For a moment, Go Won felt as if he’d been stripped naked and thrown before Baek Hanje.
He had no idea why he would bring up such a question.
Did I make some mistake? Did I show some strange sign? I tried so hard to hide it while living as a celebrity…
“…Why are you asking that?”
Ah. Go Won was flustered even as he spoke. The words were too sharp for someone addressing a senior.
He should have answered casually like he did to the earlier question, “Are you seeing anyone?”
After all, this was someone who treated him like a child, calling him “baby” and… other strange nicknames. So maybe he wasn’t asking because he knew something, but simply checking on his young hoobae out of concern.
“Ah, let’s not be abstract. Let me ask with concrete numbers instead.”
But the words Baek Hanje brought up next made the stone that had been forcibly crushing down his emotions waver.
“How much money do you need?”
“That…”
“You already know I’m not someone you can fool with clever tricks. Answer me. How much debt do you have to repay?”
“……”
His tone was already one of certainty.
To Go Won, poverty was shackles. Something that bent his grandparents’ backs and knees, robbed him of a normal life throughout his school years, and now tried to drag even his younger siblings down into the mire one by one.
His parents, worse than having none at all, had dumped their debt on them and left. In a life where all he could do was take on more part-time jobs, one day the path of being an idol opened up.
For the first time in his life, Go Won had hope.
‘Maybe, just maybe, I can break free from these shackles of poverty.’
That’s why he thoroughly hid all the reality surrounding him.
Poverty was something that belittled all his efforts, dragged him down and flung him aside.
In a world where only those who shone brightest could survive, it absolutely couldn’t be revealed.
Fortunately, he was accustomed to curling up his entire body to hide the shackles that had constricted him for so long.
“I don’t have any. I don’t know why you’re suddenly saying such things.”
“……”
“…You seem to think that way because I’m from a grandparent-headed household, but even though our circumstances weren’t good, I grew up normally. Just…”
“……”
Under Baek Hanje’s gaze, his voice trembled. His heart beat faster than usual.
“Sunbae-nim, you seem quite drunk.”
“Hey, even when I try to coax you gently, watching you roll your eyes around like that—my shitty temper won’t let me.”
Baek Hanje exhaled roughly.
“If I hear one more lie about not having debt, you’ll have to explain in the general manager’s office tomorrow why you refused both the main house and the hotel in that situation earlier and insisted on crawling back to the dorm.”
“…!”
“Should I be the only one who knows, or should we have Taeyoung hyung and Jonghyeok hyung find out together? Either way is fine with me. Actually, no. Since there’s such a fuss about celebrities and debt investment scandals, should I suggest to the CEO that our company conduct a comprehensive review this time?”
“Stop it!”
For the first time before his senior, Go Won shouted.
He was usually in the habit of hiding his emotions inside, but right now it was difficult to control them.
When the senior he wanted to impress by showing his best performance on stage was digging up his greatest shame, he just couldn’t—
“Yes. I have debt, and I’ll handle it myself. …Everyone has a line that shouldn’t be crossed, right? For me, that’s my family situation. Why are you trying to dig into it?”
Go Won’s body had already pulled back. It was clear rejection and severance.
“Why can’t I dig into it?”
“…! Well, that’s—”
“I told you before that countless people are riding on your 3-minute performance. Then what about your celebrity career? Investment, training, reputation management. How many things do you think are entangled in it?”
“……”
“When I, who knows that better than anyone in the world, heard you say you’d crawl back to that house where some crazy bastard came with a rock to beat you to death, what do you think I thought?”
“……”
“‘This bastard, if I don’t catch him today, even if worse things happen later, he’ll keep his mouth shut.'”
The heat rising from within Go Won flushed his face. He wanted to say something to the senior pressing him, but most of it was hard to refute.
The hot lump of emotion that had formed inside pressed tightly against the back of his throat, making him feel suffocated.
‘Let’s run away.’
Get out of here. This won’t work.
He jumped up from his seat and his chair fell over roughly. In the moment he froze at the loud sound, Baek Hanje grabbed his wrist.
“Why do you have debt, you bastard?”
“L-let go…”
“Ha… Why are you being so prickly? In my time, it was the era when hungry spirit worked, when kids who sang about being poor sold well—back then even kids from good families whined about how hard their lives had been since childhood. But these days, the selling point is how much they lived like princesses and princes. So do you think you’re the only one among countless kids pretending to be like that who has a story?”
“……”
“If you’d used massive loan shark money, it would have been a scandal from the Debut Chart days. But it wasn’t. The reason you’ve been fine until now is because your debt is from banks, insurance companies—roughly at that level.”
“……”
In that moment, Go Won became acutely aware of Baek Hanje’s large, luxurious house, and his own existence standing there like a speck of dust.
To someone who earns this much money, his situation might seem laughable. But still…
“Don’t talk about it like it’s nothing!”
“Hey! I’m telling you to talk about it because it seems like a big deal to you! Hiding what you don’t want to show, concealing it, racking my brain over how to make you shine brightest before the public—that’s exactly what producing is.”
Go Won swallowed at those words.
“The adults, the people who told your grandparents they’d take responsibility for the kid and make him a singer, are saying they’ll help you!”
“……”
“Hey. You twenty-year-old brat. Making what’s a big deal to you into nothing—that’s my job. So tell me.”
Along with his childish pride, the ground beneath his feet crumbled. He thought he’d be thrust into a black swamp, but his body floated up. It wasn’t a soft sensation. Baek Hanje had grabbed him by the collar to stop him from falling.
Even before becoming an adult, he had been the head of household. His grandparents, his young siblings—they all relied on him, so he had to force himself to act composed.
But in front of this person, he felt endlessly small.
‘I’m upset, choked up, scared, suffocating, and yet…’
When everyone leaned on him and he forced himself to stand firm, compared to now when he was powerlessly laid bare—why did this feel more comfortable?
Go Won’s lips trembled as they opened.
“…700 million won.”
The moment he spoke that number, tears fell with a plop.
Like a dam that had never opened in his lifetime finally breaking, like moss and filth that had pooled up pouring out, words spilled forth.
“It’s debt my father made. I never hoped for him to play a parent’s role, so if he’d just lived like he didn’t exist, I wish he could have at least done that.”
“……”
“Or-originally it was over 1 billion, but my grandmother and grandfather put in everything they earned from work, and I also, from part-time jobs and, all the income from the Debut Chart…”
“You did well.”
A hand landed heavily on his shoulder.
“And you did well telling me.”
“……”
Baek Hanje neither pitied Go Won’s poverty nor looked down on Go Won covered in poverty.
In that moment, Go Won recalled when he had tattled to Kwon Taeyoung about his trouble with Kim Eumyul at Baek Hanje’s near-forceful urging.
It was the first time he’d experienced something that happened to him being resolved not by his own struggling, but by someone else stepping forward.
‘And now, too.’
Go Won bit his lip so hard it turned white. Everything was so unfamiliar, he felt like he did when he first stood on stage.
The difference from then was that the lump pressing painfully on his entire face and throat kept pushing tears outward. Even though he tried to hold back, the embarrassing hiccupping sounds wouldn’t stop.
“So you gave all the living expenses the company gave you to your family too?”
Because Baek Hanje didn’t remove his hand from his shoulder, Go Won nodded as he was.
“Because I received prize money from the Debut Chart, my grandmother and grandfather were excluded from being basic livelihood security recipients…”
“Ah.”
The expression on Baek Hanje’s face, which had been about to harden grimly, relaxed.
“Right, fuck. This one’s the country’s fault.”
“Ah!”
His shoulders were kneaded firmly. After drinking alcohol and having his emotions violently stirred up, even his tense muscles had curled up tight. For a moment, his vision spun. Baek Hanje, who had removed his hand, looked at the ceiling and let out a long breath.
“Could more debt pile up?”
“…That person, he’s dead. …Fortunately.”
“I see. That’s fortunate. Do you happen to know… that there’s a system called renunciation of inheritance?”
“He secretly took out debt in my grandmother and grandfather’s names…”
“……”
After being lost in thought for a moment, Baek Hanje continued.
“Go Won, you said if you keep going like this, you’ll get a settlement soon, and then paying off the debt should be plenty…”
Baek Hanje stopped mid-sentence and covered his mouth. His expression was swept with shock.
“Wait, just… it’s March now. Before paying off your debt, did you set aside money for comprehensive income tax?”
“…?”
Go Won didn’t know what that was. That answer showed clearly on his face.
“Why are there so many things you don’t know? What the hell is the company doing? Not even teaching you shit like this.”
“What is that?”
“You have to pay money because you received prize money last year.”
“To the company?”
“Hey! If the company, fuck, asks you for money, tell me! Would they even do something that not even tiny agencies do these days? It’s not that—you have to give it to the country.”
“…?”
