-30-
In his desperation, Hangeul stomped his feet and shouted without realizing it.
“Jeong Ido. Where the hell did he go?”
He couldn’t let his precious junior fall into that guy’s clutches like this. The way Jeong Ido kept looking at Kim Bunhong throughout the audition bothered him.
In Hangeul’s opinion, Jeong Ido was a leech-like man who only sucked the sweet juice from all human relationships. He knew how that guy had stepped on his people to climb up until now. Bunhong would probably be thoroughly used too, just as it had always been.
Whenever someone praised Ido in front of him, Hangeul always thought this to himself:
‘Ridiculous. Jeong Ido’s songs are beautiful? Not only that, but all the songs that bastard makes are alive?’
Of course they would be. But Hangeul already knew that it was all just deception. Jeong Ido was a guy who lived by extracting the inspiration that individuals possessed.
Hangeul had heard through other people’s mouths several times how the protagonists of songs made by Jeong Ido had each self-destructed.
Becoming someone’s muse was something that required paying a corresponding price. The mermaid princess in fairy tales had to lose her voice in exchange for getting two legs to walk around in the human world.
The profession of being an idol was the same. ‘Because we’re a team.’ With this one fact, everything had to be sacrificed, and one had to try to kill their own voice as much as possible and blend into the group.
Hangeul had a small wish that he could somehow lead and help Bunhong find his own color.
When he answered his cell phone that rang at just the right time, Hangeul was able to track down Ido’s whereabouts through it.
“……I see. Thank you for letting me know. Well, I have urgent business, so I’ll hang up now.”
He had thought that the Director had been hanging around Jeong Ido a lot lately, and it was true. The 6th floor was a space mainly used as conference rooms within AT Entertainment, but he rented the whole thing?
After hanging up the manager’s call with an uneasy face, Hangeul immediately headed toward his destination.
* * *
His cell phone started vibrating several times and then stopped, but Bunhong was too absorbed in his conversation with Ido to even check it.
“What exactly are you saying……”
Soon Bunhong’s vision turned white. In his resentment, tears were already dripping from both eyes.
He hadn’t expected words like ‘I’m glad you’re back’ or ‘nice to meet you again.’ The current him knew what kind of person Jeong Ido was, and he was certain that he wasn’t the type who could say such things even as pretense.
Bunhong belatedly realized that Jeong Ido had no emotions and was only a person for whom principles mattered. The ambition added to that made anyone who tried to walk together utterly miserable.
“Why exactly are you crying?”
With puzzled eyes as if he couldn’t understand at all, Ido stared intently at Kim Bunhong and continued asking.
“You said you wanted to make a lot of money, didn’t you?”
“……”
“It’s possible if we’re together.”
“……Ha.”
Bunhong laughed emptily. Why are you crying—because of Ido’s question, past scenes came to mind.
‘I wish I could live doing only what I like.’
Along with those words, there were sad tears that had dripped down.
The interior of the studio with the lights off and dark was filled with thick cigarette smoke, and not only the table but also the machine equipment were completely cluttered with crumpled and torn sheet music.
Looking at one of them, you could see traces of being rewritten so many times that finger marks would come off. Musical notes that had become terrible like scribbles from being constantly redrawn.
Ah, past Bunhong had felt sorry for Jeong Ido’s world that was full of efforts no one acknowledged, just trivial and foolish.
‘How nice it would be to live freely making the music I want to make.’
And decisively, those words. Bunhong’s heart was torn seeing Ido’s unexpected outburst of resentment, who had to compromise with reality to somehow see the light.
Right after that, Ido had gently asked Bunhong:
‘What do you want to do?’
What he wanted to do. Even after regression, even now when he chewed on it again, Bunhong thought it was still such a difficult question.
At some point, his dream had become just staying by his lover’s side……
It was like that then and now.
The reason past Bunhong couldn’t honestly confess that was because he was afraid Ido would look down on him pathetically. Like that day when they first met, he seemed like he would scold him for not being desperate enough. Kim Bunhong had never had any grand dreams to begin with.
‘Have you ever thought about desperately wanting to do something?’
What is that? Bunhong already knew his own heart. Just being by Ido’s side was his small wish.
“……Sob.”
What no one acknowledged wasn’t Jeong Ido’s efforts or anything like that. It was Bunhong’s heart. And just one person knowing that would have been enough, but Jeong Ido never knew until the very end. Sorrow washed over him and Bunhong couldn’t stop sobbing and continued crying.
“Yes, Bunhong?”
Please don’t cry. A finger that approached the pitifully sobbing person quite tenderly wiped away the tears around his eyes. Like handling a child, his thumb gently rubbed the wet face.
From the moment they first met, Jeong Ido had always acted like someone who would leave from Kim Bunhong’s side. He was by his side, but that wasn’t really being by his side. Always, Bunhong had desperately wanted to plead with Ido not to leave him alone and go.
So that day when drunk Ido asked what he wanted to do in the studio, instead of hoping for his dreams to come true, Bunhong had a slightly selfish thought and answered like that.
‘Me? I wish I had a lot of money.’
Bunhong thought. If he had a lot of money, Ido wouldn’t leave his side. If living freely doing what he wanted was Ido’s wish, he wanted to be the one to make that possible for him.
Bunhong wanted to make Ido happy so that he wouldn’t shed miserable tears in the face of poverty anymore. So if Ido’s dreams ever came true someday, he desperately prayed that it would be by his side after he became rich.
“Don’t touch me.”
When Kim Bunhong coldly rejected and shook off Jeong Ido’s touch, he shrugged his shoulders and moved away without even a trace of lingering attachment.
With his shoulders slumped, Kim Bunhong laughed emptily. He was now sick of that characteristic knife-like quality that Jeong Ido possessed. To think he had loved such a man. Bunhong couldn’t believe it.
The Jeong Ido he saw after the scales fell from his eyes was really someone who only knew himself. At any moment, even in moments of falling in love, he was a man for whom his own future path was more important.
The songs, the music created by Jeong Ido’s hands, were truly beautiful, so brilliant beyond compare, that daring to assume that Jeong Ido, the creator who made them, would also be like that was Kim Bunhong’s arrogance in only now realizing his true nature.
“So what are you going to do?”
Jeong Ido urged Kim Bunhong, who was still crying, once more. In that appearance that seemed to have no regard for the other person’s emotions, past words overlapped.
‘Instead, let’s make a bet.’
Not just now, but even before regression, Ido had always been like that. Kim Bunhong was in love, but Jeong Ido was playing games.
He acted like a contradictory gambler who wouldn’t even start a game if there was even the slightest possibility of losing.
Past Bunhong had knelt on one knee on the bare floor and kissed the cold palm of such a lover where he couldn’t feel even a bit of warmth.
And desperately begged him to make a song for him.
Someday, love for him would bloom from his fingertips too. Those were words and actions possible because he didn’t doubt for a moment that such a day would surely come.
Even though all of those things were weaknesses that Jeong Ido could manipulate at will, he could do so because he desperately believed that someday he could change this man.
“……You know I can’t refuse.”
Seemingly satisfied with Bunhong’s answer, Jeong Ido showed his teeth and smiled.
“Good thinking.”
See you later. Ignoring Jeong Ido’s greeting, Kim Bunhong walked out first through the open door, leaving him behind, and thought:
‘I still can’t see the end. The path.’
Once again, because he couldn’t breathe, Bunhong took a small deep breath. Then, while moving quickly, just before turning the corner, he was startled by a figure that suddenly appeared and his eyes widened.
Hangeul, who found his face amusing, giggled softly but soon became serious and reached out his hand.
“Did you cry?”
Fluttering eyelashes were suddenly right in front of Bunhong’s vision. Huh. Kim Bunhong, who unconsciously held his breath, slowly lifted his head and began observing his face.
It wasn’t like he was a child with candy in his mouth, but it was strange how his mood improved as soon as he saw Oh Hangeul’s face.
Bunhong thought that the eyes staring intently at him seemed somewhat angry, or maybe not.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
