Yuho was staring blankly at the navy blue box placed on top of his desk shelf. Why did I bring that? Regret over impulsive choices always came late.
But I’d feel upset every time I looked at it. It seemed better to take care of it myself since it was bound to be abandoned anyway. Because all abandoned things are pitiful.
He wanted to keep the upset feelings entirely to himself.
“Does that have to be placed up there?”
Yeomin, who had finished preparing for bed and was heading to the bed, pointed at the golden turtle on the shelf and expressed his dissatisfaction. Yuho answered simply.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It motivates me.”
“Huh?”
At Yuho’s answer, Yeomin climbed up to the bunk bed with an expression that showed he couldn’t understand.
If he kept looking at the things Inhan gave him, wouldn’t there come a moment when he’d become numb and unbothered? The things Yuho had started collecting with that mindset had filled the shelf and were overflowing, even occupying the desk. There were all sorts of things, from drama appearance goods to limited edition items received from sponsors.
Yuho’s mood became troubled again.
A person with plenty sharing leftover items was nothing more than simple goodwill.
Yuho didn’t assign much meaning to the things Inhan gave him with that thought.
So the five-don pure gold golden turtle with the variety show logo, the only one in the world, should also have no meaning.
But that object, smaller than a palm yet unnecessarily asserting its presence, particularly bothered Yuho today.
* * *
Finally, it was the broadcast day of the variety show Yuho had appeared on.
Sitting next to Yuho on the living room sofa waiting for the broadcast to start was, for some reason, Raulie. It was an uncharacteristic choice for Raulie, who wandered outside every other day.
“Raulie didn’t go out?”
“Yeah. I’m going to hang out with hyung today.”
“Ah… Should we?”
In fact, for Yuho, Raulie was the number one member who was most awkward to be alone with. They had never been roommates, and as a rap position member in the younger line, he was the member with the least connection to Yuho. Above all, their personalities were polar opposites.
“Huh? He’s choosing Yeomin there?”
Raulie gulped down his beer and started objecting to Yuho’s team choice from the start.
Raulie, the type to blurt out honest remarks without filtering and without malice, had a personality that could easily be misunderstood as rude, but because he followed the principle of being strong to the strong and weak to the weak, he was kind to Yuho.
On the other hand, in the early days of debut, he had frequent conflicts with Taylor due to clashing opinions, which led to the creation of a rule: “younger line members are prohibited from speaking informally to older line members in public settings.” Of course, it wasn’t observed in the dorm.
“Hyo hyung. Why did you do that? You obviously should have chosen Jung Inhan.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“You thought he’d go easy on you.”
“Ah. Yeah.”
“But he’s exactly the size that won’t go easy, right?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“Hyung, you must have had a hard time that day.”
“Yeah. A little?”
Hearing Yuho’s answer, Raulie laughed out loud. Yuho found it hard to concentrate on the screen with Raulie’s barrage of questions coming at him frantically.
“But Inhan always acts like that. He acts like hyung definitely belongs to him.”
“Does he?”
“If he’s lonely, he should just date.”
“Right. He should.”
At Raulie’s comment that burst out like cider, Yuho felt refreshed. As expected, our Raul-ie is most reliable when on the same side.
“It’ll be a 5-second cut.”
Before he knew it, it was the moment when Yuho was miserably losing to Inhan in the ssireum match. 5 seconds, what? It was a 1-second cut. Watching himself getting slammed to the floor at the same time as the whistle sound, Yuho found it hard to hide his complicated feelings.
Raulie showed no particular reaction to the expected match result.
Starting with Yuho, Inhan eliminated Yeomin and Unseong with 10-second cuts, then instantly won even the ssireum match against Jeonga that he was supposed to lose.
“What? Jung Inhan eliminated all four people by himself?”
Only then did Raulie react with a fuss.
“Inhan’s competitive spirit is no joke originally.”
“He’s going to get criticized again for hogging all the screen time.”
It was a comment from a different perspective than Yuho’s.
“Even though he won by competing properly?”
“Do antis care about that? It’s their classic repertoire. Actor disease. Center disease. Attention seeker. Screen time greed. Company pick.”
“But Inhan doesn’t care about that stuff.”
“I don’t think so?”
“He doesn’t?”
“He hates being called stupid so he studies general knowledge separately. Even when he doesn’t have time to memorize scripts.”
The image of Inhan smoothly solving four-character idiom problems flashed through Yuho’s mind.
I heard it was because of historical dramas. But he studied separately. It was a fact Yuho didn’t know.
He always acted tough to me, but he complains to other members. Yuho felt sorry for Inhan but also inexplicably hurt.
“To think they’re even making him do unit activities in the midst of all this. SS Entertainment is really something.”
Raulie clicked his tongue and as always cursed the company.
For some, the problem was being given too much, and for others, the problem was having nothing. It would be nice if things could be divided perfectly on average, but such a thing couldn’t be possible. Especially not in the brutally cold entertainment industry.
“Looking at Inhan, being too famous isn’t necessarily all good. I think Taylor hyung’s level would be just right for me.”
“Right. Taylor hyung has copyrights.”
“What about you, hyung? Do you want to become like Yeomin or Inhan?”
“Well.”
Yuho became an idol purely out of curiosity. I’ll get to see a lot of celebrities. He hadn’t anticipated what kind of huge aftermath that simple thought would bring later. The price for wearing clothes that didn’t fit was harsh. It was the same now. Yuho had just been pushed along as he was pushed and couldn’t even grasp what he should do going forward.
“I just wanted to do band music.”
“Then just do it.”
“Who would even pay attention?”
“So what if they don’t pay attention? You just do it because you want to.”
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
“You think about that after doing it.”
Yuho thought Raulie’s advice was too absurd. An unprepared challenge was the shortcut to failure. That’s what Yuho’s idol life was like, and that’s exactly what his confession to Inhan was like. He did it recklessly and it ultimately ended in ruin.
“From what I see, hyung is too scared.”
As expected, Raul-ie who doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t cut you slack just because you’re a hyung. Yuho became bitter at Raulie’s continued fact-violence. And he felt wronged. It’s not like I didn’t try.
“You need to know how to close your eyes tight and go for it, but you’re too afraid of failure.”
“What if I can’t handle the aftermath?”
“Then you just end up with one dark history. But wouldn’t you feel more relieved inside than not having done anything?”
“Like your Show Me the Rapper second preliminary stage?”
As expected, there was no better way to shut Raulie’s mouth than this. But the problem was Raulie’s reaction that would follow.
Sensing that Raulie’s expression was ominous, Yuho hurriedly ran toward his room. But he couldn’t take more than a few steps before Raulie grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
“Why are you bringing that up now?”
“Raulie. I was wrong.”
Yuho regretted provoking Raulie and offered a sincere apology. Fortunately, Raulie forgave the reckless remark by giving Yuho one headlock.
“Hyung should study general knowledge too.”
The two sat side by side again to finish watching the variety show, and Raulie said while watching Yuho get zero points on the proverb questions.
“Still, doesn’t he seem to have variety sense?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Mm. I should ask Inhan to lend me some general knowledge books.”
Yuho readily agreed with Raulie’s words. He couldn’t carelessly object because despite his looks, Raulie was quite smart. He was also so good at talking that he was the only person who could beat Taylor.
“Wow. Jung Inhan is crazy.”
Raulie said in shock while watching Inhan volunteer to take the penalty instead of Yuho. Yuho was embarrassed and held back his words.
“At that level, it’s real love. Hyung, just get married.”
“Don’t want to.”
“Why? He’d have a lot of money, he has ability, if you just get his hyung’s permission, there’d be no problem.”
“Would Inhan’s hyung give permission?”
Yuho asked jokingly, but Raulie didn’t answer and turned his gaze back to the screen. No matter if it was a joke, what’s not okay is not okay.
Yuho agreed. Such a thing couldn’t be possible.
After the variety show broadcast ended, Yuho returned to his room and accessed the fan community.
[Inhan who unsealed the power he’d been hiding after not being chosen by Yuho ㅋㅋㅋ]
└ [Did our wild one’s leash come off]
[Look at our youngest Inhan receiving the penalty instead of Yuho hyung ㅜㅜ As expected Jung-sweet]
└ [As expected scheming maknae ㄷㄷ The big picture was insane]
└ [Winning and then receiving the penalty instead is really crazy ㅜㅜ His Benz power is no joke]
[Our wild one was excited all day teasing Yuho the fox ㅋㅋㅋ]
└ [Why does our Hyo-mom keep only getting played by Nani ㅜㅜ]
Fortunately, the reaction to Yuho’s variety show appearance was hot. Though the fact that the focus of the reaction was on Inhan rather than Yuho was different from expectations, it wasn’t unexpected so there was nothing to be disappointed about.
Yuho also searched for his name on SNS.
Search: Yuho
The reactions were generally similar to the fan community, but despite searching by name, posts related to ‘NanHyo’ were ranked at the top of popular posts.
Yuho was surprised and examined the content of the posts and comment reactions.
[Is NanHyo going major]
└ [NanHyo was originally top-tier in terms of crumbs, it’s just that god hands didn’t latch on]
[The face chemistry and size difference are crazy, why was it minor until now]
└ [Because damn SsangS always stored them away, damn incompetent bastards who can’t grasp context]
└ [SsangS pushed NanYeom hard from debut, thanks to that NanHyo got buried]
[The ssireum scene is crazy, how does he lift him so lightly, is Hyo a feather]
└ [He holds him so preciously ㅜㅜ Who does that to a close hyung]
[Don’t you see Jung Inhan receiving the penalty instead of Yuho, it’s real true love]
NanHyo shippers were beside themselves saying it was an all-time crumb.
