I Will Handle It Myself
It was Saturday, but practice went on as usual.
Even the dance teacher had to clock out at some point, though, so the session ran short.
After the dance teacher, who had spent thirty minutes each coaching Cathy and Rembrary, finally left, Rembrary practiced the choreography alone for a while before heading to the break room to grab an ion drink from the vending machine.
"Art thou faring well?"
Hye-gyeol was already there in the break room.
"No... not really."
Hye-gyeol answered listlessly, then leaned his head back against the wall.
"What on earth did I ever do to that person? Did I kill him in a past life or something? Why does he keep dragging my name through the mud like this? Who wants to live like that? A thousand thoughts are racing through my head. It's such a mess."
He didn't look like he was lying.
But there are people who can make the truth sound like a lie, and people who can make a lie sound like the truth. As his bandmate, Rembrary hoped the rumor really was false—yet he couldn't bring himself to simply take the words at face value.
Still, rather than let any of that show, Rembrary patted Hye-gyeol lightly on the shoulder to comfort him.
"All shall be resolved in due course. Trouble thyself no further."
Just then, someone rapped on the break room door. It was already open, but they knocked anyway.
"Hye-gyeol. The CEO wants to see you."
It was one of the staff whose name Rembrary could barely remember—the same one who had attended the concept meeting.
Hye-gyeol swallowed dryly and rose from his chair.
Hye-gyeol entered the CEO's office wound tight as a bowstring.
He had an outgoing personality, but he was also careful about keeping his distance from authority—he'd never once been called in here alone before.
CEO Im was standing in front of a drawer cabinet examining a box of candies. When Hye-gyeol stepped in, he glanced over his shoulder and said, "Sit."
His eyes pointed to the small sofa meant for artists.
Once Hye-gyeol was seated, CEO Im plucked a lollipop from the box, unwrapped it, and began to speak.
"You know I quit smoking, Hye-gyeol."
"Yes, sir."
"I've wavered three times this month."
"?"
"Once over Yeon-woo. Once over Cathy. And right now, over you. So. What do you think those three have in common?"
"...I'm sorry."
"No, that's not the common thread."
A vein bulged on CEO Im's forehead even as he smiled pleasantly.
"Yeon-woo never even pretended to be sorry. Cathy says sorry, but his face doesn't mean a word of it. You're the only one who actually looks like he's apologizing."
Hye-gyeol's face went pale, and he bowed his head.
CEO Im let out a long sigh, popped the candy into his mouth, crunched down on it, and asked,
"Explain. The whole situation."
"The post that went up on the community... about middle school—"
"What exactly happened back then?"
CEO Im's expression turned stern.
"Don't even think about lying. A few of the staff have been tracking down your old classmates from Ungin Middle."
Hye-gyeol fidgeted, hands clasped tightly together, before he finally managed to open his mouth.
"At the start of first year, I had a friend I was close with. I think it's him."
"..."
"We were close at first. But the kids in my class kept comparing me to him... I can't say for sure that's the reason, but I think that's the biggest reason we drifted apart. Whenever they left the two of us out and went off somewhere together, he always looked unhappy about it."
CEO Im narrowed his eyes.
Up to that point, it was entirely believable.
Hye-gyeol had started out as a child model, and while he still had a striking face now, as a kid he'd looked like an honest-to-goodness Christmas fairy.
Great credentials for a celebrity—but it would have made it hard to blend into a peer group.
That's the age when the desire to feel like one of the crowd coexists with the desire to stand out as special. And Hye-gyeol, by his very existence, had been the complete opposite of both impulses.
If anything, Hye-gyeol might have fared better if he'd been fully established as a working child model at the time.
But his child model career had ended by the early elementary years, and as a middle schooler who'd folded up his activities, Hye-gyeol sat in a hopelessly awkward middle ground—neither ordinary nor famous.
"Anyway, eventually we had a fight, and he threw this really foul insult at me. I got angry, so—"
"Did you push him?"
"No!"
"Then what?"
"I was yelling at him, and he said he didn't want to deal with me and walked off. I chased after him and kept arguing, and then near the stairs he spun around all of a sudden. And then he wobbled and fell backward."
"He fell on his own?"
Hye-gyeol nodded, his face twisting at the memory.
"Was there no CCTV or anything? Nothing? And he just admitted it was his own fault?"
"There was nothing like that. He refused to admit it was his own mistake, obviously. He claimed I'd pushed him, and his parents came to the school and threw an absolute fit. The police even got involved. Thankfully, the false accusation was cleared."
Hye-gyeol huffed, angry all over again just thinking about it.
At the time, the other family had even tried to tip off the media about the whole incident.
Somehow it had all blown over, but there was no describing how unfair and terrifying it had felt back then.
"After that, he went around telling everyone in class that I really had pushed him. So I made up my mind: until I debuted, I would never entangle myself with anyone else again. Ever since then, I've kept to myself everywhere I went."
CEO Im chewed the rest of his candy and grimaced.
"This is a real headache."
If the boy's words were a lie, it was a headache in its own right.
And even if they were true, it was no less of a headache.
Suppose Hye-gyeol was telling the truth—if a skilled manipulator were the one telling this story, the blame could still end up pinned on Hye-gyeol.
Fans would believe him unconditionally, but he didn't yet have fans of the kind who would.
CEO Im's worries only deepened the next day, when the staff reported back the results of their investigation.
Just as Hye-gyeol had said, almost no one at Ungin Middle had been genuinely close with him.
His old classmates said they'd heard rumors that 'some kid pushed somebody,' but couldn't say whether the person had actually been injured or simply fallen on their own.
At a loss, CEO Im pulled a cigarette out of its case and pushed it back in, over and over.
How in the world was he supposed to resolve this—
As he sat brooding, there came a cheerful knock at the door.
"Come in."
Who should walk in but Yeon-woo.
Rembrary closed the door and approached CEO Im, stopping at a respectful distance.
The CEO stared at him, puzzled.
"What brings you here?"
CEO Im asked, thoroughly bewildered.
"I have come on account of the matter concerning Hye-gyeol."
At Rembrary's words, CEO Im's eyebrows shot up into an arch.
He was a groupmate, so of course he'd be worried.
But even so—did Yeon-woo, who could barely manage his own affairs, really have business coming to see him about it?
"Why? Do you know something?"
CEO Im speculated within the bounds of what he could imagine.
"Hye-gyeol's told me it's all lies. Has he been telling you lot some different story?"
Rembrary shook his head. That wasn't why he'd come.
The reason Rembrary had sought out CEO Im was—
"I believe I can resolve this matter."
—because the atmosphere inside the dormitory had grown unbearable.
Cathy was sneaking lovey-dovey texts to his girlfriend even in the middle of all this, and flew into a huff every time the other members tried to stop him.
Taein had been a bomb swollen to bursting even before the incident broke, a hedgehog with its quills bristling in every direction.
Jungseo was a leader with a strong sense of responsibility, but he wasn't the warm and doting sort—if anything, he was blunt to a fault.
And Rembrary had kept to himself, burdened with his own endless thinking and investigating.
The brightest, most cheerful member of them all was the maknae, Hye-gyeol. And with Hye-gyeol practically dining at death's door these days, the dormitory had stopped being a place to rest and become a place of quiet misery.
So after much deliberation, Rembrary had decided to step up and do it himself.
After all, there were still years left on the contract—no way out of this place.
But at this well-meaning declaration from Rembrary, CEO Im burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry—what?"
He clearly didn't believe a word of it.
"Well, I'll be."
CEO Im laughed as though he'd just heard the best joke of his life.
"You kids must be pretty close."
He'd even gone and mistaken Rembrary's very practical discomfort for an act of friendship.
"Damn. Loyal bunch, aren't you."
But even while regarding Rembrary's offer in a flattering light, CEO Im refused it flatly.
"Still, this isn't something you should be handling."
"I could settle it cleanly for thee."
"Listen to yourself. If you get involved and things go sideways, that school-violence label jumps right onto your back too. You know what they say—three people can invent a tiger that doesn't even exist."
"I could conjure a tiger by myself, for what it's worth."
"What?"
"Hmm?"
Rembrary, thinking of illusion magic, and CEO Im, thinking of an old proverb, stared at each other for a moment without comprehending a word the other had said.
Taking into account the fact that Rembrary had lost his memory, CEO Im just nodded vaguely and moved on.
"The point is, your name recognition is so high that reporters will drag you into this even if you sit on your hands. If you go sticking your neck out, one wrong move and you're the one who ends up wronged."
Rembrary opened his mouth to argue—then simply closed it.
The method he intended to use to uncover the truth was his Divine Power.
A force the people of this world could not comprehend.
Of course, he had no intention of using it openly—but without bringing up his Divine Power, it was difficult to convince CEO Im at all.
"Very well. I shall relent."
Rembrary gave a token agreement and left the CEO's office.
He had no intention, however, of actually staying quiet as CEO Im had demanded.
Why take the long way around a problem that would resolve itself easily if handled directly?
Rembrary went to find Jungseo this time and made his request.
"I wish to resolve the matter concerning Hye-gyeol myself. Go thou to the CEO and obtain his permission on my behalf."
Jungseo, who had been in the middle of running lines for an acting practice, went
"Huh?"
—and asked him to repeat himself.
His face plainly read: where did that come from?
"How?"
"With mine own power."
"Healing? How is healing supposed to fix anything?"
Jungseo stood there baffled for a moment—then went,
"Oh."
—as the realization struck him.
"You mean you'd heal the person who wrote the post?"
"Nay."
Rembrary answered without a moment's hesitation that it was nothing of the sort.
"Then what?"
"I have a plan."
Rather than go into detail, Rembrary simply pressed his request again.
"Doth not the CEO heed thee well? Couldst thou not obtain his blessing for me to meet this person who is attacking Hye-gyeol in person? We shall go and meet him together."
"Aren't you in the Preliminaries on Monday?"
"Once Monday's contest is done, art thou not free from Tuesday onward?"
Jungseo didn't look entirely convinced by any of this.
But he knew Rembrary possessed some strange powers, so even without understanding, he gave in for now.
"I'll ask. But don't get your hopes up. The CEO might say no."
Just as Rembrary had predicted, though, CEO Im granted Jungseo's request on the spot.
His reasoning: having the leader personally sit down with the accuser left plenty of ways to turn the outcome to their advantage later on.
If the conversation went well, they could build an image of a leader who'd stepped up for his member. If it went badly, they had the recording on hand to use as ammunition for a counterattack.
If an LLL employee got involved, it would look like a powerful corporation strong-arming a helpless private individual—but if Jungseo went himself, no such misunderstanding would arise.
Of course, all of this was only possible because CEO Im trusted Jungseo's calm, unshakable character.
Pulling a small voice recorder out of a drawer, CEO Im handed it to Jungseo with his instructions.
"Take this and keep it running, just in case. Watch your words."
"Yes, sir."
"You might want to stop by the legal team first and get a rundown of what you can and can't say. There's a good chance they'll show up with a recorder of their own."
Jungseo accepted the recorder with a nod, then came back to Rembrary.
"Permission granted. So what's the plan now?"