Backstage (2)

“Th-that's a train wreck?”

“It sure is. Haven't you been practicing? What is this, a kindergarten recital?”

None of the Icarus members' individual situations were crimes, strictly speaking — but when an idol committed them, they were criminal-grade. And right now, not a single beat of the choreography lined up. The whole thing was a disaster zone.

“Can't be helped. Hey, leader. When was our last stage, anyway?”

So spake Lim Doyun, the walking verbal-gaffe machine.

Comparing them to a kindergarten recital without so much as denting their pride — that alone said everything. Seo Geonwoo sighed.

“Two years and three months ago.”

“You need a stage to practice for.”

The answer came from Seo Jihu, and his gaze collided with Seo Geonwoo's.

In that instant an awkward, suffocating tension rolled off the two of them — carrying with it all the transparent emotion Lee Junseo, Seo Jihu's real-life counterpart, harbored toward Yoon Jay. He had deliberately nudged at those walls on set, just to draw this atmosphere out.

Wow. So this is what Yoon Jay wanted? Not bad, actually.

Seo Jihu, starved for affection thanks to his tangled family circumstances, had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been startled and quietly thrilled when his older brother showed up out of nowhere as CEO. He'd hoped, deep down, that his brother might secretly recognize him — but resigned to that cold, unreadable stare, he'd resorted to appealing to him with furtive glances instead.

It mirrored Lee Junseo's own situation perfectly: watching Yoon Jay chat warmly with everyone else on set while keeping him at a distance.

Brief as the moment was, the strange charge between the brothers made the director's eyes gleam.

A guy who brushes off the handful of fans he has out of sheer apathy, a guy with no filter between brain and mouth, a guy obsessed with women... and the only one who actually puts in the work is my own little brother.

Yoon Jay didn't think of it as his plan bearing fruit — because right now, he was Seo Geonwoo. He somehow had to make Icarus even more successful than before, and with no clear path in sight, all he could do was scowl.

And the one remotely hopeful member is measuring his angle to bolt, is that it?

Not that he could fault a personal choice. If anything, Cha Noah — who calculated his own interests to the very end and picked the better road — was cut from the same cloth as Seo Geonwoo.

Cha Noah met Seo Geonwoo's eyes and smiled, bright and guileless. Seo Geonwoo answered in kind. The exchange of smiles made Seo Jihu stare at them, startled.

Ah, whatever. Stop wasting time and just let me go already.

Cha Noah smiled on the outside while thinking entirely different thoughts.

He knew the company had been struggling lately. He'd meant to ride that opening to negotiate an early contract termination — but then the company got swallowed up in an acquisition, and the young CEO who'd arrived was anything but ordinary.

Sly bastard. He's keeping an eye on me.

Seo Geonwoo saw straight through every thought in the kid's head.

Landed with the impossible mission of ending this group's run on a spectacular high, Seo Geonwoo could not yet grant Cha Noah his early exit.

There had been some payoff, then, to Yoon Jay dragging Yoon Dojun through that cram session.

Seo Geonwoo surveyed his roster: Lim Doyun and Kim Yunjae standing there slack-jawed, Lee Taein already checked out and slumped in the corner, Seo Jihu stiff as a rod, and Cha Noah wearing that infuriating smile.

And I'm supposed to make this bunch sell ten times their album numbers.

Hopeless already. Chairman Seo probably knew it too. While I'm chained to Icarus, he'll stall for time — and in the meantime, pin every last slush-fund scandal on the company and on me.

If I lose even a little more time, I'm the one who burns.

But between the botched choreography and the members glaring daggers at each other, they couldn't unite to save their lives.

Seo Geonwoo turned his head in irritation — and met Seo Jihu's eyes. Seo Jihu flinched and looked away first.

If it weren't for that one, I'd tear up the contracts and blow the whole company to pieces.

The voice of his little brother, calling out to him so desperately, was still vivid in his ears.

First, then — teamwork.

And for that, there was a time-honored method.

“By the way, you're getting pretty casual with me?”

“It's not like you expect anything from us anyway, sir. Just let us see this out and go.”

“Not a chance. You're doing your final comeback.”

The first to answer had been Cha Noah. The agency that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been sizing him up for a transfer must have pressed him to get out fast, Seo Geonwoo mused.

“You're laboring under a misconception. You still have contracts left. You don't know what I might do, and you're already thinking about packing your bags?”

“We were doomed from the start anyway. What difference would another comeback make?”

“If the group gets no response, why didn't any of you run yourselves into the ground trying to change that? Look at Seo Jihu. Even with zero official activities, he keeps uploading his own content.”

“Does doing that conjure popularity out of thin air? The company barely pushed us to begin with — what do you want from us?”

“The company didn't push you, so you just sit there sucking your thumbs? You're at the point where even busking on the street wouldn't draw a crowd...”

It was a contrived argument. Didn't matter — it was meant to sting. Seo Geonwoo kept firing before any of the Icarus members could get a word in.

“Live like that, steeped in defeat until you disband, and maybe you'll scrape onto some civilian dating show for your fifteen minutes of attention.”

“······.”

“Or you might luck into one of those washed-up-idol redemption programs... except — are you even famous enough to qualify?”

Seo Geonwoo's tone was curdling into something distinctly unpleasant. His expression was no better — one corner of his mouth curling up, fishy and mean. He wore a face that would sour anyone's mood on sight, stranger or not.

The Icarus members choked up and glared at him. Some of them, at least, were genuinely furious.

“Oh? So that wounded your pride, did it? Why? You didn't have any pride left to wound.”

“What are you planning to do once the contracts end? No decent skills, so part-time gigs? Or are you going to lean on the handful of SNS followers you collected off your pretty faces and sell enzyme supplements?”

Seo Geonwoo pulled his hands from his pockets and pressed them together — the very image of a praying-hands emoji.

Truthfully, none of this was in the script. It was an ad-lib from Yoon Jay, fully submerged in character — and the director never called cut. Instead, he slapped his knee in delight.

“Ladies, we're looking at an all-time record order explosion~ These are custom-made, so no exchanges or refunds — your understanding is appreciated~ Do hurry and place your orders. Is this what you want, groveling like that?”

At the saccharine, needling tone, the Icarus members' expressions turned uglier by the second. Seo Geonwoo swallowed a smile at the reaction.

When a team can't get along, you start by making a common enemy.

“You really want to live that unimpressively? For real?”

And that common enemy — is me.

Seo Geonwoo left, saying he had the remaining staff to check on, and the abandoned Icarus members grumbled about getting dragged into yet another headache. Through it all, only Seo Jihu's eyes sparkled.

Our comeback... could it actually work?

A flicker of hope — but Seo Jihu shook his head hard. Icarus was finished anyway. What difference would a final death thrash make? He was fumbling his one-room door open with a weary hand when his eyes went wide.

“Mom?”

“I came because I missed my son.”

“······.”

“There's nothing in your fridge. Are you even eating properly?”

Seo Jihu's mother was busy stuffing the barren refrigerator with side dishes she'd packed with both hands. Something in his chest gave way at the sight.

“...Mom. Should I just quit being an idol?”

“Why? This is what you wanted so badly.”

“It's just... we're coming up on seven years, and I'm still standing exactly where I started. I think I should find another path before it's too late.”

“Then will you prepare for college?”

“Where would we get the money for that?”

“We have it.”

Their father had divorced on his own fault — the affair, the child — and yet he'd never paid a won of support, simply discarding the family. She had wanted to fight it through the courts, but going to war with a major corporation was all but impossible.

Seo Jihu stared at the figure on the bank statement, then up at his mother, stunned.

“Where did this money come from?”

“Your mom works too, you know. Take it — go to college, open a café, whatever you like.”

“No. That's your money.”

But it's way too large a sum for Mom to have saved on her own? At his suspicion, his mother opened her mouth — then closed it again.

The truth was, this money came from Seo Geonwoo. A brief reel of the past began to play.

His father had coldly handed over the divorce papers; the mistress was already pregnant — with a child the exact same age as Seo Jihu. His mother, learning the devastating truth too late, had collapsed.

Seo Geonwoo, who had overheard his father's plan to hand over not a single won, clenched his fists until they trembled. How much would his mother suffer — a former homemaker with a severed career — to support him and his little brother?

Determined not to be a burden, Seo Geonwoo had gone to his father on his own two feet.

Afterward, he sent every scrap of allowance his father ever gave him straight to his mother. Even now, as a full-fledged director, he was still quietly wiring money over.

His mother never wasted a won of it. She saved it, brick by brick.

Seo Jihu had resented his suffering mother's pain, and hated the older brother who'd abandoned them and gone to their father — while secretly, achingly missing the brother who never once came back to visit.

That was why, when they finally stood face to face again, the air between them had been so suffocating, so unbearably tight.

No one had expected much from an idol drama in the first place, but the response was surprisingly good, and the mood on set brightened along with it. Even the director, whose enthusiasm for filming had gone cold, seemed to catch fire again and began directing with real energy.

Yoon Dojun sidled up to Lee Junseo.

“Hyung, did you see the reactions to our drama?”

“I did. Yours are pretty good.”

“They're saying you act well too, hyung?”

“Me? Please...”

Lee Junseo scoffed. Honestly, none of it had been intentional acting. He was awkward with Yoon Jay in real life too — that discomfort had simply spilled over onto the screen.

Could he have actually meant to treat me that way?

Setting personal feelings aside, Yoon Jay was a remarkable man. That many lines, delivered flawlessly in a single take; never once displeased when the actors around him flubbed; always the same unwavering performance, take after take.

His history alone was staggering, and Lee Junseo had genuinely wanted to get close to him — right up until the Backstage shoot changed everything.

The reaction to the first episode had been unexpectedly strong. Backstage was a ten-episode drama, with each episode running under an hour.

Into that tight runtime, Seo Geonwoo had to pack a successful Icarus comeback, evidence to escape his father's trap and mount a counterattack, the mending of his strained relationship with his brother and the rest of Icarus, and a slow-burn spark with his manager, Han Song-i.

On top of all that, each Icarus member's personal arc had to be handled with care, and by the finale they all had to be bound together as one team.

Thanks to that, the story moved briskly and cleanly — precisely what today's viewers wanted.

The scene of Yoon Jay flaying Icarus to the bone had spread across MyTube Shorts, hit the real-time trending charts, and word was spreading that this drama ran on a track entirely its own among idol shows.

“Dojun. Let's run the next scene.”

“Yeah!”

Yoon Dojun scooted right over to his older brother again, like a puppy trotting to heel. Yoon Jay huffed a small laugh at the sight — and then, unmistakably meeting Lee Junseo's eyes, deliberately looked away.

Deliberate? No way. Couldn't be.

Lee Junseo scoffed at the man's back. Yoon Jay had built a wall from the very first table read.

He planned all of that? When only the episode-one script even existed? ...No. He just doesn't like me, that's all it is.

Well, honestly? I don't think much of you either.

The moment Junseo moved off to another spot, Yoon Jay's gaze flicked after the seat he'd vacated. Yoon Dojun's eyes darted between them.

“Hyung... are you really okay just leaving it like this?”

“...I don't know. I'm not exactly happy about it either.”

Yoon Jay's heart wasn't light. But this act would end come tomorrow — because tomorrow, they would film the scene where the misunderstanding between the Seo brothers, Geonwoo and Jihu, finally dissolved.