Chapter 103

Chapter 103

Raise Three Idols Well And They’ll Launch a Confession Attack.

Episode 103: Let’s Get The Hell Out Of Here And Run.

Seo Eun-byeol grew up under a mother who worked at a karaoke bar.

Her mother didn’t send her to daycare or kindergarten, nor did she provide her with a proper education.

Instead of such education, it was common to leave her sitting in a secluded waiting room in the karaoke bar during her mother’s shifts.

This certainly didn’t have a positive effect on a child’s emotional well-being.

Meals consisted of cold Chinese takeout, leftover dried snacks, or fruit plates that were offered to customers.

As for clothes, she was given oversized T-shirts that looked like they were picked up from somewhere.

Naturally, she didn’t have toys or dolls that a young girl her age might want.

There was a time when a drunken customer won an out-of-season penguin plushie from a claw machine and left it behind. It was given to her, but it hardly counted as a toy meant for her.

Objectively speaking, Seo Eun-byeol’s mother couldn’t be considered a good mother.

However, surprisingly, Seo Eun-byeol and her mother were actually quite close.

Sometimes her mother seemed immature and irresponsible, but Seo Eun-byeol loved her for always staying cheerful and teaching her how to smile.

She wanted to become like her mother.

Her mother could sense her deep affection, so despite being an inexperienced mother, she tried not to be violent or scary.

Because of this, their lives didn’t feel painful.

“Eun-byeol.”

“Hm? Mom, what is it?”

“Do you have a dream?”

Her mother asked this question as she chewed on some nuts and took a sip of soju. It felt vague to Seo Eun-byeol.

“…I don’t know. Do I really need a dream?”

Her mother watched as her daughter furrowed her brow, struggling with the question.

Then, she roughly ruffled her daughter’s hair.

“Ahh, why?”

“Because you’re cute, silly.”

“I guess I am cute.”

Her mother, laughing at Seo Eun-byeol’s sudden cuteness, then spoke seriously, her emotions complex.

“I wanted to become a singer.”

“You, a singer? That fits you! But why didn’t you become one?”

At that innocent question, her mother erased any feelings of regret or despair and answered lightly.

“There are many reasons. I might not have been talented enough. Maybe I was unlucky. Or maybe I didn’t push through till the end. It’s hard to give just one answer.”

“…That’s hard.”

“Hehehe, yeah, it was hard for me too.”

Her mother stared at the moon through the small window of their basement apartment.

Seeing her mother’s sad expression, the young Seo Eun-byeol spoke.

“I think it’s okay if I don’t have a dream. I mean, I’m happy right now.”

“Even so, you should try to have a dream. If you have one, you can be even happier than you are now. At least for me, I was really happy while I was chasing my dream.”

“…Aren’t you happy now, Mom?”

At Seo Eun-byeol’s question, her mother ruffled her hair again and said,

“I am happy, and that’s because you gave me a new dream.”

“I want to work hard, save money, and someday leave this wretched basement. We’ll eat all kinds of delicious food together, buy expensive things, and live it up.”

“That sounds fun!”

“Right?”

They burst out laughing together.

“Anyway, whatever it is, try to have a dream. It makes people move forward to find happiness.”

Thinking about her mother’s words, Seo Eun-byeol furrowed her brow again, then responded energetically.

“I want to be a singer too, just like you!”

“Hey, it’s really hard for a woman to become a solo singer in the entertainment industry right now.

“Just turn on a music show and see how many solo singers there are. You can count them on one hand, right? Only a tiny fraction make it as singers.”

“But you told me to dream…”

“I’ve been there, so I can give advice too.”

Seo Eun-byeol glanced around nervously before speaking again.

“Then… an idol?”

“Hehehe, now that’s a bit of progress. Sounds good to me. Idol Seo Eun-byeol has a nice ring to it.”

“Alright, from now on, my dream is to be an idol.”

With that, Seo Eun-byeol copied one of the sexy dances she had seen the older girls perform at the karaoke bar.

It was clearly inappropriate, both emotionally and educationally, for a girl of kindergarten age, but her mother, the only audience member, clapped and cheered, laughing happily.

That was the moment Seo Eun-byeol began dreaming of becoming an idol.

As time passed, Seo Eun-byeol entered middle school.

During that time, after enduring hardships and struggles too numerous to sum up in one sentence, she and her mother managed to pay off all their debts.

It was around that time that a man claiming to be Seo Eun-byeol’s father appeared.

“I’m truly, truly sorry.”

As soon as he saw them, he dropped to his knees and apologized.

It seemed like a sincere apology, but remembering that he had abandoned young Seo Eun-byeol, leaving behind only debts, his actions felt shameless.

Seo Eun-byeol’s mother, the one who had every right to be furious, was indeed enraged by his attitude.

“You bastard. Do you think apologizing is enough?”

Despite receiving a clear rejection, her father would reappear from time to time, bringing snacks, before disappearing again.

It happened so often that her mother eventually got tired of being angry.

As he had said, Seo Eun-byeol’s father seemed to want to show he had changed. He worked at construction sites and spent the money he earned on her and her mother.

This continued until the time Seo Eun-byeol was old enough to enter high school.

By the time this routine felt like everyday life, her mother seemed to have been softened by his attitude, and she no longer got angry when she saw him.

Seo Eun-byeol was happy about it. It felt like the family she had always longed for was finally complete.

Their lives were still hard, to say the least.

But Seo Eun-byeol didn’t feel worried or lacking.

Instead of feeling negative, she looked forward to how much further they could go tomorrow.

Her mother had been right. She regretted every time she closed her eyes at the end of the day, and she was happy every time she opened them in the morning.

Seo Eun-byeol was living her dream.

“What if we open a shop?”

Her mother, who had been skeptical of Seo Eun-byeol’s father’s proposal, was eventually swayed by his persistence and the promise of stable support for their daughter, so she agreed to the challenge.

They pooled together the money her mother had saved for Seo Eun-byeol and the money her father claimed to have saved, signed a lease, and ordered equipment and furnishings for the shop.

Throughout the process, her father took the lead, just as he had when he first returned.

Things seemed to be progressing smoothly.

Or so it seemed.

“Hey, I just got a call saying the deposit hasn’t been paid. Didn’t we already pay it?”

There was no response.

At the happiest moment, it was the most devastating.

The fall was too steep to endure. The betrayal happened just as the trust had been established.

It took just one day to destroy the happiness that Seo Eun-byeol and her mother had built over many years.

Even now, years later, neither of them had been able to recover from that day’s collapse.

“No matter what I have to do, I’ll make sure you can continue your trainee life, Eun-byeol. Don’t worry about anything else. Just focus on your dream.”

Even so, her mother never gave up on her dream.

She stayed strong and determined, as if she could simply rebuild the sandcastle that had crumbled.

Instead of collapsing and weeping over the hardships of life, she chose to stand back up.

After her father’s betrayal, this was the first time Seo Eun-byeol truly felt that life was difficult.

It was also the first time she felt the temptation to give up.

But she was more afraid of betraying her mother’s dedication, so she chose to endure.

She endured all the harsh training at Flower Entertainment without complaint.

She followed the trainer’s instructions to dedicate all her time to practice, except for eating and sleeping.

She ignored the discomfort when one of the board members at Flower Entertainment sent creepy looks and offered unsettling “encouragement” with his touch.

“The debut group this time will be Do Seoyoung, Chun Sohee, Lee Miseong, and Kim Minji.”

However, it didn’t lead to success.

No, there had certainly been improvements.

Seo Eun-byeol had become able to hit higher notes cleanly, her emotional technique had improved, she could do smoother waves, and she had mastered powerful popping movements.

But it wasn’t enough.

The only reason she wasn’t in the debut group was that it wasn’t enough.

Flower Entertainment was only selecting four members for the debut group this time.

As a result, the evaluation was relative.

The efforts of those ranked 5th or 6th became meaningless in that relative standard.

Now, two choices remained for her.

Either she would leave Flower Entertainment and look for a new path, or she would stay and continue her life as a trainee.

While she was hesitating to make a clear decision, others were already making their own choices.

“Eun-byeol, I’m going to go.”

“…You’re really leaving?”

“Well, there’s no other choice, is there? Flower already debuted one girl group, so they probably won’t plan another new team within the next two or three years. By then, I’ll be older, and my chances of competing will be lower. This was my last chance to debut.”

“Then what will you do after leaving Flower?”

“I don’t know.”

“…What?”

The senior trainee who had failed to make the debut group responded to Seo Eun-byeol’s confusion.

“But I do know that staying here won’t give me a future.”

“…”

“I hope you make a choice for your own future too.”

Seo Eun-byeol couldn’t stop the senior trainee from leaving.

And she couldn’t follow after her either.

While Eun-byeol was hesitating at this crossroads, her mother spoke as if questioning why she was even struggling with the decision.

“You just focus on your dream. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Just as she said, her mother did everything she could to ensure that the wounds left by yet another betrayal didn’t seep into her daughter’s life.

Indeed, she was able to continue her life as a trainee.

Seo Eun-byeol was grateful for her mother’s dedication.

She felt it was more than she deserved.

But gradually, something else began to weigh on her more than those feelings.

At some point, her mother stopped smiling.

The smile that had endured even through their struggles with small, cramped rooms and difficult circumstances.

Seo Eun-byeol couldn’t bring herself to say she would quit being a trainee in front of her mother.

So, she stayed at Flower Entertainment once again.

She began to endure once again.

During the difficult schedules that made others give up, and the early mornings when most would choose to take shortcuts, she persevered quietly, as she always had.

“The selected members for this debut group are…”

A few years later, when the next debut group selection was made, her name wasn’t included.

Seo Eun-byeol had failed once again.

As she bowed her head in shock, facing the results, one of the trainers spoke to her.

“You could probably stay here longer, but I wouldn’t recommend it… Eun-byeol, you just don’t have enough talent. You should give up and find something else.”

Rather than feeling resentment or any negative emotions, she simply asked the trainer with genuine curiosity.

“If I don’t have talent, why did you keep me as a trainee for so long? And why are you saying I can stay longer?”

“Because when you first came in, we thought you might have talent. And the reason you’ve stayed so long is that one of the directors really likes you.”

“Which director, and why?”

The trainer looked down at her as if questioning why she was pretending not to know.

“You must know.”

“…What?”

“Director Kim, don’t you?”

With those words, Seo Eun-byeol realized.

Director Kim, who had thrown lewd glances and unwanted touches her way, made Flower Entertainment an even more painful place for her.

“…So that’s all it was.”

How ironic that the reason she had been able to stay here wasn’t because of her hard work or any hidden talent, but simply because she had endured it.

Even though she realized this, she didn’t cry, get angry, or despair.

There was only a kind of resignation and acceptance: “So that’s how it was.”

Actually, she even felt a bit of relief.

The end of her hopes, after all this exhaustion, felt almost refreshing.

“Mom, I’m going to quit being a trainee.”

“…What do you mean by that?”

“I failed the final debut group test this time. I’m sorry.”

“…”

“I’m so grateful for all the support you’ve given me. It’s embarrassing, but I really did my best to repay you for it.

“But it seems like I just didn’t have enough talent. I’m sorry.”

“…”

“I think I’ve had enough of this dream. I’m satisfied. I was happy. So now, I don’t want to just receive your sacrifices anymore—I want to help you. I’m going to start a part-time job tomorrow. I had an interview today, and they asked me to start right away. I know I might not seem reliable right now, but I’ll slowly become an adult, just like you.”

Seo Eun-byeol sincerely conveyed her heartfelt thoughts.

But her mother didn’t respond.

She simply hung her head and breathed shallowly.

“Mom?”

After a long silence, her mother raised her worn-out face and spoke.

“…You just need to keep dreaming.”

“…What?”

“I said, all you need to do is keep dreaming!”

Seo Eun-byeol’s mother grabbed her fiercely.

Her old, frail hands, once worn and tired, were now full of strength.

It was a grip strong enough to be painful.

But Seo Eun-byeol didn’t even register the pain.

All she could focus on was her mother, the person who had been there from the beginning of her life until now.

“You have to chase your dream. You have to be happy! That’s the only way everything I’ve done my whole life will have meaning!”

As she said this, her mother smiled.

No, she forced her lips into a smile, trying her hardest.

“Please… don’t destroy my dream.”

She looked so desperate that it seemed pitiful.

“…”

In front of her mother like that, Seo Eun-byeol could no longer say that she would quit being a trainee or an idol.

That day, Seo Eun-byeol ran out to a public restroom outside and vomited the entire day.

Why was she staying at Flower Entertainment?

For what reason? Why? She couldn’t answer that herself.

She was like a malfunctioning aircraft, one that should have been scrapped from the start. Even though she realized she was broken, she couldn’t stop.

It took her too long to realize that chasing a dream didn’t always bring happiness.

Dreams could become shackles.

Even if they rusted and decayed, they could still bind you, and you couldn’t escape.

Seo Eun-byeol, having reached that realization, could only continue enduring as she always had.

Without finding any meaning in it.

Because it was all she could do.

It was around that time that Manager Ban Seongcheol approached her.

“You know, it’s impossible for you to debut at this rate, right?”

“…So what?”

“I’ve got a proposal for you. How about getting a chance to debut in exchange for doing a little part-time job, Eun-byeol?”

“Part-time job?”

“Yeah, it’s basically like a part-time job, really easy.”

Ban Seongcheol explained his plan and what he expected from her, step by step.

He mentioned the influential people who were very interested in trainees like her, and the benefits they could offer.

He talked about what could be achieved with their cooperation.

To her confusion, he assured her that this was connected to the CEO and several board members, so she would definitely get what she wanted.

He said he could prove it to her right away.

“You don’t need to feel guilty. This isn’t just about you doing well. This could also get Oh Yoori into the Top 11, and in turn, it could create opportunities for Milkyz and the new debuting girls. You have a lot of juniors who look up to you, right? If you listen to me, you’ll be helping them. Don’t think of it as difficult; this is for everyone.”

Seo Eun-byeol smiled bitterly at his sweet talk and thought to herself.

…That’s a pretty good excuse.

Everyone would probably be happy, just like Ban Seongcheol said. Oh Yoori would make it into the Top 11 of Girl 100, her mother would be satisfied seeing her achieve her dream and debut, and Ban Seongcheol, who made her this offer, would be pleased too.

All she had to do was close her eyes for a moment.

It wasn’t a big deal. Her mother had gone through it, too, hadn’t she?

It might be painful for a little while, but just like her mother, she’d be able to smile again someday.

She was used to enduring.

“…Maybe I should have held out a little longer?”

But here she was.

In a small, dark storage room, blindfolded and tied up.

The result of her decision not to endure, right at the end.

While she was getting dressed in the waiting room for the “meeting” she was supposed to attend—or rather, from the moment she had been dragged here—Oh Yoori’s words kept echoing in her mind.

Yoori had warned her about the dangers of this place, about Ban Seongcheol, the gangs, and the drugs involved. And even though Yoori knew all of this, she offered her pure-hearted help anyway.

Seo Eun-byeol ignored it. She didn’t want to get involved.

But she hoped that Yoori’s intentions wouldn’t be in vain.

For the first time in her life, Seo Eun-byeol didn’t just endure.

She refused the meeting and tried to escape.

And this was the result.

Ban Seongcheol turned out to be even more dangerous than Yoori had warned her.

“What’s going to happen to me…? It’s probably not going to be anything good, right?”

She was scared. Her body was trembling with fear.

For Seo Eun-byeol, who had always faced predictable despair, this kind of unknown, unpredictable fear was even more terrifying.

To suppress her fear, she took a deep breath, just as the kind-hearted Yoori had taught her.

That’s when the sound of a door opening echoed.

Seo Eun-byeol’s body stiffened in tension as she focused all her senses on that sound.

Step, step.

The footsteps stopped right in front of her.

The blindfold covering her eyes was removed, and in front of her stood Oh Yoori, holding a black stun gun.

“…Yoori?”

Yoori grabbed Eun-byeol’s hand and said,

“Let’s run!”