Free Web Novel-Hmm. Where is this scent of a tax thief coming from?
Back in my military academy days, I used to tease my classmates who failed to pass exams or didn’t get the top grade on the physical fitness test.
Calling them thieves who wasted the nation’s tax money and mocking them with gusto, those were the days when I ran my mouth so mercilessly that I even got jumped and beaten up at night.
And in this life too, I still hadn’t fixed that habit.
-Mrs. Sukja, you can’t even do this? This won’t do. Your housewife title is revoked.
-I’m revoking your daughter status! Where do you think you’re running off to! Get over here!
Even though I knew Mrs. Sukja’s combat power, every time someone messed up I couldn’t stop myself from teasing them, and at school, I even called my friends “backbreakers” who wrecked their parents’ spines.
'Thinking about it, I really went around building up a ton of karma.'
What kind of life did that past version of me even live?
"Clunk-clunk. Let’s go practice."
"Clunk-clunk?"
"Oh my, sorry! Saying someone clunks around when she can’t even do choreography is too mean!"
"Yeah, yeah! Ryujin went too far. Even if Sion is disgustingly bad at facial acting, you still can’t use words that mean!"
"Sion, today too, you have to clunk around with energy."
Starting with Seo Ryujin, the members kept sending endless mockery my way.
"Ugh!"
But I couldn’t bring myself to talk back to this humiliating ridicule.
-Uh···Sion, can we loosen that expression a little more? For waacking, it’s important to strike poses that are sexual but also striking.
Choreography practice for the new song, which had started a few days ago.
Because our choreography, made together by Ryu Ayeon and the dance team, repeated with very simple moves, I could follow it without much trouble.
But the problem was, for this choreography, simply following it wasn’t the end.
'It’s a completely different grain from the choreographies we’ve learned up to now.'
Even with the choreographies we’d danced so far, facial acting was the basics.
For example, for our debut song, "It Feels Like Something’s About to Start," producer Raon had demanded we express a fluttery, innocent feeling.
And before that, for "Starlight Umbrella," which Park Taesu had produced, we’d been told to create a wistful, soft atmosphere.
Like that, it was only natural that each song demanded a different mood and expression, so this new song also demanded a specific mood and expression from me and the members that matched the track, but—
-Waacking is a dance that came from what gay people danced in clubs. So you can think of it as, no matter what, a sexual vibe comes along with it as the baseline.
The problem was that it slightly demanded acting “gay.”
Of course, since we were a girl group, they weren’t demanding anything excessive, but Ryu Ayeon and the dance trainer kept saying that in this choreography, we had to show that feeling, even if only a little.
A “gay vibe” was a difficult task for the other members too, but for me, it was like a massive reef I was crashing into for the first time.
-Lee Sion, try being freer.
-Huh? Isn’t this enough?
Up to now, as I performed on stage, I’d imitated all kinds of vibes, but—
"Everyone’s being too much! Even though because of Sion, our choreography progress has stopped and the backup dancers and the trainer are suffering, I still think calling Sion a failing student is going too far!"
"Shinyu···."
The word “failing student,” which finally popped out of Shinyu’s mouth.
This shock was the first time I’d felt something like this since I got an average of 5th-tier grades on the college entrance exam.
'No. Now that I think about it, I think it was like this back during Pink Spell too?'
Back when I first joined Agbaek, ignored my aunt’s advice, danced "Pink Spell," and created a black-history artifact that still hadn’t been forgotten—the feeling back then was like this.
And because the Entrance Ceremony stage in front of me happened to be Ryu Ayeon, my "Pink Spell" stage had been even more miserable.
Right now, I was in a situation just as miserable and painful as back then.
"Now that I look at it, I think Shinyu says things the harshest."
"Right. If someone else says it, it still sounds like a joke, but when Shinyu says it, it feels like 100 percent serious, so it hurts!"
There really was weight to Shinyu’s jab.
The other members didn’t hold back on mocking me either, but Shinyu’s heavy single strike was a different grain from the others’ teasing.
"It’s okay. Still, you’ve gotten a lot better than at first. If you keep doing it, you’ll keep improving."
"Really?" freewēbnoveℓ.com
"···Rea···lly."
At least Ryu Ayeon, the original creator of the choreography, seemed like she was trying to cover for me, thinking that because she’d chosen that kind of choreography, I was suffering, but—
'That brat really can’t lie.'
If you looked at how she answered my question of whether this would be okay by avoiding my eyes, my current state seemed pretty serious.
-Lee Sion, relax your face!
Whenever I did this choreography, it was like my expression kept stiffening without me noticing.
Maybe because of my past life, but the moment I thought I was doing “gay dance,” my body stiffened on its own and I started clunking around.
Thanks to that, in the practice where we matched timing with the backup dancers, progress was stuck and sluggish.
"Whew···. It can’t be helped."
I couldn’t endure this situation.
"Lee Sion’s kind of suspicious."
"There she goes making that face again. Shouldn’t we call the managers?"
"I’m scared every time Boss makes that face."
While I was making a firm resolve for the team and steeling myself, the members slandered me without even knowing.
This choreography really was an extremely harsh challenge for me.
But I didn’t avoid that challenge.
If /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ you can’t avoid it, enjoy it. You can do it.
It was the kind of line where if I said it to my old platoonmates or company guys, they’d look at me like I was some old fossil and cringe, but I didn’t know a more efficient solution than this.
'This reminds me of back when I had PTSD from gunshots.'
When I was young, there was a time I suffered from PTSD where the moment I heard gunshots, I’d start hyperventilating.
And back then, I solved it by running straight into it head-on.
This time too.
"I’m taking a self-imposed vacation today."
"What?"
Right now wasn’t the time to practice.
It was time for a more fundamental investigation.
Up to now, even when it came to dancing choreography, I’d solved the concept using the imagery method I learned from Park Taesu, but unfortunately, in Three Kingdoms, there was nothing that suited this choreography.
Even if I tried to solve it somehow by thinking about the emotions of Sun Quan (Jerry), the gayest-looking guy among the Three Kingdoms characters, and copying that, it still wasn’t enough.
-Sion, try freeing yourself a little more. You have a tendency to try to do it too analytically.
To the point that the trainer who saw me said the moves were perfect, but the energy felt like it was digging inward instead.
I thought the cause was a lack of reality—because I had never experienced it directly, or even seen something similar.
Then there was only one solution.
Like they say, if you want to catch a tiger, you have to go into the tiger’s den.
If I wanted to understand “gay dance,” I had to learn about gays.
"I’m going to Itaewon."
Itaewon, the holy land of gays.
I felt like if I went there, I could definitely get something.
***
-Yunsik, go around with Sion for a bit.
'Oh, for fuck’s sake.'
Yunsik rubbed his temples, recalling Lee Sion suddenly coming to find Raon and saying Lee Sion would skip practice for just today.
Raon had asked back with a serious expression why Lee Sion would skip practice.
And that was because all KJ Entertainment employees knew Lee Sion had been having trouble with choreography practice lately.
Producer Raon looked worried that maybe Lee Sion had fallen into a serious slump.
'Most idols go through slumps.'
From trainees to debuted idols, it was common to go through a slump at least once during activities.
And the reasons people went through slumps varied wildly by person.
Some because of skill, some because of hate comments, some because of family environment—slumps were something you went through at least once for all kinds of reasons.
-Sion’s slump might get long.
However, the reason KJ Entertainment went on high alert about Lee Sion’s slump was because of Lee Sion’s uniqueness.
Zero trainee period.
The moment Lee Sion appeared on the broadcast, Lee Sion debuted at No. 1 in popularity rankings, and even after debut, Lee Sion kept soaring—no matter what incidents or controversies broke out, it was like the heavens helped as Lee Sion pushed through the harsh entertainment industry.
Especially since even the parts where Lee Sion had been lacking in skill were broken through smoothly with inborn talent, Raon judged that the first slump Lee Sion experienced could be more fatal than expected.
At first, the company people thought, Is it that serious? But at Raon’s concern as a top-singer alum, they started taking it as a truly serious problem.
-Sion, do you want some chocolate?
-No thanks. I’m not craving it right now.
To cheer Lee Sion on, they even offered snacks according to the Lee Sion management manual.
-What? Are you saying Ms. Sion refused snacks?!
But when Sanghyeok, the CEO, heard that Lee Sion was even refusing snacks employees secretly passed along, Sanghyeok even ended up raising his voice for the first time.
Normally, for Lee Sion, most things got smoothed over with one snack, so refusing snacks was a major incident.
'It really is a big deal.'
Lee Sion’s slump wasn’t just one member’s problem.
Not only KJ Entertainment employees but also fans knew that the members were relying on Lee Sion in subtle ways.
And the main reason behind Iam’s current rising popularity was the members’ great chemistry centered around Lee Sion.
So if Lee Sion was struggling, it was obvious the impact would naturally spread to the other members too. As the staff were racking their brains, trying to figure out a solution no matter what—
"We’re here, Sion. But can you really get something out of this place?"
"If you want to catch a tiger, you have to go into the tiger’s den. To understand gays, the best thing is to see gays directly."
"Yeah···."
Because Lee Sion said Lee Sion wanted to take a day off practice and go to Itaewon in person, Yunsik got dragged to Itaewon together.
They couldn’t just send Lee Sion to Itaewon alone, so someone had to go along.
One of the managers had to stay at the company to manage the other members, and it seemed like too much of a burden to dump on Jiu, who was still a rookie, so Yunsik had no choice but to step up.
Worried Lee Sion might stand out, they thoroughly disguised Lee Sion from mask to hat, left the van behind, and took a taxi to arrive in Itaewon—Lee Sion and Yunsik.
"Sss. Is this the smell of gays?" ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
"That’s a pretty dangerous thing to say."
"Hm. Yeah. That wasn’t a very PC thing to say."
Watching Lee Sion blurt out a dangerous remark the moment they got out in Itaewon, Yunsik could already predict how rough today’s Itaewon tour would be.
"Let’s go deeper inside. This area still feels way too aboveground."
"Isn’t the outskirts enough?"
"What I want is reality."
Yunsik still couldn’t understand why that kind of reality was necessary to overcome this slump, but for now, Yunsik silently went a little deeper into Itaewon with Lee Sion.
'Yeah. Sion is an artist too. Sion might discover something I can’t.'
In fact, back when Yunsik worked at SY, there were idols Yunsik worked with who had especially strong “artist” temperaments.
Like that male idol who drove Yunsik crazy by saying that no matter how busy the schedule was, he had to watch the sunrise for at least a full minute.
Comforting himself that Lee Sion might also have something only an artist could feel—something Yunsik didn’t know—Yunsik went deeper into Itaewon with Sion.
But—
"Two men spotted over there. Are they a couple?"
"Aren’t they just friends?"
"Hm···."
Seeing Itaewon look like anywhere else aside from having a lot of foreigners, Yunsik felt uneasy, but also relieved.
If they actually ran into gay people, Yunsik didn’t know what Lee Sion might do.
And so, even after thirty minutes of “gay exploration,” with no particular gains—
"Since we came all the way here, let’s just eat."
"Yeah. It’s already past lunchtime."
In the end, failing to find any gays, Lee Sion drooped unlike at first arrival and suggested to Yunsik that they should just eat.
'Ah···. So overcoming the slump is a lost cause?'
Looking at Lee Sion drooping like that and wondering how on earth they were supposed to fix this slump, Yunsik decided they should at least eat first and chose the restaurant-like place right in front of them.
Going to a famous hot spot could mean lots of customers and Lee Sion’s identity might get exposed, so they had to go to a decently quiet place.
They found a restaurant that looked just the right amount of empty and went straight in—Yunsik and Sion.
"I’ll have pork cutlet and an omelet!"
"I’ll just eat a simple sandwich."
"And Coke for the drink!"
"Hey! Your comeback is soon! Drink sparkling water instead of cola."
"Haa···. Pork cutlet without cola is kind of sad, though."
Watching Lee Sion’s energy rise again as if just thinking about eating, Yunsik was quietly feeling relieved when—
"Can I help you with your order?"
"Yes. Pork cutlet and an omelet here, and a sandwich, and two glasses of sparkling water, please."
"Yes, please wait a moment."
Someone who looked like the restaurant owner came to take their order personally.
The owner took the order and disappeared.
"Hm···."
"What now?"
"This place is really big, but there aren’t any part-timers."
Hearing Lee Sion, Yunsik also found it odd, suddenly wondering if the owner was running a wider-than-expected place alone, but—
'Business must not be doing well.'
Since there weren’t people, Yunsik figured the owner was just trying to cut labor costs, and didn’t think much of it.
Then, while Yunsik and Lee Sion had some small talk about recent dorm life and practice, before they knew it, the food they ordered came out.
"Enjoy."
"Thank you. But this is···."
There was a non-alcoholic cocktail included that they hadn’t ordered, so Yunsik was about to say they didn’t order this when—
"This is on the house."
"What?"
"A gift."
The restaurant owner winked once at Yunsik and disappeared.
"···."
"Jackpot."
Watching that, Lee Sion’s eyes went wide, and Yunsik’s hand started trembling.
