“…Hyung, don’t wait for me and just proceed with the comeback. I’m okay.”
At those words, the members who were following me held their breath.
Everyone was probably reacting that way because they already knew how the situation was developing and what kind of stories the public was pouring out about Do Yuda’s injury.
“…….”
I slowly blinked my eyelids, which had been lowered since I entered the hospital room.
And I slowly pushed away the faintly shimmering red hair from my vision.
‘Do Yuda and the members must be feeling very confused right now.’
I had to pull myself together.
I had to make sure the same situation that happened with Jo Inchan would never happen again.
“Yu-chan, what do you mean…….”
“Everyone, go out and grab something to eat.”
I calmly spoke as I blocked Zen, who was highly agitated and about to head straight for Do Yuda, with my arm. The members, seeming unable to understand my decision, halted and called out to me in protest.
“Seungbeom-ah.”
“Leada, I!”
Especially Zen, who was particularly close to Do Yuda, even raised his voice, which was unlike him.
However, even after seeing their state, I repeated the same words.
“Just step outside for a moment. It’s fine.”
My reasoning for this decision was clear.
In any case, I knew the members wouldn’t be able to accept the idea of Do Yuda being excluded from the activities, and they would resist in any way possible to prevent that from happening. But right now, Do Yuda was under a lot of pressure from people’s comments and the fatigue of his injury. I didn’t want to add more pressure to him with a conversation where it was one against many.
“Just wait a little while I talk to him.”
Right now, the only person suitable to have a conversation with Do Yuda was me, the leader of the team, and that was my responsibility. With that in mind, I stood my ground. The members hesitated a bit and looked at each other’s faces, as if they were contemplating.
They probably had a lot of things they wanted to say. They must have been surprised. In the midst of that, would the members really fully trust me in this crisis, which could greatly affect the team’s future, and willingly hand over their most important moment, the present, to me?
Although I had boldly made the request to the members, I wasn’t fully confident about it, so I waited for them to make their decision.
“…….”
As soon as our eyes met, Lee Hwayoung immediately turned around and left the hospital room.
Then, one by one, the other members followed him out of the room.
“…Thank you.” I said without looking back at them.
They paused for a moment, shook their heads, and gave a faint smile. Soon after, they resumed their heavy steps, urged by Woo Kangwon’s hand on their backs.
After the members closed the door and left the hospital room, I walked over to Do Yuda’s side. He showed no reaction, as if he was already expecting to have a conversation with me alone.
Unfazed, I sat down on the small chair beside the bed and began to speak in a deliberately calm tone.
“Is your leg feeling a bit better? They said it would take some time for you to be able to move comfortably after the surgery.”
“…Hyung.”
“You’ll need to recover a bit and then do rehabilitation regularly. That way, the aftereffects won’t be as bad later.”
“Hyung, I’m not joking. I’m serious. Really, Pantheion.…”
As if he thought I had dismissed his words as a joke, Do Yuda clutched the blanket tightly. Then, with tear-filled eyes, he glanced down at his hands and barely managed to speak. I stared at Do Yuda, who looked like he might burst into tears at the slightest touch as he forced himself to repeat the same words, and asked.
“What are you planning to do in the future if you drop out of Pantheion?”
“…….”
Do Yuda’s head hung low, not answering my question.
It was an expected reaction.
He probably hasn’t thought that far ahead.
“If you want to stop your activities and focus on rehabilitation, I don’t mind if you do what you want. Because Pantheion isn’t the entirety of your life. If you’re planning to have a long career, that might even be a good choice. But looking at you right now, I don’t think that’s what you’re really wanting for.”
“…But realistically, right now, I’m just a burden. No matter how much I want to, I can’t even walk until my bones heal, so how could I be stubborn?”
Do Yuda was the first to bring up the reality, almost as if making an excuse to himself.
He then described staying in Pantheion until the end as his
stubbornness
.
I listened to him for a moment, then replied bluntly.
“So, in the end, you’re saying it’s not that you don’t want to stay.”
At those words, Do Yuda repeatedly opened and closed his lips as if his insides had been pierced, and eventually, he clamped his mouth shut and lowered his head.
The current Do Yuda wasn’t thinking about the future. He was just trying to let go of what he was holding onto because he was scared of what was happening right now and the words that were being thrown at him. Once I figured that out, I realized there were several things I could do for Do Yuda.
“Just because it’s uncomfortable for you to move your leg doesn’t mean you have to drop out of the group’s activities altogether. Our group members are great singers, so we could promote with vocal-oriented songs. We could also give you the killing part and have you exit the stage after performing that part.”
“…I’m grateful that you’re willing to go to such lengths for me, hyung, but either way, it would still cause some harm for the members. Even you, hyung, are someone who shines the brightest in performance-oriented songs. If I end up getting in the way of that, it’s only natural that there will be people who feel dissatisfied. Besides, it’ll take months for me to recover enough to even stand on stage, so how can I make all of you wait that long? If things were normal, we’d be starting our comeback preparations right now … If you wait for me, the group won’t be able to promote much before the contract period ends. I don’t want to hold the members back.”
When I offered various measures for him to continue activities, he frowned and replied rapidly, almost without taking a breath. He wasn’t the type of person to think that deeply, but seeing him rattle it off like that, it seemed like he was echoing what people had been saying online.
“You said members are supposed to support each other even if one of us becomes weak, because that’s what family is. Didn’t you see the members’ expressions earlier? Zen looked like he was about to say something like, ‘
I don’t want to promote without Yu-chan
‘. You don’t really think the other members would be happily going along with activities without you, do you?”
At my words, Do Yuda fell silent, perhaps recalling the members’ faces from earlier. He hadn’t even considered the obvious fact that the members would never blame him.
I fell into thought as I watched Do Yuda, who remained silent for a long time.
I thought about what I could say to Do Yuda, as an adult, as a leader who should lead him. I thought about every single moment of him I’d ever seen.
Silence or lies didn’t help.
Didn’t I know very well that Do Yuda was a child who gained great comfort whenever I told him the truth?
Even when he had hyperventilation before the competition, or when a negative atmosphere spread between Woo Kangwon and me, Do Yuda always sought the truth. It was through the truth that he could find his footing again. He was originally a child with exceptional empathy.
“Please! Please, just say something! Hyung, it drives me crazy every time you act like that!”
“Where are you going? You’ve been keeping your mouth shut this whole time, so why are you acting like this all of a sudden?!”
And right now, I knew all too well that the silence I had kept in order to protect the members had actually become a poison to them. So, what I was about to tell Do Yuda was my true feelings, shedding off the hard shell that had protected me until now.
“I was scared. As I ran towards you lying there on the floor, I was so scared that I couldn’t bear it.”
“…….”
“But you must have been more scared. You still are. That’s why you’re acting so impulsively.”
His eyes welled up immediately. And with cheeks puffed up from holding back tears, he nodded obediently.
I patted the rounded back of his head in praise, and then with difficulty, I uttered the words that had been lingering in my mind.
“It’s okay to take a break. A brief pause doesn’t determine your worth.”
I wasn’t sure if I could say those words to my own self.
I have already experienced failure once, and yet it hasn’t changed my attitude towards life.
It was my nature, my way of life that had been firmly shaped over decades of existence. Therefore, it might never change for the rest of my life.
“If you can’t move your legs, you can practice singing. If you can’t stand on stage, you can learn by watching other people’s performances. There’s so much you can learn just by observing.”
The foolish Seo Yutae couldn’t tell Jo Inchan those words because
he
believed that
he
shouldn’t say anything to others that
he
couldn’t keep to
himself
. But now, I wished for the people I cherished to live a wiser life than mine, and I deeply regretted not being able to embrace him warmly back then. So, I blurted out these words as a form of confession.
“You’re not falling behind or becoming a burden. You’re just taking a step back to leap to a higher place.”
Then, unable to hold back his tears any longer, he let teardrops fall onto the blanket, and honestly revealed his true feelings to me.
“…I really like this group. I’m sorry, but deep down, I want to continue promoting with everyone. But if I stay, everyone would hate me for it. Especially since our fandom was built through a survival program, the individual fandoms are quite strong..…”
“Why would they? I made that decision on my own.”
When I said that while rubbing his face—damp like a dumpling soaked in water—with my sleeve, Do Yuda sniffled and then asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Soon, the letter I wrote will be released through the agency. It’ll say that once you’re able to move around to some extent, we’ll definitely make a comeback as a full group. I will ask Muses to wait just a little longer. We have to spread the word that the Leader of Pantheion, who’s as inflexible as a cut of piece of bamboo, has no intention of continuing group activities without Do Yuda. While you were undergoing surgery, I already discussed it with the higher-ups at the agency, and that’s the final decision.”
I firmly drove the point home as I spoke to Do Yuda, who was already wide-eyed but now looked even more dumbfounded.
“That means it’s entirely my own decision for Do Yuda to stay as part of Pantheion, and for Pantheion to wait for Do Yuda.”
“Hyung, that!”
“So, even if you can’t do intense dancing yet, try your best to recover enough to manage your daily life. Stop reading those damn comments. If you do that, I’ll take care of the rest.”
I pressed down firmly on Do Yuda’s fingers as he scrambled to pull himself up, as if he was trying to stop me. Then, I smiled faintly and spoke.
“If you ever face a situation like this again, make sure to eat well, sleep well, and surround yourself with people who cherish you. Then, make a careful decision. Don’t try to make an important decision in the darkest moment of your life.”
The truth was, I didn’t know which choice was the right one.
I could only find the least risky option through inference.
Among the countless choices we faced in life, it was beyond human’s capability to know which one was the right one. Besides, a perfect choice didn’t exist in the first place.
Therefore, I thought.
I will not be the one who leads you to the right path.
“And if there comes a day when even that choice becomes too much for you to bear…….”
Don’t be swayed by the opinions of others and cherish yourself the most. Consider the path you’ve chosen as the right answer, and move forward without regret.
“I will bear it with you. Leave all your regrets and fears to me, and live a life where you can be happy.”
“…….”
“If by chance things go wrong, you can blame me. It’s okay. Isn’t that what a leader is for?”
In that case, I’ll walk behind you.
And I will be the one who reaches out a hand to catch you whenever you stumble and fall.
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Translator’s Corner:
Day 9 ,,, I’m so over
Ugh I seriously cant do this anymore. I’ll just cry. Life is so miserable because Seo Yutae isn’t real. God please send me a Seo Yutae….
And yeah, realistically speaking, MC has the right and authority to force that decision. He’s not only the leader, but he’s also the one who debuted as the #1, with far superior number of votes. First place doesn’t really mean much now, but if you consider Pantheion in the same level of Wanna One, the fandom of the #1 trainee definitely has the right to demand their child being treated as the utmost priority. After all, they gave their all to make him #1, they spent money for that, so the company was expected to respect that standing.
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