He’s more sensitive to heat than I thought…
Kwon Isoo, who had been scrunching up his face as much as possible and silently glaring at Do Yeonjae, then quickly began eating his food.
The tendons in his hand gripping the beef bulgogi stood out tautly. Do Yeonjae tilted his head, then moved his chopsticks accordingly. It’ll get cold at this rate.
“Then there’s a seat here, right?”
Choi Taeon quickly sat in the seat next to Kwon Isoo, and the two other members sat on the sofa beside them. The members mostly ate while looking at their phones, but only Choi Taeon warmly talked to Kwon Isoo. Though what came back were mostly short answers.
“Hyung, hyung. I heard you sent the new song to the director. Can’t you let me hear it too?”
“If it becomes the title track you’ll hear it, so why bother.”
“Because I want to hear it even a day earlier. Anyway, if it’s hyung’s song it’ll definitely become the title track! Ah, I’m so excited.”
Kwon Isoo answered gruffly while continuing to glance toward the floor where Do Yeonjae was. Sometimes he put strength in his hands as if to break his chopsticks, but whether it was because Choi Taeon chattering beside him was annoying or for another reason was unclear.
That’s when it happened. When the eldest, Ha Juwon’s sarcasm was suddenly poured out.
“Hey, would you let them hear it if you were him? Background characters like us just need to sing whatever songs we’re given.”
Do Yeonjae slowly blinked his eyes. He’d just thought there was no conversation… Now that the camera’s off, the wording definitely becomes unrestrained. For a moment, he seemed to glimpse the brutal bare face of the NEOS members.
Kwon Isoo, who twisted up the corner of his mouth, retorted coldly.
“I’d be fucking grateful if you did that, hyung.”
“What?”
His eyes weren’t smiling but only one corner of his mouth curved—the face was cold. At his cynical answer, Ha Juwon’s expression crumpled sharply.
“Fuck, really…”
Even to Do Yeonjae’s ears, that curse was powerless. Even while chewing on the curse, the action of cautiously checking Kwon Isoo’s face made the invisible hierarchy clearly felt.
Do Yeonjae thought it wasn’t something he should get involved in, so he focused on eating for now. However, he did think this to himself. You call yourself a background character, but why do you get angry when treated that way?
If you don’t like being treated as background, you shouldn’t have spoken that way.
Moreover, what Kwon Isoo said was a completely normal process. Usually when a composing member uploads a song, company officials listen and decide whether to put that song on the album, and if so, whether to make it the title track or not. After going through that process, the members get to hear the song.
Of course, the order could change depending on personal connections, but this group doesn’t seem close enough for that…
‘Do Yeonjae, do a guide for me.’
At that moment, a youthful voice from the past flashed through his mind. Do Yeonjae stopped the hand that had been moving his chopsticks.
‘Uh… really?’
‘What’s with that reaction? You don’t want to?’
‘No… I just thought you kept not bringing it up.’
During their trainee days, after Kwon Isoo showed prominence in composing, all the trainees expected Do Yeonjae to be in charge of guides for Kwon Isoo’s songs. The two stuck together all day anyway, and it was hard to find a trainee with vocal skills matching Do Yeonjae’s.
Despite his already sensitive personality making him keep everyone away when working, he never said anything about Do Yeonjae watching from beside him or doing whatever.
However, strangely, Kwon Isoo didn’t ask Do Yeonjae to do a guide for quite a long period. He mostly resolved it himself or asked the trainer teacher.
Despite Do Yeonjae’s boastful statement that if Kwon Isoo wrote songs and he sang them it would be perfect, and he’d specially sing guides too.
Even if it was a bit disappointing, what could he do? When the song’s owner had no such thoughts, he couldn’t presumptuously be greedy. When he’d half given up, Kwon Isoo suddenly made the request out of nowhere.
Kwon Isoo, staring intently down at Do Yeonjae’s dumbfounded face, asked with an enigmatic expression.
‘So, are you sulking?’
‘Well… I figured there must be a reason. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.’
‘Those were just songs I was throwing away. Anyone could’ve sung them, it didn’t matter.’
‘Then this song is different?’
‘Yeah. It’s different.’
Kwon Isoo back then, taking pride in his song with a confident tone… shone. Dazzlingly bright. Enough to make him unknowingly stare up at him blankly.
‘Only you can sing this. And you… will definitely like it too.’
He thinks he thought this back then. Kwon Isoo, who pursues perfection, has finally created a result he’s satisfied with. You did it.
Then I should sing it with all my best. I should dress it up nicely with my voice.
In the end, he never got to hear or sing that song.
He still doesn’t even know the title, but the expression on Kwon Isoo’s face talking about that song remains vivid in his memory. That shining face back then. Do Yeonjae looked up at the current Kwon Isoo as if chasing a faint afterimage.
His deepened features and mature physique come into view.
Fundamentally, it was a body with large, thick bones. The sharply shining gray-brown eyes granted Kwon Isoo’s characteristic overwhelming presence, but the handsome yet strong facial lines and delicate features were vividly beautiful, showing the boundary between boy and young man.
“……”
Perhaps sensing the gaze, Kwon Isoo raised his head. The cold gaze seemed to pierce through him.
On the way to hear that song Kwon Isoo had been so confident about, the two received a sudden summons.
In the practice room they arrived at bewildered, everyone was gathered, and there a company employee said with an expressionless face.
‘Starting tomorrow, Yeonjae will go to a different practice room…’
The news of Do Yeonjae joining RAYEON.
‘Did you forget already? You promised to debut with me.’
Kwon Isoo got angry. He spat sharp curses. And he pleaded.
‘You said you really wanted to debut with me too. That you’d sing guides and do everything if I made songs.’
Those desperate eyes. Something that can no longer be found in Kwon Isoo. The afterimage of the past wavering over Kwon Isoo’s face collides with his desolate eyes and scatters with a whoosh.
The Kwon Isoo who wanted to let him hear his songs is gone now. Because Do Yeonjae cruelly cut him off.
Right, that’s how it was.
Thinking back to that time makes me feel kind of… Do Yeonjae lowered his gaze from meeting Kwon Isoo’s first and chewed the rice filling his mouth with an expressionless face.
Perhaps because his mood had sunk a bit, he became too lazy to pay attention to the gaze that had been touching his face continuously since starting the meal.
Not Kwon Isoo, but Moon Sunwoo over there.
If Hayun hyung had received that hot gaze, he definitely would’ve gotten indigestion. Well… if he has something to say, he’ll come say it directly.
When he stood up from his seat holding the now cleanly emptied lunch box, Kwon Isoo’s gaze followed.
“Where are you going?”
“To brush my teeth. Eat slowly.”
“Don’t go anywhere else, come right back.”
Anyone watching would think he’s the manager…
Is he going to make me run errands again? He roughly nodded and threw away the empty lunch box container after sorting it for recycling. After taking out his toothbrush supplies from his bag, he headed to the bathroom.
Since other people would need to brush their teeth too, he deliberately went to a small bathroom far away. It was a secluded place he’d discovered while checking the site layout in the morning.
In the empty bathroom, he squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush in a long line, brushed his teeth, and rinsed his mouth at the sink.
And when he raised his head, he saw Moon Sunwoo in the mirror.
“Ah… you scared me.”
When he muttered indifferently, Moon Sunwoo sharply narrowed his brow.
“Are you really surprised? What kind of reaction is…”
“Do you have something to say to me?”
Do Yeonjae wiped the moisture around his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at Moon Sunwoo’s empty hands. He doesn’t particularly seem to be here for business, and seeing as he came all the way here without even a toothbrush in hand, he probably followed me… Was his guess correct, as Moon Sunwoo nodded.
“If I said I was going to brush my teeth, Kwon Isoo hyung would obviously throw a fit, so I said I was going out to smoke.”
“Why would Kwon Isoo throw a fit about you brushing your teeth?”
“You’re asking because you don’t know?”
Of course I don’t know. Kwon Isoo generally always throws fits though… Normally between brushing teeth and smoking, shouldn’t you throw a fit more about the latter? Of course, Kwon Isoo is a smoker too though…
At the expression that really didn’t know, Moon Sunwoo let out a hollow laugh, “Ha, ha.”
“When someone stares at you like that and you don’t even talk to them, I knew from then, but you’re really indifferent.”
“Did you want me to talk to you?”
“Wh-what? Absolutely not!”
As if caught in a very sore spot, Moon Sunwoo’s face flushed red and blue. Finding the real-time color changes interesting, he watched intently, and Moon Sunwoo averted his gaze with a roll, then immediately glared up at him again huffily.
“Don’t misunderstand, I have something to say.”
Switching between informal and formal speech, it was chaos. The cheeks that hadn’t lost their baby fat trembling with anger were quite cute, so his words came out generously.
“You can just speak comfortably. What do you want to say?”
“Ha, don’t be ridiculous. Do you think I’d speak informally alone and then say something weird in front of the camera?”
“I didn’t think that. Then should we both speak informally?”
“Th-that’s also no good!”
When he readily smiled and suggested mutual informal speech, Moon Sunwoo glared. With his short hair sticking up spikily and his eyes opened like that, he looked like a hedgehog with its quills raised. A red hedgehog.
The fact that he deliberately dyed his hair red during the hiatus also seemed like trying to make his gentle impression look tough, so Do Yeonjae put firm pressure on his lips.
“Okay… I got it, then.”
Not daring to speak informally to someone who’s both a senior and a year older—he doesn’t seem to have a bad personality from that point. So what exactly did he come to say?
Curious about that, he didn’t avoid the piercing gaze. However, the more their eyes met, it was rather Moon Sunwoo who wavered. As if resisting his own self, Moon Sunwoo raised the veins in his neck even more rigidly.
“I came to tell you not to meddle unnecessarily.”
“…What?”
“You seem to have used your head somewhat, but do you think I’d be grateful for that? Making ridiculous advice.”
Do Yeonjae blinked his eyes in confusion, rolling them. What did I… do?
