-24-
There’s a lyric about how human hearts sway easily like reeds, but that didn’t seem to apply to Ido.
He was resolute. He was a cold man who, when faced with a situation requiring a choice, would agonize over it but then never look back once he made his decision. As he had always done, Ido spoke resolutely despite Bunhong’s desperate pleas.
‘Remember this, Kim Bunhong.’
Reality was cold. All that remained was deep darkness. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, were there any stars. Everything that had happened disappeared cleanly as if it had all been an illusion.
Eventually Ido bent down.
‘……!’
At that action, Kim Bunhong had a small hope that he might come down to the floor to follow him once again, but regrettably, Jeong Ido seemed determined not to give him even the slightest chance. He spoke coldly while removing Bunhong’s fingers that were clinging to his ankle one by one.
‘Brilliance is only momentary,’
He said that Bunhong had only been caught by dazzling light for a moment, that he had only been blinded. That’s what love was originally like.
‘We’ll end up becoming nothing in the end.’
‘……’
‘Look at now. I told you from the beginning.’
‘……’
‘So let go of me now.’
Face reality now, Ido said.
‘……’
‘As you can see, you lost.’
In the end, their bet came to an end like that. At the same time, their relationship also ended. However, love didn’t end. Bunhong’s feelings toward Ido didn’t end. So he had no choice but to be unhappy.
And there was something new he learned about him only after they broke up. It was through words that Kim Bunhong happened to overhear when he went to the bathroom in a broadcasting building he had stopped by to fulfill BLACK’s schedule.
‘Jeong Ido’—at the familiar name that came through the commotion, Kim Bunhong, who had been crying in the bathroom stall, held his breath to hide his presence.
They seemed to be staff members. At first, contrary to expectations, they grumbled that the work was too intense compared to the hourly wage and badmouthed various broadcasting officials, then the topic of conversation flowed to the idol group ‘BLACK’.
‘Doesn’t he date civilians too, and have lots of women? That’s what I heard.’
‘Right. I heard he gets tons of confessions. But he rejects almost all of them.’
Those who had been whispering suddenly became quiet at one staff member’s words.
‘Huh? Why? What’s lacking?’
They became noisy as if they couldn’t understand at all.
‘If I were a woman, I feel like if I dated Jeong Ido, he’d forgive me no matter what trouble I caused.’
‘Right. Even from a guy’s perspective, isn’t he kind of… cool?’
‘You don’t know?’
In the atmosphere that had been purely playful and cheerful, the voice of the staff member who suddenly spoke up lowered.
In a dark place, ominously, as if telling a scary story relying only on a single candle.
‘He does that shit on purpose to get dumped. Acts like a bastard.’
‘Huh? Then he shouldn’t date in the first place. What if they cling to him annoyingly?’
They became boisterous as if it was interesting, then laughed “wahaha—”. Not knowing that Kim Bunhong, sitting on the closed toilet seat, had completely hung his head in devastation at those words.
‘That’s why he does whatever it takes to get dumped.’
‘What? That’s unexpected. Is he the type who gets bored easily?’
‘Who knows. But isn’t it kind of cheap? I heard in his interview that he writes his best songs after breakups. Maybe he dates and breaks up on purpose for that reason?’
The voices coming over the stall partition became daggers that stabbed into him one by one, so he had to squeeze his eyes shut.
‘Huh. What do you mean?’
‘I mean, maybe he uses love to create good songs.’
All experiences become good nutrients and such. How could we understand artists’ psychology? With those words as the last, they washed their hands and left the bathroom, but Bunhong couldn’t bring himself to leave that place. His legs had given out and he couldn’t stand up at all.
‘Your situation is different from his.’
When the manager said that to Lucy, he had wondered what it meant, but was this it?
‘Ha.’
It was so absurd that not even tears came anymore. He just felt empty. When he lowered his head, the tile floor suddenly caught his eye.
‘What kind of place is this. Of all places, to hear such a conversation in a smelly bathroom.’
The lies up until now had been nothing but sweet, but the truth he learned belatedly reeked. Everything had been intentional. Had he also been used?
He thought of Jeong Ido’s girlfriend who had broken up with him before he started dating him. After holing up in the studio for a long time after the breakup, what Jeong Ido presented was BLACK’s second album title track.
That’s right. He hadn’t been organizing—he had been completing. To Jeong Ido, love was merely something to be exploited.
Love made people into fools. Even knowing this, he wanted to be deceived. Even that was a pleasure……
When making love with Jeong Ido, he always felt as if he were submerged underwater. His ears were muffled, his eyes were covered, water kept entering his mouth so he couldn’t breathe easily—it was a series of surreal moments.
One day, coming to his senses, Kim Bunhong pulled his head out from being submerged underwater. He thought they were together, but he was the only one struggling and floundering in it. What he had been chasing thinking it was a star was merely a reflection on the lake’s surface.
.
.
.
‘It wasn’t a song that suited you in the first place.’
‘……’
‘I’m BLACK’s producer. It’s my role to clearly distinguish between business and personal matters.’
Jeong Ido explained the situation to Kim Bunhong, saying he gave the song to Lee Hanbit because he thought it would suit him better than Bunhong.
Why was that? Even so, Kim Bunhong couldn’t accept it. He and Lee Hanbit had the same vocal range, similar looks—everything was as similar as twins.
What he lacked was vocal ability, but couldn’t that be made up for with practice to some extent?
To others, it might just be a song to sing at fan meetings at most, but to him, its meaning was special.
It wasn’t just anyone. It was a song made by Jeong Ido. He was Bunhong’s world and creator.
And Kim Bunhong felt desperate thinking that while Ido had made songs for all the other women he had dated, there was no song for him.
The sparks flew to an unexpected place. Looking at Lee Hanbit smiling genuinely and brightly, he had even imagined what he might have been like if he too could have grown up in a family that gave love and supported his dreams.
If that had been the case, wouldn’t he have been able to be loved? By Jeong Ido too, and by others too.
Even in darkness, couldn’t he have become light and sparkled brilliantly?
‘If I could perform on stage like you……’
If he could have had that talent to move people’s hearts and touch their souls by putting emotion into songs.
Actually, if you really looked at it, it was just about the difference of a blank sheet of paper, but in reality it was huge. Something just a little bit different. People generally called that talent.
Drawing one’s own musical notes constantly on that blank paper was something only possible if you had talent like Lee Hanbit, so Kim Bunhong, who couldn’t do that no matter how hard he tried, felt utterly pathetic.
At the moment when he was gradually fading and losing his own color, rather than that, he…… wanted to become Lee Hanbit.
‘If I could have it even by doing that.’
* * *
A brief silence flowed through the audition site at Kim Bunhong’s words that he would sing a cappella.
“Well, go ahead.”
The majority were looking without any expectations, some with eyes that said he was arrogant, and the rest were preparing to laugh to their heart’s content as if an interesting spectacle had appeared.
Kim Bunhong slowly looked around. Cold, cynical air. These were things he had experienced sickeningly often. He was that familiar with them.
His gaze briefly turned toward Jeong Ido’s seat, then scattered. He seemed to have no interest in Bunhong at all. He sat in his seat with his head down, skimming through other applicants’ documents.
‘As expected.’
Kim Bunhong actually had a separate song he had prepared for today’s audition. That’s why he had told the casting manager not to worry. It was a moderately idol-like song that was popular around this time, and he thought it was good enough to pass without difficulty.
The reason he suddenly changed his song selection was because he had encountered an unexpected person among those attending today, so he decided to sing it on the spot.
It was the very song that Jeong Ido had refused to give to Kim Bunhong until the end, and that Lee Hanbit had obtained so easily. The song he had decided to give to Lee Hanbit because it didn’t suit him.
‘Bloom.’
Since it was a song that hadn’t been released to the world yet, he had no choice but to sing it a cappella. Instead of singing that song as it was, he decided to sing it with a slightly different feeling from the original. Although he couldn’t acknowledge it until the end, it was a song made for Lee Hanbit to sing anyway.
‘Of course it had to be that way.’
Since it was arranged to suit Lee Hanbit. No matter how similar their vocal ranges were, the moment he tried to imitate the unique feeling he possessed, it would give the impression of a clown imitating someone.
‘It would look somewhat ridiculous to other people.’
Since it was such an obvious fact, Kim Bunhong decided not to do that.
Instead, he decided to pour out all the experiences he had realized as an idol who had been active for two years, and settle it in one go.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
