I walked closer to Cha Seokhyeon, who was just staring at me like an idiot. Cha Seokhyeon flinched, but he never took his eyes off me. Facing him under the streetlight, I saw that only a few days had passed, but his cheeks had already gone hollow. I stopped three steps away and gave Cha Seokhyeon a look. Say something. Anything.
Cha Seokhyeon spoke in a dry voice.
“If I hadn’t gone this far… you would’ve kept ignoring me, Yuha.”
The idiot bastard was spouting nonsense. I had not called him because he was useless. I had never told him to act however the fuck he wanted like this. Besides, Cha Seokhyeon no longer had any need to cling to Kang Yejun. I looked at him without feeling much of anything and said half-heartedly,
“Want to quit? Quit and go study abroad.”
“…You said you needed me.”
“That was then. Not now.”
Cha Seokhyeon’s eyes pinched, as if emotion had surged up in him.
“You know too, Yuha. They say I’m going to learn management, but really, they’re kicking me out because I’m not good enough. Because my father doesn’t like me.”
“How would I know that?”
“Liar… How could you, of all people, not know…?”
Cha Seokhyeon looked like he might burst into tears any second. Thanks to knowing him since we were young, I did know. I knew that bastard had been an idiot since childhood, and his older brother had been an idiot who was a little better than him. Cha Seokhyeon’s parents openly discriminated between the two brothers. That was why Cha Seokhyeon’s arrogant bastard of a brother had tormented him even more.
Cha Seokhyeon was mistaken.
I had not done that to his brother for Cha Seokhyeon’s sake. Full Moon Angel being a masterpiece or whatever had just been an excuse. I was bored, so I played a prank. After that, whether his brother messed with Cha Seokhyeon or not, what did that have to do with me?
When you play a prank, it is not like you weigh every little detail. You just attach whatever reason works and try to have fun. I spoke lightly.
“So what? If you said that with your own mouth, that’s the end of it. Whatever your circumstances were, you were the one who ran your mouth about going to study abroad because you were going to inherit the company.”
“Yuha….”
“You’re the one who tried to run away with that excuse. That was your choice. If you didn’t want to get pushed out, you should’ve said no. Not held out until I stopped you.”
“That’s not it. I—”
“Go now, then. I won’t stop you.”
Cha Seokhyeon grabbed my hand as tears fell from his eyes. Trembling, he shook his head.
“I don’t want to. I’m staying by your side.”
“….”
“I’ll listen from now on. Don’t throw me away too.”
“Do you not understand words? I’m telling you, your father and I are no different. I kept you around because you were useful.”
When I tried to shake him off, Cha Seokhyeon gripped my hand tight.
“That’s okay. You’re still different, Yuha.”
This bastard’s brain was decoration, but it worked properly at the decisive moments. He knew that if he clung to me all desperate like this, sweet little me would not be able to abandon him. In reality, I was strangely soft when it came to Cha Seokhyeon. Maybe it was because I remembered him calling my name whenever everything was fucked. Each time, I had barely managed to stop myself from strangling someone. Even when I thought I could not hold it in anymore, I had forced it down, like cramming vermin into a ripped-open trash bag.
I kicked Cha Seokhyeon in the shin as he stared at me desperately. Cha Seokhyeon swallowed a groan and dropped my hand. I looked down at him as he groaned. Too much of a waste to throw away. If I tried to abandon him because he had lost his use, Cha Seokhyeon was the kind of bastard who would make himself useful even if he had to kill someone to do it.
And he still had uses.
In a bored voice, I asked,
“Does your brother still go around doing that?”
“Huh? My brother?”
“Playing VIP with those bastards, partying with women around.”
Cha Seokhyeon shook his head.
“These days, they party with men too.”
“They do drugs and orgies too?”
“I’m not sure… I don’t pay attention, so I don’t really know. Should I look into it?”
“More than that, I’d like to meet your brother.”
When I said it with a gentle smile, Cha Seokhyeon nodded happily. Then he timidly added that if I needed anything else, he would really do everything I told him to this time.
“Can you unblock me?”
“Maybe if you stopped acting like such an idiot.”
“I won’t! I’ll listen from now on!”
“If you do a good job with what I just ordered, I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll contact my brother right away. What about Kang Yejun?”
Cha Seokhyeon’s eyes glittered like a dog bastard’s. I thought for a moment, then said,
“Leave him alone for now.”
I would have to use him on that gangster bastard. Ha Jaeyoung and Kang Yejun had to do something, whether it was fucking or love, before I could use it as a weakness. If I just made sure that gangster bastard and Kang Yejun met, they would probably stick together on their own. I could play the bridge of love this time.
Just as I was having such a commendable thought, the phone shoved in my long padded coat pocket vibrated. Perfect timing. I answered the call from the gangster bastard and gestured at Cha Seokhyeon to leave. Cha Seokhyeon whined regretfully and showed no sign of leaving.
Listen well, my ass.
Fuck, I really was too goddamn soft.
I let out a breath and turned my back on Cha Seokhyeon. Ignoring him noisily telling me to get back safely from behind, I spoke into the phone with shameless ease.
“We really must be fated. I was just about to contact you.”
The gangster bastard let out a disbelieving laugh and cursed that I was full of shit.
*****
This side of the floor was as small as the entertainment industry. Bastards who gathered among themselves to do drugs, especially bastards blessed with rich parents. Those were the kinds of bastards who rolled around playing with celebrities and trainees. Assuming Lee Sehan was a drug addict, I could make two guesses.
Either Lee Sehan was being sponsored because someone had him by the balls with drugs, or he started out getting sponsored over something else and ended up on drugs too.
The latter seemed more plausible. What money would a bastard who had spent years struggling to become an idol have to do drugs?
When I entered the dorm room, Kang Yejun asked in a puzzled tone,
“Huh? Where were you?”
“Where are the other bastards?”
“They all left right after the ranking announcement. It’s our first break in forever. I thought you’d gone out too. Leaving by yourself without saying a word, cold as hell, seemed exactly like you, Park Yuha, so I didn’t even question it.”
“You really must be dying to get hit these days.”
“No… so where did you go?”
“Cha Seokhyeon came.”
“Seokhyeon? What the hell, he didn’t even contact me….”
Kang Yejun grumbled in a drooping voice. When I stared at him silently, he asked why I was looking at him like that, then asked if we had failed to make up, then said he knew this would happen, beating the drum and janggu all by himself. In a flat voice, I said,
“Want me to introduce you to a man?”
“What the hell, out of nowhere….”
“There’s someone who says he likes you. Your asshole must be itching anyway.”
“Are you insane?! What do you mean, my asshole is itching?!”
“He’s probably willing to sponsor you too.”
I thought he would bite immediately, but Kang Yejun made a strange face. A strange face that looked like he was forcing himself to smile. Kang Yejun lowered his head and muttered in a voice that barely crawled out,
“Park Yuha, you’re really… no, forget it. Of course you would.”
“He fucks really well too. Thoughtful, right?”
“What the fuck are you even saying, you son of a bitch?! Do you think I’m some bastard obsessed with men’s dicks?!”
“It’s big too. You’ll be thanking me to death.”
Maybe he was too embarrassed to keep pretending he hated it, because Kang Yejun huffed and climbed up to the top bunk. Then he yanked the blanket over himself and grumbled,
“It had better not be small. Seriously.”
I lay down on my bed and told him to get medicine ready to rub on his asshole. Ignoring him as he kept muttering about something after that, I connected my earphones to my phone and put them in. The answer to an attention whore bastard who likes something while pretending not to is to ignore him.
While choosing a song, I found the video I had seen before. I scrolled through the comments on the video of Kang Yejun, Yoon Jiwoo, and me dancing together. There were not even that many comments, but plenty of them were about Kang Yejun’s old name, “Kang Yeoil.” And quite specifically too. That he had that kind of relationship with his homeroom teacher. That it was prostitution. That the homeroom teacher was male. Every single one of them was trivial garbage.
When the dance video ended, another video immediately played next. It was Lee Sehan’s individual-evaluation stage. Lee Sehan, his face tense, clutched the microphone desperately with both hands and said,
“This is personally my favorite song.”
The intro began, and Lee Sehan closed his eyes. Then he sang in a clear, beautiful voice.
Maybe I lost my way somehow—
Through countless nights, direction gone—
I wandered and wandered
And now I think I have arrived
In a dark, empty place
Where no one else exists
Maybe, for a long time,
I will never find the road
Maybe, for a long time,
All I will be is sad
After finishing the song, Lee Sehan stared into the camera, and his eyes shimmered like melted starlight.
So much that he did not look like a drug addict at all.
They shone like that.
I turned off the video and closed my eyes.
There were funny corners to the way people’s lives worked. It was not rare for someone to fall to rock bottom the harder they struggled to succeed, the harder they tried to become better.
They say three enormous strokes of luck come in your life. They tell you not to miss them. But in the moment, it is hard to tell whether something is the chance of a lifetime or the exact opposite.
Especially when you are desperate, you grab it without caring whether it is shit or soybean paste. Lucky bastards are lucky enough to meet good people and luck their way into good opportunities, but how common could that be?
People that lucky were a minority.
Lee Sehan probably accepted a sponsor because he wanted things to work out for himself. But there was no way someone soaked in drugs could become a proper idol.
There were quite a few people like that in the world. What they grabbed because they thought it was their best option in a desperate moment turned out to be a cliff.
For a moment, I recalled Lee Sehan’s face as he smiled brightly after taking first place.
Then I erased it.