Chapter 93
As I got my coat, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. My first concern was that it was quite late right now, and this one late-night rendezvous could affect my physical condition for future schedules.
“Let’s each have one of these before we go~”
“…What is this?”
“Ginseng!” Yeon-Hoon took out a packet from his bag pack.
“Where did you prepare this?”
“All convenience stores sell it these days.” I took a ginseng stick that Yeon-Hoon handed me and ate it. Then, I looked toward my members again. Dong-Jun and Do-Seung were playing while holding the camera.
“But is it okay for us to suddenly go out like this?” I asked. This was my biggest concern. We were already receiving suspicions of having the broadcasting show backing us. If this little trip aired on TV, we could really get accused of receiving special privileges. But as I was thinking this, Kang Hyun-Sung and other Only One members came out with their cameras.
“So, where are we going, Hyun-Sung?”
“Chung Pyong-Ho.”
“Whaaat~?”
Simultaneously, other voices popped out.
“What! It’s free time?”
“Can we really go anywhere?”
Bleshu, OnebyOne, and Luminin came out.
“Truthfully, when I asked to go on a drive, the producer said that he’s going to give other teams free time too.” It appeared that my members requested tonight’s privilege to be shared by everyone. Hearing this, I thought it was fine for us to leave now.
“I understand.” My biggest worry was solved, and Yeon-Hoon turned on the rental car’s app and the car’s engine.
“Park the car in the front over there. Let’s go!”
The cars parked in front of the lodging greeted us in a welcoming light.
“Who wants to sit next to the driver's seat today?”
“Want to do rock, scissors, and papers?”
“It’s fine. Just let Tae-Yoon take the seat.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, just sit there.”
Though I had no intention of sitting in the front, it was still nice for them to offer it and I didn’t refuse.
“Okay~ Let’s go~” The car left the lodging place and moved clearly forward across the driveway. It was quite an exciting and nice drive.
“Do we have a destination in mind?”
“No?”
“What destination?”
“Just go.”
As we left, my group members didn’t even have a destination in mind. I let them be because this was supposed to be just a drive anyways.
“Huh? We got on the wrong road.”
“Huh, wait.”
“What?”
“Ugh, give me a moment.”
It was then that more foreboding noises began to ring out.
***
“Where…is this place, guys?”
After a couple of confused gasps, we arrived at a strange place.
“When I look at the map, it says Ga-Pyeong.”
“Really?”
“But besides that, there’s nothing…”
My group members stood on a vacant lot and stared above the empty and dark space before them. Then, after parking our car in a suitable place, we began to walk aimlessly. We had our phone’s flashlight on because we couldn’t see what was in front of us. After walking a bit, we saw that there was quite a picturesque scenery before us.
“Hey, everyone~ We just arrived at a very strange place just now~”
“Where is this place?”
Dong-Jun and Do-Seung each commented while holding their cameras. Woon, Yeon-Hoon, and I just quietly walked from behind.
“How is your team? Is practice going well?” Woon suddenly asked me then.
“Yes, things are going well.”
“Really?”
“Yes, things are going so smoothly that it almost frightens me.”
“Oh~”
Kang Hyun-Sung’s team had finished honing their performance and there was nothing to fix now. That was how high the quality of our performance was.
“What about you guys?”
“We are also doing really well!”
“Good job.”
Yeon-Hoon and Woon both appeared confident.
“Yeon-Hoon is working especially hard.”
“Woon is also working hard. He came up with the choreography and everything.”
I felt my love for humanity restore a bit while walking between Woon and Yeon-Hoon.
“Are you struggling with anything, Tae-Yoon?” Woon then asked me in a worried voice.
“No, there’s nothing really. I’m just going with the flow.”
Woon wordlessly patted my shoulders. It was then, Dong-Jun, who had been walking in the front, pointed forward and said, “Everyone! I think I see an ocean in front of us!”
“Isn’t that a lake instead of the ocean?”
“Ah, is that so?”
“Huh? What are you saying?”
“There’s something?” Woon and Yeon-Hoon moved forward and asked. I also went forward.
“Wow.”
“What?”
There, we saw a wide-open lake.
“Is there anywhere to sit?”
“There are some plastic chairs here.”
“Aren’t they dirty?”
“We can just wipe them.” Dong-Jun got five plastic chairs thrown away in the lot. And as we all stared blankly at the water before us, we naturally became speechless. This was the overwhelming feeling that nature gave to its viewers. I remembered hearing that staring blankly like this was good for mental health and thoughtlessly stared at the lake in the darkness. But the more I tried to empty my mind, my thoughts headed toward a deeper place.
“Why do you all want to be idols?” It was then that Dong-Jun broke the silence and asked in a low voice.
“Me?”
“Hm.”
“Suddenly?”
Woon, Do-Seung, and Yeon-Hoon’s faces became serious after hearing this question.
“I really enjoyed listening to music since I was young.” The first one to speak was Do-Seung. “It was to the point that I got an ear infection because I had the earphones inside my ears all the time.”
“Oh.”
“So I naturally wanted to become a singer. And after some research, I thought becoming an idol was better, and in perfect timing, there was an audition…so, that’s how I ended up here.”
“What there was no soul to that story~ How boring, Do-Seung.” Dong-Jun booed Do-Seung’s realistic story.
“Come on!”
“What about you, Woon?”
“I think…I honestly wanted to become a dancer more than an idol.”
“A dancer?”
“Well, rather than a dancer. I just wanted to become a dance instructor in our neighborhood.”
“What?”
“You know my hometown is a bit rural.”
Oh yes, I remembered now. Woon didn’t come from a city—somewhere in Jeolla-do. I forgot about it because he didn’t use a non-standard dialect.
“Since there was only one dance instructor in our neighborhood, I thought I would naturally become an instructor there when I grew up. But then, one of my instructor’s friends was an idol dance trainer in Seoul so…”
Woon’s story also had nothing dramatic and sounded normal. It seemed Dong-Jun wanted a more heart-wrenching story and looked toward Yeon-Hoon. Yeon-Hoon smiled brightly and said, “Pass!”
Yeon-Hoon looked like he didn’t want to tell his story.
“What about you, Tae-Yoon?”
“Me?” It was my turn now. I also wanted to say ‘pass’ and skip over my turn but Dong-Jun looked at me with hopeful eyes.
‘He’s expecting something,’ I thought. ‘But I just wanted to play house and have a place to stay and food to eat.’
Yet, I knew the mood would dramatically become heavy as soon as I told my story. I had become an idol trainee because I wanted to run away from the house where my aunt beat me every day and wanted to stay in a place where people cared for me. I didn’t begin this career because I truly wanted to become an idol.
‘Hm.’ But now that I think about it, this didn’t seem to be the whole reason.
“Why do I want to become an idol…” Perhaps, it was the first time I genuinely asked myself this question. The words I had been thinking in my mind escaped my lips and my members looked at me curiously. Dong-Jun especially leaned closer in great expectations that he would hear the kind of story he wanted. I felt like I needed to say something in this mood.
There were other places that provided housing and meals besides being an idol trainee. When searching the internet, there were many part-time jobs and accommodations like that. Yet, I had skipped all that to take an audition as an idol trainee.
‘It really is strange.’ Of course, I had my own reasoning for this back then. I couldn’t just run away to any place since I was so young—a middle-schooler when I started as an idol trainee. There was no job that would accept me at that age and it would be very suspicious if anyone did. Thus, the safest place that would provide housing and care for me was a place that housed idol trainees.
And though it was arrogant of me to say this, I knew from a young age that my appearance was far from terrible and thought being an idol trainee was the easiest and safest road for me. But when I reached high school, there was no reason for me to have continued the trainee lifestyle.
I could’ve lied about my age or just got hired by a company that provided room and board. Yet, despite that, I continued my idol trainee life. I even joined the hopeless WD Entertainment to continue that life despite knowing that other jobs would’ve been a realistically better option for me financially.
“…Maybe I wanted to receive something like love…?” I thought perhaps, it was this.
“Huh?”
“Love?”
My group members looked at me in surprise.
“I think I wanted to be loved. And without me realizing it, I looked up to idols on stage and wanted to be like them.” This was the most comprehensible reason that I could come up with an objective viewpoint. “I wanted to be loved like them on stage, something like that…” I was about to add that I honestly didn’t know too well when Yeon-Hoon and Woon suddenly burst into tears.
“Tae-Yoon…”
“Urgh!”
“…Huh?” I stopped speaking, seeing those two suddenly cry.
“Um, Woon?”
“Yeon-Hoon?”
Do-Seung, Dong-Jun, and I all sat frozen in our spots too.
‘What?’ Both Yeon-Hoon and I knew what happened with my aunt. It seemed after hearing what I said, they made up a whole tear-jerking drama in their heads. It was my timing to get comforted but I was comforting them somehow.
“Are you all right, guys?”
“Tae-Yooon!”
“We will love you a lot…”
Simultaneously, Dong-Jun and Do-Seung looked at the three of us with blank faces. “W-What? Is it our time to also cry?”
And that was how we poured our eyes out in front of the lake. Then, we were about to leave after things settled a bit when I heard a commotion from a place quite some distance from us.
Thud.
“...Huh?”
“…What?”
“…Hm.”
After comforting Woon and Yeon-Hoon, I turned toward where the noise came from. It was a dark place at a late hour. We began to feel a bit anxious in this unfamiliar place where we had very little information while waiting for the unknown to come out. Growing tense, I wondered if an accident was going to happen and kept my senses alert as much as possible.
Flash—! A strong flashlight shone on us, and I looked forward with my eyes squinted. Over the brilliant light, the people approaching us were…Only One.
“Mr. Tae-Yoon?”
“Wow!”
“I can’t believe we are meeting you guys here.”
“Siren members also came to Chang-Pyong Lake?” Young-Ho asked brightly. It was then I recalled Only One saying amongst themselves that they were going to Chang-Pyong lake.
‘Ah, this was the lake they were talking about.’ What an unbelievable coincidence.
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