I was in a traffic accident a few months ago.”
He had heard Han Sion’s story.
Iion, Gu Taehwan, and Choe Jaeseong each had at least one part where they were better than Han Sion.
But he didn’t.
Not even in the magnitude of misfortune.
Then what the hell am I?
What meaning does my existence have?
“I don’t think you should try to prove it.”
“The feeling that you have to keep proving your skill is ahead of your immersion in the song.”
“It’s a cliché, but take it easy.”
How can he do that?
He couldn’t even sleep because of the pressure to do well.
What if PD Gang Seoku demands the money back, saying I couldn’t become the protagonist of Seodalbaegil?
He dreaded returning to the place he had to go back to after Coming Up Next ended.
And while doing a photoshoot, he realized.
“I’ll smile brighter. No! Try smiling sincerely!”
“Ah, really, everything I do is awkward.”
That this wasn’t a place he belonged.
He had simply been dreaming for a moment.
“Hey, you hate Han Sion too, don’t you.”
So he refused Fade’s suggestion to catch Han Sion’s weakness together.
Because it no longer had meaning.
Even if it did, he didn’t want to stoop to such baseness.
But somehow, Fade knew he had taken money from PD Gang Seoku.
And that he was poor.
“You broke bastard, so you have no pride? You gonna keep being a sidekick?”
Onsaemiro had trauma about being scorned by adult men.
So he couldn’t say anything.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of it.
If he silently endured Fade’s scorn, the man would tire himself out and leave.
It was no big deal; at least he wouldn’t use violence at the filming set.
But Han Sion saved him.
“Don’t touch our member.”
Why on earth?
He had left alone the relative who made such a scene, so why was he angry at Fade?
Was it because this team was actually precious to him?
Or was it because he had some use for me?
“No. I have no intention of remaining in Ryan. I’m debuting this year no matter what.”
But that wasn’t it.
So Onsaemiro wanted to ask one last time before giving everything up.
“Can I beat you?”
* * *
Like a drunkard.
Or like someone making a confession.
Listening to Onsaemiro’s rambling, disjointed outpouring, I was quite bewildered.
I had thought Onsaemiro was mentally unstable.
I had often felt he was overly conscious of me.
But I never knew it was because of my words and actions.
Countless singers had despaired after seeing my talent.
Of course, that didn’t make me happy.
On the contrary, it made me sad.
Because my talent was a cheat key obtained by crossing boundless hours.
But this was the first time I had seen someone try to quit being a singer because of such despair.
And someone talented like Onsaemiro at that.
Perhaps for Onsaemiro, singing was his only means of self-esteem and his only refuge to escape poverty.
But someone like that should compare himself with me even less.
I’m someone who isn’t even qualified to receive such comparisons.
Even so, I couldn’t rashly comfort Onsaemiro.
Because I had never been poor.
Of course, there had been times when I had no money in hand.
In the early days of the regression, when I failed to manage my parents’ assets, I had wandered around with no money to buy food.
When I first crossed over to America, my accounts were even frozen after being embroiled in an entertainment scam.
But if you asked whether that poverty had any reality to it, the answer was of course no.
Because there was the regression.
The fact that everything returned to zero with a single regression included negative things as well.
If you couldn’t untangle a twisted life, you could cut it away.
Therefore, offering clumsy empathy and shallow consolation here would be deceit and pretense.
It might ease my heart, but it would be of no help to Onsaemiro, who had to live on in this world after I left.
What I needed to do now wasn’t something like that….
“Hey, come with me.”
It was to show him properly.
The place I headed to with Onsaemiro was the studio I had been working in until just moments ago.