Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Baek Gyeonwoo's face appeared behind the door that had burst open with a deafening crash.
"......."
An awkward, borderline embarrassing silence fell over the waiting room, all thanks to the arrival of what could only be described as an uninvited guest: Baek Gyeonwoo.
It was Baek Gyeonwoo who spoke first.
"Figured your conversation was over."
Meaning he'd heard everything.
It hadn't been a secret conversation that I was desperate to hide, so I gave Baek Gyeonwoo a nod and looked at Kim Hanul as I spoke.
"We're done, right?"
Kim Hanul kept his lips pressed firmly shut.
Despite the reaction that anyone could see was brimming with discontent, Kim Hanul abruptly whirled around and started searching for his own suitcase.
This was the conclusion I'd drawn from sharing close quarters with him for that short time. Kim Hanul's stonewalling like that was an act of 'trying not to butt heads.' Originally, he was the type to stick right to you, pushing the line to the very limit just to get on your nerves.
So, this meant that in Kim Hanul's head, Baek Gyeonwoo was classified as someone he shouldn't butt heads with.
'Just what kind of verbal abuse did he endure when they were on the same team?'
Wait, no.
Kim Hanul's standard for categorizing people was their agency.
That was easy enough to see just from how he treated Lee Jaeyoung, Choi Junbin, the rest of the team, and me.
If so, then Baek Gyeonwoo, the one here from the biggest agency.
"......?"
I stealthily crept up next to Baek Gyeonwoo, and he stared right at me with an expression that said 'what are you doing.'
Petty. Yeah, it could definitely be seen that way.
Even I could see myself that way right now.
"Hyung."
"......."
"Hanul hyung?"
Kim Hanul, who had been pretending not to hear, let go of his suitcase handle with a clack and turned his head around, full of irritation.
"What?"
"One of the things I learned back when I was at Mary, you see."
"What kind of moral lesson are you about to preach at me now......."
"In the entertainment industry, you always have to watch out for recorders."
Kim Hanul furrowed his brows and shot the question back.
"Recorders?"
Exactly. A recorder.
You could say it's an especially useful device in the entertainment world.
So, did I actually record anything....
No, I hadn't. I didn't even have a recorder. Because up until this training camp, I never could've imagined that the pre-selected members would act this brazenly.
Kim Hanul scanned me up and down like he was trying to gauge the truth of my words.
Worried he might actually run over and try to confirm it with his own two eyes, I pressed myself tightly behind Baek Gyeonwoo's back.
"......."
Baek Gyeonwoo looked at me like he was completely dumbfounded, then clicked his tongue softly. Still, seeing as he stayed still, he didn't seem to find it outright unpleasant, at least.
Thank goodness. If Baek Gyeonwoo had reacted with something like 'what's gotten into you all of a sudden?', it would've been an embarrassing outcome for me and him and Kim Hanul.
Emboldened, I continued.
"So, you know, that rumor from earlier."
"......."
"You know how my former agency is incredibly sensitive about its image, right?"
In the first place, that was a rumor that tarnished the director's reputation more than my own, so if it spread any further, Mary would take care of it on its own without me ever needing to step in.
I'd even thought about how the director got tangled up in this... it was probably just a petty form of avoidance where they projected their own inability to debut onto him, the person in charge.
So, the conclusion was.
"Do a good job smoothing things over so the rumor doesn't spread, hyung. No matter who started it, wouldn't the first person they investigate be the one with evidence?"
"But I was never even at that company......."
It was right when Kim Hanul was about to argue, his voice growing anxious.
Baek Gyeonwoo, who had been standing perfectly still the whole time, suddenly grabbed my shoulder.
"Let's go, now. To eat tteokbokki."
"Huh?"
And before I could even answer, I was dragged out the door.
'......What did he just say?'
As soon as we stepped out into the hallway, the early April night air hit me vividly.
Which meant it had gotten markedly chilly.
I quietly asked Baek Gyeonwoo, who was kindly slamming the door shut for me.
"What's this about tteokbokki?"
"You said we were gonna act close, remember."
Tteokbokki as a prop for pretending to be friends. Gotta say, that was brilliant.
I tried hard to ramp up the sense of camaraderie to ignore the awkward atmosphere, but eventually gave up.
Instead, I rubbed my shoulder and asked.
"Why'd you come, anyway? You were scheduled for your interview way before us."
"Han Neuti hyung said to tell you he's going down to his family home."
Does that hyung not know how to text?
Thinking that, I checked my phone and saw that a message had already arrived a few minutes ago. [Willcontactyouwhenimgobacktoseoulprobablynextweek.]
'Guess I'll have to watch the next episode with Kim Sanho.'
I had been thinking it was about time we watched one together anyway, so it worked out well.
"Hey."
At the call, I turned my head right to the side, but Baek Gyeonwoo wasn't there. My pace must have shifted while I was walking and looking at my phone.
"It's gotta be bullshit."
At the voice coming from behind me, I turned around and asked.
"What is?"
"That the debut team is all decided already."
He really did hear everything.
It wasn't like the pre-selected ones seemed to be trying to hide it anyway, and from my position, needing to go back to Sorasum, it was absolutely something that had to come to light.
I put my phone in my pocket and answered.
"I dunno, even if it were true, what can you do."
"......."
Baek Gyeonwoo, who had been staring at the ground, lifted his head.
"Guess it doesn't really matter to you."
"It's not that it doesn't matter... what I have to do is the same either way, right."
Though I said that, I wondered. If I'd really joined this program to debut, I wasn't sure I could be this calm about it.
Baek Gyeonwoo started walking again, and soon the sound of two people's footsteps echoed irregularly down the corridor.
A little later, when we reached the parking lot and I spotted the manager's car, I asked Baek Gyeonwoo.
"......Want a ride?"
Baek Gyeonwoo answered.
"I'll go alone."
* * *
"Hyung......!"
Kim Sanho's voice flopped down weakly in the center of the practice room.
He was lying face down on the exercise mat, cheek pressed to it, and his arms wriggled as if trying to get up before he lay back down flat in proper posture.
"......If you're that happy to see me, shouldn't you at least get up?"
"Ah, it's just, I'm really tired today."
"You say that as if you're normally not tired at all."
The moment I sorted out my outerwear and plopped down on the practice room floor, exhaustion crashed over me like accumulated interest.
It seemed I was only now finally relaxing a little.
'This training camp was truly... it was exhausting enough to warrant it.'
As incidents and accidents flashed through my mind like a panorama, one memory I'd almost forgotten snagged and surfaced.
"So what's this about you finding a trainee?"
"Ah, about that......."
Kim Sanho was speaking while still directing his eyes at the ceiling.
"I met him on the street."
"The street?"
"Right out front here. I wonder what he was doing."
"You're asking me? Not out having a smoke?"
The back of the building faced the main road, so there were more than a few people who snuck into the side path to smoke. Enough that I'd debated buying a no-smoking warning sign several times.
But Kim Sanho shook his head side to side.
"Didn't smell any smoke."
"Then they were probably just someone passing by."
"Mm."
"What about him? What's with the look?"
Kim Sanho pressed a spot just below his lip with his finger.
"He has a mole right here."
"Yeah."
"And he seemed tall, too."
"Taller than you?"
"I was basically half collapsed, so that's kind of hard to......."
"What on earth was the situation?"
In any case, seeing as Kim Sanho, estimated at mid-to-late 180cm, was saying that, he definitely seemed tall.
If the height difference is more than a handspan from the tallest member, the stage formation can look off, so it was better than being short, at least.
But more than that.......
'Skills are what matter.'
If he could make it on visuals, that'd be a win for us, but in the real idol world, looks ranked at best around third place.
'If he's similar in height to Kim Sanho, odds are high he can't dance.'
No, there were exceptions littered all around me, so let's chalk that up to prejudice.
Before even that, how many bowls of greedy assumptions was I scarfing down over a person who never even said they'd come?
"Did you at least get his contact info?"
"Ah, I think he'll come by again, so it's fine."
Kim Sanho, who had declared this with zero basis, suddenly added a sentence as if it had just occurred to him.
"The manager said he posted an audition notice for us, too."
"......Audition? Where?"
"On Upstar."
An audition notice at this timing?
'Is that okay?'
On an audition program swarming with all sorts of bizarre low-tier companies, the agency was, to fans, the clutches of some demon lord that they had to escape at all costs.
It was to the point that way more fans would rather wish for a contract termination than a debut under the agency if they failed to debut through the show.
Worried, I searched the internet, and sure enough, there was already a post up about it.
—Sorasum is recruiting trainees (screenshot) But why does it piss me off so much that they shamelessly tagged SCG's name when they haven't done shit for him
└Oh, it must be the team he'll join after project activities end... It's a brand new company that's never raised an idol before ㅜㅜ I'm already worried, praying for a contract extension
└Fuckingsum
└Gyeom-ah, tell me your bank account, I'll free you from being the breadwinner
Hm, thankfully everyone seemed to be taking my debut as a given, so it didn't look like there was much of a stir yet.
'The company's already got a fandom nickname, too.'
But usually companies only get one curse word tacked on, and this one got two.......
'The company really hasn't done much for me.'
*Sigh*, I let out a sigh and got up from my spot.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. I'm going to rest today."
The practice room wasn't uncomfortable, but as long as the awareness of it being the 'company' remained, it could never be more comfortable than home.
I was threading my arms into the sleeves of my jacket while ignoring Kim Sanho's forlorn stare when it happened.
[Bang!]
Without any warning, the practice room door flew open and the president appeared.
He was a face I'd naturally run into a few times during my trainee life, but he was someone who had no reason to be here at this late hour, so I faltered for a moment.
"Kids, pack your bags."
I stared at the president without a word.
It was because a considerable amount of time passed before I fully grasped what he was saying.
'No way.'
Like the building had been handed over to someone else or.......
"We're going to go see the dorm."
* * *
We loaded the suitcases into the trunk, and I climbed into the passenger seat.
"I'd originally set up a contract for an apartment 15 minutes from here, but suddenly the owners said they were going to live there themselves. Things got really delayed looking for another place. Sorry."
A training camp was something I'd done for a long time, so I didn't feel anything like excitement.
What I felt right now was nothing but worry.
'If the dorm is nice, it'll make convincing trainees easier too.'
This was no longer an era where pitiful self-made idol marketing milking people's sympathy in poor environments worked anymore.
No matter how amazing the members were, I knew all too well that it was all for nothing if the company's planning couldn't back them up.
And planning was all money.
'If it looks broke, fans will run away too.'
I wasn't even hoping for residential satisfaction. I just prayed that the outward appearance was decent at minimum, and asked.
"How long does it take to get there?"
"5 minutes."
'The location's decent.'
According to my experience of bouncing around from place to place for years, it was unconditionally best for the dorm to be close to the company.
Forget sasaengs, security, all of it—the commute being easy was number one priority.
Of course, this was from my experience as a trainee, so let's keep in mind the current idols' own sentiments might be different.
"For rooms, three on the 1st floor, one on the 2nd."
"2nd floor?"
"Yeah, it's a two-story house."
Wow, that actually sounds nice?
"How did you manage to find it?"
"Well, originally it was a house where the landlord lived on the 1st floor and rented out the 2nd."
"Yeah."
The traffic light changed.
The president, who had been focused on driving for a bit, spoke again after a pause.
"They say it's haunted."