# Chapter 4
“I intend to do whatever Seomin wants to do. I fully support Seomin’s wishes.”
At that, my uncle looked at me.
But I didn’t need to think deeply about it.
If he had appeared and said such things when I was younger, there might have been some room for consideration, but not now.
I wasn’t someone who needed protection anymore; I was someone who needed to support my mother.
So I had absolutely no desire to be adopted by my uncle and accept them as my new parents.
I had no reason to leave my mother, who had lived her entire life in loneliness, to accept others as my parents, so I spoke right then and there.
Though my mother seemed to want me to consider it more carefully, there was no need to think about it for long.
“I appreciate your consideration, but I don’t want to do that.”
“I see. If that’s how you feel, I won’t try to convince you further. I think I understand why you made that decision. Still, you can think of your uncle as your father, Seomin. If you need anything, just say the word. Even if you don’t say anything, I’ll make sure to take care of everything enough to compensate for all the time we’ve missed, but still.”
“Thank you, Uncle.”
“Good.”
He spoke without hiding his satisfied expression.
“I’ll arrange a meeting soon. You have an older brother and sister. They only just found out about your existence and were quite surprised. They won’t be able to bully you, so you can feel comfortable. From now on, I’ll make sure you can have anything you want, Seomin. If you want to participate in management, I’ll make that happen, and if there’s something you want to learn, I’ll make that happen too. To make up for everything I couldn’t do for you until now, your uncle will have to work really hard from now on.”
Uncle seemed overflowing with enthusiasm.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Don’t say things that create distance. This is something I should have been doing all along but couldn’t. If you don’t want to make your uncle feel sorry, don’t say such things in the future.”
His expression seemed sincere, and I nodded.
“Let me hug you once more, you rascal.”
Then, as if reminded of my father, his eyes reddened again.
I had seen photos of my father before, but I had never thought I resembled him much. It seemed my uncle saw it differently.
“Let’s see each other again soon, Seomin.”
Uncle also greeted my mother.
“These people here will handle everything and help you from now on, Sister-in-law. You should move to a new place now. It’s embarrassing to say this, but you should be careful for a while. I don’t know what Father is thinking. He said he understood when I told him not to bother Seomin anymore, but honestly, I don’t trust him. How could he do this to his own grandson…!”
Uncle raised his voice as if angry, then shook his head.
After talking a bit more, Uncle left first, and I approached my mother.
“I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t believe it. But it’s fortunate that Uncle seems like a good person.”
My mother nodded at my words.
“That’s true. The situation should actually be the opposite. Grandfather should be the one protecting you.”
“That’s right.”
The people Uncle left behind showed us our new house.
We could move there as soon as we chose one.
The place where we had been living would be rented out, and we would keep all that income.
The new house was scheduled to be registered under my name.
But seeing that only large apartments in wealthy neighborhoods were being suggested as candidates, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
However, my mother didn’t seem that surprised.
“It would have been nice if your father were here. No, if your father had been here, we would have had a stable life much earlier.”
“I don’t think the way we’ve lived until now has been so bad.”
“Thank you for saying that, Seomin.”
We realized it was time to leave that place and prepared to move.
* * *
After settling in our new place, I binge-watched “Tomorrow’s Perfect All-kill,” which I hadn’t seen in a long time.
‘Ah…!!’
There were no surprises.
It was after all the trainees I had been rooting for had been eliminated.
Han Sijin, whom I had hoped would hang on until the end, had been eliminated without mercy.
I checked all their performances to see what had happened.
Well, there wasn’t much reason to blame the judges or production team.
They had truly failed their performances spectacularly.
Still, in Han Sijin’s case, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they had just used him for publicity and then discarded him later.
Lee Dagyeong made a mistake with his pitch during the “Singing Past Hits Mission.”
After repeating mistakes several times, he eventually encountered a note that was absolutely beyond his vocal range.
And he ended up creating a pitch deviation that would remain his dark history for a long time.
No matter how much he tried to break out of the cartoon, some things just couldn’t be done.
Seo Irun, who had good performances.
Cha Yeonwoo, who had charming low registers and could compose.
Jeong Chan, who seemed like he could aim for main vocal depending on the composition.
What I felt watching their stages was regret.
I also thought the program was too cruel.
They became known through the program.
And that cable channel was famous for broadcasting reruns incessantly through two different channels.
It meant that it might be difficult for them to live normal lives from now on.
Whenever edited videos highlighting their mistakes came out, people would inevitably be prejudiced against them.
That they were jealous, narrow-minded, impatient, and greedy.
The editing pushed their characters in that direction, and viewers uncritically accepted what was given to them.
‘This is bad? What will happen to these kids now?’
They were younger than me, and they looked so young on the show that in my heart, they were all like my younger siblings.
My internal affection had already maxed out.
So I had been cheering for them, hoping they would become the program’s winners, but was my support lacking?
I was now worried about what they would do from now on.
‘Huh…?! It’s Seyoung Group. Doesn’t Seyoung Group have an entertainment division?’
Suddenly thinking about that, I couldn’t just sit there blankly.
‘I’m crazy. I’m crazy. Seyoung? Seyoung Entertainment! It means the head of Seyoung Entertainment is my cousin!’
I jumped up from my seat and paced around for a while.
Uncle had called several times before, asking if I would like to meet my cousin brother and sister.
But I had been putting it off, saying I would meet them next time, because I felt burdened about taking up their busy time because of me.
To be honest, I was more scared and worried about seeing them because they were so different from me in every way.
I’m not good at dealing with people, and I thought if I met these two people who had lived such special lives until now, we wouldn’t be able to communicate, and I would feel intimidated.
My mother noticed that I was worried.
Honestly, it would have been harder for her not to notice.
I was sighing, biting my nails, repeatedly muttering “What should I do? What should I do?” to myself.
Mother looked at me curiously.
“Do you have something on your mind, Seomin?”
Mother asked, bringing me a vegetable juice.
“N…no. Um. Yes.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
Mother smiled, looking amused.
“What’s going on? Tell Mom. Let me be a mother for once after a long time. I’ll do anything our Seomin wants.”
“There’s no need for that…”
But Mother seemed to realize that something was up as she watched me drag out my words.
“Seomin. Tell Mom. What could there be that you can’t tell me?”
“Well…”
A few minutes later.
I was telling Mother all my thoughts.
I didn’t mention the kids who had been eliminated from the audition program, just saying that I was interested in the entertainment business.
Mother’s eyes widened, and she nodded.
“That won’t be difficult. Uncle has contacted us several times, saying it would be good for you to take management classes. I told him it might be difficult for you to adjust right now, so it would be better to take some time first. But if it’s something you enjoy, wouldn’t it be good to start slowly?”
“Management… classes?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead, so I asked in surprise.
“I don’t think you could become the head right from the start. And you shouldn’t. There are so many people whose livelihoods and lives depend on it, so it’s not something to take lightly. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense for you to parachute in and suddenly take over the work.”
“That’s right. I absolutely can’t do that. It would ruin everything. I don’t know how to do anything.”
“Right. That’s what I think too. Since neither of us knows anything about this area, it might be good to meet with Uncle again and talk about it.”
“Not yet. Not now. I’ll talk about it again after I’ve sorted things out a bit. I don’t even know what I want to do right now.”
“Alright. Let’s do that then. I’m just happy that Seomin is thinking about such things.”
Mother said with a bright face.
