Symbol of Luck (1)

Sangam-dong KS Move Hall.

A wash of pale violet light scattered through the dim hall. On the enormous LED screen mounted over the stage, a graphic of stars poured down in an endless cascade. More than two hundred members of the media packed the press seats on the first and second floors.

Reporters had their laptops open on the tables, drafting copy in real time so that the moment the showcase began they could drop in a few keywords and push their pieces out ahead of everyone else.

"How do you think their digital numbers will land? It's peak season, and the top of the chart is locked down solid. Breaking into the top ten's going to be rough, right?"

"I've got all three versions written. Smash, modest hit, and total bomb."

"Even cracking the twenties or thirties counts as a success. If the song's good, they'll climb through music shows and variety. They've probably already locked in a pile of variety spots."

Murmurs drifted up from every corner. Some of the reporters were talking about Neptune's album prospects and the shape of the promotions ahead; others had their attention fixed on nothing but juicy gossip.

A corridor set off from the press seats. A handful of reporters from an online entertainment gossip sheet were loitering outside Neptune's waiting room. A young woman among them stared at the firmly shut door and snapped, irritated.

"Dead quiet in there. And the desk chief is losing his mind, screaming at me to land an exclusive."

"They're coming straight out with basically no gap, right? If somebody's gained weight or their face is puffy, that's a whole article right there. They won't show any in-group friction, will they?"

"I wish one of them would cry. Makes the lede so much easier."

"Hey. Hey."

The whispering reporters glanced to one side and shut their mouths.

A man with the sleeves of his thin knit rolled to his elbows was striding toward them, and the reporters knew the face at once. Jung Sunwoo. He was the very person they had scrambled over one another to write about through the Lunar New Year holiday.

The other W&U staff were sprinting around with their faces drawn tight ahead of the showcase. He, by contrast, wore an oddly unhurried expression as he talked to someone on the phone.

"I'm on my way with the cue cards now. I'll run the kids through the expected questions. Oh, and for the MC—Geon-young and the PR team are handling the route check and the briefing. Once the showcase ends we'll need a photo with the MC for—"

"Excuse me!"

Of everyone at W&U, he was the one who made the best copy. The reporters rushed him all at once.

"Would it be all right to ask just a few questions about Neptune's upcoming activities?"

"How is the company internally projecting this album's performance?"

"And Lee Songha's solo work? Is there a project under review as her next one?"

"There's talk that Simon Lee will appear on variety with Neptune to back them up. The buzz from Star Manager still hasn't cooled—do you have any plans to appear alongside them as well, Manager?"

Jung Sunwoo, who had been listening to the questions pour over him, opened his mouth.

"I'm in a bit of a hurry right now."

As he said it, he tipped his chin toward the phone still at his ear.

"There's a group interview with the Neptune members scheduled shortly. Please save your questions for then."

The reporters worked their lips and nothing else, dumb as if their mouths were full of honey. He hadn't sounded high-handed, or even unpleasant, and yet the air around him made it hard to keep pressing.

The woman reporter clicked her tongue as she watched Jung Sunwoo's back recede.

"I saw him once, in a music-show waiting room. Should've gotten friendly back then."

The moment I opened the waiting-room door, the air clung to me, heavy. It felt as if gravity itself changed on this side of the threshold. Neptune would be the ones releasing the songs today, but the W&U staff had been running toward this day for months just the same, and everyone in the room was drawn tight as a bowstring.

"Sunwoo! Where have you been? Your line's been busy this whole time."

A woman from the PR team hurried over.

"Why? Did something happen?"

"The kids have been asking for you for a while now."

"The kids?"

I started farther into the room and stopped short. The scene in front of me felt somehow unreal.

Makeup finished, changed into their stage clothes, the girls sat on the sofa and the chairs at the vanity. The costumes cut for this album's concept were dresses that held two opposing feelings at once—elegant, and martial. The sort of thing that belonged in a myth. The kind of look that made you want to set a harp in one hand and a bow in the other.

"Heard you were looking for me?"

I steadied my voice and asked, and Lim Seoyoung, curled on the sofa with her knees hugged to her chest, looked up at me. All that lovely styling was wasted. Her face was the face of someone possessed by an evil spirit. An exorcism looked urgently in order.

"Oppa, is it raining outside right now?"

"Yeah. Why?"

The sky had looked unsettled since morning, and a little while ago a spring rain had begun to drizzle—the first rain to announce the season. Watching the drops slide down the window, I had thought, so spring really has come. And yet the girls' mood only seemed to sour. It wasn't just Seoyoung. None of them looked pleased.

"What's with all of you?"

"Oppa. There's a sad legend about rainy days."

"A sad legend. The kind you can't hear without tears."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Seoyoung laid the line out, and LJ tipped one corner of her mouth and played along. I had no idea what this was, but I matched the beat anyway.

"What legend?"

"The day we came back with a digital single last fall. It was raining then, too."

"...And?"

"We'd poured everything into that song. We were sure it would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠take off. The tracks dropped at midnight that time too, and we sat there with our eyes bloodshot, waiting, and the damn rain just kept falling. We didn't know then. That it was the start of the misfortune."

As if she were calling that day back, Seoyoung's eyes narrowed. The mood called for a thunder-and-lightning sound effect.

"The second it hit midnight the song went live, and guess what rank it charted at?"

From what I'd heard, somewhere in the eighties.

"Eighty-seventh. And in two hours—two hours—it was gone. Off the chart."

"Ah."

Seoyoung buried her face in both hands, crushed.

"And today it's raining again! For us, rain is a symbol of misfortune. I've got a bad feeling. So we went looking for our secret weapon. You, oppa."

"Sorry. Stopping the rain isn't in my skill set."

"That's not it—you're our Lucky Snake! A symbol of luck! If you stick close, the misfortune cancels out. If I could, I'd boil you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up and drink you! You have no idea how I feel!"

"I can tell you're not in your right mind."

Well. Psychologically, it was understandable enough. They had cut their sleep for months and clung to this day with everything they had. I let the tension out of my body and dropped onto the sofa. If sitting beside them could hand them a placebo, fine.

"All right. Do whatever you want, then. Except the boiling and drinking."

I laid the whole stage out for her, and she only looked flustered. Seoyoung crept over, hesitating, and poked at my shoulder and arm with the tip of her index finger. Off at a distance the other staff were laughing and snapping photos, insisting this absolutely had to go up on social media and get sent out to the reporters. And Kim Hyunjo—when had he even come in?—was cackling that I looked like a dol hareubang, one of those stone grandfathers on Jeju. The kind where rubbing the nose is supposed to grant you a son.

I sat there with my mind emptied, and Lee Songha, seated beside me, held out a chocolate snack. Taking food from Songha had become familiar by now. Tasting the sweet chocolate as it coated my tongue, I asked, half teasing.

"What, Songha—you need something from me too?"

"No. This is enough for me."

Songha shifted a little closer. Then, lowering her eyes, she said,

"I'm stabilizing."

I had the girls run through the reporters' expected questions. In the meantime Seoyoung calmed down, and the dol hareubang act came to an end. I was looking around to see whether the others were all right when Lee Taehee suddenly tapped my back.

"Oppa. A moment."

She said it quietly and slipped into the makeshift dressing area where the clothing rack stood. I followed. Taehee drew a finger across her lips. In front of the others her eyes had sat calm as an autumn lake; now a ripple moved through them.

"Do you really think it'll go well?"

"What, the sad legend of rainy days getting to you too?"

A small smile rose at the corner of Taehee's mouth.

"No. I keep thinking I should have worked on the song a little more."

"Don't worry. The song's good, and the rehearsal stage was good. The reporters are going to like it."

I said it with a smile, and Taehee gave a small cough.

"One more time."

"The song's good, the stage was good. The reporters are going to like it."

"Just once more."

"The song..."

"Last time."

Only after I had repeated it five times did we step back out of the dressing area. Taehee, who had shaken the dregs of her worry off in front of me and looked lighter for it, became—as if she had never been otherwise—the calm, composed leader Lee Taehee, and looked over her cue card.

I was smiling, just sitting back down on the sofa, when it happened. LJ, who had been playing a game on her phone, shot to her feet. Those long legs carried her right up in front of me, and she folded her arms and looked down.

"And what's your problem? What do you want?"

LJ slowly ran her tongue along her lips. Then she reached out and brushed my bangs. My neck pulled back on instinct. I could rarely let my guard down in front of her. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what scheme this was, and LJ spoke.

"Cut a little hair for me."

And what fresh nonsense was this.

"Ah—not a haircut. A strand of hair."

"Why a strand of hair?"

"I just feel like it'd work as a talisman. A lucky charm?"

The corner of LJ's mouth climbed, wicked. This much I knew for certain. Unlike the others, she wasn't saying it because she was nervous. She was saying it because she thought it would be fun.

The instant the words left her mouth, exactly three pairs of eyes shot toward me. First among them, Seoyoung—who had fallen headlong for the word talisman—came running as if she meant to drop into a hundred and eight bows.

"Oppa, me too! Me too! Please pull just one strand for me too!"

"While you're at it, mine as well."

"...I'll take two strands. No—three."

In the end, I had to pluck several perfectly good strands from an otherwise intact head of hair.

Dozens of idol groups debut in a single year. Add the established singers opening fresh showcases and staging comebacks, and the number clears a hundred with room to spare. To the reporters, then, an idol group's showcase was an event so familiar it had curdled into tedium—as tedious as rewinding a video you had already watched and sitting through it from the start again.

What they were waiting for was not another cookie-cutter stage. Comments on the new songs could be lifted, more or less, from the press release W&U's PR team had already sent over. Their real interest lay in the conference that would follow: what questions they could throw to pull a quotable line out of the members. So even as Neptune came up onstage and bowed, the reporters kept their noses buried in their laptop screens.

But not long after the first performance began, they lifted their heads, one by one.

"Well, damn... this isn't a backing track, right? It's live? Their skills are solid."

"Their skills were already proven on Next K-Star. People said Lee Songha was a step behind, but seeing it in person, she's fine. Stage composition's good, performance is good—best showcase I've seen this year."

"And the song came out clean. This is the one, right? The track Simon Lee composed?"

"At this level, W&U can afford to push them hard. If the luck holds, the numbers ought to be decent, no?"

Murmurs spilled from all across the press seats. Some of them bobbed their heads and hummed along to the chorus as if they had come to enjoy a show rather than cover one, while others seemed genuinely sorry when the performance ended.

As if to soothe that regret, the second stage began. A dynamic, powerful rhythm—and yet a glancing violin line breathed something lyrical through it. The members' distinctive tones, the costumes and choreography that called to mind something other than human: woven together, the stage was a sight for which the word mystical fit better than any other.

As it drew to a close, one reporter muttered.

"...Wait. This is the Simon Lee song?"

"This one's Lee Taehee's own composition. The press release said she wrote and composed the whole thing herself. I thought they were just spinning PR, trying to slap an artist image onto a skilled girl group, but it's actually really good?"

"Better than you expected? I liked that more than the Simon Lee track."

Once the group interview began, questions burst from every direction without a pause. Even the MC running the session stuck his tongue out. He had been to plenty of showcases, he said, but never one with this many questions.

"Lee Taehee, your self-composed song was chosen as part of the double title. Is there any behind-the-scenes story from the writing process?"

At the reporter's question, Lee Taehee, at the center of the table onstage, lifted her mic.

"There is. If it weren't for our manager, this song wouldn't have made the album at all."

"By manager, do you mean... Jung Sunwoo?"

"Yes."

The moment the scent of a story grew strong, the reporters' fingers grew busy. Leads scrolled across the laptop screens.

Taehee swept her light brown hair back and went on.

"I hit a slump while I was working on the song, and that's when our manager came by the dorm. He said he had a present, and when I looked inside there was alcohol and bar snacks... He told me he'd swept an entire supermarket shelf clean."

"Why alcohol, of all things?"

"Ah, I have a habit of drinking something while I work. He told me to pick whatever I was craving, drink it, and make the song. Thanks to that, I finished it two days later."

Eyes that looked blunt at a glance narrowed, drawing a soft smile.

"After that, he pushed my song as a double title track, too. If this song does well, it'll be thanks to our manager."

"The rain stopped outside."

I said it as I walked into the practice room. The Neptune girls, sprawled out exhausted from practice, and Kim Hyunjo and the Traitor, who had been talking off to one side, all looked at me at once. I spoke to Seoyoung, whose eyes had gone perfectly round.

"Misfortune's over, then."

"R-really? The rain actually stopped?"

"Yeah. The rain stopped, and a shaft of holy light came down out of the sky."

"Really?"

"That part's a lie."

The girls let out laughs like balloons losing their air.

When I went over to where Kim Hyunjo and the Traitor were, they had laptops and phones spread out, deep in the monitoring. The showcase and the press conference had wrapped in a roar of success, and articles announcing Neptune's comeback were pouring into the portal news sections like a burst dam. The PR team had thrown themselves into the promotion as if dumping the last of their stock, and posts about the comeback and the mini-album kept going up across social media and the big community sites. On one laptop, windows for the online music sites were lined up in a row.

"What rank will they enter at? I'd be happy if they just got inside the top fifty."

"Some songs, the second they drop, the graph punches straight through the roof."

I said it, smacking my lips, and Kim Hyunjo let out a dry laugh.

"Listen to you, talking about roofs. You think a Roof-Hit on the graph is something people pull off when they're bored? Hoping is fine, but keep it reasonable. Reasonable. The higher you fall from, the more it hurts."

"Still, it's not like there's zero chance."

This time the Traitor spoke. A strange heat wavered in both eyes.

"Even the top ten or twenty, and broadcast promotions will push them higher. If the variety response holds up, couldn't we aim for number one?"

"Right. Number one's not out of reach."

I agreed.

Of course, the number-one song the Traitor had in mind and the one I had in mind were probably not the same.

As midnight approached, we crowded in a knot in front of the computer. Somewhere, the sound of a dry swallow. The sound of a hand pressed to a chest, a deep breath. A strange moan that slipped out before it could be held in. Everyone was managing the excitement in their own way. I licked my lips, just slightly. A thrill—exactly pleasant enough—wrapped around me and moved through my body.

The minute hand tilted, slowly. And when it pointed at exactly twelve, Neptune's second mini-album was released at last.