The Thing About Music Shows (3)
"Someone's asking for an autograph. Think you could go sign for them?"
"An autograph?"
"Yeah."
"Of course I should. Girls, I'm heading out!"
Lim Seoyoung waved at once. I dipped my head, and the girls bowed even more politely than I had. However I looked at them, they seemed like nothing but kind, bright kids.
But the relief on Seoyoung's face as she turned away said something had been going on after all.
Right. My eyes really are a pair of dead fish.
"Where are they? Who am I signing for?"
She sounded thrilled. My conscience twinged. I should have come up with a different excuse.
I scanned the milling crowd, then said, awkwardly, "...Where'd they go?"
"No way."
"They were right over there a minute ago. A guy."
"What? I wanted to sign for them! You're hopeless, oppa! My precious, irreplaceable fan!"
Lim Seoyoung beamed, eyes bent into crescents.
"Unnie! Taehee unnie! Somebody said they wanted my autograph."
"Yeah?"
"But guess what the important part is."
"What."
"This oppa lost them!"
"Tragic."
Lee Taehee smiled and patted Seoyoung's head. Then, just barely, she smiled at me too.
She was years younger than me. So why did I feel like I ought to be calling her hyung?
"Someone asked you for an autograph? You sure that oppa didn't see a ghost in the broadcast building?"
LJ needled her, and the two of them were at it again.
Kim Hyunjo told us to head back first, so Choi Geon-young and I took the kids into the waiting room. I was just about to drop my exhausted body onto the sofa when a knock came.
"Yes?"
"Hello, sunbaenim! Pretty, pretty, Pretty Girls!"
Eight of them spilled in, long straight hair swinging. The same girls from earlier, school uniforms under their aprons.
The manager who'd come in with them looked from me to Choi Geon-young and back, then came over to me.
"Hello. These are the girls who just debuted. Average age is eighteen, so there's a lot they don't know yet. We'd be grateful if you looked after them."
Not like they had anything to ask of me.
And what are you dressing a bunch of eighteen-year-olds in. You shameless adults.
"Yes. Hello."
"Please take this."
He held something out, and I found a mini album in my hands. The case was already signed.
After that, Pretty Girls chatted brightly with the Neptune girls for a good while, then left.
"I thought giving greetings was the hard part. Turns out receiving them isn't easy either."
At that, Lim Seoyoung shook her head, firm.
"Receiving them is harder."
"Yeah? Why?"
"We debuted, and the years just keep stacking up, and we haven't accomplished a single thing. When kids way younger than us show up, bow, and say please take care of us, you have no idea how anxious that makes you."
"Ah..."
"What if they blow up before we do. We don't even know how long the company will keep pushing us. They're not going to keep pouring water into a jar with no bottom. That's the kind of thing that runs through your head."
I opened my mouth and shut it again, more than once. I had no idea what to say. Seoyoung caught my expression, shrugged, and laughed.
"Listen to me, dumping all of this on an oppa who just got here."
The mood brightened again almost at once. The members chattered and ran the choreography over and over. I watched them in silence.
The truth was, it shook me a little.
Second-year unknowns. A girl group that had never broken through.
Even so, it hadn't felt serious to me. So what if they were unlucky and never made it — they were young, pretty, good-natured. They'd do fine in some other line of work. That was as far as my thinking had gone.
Maybe the old prejudice had made it feel that way even more: that idol girl groups were identical products stamped out of a factory. Now I was sorry I'd ever thought it.
A twenty-one-year-old girl's worries were in no way lighter than mine.
If I only had the ability, I wanted to help those kids catch a chance.
That was the thought that came to me.
A day in the waiting room was nothing but waiting. Rehearse, then wait. Wait while the group making their comeback today filmed a pre-recording. Wait until it was time for the live broadcast.
I couldn't imagine what people had done in here before smartphones.
Neptune was third in the lineup. The closer their stage time came, the busier the members got. They changed into the stage outfits the stylists had brought, then sat for touch-ups on makeup and hair. The moment their bodies were free, they were back at the choreography without a rest.
"I'm going to step out to the restroom for a minute."
Why do I feel more nervous than they do.
I dragged my stiff legs out of the waiting room. The hallway was still packed. I'd barely fought my way to the restroom when a man came bursting out at a tremendous clip.
"Agh, fuck! I'm losing my mind!"
His face was flushed, and he was fuming, swearing in a steady stream about whatever had set him off.
Get out of the way.
I meant to step around him, and that was when the thing clipped to his chest jumped out at me.
Kim Hyunjo's warning came back to me: if you see a staffer, you greet them, no exceptions. Even so, that man was clearly unhinged. I wavered between slipping past and not, then thought, screw it, it's not like I'll die, and stepped into his path.
"Hello. I'm Jung Sunwoo from W&U. I'm currently working with a girl group called Neptune. Please look after us."
I am smiling as hard as I can right now. Nobody swears at a person who's smiling. Right?
Fortunately the staffer looked me over and settled a little. Maybe this was the first time the suit was doing me any good.
"W&U Entertainment? They have a girl group? First I've heard of it. Rookies?"
"They debuted two years ago. Four members."
"Is that so? What did you say the group was called?"
"Neptune."
"If you happen to have a business card..."
I didn't have cards yet. Was I supposed to give him my number?
"I don't have a card..."
"PD!"
Someone came pounding up, out of breath. A young man built like an athlete. He planted himself in front of the staffer and bowed until his head nearly touched his knees.
"I'm sorry. I am truly sorry. I'm sorry. I have nothing to say for myself!"
"Ah, enough."
"Really, I should have checked on the kids more carefully...!"
Their manager?
"I said enough, so stop raising my blood pressure and go. I'm busy shoveling the shit your company dumped all over the place!"
"PD! PD!"
"Haa...!"
"Then the recording we were scheduled for..."
"What recording! A twenty-year-old girl group member got drunk with her boyfriend, got caught driving drunk, and you want me to put her on the air? By tomorrow the articles will be everywhere! For God's sake. Dumping swill over a fully set table would be restrained next to this. If we're going to make the schedule we have to start recording this week, and I am about to lose my mind...!"
"If, if we spin it as noise marketing, it could actually be good for the show..."
"This is a crime! You want us cursed out before we've even started?!"
In the end the PD swore his way out of there. The man left behind kicked the restroom door, again and again.
"That damn bitch! That filthy slut — do you have any idea what kind of chance this was!"
Such a delicate way with words. People like him were why "manager" still dragged up thug and gangster the way related searches do. Next to this guy, Kim Hyunjo was an angel.
"What are you looking at?! Had your fill?!"
He whipped a glare at me. I startled.
"You're the one blocking the hall."
"Fuck..."
I'd half expected the sparks to land on me, but he stalked off in another direction almost at once.
"What kind of person even is that."
In that instant, the world went black in front of my eyes.
Was I dreaming again?
I was myself in my forties once more. CEO of a management company. A ridiculously enormous office, an expensive suit, the successful version of me. Identical to the dream from dawn. Bureau Chief Park and Reporter Song still sat in front of me, smiling.
It was clearly a dream... but that couldn't be right.
A moment ago I had been standing in front of the restroom.
If this wasn't a dream, then what was it?
What. Tell me what.
"You met CEO Go Joon-tae on your very first day at work?"
The name that slipped from Reporter Song's mouth was familiar. CEO Go Joon-tae. The man I'd met in front of the restroom only moments ago. The name written on his staff badge. He hadn't been a CEO then.
"That was right when Knet had just launched Next K-Star. You know the one — eight rookie idol teams competing against each other. It was so long ago, Reporter Song, you might not remember."
"I know it. The show whose first season blew up in the ratings and then ran for several more?"
"That's the one. It was a few days before the first recording... and one of the girl groups set to appear had gotten into an accident. So PD Go Joon-tae had to find a new girl group to step in as a replacement, immediately. That was the situation I met him in."
"My God. You were incredibly lucky. So you landed a program that big on your first day? Neptune was on that show."
Wait. What? Neptune was on it?
The situation was a mess, but I listened. I had the feeling I needed to.
"Hahaha. Reporter Song, if it had gone that smoothly, why would I have said the gates of hardship opened on day one?"
"Then what happened?"
"Back then I didn't know variety PDs. Of course I didn't know who PD Go Joon-tae was, and I had no idea he was the man in charge of a program that big. So I told the friend I was working with. I said I'd met a PD named Go Joon-tae, and it sounded like one of the girl groups on his show had fallen through. He might be looking for another team, so what if we pitched Neptune. That's what I said."
"Ah..."
"That friend told me it wouldn't work. The show PD Go Joon-tae was making was for rookies, and Neptune was a two-year act — a used rookie — so they wouldn't qualify. And if it was a last-minute substitute, the company would say no anyway."
"Don't tell me you believed that."
Right. I didn't. Did I?
Then why did it feel like I had.
"I believed it."
Of course. Why is a bad feeling never wrong.
"And while I was busy believing him, that friend went and found PD Go Joon-tae and pushed. Neptune is this kind of group, the schedule works, they can join immediately. And it went through. From that day on, he was the rookie who'd walked in on day one with a jackpot — a certified Bundle of Fortune — and I opened my mouth about how unfair it was and came out looking like a fool who couldn't even guard his own bowl. That was the first time I really understood that life is the live match."
"My God..."
"Haha. I told you the first day was dynamic."
"Would I happen to know this friend of yours?"
"Off the record?"
"Of course."
"Choi Geon-young. Choi Geon-young."
"Oh my... him..."
"Yes."
"So he was already like that, even then."
"Jung Sunwoo!"
Choi Geon-young was in front of me. And I was standing in front of the restroom.
"What are you doing just standing here? It's almost our turn. The chief said to get you, fast."
"...Shit. Goosebumps."
I backed away without meaning to.
"What? Why goosebumps?"
"Uh..."
Shall I say I accidentally caught a glimpse of your true nature? It wasn't something that had actually happened. It was something that felt like it absolutely would.
"Do you happen to know a PD named Go Joon-tae?"
"Yeah. Next K-Star. It's huge right now. Why? You see him?"
A prickle raced up my scalp. Goosebumps crawled all the way out to my hands and feet. Was this what it felt like to get shocked in the rain?
What on earth is happening to me?
"I'm asking what's wrong with you."
"Something really important just came up."
"What?"
"Tell the chief I'm sorry. I'll take care of this first and then come."
"What?! What could be that important — the kids are about to go on!"
My head was a tangle, but I knew what I had to do right now.
I ran in the direction PD Go Joon-tae had disappeared.