A Stubborn Bond (3)
I exchanged a brief greeting with Naeun and left the Luminous building.
My stomach growled.
I had come out early that morning, and already it was nearly sunset. Having skipped meals while talking with Kim Taesung, it was no wonder I was starving.
Maybe I should go there for the first time in a while.
My destination was the twenty-four-hour gukbap place I always frequented. Even on a weekday evening, the streets of Hongdae thronged with people. My footsteps toward the restaurant came to a sudden halt.
……What is this voice?
As if entranced, I walked toward the sound. When I slipped into the crowd and saw the stage, my eyes went round.
What are you doing out here?
One portable speaker and one microphone. Standing in front of that simple setup and belting it out was none other than Yoo Sia. Murmurs rose from the citizens around me.
"Hey, who’s that? She’s really good."
"Isn’t she famous? I think I’ve seen her somewhere."
"Ah! Right! That girl! The one who went head-to-head with Han Jiyoung in the death match on Voice of Legend!"
"Ah, that Yoo Sia? The one with the weird personality, that brat?"
"Dude, just watch the show as a show. Didn’t you see them make up and hug? In real life she’s totally pretty, come on."
Yoo Sia paid no mind to their gazes and poured everything into her singing.
Did she get kicked out of her agency or something?
No matter how small Aura Entertainment was, they would never dump a promising trainee who had made it to the semifinals out onto the street like this. I swallowed my curiosity and stayed hidden in the crowd, waiting for her busking to end.
When the song finished, applause poured from the people.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
The sharp edges of her old self were nowhere to be found. Yoo Sia met the eyes of approaching fans with genuine warmth, posing for photos and even giving autographs. Once the crowd had thinned and she began fussily packing up the microphone cable, I casually stepped forward.
"What are you doing here?"
She blinked, scanned my outfit, and tilted her head.
"……Who?"
I glanced around carefully, then lifted the brim of the hat I had pulled low and tugged my mask down to my chin.
"It’s me."
"Oh! Unnie! Oh my god, what brings you here——!"
When Yoo Sia was about to shriek with delight, I panicked and clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
"Keep your voice down."
Her eyes went huge and she nodded vigorously.
"Whew…… Unnie, you really startled me. With the disguise I genuinely didn’t recognize you."
Yoo Sia smiled bashfully, looking truly glad. I still could not get used to this bright expression of hers.
"Spill it. Why are you doing this out here?"
"No, it’s not like that. I just…… I’m doing it because I want to."
"You?"
"I wanted to try all kinds of experiences."
Yoo Sia slung her neatly packed bag over her shoulder and looked at me.
"Whether my music really works even on the street, whether it can stop people’s footsteps…… I wanted to check that for myself."
She added with a playful smile,
"Unnie even became a citizen hero, so I felt like I should do something too."
It was absurd, yet on the other hand I felt proud of her. The girl who used to be full of venom, busy tearing others down, was now standing on the street to face herself.
"Good kid. As a special treat, I’ll buy you gukbap."
"Gukbap?"
"What, you don’t like it?"
Yoo Sia quickly nodded.
"G-gukbap is great!"
Inside the shop the yellowish lighting mingled with the thick, savory smell of meat broth. I took a corner seat and raised my hand familiarly toward the ajumma.
"Ajumma, two pork ones here!"
"Yes, two pork coming right up~!"
A booming voice answered from the kitchen as I pulled the water bottle closer. Yoo Sia looked around the place with open curiosity before carefully perching on the edge of her chair.
"Unnie, are you a regular here?"
"Yeah."
She narrowed her eyes and studied me as if surprised.
"I thought the hospital director’s daughter would be cutting steak every day at fancy restaurants. But gukbap at a place like this."
"These kinds of places are the real gourmet spots. Look—the customer age range is high, right? No young people, so kids like us don’t stand out and it’s much more comfortable. Taste is guaranteed."
Yoo Sia glanced around and nodded. Indeed, it was only middle-aged men tilting soju glasses or guys eating alone after work; no one paid any attention to the two of us with our hats pulled low.
"That’s true. It does feel comfortable."
I set the spoons and asked casually,
"But that busking spot earlier—is the cleanup all done? What if you just leave it?"
"Ah, that zone is managed by a company, so packing the equipment is enough. I finished the cleanup before I came."
Sia was more thorough than I had expected. Soon two steaming earthenware bowls were set on the table. I dumped a full load of chives into mine and tossed out the next question.
"Aren’t you debuting? You made quite a name for yourself with Voice of Legend this time."
Yoo Sia’s hand, reaching for her spoon, paused. She stared blankly at the milky broth before speaking with a bitter edge.
"I have to. I want to…… but the CEO says the timing is a bit bad. Company circumstances too, and with the big-agency kids coming back one after another, it’s hard to push through, so it keeps getting delayed."
"Getting delayed?"
"Yes. Actually, with the trouble I caused last time…… the sponsors seem to be watching too. Well, it’s my karma."
Sia gave a self-deprecating smile and put a piece of meat in her mouth.
"I heard Naeun is debuting."
Her chewing stopped cold. She looked up at me with widened eyes.
"Debuting? Naeun? When?"
"Dunno. I don’t know the details either. Don’t go telling people."
"……Of course not."
Yoo Sia just swirled her gukbap aimlessly with her spoon. I watched her quietly, then asked,
"Why do you want to become an idol that badly?"
"Because of my mom."
"Mom?"
Was it the usual case of parents projecting unfinished dreams onto their daughter and forcing them?
"Since I was little my dream was to be a singer, and my only family—my mom—supported me more than anyone. I didn’t know when I was young, but Mom was terminally ill."
Sia’s voice stayed calm, yet the end of it trembled ever so slightly.
"Mom always said, ‘Sia, you’re definitely going to be a cool singer on TV. And wherever you go, never look easy to push around. Always act prickly so people won’t treat you carelessly.’"
"……."
"So I did. It felt like keeping my promise to Mom. If I looked strong, Mom would rest easy even in heaven."
I set my spoon down and stared at her.
So that’s why her personality was like that.
Pity washed through me. Even armor, if it grows too heavy, ends up crushing the body it was meant to protect.
Still, you need to know how to bend a little. After slipping three times on debut, you should have realized that method was wrong.
I averted my eyes from her reddened rims and asked shortly,
"Do you drink?"
Sia blinked in fluster, then answered in a shrinking voice.
"I’m nineteen though."
"Birthday passed?"
"Yes."
"Then drink."
I immediately raised my hand toward the kitchen.
"Ajumma! One bottle of soju here."
Clear soju filled the glass with a soft splash. Sia hesitated, then lifted it and downed it in one go, frowning hard at the burst of bitterness. I sorted through the disjointed words she had poured out.
The reason her debut had collapsed three times was not simply because of her prickly personality. The first time she rebelled against an abnormal debut method and got marked. The second time they forced a cutie concept—complete with a forced lisp—onto a power vocalist like her, and they had a massive fight in the recording studio. The most recent third time, right before the debut team was locked in, a trainee who happened to be a relative of the board snatched the main-vocal seat.
Sia blamed every one of those disasters on her own angular character and called it karma, but that was not the cause.
The agency is rotten.
Even in my past life I had seen countless thug agencies that broke promising kids’ spirits and squeezed them dry just like this. Looking at it that way, Kim Taesung was a gentleman among gentlemen.
I refilled the empty glass and asked,
"Aura Enter—is there a reason you have to keep sticking with them?"
"I’ve been training here for five years. Where would I go now? And when Mom passed and I really had nowhere left, the CEO took me in. There’s that grace too."
Grace, huh. Listening to her answer, I clicked my tongue inwardly. Still, it would be ridiculous for me to meddle any further.
"Yeah. If you say so, then that’s how it is."
I decided not to touch her agency issues again.
"I’ll cheer for you. Since it’s the path you chose, go all the way."
"……Thank you, Unnie."
Sia’s expression looked much more at ease. Simply by confiding her story to someone, she seemed to have gained real comfort. I took my phone from my pocket and set it on the table.
"And, just in case."
"Yes?"
"If something you really can’t handle comes up, or you need help, contact me."
Sia’s eyes went round as if the offer was unexpected; then she smiled shyly and pulled out her own phone.
"Really? I’m really going to contact you!"
"Yeah, yeah. So hurry and put the number in."
Under the dim lighting of the gukbap shop we exchanged numbers.
"Alright, if you’re done eating, let’s get up."
"Ah, right! The final! Unnie has to win for sure. I’ll be cheering from behind!"
Watching Sia’s receding back, I thought, I hope that grace of hers doesn’t end in catastrophe. But if that end turned out to be a cliff, then the number I had offered might become her rope.
Though my own nose is already three feet deep in trouble.
Once a bond is formed, you cannot simply ignore it.