Chapter 116:


    “Hwijin and I are on the same team, you know. We ran into each other several times at the office and became friends right away.”


    He was 29 years old and he called me ‘brother’ without any hesitation.


    Maybe it was because he had blended in with Cheon Ise a little bit.


    Of course, what he just said was a lie, except for the part about being on the same team.


    I hardly ever went to the office, and I heard that Floss rented their own practice room outside.


    I had never seen him at the office, let alone bumped into him.


    “We’re super close. I just never had a chance to show you.”


    Hwijin looked at me brazenly, without even twitching his lips. He smiled with his eyes, as if to say that he wasn’t the leader of the debut group for nothing.


    I had a strong impression of Kang Yu-geon as a sly fox when I first met him. But Hwijin, the leader, was even more cunning. He put his arm over my shoulder.‘He’s crossing the line with this fake act.’


    I bent my waist slightly and slipped out of Hwijin’s arm. If I wanted to make it look like we were close in this situation…


    ‘There’s no other way.’


    I closed my eyes and took a deep breath inside.


    “Hey, bro, what are you doing? You’re making me embarrassed.”


    I am Oh Yi-jun. I am Kang Yu-geon. I am Oh Yi-jun. I am Kang Yu-geon. I can do this. I am a pro. A pro is someone who does their role on time.


    I brainwashed myselfpletely in my head and pped Hwijin’s arm with my palm.


    The eyes of the other leaders who were exchanging brief greetings behind us turned to us at once.


    I didn’t even have to check their expressions to know that they were all surprised and curious about what they had just heard.


    Of course, the recording was going well.


    I didn’t care if it was an aggro edit, as long as the friendly scene between Floss and Climax leaders could make it to the broadcast.


    “Wow, you’re hurt? You acted like you didn’t know me earlier, but now you won’t even be my shoulder buddy?”


    Hwijin quickly caught the mood and replied in a casual tone.


    “You guys must be really close…”


    “Did he just use informal speech?”


    “That’s unexpected, I thought they didn’t get along.”


    The leaders of the rtively young groups whispered to each other, and I could hear them all.


    “Ah, bro. You know I can’t stand this kind of thing. And you know we don’t have any friendship or rtionship anymore, right?”


    I braced myself for the provocative edit and jokingly made a thumbs-down gesture. Hwijin breathed in andughed.


    “Ahaha, okay. We don’t care about you either, so don’t cry and beg me to go easy on youter.”


    Then he clenched his fist and held out the t side to me. I dly bumped it with the back of my fist and smiled.


    “Yeah, don’t hold back and give it your best shot.”


    I hoped they would move on to the interview soon, feeling awkward and ncing at the PD. Then a staff member came over.


    “Hwijin, Ise, we’ll take you to your seats.”


    “Okay. I’ll talk to youter.”


    Hwijin waved his hand and said goodbye to me. I also lightly waved my palm and followed the staff’s guidance.


    ‘Ugh.’


    It was a crazy thing that I never even imagined possible.


    Of course, if necessary, he was older than me and had more experience, so he could do anything as my senior.


    ‘Ugh.’


    I couldn’t stand being called ‘brother’ and fawned over by the young kid with a pale face. This was supposed to be Oh Yi-jun’s role in Climax. I felt like breaking out in hives when I imitated a cute younger sibling that didn’t suit my constitution.


    “Hello…! You’re the leader of Climax, right?”


    As I sat down and tried to calm my queasy stomach, a guy who looked like the leader of another group came up to me.


    “Uh, yeah.”


    Who was he? I scanned his face, recalling the group information I had studied thoroughly beforeing to the leader interview.


    A leader with such a young and cheeky impression…


    “BKC, right? I really liked your debut song.”


    ‘yground BK.’


    No matter how it was a stage name, who names themselves BK? Really, BK?


    What does it mean? What was the intention behind naming himself BK? I remembered looking at his stage name several times, unable to understand it.


    “Oh, wow. Do you know me?”


    BK’s face lit up with an expression of infinite admiration as he looked up at me.


    I wondered why he was so happy that I knew his name.


    ‘Well, I guess so.’


    The only ones who could be considered unknowns here were Climax and yground.


    And it seemed like everyone else didn’t care as much about this program as these two groups, since they came out without even doing basic research on the cast.


    They must already know each other.


    Except for Floss, who was famous for not socializing, the rest looked like they had already built rapport by appearing on other shows or ovepping their activities.


    “Yes, of course. I saw your debut stage too. You’re still nervous, right?”


    Then BK finally found someone he could talk to and his eyes sparkled with excitement.


    “Really? I was so nervous that I don’t even remember what I did. I thought I got used to it after surviving, but when I stood on stage, my head went nk.”


    He rattled on without me asking, and I thought, he’s still very young. How old was he?


    I vaguely remembered that there were no adult members in yground.


    ‘They must have no one to rely on.’


    “That’s normal at first. We don’t have much stage experience either, so we’re always flustered.”


    I said what I could as a five-year senior and nned to draw a line.


    ‘I have enough kids to look after at home.’


    I understood that he was desperate to bond with someone, but I had my nose full too.


    If I took care of someone else’s kid and neglected my own, it would be a waste of effort.


    ‘Let’s not get attached from the start.’


    “You’ll get good results if you do what you usually do.”


    I smiled lightly and gave him a cliched remark.


    “R-really? I’m still so nervous right now, and everyone is so much more senior than me, so, um… Do I belong here? I’m so scared. I really want to go home.”


    Oh, boy. How could he say that with a mic on? He had gone through a survival program like Floss, but there was a huge difference in the scale and ratings.


    He looked ufortable with this kind of attention, unlike those snake-like guys from Flos.


    ‘Let’s just avoid them for now.’


    “Good luck. You have no choice but to work hard.”


    I gave him a light word of encouragement and cut off the conversation, looking at the direction where Hwijin was being interviewed.


    “Ugh, I’m back.”


    When I got home, it was almost 11 pm, even though I didn’t do anything special.


    “How was it? Did you have fun?”


    Yi-jun ran up to me with a gleeful look in his eyes.


    “Fun? Are you kidding me?”


    I was exhausted from pretending to be friendly with Hwijin in the first round, and even more so from the kid from someone else’s house who kept clinging to me in the second round.


    I really wanted to apologize and push him away, but he was too burdensome.


    He was only a sophomore in high school, but he was desperately shining his eyes and hanging on to me.


    ‘Can you please take care of me?’


    He didn’t say it out loud, but his round eyes clearly showed what he wanted.


    “Wow-!”


    How am I supposed to deal with this? My head hurt and I touched my forehead, and Pposili came up to me and rubbed against me, wagging his tail as if he was d I came.


    My head wasplicated in many ways. I almost grabbed a can of beer from the fridge without realizing it, but…


    ‘There’s none.’


    Of course, this wasn’t Lim Hyun-seong’s house, but Climax’s dorm.


    There was no beer can rolling around in the fridge.


    ‘I should have bought some in advance.’


    Maybe Seon-woo would have been worried if I drank it secretly behind the kids. I put the back of my hand on my forehead and sighed.


    “What’s with that expression? You look like a weary old man who’s been worn out by society.”


    Kyunghwa, who came out to the living room to drink water, pushed my butt with his toe as I sat on the floor.


    ‘It’s not that I look like one, I am a weary old man who’s been worn out by society.’


    I hid the answer I wanted to say and dusted off my pants as I got up.


    “Cheer up.”


    I muttered a shaky greeting and headed to my room, and Kyunghwa mumbled to himself.


    “What’s wrong with him?”


    I had no energy left to answer, so I shook my hand and buried my face in the pillow.


    A weekter, the leader Jo’s interview was released as a pre-promotion video.


    [Quest Rmended Completion Period D-81]


    Got it. I got up from my seat, ruffling my hair, and checked the released teaser video.


    [Hello! Three, two, one, I’m Floss’s Hwijin! It’s such an honor to be here with you. We’ll do our best to show you our amazing performance with all our skills.]


    First, everyone was waiting for Hwijin’s interview. Oh… It was surprisingly orthodox, and I was relieved.


    NBS’s editing went wild.


    [Don’t becent!]


    [The blood-boiling war of the passionate boys begins!]


    [What are you doing? How embarrassing.]


    …? What? Why is this here? And the next sentence was even more shocking.


    [A world ofpetition where only the winners survive!]


    [You know we don’t have any friendship or loyalty, right?]


    Then the scene switched to another leader’s interview.


    [Well, just keep it simple. Survival of the fittest. If you’re weak, even if you’re on top, you’ll get bitten.]


    [Which group will im the throne of the king!]


    The atmosphere on the set was quite warm, except for the restless BK.


    But the edited video portrayed them as Tado Floss. Leaders who were eager to overthrow Floss, who was on top.


    I was also cleverly edited. Just one word, ‘now’, was missing, but it made such a difference.


    We were perfectly transformed into ‘Cheon Ise and other leaders’ who were madly provoking Hwijin.


    [Wow, aren’t you hurt?]


    [The bloody pride fight of the representative K-Pop boy group begins!]


    [I can’t stand this (low-level) stuff. I haven’t had a chance to show you what I can do.]


    When did I say that? I didn’t mean it like that, and it wasn’t in that context.


    But with a caption like that, people would remember me as the person who said that.


    And then the screen switched to a logo that glowed in a creepy red color on a ck background.


    [A fierce deration of war for the king’s throne!]


    [Wow, this is no joke.]


    [Look at the mood. They’re all desperate.]


    [We have to chew them up.]


    The leaders of each team followed with some provocative remarks, and thest one was me again.


    [Are you nervous? (Already) I’m looking forward to it.]


    It was like saying, I’ll crush them one by one, so wash your neck and wait.


    [NBS special ‘Boys Be Ambitious’]


    [Every Thursday at 10:30 p.m.]


    Then the short 30 second video ended with BK’s crying voice.


    [I really want to go home.]


    “…”


    All the members who were watching YouTube on the living room TV opened their mouths after a long silence.


    “Is this real?”


    Is it real? Cold sweat ran down my back.


    I should give up searching for a while. I didn’t need to see it with my eyes to feel that my life span had been extended by about 30 years.


    It’s spicy. This is the world of survival. It was the moment I realized how much of a frog in a well I had been.