“Guys, for now, just wait here.”
Do Sajin, Zero One’s manager, said as he looked the members over. He was the guy saved in Go Youngin’s phone as “Manager.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve gone to get you earlier too… I was out of my mind trying to adjust your afternoon schedule. When we go back to the dorm later, I’ll drive again.”
Do Sajin kept wiping sweat like he’d committed some kind of sin, watching Zero One’s faces for their reactions. It wasn’t like Zero One had done anything; it just seemed like that was his personality.
‘Do Sajin… if he’s someone I still remember, he must’ve been our manager for quite a while.’
Exactly when did he quit, and because of what? Even after this manager, the manager got swapped out whenever there was an opening, so the fact that the name felt familiar meant either I’d known him that long, or something had gotten tangled up with him.
‘Well, that’s not what matters right now.’
“Go ahead. It’s fine.”
Go Youngin decided it’d be better to send the manager off quickly. Seeing him so stiff, he really must’ve felt bad. What was there to be that sorry about, missing one pickup in the morning? If it was urgent, there was a road manager too.
“Right. Don’t worry about us and go. We’re inside the company building anyway.”
Cheon Sayun also spoke up in a composed way toward the manager. Only then did the manager look relieved, repeating the same line several more times before leaving.
To get to the dorm, we needed the manager who’d just vanished, or the road manager, and the practice room was shared, so there was a high chance another team was using it. There wasn’t any obvious empty room, either.
So, right now, Zero One was sitting in a circle around a round table in the lobby.
…….
“…….”
After everyone sat down, they were each on their phones, or closing their eyes to meditate, or… anyway, everyone was doing their own thing. It had already been fifteen minutes of nothing but silence without a single word of conversation.
‘…This is brutal.’
It wasn’t that the silence was awkward. It just made me realize one more time how serious it really was. Honestly, ever since the Status Window showed up, unless it was telling me to do something, I wasn’t the type to open my mouth first either.
‘Looking at it like this, they’re not just not close— they look like they don’t even care.’
We had spent time together, and it was still this dead. Sure, even later on, after we’d racked up more years, it hadn’t been easy either, but I couldn’t help wondering if it had really been like this from the start.
What was it actually like all that time.
Go Youngin suddenly felt grim. Back then, had I also just sat in the middle of them like this, only doing my own thing?
Was it because the Status Window was making me decide to face it properly for the first time, or because this was my first Reset since debut? Either way, everything felt unfamiliar.
One guy with a personality problem, one airhead, one guy you can’t communicate with, and one guy who probably still doesn’t even know what’s what.
To be honest, I only knew the members in fragments.
Why they ended up causing every kind of incident in the future, whether it was even really them who did it in the first place, what the hell they were thinking, what their personal situations were— I didn’t properly know a single thing.
Even their personalities felt weirdly different from what I remembered. Zero One’s members were way more… in a lot of ways, impossible to pin down than the personalities I’d “known.” Or had I just been wrong.
‘The Status Window too… even if I don’t want to care, I can’t let my guard down when I never know what they’ll do, and when.’
For a moment, Go Youngin wondered if it was really okay to be like this, then quickly corrected himself.
‘No. One result has already changed, because I spoke up. Even if I can’t change everything, I’ll stop the big incidents somehow. I already decided to change things— even if it goes off the rails, I’m not going to just let it go off the rails, you bastards.’
Just you wait, you fucked-up Status Window. Let’s see who wins. And leader? Whatever. I don’t even know what a leader does, but if I roughly use Cheon Sayun as a reference, something will come out.
It was while Go Youngin was muttering to himself, trying to steady the part of him that was weakening.
“Go Youngin.”
Im Sebin, who had been sitting there with his eyes closed without saying a word, was staring at Go Youngin as if at some point he’d started. Since when had he been looking at me?
Im Sebin was also Zero One’s oldest, and after coming back to the past, he was the last member I still hadn’t really had a proper conversation with.
The Im Sebin I remembered was so quiet he almost never spoke to people first. Other than that, nothing really came to mind. Mm… was he a bit sensitive? Maybe.
So when someone who obviously wouldn’t be the one to speak first called my name, surprise hit before anything else.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you do that?”
“…Do what?”
Im Sebin snapped at Go Youngin out of nowhere. I didn’t even know what he was snapping about, so I couldn’t not ask back in a fluster.
“Why did you say that earlier?”
Maybe it was the irritation dripping from his low, pressed-down voice, but Im Sebin had this overly sensitive edge to him.
The eyes glaring at Go Youngin right now were sharp as hell, but the funny thing was, with watery eyes and a face that naturally gave off this wistful vibe, he looked less scary and closer to depressed. At least his voice made it obvious he was really pissed.
Even at a glance, I could tell he was annoyed because he had some kind of complaint about me, but I couldn’t figure out the cause at all.
That kind of thing… Go Youngin replayed what he’d reminded himself he’d said. Nothing that should’ve rubbed someone wrong… other than talking about the album with CEO Kwon Daedo.
‘Ah, fuck….’
Was it a problem that I said “Zero One’s music”? Was he about to say, who the hell decided it was “Zero One’s”? Coldly speaking, Zero One right now was just a bunch of people gathered together with zero sense of belonging, so it wasn’t an impossible guess.
“I didn’t mean anything else. I just… meant it exactly the way I said it to the CEO.”
I answered, but judging by his expression, it didn’t do shit.
“…….”
Which part flipped his switch? I couldn’t even guess, but when I glanced over, Cheon Sayun and Kyeon Inwoo looked like they roughly knew what Im Sebin was talking about, and that made me even more flustered.
No, fuck. Seriously, what is it?
Maybe it showed on my face that I had no clue, because Im Sebin clicked his tongue lightly. Then, like he was making a point of it, he sighed and spoke in an irritated tone.
“If you just do what you’re told, it’ll be fine. So why are you stirring up pointless trouble?”
“Because I thought change was necessary.”
If I did what I was told like before, it would’ve been comfortable. If someone had even a casual interest in idols, we’d reach the level of, “Oh, yeah, aren’t those guys doing well?” And in reality, before the controversies really kicked off, that’s how it was.
And Go Youngin was someone who knew that if we kept going like this, it would turn into nothing.
‘If we’re doing it anyway, it’d be nice to go well without getting eaten alive by hate and swearing. Like I want to be in here making a fucking scene? Even if I try as hard as I want, if you guys go and do the same stupid shit, it all turns into nothing anyway.’
I knew that, and I was still trying to change it somehow, but getting a reaction like this made my strength drain out— I couldn’t help it.
Yeah… fuck. The members don’t know what happened. It turned into something only I know, anyway. From their perspective, seeing me suddenly act like this just to save my own ass might look ridiculous. So thinking that way isn’t weird.
So this is just me being in a mood by myself for no reason.
Fine. It wasn’t my first day. I shook off the useless thoughts that nobody would ever understand. Thinking more would only cost me. From this conversation, all I learned was that Im Sebin was sensitive as hell.
“Change? Are you seriously saying that right now? Are you kidding me?”
Im Sebin’s icy tone felt like he was scolding Go Youngin. I didn’t know what exactly he was scolding me for. It just felt that way.
“…Is what I said really that weird?”
“Of course it is.”
Cheon Sayun, who’d been listening to the conversation between Im Sebin and Go Youngin with obvious interest, suddenly cut in.
“Did you eat something weird and your head got messed up or what?”
And then he started spitting bullshit without his expression changing even once.
‘This psycho.’
Go Youngin flicked his eyes around. At the table tucked into the corner of the lobby, there wasn’t anyone sitting there besides Zero One’s members.
‘Ha… what a freak.’
Luckily, nobody was walking past right around us. A few people occasionally crossed the lobby, but they were farther away than I expected, and it didn’t seem like they’d hear what we were saying.
‘That damn mouth.’
“Sayun, this isn’t the dorm, it’s the company.”
“Do you think I’m like you? Of course I checked the surroundings.”
I’m going to lose it. What kind of confidence is that supposed to be? How the hell had he gone this whole time without that personality getting exposed? Cheon Sayun was the kind of guy who looked like he could save the world with his face, and bring disaster with his mouth.
“It’s not like I don’t understand why Sebin hyung is like this. I’m curious too, you know— why you suddenly started thinking like that, Youngin hyung.”
Cheon Sayun kept talking calmly, his face perfectly serene.
“It’s just not like you, Youngin hyung. Hmm… it’s not like you’re suddenly trying to start some pathetic little family-play between us now, right?”
So in the end, it was: you spent all this time not caring about each other and letting it roll along fine, so why are you suddenly trying to care about the group now?
If I truly hadn’t cared about the group at all, I wouldn’t even feel wronged. Well… if you ask whether I’d cared that much about the members, honestly, I didn’t have much to say, but…
Im Sebin’s expression darkened noticeably. He seemed to agree with Cheon Sayun’s words deep down, but at the same time, he looked extremely displeased that Cheon Sayun had cut into the conversation.
So of course I thought he’d say something back, but an unexpected person jumped in.
“Still can’t fix the way you talk, huh. Who here is there for you to talk down to like that, other than Pyo Jaeho. Fuck, who are you calling ‘pathetic’?”
Kyeon Inwoo, who’d been playing a phone game this whole time, was now sneering at Cheon Sayun. Why, Kyeon Inwoo. Why. What’s your problem. Why are you suddenly doing this, and over what?
“Haha. You’re not even some old man, but I guess all you’ve got to brag about is your age. Well, it’s not like you’re the only one, right?”
“At least I’m not like someone who goes around wagging his tail everywhere while acting two-faced. What’s the point of pretending you’re managing your image in front of other people, throwing on a whole show.”
A faint disgust even showed on Kyeon Inwoo’s face. They hadn’t even started a proper conversation, and it was already like this— it made it feel like they genuinely hated each other.
“Because what you’ve got inside is trash. Isn’t it?”
Even though Kyeon Inwoo openly attacked him personally, Cheon Sayun’s expression didn’t change. If anything, he just smiled brightly, eyes even crinkling, like he was sweet enough to make Kyeon Inwoo’s guts twist.
“That’s called basic manners and social life. Since you don’t do it properly, somebody has to, right? Do you happen to know what ‘social intelligence’ is?”
While he was at it, Cheon Sayun didn’t back down either, openly mocking Kyeon Inwoo as stupid. Was this guy really the leader before? My ass. He’s doing this with members, and he was a leader? How did he “lead” anybody?
To Go Youngin, Kyeon Inwoo and Cheon Sayun were the same kind of asshole, but if I said that, they’d obviously tell me to shut the fuck up, so I only thought it.
“Then stop making a scene here and go to the guys you like and ‘do social life’ with them. That’s your specialty. Fucking politicking, making people feel like shit.”
“If you say it like that, do you think I’d want to go? If I stay here, your mood will get even worse, you know.”
“Ah, shit.”
Cheon Sayun didn’t care about Kyeon Inwoo’s reaction. Instead, he opened his eyes wide and asked like someone who was genuinely curious.
“Why? Talking shit behind people’s backs is the same on both sides, isn’t it. Are you going to just let it slide because you ‘don’t remember’ properly?”
The Kyeon Inwoo who’d been snapping back so smoothly twisted his face into something vicious for a moment.
And it felt like he glanced over here for a second— was I imagining it? I looked at Cheon Sayun, and Cheon Sayun was also looking at me now, smiling meaningfully. What the hell is it.
Kyeon Inwoo’s face warped even more. His impression was already strong, and with that expression, the whole atmosphere turned instantly savage.
“You fucking bastard, seriously.”
“Woof.”
[ Condition 23│A kind idol leader must also be able to properly mediate members’ conflicts. ]
‘In this situation? The fire’s already spread and everything’s going to hell…? So until now, it didn’t even count as a fight? I don’t even know why they’re fighting in the first place.’
I’m fucked. Go Youngin happened to see Kyeon Inwoo curl his hand into a fist. The grinding sound was so clear I could hear it too well. I’m going insane. The veins that popped up on that clenched fist were painfully distinct.
‘Fuck, even brushing that fist is instant death at minimum.’
A bright smile still hung on Cheon Sayun’s face. Between the two of them, only an excessively cold silence hovered.
Kyeon Inwoo and Cheon Sayun didn’t even treat each other as human. They only looked at each other like something more worthless than a cigarette butt dropped on the street.
God, are you guys fighting dogs or what…….