The Smile I'd Never Seen
Kang Yiyul smiled awkwardly.
"...Ah. I have a hairstyle in mind."
Right. That mutt-brown mop, I bet.
Yiyul-ah, I really do love you, but that is absolutely not it.
I drove the nail in without a flicker of hesitation.
"Black suits you best."
The words were out; there was nothing left to do but see this through to the end.
Kang Yiyul stared at me, his face a portrait of pure disbelief.
"...Why?"
"Because you're handsome."
Silence fell again.
This one lasted longer.
Someone somewhere was muttering he's insane.
"......"
The tips of Kang Yiyul's ears slowly turned red.
Weak to compliments as always, I see.
"Don't ruin a handsome face by dyeing it some weird color."
Kang Yiyul opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked like a man carefully picking his words.
"No, but why are you telling me this—"
"You asked earlier, remember?"
I answered with perfect composure.
"About whether you should dye it."
"That was just me talking to my—"
"So I gave you my answer?"
Kang Yiyul just gaped at me, lost for words.
Wh-what are you gonna do about it, huh.
Life, as my sister Yu Seong-ah always said, is all about momentum.
"No, and out of nowhere you say this weird—"
"Weird? That you're handsome?"
"......"
I shrugged.
"You're handsome, so I said you're handsome. What else was I supposed to say?"
Behind me, all hell was breaking loose. But I'd come this far — retreat was no longer an option.
Kang Yiyul dragged a hand down his face.
"...Ha."
He laughed like it was absurd, but there was no displeasure in it.
Now. This is the moment to push.
"And — what do you think about letting your bangs grow out a little?"
I intended to ride the confusion all the way to the finish line.
"Longer?"
"Yeah. Just barely showing your forehead."
Before the regression, the comments on Yiyul's looks had only improved as the survival show wound toward its end. It was the growing hair that had flipped the public's reaction.
The style everyone else got mocked with — mussel hair, they called it — somehow suited him perfectly.
The way it flew around on stage was pure art.
Just then, the designer nodded.
"Oh, that's a good idea."
"Huh?"
"He's got a pretty forehead and a lovely face shape. It'd really bring out his vibe."
With the designer joining my side, Kang Yiyul's face turned thoughtful.
He's tipping... he's tipping over...
"...Let's do it that way, then."
"Yes!"
...A victory whoop had burst out of me before I could stop it.
Well, whatever. I didn't have any dignity left to lose anyway.
"Whoa—"
Kang Yiyul murmured in quiet awe once his hair was done.
Before the regression, he'd debuted with that dog-brown hair. And yes, he'd been plenty handsome with it too — but black hair was unmistakably a different creature altogether.
That's right. Mussels are supposed to be black.
"I never even thought of a style like this."
Then he hesitated for a moment before looking at me.
"...Thank you."
But what moved me more than the words were his hands — pressed together in a kind of silent prayer. His habit, the one that came out whenever he was truly delighted or excited.
Something in my chest went tight.
While Yiyul stepped away for a moment, the designer turned to me.
"For someone who just got thanked, you're being awfully..."
"Sorry?"
"Isn't your reaction a little too calm?"
What is she talking about? Our Yiyul just about floated to the ceiling. Puppy ears nearly sprouted from his head.
"He is extremely happy right now."
"Is he?"
"Yes."
"How can you tell?"
I smiled instead of answering.
Three years of stanning Kang Yiyul. Reading him was second nature.
The makeover carried on into makeup.
"Pfft—"
Ticklish brushstrokes drew suppressed laughter from all corners of the room. It was hard not to crack up watching everyone press their lips tight, faces stiff with awkwardness under unfamiliar hands.
The instant the last of the preparations wrapped, the staff were already hustling equipment out the door.
"We're moving straight to the profile shoot."
Wow, they are really not letting up.
I could feel the company's burning determination to squeeze every last drop out of us.
Then again, it had taken hours just to get twenty people dolled up.
...An entirely reasonable decision, I had to admit.
When we arrived at the studio, I took a moment to steady my breathing.
Yiyul's very first profile shoot!
Before the regression, this moment hadn't even existed in my imagination. To witness my favorite's beginning from just a few feet away.
No wonder my heart was pounding.
In the waiting room, we all changed into matching outfits — white t-shirts and jeans. It was partly why I'd insisted on the black hair, too.
The shooting order started with Han Sangyoon, the longest-tenured resident of Nyx Entertainment.
Which meant, of course, that I was dead last.
This is gonna take forever.
There was one silver lining, though: Yiyul's turn would come up fast.
The moment Yiyul, fully set and styled, stepped into the studio—
Click.
The photographer's finger hit the shutter on pure reflex.
He hadn't even struck a pose yet.
"Whoa—"
The short gasp carried louder than anyone expected. A murmur rippled through the room.
The long bangs falling over his brow, the forehead just barely peeking through. Nothing about it was exaggerated, and yet it seized the eye and wouldn't let go.
The understated styling only made that face look more dazzling.
The photographer grinned at his camera screen.
"This one's already an A-cut."
"Is he actually a trainee? The kid eats up the frame."
The staff nodded along one by one.
"The styling suits him so well, and—"
Beneath the cascade of praise, Kang Yiyul shyly clasped his hands together.
Watching him, I cheered on the inside.
Yes. This is how it should be.
This was a face that deserved exactly this kind of reaction.
Before the regression, in the early rounds of the survival show, Kang Yiyul had always drawn lukewarm evaluations.
But not anymore. The Kang Yiyul of today wore a face that made anyone who saw it nod in agreement. Handsome, obviously — and now with presence on top of it.
"Just move around however feels natural."
Click, click. The shutter never stopped.
Overwhelmed, I clenched my fist without even meaning to.
This time, everything would be different from the very start.
After Kang Yiyul's shoot wrapped to thunderous praise, the contestants who followed were pure, uncut gaudiness.
Bleached hair, screaming neon colors, perms crimped within an inch of their lives, accessories dangling from every possible surface. Even Nameless Trainees One, Two, and Three — the trio who'd picked a fight with me — had apparently made a pact to show up with traffic-light hair.
"Whoa—"
Well, we'll have no trouble spotting them from across the practice room.
Everyone stared dead into the camera lens, shouting with their whole bodies.
I am, right now, an idol.
Click, click—
Look, I understood wanting to look cool. But everything in excess is a sin.
The photographer's sighs grew longer and longer, and the staff started exchanging glances among themselves.
Half of them are going to be kicking their blankets tonight when they see these photos.
I waited quietly for the final slot.
"Last one, right? Trainee Yuseongwoo?"
"Yes!"
My name, finally called. A hard-won victory achieved after a full three hours.
Any tension had died long ago. One step closer to clocking out at last, I practically bounced over.
But the moment I stood under the lights—
Whoa. This is...
My eyes squinted shut on their own.
Just keeping them open is a full-time job.
"Alright, center of the mark, face forward."
The photographer's instructions came rapid-fire.
"Chin in a touch — no, not that much!"
"Is this good?"
"Now you've gone too far the other way."
And that was only the beginning of a silent scream.
"Relax a little — but don't relax too much. Keep the tension just in your fingertips—"
Excuse me, that is a lukewarm iced americano order, not a posing direction.
Click—
"Smile a little, but don't let your eyes close too much — just the corners of the mouth, as high as they'll go."
I felt like a marionette on strings. Pull the line at my mouth taut, keep the line at my eyes slack.
"Blank expression, eyes into the camera with a bit of intensity, but keep the face loose—"
Not that I had any choice. I simply did as I was told. At least he wasn't sighing at me like before. Small mercies.
Click—
The back of my neck ached; tension ran down to my toes.
"Right there! Right now, that's it. Hold the pose—"
But the photographer showed no sign of stopping.
The flash strobed again.
"Keep the pose, change the expression. One more time."
"Yes!"
While he paused for a gulp of water, I finally let loose the breath I'd been holding. It meant that, for the first time since the shoot began, I looked at the photographer instead of the camera — and found his face flushed with excitement.
"This time, smile as wide as you can."
The photographer grinned.
"Braces and all. Show them off."
My mind went white.
Smile... all the way open?
"Whoa, why'd you freeze up?"
"Again! More natural this time."
It was the hardest mission I'd ever received. My facial muscles flatly refused to cooperate.
Natural... be natural...
The problem was, the very act of thinking that made me unnatural.
Click—
For the first time, the shutter went still.
"Don't force it. Just think of one moment when you were happy."
A moment when I was happy. The words echoed through my skull.
The first time I got a song commission? The first time a track I'd written hit number one? Plenty of moments floated up — and not one of them came into focus.
And then it happened.
Kang Yiyul, changed back into his plain clothes, drifted into my field of vision — sweeping his hair behind his ear out of pure habit.
In that instant, a memory overlapped with the image.
A flower festival in some rural backwater. IMPACTER had been performing on a rickety little stage, and an older woman standing in front had held up a single flower to him.
That was how low, how small the stage was. Close enough to touch with an outstretched hand.
Kang Yiyul had blinked in surprise, then broken into a bright smile and taken the flower. And without a moment's hesitation, tucked it behind his ear.
I'd nearly stopped breathing right there.
Even in a moment like that, you shine.
No dazzling lights, no towering stage. And even so, he'd glowed. No — he knew how to glow.
The memory crashed over me like a wave, and—
Click—
Somehow, I was already grinning from ear to ear. A laugh that had simply burst up from somewhere inside me.
"Nice!"
The photographer's voice boomed.
"That's it! That expression, right there!"
Click, click, click!
Through the stuttering burst of shutters, I kept on smiling. Not at the camera — at Kang Yiyul, standing just beyond it.
When the photographer finally lowered his camera, people swarmed toward the monitor.
"Damn."
"You could send these straight to print."
"These came out incredible."
Only then did I look at the screen myself.
"...Ah."
There I was.
A face smiling so wide the braces were fully on display. The emotion written across it was too vivid for words.
An expression I had never once seen — not even in a lifetime of looking in mirrors.
For a long while, I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen.
So that's what my face looks like.
It was dazzling.
It had never once occurred to me to wonder. While I watched Kang Yiyul, what did I look like?
My chest swelled until it ached. My throat tightened; the corners of my eyes grew hot.
It hadn't been Kang Yiyul shining alone. The me who watched him had been shining too, every single one of those moments, at the same temperature, in the same light. The me on that screen was the proof.
"Seongwoo-ssi, that was genuinely fantastic."
The photographer said it with a smile.
"When these photos go public, it's going to be chaos."
"Right? I'm voting for him the second they drop."
The awe around me continued, but I barely heard it. My gaze simply would not leave the screen.
...That's right.
Now I finally understood. I had never been someone who merely chased after a shining star. I was someone who had faced that light head-on and shone alongside it — in the same hours, at the same warmth.
For the first time in my life, I had truly come face to face with myself.