It was eleven at night when we returned to the dorm after finishing every schedule for the day, including W Live.
The rest of us gathered in the living room again after clearing out one room for the two who had fought.
For reference, we gave them the three-person room. It was bigger.
Seon Ahyeon, who had rushed out so quickly that he’d even left behind the scrubber he’d picked up to crochet, murmured,
“I-I hope they work things out…….”
“Yeah.”
Honestly, I did wonder if we should have put Ryu Chungwoo in there with them, but I discarded the idea because having a third party present might make them conscious of him and turn the conversation into something superficial.
‘It’d be better for them to have a huge fight than that.’
They’d had some time to think and had prepared themselves to talk. Even if they fought now, at least they would hear what the other person had actually been thinking.
‘Then, once some time passes, they’ll be able to keep within the proper boundaries.’
Strong emotions faded, while memories remained.
And since both of them were the type to think a lot, that probably wouldn’t take long.
“Put on NetPlus!”
“Sure. Watch whatever you want.”
With Ryu Chungwoo’s permission, Cha Eugene casually put on an American sitcom.
With the living room growing noisy with English dialogue, I looked down at my smartphone.
The screen showed my call history with the company.
[Operations Team — Assistant Manager Oh Seohyeong]
To put it plainly, it was evidence of my complaint.
About the fact that despite all my requests and warnings, the two people who had fought had still ended up on the same team during today’s W app broadcast.
‘If this keeps happening and I don’t get angry, I’m just a pushover.’
This industry had such terrible work-life balance that I could let most ordinary mistakes slide.
But they should have known to pay proper attention to something that could be this catastrophic.
‘Is this how you handle a bomb like rumors of internal discord?’
According to their explanation, the instruction “Don’t pick the marked ones” had somehow been distorted into “Pick the marked ones” while being passed along.
Fine. I could understand how that happened.
The problem was their attitude.
—But honestly, the two of them didn’t have any major problems during the shoot…. Being cautious is good, and it was our mistake, but perhaps you don’t need to react quite so sensitively…….
In other words, ‘Nothing really happened in the first place. Aren’t you guys overreacting?’
‘These bastards have gotten way too lax.’
I supposed that because there had been so many problems outside the company and everyone had been focused on those, the people inside had started complacently trusting TeSTAR to always behave sensibly.
At this rate, if one of us genuinely did something unpredictable, their response would probably be slow.
I really didn’t like that.
‘This needs some correction.’
I roughly sketched out a few possibilities in my head, then shrugged and lowered my smartphone.
‘For now… once those two are sorted out.’
In front of the sofa, Cha Eugene was enthusiastically talking about a sitcom character he liked.
Kim Raebin seriously tried to stop him.
“You should restrain yourself because it may constitute a spoiler for someone who has not yet watched this drama…….”
“It’s not a spoiler!”
“It is a spoiler!”
Because of those two, I couldn’t even properly hear the show.
Even if the two guys in the room screamed at each other while fighting, we probably wouldn’t hear them.
The moment I thought that, the door in question flew open and someone rushed out.
“…!”
It was Bae Sejin, his face flushed so brightly it looked ready to burst.
“Park Moondae!”
‘I think this is the first time I’ve heard him call me by my full name.’
Had the two of them somehow joined forces and concluded they should attack me instead?
Of course not.
“Y-You…… Come, come inside for a second.”
“What?”
“Just come.”
I had no idea what this was about.
Still, since I didn’t want to stir up trouble unnecessarily, I obediently stood up.
Then, before I knew it, Bae Sejin had herded me into the room.
“Ooh! Hyungs, did you figh—”
“All right, all right. Watch TV, Eugene.”
Bang.
Bae Sejin shut the door behind us.
The noisy sound of the sitcom instantly became much quieter.
Big Sejin, sitting in the silent room, looked calm.
It didn’t seem like there had been any collar-grabbing incidents.
‘Things seem to be going okay, so why did they call me?’
I sat on the floor somewhat reluctantly, and Big Sejin immediately opened his mouth as though he had been waiting.
“First of all… hyung and I talked for a while and tried to sort things out.”
“Okay.”
“Listen.”
Big Sejin calmly explained the current situation.
His manner was so perfectly controlled that he even left room for Bae Sejin to cut in at intervals.
‘How businesslike.’
Apparently, both of them had focused the discussion mainly on how they would behave from now on.
“We’re going to try to avoid upsetting each other as much as possible.”
Big Sejin had apologized for the fact that because he had negative feelings toward Bae Sejin, he had sometimes behaved as though he were ignoring him.
Bae Sejin had also apologized for suddenly attacking him so aggressively while his emotions were in turmoil.
“We agreed to be more careful with each other from now on.”
So far, so good.
“But there are some things neither of us can understand at all.”
Apparently, as they talked, they found something neither of them could accept.
Bae Sejin nodded.
“…Listen and judge it objectively for us. Tell us what you think.”
The words We have Ryu Chungwoo, our leader, so why exactly did you summon me as the jury? rose all the way to my throat, but I swallowed them.
‘If it weren’t for my Status Abnormality, seriously.’
These bastards should be grateful for my terminal condition.
“What is it?”
Bae Sejin swallowed hard and opened his mouth.
“Am I… still that uncooperative?”
“…!”
With a pale face, Bae Sejin clenched both hands tightly.
“I… I know I’m not good at this. If that’s the problem, I understand. But… I really am doing my best. I mean it.”
“…Everyone knows you’re trying hard, hyung.”
Big Sejin sighed, apparently exhausted.
“I’m saying… it’s not that you don’t work hard, hyung. But besides working hard yourself, you don’t pay attention to anything else….”
Bae Sejin’s voice dropped.
“…I don’t… pay attention?”
Big Sejin sighed.
“You get angry before even trying to listen, right? This is why I just…….”
“Wait.”
I understood the situation.
I cut Big Sejin off before he could pour out anything more.
“You need to explain more. What exactly is this ‘everything else’ that hyung supposedly doesn’t pay attention to?”
“You know too.”
Big Sejin continued in a slightly calmer tone.
“He doesn’t pay any attention to presenting the group rather than just himself.”
“What are you….”
“I know you’re not very interested in making every member look like we’re one big happy family. But even if you don’t care that much about this group lasting, I’d like you to at least do that much when the cameras are rolling.”
Big Sejin spoke wearily.
“We’re an idol group. That kind of thing matters too.”
“…!”
Bae Sejin froze.
For a while, he stared at the floor with his mouth tightly shut.
His answer came slowly.
“Okay.”
“…!”
“…I don’t really know much about that kind of thing… Sorry. I’ll pay attention to it from now on.”
This time, Big Sejin was speechless.
‘I guess this isn’t going the way he expected?’
Maybe that was only natural.
An idol group had probably been unfamiliar territory for Bae Sejin from the beginning, and on top of that, he had made it through a survival show as an individual contestant.
So he probably hadn’t had the bandwidth to notice or care about things like group chemistry or whatever.
‘Just practicing for the stage must’ve been hard enough.’
In fact, if Big Sejin had thought about it without prejudice, he might have avoided misunderstanding him in the first place.
But because it overlapped with the trauma of losing his spot in a debut lineup because of an actor, his thinking had unconsciously become fixed.
‘He’s going to be an actor anyway, so he’s probably just trying to hold out here for now.’
And, much to Big Sejin’s shock, Bae Sejin wasn’t finished talking.
“I think this is a good team too. I want to do well, and I don’t want to be a burden. And… I like being able to work as part of this team.”
“…….”
Bae Sejin hesitated before continuing, practically forcing out the words.
“And… I’m sorry I said you only pretended we were close when the cameras were rolling. You were just trying to do your job properly.”
“……!”
Big Sejin’s expression turned complicated.
His reply came a beat late, after he had clearly thought it through.
“No. I made assumptions without knowing. I’m sorry.”
“…!”
This time, Bae Sejin looked surprised.
Then he cleared his throat and answered.
“A-Ahem. I-It’s fine!”
Judging by the look of him, he had gotten a little irritated and briefly debated whether to get angry, but managed to hold himself back.
He’d grown a lot too.
Big Sejin answered with a faint smile.
“And well, it’s true I was trying to get something out of it too! The whole same-name gimmick is good content, isn’t it~?”
His tone was easygoing, much like usual.
Still, compared to the soulless conversations he normally had with Bae Sejin, it sounded far more sincere.
Bae Sejin avoided his gaze and muttered,
“Well… yeah, I guess.”
This was probably the point where denying that would have led into a deeper reconciliation and them fully clearing the air, but apparently Bae Sejin’s limit was here.
Sure enough, Big Sejin was already giving a bitter smile.
He probably couldn’t understand why Bae Sejin had just flattened the peace offering.
‘It’s fine. Getting this far is already a five-star development.’
At the very least, they had conclusively proven through one example that neither of them had been acting with some enormous amount of malice.
From now on, whenever one of them got pissed off because of the other, they could avoid stressing themselves out through excessive speculation and simply think, That’s just how that bastard is.
‘We’ve finally gotten them back to the starting line.’
I let out an inward sigh of relief.
Read only on MUGEX
‘I’ve seriously done enough.’
I desperately wanted a beer.
I should go find one.
“Then we’ll conclude that Bae Sejin hyung is cooperative… and I’ll be leaving.”
Bae Sejin jumped.
“Huh? W-Wait.”
“Hey, let’s go out together~ Ah, hyung, did you have anything else you wanted to say?”
“…No.”
“Apparently not.”
Big Sejin smiled and nodded.
Neither of them seemed particularly interested in talking to each other any longer.
“Hmm. All right.”
If I pushed them into a deeper conversation for no reason, there was no telling where another land mine might explode.
It was probably better to preserve things exactly like this.
I left the room together with both of them.
Then, avoiding the voices of relief and welcome pouring out from the living room, I headed for the refrigerator.
‘I think there were about two cans left.’
My weight was fine right now too, so having one this late at night should be okay for once.
Click.
“…….”
Nothing.
“The beer that was here…….”
“Here!”
“Gasp, I’m sorry. I did not know it was the final can and recklessly allowed Cha Eugene to…….”
Cha Eugene, sprawled out in the living room, waved an empty, crushed can in one hand.
“…….”
This bastard…….
“M-Moondae. I-I have some liquor someone gave me. Do you want…….”
“Thanks.”
“I-It’s nothing!”
No matter how I thought about it, Seon Ahyeon was the only one of these guys who was good for my mental health.
Back in our room, I finished the day with Seon Ahyeon’s liquor.
“C-Cheers!”
My roommate Bae Sejin, apparently intoxicated by the feeling of finally being released from extreme stress, willingly joined us for the liquor tasting before falling asleep like the dead.
That was the final incident of the day.
And the next day.
“Um… Little Sejin got an offer.”
Inside the car on the way to the salon, our manager casually brought back the very cause of the conflict.
“It’s a drama. Apparently the writer knows Little Sejin… Guys?”
“…….”
You bastard, call Bae Sejin aside and tell him privately.
The manager was flustered when the atmosphere inside the car instantly froze.
But Bae Sejin, sitting in the back with hollow eyes from his hangover, shook his head without much agitation.
“No. I’m not doing it.”
“R-Really? But it’s not a big role…….”
Before the manager could become even more flustered, Ryu Chungwoo asked Bae Sejin,
“…Sejin, it might overlap with our inactive period anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to at least take a look?”
“…!”
Embarrassed that he had visibly wavered, Bae Sejin hunched his shoulders.
“No… I…”
“Chungwoo makes a good point! Everyone’s okay with that, right?”
Our first manager, who hadn’t been in the car on the day those two had their huge fight, singled out the easygoing guy sitting up front and prompted him for a reaction.
Big Sejin.
“……Hmm.”
Big Sejin, who had been looking at the manager without much expression, opened his mouth.
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with our activities, wouldn’t it be fine? Hyung can decide for himself~”
“…!”
It was a plain and tactful declaration of neutrality.
This time, apparently not hearing anything like Know your place and handle yourself properly in those words, Bae Sejin looked toward Big Sejin’s seat with mild surprise.
Then he swallowed and told the manager,
“…Then I’ll look at the synopsis.”
“Oh~ Great!”
But the manager added an explanation with a slightly awkward expression.
“Although I don’t think you’ll need a synopsis…….”
“What?”
“Uh, it’s basically a cameo.”
“……!!”
“You know that child shaman you played in that movie when you were little, Little Sejin? It’s like that character makes a surprise appearance……. Sejin? You’re listening, right?”
“…….”
That was right.
This entire goddamn fight had been caused by a misunderstanding from the very beginning…….
Big Sejin and Bae Sejin spent the entire time being styled that day with blank expressions, unable to recover from the shock.
Anyway, a few days later, Bae Sejin finished filming his surprise appearance in Episodes 1 and 2 as the child shaman who had grown up into a madman in a single day.
“Wow…….”
“Whoa…….”
Watching it when it aired, his synchronization with the shaman was so excellent it bordered on eerily supernatural, and his performance had tremendous force.
Except for the fact that some of that eerie intensity seemed to come from genuine irritation… anyway.
“Hyung, your acting ability is truly incredible.”
“You’re amazing!”
“…I-It wasn’t anything special.”
Well, in the end, Bae Sejin enjoyed it too.
Though the teaser that came on after the drama was even more shocking.
[Relisted! Idol Incorporated 2]
[Fridays at 10 PM]
The broadcast of Idol Inc. Season 4 was truly right around the corner.