4. Fiction(3)
Experiencing suffocating silence several times in a single day was a little hard even for me, no matter how desperately I was holding myself together.
Just when I thought I had managed to get my mind in order, I was summoned to the company and had to endure all kinds of stares, sighs, and scoldings with a smile on my face.
If my position at the company had been solid enough, or my skin thick enough, to act stiff when “I” was clearly at fault, that would have been one thing…
But I was nothing more than a pathetic Trainee No. 1 who could be blown far away by a single snort from the director.
Only after bowing deeply, apologizing, and promising that I would accept any measures taken if something like this happened again was I able to return to the practice room.
Filming had been paused for a while so I could talk with the members who had shared all their joys and sorrows with me. My emotion at seeing my biases right before my eyes lasted only a moment; at the sharp words that followed, I had no choice but to shut my mouth.
“Gong Jihwan, are you insane?”
“Hey, stop it. It’s not like he got hurt because he wanted to.”
“Leave him, Hajun. He must have been frustrated too.”
“….”
With the manager, the filming crew, and the training teachers all absent, in a situation where only the debut lineup members were gathered, I once again had to accept the cold reality.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, hyungs.”
“You cause trouble, apologize, and everyone accepts it. The world’s so easy for you, isn’t it?”
“That’s enough, Jun. Jihwan, you go warm up too.”
Coldness poured from the face that kept spitting out those cutting words.
It was Min Hajun, who would later be called “the only conscience” of Unravel and be known as the fairest member.
And the person soothing that Hajun while glancing at me was Kim Yeongbin.
On stage, he was the member in charge of deadly sexiness, but when the members were alone together, he was “clumsy little underling hyung No. 1.” So many fans had fallen for that gap that he had even been called a fandom-maker.
“Hajun hyung, Yeongbin hyung. I was wrong.”
“Yeah. It’s not like you went out knowing you’d get into an accident.”
“What are we doing, acting like this among ourselves? Let’s just practice.”
Aside from the four members of Unravel I remembered, there were three more trainees, including me. And among them, the one at the greatest disadvantage was “me.”
I had learned this while talking with the manager hyung, but after the accident, I had apparently spent a full day unconscious on a bed.
Thanks to that, the filming schedule had also been thrown off, so it was only natural that everyone, who had been hanging on day by day until debut feeling as if their blood was drying up, would be drained.
I thought that as I desperately suppressed my anxiety.
There was no one here who was more desperate or less desperate.
In this practice room, all six people besides me had desperation written all over their bodies and faces.
Gong Jihwan and I were like nails sticking out in this space.
“I’m sorry. Please let it go just this once.”
From now on, I had to wedge myself into this group, where people had already split into those who were closer and those who were less close.
When I put strength into my stomach, bowed politely at the waist, and apologized in a loud voice, sighs came from all around.
I felt as if I had gotten over one hurdle with this.
I couldn’t help but understand Min Hajun’s position, even though his face was still cold.
Yeongbin and Hajun were people who had already experienced their debuts falling through several times. They must have been thinking that ON Entertainment was their last chance.
On top of that, Hajun had even taken on the position of temporary leader, and he was holding on with all his might to embrace and look after all six people besides himself.
In the middle of that, a member left the dorm without permission and got into a traffic accident.
By a stroke of enormous luck, it had ended with bruises, but it could have become serious at any moment.
With Hajun’s sigh, heavy enough to make it feel as though the practice room floor might collapse, the atmosphere among us settled.
After that, Ms. Jeyeong, the dance trainer, came in and began arranging our formation, and fortunately, perhaps because the body remembered it, I was able to keep up.
“Jihwan, hold on.”
“Yes?”
“Do what you just did again.”
I extended my hand in the direction my body remembered, and as I’d been corrected, I put strength all the way to my fingertips and aligned my arm in a straight line. Then I counted the beat inwardly as I matched the steps, even handling where to place my gaze.
“Good. You fixed it.”
“Thank you.”
Just when I thought it was hard to tell whether being praised at this timing would be a gain or a loss for me, the trainer’s next words, which did not stop there, made the scale tip decisively.
“I was worried when I heard you’d been in an accident, but you’ve gotten even better. Looks like you worked hard.”
The song we were practicing as a group right now was for the dance portion evaluation.
We would be split into two teams of four and three, and they would watch what kind of stage each team could create with the same song, then try to gauge the average level. That was the subtitle I had read when I’d watched the video before.
Male idol performances were often appealing because of their synchronized choreography, and the song we ended up covering had especially many sharply angled moves.
The previous “me” seemed to have been more interested in standing out than blending into the overall choreography. So he had been criticized for actually losing strength and sagging in the moves where he had to match the formation, and that was the part I had been praised for today.
When I secretly gauged the others’ reactions, I could see that some of the people who had been dissatisfied had softened a little.
Ms. Jeyeong… thank you!
“Gyeonghwan, Yeongbin, pay more attention to where you’re looking. Sebin, use your body more. Hajun and Ubin have improved a lot too….”
It was when Kim Jeyeong looked at Choe Himchan that storm clouds began to gather over her face.
“Chan, what’s wrong with you? You’re usually not like this.”
“Pardon?”
“How many times did you mess up today?”
“….”
“Why aren’t you answering?”
“I’ll pay more attention.”
From the moment the trainer came in, the cameras had started rolling again, and everyone who knew that had no choice but to be conscious of them.
The most unexpected thing was that I, who had braced myself to be torn apart today, had handled the choreography with a surprising level of stability.
“All right, from the beginning again.”
She did not say anything more to Himchan, but throughout practice, Ms. Jeyeong’s expression remained stiff and did not soften.
How much sweat had I poured out?
Since the only exercise I had ever experienced was gym class and sports days during my school years, even if my body could endure it, I was mentally exhausted.
When practice ended, everyone was sprawled out on the floor. Just when I, too, was barely breathing, someone quietly reached out to me.
“Huh?”
It was Gang Sebin, who had not spoken to me once since the moment I appeared in the practice room.
“Hyung, eat this. Keep it secret from manager hyung….”
“Thanks. I’ll enjoy it.”
What he placed in my hand was a lemon-flavored lollipop.
The lollipop rolling around in my palm made me feel all kinds of emotions.
The one I had given Sebin at the end and the one I had just received from Sebin were both the same product, so for some reason I felt as though I might cry.
“Hey, are you really okay? You got properly examined, right?”
“I’m okay. They said nothing was wrong.”
Min Hajun’s voice had not yet lost all its sharpness, but he seemed unable to help worrying and spoke to me. I gave him the best smile I could manage.
Hajun looked at me and turned words over in his mouth a few times, but in the end, he did not continue.
He seemed to have judged that it was not something appropriate to say at this moment, with cameras rolling from every direction.
“Jihwan, traffic accidents leave you with lingering problems. Don’t overdo it.”
“Thank you, hyung.”
As I got up and left the practice room for the next practice, Kim Ubin tossed those words at me and patted my shoulder.
At that sight, the thought that he must have been worried made my heart warm for a brief moment. Then, at what happened next, my body flinched without meaning to.
- Skill, “I Can Hear Your Voice,” is being activated.
Please select a target.
When I unconsciously looked at Kim Ubin, who had just offered me comfort, something like a speech bubble from a raising sim game appeared around him, and words surfaced inside it.
[He’s going to get cut soon anyway, but if he’s going to quit being a trainee and make a living, he should at least have a functioning body.]
“Uh…?”
“What, Gong Jihwan, what’s wrong with you?”
“Ah, it’s nothing.”
[If he wants to win sympathy votes, he should’ve just gotten badly hurt. Stupid bastard. Ah, I’m hungry. I want pork belly.]
The speech bubbles kept rising without pause, filled with unfiltered lumps of emotion.
It seemed my mental cultivation level was too low to read them lightly and move on.
Raw text, just as it was. Even though I knew it was merely a combination of letters, for some reason it felt as if I were hearing the other person’s voice directly.
When I clutched my head at the dizzying sensation, Min Hajun, who had been the last to leave the practice room while checking whether anything had been left behind, came over and examined my face.
“Are you sick? I’ll tell the team leader, so do you want to rest for a bit?”
“No. I think I was just dizzy for a second. Thank you, hyung.”
“Don’t say no. Your face has gone completely pale right now.”
At the sight of Hajun frowning and placing a hand on my forehead to see if I had a fever, the emotions running wild inside me calmly sank back down.
‘In the end, all of this is so that I, and Unravel, can be happy. Get a grip.’
When I stubbornly insisted on going, smiling even clumsily, Hajun let out a habitual sigh and reluctantly nodded.
In the meantime, Kim Ubin had already disappeared from sight. As I gazed at Hajun, another message window flashed in succession.
- Would you like to change the target of the skill?
Current target: Kim Ubin > New target: Min Hajun
This was Pandora’s box.
And humans were always bound to lose to curiosity and open the box.
Without realizing it, I swallowed hard as I looked at Hajun, and when Hajun looked back at me as if asking what was wrong, I answered that it was nothing. Then, as I slowly followed behind him, I unconsciously muttered inwardly, “Change.”
All while desperately justifying myself by saying that what fan would give up the chance to know their bias’s inner thoughts?
And when I faced the sea of countless speech bubbles that rose up afterward, I was left speechless.
[He doesn’t seem okay…. Should I force him to rest? Did I say too much earlier…?]
[Gyeonghwan seems like he’s been secretly eating snacks lately. Ha, it’s not like I can hit that bastard.]
[Himchan looks strangely drained. What’s going on?]
[What time was the meeting with the team leader again?]
[The thing Sebin asked me to find was….]
[Who was in charge of laundry today? Where did I put my memo pad….]
[I need to talk to Jihwan separately. He’s a kid who can do well if he’s just guided a little….]
‘No, I’m not using it! I said I’m not using it! Turn off! OFF!!’
Shame swept over me like a tide, as if I had secretly peeked into someone else’s diary.
His debut hadn’t even been decided, and as the temporary leader, Min Hajun was the one hearing every kind of scolding alone, yet even in that short time walking down the hallway, his head was full of thoughts about the team he had to take care of.
In the end, the reason Hajun remained the leader of Unravel even after their debut must have been because he was this kind of person.
A person who thought only of the team, to the point that among all those countless worries, there was not a single one about himself. If he was not the leader, then who could be?
The strange emotion of experiencing Min Hajun as trainee Gong Jihwan, something that Cottonball Gong Jihwan could never have known.
The emotion swelling up in me so powerfully that my chest ached was none other than “happiness.”
At the very least, he was as upright a person as I had believed. My devotion as a fan had not been wrong.
So without realizing it, I ended up saying this to Hajun.
“Jun hyung, thank you.”
“Huh?”
“I’m really glad you’re the leader, hyung.”
For a moment, the expression that appeared on Hajun’s face seemed to say, Did this kid eat something wrong? But soon, his face relaxed a little and he chuckled.
“You get into one traffic accident and it’s like you’ve become a completely different person. You’re even saying thank you to me.”
Since I knew that if I said he was right and that I had become a different person, I would be treated like a lunatic and kicked out, there was nothing I could do but smile.
For the first time since opening my eyes again, I felt that this was not the fantasy novel Poing had talked about, but my new life.