Chapter 15

Chapter 15

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

Episode 15: It Was So Sweet And Bittersweet.

When a week had passed since Gyeoul signed the trainee contract with SS, I just waited.

I judged that it would take time to create a position for a dedicated road manager for trainees, as such a position wouldn’t exist.

When two weeks passed, I turned on the happiness circuit.1

“Maybe it’s because they’re busy,” I thought generously.

When three weeks passed, I began to have doubts.

No matter how busy they were, it was strange that they hadn’t contacted me even once.

Still, I trusted and waited.

I believed in the pride that Cheon Jonghoon had shown for ten years in the previous round.

That man breaking a promise?

The embodiment of pride breaking a promise he made himself?

…No way.

It was hard to accept based on my experience.

When four weeks had passed, I didn’t wait any longer.

With the mindset that staying silent was wrong, I contacted them as much as possible using both public work numbers and private numbers and emails.

But there was no response.

It seemed I had been blocked.

Only then did I accept reality.

It seemed Cheon Jonghoon had deceived me.

After raging with anger, I decided that I would repay this grudge someday and accepted reality.

Then I looked for job sites.

I decided to give up and work as a road manager at a small agency.

In the midst of that, a thought crossed my mind.

Wait, I haven’t used the Fragment of the Future yet, have I?

“Reward window! Reward window!”

[Medium Fragment of the Future (No restrictions on financial gains) ]

Shouting for the reward window in my empty room after my sister left for work, the Fragment of the Future was quietly there.

Recalling how I won second place in the lottery using this fragment in the previous round, dopamine surged through my brain.

[Do you want to use the Fragment of the Future?]

“Use!”

Please, the lottery numbers!

“One, two, three. Hello! We are Alcest!”

“Yes, nice to meet you, Alcest. Wow, just having you here brightens up this dreary studio. Look at the camera director smiling! I didn’t know he could smile like that until today!”

The audience burst into laughter at the MC’s jest.

To Gyeoul, that laughter felt like it was mocking her.

Logically, she knew they were laughing at the cheerful MC.

But emotionally, she couldn’t accept it.

Gyeoul was afraid of people.

“But Gyeoul, you’ve been quiet all along. Are you losing all your lines to your older sisters because you’re the youngest?”

Even though the MC called her by name, Gyeoul didn’t recognize it as being directed at her.

It felt like the whole world was looking at her.

It felt like the whole world was ignoring her.

She felt dizzy.

She felt nauseous.

She felt like she was going to throw up.

“I’m really sorry. Gyeoul hasn’t been feeling well since this morning.”

“What, SS?! How much are you working our cute juniors? Should I tell SS President Cheon Seonsu to give you some time off?”

“Ah… No! Han Gyeoul can do it!”

Snapping back to her senses, Gyeoul got up and flailed around to show she wasn’t going to be a hindrance.

The MC, interpreting it as a variety show character act, chuckled and shifted the mood.

“I heard you came to our palette with a new album and song this time? We can’t miss listening to that! So, let’s play the music now!”

Gyeoul barely managed to hold onto her dazed mind and endured.

The recording ended.

Gyeoul, trying to hold onto her precarious mental state and take a break in the waiting room, was stopped by Alcest’s leader, Yoon Jeong.

She asked Gyeoul to go to the bathroom together.

Gyeoul had no right to refuse.

After entering the bathroom and confirming no one else was there, Yoon Jeong forcibly pushed Gyeoul to a corner out of sight.

Thud!

“Han Gyeoul. I thought you’d run out of new ways to be a nuisance, since it’s a daily occurrence. But I was wrong.”

Yoon Jeong mocked Gyeoul.

“Today’s way of being a nuisance is really new. Quite impressive.”

After each word, Yoon Jeong poked Gyeoul’s chest with her unnaturally sharp artificial nails.

The force was stronger than it looked, and Gyeoul almost staggered several times but barely held on.

Her eyes stung a bit, but she held back her tears out of habit.

If Gyeoul showed any sign of being hurt or cried, Yoon Jeong would apologize for being too harsh and then ‘discipline’ her in a more insidious and malicious way.

This was knowledge gained from experience.

“I’m sorry, unnie.”

“What good is your apology? Does it solve anything?”

She repeated her apology, praying this discipline would end quickly.

And she thought,

‘How did things end up like this?’

Gyeoul tried to find the cause in her own mistakes, but the situation had been twisted even before she joined Alcest’s debut team.

Cheon Jonghoon told the SS trainees that the girl group project, Alcest, he was planning consisted of five members.

He said that to be one of those five, they had to train to the point of being soaked in sweat and blood.

All 32 trainees poured their lives into the single goal of debut that Cheon Jonghoon dangled as bait.

In the process, they had to cut off all the side branches like school, snacks, dating, and hobbies that girls their age would normally enjoy.

While they spent time on those things, their competitors next to them would be dancing and singing more.

They became knives, performing only the single function of being an idol.

It was a harsh ordeal, even from the perspective of a typical adult.

Many couldn’t endure the journey and dropped out midway.

The remaining trainees classified them as losers and dropouts, strengthening their resolve.

They resolved that they wouldn’t leave in such a disgraceful manner.

Those who left as expected sometimes cried sadly and hung their heads in guilt and shame.

It was the image of a loser.

But not all showed the expected image.

Those leaving sometimes seemed to feel a sense of liberation.

It looked very sweet.

Every time the fallen competitors showed such a look, they wavered.

Would the time they invested be rewarded?

Was there as much value in this place as the sacrifices they were making?

No one could give a definite answer to that.

In the resulting anxiety, they became sharper.

They saw the trainee next to them not as a colleague but only as a competitor.

They attacked others aggressively over small troubles that they would have laughed off before.

Instead of helping with mistakes and deficiencies, they saw them as opportunities to gain an advantage and felt exhilaration.

They pushed each other, making the SS practice room an even more precarious and unpleasant space.

But there was one person who stopped that flow.

It was Yoon Seoa, the oldest of the trainees.

She mediated conflicts and always gave strength.

She took on annoying chores like tidying up the practice room.

She smiled in any situation and exuded positive energy.

Yoon Seoa was like a spiritual pillar for the female trainees of SS.

That was the same for the debut team members Lily, Coco, Amy, and Yoon Jeong, who were named in Cheon Jonghoon’s final roster.

They believed she would fill the last remaining spot in Alcest’s debut team.

They believed Yoon Seoa had the ability and character for it.

And they hoped for it.

They thought they could endure the tough training and schedules if someone as reliable as Yoon Seoa led them.

“But the last spot in Alcest will be this child.”

But that expectation was betrayed.

The last member Cheon Jonghoon announced for Alcest wasn’t Yoon Seoa as they expected.

Nor was it any of the competitors who had been trainees with them for at least three years.

It was Han Gyeoul, who hadn’t even been a trainee at SS for a week.

They couldn’t accept that fact or accept Gyeoul as a colleague.

Still young and immature, they were swayed by a sense of betrayal.

And they expressed it.

They began to antagonize Gyeoul.

Gyeoul could also feel that atmosphere.

But Gyeoul, who had never built proper human relationships, had no ability to mend the atmosphere among those members.

She also lacked the courage to approach and improve the situation.

Therefore, instead of actively stepping forward to improve the situation, she just worked harder, assuming it was her own lack of ability.

That was the worst choice.

She should have had the courage to approach.

She should have at least gotten angry and confronted them.

But she couldn’t do that.

As a result, Lily, Coco, Amy, and Yoon Jeong became more and more exclusive.

Even though they were tied together under the same team, they began to build a wall between themselves and Gyeoul, distinguishing her as a different person.

Even when Gyeoul spoke to them, they only responded with short, irritated answers.

Not telling her the practice schedules or test times became routine.

When Gyeoul tried to eat with them, they moved to another spot.

In response to their behavior, Gyeoul became more scared and passive.

It was a vicious cycle.

Even after graduating from the debut team and debuting under the name Alcest, the ostracism continued.

During filming, official schedules, and practices with observers, they showed a harmonious appearance.

But in other situations, they treated Gyeoul as less than a stranger.

It wasn’t visible bullying like physical violence.

The members had enough sense to know the backlash such actions would bring.

But their actions within that boundary were varied and continuous.

That was the current reality.

Even so, Gyeoul tried to look good to the members.

Blaming herself for all the problems, she tried not to bring any disgrace to the name Alcest.

Until one incident.

Not long ago, a scandal broke out between Gyeoul and Chanyeong, the visual member of the popular idol group Shade.

Gyeoul thought it was just a common gossip.

Because she and Chanyeong were never in such a relationship.

But the situation changed drastically when Chanyeong left a suggestive post on social media.

He posted a message implying that Gyeoul had cheated on him.

SS responded at the company level, but the raging flames couldn’t be stopped.

The internet was flooded with malicious comments and personal attacks on Gyeoul, and Chanyeong’s sasaeng fans sent her threatening letters, messages, and fecal terror attacks.

They even went to Gyeoul’s grandfather’s workshop and caused a commotion.

Even in that situation, Gyeoul only worried about the damage to those around her.

She thought first about how the Alcest members felt, as they were affected by her problems.

She apologized and apologized again.

Until they left a post on social media.

Their post, while expressing concern for Gyeoul, implied that she had a promiscuous nature in her relationships.

It was a post filled with malice, aiming to stab Gyeoul while acknowledging the potential harm to themselves and the team.

Gyeoul felt fear.

The relationship with Alcest’s members, bound by the name of the team, felt like an unbearably heavy chain.

It seemed like there was no one on her side anywhere in the world.

The news of her grandfather’s death completely broke Gyeoul.

Since then, every time she heard laughter, Gyeoul felt like everyone was mocking her.

Everyone hated her.

She was someone who could never get close to anyone.

She shouldn’t have been born.

Gyeoul could only sleep by taking strong antidepressants and sleeping pills prescribed by the hospital.

In a drug-induced haze, Gyeoul thought,

‘I want to hear Taeyang ssam’s voice.’

Gyeoul took out her smartphone and entered Taeyang’s number, which she swore never to forget.

It was already saved on speed dial 1, but she wanted to dial it herself.

But she couldn’t press the call button.

Since her debut, she had called Taeyang whenever she had the chance, but he rarely answered.

Even when he did answer, it was a short conversation ending with, ‘I’m busy now; I’ll call you back later.’

He seemed to be living a busier life than anyone else after joining a small agency as a road manager.

He once said he had slept only two hours for three consecutive days.

Gyeoul, fearing that she might be disturbing Taeyang’s rest in his busy life, gradually stopped contacting him.

Gyeoul entered the promotional AllTube of the girl group Taeyang debuted.

In the self-made content where the seven girls were noisily laughing and talking, those seven girls were the main characters.

But perhaps due to a lack of staff at the small agency, Taeyang, who took on the role of MC, could also be seen.

Despite his grumbling, Taeyang ran harder for them than anyone else and took care of them with kindness.

The seven girls accepted his care like children, seemingly delighted.

‘I’m envious.’

Gyeoul was very envious of that scene.

Gyeoul imagined herself in that place.

It was an image of herself crying all the time and Taeyang, who always had tissues ready, gently wiping her tears.

It was so sweet yet so wistful that Gyeoul just burst into tears.

[‘Fragment of the Future’ has been used!]

ED/N: A Korean saying that means someone is intentionally trying to feel happy or positive by shifting their mindset to a more optimistic outlook. ↩️