Chapter 14
Bang. The heavy hotel room door closed and Juha was left alone in the penthouse.
When Choi Taeri had gone far enough that his footsteps couldn’t be heard beyond the door, silence overwhelmed Juha. Juha hastily grabbed his own cheek. His cheek burned hotter than if he’d been slapped.
He rubbed his cheek several times trying to erase the trace, but it only caused pain while the heat wouldn’t easily subside. It felt like Taeri’s finger had left a hole in the cheek it touched.
“Ah… ahhhhh…”
A sigh poured from Juha’s mouth. Then his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the floor.
He had collapsed. From just one poke of Choi Taeri’s finger to his cheek.
Not from a kiss, not from a hug, but from a poke to the cheek.
“Ughhhhh…”
Juha held his head and let out a low scream. Self-reproach warning him pounded his entire body. He’d tried his best to hide it, but on the last day, at the moment of checkout, everything was exposed.
His trembling, fluttering heart.
How foolish must his eyes have looked when he gazed at Taeri as if ecstatic the moment he poked his cheek.
“What am I going to do…”
Juha let out a long “Phew” sigh.
The exhilaration he felt after finishing the stage, the strong yearning for his dreams – all of it evaporated too easily from just one poke of Choi Taeri’s finger to his cheek.
If there was a frog that died from being hit by a carelessly thrown stone, Lee Juha’s original personality would have been to grab that stone and run to the person who threw it to confront them.
But right now, Lee Juha the frog found the carelessly thrown stone so small and precious that he was ready to hug it tightly and sleep with it.
* * *
Juha stayed in the penthouse on the hotel’s top floor until a time when Choi Taeri would have left the hotel. He didn’t want to run into him in the lobby or anywhere else.
It took a long time to sort out his turbulent feelings. As his reason slowly returned from flying around frantically, Juha seriously contemplated his present and future.
To complete his blood-like 6 years, Juha absolutely had to survive this program and debut.
6 years, a whole 6 years – remember the devastation when he suffered and was thrown away.
Recalling those memories suddenly made Juha gloomy. Right, now wasn’t the time to be infatuated with someone like Choi Taeri.
When the place changes, his heart will change too. This kind of thing was just an accident that occurred in a confined space.
There was no way he could have fallen this hard in just one week.
Making a resolution close to wishful thinking, Juha went down to the lobby.
Most of the trainees had checked out and the hotel was empty. Large trucks loaded with filming equipment were leaving the parking lot in a line, their red lights flashing.
The passion of 80 people who had burned for a week scattered like a mirage. Less than a day had passed since filming ended, but the week spent here felt like a distant memory.
People and spaces crumbled helplessly like sand castles built in the desert. This place wasn’t a space of dreams and hope where he could unfold his dreams, but just a hotel where travelers stayed and left.
Absurdly, he only realized this fact now.
“Phew…”
After inhaling air, Juha slowly exhaled. Under the same sky, the air inside and outside the hotel was as different as different worlds.
Having been trapped in extreme tension for a week and then coming out, he felt like he’d finished his sentence and been released from prison.
When he dragged his suitcase onto the late-night subway, he could feel people’s gazes. Having been surrounded only by production staff and trainees, mixing among ordinary people felt like he’d been dropped into another world.
‘Is it strange?’
Juha looked at his reflection in the dark subway window.
A man who had just become an adult, tall but still young-faced, was on a regular train late at night (not even airport rail) holding a large bag half the size of his body. At a glance, he looked exactly like a runaway teenager.
Uncomfortable with the unnecessary stares, he moved to the next car and before he knew it, the train had arrived at his destination.
As soon as he came out the familiar exit, he could see a long line waiting for buses at the stop. Finding it bothersome to get on a narrow village bus with his suitcase, Juha walked slowly.
The sound of the suitcase wheels rolling along the uneven sidewalk blocks cut through the night air. Though it sounded like noise on the empty narrow street, it had its own charm.
The apartment where Juha lived was built on top of a retaining wall after cutting into a mountain. This was a common method in Seoul where land was scarce, but the sight of high-rise buildings erected on mountains sometimes looked precarious. The procession of streetlights rising in layers along the hill looked exactly like the stage lighting he’d stood under today, making him chuckle.
Following the streetlight illumination, Juha slowly climbed the steep uphill path. Normally he would have climbed without difficulty, but walking while dragging his suitcase made him short of breath.
“Haa, haa.”
With each step he took, Juha dropped one memory of Choi Taeri. His head was more tired than his body.
How many memories could he have made in just one week? But to Juha, each one was as deep as if hand-carved.
The bed where he hugged him from behind while playing around, taking photos while thinking of Choi Taeri, his intellectual appearance reading a book while wearing glasses and leaning against the bed, the voice that cut through the dark room saying “Juha, sleeping?”, the words “I want to debut with you”, the scent from that time.
He remembered all the trivial things, looks, gestures, even finger movements.
If Choi Taeri poked his cheek again, he felt like he’d grab that hand and rush at him. The thought that he’d never once been honest about his emotions left Juha with a strange regret.
When vague imaginings piled up layer by layer in his head, he arrived home.
Juha pressed the number keys in silent mode and entered the front door. His family seemed to have already gone to sleep as only the yellow living room lamp was quietly lit.
Just as he was about to carry his suitcase (so it wouldn’t drag on the floor) into his room, the master bedroom door opened. It was his mother.
She looked at Juha with narrowed eyes, having woken up disheveled.
“You’re back?”
“Yes.”
“Dinner?”
“I ate earlier.”
Honestly he was a little hungry, but he didn’t want attention. Since he was a son who stubbornly insisted on doing what he wanted, he wanted to just exist like a shadow at home.
Whether she read Juha’s mind, his mother looked him over with suspicious eyes. Her expression said ‘You look hungry though.’
“I’m going to rest now, so Mom should sleep too.”
“Okay, rest.”
At Juha’s words, his mother reluctantly went into her room.
His relationship with his parents had been quite good, but it became awkward after appearing on ‘My Idol.’ Juha was prepared for this awkward relationship until the results came out.
He just hoped his relationship with his parents wouldn’t get worse until then.
“Phew…”
After showering, changing clothes, and lying in bed, he could finally breathe. It felt like escaping from a disaster scene rather than being released from prison.
Though he’d have to return to that disaster in a few days.
‘I’ll contact you, so answer.’
As his body and mind became comfortable, Taeri’s last words suddenly came to mind. He’d been too flustered earlier to really listen, but honestly those words weren’t easily believable.
Contrary to his resolve to abandon his interest in Choi Taeri, Juha lying in bed fiddled with his mobile phone.
‘He didn’t mean right away.’
The most recent contact from Choi Taeri was just three characters: [Yeonsangun].
The person who could invite him for drinks after leaving the dorm wasn’t Lee Juha but Yoo Youngin. The one who stuck together every day, the one who joked and conversed freely with Choi Taeri – that was all Youngin.
Lee Juha was nothing more than a roommate.
‘It was just me being sincere again.’
Juha burst into self-deprecating laughter.
After much hesitation, Juha tried entering ‘Choi Taeri’ in the search bar.
During their dorm life, mobile phones could only be used at night, so he couldn’t do anything freely. Moreover, with the person right next to him, he couldn’t dare search for Choi Taeri.
On Tree Leaf Wiki, which claimed to tell you anything, Choi Taeri’s introduction was written in rough language that seemed written by fans themselves. The representative photo attached was an official profile photo provided by Fandom. In the small mobile phone screen, Taeri was holding the neck part of a black turtleneck with both hands while gazing at the camera.
His solid shoulder line that showed well even covered by black clothes and his sharp gaze looking at the camera made him look like a successful actor at first glance.
[Choi Taeri (200X~)
Operator of YouTube channel Teri Us and Fandom Entertainment trainee.
Started contemporary dance in 3rd year of middle school, won 1st place in national competitions 3 times, then entered Yeseon Arts High School as top student.
According to middle school classmates, even while doing dance he was 1st in the entire school academically.
1st place in practical skills and 1st place in academic grades at arts high school (though he didn’t reveal it himself, it seems to be true based on classmates’ testimonies).
You might think what kind of monster this is, but there’s no reason to be surprised since his family is the Semun Medical Foundation.
Grandfather doctor, grandmother doctor, mother, father and all relatives are either doctors or legal professionals.
In short, a diamond spoon among diamond spoons in both brains and wealth.
A dance video uploaded for monitoring suddenly went viral, making him a 500K YouTuber and getting him cast by Fandom (he received 7 business cards but visited every single agency that made casting offers).
Was about to debut as Fandom’s male idol group ‘AAA’ just 3 months after becoming a trainee.
Currently appearing on Gnet’s ‘My Job is Idol’.]
“Whoa…”
The more Juha read about Choi Taeri, the more his mouth fell open.
Had he lectured someone like this about behavior? Juha covered his damned mouth.
He knew he had class, but didn’t know it was to this extent. How could everything be so tremendous? An overachiever to this degree would be criticized as a cheat character.
In comparison, Lee Juha’s family was truly ordinary. His father worked at a large company but was an ordinary office worker, and his mother was an ordinary housewife who occasionally did side jobs.
Having a younger sister who looked exactly like him and was disobedient and quarrelsome was also just ordinary – to Lee Juha, Choi Taeri’s family background felt too distant.
‘It was impossible from the start.’
He shouldn’t have looked.
Choi Taeri not only had top-tier looks but also had friends, skills, and good enough conditions to buy anything with money.
Though Lee Juha and Choi Taeri were both twenty years old, to Juha, Taeri who had everything felt exactly like an omnipotent god.
Honestly, even the fact that someone like this would step forward to become an idol seemed like a well-fed fantasy.
After biting his lips and staring at Choi Taeri on his phone for a while, Juha irritably pulled the blanket over himself.
* * *
Once all filming for the first episode was finished, TV and various media actively advertised ‘My Job is Idol.’ Regardless of this, Juha returned to his previous lifestyle.
Waking up in the morning to exercise, cleaning a close hyung’s dance studio in exchange for practice time.
When at home, he mainly studied English or Japanese. Though he’d learned quite a bit during his trainee days, he was afraid he’d quickly forget if he didn’t practice, so reviewing had now become a habit.
Having lived as a trainee from such a young age, diligence was ingrained in Juha’s body. Moreover, ahead of the broadcast, Lee Juha was actually more diligent than usual. It was hard to believe that the Lee Juha glimpsed in My Job is Idol advertisements and this Lee Juha were the same person.
At least I have to do this. At least doing this could suppress the countless anxieties.
That was the reason for maintaining this tedious diligence.
However, his habit of checking his mobile phone became somewhat more frequent. Every time he confirmed there were no special messages, Juha tried hard to hide his disappointment.
Despite thinking that the diamond spoon Choi Taeri didn’t suit him and that he should focus on his dreams, thoughts of Taeri never stopped in Juha’s head. Thinking about Taeri had somehow become daily routine for Juha.
‘I’ll contact you, so answer.’
Taeri’s words, which might have been empty, stuck in Juha like language of certainty.
He thought he’d at least ask how he was doing. He’d even thought of what to answer, but no notifications rang.
Day by day, the screw tightening his heart burrowed deeper.
As time passed, disappointment and expectation collided. He’d deny that contact wouldn’t come, then think since it didn’t come today, it would come tomorrow, falling into pointless fantasies.
After putting his mobile phone in his pocket and finishing preparations to go out, Juha familiarly approached the dining table area. Though it was embarrassing to ask for money in this situation, his mother consistently placed bills between 10,000 and 30,000 won on the table.
Today there were two 50,000 won bills and a memo.
[Mom went to help Aunt Miyoung with work. Eat properly before going out.]
When both Juha and his sister Yunha (3 years younger) were still minors, their busy mother found free time after Juha quit being a trainee.
Since his mother was so good at cooking, she started helping at Aunt Miyoung’s side dish shop in the apartment complex and was now earning quite decent profits.
‘A hundred thousand won…’
Juha rubbed the two 50,000 won bills with his hands.
It wasn’t a small amount so he hesitated briefly, but strictly speaking, Juha was currently half-unemployed so he carefully put the money in his wallet. At least until the audition results came out, there was no work to earn money, so receiving it grudgingly was the best policy.
He thought he knew why his mother had given him especially much money today.
Because today was the first broadcast day of ‘My Job is Idol.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
