Chapter 13 - I Will Help
“Aaargh... Uwaaak!”
A groan, no, a scream echoed through the practice room.
It was a good thing the space was well soundproofed; if it had been somewhere else, someone might have called the police.
“Your voice is too loud.”
“It's because it hurts so much! Why is your finger strength so... Agh!”
Laura kept screaming at Baek Hyeon-woo's merciless acupressure.
“U-Um, it seems like she's in a lot of pain...”
Yoo Jeong-ah, unable to watch any longer, cut in, but Baek Hyeon-woo immediately shook his head.
“If I do it gently, it won't be effective.”
“Huh?”
“Because sufficient pressure must be applied.”
Answering as such, Baek Hyeon-woo applied even more pressure with his thumb.
“Uwaaaargh!”
A loud scream echoed, and.
Baek Hyeon-woo slowly removed his hands from Laura's shoulders.
“This should be enough.”
“Aargh...”
Laura let out a groan and collapsed onto the practice room floor.
Seeing that, Yoo Jeong-ah made a worried expression.
“A-Are you okay...”
“Phew…!”
At that moment, Laura suddenly stretched.
“Aah, that's refreshing! I finally feel like I can live!”
“Yes?”
With beads of sweat forming on her face, Laura smiled brightly.
“As expected, when Hyeon-woo oppa gives a massage, the fatigue of the day just melts away!”
“It's not a massage specifically to relieve fatigue. It's to prevent the muscles from stiffening. In the first place...”
“Ah, enough with the complicated stuff.”
With a bright expression, Laura moved her neck and shoulders this way and that.
“Phew, that's really refreshing. Being able to get such a refreshing massage for free is really the best.”
“From next time, it'll be paid.”
“Why?!”
After exchanging jokes with Laura, Baek Hyeon-woo turned his gaze to Yoo Jeong-ah.
“Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi, you saw that well, right?”
“Ah, yes…”
“Just now, I released the tension in her muscles with a massage using finger pressure.”
Baek Hyeon-woo explained in a calm voice.
“I performed a similar treatment on Na-eun-ssi as well. That's why she was able to recover her physical condition and show her best performance.”
“Ah…!”
After confirming that Yoo Jeong-ah was nodding with an expression of understanding, Baek Hyeon-woo spoke to Laura, who was watching from the side.
“You can go home now, Laura-ssi.”
“Why are you trying to send me away?”
“Didn't you say you had a live stream to watch on YouTube?”
“Still, since you keep doing this, it's very suspicious.”
“Are you still suspicious?”
“It's suspicious if a man and a woman are trying to be alone together in an empty practice room in the middle of the night.”
Laura said such a thing, even though she usually didn't care at all about being alone with Baek Hyeon-woo.
“Then please join us, Laura-ssi.”
Actually, from Baek Hyeon-woo's perspective, this wasn't a bad suggestion.
This was because there were cases where he had a female nurse's aide present for similar reasons when treating patients.
“Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi, as I said earlier, you cannot show a perfect performance with such a tensed body. It will have a bad influence on your idol activities.”
Baek Hyeon-woo looked at Yoo Jeong-ah again and spoke.
“Above all... it also makes the people watching feel uncomfortable.”
“……!”
Yoo Jeong-ah flinched.
It had struck a nerve.
“Just like I did for Laura-ssi just now, I will perform a treatment on the relevant area. You will be able to feel your condition improve immediately.”
“Why…”
After swallowing once, Yoo Jeong-ah asked in a trembling voice.
“Why are you doing this for me? I'm not even someone who passed the audition and signed with Haram Entertainment...”
“Because I want to see it.”
“You want to see what?”
“I want to see you, Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi, properly displaying your potential.”
When he decided to walk the path of a manager, Baek Hyeon-woo set his own principle.
To not compromise and to take the best path... that was the principle Baek Hyeon-woo had to abide by from now on.
That's why Baek Hyeon-woo didn't want to give up on Yoo Jeong-ah.
Picking an idol of mediocre talent just because she is pretty and bubbly is nothing more than a compromise.
He had to bring in Yoo Jeong-ah, who possessed the greatest potential, and foster her into a proper idol.
That was the path for the future of Haram Entertainment.
“I want to try working together with someone like you, Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi.”
“……!”
Yoo Jeong-ah held her breath at Baek Hyeon-woo's remark.
***
There are muscles called postural muscles.
They are muscles that contribute more to holding a still, stable posture than to moving the body.
Among those postural muscles, the one located at the very top is the trapezius muscle.
The trapezius muscle starts from the back of the head, passes the neck, and holds onto the shoulders and back.
If you think of it with the human head as the standard, you could say that the entire upper body is hanging from the trapezius muscles.
Therefore, tension in the trapezius muscles directly causes tension in the entire upper body.
‘The trapezius is a sensitive area, so if I give it too much strong stimulation, her condition might worsen for a while. Still, it should be fine now.’
The reason he didn't directly touch Seo Na-eun's trapezius last time was because it was a situation where she had to go on stage right away.
But Yoo Jeong-ah already had her audition today. Even if she has a schedule tomorrow, she should be fine if she gets a good night's sleep.
Judging it to be so, Baek Hyeon-woo placed his hands on Yoo Jeong-ah's trapezius muscles.
“……”
Yoo Jeong-ah's body was in a state of being quite tensed up.
In truth, given the situation, it was bound to be difficult to relax.
“Relax.”
At that moment, a voice came from the side.
It was the voice of Laura, who was fiddling with her phone while drinking a zero-calorie drink.
“That person, his skills are amazing.”
“Ah…”
“To the point where you feel sorry for getting it for free.”
Even though she had shrieked when he said it would be paid from next time, Laura said that.
“He's our Haram Entertainment's exclusive masseur that you can only meet here in the whole world, so think of it as your lucky day and receive it well.”
“I'm a manager, not a masseur...”
As Baek Hyeon-woo said that, Laura chuckled and put her earphones in her ears.
It seemed she was about to watch the YouTube live video she had mentioned earlier.
“Then I will begin.”
“Yes…”
Perhaps thanks to the conversation with Laura, the tension in Yoo Jeong-ah's shoulders eased slightly.
However, that didn't mean the trapezius muscles themselves had softened.
Even without consciously tensing them, Yoo Jeong-ah's shoulders are always tensed.
And when she gets a lot of stress, they get even more tensed.
“I won't do it strongly from the start, so you don't have to worry.”
Baek Hyeon-woo used his thumb and index finger to grab the upper part of her shoulder.
This method of using one's fingers like a pincer to palpate as if pinching is called pincer palpation.
As he moved the position of his fingers and checked the muscle under the skin as if gently rubbing it, there was a spot that felt lumpy.
“It will hurt if I press here.”
“Mph...”
As he applied pressure with his finger, Yoo Jeong-ah clenched her teeth and held back a groan.
Seeing the tension in her jaw, Baek Hyeon-woo opened his mouth.
“Don't forcefully hold back the sound.”
“B-But...”
“This is a practice room, so it's well soundproofed.”
Saying that, Baek Hyeon-woo turned his head.
“And Laura-ssi is wearing earphones.”
“Ah…”
Even though she talked as if she would watch with her eyes wide open, Laura was wearing earphones and just staring at her phone screen.
He didn't know how good her earphones' noise-canceling performance was, but in any case, he probably didn't have to worry much about Laura.
“Don't worry about anything, and just be comfortable.”
“……”
After saying that, Baek Hyeon-woo began to seriously release the trigger point on her trapezius muscle.
He stabilized the knotted area he had found through pincer palpation with his index finger and pressed down hard with his thumb.
In that state, he applied stimulation as if rubbing it in a perpendicular direction.
“Aack…!”
A scream burst from Yoo Jeong-ah's lips.
Just as Baek Hyeon-woo had requested a moment ago, she wasn't forcefully clenching her teeth to hold it in but was naturally making a sound.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Yes, yes…”
Yoo Jeong-ah replied to Baek Hyeon-woo's question, her eyes welling with tears.
“Still… I think it's okay!”
Right now, Yoo Jeong-ah was feeling a pain she had never experienced before.
His finger strength was so immense that it hurt enough to bring tears to her eyes.
However, it wasn't an unpleasant pain.
Rather, it felt good.
He was just pressing the upper part of her shoulder, but there was a refreshing feeling as if the top of her head was being cleared out.
And that feeling... gave Yoo Jeong-ah a sense of liberation she had never experienced before.
“Understood.”
“Ah…!”
The refreshing sensation that had been soaring up to her head had, before she knew it, spread to other places as well.
It was a feeling of not just her neck and shoulders, but her entire upper body becoming refreshed.
Suddenly, the image of Laura from earlier stretching her arms out with a refreshed expression came to mind.
So this is why she liked it so much, Yoo Jeong-ah finally understood everything.
“Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi.”
At that moment, Baek Hyeon-woo's voice was heard.
“Do you know why you haven't been able to debut as an idol all this time, Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi?”
“Pardon...?”
Yoo Jeong-ah flinched in surprise at the sudden question.
But Baek Hyeon-woo immediately began to apply pressure to another area, and she let out a scream.
“Ack, th-that's...”
Her head wasn't working properly because of the sharp pain, but still, she answered with effort.
“B-Because my skills are lacking...”
“That's not it.”
“Th-Then, because I'm too gloomy and no fun...”
“That's not it either.”
Baek Hyeon-woo said, continuously moving his fingers.
“It's because you were always tense, Yoo Jeong-ah-ssi.”
“……!”
“Your body and mind are too tense. That's why your expression is stiff, and you have no wit when you speak.”
Until now, he had been speaking in a gentle voice.
Now, Baek Hyeon-woo was only saying things that were incomparably cold.
“That's why you give off the impression of being a charmless person who is just blunt and gloomy.”
“I-I know that too!”
Yoo Jeong-ah shouted, her eyes welling with tears.
“That's why to overcome that shortcoming, I worked even harder on singing and dancing...!”
“Your method was wrong.”
Baek Hyeon-woo said calmly.
“That is not a proper treatment method. You have to do a fundamental treatment.”
“A f-fundamental treatment...?”
“You have to treat the part that is the cause of the symptoms.”
Saying that, Baek Hyeon-woo held Yoo Jeong-ah's forehead and stabilized it.
And he pressed firmly on the nape of her neck.
“Like this.”
“Agh…!”
A sharp sensation that felt like it was traveling up her neck bones to the crown of her head!
It was a sensation so strong that she involuntarily squeezed her eyes shut.
But when that sensation subsided, she felt a comfortable feeling, as if she had taken a deep rest.
“Just as the body's tension is released when the mind's tension is released, when the body's tension is released, the mind's tension is also released. The body and mind are made to interact with each other that way.”
It was a strange feeling.
Despite having heard a harsh evaluation from Baek Hyeon-woo, her heart didn't feel heavy at all.
Rather, it was a feeling of relief.
“First, let's release the tension in your body as much as possible. And while doing that, let's release the tension in your mind. Then you can become a much more charming person than you are now... an idol who can capture the hearts of many people.”
“B-But I...”
Yoo Jeong-ah opened her mouth, hesitating.
“I've always been a blunt and uninteresting person. This is innate, so there's no way I can change it...”
“That can't be true.”
Hearing that voice, Baek Hyeon-woo looked at Yoo Jeong-ah's face.
And he said in a calm voice.
“When you're someone who can make such a lively and relieved expression.”
“……!”
Right now, Yoo Jeong-ah's face was stained with sweat and tears.
However, unlike when she was sitting dejectedly in the park, her face now had a sense of vitality.
This wasn't simply because her muscle tension was released by stimulating her trapezius.
It was because while screaming with all her might during Baek Hyeon-woo's treatment, she had also let out the emotions that had been continuously suppressed.
“Jeong-ah-ssi, let's give it a try.”
“M-Manager-nim…”
Earlier, Baek Hyeon-woo had received a message from his aunt, Baek Yeon-ah, saying that they had decided to fail Yoo Jeong-ah.
But he had no intention of giving up.
If Yoo Jeong-ah, who possessed SS-class Potential, could properly make her talent blossom, she could become a top idol who would carry the future of Haram Entertainment.
Baek Hyeon-woo wanted to see that.
“I will help.”
“……!”
At Baek Hyeon-woo's words, Yoo Jeong-ah's eyes widened.
And after slowly closing her eyes, she quietly began to shed tears.
That was not the image of the trainee who had never been chosen by anyone until now, who was just blunt and gloomy.
Like the transparent singing voice of 'White Waiting' that Yoo Jeong-ah had sung at the audition... it was a beautiful sight that moved one's heart.