Next Project (6)
A brief break.
"Dahye, are you okay?"
Sensing something off about I Dahye, Chaerin approached her with a worried look.
"Ah, yeah. Sorry about the choreography slip earlier. I went to bed a little late last night, so my condition's not great."
"Don't tell me it's because of the drama?"
"…Huh? How did you know?"
"Come on, yesterday was the live broadcast night for that drama. I watched it too. The other girls probably all did."
"What, what? Are you talking about that right now?"
The members nearby had been listening in, and their interest was piqued enough that they jumped straight into the conversation.
The drama they were talking about was, of course, the recent smash hit Welcome to Café Violet.
The moment the latest drama came up in a group of girls, there was never enough time left in the day for the conversation that followed. Which meant their allotted break could vanish in an instant.
"Hold on! I'm just going to the bathroom to splash some water on my face."
I Dahye had felt it coming too, and she hurriedly slipped free of her unnies.
In truth, washing her face to shake off the mounting fatigue was only part of why she wanted out of the practice room. The real reason was something else entirely.
On her way to practice earlier, I Dahye had happened to spot an unfamiliar boy around her own age. She knew the faces of most people affiliated with JYB by heart, and if it was someone her age, there was even less chance she wouldn't recognize them.
Then, out of nowhere, a scrap of conversation among the Hongryeon members had drifted to her ears.
Hey, did you guys hear the rumor? The CEO's been meeting with some huge big shot lately.
That single line had lit up her curiosity like a fuse. Because the direction that boy had been heading was straight toward the CEO's office.
The moment she put it together, a thought took root: What if that boy is the big shot the CEO's been meeting with?
From that point on, her entire focus had been locked on that possibility. It was also why her choreography mistakes had been so frequent today.
And I Dahye knew that if she didn't settle this curiosity, she would never be able to concentrate on her actual work. She decided it was an unavoidable force of nature, and she acted on it without hesitation.
"Just a tiny peek should be fine, right?"
Arriving at the door to the CEO's office, I Dahye carefully pressed her ear against it. She had already struck a bargain with herself: if she heard footsteps from the opposite hallway, she would casually walk on as if she had somewhere to be; if she got a reasonable amount of information, she would be satisfied and leave it at that.
—Haha. Understand… Dahye… see… right?
That was definitely the CEO's voice. The thickness of the door made the details hard to catch, but it was clear he was talking to someone.
Desperate for more, I Dahye had no choice but to press herself flush against the door and glue her ear right to the wood.
—Dahye? That kid is a born idol. She dances well, sings well, and on top of that she's beautiful—a perfect trinity.
Oh, now she could hear clearly. And of all things, the conversation had opened with praise for her.
Hmm… hearing the CEO say that is kind of embarrassing.
—You're heaping so much praise that I'm starting to want to hear about her flaws instead.
Flaws…? But whose voice was that?
One thing was certain: it was a man's voice she had never heard in her life.
—If I had to pick something, she's still young, so she's very curious, and she's a little stubborn.
CEO?!
Even if he asked for her flaws, you can't just answer that out loud!
That was exactly what I Dahye was thinking when—
"Huh?!"
She had been so absorbed in the conversation that she failed to notice the office door wasn't fully closed. With her body pressed tight against it, the push of her weight sent the door swinging open, and with her center of gravity completely off-balance, she had no chance to react. She went sprawling through the doorway.
"Da—Dahye! What are you doing coming out of there?!"
Baek Junyeong shot up from his seat and rushed over to the fallen I Dahye, his eyes blown wide at her completely unexpected appearance.
With the CEO's help, she managed to scramble back to her feet and let out an awkward little laugh.
"Haha… it just kind of happened."
"Aigoo, this little brat. Curiosity got the better of you again, huh."
"I'm sorry…. But CEO! What do you mean I'm stubborn?!"
"Uh—huh? You heard that?"
Baek Junyeong started stammering, as if the tables had just been flipped on him in an instant. I Dahye put on a sly little smile and thought to herself, Maybe this is for the best?
She would get scolded later, sure—but thanks to this, she might be able to settle her curiosity in one go.
I Dahye carefully looked around the inside of the office. Her eyes naturally met those of the person Baek Junyeong had just been speaking with. Confirming that it was the same boy she had seen an hour earlier, she slowly opened her mouth.
A pair of beautiful blue eyes was boring into me, full of questions.
Well. She really was pretty, up close. I'd only ever seen her on TV and in photos; this was my first time meeting her in person. I finally understood what Baek Junyeong had meant by "born idol."
Anyway.
The real problem right now wasn't I Dahye's radiant looks—it was the fact that she had eavesdropped on the conversation between me and Baek Junyeong. By now, the CEO, who had actually been talking with her, would have realized the same thing. That was probably why he was fretting like that.
Then I Dahye spoke—looking, for some reason, not at me but at Baek Junyeong.
"CEO~"
"Uh~ yes, Dahye? What is it?"
"Who's the person sitting over there?"
"E-eh?"
With an innocent expression, I Dahye asked who I was.
This…
This might not be as bad as I thought.
Why go out of her way to ask Baek Junyeong who I was? There were probably two possibilities. One: she wanted solid confirmation of my identity straight from the CEO. Two: she'd only caught the latter half of the conversation and knew absolutely nothing about me.
The common thread in both assumptions was that she had no real certainty about who I was. Of course, that was pure personal speculation—I had no way of knowing what was actually going through her head.
"Uh… who this person is…"
But Baek Junyeong, who was dealing with her face-to-face, didn't look like he had the mental bandwidth for any of that reasoning.
At this rate he's going to just blurt out that I'm Writer 927.
So before the CEO cracked under the pressure and made a mess of things, I decided to throw a gamble of my own.
"Nice to meet you, Dahye. I've heard a lot about you from my uncle."
I put on the friendliest smile I could manage and walked over to her, trying not to sound awkward.
"Huh? Uncle…?"
"Sorry, I should have introduced myself properly. I'm Seo Eunwoo. I'm also CEO Baek Junyeong's nephew. Right, Uncle?"
"???"
What is that face supposed to mean?
I'm trying to help you here—read the room and play along!
"Ah."
Once I shot him a look, Baek Junyeong finally seemed to catch on and gave a slight nod.
"Haha. Eunwoo stole my line. Dahye, as you just heard, this boy is my nephew."
Oh? His social instincts were terrible, but his acting was surprisingly natural.
Baek Junyeong looked at I Dahye, who was wearing a thoroughly unconvinced expression, and continued.
"But Dahye, why that face? Are you doubting our relationship?"
"Yes. I clearly heard the two of you using extremely formal speech with each other!"
"Huh? Me using formal speech with him? He's my nephew—why would I? Eunwoo, what do you think?"
"Whether that's true or not, of course I should be speaking formally to my uncle. I think Dahye just couldn't hear properly through the door."
"Mm, that has to be it. That's my nephew for you."
"No… that can't be right."
I Dahye couldn't keep up with our seamless performance. When the majority just brazenly keeps a conversation going, the other side has no choice but to get confused.
"Hold on! Then why were you telling your nephew about my flaws?!"
A fairly sharp question cut through the middle of it. This one needed a more careful answer than the last.
"Ah, that?"
Baek Junyeong grinned as if a brilliant idea had just struck him.
"Just in case, I've been giving him a little heir training in advance. He might take over as CEO of JYB someday, so he should at least have a rough idea of what kind of people are at the company."
"???"
I was so startled I nearly swore out loud.
What?
Don't tell me this guy got so deep into the act that he actually thinks I'm his nephew now?
Even by my standards, this felt like a bit of a stretch.
"The future CEO of JYB?!"
Hoo…
But looking at that shocked reaction, it seemed to have landed surprisingly well. And Baek Junyeong piled on even further.
"See? Even you're this surprised—imagine how the rest of the family would react. So to avoid any chaos, could you keep Eunwoo's identity as secret as possible?"
"Mm… I think I get the idea."
"Good enough. Oh, and for the record, you should probably start getting on his good side."
Baek Junyeong planted both hands on my shoulders in front of I Dahye, laying the familial warmth on thick. And just like that, I was officially branded in her mind as the heir to JYB Entertainment—and something like family to him.
"Hoo… my heart nearly gave out."
A short while later, her curiosity fully satisfied, I Dahye apologized once more, bowed her head, and left the room. Only then did Baek Junyeong press a hand to his chest and let out a long sigh of relief.
I was just as drained as he was. Exhausted or not, though, I still had news I needed to deliver.
"CEO. I've got good news and bad news—which would you like first?"
"Hmm, personally I'd prefer the good news first. I feel like hearing the bad news first would just crush me."
"Solid call. The good news is, I think we can cast Dahye as Jiwon."
"Okay. She should handle the acting just fine. So what's the bad news?"
"You do realize we still have two more roles left to cast, right?"
"……."
Once Eunwoo finished speaking, a brief silence settled over the room.