Their Own Way of Surviving
“A… abs?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Suhyun blinked slowly, like a goldfish. Did I hear that right?
“So, uh… you’re telling me to take my shirt off and perform on the festival stage?”
“That’s the tradition.”
The band club. So this was how high the hurdle was. No wonder not just anyone could join a central club.
Faced with Choi Kang’s deadly serious expression, Suhyun decided the guy had to be telling the truth. Just in case, he began fishing around in his pocket for the resignation letter he’d prepared in advance.
“Seoeun, I’m really grateful for the short time we had together…”
His face looked like he was about to cry any second.
“No! What are you doing! Lee Suhyun! And why the hell are you even carrying that around?!”
Seoeun snatched the envelope and burst out laughing in disbelief. People always said every office worker kept a resignation letter tucked in their heart, but how many actually wrote one and carried it with them? And who in their right mind brought it to a club drinking party that wasn’t even a real job?
“I… I really hate working out, so…”
“No, no. You don’t have to work out. How could we force you to do that? It’s not like we’re an athletic club~”
Seoeun sighed and rubbed her forehead. This was exactly Kang’s problem. He did his job well, so she had no real complaints, but the way he so naturally tried to impose his own values on others was… troublesome. When Juyeon first joined the club, Kang had caused her no small amount of trouble.
“Oh. Really?”
“Don’t stop the awakening of the rockers! Lee Seoeun!”
Kang had completely lost it, even dropping the “noona” honorific.
“Kang. Are you doing this because you miss Jaejun oppa?”
A name Suhyun had never heard before slipped from Seoeun’s lips. Jaejun? Who’s that?
But amazingly, the mysterious man’s name had an incredible effect on the rampaging Kang, completely subduing him.
“Jae… Jaejun sunbae, I’m sorry. Noona.”
His suddenly polite attitude made Suhyun quietly ask Seoeun, “Who’s Jaejun sunbae?”
“Ah~ He exists! He’s a sunbae from the generation above us! 21st generation guitarist, and right now he’s my boyfriend!”
I see… There are sunbaes I haven’t met yet… Seoeun noona has a boyfriend too… A boyfriend…?
“…Seoeun noona, you had a boyfriend?”
Suhyun’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.
“Yeah! Why? What? Do I look like the type who wouldn’t have one? Is that it?”
Seoeun rested her chin on one hand and flashed a mischievous smile. Her tone was openly teasing. Suhyun’s head whipped back and forth.
“Ah. No! Absolutely not. Actually, a lot. No no no. I don’t mean you have a lot of boyfriends, just that you seem like you’d be really popular.”
“Aww~ I know you’re joking too~ Suhyun, do you have a girlfriend?”
Juyeon, who had been sipping her drink, and Kang, who had been chewing on dried squid, both turned to stare at him at the same time.
“…No.”
Just making new friends in the club was already this exhausting. Dating? What kind of dating? Romance was a luxury reserved for people who maxed out their social skills. The intricate calculations that went on between men and women, the way favorability graphs jumped around like the stock market—Suhyun was certain he could never handle any of it. It would probably be faster to join the band, become a rock star, and get fans. A girlfriend, though…
As Suhyun began radiating a darker and darker aura at the mere mention of dating, Juyeon nodded up and down as if she understood exactly what he was feeling.
“Aigoo~ Why are you getting all depressed again~ Anyway, in our grade, I’m the only one dating right now! There’s no need to feel left out, okay?”
Suhyun lifted his head and looked at each member’s face one by one. If Seoeun was right, that meant Kang, Juyeon, and even Hana—who he hadn’t met yet but apparently looked like a model—were all single. They all seemed like the type who could easily have partners, though…
“I see.”
“Yep! And just because you don’t have one now doesn’t mean anything~ You’ll get one soon~ Right, Juyeon?”
“Ah… I don’t think so…”
The drinking party grew more lively with all kinds of chatter.
“Let’s go to karaoke~”
Seoeun buried her face in Juyeon’s neck and shouted excitedly.
“Uh… Unnie, you’re drunk, so maybe we should just go home~”
Juyeon was making her discomfort very obvious, but Seoeun didn’t let go, as if she was used to this. She even went further, sniffing at Juyeon like she smelled nice.
“What are you saying~ Juyeon, Juyeonie~ This unnie isn’t going home until she hears our Juyeon sing.”
Watching them, Kang opened his mouth with a solemn expression.
“Lee Suhyun! We’re Spirit! You know we need outstanding singing skills too, right?”
His eyes seemed to get fiercer the more he drank.
“…I have to sing too?”
Abs were required, and now good singing too. It was one mountain after another.
“If you need backup vocals, we can do it anytime!”
“No no~ We don’t need it this year~ We don’t have a male vocalist this year anyway~ And Juyeon doesn’t really do well with songs that have backup vocals either.”
Seoeun immediately shook her hand like a knife, relieving Suhyun of that particular burden.
“Ah… Um. There’s one thing I’m curious about.”
Suhyun finally remembered the question he’d forgotten.
“Yeah, yeah. Ask comfortably.”
“I joined through a transfer, right.”
“That’s right.”
“Then what happened to the guitarist who was here before…?”
If Suhyun had darkened at the talk of dating, this time it was the complete opposite.
“Haa… Those damn bastards…”
Bas… tards. The plural meant more than one. Suhyun’s heart shrank a little at Seoeun’s swearing.
“Our grade originally had six regular members. There was one more guitarist and one more male vocalist, you know?”
Seoeun crossed her arms and began to complain as if she were recounting an old story.
“So when they first joined, they made a promise. The freshmen did.”
“They would finish their activities by the end of their second year and then go to the military.”
This was a joining condition Suhyun had never heard when he first arrived.
“So does that mean I have to keep going until my second year too?”
“Hmm… But you’re definitely staying this semester anyway, and were you planning to enlist in the second semester?”
“Not really.”
He had vaguely thought he could just finish his second year and go, so it didn’t seem like a big problem.
“Whew~ That’s a real relief. Anyway, those two were best friends even before they entered university. But right after their first year ended, both of those bastards suddenly threw a fit about wanting to enlist immediately!”
“We tried to persuade them, told them what would happen to us if they left, but they were dead set on going, so we ended up fighting hard and sending them off. What could we do~ It’s their lives~”
It didn’t sound like they had left because of some huge internal conflict. It was too late to think about it now, but Suhyun wondered if it might have been better to just say he was going to the military when he left Purple Storm.
“So the new guitarist became you, Suhyun! And for the male vocalist… we thought about recruiting, but we decided it would be better to just make Juyeon sing one more song~”
Karaoke was a pretty high hurdle for Suhyun, but after hearing all that, he was incredibly curious. Just how well did Juyeon sing?
“Unnie… Let’s just go home…”
Even at Juyeon’s desperate plea, Seoeun wiggled her finger to signal that it was absolutely not happening. Kang, who had said he was going to the bathroom, finished paying the bill and took the lead toward the karaoke room instead.
“…He’s dead?”
Inside the coin karaoke room. Choi Kang, the muscular drummer, sat with his arms crossed and eyes closed like a statue, showing no sign of movement whatsoever.
“K… Kang just falls asleep like that when he drinks a lot.”
Juyeon scratched her cheek with her index finger, looking awkward.
“Ah~ Just leave Kang alone~ He looks like that, but if you wake him up later he’ll sober up and go home just fine~”
No one had picked any songs yet. Suhyun had come along, but he wasn’t the type to enjoy singing. He wasn’t good at it, and he felt embarrassed singing in front of others. And this was the band club, wasn’t it! Asking him to sing a song in front of Juyeon, who was supposedly so good, was basically the same as bullying a newbie in a game. He was prepared to reluctantly sing one song if ordered to, but he wasn’t at the level where he would willingly grab the remote.
—Vrrrrring
“Oh? My oppa’s calling! You guys sing and have fun~”
The two of them wanted to somehow stop Seoeun from getting up, but she had already answered the phone and walked out the door.
Left behind, Suhyun and Juyeon instinctively sensed what was coming now that Seoeun was gone.
It was even more dangerous than when they hadn’t been talking at all—the sudden chill that descended on the atmosphere. The half-baked vibe unique to drinking parties, where it felt awkward to pretend to be close and equally awkward to act like strangers. For two people who were at rock bottom in social skills even among loners, there was only one choice.
Juyeon’s fingers trembled as she slowly picked up the remote.
“…Suhyun.”
Her head was bowed so low that he couldn’t see what kind of expression she was making.
“Yeah…?”
“If I sing one song, you have to sing one too. Got it?”
Her unusually firm tone caught him off guard, but Suhyun nodded awkwardly. He wondered if this was the charisma that captivated audiences, but Juyeon’s true feelings were…
‘R… rather than trying to have a conversation, I’d rather sing ten songs by myself…!’
They each had their own way of surviving.