“Why are you so angry. It’s just brothers joking around a bit.”
Yeonjae’s gaze, which had been quietly staring at the flushed red and blue face, dropped to the side. Seeing the tightly clenched fist, Yeonjae smiled faintly.
“Going to hit me?”
“Ah, fuck… This is really.”
Do Yeonu, who had been biting his molars tightly, couldn’t control his temper and stormed out. Do Yeonjae, left in the room, looked at the wide-open door before flopping back down on the bed.
If you can’t even hit me, why raise your fist. How pathetic…
Blinking with a bored expression, he slowly lowered his gaze. His neat eyelashes slowly concealed his black pupils. He had that thought anew.
‘Do Yeonjae. Don’t you know I endured until now because of you… because you coaxed me to hang in there together, even though it was shitty? But fuck, now you’re saying you’ll bail out alone.’
Did Kwon Isoo feel like he’d been stabbed in the back then too? While indulging in useless sentiment, he muttered indifferently. Stabbed in the back…
“It’s not entirely wrong.”
* * *
The things Do Yeonu took lost their meaning inside Do Yeonjae from that moment on.
It had been that way for a very long time. And it was the same with his words. Malicious words he wasn’t even curious about what emotions they stemmed from.
‘But bastards like you who pretend to be nice then stab people in the back really make me want to kill them, they’re so fucking annoying.’
But those words that reminded him of Kwon Isoo, strangely, he found himself mulling over them several times.
In the past, he suddenly joined a boy group that was scheduled to launch. While dazed from the lack of reality, there was a friend who held onto him. And he chose debut over friendship. It was an inevitable matter, and a natural and realistic result.
Only an idiot would nod their head and say okay at that point. So Do Yeonjae said words he didn’t mean to stop Kwon Isoo from doing something reckless.
…But in truth, he knows that it wasn’t solely an action for Kwon Isoo’s sake.
‘……I’m not doing it. Yeonjae.’
At that time, Kwon Isoo’s sincerity that suddenly pierced his heart… came to Do Yeonjae as a shock. Enough to shake his entire world in an instant. The face firmly speaking of impossibility, the gaze that would take any risk as long as he could be with him, was distantly terrifying.
Because that sincerity might end up convincing me.
Because I might end up doing something ridiculous, like an idiotic fool.
So scared like that in advance, he threw sharp words recklessly to avoid being caught wavering for a moment. There must have been better methods than hurting Kwon Isoo. He was foolish and dishonest.
Perhaps I’m the one who’s worse than cat whiskers…
Thinking of it as a self-diss track, several decent lyrics started to come out.
[Cats Never Lie]
Once he got the feel for it, lyric writing seemed quite fun. Until now, he’d only tried to express well-written lyrics, but the process of creating the emotional line from scratch was difficult but interesting.
Gaining momentum, Do Yeonjae really worked hard preparing meeting materials until the filming day. It’s not like saying it’s good by himself makes it so, since ultimately the person making the song is Kwon Isoo.
But what if the keyword Kwon Isoo thought of is better… What to do, then I’ll just go with that. Anyway, Do Yeonjae organized very clearly the band concept stage he thought of, reference images for it, advantages of going with the indie rock genre, and so on. So that he could attract Kwon Isoo’s interest as much as possible. He was really looking forward to the song work with Kwon Isoo that would now officially begin…
“PD-nim.”
…He definitely was.
“Didn’t you say this was a program about song production?”
At Do Yeonjae’s dejected voice, PD Woo Jiyeon laughed out loud.
Today’s filming was discussed to be conducted at the JG building. Do Yeonjae, who was informed in advance that they would film the song meeting in the company meeting room, stopped by the shop and came straight to the meeting room floor.
As soon as he entered with an excited heart, he was surrounded by people wearing cute masks over black clothes.
“Hello… uh,”
His confusion was brief; he saw the red light on the camera. Then are these people <My Favorite! Chemistry> staff? They grabbed Do Yeonjae’s body and tied one wrist with a string.
What is this…?
As he looked down at his wrist with blank eyes, the door opened again.
“Do Yeonjae… What?”
Kwon Isoo, who soon appeared, was wearing a thin brown jacket with his hair down. It was a style where his wavy bangs were slightly wet and naturally flowed down below his eyebrows. It suits him well…
He with his amazing looks that could pull off any hairstyle was soon destined to be tied up as well.
“……”
But the masked people seemed to hesitate a bit unlike before. They seemed to be gauging Kwon Isoo’s reaction, who was frowning heavily… That cold face right up close does have serious intimidation. Maybe it’s scarier because his eyes are slightly covered.
…For now, both need to be tied for something to proceed, right?
“I’ll hold him.”
Eventually, Do Yeonjae stepped up for smooth progress. Even though he doesn’t know what this situation is… Do Yeonjae went behind Kwon Isoo and grabbed both his arms. The moment it became a posture like suddenly back-hugging, Kwon Isoo’s body stiffened like stone. After freezing for a moment, he shouted out loud.
“Hey, what is this. Let go?”
“Stay still for a bit.”
I get that you don’t like it… How much must he hate it for the nape of his neck to turn all red. While staring up at his neck, he put more strength into the hands gripping his arms.
“I said let go, Do Yeonjae.”
“It’ll just be a moment. I bought you pork belly.”
“Are you kidding? You ate more.”
“I did do that… I’m using all that energy here.”
Holding down a tall man who was thoroughly pissed off and struggling wasn’t an easy task either. While Do Yeonjae was fighting hard, the masked men quickly tied his wrist.
It was the opposite end of the string that tied Do Yeonjae’s one wrist. So in an instant, he became connected to Kwon Isoo by a string. As he looked down absurdly at the wide cotton string, Kwon Isoo, released from the back hug, questioned him with a fierce face.
“Why are you hugging me without permission and making a fuss.”
Does that mean I can hug him if I get permission…? After thinking for a moment, he showed Kwon Isoo his wrist.
“Do you know anything about this situation?”
From his reaction just now, he doesn’t seem to know. As expected, Kwon Isoo frowned and shook his head. Then they did this without any explanation to all the cast. Don’t tell me they want us to have a meeting like this? No, wait.
Are we actually having a meeting today?
For that, something was strange. The overall camera setup seemed not like filming a fixed location but like they were going to do mobile filming… While Do Yeonjae, feeling dissonance, requested an explanation from the PD, Kwon Isoo just looked down at the string connecting him to Do Yeonjae with an expressionless face.
And PD Woo Jiyeon, who planned all this, looked very satisfied seeing the two standing side by side.
“Yeonjae-ssi spoke very well. This is a program about song production. And this string is very closely related to your song work.”
“…What relation?”
“You must have thought of many good ideas for today’s meeting. Right?”
Yes… Do Yeonjae nodded obediently.
“I worked hard filming videos too.”
“I heard you two had meat. But in order to freely realize those ideas you thought up hard while even eating pork belly, you first need to succeed in a mission…”
“Yes?”
A mission out of nowhere? Gulping at the ominous development, Do Yeonjae unconsciously focused his attention on the PD’s lip movements.
“The mission you’ll challenge today is, the Four Rhythm Finding Game!”
…Four Rhythm? While Do Yeonjae was puzzled by the unfamiliar term, Kwon Isoo, who had been looking at the string, raised his head.
“Yes, Isoo-ssi. As expected, you know. Can you explain to the viewers what Four Rhythm is?”
Kwon Isoo answered with an expression that looked uncomfortable somehow.
“…Drums, bass, guitar, keyboard. The basic instrument configuration that forms the backbone of popular music accompaniment.”
“Yes, that’s right. Overseas it’s also called ‘rhythm section.’ As the name suggests, you could say it’s the basic components needed for composing.”
Right… They’d establish the beat and rhythm with drums and bass, and create chords with guitar and keyboard. Even thinking simply, he could tell it’s very important in composition.
But why Four Rhythm?
“From now on, for 90 minutes, you two must find four Four Rhythm cards without untying the string on your wrists. Right here, inside the JG building. To explain easily, it’s a treasure hunt.”
“A treasure hunt…”
PD Woo said she couldn’t borrow the entire company building, but even getting permission to use a few floors was difficult, joking around. But there was no way such words would enter Yeonjae’s ears right now.
“What if we can’t find them?”
“Unfortunately, the instruments on the cards you two don’t bring back cannot be used when composing. So it would be good to find as many cards as possible within the time limit, right? Ah, if your wrists come untied, the time ends immediately, so please be careful.”
“…Wait, wait a moment.”
This doesn’t seem like something to explain so cheerfully?
