-5-
But Lee Hanbit was different. He was light piercing through darkness. Bunhong had never seen someone who mixed into a group so naturally.
Not only BLACK’s members but also the public liked the loveliness that Hanbit possessed—he looked more innocent than when they saw him on the audition program, and surprisingly had childlike aspects.
Even BLACK’s existing core fans started actively promoting Hanbit rather than rejecting him, and he, who was full of aegyo and spoke sweetly, created fresh synergy with each member, producing many good scenes suitable for broadcasting.
From some point on, even BLACK’s members didn’t feel any sense of discord, as if they had originally been a 6-member group.
Bunhong began to properly notice Hanbit after official activities started.
As Lee Hanbit began gaining great popularity, this activity’s title track featured his vocals prominently. What Bunhong realized while recording was that Hanbit and himself had quite a lot of similar and overlapping parts.
Bunhong gradually felt his position within the team becoming ambiguous. Whatever he did felt awkward enough that he could feel it himself, and naturally he only found himself reading the mood more often.
He thought he was being devoured. Being devoured by dazzling light, and that he could only remain as a shadow.
‘Hyung.’
At some point, he even hated that kid talking to him. The smile lingering at that child’s lips looked like mockery rather than pure intention.
‘Are you sick somewhere?’
It’s all because of you.
That phrase he could only think but couldn’t bring himself to say out loud became a curse that gnawed at him just by harboring it, and the number of nights he couldn’t sleep with bloodshot eyes only increased.
‘Don’t touch me!’
At Bunhong’s sharp gesture of irritably shaking off Hanbit’s arm, silence instantly fell over the waiting room.
From some point on, Bunhong felt he couldn’t control his emotions. Even though they were clearly his own, it was as if they weren’t his.
‘What’s wrong?’
Chayeon, who had been getting makeup done in the distance, walked over and asked with concern, and Bunhong worried about how to explain this situation. Since there had never been anything like this before, he didn’t know how to handle it. If he had known, would things have been different?
‘I… was giving hyung a massage and accidentally hurt him. I’m sorry.’
Fortunately, Hanbit stepped forward first to defuse the conflict. However, similar situations repeated several times afterward, and it began to negatively affect the team atmosphere.
Bunhong felt guilty. They were teammates after all. Looking at it properly, Hanbit had done nothing wrong, and it was just his own overreaction.
‘I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s separate public and private matters.’
We’re professionals, right? Chayeon’s sharp advice, unable to watch anymore, also had a big impact.
By the time they returned to the dorm, Bunhong decided to apologize to Hanbit. Lee Hanbit was a good kid. There was absolutely no reason to hate him.
He finished removing his makeup and came out of the bathroom, but Hanbit wasn’t there. Since it was a busy schedule period, he worried that maybe he had fallen asleep without washing, so he searched everywhere in the house, but he couldn’t be seen.
Seeing the flustered Bunhong, Duho asked:
‘What’s wrong?’
‘……’
Hesitating, Bunhong brought up a different topic. Fortunately, thanks to Duho who didn’t think much of it, the conversation continued naturally. Somehow the upcoming fan meeting became the main topic of conversation. Then at something Duho said, Bunhong’s pupils gradually grew larger.
‘…Ido hyung?’
‘Yeah. He’s busy producing a song to perform at this fan meeting. He’s probably preparing in the recording studio right now.’
It was a story he had never heard before.
And Hanbit’s empty spot, which had been strangely noticeable that day, also came as some kind of bad premonition.
If Ido was producing a song for the group to perform, he should know about it too, but he hadn’t heard anything at all.
Then.
‘Who’s singing that song?’
Bunhong asked Duho as calmly as possible, naturally keeping a smile on his lips as if nothing was wrong.
‘That song?’
‘……’
‘Of course Lee Hanbit will sing it.’
If it had been a wrong answer, he could have at least corrected it. But no matter how he looked, he couldn’t see the answer. Despairingly, it seemed like it didn’t exist in the first place.
That night, Bunhong had a dream. It was a dream where he strangled Hanbit’s neck with his own hands.
* * *
He always worked hard. Because he thought that was the right answer.
‘Why…’
He faithfully received training every day and tried to fill in his lacking parts. There was no trainer who taught that there were things that couldn’t be filled even with practice.
‘People only look for you, only like you.’
He always tried to smile. Even in difficult moments, even in moments when he wanted to give up. So this couldn’t be happening.
‘Even Ido hyung…’
Everyone thought poorly of Bunhong, whose practice period was shorter than other debut group members, but among them was someone who found him most disagreeable. It was leader ‘Ido’, the only member in the team who had composition experience as an amateur.
His somewhat indifferent gaze made him seem like a cold person.
Ido, who had been looking through Bunhong’s audition video and records of monthly evaluations so far, asked:
‘Have you ever desperately wanted to do something?’
At the question thrown so lightly, as if talking to himself, contrary to the heavy atmosphere filling that room, Bunhong, who had been very tense, hesitated for a moment.
Ido, who had been staring at the flustered Bunhong, turned his head and chuckled. Then he gestured as if telling him to leave the studio.
After that day, Bunhong became curious about the person called Ido. When he asked about Ido, most reactions were similar.
‘Even though he’s just an idol, what real music is he going to make or whatever.’
Bunhong also agreed with that statement. Acting pretentious.
Yet he felt it was cool. Like everyone who curses at someone while admiring them.
Why did that song have to belong to you of all people? Why couldn’t I sing that song? Self-loathing rose from his toes and overturned his entire body. That was the beginning of misfortune.
The casting manager grabbed Kim Bunhong’s arm, who was still immersed in past recollections, and urged him again.
“We’re trying to develop new talent, and we wanted someone with exactly a student-like face.”
“……”
“We need a visual member.”
It’s a compliment, student. You hear a lot that you’re handsome, right?
It was meant to lighten the mood, but when no response came from the other party, the casting manager anxiously pushed up his rimless glasses perched on his nose.
“If it feels burdensome, I’d at least like to have a talk.”
He thought a high school student would immediately understand when he mentioned AT Entertainment. Reading some kind of premonition from the lukewarm reaction, he decided to back down for now.
“Could you possibly contact me later?”
Meanwhile, Bunhong, who had been examining the business card he was given for a while, let out a small sigh.
‘AT Entertainment Casting Manager Kwak Kyunghwan’
Because the text written on the business card was exactly the same as three years ago.
“Then I’ll contact you later.”
Watching the retreating figure after achieving his purpose, Bunhong naturally fiddled with his arm.
“Why…”
Habitually trying to check what time it was, he smiled bitterly.
The first gift received from a fan. Strangely, everything had returned to the past, but only the watch on his wrist remained the same. It didn’t seem broken either, which was curious.
‘Where should I go now?’
No particular destination came to mind. Both in the past and now, all his daily schedule had been organized solely for the college entrance exam, but now that the test was over, he couldn’t get his bearings on what to do first.
‘If I don’t debut as an idol, I’ll have to start by submitting college applications.’
His aimless steps headed somewhere without knowing the destination. As the subway spat out a handful of people, he felt the solitude of being in a crowd while pushing through the bustling crowds. Loneliness always came to find him like this.
“Cold.”
He pulled his school uniform jacket tighter and trudged along. Just as he was about to cross the crosswalk, his reflection in the glass window of a store across caught Bunhong’s attention.
His height, about a span shorter than before regression, finally made him realize the fact that he was nineteen-year-old Kim Bunhong, not twenty-two.
Was I… this young back then? He had the face of a young child abandoned by the waterside. He stopped briefly to stare, when a group of female students passed by chattering.
Perhaps due to the self-consciousness formed as an idol, Bunhong momentarily mistook them for rushing toward him and stepped back, but he felt embarrassed for thinking that—no one was interested in him at all.
“Kyaa! OORA is here!!”
“Oppa!!”
When a female student who had been shouting loudly from behind sprinted to one side, the students behind her also started running together with her at the lead.
“Uh, uh, wait a moment!”
Bunhong, who got caught up and forced into their group by the crowd, tried to wriggle his body out in various directions, but realized that the more he tried to escape, the more he was actually digging toward the inside of the group, and became discouraged.
‘What caused so many people to gather like this?’
Kim Bunhong, who decided to quietly accept his fate, instead decided to assess the situation and began looking around.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
