The Most Important Thing in This Business: Choice (3)

It was a familiar sight.

A future with a bad connection, the view before my eyes choked with noise, as if someone had flung a handful of sand across it. I crammed everything that entered my field of vision straight into my head. I hadn't managed to remember Lee Taehee's original song a hundred percent, but from here on I didn't want to miss even the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠smallest thing.

The sky was black, and a cool night wind dried the sweat on me. Outdoors, then. Brown grass flecked here and there with green, a small trimmed garden. A wooden bench. I was sitting on it with my legs crossed.

I knew where this was.

The outdoor smoking area on the fifth floor of the company. I remembered it as a place I sometimes stepped out to when no one was smoking, just to get some air.

"What are you thinking about so hard, all by yourself?"

A voice came from behind. My head turned, and there was a man from the PR team, lighting a cigarette. A dress shirt that wasn't too thick. Lighter tucked into the pocket of his cotton trousers, he came toward me.

A dry voice slipped out of my mouth.

What?

I wanted to hear the rest, but the PR employee either hadn't caught my voice or didn't care, and he went off on something else.

"The response has been incredible. Back when the song was first brought in and pushed through as Lee Taehee's original, nobody expected a reaction like this, but for this album, Geon-young's call really was a stroke of genius."

For a moment my thoughts spun out uselessly, because I couldn't make sense of what the man was saying.

"But I heard you were the one who listened to that song first, Sunwoo. How'd you let him get the jump on you this time?"

I felt as if I'd been shoved headfirst underwater.

Then the view before my eyes rippled again. The scene cut the way an insert does in a drama. The noise had thinned, but this was plainly another future with a bad connection. I was sitting on a sofa, not a bench. A low table, a vanity fitted with a half-length mirror. Familiar. The PBS dressing room.

And Choi Geon-young was leaning against the door.

He smiled as he spoke.

"Sorry it ended up looking like I snatched it, but you can't just pass up a chance, can you?"

The next moment, I was sitting in a chair at an oyster-rice-soup place instead of on the sofa. The television and the voices of other people rushed into my ears all at once. I looked up, and Choi Geon-young was watching me. Smiling.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I said let's do well from here, didn't I?"

"Yeah. Sure."

The voice that came out was calmer than I'd expected.

My head, of course, was a wreck. I downed a glass of cold water. It wasn't enough, so I drank another. Only then did it feel as if oxygen were getting through. The moment I could actually think, I called back what I had seen.

So Choi Geon-young had been the one to push Lee Taehee's original through.

My future self had said that people don't change.

Only a little while ago I had been thinking that maybe they could.

I couldn't know exactly what had happened, but I had enough pieces of the puzzle. I had gone through something that turned my heart. And it would have been something to do with Choi Geon-young—something that left me feeling betrayed.

The last thing he had said kept drifting through my head. Sorry it looked like he'd snatched it? You couldn't just not take the chance?

Earlier, hearing him talk had left me with a complicated feeling. The reason everything I brought in succeeded as if I were possessed was that I had an absurd ability—an ability Choi Geon-young didn't have. But that restless tangle of feeling, and the guilt that had taken up the largest part of it, was swept clean away the instant I saw the future.

On Next K-Star, too, Choi Geon-young had lied, stabbed me in the back, and seized the chance in front of him. And with Lee Taehee's original as well, he had chosen to do something he owed me an apology for, and take the opportunity.

It was so absurd a dry laugh nearly escaped me.

I had known. I had known perfectly well. At the start I had thought it plain as day: be careful. Get stabbed in the back even when you know it's coming, and you're a goddamn idiot. And just now I had nearly become that idiot. Twenty years on I might have been sitting in some interview, regretting today and saying that was when I learned life is the real fight. Something that pathetic.

I lifted my head and looked in front of me.

A moment ago I had seen Choi Geon-young. Now I didn't.

All that sat before me was a traitor.

People don't change.

That fact drove itself like a wedge into the chest that had gone soft.

After I parted from the traitor, I walked the streets alone. I needed room to sort my thoughts. The ashen sky had looked ominous, and soon snow began to drift. It was filthy cold. In exchange, my head cooled with it.

Work well together from here on out? Like hell.

I was done with the stupidity of keeping a bomb that might go off at any moment tucked against my side and living in dread of it. What to do, then. Pick a fight over something he hadn't even done yet, and I'd be the only one who looked crazy. And I had no desire to go so far as laying a trap just so I could be stabbed in the back, and invite a mortal enemy into my life.

Not when Son Chae-young, Professor Shim Kyung-taek, and the Team 2 leader already wanted to chew me up.

I worried at it, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then the traitor's words from earlier came back to me. He had said that if this didn't work out, he'd been thinking of transferring teams or quitting the company. By now even the supposed string of attempts he'd made to persuade Simon Lee felt suspicious.

Still, turning over what the PR employee had said in the future, I didn't know what had become of Simon Lee's song, but Lee Taehee's original succeeding was certain. He had said the response was incredible.

Right. You can't just not take a chance, was it?

An opportunity I had no intention of overlooking anymore was sitting right in front of me. I would take it too.

I took out my phone and called Kim Hyunjo.

It won't turn out that way.

I swallowed the thought and hung up.

That evening I showed up at the members' dorm with a bag in each hand. LJ came over with beads of sweat on her forehead—she must have been doing strength training.

"Here to feed Songha again? She's asleep. Want me to wake her?"

"No. It's a rare day without a shoot. She should rest properly on a day like this."

I glanced at Lee Taehee's door and turned my head, and LJ was standing there crooked, arms folded, watching me. Her bright blue eyes darkened a little.

"Did something bad happen today?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. Just a feeling. Today you seem less like Lucky Snake and more like a venomous one."

Sharp.

"I got a scratch on my soul."

I said the truth like a joke and changed the subject.

"Anyway, what are the others doing?"

"What do addicts do?"

LJ said it with a deadpan face.

"Taehee unni is chugging beer while she works on a song, and that Lim Seoyoung is eating at her desk because she can't stop checking whether a post has gone up on our fan cafe. The way I see it, both of them—no, you too, all three of you—would walk out of a psychiatrist's office with a diagnosis or two."

Maybe. Mine would probably be something like chronic distrust of the human race.

"I am perfectly fine, okay!"

Lim Seoyoung flung the door open and came out. She greeted me, then immediately started yapping at LJ. When the noise spilled into the hall, Lee Taehee came out to the living room as well. She really had been drinking while she worked; her long, slender eyes were slack.

I held out one of the bags to her.

"This is for me? That's unusual."

Seoyoung and LJ gathered around with puzzled looks. Taehee opened the bag and paused. Well, it was nothing but alcohol and snacks. The alcohol especially—canned beer, bottled beer, champagne, even wine. I had swept the supermarket shelves clean.

"Uh. Is today Drink Day or something?"

"Would there be a day like that? Think before you talk. Think."

The dog-and-cat fight reignited, and Lee Taehee scratched at her fine brown hair and asked.

"Seriously, what is all this?"

"Pick whatever you're craving, drink it, and make the song."

She looked at me as if I were a lunatic. Not an unfamiliar look.

"I told the chief the song was good."

At that, Lee Taehee's eyes widened, and the pupils inside them came sharply alive.

"It was a waste for only me to hear it."

"......"

She stared at me in silence for a moment. She glanced at the two still tearing into each other, then took one step closer. She cleared her throat softly and asked.

"Do you really think that?"

"I said I do."

"A little more detail..."

"To my ear, it was better than Simon Lee's song."

Maybe because she was the leader, she had always looked easygoing and grown-up, but with her eyes gone round in surprise she looked her actual age. She kept looking at me like the one and only lunatic under heaven, and then a laugh slipped out of her.

"I think I get it a little."

"Get what?"

"How Songha must have felt."

The next day I was on the phone with Lee Taehee several times. Each time, her original came through the receiver. Honestly, I couldn't really tell what had been revised where, and it still sounded the same as what I had heard in the future. Even so, hoping it might help even a little, I laid out as many impressions as I could.

And then, making all that heavy-headed worrying look pointless, Tuesday morning a single text arrived from Lee Taehee.

The same room as two days ago. The same props. Once Kim Hyunjo arrived, the cast would be identical too.

I glanced at the laptop on the table and set a flat USB down in front of me. The traitor's gaze stuck to it for a moment.

"...Taehee made this?"

"Yeah. She said she finished it at dawn."

"I'm looking forward to it."

A faint dimple sank into the traitor's cheek. He smiled so well. I was busy keeping my face under control, because the future I had seen the day before yesterday kept surfacing. Putting on an act in front of Professor Shim Kyung-taek hadn't been this hard. Nearly getting stabbed in the back twice by the traitor must have hit me harder than I'd thought.

Soon Kim Hyunjo opened the glass door and came in, his face terribly gaunt.

"Songha doesn't have any reason to come to the company today, right?"

"No."

Why Songha, all of a sudden?

"Tell her not to come anywhere near. Son Chae-young is here right now."

"...Ah."

"She's badgering Team Leader Park to row while the tide's in. The way she's carrying on, piercing the sky, she looks like a royal concubine who just bore a son."

With ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Son Chae-young's temperament, that tracked. Last night The Mermaid Who Came Ashore had started airing. Eleven-point-nine percent nationwide, first in its time slot. The peak rating had gone over fourteen percent, apparently. It had been a long time since a drama opened in the double digits from the first episode, and the internet was in an uproar.

Kim Hyunjo clicked his tongue and looked at me.

"Mermaid is doing so well I'm not sure that thing you said you discussed with the CEO last time will be all right."

"That... we'll have to watch a bit longer."

In truth I wasn't worrying much. Because that was how it had gone in the future. The Mermaid Who Came Ashore had climbed through episode three, and after that the fans of the original work had tanked it. So I hadn't been worried. Other people must have been rattled. Surely Lee Songha hadn't seen it.

"Right. You've got to see a drama through to the end. What's the point of fretting now?"

"Cat Guardian Spirit's ratings will go up more, too."

The traitor nodded and added that. Kim Hyunjo changed the subject.

"Let's hear it. Taehee's original."

I plugged the USB into the laptop. I had stopped by the dorm that morning to pick it up. Taehee had looked tired, as if she had stayed up all night, but there were none of the storm clouds or the downpour from last time. Her face had been nothing but satisfied.

"We'll listen first, and if it's decent we'll put it forward at the next meeting. But everyone's already heard Simon Lee's song, so the bar will be high. On top of that, we're really bearing down to push the quality as high as we can for this album."

At Kim Hyunjo's words the traitor answered with a smooth little smile.

"Still, an original has its merits. It's good for promotion, too."

I moved the mouse and played the track. Soon the narrow room was wrapped in music.

It didn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠take long. Not until Kim Hyunjo's eyes turned serious. Not until the ease left the traitor's face and the smile vanished. He recovered his expression quickly, but I definitely saw it—the moment those eyes narrowed and displeasure flickered across them.

At the same time the corner of my mouth lifted. A little while ago, smiling calmly in front of that bastard had been hard. And yet now my face was smiling on its own.

The moment the playback ended, Kim Hyunjo stroked his chin.

"This is better than I expected..."

He stood and pointed at the USB.

"Mind if I take this?"

"Of course."

"I'll talk to Young-hoon hyung first. I'll call you."

With only that, Kim Hyunjo disappeared at a quick pace.

Now only two people remained in the narrow meeting room: me and the traitor.

As if displeasure had never surfaced at all, the traitor's eyes had settled calm again. A smile had returned to his mouth. But it didn't feel the way it usually did. He had been gazing at me steadily, and he was just moving his lips when the door burst open behind me.

Thinking Kim Hyunjo had come back, I turned—and wished I could throw my eyes away.

Son Chae-young stood there exactly as he had described, with the face of a royal concubine who had just borne a son. And she looked at me as if I were the queen who had borne a daughter. No. That was a little creepy, so the queen who bore a daughter could be Lee Songha, and I would be about the queen's older brother from her family home.

That aside: a witch behind me, a traitor in front.

Ha. Spectacular. This damn company was soiling my soul. Soon I would have to go to my brother's and get some healing off the quadruplets, or I wasn't going to make it.

While I was thinking that, Son Chae-young swept her long hair back and asked.

"I looked all over for you. Did you watch my drama?"