Hyungsik’s food was delivered, and while eating, Eunchan searched for information about Choi Hanul. Did he say he was debuting in September? It’ll be soon then. Then wouldn’t this be the time to thoroughly clean up his surroundings?
<Choi Hanul participates in drama ‘Season of Longing’ OST!>
<15th place celebrity people want to spend Chuseok holiday with, Choi Hanul>
<When will rookie group Uju Daebak Boys start activities?>
Various articles poured out. There seemed to be quite a lot of fans, as people crowded in the comments of each article. But even 15th place gets an article? Eunchan yawned widely.
There was nothing worth gleaning from the articles. Eunchan began searching for internet posts related to Choi Hanul without any particular purpose. Most were wonderful photos of Choi Hanul and posts expressing how much fans loved him.
Is he really that handsome? He’s called the visual member and seems to have the best face in the group, but to Eunchan, he looked utterly ordinary. If Miro debuted, it would be chaos. Besides, Miro’s face shone even without makeup. Just this morning, he’d woken Eunchan up with wet hair, and that face……
Eunchan slapped his palm against his forehead. He didn’t know why Miro suddenly came to mind here. At Eunchan’s sudden action, Hyungsik stopped eating what he was eating and looked at him.
“There was a mosquito. Eat, eat.”
After redirecting Hyungsik’s gaze back to his hamburger, Eunchan continued searching. Only after flipping through dozens of pages could Eunchan find one interesting post.
[Choi Hanul was a famous outcast in our class lol]
[He did everything from being a sandbag to an errand boy lol if I knew he’d become this famous I would’ve been friends with him to at least get introduced to female idols]
There were thousands of comments on the short post. All the reactions were just cursing, saying the writer was lying to get attention. However, Eunchan somehow felt this post seemed true. Wasn’t the reason Choi Hanul was looking for a friend to get revenge in the same vein?
While he was only digging through the internet for a while, knock knock, someone knocked on the office door.
“Yes- Come in.”
Eunchan got up from his seat and approached the door. There was nothing the boss had told him separately. The man who opened the door and came in had his face tightly covered with a hat and mask.
“Hello?”
“Didn’t you say you couldn’t come today?”
Eunchan greeted him first. However, unlike Eunchan, Hyungsik, who recognized the man at a glance, shouted and asked loudly from behind.
“I had time. And I wanted to meet my friend quickly. Is that person also an employee here?”
The man took off his hat and mask and let out a stuffy breath. It was that idol Eunchan had only seen in photos. Choi Hanul looked Eunchan up and down from head to toe while answering Hyungsik. Though Eunchan frowned at the feeling of being evaluated, he couldn’t get angry because he looked younger than expected.
“I’m Kim Eunchan. Nice to meet you.”
“Yes. Could you handle my work?”
As if his calculation in his head was finished, Choi Hanul asked Eunchan with sparkling eyes. Unlike the original employees, Eunchan was tall and only wore expensive clothes. His appearance was also decent. At this level, it wouldn’t be embarrassing to go around together. Not being embarrassing meant it would be okay even if photos of them together were taken and circulated.
“I was going to help you from now on anyway.”
Not knowing Choi Hanul’s calculator was spinning, Eunchan smiled and answered.
“That’s a relief. I was a bit worried because there was only an old man and a newbie. I brought a plan, do you want to hear it?”
Disparaging the boss and Hyungsik, Choi Hanul moved toward the boss’s office first as if accustomed to it. Eunchan told Hyungsik to finish eating, then gathered his notebook and pen.
Since it was early autumn weather, the air was still hot. Entering the stuffy boss’s office that hadn’t even been ventilated, Eunchan found the remote control and turned on the air conditioner.
“Should I get you some coffee?”
“No, I’m fine. Have you worked here long?”
“Yes. I may look like this, but I’m good at what I do, so you don’t need to doubt me.”
Old man and newbie. Eunchan worried about the title he would receive and reassured Choi Hanul.
“I just thought you look rich, so why would you do this kind of work?”
Though he’d been living an affluent life recently thanks to a certain man, Eunchan’s bank account balance remained the same.
“This is fake.”
Eunchan skillfully introduced that the clothes he was currently wearing were counterfeit.
“Really? Wow, where did you buy it? Tell me too.”
Choi Hanul’s eyes sparkled as he expressed great interest. If you’re a celebrity who makes good money, why don’t you buy the real thing? Eunchan avoided answering with a laugh and changed the subject.
“You said you found your friend. What are your plans going forward?”
“Ah, I’d like to meet him. I want to become friends.”
“……What?”
Is there a reason for an errand center to be involved in becoming friends? You said he was a classmate anyway. Unable to hide his suspicion, Eunchan asked again.
“Then there’s nothing we need to help you with?”
“No, please stay by my side. I actually made plans to meet today, so we can go out together.”
“His name is Kim Wooseok, we were in the same class in middle school.”
Choi Hanul talked about his past in a calm tone. His poor home, his unfortunate environment. However, what was most painful was the bullying he endured throughout middle school. Even his homeroom teacher didn’t actively step forward to help. It was only when he went to high school and didn’t attend school because of his debut that things could improve.
The person Choi Hanul hated most was Kim Wooseok, who was the class president in second year at the time. Being the son of the chairman of the private middle school he attended and also good at studying, Kim Wooseok also received trust from the teachers around him.
“He cleverly bullied me. While pretending to be nice, he spread rumors everywhere that I was poor.”
Kim Wooseok treated Choi Hanul like a prince giving alms to a beggar. It was so terrible how he looked at him like a bug with numb eyes. He’d revealed Choi Hanul’s overdue lunch fee notice in front of all the children, and even though he couldn’t go on the school trip because he had no money, he kept playing pranks asking why he couldn’t go.
The emotion Choi Hanul felt toward Kim Wooseok was a deep sense of defeat. Kim Wooseok created and hung around with a group that matched his class. Children of doctors or lawyers, kids who lived in good apartments. Choi Hanul would never be able to join that group even if he died and woke up again.
He didn’t care about the delinquents who treated him with violence. Anyway, their thug lives would go to hell on their own without Choi Hanul stepping forward to ruin them. But not Kim Wooseok. He couldn’t stand how much he hated that bastard who would run on a smooth road.
“But why do you want to become friends? Don’t you want revenge?”
“To get revenge, I need to become friends first.”
Choi Hanul survived an idol competition survival program and even confirmed his debut. Once he started to rise to stardom, the contacts that came to him changed too. Even the academy that hadn’t given him any help hung a placard saying <We have the vocal training teacher who taught Choi Hanul!>, and friends who had ignored him sent DMs on SNS pretending to be close.
The worst among them was the middle school’s attitude. After leaving the bullied Choi Hanul neglected, they posted promotional photos on the homepage claiming to be Choi Hanul’s alma mater.
“The school contacted me too, asking me to come take a picture. Crazy bastards.”
He felt like he wanted to uproot and eliminate the school. If he had his way, he wanted to get revenge on all the students, but it was regrettable that he couldn’t. So he wanted to ruin both the school chairman and his son.
“What are you going to do after becoming friends?”
It’s not like he could go to the school with tools. Eunchan sat comfortably leaning back on the sofa and waited for Choi Hanul’s words.
“I’m going to hang out a few times together and then blow it up.”
It was a moment when he thought he did well becoming an idol. Choi Hanul planned to take pictures together, help with school promotion, and become close with Kim Wooseok while figuring out all the people around him. After debuting, when he was most popular, he planned to reveal that he was a victim of school violence. He would also say that the school promotion was done under threat.
“I don’t think you need to go that far, you could reveal it right now?”
“I want to ruin everything about him. His college life, family relationships, everything.”
He didn’t care if his singing career became difficult in the future. Hatred was stronger than any other emotion. Choi Hanul laughed refreshingly and drew Eunchan into his plan.
Leaving Hyungsik at the office, Choi Hanul and Eunchan sat in a cafe located in the middle of a busy street and waited for Kim Wooseok. Eunchan took a picture of the lemonade placed in front of him and sent a text to Miro.
[I came to a cafe with a client.]
Eunchan put his phone back in his pocket and asked Choi Hanul, who looked somewhat nervous.
“What will you talk about to become friends?”
“Actually, rather than becoming friends, I’m planning to seduce him.”
“Seduce?”
“He’s gay. Your boss investigated and told me?”
This isn’t like a blind date right now, is it? Eunchan looked at Choi Hanul with a disgusted face.
“You’re not telling me to seduce Kim Wooseok right now, are you?”
“Hyung, you look pretty decent, have confidence.”
“No thanks.”
Eunchan gulped down his lemonade hastily to his burning throat. Isn’t the plan to seduce him, then play with him and dump him? Anyway, he had to work in the way the client wanted, so he came along, but he was amazed at Choi Hanul’s simple way of thinking.
“What will you do if you get caught for something like this later and your debut gets ruined?”
He didn’t understand why a kid with such a bright future ahead would step forward to ruin his own life. Just forget it and live on. Eunchan sighed regretfully.
