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GREAT THINGS, PART II

"For God's gifts and his call are irrevocable." — Romans, 11:29.

In which Haksu's life falls apart. FEATURING: Kang Haksu, Lee Taein, Yoon Mingeun, Lim Byeonghwi, Fable ensemble WORD COUNT: 6.7k WARNINGS / NOTES: Discussions of stalking and blackmail, more heavy-handed religious themes. You can read the first part here! Not very proofread. Sorry in advance for the mistakes I definitely made. I wanted to finish this closer to the beginning of April than the end but it is what it is. I also fucked up the timeline a little bit compared to some other pieces. This is the more canon one.

DECEMBER 2017

You pass Taein's little tests with flying colors. You’re Hercules, and these are your trials. First, your one month trial period. In the beginning, it is hard. There are days when you think you can’t make it at all, when you think maybe it would be better if you gave up, that a mediocre life is not so bad. After all, most people live mediocre lives. You aren't most people.

Second, it becomes apparent by your third or fourth day that the other trainees—namely Mingeun and Jaeseop—have a vendetta against you. Mingeun leads the independent dance practices, because he has the most experience, despite being the second youngest in the room. It throws you for a loop at first—how one nineteen year old can have the same amount of idol training as everyone else combined. You don’t enjoy taking direction from him. He singles you out, though you don’t trip over your feet any more than Andrew or Intak, and asks you to repeat sections over and over again until he’s satisfied. He isn’t good at giving instructions. He’ll tell you that something is wrong, crossing his arms with his back to the mirror, but not what exactly is wrong. It doesn’t take long for you to realize he’s doing this on purpose. He doesn’t want you to succeed, and he’ll hold you back himself. You won’t let yourself be bullied by someone younger than you, so you force yourself to take his advice seriously and listen earnestly. It’s a battle of wills, and you’re going to win.

Jaeseop is a different story. He treats you differently because you’re an outsider. He’s been with Zenith Entertainment the longest because Taein is his uncle, a fact that you learn not from him, but from Kiyoung, and then do your best to take in stride. It becomes even more important for you to impress him. He holds you at an arm's distance anyway. You can't understand it. He seems so protective of everyone else, drawing a clear line between you and them. You try, again and again, to get to know him. He gives you the cold shoulder every time, answering your questions in short sentences or single words, like he’s mimicking Intak’s speech patterns. You have to be on his good side, because you know he’s reporting everything that relates to you back to Taein. You imagine what he says about you: you don’t fit in, you’re different, they would be better off without you. The thoughts keep you up at night, despite the bone-deep tiredness that you haven’t been able to shake since you joined the company.

Third, Taein extends your trial period weeks and months at a time. You make it through your first month, and he seems surprised to see you in his office again, come the new year. He changes it up on you, amending the parameters of your old deal.

“A month isn’t nearly long enough to learn how someone works,” he tells you. “Take a job, for instance. A new employee doesn’t immediately know everything about the position, or fit into the workplace culture. There’s always a training period.”

You haven't had the type of job he's describing, so you sit in his office and nod along. Your trial month becomes a two month trial, then a three month trial. You wear down Jaeseop and Mingeun one at a time, until they have no choice but to acknowledge you.

When your third month is over, Taein doesn't say anything. You assume you passed all his tests. You're officially a trainee now, a member of whatever Taein is planning.

Then it's summer, and everything changes.

You're going to debut. Of course, you knew this from the beginning. So did everyone else, because that's what you told them the day you joined.

Your debut announcement comes in the newly renovated meeting room. You were unaware there were still changes being made to the building, of construction going on on the floor above you. You chalk it up to being so intensely involved in your training.

Nevertheless, you sit in a spinning chair at the end of a long table, the lights dimmed to illustrate the presentation that Taein and his assistant, Yuxuan, are giving on your upcoming debut. Your group name is Fable. Your debut is slated for August 8, 2018, your twenty-first birthday. It must be fate. Your concept will be representative of Korea, and Intak is writing your debut song. More importantly, you’re going to be the main vocalist. You can feel Mingeun’s murderous gaze from across the table.

After the group announcement, Yuxuan pulls you aside and tells you Taein wishes to speak with you, individually. You don't know what that's about, but you agree. You assume he wants to speak to everyone individually.

When you’re in Taein’s office again a day later, you aren’t worried. Then he locks the door behind you, and you start to worry. You feel like you've spent more time in here than practicing with the rest of Fable, though you know that can't be right. It's the way time stretches and slows when you're sitting in front of Taein.

“You’re in a very unique position,” he says.

“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” you say. You can’t show weakness. “I want our deal to continue through my debut.”

“No.” Taein’s response is immediate.

“Then Eunyoung-ssi will learn of your infidelity,” you say, almost apologetic.

“And you’ll ruin any chance you have of debuting.”

That would be a problem for you, but you have to pretend it doesn’t matter. You shrug. “You’re so close to finally debuting a group. Isn’t this what you left SM to do? You’ve spent so much time and money on us. It’d be a shame to throw it all away now.”

You can feel him faltering. You’ve pressed all the right buttons. You push them further. “I’m going to be the face of Fable, and you’re going to make that happen.”

Taein leans back in his seat. “So that’s what all of this is about. You’re desperate for your five minutes of fame. I can’t make anyone famous. It won’t fall into your lap.”

You hold his gaze. “You can buy it. I want every opportunity that Fable gets. If there aren’t any, you’ll make some.” You assume he has deep pockets. He can’t produce an idol group without them.

“There are other, easier ways to become famous,” Taein says, sounding almost amused. “Being an idol is a fickle position.”

It's the position you chose. You won't back down now.

"You drive a hard bargain," he continues. "I seem to have been backed into a corner." It doesn't really seem like that to you, but you keep your mouth shut, in case he decides to change his mind.

“You’ll be the face of Fable, and in return, you’ll keep my secrets to yourself.”

You nod again, this time maybe too enthusiastically. “Deal.”

Taein holds his hand out and you shake it, suddenly feeling lighter. You’re going to debut. You’re going to do great things.

“Jaeseop spoke highly of you,” he says as he unlocks the door.

You pause. “He did?”

“He admires your tenacity and your ability to work with people who don’t want to work with you. He also said you might be more stubborn that Mingeun, which may not be a compliment.”

You beam at the praise. You choose to interpret that last part as a compliment.

You’re halfway out the door, a skip in your step, when Taein stops you again. “One last thing. What were you studying?”

"Business administration," you answer. "I dropped out at the end of the school year."

He nods. "It suits you. You should consider going back."

You aren't too sure what to make of that.

APRIL 2021

You build your house with paper cards, yet you’re surprised when it comes tumbling down. You think you should have seen it coming. There were signs: Taein started work earlier and left later. Sometimes he’d stay overnight, locked up in his office, doing God knows what. You try to ask Jaeseop about him. He brushes you off and tells you not to worry. You spend a few days in that limbo between caring and not caring, poking your nose where it doesn’t belong and minding your own business.

Then the news breaks. It comes from Mingeun in the group chat—nothing more than taein’s wife is divorcing him lol. Then he changes the subject and asks if anyone’s seen his headphones. Jaeseop confirms it a minute later, then asks if you can all not talk about it.

It slights you more than it should. You know Mingeun and Jaeseop are close. You know Mingeun never takes no for an answer. You still want to be part of that in-group that gets to know the full story as it develops.

When the news breaks in public a couple of days later, you keep track. That’s your responsibility, after ll, your finger on the pulse of any news, good or bad, about you and about Fable. You read through the reputable sources, then the less reputable ones. They talk about Taein’s past: his first divorce, his less than amicable departure from SM Entertainment, how a small company could finance a debut with as many promotions as Fable had—and all the opportunities you had. Then the next major news story breaks, and everyone forgets about Taein.

Not you. You can’t. You walk on eggshells around him, though to be honest, you don’t see him much. You know his schedule well enough to avoid him.

Until the day he asks to see you. He corners you—it seems like he knows your schedule just as well as you know his—as soon as you arrive back from a photoshoot. He stands outside the entrance to the parking garage, smoking a cigarette. Daewoong looks unfazed.

“We need to speak,” Taein says. You’ve barely had the chance to step outside.

You nod silently. You saw this coming. You watch him flick the ash off the butt of his cigarette and discard it to the ground.

You follow him into the building, and then up the elevator, still in silence. You’ll have to defend yourself soon, and you need the time to think. You can broker another deal with him. You’ll have to. You’ve grown too lax in your position, too self-assured and confident that nothing could go wrong, because nothing goes wrong until it does. You’re the face of Fable. You have more bargaining power now than you did four years ago when you were no one.

“Have a seat,” Taein says, unlocking the door to his office. You can’t remember when he started locking it.

You sit. He locks the door behind him, and that’s when you begin to think you might be in trouble.

You watch him sit in his much nicer seat and start up his computer. He’s looking at the screen when he asks, “Do you know what I wanted to talk to you about, Haksu?”

You weigh your options. You have a guess. It’s a very good guess. You don’t know what he wants to hear. It knocks you off balance.

“I can hear the gears in your head turning,” Taein says. He’s still not looking at you.

“I have a guess,” you say, perfectly neutral.

“I’d like to hear it.”

You take a deep breath. “You want to talk about our deal.”

“Precisely. You should have said it with more confidence.” Now he tears his gaze away from the screen to give you a once-over. You bear it.

You begin to lay your pieces in front of you. “The footage is irrelevant now. If I were to reveal it, it’d destroy both of us.”

You have more to say, but Taein interrupts you. “You, more than me. So you understand. It’s time we close that chapter of our lives, once and for all. We won’t need to speak of it again. It will be like it never happened.”

“Until you marry again and cheat once again.”

Taein laughs. “I’m old, Haksu-ah. I doubt I have a third marriage in me.”

He treats marriage and divorce like toys. You despise it. Marriage is a sacred covenant, not something to play with and discard. You want to weaponize it against him, but it’s difficult when he doesn’t share the same ideals as you.

“I want the other part of our bargain to stay the same,” you propose.

Taein's smile nearly vanishes. “No, I don't think so.”

Truth be told, you’re accustomed to all the good things that have come your way. The solo television appearances and jobs and endorsements and advertisements. You take it all in like a man starving. You can't give that up.

“I’m the public face of Fable,” you say. “You made me into it. Without me, who do you have?”

“It might be time for a change,” Taein muses. “Someone else can take the lead. I think Byeonghwi might be a good choice.”

He can’t be serious. Byeonghwi could never do what you do. None of them could.

“Wouldn’t it be strange?” you press. “To have someone else represent the group? The fans and the public are used to me.”

“You’re a member of a group,” Taein says in a tone that leaves little room for argument. “You’ll have to share the spotlight.”

That’s the last thing you want to do. You’ve worked hard for your place in the sun. You can’t just concede it. You grasp for straws, trying, desperately, to come up with a trump card. You find yourself lacking one. It’s no matter, you tell yourself. You found one before. You can find one again.

You swallow back any sort of lesser argument. “Fine.”

“I'm glad we're in agreement,” he says pleasantly. “You can keep the photos, if you'd like. Or you can post them online, if you'd like that more. It was never about them anyway.”

The world tilts dangerously around you. “What do you mean?” you ask, unsure if you want to hear the answer.

“All you got from them was a chance,” he says. “I will admit you forced my hand in accepting you as a trainee. Everything after that was your work.”

“Then I would have debuted anyway? I would have been the face of the group anyway? I could have shown your wife the pictures and you wouldn’t care?”

Taein nods. “It would have been unpleasant at the time. It was a surprise my marriage lasted until now.”

You understand, suddenly, the appeal of violence. Taein, sitting directly in front of you, is the root cause of every problem you've ever had as a member of Fable, and even before that. It would be so simple to reach across his desk and—. You stop yourself. You spend too much time with Mingeun.

"Blackmailing your boss really isn't a good look, Haksu-ssi," Taein says, clearly oblivious to the thoughts racing through your mind.

You shift in your seat so that you're sitting on your hands. He seems so smug and self-confident, wielding his superior intellect over you. You can’t stand it.

"You went along with it," you say. You try to stay calm. You can feel your control slipping away from you. "You said we had a deal."

"We did," he concedes. "I would have upheld my side of the bargain no matter what. You're the one who constantly thought about it. I ask to speak to you, and the first thing you always said was something related to your blackmail. Clearly, it was important to you. You brought this upon yourself."

That was good. You know that. You wouldn't be here, if not for your investigative skills. You earned your spot, in more ways than one. And yet, there’s something about the way Taein speaks, about his tone of voice and his choice of words that make you feel like a child being reprimanded by an adult well-versed in the ways of the world. You know nothing, and he knows everything.

"It was a pleasure working with you, sajang-nim," you say, voice tight. You're not going to cry, but you think you might scream.

Taein smiles at that. “I don’t think it was for you. I appreciate your sentiment nonetheless.”

You don't take Taein at his word. You can't. He's shown, now, that you can't trust him. You think you're playing checkers, and he's five steps ahead of you in chess. Two can play at that game. You made a bargain with him before, when you were younger and more naive. You have the experience now. And you know Taein's reputation is far from spotless.

This time around, you have a bit more money and a lot less free time. You refuse to let go of your bargain, and more importantly, you want to get Taein back. So you hire a private investigator, a middle-aged man who’s supposedly good at his job, near the high end of your budget. You do it all online, staring at your computer screen only at angles at which no one else can see it. You lay out the bare bones of your situation through emails: this is your boss, you’re a lowly employee, you’re dissatisfied with the current state of the company, you want to know if he has any sort of illegal dealings. It's a bit of a jump from the third point to the fourth, but the investigator doesn't ask.

He gets back to you a couple of days later. You open the email minutes after it arrives, curling up on one end of your apartment’s couch with a coffee. It’s straightforward and professional. You skip over the pleasantries and focus on the important part, where the investigator has written Lee Taein’s company, Zenith Entertainment, is partially owned by Ahn Jinguk, one of the sons of Danyoung Group chairman Ahn Changok. As far as the financial state of the company is concerned, all business is legitimate. However, unless you are the heir to Samsung or Hyundai and capable of outbidding the Ahns, I will no longer be investigating Lee Taein. I wish you luck in your future investigative endeavors, should you still be interested. As a next possible step, I have attached some information about a few other individuals of interest.

Underneath all of that is a series of names, occupations, and pictures of everyone else with a stake in Zenith Entertainment. You think you might have seen some of these people around the building before, though their names are unfamiliar.

You’re so focused on your phone screen that you don’t register Mingeun coming up behind you, until he says, “What’re you looking at?”

His breath ghosts over your ear as he leans on the edge of the couch and peers over your shoulder. You jump, clicking your phone screen off. “Nothing.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Mingeun says. You can practically hear him scowling. He’s been more of a nuisance than normal over the past couple of months, ever since Jaeseop told him he wasn’t going to be part of their upcoming promotions because he’s technically still on hiatus. “So? Talking to a girl?”

You take a moment to respond. You could tell him the truth. Now that you and everyone else know what he’s been through��what Taein put him through—you think he’d understand your decisions, even if he’s a terrible Catholic and the one time you brought him to Mass was a disaster.

“It’s a long story.”

Mingeun drops into the seat next to you. “I have all day. I didn’t think you were the type to date as an idol.”

You flush. "I'm not dating anyone. Can we talk somewhere more private?"

You don't know where Eunsu and Byeonghwi are, but you don't want to risk them overhearing your conversation, should they interrupt.

Mingeun raises an eyebrow. "Sounds exactly like what someone who isn't dating would say. Your room or mine?"

You know Mingeun's room is akin to a pig sty. "Mine."

As it turns out, your bedroom isn’t much better. It’s not like you get visitors, because you don’t have a girlfriend. You sit on your bed. Mingeun sits on the floor. There isn’t much more space in the room. Your desk is entirely monopolized by your laptop and a stack of notebooks. Your desk chair is being used as a bar stool in the kitchen, though it’s a bit too short for that.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” you begin, because Mingeun seems a bit too fixated on that. “This is related to how I joined the group.”

Mingeun’s expression turns hostile. You can practically see him remembering your first few trainee days.

You pick and choose your words. You’ve parleyed with Taein; you can have this conversation with Mingeun.

“I also made a deal with him,” you say, as if you two are one and the same, “though it was a bit different from yours. I discovered he was cheating on his wife. I exchanged keeping that information a secret for a debut.”

“You blackmailed him.” Mingeun’s voice is an icy monotone. “Then you came in here and took my spot.”

It sounds bad when he says it like that. You never took anyone’s spot. If you had, then Mingeun wouldn’t be here at all.

“I didn’t,” you say, but he barrels over you.

“You did. I was the best vocalist until Andrew-hyung joined, and then I was the second best vocalist until you came along. When you’re third best, you might as well be nothing. It means you’re not good enough. You’re not talented enough, you’re not skilled enough, you haven’t worked hard enough.” He’s standing now, beginning an erratic circuit around your room.

You let him cool down a little before you speak again. “I’m sorry,” you offer, as if that's going to fix anything.

He fixes you with a baleful glance, and you're suddenly thankful he hasn't punched any holes in your walls. It looks like he's inching closer and closer to it, hands balled into fists, jaw so tight he might pop a vein. You're surprised that he doesn't have permanent indents in his palms from his fingernails.

“Did you know,” he says slowly, “that a few months before we learned we were going to debut, Taein-nim cut me from the lineup? For you.”

“I didn’t know,” you say softly, staring at the ground. “It worked out for you.”

"It did not 'work out' for me," Mingeun says, air-quotting your words back at you. "If it 'worked out' for me, I would be in NCT right now. It 'worked out' because Jaeseop-hyung argued for me. He managed to convince Taein-nim to debut me as well."

All of this is news for you. You wonder how long Mingeun has kept all of this bottled up. The last three years, presumably. Almost the same length of time he spent lying about where he grew up and what his childhood was like. There's nothing you can say to reassure him. You know this, because you've tried before. Mingeun isn't a conversationalist. Once he gets worked up about something, the dialogue becomes one-sided and there's little to do but wait until he cools off.

You present him with a question of your own anyway. "If you had an opportunity to do what I did," you ask, "would you have done the same?"

You know that if you were in his position, left with no choice but to disguise your identity, to hide who you truly were in order to debut, you'd do it.

Mingeun only glares at you. "I don't want to know what you're up to anymore. I don't care."

He doesn't answer your question. You take that to mean he agrees. He storms out of your room, and you give him a few minutes on his own before you follow to retrieve your coffee.

You can’t make another deal with Taein. For once, you’re out of ideas. You have no cards left to play, no aces hidden up your sleeve. You’ve been the face of Fable for three years. That will have to be enough.

The change comes quickly—faster than you thought it would. Byeonghwi is the one with the extra schedules: the solo endorsements, the variety show appearances as a representative of the group, the music show MC position. Those were yours, once upon a time.

When the opportunities do start coming your way again, it's never you alone. It's you and Eunsu, or you and Byeonghwi, or you and Andrew. Once you stop to think about it, all those pairings make logical sense. You and Eunsu are basically inseparable in Fable's group shows, because you're always hanging onto him. You and Byeonghwi and the two faces of Fable. You and Andrew are the backbone of the group's music as the main vocalists. It's infuriating. You despise it.

Your current situation has you and Byeonghwi as guests on a radio show, promoting your soon-to-released album alongside a mostly rookie cast promoting their soon-to-be released film. It was supposed to be you and Eunsu, but Eunsu’s older brother passed away recently, and he left for home a few days ago.

You told Daewoong you’d be fine going by yourself. He gave you a rather disinterested look and said the program’s director requested two representatives.

When you're sitting in the radio program’s studio, comically oversized headphones on the table in front of you, it almost feels like normal. As long as you pretend Byeonghwi isn't sitting right next to you. Before you’re on air, you make polite conversation with the actors. There are three of them: two young men and one young woman. You try, as you sit there, to match their faces to the film poster on the wall behind them. It’s a bit difficult, because the film is some sort of gritty, post-apocalyptic one, and their faces are covered in fake blood and gore.

You do your best. You’re charming. You’re cordial. You’re kind. Byeonghwi tries to join the conversation twice, and you ice him out subtly both times. He takes the hint. No one else seems to notice.

Then the host begins the show, and you’re on air. It’s just as much of a performance as being on stage is, and you don’t disappoint. You introduce yourself: you’re Haksu from Fable, in charge of the group’s vocals. Then you introduce your sixth mini album, 환호작약, releasing in two weeks. The tracks were all written by your group members, and the title track, 멋, is an upbeat trap anthem driven by a taepyeongso. You’ve worked hard for this, and you hope everyone will listen to and enjoy the songs.

You’re comfortable, relaxing as the film cast introduce themselves and their characters. You learn the movie’s plot follows three high school students who become trapped in their school when the apocalypse begins. Cut off from the outside world, the students quickly turn on each other, forming and breaking alliances. In line with that—and not with your album—the radio program’s episode is themed around school. You’re prepared, like you always are, your mind full of anecdotes and advice, though you were never a good student. Byeonghwi wasn’t either. The two of you are here regardless.

The first question tackles favorite subjects. You’re seconds away from responding, leaning into your microphone to speak. Your favorite subject was, of course, art. You’ve been in choirs all your life. It’s what made you want to become a singer.

So when the host turns to Byeonghwi and asks, “Byeonghwi-ssi, since you’re the youngest, could you go first?”

You disguise the beginning of your sentence with a cough.

Byeonghwi seems a bit surprised, but he recovers quickly. “I liked PE a lot. When I was in high school, I was on my school’s soccer team. Growing up, I wanted to play professionally.”

The eyes of one of the actors—his name has slipped your mind already—light up, and he launches into his own similar story. This must have been planned, and you weren’t involved. You’ve never been athletic. You survive Mingeun’s dance practices and that’s enough for you. The two of them embark on a lengthy conversation about Son Heung-min that the host has to interrupt to steer the show back on track.

For some reason you weren’t consulted on, all the questions are directed towards Byeonghwi, not you. He talks about clubs—his soccer team again—and cliques—how he transferred to high school in Seoul and developed a poor reputation because he sat in the back of the classroom and was absent often, a story you and your fans have heard countless times before—and preparing for the suneung. He didn’t even go to university. You did, but no one asks you for advice. You sit in silence as he gets a faraway look in his eyes, recounting cram schools and private tutors and self-discipline.

Everyone seems oblivious to your plight. The film cast laughs along with Byeonghwi’s stories, the same way they joked around with you before the program started.

Then comes the program’s main event, posing the same question the film’s cast deals with: who would you choose to survive the apocalypse with? As per usual, Byeonghwi goes first.

“Haksu-hyung, of course,” he begins. That was a given, but it means you now need to choose him as well. When you and Eunsu planned your responses, you both agreed to name each other. You had no such agreement with Byeonghwi.

“He’s reliable and everyone likes him. People are drawn to him. He’d be a good leader,” Byeonghwi continues. “And Yejun-hyung. He’s smart and would definitely survive.”

You have to admit you like hearing speak so highly of you.

When it’s finally your turn to speak, you say, “I’d pick Byeonghwi.”

A reason isn’t in any of your plans, so you make one up on the spot. “His athleticism makes him a good asset, but he might leave me behind if we had to escape,” you joke, before quickly moving on. “I’d also want Jaeseop-hyung.”

Your first pick, had you been in a real apocalyptic situation, would also be Andrew, but you doubt the three of you are some sort of survival situation dream team.

“He’s reliable and we get along well,” you finish.

You don’t speak much for the rest of the program. You sulk quietly instead, because Byeonghwi and the actors are doing most of the talking, and no one bothers to include you in the conversations. It would have been better if Daewoong let you go alone.

The on-air light finally clicks off, and your torture ends. You pull your headphones off, happy to be free of the weight. Byeonghwi stretches in his seat, a bright grin on his face. “That was fun! Did you have fun, hyung?”

You grunt out a noise that could be positive or negative. Of course he had fun. He was the one who got to speak. All you did was introduce yourself and your new album. Your sole consolation is that the main focus was on the actors, not on the two of you. You’re the face of the group. It just feels wrong for anyone else to represent the eight of you.

You grit your teeth and bite your tongue and force a smile to your face for the usual round of polite goodbyes and closing remarks with the show's host.

Byeonghwi beams brightly. “I hope we can do it again.”

You echo his sentiment out loud. Inwardly, you know that once is more than enough for this experience.

After that, the promotions of your latest mini album come to a smooth close. The night of the recording of your farewell stage puts everyone in a good mood—until Mingeun ruins it all.

He’s in the dorm when you arrive, which is a surprise, because he spends most of his time with the band. You didn’t think he wanted to see the rest of the group during the promotional period he was excluded from.

You also didn’t think he was part of your little after party—a kickback, according to Andrew. The distinctions between types of American parties have never been of interest to you.

No one else minds. Mingeun slips in like he was just at your music show performance, though he’s drinking water, not alcohol. He’s standing in the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder with Eunsu, when he suddenly announces, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Haksu-hyung has something to share.”

You, leaning against the counter amidst your conversation with Andrew, do not, in fact, have anything to share. You play along anyway. “A toast,” you say, raising your soju bottle. “To our successful promotions.”

You didn’t win a single music show this time around, but there are another measurements. Your sales numbers are good. Your fansigns are successful. No one experienced a life-threatening scandal.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Mingeun says. He’s not raising his water bottle. You lower your drink.

You watch Jaeseop’s gaze ping-pong between the two of you, more curious than anything.

Mingeun takes a seat in your desk chair. “Haksu-hyung wants to tell us how he became an idol.”

You want to do nothing of the sort. You know it won’t end well. No one—not even Andrew—is drunk enough to hear it.

“He told me recently,” Mingeun continues. “I thought everyone else might want to know.”

“There’s something we don’t know?” Byeonghwi asks, ever innocent. You assume there are a lot of things he doesn’t know.

You try to downplay it. “There isn’t much to say. I wanted to be an idol, and I managed to find Taein-nim, who was willing to give me a chance.”

To your horror, Jaeseop speaks up. “To be honest, I’m curious about that too. Your story’s never added up, and Samchon doesn’t like talking about you.” He starts to count on his fingers. “I recruited Intak and Kiyoung-hyung. Mingeun and Eunsu knew Samchon from SM. Andrew and Byeonghwi passed the audition. You don’t fit into any of those categories. So?”

You know that. You wince at the reminder. You can feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on you, even Intak and Kiyoung, who might as well be a world away in the living room. You swallow roughly. Your throat is dry and your hands are sweating. You put your drink down before you drop it.

Mingeun spins around in your chair. It almost looks like he’s enjoying himself. “You were enthusiastic when it was the two of us. What happened?”

You trusted him. Out of everyone, you thought he’d understand you the most, and despite all his prickliness, you know that he’s trying and he means well. Usually. You also know Jaeseop and Byeonghwi and Andrew and probably Kiyoung would find your actions deplorable.

“I thought you’d understand,” you say, picking your words carefully. You discard “sympathize” and “relate.”

Mingeun nods slowly. “I guess you were right about that.”

That boosts your ego by only the most miniscule amount. It can’t compare to the dread swirling in your stomach.

“Will one of you explain?” Jaeseop bursts first, nosy as he is.

“Sorry, hyung,” Mingeun says. “We’re going to say some unpleasant things about your uncle.” Then he turns to you. “I’ll help.”

Jaeseop shrugs. “I’ll survive.”

The room is silent, except for the pop of Andrew opening another bottle of beer with his now empty one. Mingeun, clearly reveling in the attention, says, “Haksu-hyung could have predicted Taein’s divorce before he became a trainee.”

“I don't get it,” Byeonghwi announces almost immediately.

“You knew,” Andrew says, surprisingly calm.

You nod, suddenly feeling mute. Mingeun is telling your story, and for once, you don't mind.

“I still don't get it.” Byeonghwi again, of course.

“Blackmail,” Mingeun announces dramatically. “Haksu-hyung won’t admit it, but that’s what it is. He caught Taein-nim in some uncomfortable situations, and used it to become a trainee.”

It sounds much more dramatic—and much worse—when Mingeun puts it like that. His words are met mostly with silence. You stare at the kitchen counter, unwilling to make eye contact with anyone. Your secrets are revealed to the world, and strangely, you feel lighter. You didn’t Mingeun about all the time you spent staking out Zenith Entertainment and him, by extension. You don’t think you’ll ever tell anyone that, and your burden settles on your shoulders again.

“Is that accurate?” Jaeseop asks, oddly calm. Almost like Taein when he’s mad, you realize.

“Yes,” you answer without looking at him. You like the spotlight, but right now, this is the worst it’s ever felt. Defensively, you add, “It wasn’t hard.”

Eunsu shakes his head. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

You don’t think you have a bad side. It was just one of the choices you had. Desperate times and desperate measures.

“At least it wasn’t revealed through the tabloids,” Mingeun says, waving his water bottle through the air.

“This isn’t about you,” Andrew says. He’s a few paces farther from you than he was when you were talking earlier, and more than halfway through his second beer.

Mingeun ignores him. “It’s not that bad. I get it.”

“Not that bad?” Eunsu repeats. “I think it’s pretty fucking bad.”

You wince. You didn’t think he’d oppose you like this. It’s weird, because it seems like Mingeun is almost on your side, despite bringing up the topic in the first place, and you’ve never seen the two of them disagree on anything.

Then Jaeseop says, “It’s not surprising that he’d do that.”

You think he’s talking about you, but then he adds, “My uncle. His first marriage ended the same way.” He almost cracks a smile. “I didn’t think you’d catch him.”

Byeonghwi’s eyes are wide in annoying innocence. You assume he’s wondering what happened to respecting your elders and filial piety. You’re surprised too. You know there’s little love lost between Taein and Jaeseop. You didn’t think he’d understand your logic.

“So,” Mingeun says, spinning in your chair, “does anyone else have any deep, dark secrets they'd like to share?”

"No," Andrew says. "I know not to tell you secrets."

“Would you don't have told us?" Jaeseop asks.

“I don't know," you admit. You don't like that Mingeun was the one who shared it, but the reaction you received was better than you expected. Jaeseop isn't kicking you out of the group, and if Andrew and Eunsu look at you like you have some contagious disease, well, you'll live.

"How long did you do this for?" Kiyoung calls from the living room.

You freeze. You never told Mingeun that. He stormed out before you could get very far. You wonder if you should lie. After all, Taein said it didn't matter. You could have done this on your own. The reception is fine now, but if you tell them it helped you become the face of the group when maybe, it was supposed to be someone else, they might turn on you.

You make your decision, and pray for forgiveness.

“Not long. Like Mingen said, I used it to become a trainee."

"There were easier ways," Jaeseop says, another clear echo of Taein.

“What made you stop?" Kiyoung asks, staring intently at you.

"I didn't need it. I could do it on my own." Half lie, half truth. "I didn't want to ask for too much. It didn't feel right.”

Eunsu snorts, "Didn't realize you cared about morality."

You're trying to make it into Heaven, so you do care.

Kiyoung doesn't quite seem to believe you, but he drops the subject.

The mood never recovers, despite Byeonghwi's best attempts. You can't tell who's to blame: you, for your actions all those years ago, or Mingeun, for his insistence on the subject. You fade into the background of your own group's private party, hit with a sudden stab of fear that maybe this is your fate. Maybe you'll have nothing left. Maybe your group members are witty and charismatic and charming, and all they needed was the chance your fall from grace is now providing.

You won't let that happen. You can't let that happen. After all, you're destined for great things.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ haksu. ]#fictional idol community #kpop oc #fake kpop group #bts addition

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fcble · 15 days

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DOYOUNG: 'YOUTH' IMAGE TEASER 3

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ jaeseop. ]

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fcble · 1 month

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화룡점정 (畵龍點睛) (PAINT THE DRAGON, DOT THE EYES) is the third full album of fictional boy group FABLE. The album was released digitally and physically on MARCH 25, 2024. Title track PLATONIC LOVE was promoted for two weeks and received two music show wins. For the first week of performances, they also performed pre-release single CHASING THAT FEELING.

Like their last full-length album, the majority of the tracks were written and composed by ANDREW with contributions by INTAK, MINGEUN, and HAKSU. Following the album’s promotions, the group embarked immediately on their second world tour, MYTHOS, starting in Seoul on April 10.

TRACK LIST

Arrival / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak, Kang Haksu ; produced by Andrew Han

Chasing That Feeling / written by Andrew Han, Kang Haksu ; produced by Andrew Han

Platonic Love / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak, Yoon Mingeun ; produced by Andrew Han

Feel Me / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak, Yoon Mingeun ; produced by Andrew Han

Late Night Calls / written by Park Intak, Yoon Mingeun; produced by Park Intak

It’s Raining / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak, Yoon Mingeun ; produced by Andrew Han

Light / written by Andrew Han ; produced by Andrew Han

My Name is Shadow / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak; produced by Andrew Han, Park Intak

Keep On / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak, Yoon Mingeun; produced by Andrew Han

Lovers or Enemies / written by Andrew Han, Park Intak; produced by Andrew Han

Blockbuster / written by Park Intak, Andrew Han, Yoon Mingeun ; produced by Park Intak

ERA NOTES

Andrew’s Sweetune era. Maybe he’ll be in Monotree in five years. You never know.

Also their singers who sing era. They were extremely serious about it. Andrew made an appearance on Lee Mujin Service, where he covered Bibi’s “Bam Yang Gang,” Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” and Song So Hee’s “Moon Halo.” They also parodied Dingo's Killing Voice, performing the closest songs they have to hits and a few popular b-sides.

Both of their encore stages were part switches. The first one was fan-voted through Twitter polls. Intak asked fans three times on Weverse to please not make him sing Haksu's part. Fans obliged and gave him Andrew's part instead.

The second encore stage went viral after they randomly pulled names while Andrew was still finishing up his acceptance speech. Haksu did mangle Intak’s part while Intak looked like he wanted to die and Byeonghwi forgot Andrew’s lines twice but it was more endearing than anything.

Despite the album’s commercial success, they continued to face criticism from netizens and self-proclaimed former fans upset about their concept switch-up. The video essay “the problem with fable” saw its second moment in the sun. There were no responses from Fable this time around.

Their fandom is slowly beginning to fracture into OT7/8 fans and OT5/6 fans, the latter of whom would rather not have Mingeun (known liar) and Andrew (ruining the sanctity of the k in kpop) in the group. At the end of the day, they’re all buying albums and streaming songs and attending concerts. For the most part, the group is fine with pretending this isn’t happening.

As per usual with any negative attention, Mingeun's scandal was dragged up for the nth time. OT7/8 fans came to his defense with Demi Lovato Instagram-style Tweets.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ discography. ]#fictional idol community #kpop oc #ficnetfairy #idol oc #kpop addition #idolverse #kpop fanfic #fake kpop group

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fcble · 1 month

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A LOOK INTO MINGEUN'S G-SHOCK COLLECTION

1. It all started with Mingeun's first watch, the black GW-5600J. One of the more basic models, it was given to him when he was a kid by his parents, simply because they thought he needed a watch. In the years he's had it, he's done little more than replace the battery and wristband a few times. He also scratched the plastic screen years ago but never fixed it. Mingeun is more shocked than anything else that his childhood watch survived into his adulthood.

2. The white G-8900A was a congratulatory gift when he passed the SM Entertainment audition, once again from his parents. It’s held bad memories for years now, and Mingeun rarely wears it. Also, he used to wear it a lot as an SM trainee and the wristband started turning gray.

3. As a teenager, he was given the G-1400D in black. It was meant as a replacement for his first watch, but Mingeun used the two of them interchangeably. He has not impressed his parents enough in the past ten years to receive any more watches.

4. Mingeun received another watch, the gold-faced GMW-B5000KL, to celebrate his long-awaited debut. This one was given to him by his extended family he lived with while a trainee. He tends to favor it over the older ones from his parents.

5. The limited edition Transformers DW-6900TF (complete with Optimus Prime) was a gift to Mingeun from a fan, shortly after its release in 2019. He's not a Transformers fan, but it’s cool. There was a period around the time of his scandal where he refused to wear it. Recently, he’s brought it back.

6. With his first paycheck, Mingeun bought the bright blue GAX-100MSA. It was released a couple of years previously, and he had thought about it for some time. He quickly realized he didn't like it as much as he thought he would. Nevertheless, he forces himself to wear it if it matches his outfits because he spent his own money on it.

7. For his birthday in 2021, he received the limited edition MTG-B2000PH-2A from Andrew and Jaeseop. The watch is the most expensive one out of his collection, and one of his prized possessions. That doesn't stop him from wearing it almost every day.

8. As something of a gag gift, Eunsu bought Mingeun the green and white GBD-H1000 when Mingeun started going to therapy. The reasoning behind it was that the watch is made to be an exercise tracker. Eunsu thought it would be fun for Mingeun to monitor his own heart rate. Mingeun didn't. He wears it anyway.

9. Mingeun's latest purchase is the DWE-5610YU in green. It was somewhat an impulse buy, but he barely has anything green and he loves expanding his collection. Nevermind that he only has two arms and can only wear one watch at a time without looking ridiculous.

#thinking about him again...

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fcble · 2 months

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Inwang jesaekdo, Jeong Seon (1751)

OUTTAKES — A collection of bits and pieces of ideas I had and posts I was going to make that never made it to completion

TRIVIA

I wanted to do posts of miscellaneous trivia and headcanons around certain themes. The only one of these I completed was one on their names. I forced the explanations of Mingeun and Andrew(‘s stage) names into “Double A-Side,” but I do have the rest of them HERE.

I also have some other trivia facts that I think more people should know.

Mingeun keeps a diary in French. He was very strongly encouraged to start one when he was a trainee, and he’s stuck with it ever since. Except he doesn’t want anyone else reading it, which is why he writes in French. It’s also made him a lot better at the language.

The worst-kept Fable secret is that Jaeseop has been in a relationship with his girlfriend since 2016. The best-kept Fable secret is that Jaeseop moved out at the end of 2022 to live with said girlfriend. I am hoping this will have bearing on the story soon other than mentions that Jaeseop doesn’t live with them anymore.

Solidifying the degrees for once because I feel like I’ve said Jaeseop has three different degrees. He does not. His degree is in marketing. Kiyoung’s is in political science, and Andrew’s is in music. Haksu dropped out halfway through but he was studying business administration. His heart was not in it at all.

On the topic of education, Intak went to a technical high school and is a decently qualified fake civil engineer. Eunsu attended SOPA in the Department of Practical Music. Mingeun is the only member without a high school diploma.

The lore-relevant reason for the education is that Taein believes in back-up plans. It’s part of the reason he doesn’t like Mingeun very much. On a tangential note, Neon Nights was the backup if Fable’s debut fell through.

FANSERVICE MOMENTS THAT CAUSE SECOND-HAND EMBARRASSMENT / 2024 WHITE DAY SPECIAL

Exactly what it sounds like. Also the failed post that inspired this one. It was so cringe I couldn’t go through with it. I wanted to write this like a script. Thinking of the dialogue did me in completely. HERE are the only two scenes I finished.

Other things I had planned on were Haksu’s constant enabling of the boyfriend stans (signing fake marriage certificates at in-person fansigns, barking/meowing/whatever in fan calls), Jaeseop chivalry moment (didn’t think farther than that), and an extra terrible group Imagine Your Korea ad.

OOPS ALL HAKSU CONFESSIONS

This is the title of “Great Things” in my docs. When I made the doc, I was going to write it as moments in a confessional booth. The problem with that is that he’s rationalizing all his actions in his head and he would not have confessed at the level of honesty I needed for the piece. So the other half of the piece was going to be entries in Mingeun’s diary because he’s the only one that works like that, and it would have been two perspectives on the same events. There were two problems with that. One, I wanted to die writing first person. Two, he didn’t know the extent of Haksu’s actions.

The last scene of this piece is also a couple of days before the Haksu segment of “Form is Emptiness.” One of the first iterations of this was actually from Andrew’s perspective. It was part of a different Haksu piece which was perspectives on Haksu.

OTHER DOC TITLES (PUBLISHED)

the eunsu departure novella (but mingeun is also everywhere???) — “Form is Emptiness.” Mingeun is everywhere. I can’t explain it. I guess in this context it makes sense because they’re besties.

mingeun wooseok era (probably not he’s not even flopping) — The Shooting Stars drafts doc. You can find it HERE.

andrew han moment — The write-up of In Full Bloom, the YouTube documentary accompanying their second full album. This helped me realize he’s a main character more than I would like to admit.

andrew mingeun parallels (emotionally constipated man discovers talking about your feelings helps) — The working title of “Not Enough.” In hindsight this is funny because they don’t even work through anything here. They were supposed to. Also I spelled impostor correctly once and incorrectly once in the same sentence 👍.

byeonghwi time!!! (how he became a trainee) — “First Love.” Exactly what it sounds like.

mingeun hwajung bi4bi — “Live Wire.” They don’t talk about it in the piece but they are both bisexual.

intak anniversary piece that is actually andrew's identity crisis in disguise — “Double A-Side” was originally going to be from Intak’s perspective because he thinks about a lot of things but doesn’t say a lot of things. I realized pretty early on that this had to be an Andrew piece and so that changed.

OTHER DOC TITLES (UNPUBLISHED)

walk the line — The perspectives on Haksu piece. This was also going to do the same event from multiple perspectives thing. I got as far as three paragraphs into Mingeun’s 2019 Mass experience, which is canon and did happen.

jaeseop at the shareholders meeting! what will happen to him? — Jaeseop attending his first meeting as a Zenith Entertainment stakeholder <3. Since the Fable concept scandal happened, I have to mess with the timeline. This is a thousand words long but I’m going to revisit parts of it in another piece I think so I’m not posting any of those words.

fable! but i don't know where i'm going — A rewrite of one of the very early Fable pieces where Taein told Mingeun to lie about his identity but I never finished it. Actually kind of important now that I think about it. It’s how he ended up the way he was in “Not Enough.” He should know that it’s Taein’s fault. But he was young and angry and desperate and just moved across the world and it was a lot easier for him to take his anger out on Andrew rather than his boss. This was also going to be accompanied by the interlude in which Jaeseop fights for Mingeun’s life, which is what changes Taein’s mind. This is very much missing from just Mingeun’s perspective. Maybe I’ll finish this one. It’s got some great bits like

and also

:(.

BONUS:

What was the main conflict for every Fable member in November 2021?

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ misc. ]#kpop oc #fictional idol community #idolverse #idol oc #kpop addition

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fcble · 2 months

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CHASING THAT FEELING is the pre-release single of fictional boy group FABLE, ahead of their third full album, 화룡점정(畵龍點睛). It was released digitally on February 26, 2024 and accompanied only by a music video. It is their first release with five members.

TRACK LIST

01 ... Chasing that Feeling ... written by Andrew Han, Kang Haksu & produced by Andrew Han

NOTES

A mini era of surprises—most of them pleasant. The first of these is that they're releasing another album in the spring. The last album was a spring album. The album before that was a spring album. It's starting to look like a pattern.

The second surprise is that they're following up last year's full-length album with another full-length album, once again written, presumably, by Andrew, if the single’s credits are any indication.

The third and final surprise was the announcement of the group's second world tour, MYTHOS, set to begin in Seoul in April.

Although unpromoted, it was, technically, the first time Mingeun was seen in public since Fable’s fifth anniversary six months ago. He posted on Instagram for the first time in as many months.

Also pertinent was Andrew’s official promotion to temporary leader, as chronicled in what appeared to be a very hastily put together YouTube video. His first action as leader was to abdicate. Everyone ignored that.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ discography. ]#ficnetfairy #kpop oc #fictional idol community #idol oc

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fcble · 2 months

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Jeonghan for acmé de la vie

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ yejun. ]

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fcble · 2 months

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GREAT THINGS, PART I

"Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." — Jeremiah, 33:3.

In which Haksu becomes an idol in an unorthodox way. FEATURING: Kang Haksu, Lee Taein, Fable ensemble SETTING: November 2017 WORD COUNT: 10.3k WARNINGS / NOTES: Stalking, blackmail, extremely heavy-handed religious themes. Welcome to the piece that kicked my ass for over a year 🎉🎉. As in I started it a year ago and then wrote 9k words in the past two weeks. I have versions of this piece in three different perspectives. This is technically a rewrite of something I wrote earlier but now a few times longer 🎉🎉.

You’re going to do great things. You know this because it’s all anyone’s ever told you. You hear it from your father and your mother and your father’s father—until he dies—and your father’s mother—until she dies too—and your mother’s father and your mother’s mother.

You wonder when the great things will start. Time flips by, like the thin pages of the Bible that has resided on your bedside table since you were five. You’re a kid, a teenager, a young adult. You enter and exit middle school and high school. You begin to attend a mediocre university in Seoul, because it’s the only one in the city that accepted you. You brush that off, because you’re going to be great.

You think if you’re really, truly, going to be great, you might have to do it yourself.

The man’s name is Lee Taein. You meet him for the first time in a dream. You memorize the lines and planes of his face, because something about him is familiar. You conclude he must be rich or famous or both.

In the dream, he doesn’t tell you his name. You find it yourself, on the Internet, holding the image of his face in your head as you comb through the other dream fragments: a stage, a song, a single voice. You’ve never thought about being a singer. You wonder why.

You know how to sing. You’ve spent over a decade in choirs. You could be a singer.

That, you decide, is greater than whatever you’re doing now, which isn’t much of anything, and certainly nothing someone great would be doing.

You do your research. A lot of research. You spend your nights in bed, the darkness of your bedroom illuminated only by your laptop screen. In the mornings, you spend twice as long covering up the shadows under your eyes.

It’s a worthwhile exchange. You learn Lee Taein is forty-nine years old. Last year, he parted ways with SM Entertainment to found his own entertainment company. You dig deeper.

He married his current wife four years ago. Her name is Jung Eunyoung. She’s forty-three, and yet has risen no higher than a secretary for a minor law firm. You learn all this from her very public Instagram profile.

His biggest vice is gambling—some of it barely legal, most of it not. You find a news article from 1999 detailing an illegal gambling ring bust. His name is mentioned once.

His new company is called Zenith Entertainment. You’re briefly disappointed to see that the last time they held auditions was February.

There are partially censored Tweets and forum threads speculating the identities of the company’s trainees. You look at the grainy pictures and read the names: Jaeseop, Kiyoung, Eunsu.

You keep meticulous notes: index cards and the Notes app and a notebook you bought solely to organize your thoughts. Your grades slip. You haven’t attended class in three weeks.

You spend your days at a coffee shop across the street from Zenith Entertainment. You sit in a corner with a view of the building. You order the two cheapest items on the menu: a cookie and a small black coffee. You open your laptop and your notebook and pretend to work, covering the pages of your notebook with another sheet of paper whenever someone walks by.

Mostly, you watch.

You keep track of the people entering and exiting the building. Many of them work in the copywriting agency, based on their business casual outfits. You’ve stepped into the building once, only to be overwhelmed by the bright lights and the quiet hum of computers and the feeling of wrongness at being in a professional setting.

Taein dresses almost the same. If you didn’t know what he looked like, you’d miss him. The difference is in his stride and his posture: back straight, head forward, quick and even steps. You like him even more for that. He arrives in the late morning and leaves after the sun sets. You note the times: 9:43 AM, 10:02 AM, 9:56 AM, 7:19 PM, 7:48 PM, 8:10 PM.

You learn the intricacies of his schedule. There are days when he never arrives at all. You watch and wait as the hours tick by. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten, eleven. No Lee Taein in sight. You wonder what he does when he doesn't work.

There are times when he'll step outside in the middle of the day, the movement catching your eye. You watch him stand on the sidewalk across the street and smoke a cigarette while he speaks on the phone. Twenty minutes later, he'll head back inside.

Sometimes you watch him leave accompanied by a younger man, somewhere around your age, who walks nearly, but not quite, behind him. You assume that must be his personal assistant or secretary or something along those lines.

Some of the people who visit the building must be trainees. You identify them from their age—young—and their dress—casual—and the times they arrive—all throughout the day. Occasionally, they stop by the coffee shop first, becoming more and more familiar to you.

There’s the tall foreigner who pronounces Americano with a distinctly Western accent. He arrives early in the morning, ordering his coffee shortly after you. He crosses the street in casual clothes and leaves in the late afternoon with the copywriter crowd, having changed into a more formal suit jacket and dress pants. You miss his departure for days until you realize he’s dressed differently.

There are the two high schoolers: one in a lurid yellow school uniform and another in a more sensible navy blue one. Sometimes their friend arrives earlier than them and sits a few tables down from you. He doesn’t wear a uniform. He sits for a half hour or so with his earbuds in while his iced coffee melts in front of him, until the high schoolers arrive. They talk loudly and boisterously, as if no one is listening.

You listen. You learn their names—Eunsu, Byeonghwi, Mingeun—and their orders—cold brew with an extra shot of espresso, iced caffè mocha, iced caffè latte. You hear them complain about teachers and Taein and trainee life.

You wonder if they could be your way in.

At night, when your roommate asks where you spend all your time, you tell him you got a job. He asks where. You fidget and your palms sweat and your heartbeat quickens. You stare past him and lie.

That weekend, you travel a few kilometers farther than usual and confess your sins.

Absolved, you think you’re ready for what comes next.

You have to talk to Taein. You can’t be great if all you do is wait and watch.

You peruse your notes, all of that information collected from your research and your observations, and then you devise your plan. You ask for His guidance and affirmation every day until you receive it. It comes in the form of one of your professors agreeing to overlook the sudden string of zeros in your homework assignments and tests. You were a decent enough student until a little over a month ago. If your previous work can be so easily overworked and dismissed, then maybe it’s time for your true calling. You’ve waited for this moment your entire life.

Less than a week later, you walk into the building like you belong there, not too early, not too late. You wear a winter jacket, which you shed as soon as you step inside, over a stiffly starched collared shirt and your best Sunday pants. You step into the elevator, alone, and decide to start at the top. You press the button for the fifth floor. It refuses to light up. You press it again and again to no avail. You stand in the still elevator and try the fourth floor.

Your ascent begins. You planned it all out: it's just after nine in the morning, after all the copywriters start their work and much too early for the students to be around. You're a last-minute callback from the audition, though that was months ago. It explains why Taein won't recognize you. You spoke to someone over the phone, someone named—what was her name? You can't remember. She said you should visit, so you're here—and oh, the appointment isn't in his calendar? She must have forgotten. You'll smile winningly and apologetically and Taein will be so charmed he'll agree to take you on on the spot.

You haven’t thought farther than that.

You step out of the elevator and into a dimly lit hall. The very air seems stale. There seems to be no one else around, so you proceed slowly down the hall. The fluorescent lights cast everything in a sickly yellow shade. You’re presented with two doors. The one on the left has a small glass window. You angle yourself away from it, on the off chance that someone sees you and knows you don’t belong. The one on the right is windowless, a blank slate of dark brown wood.

You debate internally for a few moments. The longer you stay there, the longer you risk meeting someone other than Taein. You try the plain door. The knob turns easily in your hand.

“Jaeseop?” A voice asks from inside. You aren’t Jaeseop, but you’ve seen that name before.

You steel yourself, silently ask for His guidance, and turn the knob all the way.

“If you’re asking about managing the social media accounts again, the answer is no,” the voice continues. It belongs to a middle-aged man, in a plain dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a ballpoint pen in the breast pocket. He looks away from his computer screen, and you find yourself face-to-face with Lee Taein.

“You must be lost. The copywriting agency is on the first two floors,” Taein says.

“I’m supposed to be here,” you say. You bow, politely, to him, then add on, “My name is Kang Haksu. I received a call a few days ago—”

Taein cuts you off, which is maybe for the better, because now that you were about to say it, your story is paper-thin and a bit silly. “You didn’t receive anything. There were no calls. You’re no one.”

Nothing is going to plan, so you do your best to improvise. “I know you’re developing an idol group. I need to be part of it.”

Taein stares at you like he can’t believe those words came out of your mouth. You believe them. You need this. Who will you be if you don’t do this?

“This is not a charity.” His voice is bone dry. “We can’t get everything we want in life. It’s better to learn that lesson early. Tell whoever sold you your information on my business and I that I don’t take charity cases.”

“I’m not a sasaeng.” His words sting. It’s a veiled accusation, but an accusation nonetheless.

“I never said you were. People like you are a dime a dozen, thinking you can waltz into the entertainment industry with no experience and no connections and immediately become a superstar. It takes much more hard work, skill, and luck than someone like you can imagine. Try your luck somewhere else.”

His words strip you to the core. Were you too naive, thinking you’d be different? You shrink back from the ferocity of it all, cowed more than you’d like to admit. You don’t take his words to heart. You can’t go anywhere else. You’re supposed to be here, under Taein’s direction.

You don’t know how or when, but you’ll be back. You’ll find another way. You don’t have anything to say to his words, the humiliation still burning across your face, so you turn tail and flee.

You escape out into the cold, winter morning, no closer to your destiny than you were an hour ago. If anything, you’re objectively farther away. Taein knows you now, knows your name and your face and your deepest desire. You don’t let that stop you. You vow to yourself to never let him get the best of you like that again. You’ll be seeing him a lot in the future, you know, because you’ll be in his group.

By the time you enter the cafè across the street again, you’re bouncing back. You’ve always been resilient. You’re shielded, after all, by the grace of God. The cashier starts to ring up your usual black coffee and cookie order, but you wave it away and spend a little more on a latte instead. As you sip your drink and stare broodingly at the building across the street, your second plan begins to form. If it’s a sasaeng Taein wants, then it’s a sasaeng he’ll get.

On your way home, you stop at a convenience store and buy a new notebook. You sit on your dorm room bed and think about the days you spent watching the building, the days when Taein was nowhere to be found. He’s a bit of a workaholic, but clearly not enough to spend seven days a week at his workplaces. You, on the other hand, are unemployed enough to spend seven days a week looking into what he does. You copy the dates and times out of your old notebook and try to find a pattern.

He arrives late on Mondays, but you chalk that up to a normal dislike of Mondays. The rest of the weekdays are sporadic. There was a week where Taein missed three days of work in a row. You wonder if it's something else, if it's easily explainable. Maybe he caught a cold. It is winter, after all. You dismiss the thought. He's up to something. You know he is.

The day he misses the most often is Tuesday, from the few weeks you've watched him. In fact, he's never been at work on a Tuesday. You wonder why you never noticed that before.

It's Thursday, which means you have a few days to continue your research. You do a quick search for how much a private investigator costs, and are shocked by the results. It's fine. You can be a private investigator yourself. How hard can it be?

You plug Taein's name into one of those less-than-reputable websites that promise addresses and phone numbers. You're prompted to create an account and pay a small fee. You click through it all without hesitating. A few thousand won now means very little in the great, grand scheme of your idol destiny.

Multiple people with the same name as Taein pop up. You aren't worried, because your Taein is a public figure. That, and you know his age and his wife’s name.

Eventually, one of them fits the bill perfectly. You take a quick break to straighten your posture and ease the stiffness from your spine. You've been sitting here, engrossed in your new plan, for the better part of an hour.

Your best guess so far is an address in Hongje-dong. You've been lucky in your observation so far. That must mean you're on the right track. You're getting closer and closer with each passing day. Tomorrow you'll close the distance between you and your destiny.

In the morning, you wake up extra early to get to Hongje-dong before Taein leaves. You doubt he takes the subway anywhere, so you rent a bike and make your way to his address. You only lose your balance twice in your first block. It’s early enough in the morning that there’s no one around to see you.

You arrive at the address much faster than you expected. The sun is only barely beginning to creep over the horizon. Then you pause, because Taein lives in a condominium. Every house on the block looks the same. The only differences are the cars parked out front of each one and the numbers on the houses. You stick out here, a young man on a bicycle with nowhere to go. You take one last look at Taein’s home and the car outside—a white Mazda—then wheel yourself around and pedal out.

You repeat the license plate to yourself in your head until you arrive at a convenience store. It’s the only place around that’s open. You buy a bag of chips and take a seat outside, keeping an eye out for Taein. You add the plate number to your notes and try to figure out exactly what kind of car he drives. You have time to spare. You expect him to head to the Zenith Entertainment building today, and he tends to arrive around nine or ten. After you consider traffic, it shouldn’t take him more than half an hour.

You’re almost certain he drives a 2015 Mazda 3. You head back inside and buy a coffee. Then you take a few moments to think through your plan. Like if Taein drives, then where in the city does he park? Naver Map told you this convenience store was along the quickest route to Sinmunno 2-ga. What if he has a faster route?

You’re still worrying when Taein’s car speeds by, much faster than the speed limit allows. You jump up from your seat, nearly spilling your coffee. You can’t hold it and ride your bike at the same time, so you hurry to dispose of it and pack up your notes again. You pray Taein is heading to Zenith Entertainment. It’s a little early, but maybe there’s a good reason for that. You set off in the same direction as him, though he’s disappeared from sight.

You make your way to Zenith Entertainment anyway, and by chance, see a white Mazda disappearing into a parking garage down the road from the company building. It’s too far for the garage to be connected to the building, so you lock your bike across the street and wait for him to leave. You lock and unlock the bike lock three times, fiddling with the combination. You strap the helmet to your backpack and lean against the seat and pretend to look at your phone, all the while eyeing the entrance.

Taein never leaves. You look both ways, then cross the street into the depths of the garage. It’s risky, because Taein could see you and recognize you, but you can’t take the chance that he’s gone somewhere else or is doing something else. Your imagination runs wild, thinking of all the illicit activities he might participate in. There are a number of other cars in the lot. The copywriters, you assume.

Then, in a small walkway that must lead to another entrance, you see him, standing with another man. You duck behind a car, and creep closer to the two of them. Taein must be smoking, because the smell of cigarette smoke permeates your hiding spot.

“You wanted to do more than catch up,” Taein is saying when you can finally hear them.

“I didn’t.” The other man sounds amused.

“We could have met anywhere else. You insisted on this attempt at discretion.”

“It’s about your case,” the other man says. “They want to open it again.”

“I thought you took care of that, Cheolhwan.” Taein sounds guarded. “How much do they want?”

You don’t know what this is about, but you silently take your phone and start to record.

“Twice what you gave me. This is above my pay grade.”

They’re quiet after that. You peek carefully through the cars to see if they’ve left. They’re still standing there, the ember at the end of Taein’s cigarette the brightest light. You duck down again without getting a better look at Cheolhwan. You wonder if he’s a loan shark or something. Breaking off and starting a company can’t be cheap.

“Alright. The police never liked me much anyway,” Taein says suddenly. You poke your head back up to watch him drop his cigarette butt to the ground and grind it under his shoe.

Cheolhwan snorts. “I can’t imagine why. Planning on begging Jinguk again?”

“I don’t beg. Jinguk-ssi and I are proper business partners.”

That gets a laugh out of Cheolhwan, the short, rough, sound echoing around the garage.

You stop your video recording, unsure of whatever that was. You doubt it'll be of use in your quest to be an idol, but you decide to hold onto it for now. You hear footsteps begin to recede in the distance, and you wait in your hiding place until they disappear completely.

All in all, you feel vindicated. There's something suspicious going on with Taein. You're certain you can get to the bottom of it. It's something to do with money. You can find out who Cheolhwan is. Their relationship is uncertain to you. They spoke casually to each other, but there was a degree of aloofness to the entire conversation that you don't know what to make of. Whatever it is, it was more than a simple meeting between friends.

When you’re certain they’re gone, you stand up, stretching out the crick in your neck. You assume Taein will spend the rest of the day at work, and that’s not somewhere you can watch him too closely. You return to your usual haunt across the street instead and make an attempt to catch up on your forgotten coursework.

It’s a good attempt, but you lose all steam when the high school trainees arrive. You stare daggers at their backs, because they’re in the exact position you want to be in. You watch them order their drinks and slowly sip them, idling the afternoon by. You don't understand why they don't take their positions more seriously. There are so many other people—yourself included—who are dying to be where they are.

But you aren’t them, so you have to settle for envy.

Eventually, they leave, and you watch through the window as they enter the Zenith Entertainment building, still laughing and talking companionably. You aren't jealous. You could build your own close group of friends. You just haven't. But if you really wanted to, you could.

The sun begins to set, and you know you've outstayed your welcome. You haven't bought anything since your single coffee hours ago. The waitstaff give you sidelong looks every now and then, but they don't ask you to leave, so you pretend you don't see them.

You finally see Taein make his long-awaited exit a little earlier than usual. He's walking fast. This time, you’re prepared. As his Mazda 3 emerges from the parking garage, you’re right behind him on your bike. You think he should be heading home, but that's not set in stone, so you decide to follow him. Your intuition pays off when you see him turn not back to Hongje-dong, but somewhere else. At a traffic light, you pause to try and figure out where you are. You've only lived in Seoul for a year and a half, the length of your short-lived university career. The city blocks are still unfamiliar to you. The light turns green, and Taein speeds off. You rush to catch up with him.

You wonder where he could be going, driving so quickly he nearly bowls over a pedestrian. Leave it to him to be so careless. Your opinion of him is souring faster and faster.

He comes to a stop outside of a small, decrepit bar you’ve never heard of before, still driving too quickly as he pulls into the parking lot. You stop, across the street again, trying to figure out where you are. It doesn’t like the type of scene that caters to university students or tired corporate employees. Your mind goes to the worst places. It could be a front for all the worst types of activities—drugs and gambling and prostitution. You record the name in flickering neon lights anyway.

You’re about to leave and try to return during the day when you spot Taein leaving. He’s in the company of a young woman, and so you almost don’t recognize him. She’s wearing a long coat, but the front is open, giving you glimpses of an outfit that isn’t close to being warm enough for the weather. She clings to Taein’s arm like a lifeline, stumbling over the cracks in the sidewalk in her heels. They look like a couple. Your stomach turns. He has a wife.

With shaking hands, you raise your phone and snap another few pictures. You don’t want to see him anymore, so you don’t bother to try and follow them. You almost regret your decision to weasel your way into his life. Instead, you get back onto your bike and head home.

Saturday arrives. You don't spend your weekends at Zenith Entertainment, because you have better things to do. Or had. This morning, you wake up early again to bike back to Taein's home. You spent some time last night wondering just how far you’ll go to reach your destiny. Between that shady conversation you overheard yesterday and the young woman he met up with, you’re almost afraid of what you’ll see him do next. Sometimes you have to do difficult things before you can do great things.

More than that you’re curious about what Taein does on the weekends. Before this, your impression of him was that of a career-driven man with few feelings or even an existence outside of his job. You don’t understand why you have to work for this man, but it isn’t your place to question it.

You cycle around the blocks a few times, and it slowly comes to light in your head.

Taein is clearly the breadwinner between him and his lawfully wedded wife, so you doubt he spends his weekends shopping or cooking or cleaning. You also doubt he’s devout. As hard as you try, you can't even begin to picture him in church. You're almost certain he doesn't have kids. If he does, it's a very closely guarded secret, because it wasn't mentioned once in anything you read about him online. You wonder if maybe he had kids with his previous wife and lost custody of them. Knowing what you know about him now, you don’t find that hard to believe.

The white Mazda 3 sits outside of his condo. A light is on inside the house. You aren’t looking forward to spending a day waiting for Taein to do something. You wonder if you should have forked over the money—your parents’ money—for a private investigator. Then it would be someone else keeping watch on Taein’s house, someone more suited for the job than one young man shivering on a bike.

You think it's weird for you to sit right outside his house, so you take to patrolling the two possible entrances to the street instead. You pedal slowly, heading up and down the street. At the moment, there's nothing you fear more than having him leave without you noticing. You pause to scrutinize the map on your phone to ensure there are no other exits or back roads or possible ways out of his home other than the main street.

Then, eventually, you see his car roll by. You rush after it. He's driving slower than normal. That's when you notice it isn't him in the driver's seat, but his wife. She's the only one in the car. It makes sense, then, that the car is following the posted speed limits. You wonder what Taein is possibly doing alone at home now.

You ride back to his house, just in time to see him step outside and lock the door behind him. You stare, shocked, and have just enough sense to hide behind the condo across the street. His wife left less than five minutes ago. Where are they going, separate and alone?

Taein heads off on foot. You wait until you see him leave. The bike is a bit cumbersome. How could you have predicted that his wife would take the car somewhere and he’d leave on foot? You walk alongside your bike and try to pretend you aren't following him. You ride halfway around the block in boredom before you have to turn around so you don't lose him. You wish he could walk faster.

You check your phone. What's within walking distance of his condominium? The convenience store you sat outside of. A station? He could get anywhere from there.

The streets are too empty for you to follow closer. If he were to turn around, he'd spot you immediately. It stresses you out. You aren't a professional. You really should have hired a private investigator.

To your dismay, he turns into the subway station. You abandon your rental bike right outside, tapping through the app to return it as you continue to follow Taein. There are a few more people here, which makes it easier for you to follow him, and easier for him to lose you.

He's waiting for Line 3 towards Ogeum, the only line that runs through this station. You check the overlapping lines on the map, standing behind him so he doesn't see you. There are too many options for possible transfers: Jongno 3-ga, Euljiro 3-ga, Chumgmuro, Yaksu, Oksu, and on and on and on. You hope he doesn't travel too far. You hope he doesn't get off somewhere and order a taxi. You fill the time by once again trying to imagine what he does for fun on the weekends. For some reason, you can't picture him doing anything. He's the type of person to spend the weekend at the office. You chart the path to Zenith Entertainment from your current location. It’s two stops on the line and then a short walk. It wouldn't surprise you if he stopped there. You don't particularly want to go to Zenith Entertainment again. You're supposed to find something about him that will leave him no choice but to accept you. The woman he met yesterday was a good start. You wonder if he's heading out to see her again.

As you're lost in your thoughts, the train arrives. You make sure you're in the same car as Taein, though it increases the chances of him noticing you. You'll have to play it off as a coincidence. You rehearse the lines in your head. You'll pretend you don't recognize him. As if you could forget what he looks like. He might not recognize you, you realize. You met him once, for a few minutes. The train picks up speed.

You pass through the first few stops with no incidents. So Taein isn’t going to work. Your interest is piqued.

You're on the train with him for almost forty-five minutes. You watch station after station pass by, the smooth tone of the recorded announcer reciting stop after stop. Taein makes no move to exit at a single one. He stares down at his phone, which lets you stare at him. He doesn't do anything interesting. All he does is scroll through his phone, tap his screen a few times, then stare. He looks like your average salaryman.

He finally gets off in Yangjae. You’re in Gangnam now. You let him leave first. When the doors are about to close, you follow after him. He isn't heading out, but through the station. You follow him to a transfer to the Shinbundang Line. You only know this because you’re spending so much time staring at the map on your phone, it’s starting to become engrained on the backs of your eyelids.

He rides the new subway line for one stop. You both exit at Gangnam Station. You follow him up back into the daylight. It's much more crowded here, locals and tourists alike.

Taein walks faster. That probably has something to do with the crowds. You hurry after him, thankful you're no longer burdened with your bike.

He heads down a series of twists and turns, alleyways and backroads forming a route Naver Map would never recommend to you. You’re glad it’s the middle of the day. You’d hate to do this at night.

In front of you, Taein heads into a storefront you wouldn’t be caught dead in. This one doesn’t have a name on top of it. You take a picture anyway, then cross-reference your location with the map. There’s still no name. You debate whether or not you should follow him in. From the outside, it’s not the type of place you belong. But Taein could be doing any matter of incriminating activities in there, and that’s what you need to see.

You let your internal debate rage for a few seconds more. Then you cross the street and push the door open.

The room is dimly lit. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, and when they do, you realize a few of the patrons are looking at you. You’re the youngest person in the room. You slide up to the bar and order a drink. God knows you need it.

You take a small sip and grimace immediately. It's obvious people don't come here to drink. You cast a casual glance around the room, looking for Taein. It isn't too crowded. He should be easy to spot---and vice versa, he could easily spot you. You don't see him. Most of the patrons are more engaged with the TV screens in the corner of the room and across the top of the bar. You expect to see sports or the news or something along those lines. You look up to see horses.

It clicks in your head. Horse racing. These people are day drinking and gambling. You belong anywhere else in the world but here. And where is Taein, in this entire mess?

You flag the bartender down.

"Did you see a man come in?" you ask. "Middle-aged, around my height, with an oversized watch? His name’s Lee Taein." You do a bit of your own gambling, placing a bet on Taein being a regular here.

The bartender regards you curiously. "You’re looking for Taein-ssi?”

"He’s my boss," you say. "He told me to meet him here. I was promoted recently. He wanted to celebrate."

The words fall easily from your tongue. It's more of a lie than the truth, but it could be the truth soon enough.

"Congratulations. He invited you here and didn't tell you the password?" The bartender shakes his head. He points into an ever darker recess of the room. "Down the hall. To the left of the bathroom. 8179."

You thank him and leave your drink alone. The left of the bathroom is a door with a keypad above the handle. You type in the passcode, and the lock clicks.

Taein is on the other side of the door. Your destiny is on the other side of the door. You take a deep breath and crack the door open.

You don't know what you expected. It certainly wasn't the opposite of what you experienced upstairs. For a secret room, it's well-lit and almost cozy. There aren’t many people in the room, just a few small groups of four or five people sitting around green, square tables, playing cards. Now, you spot Taein immediately, sitting behind a decently-sized pile of poker chips, the largest pile on his table. One of the people he's playing with the young woman you saw him with last night. She seems your age, maybe a few years older or younger.

You close the door silently behind you. Your skin crawls. You want to get out of here as soon as possible.

There's another bar down here, against the back of the wall. The drinks on the tables look significantly better than they do upstairs. You think about getting another one, just to make it look like you belong here and you fit in.

No one seems to notice your entrance, too engaged in their games. Your luck holds as you slide around to take a few pictures of Taein, holding your phone just in front of you, at waist level. Your fingers shake, but blurry photos are better than no photos. No one else has their phones out, not even resting on the poker tables. It feels illegal for you to do this. In fact, everything about this feels illegal. You make sure to get Taein's full face in the images, and from multiple angles. Then you slip your phone back into your pocket.

That's when you're interrupted.

"You're new here." A hand lands on your shoulder. A few people—not Taein—look up at that, before just as quickly returning to their games. You turn slowly around to see a man twice your size, a bouncer inside the club.

"I was looking for the bathroom," you say, aiming for young, fresh-faced innocence.

"How old are you, kid?"

"Nineteen," you lie. You’re twenty-one. You hate how easily that one comes out. You could have told the truth.

"Good try," the man says, keeping his firm grip on your shoulder as he guides you back to the exit. You take a glance back at Taein. Throughout the entire ordeal, he hasn't looked up once, much too concerned with the cards in his hands. Although it doesn’t look like it, you hope he loses.

You aren't in the mood to wait in the real bar until Taein emerges, so you leave.

"Leaving already?" the bartender upstairs asks.

You ignore him. It doesn't matter. You're never coming here again.

You head home to see how blurry your pictures are. You think you might already have enough material to force him to give you a position. He's made it scarily easy for you. You didn't even need a private investigator.

You spend the rest of the week following him around anyway. You've grown used to it: the bike rental and Taein's neighborhood and Zenith Entertainment and a variety of bars and hotels across the entire city you know you’ll never step foot in again, and once, another day spent in Gangnam at a shiny skyscraper. Taein arrived at seven in the morning, earlier than he does at Zenith Entertainment, and didn't emerge until nearly eight at night. That was weird, but you had no way of getting into the building, short of breaking in. You had considered pizza delivery, kid of an employee, new employee, and a few other disguises before giving up. After the bouncer encounter, you’re staying clear of security. And that building made its security obvious, what with all the men in navy blue uniforms and earpieces, standing outside every entrance. What were the chances of Taein doing anything illegal or immoral there? Low, you figured, judging by the number of luxury cars dropping passengers off outside.

In your spare time, you try to find anything about Cheolhwan. With only a first name and a tenuous connection to Lee Taein, it’s difficult. You find two Cheolhwans in Taein’s Korea University graduation class. That was decades ago. You doubt either of those are the same man.

Regardless, you go through with your new plan. Armed with your newly obtained material, you’re ready for your second attempt. You know Taein's schedule now. That means when he arrives at Zenith Entertainment for the day, on a bright, sunny, perfect Wednesday morning, you're standing outside his office.

"You again," Taein says, calm and impassive. "This type of perseverance is seen as obsessive behavior. The answer is no again."

You haven’t even asked your question. You watch him unlock the door to his office.

"Please leave."

You stop him from closing the door with your foot. "I have something you might want to see."

"I don't think so," Taein says. He seems to be in a bad mood. He must have had a bad night last night.

"If you don't want to see it, I think your wife, Jung Eunyoung-ssi, might have an interest in it instead," you say.

That gets his attention. "I don’t see what you’re getting at. I don’t mix business with pleasure."

"Please don't play dumb, Taein-ssi," you say, adapting to each of his evasive attempts. You didn't plan this out. You remember how poorly that went last time. Taein is unpredictable to you. You don't know him nearly well enough to begin to predict any of his responses. "I know you're seeing another woman."

Taein stares at you. "I suppose you should come inside." He sounds extremely reluctant. At the same time, you know this isn't a conversation the two of you should be having in a corridor. You tamp down the sudden flare of excitement in your chest.

His office looks the same as you remember it. You take a seat in the plastic folding chair with the uneven legs.

"Are you a private investigator? A detective? You’ll find everything in order."

He’s defensive already. You’ve barely said anything. The investigator comment is a bit flattering. You like it.

“Everything except your marriage,” you note.

Taein shrugs. "Divorce is messy. I don't have time for that right now."

You think it's terrible that he divorced his first wife, and seems to be considering divorcing his second wife. You shove the thought aside and bring out your phone, placing it on the table between the two of you.

“What’s her name?” you ask. “You seem to spend a lot of time with her.”

It's definitely not the strongest statement, but your proof is what's more important. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

"Did Eunyoung hire you?" Taein asks suddenly, ignoring your comment. He's looking at you, instead of the pictures of himself.

"No," you say. "No one hired me."

The two of you look through the album together: Taein and the young woman, arm in arm over and over and over again, in bars and restaurants and hotel lobbies and out on the street in broad daylight.

Then, Taein swipes one photo too far and you’re both presented with a photo of Taein in profile, staring intently at the two playing cards he’s holding. He picks up your phone. "How did you get this?"

He isn’t denying it any longer. You figure it's hard to deny something when the hard, concrete proof is right in front of you.

"I was there," you say.

Taein thinks about it for a second, then nods. "I didn't recognize you then. You were the one Soogeun-ssi removed."

You don't like his choice of words, but you nod anyway. You didn't think he'd noticed you. You thought you were so clever, getting away with everything. You don’t have anything else to say. Your photos speak for you.

"Who paid you?" he asks again, deathly calm. This is uncharted territory. “How much more would I have to pay you?”

“No one paid me anything. I don’t want your money. All I want is to be an idol.”

He shakes his head. “There are easier ways to do that.”

“This is the way I’m doing it. This is the way I want to do it.” This is the way you have to do it.

Taein’s expression is inscrutable. You’ve played your hand. It’s up to him to respond. You wait with bated breath, until he finally says, “I’ll give you a trial period. If you can keep up with everyone else for a month, we can reconsider your position then. If you can’t, then we part ways amicably. No one, least of all Eunyoung, needs to know what you’ve done.”

“I don’t get anything,” you say.

“You get a chance,” Taein snaps. “It’s more than you deserve. Time will tell if this bet pays off.”

You don’t appreciate being compared to a game of roulette. “I might talk to Eunyoung-ssi any time in the future.”

“You might. It won’t make a difference.” He’s oddly calm. It unnerves you.

“Why not?” You have to ask.

“Cheating isn’t illegal. Nor is playing cards in a private setting. Stalking, on the other hand, is.” You can’t do great things from a jail cell, so that keeps you from continuing to argue.

Taein continues to speak. “For the time being, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to ruin my marriage. The negative press would be disastrous at this time, and divorce proceedings are lengthy. As long as you want to work for me, our fates are tied.”

That’s a sentiment you can support. You nod slowly. Something like a smile takes its place on Taein's face. “You can come by on Monday. The other trainees know it's too late for me to accept anyone new. Tell them you've been confirmed to debut.”

On your first day, you take the elevator up to the third floor. It opens to a floor much different from the fourth. The left side is the same: a door with a glass window, expanding all the way down as far as you can see. The right side leads into an open office, with cubicles arranged in small groups of fours and fives. There are even a few people sitting amongst the desks. That isn't your place, so you ignore them and push open the door to the left.

There's one person in the room, a teenage boy sitting down on the floor and stretching. He looks up at you when you enter with sharp, calculating eyes. You recognize him for your days in the cafè—Mingeun. He doesn’t seem to recognize you. He rises to his feet, moving with a grace unfit for his age, like he’s so perfectly comfortable in his body despite being in his awkward teenage years. You were nothing like him when you were his age a few years ago.

“I’m Haksu,” you say. “I’m new here.” You smile at him, something you think is befitting of an idol, but he doesn’t return it. If anything, his neutral expression grows frosty.

“Mingeun,” he says stiffly. “Taein-nim promised there wouldn’t be any more new people. Where are you from? JYP? YG?”

He sounds whiny and childish. You’re unimpressed.

“Gunsan,” you try, though you know that’s not what he means.

Mingeun scowls. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

You’re about to respond, to tell him you’re not from anywhere in the way he means, when the door flies open. You recognize both of the two new arrivals—one is the tall foreigner you’ve seen in the cafè, and the other is the young man you’ve seen following Taein—his assistant, presumably.

“Mingeun!” Taein’s assistant scolds. “Stop harassing the new guy.”

“I wasn’t harassing him,” Mingeun shoots back. “We’re going to be good friends. Right, Haksu-ssi?”

The look he gives you clearly says to play along. You don’t know if you’re going to be good friends, but you nod along anyway. Their conversation continues like you aren’t even there.

“We were just getting to what company he trained at,” Mingeun says. “Then we were going to talk about why Taein-nim thought he should join us.”

Taein’s assistant winces. “You won’t like either of those answers.”

“Another SM reject? I can handle it. I’m over it.”

Taein’s assistant ignores Mingeun and turns to you instead. He holds his hand out, Western-style, and says, “I’m Jaeseop. I’m so sorry about Mingeun. We''—he gestures to himself and the cafè foreigner—”were supposed to be the first ones to meet you. Sam—Taein-nim—held us up. Oh, and that’s Andrew.”

Your first impression of him is that he’s frazzled and all over the place. You imagine being Taein’s assistant is a difficult job. Behind him, Mingeun folds his arms, clearly upset about being excluded from the conversation.

You grasp his hand. “Haksu.”

“I know,” Jaeseop says, suddenly looking like he’d rather be anywhere but in front of you. “Taein-nim told me about you.”

You wonder how much Taein told him. You don’t think he’d tell his assistant everything. It’s supposed to be a secret between the two of you.

“How many—” You hesitate in the middle of your sentence. Of you? Of us? How long until you're one of them? “—other trainees are there?”

“Seven,” Jaeseop says. “With you, there's eight.”

“If you're expecting monthly evaluations and competing against fifty other trainees, we're past that,” Mingeun cuts in.

“We’re the debut team. We’re all that's left,” Andrew adds.

The three of them seem so in-sync with one another, like parts of a perfect, well-oiled machine. You're the loose cog, the piece of scrap metal carelessly tossed inside, with all the potential of breaking the machine into pieces. And how does Taein's assistant fit into all of this? He seems close to Andrew and Mingeun, closer than an assistant to the CEO should be.

“When will I meet everyone else?” you ask, just to change the subject.

Jaeseop, with all the mental fortitude of an overworked assistant, takes a deep breath and begins to rattle off a list of names and short descriptions and times, most of which fly right over your head. “Intak will be here around lunchtime, after his classes end. Byeonghwi and Eunsu come by after school in the mid-afternoon. Kiyoung-hyung keeps saying he'll quit his job, but he hasn't, so he won't be here until the evening.”

Andrew picks up on your obvious cluelessness, and simplifies it down to, “Intak will be here soon. He'll be extremely bad at small talk. Don't mention it to him.”

You don't know where that came from, but you nod along anyway. These are going to be your group members. You need to get along with them.

“Don't talk about League either,” Mingeun adds suddenly. You didn't realize he was still part of the conversation. “Unless you're also an SKT fan upset about their loss. He's really into that. You don't seem like a gamer.”

“I play a bit,” you say diplomatically, because you do. You were a teenage boy at one point, and there was no way for you to survive those years without playing League of Legends at least once.

“We all have sensitive topics, “ Jaeseop says as way of explanation. “Things we don't want to talk about and therefore try to avoid unless there's no other way around it. Mingeun, yours are?”

With a sigh, Mingeun dutifully says, “SM Entertainment. All you need to know is that I used to be a trainee there. And my mom. You don't need to know anything about her.”

Jaeseop keeps saying “we.” If you hadn’t seen him so many times with Taein, you’d take him for another trainee. You want to ask what his role really is, but you know you can't, because it'll betray you. It's harder than you expected to act like you know nothing about them. You'll have to be careful to not slip up.

He turns his full attention to you, and asks, “Got anything?”

This is the last thing you expected from your first day as an idol. Your first item comes quickly. “How I joined Zenith Entertainment.”

You know you'll have to tell them eventually, but for now, you want to get along with everyone. Mingeun looks like he wants to ask you anyway, consequences be damned.

Andrew dismisses him before he can speak. “Byeonghwi asked for the same.”

“He asked us not to ask him why,” Jaeseop corrects. “He got in through the audition.”

Mingeun attacks like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Why’d you do it?”

You could tell them that, you suppose, but something holds you back. You want to be certain you can achieve your destiny before you start shouting it to the world. “I don't want to discuss that either,” you say instead. It's the only way out of it you can see, so you take it.

“Can we talk, hyung?” Mingeun asks, turning to Jaeseop. “Privately?”

You know you'd be the subject of their conversation. You can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You like the attention, but in this context, it seems bad. You want to get along with Mingeun, but it's clear he has little intention of getting along with you.

“No.” Jaeseop's response is firm, and you like him a little more for that. “You can tell me in front of Haksu-ssi.”

Mingeun falls silent, clearly unwilling to say whatever he wanted to say a few minutes ago.

“Great. Anything else?”

You do have a few other ideas in mind, but you've already chosen two major ones and you're afraid to rock the boat, so you shake your head.

On the wall behind him, you notice, for the first time, a schedule created out of a bunch of individual pieces of paper taped together. You skim over it. It’s overwhelming. There are classes on three out of the seven days, scheduled back to back to back: dance lessons and vocal lessons and rap lessons and media training and a short section on how to walk and more dance lessons. It's overwhelming. You're thankful to see that Sundays are, blessedly, left empty.

Jaeseop follows your gaze. “It’s a lot to take in at first,” he says sympathetically. “You’ll get used to it.”

You will, because you have no other choice. Your options are to adjust, or to give up and forfeit your spot and your destiny. The latter isn’t even in the realm of possibility. You’ll adjust and you’ll succeed, because you have to.

Then it's noon, and Intak arrives. You remind yourself: no comments on his social skills and nothing about League of Legends. He shows up with nothing but a laptop bag slung over one shoulder and a can of Red Bull. He looks over you with a disinterested gaze, asks, “Another one?”, chugs his Red Bull, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he and Andrew disappear out of the practice room to wherever else they go.

Mingeun leaves shortly after the two of them. You know he's going to the cafè to wait for the two high schoolers, but you don't say that out loud. You watch him leave, and then you're left alone with Jaeseop, the two of you sitting on the floor.

“If I ask about how or why you became a trainee, can you give me an answer?” Jaeseop asks.

“No,” you answer, because you can't.

“Do you have any relation to the Danyoung Group?” is his next question.

“No,” you say again, unsure what a chaebol who built and now owns three-quarters of the buildings in Seoul has to do with you. “I’m from Gunsan.”

He stares at you like he doesn't believe you. You meet his gaze until he looks away.

He sighs. “I’ll take you on a tour. You haven’t seen everything yet, have you?”

The question appears much more rhetorical than literal, so you follow him out of the room.

“The floor used to be all office space,” Jaeseop says, walking backwards as if he’s a professional tour guide. “This half hasn’t been converted yet.” He gestures to the messy sprawl of cubicles. To your surprise, that’s where Andrew and Intak are, two chairs in the same cubicle, though it looks like Intak is the only one working.

Jaeseop avoids them and makes a beeline for the other side of the space. It’s emptier than you had thought at first glance. He introduces you to a middle-aged man, sitting at a desk, surrounded with a tidy assortment of trinkets and knick-knacks and framed photographs. It’s the polar opposite of Taein’s office.

“This is Sanghyun-nim,” he says. “He’s Taein-nim’s right-hand man. He does all the unpleasant tasks Taein-nim doesn’t want to do.”

That doesn’t seem conducive to your image of Taein. You’ve seen him do a few unpleasant tasks. You suppose those weren’t necessary for his job.

“The menial ones,” Sanghyun corrects. “You’re the new recruit. Kang Haksu-ssi.”

“That’s me,” you say, surprised by the way he recognizes you. You wonder how much Taein told everyone else, what kind of story he fed them. You doubt it was the truth. You hope you can trust him. If you can’t, it’s a little too late for that.

He seems like he could have an entire conversation with you, but Jaeseop whisks you away. “Hyekyung,” he says, of a young woman around your age, with a phone tucked on her shoulder, taking notes with her other hand. She waves in your general direction.

“Social media and marketing,” Jaeseop explains. “I wouldn’t get on her bad side. She’s really the one in charge of this entire area.”

He stops in his tracks and points across the room. You tiptoe to see what he’s trying to point out to you. A woman who looks like she should be a floor below them with the copywriters sits alone at a desk, a wide berth between her and anyone else.

“Gyeongwon,” Jaeseop says, voice dropped to a whisper. “She doesn’t work here, but she works with Taein-nim. I wouldn’t upset her either.”

He moves on, taking quick strides across the floor to the side opposite the elevator. “The stairwell is here. Goes from the first floor up to the rooftop.”

You think he’s going to take you up the stairs—to the rooftop, maybe—but he stops. “The fourth floor is only Taein-nim’s office for now. I assume you’ve been there. The fifth floor is empty. The elevator doesn’t go up there. If you do ever go up to the rooftop, the door is always stuck.”

You try to follow along, completely overwhelmed with the amount of new names and faces and information you’re expected to now know.

Jaeseop checks the time on his phone. “Mingeun should be back by now.”

You don't have much praise for Jaeseop's tour. This time, when you open the practice room door, Mingeun is pacing. The conversation stops abruptly as you enter. Eunsu and Byeonghwi, you remember, though you can’t remember who’s who.

Jaeseop comes to your accidental rescue. “Eunsu.” He points out the boy in the mustard-yellow uniform. “And Byeonghwi.”

Byeonghwi gives you a smile and a wave, and you’re immediately struck by how he seems genuinely happy to meet you, as if he was destined to be an idol, forever pretending and playing along with people slipping in and out of his life. Like you, you have to remind yourself. It’s a sharp contrast from the way everyone else has behaved around you. High school students are supposed to be annoying and immature, not better than you at your own fate. You try not to let it get to you.

Not long after their arrival, Intak and Andrew make their re-entrance. Andrew is in a different outfit, the type of corporate wear you’ve seen him leave in. You see your opportunity, so you take it.

“You changed,” you observe.

“Work,” he says. “I teach English at a hagwon.”

You wonder if he’s qualified to do that, and then if the parents of the students he teaches know that their teacher is focused on being an idol and not on teaching. You should have guessed. What else could he do?

You watch him leave. Almost as soon as the door shuts softly behind him, Intak pulls Intak to the side and speaks softly. You strain your ears to overhear, though you're drawn into Eunsu and Mingeun and Byeonghwi’s inane conversation.

"I can't work with him," Intak is saying.

"I know," comes Jaeseop's reply. "You have to try."

"I am trying," Intak hisses. "He's the one who doesn't want to try. He thinks he can do it all by himself. He refuses to show me anything he's working on. He’s impossible."

"I know," Jaeseop says again. He says something else, but you don’t hear it, because Byeonghwi is asking you how and why you joined the company, and you have to tell him that’s not something you’re ready to talk about yet.

You watch the sun start to set out of the windows overlooking the street. They're open, but they face the wrong way and let no air in. You want to go home. Jaeseop steps out to pick up dinner. No one makes a move to leave, so you don't either.

When the sun is fully down, you meet Kiyoung. He arrives looking a bit too much like a copywriter as well. You would have mistaken him for one, had the reception to his entrance not been perfectly warm and friendly.

You learn a few more facts in rapid-fire fashion. He's the oldest of the team. He works for an environmental non-profit organization, and is refusing to quit until he finishes his current project. Before he was a Zenith Entertainment trainee, he was a trainee at another small company that went under before he could debut. He met Jaeseop when they were both in middle school and their schools double-booked the same trip location.

You exchange a few more pleasantries, and then the mood of the room shifts more towards homework than anything else, because everyone—with the exceptions of Kiyoung and Intak—are still in school. It surprises you to learn that Jaeseop is a student.

“This is my last semester,” he explains when you ask. “I don’t go to class much anymore. I’ll graduate just fine.”

You’re beginning to feel like the odd one out, so you continue your hopeless quest to catch up on all your work. You probably aren’t going to graduate. You probably aren’t even going to finish this semester.

Andrew returns later in the night, and that, for some reason, signals the end of the day. Eunsu is pressed to the glass, announcing his imminent arrival before he even steps foot in the building. Andrew’s single action upon returning to the third floor is to pick up Byeonghwi, who seems only too enthusiastic to leave. After that, it’s a free-for-all bordering on a bloodbath. You wait, because you’re new, and it’d be rude of you to be one of the first to leave.

Then it’s you and Jaeseop and Mingeun, nearly a mirror image of the morning.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Jaeseop says to you, and then in almost the same breath, “Make sure you go home, Mingeun.”

Mingeun scowls.

You nod, though you’re almost dead on your feet. You think being a private investigator might be a little easier. You aren’t sure how, but you’ll survive it. You have to. It’s the only way you can do great things.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ haksu. ]#ficnetfairy #fictional idol community #idolverse #idol oc #kpop oc #fake kpop group #kpop fanfic

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fcble · 2 months

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fable third full album pre-release single people's choice

#fictional idol community #kpop oc #idol oc #if i dont like the people's choice i'm going to ignore it but i thought it might be fun

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fcble · 2 months

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#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ byeonghwi. ]

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fcble · 3 months

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In which Taein gives Mingeun another chance.

FEATURING: Lee Taein, Yoon Mingeun WORD COUNT: 1k SETTING: January 2024 NOTES: Out of my interlude era. I think. We will return to regularly scheduled programming soon. These are, alternatively, perspectives on Mingeun.

“What if I don’t want to sign it?” Mingeun asks for what must be the tenth time in the past two hours. “What if I want to leave?”

Taein kneads his forehead. He’s sorely tempted to tell Mingeun to go ahead and leave if he wants it so badly. He doubts Mingeun would take him up on that offer—he’s always been a bit too desperate for his own good.

“You don’t want that,” he says. They’ve talked in the same, unproductive circles for hours. He knew this was going to be the hardest battle. Intak had said nothing except for a few polite greetings, before silently scrawling his signature across the bottom of his new contract. Haksu and Andrew had negotiated for a bit more, but nothing Taein wasn’t going to give them anyway. A little more freedom was the most obvious thing to ask for. And after all these years, he supposes it’s a reward for their hard work.

Of course Mingeun is a different case. His gaze shifts away, almost as if he’s considering it. “Okay, but what if I did? What else could you give me?”

“That would be a conversation to have if you were considering leaving.”

“Hypothetically—”

“No.” Taein slides the printed contract even closer to Mingeun. It’s dangerously close to slipping off the edge of the table. “No hypotheticals.”

“What did you give everyone else?”

A different tact, then. Had Mingeun not just spent the past month under Daewoong’s constant supervision as a direct consequence for running his mouth in response to an online criticism that would have blown over in time if he left it alone, Taein would generously have offered him the same opportunities for solo work and independence as everyone else.

“That makes no difference. You’ve lost your chance.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Taein doesn’t respond. He waits for Mingeun’s statement to sink in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to happen. Mingeun’s expression remains defiant as ever.

Taein starts to count. “Your inability to adhere to our previous agreement to assimilate with the rest of the group. Your decision to not only begin a relationship with Hwajung-ssi, but be sloppy enough to be caught. Your insistence on competing on Shooting Stars. Your impulsive response to that video. How many chances do you need, Mingeun?”

“Not all of those were my fault.”

“Enough of them were. Consider this your third and final chance.”

“Can I have some time to think about it?”

“Fifteen minutes. You’ve known about this meeting for weeks.”

This is meant to be a small, under the table deal. Taein’s tactics aren’t exactly legal. Nor are they illegal, but rather, as the kids would put it, a secret third thing. Unethical, if he had to put a name to it. It doesn’t make a difference to him. He’s far from the first person to do something like this.

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” Mingeun says.

“Obviously. It’s the same contract you signed before you debuted with different dates,” Taein says. He spins his chair around to try to find the original document in the mess of his office. He makes a mental note to ask Yuxuan to try and make sense of the chaos when he has time.

The minute his back is turned, he hears Mingeun say, “Yah, hyung.”

Taein is a hair’s breadth away from a lecture when he turns back to see Mingeun on his phone, leaning back in his seat with his feet propped up on Taein’s desk.

With distaste, Taein slides the stack of papers nearest to Mingeun’s shoes closer to himself. This is his fifteen minutes of thinking about it, Taein tells himself. Having given up his search for Mingeun’s first contract, he tries to listen in on the phone conversation. It’s difficult because Mingeun is speaking French.

Taein massages his temples. Judging from the cocky grin he can’t seem to keep off his face, Mingeun is doing it on purpose. He’s listened to Daewoong complain about how Andrew and Mingeun speak their own combination of English and French when they want to speak privately with one another—something that’s begun to occur more frequently. Taein thought it was all an exaggeration.

He waits, placidly, until Mingeun ends his call. He sends his own text message, an apology to Cheolhwan for his increasingly late arrival to their meeting.

“Finished?” Taein asks once Mingeun’s phone disappears back into his pocket.

“You’re giving Intak-hyung a solo.”

It’s half a question and half a statement. Taein inclines his head slightly. “An unpromoted mixtape is different from a solo.”

“Can I have a solo?”

“No.”

Mingeun doesn’t seem too upset about that answer. Taein doesn’t know what the point of asking questions he already knows the answer to is.

“You can sign your amended contract, or you can leave,” he continues. “As soon as tomorrow, if that’s what you so desire. There’s a morality clause in here”—he reaches across the table to flip through the pages—”about refraining from partaking in any actions that could result in public scandal or contempt. Your callous inconsiderations to date and run your mouth are grounds enough for contract termination. As you’re the one in breach of it, you’ll owe the company five hundred million won plus interest, as stipulated in the penalty clause. Consider it a testament to my patience that you have a choice.”

Mingeun stares at him with death in his eyes. Taein isn’t particularly worried. Mingeun is all bark and very little bite. He doesn’t say anything as he turns to the last page and finally signs his name.

The tension leaves Taein in an instant. “Thank you,” he says, picking up the paper before the ink has fully dried.

Mingeun stands up with so much force his chair’s feet skid back across the ground. “I did this because I like Fable and Jaeseop-hyung would be disappointed in me if I didn’t.”

He bows stiffly, some fifteen degrees—not nearly polite enough for an interaction between an employee and his boss.

Before he can leave, Taein interrupts with his final instruction. “Break up with Hwajung-ssi. It’s a distraction to the both of you.”

Mingeun’s expression darkens even further. “That’s my personal life.”

“That’s your livelihood,” Taein corrects. “Chances, Mingeun.”

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ mingeun. ]#kpop added member #kpop oc #fictional idol community #idol oc

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fcble · 3 months

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In which Eunsu receives a visitor.

FEATURING: Baek Eunsu, Yoon Mingeun WORD COUNT: 4.1k SETTING: November 2023 NOTES: Welcome (finally) to the transitional period between Fable Season 1 (2023) and Fable Season 2 (2024?)! Or something like that. This is just an excuse to experiment with characters who would otherwise have nothing to say.

“Can you pick me up? I’m at the train station,” Mingeun says when Eunsu picks up the phone. He doesn’t say hi. He also never told Eunsu he was coming to visit.

All of their other meetings have been very carefully planned outings, the two of them juggling their schedules and their obligations and their differences in locations. Sometimes Eunsu visits Seoul. He’ll take the subway to the station a few blocks away from the Zenith Entertainment, and walk the familiar streets. He could never forget that walk, and each time he does it, he’s filled with pangs of regret. At other times, Mingeun takes the train out to Taebaek. In the beginning, right after he left, Eunsu refused to let him see him like this. It wasn’t until nearly a year had passed, as he had settled back into a life he thought he would never return to, that he let Mingeun visit his home.

He had shown him through the small, cramped streets and the single highway, apologizing for its shabbiness and its rural-ness compared to Seoul’s opulence, until Mingeun gave him a strange look and asked what he was apologizing for.

Now, he’s a bit more used to it. He’s still not proud of his hometown—he doesn’t think he ever will be. But when Mingeun asks for a ride, Eunsu says yes.

He’s not a good driver. More accurately, he isn’t a confident driver. Each time he sits behind the wheel, he thinks about Yonggeum and feels a sharp, stabbing pain through his chest, a feeling that will never go away and has only slightly softened over time. Instead, Eunsu is a very precise driver. He places both hands on the steering wheel, left hand at ten, right hand at two. He slows to a stop at every yellow light. He always uses his turn signal. He refuses to drive if he’s tired or drunk or otherwise inebriated.

He picks Mingeun up at the bus terminal. Mingeun is wearing his characteristic scowl, a pair of wired earbuds connected to his phone.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly as he slides into the passenger seat, tossing his backpack into the backseat. He leaves one earbud in.

Eunsu is unbearably nosey, so he has to ask, “What happened? Is this an impulsive vacation?”

He spares the slightest glance away from the road in front of him to see Mingeun lean his head against the window.

“I had a fight,” Mingeun says. “With Haksu and Intak-hyung and Jaeseop-hyung.”

Eunsu wonders what they could have disagreed about, that would set Mingeun opposite the three of them. He never would have imagined Mingeun and Jaeseop disagreeing. He doesn’t push further. Mingeun will talk about it when he wants to talk about it. If he ever wants to talk about it.

At home, Mingeun fits in like he lives there. Eunsu leaves him in the kitchen, charming Eomma as he usually does, and heads off to clean his room.

Mingeun is messier than he is, so he doesn’t try too hard: clothes in a pile in his closet, papers straightened on his desk, swipes his hand through the layer of dust on his nightstand then wipes it on his pants. He tries not to hear Mingeun talk about life in Seoul. He fills his ears with the screech of the rusted hinges of the hallway closet, followed by the scraping sounds of the floor mattress against the hardwood floor instead. Mingeun always stays in his room, because the other bedroom is still Yonggeum’s, kept perfectly preserved the way it was, like he'll come home and head off to his room any day now.

He surveys his handiwork: the mattress pressed up alongside the base of his bed, the only somewhat cleaner room, and knows Mingeun has survived worse.

As he emerges from his bedroom and inserts himself back into the conversation, Mingeun asks almost immediately, “How long can I stay?” His gaze darts furtively between Eunsu and Eomma.

The bits of conversation Eunsu blocked out from his mind must have worked some magic on Eomma, because she gives Mingeun a tender, loving look. He can’t remember the last time she looked at him like that.

“As long as you’d like,” she says, and that’s the end of that discussion.

In the morning, Mingeun slips back into Eunsu’s life like he never left. The house is livelier with him around, even if it’s because he misjudged the doorway of the bedroom in the dark after a bathroom trip and stubbed his toe on the doorframe then woke Eunsu up with his swearing. Sometimes Eunsu thinks he should ask Mingeun to tone it down in front of his parents. And yet he knows that it’s exactly the kind of request Mingeun would ignore. He can only hope Eomma and Appa are unaware of this side of Mingeun, because he’s polite and charming at all times other than three in the morning.

Morning car rides to the temple are usually somber experiences. Eunsu will sit in the passenger seat and stare out the window while the radio alternates between static and snippets of a news broadcast. Neither he nor Appa speak.

With Mingeun around, it’s different. Eunsu gives up his shotgun seat for Mingeun, who starts fiddling with the dials as soon as they pull out of the driveway.

“How can you not have Bluetooth?” Mingeun grumbles, as if he hasn't ridden in Appa’s ancient Toyota multiple times before. “It's a basic feature.”

He complains, but he clearly knows better now. The CD player whirs as it accepts his offering, and something bass-heavy begins to play.

Eunsu doesn't recognize it. His silence is an affront, apparently, because Mingeun turns around as much as he can in his seat.

“Nu’est?” he asks. “Re:BIRTH?”

Given the name of the album, it sounds slightly more familiar. “Did you choose this one specifically? Or do you normally travel with a CD from ten years ago?”

“Nine years. I might meet Minhyun-sunbaenim somewhere someday,” Mingeun says seriously. He disappears from Eunsu's field of vision, and reappears holding the entire album.

Eunsu can't help but laugh, a bright sound that sounds entirely foreign coming from him. He's lived in the same state of permanent dreariness for years. Such a light-hearted feeling of happiness is unfamiliar.

They listen to a little more than two songs when they arrive at the temple—his second home for the past two years. Eunsu tries to see it from an outsider’s perspective, with some difficulty. There’s the small parking lot that Appa pulls easily into, where the faded paint lines of the stalls have disappeared into the asphalt.

They walk up the five stairs to the entrance, the wood creaking and bending under their combined weight. The building’s paint is peeling in long strips, exposing the wood underneath. Eunsu shoves down the inexplicable urge to defend all of it to Mingeun.

Appa unlocks the door, and the two of them fall into their normal, silent routine. He disappears down the center aisle to the private storage room in the back of the building. Eunsu props open the doors, the pervasive smell of incense already surrounding him. It never fades, despite his best attempts to air out the room. He opens the only two windows near the entrance anyway.

Mingeun seems rooted in the entryway. Eunsu gives him a questioning glance.

“When we lived in Seoul, I never thought I’d ever see for myself all of this,” Mingeun says, spinning in a slow circle.

He’s over-dramatic.

“You’ve visited me before,” Eunsu says.

“And you never let me see anything except your house.”

There’s no one to blame except Eunsu for that one. He did it on purpose—never taking Mingeun anywhere except his house, a few of his favorite restaurants, and once, the base of the mountains.

“This is cooler than the time I went to Mass with Haksu-hyung,” Mingeun continues.

That’s a good thing, Eunsu supposes. He knows Mingeun’s church experience was horrific enough to never go back.

“The service hasn’t started yet,” he says, logical as always. It’s unfair for Mingeun to say that before he’s fully experienced it.

Mingeun shrugs. “It can’t be worse,” he says, almost uncharacteristically optimistic.

To Eunsu’s surprise, Mingeun survives almost the entire service. Eunsu knows meditation isn’t for him, so he isn’t surprised to hear the pew creak next to him almost as soon as the small congregation closes their eyes and breathes deeply. A slight breeze enters the room as he exits.

Eunsu has had the time to make peace with his responsibilities. And really, keeping track of Sunja’s dog and how Kanghee’s kids are doing isn’t too much of a leap from remembering repeat fansign attendees. So he clears his mind of thoughts of Mingeun for the next twenty minutes, listening instead to the quiet rustle of the wind in the trees overhead.

When he judges his part is done—by the much smaller crowd and Appa’s blessing—Eunsu heads out the back and finds Mingeun immediately. His bag is leaning against the side of the building while he sits under the shade of the largest tree, earbuds in. A small pile of stones is built almost into a pyramid in front of him.

“You're done,” he says. “Finally.”

“Not yet,” Eunsu says. “Appa's still inside.”

Mingeun practically wilts.

“You’ve never come out here with me before.” Eunsu crouches on the ground so that he can be at eye-level with Mingeun, though he refuses to sit.

Mingeun adds another rock to his pile. It balances precariously on top. “This time is different,” he says. “I thought I should try to understand how you live. And I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Eunsu wants to unpack that. He wants to ask why. He wants to know what Mingeun ran away from this time, because he’s always running from something. So he approaches it carefully, cautiously, and asks, simply, “What do you mean?”

His question is ignored. Instead, Mingeun looks him in the eye, and in his careless, blunt way, asks, “Do you want to be here?”

Eunsu's thighs are starting to kill him, so he stands up.

“It doesn't matter what I want,” he says.

Mingeun glares up at him. “That's not what I asked.”

They've had this conversation before, and time and time again, Eunsu gives the same answer. It doesn't matter what he wants, because what he wants has absolutely no bearing on what he does. It's the complete opposite of Mingeun, who's constantly driven by his desires.

“Yes,” he answers, just to shut Mingeun up. He doesn't know what he wants. He hasn't given it much thought in the past two years.

Mingeun has no response. He scatters his rock pile into its individual pieces and stands up. Then he says, “Haksu-hyung was mad at me first. Said I was selfish and a hypocrite for taking all the opportunities I had. He pretended he doesn't do that. Of course I was mad at him.”

He pauses in his recollection for a moment. None of that seems like an issue to Eunsu. It's a small disagreement, not something that should have caused so much discord. He stays quiet, and Mingeun continues.

“I never expected Jaeseop-hyung to take his side. He's never been mad at me like that before.” Mingeun sounds small and unlike himself. “I know he’s been stressed lately—”

“About what?” Eunsu asks, interrupting him. He's momentarily more interested in potential Fable drama than Mingeun's woes.

“Me. Andrew-hyung. The new album. Taein-nim. Our tour. His girlfriend. The list of what he isn't stressed about is shorter.”

It's all so ordinary and typical of him. Eunsu's hopes are dampened. He doesn't know what he thought had changed in his absence. They're celebrities, sure, but they're also normal people. He was one of them, once. He should know better. He’s not sure why he doesn’t.

Mingeun continues his tirade of his own personal issues and his current disagreements, but by then, Eunsu has already partially tuned him out.

The days with Mingeun pass more or less the same as the days without him have. Sometimes he follows Eunsu to the temple. Other times he helps Eomma with the household chores. Eunsu hears this from both of them—his mother praises Mingeun’s willingness to help and then bemoans his absolute lack of homemaking skills. Mingeun, on the other hand, gains an entire repertoire of Eunsu’s embarrassing childhood stories.

Then, there are the times where Eunsu returns to Mingeun sitting on or in front of the living room couch, speaking English in a quick, low tone to his computer. The WiFi is best there. It took him less than a week to figure that out.

On one of those days, Eunsu is passing by on his way out when Mingeun waves him down. He sits cross-legged on the floor, laptop open in front of him, right AirPod in his ear, left AirPod in his left hand, the white G-shock Eunsu gifted to him years ago on the same wrist.

“This is my therapist,” Mingeun says softly, and Eunsu looks at his computer screen, where he’s currently in a video call with a middle-aged woman. He scoots over so Eunsu can sit next to him, so Eunsu has a seat.

Mingeun introduces him in Korean, in simple, formal sentences. “This is my friend. His name is Eunsu.”

The woman says back in similarly stilted and proper Korean, “Nice to meet you. I am Stephanie.” Then she bows to her web camera.

“Do you speak Korean?” Eunsu asks, just as grammatically correct. He’s struck by an incredible sense of deja vu, of having said almost the same thing to an obviously not quite fluent Mingeun so many years ago when they first met.

“A little.” Stephanie pinches her thumb and forefinger a mere centimeter apart.

Mingeun speaks to her again in English, presumably explaining something else. Eunsu has always admired the way he could seemingly slip so flawlessly between the languages, like he’s shedding one identity for another. He’s tried learning English, or any other foreign language, for that matter, on his own. He’s never progressed very far, because the longer he spends with his family in his hometown, knowing his future will never eclipse the borders of the same area he grew up in, it feels less and less important. Mingeun, on the other hand, has the world in his palms.

Eunsu does his best to tamp down the tendrils of jealousy. He never quite succeeds at that either.

“I have to show her I’m doing well,” Mingeun mutters softly, snapping Eunsu out of his thoughts. “I’m getting better.”

He can say that as much as he wants. As far as Eunsu can tell, running away from Seoul the same way he runs from all his other problems is not a sign of recovery.

He nods along silently and leaves Mingeun alone as the conversation slips back into English.

The days continue to pass without incident. Considering Mingeun’s track record, it comes as a surprise. He shows no sign of wanting to return to Seoul.

Then, in the afternoon following a service, Eunsu finds his phone vibrating incessantly. He picks it up to see Haksu calling him, for what appears to be the fourth or fifth time.

“Hello?” he asks hesitantly, finally answering the call. They’ve barely spoken to each other since he left. He hears about Haksu through Mingeun, though of course that’s colored by the lens Mingeun sees him through.

“Where’s Mingeun?” Haksu demands.

“At my house,” he responds.

“He’s not. He’s out somewhere. Check Instagram. There was this video, and you know him. He always thinks he needs to—”

“Slow down, hyung. You’re not making any sense,” Eunsu interrupts. But he opens Instagram anyway. He also sees he’s been added back into the Fable group chat, and now he has over a hundred unread messages.

“Fuck,” Haksu swears. It’s the first time Eunsu has ever heard him curse. Whatever Mingeun is doing must be bad. To him, at least.

The livestream finally loads. “Jaeseop-hyung is in it too,” he says in surprise. “What’s the big deal?”

“Are you listening to them?” Haksu demands again.

“No. I’m talking to you.”

“Find him. Call me or Intak-hyung or Byeonghwi when you do.” He hangs up.

Eunsu doesn’t do that. He sits on the steps of the temple and calls the one person Haksu neglected to mention.

“Eunsu?” On the other end of the line, Andrew sounds surprised.

“Yes. Hi. It’s been a while.”

“It has.” He sounds guarded. “I don't know what Haksu asked you to ask me, but the answer is no.”

“He didn't ask me for anything from you.” Eunsu missed something. He puts Andrew on speaker and starts skimming through his texts. “He asked me to find Mingeun.”

“Are you looking for him?”

“No.”

He’s reading over Haksu’s twenty-plus message rant about how Mingeun needs constant supervision and can’t be left to his own devices and how Jaeseop is just as bad if not worse for enabling him when he’s alerted with another incoming call.

The other members, he can understand, but this one is coming from Daewoong. Eunsu hasn’t talked to his former manager since he left.

“Daewoong-hyung’s calling me,” he says.

He’s about to answer when Andrew speaks first. “Don’t.” His words are clear and sharp, a command rather than a suggestion.

So Eunsu doesn't. He lets the call ring and ring.

“He's on his way to pick up Mingeun,” Andrew explains. “He left not too long ago.”

“He’s driving here?” Eunsu is surprised. Mingeun is in more trouble than he thought. “That’s far.”

“So it’ll take him some time. They're right, but they're going to be in trouble,” Andrew says, voicing Eunsu’s very thoughts. “Taein-nim told them not to say anything. Mingeun insisted. You know how he gets.”

Of the two of them, Eunsu thinks Jaeseop is more concerned with morals, but Andrew is right on one point. If Mingeun wants something, he'll stop at nothing to get it.

“Why aren't you in the live with them?” Eunsu asks as soon as the thought occurs. He can picture the battle lines in his head: Mingeun and Jaeseop on one side; Haksu, Intak, and Byeonghwi on the other; Andrew somewhere in the middle; and Kiyoung’s blissful enlistment ignorance.

“I haven't had access to my account for months. Talked shit one too many times in the comments of my own posts,” Andrew says, almost wistfully.

“I could join,” Eunsu says.

“You don’t have to be part of this. You can live your own private life now. Haksu never should have involved you in the first place.”

He doesn’t want to ruin Andrew’s perception of post-idol life, so he says nothing about how they’ve both passed the point of no return to a normal life. He thinks about the fans that used to visit Taebaek and his father’s services in the months immediately following his departure, and decides Andrew doesn’t need to know that.

He changes the subject as best as he can, which isn't very well. “What time did Daewoong-hyung leave?”

Andrew takes a few moments to respond. “A bit after the live started. He’s probably speeding.”

There isn’t much speeding to be done in Seoul traffic. There’s a lot of speeding to be done on the long, empty roads out to Taebaek. All things considered, Eunsu estimates his trip to be somewhere around two hours.

“I assume Taein-nim gave him your address,” Andrew continues, interrupting Eunsu’s train of thought.

Eunsu sighs. He isn’t looking forward to Daewoong at his front door in the slightest. He opens Mingeun’s Instagram again. He appears to have propped his phone up somewhere and is standing far off in the distance, knee deep in water. Eunsu can’t imagine what the topic of their livestream is. Jaeseop is still speaking, poised and composed. Their viewers have crossed into the quintuple digits, a feat Eunsu is, despite the situation surrounding it, slightly impressed with.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he says, already typing out a warning text to Mingeun. “I’ll look for him.”

“Not too hard,” Andrew says, almost in warning.

“Not too hard,” Eunsu agrees. He makes no move to leave his suddenly very comfortable seat.

Two and a half hours later, Daewoong appears on Eunsu’s doorstep. He parks his car, a shiny black Lexus, right in front of Eunsu’s house. It’s the newest, cleanest, and most expensive car on the block.

Against his better judgement, Eunsu invites his former manager into his home.

“Where’s Mingeun?” Daewoong asks, all business from the start. He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, like he’s never seen one before. Eomma, almost as awkwardly, sits at the kitchen table, not quite looking at either Eunsu or Daewoong.

“Packing,” Eunsu says. “Would you like something to drink?”

Somehow, he manages to coax Daewoong into having a seat. It’s an almost comical tableau—Eomma and Daewoong on their very best silent behavior. He leaves them to it, apologizing in his head to his mother for leaving her with him.

Eunsu finds Mingeun in his room, packing, just as he told Daewoong. It’s obvious that Mingeun is trying to drag it out as long as possible. The few contents of his backpack and suitcase are spread all around the floor. Eunsu sidesteps it all easily and closes his bedroom door behind him.

“I’m not ready to go back yet,” Mingeun says without looking up.

“Daewoong-hyung is in my fucking kitchen,” Eunsu says. He doesn’t want to be unsympathetic, but Daewoong is in his fucking kitchen. He can only imagine the conversations out there, the collision of his two worlds he fought so hard to keep separate.

“He can sleep in his car tonight,” Mingeun says, just as unsympathetic to Eunsu’s plight.

“I think he’d rather sleep in his bed in Seoul.”

“Your bed.”

Eunsu doesn’t know what he means by that, so he stays silent until Mingeun elaborates.

Still staring down at his belongings, Mingeun speaks again. “Daewoong-hyung moved into your room after you left. He still stays there sometimes.”

Eunsu is about to ask why when Mingeun predicts his question.

“He hasn't said why, but I know it's to keep an eye on me.”

That doesn't sound right, but Mingeun sounds so certain in his beliefs that Eunsu doesn't want to argue. Not when he's leaving so soon.

Mingeun closes his suitcase, having seemingly given up the illusion of packing. It was half empty anyway—just a few changes of clothes that wouldn't fit in his backpack.

“If you come back to Seoul, you can get your room back.”

Eunsu takes that to mean he should visit, not move permanently. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with Mingeun. He knows he can’t go back. Even a visit is hard to plan—he has an increasing number of responsibilities here, and he can’t go running off whenever he feels like it like Mingeun does.

“I will,” he says, although he doesn’t know if it’s a promise he can keep.

The scene in the kitchen is opposite the one Eunsu left. Eomma is leaning across the table, showing Daewoong something on her phone. He presumes it's embarrassing pictures of him, accompanied by stories of his childhood: the time he ate an ant on purpose, or the time he insisted on going down the playground slide headfirst and ate shit, or maybe that one really embarassing faux music video he and his friends filmed when they were twelve and thought they could start a band. At this rate, everyone at Zenith Entertainment will know the minute details of his life.

When Mingeun steps into the kitchen, suitcase wheels loud on the tiled floor, Daewoong seems to snap back to himself. He stands up and jerks his head towards the door. “Let’s go, Mingeun.”

“Fine,” Mingeun says, but from his tone of voice, he’s anything but fine.

Daewoong either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because all he does is thank Eomma—and not Eunsu—for her hospitality, and lead Mingeun outside.

From the comfort of his home, Eunsu watches them leave: Mingeun’s bags in the trunk, Daewoong in the driver’s seat, the rumble of the engine, Mingeun in the passenger seat with his earbuds in. Then they’re pulling away from the curb, and before he knows it, they’re receding away in the distance. Andrew was right. Daewoong speeds.

“What happened?” Eomma asks, following Eunsu’s gaze out the window.

“He made a mistake.” Eunsu doesn’t want to explain it all. He’s not even sure if he knows the whole story. Besides, she’s never really understod what being an idol entails, and how precariously their careers balance on their words and actions and appearances. “It happens to him a lot.”

Eomma looks like she doesn’t know what to make of that. Eunsu doesn’t blame her. He’d like to say, or even think, that it won’t happen again. With Mingeun, it’s a matter of time. He wonders how long he’ll have to wait for Mingeun’s return.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ eunsu. ]#fictional idol community #fake kpop group #kpop oc #kpop addition #kpop fanfic

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