-18-
At his words, Ido, who had been fidgeting with the back of his neck as if just remembering, muttered.
“It’s probably a tattoo. Maybe.”
At that, the Director began to wail while clutching his head.
“Probably? You say ‘probably’? My god, are you in your right mind? Have you lost it? Completely. If you’re going to debut, why would you go and get a tattoo tattooed on! Do you think fans will just love you for it! What do I do! Really!! If you were going to do it, do it after you debut!”
As the Director’s words poured out as if he’d been waiting for this moment, Ido waved his hand to signal him to stop.
“The situation is complicated. And I refuse to listen to nagging.”
The Director looked at Jeong Ido, who was fidgeting with an empty cigarette pack as if he had lingering regrets, and asked helplessly.
“Should I lend you a lighter?”
It was a signal suggesting they go have a sincere man-to-man conversation, but,
“Common sense dictates no smoking indoors, you know.”
Watching Ido frown and walk away as if he didn’t want to continue the conversation any further, the Director clutched his throbbing head.
That bastard Jeong Ido!!
* * *
“……”
“If you’re going to take this path, try to find Bunhong-ssi’s own reason for wanting to do it.”
“……”
“Something no one can teach you. There will definitely be an answer that only you can reach. For sure.”
Hangeul spoke very decisively, putting particular emphasis on the words ‘for sure.’
“……”
“Because I’ve already seen that light in you, Bunhong-ssi.”
The countless people passing by on the street. Modern people all busy walking forward looking only ahead. That’s why someone who was lost and wandering among them stood out particularly. Everyone was walking busily toward their destinations, but he alone was wandering unable to find his way.
It might be presumptuous, but he felt sorry for that.
You’re going to do music someday anyway, right?
Because Hangeul had whispered dreamily, recalling the earnest boy’s eyes and his fist clenched tight with passion,
Bunhong wanted to ask back if he really, truly thought that way. But instead he asked a different question.
“Do I really look that earnest?”
“……”
“……Singing.”
Bunhong chewed his lips repeatedly.
‘He might think I’m pathetic for having to ask others about something like that.’
Calculating the attitudes of people who had dealt with him in the past, this man should definitely have reacted that way too.
But really, surprisingly, not once had Hangeul ever acted as Bunhong expected. Instead, he gave different words – advice befitting a sunbae that felt full of sincerity.
“Put your hand on your heart,”
“……”
“And ask yourself.”
“……”
“If it pounds, then it’s something you really want to do.”
Be honest with yourself. Oh Hangeul said that, but Kim Bunhong felt frustrated because he couldn’t gauge where on earth he should start to make that possible.
BLACK. Until now, he had filled his entire life only with black lies, so there had never been a moment when he thought he sparkled.
However, Hangeul grabbed the hand of Kim Bunhong, who had been busy living his life limiting his own boundaries like that, and told him.
‘Sparkling eyes. Eyes that want to come up on stage right now and sing together.’
It was amazing that there was someone who had witnessed that light that even he himself didn’t know about. The fresh shock that Bunhong felt through Hangeul’s words at that moment was so intense that it aroused a fierce longing that made his whole body tremble.
After leaving Hangeul’s studio, Bunhong muttered in front of the closed door.
“I want to do it too…… I want to do it too……”
I really want to do it, I want to do it so badly I could die……!
Instead of waiting for the elevator, he quickly ran down the emergency stairs with both legs.
Why did he feel this emotion now of all times…….
That’s right. Exactly ‘why’ did he want to do it?
Bunhong listened to music with earphones in his ears. Walking endlessly like in his childhood. The road ahead looked long, but there was no destination.
‘I understand the emotions of the singers singing this song, but why don’t I know my own heart?’
Always, even before he could notice, emotions were ahead of him. When he looked back, the shadow had grown larger. A large shadow darkened by sunlight was creeping under his footsteps.
Music mixed in. With the air at every moment.
But he was always a stranger. Unable to blend in anywhere, always intimidated.
He lifted his head. The green light was blinking. Just as he was about to step forward to cross the crosswalk, the signal had already changed. Cars rushing by filled the roads front and back.
The driver who almost hit Kim Bunhong looked at him with a face full of reproach, shouted something, and left.
“Hey! Are you in your right mind? Can’t you see it’s a red light? What young punk is trying to ruin someone’s path!”
After barely finishing crossing the road, Bunhong, whose legs had given out, collapsed onto the ground with a thud. He covered his face with his trembling hands.
Oh no.
‘I almost died again……’
Thump thump.
‘If I’m given another chance……’
Just before death. To not miss that desperate feeling from before his regression, this time he clenched his fist tightly.
Excuse me, are you okay? A kind resident spoke to the unfamiliar stranger. At the kindness of a passing pedestrian, Bunhong nodded that he was fine while picking up the MP3 player that had fallen to the ground.
“……”
From that slightly cracked spot, music was still flowing out.
A musical score spreads before his eyes. It’s just a huge blank sheet, and no musical notes exist there yet. Because by putting an end to it, all music will start over from the beginning.
‘Something that has the possibility to start again.’
Whether it becomes a da capo (D.C.) or a repeat sign. The moment he realized that all choices depended on himself, Kim Bunhong’s heart began to flutter.
Because he realized anew that he had seized an opportunity that was no different from life’s lottery, one that would never come again. Something that could be turned back, reversed.
I want to sing.
It wasn’t only loneliness that was growing. The longing to do it was also growing the more it was trampled on.
‘……want to.’
……
‘……I want to do it.’
The clamoring cry in his heart had grown large enough that it could no longer be ignored, shaking awake him who had been holding his breath.
It was almost a scream.
“I want to sing……!”
The moment he ended up saying it out loud, the materialized emotion blocked his view.
He sees a small child crouched down. A boy who had lost his light while submerged in darkness, not knowing who he was or what he wanted, stares at him.
Kim Bunhong stood still and received that gaze.
And at the same time, other moments that had naturally become turning points in his pre-regression life flashed through his mind.
His life as ‘Kim Bunhong’ of ‘BLACK’ before regression. The moments when he felt unhappy, so to speak……
At each moment, he thought there were numerous choices available at the time and thoroughly calculated opportunity costs, but in the end the answers seemed to be divided dichotomously.
Do it, and…… don’t do it. Into these two.
‘You want to do it again, don’t you?’
With that whisper as the last, the boy walks away step by step and disappears from view. As if the opportunities he had missed were walking away dimly like shadows, that afterimage developed strangely like slow motion and didn’t disappear for a long time.
Bunhong unconsciously took out something he had folded up and put in his pocket.
‘AT Entertainment Casting Manager Kwak Kyunghwan’
The business card he had received in front of the school gate, which he had never unfolded again even once after receiving it.
He was about to take out his cell phone to make a call, but it was turned off, apparently because the battery had run out.
“When did it turn off?”
Muttering helplessly, he hurriedly ran to a nearby payphone and successfully made a call. Bunhong spoke his name with a trembling voice.
“……Um, I’m Kim Bunhong, the one you made an offer to back then.”
* * *
“We’re just going to do a simple camera test, so don’t worry. It’s just a formality. Since Bunhong-kun came through street casting anyway, you don’t need to attach such great meaning to the audition……”
“……”
Bunhong inwardly scoffed at the casting manager’s words.
‘Lies. It was the same in the past.’
It was a private audition, but the video would later be exposed through some channel, becoming a lifelong dark history after debut.
Perhaps knowing that Bunhong was looking at him with distrustful eyes, the casting manager who had been reading the room added, ‘Bunhong-kun has a handsome face, so you’ll be okay if you just look straight at the camera.’
And at that moment, he remembered a malicious comment from the past that read ‘This guy has nothing to rely on but his face, yet he doesn’t look at the camera during important moments’ and chuckled.
Because it was overwhelming. He was so busy just following each choreography move and keeping up with the formations that he couldn’t even think about other important things as an idol.
Really, that was Kim Bunhong’s best effort. He practiced like his life depended on it, but people wouldn’t acknowledge it. How much more did he have to grit his teeth while looking at the view counts of his individual fancams that were clearly different from other members?
He vowed that it would be different from the past, at least.
‘Just wait and see.’
If before regression he was nothing but an inexperienced rookie, now at least there was a somewhat skilled idol sitting inside him. If there was one thing different from before, it was that at least the starting line was different.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
