When the Unexpected Happens (1)
The weather looked wrong.
I kept glancing out the van window until we reached the site. The morning had been dull and sunless from the start, and now storm clouds were crowding in, smearing everything a heavy gray.
"This isn't going to rain today, is it?"
Any other day, I wouldn't have cared. A day with an outdoor stage was a different story entirely.
The Traitor, in the driver's seat, shrugged.
"Beats me. There wasn't any rain in the forecast this morning. Check it again."
I opened the weather app once more. Still nothing but a cloud icon. The chance of precipitation was low, and it claimed the clouds would break and the sun would be out within the hour.
Am I worrying too much?
I was about to pocket the phone when it buzzed in my hand.
"Hello?"
"This is the junior writer from the Hope Campaign. About when will you arrive?"
"We're pulling into the parking lot now."
She said she'd come find us, and I hung up.
Today's schedule was a charity campaign going out live. They'd booked Neptune for a single song. The date overlapped with the Next K-Star taping, and I'd gone back and forth on it, but chances to put a performance on a terrestrial broadcast didn't come around often. So I'd taken it.
"Kids, we're here—"
I shut my mouth the moment I looked in the back. One by one they'd been nodding off like sick chickens the whole way down the highway, and now all four of them were dead asleep, swaddled in blankets and slumped against each other's shoulders and heads.
Even the makeup artist and the stylist in the very back were half-gone, so the Traitor and I got out first. The second I stepped outside, a cold wind raked across my throat.
God, it's freezing.
A woman came running before we'd gone far. A staff badge and a headset-style wireless intercom hung around her neck—the junior writer who'd just called, by the look of it.
"Hello! You're Neptune, right?"
"Yes, that's us. Hello."
"Stage rehearsal is in thirty minutes. Neptune goes second."
The Traitor cut in.
"We've got a Next K-Star recording this afternoon, so we have to head straight over. This isn't going to run long, right?"
"It's live, so of course not. One hour on air, and we're done right on the dot."
"All right."
"Then I'll show you to the waiting room. The members are—"
It was far too cold out here. I was bundled up and still freezing; drag the kids out in stage outfits that left their arms and legs bare, and they'd be shaking like leaves.
The Traitor must have been thinking the same thing. He put on an affable smile.
"The kids are asleep right now. Would it be all right if they waited in the van?"
"Oh, of course! That's perfectly fine."
The junior writer nodded readily. Something occurred to me, so I asked.
"The weather looks a little unstable. Will we be all right? It's an outdoor stage."
"It was supposed to be nice today, and then it turned like this out of nowhere. We checked with the Meteorological Administration, and they said it should be fine. Please don't worry."
Right. Trust the weather service.
We'd agreed to wake the kids in ten minutes, and I'd just texted Kim Hyunjo that we'd arrived, when the question came out of nowhere.
"Why didn't you go?"
The Traitor had asked it bluntly.
"You said it yourself, day one. No interest in being an idol manager—what you actually wanted was actors. The second a chance opened up to move to the actor team, you were gone."
I had said that.
"So why didn't you? It's not some nobody. It's Sung Do-won."
He pressed again.
I chose my words carefully. Maybe because I'd built a wall inside myself, talking to the Traitor always tangled my thoughts. What's he thinking right now? Why is he asking? Is he about to pull something? What if—what if— The questions kept coming, one after another.
"Once I actually thought about transferring, I couldn't get the Neptune kids out of my head. Like you said back then—once you're in it, managing an idol team isn't so bad. And I had some personal stuff going on."
"Personal stuff? You mean... that thing. Your instincts being off?"
"What?"
I turned. He was looking at me.
"You. Listen."
With an expression I couldn't read at all, the Traitor went on.
"There's something I've been wanting to ask you..."
That was when it happened.
He broke off mid-sentence and looked up. I jerked my head up too. The sky was far darker than before, packed solid with storm clouds, as if a downpour might break any second.
Then—a cold drop struck my forehead.
Damn it. It's raining.
I ran through the cold rain looking for the junior writer. She wasn't picking up, and I wandered for a while before I finally spotted her behind the stage set, talking to a man in a raincoat.
"PD, are we going ahead as planned?"
"Didn't you hear the department head? We're too close to air to revise the cue sheet now. He said we go exactly as is, no matter what!"
"What if it's still pouring when they cut to us? What about the singers?"
"Sub-control called the weather service again. They say it's just a passing shower!"
That damn weather service. A minute ago they said nothing would happen.
I caught the junior writer as she finished and made to sprint off again.
"Writer!"
"Oh, Manager. I was just about to call you. Rehearsal might get pushed back a little."
"If the rain doesn't stop, is there another option—"
She looked troubled.
"If this were taped, we could pause and pick it back up. But it's live. I think the stage goes ahead as planned."
"Couldn't we put some kind of cover over the set?"
"Ah, one second, let me ask. PD!"
She ran over to the PD she'd been talking to. A moment later he came my way with a sigh.
"You're the one in charge of Neptune... Are you the chief manager?"
"Manager."
"Ah... If we cover the stage, it'll look messy when the jimmy jib shoots from above. The department head is very particular about the picture, so that's something we'd only consider in the worst case. We're not there yet."
We're not there yet?
"Instead I'll have the MCs in the studio mention that Neptune put on a passionate performance even in the rain. A shot like that can become a talking point once it airs, so I'm asking you to work with us."
Whatever he was so busy with, he didn't wait for an answer. He just took off running.
I let whatever was climbing up my throat out as a sigh. The junior writer watched my face and spoke carefully.
"We'll get you umbrellas and raincoats first, and I'll try to scrounge up some towels. And when they dance, if they could ease off on the movement a little..."
In the end, what ended up in my hands was four clear plastic umbrellas and a few raincoats. I carried them back to the parking lot and climbed into the van, and the Traitor and the Neptune kids—mid-chatter—all turned to look at me at once.
Lim Seoyoung's eyes went wide.
"Oppa! Why are you standing in the rain holding four umbrellas!"
"I'm already soaked. Doesn't matter."
"We don't even have a towel... Here, at least use this."
She held out the blanket she'd been wrapped in.
"Thanks."
I wiped at my hair—water streaming off it—and asked the Traitor, "They say they're going ahead even in the rain. Did you call the chief?"
"He says there's nothing we can do. It's live. Absolutely no one gets hurt—don't run around too much, keep the choreography to a minimum."
Same conclusion, then. I looked at the Neptune kids, worried, but their faces were calm.
"It's going on air. Of course we do it. It's not like a typhoon's coming."
"We just have to be careful not to fall."
"We've performed in the rain plenty of times, oppa."
They all nodded as if it were nothing. I hid my unease and looked out the window. Fat raindrops hammered the glass.
Rehearsal finally started long after the scheduled time.
While a solo singer went first, we huddled under the tent beside the stage and waited. The soloist was taking it easy under both a plastic umbrella and a raincoat, and the manager watching looked perfectly unbothered.
Well. All they have to do over there is stand still and sing. No big choreography.
"I heard they're using an umbrella for the live show too. Should we?"
Raincoats seemed like a stretch, but an umbrella might be fine—or so I thought when I asked. Lee Taehee shook her head, firm.
"Umbrella in one hand, mic in the other—that's more dangerous. The umbrella has bulk, the blocking gets tangled, and one slip and the whole thing falls apart. Whatever it looks like on site, people are watching on TV. That wouldn't be professional."
"Oppa, we'll be careful, so don't worry!"
"And the rain seems like it's letting up, anyway."
With the others chiming in like that, I had nothing left to say.
Soon the act ahead of us finished, and the junior writer signaled.
"Neptune, you're up!"
"Okay!"
The kids walked out into the rain.
The moment they struck their opening poses, the title track's backing track—cued in advance—spilled across the stage. I swallowed dryly and kept my eyes on them. The rain had eased since earlier, but by the time the song was halfway through, all of them were soaked. In precarious heels they worked the choreography, cutting lively paths across the wet stage.
Everyone who'd been wandering the plaza had ducked away from the rain, so almost no one was watching. Only the cameras in front of the stage caught them dancing and singing their hearts out.
The song was nearly over. I was just easing off—good, rehearsal's ending without a problem—when the rain suddenly came down like it had lost its mind.
This is dangerous, isn't it?
At that point it wasn't about getting wet. You could barely see. Rain in your eyes and you couldn't even keep them open—so how were four of them supposed to weave through a dance like that? The thought had barely formed.
"—!"
Lee Songha, turning onstage, staggered and went straight down.
My heart dropped. I was about to run up when she sprang back to her feet like a roly-poly and kept chasing the choreography.
Is she okay? Is she actually okay?
I was sick with worry, but the song ended without another accident. I pressed a blanket into each of their arms as they came down and herded them into the tent. The moment we were inside, everyone closed around Lee Songha.
"Songha, you okay? You're not hurt?"
"Yeah, you went down hard."
"Shouldn't we take her to a hospital?"
Lee Songha swung both legs a few times, forceful, then shook her head.
"It's nothing. I'm fine. I can do it."
She looked ready to protest if I kept her off the stage.
"You might not feel it because you're worked up. Sit. Let me see."
I sat her in a chair and felt along her ankle. I'm no expert, but on the surface it looked fine. Even when I gripped a little harder she didn't flinch, and her legs were bare—I didn't see a single scrape.
"Seems all right, but... that was way too close."
"Rain got in my eyes, and I lost my balance."
"If it hurts, you tell me right away."
"Okay."
Lee Songha nodded from under the blanket pulled over her head.
Rehearsal had run later than expected, and there wasn't much time left before the actual stage. While we fixed the makeup and hair the rain had ruined, back in the van, the Traitor came in from checking outside.
"Rain's basically stopped. Just a few drops now."
"Ah... thank god."
So the weather service wasn't completely wrong. It is passing.
I looked out. The drops really were sparse. A ballad singer was already performing onstage without an umbrella. They'd said the feed would cut back to the studio after that and then return to us, so we truly didn't have long.
I'd just brought the kids back out to wait in the tent again when the junior writer sidled over, hesitant.
"Um..."
"Oh—at least the rain stopped. That's a relief."
She looked awkward as she opened her mouth.
"Manager... we got a call from the sub-control room."
"Yes?"
"What do we do. It looks like Neptune's stage isn't going to happen."
"What?"
"I think sub-control made a snap decision because one of the members fell earlier. If there's a safety accident during a live broadcast, it could turn into a real problem... I'm sorry. We'll make the appearance fee a bit more generous than what we discussed."
I stood there blank for a moment, parsing what she'd said. Then I turned. People were looking this way—and among them, the first face I caught was Lee Songha's, eyes wide, gone completely still.