Chapter 156:
Chapter 156
Will I be able to perform again?
Ian stopped by the agency to check the script and heard that the members were there. He headed straight to the basement studio.
“Hey, long time no see.”
“You’re here?”
He gave high-fives to Lee Joo-hyuk and Park Jin-hyuk as a greeting and sat down in an empty seat. He looked around. There used to be various machines related to composing, but one spot looked conspicuously empty.
“Wasn’t there something here? It looks empty.”
“Joo-young borrowed my launchpad.”
“More like he snatched it away.”
Park Jin-hyuk added to Lee Joo-hyuk’s answer. Ian raised his eyebrows.
“What a punk.”
“But he’ll probably make another awesome mix song in return.”
Lee Joo-hyuk was looking at a screen with a composing program on it, but Ian couldn’t recognize it because it was too complicated.
“What song are you writing?”
“The next song for the kids.”
“Oh… they have some composers among them, right?”
“Yeah. They also wrote lyrics.”
During the hopeless hiatus of Awi, the agency confirmed the debut of a nine-member group. Ian skimmed through the paper that Lee Joo-hyuk handed him. It was the lyrics written by the trainees.
“Wow, they write well.”
“They also have good melodies. We might not have to work on their next album.”
“Then, you guys should focus on our song.”
“That’s right.”
Park Jin-hyuk nodded his head slowly. Then he suddenly turned his head and stared at Ian’s face intently. Ian pulled his head back.
“What?”
“So, whose house do you want to go first for Lunar New Year?”
“Did you call me to ask that?”
“Yeah.”
This time, Lee Joo-hyuk, who had been fixated on the screen, also turned his head.
“Why are you suddenly obsessed with that?”
“You’ll be lonely if you stay alone in the dorm.”
“But we all stayed in the dorm last Chuseok.”
“Lunar New Year is different, you should go home. It wouldn’t hurt for you to experience Korean holidays too.”
Lee Joo-hyuk’s expression looked unusually awkward as he answered. Park Jin-hyuk had shamelessly said that his sister wanted to see Ian.
‘These guys… they’re not worried about me staying alone in the dorm…’
[Are they trying to take the hot topic ‘Nauri’ home?]
Ian chuckled. His laughter made Lee Joo-hyuk flustered.
“Actually, my mom told me to bring you over.”
“I knew it.”
Was it his mother-in-law from the debt scandal or his mother-in-law who thought highly of him? He understood why he was so nervous.
“But I really want to treat you well, okay?”
“I know, I know.”
Ian wasn’t too disappointed. He couldn’t give them the answer they wanted anyway.
“But I’m not going to your houses, okay?”
Sorry to disappoint you.
Lee Joo-hyuk and Park Jin-hyuk leaned forward from their seats.
“What? Then are you staying in the dorm?”
“No?”
“Then where are you going? Seo-dam’s place? Joo-young’s place?”
Lee Joo-hyuk and Park Jin-hyuk waited for Ian’s mouth to open.
“Tae-woong’s grandmother’s place.”
“What?”
They made a dumbfounded expression at the unexpected answer.
“Do you guys want to come too? The house is spacious there.”
Ian smiled slyly.
***
“Our grandson is here?”
“Grandma!”
Jo Tae-woong ran over and hugged his grandmother. Shin Soon-ja, his grandmother, smiled softly at his careful hug despite running over with enthusiasm.
“Did you have a hard time coming here?”
“No, ma’am.”
“The road wasn’t blocked at all, mom.”
“Is that so? Come and eat dinner.”
Jo Tae-woong and his parents opened their mouths wide at the lavish table setting.
“Wow, Mom, this is too much!”
“I told you, you don’t have to make so much, Mom.”
“It was no trouble. Come on.”
“Thank you for the food!”
They chatted about each other’s lives as they ate. Jo Tae-woong desperately tried to stop his grandmother from bringing him another bowl of rice.
“Grandma, I can’t eat all this.”
“Eat more. You need to gain some weight.”
Jo Tae-woong shook his head. He had been working out a lot with Ian, so he had some muscles, but he still looked skinny in his grandmother’s eyes.
“So, how’s work?”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
Jo Tae-woong leaned against the wall after barely finishing his rice. His parents fixed their eyes on his every move.
“Mom, Dad, you can go back to Seoul first if you’re busy.”
“But…”
“I’ll be fine with Grandma.”
He knew how much his parents worried about him. He was grateful, but he also felt suffocated by their attention. He felt guilty for being a burden to them.
It’ll be okay. I can get better. They tried to say positive things to him, but sometimes he felt like they were pressuring him to ‘just get better’.
“It’s okay, we’ll take care of things here… Don’t worry about us.”
“But…”
Lee Hye-eun hesitated. Jo Tae-woong looked at his parents with a confident expression. They flinched at his gaze. They had only seen him with a dark expression until now, but finally they saw a bright one.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s okay?”
Jo Tae-woong nodded.
In the end, they promised to visit often and left for Seoul. Jo Tae-woong stared blankly at the car that disappeared over the hill. He snapped out of it when he heard his grandmother’s voice.
“So, who are these friends on TV? Introduce them to me.”
“Our members?”
Jo Tae-woong sat on the living room sofa with his grandmother and peeled some tangerines. He flipped through the photos of his members stored on his phone.
“First of all, our leader hyung, the oldest hyung. His name is Lee Joo-hyuk.”
“He looks kind.”
“Right? We call him Buddha among us.”
“No wonder, he looks the nicest.”
Shin Soon-ja chuckled. She pointed at Park Jin-hyuk who was standing next to Lee Joo-hyuk.
“Who’s this bear-like guy?”
“This is Park Jin-hyuk. He’s nice too, but he has no sense.”
“Bears are dull.”
Shin Soon-ja laughed out loud. She urged him to introduce the next friend and Jo Tae-woong swiped the screen and zoomed in.
“This is Kim Hyun. He dances really well.”
“He looks sharp.”
“Well, he’s a bit fussy, but he’s nice. He calls me the most.”
Maybe it was because they were in the same boat, but Kim Hyun called Jo Tae-woong every day. And always at a fixed time.
They didn’t have much to talk about. What did you eat? Was it good? I tried this dance today but it didn’t work out well. That was all.
Jo Tae-woong used to be reluctant to answer Kim Hyun’s calls because he thought he was nagging him as usual. But now it felt like listening to a relaxing radio or ASMR.
“These are my friends who are the same age as me, Kim Joo-young and Choi Ian.”
“They’re very handsome. Isn’t he on TV? Did he star in a drama?”
“Oh, he just started a drama recently. But Grandma, we’re all on TV.”
Jo Tae-woong stared at his grandmother intently. She coughed and quickly changed the subject.
“Who’s this? He looks like a girl.”
“This is our maknae, Park Seo-dam.”
If Park Seo-dam heard that, he would have been furious. Jo Tae-woong smiled softly.
Shin Soon-ja saw his smile and smiled warmly.
“You have a lot of friends, my grandson. I’m jealous.”
“Grandma has a lot of friends at the senior center too.”
“They’re all dead.”
“What?”
Shin Soon-ja giggled.
He thought she was serious, but it was a joke. He laughed out loud too. It was his first hearty laugh in weeks.
After that day, Jo Tae-woong’s rural life began. There was nothing for him to do there actually. It was winter, so there was no farming to help with either. He just sat on the warm boiler floor and ate snacks.
‘Ah, I’m bored.’
Jo Tae-woong tried not to look at the internet as the doctor suggested, but he couldn’t live without his smartphone. Especially in a remote countryside.
“Ah, it’s stuttering again.”
He used to play games on his phone, but there was no Wi-Fi in the countryside and the data was sometimes cut off. He turned off his phone and lay down on the floor to take a nap.
Jo Tae-woong had dinner with his grandmother and swallowed the medicine before he forgot.
“What is that medicine?”
“This? Oh… it’s just medicine.”
Jo Tae-woong hid the medicine bag behind his back. Shin Soon-ja clicked her tongue.
“Eating medicine won’t heal a broken heart.”
“I know.”
“It’s all up to your mindset. You have to be strong.”
“…If that were easy, I would have been on TV, not here.”
Shin Soon-ja felt sorry for his dark expression and brought him a sweet potato from the kitchen.
“Do you want a sweet potato, my grandson?”
“…Sure.”
***
“Grandma, the toilet is clogged! Oh, that’s why the water pressure was low.”
“Is that so? Then unclog it.”
“Me? Me?”
“Who else? Do you expect an old lady to do it?”
“Well… no.”
Of course, Shin Soon-ja did not let Jo Tae-woong just lie around. She gave him all kinds of household chores, such as washing dishes and mopping the floor, saying that he should rest comfortably since he came. Jo Tae-woong also followed her orders obediently since he was living off her.
“I can’t unclog this…”
“It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you haven’t! What are you doing with that internet thingy?”
Shin Soon-ja was trying to keep him busy so that he wouldn’t have any idle thoughts.
‘Can I do this?’
Jo Tae-woong pouted his lips in dissatisfaction but sat down in front of the toilet faithfully. He searched the internet for how to unclog a toilet.
First, pour water. He filled a basin with water and poured it into the toilet.
“…It’s not going down?”
He looked for another method. He tried using a straightened hanger to poke inside the toilet and a plastic bottle method, but none of them worked.
“Now that I think about it, I saw something like this before?”
Jo Tae-woong entered YouTube and searched. The method he remembered was from a variety show. He searched the house for a plastic bag, tape, and scissors and sat down in front of the toilet.
“So…”
He followed the video instructions and sealed the toilet with a plastic bag and tape, and pressed the middle hard.
“Please…”
Jo Tae-woong flushed the toilet with trembling hands. He heard the sound of water draining. He removed the sealed bag and saw that the toilet was cleared. It was written on the internet that it was the most difficult method, but he succeeded at once.
“Wow!”
I did it! Jo Tae-woong raised both hands above his head with a sense of accomplishment. Shin Soon-ja, who was watching him from the bathroom door, chuckled.
“Grandma, I unclogged it! High five!”
Shin Soon-ja awkwardly slapped his hand and led him to the living room.
“How was it? Easy, right?”
“Ah, it’s nothing.”
Jo Tae-woong shrugged his shoulders.
“Come on, you can do it too. You have to try things like this to learn.”
There were many tools that Jo Tae-woong had left near the toilet, but Shin Soon-ja didn’t mind. She smiled warmly and looked at his face. She liked seeing him proud like this, rather than gloomy.
“Our grandson fixed the toilet for us, so we should make some ribs today.”
“Wow!”
Jo Tae-woong headed to the kitchen with excitement.
‘I can do it too.’
That night, he was able to fall asleep without tossing and turning.
He had a lot of free time. In the morning, he heard the birds chirping. In the afternoon, the street cats came by and rubbed their bodies against his legs, asking for food. In the evening, he sat on the warm floor with his grandmother and watched TV programs without anything to do.
“That’s our youngest.”
“The one who looks like a girl?”
“Nah, he doesn’t look like a girl in real life. He’s cute though.”
He had also seen Park Seo-dam as an MC on a music program. He couldn’t sleep that night and stayed up late.
‘Seo-dam is working like that, but is it right that I’m not doing anything?’
He ate the snacks that his grandmother prepared for him without thinking and suddenly felt depressed when he thought, ‘I’ll have a hard time dieting when I come back later.’
‘But can I stay like this forever?’
Jo Tae-woong tossed and turned in his bed with anxiety. His heart beat faster again.
‘Will I be able to work again?’
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