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necnnights · 2 months

Text

In which Hwajung goes on her last date.

FEATURING: Go Hwajung, Yoon Mingeun

SETTING: July 2024

WORD COUNT: 4.3k

NOTES: Title taken from the W*terparks song. I couldn't help it 😔.

Hallucinations are never a good sign. If Hwajung squints, she thinks she sees Mingeun in the crowd. The person she takes as him is standing near the back of the audience, much closer to the bar than the stage. He isn’t holding a drink, but the people he’s with are. That checks out with his habits. He might be wearing a mask, but something about the way he stands and the way he leans forward to speak into the ear of the guy next to him screams Mingeun to her.

That, or it’s been too many months since they’ve been in the same country as each other. First, her band had their English album and their short tour. Then Fable went on their world tour, and now Neon Nights is in Japan again. She sees him everywhere he isn’t. She’ll pass someone on the street who laughs like him or has the same shoddy, DIY dyed hair as him, and her heart beat will quicken and she’ll turn around, only to make eye contact with a complete stranger.

Sometimes Hwajung thinks they might be the worst girlfriend and boyfriend in the history of girlfriends and boyfriends.

“Qiuyun-chan, what do you think we should end the show with?” Yumi asks. She holds Eunbyul’s microphone, the cord looping circles around the stage. She still does most of the talking, despite the massive improvements in everyone else’s Japanese through the years.

Hwajung mouths Qiuyun’s next line along with her. “I think everyone should choose.”

They planned this ahead of time, letting the audience members vote on a handful of songs via stickers on a board as they entered the venue. Three songs ago, Aerin let them all know that the winner was “Revolution.” Eden’s violin sits just offstage, waiting for the official announcement.

“Is that so?” Yumi says. “Let’s see what everyone picked.”

That’s the cue for the board to be rolled out onto center stage. Hwajung gives them a short snare roll as it takes center stage. It blocks her view, but she can hear the appreciative cheers from the audience regardless.

“It’s ‘Revolution!’” Qiuyun announces. She has to wait for the audience to settle down again before she continues. The board moves silently offstage. “It’s one of my favorite tracks from our debut album. My favorite part is Eden-chan’s violin.”

That's Eden’s cue to retrieve her violin. She waves her bow at the audience and then plays a quick scale.

Hwajung snorts because she knows no one can hear her. She doubts Qiuyun has any favorite songs from their debut album. She distinctly remembers Qiuyun crying after she heard the songs for the first time.

Qiuyun hands the microphone back to Eunbyul and fumbles to right her guitar from where it was slung behind her. Hwajung rolls her eyes. Even from the back, Eunbyul’s movements are much smoother and practiced. One more song, and she'll be home free.

One encore and another hour later, Hwajung slouches on a couch in the dressing room, waiting for everyone else to use the single restroom before they return to their AirBnb. A quick glance to her right confirms Yumi is doing much of the same, already swiping through a dating app. A knock sounds at the door and she pays it no mind, assuming it’s Aerin returning from whatever the responsibilities of her job are. Hwajung won’t even pretend to know what she does.

“Hwajung?” Aerin says, and that’s when Hwajung looks up, zeroes in on the person behind her, and shoots off the couch so fast she makes herself dizzy.

She barrels into Mingeun with enough force to knock the air out of him in a quiet huff. He slides a small half step back as she wraps her arms around him.

"I missed you too, Jungie," he says, breath ghosting over her ear as he hugs her back.

She leans into him, comforted by his solid presence. She wasn't hallucinating. One point for her mental state. Somewhere in the background, Eunbyul clears her throat.

Hwajung takes a step back and smooths her shirt down. She's probably grinning like an idiot. She can't bring herself to care. Eunbyul appears to be frozen two steps out of the restroom, lips set in a straight line. Hwajung knows it's to keep her from looking like she approves of Mingeun's actions.

"He wouldn't leave," Aerin says somewhat apologetically. "I stepped in before the venue staff tried to have him arrested."

Mingeun gives an easy grin and brushes his bangs out of his eyes. He has the leather jacket she bought for him for his birthday last year slung over one arm. "Thank you. Taein-nim would never post bail for me."

Hwajung's heart swoops as she grabs his hand. "I'll see you later tonight, unnie," she says to Aerin.

Her manager grimaces slightly, but doesn't protest. "Don't get in trouble. Stay safe." "I wouldn't dream of it."

As they leave, she hears Yumi make a retching noise. Hwajung ignores it, because she was the one looking for an online date.

Once they reach the freedom of the fresh night air, Mingeun gives her a sidelong glance. “Your manager lets you leave like that? Mine would kill me.”

Hwajung loops her arm through his as they walk. “She doesn't let me do anything. I make my own decisions.” She doesn't understand why he asks. He's always been someone who makes his own choices, damn the consequences.

“Did he let you visit me?” she asks, deliberately using the same words.

“He doesn't know,” he says. “I'm leaving in the morning. Andrew-hyung is covering for me.”

That's the second favor her band has received from him: his help on their English album, and now this chance for her and Mingeun to finally have a night together. Hwajung hates being indebted to people.

“You're leaving already?” There's an edge of a whine in her voice. She hates it for being there, and she hates her inability to suppress it.

He nods as he guides her to a stop in front of a park entrance. They didn't travel far. The options for things to do at midnight are limited, she figures. “I can't stay long. It might look suspicious, and I'm already under scrutiny.”

She swallows down any sort of response to that and looks reproachfully at the somewhat foreboding darkness instead.

He reads her mind. “There aren't a lot of places open all night,” he says, somewhat apologetically. He starts ticking off other date locations. “We've been to arcades and karaoke and concerts before. I wanted to do something different.”

"You're not planning on killing me in there and hiding my body, are you?" She trusts Mingeun with her life, but she'd be dumb not to recognize the fact that he could overpower her in seconds if he really wanted to.

He gives her a strange look. "No."

She pushes in front of him and strides through the open entrance. There's a subway station almost directly to her right. Probably not the best place to hide a dead body, then. The path is dark, and she stops a few steps in. The only light comes from the streetlights on the street they're rapidly leaving behind, and the not quite full moon.

"Now what?" she asks, somewhat stupidly.

She doesn't exactly see him shrug, but she can almost hear it. "We take a walk. There are supposed to be some fountains and ponds. It probably looks better in the daylight." He sounds nearly apologetic, even though he doesn't have to be.

Hwajung leans into him. "We could be sitting in your shitty hotel room. Anything else with you beats that."

"You don't know if my hotel room is shitty," he protests weakly. And then, almost as if it's an afterthought, he adds, in a much smoother tone, "Would you prefer that?"

Her cheeks heat up and she stumbles to change the subject. She's almost certain Mingeun's hotel room is shitty. "What time is your flight tomorrow?"

"Eight." He pulls his phone out of his pocket. Hwajung steals a glance at this screen and learns it's nearly half an hour past one in the morning. "Today." He uses the light of his screen—not the flashlight—to guide them down the paved path.

There isn't much to look at. It's the company, really, that makes the night special. Neither of them make very good conversationalists. Maybe they could be sitting in silence in his shitty hotel room.

"I liked your show," Mingeun says.

She preens for a moment before common sense kicks in. "You have to like my show," she points out. "You're my boyfriend." She says it even though she knows the opposite isn't true. She's been to Fable performances, of course, but they've never been her scene. That, and the amount of women her age in the audience thinking they have a chance with any of Mingeun's group members gives her second-hand embarrassment. Hwajung would rather die than be caught in the audience of any idol group concert. Mingeun knows that, but he's never given her flack for it, thankfully. Maybe opposites do attract.

"I guess that's true," he says begrudgingly.

"What was your favorite part?" Hwajung prompts.

He's silent for a good few moments, and she begins to regret asking the question. They pass a few other people, mostly people out for a jog and one man walking a dog.

"Near the end of 'Dice,' there was a part where the guitar and bass solos alternate. I liked that," he says eventually.

You and everyone else, Hwajung thinks, though she resists the urge to say it out loud. It's a thoughtful enough response, and besides, the song is one of their most popular. Probably for a good reason. There's a reason they still play it at almost every show. She hopes they haven't peaked yet, but if she had to pick their peak so far, 'Dice' would be a strong contender for it.

The light of Mingeun's phone screen—he taps it ever few seconds to keep it on—illuminates the wooden slats of a small bridge. To their right, the water in what must be one of the fountains or ponds he mentioned earlier reflects the moon in a rippling image. It's quiet, apart from the muted sounds of the city filtering through the trees. It's a far cry from her AirBnb, which feels downright suffocating and unlivable sometimes.

They cross the bridge in silence. It takes her another moment to realize he's waiting for a response. "That's a good choice. It's a good song."

"All your songs are good to you."

Hwajung corrects him gently. "Most of them. Not all of them." She's responsible for the majority of her band's music, and that makes most of it good, in the simple, reductive way Mingeun says it. There are songs that slip through the cracks, like when she delegated the English album to Eden, and whenever Taein decides it's a good idea for him to stick his nose where it doesn't belong. When it comes to those, she'd rather not have her name attached to them.

Mingeun does a sort of half shrug, the type of response he gives when he knows he's losing an argument or when he doesn't want to have a certain conversation anymore.

She doesn't push him. There are times when she can, and times when she can't, and right now, she lets it go. She doesn't want to ruin this one night they have together.

The light of his phone illuminates the shapes of a few benches lining the edge of the water. Hwajung takes a seat on one of them, and waits pointedly until Mingeun gets the message. The plastic creaks as his weight joins hers. The single perk of being here, she realizes, is that none of Fable's crazy fans are around. They've been better at hiding their relationship over the past few years, though she still remembers the news article that tried to end Mingeun's career shortly after they started dating. It was overshadowed by the other news articles trying to end his career. She wants to think that they've all been able to move past those types of rumors. She isn't confident.

But they're in a foreign country, and no one else is around, so she leans on his chest, listening to the steady pulse of his heartbeat. She wishes he'd get butterflies around her, the same way she does around him. A beat later, his hands tangle themselves in her hair.

Hwajung yawns, the exhaustion of the previous day finally catching up to her. Today is a rare day between performances, thankfully.

Mingeun is, of course, alert to her every action. "Are you tired? Do you want to go back?"

She shakes her head, trying to shake off the tiredness with it. "The trains won't run until five." She could ask Aerin for a ride, but she'd prefer not to. She doesn't want to burden her, not when she ran off the way she did.

She hears him frown more than she sees him do it. "We can't stay here all night."

Hwajung falls back to their default activities. "An arcade? Another concert? Karaoke?"

Fifteen minutes of research later, they end up at a tiny karaoke bar. She would have preferred an arcade, but there weren't many places open at midnight, and there are even less at closer to two in the morning. She tells Aerin she'll stay out until the trains run again, and then turns her phone off.

The bar isn't very friendly to foreigners. It takes all of Hwajung's broken Japanese and all of the front desk staff's broken English to explain and understand that yes, they would like to rent a room for three hours.

Fifteen minutes later, they sit in a darkened private room, the screen rotating through the same constant selection of stock footage of nature scenes. The couch they're on has definitely seen better days and the low table in front of them has a number of unidentifiable stains on it. She's glad for the ignorance the darkness allows. Mingeun picks up the song book immediately, hoisting the massive binder onto his lap and beginning to flip through the pages.

Even in the dim lighting, Hwajung can tell there are a few questionable sticky substances on the laminated pages. He doesn't seem to mind.

"Do you have any requests?" he asks, turning the pages quickly. The majority of the song listings are in Japanese, and the characters blur together. It doesn't matter much, because she can't read it.

She slips her shoes off and draws her knees up to her chin. "You can choose." He'll do most of the singing anyway.

"We should do a duet."

"'Everytime," Hwajung suggests, and then her mind goes blank on every other duet song she's ever heard.

With the remote and their machine set up in English by the front desk, Mingeun picks an AKMU song. He silently hands her another microphone, and she misses the first cue for the beginning of "Re-Bye." They should have switched parts, she thinks despairingly, because he's a better singer than her.

Three minutes of pretending she has a higher vocal range than she actually does, the song ends. Mingeun seems a lot happier than he did at any point earlier in the night. She gives him a gentle nudge. "Look for a Fable song."

She pulls half the binder over into her own lap, flipping quickly through the foreign music section in the back of the book.

"Here." Mingeun finds it first, stabbing the part of the page where there are exactly three Fable songs: "가자," "천둥," and "꽃처럼." Hwajung knows none of those songs hold very good memories for him.

"Let's do something else," she says, wondering if it's presumptuous of her to look for a Neon Nights song in here. They might even be in the main, Japanese song section, and that's not a thought she wishes to dwell on.

Mingeun's jaw is set, already typing in the code for "가자." As the machine loads, he stands, shaking off his jacket, and positions himself between the TV and the table. The song's introduction is short, but even with his back to the screen, he doesn't miss the start of the song, including the adlib title that doesn't seem to count as a lyric.

This isn't a real stage, and she's an audience of one. The performance is still captivating, his one-handed choreography no less polished than any legitimate Fable performance. One person performing a song written for eight people has to be difficult, and yet he does well.

She cheers for him as the song draws to a close. He isn't even out of breath. She almost wants to buy a Fable lightstick. Almost.

He moves his jacket off the seat and picks up the binder again. "Any requests?"

A few songs later, at somewhere around three in the morning—by Mingeun's phone, because she refuses to turn hers back on—Hwajung falls asleep on his shoulder during his soulful rendition of EXO's 'Hear Me Out.' She experiences the next few hours in fragments, balanced on the edge between wakefulness and sleep. At one point, she wakes up to find her head in his lap as he idly strokes her hair. Later, it's almost completely dark. The karaoke screen is off, and the only light comes from Mingeun's phone.

Eventually, he wakes her up, an insistent tapping on her shoulder until she shifts and pokes him back in the thigh.

"Good morning," Mingeun says. "I got you something to drink."

She struggles to sit up, her neck and back creaking in protest. She can't understand why. She's not old. There are two plastic bottles of water on the table. Hwajung grabs one and swallows a fourth of the bottle in two gulps.

"What time is it? Did you sleep?" she asks.

"Almost five. And no." Mingeun starts to count. "I sang a few more songs. I made sure no one burned down the Fable dorm, because I should be doing that, and that no one burned down the Fable dorm looking for me. I met the drunk Japanese college students next door. One of them understands enough English to know what 'shut the fuck up' means."

Hwajung nods along. It sounds like he had an entertaining night. She begrudgingly turns her phone back on. She isn't ready to see what Aerin left for her, but she knows she'll never be prepared.

Six missed calls and thirty-seven texts are better than what she expected. They started almost right after her last text, and tapered off closer and closer to the current time. Aerin threatened to call the police a few times, but as far as Hwajung can tell, she never did. She's thankful for that. She doubts Taein would bail her out of jail either. Aerin would, but not if she was the one to put her there.

Hwajung sends one text reassuring them all that she's still alive and she'll be back soon. She doesn't feel bad at all about leaving behind the suspicious couch and table and song listing. She can't believe she fell asleep on that. She does feel bad that her first night with Mingeun in a long time is drawing to a close.

They checkout with slightly more difficulty than their arrival. Hwajung does her best to fix her hair in the bathroom, though she realizes it's a lost cause ten minutes in.

She directs both of them back to her AirBnb. They only get lost once, when Mingeun insists they should wait until the next train station stop, since it's closer. It is not closer, and they catch the next train heading back the way they came.

The sight of the now-familiar whitewashed walls and sloped brown roof with the curtains drawn tightly closed is homier than she would have ever expected of an AirBnb. Aerin's rental van is parallel parked on the side of the road.

"Our promotions will finish by August," Hwajung says, though she's only about half certain that's true. They stand on the sidewalk. She savors every last moment they have. "You aren't going anywhere, right?"

Mingeun gets a far away look in his eyes. He's looking in her direction, but he isn't looking at her. She's said something wrong. "It would be best if we stopped seeing each other," he says, sounding unlike himself.

Hwajung freezes, heart dropping into the pit of her stomach. "I don't understand." She spares one glance towards the house. None of the lights are on. She hopes it stays that way.

"I didn't want to do this either," he says. He might have more to say, but she doesn't want to hear it.

"Then why?" She cuts him off. She can't understand it. "Why are you doing this?"

He shifts his weight from one foot to the next. Hwajung glares him down until he speaks again. "It's because of Taein-nim," he says eventually. "I don't have a choice."

She scoffs. "Fuck him. He doesn't make you do anything," she says, as if their initial friendship and relationship aren't almost direct consequences of Taein making Mingeun lie about himself.

"I'm sorry, Jungie," Mingeun offers. She recoils from the nickname almost as if she's been slapped.

The pressure of tears behind her eyes is a new development. She blinks furiously, unwilling to cry here, on the fucking sidewalk outside her fucking rental home while her fucking boyfriend—ex-boyfriend?—fucking breaks up with her.

"Is this why you came to see me? To tell me this?" Her voice shakes uncontrollably. She hates it.

Mingeun hesitates, expression fraught with uncertainty. It's a yes or no question, and both responses cast him in a negative light. He knows it. She knows it. He knows that she knows it.

"Yes," he says quietly. "It's the best for both of us. Taein-nim will respect us more."

It's best for him. Hwajung knows that for certain. Everything is about his work, and with it, comes his fundamental misunderstanding. Taein will always like Mingeun more than her or Eunbyul or Aerin, and he doesn't even like Mingeun.

She draws herself up to her full five-foot nothing height for a mere shred of dignity. A light is on in the house now, likely Aerin's sixth sense for knowing when any of them are around. She opens her mouth, and then realizes she has nothing to say to him. She isn't mad at him, more so disappointed and sad. She thought they had something that would survive the trials and tribulations of a single shitty entertainment company CEO. She doesn't have anything witty to say, nothing that would make him regret his decision.

She settles for the tried and true, "Fuck you."

She expects him to fight back. She wants him to fight back, to argue with her like the Mingeun she knows and loves would. Irritatingly enough, he seems to just accept her words.

"I have to go," he says. It isn't an apology, but the hint of one is still there.

She despises how detached he seems, like she was a task for him to check off, something else for him to say he's done.

"Then go," she says, unable to understand why he still lingers. It seems like he doesn't want to be here, and she's beginning to realize she might not want him here anymore.

Mingeun hesitates again, like he still has something else to say. Hwajung can't possibly imagine what it is. Then he turns his back on her, heading in the general direction of the nearest train station.

She watches his retreating back for only a few seconds. He doesn't turn around. She doesn't wait much longer, just prepares herself for Aerin's motherly fussing and lets herself into the house.

The person who turned on the lights, as it turns out, isn't Aerin like she thought, but Yumi, who sits in the spotless kitchen with a glass of water and her phone.

"Good night?" Yumi asks, still looking at her phone. She must understand Hwajung's silence, because she looks up and sees something. It might be Hwajung's hair, still rumpled from sleeping on the couch of a karaoke room, or the unshed tears still teeming in the corners of her eyes.

"Oh," Yumi says, standing and enveloping her in a hug. "What did he do? Do you need me to kill him?"

In spite of herself, Hwajung smiles sadly into Yumi's shoulder. She knows that if she says yes, Yumi would be hunting him down with a kitchen knife in five minutes.

"He broke up with me," she says, muffling her words into her friend's shirt.

"Finally."

Hwajung pulls away just to scowl at her. "Can you pretend to be sad for me?"

Yumi shrugs. "You'll be fine. You deserve better than him."

She doesn't know what to make of that. She spent the past three years thinking they deserved each other just fine. But Yumi wouldn't know that, so she pretends to agree. She yawns, and Yumi is on her case immediately.

"Go to bed. I'll tell Aerin-unnie you're back. And take a shower. You smell like stale cigarette smoke."

Hwajung nods sleepily. That happens, she figures, when you spend three hours in a karaoke booth. A real bed sounds heavenly in comparison.

She stumbles off to the bedroom she shares with Eunbyul, still not quite familiar with the layout of the house, despite having stayed there for a month now. She slips quietly into her bed, careful not to disturb Eunbyul. She doesn't try to sleep. Instead she lies awake, wondering if there's any remote possibility that what happened tonight was her fault.

#╰ maestro maestro i’m a pretty psycho ⸻ writing.#╰ maestro maestro i’m a pretty psycho ⸻ hwajung.#fictional idol community #idol oc #kpop oc #fake kpop group

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necnnights · 11 months

Text

In which Hwajung hears something familiar.

FEATURING: Go Hwajung, Choi Eunbyul, Yoon Mingeun

SETTING: October 2023

WORD COUNT: 2.1k

MINGEUN, 7:18 AM: you might like this [link]

It’s turned into something of a joke between them, to send each other music the other person may or may not like. Hwajung listens to bits and pieces of Mingeun’s suggestions, which tend to be all the newest kpop releases. This one is no different. She looks at the album cover: a close-up of a bright green guitar with the album’s title, ROCKST★R, faux-scratched into its side, and rolls her eyes.

MINGEUN, 7:19 AM: have you met jaesun yet?

She hasn’t. She’s only heard the name tossed around and seen a rather pathetic-looking guy who carries himself like he’s the only person in the world around the company.

HWAJUNG, 7:19 AM: i haven’t

She wonders what he has to do with anything, and then she opens the Melon link to see ROCKST★R: The Second Mini Album by Hwang Jaesun, released yesterday. Leave it to Mingeun to be so attuned to current events. She should do the same, because they’re labelmates, but Hwajung has only listened to two Fable albums ever.

MINGEUN, 7:19 AM: i’ll get jaeseop to introduce you one day MINGEUN, 7:20 AM: you should listen to the album. it reminds me of you. i think you’d really like it ❤️

Against her better judgment, Hwajung presses play. She has very low expectations. It has to be a mass-produced take on rock, something boring and uninspired. She doesn’t bother with her headphones, just rolls over in bed and increases the volume on her phone. It’s more or less what she expects. There’s a bit of guitar. The tinkling of hi-hats. The general structure of a kpop song: verse to pre-chorus to chorus, all of that over again, a completely unnecessary rap section that passes for a bridge. Somehow, she makes it through all three minutes and twenty-eight seconds of the song. She glances at the total runtime. Five songs, fifteen minutes and forty-nine seconds. Fine, by all counts and measures. Hwajung’s only uncertainty is that she doesn’t want to spend fifteen minutes of her time with this album.

By then, she’s almost a minute into the second song. This one is better than the first, something she can see herself listening to again. The thought is surprising.

HWAJUNG, 7:24 AM: i’ll let you know MINGEUN, 7:24 AM: [sticker]

She sorts through the rest of her messages as the song continues. She assures Aerin that they’re working on the new music for their next Korean EP. Hwajung wants it to be a full length album, but they’re running out of time. She ignores Taein’s message that reads something similar. She thumb-ups Yumi’s message in the group chat about throwing out their month-old vegetables, and wonders why they didn’t do that sooner.

Then the third song starts, and Hwajung is struck by the strangest sense of deja vu. The song sounds so familiar, that if she was a betting woman, she’d put money on having heard it before. The only problem is that it doesn't make any sense. The song was released yesterday. Hwajung has never met Jaesun, much less listened to his music before public release. She frowns, reaching for the headphones on her nightstand. She rewinds back and forth through the song, the sound fuller through her headphones than her phone speakers. The drum fills remind her, oddly enough, of herself. It does have its original points: the lyrics, the second verse replaced by another rap verse. Yet something about the melody sounds increasingly familiar to her.

Hwajung pauses the song to look through its credits: composed by someone named SEOUL’D OUT. She checks through the other tracks. Everything is the same. Lyrics by SEOUL’D OUT and occasionally Hwang Jaesun, music by SEOUL’D OUT. She taps the hyperlink in the producer’s name. Their only credits are on songs by Jaesun, who has two EPs, a fact previously unknown to Hwajung. She’s currently listening to his second.

She continues her research, though there isn’t much to research. She discovers two Naver forum threads asking who he is, from people she assumes are Jaesun’s fans. They come to nothing conclusive, just a sentiment that the producer must be very private and secretive. She briefly considers that it could be Jaesun himself. That doesn’t make much sense when he’s credited as a lyricist under his own name. She skims through a few of Jaesun’s interviews and eventually comes across a video where he briefly mentions it.

The Jaesun on her phone screen sits across from the interviewer and says, “SEOUL’D OUT? He’s a friend of mine. I wouldn’t be here without him. Thanks, hyung!” He makes a heart over his head and Hwajung has to pause the video before she throws up.

That’s it. She presses play on the music again, then texts Mingeun.

HWAJUNG, 7:40 AM: do you know who jaesun’s producer is?

He doesn’t respond immediately. The fourth song starts, and this too, reeks of familiarity. The only other conclusion Hwajung comes to is plagiarism. But there are no Neon Nights songs that sound exactly like this, nothing other than their oldest material and some never released songs Sungjae wrote. Sungjae. Hwajung sits upright and combs through her hair with her hands. SEOUL’D OUT. A sellout. Going from an indie rock band to pop music writer would do that to Sungjae. He’s from Seoul. She wonders why it took her four songs to connect the dots.

MINGEUN, 7:42 AM: some friend of his. why? you wanna steal him for neon nights? HWAJUNG, 7:42 AM: can you come over? you might think i’m crazy for this. MINGEUN, 7:42 AM: [sticker] MINGEUN, 7:43 AM: fifteen minutes

She skips to the fifth song, and is almost certain she’s right. If she listened to the album all over again, with the thought in her head, she’d hear him on every track. Hwajung is sure of it. The more she thinks about it, the more she finds Sungjae’s fingerprints all over it. She can’t believe she didn’t see this from the beginning.

Hwajung hurries to brush her teeth and put on a nicer shirt and wipe the sleep from her eyes. She sticks her head out of the bathroom to catalog the shoes near the door. Only Eunbyul’s Converse are there, thankfully.

She knocks on Eunbyul’s bedroom door, because she knows Sungjae almost as well as Hwajung does. Eunbyul opens the door, looking like she just woke up.

“I need you to listen to this and tell me what you think,” Hwajung says around the toothbrush in her mouth. She thrusts her phone screen in Eunbyul’s direction.

Eunbyul squints at it. “ROCKST★R? Jaesun’s new album?”

Hwajung takes the toothbrush out of her mouth. “You know him?”

“Not well.” She shrugs. “What’s so urgent?”

“Just listen to it,” Hwajung says. “Mingeun’s going to be here soon.”

MINGEUN, 8:00 AM: here

The three of them sit in the kitchen while Jaesun’s album plays off Eunbyul’s phone.

Eunbyul speaks first. “It’s not a bad album. Was I supposed to hear something specific?”

Hwajung can’t keep it in anymore, so she says, “It sounds like something Sungjae would write.”

Her words are met with silence, until Mingeun says, “Your piece of shit brother? How would Jaesun know him?”

Hwajung throws her hands up in the air. “I don’t know. It sounds like him to me and the producer of Jaesun’s album doesn’t write for anyone else. His name is SEOUL’D OUT.” She turns to Eunbyul. “Sungjae would consider himself a sellout.”

“That doesn’t mean this person is him,” Eunbyul argues. “Seoul is a big city. There are lots of other failed rock or rap or hip-hop musicians who might consider themselves sellouts if they wrote pop music.”

“It feels like him,” Hwajung insists, knowing she sounds irrational. She also knows that Sungjae still thinks he was unfairly forced out of the band and spends much of his time hypercritical and in disagreement with her musical direction. She wouldn’t put it past him to try and worm himself back into Taein’s good graces and maybe the band.

Mingeun slides off his seat and begins to pace around the kitchen. “Let’s say this is him. What would he gain from being Jaesun’s dedicated producer? And how do they know each other?”

“Sungjae never wanted to leave the band,” Eunbyul says. “He’s probably still upset. I don’t see him ever getting over it. He tried to write music for your group a few years ago. I think Taein-nim turned him down every time he tried.”

“He did?” Mingeun asks in surprise.

Hwajung stares at him until he adds, “I’m glad Taein-nim kept telling him no. I wonder what’s different with Jaesun.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Hwajung cuts in. “What do I do about this?”

“Nothing,” Eunbyul says. Hwajung stares at her too. “What do you think you’re going to do about this? Demand the two of them stop working together? They could really be friends.”

That line of reasoning doesn’t make sense to her. How could Sungjae, who rarely goes out and rarely went out, except for school and to hang out with his little clique of pretentious composers, just happen to be friends with the newest artist at her company? She’s sure there’s something else going on. Maybe they’re both part of it, some conspiracy to bring her down.

“It’s not that simple. It can’t be,” Hwajung says, teetering on the edge of conspiracy theorism.

Eunbyul glances at Mingeun, and asks, “Has Hwajung ever told you how we signed with Taein-nim?”

She has not. Mingeun pauses his pacing to think for a second, and shakes his head.

Hwajung sighs, because she really doesn’t think it’s necessary. “He found us at the Pentaport Rock Festival in 2017. This was before Eden and Qiuyun, when Sungjae and our old keyboardist, Myunghoon, were still in the band. When he approached us, we thought it meant all of us. Doesn’t that make sense? We were under a small label, and he promised us more.

“Then we learned he wanted to make an idol band, and he only wanted to sign half of us so that we’d be a single-gender group, because that sells better. Sungjae was our frontman and primary songwriter. He did a lot of the negotiation up until that point. Taein-nim probably assumed it would be him and Myunghoon, and left it up to us to find him. He was shocked when the three of us showed up instead.”

Hwajung smiles at the memory. She’s never done anything that had Taein so surprised and upset and disappointed at the same time again. “He almost broke his promise. I don’t know why he had to go and add Eden and Qiuyun. We would have done well without them.”

She shakes herself out of the reverie. “That’s how Sungjae left. He hasn’t done anything else related to the band in years. This has to be him. He wants something from me. From us.”

Mingeun stops pacing and folds his arms over his chest. “Are you feeling okay? Sleeping okay?”

Hwajung spins in her seat so she can face him head-on. “You think I’m losing it. Seeing—hearing—something that doesn’t exist.”

“You admitted it in your text,” he says, raising his voice to match hers. “What am I supposed to think, when you say shit like that?”

“You started it,” Hwajung says pettily. “I wouldn’t have listened to it if you didn’t recommend it. Maybe it reminds you of me because it’s my fucking brother writing the fucking songs.”

“Ask him about it,” Eunbyul interrupts.

To be honest, the thought never occurred to her. She thinks about it for a moment, and then says, “What if he lies? This is clearly an alias. He wouldn’t admit it to me. You ask him, unnie.”

Eunbyul frowns. “He’s your brother. I haven’t spoken to him in years.”

“I haven’t spoken to him in three months,” Hwajung says.

“He’s your brother,” Mingeun repeats, pacing again.

They both have decent relationships with their siblings. They don’t understand the rivalry and competition that has always existed between Hwajung and Sungjae, spurred on by their parents, that has always prevented them from getting along like siblings should or the so-called twin telepathy.

Hwajung scowls. “Fine.”

She thinks about it for a moment, composing the perfect message in her head. It’s too plain and simple to accuse Sungjae of… something. She doesn’t know what he’s trying to do, and she’s tired of guessing. At long last, Hwajung picks up her phone again and sends her brother a text.

HWAJUNG, 8:32 AM: you’re not a sellout

#╰ maestro maestro i’m a pretty psycho ⸻ writing.#╰ maestro maestro i’m a pretty psycho ⸻ hwajung.#ficnetfairy #fictional idol community #kpop oc #fake kpop group #idolverse #idol oc

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