Ch.4004. Their Own Way of Survival

“Ab… abs?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

Suhyeok blinked slowly like a goldfish.

Did I hear that right?

“So, um… you want me to take off my shirt and perform on stage at the festival?”

“That’s the tradition.”

The band club.

So this is why the bar is set so high.

This is why they say not just anyone can join a central club.

Seeing Choi Gang’s excessively serious face, Suhyeok believed him and began fumbling in his pocket for the resignation letter he had prepared just in case.

“Seo-eun noona… thank you for the short time we had…”

His face looked like he might cry at any moment.

“No! What are you doing! Lee Suhyeok! And why are you carrying this around?!”

Seo-eun took the envelope and burst out laughing in disbelief.

They say everyone keeps a resignation letter in their heart, but how many people actually write one and carry it around?

Moreover, who brings that to a club drinking party?

“I… really hate exercise…”

“No, no. It’s okay if you don’t exercise. How could we force that on you? We’re not a sports club.”

Seo-eun sighed and touched her forehead.

That was Gang’s problem.

He did his part well so there were no complaints, but it was troublesome when he so naturally tried to impose his values on others.

When Juyeon first joined the club, she also had no small amount of trouble because of Gang.

“Oh. Really?”

“Don’t block the awakening of rockers! Seo Seo-eun!”

Gang went berserk, even dropping the “noona.”

“Gang-ah. Are you missing Jae-jun oppa?”

Suhyeok heard an unfamiliar name from Seo-eun’s lips.

Jae-jun? Who’s that?

But surprisingly, the name of this unknown man had a tremendous effect in completely subduing the wild Gang.

“Jae… I’m sorry about Jae-jun sunbae. Noona.”

Seeing his suddenly respectful attitude, Suhyeok quietly asked Seo-eun.

“Who’s Jae-jun sunbae?”

“Ah~ He exists! A senior two years above us! He played guitar in the 21st generation, and now he’s my boyfriend!”

I see… I haven’t met them yet, but of course there would be seniors…

Seo-eun noona.

She has a boyfriend… boyfriend…?

“…Seo-eun noona has a boyfriend?”

Suhyeok’s eyes widened at this completely unexpected revelation.

“Yes! Why? What? Are you saying I don’t look like someone who would have one?”

Seo-eun rested her chin on one hand and smiled broadly.

Her tone was openly teasing.

Suhyeok shook his head vigorously.

“Ah. No! Absolutely not, rather you’d have many. No, no, no. Not that you have many boyfriends, but that you’d be popular.”

“Aw~ I know you’re joking too~ Suhyeok, do you have a girlfriend?”

Juyeon, who had been sipping her drink, and Gang, who had been chewing on squid, both turned to look at him at once.

“…No.”

It was already this overwhelming just meeting new people in the club, so how could he possibly date?

Dating was truly a luxury only for those with the highest social skills.

The meticulous calculations between men and women.

Suhyeok thought he could never handle the stock market-like fluctuations of the attraction graph.

Rather than getting a girlfriend, it seemed faster to join a band and become a rock star with fans…

As Suhyeok began to emit a gloomy aura at the question about dating, Juyeon nodded as if she understood.

“Ah~ Why so depressed? In our year, I’m the only one dating right now! So you don’t need to feel left out, okay?”

Suhyeok looked up at each member’s face.

If what Seo-eun said was true, it meant that Gang, Juyeon, and even Hana, whom he hadn’t met yet but was said to look like a model, were all single.

They all seemed like they would have partners though…

“I see.”

“Yes! And just because you don’t have someone now doesn’t mean anything~ You’ll find someone soon~ Right, Juyeon?”

“Ah… I don’t think so…”

The drinking party grew more animated with various conversations.

“Let’s go to karaoke~”

Seo-eun buried her face in Juyeon’s nape and shouted excitedly.

“Uh… unnie, since you’re drunk, maybe you should go home~”

Despite Juyeon showing clear signs of discomfort, Seo-eun held onto her as if used to it.

Not stopping there, she sniffed Juyeon’s neck as if it smelled good.

“What are you saying~ Juyeon, Juyeon~ This unnie can’t go home until she hears our Juyeon sing.”

Watching them, Gang opened his mouth with a solemn face.

“Lee Suhyeok! We are spirit! You know you need to be good at singing too, right?”

His eyes seemed to grow fiercer the more he drank.

“…I have to sing too?”

Abs required, singing skills required.

It was one mountain after another.

“If you need chorus, we’re always ready!”

“No, no~ We don’t need it this year~ We don’t have a male vocalist this year~ And Juyeon isn’t good at songs with chorus anyway.”

Seo-eun waved her hand firmly, relieving Suhyeok’s burden.

“Ah… I have a question.”

Suhyeok finally remembered something he’d been wondering about.

“Yes, yes. Ask freely.”

“I joined as a transfer, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then where did the previous guitarist go…?”

If it was Suhyeok who darkened at the talk of relationships earlier, this time it was the opposite.

“Haa… those bastards…”

Bastards…?

“Bastards” meant more than one person.

Suhyeok’s heart shrank a little at Seo-eun’s curse.

“Originally, our year had six regular members. There was one more guitarist, and one more male vocalist.”

Seo-eun crossed her arms and began to grumble as if telling an old story.

“So when freshmen join, they make a promise. They agree to finish their activities by sophomore year before going to the military.”

This was a membership condition Suhyeok hadn’t heard when he first joined.

“So does that mean I have to continue until sophomore year too?”

“Hmm… but you’re definitely going to attend this semester anyway, and were you planning to join the military in the second semester?”

“No, not really.”

Since he had vaguely thought he would go after finishing his sophomore year, it didn’t seem like a big problem.

“Phew~ That’s a real relief. Anyway, those two were best friends even before college. But these bastards, both of them suddenly insisted on joining the military right after freshman year!”

“We tried to persuade them, saying what would we do without them, but they stubbornly insisted on going, so we had a big fight and let them go. What could we do? It’s their lives~”

It didn’t seem like they left because of any serious conflict.

Thinking about it now, Suhyeok wondered if he should have just said he needed to join the military when leaving Purple Storm.

“So you became our new guitarist! As for the male vocalist… we thought about recruiting one, but decided to just have Juyeon sing more songs instead~”

While karaoke was quite a challenging place for Suhyeok, after hearing all this, he became extremely curious.

Just how good a singer was Juyeon?

“Unnie… let’s just go home…”

Despite Juyeon’s desperate voice, Seo-eun wagged her finger, indicating it was absolutely not happening.

Choi Gang, who had said he was going to the bathroom, finished paying and led the way to the karaoke, but…

“…Is he dead?”

Inside the coin karaoke room.

The muscular drummer Choi Gang, with his arms crossed and eyes closed, showed no signs of movement, like a stone statue.

“G-Gang falls asleep like that when he drinks too much.”

Juyeon scratched her cheek with her index finger, looking troubled.

“Ah~ Leave Gang alone~ Despite how he looks, he’ll wake up and get home fine if we wake him later~”

No one had selected a song yet.

Suhyeok had come along, but he wasn’t the type to enjoy singing.

He wasn’t good at it, and he felt shy singing in front of others.

And this was the band club, after all!

Asking him to sing in front of Juyeon, who was supposedly so good, was essentially like bullying a newbie in a game.

He was prepared to reluctantly sing one song if asked, but he wasn’t at the level to voluntarily grab the remote.

-Riiing

“Oh? My boyfriend’s calling! Hey guys, keep singing and having fun~”

Both of them wanted to somehow keep Seo-eun from leaving, but she had already answered the phone and gone outside.

Left behind, Suhyeok and Juyeon could instinctively sense what was coming.

Without Seo-eun, what visited this space was…

[Eternal Silence]

An “awkwardly cooled atmosphere” even more dangerous than not talking at all had descended upon them.

Too ambiguous to pretend to be close.

Yet also too ambiguous to act like strangers—the half-baked atmosphere unique to drinking parties.

There was no choice for these two socially inept introverts.

Juyeon tremblingly took the remote control.

“…Suhyeok.”

With her head bowed, it was impossible to see what expression she was making.

“Yes…?”

“If I sing one song, you absolutely have to sing one too. Got it?”

Though surprised by Juyeon’s assertive tone, which he had never seen before, Suhyeok reluctantly nodded.

He wondered if this was the charisma that captivated audiences, but Juyeon’s true thoughts were…

‘R-Rather than making conversation, I’d rather sing ten songs by myself…!’

They each had their own survival methods.