All I Could Do Was Hold Her
All I could do was comfort her with my body.
Hyejeong and I abandoned our meal right then and there and raced straight to the trainers.
The trainers who had been in charge of A Rank—the rank that Hyejeong, Yu Seol, and I belonged to.
They were in their respective waiting rooms, deep in preparation for the upcoming shoot.
That space was normally off-limits to contestants, but Hyejeong was so frantic she must have forgotten. She slammed the door open and barged straight in.
"Teachers—!"
"…Huh?"
Fortunately, the trainers didn’t kick us out for barging into their waiting room.
But…
"Ah…"
"……"
As if by some silent agreement, they began avoiding our eyes.
More precisely, they avoided Hyejeong’s.
"……"
Every single one of them turned their heads away in perfect unison.
From that moment, I knew something was wrong.
"Teachers…"
Hyejeong must have felt it too. Her face went cold and rigid as she stepped closer and asked,
"Um… what’s going on? One of the writers suddenly came up to me and said I was B Rank…"
"……"
"It’s… some kind of mistake, right? I clearly got A Rank yesterday, and now all of a sudden it’s B… This… isn’t real, is it? Right, teachers?"
"…Hyejeong."
The trainers hung their heads, looking thoroughly ashamed, then finally said,
"…I’m sorry. That’s just how it turned out. The PD will explain everything later."
With only those words, they filed out of the waiting room as a group.
"……"
"……"
Unable to make sense of what had just happened, Hyejeong and I stood frozen in the empty waiting room for a long time.
Hyejeong was the first to snap out of it.
"…Yerin."
She looked at me with a trembling voice.
"…Let’s just get out of here. We’re not supposed to be in here anyway."
"…Unni."
"There… there must be some reason. So let’s go for now. We… we still have to get ready for the theme song shoot."
She was forcing a look that said she was fine, but her hands were shaking violently.
Just as she finally managed to rest her hand on the doorknob—
"Hey, what’s this about suddenly dumping Lee Hyejeong down to B Rank?"
"……!"
Women’s voices drifted in from the hallway outside the waiting room.
This floor was used only by trainers and production staff, so the people talking had to be crew members.
The moment Hyejeong’s name came up, we both went dead silent again and eavesdropped on their conversation.
"That’s just how it went."
"No, what the hell is this all of a sudden? We already locked in the editing points for ‘K-Star 7th-place powerhouse trainee’s idol challenge narrative.’ Why are we suddenly sending her to B? We’re going to have to scrap the entire editing direction so far."
"What choice do we have? When the higher-ups say jump, we jump."
"Higher-ups? Who gave the order?"
"Shin PD."
Shin PD.
He was definitely the main producer of Na-Ah-Ah.
I’d met him face-to-face during the pre-interview with Kang Hyeongman.
I saw him often enough on the Na-Ah-Ah set, where he oversaw everything as overall director.
And that man had dropped Hyejeong…?
"Shin PD took one look at the A Rank lineup and decided Lee Hyejeong would be better off out of it. So they demoted her."
"Really? But she definitely had the skills. Why would he do that?"
"Guess he didn’t like how chubby she was."
"Chubby? Her?"
"Dude, stick her next to the other four A Rank girls and she looks completely bloated. The visuals just die. Don’t you know viewers are extra sensitive about that stuff? What if she makes the rest of the A Rank contestants look lower quality?"
That fucking bitch.
For a second the surge of rage was almost too much to hold back, but I couldn’t move.
If I made a scene here… it would only hurt Hyejeong more.
"Shin PD saw that and made a careful decision. Honestly, demoting her to B was fair."
"Yeah, well… if the PD says so, we do it. But what now? We already filmed her getting promoted to A in the custom class and holding A in the final rank evaluation."
"No idea. I heard they’re talking to the trainers and just editing it so she got demoted to B in the final rank evaluation."
Turning something that never happened into fact couldn’t have been easy.
But their voices carried zero worry or concern—as if they’d done this sort of thing countless times before.
"But Lee Hyejeong’s not going to accept it, right? She got A Rank fair and square and then suddenly gets dropped to B. She’s going to raise hell."
"Shin PD said he’d handle talking to her. And even if she does raise hell, what can she actually do? When we say jump, she jumps."
"What if she exposes it online…"
Expose it online.
The moment I heard those words, my ears perked up.
It was true that production staff and trainees stood in a clear superior-subordinate relationship on Na-Ah-Ah.
But that didn’t mean the subordinate had no way to screw over the superior.
Exactly like she’d just said—if Hyejeong exposed the fact that she’d been screwed over online…!
"Hey, that would actually be great! Traffic goes up!"
But the Na-Ah-Ah production team was even more obsessed with ratings than I’d thought.
"You know how it is these days, right? Even throwing rocks at the ugly duckling counts as attention. People will flock to episode one just to see the girl who got unfairly eliminated, won’t they?"
The crew went even further.
"I honestly hope she does expose it. Then she gets public sympathy and we get higher ratings. Win-win. By the finale everyone will have forgotten anyway."
It was too much… truly, too much.
"Tch… then Lee Hyejeong’s just screwed no matter what. Demoted, and now she’s on the PD’s bad side… Bottom line, if the PD doesn’t like you, even if you’ve got the skills, debuting isn’t easy, right?"
"Exactly. If you don’t catch the PD’s eye, you get less screen time and viewers never notice you. But what can you do? Stop talking nonsense and get to the set already. Did you finish the setup?"
"Not yet. So help me out."
"Ugh, fine, let’s go."
Tap-tap.
With that, the sound of the production bitches’ footsteps faded down the hallway.
Ssshh—.
Only then did I, still frozen solid, turn to look at Hyejeong.
"…Unni."
"……"
Just as expected, her face had gone even paler than before.
"…Are you okay?"
The second the words left my mouth I regretted them.
Anyone could see she wasn’t okay… and the situation wasn’t okay either.
But…
"Of course I’m okay."
Hyejeong… nodded slowly, her expression loosening as if it had never been stiff at all.
The sudden change was enough to throw me off.
She even added a small smile at the corners of her mouth as she continued.
"This kind of thing is common on audition shows. I always knew something like this would happen someday."
"Unni…"
"Yerin, you know Unni made it to 7th place on K-Star, right? Haah… I was only seventeen back then, and the shows were even worse than now. Unni’s used to this stuff."
As she spoke, her face looked like she was genuinely reminiscing about the past—and it really did look fine.
She even patted my rigid shoulder to comfort me.
"Yerin~ Why are you so stiff? Unni’s really okay, I promise. It’s not like I dropped to C or D—it’s just B. Honestly, I was already thinking center would be a bit much for me. A Rank has to stand center, you know."
"……"
Then, with a bright expression, she took my hand and led me outside.
"Come on, let’s go. We’re going to be late and get scolded."
Of course her insides must have been rotting away… but on the outside she looked completely fine.
Back then, all I thought was that Lee Hyejeong was a strong person who knew how to hide her true feelings well.
Right before the long-awaited theme song group stage filming rehearsal.
With only this left, the long first week of filming would finally be over, and the contestants’ mood was noticeably brighter than before.
That went for A Rank as well.
No—A Rank actually had more benefits on the theme song group stage, so their atmosphere was even better than the other ranks.
Especially Seo Yujin from SAV.
She was so drunk on the fact that she’d made A Rank that she didn’t even glare at me the way she usually did; she just kept smiling the whole time.
"A Rank contestants, please come up first!"
At the crew’s signal, the four A Rank members climbed onto the stage…
"Alright, first I’ll explain the positioning for the four of you. Yu Seol, you’ll stand here…"
"Huh? One of the A Rank members hasn’t come up yet? Um… what was her name again. The unni who made it to 7th on K-Star. That unni isn’t here."
The moment Seo Yujin pointed out that Hyejeong hadn’t shown up, the atmosphere turned strange.
The crew looked flustered as they answered her question.
"Ah… Contestant Lee Hyejeong had some circumstances come up and was moved down to B Rank."
"Circumstances? What kind of circumstances would force her down to B Rank?"
Seo Yujin tilted her head in confusion, but…
"……"
"…Ah."
The other two A Rank members—Yu Seol and Na Hanna—seemed to roughly grasp the situation. They flinched and their expressions darkened.
…I was the same.
Hyejeong had said she was fine, but I wasn’t fine at all.
Hyejeong was too chubby so the visuals didn’t look pretty…
Hyejeong wasn’t fat, but compared to the other trainees she was on the curvier side, so someone could think that.
But how could they drop someone who had officially earned A Rank all the way to B for that reason alone?
I was furious, but there was nothing I could do.
This kind of production tyranny was like a natural disaster.
The more you fought it, the more you got hurt. Staying still was the only wise choice.
So I secretly let out a sigh and listened to the crew explain stage positions, camera angles, and everything else—until the B Rank contestants started climbing onto the stage as well.
"Alright, B Rank contestants, please come up."
I was the first to notice something was off about them.
Hyejeong… where did she go?
We’d come to the set together, but looking now, she wasn’t among the B Rank contestants coming up on stage.
Did she go to the bathroom?
At first I thought it was that simple, but five minutes passed and she still hadn’t returned.
"What the… one’s missing from B Rank…"
"Where did Contestant Lee Hyejeong go?"
Only then did the crew realize she was missing and start looking for her.
But even after sending people out, they couldn’t find her easily.
"She’s not in the room or the bathroom either?"
"For crying out loud. Rehearsal’s about to start—where the hell did she go?"
"……"
Not in the dorm… not in the bathroom…
In that instant, a vague idea of where she might be floated into my head.
Then the crew looked at us and asked,
"Does anyone close to Hyejeong know where she might have gone?"
I raised my hand without a second’s hesitation.
"…I think I know where she is."
"Yerin? Ah, right, you two are close. So where…"
"I’ll go get her."
"What? Yerin? Yerin!"
Instead of explaining my thoughts to the crew, I simply climbed down from the stage and ran.
I had a pretty good idea where she was… but I didn’t want to meet her with them tagging along.
"Yerin—! You have to bring her back before rehearsal starts in fifteen minutes!"
I heard the crew’s desperate shouts behind me as I burst out of the set.
I tried to put myself in Hyejeong’s shoes.
At first she must have tried to tough it out through the production’s bullshit.
But the tears welling up would have been hard to hold back.
She couldn’t cry on the set, so she must have rushed out in a hurry.
And… she would have come here.
I arrived in front of the practice room where I figured Hyejeong would be.
Where had Hyejeong and I spent the most time since coming to Na-Ah-Ah?
The set? The dorm? The cafeteria?
No… right here, the practice room.
From six in the morning until two in the morning.
For the past week, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say we’d lived in the practice room.
Hyejeong must have been looking for a place to cry in secret, and like a salmon returning to its river, her homing instinct had brought her to the practice room.
Creak—.
"Kkueuk… hic…"
When I opened the practice room door, a faint sound of crying came from a room that should have been empty.
I followed the sound inside.
Into the A Class practice room that held a week’s worth of our blood and sweat.
"Heueuk… kkeuheuk…"
Inside A Class, just as expected, Hyejeong was huddled in the corner, tears streaming down her face.
"Heueuk… uh, uh…? Ye-Yerin."
"…Unni."
She looked up mid-cry, startled at the sight of my face.
"Ah, th-that’s not…"
She hurriedly wiped her tears, trying to hide the fact that she’d been crying, but she couldn’t hide her red-rimmed eyes.
"Huu…"
I’d expected it, but seeing her actually cry made my heart sink even heavier.
If only I were the type who was good at comforting people with words… but unfortunately, I had zero talent for verbal comfort.
So…
Thud, thump.
Instead of saying anything special, I took off my school uniform jacket.
Left in just a white dress shirt, I reached out and walked toward her.
"…Come here."
"…Huh?"
"I said come here, Unni. …I’ll hug you."
"…Huh? Huh-huh?"
Since I had no talent for comforting with words, all I could do was comfort with my body.
I sat down right there and pressed my waist against the face of the flustered, babbling Hyejeong.
"We haven’t done makeup yet. …If you cry a little, it won’t show."
We’d be wearing the school uniform jackets for the actual shoot anyway. Even if my shirt got wet, no one would know.
Fwoomph.
When I pulled the back of Hyejeong’s head against my waist, she went blank for a moment.
And then…
"Heueuk… Yerin…!"
She started crying like a child again and buried her face in my waist.
Squeeze—.
The body the production crew had called chubby wrapped tightly around my waist.
"It’s so unfair… it’s just so unfair, Yerin…. Kkeuheup…"
My waist grew damper and damper… and the hands clinging to me grew more desperate.
The harder she hugged me, the more her unfairness and resentment poured into me through my body.
I lowered my head and pulled her head against my chest.
"Heueueuk… heuaaaaang…!"
And so her crying went on for a long, long time.