Chapter 84
Chapter 84
When I pressed play, a black screen slowly split from top to bottom, signaling the start.
Inside the revealed frame... from a first-person perspective, someone's hand appeared.
"It's Yoon Haejun."
At my words, Kim Yuri stopped the video and spoke.
"......You recognize him just from his hand?"
"......No, I just figured he'd be the main character, so I took a wild guess."
"Aha."
Actually, I really did recognize him just from his hand.
But this hyung... whenever Yoon Haejun and I seemed close, he'd instinctively take a step back from me.
"Shall I resume it?"
"Hold on."
Since we'd paused it anyway, I decided to scrutinize every detail.
A hand presumed to be Yoon Haejun's....... No, it was definitely Yoon Haejun, so I'd just call him Yoon Haejun.
Yoon Haejun's hand rested on his own knee. He was wearing white cotton pants, and judging by the sleeve, a white dress shirt. He seemed to be sitting in a patch of tall grass.
Tied around his wrist was a ribbon knotted in the shape of a butterfly. A stitch ribbon on a mint-colored background, with white dotted embroidery along the top and bottom edges.
'Hm.'
Something felt a bit....
No, never mind. It was still too ambiguous to dwell on, so I let it go.
After dissecting every frame, I resumed the video.
Yoon Haejun's hand tapped his knee as if playing piano.
A clear, sweet piano melody flowed in sync with the hand's movement, and various cuts began to be inserted.
Every single one was a bizarre shot that didn't match the song at all.
A bird frozen mid-air in the sky.
A tilted high-rise building.
A car speeding down a road.
All of them were precariously fixed in place, tied with ribbons. The same mint-colored ribbon tied around Yoon Haejun's wrist.
And then the camera locked back onto Yoon Haejun's hand.
The fluttering hand stopped, and a bass-heavy electronic sound was added to the song.
Playfulness crept into the melody, which had been suppressing eeriness and enforcing peace. That it felt even more unsettling as a result was surely intentional.
Soon, Yoon Haejun's other hand appeared and grabbed the end of the ribbon.
And then, he pulled.
Ruuuuumble—
The moment the knot came undone, a chilling sound effect was added.
The sound of a building cracking, the sound of a car scraping and grinding against asphalt, a car horn, the ominous cry of a bird.......
Yet the camera remained fixed on Yoon Haejun's hand.
What was happening outside the frame—that is... behind Yoon Haejun—could only be inferred through the sounds, due to the composition.
Even as the deafening noise rose and the viewer's imagination spiraled, Yoon Haejun simply whistled while untying the ribbon.
And then, finally.
A hidden message concealed inside the knot was revealed.
[ONE WHO RULES]
At that moment, a shadow fell over the hand.......
With the sound of something collapsing in a rush, the screen went black.
"Did they finish it off!"
"......There are still 10 seconds left."
A moment later, the screen brightened.
In the brightened screen, remnants that seemed to declare your imagination was correct lay before us—a half-wrecked car, the rubble of a collapsed building.......
All of it was suspended in mid-air, tied with knots.
In the center of it all, Yoon Haejun stood tall, his back looking eerily peaceful, to the point of dissonance.
The mint-colored ribbon began to form letters, and Yoon Haejun slowly turned his head.
But before his face could be fully revealed.
The screen faded to black, leaving behind only the letters.
[owr]
The end.
Kim Yuri left his review.
"Oh-deop-al? Mediocre. Our group name wins."
"It's probably 'ower'."
And we hadn't even named our team yet, so what was he talking about.
'OWR, huh.......'
Usually, a team name isn't decided until the debut lineup is finalized.
But since Yoon Haejun and I were practically in the debut confirmation phase, we'd often chat about things like making a team name or discussing the concept.
The provisional team name Yoon Haejun had suggested back then had been... 'Tie'.
'TIE,' meaning both 'to bind' and the abbreviation of 'this is me.'
I'd predicted the company would reject it because it was difficult to search, but finding out they really debuted under a different name still felt oddly strange.
'More than that, it wasn't a debut teaser, just a group name reveal teaser.'
So I could set the debut for at least two weeks from now.
I tapped 'See More Info' below the video.
[owr (AWER) official]
"......It's AWER."
"......."
If things between Kim Yuri and me were still like before, I would've already been ruthlessly mocked with remarks like, 'The hell is ower?'
But because he was so silent, I glanced back and saw Kim Yuri staring intently at the tablet with a serious face.
"What are you thinking?"
"You know."
Kim Yuri opened his mouth.
"If you'd been in Mary... this... you would've been the main character, right?"
"This one?"
I asked back while sliding the playback bar back to the start.
The video began replaying from the beginning, and Kim Yuri bit his lip tightly and nodded.
I paused it on the scene where the ribbon was ensnaring all sorts of objects.
And then I said.
As if he were being absurd.
"......No?"
"......Ah, really?"
Had I been too adamant?
Looking awkward for anyone to see, Kim Yuri scratched his cheek.
"I figured as much. It doesn't suit you at all, so I wondered what the deal was."
Of course, it had already been two years since I left.
Besides, that was back when the debut lineup hadn't even been confirmed. That meant the team name, the concept—all of it only ever existed as idle banter between Yoon Haejun and me.
'.......'
Even so, it did prick at me... a little.
"But... the ribbon is a bit similar to something I once thought of."
"A ribbon?"
"To be precise, it wasn't a ribbon, but......."
Yoon Haejun hadn't suggested the provisional name 'TIE' for nothing.
He had attached a team name to the group concept I'd proposed.
"Then what was it?"
"Kudzu."
"......Kudzu?"
Kim Yuri asked back with an incredulous look.
"Kudzu? The kudzu you eat? Kudzu, as in kudzu root? Not leopard cat, but kudzu?"
"Why are leopard cats coming up? Anyway, yes, kudzu."
"So you're saying it went from kudzu to ribbon?"
I nodded.
Kim Yuri let out a hollow laugh and clapped slowly.
"The company made a good call. I mean, what's with kudzu? Kudzu, of all things."
"......."
"Why?"
"Nothing."
Kudzu... was my idea, actually.
Back then, I'd read an article about how the U.S. was struggling because of kudzu, an invasive species, and suggested we should become an invasive species ourselves.......
No, forget it. It was true that I had grand ambitions at the time.
And seeing Kim Yuri's current reaction, if I revealed this fact, he probably wouldn't include me in the upcoming group concept meetings.
'Might as well read the comments.'
I scrolled past the foreign-language-filled comment section for a while before finally finding a Korean comment.
So you're saying Seo Cha-gyeom would have originally been in this team...??
Comments (7)
└Don't mention Seo Cha-gyeom
└Please stopㅠㅠ Even Seo Cha-gyeom must be getting hazy on his Mary daysㅠㅠ
└No but fr if they kicked out Seo Cha-gyeom, doesn't that mean the bare minimum for this team was Seo Cha-gyeom? Ah I'm so damn excitedㅠㅠ First of all, I'm already satisfied with the guy they just revealed; just his side profile is gorgeousㅠㅠ
└They said he left on his own volition lol
......To run into my name even here.
My fans generally avoided even mentioning the fact that I'd been in Mary, so the person who wrote this comment probably wasn't one of them.
Of course... they could be my fan, too.
If this online squabbling grew big enough to form a 'Mary vs Sorasum' rivalry, that would be incredible publicity, so I didn't view it negatively.
The difficult part was ensuring it stopped at the level of publicity.
Anyway, I scrolled further down.
Mary has insane luck too, how do they drop this right when Mebaek collapses lol
Comments (6)
└For real, you can feel the determination to pull in all the K-pop fans who briefly united under Mebaek and then became refugees...
└It's smart, timing is strategy too
└What connection is there between Mebaek and Mary? Even if they were doing fine, it's irrelevant lol Sneakily trying to rub shoulders at the same level is embarrassing^^
'......How could there be no connection?'
Now that <MAKE100%> had ended and most trainees had decided their paths, the fans' anxiety was gradually turning into relief.
And this sense of relief would soon change to boredom.
Waiting was mandatory before a trainee could officially debut. Fans would need a temporary team to divert their attention until their ultimate bias debuted.
That was exactly what Mary was aiming for.
Afterwards, well, wouldn't they just keep reeling them in?
"The response is good, damn."
Kim Yuri, who had been checking the reactions on his own phone, admitted it with a sour taste in his mouth.
I was certainly admitting it too.
Timing aside, the teaser itself was well-made.
And... this too.
'They're going to churn out a ton of merchandise.'
These days, the idol themselves was becoming a brand.
The range of goods they could produce was diverse, from character products using idol-inspired designs to logos and symbolic items.
And this ribbon.......
It clearly looked easy to design merchandise for.
'If it had been kudzu, they'd probably have put out kudzu juice.'
I had to concede that my kudzu idea had suffered a complete defeat.
I turned off the tablet with a bitter taste and asked Kim Yuri.
"How does it look?"
"Hmph, I'm curious about the song, but they didn't let us hear anything, so I don't know. Though honestly, our song will probably be better anyway?"
Seeing him talk like that, he must have been pretty hyped about ours.
I glanced at the clock and tapped Kim Yuri lightly.
Understanding my gesture meant it was time to sleep, Kim Yuri sluggishly climbed up to the second floor.
I lay down in bed too.
And after waiting for the noise from above to stop, I stared at the ceiling and asked.
"Did you hear from the composition team?"
"Huh? Ah, that."
Some time ago, Kim Yuri had mentioned there was a composing team he'd wanted to collaborate with since way back, and he'd personally gone to contact them.
'That was when he went to bring Kim Sanho. So it's been about two weeks.'
I hadn't asked, figuring he'd report back on his own, but I felt like I'd waited long enough by now.
After watching Mary's teaser, I felt a bit... restless myself.
A moment later, Kim Yuri's answer came.
"I left all my work files at the old company and came, so it's taking some time."
"Why would you leave your work files?"
"......Ah."
Silence filled the room.
Soon, I heard a fake cough with a melody tacked on.
"Hm, hum, hmm."
"......?"
"Because I had to have something to negotiate with to leave Mary."
I stared blankly at the ceiling, blinking.......
Then I got out of bed.
"You handed over all those files and left?"
When I checked the second floor, Kim Yuri had pulled his blanket over his head and was avoiding me.
Under the blanket, I could hear him mumbling evasively.
"Only the songs I submitted for evaluations......."
This hyung had been serious about debuting too.
Evaluation songs were the gateway to debut, which naturally meant he would have submitted only his elite, top-tier tracks.
I couldn't tell if I was lamenting the waste, or appalled at Mary's pettiness.
Just as I stood there vacantly with an indescribable feeling.
The blanket, which had been curled up like a cocoon, was thrown off, and Kim Yuri shot upright.
"But really, you're not in a position to get mad at me....... No, forget it."
And then he bowed his head.
"I hate talking about this stuff......."
I let out a sigh.
'Fine, it's water under the bridge, anyway.'
......Thinking that didn't make it any less of a waste.
Especially since some of the songs I'd admired were among them... No, never mind.
Even if there were times I missed the songs he made more than I missed him, if I had to choose between a few songs and Kim Yuri, it was obviously the latter.
Let's just think positively.
Having rationalized it to myself, I spoke.
"The composition team contact....... I hope it works out."
After seeing Kim Yuri nod, I lay back down in bed.
From above, a bright voice drifted down.
It wasn't the kind of forced brightness you squeeze out artificially.
"Cha-gyeom, I'm having so much fun these days."
I answered too.
"Me too."