Backstage (4)
"What are you doing here?"
"Oppa!"
The actress Jang Hyoin looked up at Yoon Jay, who was standing behind her and peering down. Yoon Jay was the tallest of all the actors in Backstage, and the sunlight that had been stinging her eyes was suddenly blotted out.
"Seeing your face first thing in the morning feels like everything's right with the world. Wow, how are you this handsome even from this angle?"
"You really do say the funniest things."
When Yoon Jay let out a low chuckle, Jang Hyoin swelled with pride. Ahh, gazing at a beautiful man really does fill you up.
Jang Hyoin, the actress playing Icarus's manager Han Song-i in Backstage, was fairly well acquainted with Han Dayeon, who had played Choi Ahra in Daldongne.
Han Dayeon wasn't so unprofessional that she couldn't tell the difference between acting and reality, so Jang Hyoin had found the warning strange.
But then Dayeon had added that odd piece of advice — you'll understand once you experience it, so keep your wits about you.
Jang Hyoin hadn't understood what she meant back then.
How does anyone get confused about that? Han Dayeon wasn't exactly the type. But the moment she actually started acting opposite Yoon Jay, she understood exactly what that warning had been about.
In Backstage, their characters had to sustain a will-they-won't-they tension — that ticklish, charged atmosphere of two people a breath away from falling in love.
A handsome man with romance-mode eyes turned out to be more devastating than she'd expected. And the actor himself was naturally attentive. His face alone seemed like it would radiate cold, but he took exquisite care of the people around him. No wonder it got confusing.
It was as if she could hear Han Dayeon's sigh from here. Which was why Jang Hyoin was working hard to remain just a close colleague, no matter how tempted she got.
"What's that?"
"It's for Junseo."
"Is Junseo still sulking?"
"Sulking is the least of what he could've done. Here, this one's yours."
Yoon Jay handed her a chocolate he'd set aside in his pocket.
"Th-thank you... Still, thanks to you, our drama's gotten so much better."
After that scene, Lee Junseo seemed to have undergone an awakening of sorts — he melted completely into his role as Seo Jihu.
Lee Junseo's dramatic turnaround fired up the other actors too, and the crew followed suit. The drama's quality climbed scene by scene.
How did he calculate all of that?
The truth was, Jang Hyoin had been one of the people who'd briefly misread Yoon Jay's treatment of Lee Junseo as favoritism. But after watching that scene, her mind had changed.
He was carrying his own first leading role, and still made a point of lifting up the supporting cast around him. He instilled the sense that we are one team — that the drama is something you build together for the sake of its quality. That was why even the crew's attitude had shifted.
And the ratings have climbed a lot too.
Backstage aired only once a week, and idol dramas were a niche genre to begin with — yet it was riding a rising ratings curve.
On top of that, the actor himself was a member of a famous idol group, so the show was drawing unanimous praise for its bromance aimed at the female viewership, the ticklish almost-romance between Seo Geonwoo and Han Song-i, convincing idol-world details, and its brisk pacing.
"Good results don't erase what I did wrong, do they."
Wow. He's even got a good personality. No wonder Han Dayeon had gone down without a fight. Jang Hyoin deliberately steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Won't Dojun get jealous if you keep babying everyone like this?"
"Right, you said you have a younger brother too."
"Yes. Two years younger. Ugh, he treats his big sister like a pushover."
"I wonder why Dojun's like that."
Yoon Jay let out a sigh.
Of course, he'd been drawn to appearing in the same work as his brother, but by now Yoon Dojun had earned the nickname "Yoon Jay's Velcro" among the staff.
"It's probably because you're so good to him. And there's such an age gap."
"You think?"
"Well, he lost his father early, so he must have needed someone to lean on. But did you know that approach would work on Junseo?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
Yoon Jay had a natural gift, and with it came a wealth of skills. He'd even worked closely with the CIA at one point, picking up all sorts of odd talents along the way.
He'd already read Lee Junseo pretty thoroughly just from the boy's behavior and speech patterns at the table read.
Lucky for him that he's a good kid.
Everyone praised Yoon Jay for it, but he saw things differently. It was intrusive either way.
He was weak when it came to kids who felt like little brothers. That was why he went to these lengths, offering up snacks in an effort to smooth things over.
Of course, he also knew perfectly well that Lee Junseo's anger had long since faded, that the boy was now happily enjoying his snack tribute — and enjoying Yoon Dojun's flailing reactions to it even more.
"I just... noticed it."
"You could teach acting someday, oppa."
"You think?"
Yoon Jay had a habit of meeting people's eyes when he spoke.
The height difference between him and Jang Hyoin was significant, so he instinctively bent his upper body down to match her gaze — and because of that, she whipped her head away to hide how overwhelmed she suddenly felt. Ugh, seriously. Don't seduce me if you're never going to date me.
"...Oppa?"
Walking briskly to outrun her own feelings, Jang Hyoin froze mid-step — and turned to see Yoon Jay covering his mouth with one hand.
"Are you feeling sick? Your color suddenly looks terrible."
"Ah — no. It's nothing."
Yoon Jay fought down a wave of nausea. For an instant, Jang Hyoin's face had overlapped with someone else's — just like the hallucination he'd endured on that birthday.
Seo Geonwoo and Seo Jihu had settled their personal grievances, but the remaining Icarus members had not. They were thoroughly furious at Seo Geonwoo, who had been crushing them under his heel — on the verge of exploding.
"Who are those people?"
"No idea."
"They're good, though."
Forced out onto street busking by Geonwoo's punishing schedule, Icarus faced a sea of strangers who didn't recognize them. Watching everyone else stand on stages while they stood on bare pavement seemed to remind them exactly where they stood, and it soured their mood.
"...What's the point of doing this?"
"What?"
"I said, what's anything going to change from doing this?"
It was Kim Yunjae and Lim Doyun who lit the fuse first, out of sheer inferiority.
"If this is what it takes to get our name out there, then we do whatever it takes."
"For how long, though? Nothing's going to change either way."
They hadn't always been like this. Back when they first debuted from trainee life, they had been overflowing with dreams and hope.
They'd assumed everything would fall into place once they debuted. But the gap between the ideal and the reality was brutal. The idols debuting that year came pouring out, and only a handful of groups ever made it big.
So they'd decided that assuming we were never going to make it anyway took less out of you than thrashing around begging the world to please look at us. That was how they'd lived — right up to the edge of their contract expiring.
"...If you're going to talk like that, worry about your dismal skills first."
"What did you just say to me?"
"Was I wrong? Hell, what did you even do while you were all slacking off? Was dancing three songs really that hard?"
Having already reconciled with his brother, and genuinely positive about supporting a company for the first time, Seo Jihu was worn down by the members who kept radiating nothing but this negativity.
Kim Yunjae and Lim Doyun, needling him endlessly, got on his nerves — and Cha Noah and Lee Taein, silently agreeing with them, annoyed him just as much.
"What did you all do while I was working alone?"
"We never told you to work alone. You did it because you wanted to, didn't you?"
"So I should just keep sitting on my hands forever? What's so wrong about taking responsibility?"
Seo Jihu felt the injustice of everything he'd suffered alone boiling over, and he fired back at them.
"The second our numbers start creeping up on the content I built with my own sweat, a photo of you two with girls gets posted. Lee Taein's botched fan service goes viral? And then I'm told not to fan-service at all. Then what am I supposed to do? Was properly living for a few years really that hard for you?"
"That's..."
"And yet you're digging a hole and congratulating yourselves on how well you've done? The director's right — you are losers. I can't believe you're still thinking like this..."
"Why you—!"
"I tried to do right by us. I fought to the end to protect our group's name. If I'd known you'd all keep being like this, I would've given up too..."
At Seo Jihu's lament, Lim Doyun loosened the grip he had on the man's collar. They weren't people without a conscience.
They knew Seo Jihu had struggled alone to keep their dying group alive.
Kim Yunjae, seething, grabbed a plastic water bottle and hurled it — and the spot where it sailed in a perfect arc was where Seo Geonwoo stood.
"...So. What is this."
Seo Geonwoo snatched the bottle out of the air inches from his face with ease, and the expression on his was one they had never seen before — absolutely terrifying.
"What's going on here?"
Shooting paused briefly, then resumed — Yoon Jay's dialogue was heavy, and the timing landed exactly on the mid-episode ad break.
"Ha... Right. You're finished. You failed. So that's it — your lives are over?"
What is wrong with these kids? Was I the only one who was serious?
Seo Geonwoo's nerves were already frayed, and the sight of the members at each other's throats blew the lid off. He had heard everything they'd said outside.
"People will point fingers at you all they want — but you don't get to do it to yourselves. Isn't that right?"
This was a different tone from the one where he'd strong-armed them with the contract in his hand.
There was no business agenda about making Icarus succeed mixed into it — just human irritation, anger, and a trace of pity.
"Haah... Do you honestly think I'm holding onto you begging you to renew? You annoy me too. Got it?"
Seo Geonwoo looked at Cha Noah. The man who at their first meeting had smirked and held his gaze without flinching suddenly seemed embarrassed, and whipped his head away.
"Maybe you'd already written yourselves off as failures. But the people who loved you all this time, who worried about you — for them, we show a brilliant final act. We're disbanding, but tell them we'll be okay from here on out. Is that so wrong?"
While cracking down on the Icarus members, Seo Geonwoo had absorbed every ounce of resentment and affection alike. He'd come to understand the relationship between idols and fans, though he'd been a complete outsider. He understood why Seo Jihu had been so starved for attention.
Right. I get it. It's easier to assume we were never going to make it than to carry a hope that comes to nothing.
But he couldn't let it keep going like this. He'd swallowed his pride and bowed his head to a PD just to get here — and his own brother was falling apart for the same reasons. Hadn't they all agreed to make it together? And these kids were still stuck.
"Do you want to turn everything you worked for into garbage? While calling yourselves losers? Then what changes? All that happens is your pathetic little lives get more pathetic!"
"..."
"'We're a washed-up idol group buried at the bottom of the ocean, so of course we'll never amount to anything'? You carry that mindset out into the world and you think anything will go better for you?"
Is it wrong to chase hope? Did one fall mean it was all over?
The words Seo Geonwoo delivered calmly grew hotter and hotter. As if even he found it absurd, he laced his voice with bitter sighs — but his eyes blazed.
Crunch. The water bottle in his hand crumpled pitifully, and the water inside dribbled out, drop by drop. It was an action that showed his rage all too plainly.
"A painting is only recognized as a masterpiece once it's finished to the very end. A novel is only recognized as a work of art once it's completed. You know that, don't you?"
"..."
"You started this. So finish it — properly."
Like true brothers, his words ran in the same current as Seo Jihu's.
Setting aside his father's orders, the shares, all of it — Seo Geonwoo had simply decided these were the people he was responsible for, and he'd resolved to do right by them to the end, whether they liked him or not.
Icarus had put a proper period at the end of its sentence — he'd sweated for it, but the experience hadn't been a bad one, and he'd wanted them to know that.
"And I'm busting my ass to make that happen for you."
But this ragtag mess of yours has disappointed me more than I can say. Seo Geonwoo flung the water bottle aside, slammed the door with a bang, and walked out.
The members left behind hung their heads and stared at nothing but their own feet. The same boys who had so freely declared "we're finished" now felt, for some reason, ashamed — and utterly embarrassed.