The gangster bastard laughed like I was ridiculous and lowered the phone from his ear. I gripped the phone in the pocket of my hooded zip-up. I’d gotten bored halfway through and shoved it in there without even hanging up, but apparently that bastard had been holding his to his ear this whole time.
I lowered my eyes and looked the gangster bastard over. I didn’t know if black suits were the exclusive property of gangsters or if this bastard was just like that, but every time I saw him, he was dressed in one. It did suit him. One glance and he reeked of the gutter, practically announcing, I am a gangster. The gangster bastard sneered in an irritated voice.
“You’re lucky. I was about to pick the lock and go into your dorm.”
“What a shame. If you’d shown up with that bat, Kang Yejun, who’s exactly your type, would’ve fallen head over heels.”
“Do you not understand the situation? Is it because you’ve never been beaten properly?”
“I’m more into beating than being beaten.”
The gangster tightened his grip on the baseball bat.
“Are you planning to hit me with that?”
“No. I’m planning to kill you.”
“Oh, wow. Going to prison at such a young age by choice?”
“Shut your mouth, you fucking bastard.”
He looked like he was about to swing the baseball bat, so I kicked the bat itself. He must have been holding it pretty firmly, because it only shifted without falling from his hand. God, what a pain in the ass. I frowned faintly and kicked the gangster bastard in the shin. His body buckled as he bit back a curse. The instant the strength left the gangster bastard’s hand, I kicked the baseball bat hard. With a clang, the bat fell to the ground far away.
The look on the gangster bastard’s face was funny. It was obvious he was thinking, What the hell is this bastard? Well, I was a little exceptional. With an expressionless face, I imitated a cute tone.
“If you hit Yuha with a baseball bat, it’ll hurt too much.”
“Crazy… What kind of lunatic bastard….”
“How was the shin? Since I didn’t hit you properly, maybe you still don’t understand the situation?”
The gangster bastard straightened and glared at me.
“What the hell are you?”
“I’m an idol.”
“Bullshit. You’re more gangster than a gangster. What did you used to do?”
“Looks like you really don’t understand the situation. Did I stab you or something?”
That gangster bastard was impossible to communicate with too. Why couldn’t he grasp what was happening? I had no idea how his ears worked, but he seemed to think I was some gangster trying to take him down. If I’d really been trying to take him down, I would’ve swung a knife first. I didn’t know why humans never understood when you tried to talk nice and had to make such a fucking mess of everything.
I walked right up to him as he fumed. Ignoring the way he watched me with wary eyes, I took a cigarette from the pack. Then I put it between the gangster’s lips. I smiled sweetly and said,
“Why don’t you have a smoke and calm down?”
“What the—”
“Oh, right. I should light it for you.”
I put the cigarette I’d been holding between my fingers into my own mouth. Then I grabbed the gangster bastard by the collar and pulled him down, transferring the flame from my cigarette to his.
For an instant, the gangster bastard sucked in a breath. He went rigid, staring down at me, and it was painfully obvious he was nervous. After lighting his cigarette, I stepped back. Then I looked up at him and smiled innocently.
“How was that? Did it have some sex appeal?”
The gangster bastard, who had been standing there dazed, came to his senses and crumpled his face.
“You really are one crazy bastard.”
“I only want to have sex with you. How does that make me crazy?”
“Someone who wants sex drugs the other guy and runs?”
I drew the cigarette smoke deep into my lungs, then exhaled. My gaze dropped to the ground. Just because the gangster bastard wasn’t connected to Kang Yejun yet didn’t mean I could leave him alone. Not when he might cling to Park Yuhyeon or that rich conglomerate bastard at any moment and try to kill me. I could humor the gangster bastard for a while, then kill him when the time came.
I lifted my head and met the gangster’s eyes. Then I moved to his side. Ignoring the look he gave me, like he was wondering what kind of bullshit trick this was now, I leaned against the car beside him. The car was pretty nice. It had probably been bought with money he’d earned beating perfectly decent humans half to death, so it would be strange if it weren’t.
“It’s my first time, you see.”
“What kind of nonsense are you trying to spout now?”
“It’s obvious your technique isn’t good enough to make me want to look for you again.”
I continued calmly.
“But I like you, so I need to make some excuse to keep seeing you somehow.”
“…….”
“So I decided to use my first time as bait and beg for your attention.”
“You call that begging?”
“Yes. Isn’t it incredibly humble? This is my first time acting like this too.”
The gangster bastard let out a loud, incredulous laugh. Then, for some reason, he bent over and laughed even harder. Was that bastard choking or something? He laughed like a filthy lunatic. After laughing like he was having a seizure, the bastard finally stopped and asked with laughter still in his voice,
“You think you’re the only one who wants me to take his virginity? If you want to beg for attention, why don’t you start by changing that attitude?”
“Then what would you like?”
“Everything about you pisses me off. Sorry, but a lunatic like you really isn’t my type.”
“…….”
“What a shame. Guess I can’t give you any attention.”
I looked at the gangster bastard’s fishy grin and slowly closed my eyes, then opened them. Then I threw the burned-down cigarette butt onto the road, reached up, and wrapped my palm around the back of the gangster bastard’s neck to pull him down. The look on the flustered gangster bastard’s face was worth seeing. I took the cigarette from between his lips with my left hand, lowered it, and pressed my mouth to his.
My lips touched the gangster bastard’s. I bit his lip and pushed my tongue through the opening. The wet sound of sucking his tongue was pretty slick. The gangster bastard’s hands twitched, but he didn’t shove me away.
I sucked lazily at the gangster’s lips, then pulled back. That bastard was completely gone. The eyes looking down at me were heated, sticky with lust. Seriously, whether it was Kang Yejun or this bastard, did gay bastards only understand when you used your body? I smiled sweetly.
“How’s this kind of begging?”
“…….”
“Feel like giving me a little attention now?”
The gangster bastard’s stiff face crumpled in an instant. He ground out a curse, then got into the car. What was with that bastard, cutting himself off mid-sentence like that? I laughed in disbelief and knocked on the car window. The gangster bastard ignored me and started the engine, so I hit the window hard with my fist. Only then did the gangster bastard lower the window, looking stunned. I smiled meekly and asked,
“What’s your name?”
The bastard made a strange face and said, “You seriously didn’t know? Crazy bastard.” Then he reversed just like that. Afterward, he turned the car around, tires scraping the ground, and drove off. The bastard was pretty good behind the wheel. I stared impassively at the back of the car, then threw the cigarette of his that I was still holding onto the ground. I crushed it under my slipper, grinding it slowly into the pavement. I was about to go back to the dorm when my phone got a message.
「Boss Ha Jaeyoung. Save it properly.」
「And answer my calls right away. If you don’t, you die.」
So much for not having any interest in giving me attention. I smiled crookedly and sent a reply.
「I can’t answer right away. I’m about to go on an idol debut program. Come find me if you miss me.」
The moment I sent the message, the gangster bastard called me. This bastard was making calls while driving? As a kind person, I shouldn’t answer. I hung up without hesitation and walked lightly back into the dorm.
*****
The idol debut program’s name was decided. Once it got saddled with the shitty name <Your Idol>, preparations for the broadcast began in earnest. The producer contacted us the day before yesterday. He said they would select ninety-nine people through preliminary interviews. The interviews would be one-on-one, but because we were a team, we would be interviewed together. Judging from the nuance, it seemed like we were the only active idols who had applied.
The broadcasting station I hadn’t been to in a while wasn’t much different. There was nothing new about it, but Kang Yejun was so tense he couldn’t stop running his mouth. Every single thing he said was useless. What would the interview even be like? What if the producer disliked us? Jiwoo, you just act like usual, and Park Yuha, you just stay still. Don’t say anything. No, you have to greet him!
He seemed to have lost his mind, so I hit him on the back of the head. Kang Yejun clutched his head with both hands and fumed. When I said sweetly, “Make a scene one more time and I’ll tear your mouth open,” Kang Yejun shut up. I looked him over, measuring him. He really was stranger the more I looked at him. When he listened to me this well, he still killed me? If he’d rebelled a little in daily life, maybe I’d understand, but it was both funny and made me want to kill him that a bastard who used to obey so well had stabbed me in the back so magnificently.
Kang Yejun watched my expression, then knocked on the door and opened it. It was the conference room where we were supposed to meet the producer.
“Hello, we’re Seven Days!”
Yoon Jiwoo and Kang Yejun bent ninety degrees in greeting. I just nodded roughly. It was funny, wasn’t it? Idols greeting people like gangsters. I ignored the producer’s displeased look and sat across from him. This idol industry really was fucking weird. It had all these incomprehensible hierarchies and pecking orders, and the things people did were filthy beyond belief.
The interview went smoothly. He said he already had a rough idea of our skills from watching our performances and asked obvious questions.
“This is my last question. Why apply when you’re already in your third year since debut?”
“Ah… Well, our popularity is kind of what it is. If things keep going like this, we’ll probably disband, and I applied because I want to keep being an idol no matter what.”
Yoon Jiwoo paused, then gave a serious answer. Kang Yejun nodded hard along with him and made a fuss.
“This is basically our last chance! Producer, please take good care of us!”
“That depends on what you all do.”
“Haha, right…….”
The producer took his eyes off Kang Yejun, who was laughing awkwardly, and looked at me. His expression was pretty foul, like he was remembering the rumors about me. The bad rumors about me were widespread around the broadcasting station. Kang Yejun once sniped that it was hard for someone with no popularity to have such a terrible reputation, yet I was a bastard with such impressive conduct that I’d managed it anyway.
The few times I’d been on radio, I’d been half-assed the whole way through, and when I ignored idol seniors and broadcast producers, ridiculous rumors started circulating. Apparently, on the day I debuted, I’d beaten some producer half to death or whatever. This fucking entertainment industry really could blow up one tiny prank. Conveniently leaving out the part where the producer bastard who got hit had started the pranking first. The producer seemed to finish whatever he was thinking, and he didn’t bother hiding his crooked attitude as he spoke.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, Yuha.”
“Have you?”
“I don’t think you’ll be like that on this show, but, well, it wouldn’t matter if you were.”
I smiled obediently and answered,
“Yes. I plan to be.”
At my refreshing answer, the producer made a ridiculous face. His expression clearly said, Is this bastard saying he’ll fix it, or that he’ll keep acting like shit the way he always has?