Woohwan
They’d only just taken a break, and now the company president had changed hands.
The members of Jjokbit were so thrown by the unexpected turn of events that they missed their chance to greet him properly. Baek Yuri was the first to bow, and the others followed in a flustered, half-hearted way.
Only Neoul did not bow at all. He stared at the president with a grave expression.
That man—there’s no telling what kind of trouble he’ll stir up next.
He might already have stirred up plenty of it.
Clicking his tongue, Neoul was abruptly forced into a bow when Ha On-ha, who stood beside him, panicked and pressed down on his head.
President Kim Woohwan’s brow twitched, perhaps because he had heard the sound. But then he broke into a warm smile as broad as his belly.
“Haha. We can do the formalities later. We’re short on time, so let’s get straight to the meeting.”
He swept past the members standing in the doorway and headed for the conference room.
The manager and the members quietly trailed after President Kim Woohwan. Inside the conference room, the staff were gathered with stunned expressions, looking as though the sky had fallen on their heads.
When President Kim Woohwan went in, the members naturally tried to follow him. That was because of what CEO Jake had said during their first meeting.
—We’ll actively reflect your opinions not only on the album concept, but also on the variety shows you’ll appear on, the commercials you’ll do, and the original content our company will produce in the future. You’ll probably be attending meetings a lot from now on, so it might help to get a feel for the atmosphere in advance.
But President Kim Woohwan blocked Jjokbit’s members from entering.
“Oh, hold on. You lot can’t come in.”
He waved them away as if shooing off flies, then snapped at the management team for no reason at all.
“What are you management people doing, not managing the artists? Team Leader Choi! Didn’t you tell them where the practice room is?”
“I’m sorry!”
Team Leader Choi Gilo of the management staff bowed hurriedly to the president, then called over the road manager and shoved him into taking the members to the practice room.
The members were practically driven out and made their way to the practice room. On the way, they noticed that the management team had been cut down to just two people from the original four, including the team leader. The other two they’d seen last time were nowhere to be found.
Neither the members nor the road manager said much until they reached the practice room. The moment they arrived, Baek Yuri spoke up.
“Manager, what on earth is going on?”
It was a question born from complete incomprehension, but he wanted to at least understand the situation as quickly as possible.
The road manager, Gwak Yuk-pal, who had somehow survived the culling that halved the team, shut the door and let out a long sigh.
“As you can see, CEO Jake got kicked out. Apparently an emergency shareholders’ meeting was called, and he was dismissed unilaterally. Things moved so fast it’s beyond unreasonable, so I honestly have no idea what’s happening either.”
“That’s ridiculous! How can they just fire the boss?”
Woo Cheong crumpled his face in outrage on Jake’s behalf, but what had already happened could not be undone.
“What can a salaried boss do? If the shareholders fire him, he’s fired.”
Manager Gwak pressed a hand to his forehead as if suffering from a headache. Neoul, who had been watching the situation quietly, finally spoke.
“What sort of man is President Kim Woohwan?”
Neoul had clearly caught a foul stench from Kim Woohwan. It meant that his soul had gone rotten. To prevent trouble later, he needed to know exactly what kind of human he was dealing with.
At Neoul’s question, Manager Gwak glanced around as though there were eyes everywhere, then lowered his voice.
“President Kim Woohwan. Who is he, you ask?”
“The current Flux was acquired by MN before the survival program even started, during the preparation stage. Before that, it was a failed company called Breaking Day. The old building we visited last time, remember? You know that much, right?”
At the mention of the old, spider-infested building, Ha On-ha’s shoulders jerked. Manager Gwak continued.
“Kim Woohwan was the president of Breaking Day.”
“Yes…?”
“He started the company with grand ambitions of creating a miracle among small agencies and forming an idol group, but when it turned out to cost more than he expected, he got stingier and stingier until the whole thing collapsed in a miserable heap. From the beginning, he had no sense for it, and instead of hiring experts, he tried to direct everything himself. What did he think was going to happen?”
“……”
“After Breaking Day was acquired by the MN Group, President Kim Woohwan was encouraged to resign and leave. Then CEO Jake came in. He moved the company to the new building, changed the name, overhauled the system from top to bottom, and worked incredibly hard while preparing to welcome the survival show winners… So why on earth did they bring Kim Woohwan back?”
Manager Gwak pressed at the tip of his reddened nose.
“And somehow, the investment money they were originally supposed to receive has also been cut drastically. Half the staff were laid off too, so people were packing their things and leaving from this morning.”
Ding-dong!
Just then, Manager Gwak’s smartphone rang. He checked the message at once and dragged a hand down his face. Then he looked at the members with a troubled expression.
“Haah…. I’m sorry to be the one delivering this kind of news, but—”
“What else happened?”
Baek Yuri could no longer hide his unease as he asked.
“Right now, Kim Woohwan—no, I mean the president—just said the dorm has to be moved somewhere else.”
“The dorm?”
“Yes. He says it’s too big for seven people.”
From Manager Gwak’s expression, it seemed Kim Woohwan had said far more than that, but he had apparently filtered and softened the words as much as possible for the members’ sake.
“I’ll move Cheong’s things later. For now, please wait in the practice room until the meeting’s over…. I’ll go buy coffee or drinks. If you want snacks too, just let me know.”
It was Manager Gwak’s way of trying to perk them up in a dispiriting situation. But none of them had much appetite, so they all shook their heads.
Neoul promptly requested the five-set dessert box and the fish-shaped bread they had given fans as a reverse tribute during the Idol Travel shoot.
“Ah. I need salt water as well!”
Manager Gwak gave Neoul a strange look, then nodded as if to say fine, and left the practice room.
The seven members of Jjokbit were left alone in the practice room, with a large mirror covering one wall. They had no idea what to do now, or what would become of them next.
“Should we just do free practice together?”
Baek Yuri suggested it to the others. If they danced and worked up a sweat, maybe the anxiety would ease a little.
“W-would that be okay…?”
Yeo Do-bin agreed, and Lee Gal-chae quietly nodded from behind them. Baek Gi-yeom scanned the group, then stopped on Lee Gal-chae, who seemed especially awkward, and said,
“I think we should get a little closer.”
“Huh?”
Baek Yuri’s gaze followed Baek Gi-yeom’s and landed on Lee Gal-chae. Baek Gi-yeom said,
“Gal-chae, you’ve never been on the same team as Cheong or On-ha, right?”
“……No.”
Lee Gal-chae had been shy around them ever since the company dinner, and he was still the same today.
He had no trouble talking to the other members he’d worked with during Idol Travel, but he became very awkward around Woo Cheong and Ha On-ha. When they met, all they ever managed was a brief greeting.
“All right! First, the youngest members shake hands!”
Baek Gi-yeom grabbed Woo Cheong by the arm. Woo Cheong was delighted that Baek Gi-yeom had made the opening for him. He wanted to get closer to a friend his own age.
“When’s your birthday? What month?”
“...October.”
“Ah! Too bad! I should’ve been born three months earlier!”
“...Why?”
“So I could escape being the youngest, of course. I was aiming for sixth place! Darn it!”
“You hate being seventh just because of your birthday order?”
“Yeah! I want to be the hyung!”
“Even if your birthday were a few months earlier, the fans would still call both of us the youngest anyway. What difference would that make?”
“It makes a difference! Being sixth and being the maknae feel completely different!”
Woo Cheong stamped his feet and poured out his grievances about how hard and unfair it was to live as the youngest, how much the older boys and girls in his dance crew had picked on him, teased him, and made him do their bidding.
“I was definitely born an only child! I never got to enjoy the privileges of being one!”
It was outrageous!
But Lee Gal-chae, the eldest son, couldn’t understand the sorrows of being the youngest at all.
“The youngest gets spoiled and loved no matter what they do. Even I can’t bring myself to scold my little brother properly.”
“You have a brother?”
“Two.”
“Two of them! Nice! I want a little brother too, but my leader said I shouldn’t even dream about it.”
“Your leader?”
“Oh, my mom! She’s the leader of BIGBEE. My dad’s the deputy leader! BIGBEE is our dance crew, and there are five older brothers, four older sisters, an uncle….”
Woo Cheong began counting on his fingers and rattled off a stream of irrelevant details.
The lively, noisy Woo Cheong and the calm, quiet Lee Gal-chae were complete opposites, but once they got started, their conversation somehow flowed along smoothly enough. At least that was how it looked to the other members.
In truth, Lee Gal-chae was losing strength in real time from Woo Cheong’s barrage of chatter.
Still, Lee Gal-chae did his best to act like he was listening. They were going to be teammates for at least four years, after all, so it would be better to get close quickly.
“Oh?”
Then Ha On-ha looked around the members in surprise.
“Why are there only six of us? We’re missing someone~?”
Baek Yuri immediately realized who was gone and shouted,
“Neoul!”
“Huh? Where did Neoul go?”
Baek Gi-yeom’s eyes went wide too. No one had noticed when he slipped away. They hadn’t even felt him leave.
“Maybe he went to the bathroom. He’ll be back soon, I guess.”
Baek Gi-yeom said it without much concern. But Baek Yuri was uneasy that Neoul might be off somewhere doing something reckless, so he got to his feet.
“I’m going to use the bathroom too.”
* * *
At that very moment, Neoul was in the second conference room, right next to the first conference room where the meeting was taking place.
If they were just going to tell the members the results afterward anyway, why not discuss it openly? Why had they chased the members out to the practice room? What dark intention was Kim Woohwan hiding?
That was why Neoul had come here—to listen in at the right moment.
Kim Woohwan’s voice drifted in broken pieces through the wall.
Water… unknown… creature…? life form? concept?
It sounded like they were talking about the debut concept. Neoul pressed himself against the wall and strained to listen, but the soundproofing was so good that he couldn’t make out the meeting properly.
It sounds like he’s talking about some kind of male nymph or something.
He wasn’t sure what it meant, but at any rate it didn’t seem dangerous, so Neoul relaxed.
He slipped out of the second conference room before the meeting ended. And there he ran into Baek Yuri, who had been pacing the hallway in search of him.
“Where did you go?”
“I went to listen to the meeting.”
“What…?!”
Baek Yuri was so shocked by Neoul’s outrageous behavior that his voice shot up, then he clapped a hand over his mouth in a hurry. After that, he dragged Neoul back to the practice room at once.
Once inside, Baek Yuri shut the door firmly. After confirming that only the members were in the room, he turned to Neoul and asked,
“No, what were you going to do if you got caught? Why were you eavesdropping on the meeting?”
“Eavesdropping on the meeting…?”
“Gasp.”
The members, who had been stretching or lying around, gathered around Neoul and Baek Yuri. Neoul said,
“There is a foul stench coming from Kim Woohwan.”
“……!”
“So I went to confirm whether he might be plotting something suspicious. In the end, I was not caught, so there is no need for concern.”
Baek Yuri’s eyes widened. The others were shocked as well.
If anyone else said Kim Woohwan smelled foul, they might simply take it to mean he had a strong body odor and move on.
But when those words came from Neoul’s mouth, they meant something different. They meant Kim Woohwan might be a second Gye Tae-seok, a second Kim Ji-rok.
“Neoul, did you go check for land mines?”
“If Brother Neoul says someone stinks, that means they’re going to jail!”
Ha On-ha and Woo Cheong both jumped in alarm. Baek Yuri asked again,
“What did you hear?”
“Only a meeting about the direction of the debut concept.”
Ha On-ha, curious, cut in at once.
“What kind of concept are we doing? Since it’s the debut song, is it going to be bright and fresh?”
Neoul recalled the keywords he had heard earlier. He had taken the parts that didn’t seem dangerous and let them pass, so he couldn’t remember them clearly. Something about a water… creature, perhaps. What had it been?
“Water… creature?”
“……!”
The members’ faces went blank at the same time, then twisted. Baek Yuri’s complexion turned paper-white, as though he had heard something indecent that should never have reached his ears. His expression was one of utter disbelief.
“Whaaat? Microbe? Microoooobe?”
Ha On-ha flew into a rage.
“Are they insane?”
* * *