Production Showcase (4)
Kim Ji-rok swallowed down his surging anger and thought, What the hell is Ha On-ha thinking?
He’d seemed friendly enough, all smiles and politeness, so why was he suddenly jabbing at people out of nowhere? Kim Ji-rok couldn’t make sense of it.
As a rule, he hated slippery, hard-to-read types. Even while watching cartoons, if a character had a smiling face or half-lidded eyes, he’d make a face like he’d bitten into something rotten.
Those bastards are always the ones who stab you in the back.
Ha On-ha wasn’t a half-lidded-eyes type—he was the sort who smiled brightly all the time.
Same difference.
He didn’t want to deal with him for long, but in order to achieve his goal, Kim Ji-rok shoved his clenched fist behind his back and barely managed to paste on a smile.
“I’m planning to quit smoking soon enough. Truth is, I’ve got it rough too. Learned a lot of ugly things while I was in the army.”
“Wow, you already served in the military? That’s manly of you, hyung! If you debut, you won’t have any enlistment break, so your fans will love that.”
“Uh, yeah. I guess.”
“I’m so jealous. Weren’t you exhausted?”
Exhausted? No, it was hell. When his middle school friends had once asked him what military life was like, he’d given it a minus fifty thousand-star review and hurled every curse in his front brain at the bastards who’d prompted him.
Still, Kim Ji-rok put on a little swagger and answered, “It was manageable.”
“Wow, that’s amazing!”
“Nah, it’s not that amazing.”
“It is! If I end up going to the army later, please give me some advice, okay?”
Ha On-ha praised him and spoke to him with easy familiarity.
Kim Ji-rok was thrown into confusion.
What? So what he said earlier wasn’t him trying to screw me over?
Had he just been blurting things out without any malice?
Or was he simply clueless?
“Fine. Whatever. Then you’re calling Neoul, right? Type in the number. I’ll send you the address.”
“Works for me~”
There we go. Hook, line, and sinker.
Kim Ji-rok hurriedly held out his smartphone. Things were going smoother than he’d expected. But when Ha On-ha took the phone, tapped in 010, and then abruptly froze, Kim Ji-rok frowned.
“But, um.”
“Huh?”
“Wouldn’t it be better if hyung asked Neoul yourself?”
“What? Why all of a sudden? If I ask, he’s obviously just going to scowl and refuse to come.”
“I really don’t feel like lying, though~”
Damn it. What an inflexible bastard.
Kim Ji-rok felt his temper flare again and forced himself to keep the heat from boiling up in his skull.
“Why not?”
“Just because~ Personally, I’m not a fan of lying. It feels gross, you know? Deceiving people.”
Ha. He’d acted like he’d help, and now what, he was joking around?
Kim Ji-rok had thought he was loose and easygoing, but he was irritatingly honest in all the wrong places, which only made him angrier. His insides began to churn.
“Just do me this one favor, okay? I’m not even asking you to do anything bad. I’m saying we should patch things up on good terms. Is it really so hard to help with that? It’s not even that difficult.”
At that, Ha On-ha’s eyes widened as if he’d genuinely become curious.
“Why isn’t it difficult?”
“What?”
“It’s difficult for me, though~ Like I said, it feels gross.”
“No, what the—”
“The thing I hate most in the world is anything gross, and the second thing is lying. Hyung just asked me to do my two least favorite things. If I have to do two things I hate, my heart’s obviously not going to keep up. That makes it difficult.”
Ha On-ha gave a dramatic series of sighs and let his shoulders slump. Then he made a face like something had finally clicked.
“Ah.”
“What now?”
Just as the words, I’m really sorry for asking you to do something you hate, but if I tell you to do it, just do it already—why do you have so much to say? rose all the way to the tip of Kim Ji-rok’s tongue, Ha On-ha suddenly curved his eyes.
On the surface, his expression was bright and peaceful, like they were chatting about what he’d eaten for breakfast and lunch.
But his words had teeth.
“Hyung, do you usually enjoy lying as naturally as breathing? Is that why you say it isn’t that hard?”
Kim Ji-rok finally lost it and ground his teeth.
Damn it, he’d been suspicious all along, but this bastard was really screwing with him, wasn’t he? He was picking a fight, right?
He’d put up with enough. His patience was already at its limit.
“Hey. What’s your problem?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m watching you, and everything you say sounds weird as hell. You’re pissing people off.”
“Me? I was just saying what I thought.”
Ha On-ha’s attitude was shameless, as if he had no idea what the problem was.
Kim Ji-rok’s head felt hot enough to boil. He wanted to drive a fist into that polished face and turn his jaw sideways right then and there.
He’d almost forgotten where they were as he clenched his fist and took a threatening step forward.
That was when Yeo Do-bin slipped between them and quickly cut off Kim Ji-rok’s path.
As if trying to prevent the situation from escalating into an actual brawl, he spread both hands wide—one in front of Kim Ji-rok, the other in front of Ha On-ha—to keep a proper distance between them.
What the hell is this bastard doing?
Kim Ji-rok was just about to shove him aside when he met that cold, warning stare.
Yeo Do-bin’s stiff expression felt like a sheet of ice had blown in with the wind, cold enough to make his spine prickle. Kim Ji-rok almost looked away and lowered his head.
“You can’t fight…!”
Contrary to his looks, his voice was absurdly feeble and unimpressive.
Damn it. I got spooked for nothing!
That, at least, helped deflate Kim Ji-rok’s temper enough for him to come back to his senses.
“Haa….”
Right. He couldn’t lose it here and ruin everything. He’d been working so hard to play nice and scrub his image clean.
“Forget it. Drop it.”
Kim Ji-rok shot Ha On-ha a disgusted glare one last time and turned on his heel.
Once he’d gone some distance away, Yeo Do-bin, his face stark white, spoke in a small voice.
“Ha On-ha. Why, why did you do that…?”
“Hmm? What do you mean~?”
“You just called Kim Ji-rok a liar who lies as naturally as breathing, and earlier you said he smelled bad too…! What if he gets mad?”
Yeo Do-bin fretted and scolded him all at once.
Ha On-ha wore a cool, cynical smile.
Mm~ Is this somehow my fault?
Wasn’t the problem the guy who’d asked for a shady favor in the first place, then got angry and stormed off when things didn’t go his way?
Ha On-ha had only told the truth.
If he had to admit fault, it was only that he’d had no intention of provoking Kim Ji-rok at the start.
Until now, Ha On-ha had had no real wariness or prejudice toward Kim Ji-rok. Sure, the man could be rough around the edges at times, but Ha On-ha had judged him to be the kind of senior who knew not to cross the line.
But then, this morning, when Neoul had delivered a scathing assessment of Gye Tae-seok—“licentious,” “his eyes have gone bad,” and “he’s just like a dolphin bullying the wrong pufferfish”—that evaluation had changed a little.
And once the childlike affection Ha On-ha had held for dolphins had been shattered to pieces by that, he’d gone and searched up “side effects of drugs” and “drug withdrawal symptoms,” reading everything carefully while watching Gye Tae-seok closely.
He hadn’t known before, but now that he looked again, Gye Tae-seok was showing behavior that matched drug withdrawal symptoms down to the letter.
I’m not a doctor, so I can’t jump to conclusions, but…
Then a memory suddenly flickered through Ha On-ha’s head.
During the Signal Song Center preliminary evaluation, Gye Tae-seok had dropped out. He’d grown restless, complained of stomach and muscle pain, and even when the production team urged him to go to the hospital, he’d refused several times and holed up in the dorm instead.
He’d been in so much pain that he’d given up such an important evaluation, but he still wouldn’t go to the hospital? Anyone would find that suspicious.
Wasn’t what he’d shown back then probably withdrawal symptoms?
That was why Ha On-ha found himself thinking again about what Gal Neoul had said on the bus.
He definitely said… something stank in his “soul.”
Why, of all things, had he said it smelled rotten in the soul and not the mouth, not cigarettes, not the top of the head, not the feet?
After a while, Ha On-ha reached a conclusion.
Gal Neoul might have something going on…? Is he psychic?
There were people in this world whose instincts were weirdly sharp. They couldn’t explain it scientifically, but they’d get a bad feeling about something, check it out, and somehow always end up being right.
Ha On-ha thought Neoul was one of those people.
Gal Neoul sensed something rotten about Gye Tae-seok and Kim Ji-rok.
There was someone like that around Ha On-ha too—someone whose gut feeling was uncannily good. From experience, it never hurt to listen to people like that. Especially if they were as hopelessly honest as Gal Neoul.
And then, right on cue, Kim Ji-rok came over with that strange request: bring Neoul along, but don’t mention that it was his house.
Everyone knows the two of them don’t get along. Suspicious.
Since the opportunity had practically handed itself to him, Ha On-ha had decided to needle Kim Ji-rok’s nerves a little.
If he’s guilty, he’ll get twitchy. But then he can just endure it, can’t he? If he can’t even stand this much teasing, maybe he shouldn’t be debuting in the first place. If he’s this hot-tempered, who knows what kind of trouble he’ll cause later?
Smiling, Ha On-ha had begun subtly scraping at Kim Ji-rok’s temper, intending to test how far he could push him if the bait didn’t bite right away.
But Kim Ji-rok had started getting irritated before he was even properly provoked.
— Is it really so hard to help with that?
If someone asked him to pick the single most unacceptable thing a requester could say, Ha On-ha wouldn’t even hesitate for a second. He would point to that line immediately.
Gal Neoul was right.
He didn’t need to look any farther.
Still, Ha On-ha deliberately shoved things one step further. It was always better to make sure of things.
— Hyung, do you usually enjoy lying as naturally as breathing? Is that why you say it isn’t that hard?
A normal person, even after hearing something like that, would try to smooth it over as gently as possible.
After all, the production showcase was over, but the staff who still hadn’t been able to leave work were bustling around cleaning up the venue, and there were plenty of other eyes on them besides.
No, that’s not true.
I misspoke. Sorry for asking such a favor.
As naturally as breathing? No, no~ It’s more like a harmless lie.
Those were the kinds of replies Ha On-ha had expected.
Instead, Kim Ji-rok had shown a reaction beyond what he’d hoped for.
— Hey, what’s your problem?
Well, well. That’s a nice catch.
Having verified that Kim Ji-rok was someone to be avoided and stamped that conclusion with a loud, emphatic seal, Ha On-ha silently dedicated this small glory to Gal Neoul and resolved to do whatever it took to keep Kim Ji-rok out of the debut lineup.
And right then, the agitated Kim Ji-rok, as if on cue, tried to swing a fist.
I’ll take one hit and then kick him out.
He’d planned to dodge the face and take the blow in a way that looked obvious but safe. He’d even thought of going dramatic, pretending to be knocked flying a little after a light hit.
But it had been unexpected when Yeo Do-bin, who looked timid and frightened enough to be the last person who’d step in, jumped in to stop the fight.
Ah, that’s a little disappointing…
Ha On-ha was regretting the missed opportunity inwardly when Yeo Do-bin lowered his voice and scolded him.
“You can’t say things like that!”
Ha On-ha felt stifled. Whose side was he on right now? Even after seeing the fist nearly come flying, he was defending Kim Ji-rok?
Was this one another lost cause?
Just as he began to feel vaguely disappointed, wondering if he’d misjudged the kid, Yeo Do-bin blurted, “If you openly make an enemy like that, what are you going to do…!”
……Huh?
“You could’ve just said, ‘Sorry, but I can’t,’ and quietly, naturally cut him off…! What if he retaliates?”
Yeo Do-bin glanced around nervously and lowered his voice even further as he went on.
“That guy is seriously weird…! I saw him raise his fist! He was going to hit you! I don't get it!”
Yeo Do-bin warned Ha On-ha that the best thing to do was steer clear of strange people, and told him not to deal with him anymore. Then, saying that he wasn’t sure why, but it looked like he was targeting Neoul, he hurried off to let him know.
Ha On-ha let out a helpless laugh, stunned at who was warning whom, and hurried after him.