“What, are you crying? Huh?”
“I’m not badly hurt, right…?”
“From what I can see, you’re fine. If you ice it well right now… and don’t move for a few days…”
Seonwoo Jin carefully supported Jion’s ankle and lowered it to the floor, then hurriedly went to find the first aid kit. Then, with practiced hands, he sprayed pain relief spray on the ankle, found tape and bandages to secure it firmly, and gently wiped Jion’s sniffling eyes with his own sleeve, consoling him tenderly.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t cry.”
Then he picked up Jion’s shoes and turned his back to Jion.
“Get on.”
“Huh?”
“We need to go home. Hurry up.”
Getting a piggyback ride is embarrassing though.
But he had no confidence in climbing the practice room stairs with his injured ankle, or walking all the way to the dorm on heavy legs. Jion hesitated at the sight of the broad back before him, then clung to Seonwoo Jin’s back as if throwing himself into an embrace.
“Then I’ll rely on you.”
With his broad back, solid shoulders, and sturdy thighs put to good use, Seonwoo Jin carried Jion on his back and walked the 20-minute distance to the dorm without showing any signs of strain. At first, Jion felt a bit sorry, but as Seonwoo Jin carried him so calmly, his guilt gradually disappeared and he became comfortable.
“Woojin, you’re really strong.”
“It’s because you’re light.”
“No, still…”
Jion was impressed by Seonwoo Jin’s composure—his breathing didn’t change even once while walking uphill—and unconsciously rested his cheek against his nape, leaning his full weight on him.
“You gave a lot of girls piggyback rides when you were in school, didn’t you? I can feel the experience?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then? Did you give piggyback rides to drunk girls you were seeing?”
“I said it’s not like that…”
“Then…”
Are you going to give a lot of piggyback rides from now on?
The moment Jion stopped teasing about Seonwoo Jin’s past and thought about the future, a murderous look appeared on his face. Without realizing it, strength went into the arms wrapped around Seonwoo Jin’s neck, making Seonwoo Jin make a choking sound.
“Hey, hey! I can’t breathe!”
“Ah, sorry, sorry.”
Jion quickly relaxed his arms and readjusted himself against Seonwoo Jin. Then he playfully whispered in Seonwoo Jin’s ear.
“I suddenly got angry thinking about you going around giving girls piggyback rides.”
“…What are you saying.”
Jion’s words meant exactly what they said.
You going around giving girls piggyback rides, and then seducing women or winning their favor—that makes me angry.
It was a sentence with purely literal meaning that a victim who had lived through a future ruined by Seonwoo Jin’s scandal could say, with no other intention, scheme, or emotion.
However, to Seonwoo Jin’s ears—someone who hadn’t yet caused a scandal and had never plunged Jion and the members into grief—it was a very strange sentence to hear.
Seonwoo Jin’s head became complicated from Jion’s warm breath that had tickled his ear and the sentence that had confused him.
Actually, Seonwoo Jin had given girls piggyback rides a few times to try to win them over. Like the class president who got a nosebleed from being hit by a dodgeball during school days, or the girl who fell while running and hurt her ankle…
But those were stories from middle school and high school, and he never ended up dating those girls anyway. But how does Seong Jion know about that and is confronting him now? No, wait, is how he knew important? He could have just figured it out by intuition. But more than that, is he jealous right now? Of the girls I gave piggyback rides to? Why? Huh?
Not knowing how complicated one man’s mind had become from his single comment, Jion began to brainwash Seonwoo Jin.
“You can’t carelessly give girls piggyback rides, hug them… and do things like that. Okay? If you do that, they’ll misunderstand. And when men and women, you know? Keep touching skin, feelings that weren’t there start to develop… You know what I mean, right? Boys and girls shouldn’t sit together after age seven. Maintain proper boundaries between men and women. We’re a Confucian country, after all.”
“…Yeah.”
Jion didn’t yet know that misunderstandings could arise and feelings could develop from carrying and being carried even between men. Seonwoo Jin sort of did and sort of didn’t.
The next day, Jion went to the hospital with the manager and returned to the dorm with a half-cast on his ankle. The order was to rest absolutely for a week.
“Hah… I was already falling behind…”
Thinking about his hopeless dance skills, Jion felt uneasy. The manager, who didn’t understand his concerns, shrugged his shoulders saying wasn’t it good to rest, but it wasn’t consoling at all.
“You sing well, so… you can practice singing while resting, right?”
“Idols need both dance and singing…! …Never mind.”
Jion, who had gotten choked up at the manager’s indifferent words spoken as if it were someone else’s problem, quickly calmed his anger.
This person wasn’t BNCZ’s dedicated manager anyway, and his salary didn’t come from BNCZ, who couldn’t earn money, but from the appearance fees of other trot singers.
So of course it’s someone else’s problem. Jion quickly shook off his hurt feelings, and the manager said goodbye to Jion at the entrance.
“Well, don’t overdo it and rest well. I have to go to Seul-i noona’s regional event today.”
“…Yes, drive safely.”
Now without even the will to climb the ladder, Jion sprawled out on the ownerless bottom bunk. He was tired from exerting himself climbing the villa stairs that had no elevator. Just maintaining his dignity as a bipedal creature by suppressing the desire to crawl on all fours from the entrance to the bed seemed to have used up all the steps he could take today.
“…Dance, my ass.”
I already dance like shit, so at least now when I’m awkward, I can use my ankle as an excuse. That’s lucky.
Jion tried his best to think positively, but his brain, more accustomed to failure than success, kept simulating misfortune.
At this rate, the song will turn out amazingly and rank on the music streaming sites… but when the company spends big money to put us on music shows and I show my awkward dancing in the center position… and then people quickly become disappointed in our stage and never look us up again… then Seonwoo Jin will say, “See, I knew it wouldn’t work,” and quickly abandon his attachment to being an idol and go around meeting women again…
No matter how many evasive maneuvers he tried, with a loser’s mindset, he couldn’t avoid the ending where Seonwoo Jin escapes. It felt like playing a raising simulation game where no matter what you choose, only fucked-up endings come out.
“…I really can’t do it, can I.”
He had succeeded in brainwashing Seonwoo Jin and building rapport, but in the end, he was held back by dancing. Jion despaired over his cursed body that couldn’t even finish moving all his limbs before the beat ended, and covered his face with a pillow. It felt like if he cried his heart out like this and woke up, he would return to being 32-year-old Seong Jion, a failed idol turned vocal instructor specializing in entrance exams, but he thought that might not be so bad.
“…On-ah! Jion-ah!”
“Uh, mm?”
However, when Jion opened his eyes again after hugging Seonwoo Jin’s pillow and crying for a while, what he saw wasn’t a familiar ceiling. It was Seonwoo Jin’s fresh youthful beauty in his twenties.
“Were you sleeping?”
What do you mean, you woke me up. Jion rubbed his puffy swollen eyes and looked at Seonwoo Jin. Finding Jion’s just-woken face cute, Seonwoo Jin smoothly brushed back his hair and sat down next to him.
“What did they say at the hospital?”
“They said not to move for a week. Don’t put weight on the injured ankle side.”
“So you can’t even walk.”
“It’s fixed with a half-cast, so a little bit is okay.”
“Still.”
With a worried expression, Seonwoo Jin pulled back the blanket and pitifully stroked Jion’s bandaged calf. Surprised internally at his unexpectedly affectionate expression—was he always this caring?—Jion asked Seonwoo Jin, who was dressed in training clothes.
“Did you finish choreography practice today?”
“Yeah. We got all the formations down today, and I think we’ve refined quite a bit of the details too.”
“…Progress goes well without me there.”
If Jion had been there, they would have had to stop and restart several times because he kept messing up the choreography, making it difficult to even match the formations from start to finish. Unable to deny it, Seonwoo Jin smiled awkwardly and instead held out his phone.
“Look at this instead.”
“What is it?”
The screen Seonwoo Jin played showed a full view of the practice room. Since the other members weren’t visible, it seemed he had filmed it alone after practice.
Is he trying to get praised for dancing well?
Feeling indifferent, Jion loaded up some compliments and waited for the movement to start. But the video was strange.
“…Hm? This song is…”
“It’s 0.5x speed.”
Seonwoo Jin looked at Jion with a proud face. Then, saying to look more closely, he handed his phone to Jion and rested his chin on Jion’s shoulder to look at the small screen together. Inside, Seonwoo Jin could be seen performing Jion’s choreography at a very slow speed.
『Ooone, aaand, twooo, aaand, threeee, aaand, foooour…』
Not having an eye for it, Jion didn’t even recognize at first that what Seonwoo Jin was dancing was his own choreography, but only realized what he had filmed when he saw Seonwoo Jin’s eyes glancing at him sideways, waiting for praise.
“Oh! You, this!”
“You said memorizing the choreography was hard… so I filmed your part in slow speed.”
Did I do well?
Seonwoo Jin thought he had successfully swallowed those last revealing words, but they hit Jion’s ear at maximum volume.
Did I do well? I did well, right? Aren’t I praiseworthy? Praise me! Praise me quickly! Be moved! Be moved, I say!
“What should I do…”
But even without Seonwoo Jin begging for praise like that, Jion was already sufficiently moved. It was like the emotion when a student you’d given up on internally—thinking “I can’t send this kid to college this year” because their practical skills were mediocre and they refused to study—suddenly gets blessed by the god of multiple choice on exam day and gets good scores.
“What should I do, Woojin-ah. I’m really so moved I might cry…”
Of course, it would have been better if he’d filmed it at 0.25x speed, but I can adjust that myself.
Jion tossed the phone onto the blanket and pulled Seonwoo Jin into a tight embrace.
“You’re really so praiseworthy! You’re so adorable, what should I do, my baby!”
“Hey, hey… what do you mean ‘my baby’…”
“Aigoo, you’ve become human, human!”
At Jion’s loud fuss, as if doting on his own child, Seonwoo Jin turned red up to his ears. He had thought Jion would be happy, but he hadn’t expected him to be this pleased.
“What do you mean ‘became human,’ was I not human before, a monkey or something…”
While grumbling at Jion’s praise, Seonwoo Jin sneakily tried to place his palm on the back of Jion, who was hugging him. But before Seonwoo Jin’s timid palm could even touch his back, Jion suddenly raised his head and looked up at Seonwoo Jin with his characteristic moist eyes that shake men’s hearts, and exclaimed.
“I’ll watch this hard and memorize it, and in a week I won’t hold you guys back!”
“…What do you mean, hold back… When did you ever…”
Melting before Jion’s gaze, Seonwoo Jin held Jion in his arms and felt relieved. Eungi and Geon-hyung had offered to help, but he was glad he had refused and filmed it alone. Having monopolized Jion’s thanks, Seonwoo Jin stroked the light brown hair in his arms and thought he wanted to keep monopolizing Jion from now on.
For example…
