Chapter 62
“Hyoyoung!”
As expected, she was greeted by Mikyung, Aran, and her other friends as soon as she walked into her classroom the next morning. The looked very excited and expectant.
Hyoyoung replied wearily, “I heard you dropped by my place yesterday, Mikyung?”
“Yup, I sure did. I suddenly missed you last night, so I went to your house. I really really wanted to see you.”
“You could’ve called, you know.”
“Well, Hyoyoung, I just wanted to talk to you in person. And now that I think about it… I think it was meant to be. Fate.”
“Fate?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Black M is still my idol, but I finally found a man who could be the one for me in real life! Your distant relative… what’s his name? The guy I saw at your house yesterday! The hottie!”
“Huh?”
Before Hyoyoung could say anything more, Aran stepped in. It was obvious that Mikyung already told all her friends about Jiwoo. Aran exclaimed, “I heard he is super hot! Can I meet him too? Please? I want to see him! Why is it that all the men in your family are so gorgeous? Your older brother is so hot too.”
“Totally, Hyoyoung! So please… tell us his name! And… can we go to your home after school to meet him? We can study together too! Don’t you guys think that’s a great idea?”
All the girls nodded in agreement. Hyoyoung had expected her friends to get excited, but this was more than she anticipated. Sighing deeply, Hyoyoung started to stammer out an explanation she already came up with last night.
“H-his name is Andrew. It’s actually the first time I met him too, so I don’t really know him well. He’s a very distant cousin, visiting my brother, and he will be back on the plane soon. He is not going to be staying with us for very long.”
“Really?”
Mikyung asked her suspiciously, and Hyoyoung could only nod. When Hyoyoung couldn’t meet her eyes, Mikyung asked again, “Then where did you go last night?”
“Me?”
“Yes. I went to your house after 10 PM, and your cousin said you were out. So where were you?”
“Oh, I, I just had some… something to take care of.”
Hyoyoung didn’t expect Mikyung to ask her this question, so she had no answer ready for her. At the unexpected question, Hyoyoung stuttered. Mikyung started to look at Hyoyoung unhappily, suspecting that she was lying again.
This was really bad.
When Aran noticed the mood becoming tense, she tapped Mikyung’s shoulder and said lightly, “Wow, I had no idea that there were things about Hyoyoung that Mikyung didn’t know about. How strange, right?”
Aran said it to lighten the mood, but Mikyung seemed to realize something. She frowned and murmured to herself, “It IS strange… I just don’t know what to do anymore…”
Hyoyoung flinched when she heard Mikyung, and she was about to explain herself when the school bell rang. Everyone returned to their seats and Hyoyoung never got the chance to talk it out with Mikyung.
Meanwhile, the members were practicing for their concert in the basement. They danced and sang for five hours straight. Afterward, they collapsed to the floor panting. While they rested, Hyunsuk glanced at Hyojun before announcing to everyone, “About President Shim… I need to tell you guys something.”
Everyone slowly sat up to look at Hyunsuk, who continued carefully, “He will be returning to Korea the day before our concert. I think he is being… deported from Bali.”
“What? Deported?”
“Yes. Apparently, he got into a lot of illegal stuff. He is no longer welcome there.”
“Well, I’m not surprised at all. I mean, that bastard ran his business dirty too when he had the agency.”
“What an embarrassment he is! He should rot in jail.”
Jiwoo looked around and asked, “Hey, guys, I have an important question.”
“What is it, Jiwoo?”
“What can this mystery Shim guy do to us? Why should we be so afraid of him?”
“Well…”
Jiwoo continued, “I’m just confused. I mean, I understand that we need to be careful of Myunghee since she is clearly crazy, but this mystery Shim? What can he do to us? Reveal Kiwook and Hyojun’s identities? Is that it?”
Hyunsuk was about to answer Jiwoo when Hyojun interrupted him, “I am telling you, we need to avoid him at all costs.”
Hyunsuk nodded in agreement while Jiwoo asked again, “But why? I don’t get it.”
Hyojun replied slowly, “The thing is… when I think back, we shouldn’t have ruined his business like that. It was wrong of Kiwook and me to ruin his life.”
“Oh…”
“At that time, we just hated Rodent so much, and we had nothing to lose. We thought what we were doing was justice. We thought we were being heroes to the other trainees. I now know that it was stupid.”
Jiwoo replied, “But it was, wasn’t it? It was justice!”
“Butting blindly against the problem isn’t justice.”
“Then what is…?”
“Correcting it.”
“But you did. Kiwook and Hyojun, you guys corrected it.”
“No, if we were aiming to correct the problem, we should’ve used a different method. Like speaking to President Shim in private. We should’ve acted more civilized.”
Kiwook nodded, “Hyojun is right. I was so immature, so all I wanted was revenge. And I did things in anger, but as time passed by, I realized that I shouldn’t have approached it the way we did. We shouldn’t have said things in front of that lady and the other trainees.”
Hyojun agreed, “I know. I think… we just wanted to become heroes, but we ended up making things worse.”
Jiwoo still looked confused, “Heroes? I don’t understand what you guys are talking about. You need to explain more.”
Hyojun glanced at Kiwook before continuing, “We thought destroying the company would make us look cool… but in the end, President Shim was also a victim in all this. It was wrong of him to use rich women to fund his company, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t our business to meddle. It was his private life. We shouldn’t have done what we did. It was wrong.”
Jiwoo nodded. “Ok. And?”
“But the Rodent was another matter. He was our business because he was part of the company. He did things that were unethical, to us and the other trainees. However, we shouldn’t have brought up the subject in front of the Lady like that. We should’ve made a formal complaint to the President.”
“Oh…”
“Because of our stupid and impulsive action, we ended up ruining President Shim and his family. It also badly affected the other trainees, who could have debuted in the future had we not bankrupted the agency. When you think about it, we ruined thirty to forty people’s lives.”
Hyunsuk added, “Hyojun is right. We should’ve properly made a formal complaint to President Shim and get the Rodent fired. If we did that, many of the trainees could’ve become huge stars and Shim’s agency could’ve been the top entertainment company in the country. His agency could’ve been a bigger and more successful than our current company.”
Hyojun continued, “That is why we are trying to be very cautious. Shim lost everything because of us, which means he will want to do everything in his power to do the same to us.”
He sighed and after a short hesitation, he added, “And… when someone is cornered like Shim is… you learn to recognize your enemy’s biggest weakness. What your enemy treasures the most…”
Hyojun turned towards Kiwook and continued, “To Kiwook and me… the most important person in this world is…”