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fcble · 3 months

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In which Eunsu receives a visitor.

FEATURING: Baek Eunsu, Yoon Mingeun WORD COUNT: 4.1k SETTING: November 2023 NOTES: Welcome (finally) to the transitional period between Fable Season 1 (2023) and Fable Season 2 (2024?)! Or something like that. This is just an excuse to experiment with characters who would otherwise have nothing to say.

“Can you pick me up? I’m at the train station,” Mingeun says when Eunsu picks up the phone. He doesn’t say hi. He also never told Eunsu he was coming to visit.

All of their other meetings have been very carefully planned outings, the two of them juggling their schedules and their obligations and their differences in locations. Sometimes Eunsu visits Seoul. He’ll take the subway to the station a few blocks away from the Zenith Entertainment, and walk the familiar streets. He could never forget that walk, and each time he does it, he’s filled with pangs of regret. At other times, Mingeun takes the train out to Taebaek. In the beginning, right after he left, Eunsu refused to let him see him like this. It wasn’t until nearly a year had passed, as he had settled back into a life he thought he would never return to, that he let Mingeun visit his home.

He had shown him through the small, cramped streets and the single highway, apologizing for its shabbiness and its rural-ness compared to Seoul’s opulence, until Mingeun gave him a strange look and asked what he was apologizing for.

Now, he’s a bit more used to it. He’s still not proud of his hometown—he doesn’t think he ever will be. But when Mingeun asks for a ride, Eunsu says yes.

He’s not a good driver. More accurately, he isn’t a confident driver. Each time he sits behind the wheel, he thinks about Yonggeum and feels a sharp, stabbing pain through his chest, a feeling that will never go away and has only slightly softened over time. Instead, Eunsu is a very precise driver. He places both hands on the steering wheel, left hand at ten, right hand at two. He slows to a stop at every yellow light. He always uses his turn signal. He refuses to drive if he’s tired or drunk or otherwise inebriated.

He picks Mingeun up at the bus terminal. Mingeun is wearing his characteristic scowl, a pair of wired earbuds connected to his phone.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly as he slides into the passenger seat, tossing his backpack into the backseat. He leaves one earbud in.

Eunsu is unbearably nosey, so he has to ask, “What happened? Is this an impulsive vacation?”

He spares the slightest glance away from the road in front of him to see Mingeun lean his head against the window.

“I had a fight,” Mingeun says. “With Haksu and Intak-hyung and Jaeseop-hyung.”

Eunsu wonders what they could have disagreed about, that would set Mingeun opposite the three of them. He never would have imagined Mingeun and Jaeseop disagreeing. He doesn’t push further. Mingeun will talk about it when he wants to talk about it. If he ever wants to talk about it.

At home, Mingeun fits in like he lives there. Eunsu leaves him in the kitchen, charming Eomma as he usually does, and heads off to clean his room.

Mingeun is messier than he is, so he doesn’t try too hard: clothes in a pile in his closet, papers straightened on his desk, swipes his hand through the layer of dust on his nightstand then wipes it on his pants. He tries not to hear Mingeun talk about life in Seoul. He fills his ears with the screech of the rusted hinges of the hallway closet, followed by the scraping sounds of the floor mattress against the hardwood floor instead. Mingeun always stays in his room, because the other bedroom is still Yonggeum’s, kept perfectly preserved the way it was, like he'll come home and head off to his room any day now.

He surveys his handiwork: the mattress pressed up alongside the base of his bed, the only somewhat cleaner room, and knows Mingeun has survived worse.

As he emerges from his bedroom and inserts himself back into the conversation, Mingeun asks almost immediately, “How long can I stay?” His gaze darts furtively between Eunsu and Eomma.

The bits of conversation Eunsu blocked out from his mind must have worked some magic on Eomma, because she gives Mingeun a tender, loving look. He can’t remember the last time she looked at him like that.

“As long as you’d like,” she says, and that’s the end of that discussion.

In the morning, Mingeun slips back into Eunsu’s life like he never left. The house is livelier with him around, even if it’s because he misjudged the doorway of the bedroom in the dark after a bathroom trip and stubbed his toe on the doorframe then woke Eunsu up with his swearing. Sometimes Eunsu thinks he should ask Mingeun to tone it down in front of his parents. And yet he knows that it’s exactly the kind of request Mingeun would ignore. He can only hope Eomma and Appa are unaware of this side of Mingeun, because he’s polite and charming at all times other than three in the morning.

Morning car rides to the temple are usually somber experiences. Eunsu will sit in the passenger seat and stare out the window while the radio alternates between static and snippets of a news broadcast. Neither he nor Appa speak.

With Mingeun around, it’s different. Eunsu gives up his shotgun seat for Mingeun, who starts fiddling with the dials as soon as they pull out of the driveway.

“How can you not have Bluetooth?” Mingeun grumbles, as if he hasn't ridden in Appa’s ancient Toyota multiple times before. “It's a basic feature.”

He complains, but he clearly knows better now. The CD player whirs as it accepts his offering, and something bass-heavy begins to play.

Eunsu doesn't recognize it. His silence is an affront, apparently, because Mingeun turns around as much as he can in his seat.

“Nu’est?” he asks. “Re:BIRTH?”

Given the name of the album, it sounds slightly more familiar. “Did you choose this one specifically? Or do you normally travel with a CD from ten years ago?”

“Nine years. I might meet Minhyun-sunbaenim somewhere someday,” Mingeun says seriously. He disappears from Eunsu's field of vision, and reappears holding the entire album.

Eunsu can't help but laugh, a bright sound that sounds entirely foreign coming from him. He's lived in the same state of permanent dreariness for years. Such a light-hearted feeling of happiness is unfamiliar.

They listen to a little more than two songs when they arrive at the temple—his second home for the past two years. Eunsu tries to see it from an outsider’s perspective, with some difficulty. There’s the small parking lot that Appa pulls easily into, where the faded paint lines of the stalls have disappeared into the asphalt.

They walk up the five stairs to the entrance, the wood creaking and bending under their combined weight. The building’s paint is peeling in long strips, exposing the wood underneath. Eunsu shoves down the inexplicable urge to defend all of it to Mingeun.

Appa unlocks the door, and the two of them fall into their normal, silent routine. He disappears down the center aisle to the private storage room in the back of the building. Eunsu props open the doors, the pervasive smell of incense already surrounding him. It never fades, despite his best attempts to air out the room. He opens the only two windows near the entrance anyway.

Mingeun seems rooted in the entryway. Eunsu gives him a questioning glance.

“When we lived in Seoul, I never thought I’d ever see for myself all of this,” Mingeun says, spinning in a slow circle.

He’s over-dramatic.

“You’ve visited me before,” Eunsu says.

“And you never let me see anything except your house.”

There’s no one to blame except Eunsu for that one. He did it on purpose—never taking Mingeun anywhere except his house, a few of his favorite restaurants, and once, the base of the mountains.

“This is cooler than the time I went to Mass with Haksu-hyung,” Mingeun continues.

That’s a good thing, Eunsu supposes. He knows Mingeun’s church experience was horrific enough to never go back.

“The service hasn’t started yet,” he says, logical as always. It’s unfair for Mingeun to say that before he’s fully experienced it.

Mingeun shrugs. “It can’t be worse,” he says, almost uncharacteristically optimistic.

To Eunsu’s surprise, Mingeun survives almost the entire service. Eunsu knows meditation isn’t for him, so he isn’t surprised to hear the pew creak next to him almost as soon as the small congregation closes their eyes and breathes deeply. A slight breeze enters the room as he exits.

Eunsu has had the time to make peace with his responsibilities. And really, keeping track of Sunja’s dog and how Kanghee’s kids are doing isn’t too much of a leap from remembering repeat fansign attendees. So he clears his mind of thoughts of Mingeun for the next twenty minutes, listening instead to the quiet rustle of the wind in the trees overhead.

When he judges his part is done—by the much smaller crowd and Appa’s blessing—Eunsu heads out the back and finds Mingeun immediately. His bag is leaning against the side of the building while he sits under the shade of the largest tree, earbuds in. A small pile of stones is built almost into a pyramid in front of him.

“You're done,” he says. “Finally.”

“Not yet,” Eunsu says. “Appa's still inside.”

Mingeun practically wilts.

“You’ve never come out here with me before.” Eunsu crouches on the ground so that he can be at eye-level with Mingeun, though he refuses to sit.

Mingeun adds another rock to his pile. It balances precariously on top. “This time is different,” he says. “I thought I should try to understand how you live. And I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Eunsu wants to unpack that. He wants to ask why. He wants to know what Mingeun ran away from this time, because he’s always running from something. So he approaches it carefully, cautiously, and asks, simply, “What do you mean?”

His question is ignored. Instead, Mingeun looks him in the eye, and in his careless, blunt way, asks, “Do you want to be here?”

Eunsu's thighs are starting to kill him, so he stands up.

“It doesn't matter what I want,” he says.

Mingeun glares up at him. “That's not what I asked.”

They've had this conversation before, and time and time again, Eunsu gives the same answer. It doesn't matter what he wants, because what he wants has absolutely no bearing on what he does. It's the complete opposite of Mingeun, who's constantly driven by his desires.

“Yes,” he answers, just to shut Mingeun up. He doesn't know what he wants. He hasn't given it much thought in the past two years.

Mingeun has no response. He scatters his rock pile into its individual pieces and stands up. Then he says, “Haksu-hyung was mad at me first. Said I was selfish and a hypocrite for taking all the opportunities I had. He pretended he doesn't do that. Of course I was mad at him.”

He pauses in his recollection for a moment. None of that seems like an issue to Eunsu. It's a small disagreement, not something that should have caused so much discord. He stays quiet, and Mingeun continues.

“I never expected Jaeseop-hyung to take his side. He's never been mad at me like that before.” Mingeun sounds small and unlike himself. “I know he’s been stressed lately—”

“About what?” Eunsu asks, interrupting him. He's momentarily more interested in potential Fable drama than Mingeun's woes.

“Me. Andrew-hyung. The new album. Taein-nim. Our tour. His girlfriend. The list of what he isn't stressed about is shorter.”

It's all so ordinary and typical of him. Eunsu's hopes are dampened. He doesn't know what he thought had changed in his absence. They're celebrities, sure, but they're also normal people. He was one of them, once. He should know better. He’s not sure why he doesn’t.

Mingeun continues his tirade of his own personal issues and his current disagreements, but by then, Eunsu has already partially tuned him out.

The days with Mingeun pass more or less the same as the days without him have. Sometimes he follows Eunsu to the temple. Other times he helps Eomma with the household chores. Eunsu hears this from both of them—his mother praises Mingeun’s willingness to help and then bemoans his absolute lack of homemaking skills. Mingeun, on the other hand, gains an entire repertoire of Eunsu’s embarrassing childhood stories.

Then, there are the times where Eunsu returns to Mingeun sitting on or in front of the living room couch, speaking English in a quick, low tone to his computer. The WiFi is best there. It took him less than a week to figure that out.

On one of those days, Eunsu is passing by on his way out when Mingeun waves him down. He sits cross-legged on the floor, laptop open in front of him, right AirPod in his ear, left AirPod in his left hand, the white G-shock Eunsu gifted to him years ago on the same wrist.

“This is my therapist,” Mingeun says softly, and Eunsu looks at his computer screen, where he’s currently in a video call with a middle-aged woman. He scoots over so Eunsu can sit next to him, so Eunsu has a seat.

Mingeun introduces him in Korean, in simple, formal sentences. “This is my friend. His name is Eunsu.”

The woman says back in similarly stilted and proper Korean, “Nice to meet you. I am Stephanie.” Then she bows to her web camera.

“Do you speak Korean?” Eunsu asks, just as grammatically correct. He’s struck by an incredible sense of deja vu, of having said almost the same thing to an obviously not quite fluent Mingeun so many years ago when they first met.

“A little.” Stephanie pinches her thumb and forefinger a mere centimeter apart.

Mingeun speaks to her again in English, presumably explaining something else. Eunsu has always admired the way he could seemingly slip so flawlessly between the languages, like he’s shedding one identity for another. He’s tried learning English, or any other foreign language, for that matter, on his own. He’s never progressed very far, because the longer he spends with his family in his hometown, knowing his future will never eclipse the borders of the same area he grew up in, it feels less and less important. Mingeun, on the other hand, has the world in his palms.

Eunsu does his best to tamp down the tendrils of jealousy. He never quite succeeds at that either.

“I have to show her I’m doing well,” Mingeun mutters softly, snapping Eunsu out of his thoughts. “I’m getting better.”

He can say that as much as he wants. As far as Eunsu can tell, running away from Seoul the same way he runs from all his other problems is not a sign of recovery.

He nods along silently and leaves Mingeun alone as the conversation slips back into English.

The days continue to pass without incident. Considering Mingeun’s track record, it comes as a surprise. He shows no sign of wanting to return to Seoul.

Then, in the afternoon following a service, Eunsu finds his phone vibrating incessantly. He picks it up to see Haksu calling him, for what appears to be the fourth or fifth time.

“Hello?” he asks hesitantly, finally answering the call. They’ve barely spoken to each other since he left. He hears about Haksu through Mingeun, though of course that’s colored by the lens Mingeun sees him through.

“Where’s Mingeun?” Haksu demands.

“At my house,” he responds.

“He’s not. He’s out somewhere. Check Instagram. There was this video, and you know him. He always thinks he needs to—”

“Slow down, hyung. You’re not making any sense,” Eunsu interrupts. But he opens Instagram anyway. He also sees he’s been added back into the Fable group chat, and now he has over a hundred unread messages.

“Fuck,” Haksu swears. It’s the first time Eunsu has ever heard him curse. Whatever Mingeun is doing must be bad. To him, at least.

The livestream finally loads. “Jaeseop-hyung is in it too,” he says in surprise. “What’s the big deal?”

“Are you listening to them?” Haksu demands again.

“No. I’m talking to you.”

“Find him. Call me or Intak-hyung or Byeonghwi when you do.” He hangs up.

Eunsu doesn’t do that. He sits on the steps of the temple and calls the one person Haksu neglected to mention.

“Eunsu?” On the other end of the line, Andrew sounds surprised.

“Yes. Hi. It’s been a while.”

“It has.” He sounds guarded. “I don't know what Haksu asked you to ask me, but the answer is no.”

“He didn't ask me for anything from you.” Eunsu missed something. He puts Andrew on speaker and starts skimming through his texts. “He asked me to find Mingeun.”

“Are you looking for him?”

“No.”

He’s reading over Haksu’s twenty-plus message rant about how Mingeun needs constant supervision and can’t be left to his own devices and how Jaeseop is just as bad if not worse for enabling him when he’s alerted with another incoming call.

The other members, he can understand, but this one is coming from Daewoong. Eunsu hasn’t talked to his former manager since he left.

“Daewoong-hyung’s calling me,” he says.

He’s about to answer when Andrew speaks first. “Don’t.” His words are clear and sharp, a command rather than a suggestion.

So Eunsu doesn't. He lets the call ring and ring.

“He's on his way to pick up Mingeun,” Andrew explains. “He left not too long ago.”

“He’s driving here?” Eunsu is surprised. Mingeun is in more trouble than he thought. “That’s far.”

“So it’ll take him some time. They're right, but they're going to be in trouble,” Andrew says, voicing Eunsu’s very thoughts. “Taein-nim told them not to say anything. Mingeun insisted. You know how he gets.”

Of the two of them, Eunsu thinks Jaeseop is more concerned with morals, but Andrew is right on one point. If Mingeun wants something, he'll stop at nothing to get it.

“Why aren't you in the live with them?” Eunsu asks as soon as the thought occurs. He can picture the battle lines in his head: Mingeun and Jaeseop on one side; Haksu, Intak, and Byeonghwi on the other; Andrew somewhere in the middle; and Kiyoung’s blissful enlistment ignorance.

“I haven't had access to my account for months. Talked shit one too many times in the comments of my own posts,” Andrew says, almost wistfully.

“I could join,” Eunsu says.

“You don’t have to be part of this. You can live your own private life now. Haksu never should have involved you in the first place.”

He doesn’t want to ruin Andrew’s perception of post-idol life, so he says nothing about how they’ve both passed the point of no return to a normal life. He thinks about the fans that used to visit Taebaek and his father’s services in the months immediately following his departure, and decides Andrew doesn’t need to know that.

He changes the subject as best as he can, which isn't very well. “What time did Daewoong-hyung leave?”

Andrew takes a few moments to respond. “A bit after the live started. He’s probably speeding.”

There isn’t much speeding to be done in Seoul traffic. There’s a lot of speeding to be done on the long, empty roads out to Taebaek. All things considered, Eunsu estimates his trip to be somewhere around two hours.

“I assume Taein-nim gave him your address,” Andrew continues, interrupting Eunsu’s train of thought.

Eunsu sighs. He isn’t looking forward to Daewoong at his front door in the slightest. He opens Mingeun’s Instagram again. He appears to have propped his phone up somewhere and is standing far off in the distance, knee deep in water. Eunsu can’t imagine what the topic of their livestream is. Jaeseop is still speaking, poised and composed. Their viewers have crossed into the quintuple digits, a feat Eunsu is, despite the situation surrounding it, slightly impressed with.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he says, already typing out a warning text to Mingeun. “I’ll look for him.”

“Not too hard,” Andrew says, almost in warning.

“Not too hard,” Eunsu agrees. He makes no move to leave his suddenly very comfortable seat.

Two and a half hours later, Daewoong appears on Eunsu’s doorstep. He parks his car, a shiny black Lexus, right in front of Eunsu’s house. It’s the newest, cleanest, and most expensive car on the block.

Against his better judgement, Eunsu invites his former manager into his home.

“Where’s Mingeun?” Daewoong asks, all business from the start. He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, like he’s never seen one before. Eomma, almost as awkwardly, sits at the kitchen table, not quite looking at either Eunsu or Daewoong.

“Packing,” Eunsu says. “Would you like something to drink?”

Somehow, he manages to coax Daewoong into having a seat. It’s an almost comical tableau—Eomma and Daewoong on their very best silent behavior. He leaves them to it, apologizing in his head to his mother for leaving her with him.

Eunsu finds Mingeun in his room, packing, just as he told Daewoong. It’s obvious that Mingeun is trying to drag it out as long as possible. The few contents of his backpack and suitcase are spread all around the floor. Eunsu sidesteps it all easily and closes his bedroom door behind him.

“I’m not ready to go back yet,” Mingeun says without looking up.

“Daewoong-hyung is in my fucking kitchen,” Eunsu says. He doesn’t want to be unsympathetic, but Daewoong is in his fucking kitchen. He can only imagine the conversations out there, the collision of his two worlds he fought so hard to keep separate.

“He can sleep in his car tonight,” Mingeun says, just as unsympathetic to Eunsu’s plight.

“I think he’d rather sleep in his bed in Seoul.”

“Your bed.”

Eunsu doesn’t know what he means by that, so he stays silent until Mingeun elaborates.

Still staring down at his belongings, Mingeun speaks again. “Daewoong-hyung moved into your room after you left. He still stays there sometimes.”

Eunsu is about to ask why when Mingeun predicts his question.

“He hasn't said why, but I know it's to keep an eye on me.”

That doesn't sound right, but Mingeun sounds so certain in his beliefs that Eunsu doesn't want to argue. Not when he's leaving so soon.

Mingeun closes his suitcase, having seemingly given up the illusion of packing. It was half empty anyway—just a few changes of clothes that wouldn't fit in his backpack.

“If you come back to Seoul, you can get your room back.”

Eunsu takes that to mean he should visit, not move permanently. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with Mingeun. He knows he can’t go back. Even a visit is hard to plan—he has an increasing number of responsibilities here, and he can’t go running off whenever he feels like it like Mingeun does.

“I will,” he says, although he doesn’t know if it’s a promise he can keep.

The scene in the kitchen is opposite the one Eunsu left. Eomma is leaning across the table, showing Daewoong something on her phone. He presumes it's embarrassing pictures of him, accompanied by stories of his childhood: the time he ate an ant on purpose, or the time he insisted on going down the playground slide headfirst and ate shit, or maybe that one really embarassing faux music video he and his friends filmed when they were twelve and thought they could start a band. At this rate, everyone at Zenith Entertainment will know the minute details of his life.

When Mingeun steps into the kitchen, suitcase wheels loud on the tiled floor, Daewoong seems to snap back to himself. He stands up and jerks his head towards the door. “Let’s go, Mingeun.”

“Fine,” Mingeun says, but from his tone of voice, he’s anything but fine.

Daewoong either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because all he does is thank Eomma—and not Eunsu—for her hospitality, and lead Mingeun outside.

From the comfort of his home, Eunsu watches them leave: Mingeun’s bags in the trunk, Daewoong in the driver’s seat, the rumble of the engine, Mingeun in the passenger seat with his earbuds in. Then they’re pulling away from the curb, and before he knows it, they’re receding away in the distance. Andrew was right. Daewoong speeds.

“What happened?” Eomma asks, following Eunsu’s gaze out the window.

“He made a mistake.” Eunsu doesn’t want to explain it all. He’s not even sure if he knows the whole story. Besides, she’s never really understod what being an idol entails, and how precariously their careers balance on their words and actions and appearances. “It happens to him a lot.”

Eomma looks like she doesn’t know what to make of that. Eunsu doesn’t blame her. He’d like to say, or even think, that it won’t happen again. With Mingeun, it’s a matter of time. He wonders how long he’ll have to wait for Mingeun’s return.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ eunsu. ]#fictional idol community #fake kpop group #kpop oc #kpop addition #kpop fanfic

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fcble · 2 months

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GREAT THINGS, PART I

"Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." — Jeremiah, 33:3.

In which Haksu becomes an idol in an unorthodox way. FEATURING: Kang Haksu, Lee Taein, Fable ensemble SETTING: November 2017 WORD COUNT: 10.3k WARNINGS / NOTES: Stalking, blackmail, extremely heavy-handed religious themes. Welcome to the piece that kicked my ass for over a year 🎉🎉. As in I started it a year ago and then wrote 9k words in the past two weeks. I have versions of this piece in three different perspectives. This is technically a rewrite of something I wrote earlier but now a few times longer 🎉🎉.

You’re going to do great things. You know this because it’s all anyone’s ever told you. You hear it from your father and your mother and your father’s father—until he dies—and your father’s mother—until she dies too—and your mother’s father and your mother’s mother.

You wonder when the great things will start. Time flips by, like the thin pages of the Bible that has resided on your bedside table since you were five. You’re a kid, a teenager, a young adult. You enter and exit middle school and high school. You begin to attend a mediocre university in Seoul, because it’s the only one in the city that accepted you. You brush that off, because you’re going to be great.

You think if you’re really, truly, going to be great, you might have to do it yourself.

The man’s name is Lee Taein. You meet him for the first time in a dream. You memorize the lines and planes of his face, because something about him is familiar. You conclude he must be rich or famous or both.

In the dream, he doesn’t tell you his name. You find it yourself, on the Internet, holding the image of his face in your head as you comb through the other dream fragments: a stage, a song, a single voice. You’ve never thought about being a singer. You wonder why.

You know how to sing. You’ve spent over a decade in choirs. You could be a singer.

That, you decide, is greater than whatever you’re doing now, which isn’t much of anything, and certainly nothing someone great would be doing.

You do your research. A lot of research. You spend your nights in bed, the darkness of your bedroom illuminated only by your laptop screen. In the mornings, you spend twice as long covering up the shadows under your eyes.

It’s a worthwhile exchange. You learn Lee Taein is forty-nine years old. Last year, he parted ways with SM Entertainment to found his own entertainment company. You dig deeper.

He married his current wife four years ago. Her name is Jung Eunyoung. She’s forty-three, and yet has risen no higher than a secretary for a minor law firm. You learn all this from her very public Instagram profile.

His biggest vice is gambling—some of it barely legal, most of it not. You find a news article from 1999 detailing an illegal gambling ring bust. His name is mentioned once.

His new company is called Zenith Entertainment. You’re briefly disappointed to see that the last time they held auditions was February.

There are partially censored Tweets and forum threads speculating the identities of the company’s trainees. You look at the grainy pictures and read the names: Jaeseop, Kiyoung, Eunsu.

You keep meticulous notes: index cards and the Notes app and a notebook you bought solely to organize your thoughts. Your grades slip. You haven’t attended class in three weeks.

You spend your days at a coffee shop across the street from Zenith Entertainment. You sit in a corner with a view of the building. You order the two cheapest items on the menu: a cookie and a small black coffee. You open your laptop and your notebook and pretend to work, covering the pages of your notebook with another sheet of paper whenever someone walks by.

Mostly, you watch.

You keep track of the people entering and exiting the building. Many of them work in the copywriting agency, based on their business casual outfits. You’ve stepped into the building once, only to be overwhelmed by the bright lights and the quiet hum of computers and the feeling of wrongness at being in a professional setting.

Taein dresses almost the same. If you didn’t know what he looked like, you’d miss him. The difference is in his stride and his posture: back straight, head forward, quick and even steps. You like him even more for that. He arrives in the late morning and leaves after the sun sets. You note the times: 9:43 AM, 10:02 AM, 9:56 AM, 7:19 PM, 7:48 PM, 8:10 PM.

You learn the intricacies of his schedule. There are days when he never arrives at all. You watch and wait as the hours tick by. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten, eleven. No Lee Taein in sight. You wonder what he does when he doesn't work.

There are times when he'll step outside in the middle of the day, the movement catching your eye. You watch him stand on the sidewalk across the street and smoke a cigarette while he speaks on the phone. Twenty minutes later, he'll head back inside.

Sometimes you watch him leave accompanied by a younger man, somewhere around your age, who walks nearly, but not quite, behind him. You assume that must be his personal assistant or secretary or something along those lines.

Some of the people who visit the building must be trainees. You identify them from their age—young—and their dress—casual—and the times they arrive—all throughout the day. Occasionally, they stop by the coffee shop first, becoming more and more familiar to you.

There’s the tall foreigner who pronounces Americano with a distinctly Western accent. He arrives early in the morning, ordering his coffee shortly after you. He crosses the street in casual clothes and leaves in the late afternoon with the copywriter crowd, having changed into a more formal suit jacket and dress pants. You miss his departure for days until you realize he’s dressed differently.

There are the two high schoolers: one in a lurid yellow school uniform and another in a more sensible navy blue one. Sometimes their friend arrives earlier than them and sits a few tables down from you. He doesn’t wear a uniform. He sits for a half hour or so with his earbuds in while his iced coffee melts in front of him, until the high schoolers arrive. They talk loudly and boisterously, as if no one is listening.

You listen. You learn their names—Eunsu, Byeonghwi, Mingeun—and their orders—cold brew with an extra shot of espresso, iced caffè mocha, iced caffè latte. You hear them complain about teachers and Taein and trainee life.

You wonder if they could be your way in.

At night, when your roommate asks where you spend all your time, you tell him you got a job. He asks where. You fidget and your palms sweat and your heartbeat quickens. You stare past him and lie.

That weekend, you travel a few kilometers farther than usual and confess your sins.

Absolved, you think you’re ready for what comes next.

You have to talk to Taein. You can’t be great if all you do is wait and watch.

You peruse your notes, all of that information collected from your research and your observations, and then you devise your plan. You ask for His guidance and affirmation every day until you receive it. It comes in the form of one of your professors agreeing to overlook the sudden string of zeros in your homework assignments and tests. You were a decent enough student until a little over a month ago. If your previous work can be so easily overworked and dismissed, then maybe it’s time for your true calling. You’ve waited for this moment your entire life.

Less than a week later, you walk into the building like you belong there, not too early, not too late. You wear a winter jacket, which you shed as soon as you step inside, over a stiffly starched collared shirt and your best Sunday pants. You step into the elevator, alone, and decide to start at the top. You press the button for the fifth floor. It refuses to light up. You press it again and again to no avail. You stand in the still elevator and try the fourth floor.

Your ascent begins. You planned it all out: it's just after nine in the morning, after all the copywriters start their work and much too early for the students to be around. You're a last-minute callback from the audition, though that was months ago. It explains why Taein won't recognize you. You spoke to someone over the phone, someone named—what was her name? You can't remember. She said you should visit, so you're here—and oh, the appointment isn't in his calendar? She must have forgotten. You'll smile winningly and apologetically and Taein will be so charmed he'll agree to take you on on the spot.

You haven’t thought farther than that.

You step out of the elevator and into a dimly lit hall. The very air seems stale. There seems to be no one else around, so you proceed slowly down the hall. The fluorescent lights cast everything in a sickly yellow shade. You’re presented with two doors. The one on the left has a small glass window. You angle yourself away from it, on the off chance that someone sees you and knows you don’t belong. The one on the right is windowless, a blank slate of dark brown wood.

You debate internally for a few moments. The longer you stay there, the longer you risk meeting someone other than Taein. You try the plain door. The knob turns easily in your hand.

“Jaeseop?” A voice asks from inside. You aren’t Jaeseop, but you’ve seen that name before.

You steel yourself, silently ask for His guidance, and turn the knob all the way.

“If you’re asking about managing the social media accounts again, the answer is no,” the voice continues. It belongs to a middle-aged man, in a plain dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a ballpoint pen in the breast pocket. He looks away from his computer screen, and you find yourself face-to-face with Lee Taein.

“You must be lost. The copywriting agency is on the first two floors,” Taein says.

“I’m supposed to be here,” you say. You bow, politely, to him, then add on, “My name is Kang Haksu. I received a call a few days ago—”

Taein cuts you off, which is maybe for the better, because now that you were about to say it, your story is paper-thin and a bit silly. “You didn’t receive anything. There were no calls. You’re no one.”

Nothing is going to plan, so you do your best to improvise. “I know you’re developing an idol group. I need to be part of it.”

Taein stares at you like he can’t believe those words came out of your mouth. You believe them. You need this. Who will you be if you don’t do this?

“This is not a charity.” His voice is bone dry. “We can’t get everything we want in life. It’s better to learn that lesson early. Tell whoever sold you your information on my business and I that I don’t take charity cases.”

“I’m not a sasaeng.” His words sting. It’s a veiled accusation, but an accusation nonetheless.

“I never said you were. People like you are a dime a dozen, thinking you can waltz into the entertainment industry with no experience and no connections and immediately become a superstar. It takes much more hard work, skill, and luck than someone like you can imagine. Try your luck somewhere else.”

His words strip you to the core. Were you too naive, thinking you’d be different? You shrink back from the ferocity of it all, cowed more than you’d like to admit. You don’t take his words to heart. You can’t go anywhere else. You’re supposed to be here, under Taein’s direction.

You don’t know how or when, but you’ll be back. You’ll find another way. You don’t have anything to say to his words, the humiliation still burning across your face, so you turn tail and flee.

You escape out into the cold, winter morning, no closer to your destiny than you were an hour ago. If anything, you’re objectively farther away. Taein knows you now, knows your name and your face and your deepest desire. You don’t let that stop you. You vow to yourself to never let him get the best of you like that again. You’ll be seeing him a lot in the future, you know, because you’ll be in his group.

By the time you enter the cafè across the street again, you’re bouncing back. You’ve always been resilient. You’re shielded, after all, by the grace of God. The cashier starts to ring up your usual black coffee and cookie order, but you wave it away and spend a little more on a latte instead. As you sip your drink and stare broodingly at the building across the street, your second plan begins to form. If it’s a sasaeng Taein wants, then it’s a sasaeng he’ll get.

On your way home, you stop at a convenience store and buy a new notebook. You sit on your dorm room bed and think about the days you spent watching the building, the days when Taein was nowhere to be found. He’s a bit of a workaholic, but clearly not enough to spend seven days a week at his workplaces. You, on the other hand, are unemployed enough to spend seven days a week looking into what he does. You copy the dates and times out of your old notebook and try to find a pattern.

He arrives late on Mondays, but you chalk that up to a normal dislike of Mondays. The rest of the weekdays are sporadic. There was a week where Taein missed three days of work in a row. You wonder if it's something else, if it's easily explainable. Maybe he caught a cold. It is winter, after all. You dismiss the thought. He's up to something. You know he is.

The day he misses the most often is Tuesday, from the few weeks you've watched him. In fact, he's never been at work on a Tuesday. You wonder why you never noticed that before.

It's Thursday, which means you have a few days to continue your research. You do a quick search for how much a private investigator costs, and are shocked by the results. It's fine. You can be a private investigator yourself. How hard can it be?

You plug Taein's name into one of those less-than-reputable websites that promise addresses and phone numbers. You're prompted to create an account and pay a small fee. You click through it all without hesitating. A few thousand won now means very little in the great, grand scheme of your idol destiny.

Multiple people with the same name as Taein pop up. You aren't worried, because your Taein is a public figure. That, and you know his age and his wife’s name.

Eventually, one of them fits the bill perfectly. You take a quick break to straighten your posture and ease the stiffness from your spine. You've been sitting here, engrossed in your new plan, for the better part of an hour.

Your best guess so far is an address in Hongje-dong. You've been lucky in your observation so far. That must mean you're on the right track. You're getting closer and closer with each passing day. Tomorrow you'll close the distance between you and your destiny.

In the morning, you wake up extra early to get to Hongje-dong before Taein leaves. You doubt he takes the subway anywhere, so you rent a bike and make your way to his address. You only lose your balance twice in your first block. It’s early enough in the morning that there’s no one around to see you.

You arrive at the address much faster than you expected. The sun is only barely beginning to creep over the horizon. Then you pause, because Taein lives in a condominium. Every house on the block looks the same. The only differences are the cars parked out front of each one and the numbers on the houses. You stick out here, a young man on a bicycle with nowhere to go. You take one last look at Taein’s home and the car outside—a white Mazda—then wheel yourself around and pedal out.

You repeat the license plate to yourself in your head until you arrive at a convenience store. It’s the only place around that’s open. You buy a bag of chips and take a seat outside, keeping an eye out for Taein. You add the plate number to your notes and try to figure out exactly what kind of car he drives. You have time to spare. You expect him to head to the Zenith Entertainment building today, and he tends to arrive around nine or ten. After you consider traffic, it shouldn’t take him more than half an hour.

You’re almost certain he drives a 2015 Mazda 3. You head back inside and buy a coffee. Then you take a few moments to think through your plan. Like if Taein drives, then where in the city does he park? Naver Map told you this convenience store was along the quickest route to Sinmunno 2-ga. What if he has a faster route?

You’re still worrying when Taein’s car speeds by, much faster than the speed limit allows. You jump up from your seat, nearly spilling your coffee. You can’t hold it and ride your bike at the same time, so you hurry to dispose of it and pack up your notes again. You pray Taein is heading to Zenith Entertainment. It’s a little early, but maybe there’s a good reason for that. You set off in the same direction as him, though he’s disappeared from sight.

You make your way to Zenith Entertainment anyway, and by chance, see a white Mazda disappearing into a parking garage down the road from the company building. It’s too far for the garage to be connected to the building, so you lock your bike across the street and wait for him to leave. You lock and unlock the bike lock three times, fiddling with the combination. You strap the helmet to your backpack and lean against the seat and pretend to look at your phone, all the while eyeing the entrance.

Taein never leaves. You look both ways, then cross the street into the depths of the garage. It’s risky, because Taein could see you and recognize you, but you can’t take the chance that he’s gone somewhere else or is doing something else. Your imagination runs wild, thinking of all the illicit activities he might participate in. There are a number of other cars in the lot. The copywriters, you assume.

Then, in a small walkway that must lead to another entrance, you see him, standing with another man. You duck behind a car, and creep closer to the two of them. Taein must be smoking, because the smell of cigarette smoke permeates your hiding spot.

“You wanted to do more than catch up,” Taein is saying when you can finally hear them.

“I didn’t.” The other man sounds amused.

“We could have met anywhere else. You insisted on this attempt at discretion.”

“It’s about your case,” the other man says. “They want to open it again.”

“I thought you took care of that, Cheolhwan.” Taein sounds guarded. “How much do they want?”

You don’t know what this is about, but you silently take your phone and start to record.

“Twice what you gave me. This is above my pay grade.”

They’re quiet after that. You peek carefully through the cars to see if they’ve left. They’re still standing there, the ember at the end of Taein’s cigarette the brightest light. You duck down again without getting a better look at Cheolhwan. You wonder if he’s a loan shark or something. Breaking off and starting a company can’t be cheap.

“Alright. The police never liked me much anyway,” Taein says suddenly. You poke your head back up to watch him drop his cigarette butt to the ground and grind it under his shoe.

Cheolhwan snorts. “I can’t imagine why. Planning on begging Jinguk again?”

“I don’t beg. Jinguk-ssi and I are proper business partners.”

That gets a laugh out of Cheolhwan, the short, rough, sound echoing around the garage.

You stop your video recording, unsure of whatever that was. You doubt it'll be of use in your quest to be an idol, but you decide to hold onto it for now. You hear footsteps begin to recede in the distance, and you wait in your hiding place until they disappear completely.

All in all, you feel vindicated. There's something suspicious going on with Taein. You're certain you can get to the bottom of it. It's something to do with money. You can find out who Cheolhwan is. Their relationship is uncertain to you. They spoke casually to each other, but there was a degree of aloofness to the entire conversation that you don't know what to make of. Whatever it is, it was more than a simple meeting between friends.

When you’re certain they’re gone, you stand up, stretching out the crick in your neck. You assume Taein will spend the rest of the day at work, and that’s not somewhere you can watch him too closely. You return to your usual haunt across the street instead and make an attempt to catch up on your forgotten coursework.

It’s a good attempt, but you lose all steam when the high school trainees arrive. You stare daggers at their backs, because they’re in the exact position you want to be in. You watch them order their drinks and slowly sip them, idling the afternoon by. You don't understand why they don't take their positions more seriously. There are so many other people—yourself included—who are dying to be where they are.

But you aren’t them, so you have to settle for envy.

Eventually, they leave, and you watch through the window as they enter the Zenith Entertainment building, still laughing and talking companionably. You aren't jealous. You could build your own close group of friends. You just haven't. But if you really wanted to, you could.

The sun begins to set, and you know you've outstayed your welcome. You haven't bought anything since your single coffee hours ago. The waitstaff give you sidelong looks every now and then, but they don't ask you to leave, so you pretend you don't see them.

You finally see Taein make his long-awaited exit a little earlier than usual. He's walking fast. This time, you’re prepared. As his Mazda 3 emerges from the parking garage, you’re right behind him on your bike. You think he should be heading home, but that's not set in stone, so you decide to follow him. Your intuition pays off when you see him turn not back to Hongje-dong, but somewhere else. At a traffic light, you pause to try and figure out where you are. You've only lived in Seoul for a year and a half, the length of your short-lived university career. The city blocks are still unfamiliar to you. The light turns green, and Taein speeds off. You rush to catch up with him.

You wonder where he could be going, driving so quickly he nearly bowls over a pedestrian. Leave it to him to be so careless. Your opinion of him is souring faster and faster.

He comes to a stop outside of a small, decrepit bar you’ve never heard of before, still driving too quickly as he pulls into the parking lot. You stop, across the street again, trying to figure out where you are. It doesn’t like the type of scene that caters to university students or tired corporate employees. Your mind goes to the worst places. It could be a front for all the worst types of activities—drugs and gambling and prostitution. You record the name in flickering neon lights anyway.

You’re about to leave and try to return during the day when you spot Taein leaving. He’s in the company of a young woman, and so you almost don’t recognize him. She’s wearing a long coat, but the front is open, giving you glimpses of an outfit that isn’t close to being warm enough for the weather. She clings to Taein’s arm like a lifeline, stumbling over the cracks in the sidewalk in her heels. They look like a couple. Your stomach turns. He has a wife.

With shaking hands, you raise your phone and snap another few pictures. You don’t want to see him anymore, so you don’t bother to try and follow them. You almost regret your decision to weasel your way into his life. Instead, you get back onto your bike and head home.

Saturday arrives. You don't spend your weekends at Zenith Entertainment, because you have better things to do. Or had. This morning, you wake up early again to bike back to Taein's home. You spent some time last night wondering just how far you’ll go to reach your destiny. Between that shady conversation you overheard yesterday and the young woman he met up with, you’re almost afraid of what you’ll see him do next. Sometimes you have to do difficult things before you can do great things.

More than that you’re curious about what Taein does on the weekends. Before this, your impression of him was that of a career-driven man with few feelings or even an existence outside of his job. You don’t understand why you have to work for this man, but it isn’t your place to question it.

You cycle around the blocks a few times, and it slowly comes to light in your head.

Taein is clearly the breadwinner between him and his lawfully wedded wife, so you doubt he spends his weekends shopping or cooking or cleaning. You also doubt he’s devout. As hard as you try, you can't even begin to picture him in church. You're almost certain he doesn't have kids. If he does, it's a very closely guarded secret, because it wasn't mentioned once in anything you read about him online. You wonder if maybe he had kids with his previous wife and lost custody of them. Knowing what you know about him now, you don’t find that hard to believe.

The white Mazda 3 sits outside of his condo. A light is on inside the house. You aren’t looking forward to spending a day waiting for Taein to do something. You wonder if you should have forked over the money—your parents’ money—for a private investigator. Then it would be someone else keeping watch on Taein’s house, someone more suited for the job than one young man shivering on a bike.

You think it's weird for you to sit right outside his house, so you take to patrolling the two possible entrances to the street instead. You pedal slowly, heading up and down the street. At the moment, there's nothing you fear more than having him leave without you noticing. You pause to scrutinize the map on your phone to ensure there are no other exits or back roads or possible ways out of his home other than the main street.

Then, eventually, you see his car roll by. You rush after it. He's driving slower than normal. That's when you notice it isn't him in the driver's seat, but his wife. She's the only one in the car. It makes sense, then, that the car is following the posted speed limits. You wonder what Taein is possibly doing alone at home now.

You ride back to his house, just in time to see him step outside and lock the door behind him. You stare, shocked, and have just enough sense to hide behind the condo across the street. His wife left less than five minutes ago. Where are they going, separate and alone?

Taein heads off on foot. You wait until you see him leave. The bike is a bit cumbersome. How could you have predicted that his wife would take the car somewhere and he’d leave on foot? You walk alongside your bike and try to pretend you aren't following him. You ride halfway around the block in boredom before you have to turn around so you don't lose him. You wish he could walk faster.

You check your phone. What's within walking distance of his condominium? The convenience store you sat outside of. A station? He could get anywhere from there.

The streets are too empty for you to follow closer. If he were to turn around, he'd spot you immediately. It stresses you out. You aren't a professional. You really should have hired a private investigator.

To your dismay, he turns into the subway station. You abandon your rental bike right outside, tapping through the app to return it as you continue to follow Taein. There are a few more people here, which makes it easier for you to follow him, and easier for him to lose you.

He's waiting for Line 3 towards Ogeum, the only line that runs through this station. You check the overlapping lines on the map, standing behind him so he doesn't see you. There are too many options for possible transfers: Jongno 3-ga, Euljiro 3-ga, Chumgmuro, Yaksu, Oksu, and on and on and on. You hope he doesn't travel too far. You hope he doesn't get off somewhere and order a taxi. You fill the time by once again trying to imagine what he does for fun on the weekends. For some reason, you can't picture him doing anything. He's the type of person to spend the weekend at the office. You chart the path to Zenith Entertainment from your current location. It’s two stops on the line and then a short walk. It wouldn't surprise you if he stopped there. You don't particularly want to go to Zenith Entertainment again. You're supposed to find something about him that will leave him no choice but to accept you. The woman he met yesterday was a good start. You wonder if he's heading out to see her again.

As you're lost in your thoughts, the train arrives. You make sure you're in the same car as Taein, though it increases the chances of him noticing you. You'll have to play it off as a coincidence. You rehearse the lines in your head. You'll pretend you don't recognize him. As if you could forget what he looks like. He might not recognize you, you realize. You met him once, for a few minutes. The train picks up speed.

You pass through the first few stops with no incidents. So Taein isn’t going to work. Your interest is piqued.

You're on the train with him for almost forty-five minutes. You watch station after station pass by, the smooth tone of the recorded announcer reciting stop after stop. Taein makes no move to exit at a single one. He stares down at his phone, which lets you stare at him. He doesn't do anything interesting. All he does is scroll through his phone, tap his screen a few times, then stare. He looks like your average salaryman.

He finally gets off in Yangjae. You’re in Gangnam now. You let him leave first. When the doors are about to close, you follow after him. He isn't heading out, but through the station. You follow him to a transfer to the Shinbundang Line. You only know this because you’re spending so much time staring at the map on your phone, it’s starting to become engrained on the backs of your eyelids.

He rides the new subway line for one stop. You both exit at Gangnam Station. You follow him up back into the daylight. It's much more crowded here, locals and tourists alike.

Taein walks faster. That probably has something to do with the crowds. You hurry after him, thankful you're no longer burdened with your bike.

He heads down a series of twists and turns, alleyways and backroads forming a route Naver Map would never recommend to you. You’re glad it’s the middle of the day. You’d hate to do this at night.

In front of you, Taein heads into a storefront you wouldn’t be caught dead in. This one doesn’t have a name on top of it. You take a picture anyway, then cross-reference your location with the map. There’s still no name. You debate whether or not you should follow him in. From the outside, it’s not the type of place you belong. But Taein could be doing any matter of incriminating activities in there, and that’s what you need to see.

You let your internal debate rage for a few seconds more. Then you cross the street and push the door open.

The room is dimly lit. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, and when they do, you realize a few of the patrons are looking at you. You’re the youngest person in the room. You slide up to the bar and order a drink. God knows you need it.

You take a small sip and grimace immediately. It's obvious people don't come here to drink. You cast a casual glance around the room, looking for Taein. It isn't too crowded. He should be easy to spot---and vice versa, he could easily spot you. You don't see him. Most of the patrons are more engaged with the TV screens in the corner of the room and across the top of the bar. You expect to see sports or the news or something along those lines. You look up to see horses.

It clicks in your head. Horse racing. These people are day drinking and gambling. You belong anywhere else in the world but here. And where is Taein, in this entire mess?

You flag the bartender down.

"Did you see a man come in?" you ask. "Middle-aged, around my height, with an oversized watch? His name’s Lee Taein." You do a bit of your own gambling, placing a bet on Taein being a regular here.

The bartender regards you curiously. "You’re looking for Taein-ssi?”

"He’s my boss," you say. "He told me to meet him here. I was promoted recently. He wanted to celebrate."

The words fall easily from your tongue. It's more of a lie than the truth, but it could be the truth soon enough.

"Congratulations. He invited you here and didn't tell you the password?" The bartender shakes his head. He points into an ever darker recess of the room. "Down the hall. To the left of the bathroom. 8179."

You thank him and leave your drink alone. The left of the bathroom is a door with a keypad above the handle. You type in the passcode, and the lock clicks.

Taein is on the other side of the door. Your destiny is on the other side of the door. You take a deep breath and crack the door open.

You don't know what you expected. It certainly wasn't the opposite of what you experienced upstairs. For a secret room, it's well-lit and almost cozy. There aren’t many people in the room, just a few small groups of four or five people sitting around green, square tables, playing cards. Now, you spot Taein immediately, sitting behind a decently-sized pile of poker chips, the largest pile on his table. One of the people he's playing with the young woman you saw him with last night. She seems your age, maybe a few years older or younger.

You close the door silently behind you. Your skin crawls. You want to get out of here as soon as possible.

There's another bar down here, against the back of the wall. The drinks on the tables look significantly better than they do upstairs. You think about getting another one, just to make it look like you belong here and you fit in.

No one seems to notice your entrance, too engaged in their games. Your luck holds as you slide around to take a few pictures of Taein, holding your phone just in front of you, at waist level. Your fingers shake, but blurry photos are better than no photos. No one else has their phones out, not even resting on the poker tables. It feels illegal for you to do this. In fact, everything about this feels illegal. You make sure to get Taein's full face in the images, and from multiple angles. Then you slip your phone back into your pocket.

That's when you're interrupted.

"You're new here." A hand lands on your shoulder. A few people—not Taein—look up at that, before just as quickly returning to their games. You turn slowly around to see a man twice your size, a bouncer inside the club.

"I was looking for the bathroom," you say, aiming for young, fresh-faced innocence.

"How old are you, kid?"

"Nineteen," you lie. You’re twenty-one. You hate how easily that one comes out. You could have told the truth.

"Good try," the man says, keeping his firm grip on your shoulder as he guides you back to the exit. You take a glance back at Taein. Throughout the entire ordeal, he hasn't looked up once, much too concerned with the cards in his hands. Although it doesn’t look like it, you hope he loses.

You aren't in the mood to wait in the real bar until Taein emerges, so you leave.

"Leaving already?" the bartender upstairs asks.

You ignore him. It doesn't matter. You're never coming here again.

You head home to see how blurry your pictures are. You think you might already have enough material to force him to give you a position. He's made it scarily easy for you. You didn't even need a private investigator.

You spend the rest of the week following him around anyway. You've grown used to it: the bike rental and Taein's neighborhood and Zenith Entertainment and a variety of bars and hotels across the entire city you know you’ll never step foot in again, and once, another day spent in Gangnam at a shiny skyscraper. Taein arrived at seven in the morning, earlier than he does at Zenith Entertainment, and didn't emerge until nearly eight at night. That was weird, but you had no way of getting into the building, short of breaking in. You had considered pizza delivery, kid of an employee, new employee, and a few other disguises before giving up. After the bouncer encounter, you’re staying clear of security. And that building made its security obvious, what with all the men in navy blue uniforms and earpieces, standing outside every entrance. What were the chances of Taein doing anything illegal or immoral there? Low, you figured, judging by the number of luxury cars dropping passengers off outside.

In your spare time, you try to find anything about Cheolhwan. With only a first name and a tenuous connection to Lee Taein, it’s difficult. You find two Cheolhwans in Taein’s Korea University graduation class. That was decades ago. You doubt either of those are the same man.

Regardless, you go through with your new plan. Armed with your newly obtained material, you’re ready for your second attempt. You know Taein's schedule now. That means when he arrives at Zenith Entertainment for the day, on a bright, sunny, perfect Wednesday morning, you're standing outside his office.

"You again," Taein says, calm and impassive. "This type of perseverance is seen as obsessive behavior. The answer is no again."

You haven’t even asked your question. You watch him unlock the door to his office.

"Please leave."

You stop him from closing the door with your foot. "I have something you might want to see."

"I don't think so," Taein says. He seems to be in a bad mood. He must have had a bad night last night.

"If you don't want to see it, I think your wife, Jung Eunyoung-ssi, might have an interest in it instead," you say.

That gets his attention. "I don’t see what you’re getting at. I don’t mix business with pleasure."

"Please don't play dumb, Taein-ssi," you say, adapting to each of his evasive attempts. You didn't plan this out. You remember how poorly that went last time. Taein is unpredictable to you. You don't know him nearly well enough to begin to predict any of his responses. "I know you're seeing another woman."

Taein stares at you. "I suppose you should come inside." He sounds extremely reluctant. At the same time, you know this isn't a conversation the two of you should be having in a corridor. You tamp down the sudden flare of excitement in your chest.

His office looks the same as you remember it. You take a seat in the plastic folding chair with the uneven legs.

"Are you a private investigator? A detective? You’ll find everything in order."

He’s defensive already. You’ve barely said anything. The investigator comment is a bit flattering. You like it.

“Everything except your marriage,” you note.

Taein shrugs. "Divorce is messy. I don't have time for that right now."

You think it's terrible that he divorced his first wife, and seems to be considering divorcing his second wife. You shove the thought aside and bring out your phone, placing it on the table between the two of you.

“What’s her name?” you ask. “You seem to spend a lot of time with her.”

It's definitely not the strongest statement, but your proof is what's more important. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

"Did Eunyoung hire you?" Taein asks suddenly, ignoring your comment. He's looking at you, instead of the pictures of himself.

"No," you say. "No one hired me."

The two of you look through the album together: Taein and the young woman, arm in arm over and over and over again, in bars and restaurants and hotel lobbies and out on the street in broad daylight.

Then, Taein swipes one photo too far and you’re both presented with a photo of Taein in profile, staring intently at the two playing cards he’s holding. He picks up your phone. "How did you get this?"

He isn’t denying it any longer. You figure it's hard to deny something when the hard, concrete proof is right in front of you.

"I was there," you say.

Taein thinks about it for a second, then nods. "I didn't recognize you then. You were the one Soogeun-ssi removed."

You don't like his choice of words, but you nod anyway. You didn't think he'd noticed you. You thought you were so clever, getting away with everything. You don’t have anything else to say. Your photos speak for you.

"Who paid you?" he asks again, deathly calm. This is uncharted territory. “How much more would I have to pay you?”

“No one paid me anything. I don’t want your money. All I want is to be an idol.”

He shakes his head. “There are easier ways to do that.”

“This is the way I’m doing it. This is the way I want to do it.” This is the way you have to do it.

Taein’s expression is inscrutable. You’ve played your hand. It’s up to him to respond. You wait with bated breath, until he finally says, “I’ll give you a trial period. If you can keep up with everyone else for a month, we can reconsider your position then. If you can’t, then we part ways amicably. No one, least of all Eunyoung, needs to know what you’ve done.”

“I don’t get anything,” you say.

“You get a chance,” Taein snaps. “It’s more than you deserve. Time will tell if this bet pays off.”

You don’t appreciate being compared to a game of roulette. “I might talk to Eunyoung-ssi any time in the future.”

“You might. It won’t make a difference.” He’s oddly calm. It unnerves you.

“Why not?” You have to ask.

“Cheating isn’t illegal. Nor is playing cards in a private setting. Stalking, on the other hand, is.” You can’t do great things from a jail cell, so that keeps you from continuing to argue.

Taein continues to speak. “For the time being, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to ruin my marriage. The negative press would be disastrous at this time, and divorce proceedings are lengthy. As long as you want to work for me, our fates are tied.”

That’s a sentiment you can support. You nod slowly. Something like a smile takes its place on Taein's face. “You can come by on Monday. The other trainees know it's too late for me to accept anyone new. Tell them you've been confirmed to debut.”

On your first day, you take the elevator up to the third floor. It opens to a floor much different from the fourth. The left side is the same: a door with a glass window, expanding all the way down as far as you can see. The right side leads into an open office, with cubicles arranged in small groups of fours and fives. There are even a few people sitting amongst the desks. That isn't your place, so you ignore them and push open the door to the left.

There's one person in the room, a teenage boy sitting down on the floor and stretching. He looks up at you when you enter with sharp, calculating eyes. You recognize him for your days in the cafè—Mingeun. He doesn’t seem to recognize you. He rises to his feet, moving with a grace unfit for his age, like he’s so perfectly comfortable in his body despite being in his awkward teenage years. You were nothing like him when you were his age a few years ago.

“I’m Haksu,” you say. “I’m new here.” You smile at him, something you think is befitting of an idol, but he doesn’t return it. If anything, his neutral expression grows frosty.

“Mingeun,” he says stiffly. “Taein-nim promised there wouldn’t be any more new people. Where are you from? JYP? YG?”

He sounds whiny and childish. You’re unimpressed.

“Gunsan,” you try, though you know that’s not what he means.

Mingeun scowls. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

You’re about to respond, to tell him you’re not from anywhere in the way he means, when the door flies open. You recognize both of the two new arrivals—one is the tall foreigner you’ve seen in the cafè, and the other is the young man you’ve seen following Taein—his assistant, presumably.

“Mingeun!” Taein’s assistant scolds. “Stop harassing the new guy.”

“I wasn’t harassing him,” Mingeun shoots back. “We’re going to be good friends. Right, Haksu-ssi?”

The look he gives you clearly says to play along. You don’t know if you’re going to be good friends, but you nod along anyway. Their conversation continues like you aren’t even there.

“We were just getting to what company he trained at,” Mingeun says. “Then we were going to talk about why Taein-nim thought he should join us.”

Taein’s assistant winces. “You won’t like either of those answers.”

“Another SM reject? I can handle it. I’m over it.”

Taein’s assistant ignores Mingeun and turns to you instead. He holds his hand out, Western-style, and says, “I’m Jaeseop. I’m so sorry about Mingeun. We''—he gestures to himself and the cafè foreigner—”were supposed to be the first ones to meet you. Sam—Taein-nim—held us up. Oh, and that’s Andrew.”

Your first impression of him is that he’s frazzled and all over the place. You imagine being Taein’s assistant is a difficult job. Behind him, Mingeun folds his arms, clearly upset about being excluded from the conversation.

You grasp his hand. “Haksu.”

“I know,” Jaeseop says, suddenly looking like he’d rather be anywhere but in front of you. “Taein-nim told me about you.”

You wonder how much Taein told him. You don’t think he’d tell his assistant everything. It’s supposed to be a secret between the two of you.

“How many—” You hesitate in the middle of your sentence. Of you? Of us? How long until you're one of them? “—other trainees are there?”

“Seven,” Jaeseop says. “With you, there's eight.”

“If you're expecting monthly evaluations and competing against fifty other trainees, we're past that,” Mingeun cuts in.

“We’re the debut team. We’re all that's left,” Andrew adds.

The three of them seem so in-sync with one another, like parts of a perfect, well-oiled machine. You're the loose cog, the piece of scrap metal carelessly tossed inside, with all the potential of breaking the machine into pieces. And how does Taein's assistant fit into all of this? He seems close to Andrew and Mingeun, closer than an assistant to the CEO should be.

“When will I meet everyone else?” you ask, just to change the subject.

Jaeseop, with all the mental fortitude of an overworked assistant, takes a deep breath and begins to rattle off a list of names and short descriptions and times, most of which fly right over your head. “Intak will be here around lunchtime, after his classes end. Byeonghwi and Eunsu come by after school in the mid-afternoon. Kiyoung-hyung keeps saying he'll quit his job, but he hasn't, so he won't be here until the evening.”

Andrew picks up on your obvious cluelessness, and simplifies it down to, “Intak will be here soon. He'll be extremely bad at small talk. Don't mention it to him.”

You don't know where that came from, but you nod along anyway. These are going to be your group members. You need to get along with them.

“Don't talk about League either,” Mingeun adds suddenly. You didn't realize he was still part of the conversation. “Unless you're also an SKT fan upset about their loss. He's really into that. You don't seem like a gamer.”

“I play a bit,” you say diplomatically, because you do. You were a teenage boy at one point, and there was no way for you to survive those years without playing League of Legends at least once.

“We all have sensitive topics, “ Jaeseop says as way of explanation. “Things we don't want to talk about and therefore try to avoid unless there's no other way around it. Mingeun, yours are?”

With a sigh, Mingeun dutifully says, “SM Entertainment. All you need to know is that I used to be a trainee there. And my mom. You don't need to know anything about her.”

Jaeseop keeps saying “we.” If you hadn’t seen him so many times with Taein, you’d take him for another trainee. You want to ask what his role really is, but you know you can't, because it'll betray you. It's harder than you expected to act like you know nothing about them. You'll have to be careful to not slip up.

He turns his full attention to you, and asks, “Got anything?”

This is the last thing you expected from your first day as an idol. Your first item comes quickly. “How I joined Zenith Entertainment.”

You know you'll have to tell them eventually, but for now, you want to get along with everyone. Mingeun looks like he wants to ask you anyway, consequences be damned.

Andrew dismisses him before he can speak. “Byeonghwi asked for the same.”

“He asked us not to ask him why,” Jaeseop corrects. “He got in through the audition.”

Mingeun attacks like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Why’d you do it?”

You could tell them that, you suppose, but something holds you back. You want to be certain you can achieve your destiny before you start shouting it to the world. “I don't want to discuss that either,” you say instead. It's the only way out of it you can see, so you take it.

“Can we talk, hyung?” Mingeun asks, turning to Jaeseop. “Privately?”

You know you'd be the subject of their conversation. You can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You like the attention, but in this context, it seems bad. You want to get along with Mingeun, but it's clear he has little intention of getting along with you.

“No.” Jaeseop's response is firm, and you like him a little more for that. “You can tell me in front of Haksu-ssi.”

Mingeun falls silent, clearly unwilling to say whatever he wanted to say a few minutes ago.

“Great. Anything else?”

You do have a few other ideas in mind, but you've already chosen two major ones and you're afraid to rock the boat, so you shake your head.

On the wall behind him, you notice, for the first time, a schedule created out of a bunch of individual pieces of paper taped together. You skim over it. It’s overwhelming. There are classes on three out of the seven days, scheduled back to back to back: dance lessons and vocal lessons and rap lessons and media training and a short section on how to walk and more dance lessons. It's overwhelming. You're thankful to see that Sundays are, blessedly, left empty.

Jaeseop follows your gaze. “It’s a lot to take in at first,” he says sympathetically. “You’ll get used to it.”

You will, because you have no other choice. Your options are to adjust, or to give up and forfeit your spot and your destiny. The latter isn’t even in the realm of possibility. You’ll adjust and you’ll succeed, because you have to.

Then it's noon, and Intak arrives. You remind yourself: no comments on his social skills and nothing about League of Legends. He shows up with nothing but a laptop bag slung over one shoulder and a can of Red Bull. He looks over you with a disinterested gaze, asks, “Another one?”, chugs his Red Bull, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he and Andrew disappear out of the practice room to wherever else they go.

Mingeun leaves shortly after the two of them. You know he's going to the cafè to wait for the two high schoolers, but you don't say that out loud. You watch him leave, and then you're left alone with Jaeseop, the two of you sitting on the floor.

“If I ask about how or why you became a trainee, can you give me an answer?” Jaeseop asks.

“No,” you answer, because you can't.

“Do you have any relation to the Danyoung Group?” is his next question.

“No,” you say again, unsure what a chaebol who built and now owns three-quarters of the buildings in Seoul has to do with you. “I’m from Gunsan.”

He stares at you like he doesn't believe you. You meet his gaze until he looks away.

He sighs. “I’ll take you on a tour. You haven’t seen everything yet, have you?”

The question appears much more rhetorical than literal, so you follow him out of the room.

“The floor used to be all office space,” Jaeseop says, walking backwards as if he’s a professional tour guide. “This half hasn’t been converted yet.” He gestures to the messy sprawl of cubicles. To your surprise, that’s where Andrew and Intak are, two chairs in the same cubicle, though it looks like Intak is the only one working.

Jaeseop avoids them and makes a beeline for the other side of the space. It’s emptier than you had thought at first glance. He introduces you to a middle-aged man, sitting at a desk, surrounded with a tidy assortment of trinkets and knick-knacks and framed photographs. It’s the polar opposite of Taein’s office.

“This is Sanghyun-nim,” he says. “He’s Taein-nim’s right-hand man. He does all the unpleasant tasks Taein-nim doesn’t want to do.”

That doesn’t seem conducive to your image of Taein. You’ve seen him do a few unpleasant tasks. You suppose those weren’t necessary for his job.

“The menial ones,” Sanghyun corrects. “You’re the new recruit. Kang Haksu-ssi.”

“That’s me,” you say, surprised by the way he recognizes you. You wonder how much Taein told everyone else, what kind of story he fed them. You doubt it was the truth. You hope you can trust him. If you can’t, it’s a little too late for that.

He seems like he could have an entire conversation with you, but Jaeseop whisks you away. “Hyekyung,” he says, of a young woman around your age, with a phone tucked on her shoulder, taking notes with her other hand. She waves in your general direction.

“Social media and marketing,” Jaeseop explains. “I wouldn’t get on her bad side. She’s really the one in charge of this entire area.”

He stops in his tracks and points across the room. You tiptoe to see what he’s trying to point out to you. A woman who looks like she should be a floor below them with the copywriters sits alone at a desk, a wide berth between her and anyone else.

“Gyeongwon,” Jaeseop says, voice dropped to a whisper. “She doesn’t work here, but she works with Taein-nim. I wouldn’t upset her either.”

He moves on, taking quick strides across the floor to the side opposite the elevator. “The stairwell is here. Goes from the first floor up to the rooftop.”

You think he’s going to take you up the stairs—to the rooftop, maybe—but he stops. “The fourth floor is only Taein-nim’s office for now. I assume you’ve been there. The fifth floor is empty. The elevator doesn’t go up there. If you do ever go up to the rooftop, the door is always stuck.”

You try to follow along, completely overwhelmed with the amount of new names and faces and information you’re expected to now know.

Jaeseop checks the time on his phone. “Mingeun should be back by now.”

You don't have much praise for Jaeseop's tour. This time, when you open the practice room door, Mingeun is pacing. The conversation stops abruptly as you enter. Eunsu and Byeonghwi, you remember, though you can’t remember who’s who.

Jaeseop comes to your accidental rescue. “Eunsu.” He points out the boy in the mustard-yellow uniform. “And Byeonghwi.”

Byeonghwi gives you a smile and a wave, and you’re immediately struck by how he seems genuinely happy to meet you, as if he was destined to be an idol, forever pretending and playing along with people slipping in and out of his life. Like you, you have to remind yourself. It’s a sharp contrast from the way everyone else has behaved around you. High school students are supposed to be annoying and immature, not better than you at your own fate. You try not to let it get to you.

Not long after their arrival, Intak and Andrew make their re-entrance. Andrew is in a different outfit, the type of corporate wear you’ve seen him leave in. You see your opportunity, so you take it.

“You changed,” you observe.

“Work,” he says. “I teach English at a hagwon.”

You wonder if he’s qualified to do that, and then if the parents of the students he teaches know that their teacher is focused on being an idol and not on teaching. You should have guessed. What else could he do?

You watch him leave. Almost as soon as the door shuts softly behind him, Intak pulls Intak to the side and speaks softly. You strain your ears to overhear, though you're drawn into Eunsu and Mingeun and Byeonghwi’s inane conversation.

"I can't work with him," Intak is saying.

"I know," comes Jaeseop's reply. "You have to try."

"I am trying," Intak hisses. "He's the one who doesn't want to try. He thinks he can do it all by himself. He refuses to show me anything he's working on. He’s impossible."

"I know," Jaeseop says again. He says something else, but you don’t hear it, because Byeonghwi is asking you how and why you joined the company, and you have to tell him that’s not something you’re ready to talk about yet.

You watch the sun start to set out of the windows overlooking the street. They're open, but they face the wrong way and let no air in. You want to go home. Jaeseop steps out to pick up dinner. No one makes a move to leave, so you don't either.

When the sun is fully down, you meet Kiyoung. He arrives looking a bit too much like a copywriter as well. You would have mistaken him for one, had the reception to his entrance not been perfectly warm and friendly.

You learn a few more facts in rapid-fire fashion. He's the oldest of the team. He works for an environmental non-profit organization, and is refusing to quit until he finishes his current project. Before he was a Zenith Entertainment trainee, he was a trainee at another small company that went under before he could debut. He met Jaeseop when they were both in middle school and their schools double-booked the same trip location.

You exchange a few more pleasantries, and then the mood of the room shifts more towards homework than anything else, because everyone—with the exceptions of Kiyoung and Intak—are still in school. It surprises you to learn that Jaeseop is a student.

“This is my last semester,” he explains when you ask. “I don’t go to class much anymore. I’ll graduate just fine.”

You’re beginning to feel like the odd one out, so you continue your hopeless quest to catch up on all your work. You probably aren’t going to graduate. You probably aren’t even going to finish this semester.

Andrew returns later in the night, and that, for some reason, signals the end of the day. Eunsu is pressed to the glass, announcing his imminent arrival before he even steps foot in the building. Andrew’s single action upon returning to the third floor is to pick up Byeonghwi, who seems only too enthusiastic to leave. After that, it’s a free-for-all bordering on a bloodbath. You wait, because you’re new, and it’d be rude of you to be one of the first to leave.

Then it’s you and Jaeseop and Mingeun, nearly a mirror image of the morning.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Jaeseop says to you, and then in almost the same breath, “Make sure you go home, Mingeun.”

Mingeun scowls.

You nod, though you’re almost dead on your feet. You think being a private investigator might be a little easier. You aren’t sure how, but you’ll survive it. You have to. It’s the only way you can do great things.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ haksu. ]#ficnetfairy #fictional idol community #idolverse #idol oc #kpop oc #fake kpop group #kpop fanfic

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