A Small Gift
Watching Ye-chan's spoon work at a rapid clip, Kim Dae-hoon seemed to recover his nerve and tried again.
"You must've been pretty thrown when some friend's little brother you'd only met twice suddenly hit you up, right?"
"A friend's little brother?"
"You're friends with Chan-yang hyung. Didn't he say as much in front of our company parking lot before…?"
At Ye-chan's distinctly unimpressed reply, Kim Dae-hoon scrambled to explain himself.
Ye-chan let out a hollow laugh and asked again.
"And you never went back and asked Jung Chan-yang after that? Who the hell that guy even was?"
"Huh? Uh, well…"
Kim Dae-hoon blinked, rubbing a finger against the tabletop—the habit he fell into whenever he was hunting for an excuse.
Having filled his stomach to satisfaction, Ye-chan set down his spoon, propped his chin in one hand, and fixed Kim Dae-hoon with a look.
"Senior Kim Dae-hoon. You didn't tell Jung Chan-yang you were meeting me today."
The certainty in his tone sent Kim Dae-hoon leaping like a calf with its rear on fire.
"What? Uh, no, I mean…"
Having decided it was time to wrap this meeting up, Ye-chan cut off Kim Dae-hoon's pitiful stammering.
"You didn't seem all that interested during the mid-evaluation. So why the sudden urge to dig around Jung Chan-yang… Ah. You watched Chumaf together yesterday."
Looking at Kim Dae-hoon, eyes blown wide as if he'd seen a ghost, Ye-chan found himself thinking of an animal. The idiot sitting across from him—face intact, brains optional—was the spitting image of an ostrich. Just like an ostrich that buries its head in the sand and assumes no one can see it, he spun his thoughts so transparently that the moment you named them out loud, he went round-eyed and slack-jawed.
"Chan-yang must've looked pretty off while you were watching the broadcast. Enough to go hunting down a complete stranger like this."
"…"
Back at the parking lot, Ye-chan had thought the two of them seemed on decent terms. But watching Kim Dae-hoon seek out a member's acquaintance—someone he'd only met twice—and try to gently pry information out of him made it clear their relationship was strictly professional.
He's been walking the path I laid out for him, so of course he's been thriving. No emotional friction, either—just a dry, flavorless coexistence. Until now I figured that was just how he was. But Jung Chan-yang must've looked seriously wrong yesterday while watching the show.
Ye-chan studied Kim Dae-hoon's flustered, vacant face for a moment as the older boy scrambled for something to say.
Still, for a member, he's fretting over him more than I'd expect. Kim Dae-hoon.
Having enjoyed a satisfying meal for the first time in a while, Ye-chan decided to extend a small kindness to his former colleague.
"Senior Kim Dae-hoon. Since you treated me to a good meal, I'll give you this free of charge. Make sure you tell Jung Chan-yang you met me today. If he asks why, say you were worried because he was acting so strange."
"What?"
"Senior, you seem like someone who can't lie to save his life. Don't half-ass a cover story and end up poking Chan-yang the wrong way. Just confess properly."
It was a group he planned to sink before long anyway. He wanted them to enjoy a little peace while they still could. A small gift from the man who had once been this fool's—and his friends'—leader for a very long time.
"And approaching a member's acquaintances like this makes it obvious something's wrong with your team, so cut it out. You're idols. Having the public know you're awkward with each other does nobody any favors."
Holding Kim Dae-hoon's trembling gaze, Ye-chan rose from his seat. It was freshly astonishing that someone this clumsy had somehow juggled eight simultaneous relationships for over half a year without getting caught.
"W-wait! Ye-chan hyung!"
Ye-chan had given a short nod and was about to leave the room when Kim Dae-hoon called out in a rush. At the familiar form of address, Ye-chan's steps halted.
Kim Dae-hoon didn't approach the man who wouldn't turn around. He just fretted in place.
"I—I'll go tell Chan-yang hyung myself, like you said. S-so, uh… could you not tell him first?"
Apparently he was worried Ye-chan might change his mind and call Jung Chan-yang before he could.
I don't even have his number, you idiot.
Instead of answering, Ye-chan raised one hand and gave a light wave.
"S-so cool…"
He decided to ignore the tiny voice that floated after him from behind.
The first guerrilla concert was scheduled for Seoul.
"What great weather!"
At Nam Ji-yu's exclamation, Ye-chan tipped his head back and checked the sky. Not a cloud in sight. He nodded.
"It really is."
He'd run into Nam Ji-yu at the entrance again and was catching up on recent news when familiar faces began filtering in one by one. Far off at the edge of his vision, Woo Hwi-gyum stood alone, looking distinctly stranded.
Why is he standing there looking so pitiful.
Ye-chan peeled away from the group and approached. Woo Hwi-gyum offered a hesitant greeting.
"Hey."
"What do you mean, 'hey.' Why are you hanging around over here? Didn't you see me over there?"
"Well… we usually stick to ourselves, so…?"
Ye-chan snorted and, instead of answering, dragged Woo Hwi-gyum back to where he'd been standing.
"Hwi-gyum hyung's here."
"Oh, Hwi-gyum! Morning!"
Watching Woo Hwi-gyum give the trainees who welcomed him an awkward nod, Ye-chan turned his head—and found Shim Sang-rok striding right up to him.
"Ah—you startled me. Turn on a blinker next time you pull up, hyung."
"You're with Hwi-gyum?"
"…What's so surprising about that. We've been practicing together the whole time since the dorm stay ended."
"True enough."
Shim Sang-rok smiled with a meaningful air and added nothing more. Ye-chan's eyes narrowed.
"What is it you're trying to say?"
"Just that Ye-chan has a wide meddling streak."
"When it comes to Woo Hwi-gyum, it's not meddling—ah, forget it. Call it meddling if you want."
The moment he tried to explain, pre-reset history tangled itself into the answer and left him short of words. Ye-chan shrugged, and whatever interpretation Shim Sang-rok put on that, it made him smile with quiet satisfaction.
"I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's a good thing if the group leader has a warm heart."
"Leader? Me?"
Ye-chan echoed it back, looking faintly appalled. Shim Sang-rok nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Ye-chan glanced around. Everyone seemed absorbed in their own little worlds; no one was paying them any attention. He dropped his voice to a whisper.
"The debut lineup isn't even set yet. You're getting way ahead of yourself, hyung."
Matching his volume, Shim Sang-rok leaned in slightly.
"Unless the program completely tanks, there's no way you don't debut, Ye-chan."
He bent at the waist with exaggerated formality and continued.
"I'll do my best to keep up."
Ye-chan shot the playfully solemn Shim Sang-rok a look of pure disbelief. Unfazed by the cold stare, Shim Sang-rok just smiled and slipped into the trainees' conversation.
Leader, huh…
Ye-chan found himself turning over a problem he hadn't considered until now. Back in the Lee:Spirit days, the leader role had settled on him as naturally as water finding its level. This time, he hadn't thought about it at all.
There are members with long trainee careers like Shim Sang-rok, so I doubt it'd fall to me anyway.
"Candidates, please board the bus!"
At the writer's call, Ye-chan shook off the fruitless line of thought.
Pointless thoughts are fun, though. That's the whole point.
Split into groups, the trainees got their makeup done at the shop, changed clothes, and fanned out by team to promote the guerrilla concert. They were wearing the official Chumaf hoodies—merchandise scheduled to go on sale after the concert broadcast.
"Kyaaah! Ha Ye-chan!"
"Ji-yu! Oppa!"
"Sae-byeok—aaah!"
"Woo Hwi-gyum!"
Because the most recent broadcast had shown the teams being divided for the cover-song mission, this round of promotion put them with the members they'd performed Don't Bother alongside.
In the spirit of making them work for it, the production team had dropped the trainees on the outskirts of Seoul—but thanks to the synergy of social media and a holiday, a crowd had gathered before they'd even been walking the streets for long.
Ye-chan held the megaphone as the group's representative while the other members busily handed out flyers printed with the time and location.
"Ji-yu, you're seriously so handsome. Ugh, I'm crying."
"Haha, thank you! Please come see this handsome face in person!"
"Princesses, I'm counting on you!"
Most of them were naturally sociable, so there didn't seem to be any real problems.
Woo Hwi-gyum and Bae Sae-byeok, though…
"Please take care of us."
"I'll do my best."
Confirming that even the two quiet ones were giving it everything they had—like people who had never learned how to straighten their spines—Ye-chan put a little more force into the hand holding the megaphone.
"Isn't the promo time way too short? We couldn't even finish handing out the flyers—fans were grabbing them in big stacks!"
At the staff's word that it was time to head back and prepare, Gi Tae-rang climbed into the van wearing a tragic expression. The production team's original briefing had clearly said they'd have about an hour. But once they actually arrived on site, various prep work ate into the schedule. Factoring in travel time to the concert venue, the promotion had lasted barely thirty minutes.
Ye-chan patted Gi Tae-rang's shoulder as the younger boy fretted over the lost opportunity.
"We did our best with the time we had. Forget it now. From here on, we think about the concert."
"Ah—you're right! That's our Ye-chan hyung!"
He herded the rest of the team—equally restless with leftover disappointment—onto the bus, and only then did everyone start to settle.
After checking that the staff seated toward the front of the bus weren't paying attention, Im Chae-jin whispered,
"So, we promoted because they told us to promote, but… is this concert actually going to work? We didn't even rehearse, let alone practice."
He wasn't wrong. Even the rehearsal scheduled for yesterday had been abruptly canceled over security concerns, leaving the trainees with nothing but a set list delivered by email.
Which is how I ended up seeing Kim Dae-hoon yesterday, though.
In truth, it was a concert in name only—just the theme song and the cover track. Ye-chan wasn't worried in the slightest. They'd spent the entire break practicing those two songs and nothing else. Failing at this point would have been the stranger outcome.
The other trainees, however, clearly weren't calming down the way he had. Looking as unbothered as Ye-chan—who'd done overseas tours the way other people ate meals—would have been the weirder reaction on their end.
An idol's mental state had a massive impact on the quality of a stage, so Ye-chan scraped together every last scrap of gentleness sleeping inside him.
"Didn't you practice during the break after the dorm stay ended?"
"Well… we did, but…"
"Then you'll be fine. You barely had practice time during the dorm period and you still pulled it off."
"Y-you think so?"
Nam Ji-yu, who had been listening in, let out an admiring sound.
"Khh! Ye-chan gets cooler every time I look at him! This is not trainee energy—this is a senior who debuted a full decade ahead of me, I swear."
"Oh, right—Ji-yu hyung debuted before. I'd completely forgotten."
"Don't forget! You said you liked our group's songs! Was that just lip service?!"
As Nam Ji-yu bristled at a fellow trainee on the same bus and Im Chae-jin cackled, Ye-chan spoke up again.
"And Im Chae-jin."
"Yeah?"
"Whispering doesn't help. There's a camera stuck right there."
Im Chae-jin checked the camera peeping from the spot Ye-chan pointed to and gave a weak smile.
"Next time, lead with that…"