If I were to speak up, I would immediately hear ‘Then you’re not going to debut?’ That’s why it was a continuous situation where I could only suffer alone inwardly. I thought no one would notice, but among them, the one who surprisingly raised a banner and stood up was Juno hyung, who was famous for not being interested in others.
‘Forget it. Even now…… ha, fuck. What the hell is this arm.’
Juno hyung fought fiercely with the director over my diet problem and even got beaten. The director, as if his anger still wasn’t resolved, even gave Juno hyung, who was a mess from being beaten, a punishment to practice for 20 hours immediately. Even after hearing to practice while his body wasn’t intact, hyung didn’t say he was sorry but instead stood up abruptly saying he would do it, and staggered as he danced, to which the director poured out curses calling him a tough bastard before leaving.
‘Hyung, don’t do it.’
‘Ah, why. You said before that if I told you to pretend to die, you’d pretend to die too.’
‘This is different. What’s with your face.’
When moisture filled my grumbling voice, hyung was flustered.
‘Cha Hohyeon.’
‘I can lose more weight here. As long as we can debut together, really……’
‘What?’
One eye was so swollen he couldn’t even open it properly, his mouth was all split and bumpy, and the bluish bruise on his cheekbone covered up to his forehead. Even in such a messed-up state, I felt so sorry I could die to Juno hyung who was somehow trying to act dignified in front of me.
‘I won’t bother you by following you around, I’ll help more diligently, I’ll clean the house diligently…… so please don’t talk back to the director anymore. Please.’
What I could offer to persuade hyung at that time was at most cleaning and not following him around and bothering him. It was because I knew that the hyungs found it somewhat annoying that I always followed them around.
Of course, thinking about it now, it’s a ridiculously laughable condition, but since young me had nothing I could do for the hyungs, that was the best I could do at the time.
‘Hey, are you really crying? You’re really crying?!’
When I cried, Juno hyung kept shouting in front of me with a face like he was going crazy.
When the director struck down Juno hyung with his toad-like hands, I was so scared. His body, saying how dare he talk back, was really like a mountain, and hyung standing up to him looked so small.
But even though Juno hyung’s head jerked back from being hit hard, he repositioned his head. Even when knocked down to the floor, he got back up. Even though it hurt, he straightened his back stiffly pretending it didn’t hurt. He never uttered the words ‘I’m sorry’ and instead talked back even more.
As he kept getting up like a roly-poly doll as if it didn’t hurt at all, the director got angrier and hit hyung with increasing intensity. So I clung to the director saying I could lose more weight, that I would definitely lose more weight within 3 days, and only then could hyung finally be released.
‘Hyung getting hurt like this, getting hit…… it’s too scary. Please.’
When I cried and told him not to do that because I didn’t want to experience that again, hyung, who flinched for a moment, soon composed his expression and said to me resolutely.
‘Hey, Cha Hohyeon. Get used to it. I’m going to go off on that director bastard tomorrow too.’
‘Hyung!’
‘This is what I have to do.’
At that time, I couldn’t say anything.
‘I’m the leader, you know.’
It was because the back that had seemed so small just moments ago looked so incredibly big.
‘Of course, I’m younger than Hamoon hyung and not that much older than you……’
Juno hyung laughed.
‘I have to be good to you.’
‘……Why.’
‘Mm. If all the members are my fingers, you’re the particularly painful finger among them.’
I didn’t understand the meaning. Why I was a painful finger. I just cared more about hyung’s injured face than being a painful finger, and was afraid of the coming tomorrow, so I didn’t have time to properly understand those words. And then I sat silently in the corner and watched hyung’s back as he continued practicing until dawn broke.
‘It’s fucking hard.’
Finally, when it became 5 AM and Juno hyung, who had filled 20 hours, lay down on the practice room floor as if collapsing, I quickly ran over as soon as he lay down and shook his shoulder.
‘Hyung! Juno hyung!’
‘You’re still here? You should have gone first.’
‘I wanted to go together.’
As expected, filling the practice time tightly with an injured body must not have been an easy task. Juno hyung, with clear signs of exhaustion, stared at me. Then he stroked my head, asking if I’d been waiting all this time, and smiled.
‘Hey, let’s go. Home.’
Juno hyung’s eyes as he said that were particularly dark and deep in color.
Perhaps that’s why I still vividly remember hyung’s face in my memory. And.
“Hey, Ka Jerim.”
Young Juno hyung who said let’s go home had grown up completely before I knew it and held Ka Jerim in his eyes.
Now, the fact that I exist as Ka Jerim in Juno hyung’s eyes began to make me sad. Juno hyung’s pitch-black eyes calling me. I had just glimpsed the memory of that day contained like a picture frame in them, and only then could I understand the meaning of ‘painful finger.’
To hyung, Cha Hohyeon has been from long ago……
‘It’s guilt.’
That it was guilt. It seems they thought that unlike me, who always prioritized the members in any situation, even after debuting, as well as what they said and did to me as a trainee, they themselves didn’t consider me a priority. I was a painful finger to hyung, and I seem to still be a painful finger now.
‘Really good at it even after dying, Cha Hohyeon.’
“Ka Jerim, speak. Who you are. Why on earth! Are you pretending to be Cha Hohyeon?”
When I remained silent for a long time, Juno hyung grabbed my shoulder as if pressing me and shook me. I stared blankly at hyung as if possessed by something, then raised one hand to my gradually blurring vision and roughly rubbed my eyes.
“Is that something a person would do? He was someone who already lived a hard life, how could you…… how could you do such a thing? Right now, every single day is like hell for us and it’s hard-“
I want to tell Juno hyung.
“How far into the abyss are you going to push me- and Cha Hohyeon!”
“……I.”
I’m sorry.
That the hyungs have many things to be sorry to me about, that they have so many regrets, that I didn’t know the fact that my death clings to the hyungs like guilt.
Because for me, it was a life where I did my best, and it was a life where I was so happy thanks to the hyungs, so I had almost no lingering attachments. So just like I did, I guess I believed that the hyungs would also think of me that way and send me off without regrets. And another thing I want to say is.
“I am……”
That Fort’s members, the hyungs, are my pride.
Because they were amazing people who taught me what home was, taught me how to be loved, taught me how to straighten my shoulders, and changed me as a person, when I didn’t even know how to love myself and only knew how to live looking at others’ faces my whole life.
Therefore, I didn’t know that if I remember the hyungs with pride and happy memories, the hyungs regard me as guilt and regret. So actually, I was going to tell them after adapting to everything, but I changed my mind to tell them now because I feel like I won’t be able to say it if not now.
“I’m Cha Hohyeon.”
That I’m no longer in pain.
Because actually, only the scars remain and I’ve already completely healed.
“Juno hyung. Can you believe me?”
That the hyungs who healed this don’t need to regard me as a painful finger.
Because I definitely wanted to convey this, I spoke the fact that I am Cha Hohyeon.
“Say it, one, more, time.”
I willingly accepted Juno hyung’s hand pressing tightly as if strangling my neck. My breath was blocked and blood rushed to my face. It felt like my eyes would burst. Still, I said it.
“I’m, Cha, Hohyeon, ……hyung.”
That I’m here.
* * *
As soon as my blocked airway opened, my body rolled on the floor. I wanted to lift my head to look at Juno hyung, but my body wouldn’t move as I wanted.
“I’m really Cha Ho, hyeon.”
Just a little. Even just a little bit is fine, so I hope he’ll believe me.
“Hyung. I’m Cha Hohyeon.”
I reached out my hand.
With trembling hands, I grabbed hyung’s ankle to turn back hyung’s footsteps that seemed about to leave. I hoped that even a bit of my desperation would reach hyung and create an opportunity to talk, but hyung didn’t even pretend to believe me and instead spat out shocking words.
“What do you want to gain by going this far?”
Juno hyung’s words stabbed like a sharp dagger.
“You’re really ruthless.”
He said in a contemptuous voice. I, face-planted on the floor, couldn’t see Juno hyung’s face, but he must be looking at me like I’m a bug.
“What do you want to do by using me and Go Yoon?”
I expected that he wouldn’t believe the fact that I’m Cha Hohyeon, but I guess I stupidly had a glimmer of hope even knowing that. It hurts this much because I had expectations.
When I barely gathered my rough breathing and lifted my head, I saw hyung’s figure towering in my blurred vision. A white hat, and a pitch-black dress shirt that contrasted too much with it, a familiar face with hollow cheeks from being thin, with an unfamiliar expression.
As I just stared, wondering if this was the Juno hyung I knew, he quietly looked down at me like that and soon let out a hollow laugh.
“You want to make it big, right?”
Juno hyung slowly removed my hand that was grabbing his ankle with all my might and said.
“I did wonder. But looking at your eyes, I can tell clearly. I’ve really seen a lot of kids with eyes full of poison like this.”
“……”
“You have those eyes too. No different.”
No. It’s not like that.
I don’t have a mirror so I have no way of knowing my face, but what’s contained in my face must be desperation, not poison, but hyung seemed to have completely misunderstood.
“I’ll help you. So you help me too.”
“No, I……”
As I tried to say it’s not like that, the moment I met Juno hyung’s cold eyes, I felt like my heart was dropping with a thud.
