Chapter 90

“Did you vote?”

“...Yes.”

“Watch next week’s broadcast stage too. I did really well.”

“I never said I voted for Baek Hanje.”

“Liar.”

“......”

“...What? Are you serious? Who did you vote for?!”

Gowon looked at Baek Hanje and thought.

Why is he such a completely different person outside the stage?

No.

It wasn’t simply that there was a difference.

He acted especially strange only in front of that person.

Only in front of that... Kwon Taeyoung.

He had even advised me to make a good impression on investors, yet he himself was acting more childish than ever before.

It was completely different from the way he had mercilessly crushed his teammates not long ago.

During the second competition, Gowon realized something.

Just by doing his own part well, he could make the other team members look endlessly insignificant.

“You... what are you? Baek Hanje, what the hell are you?!”

After coming down from the stage, the leader of Baek Hanje’s team grabbed him roughly by the collar with a pale face.

But the youngest member who used to obediently listen whenever the older members spoke was no longer there.

“I think I’m just built for the stage. Once I got up there, I suddenly had so much energy?”

“......”

“But why are you saying this to me right now just because I did well onstage?”

The undefeated first-ranked trainee who had shocked even the people waiting backstage—

“Ah, it’s fine even if you didn’t vote for me. I just want to know who your pick is, okay?”

—was now standing on tiptoe, peeking over the investor representative’s shoulder and begging to see his phone screen.

“Why do you keep wanting to know my voting results?”

“Because I obviously need to know something that the representative has no reason to know.”

“Ha....”

“If you keep doing this, I’m going to become rebellious! We’re about to film the PPL right now. Should I go out, cook a whole bowl of ramen, come back all bloated, and ruin the shoot?!”

The young and handsome CEO eventually gave up and showed Baek Hanje the screen.

“I voted for Baek Hanje. Satisfied?”

“As expected, I’m the best in your eyes, right?”

“When only considering skill and excluding personality.”

“Come on, personality is off the record.”

“That’s why I took it into consideration.”

Still, that representative who had seemed stiff and cold also appeared to be gentler than expected.

At least judging by how he let a kid act like that without stopping him.

It doesn’t seem like he’s merely putting up with him. It feels like he actually enjoys dealing with him too....

During the first competition, Baek Hanje had constantly stuck to me and annoyed me whenever he had the chance.

But during the second one, perhaps because our teams had split, he rarely came looking for me.

When that demanding voice that constantly pointed out every little mistake disappeared, the surroundings often felt strangely quiet.

The two people filming the PPL for K-Dom Five were Gowon and Baek Hanje.

Because of that, I thought I would finally get to spend some time with Baek Hanje again after a long while.

Then I could tell him he did well during the last stage... and maybe ask if we should do the final competition together....

I had planned to bring it up when there was a break during filming.

Because now, I didn’t think I was someone who would drag Baek Hanje down with my own skill level anymore.

But the moment Baek Hanje’s representative arrived, he immediately ran over and didn’t even glance this way.

The representative tapped Baek Hanje’s forehead as he kept hovering around him.

“Stop playing around and go film.”

Wait, what kind of representative casually touches a trainee’s face?

“Yes.”

And on top of that, Baek Hanje, who could be endlessly sharp if he wanted to be, simply smiled brightly even after being tapped.

“......”

Kwon Taeyoung was the developer of a global video streaming platform.

He had apparently changed the landscape of the existing market by introducing systems that maximized interaction with fans into a platform that broadcasted online concerts and fan meetings live.

He introduced himself as running a startup, but in reality, he was someone operating a company far larger than that.

There were many sponsors for <Debut Chart>, but he was apparently the only representative who personally came because he wanted to watch the PPL filming himself.

While flipping through the app that was the subject of the PPL, Baek Hanje muttered.

“That person doesn’t even need to become a celebrity. He’s someone who creates stages and makes artists shine anyway.”

“What?”

“Hm?”

Ah.

When our eyes met, Baek Hanje shrugged.

“Nothing.”

“......”

...When was it that he used to chatter endlessly at me with useless comments whenever he could....

Still, the filming itself was something Gowon and Baek Hanje had to do alone.

Soon, the PPL scenario began.

“Ah. Hyung! This time too. The concert. Ticketing. I failed again.”

Baek Hanje approached Gowon while holding his phone and drooping his shoulders sadly.

“If. There’s no seat. For me at the venue. Then. I can. Make one. In my room.”

“What? How?!”

I didn’t know that much about the entertainment industry, but I could tell that we weren’t doing very well.

Even Baek Hanje seemed strangely enthusiastic, making his tone absurdly exaggerated.

Kwon Taeyoung covered the corner of his mouth with narrowed eyes.

Several staff members were also visibly trying hard not to laugh.

The writer lifted a sketch board.

Gowon grabs Baek Hanje and shows him the phone screen.

Ah....

Following the instruction, I reached toward Baek Hanje.

The moment my hand touched the body slightly below my line of sight, Baek Hanje’s shoulder jumped.

“Ah, cold.”

He had undone the upper buttons of his shirt, so my pinky and ring finger had touched the bare skin of his neck.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Baek Hanje immediately apologized to the staff.

Taking advantage of that moment, several people who had been holding back laughter finally burst out.

“It’s okay. We had to retake it anyway. First, relax a little, guys.”

“Ah, Gowon hyung was kind of bad.”

“Hanje, it’s kind of six of one and half a dozen of the other, but you’re a little worse.”

“Hmm.”

Baek Hanje turned to look at Gowon.

“Do better.”

“......”

He couldn’t possibly not know that the other person had ears, yet his attitude was unbelievably shameless.

But instead of arguing, Gowon pressed his fingertips together tightly, trying to raise their temperature.

Only after pulling his hand away did he realize he had been rubbing it hard enough to make his knuckles hurt.

Maybe because of that, his entire hand had become excessively warm.

“Wow. Ah, so with this app, you can watch online concerts?”

“That’s right. Seeing it this way, it feels like you’re watching from the first row.”

The acting scene of looking at one phone together continued.

Every time Baek Hanje spoke, Gowon could feel the movement of his cheeks and even his breathing from such close distance.

...It didn’t feel like this when we filmed the PR video.

He was supposed to look at the screen.

But his gaze kept drifting toward the person holding the phone.

Then the writer lifted the next line.

“......”

Gowon’s lips opened.

Unlike the awkward lines he had previously delivered as if wearing someone else’s clothes, this line slipped naturally from his mouth.

“Do you think we’ll be able to stand on a stage like this someday too?”

Baek Hanje blinked once and turned to look at Gowon.

Then, in a completely casual tone—

“Yeah.”

He didn’t laugh at it as an unrealistic dream.

He answered as though it were an obvious fact.

“Both of us definitely will.”

That line added at the end had not been in the script, but it seemed the director liked it.

“Okay, that’s good.”

“Ah, even PPL isn’t easy.”

Apparently, Cha Yensu and Kim Yeban had handled things like this for him....

Muttering another incomprehensible comment, Baek Hanje stretched both arms out.

The bodies that had been pressed together while looking at one screen separated.

“Baek Han—”

***

“Representative!”

Before I could even finish calling him, he instantly ran over to Kwon Taeyoung, who had been watching from nearby.

Then he excitedly started talking to him again.

Was he always this good at attaching himself to people?

...At the beginning, it felt like he was almost only around me.

When we had first met, Baek Hanje had complained to Gowon that he was difficult to deal with.

And yet he himself had harshly pushed away anyone who approached him, which led to people talking behind his back.

“......”

But now, rather than being cold, he looked like living proof of natural social skills.

No. Thinking about it, last week he stayed late in the practice room with Nam Jeongho every day.

...And whenever he saw the teammates from the first competition, he would casually approach them and help them practice as if it were nothing.

An inexplicable sense of unfairness began growing inside me.

He made me stay here....

If it weren’t for Baek Hanje, I would have given up long ago.

Yet he had deliberately come to find me and encouraged me to challenge myself....

As Gowon fell into thought, he suddenly remembered that Baek Hanje was one year younger than him.

At the same time, the ridiculous complaints he had been making internally became embarrassing.

“...Ha....”

Gowon turned around and headed toward the opposite side of the hallway.

“Representative!”

I chased after Kwon Taeyoung.

He could have easily ignored a mere trainee acting up, but Kwon Taeyoung, as expected, faithfully turned around.

“Yes?”

I wondered if Kwon Taeyoung who wasn’t the Young Ace leader could really be called Kwon Taeyoung!

Yet every single thing he did was unmistakably like him.

After witnessing my and Gowon’s spectacular acting abilities, he seemed to have suffered through intense agony throughout the entire shoot.

Well, when I return to reality, I should tell him not to even dream of making Gowon act.

I would have given up on that long ago.

“I have something to ask you.”

“What is it this time?”

“Ah....”

Looking around, I saw Gowon walking out through the opposite door.

“Well, there are people in this world who live difficult lives even though it’s not their fault, right?”

“...So this isn’t about voting.”

Kwon Taeyoung adjusted his posture and looked at me seriously.

“Go on.”

“Even if they’re desperately trying to escape a difficult situation through their own efforts... once they become famous enough to appear on TV, there will be adults who bring up their unfortunate pasts and try to sell it as a more dramatic image, won’t there?”

“......”

“That might increase the program’s buzz, but I think it could become a huge loss for the investor who even came to film such a nice PPL.”

Kwon Taeyoung leaned toward me and lowered his voice.

“Don’t dance around the subject. Say it as shamelessly as you usually do. Do you need my help?”

I gave an awkward smile.

“That... the trainee who filmed with me today, Gowon. His family situation doesn’t seem very good. I was hoping you could prevent something like that from being shown on the broadcast.”

In the real-world <Debut Chart>, Gowon’s story was never aired.

The head of a poor household with only elderly grandparents and a young sibling, having no parents.

The fact that he couldn’t even properly attend high school because he was paying off the massive debt his father had left behind.

There were simply too many tragic elements, enough to overshadow the shine of an idol.

Then why did the PD decide that Gowon’s star quality needed to be protected?

Because he was such a lovable growth-type character with a high chance of making the debut lineup?

No.

After coming here and experiencing things myself, I knew.

There was no way it was for such a kind reason.

Because he was an independent trainee who could be tied down under the broadcasting company’s subsidiary label and put through Rnet’s own endless cycle.

But I had no intention of simply watching as they gently lured an eighteen-year-old who knew nothing about how the world worked.

Because I don’t know what kind of variables my actions might create....

I should make use of the influence of a rich °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° and cool representative.