The Black Backs of Heads
On the first day of vacation after the second team battle, I visited the hospital for the first time in two weeks and found myself overwhelmed by the kids’ fiery enthusiasm.
“Han-hee oppa’s face was all over TV.”
“People were screaming and everything.”
The children latched onto me like lions that had just locked onto their prey and dragged me into a corner of the playroom. The moment I sat down, Hye-ji climbed onto my lap, so I shifted my hold to let her lean back against my chest. Min-a claimed the seat beside me.
Yu-ri’s face had gone sulky, so I patted the empty spot on my other side. She scurried over and sat.
“Have you all been well?”
I had dropped by once after the first team battle, but the break then had only been five days. We had been so rushed that seeing them now felt like a long-overdue reunion.
“Yeah, but oppa—did you get taller?”
“Why? Do I look taller?”
Min-a nodded at my question. Come to think of it, I did seem to have shot up around this time of year.
“I’m still growing.”
I still hadn’t quite recovered my original eye level, so I would probably keep getting taller. My growth plates had stayed open well into my early twenties, after all.
“Can I get tall like you too, oppa?”
“You want to grow taller, Min-a?”
The sudden talk of height surprised me. Min-a was small and young-looking for her age, but she had never seemed the type to worry about her stature.
“Mm. I want to get big like you.”
“What made you think that?”
“Because I want to be like you…”
Min-a said it shyly and then laughed, embarrassed. The sight was adorable. Wanting to be like me—that was a good feeling.
“Hye-ji wants to grow tall too!”
I carefully stroked Min-a’s hair as she pressed close, cheeks pink, when Hye-ji, still nestled in my arms, suddenly blurted it out.
“Why’s that, Hye-ji?”
“If I get tall I can hug oppa and pat his head!”
Her voice was full of triumphant resolve. Yu-ri shook her head at the ambition. I swallowed a laugh.
“I’ll be waiting.”
After that I spent the time greeting the children I hadn’t seen in ages and listening to their talk of later, of someday. It was strange and wonderful to find myself included in the futures they dreamed of.
They clearly wanted to keep talking a little longer, so I skipped the usual performance and chattered with them the whole day. By the time I got home my throat was already raw.
I took out the red ginseng with practiced ease and loosened up my body. The empty house left plenty of room to exercise. I started with stretching while carefully reviewing the schedule ahead.
Tomorrow I was meeting Woo Cheong-hee and Lee Jae-jin. The day after that the current roommates were gathering to watch episode eight together.
The day after that I planned to visit CEO Heo Jeong-in to thank her. And the day after that…
“Maybe I should go by the old house once.”
With my face getting famous, someone out there had to be burning with anxiety, yet there had still been no word. That bothered me. It was about time I looked into the past as well.
I had no intention of taking a public stance on the origin rumors swirling online, but I still needed the facts—and right now I was only guessing. I had simply buried it and refused to think about it.
To learn anything I would have to meet family, but I didn’t want to go looking for them on purpose. I worried it would only open a can of worms.
“Come to think of it…”
After finishing a set of push-ups I rested, turning over possible methods, when something suddenly clicked. There was a clue to the past after all. Song A-seong might know something.
On the day we first met he had looked ready to say something, only for Kwon Do-ha to cut him off. After that the relentless schedule had kept me too busy to ever ask.
Now that the thought had struck me I made a plan; before I knew it we had agreed to watch episode nine together on the tenth. Another hospital visit on the eleventh, then the final training camp starting on the twelfth—so I could free up about five days in between.
“That should be enough…”
I rolled my stiff wrist once and started preparing for tomorrow. On top of the subway-billboard ad tour, I had somewhere else to go.
And so, the next day—Thursday, June second, a weekday morning—I sat on the second floor of the Xderia building, scooping ice cream into my mouth.
“Definitely fewer people here.”
“There were way too many people in the café…”
Even on a weekday morning the café had been packed, so the three of us had peeked inside, then settled into a quieter-looking hamburger franchise to catch our breath. The forecast had called for pleasantly cool yet warm weather, and a lot of people seemed to have come outside.
Lee Jae-jin, sitting beside me, drained his americano and let out a long sigh. Woo Cheong-hee agreed with a nod and dug a big spoonful of ice cream into his mouth, chewing happily. He looked like he was enjoying himself.
“From now on we’re going to have to bury ourselves in crowds, so get fired up.”
I matched him spoonful for spoonful and told them we had a schedule packed tight from morning to night. Jae-jin shuddered. Then he muttered that he already felt tired and asked, puzzled,
“Han-hee, you never used to like drawing stares, did you?”
“No, I don’t really like it.”
I scraped the last bite of ice cream into my mouth and answered.
“But today you’re going at it pretty hard. What got into you?”
“Mm… just feels like that kind of day.”
I said it lightly, as if it were nothing, then gathered the empty ice-cream cups and tossed them. In truth it was something. I hadn’t even washed out the dye, specifically so I would get photographed today.
I stretched, fully prepared to be caught on camera. The other two, having thrown away their trash as well, were ready to head out.
“Shall we start with the nearby XX University?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to hit the crowded places last?”
“What if we end up going right when everyone’s out?”
“Isn’t getting buried in a crowd better? You know what they say—if you want to hide a tree, hide it in the forest.”
“Think we can actually hide?”
Cheong-hee’s suggestion to start at XX University set Jae-jin and him bickering back and forth. I was checking the subway map on my phone and cut in.
“We’re finishing at the Han River, so think carefully.”
“The Han River?”
“Whoa! We’re going to the Han River too?”
“Yeah. Weather’s nice.”
When I said we could go look at the water and take a walk, Cheong-hee’s cheeks twitched with excitement.
“It’s been ages since I’ve been to the Han River.”
“My real dream was always going to the Han River with friends and tearing into fried chicken.”
“Isn’t that dream a little too modest?”
Cheong-hee dodged Jae-jin’s hand ruffling his hair and muttered that somehow he had never found the time, then darted ahead.
“Hurry! Let’s hit every station this morning and then eat chicken at the Han River!”
“It’s not going anywhere, so take it easy.”
We were meeting again tomorrow to watch episode eight of the idol survival show together, so we had plenty of time. If we didn’t make it today we could always go early tomorrow. What mattered was spending the time together.
The three of us left Xderia and stepped out onto the street. One by one, gazes began to gather. Then, little by little, people started attaching themselves to us. Watching the quiet crowd swell, I saw the pupils of the two walking beside me start to tremble.
Once a few people began following, even ordinary passersby stopped, took interest, and joined the trail. No one came up to speak to us, yet the tail grew steadily longer.
What is this, the Pied Piper?
“What do we do about this?”
“Let’s just get there first and think then.”
No one tried to stop us; they simply followed in silence. We couldn’t exactly shake them off and run away. Speaking in a ventriloquist’s whisper, I quickened our pace a little.
Then someone coming toward us locked eyes with me, let out a startled “Huk,” checked the atmosphere, and went quiet in real time.
I glanced back and met the eyes of a person covering their mouth. They shyly waved. Watching that, I whispered,
“Thank you.”
I met the eyes of a few more people following behind. They wore proud little smiles. I smiled back and we headed for the subway station. In this kind of atmosphere, maybe we could keep going a while longer like this.
It was a weekday morning in an area full of university students, so everyone was good at reading the room. Passersby kept joining until the three of us arrived at the station quietly accompanied by more people than expected. We stood in front of the billboard carrying our photos and took pictures.
“Hyung, a little more to the right.”
“Like this?”
After finishing the shots in front of each of our photos, we bowed our heads and immediately boarded the subway to keep moving.
We chose a car without priority seating and stood in a corner; a perfect circle formed around us. Looking at the round backs of heads that walled us off at a respectful distance, the three of us put our heads together and whispered.
“What even is this situation?”
“Just be grateful to them.”
“This is what mature fan culture looks like. Something like that.”
We got off at the next station and, again buried in a quiet crowd, took more photos. Every so often we smiled at the lenses pointed our way as we toured the stations.
“Honestly I never thought we’d even be able to move by subway.”
Jae-jin murmured as he leaned against the subway wall. I felt the same. Every single moment I kept being surprised that this was even possible.
Then, when we reached the last station, the doors opened and I locked eyes with the person standing right in front of us.
“Wah! Lee Han—!”
The startled person screamed and clamped both hands over their mouth. Even so the loud cry drew every gaze, and a murmur spread. Lunchtime was approaching, so quite a few people were already waiting for the train.
“Whoa, what? Is that really Lee Han-hee?”
“Lee Jae-jin’s next to him too.”
“Are they filming something?”
“Move, let me see.”
Once multiple people started talking, the station became noisy in an instant. The order that had somehow held until now was about to shatter. I spun around in a hurry. The faces of the people who had kept silent the whole time crumpled into distressed expressions.
“Thank you. Because of you we got here comfortably.”
I never thought I would experience something like this in my life. Someone’s silence could be this comfortable. The round black backs of heads I had seen inside the subway left a deep impression.
I waved to them, grabbed Jae-jin’s and Cheong-hee’s wrists, and we bolted out just as the doors were about to close.
Then, with the two of them still waving to the people left inside the train, we hunted for the billboard.
“There!”
At Cheong-hee’s signal we hurriedly planted ourselves in front of an especially large ad board. The area was already a marketplace of people who had recognized our faces. We needed to take the proof photos as fast as possible and retreat.
“At least it’s the last one. Thank goodness.”
We snapped the pictures in a rush, then half-dragged the flustered Cheong-hee along as we ran hard and flagged down a taxi. While Jae-jin climbed into the front seat and gave the Han River park as the destination, I checked the photos we had taken.
“These are ridiculously shaky.”
Jae-jin’s photo was smeared sideways from how frantically we had shot it. The shape was so funny I sent it to him; he snickered.
“But the ones we took earlier came out really well.”
At first I had been so bad at taking pictures that I couldn’t even frame them properly, so one fan who had been quietly watching crouched down, posed us herself, shot the photo, and handed the phone back.
“This one’s the best.”
I sent Cheong-hee the photo the fan had taken of him, and one by one the shots we had taken afterward, crouching the same way the fan had shown us, started coming through.
“Wow, I feel so good.”
Cheong-hee checked each photo as it arrived and grinned ear to ear.
“I think this is going to stay with me a long time.”
“Yeah.”
Those black backs of heads—a moment I felt I would remember for quite a while.