Chapter 9
It was my first time seeing President Park Hee-taek sober.
The moment I sat down in the chair he offered, he bluntly said,
“I pushed through First Light’s debut myself. I had a feeling they were a blue-chip investment. They’re all handsome.”
“…Ah.”
“And if this team fails, it means I’m the one who has to take responsibility.”
President Park Hee-taek had apparently started as an unknown actor, then worked for a while as a veteran actor’s manager.
As for singers, especially idols, he knew basically nothing.
He had been schoolmates with TRV’s vice president, and that vice president put him in the president seat, saying practical matters would be handled by professionals and he just needed to sit in the president’s office.
But once he arrived…
That wasn’t how it worked.
Performance pressure poured down on him.
TRV, according to him, was a company where the president and vice president, who were father and son, controlled everything, and he himself was basically just a lackey.
Though why he was telling me this…
I couldn’t ask.
So I just listened to his whole complaint and made sympathetic “Ah…” sounds.
After venting, he said,
“I’ve bet my job on First Light, so I plan to support whatever the boys ask for. But Hwang Saebyeok—this ba… this friend—is the leader, right? Then he should gather opinions and tell me what they need. But every time he comes to the president’s office, he shuts his mouth and says nothing. When I ask what they need, he just says everything’s fine.”
President Park continued with the expression of a man who had swallowed whole sweet potatoes.
“How does someone with that personality think of becoming an idol?”
Not every idol dreams of becoming one from childhood.
Some trainees, like me, go to companies and audition directly.
Others, like Hwang Saebyeok, got so many casting offers they thought, Why not try it once?
Another First Light member, Han Hyo-seok, was the same.
He said his old agency had come to his house countless times trying to sign him.
After talking a while, President Park finally got to the point.
“So.”
“Yes.”
“I hear you have stage fright.”
Straight to the point.
“Yes. Badly.”
I answered directly.
He nodded like he understood.
“Right, right. Then going on stage immediately is a bit much. First, go around with the boys and try overcoming it.”
“No, I…”
“If necessary, I’ll get down on my knees for you later.”
He laughed loudly.
Sometimes there are people like that.
People who return to sanity when drunk.
President Park was the opposite.
He was crazy when sober.
“No, I’m seriously—”
“We’ll talk later. Later. Ah, I have a work call, get out.”
He waved me off and picked up his phone.
I had no choice but to leave.
Park Hee-young had been right.
The atmosphere was basically:
Join First Light…
Or resign.
Even if President Park claimed he knew nothing about idols, he knew one thing.
An external enemy strengthens a fandom.
I suspected he intended to make me that enemy.
He had smiled warmly, but the only reason he’d insist on bringing in someone with bad public image like me…
Was that.
Even if I didn’t actually join, just rumors of it would make First Light fans treat me as an enemy.
Feeling stifled, I left the office and met First Light’s manager, Park Joong-woon, who had been waiting outside.
After giving me various necessary information, he said,
“They’re filming self-produced content at the first-floor café right now. Once that ends, today’s schedule is done, so you can help me take the members back to the dorm.”
“What? Ah…”
He looked awkward.
“They split between two Carnival vans. The president told me to let you drive starting today.”
Driving a car for idols I used to train alongside…
Didn’t feel good.
Not because being a manager was the problem.
Because this had been my dream.
President Park probably knew how I felt.
He too had chosen management over his own dream.
He had to know what it feels like to support friends running toward the thing that was once your dream.
After separating from Manager Park, I wandered looking for the elevator to the first floor.
And passed the control room inside TRV.
Through the glass window, I could see absurdly expensive music equipment.
And inside—
A familiar face.
“Oh, it’s Hyung I-hyung.”
Yang I-hyung.
One of the composers who had arranged and directed our mission songs during The Idol Chosen by the Nation.
I knocked.
A man who looked like he hadn’t gone home in two weeks opened the door.
“…Hae-won, did I die from overwork?”
He asked seriously.
I answered,
“If you died of overwork, wouldn’t that mean I’m dead too?”
“I had a feeling I’d never see you while alive.”
“Wake up and come back to reality.”
He had been twenty-five during the show.
Now twenty-seven.
But in two years he had visibly aged.
TRV must be working him to death.
I peeked into the control room, then blurted out what I needed first.
“Hyung, can you secretly let me use the recording booth when I do guide vocals? Just one session. Three and a half hours.”
“You compose?”
“Trying to.”
“But you sing like crap. One session won’t be enough.”
“Wow. Really motivating.”
I said sarcastically and waved him back to sleep.
He started to go in, then hesitated and looked back.
“Sorry I didn’t take your side during Nation’s Idol. I was supposed to be your hyung.”
“Even if you had, nobody else did. Don’t worry about it.”
I said it and pushed him inside, closing the door.
Throughout the show, my image had been a lazy slacker.
They never aired my practice scenes.
They never showed me staying up all night rerecording with I-hyung because my vocals were bad.
Knowing it wouldn’t air, he had filmed me rerecording at 3 a.m.
But he could never post it.
A composer can’t make enemies of a broadcasting station.
Anyway…
If I’d sung better, I would’ve gotten less hate.
So at this point, I could somewhat accept skill-related hate comments.
Maybe that’s what becoming an adult is.
Ha.
After greeting him, I went to the first floor.
They were still filming the self-produced variety show.
Seeing them spend five hours filming a thirty-minute episode…
They really must have been struggling for footage.
I blended in behind the cameras and watched.
After trying various hobbies, the members were now sitting in silence, just knitting.
Eventually a TRV PD stepped in.
“You all seem too immersed in knitting. How about talking a little?”
Then Han Hyo-seok said to Min Ji-ho,
“You’re spending time making trash.”
Quick-tempered Min Ji-ho snapped back.
“What? Worry about yourself.”
The moment he opened his mouth, it looked like a fight.
Then the others chimed in.
“Ji-ho, what now?”
“There he goes overreacting again.”
Han Hyo-seok had started it.
Yet everyone naturally pushed blame onto Min Ji-ho.
Even Ji-ho seemed about to say more, then stopped.
Those two handled most of First Light’s performance direction.
And considering the faint artsy pretentiousness I felt from their stage…
Han Hyo-seok clearly held the initiative.
Even in real life.
Han Hyo-seok had trained in ballet through elite arts middle and high school.
And since First Light members were generally shy, I could understand why opinions leaned toward calm Hyo-seok rather than explosive Ji-ho.
The three older members were all extreme my-way personalities and didn’t really intervene.
And maknae Park Seon-jae was just getting crushed between whales fighting.
Since they couldn’t film a real argument, the PD cut again.
That was when Hwang Saebyeok spotted me.
He ran over.
“You really came?”
“I’m just filling in as manager.”
“When our president starts insisting, no one can stop him.”
Ignoring that, I asked,
“More importantly, why are you guys so unfunny?”
“We were always unfunny.”
“No. You’re unfunny.”
I corrected him and pulled a pen from my bag.
Then I asked the PD, who looked about senior-year college age,
“How about a don’t-laugh game where losers get their faces doodled on? We did that a lot on Nation’s Idol.”
After spending time with Boo Jung-tae, the comedian, I had picked up that kind of instinct.
If talking doesn’t work—
Use physical comedy.
The PD asked worriedly,
“Did the company approve ruining the members’ faces?”
“I’ll go beg forgiveness later.”
Cleanup can happen later.
Editing can’t create something from nothing.
The PD nodded with a strangely desperate face.
The don’t-laugh challenge started.
Silence again.
Then halfway through, the clumsy knitter Min Ji-ho held up a scarf that got narrower downward into an inverted triangle.
“Is this right?”
Earlier it wasn’t funny that he ruined the knitting.
But when you’re told not to laugh…
Everything becomes funny.
The moment he lifted the inverted triangle scarf, several members squeezed their eyes shut.
That’s how it is.
Trying not to laugh is the worst.
Even unfunny things become funny.
Neither PD nor members called anyone out.
So I said,
“Hyo-sik laughed.”
Han Hyo-seok turned serious.
“I didn’t laugh. And hyung, it’s Hyo-seok, not Hyo-sik.”
“Right, Hyo-sik.”
“Hyung. Hyo-seok.”
“Yeah. Hyo-sik.”
“Hyung. Hyo-seok.”
We stubbornly repeated ourselves.
Then An Juwon, who staff said had barely spoken in five hours, muttered,
“There they go again.”
I’ve always preferred giving nicknames instead of calling people by real names.
Feels closer somehow.
Maybe it’s because I was a late-born child.
And Han Hyo-seok absolutely hated being called Hyo-sik.
“Anyway, you laughed, Hyo-sik.”
“It’s not Hyo-sik, and I didn’t.”
Since he insisted, the PD replayed the footage.
He had definitely laughed.
The second Min Ji-ho saw it, he grabbed a pen and drew a cartoon anger vein on Hyo-seok’s forehead.
Then Park Seon-jae looked at Hyo-seok, stared helplessly into the air like he was about to cry—
And finally burst.
Then Hyo-seok came after him with the pen.
Physical comedy worked.
In under fifteen minutes, all six had doodles on their faces.
The PD whispered to me,
“We filmed for hours, and these fifteen minutes might all make the episode.”
He looked like he wanted to curse someone out…
But held it in.
Must’ve been a hard day.
Soon the knitting ended.
Each member presented what they made.
Despite the quiet effort, all six creations were disasters no one could identify.
Hwang Saebyeok held up a scarf made with fluorescent yarn.
“I made kind of… a club scarf…”
“Isn’t that a dish scrubber?”
“Who wears a scarf to a club?”
While members heckled him, quiet An Juwon added,
“We’re out of scrubbers at the dorm. We can cut it up.”
A stoic person saying nonsense made everyone crack up again.
More doodles were added.
Then Min Ji-ho came out holding a much shorter scarf, shrinking downward.
The members clenched their teeth trying not to laugh.
“Wow. Inverted triangle.”
“So cool.”
With members hyping him up, Ji-ho confidently stepped forward.
“I think it turned out exactly as intended.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hwang Saebyeok asked in disbelief.
Ji-ho shamelessly continued with a completely serious face.
“I’ll make another one like this, attach both sides together, and wear it as a cone hat.”
I didn’t know what was so funny.
But somehow that absurd joke directly hit Han Hyo-seok’s taste.
He was bent over practically crying.
Their relationship may be bad…
But apparently their humor matched.
