Good Bye, Good Hi
Ga-yoon found herself recalling the profile she had seen of him before. Debuted at twenty-one, now four years into the job. The sparkle in his eyes was cute enough — if anything, a little overwhelming.
"No, really — why are you sitting like that?"
"You're in the middle of your styling... I figured having to look up at me would be uncomfortable for you."
It had been her way of telling him to stop that and get up. Yet there he was, clutching the sheet she had signed like a treasure, grin stretching ear to ear. He looked truly happy. Truly grateful.
Perhaps that was why, on a small impulse, she asked for a signature in return.
"Sign one for me too, please. On the album."
Idols weren't really her world, but she liked music, and she listened to it often.
"Good Bye, Good Hi. That one's my favorite."
Not from the new single — a Hyun I-tae solo track from their last full-length album.
There was no lie in it. That song really was good. Good enough that she caught herself singing along without meaning to.
"Oh — of course. I like the new single too. I've been listening to it a lot."
She held out the marker she had been writing with just moments before.
...
The face that had been smiling softly from the moment he walked in went rigid.
Had her words touched something inside him? It was the look of a man whose mask — worn all this while — had suddenly slipped.
And in Hyun I-tae's eyes as he took the marker, Ga-yoon saw Ha Ji-hyeok of Whistle.
That weary gaze, the passion still burning with nothing left to burn for it. For one instant, I-tae's eyes were exactly that — and she understood, all at once, what Writer Yang Bo-hyeon had meant about this kid being the second choice for Ha Ji-hyeok.
At first she had taken him for exactly what he seemed on variety shows and music broadcasts: breezy, bright, nothing beneath the surface.
The face before her now was another matter. He sat below her, yet he did not look small. He did not look the least bit lightweight, either. It was a gaze through which the weight of a life seeped, an anguish soaked through to the bone — a face that made you wonder what kind of life a man must have lived for such an expression to be possible.
Had Writer Yang seen this side of him? What had he witnessed, and how, to be so certain that Hyun I-tae could carry Ha Ji-hyeok?
Should she finally watch that audition tape of I-tae's after all — the one Writer Yang supposedly received? Or would she have to observe his every move through her evil spirits?
Though perhaps it could work, if she bent the setup a little — traded the jaded man in his fifties, soured on the world, for someone younger. A rookie detective still burning with passion, battered by the cases piling up, by orders from above to just push them through, by a mentor long gone stale. Even the victims turning on him for fighting their battles alone. A young Ha Ji-hyeok slowly turning into his own mentor and superiors — that might not be so bad.
"Here..."
By then Hyun I-tae had finished signing, and he held the single album back out to her.
"Thank you."
Ga-yoon took it with a smile —
"Will I get to see you again? No — I will see you again, sunbae-nim."
Hyun I-tae said it with a faint smile.
Through the door he had left open on his way in, the busy clamor of the set swelled.
"Jung Ga-yoon ssi. We're starting the shoot."
A staff member rapped on the open door to call the start of filming.
Ga-yoon, Minji, and So-hee finished the last of the styling and rose from their seats. She slipped DCT's album into her bag, gave him a nod, and left.
...
Left alone in the waiting room, Hyun I-tae unfolded himself from his crouch and stood. He traced the strokes of Ga-yoon's signature — level, even lettering — then pressed the sheet carefully to his chest.
Hyun I-tae opened the dorm door, his face crowded with thought. The members' voices carried from inside.
"Whoa, shit. Seong Jin-ung is fucking done for?!"
"Seriously. What would possess a man to drink and drive. Tsk tsk."
Hyun I-tae, back from his variety shoot, reproached Seung-jae and Deok-gyu with tired eyes.
"Guys. Watch your mouths."
"Aw, hyung. Who's going to hear us inside the dorm?"
Seung-jae slicked back a reply and flopped across the sofa. The emotion plain on his face was bone-deep exasperation — there it goes again, the nagging.
"That's exactly the problem — it turns into habit and slips out before you know it."
Even so, he had to say it. There was no law that said they had to stay second-string forever. They would shine in proportion to how hard they worked — or, to put it another way, he had resolved to keep working until that light came. And for that, their words, their actions, their mindsets all needed straightening, starting now.
"Tch. Guess the only one with a problem is hyung, off doing variety shows."
Deok-gyu flicked the barb over his shoulder and went into his room, shutting the door with a bang.
It feels like I'm the only one making that effort.
...
Silence filled the living room. Seung-jae lay there staring at his phone, and Minho — who hadn't said a word from the moment I-tae walked in — rose and headed for the kitchen. At the crinkle of a ramen packet, Seung-jae bolted upright.
"Hey, me too!"
Irritation flared in I-tae, sudden and hot.
"Ramen? At this hour—"
The new song had been out barely any time at all. They were supposed to be mid-promotion. It exasperated him. Never mind vocal and dance practice — they had a music show pre-recording at dawn, and this was what they were doing.
"Aw, hyung, the wait at the pre-recording's going to drag forever anyway."
A little ramen hardly mattered, Seung-jae drawled — with how much they sweated, the sodium was long gone, so who cared about puffing up — and he waved the whole thing off.
The words caught square in I-tae's throat. Honestly, four years in, he had done more than his share of lecturing. And a lecture only ever lasted as long as the ones hearing it were willing to keep up.
He stared blankly at Minho quietly setting the water to boil and Seung-jae cheerfully digging out spoons and kimchi for the table. Then he turned away.
Click.
He slipped quietly into his room, closed the door, and stayed leaning against it where he stood.
...
Then came the sound of the next door opening, and Deok-gyu's voice.
"God, the fucking nagging. At this point, isn't it a waste for him to go on variety shows alone and come back with just 1/n?"
"Spare me the shit-talk and get out here and eat your damn ramen."
As Seung-jae fired back, he must have jerked his chin toward I-tae's door — he seemed to be checking whether I-tae could hear. Deok-gyu answered anyway.
"Let him hear. Don't care. Fuck's sake — so what if he's the popular one, the one going places?"
Where did it all start going wrong? All I ever wanted was to do whatever it took for this team.
I-tae, who had been clawing his hair into tangles as if to tear it out, went and sat on his bed.
"Oh — hyung. You're back."
Jaiden, the youngest, sprawled on the opposite bed with his headset on, only then noticed him and raised a hand in greeting.
"Mm."
He had caught himself wondering whether even this one might be monitoring their broadcasts, running through their songs. But on the tablet in Jaiden's hands, one of the dramas everyone was talking about lately was playing.
"Get some rest."
With that brief courtesy, Jaiden fitted his headset back on and sank into the drama.
Why does it feel like nobody cares that we have a pre-recording in a few hours? That none of them gives a damn anymore what happens to this team? That it's going to be just me, running a threadbare schedule, handing out our albums and promoting them myself?
"Sure."
Leaving behind an answer that would never reach Jaiden, I-tae opened his bag and took out the CDs of their new single. Other idols, with investors' money behind them, were putting out albums in every pretty, outlandish shape imaginable. No. Even that much was a luxury. Weren't there trainees beyond counting who vanished before they ever debuted — idols who managed a debut but never got out so much as another single, let alone a second full album?
Hang in there. Even if nothing goes the way you want — hang in there. That was the moment.
Thump—
From between the CDs slipped a single sheet of paper — the autograph he had received earlier from actress Jung Ga-yoon.
"Ah."
The truth was, he had set out to get that autograph on purpose. Fan or no — if he declared himself one, collected the signature, and asked her to give their songs a listen, a message would sometimes come back saying she'd enjoyed them. Once in a while she even posted about it on social media.
But then —
"Good Bye, Good Hi. That one's my favorite."
"Oh — of course. I like the new single too. I've been listening to it a lot."
Emotions came welling up, one over another, and his mood turned strange. Perhaps it was because he had never once imagined meeting someone in this industry who would listen to his music and answer it with real sincerity. Trainee life from age twelve; debut at twenty-one — and the dread of whether the sum of it all amounted to just this. The greed to climb higher. He sneered at himself for thrashing alone between that dread and that greed, yet could not quite let go of either.
He had stepped in to promote the albums himself — their own manager couldn't be bothered — and in that very moment he had met a sincerity like the first rain after a long drought, and the gratitude that came with it. What followed was shame. Her signature, traced with such care; her words, offered in earnest. And with what heart had he asked for that signature? With what heart had he claimed to be her fan?
"Will I get to see you again? No — I will see you again, sunbae-nim."
He had penned the signature he gave in return with all the care he could muster, and it still hadn't felt like enough. He had to see her again. He wanted to give her something more — to return her heart, and then double it.
Rustle—
I-tae cradled the autographed sheet — barely the size of his own palm — against his chest. Then he laid it away with care in the drawer where he kept every album they had ever released.
Sighs flew thick and fast at the nth meeting to find a stand-in for Seong Jin-ung on Whistle.
"We're sunk. What do we do now...?"
Every alternative they had put forward had come to nothing.
"Ki Eun-seok's out too?"
"Yes..."
Min Seok-jae's schedule hadn't lined up, and Woo Byung-geon had kept weighing this and that — and then weighing it some more. They had set him aside for the time being and pinned their hopes on Dam Ho-jin or Kim Cheol-hyung, names with real marquee value and guaranteed acting chops — Ki Eun-seok, too. But every last one of them was somehow terribly busy.
Then came yet another piece of bad news.
"Um, Director? Actor Woo Byung-geon has declined as well."
Even Woo Byung-geon, who had done nothing but stall, was out.
"Ugh, shit. What a fucking joke."
Director Park Hae-gang spat out the curses and fished a pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket.