[Ginny's in chaos over an unfair contract]
But Debonair's in chaos over their "yes, it's fair" contract lmao
—f*ck lmaoooooo
*
[However much she was street-cast]
If it's Lee Do-hee, she would've been the #1 trainee even at a Big 4 agency. Now I get why she went to Topist
—Those fans hype up Lee Do-hee like breathing lmao
└Isn't it true, though? Eun Se-ra, Gong Chae-rin, Jeon Ha-rang were all representative trainees at the Big 4, but Lee Do-hee beat them all
└Real talk lol her star power was overwhelming from the start, and she writes her own songs too. How's anyone supposed to compete?
└Really makes you realize how amazing Debonair is, debuting with #1, #5, and #8 dd
└Oh
*
[Breaking) Debonair akgaes have finally started fighting]
(Photo) Suddenly fighting over Sweet Demon part distribution lmaooo
—Even funnier that Lee Do-hee distributed the parts herself as the producer lmao
└But isn't that divided pretty fairly, though?
└They've gone crazy from all the sh*t-stirring lol
*
[She deserves special treatment because she's Lee Do-hee vs all members should be treated equally]
(Poll) What do you guys think?
—A rebuttal article came out saying no, but they're still believing tabloid trash till the end
*
Seo Yoon threw her phone down in annoyance.
She had only wanted to check if the reactions had changed after the rebuttal article dropped, but every post on the rankings was nothing but nerve-wracking.
People were viewing this incident as a crack in Debonair.
Seo Yoon snorted and chugged the highball can she had grabbed from beside her.
She couldn't hold her liquor, so after cracking open a second can, she was already feeling drunk.
'So annoying.'
Adults usually drank when they were depressed.
Moreover, Naeun unnie and Chiyo were anxiously holding down the fort in the living room, making it impossible to wait outside.
She had stubbornly closed the door, trying to quell her anger while waiting for Lee Do-hee to return.
But Do-hee was late.
'We have a schedule tomorrow.'
She had opened a second can in a fit of pique, but now, for the sake of tomorrow's schedule, she tried to throw it out and flung the door open.
—Creak
At the sound from the front door, Seo Yoon flinched.
The door opened, and the two of them were coming in.
They looked a bit awkward, but they were holding hands affectionately, both with red, bloodshot eyes.
Ji Woo-ah was even puffy and swollen.
"...Did you drink? Unnie, we have a schedule tomorrow."
Seo Yoon downed her drink first, schedule be damned.
She didn't want to speak while sober.
"So what?"
* * *
Seo Yoon unnie, who had been glaring while completely drunk, abruptly went into her room and threw on a coat.
Then she roughly handed me a cardigan too.
"Hey, put this on."
I put it on without a word for now.
Unnie glanced at me, now that I was dressed, then headed straight for the front door.
It was a look telling me to follow.
I patted Woo-ah unnie's tightly held hand helplessly.
"Unnie, wash up and sleep first. Don't wait for me, okay?"
"Yeah... don't be late."
For now, I nodded with my eyes toward Chiyo unnie, who was anxiously stamping her feet in the living room, and Naeun unnie, who was watching with uneasy eyes.
Following Seo Yoon unnie like that, we arrived at the playground bench inside the apartment complex.
"Don't need to see it to know Woo-ah said something like that, ha."
Unnie spoke abruptly, her face thoroughly flushed.
"Hey, did you think we really didn't know you were going to debut?"
"...You probably knew."
But unnie pushed back her bangs, looking even more annoyed.
"Hey, I'm not picking a fight with you right now because you were basically guaranteed a spot from the start. You know that?"
Unnie let out a heavy sigh.
"Hey, let's be real. You ranked first even in the upper-tier monthly trainee evaluations. Yeah, maybe the CEO and the director just liked you. Let's say they gave you high scores because they liked you."
Unnie looked like her head was a mess.
"Well, you got first place on Jeodol 3 too. No, with that face and those specs, what wouldn't you have accomplished? Huh?"
She was rambling from the alcohol again.
"Hey, I was going to fight you today... no, dammit, what the hell do you even take me for. Ha!"
Something she wanted to say was clearly visible.
"Hey, first of all, do you know I feel so f**king betrayed right now?"
Having already poured out my emotions once during my sincere talk with Woo-ah unnie, I couldn't match unnie's agitated tone.
"...I'm sorry."
So all I could do was listen seriously and offer a plain apology.
"Ha, not sorry. Not sorry. Hey, what exactly are you sorry for right now? Tell me."
And my rational mind knew. Acting like this to someone so agitated was even more annoying to them.
"For hiding that I was receiving money since I was a trainee."
But... I couldn't help it.
Because I truly was sorry.
"No, no... yeah. Yeah, I'm annoyed—no, I'm angry because you hid it, but do you know exactly what I'm angry about?"
When I stayed silent.
"Ha... dammit, dammit! Really."
She grabbed her head and repeated that she was annoyed countless times.
"Hey, let's start with this. If you search you and me on the internet, there's a related search saying you grabbed me by the hair. You know that or not?"
"I know."
"But what's really absurd. Hey, have we ever fought even once?"
"...We haven't."
"Right, so. Hey, isn't that even weirder? Other groups all flip out and fight at least once. Why don't we fight? No, our group isn't even the personality type to never fight."
Unnie now began laying out answers on her own, saying she didn't even need my responses.
"Hey, Woo-ah and Chiyo fight too. They grab each other's hair and fight brutally, you know? I too—I too have argued with Woo-ah before and had a huge fight with Chiyo. Dorm life is like that. Ah, of course, Naeun unnie. Naeun unnie is just an exception, an exception."
Then she snapped at me.
"But you? I'm telling you, you're weird. Are you, what, some living Buddha like Naeun unnie? You're not."
Saying she was annoyed till the very end.
"But I thought and thought about it, and now I get it. You don't even get to the point of fighting. You always avoid it, and in the end you lose and bend, yeah!"
Unnie suppressed a scream, swallowing it down.
"Today I was trying to have a fight with you. Right now."
She pointed steadily with her finger.
"What are you sorry for? What's sorry about getting money? Why can't you just shamelessly say you got it because you're capable, like you usually do, and just fight with me for once? With this chance?"
"......"
"Or honestly. How was I supposed to say that to the unnies? The unnies are working hard trying to debut, and I'm supposed to say I get paid and my debut is basically confirmed so I'm not worried!? How could I say that! I could get angry about that!"
Then unnie began to shed thick tears, little by little.
"You could say it was hard hiding it too, that you felt so sorry to the unnies for no reason and it was so hard. Do you know how hard that is! You act like we wouldn't know!"
Her voice grew sharper and she was screaming.
"...Unnie."
"Don't come near me! Right now, I'm crying because I'm extremely upset and extremely angry. You know? I'm crying because I'm mad!"
Unnie stood there and shed tears until the very end.
"I was gaslit by you."
She expressed resentment with trembling lips.
"You're a straightforward person, so when you're happy you crack jokes, when you're grateful you pick fights for no reason, and you can't stand cringeworthy stuff. You seemed like someone who doesn't read the room more than anyone, someone who lives basking in her own greatness."
Then with an excited face, full of conviction, she yelled.
"Actually, you're someone who reads the room more than anyone, more than anyone! More than anyone else!"
Breaths full of anger, struggling to suppress her emotions.
"Why do you always read the room? Because you don't want to get hate? The people who hate on you are the weird ones!"
Woo-ah unnie too, and Seo Yoon unnie too.
I don't know why I kept being made to just listen like a mute.
"You probably won't change just because I say this. But... at least, at least can you not read the room in front of us? Just fight with me once... please!"
Even though these were disorganized emotions coming out with the alcohol.
"From the start, the reason you seem to have high self-esteem and high confidence is because you feel like it's a perfect situation where you can control and cover everything around you. But how much mental effort and nerves go into making it that way!"
Why did it hurt so strangely?
"When I look at you! You're amazing but always pitiful and suffocating. Why do I! When I look at you, it feels like you overwork yourself too much..."
"It's just, routine and habit."
Unnie was now speaking as if soothing me.
"So that's... to get to that point, how much you repeated and repeated. It's an obsession created by repeating... Now, some days you can rest if you have a schedule, you can rest if your body hurts. It's okay to do that a bit, yeah?"
"I just, since I was young..."
"You! You seem to want to erase the word mistake from the dictionary. Everyone is living life for the first time. So they're clumsy, so anyone can make mistakes!"
"...Then. Then, what if I. What if this is my second life? Then it makes sense that I'd try not to make mistakes!"
"But you can still make mistakes! That's what makes people people! Mistakes are only mistakes because they can repeat twice, three times, four times endlessly, yeah?"
"That's not a mistake. If you make the same mistake twice! It's skill, skill!"
"Because you're loved, because you get attention, because you get so much affection, do you have to be harsher on yourself? Until the people around you feel it's an obsession?"
"It's not an obsession!"
"But why... why do you train so hard but what you actually do is read our moods? If you just set your mind to it, you can do whatever you want. Really, I hate saying this because you'll act arrogant again! I really, really want to smack you. You're one of the geniuses of the century! Huh?"
Unnie's expression then was really, at least right now...
An expression of being completely fed up even while sobbing.
"If I... if I succeed too much on my own..."
"So you read the room like that because you think we'll hate you if you do too well?"
And facing the fact that someone I love might hate me—that was the first time in this life.
"Are you that scared... that we'll hate you?"
Honestly, by now my desire for willpower had dropped considerably.
Unlike the first goal in this life, which was to become perfect.
Maybe right now, like this, was fine.
Hadn't I achieved everything by now?
Many people liked my every move.
A life where wealth and glory naturally followed.
If I just followed the path the director laid out.
If I laughed together with the unnies.
I might even coincidentally become a world-class top star.
Or even if not, just with people I liked and who liked me, every day was enjoyable without needing to be special, without conflict...
"Look, you're crying too. You're hurt and upset and annoyed and angry too. You're angry because it's sincere. Now it's sincere."
"Yeah, me too! I read the room too. What am I supposed to do? I don't want to hear people cursing me, even having a big chest now bothers me for no reason and feels pressuring, huh? Yeah. Me too. But!"
Damn, I don't want to cry.
I really, really don't want to cry like this, out of spite.
"What really bothers me the most is whether my acquaintances will believe what those people say. Whether the people I like will believe it. Whether the people I like, the unnies too! That's why, that's why I read the room more. I'm human too, aren't I!"
I'd never cried like this, wailing like this.
"That's why! That's why... since you're human too, please, please don't read our moods too. Don't pretend you can't do things you can do, and just pour out your emotions!"
I'd never cried like this even in my past life. I was a tough guy.
"You! You're my favorite dongsaeng, and you feel the same way! Right?"
I don't even want to nod to those words while crying like this.
* * *
"...Want to eat ice cream? You said you wanted some in the morning."
"What if someone recognizes us?"
"Unnie, your eyes are so swollen it's fine. You're too ugly to recognize."
"You're uglier right now."
We naturally walked slowly toward the convenience store.
And while walking, unnie said abruptly with a hoarse voice.
"I said I wouldn't be jealous. But seeing you succeed, I can't say for sure."
"Ha, yeah. I knew this would happen. Lee Do-hee the jealousy inducer, how could you not."
"Shut up."
Unnie's addendum came a little later.
"Honestly, I truly think I'm prettier and I'm better at singing, so if you alone succeed, it's really unfair, so I can't say for sure..."
Kim Seo-yoon's swollen eyes were ugly.
"We're a team, so you have to make the team succeed too."
"How much?"
Unnie's ugly eyes looked far away, thought deeply for a moment, then answered.
"Billboard. We should at least hit Billboard #1."
Of course, I answered very easily.
"...Yeah. Okay."
On the way back, despite the chilly weather, we each held an ice cream in our mouths.
We must have seemed like weird customers to the part-timer, buying while covering our faces completely with our cardigans so we wouldn't be recognized.
"Hey."
"What."
"But honestly, can you really send us to Billboard?"
"I dunno either."
"Damn, I knew it, you useless mutt Do-hee."
Hitting Billboard #1 isn't like walking into some doghouse back room, and it's because perceptions have dropped so much due to foreign hip-hop and NND.
Still, since I started as an idol. I have to.
"Still, I still gotta try."
"Don't act cool. At the end of the day, you're just the youngest Do-hee who used to act cute."
"Your face is all puffy."
"You lose."
I don't really like ice cream.
But I lost moisture from crying and burned some calories.
It was quite sweet.
"Ah, and like you said, I'll live true to my personality from now on."
"Ah... that's not gonna fly. Hey, cancel that."
We seemed to giggle at each other like that.
All the way home.