In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Chapter 1

Prologue

Not only do they decorate various media, but they also make people wonder how they became idol singers who spread K-POP worldwide.

‘How did they succeed?’

Experts cite visual, vocal, dance, and entertainment skills as the success factors of these idols. Of course, this is not an accurate analysis.

There is no law that says that skill necessarily leads to popularity.

But it is true that the more talented you are, the more likely you are to succeed.

Why am I telling you this?

That’s because I got a talent.

A talent that others don’t have, a very special talent.

Chapter 1 I got a strange ability

“Huh?”

My head buzzed.

I was called to the top office of the headquarters and asked a question that was like a bolt from the blue.

“What did you say?”

“It’s exactly what you heard.”

I could only open my mouth blankly at the sight of the director who was adjusting his glasses with an embarrassed expression.

“So… you want me to leave the company?”

“It’s not that I want you to leave the company. To be precise, it’s that you’ve been dropped from the debut team.”

“Why?”

I couldn’t accept it.

“Why did I get dropped from the debut team?”

“Woojoo.”

“No, you told me three weeks ago that I was confirmed for the debut team. You also said that the group name was TNT. But now you suddenly…”

“Debut can be overturned at any time. Woojoo, you know how this business is. No one can relax until they debut perfectly. This kind of thing happened a lot when your seniors debuted.”

It wasn’t a wrong statement.

TJ Entertainment.

TJ Entertainment, commonly known as one of the four major agencies in Korea, is an entertainment agency that has produced numerous boy groups and girl groups since the 2000s and has earned the nickname of an idol powerhouse in the industry.

That’s why they produced a lot of idol groups and when I saw the cases of the senior groups who debuted from TJ Entertainment, it was common for the members to change at the last minute.

But I didn’t think it would be my story.

“I know it’s hard to accept. I do too. But…”

“Is it because of the dance?”

There was no answer, but it was enough to be a positive.

“There was a planning team meeting a while ago and there was a lot of talk. They said the choreography balance didn’t seem right. They said it would affect the team color if they debuted like this.”

“…”

“I and the management director tried to protect you, saying that you were a promising kid, but it was a decision made by my superiors, so I couldn’t do anything about it.”

There was only one person above the director.

Park Tae-joon, the chairman.

The CEO of TJ Entertainment and the hand of Midas who is famous in the entertainment industry.

The top manager of this company decided to drop me from the debut team.

There was nothing more to say.

“I’m sorry it turned out this way, Woojoo.”

It felt like the sky was falling.

A feeling that couldn’t be explained by anything.

The company that I had devoted nearly six years of my time to, and that I was about to debut, was trying to cut me off.

With the words that I was defective as their product.

I felt nauseous.

The heat rose up to my face and it felt like my internal organs were twisting.

The cucumber I ate for dieting came up to my throat and went down.

The director gave me a sympathetic look as I tried to calm down my rough breath.

“Are you okay?”

What was unfair was that I couldn’t argue at all.

Because what the company said was true.

Trainee Seon Woojoo.

A trainee with good singing skills, but lacking in dancing skills, who always survives by his face in the monthly evaluations.

It wasn’t strange to be eliminated for that reason.

But even if that was true, I couldn’t help but be angry.

They shouldn’t have picked me for the debut team in the first place.

I took profile pictures, unpacked my luggage at the dorm with the debut team members, and now they’re telling me to leave?

It was infuriating.

“Woojoo.”

“I’m sorry.”

I grabbed a tissue and dabbed at my eyes, which were streaming with tears without me realizing it.

Maybe it was because I had burst into tears once.

The tears kept coming.

It was the first time I had cried in front of someone else since my grandmother had been sick.

After a while, I felt a bit calmer and took a deep breath. I sat down quietly.

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes.”

The director had a calm expression.

Well.

He was someone who cut off trainees every month. 

My tears must have been a common sight for him.

“So…”

My voice was choked.

“What will happen to me?”

“You have three options.”

The director explained.

“First, you can quit the idol trainee program and switch to the acting department.”

“Acting?”

Why acting all of a sudden?

“This is an opinion from the management department. You have poor dancing skills, but you have excellent visuals. You also have good camera presence. There was a lot of feedback that your visuals were too good to waste on being an idol.”

The director smiled, trying to lighten the mood.

“How about switching to the acting department since it’s come to this? We’ve recruited a lot of actors over the years and we have a lot of know-how now. We’re going to produce our own drama soon. If you agree, we’re willing to support you a lot from the company’s perspective.”

“What’s the second option?”

“If you still want to be an idol, we can connect you to another agency.”

“Another agency?”

“Lemon or DNS, for example. They’re smaller agencies, but they’re close to us.”

In other words, they were medium or small agencies.

He continued.

“If you don’t like these options, well… the only thing left is to terminate the contract.”

In the end, he was telling me to choose one of three things: stay and switch to the acting department, go to another agency and prepare to be an idol trainee, or terminate the contract.

I asked.

“Can I debut if I go to another agency?”

“That depends on you.”

The director gave me an ambiguous smile.

He was basically telling me to start over from scratch at another agency.

I let out a bitter laugh without knowing it.

“I’ll respect whatever you choose, but we’d prefer you to go to the acting department…”

The director said something, but I didn’t hear it.

I was just spaced out.

I couldn’t feel more detached from reality even if the world was ending tomorrow.

All sorts of thoughts flooded my mind.

Is this really happening?

Am I really getting cut from the debut team?

What am I going to tell my grandma?

How am I going to face the others when I pack my stuff from the dorm?

What have I done for the past six years, Seon Woojoo?

My thoughts branched out like a stem sprouting from a seed, making my head a mess.

When I finally sorted out my thoughts, I made a decision.

“Manager.”

“Yes. Have you decided?”

“Yes.”

It was a decision I would surely regret later.

“I’ll… terminate the contract.”

***

“…Joo.”

“…”

“Hey, Seon Woojoo.”

“…”

Someone shook my shoulder.

I must have dozed off.

When I came to my senses, I saw a young man looking at me with concern from the driver’s seat.

A man with glasses.

He looked like the ghost from the book <Math Ghost> I read when I was young, minus the pale skin and beard.

Yoon Seok-hwan.

He was someone I had known for a long time.

His title was the deputy of the management team that handled the trainees.

His face showed a worried expression.

“Are you okay?”

“Sorry, hyung. I guess I fell asleep.”

“We’re here. You have to get up.”

The car stopped at an apartment complex in Gangnam-gu.

This was the dorm of the boy group TNT that I belonged to.

I came here to pack my stuff after terminating the contract with the company.

The Carnival that Seok-hwan hyung drove was the last courtesy from the company.

“It’s funny.”

“What is?”

“When I was confirmed to debut, I felt like I was in heaven, but now I feel like I’m at the gates of hell.”

Seok-hwan hyung couldn’t say anything.

“Where are the others? Not in the dorm?”

“They’re all at the training center at this time.”

“Right, they must be busy with the choreography practice.”

They already felt like strangers to me.

They probably thought I was gone for a while for some profile shooting or something.

Yoon Seok-hwan adjusted his glasses and asked.

“Are you really not going to say anything to them?”

“It’ll be awkward for both sides.”

“But you’ve been together for so long, they’ll be hurt. Especially Taehyun, he’ll be…”

“Seok-hwan hyung.”

My voice was choked.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have the energy to care about anyone else’s feelings right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for, hyung. I’ll just pack my stuff quickly and get out.”

17th floor.

The elevator went straight up to the dorm without stopping.

“…”

Inside the dorm.

As expected of an eight-member group, there were hangers lined up in the living room, and clothes were piled up on top of them.

I quickly went into the room and packed my stuff.

I hadn’t brought all my clothes from my hometown in Gunsan yet, so I didn’t have much to take.

A family photo I took with my parents when I was a kid.

And a few clothes.

Lastly, some unwashed training suits that smelled bad.

As I came out with my stuff, emotions welled up inside me.

I bit my lip hard to stop the tears from bursting out.

I was holding back my tears when I got back in the car.

Yoon Seok-hwan asked me with concern.

“Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

“I don’t know…”

“Do you want to stay at my place?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want to bother your family.”

“I live alone, you know.”

“That’s even worse.”

Yoon Seok-hwan chuckled at my joke.

“I’m going back to Gunsan, hyung.”

“Wasn’t your school in Seoul?”

“I dropped out to focus on the debut group.”

The company told me not to do that, that it wasn’t necessary, but back then I only wanted to focus on debuting.

Stupid Seon Woojoo.

“Did you tell your grandmother?”

“Not yet.”

“She must be worried…”

“Worried? She’ll probably curse me out. Like ‘You son of a bitch, I knew you would do this’.”

I shivered at the thought of my grandmother’s harsh words.

Well.

At least I wouldn’t starve.

My grandmother wasn’t the president of the company, but she was a great cook who ran a restaurant.

“Are you really giving up?”

“Yeah.”

The spring breeze blew in as I rolled down the window, tickling my hair.

“You’re being too extreme. You should take some time to think about this. Being an idol isn’t the only way to be an entertainer. There are so many other paths. You could be an actor, a model…”

“Why do you seem more regretful than me, hyung?”

“Of course. If I had your face, I wouldn’t do this.”

“Am I that good-looking?”

“Look in the mirror, man.”

“There are so many handsome and pretty people in the world.”

Yoon Seok-hwan snorted as if that was absurd.

When I was a rookie trainee, he was the intern in the management team.

We had spent six years together, building a strong bond.

But he went from being an intern to a Assistant Manager.

And I was still a perpetual trainee.

I said with a smile.

“I don’t want to be an entertainer anymore.”

“Why?”

“Just. I think I’m tired of preparing for this for six years.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know…”

Maybe it was because of the warm spring weather, but the streets of Gangnam were crowded with people. I looked out the window and opened my lips.

“I want to live a normal life. Go to college, see the cherry blossoms in spring, date someone. And go to the army when the time comes.”

“Ugh.”

“What?”

“The army… never mind.”

He made a face as if to say ‘you’ll see when you experience it’. I just shrugged.

By the time we knew it, the car had stopped.

“We’re here.”

When we arrived at the bus terminal, Yoon Seok-hwan handed me his card.

“Joo.”

“Yeah?”

“You might be too upset to make a good decision right now. You might say you want to quit being an idol or whatever. But you never know what will happen in life. So if you change your mind…”

“I can call you at this number, right?”

“Yeah.”

Yoon Seok-hwan smiled and reached out his hand.

“Take care. See you again.”

After shaking hands, I got out of the car.

With a backpack on my shoulder.

I waved at the car that left a long trail of exhaust.

Before I entered the terminal, I looked around.

Everything was spring.

The people’s clothes, the flowers around, everything was spring.

“Ah, the weather is nice.”

I looked at the clear sky and entered the terminal.

That’s when I thought.

I would never have anything to do with idols again.

But that was my mistake.

Three years later, my life turned upside down.