Provocation
Kim Se-jun and Kang Yu-na's recording session didn't even take a full day. Neither of them ran into any real trouble—not on their solo parts, and not on the duet. Kim Se-jun wrapped everything in a single direct take, and Kang Yu-na, refusing to lose to some brand-new rookie, threw herself into the booth with grim determination.
The moment the recording was done, Kean Entertainment blanketed the press with official releases.
Watching the articles sprout up one after another, Kim Se-jun let out a quiet snort of laughter.
"Yu-na's the headliner, of course."
Kean Entertainment had put the materials out. Naturally she sat at the center of every headline. Besides, Kang Yu-na and Kim Se-jun—it was almost embarrassing to say out loud whose name actually pulled the public's eye.
"Still. At least my name's in there."
Just seeing it printed was enough to satisfy him. And maybe it was the slipstream of her fame, but a few pieces even turned the spotlight on him.
Then, as he skimmed the coverage with a pleased look on his face, his expression darkened all at once.
"What is this?"
Among the flood of articles, an unwelcome name snagged his eye.
Lim Tae-hyun. A singer Se-jun had once genuinely loved—and a singer he could never like again.
"He's promoting in September? And as a duet?"
The timing overlapped with theirs, right down to the format. A duet, same as them.
"Did they... aim for this?"
It was far too neat to write off as coincidence.
"Hnn."
Kim Se-jun rubbed his chin and let out a low sound. Lim Tae-hyun. The man would crash and burn spectacularly someday—but right now, you could call him one of Korea's top stars without anyone arguing. His popularity ran past the peninsula and deep into Asia. Like Kang Yu-na, he was the kind of artist who took the number-one spot on the charts as a matter of course.
"When two whales go to war, the shrimp get crushed."
Kang Yu-na and Lim Tae-hyun promoting at the same time. He could almost hear the other singers screaming from here.
"At least our concepts won't overlap."
Thinking of their own concept, Kim Se-jun smiled, satisfied. As if Lim Tae-hyun would ever sing Simcheongga. Though The Tale of Chunhyang might suit him. A story about virtue rewarded and vice punished—he'd fit the theme perfectly.
"Yu-na. This is a targeted hit if I've ever seen one."
"CEO. Go pick a fight with them. Anyone can see they're asking for it."
In Cha Tae-gyu's office, Cha Tae-gyu and Kang Yu-na, who had been running through the day's monitoring, had found the same articles Kim Se-jun had. They had known about Lim Tae-hyun's return. What they had not known was that he would resume activity in the same window they had chosen—and as a duet, no less, exactly like them.
The timing of the press drop was murky, too. The moment they had sent out their own materials, Lim Tae-hyun's comeback stories had poured out almost on top of them. Kang Yu-na's name still carried enough weight that it wasn't a total burial, but there was no denying her coverage had been half-swallowed.
"Oppa. You're seriously not going to say anything? They're completely disrespecting us. Don't they have any industry ethics?"
Kang Yu-na's face tightened. Cha Tae-gyu let out a low groan. Even to him, this felt like a line had been crossed. But it was not something to meet with raw emotion.
"Just wait. I'll look into it."
"It's always 'just wait' with you..."
Kang Yu-na pushed her lips into a pout. Cha Tae-gyu's voice hardened.
"The company will handle this, so you stay put. Don't go posting some petty callout on social media."
"Do I look like a child? You think I'd pull something that childish?"
Kang Yu-na shot him a sideways glare, scolded him for the implication, and walked out of his office. Leaving Cha Tae-gyu's uneasy gaze behind her, she pulled out her phone the instant she was in the hall and placed a call.
She was not a petty person. She was also not the kind of person who would sit still after someone had just declared war on them.
Huh? Is he jealous?
Lim Tae-hyun's voice had roughened the moment he said Kim Se-jun's name. He sounded like a man jealous that she had turned him down and chosen Se-jun instead. A small smile crept onto Kang Yu-na's face.
She cut across him and ended the call. Lim Tae-hyun stared down at the phone in his hand. Kang Yu-na's last words would not leave him alone. He was jealous of Kim Se-jun. His face twisted, and he hurled the phone in his hand to the floor.
It was a truth he could not, would not, accept.
When August arrived, Kim Se-jun's schedule only grew busier. While Oh Jin-woo handled the mixing and production, Kim Se-jun and Kang Yu-na went down to the Seomjin River to shoot the teaser for their new song, Simcheongga.
Kang Yu-na turned a slow circle, the hem of her skirt whispering around her ankles.
"How do I look, oppa?"
"..."
"Oppa?"
"Huh? Oh. It looks amazing on you. Really. I mean it."
He had been staring at her, completely gone, and her second prompt snapped him back to himself.
Am I losing my mind...?
Kang Yu-na looked like a different person. This was the beauty of Korea itself—a pale pink skirt, a white jeogori embroidered with blossoms, her hair braided long, her makeup kept soft and light. Dressed in that exquisite hanbok, she looked like a beauty stepped straight out of a classical painting.
Even in a worn-out tracksuit with a bare face she had always glowed. Now, wrapped in a hanbok that drew every line of traditional beauty to the surface, she was something else entirely. Kim Se-jun could have sworn it: across every life he had lived, he had never seen a woman more beautiful than she was in that moment. Even the crew, who had spent their careers looking at celebrities, lost their words in front of her.
"Thank you. It looks good on you too, oppa."
She winked at Kim Se-jun, who had a durumagi settled over his shoulders.
I could die without a single regret...
To see Kang Yu-na's aegyo from a handspan away. He felt his heartbeat kick up and forced his voice to stay even.
"Yeah? Thanks."
"Hehe. Wearing a hanbok is making me kind of giddy."
"Is it?"
Kang Yu-na was bright with the novelty of it. Kim Se-jun, by contrast, was unmoved. To him a hanbok was as ordinary as everyday clothes. His father, Kim Chang-yong, owned dozens of modernized sets.
"We're ready to shoot! Yu-na, you're up first!"
They had been trading idle talk when the director called her over. She approached him carefully, mindful of the clothes, and Kim Se-jun watched her the whole way.
A brief exchange, and then the cameras rolled. The woman who had been laughing so brightly a moment before might as well have been a lie. Her face looked ready to spill tears at any second—full of fear and dread, and yet, somehow, equally full of hope.
"Is there anything she can't do?"
Kim Se-jun shook his head and muttered it under his breath. She was a singer with a real claim to acting as well, a performer who had shown off that talent on the screen as readily as on a stage. Time and again she had held her own against actors with serious names, and she was doing it again now, meeting every note the director asked for. She looked exactly like a girl who had made up her mind to give her life for her father.
"Beautiful! Se-jun, you're up!"
Satisfied with what he had from Kang Yu-na, the director called Kim Se-jun over.
I can't lose to her.
For some reason Kang Yu-na kept lighting a competitive fire under him, and it had caught. She had just poured herself into that performance. The thought that he would not be outdone by her settled in, and Kim Se-jun closed his eyes.
Despair. His acting could be named in a single word. How did you even describe a parent who had lost a child? And if that child had died for you? His hollow, emptied face went straight into the camera.
"Whoa... this teaser is going to blow up."
One of the crew murmured it while watching Kim Se-jun work. The woman beside him nodded as if she agreed.
"Kang Yu-na I can understand, but... what's with Kim Se-jun?"
No one had expected acting of that caliber from him. A pleased smile touched the director's mouth.
This is going to look incredible.
As August drew to a close, the teaser Kim Se-jun and Kang Yu-na had filmed went out to the world. A beautifully shot video packed with high-level acting. A song with the unusual concept of Simcheongga. And Kean Entertainment, determined not to repeat the last mistake, pushing articles even more aggressively than before. The three notes landed together, and the internet filled with them in a matter of hours.
It was a moment that looked, on the surface, a lot like the last time Kang Yu-na had announced an album. The feeling, though, was entirely different. Back then the conversation had belonged to Kang Yu-na. This time, it belonged to Kim Se-jun.
"As expected of Appa. Your foresight is seriously unreal."
Kang Yu-na said it in a voice full of mischief, the two of them watching the reaction together in a Kean Entertainment practice room. Lately she had started calling Kim Se-jun Appa instead of oppa. Kim Se-jun had, in fact, already lived a life into his late forties, and the joke needled his conscience hard enough to make him pull a face—which only made her enjoy his reaction more. He had given up by now and played along, more or less.
"Keep that up and my secret daughter is going to sue you."
"Wait. Oppa, you're married?"
"No. I sponsor a kid in Africa. Her name's Angela. She's my daughter."
Kang Yu-na burst out laughing.
"I really don't regret doing this duet with you, oppa."
"Wow. That was actually kind of moving."
Kim Se-jun smiled. Kang Yu-na met both of his eyes and said it again, clearly, so there could be no mistake.
"I mean it. I don't regret doing this duet with you."
"Thanks for saying that."
The sincerity in her voice made him scratch the back of his head, a little embarrassed.
"Oppa. I want first place this time. No matter what."
"You'll take first, obviously..."
The answer had started to come out on reflex, and then Kim Se-jun stopped. This time, even her name was not enough to guarantee the top spot. Lim Tae-hyun was a giant, and his name was going to haunt them through the entire promotion. To make it worse, they were releasing their track a full week earlier. For seven days they would have the number-one position to settle into in public, openly, and Se-jun and Yu-na would have to tear them off it. It would not be easy.
"I don't want to lose..."
She said it through clenched teeth. Kim Se-jun looked at her with something like pity. She had the air of someone being ridden by an obsession.
When you think about it, the pressure on her must be enormous.
A position where first place was treated as a given. He understood that weight. He had felt the full measure of it himself, under the title of master. The difference was that he had only felt it in his mid-forties. She was barely in her mid-twenties. It was a great deal to carry at that age.
Still looking at her with that quiet sympathy, Kim Se-jun put his hand on her head without thinking. It startled him. It startled her too.
"...!"
But he pretended nothing had happened and stroked her hair.
"It's okay. You're going to do great."
The words were warm and easy. Kang Yu-na's eyes went wide, though she gave no other sign of it, and she murmured quietly,
"Oppa. I didn't wash my hair today."
"..."
At that, Kim Se-jun carefully took his hand away.
"It doesn't smell, right?"
"..."
He brought his hand to his nose and said nothing at all. Kang Yu-na shot up from her seat as if she had been wronged, and Kim Se-jun called after her a beat too late.
"It doesn't! It didn't smell, Yu-na."
"Forget it. I'm going to go wash my hair..."
She tossed the words back like she was hurt. A small smile, though, had already found its way onto her face.