Chapter 43

Gowon pressed his lips tightly together, his face turning bright red.

That was true....

The staff members who had been bristling with indignation began turning to look at Gowon one by one.

Once they calmed down from their fury over someone insulting Hanzel—the collaborative product they had all spent years painstakingly creating—they found that there was a rather adorable reason behind it.

“It wasn’t only because of that. I—I know Brother really is extremely capable, and he’s absolutely not old, either... and he’ll keep working in the future. That guy was just talking nonsense.”

He tried to protest in his deep, weighty voice, but the mood had already completely fallen apart. Everyone resumed the discussion with warm smiles that only Gowon failed to understand.

“Then what do we do now? Apologize and beg forgiveness, but take a firm stance that our side had good reason to be angry?”

“Right. Gowon got this pissed off about it too. We should make a proper complaint.”

“Well, I’m sure the person in charge will handle that.”

When I tossed out the reply, Chief Manager Park—the “person in charge”—grumbled.

“Hey, Hanje. I acted tough earlier, but I’m worse at this kind of thing than I thought. Damn it, what am I supposed to say when we get there?”

“Then not you. A different person in charge.”

I let out a deep sigh beneath their puzzled stares.

Being the senior who had taught a guy who had spent his entire life enduring everything alone how to say, “Help me,” was exhausting.

***

“Who’s here for K-Dom?”

“Hello, Producer. I’m the person in charge.”

“...What?”

I stood in front of the producer with a perfectly shameless expression.

“I’m a senior figure on the division head’s direct line. That makes me the person in charge, doesn’t it?”

“Haa....”

The producer’s gaze swept over me, Gowon, and Chief Manager Park, who had come with us.

I had brought someone who actually handled the practical work, and she seemed to acknowledge that I had a certain degree of influence within the company. My attitude, which made it clear I had nothing to feel guilty about, also helped.

But the other side was even more shameless. Kim Eumyul appeared after completely removing his stage makeup.

“Sniff....”

That made the marks from the fight on his face stand out even more as tears rolled steadily down his cheeks.

“...Fine. That’s enough. Let’s hear, one at a time, why something like this happened.”

“Producer, we were told Gowon attacked first. Even if there was some disagreement between friends, isn’t this going too far considering the difference in their size?”

The Music-or-Rhythm kid certainly looked almost ten centimeters shorter than Gowon.

I turned my head and whispered.

“Did you throw the first punch?”

I should have asked that before coming here, but I had forgotten.

“...I grabbed him by the collar first.”

“Okay. So he threw the first punch?”

“.......”

Our twenty-year-old, who was incapable of tattling or pretending to be the victim, merely nodded in silence.

“I—I was scared, so I reacted instinctively....”

“Oh, you poor thing. What are we going to do about this pretty face?”

“I’m all right....”

Beside the sniffling Kim Eumyul, the representative from Maybe Entertainment comforted his artist as though the sight were breaking his heart.

Ah, I still have a long way to go before I can call myself Gowon’s nanny.

The person in charge of Kim Eumyul was truly impressive. He was standing in front of the producer confessing that his artist had traded punches with another idol at a music show, yet he could still say, “Oh, you poor thing.”

“Producer, our artist isn’t normally like that. He reacted in the heat of the moment after hearing something emotionally hurtful.”

So I tried a little harder too. The tip of the producer’s eyebrow turned toward me.

“What did he hear?”

“He says Eumyul insulted me to tear Gowon down.”

“......?”

Sometimes, a vague explanation like that stimulated the imagination more effectively than a detailed one.

The producer’s eyes narrowed at once, and the expressions of the staff surrounding Kim Eumyul stiffened.

It looks like he didn’t tell them this part.

The confidence they had displayed until moments ago diminished slightly.

“Come to think of it, I believe the staff who broke up the fight said they heard something about Baek Hanje.”

When the producer added that, the Maybe Entertainment representative’s expression stiffened even further.

“Eumyul, is that true?”

“No...! Sob, I—that wasn’t what I meant. I only told Gowon, who received one of Hanzel’s songs, that I was jealous. I didn’t realize Gowon would take it in a bad way. I’m sorry for making Hanzel worry unnecessarily too....”

“Haa....”

The producer released a sigh toward the ceiling with the expression of someone who desperately wanted a cigarette.

“Gowon, don’t you have anything to say?”

“...I apologize for causing a disturbance.”

“Ah, so the two of you are using completely opposite strategies. Fine.”

Gowon wore a dark expression. Kim Eumyul sniffled. The producer looked bored as she faced the two young men.

The producer was not their homeroom teacher, responsible for disciplining them, and she had probably never cared from the beginning about who had done more wrong. They had already humiliated themselves by fighting in a professional setting. What meaning could there possibly be in winning or losing?

But the producer could serve perfectly well as the judge.

She was the most powerful person in this place and the one with the authority to make decisions.

Now that it had been established that both of them were as bad as each other, what remained was simple.

The one who won the producer over would become the person in the right. The one who failed would become the person in the wrong.

Generally speaking, the one crying was bound to receive more sympathy, and the smaller, more pitiful-looking party naturally drew more attention.

But here was the thing.

“Ah, it’s such a shame. You went to the trouble of giving us the opportunity to perform on <Music Building> again after all this time, and then something like this happened.”

Producer, isn’t there someone here whom you absolutely have to side with right now?

“Preparing an overseas location shoot must have been a tremendous amount of work. I was really looking forward to it too.”

There’s someone here who agreed to appear purely out of goodwill even though he doesn’t have a single album coming out.

At the broadcaster’s request, he had accepted a special-host position far beneath his seniority and public recognition, then even performed onstage to draw attention to the overseas special.

Now some rookie had disrespected him, and he was even getting caught in the crossfire of their fight.

So, who was the greatest victim in this incident?

Only then did Chief Manager Park appear to understand why I had insisted on stepping forward personally. The other side had probably begun to sense my intentions as well.

Gowon

Current Status: ■■ ■■■...?

Everyone except our boy, who merely displayed a baffled question mark.

“Haa....”

The producer deliberately released a deep sigh loud enough for everyone to hear.

“.......”

A moment later, the body that had been standing rigidly in the center with its arms crossed tilted to one side.

“Handle whatever bad blood exists between you as friends, and keep it out of the workplace. But Kim Eumyul, there was another incident involving Dearune before this, wasn’t there?”

“Ah, that was....”

“No matter how much times have changed, you should still show basic respect to senior artists who entered the industry first and paved the way.”

“.......”

“Especially Young Ace. Aren’t they so far above you in seniority that you should know better? I don’t know how long I’ll remain in this position, but I find myself wondering how I’ll feel someday when Kim Eumyul and Boyholic have accumulated enough years to be treated as senior artists themselves.”

“I....”

“Producer, we apologize. The company will make certain that he is formally reprimanded.”

The Maybe Entertainment representatives who had been defending Kim Eumyul immediately bowed once Dearune was mentioned.

No matter what anyone said, Dearune was Maybe Entertainment’s cash cow. They could not possibly risk dragging Dearune into a trivial incident involving Boyholic.

Kim Eumyul sensed that something was wrong when the company employees and manager who had come to defend him merely bowed their heads without offering a single excuse. He apologized along with them.

Following the mood, the people from K-Dom also began apologizing eagerly while doing their best to placate the producer.

As always, the incident ended without justice being served or any spectacular reversal.

Like most things in the entertainment industry, it was quietly buried beneath the surface....

Thump.

Or perhaps not. Was there still something left?

After right and wrong had been settled and everyone else had dispersed, an arm clad in a jacket dropped over my shoulder.

“Nothing comes free.”

“Come on, Hyunju. A producer like you makes good money.”

“Don’t use that cutesy voice when you’re a hulking grown-ass man.”

Producer Kim Hyunju of <Music Building> flicked her hand impatiently.

We had met when she was a rookie assistant director and I was an idol in a failing group, so I had wondered whether the affection we had built over the years might persuade her to let °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° it slide. But apparently, her fury over the ruined conclusion to the one-thousandth episode was stronger than that. Her stern expression did not soften.

“I let it go because it was you, but I’m not in the mood for jokes. What the hell is wrong with kids these days?”

“They’re kids because they don’t listen. They were high schoolers until yesterday.”

“...When you put it like that, it almost sounds tolerable. But I’ll get angry again if I dwell on it, won’t I, person in charge?”

She had sided with us for my sake, but Gowon’s fighting had unquestionably been something K-Dom had done wrong to the producer.

“Is there something you want?”

Only then did a broad smile spread across the producer’s face.

“Every producer wants the same thing.”

“Hmm. What could that be?”

“Do the first performance of your comeback on our show.”

“Aha....”

It was a predictable deal.

“You may have asked without a conscience, Hyunju, but I’ll answer with one. I genuinely have no idea when the comeback will happen.”

“Fine. I’m not expecting the full Young Ace lineup. A Hanzel solo would work, or Kwon Taeyoung could perform a special stage next time.”

“Wouldn’t bright and refreshing me be better than Taeyoung?”

“I prefer a less refreshing flavor. That’s why I like Hanzel too.”

“...I can’t promise Taeyoung’s personal schedule. He’s involved in company management now. Then how about a solo from me?”

“Fine. Or a unit with Hanzel in it.”

“Wow, you’re really enjoying yourself now.”

“Of course I am. When else would something like this happen? I can even threaten to expose the fact that the junior artist Baek Hanje dotes on traded punches backstage at a music show if he breaks his promise.”

“It’s not like I’m particularly fond of him....”

“Then what is he?”

Maybe I could call us people whose lives had become bound together because of a quest.

When I failed to answer, the producer smiled as though she were watching a sulking child.

Hmm. Maybe it was because I had spent the hiatus living as a soul as free as a feather. Strange. I wasn’t used to anyone having leverage over me.