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“What are you doing? Let’s go in.”
At the suddenly heard voice, Bunhong was startled, worried he’d been caught eavesdropping, and turned around to see Han Chayeon standing there with an expressionless face. Though he looked no different than usual, Kim Bunhong, who felt guilty about something, found himself reading his mood and thinking.
‘Could hyung have heard too…? Then he might feel bad about it.’
Without moving aside, Kim Bunhong stood there awkwardly, half-blocking the door, when Chayeon swept past him first and entered inside. And as Bunhong was hesitantly trying to follow behind him, his foot caught on something and he fell over.
“!!”
Not only did he end up rolling on the floor, but he also spilled the drink can he was holding.
Drip. Drip.
Bunhong regretted choosing grape flavor for no reason. The sweet smell spread instantly as the sticky drink clung to his hands. It seemed to have gotten on his clothes and splattered in his hair too, making him feel sticky and unpleasant. At the same time, his bumped knee was throbbing, and still not properly grasping the situation, he thought in a dazed state.
‘What?’
Even when he turned his head to look for what he’d tripped over, it didn’t make sense to Bunhong that he could trip over something where there was no threshold.
Then the only conclusion was that something had deliberately tripped his foot to make him fall.
At the sound of satisfied laughter, Bunhong slowly lifted his face that had been lowered, and the first thing that entered his field of vision was someone’s shoe sole. It was stained purple, apparently from the juice like him who had fallen.
Soon the trainees who had tripped Bunhong as a prank began to whisper among themselves.
“Now you look fitting.”
“Really satisfying, so satisfying!”
“Hey. What are you going to do? My shoes got dirty because of you. Absolutely disgusting.”
For a moment, for reasons unknown, rather than being swept away by the emotion of anger itself, memories of the past that surfaced first began to fill Bunhong’s mind.
‘Back then, I resented meeting you.’
Lee Hanbit came to mind. All the memories of Bunhong badmouthing Hanbit, the costume meant for Hanbit that he had torn up. All their ruined memories blocked his path. He was truly angry. Not at the trainees who had made him like this, but at himself. Bunhong brushed himself off and stood up, trying to act as if nothing had happened.
“What a low-class prank.”
His ankle seemed fine. His first thought was relief that he could dance again. As he stood back on both feet, the malice and mockery emanating from the gazes he faced made him feel disgusted, as if he were looking in a mirror, so he unconsciously shut his eyes tightly and thought.
‘I wish you would disappear. I wish you’d sprain an ankle or something so you couldn’t stand on stage tomorrow.’
He felt the urge to tear Hanbit apart while ripping his costume. He was jealous of Hanbit’s talent. If he and Hanbit were similar, if they were divided like this by the difference of a single sheet of paper, then Bunhong cursed fate. This damn paper, couldn’t he just tear it up?
The inferiority complex he belatedly faced was the most hideous of all emotions he’d ever encountered, so unbearable with a clear mind that he could feel cold sweat soaking his back profusely. But the reason Bunhong didn’t run away from that spot, or rather couldn’t run away, was because the people in front of him were ridiculous. The place where he had stood while harboring that emotion of inferiority complex was nowhere other than on a cliff, and he knew these people were in the same situation.
Humans are inherently weak beings. When cornered, the first thing they blame is not themselves but others. When standing on a precipice, what action has the highest probability of survival? The answer is to push someone in front of you down instead of yourself.
Someone said to fallen Bunhong.
“…Are you laughing?”
“Ha.”
Even at the incredulous voice, he absolutely couldn’t stop laughing. His small, hunched shoulders shook as if sobbing, so those watching Bunhong couldn’t tell at all whether he was currently laughing or crying. Wondering if he’d gone crazy or lost his mind, one trainee looked at such Kim Bunhong and brought his finger to the side of his head, making circles in the air. Just then, Duho, who seemed to have finished his business and was about to enter the practice room, saw Bunhong in his ridiculous state, scratched his head, and looked dumbfounded. Then after a moment, he opened his mouth with a “Heh” and asked stupidly.
“Geunhong?”
“……”
“If the drink doesn’t taste good, you should say something. Did you spill it all already? What a waste.”
The handsome new trainee didn’t seem to like grape flavor very much.
This was something Duho had learned thanks to the incident that afternoon, and when he tried to keep this premium information to himself and then caught Han Chayeon, who was still carrying his bag on one shoulder and about to leave the practice room, to whisper and share it in his ear, he got scolded for no reason.
Duho let out a squawk.
“Damn. So you hit my cheek for that?! You should hit my head instead!!”
Chayeon, watching such Duho, said.
“If you get hit in the head in that state and get worse, I can’t handle it.”
“You can’t handle it? What do you mean by that?”
That doesn’t seem like a compliment, but Duho, who wasn’t particularly dense, looked puzzled and asked brightly. Chayeon brushed off Duho’s hand that was grabbing his bag strap and walked out of the company building alone.
“I’d never debut with you, even if I died.”
“Come with me!”
Duho stared at his retreating figure for a moment, then followed after him like a puppy. Chayeon didn’t push him away and, as if accustomed to it, let Duho walk beside him. Since Han Chayeon naturally had long legs and walked fast, and Duho was also born that way, their speeds were similar.
While walking together like that, Han Chayeon blew air with his mouth to move the bangs covering his eyes, then muttered as if talking to himself.
“Is it because of today’s filming?”
Duho, who had been enjoying the peaceful time between them, somehow caught that and asked blankly.
“What is?”
“Didn’t you get questions or something? I was briefly called in for an interview too.”
“Oh that, they asked if there were any trainees I’d like to debut with? Since they asked that kind of question, I just answered whatever came to mind.”
“So who did you say?”
“I don’t know. Seunghye. Doyoon. I think I said Hyeongpal?”
As far as Chayeon knew, the names Duho mentioned were originally ‘Seunghyun’, ‘Heeyoon’, and ‘Hyeongshik’ respectively. Chayeon scolded Duho.
“Try to remember. You have no sincerity in anything. No sincerity.”
Duho gradually shifted his gaze elsewhere and answered without sincerity.
“What’s the point of remembering names and stuff like that.”
As if at a loss for words, Chayeon stopped his nagging.
* * *
Perhaps not talking to him, who might be a parachute hire, was the implicit rule of this practice room, Bunhong thought. Under everyone’s attention, Chayeon approached Bunhong and said.
“Sorry. I thought if I helped you there, the situation would get worse.”
“……”
At Chayeon’s apology, Kim Bunhong showed a bitter smile at the corner of his mouth. Still, one gain was that change had come. Chayeon had started speaking casually to Bunhong.
“I thought it was something you had to face on your own at least once.”
Honestly, Bunhong wasn’t entirely unperturbed by Han Chayeon’s choice to quietly observe the situation. But he decided to understand. Everyone could have their own way of doing things. Besides, he couldn’t get angry saying ‘hyung is always like that.’ After all, they’d known each other for barely a week.
However, it was true that he shamelessly kept missing someone. The person who listened to his emotions without asking anything, and the person who got angry for his sake. Oh Hangeul came to mind. Bunhong thought.
‘Sometimes I wonder about it too. The futures I never experienced.’
If he hadn’t been cast in front of the school gate and had gone to university after retaking exams, and if he had followed Hangeul instead of taking Jeong Ido’s hand, these two were what he was most curious about among the paths he’d never taken.
‘I probably would have been happy. It would have been fun.’
Because anyone could see he was a kind and interesting person. But the time for choice had already passed, and the consequences were entirely his to accept. Perhaps he was definitely being punished, Bunhong thought. Perhaps for sending away someone who might have been his only ally in such a way, so that he would regret it.
‘Get it together. It’s already in the past.’
Last night, at midnight, the first thing released on AT Entertainment’s official website was Han Chayeon’s teaser video processed in black and white. His face wasn’t visible because he had pulled his hat down low.
“—Find the last color to belong to AT Entertainment’s new face, boy group ‘BLACK’!”
BLACK&COLOR. Starting with Duho’s rough rap recited quietly over a beat composed by Jeong Ido as background music, the video ended lightly with Chayeon supporting his body with only his arms on the practice room floor, lifting his lower body upward, and performing a windmill, one of the b-boying moves.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
