Chapter 138. A Small Motive (10)
Jung Siwoo didn’t answer my question for quite a long time.
And I just left him like that. Sometimes, silence could be the answer.
“…Does it show a lot?”
Jung Siwoo finally spoke again when I was almost finished with my cup of ramen, hotbar, and two boiled eggs, washed down with a sports drink.
My mouth was too full of the dry yolk to respond, so I simply nodded to him.
“Honestly, I usually don’t let things like this get to me… but with Seok, it’s not that easy.”
“……”
“I know you and Haru are trying hard to keep the team’s spirits up. Thank you.”
Jung Siwoo seemed a bit embarrassed.
He hadn’t been drinking.
Whether it was the atmosphere or the cool night breeze, he seemed more relaxed than usual.
And that was…
Probably the same for me.
“Hyung.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you… need some help? With Seok?”
“……”
You see your father in Seok hyung, right?
That’s why it’s difficult and why you’re so cautious, right?
Even though those words surged within me, I swallowed them back.
But since I’d already come this far, I couldn’t pretend not to know anymore.
Jung Siwoo looked a bit surprised by my words. After a moment, he shook his head.
“No, it’s okay.”
“…Are you sure?”
“I was going to talk to you about Seok, but it’s not about that. It’s a problem between Seok and me, so we need to figure it out ourselves.”
“Then what were you going to say?”
“Oh, that…”
Jung Siwoo hesitated for a moment. But the silence didn’t last long.
“Seok seems really stressed, and not just because of me. At first, I thought it was the pressure of elimination until the second round… But lately, it seems like something else.”
“Oh, he did seem to struggle a bit during the third round. Plus, the result at the elimination ceremony wasn’t great.”
“He seems really worn out. But since Seok feels comfortable with you, I thought he might open up to you.”
“Well… Yeah. I’ll try to gently bring it up next time.”
Jung Siwoo didn’t say thank you or apologize for asking.
He simply nodded lightly, as if he expected my response, sipping on the coffee he had bought earlier.
And somehow, that felt like he was acknowledging and trusting me, which made me feel pretty good.
Jung Siwoo put the cup of coffee, now full of melted ice, back on the table. His face, now looking at me, had a mischievous grin that wasn’t there before.
“……?”
“Are you not uncomfortable with me anymore?”
“…Huh↗?”
Damn it, my voice cracked.
I was thrown off by his sudden no-holds-barred approach.
“When did I ever say I was uncomfortable around you…?”
“But you weren’t entirely comfortable, right? Be honest.”
“Well, just a little, a tiny bit, I found you a bit intimidating. Just a little. Really, just this much.”
“So you’re not denying it.”
As I vehemently tried to express with my fingers how little I was intimidated, Jung Siwoo and I locked eyes and burst into laughter simultaneously.
“Should we head back now?”
Still smiling, Jung Siwoo asked, and I nodded lightly in agreement.
After cleaning up all the remnants of my midnight feast, we slowly walked back to the dorm.
On the way back, we both drifted into our own thoughts, without much conversation.
But the silence was not unpleasant at all.
* * *
But the very next day.
No, to be precise, just a few hours later.
I regretted that quiet midnight stroll.
“Hyung, did you cry…?”
“I want to cry, right now.”
Dan Haru poked at my swollen eyelids. After gauging my reaction, and seeing that I wasn’t stopping him, he started poking at various other places.
Poking my eyelids, and then prodding my puffy jawline and cheeks.
I didn’t have the energy to deal with him, so I just let him be while vigorously massaging my swollen facial muscles with a gua sha.
It was the result of the cup ramen, hotbar, and two eggs I had devoured last night.
“Are the others here?”
“Oh, Siwoo hyung. Seok hyung hasn’t arrived yet. He said he’ll be here after he showers.”
Despite eating the same cup ramen with me last night, Jung Siwoo showed up looking even more pristine than usual, without a trace of swelling.
Right, a statue’s face stays perfect even if it swells a bit.
Even that jerk Cha Minseok had a face that tended to puff up, but Jung Siwoo didn’t seem to have that issue.
The world is really unfair.
‘…Wait a minute. I have a skill, don’t I?’
While I was rubbing my face vigorously with the gua sha, I suddenly remembered that my life had the hashtag #System.
If I used the skill <What’s My True Self?>, I could quickly get rid of the swelling on my face, so why was I going through this?
‘If the swelling suddenly goes away, it’ll be too strange… I’ll use it later, just before filming.’
Meanwhile, Gong Seok came rushing into the practice room, a towel draped over his shoulder.
There was still about an hour left until the production team arrived.
Without delay, Jung Siwoo turned on his tablet and showed it to everyone.
“As I mentioned in the group chat, this is the song I want to perform with ‘Where am I’. I sketched out a rough outline yesterday, and I think it’s not bad. I’d like to hear your opinions.”
Soon, he played a video on the tablet.
It was a video of Jung Siwoo singing a song in a private practice room with just a mood lamp and an acoustic guitar.
“…Hyung, did you not sleep?”
“I did this before going to bed. Slept for about an hour?”
And yet, his face isn’t swollen?
I really should poke him with a needle and see if it breaks without drawing blood, and then report to the UN that there’s a statue here.
…Or is it NASA?
I had barely slept three hours myself, and now nonsense was starting to spill out of my mouth.
“Anyway, listen to it.”
First, the entire song, then,
He played it again, mashed up with an existing song.
While the 10-minute video played, the team members quietly absorbed the song that Jung Siwoo had prepared. Thanks to his preparation, we were able to easily follow along with the lyrics he had already printed out.
“……”
As I listened to the song, I kept my eyes on Gong Seok, who was sitting across from me.
Gong Seok couldn’t take his eyes off the lyrics sheet in his hand.
He mumbled the words quietly as if he was carefully chewing and digesting each word,
His hand tracing the lyrics slowly, as if deep in thought.
“What do you think? I think the lyrics fit well, and it’s going to be good.”
After the video ended, Jung Siwoo asked for our opinions.
He looked slightly nervous.
Since I had already agreed yesterday, I deliberately waited for Haru and Gong Seok to express their honest opinions without swaying them.
Just as Haru, still glancing at the older members, hesitated to speak,
Gong Seok, in an unusually loud voice, suddenly said:
“Let’s do this.”
It wasn’t, ‘I want to do it,’ or ‘Should we do this?’ but ‘Let’s do this.’
Everyone froze, turning to stone at Gong Seok’s unusually assertive words.
It might not seem like a big deal, but…
From my perspective, it felt like witnessing Helen Keller shout WATER after miraculously opening her eyes, just like Sullivan witnessed.
So instinctively, I nodded along, as if entranced, while looking at Jung Siwoo.
“Let’s do it, hyung. I think we should.”
“The song is really good. I really… The lyrics are so beautiful, I really want to sing it.”
Even though Haru was the type to be cautious around the older members, he still had the guts to say no when he needed to. Since Haru also agreed, we were able to unanimously decide on the song.
‘So now the only issue left is Siwoo hyung’s father, huh?’
I had thought about it all night, but couldn’t come up with a clear solution.
After considering all the possibilities and people’s reactions to each scenario, it was clear that Jung Siwoo had to make the final decision.
Whether or not to reveal the existence of his ‘father’ to the world.
And if I had to state my opinion, it would be to reveal it.
‘Once we debut, stories about his father might leak out in one way or another. It might be better to take this opportunity to present it properly and release only the minimum amount of favorable information.’
It would probably be best to talk to Jung Siwoo about this alone, but what excuse could I use to pull him aside?
I glanced at the Sparkling and the Cautious one, still engrossed in reading the lyrics sheet and replaying Jung Siwoo’s video.
At that moment, our cautious one (sorry, Seok hyung) asked Jung Siwoo something with a hopeful expression.
“Siwoo, this… You said your father wrote this song, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Why?”
“I know it’s really presumptuous of me to ask, but… If it’s okay later on… I’d like to meet him.”
“…Ah. Well…”
Oh
, no.
Gong Seok’s words caused Jung Siwoo’s face to quickly fill with discomfort.
As the seconds ticked by and Jung Siwoo still didn’t respond, Gong Seok, who was sensitive to others’ reactions, quickly waved off his own emotions and waved his hand.
“Oh, I’m sorry if it’s too much. If not, maybe I could at least send a message? The lyrics really feel like they’re speaking to me right now. I really want to convey that.”
“No, it’s not that it’s too much or anything…”
Even with a troubled expression, Jung Siwoo hurriedly cut off Gong Seok’s words.
Although I knew about the situation with Jung Siwoo’s father, I couldn’t show that, so I just kept an eye on Sparkling beside me, making sure to gently pat his head so he wouldn’t get too nervous or scared.
Unless Jung Siwoo asked for my help with his conversation with Gong Seok, that was something they needed to handle on their own.
Even if the topic of conversation was Jung Siwoo’s deceased father, it didn’t change anything.
‘…He’s someone who can handle this conversation on his own.’
If he didn’t want to talk about it, he wouldn’t.
And if he felt it was okay to talk, he would.
If he wanted to use this song to reveal his father to the world…
Jung Siwoo needed to be clear about his stance on this topic.
I didn’t know if Jung Siwoo thought the same way I did,
But Jung Siwoo spoke up anyway.
Placing one hand on the guitar case he had brought for practice today.
“…He passed away, before I joined the company.”
“Oh… Oh, I-I’m sorry. I didn’t—,”
“No, it’s okay. I just didn’t mention it. And you don’t have to apologize, Seok.”
“……”
Gong Seok tightly shut his mouth.
He looked like he was about to dig a hole and bury himself, feeling like he had committed a grave sin. Jung Siwoo glanced at me, as if asking for help. But I just shrugged and gestured toward Gong Seok with my chin.
Come on, if you’ve decided, you have to see it through to the end.
Seeing my firm refusal to intervene, Jung Siwoo let out a small sigh and, after thinking for a moment, spoke to Gong Seok again.
“…But I can still pass the message along.”
“……?”
“The next time I visit where my father is, I’ll make sure to tell him about you. I think he’d be really happy to know that someone was comforted by his song. Thank you.”
“Can you really…? The lyrics really felt like they were meant for me. I’ll remember this song forever.”
Unable to contain his excitement, Gong Seok quickly spoke, his face beaming in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Seeing that, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, so I pinched Dan Haru’s cheek for no reason.
Because of the glowing atmosphere between the older members, Haru didn’t even complain about the pain, instead looking up at me with an expression that said, “How could you do this to me?” That face was so funny that it made my tears retreat a little.
While the younger members engaged in slapstick comedy beside us, the older ones were wrapping up a scene straight out of a youth drama.
“If it’s okay… Would you like to come with me sometime? If you’re comfortable with it. It’s in Seoul, so it’s not far. You’re the first person, besides me, who’s a fan of my father… Ah, but maybe it’s too soon to call you a fan?”
“Oh? No, no. I am a fan. I’m sure I will be. Did he write any other songs?”
“Yes. I’ll play them for you sometime if you’re interested.”
“Thank you. It must be really cool to have such a father. I’m envious.”
“…Yeah. He was really amazing.”
Jung Siwoo’s last words held a hint of moisture in them.
As I watched their conversation, both seemingly relieved,
I thought to myself.
It seemed that I didn’t need to talk to Jung Siwoo separately about his choice regarding the ‘Father reveal’…
It seemed unnecessary now.