Chapter 65
Chapter 65
The 3rd ranking announcement.
And with that, all filming for <MAKE100%> was over.
When Han Neuti stood up from his seat, the first person he went to check on was Hwang Jae-hyeon, who was sitting far off in the distance.
"Hyeo-eong......."
Han Neuti hesitated for a moment, unsure how to start the consolation.
But his deliberation ended so quickly it'd be embarrassing to even call it 'hesitating.' That was because Hwang Jae-hyeon had flung himself into his arms.
"Hey, are you oka......."
Before he could finish speaking, he heard a choked-up voice.
Han Neuti closed his mouth. And then he floundered, raising his arms to pat Hwang Jae-hyeon on the back.
They stayed like that for a long while, clinging to each other as if they were the only two people left in the world, until Hwang Jae-hyeon finally managed to form a sentence between sobs.
"I-I-I'm going to, keep being an idol."
"Ah. ......What about acting?"
Hwang Jae-hyeon shook his head against his chest.
"Being on a team together, practicing together... that was the first time I'd ever done that, and I want to keep doing it......."
"Yeah, well, you're seventeen—what can't you do at that age?"
Come to think of it, he himself had changed career paths around seventeen, too. Han Neuti cheered for his colleague's future, a sudden feeling of wistfulness washing over him.
Soon after, the surviving trainees from the team approached.
Han Neuti took a step back from them.
As he quietly watched the members of Lee Bom-da's team comforting each other, Han Neuti awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.
'......Should I go to my own team, too?'
His 1st round team was completely wiped out except for Seo Cha-gyeom.
His 2nd round team was completely wiped out except for Baek Gyeonwoo.
The only team that still had surviving trainees left was his final team, <no matter what>.
But even as it occurred to him that he should tactfully head back to his own spot, his feet refused to budge.
Far away, where his team was gathered, O Yun-hwan and Kim Han-ul were awkwardly embracing, intensely aware of the cameras.
'God, I hate this.......'
Han Neuti grimaced for an instant, then rubbed his forehead with his hand.
'Let's go.'
Who knew. Maybe once he actually faced them, a miraculous sense of camaraderie he'd never felt before might suddenly well up. They had stood on the same stage together, after all.
That was what he thought, and yet he was just about to force himself to take a thoroughly reluctant step forward.
"Hyung."
Someone called out to Han Neuti.
"Huh?"
When he turned around, Baek Gyeonwoo was there.
A message of 'did I call you for no reason' flickered across Baek Gyeonwoo's face, then vanished as he drew a deep breath.
"I did want us to debut together, so it's a shame."
"......Hey, what's with the 'did'?"
Baek Gyeonwoo let out a small laugh.
"Keep being an idol, hyung. I'm going to, so."
Then he closed his mouth for a moment and abruptly turned his head to the side.
"We'll probably meet on the same stage again someday."
"Dunno. I guess we probably will."
"I'll look forward to it."
With that one sentence, Baek Gyeonwoo walked away, suddenly looking exhausted, as if he'd really used up all his courage just saying that much.
The moment Baek Gyeonwoo disappeared, someone who had been standing behind him the whole time was revealed.
"......Uh, erm."
Han Neuti made an awkward sound when he spotted him.
Meanwhile, Seo Cha-gyeom strode right up to him.
Gulp. He swallowed. A strange sense of tension rose within him.
"Hyung."
"Uh, what."
Han Neuti, who had answered perfectly fine, gave a loud, fake cough.
The moment he saw Seo Cha-gyeom, he'd felt something drop sharply inside him.
And now it was time to finally face the reality that had caused it.
"It's a shame. I wanted us to debut together."
Even at Han Neuti's words, Seo Cha-gyeom just stared at him wordlessly.
Then he dropped his head deeply.
Han Neuti knew perfectly well there was no way that was happening, so he asked in a teasing tone.
"Why, you aren't actually crying too, are you?"
"......."
"......."
Silence stretched out.
Han Neuti's pupils began to shake uncontrollably.
"Wait, hey, lift your head......."
That was when it happened.
Seo Cha-gyeom abruptly hugged him.
It wasn't any different from what Hwang Jae-hyeon had done just a moment ago, but for some reason, Han Neuti was immensely shocked.
And even a little moved.......
'......?'
"What are you doing?"
Seo Cha-gyeom had started rummaging through his back pocket.
It was such an utterly unimaginable way to greet someone that all sorts of nonsense tumbled out of the flustered Han Neuti's mouth.
"Hey, I left my wallet in the car, so there's nothing in there."
"What are you talking about?"
Seo Cha-gyeom finally uttered a word.
"It's a letter. Read it the second you leave."
"......Huh?"
"I only wrote it for you, hyung, so don't make it obvious."
The instant he heard the words 'don't make it obvious,' Han Neuti immediately started rummaging through his own pocket.
His fingers definitely touched something letter-like.
'A letter?'
Han Neuti's mouth fell slightly open at the present he had never imagined receiving.
"Uh, erm, you're, more than I thought......."
Han Neuti thought back to the day he first met Seo Cha-gyeom.
"......A bit unexpectedly... sentimental, are you?"
Without a single trace of embarrassment or sheepishness, Seo Cha-gyeom shrugged his shoulders.
"See you next time."
At the same time as his words, a staff member's shout rang out.
Baek Gyeonwoo, who had come back to his side at some point, tapped Seo Cha-gyeom on the shoulder.
"Let's go."
Seo Cha-gyeom nodded and sent one more eye-contact greeting toward Han Neuti.
Han Neuti watched the two of them walk away, then slipped out of the studio, which was choked with gut-wrenching sounds, and headed for the hallway.
He dragged his suitcase out of the waiting room and made his way outside.
The hallway was bright.
And the closer he got to the pitch-black exit, the more he felt an increasingly vague, hollow feeling.
But the exit was waiting for him in its fixed location.
At the exit he finally reached, Han Neuti stood there blankly for a moment, then thought,
'......How am I supposed to get home now?'
It was a concern he'd rarely ever had since getting used to driving. Because normally, he could just get in his own car and that would be that.
But today, Han Neuti's car was sitting primly in front of his house.
That was because of a message that had arrived this morning while he was brushing his teeth.
[Seo Cha-gyeom: Are you ready?]
Han Neuti had replied with his toothbrush still in his mouth.
[I think I'm gonna have to take my own car today?]
Before Seo Cha-gyeom could even ask why, Han Neuti was already typing out the reason.
'Because if I get eliminated, I'll have to go home by myself today.'
But the message never got sent.
[Seo Cha-gyeom: I'm already out front]
......And that was how he'd ended up having no choice but to go to work in Sorasum's car.
It had turned out this way in the end, but he didn't have the heart to blame Seo Cha-gyeom.
If he wasn't just overthinking it, that guy had done it because he was hoping he wouldn't get eliminated. Probably.
He was the only independent trainee who'd survived this far, so all the other trainees were leaving in company vans.
Han Neuti, who had been waving goodbye to Hwang Jae-hyeon and his company people, plopped down on a curb once they disappeared.
In another hour, the taxi surcharge would kick in, but he didn't feel any rush.
"Hoo......."
With his arms draped over his knees, Han Neuti surveyed the parking lot.
'It was fun.'
Even the moment he'd realized that the PD who had first talked him into appearing on the show had secretly done it to screw him over, he'd felt grateful to him for giving him a catalyst instead.
So much so that he felt maybe this challenge hadn't just been another fleeting experience like all the others, but maybe he'd truly found his dream.
"......."
Han Neuti shook off his sentimentality and returned to reality.
If he was going to keep being an idol, now was the moment he had to choose.
'Is Indeowol really the best bet?'
Truthfully, he'd received a fair number of offers not just from Indeowol, but from other agencies too.
So Han Neuti knew perfectly well that if he just made a few calls right now, there were plenty of companies that would take him.
But.
'......Is this really the end?'
Han Neuti realized what that persistent, vague feeling was.
Seo Cha-gyeom had moved on to the next stage, and he had stopped.
That guy was definitely going to debut here.
Now they would each walk their own paths,
and there was no longer a way for them to be a team... none.
Realizing that, he found it a little funny. The guy wasn't terminally ill or anything, and it wasn't like they'd never see each other again, so why was he feeling like this?
"Ah, the letter."
Han Neuti reached out and took the letter out.
He'd called it a letter so he'd expected proper stationery, but what came out in his hand was an ordinary piece of A4 paper.
'No, no, proper stationery would've been more burdensome, actually.'
Defending his dongsaeng in his head, Han Neuti began to unfold the letter.
It was after his second unfolding that he sensed something odd.
"......There's no writing, what the?"
Traces of writing ought to be showing up by now, but all he saw was clean, white paper.
'Isn't a letter supposed to be... you know, crammed full of writing? Like, all decorated with colored pens and stuff.'
Obviously, he hadn't expected Seo Cha-gyeom to go to the trouble of picking up colored pens.
With a growing sense of foreboding, Han Neuti finally unfolded the letter all the way.
There was, at least, something written in the center of the unfolded A4 paper.
The content, written in angular handwriting that looked as if it had been squeezed to perfectly fit a square frame, was:
[Lobby door code: 134759
Spend as much time out and about as you can
With the others]
"......What the?"
The contents didn't even register because he was too dumbfounded by Seo Cha-gyeom calling this memo—barely better than a sticky note—a letter.
Alright, simple is good— Han Neuti defended his dongsaeng once more.
And that was when he was finally trying to interpret the contents of the note.
Orange light poured from a streetlamp onto the hand holding the note.
"......?"
Han Neuti lifted his head.
A car had pulled up right in front of him.
The moment he registered the familiar shape and checked the license plate, the window rolled smoothly down.
"Neuti-ya!"
Han Neuti, the note in one hand, stood up awkwardly.
"Get in, come on."
* * *
'......Will it be okay?'
Originally, I had bought proper stationery and even tried decorating it with colored pens.
And then I threw it away. It was too embarrassing.
'The manager will explain it to him well.'
I was currently in the car moving to the training camp. Ahn Jiwon, sitting in front, poked his head out and asked.
"Hyung, where do you want to go?"
"Hmm......."
The reason Ahn Jiwon was asking that was because our next schedule was a music camp.
To be precise, a camp to compose the songs we'd take to the finale.
In the finale, each team would be assigned two original songs. One for the competition, and one as a gift song for the fans.
The song we'd be making at the camp was the latter. So basically, they wanted us to shed a few tears and get some beautiful footage out of it.
'Though the broadcast could end before then.'
Ahn Jiwon, apparently bored to death, asked again.
"Hyung, what's your MBTI?"
"I haven't taken the test."
"Liar....... Who in this day and age still hasn't taken that? My mom, my aunt, and my uncles all took it."
"I really haven't."
I knew what MBTI was.
But the reason I still hadn't taken it was... because of Yuri hyung.
A long time ago, that hyung had told me to save it so I could use it for self-produced content after debut, and it was a plausible enough idea that I'd gone along with it.
Then why didn't I take it after quitting being a trainee?
......That was because of my brain capacity.
While trying to catch up on everyone else's progress, my brain had already been overloaded from taking in too much text, and trying to read and think about all those questions gave me an overload.......
'Might as well save it forever at this point.'
Dodging Ahn Jiwon's skeptical glare, I passed the question to Baek Gyeonwoo, who was sitting next to me.
"What about you?"
"INFJ."
"......I? You're an I?"
"You're questioning the F?"
"Yep."
Well, I guess it's possible.
But Ahn Jiwon didn't seem to think so, and immediately launched into a verification test.
"Hyung, I was so depressed I bought bread."
"But."
"No, hyung, you're just a bad guy......."