For a moment, Gowon felt as though he had been stripped bare and thrown down in front of Baek Hanje.
He had no idea why Hanje had suddenly brought up a question like this.
Did I make some kind of mistake? Did I let something show? I tried so hard to hide it after becoming a celebrity....
“...Why are you asking?”
Ah. Gowon startled himself the moment the words left his mouth. They had come out far too barbed for something directed at a senior.
He should have answered casually, the way he had when Hanje asked earlier whether he was seeing anyone.
After all, this was someone who treated him like a child, calling him a baby and giving him strange nicknames. Maybe he was not asking because he knew something. Maybe he was simply checking on a young junior artist.
“Actually, forget the abstract question. Let’s use a specific number instead.”
But the moment Baek Hanje spoke again, the heavy weight Gowon had been using to crush down his emotions shifted.
“How much money do you need?”
“I....”
“You already know trying to scheme around me won’t work. Answer me. How much debt do you have to pay off?”
“.......”
He sounded as though he had already reached his conclusion.
To Gowon, poverty was a shackle.
It had bent Grandma and Grandpa’s backs and knees, stolen every ordinary part of his school years, and was now trying to drag his younger siblings down into the mud one by one.
Parents who were worse than absent had left him with debt and disappeared. In a life where the only thing he could do was take on more part-time jobs, a path called becoming an idol had suddenly opened before him.
For the first time in his life, Gowon had felt hope.
Maybe I can finally break free from the shackles of poverty.
That was why he had hidden every part of his reality so thoroughly.
Poverty had always been the thing that diminished all his effort, dragged him down, and threw him aside.
In a world where he could survive only by shining more brightly than anyone else, he could never let it show.
Fortunately, he was used to curling in on himself and hiding the shackles that had constricted his body for so long.
“I don’t have any. I don’t know why you’re suddenly saying this.”
“.......”
“...I think you assumed that because I was raised by my grandparents, but even though we weren’t well-off, I grew up normally. It was just....”
“.......”
Under Baek Hanje’s gaze, Gowon’s voice began to tremble. His heart was beating faster than usual too.
“Hanzel, I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Hey. I tried easing you into this, but watching your eyes dart around is bringing out my rotten temper.”
Baek Hanje exhaled harshly.
“If you lie one more time and say you don’t have debt, then tomorrow you’ll explain in the division head office why you refused both your family home and a hotel after what happened earlier and insisted on crawling back into your accommodations.”
“......!”
“Should I be the only one who knows, or should Taeyoung, Jonghyeok, and I all look into it together? I don’t care either way. Actually, celebrity debt scandals are causing a huge uproar these days. Should I suggest to the CEO that the whole company conduct a full review while we’re at it?”
“Stop it!”
For the first time, Gowon shouted at him.
He had made a habit of hiding his emotions deep inside, but right now, he could not control them.
Not when the senior artist whose acknowledgment he had wanted to earn by showing him his very best performance was digging into Gowon’s deepest shame.
“Yes. I have debt, but I’ll handle it myself. ...Everyone has a line that shouldn’t be crossed. For me, that’s my family circumstances. Why are you trying to drag them out?”
Gowon had already pulled his body backward. It was a clear refusal. A severing of connection.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“......! Because—”
“I told you before that countless people are tied to the three minutes you spend onstage. Then what about your entire career? Investment, training, reputation management. How many things do you think are tangled up in it?”
“.......”
“And what do you think occurred to me, the person who understands that better than anyone, when I heard you say you were going to crawl back into the same place where some fucking lunatic showed up with a rock and tried to beat you to death?”
“.......”
This little bastard. If I don’t catch him now, he’ll keep his mouth shut even when something worse happens later.
The heat boiling inside Gowon scorched his face. He wanted to say something—anything—to the senior artist cornering him, but most of what Hanje said was difficult to refute.
The hot knot of emotion inside him pressed tightly against the back of his throat until he could barely breathe.
Run away.
He needed to get out of here. He could not do this.
He shot to his feet, and the chair toppled over violently. While he froze at the loud crash, Baek Hanje caught him by the wrist.
“What’s so wrong with having debt, you little bastard?”
“L-let go....”
“Ha.... Why are you bristling so much? Back in my day, the starving-artist image sold. Kids who sang about being poor did well, and even the ones from rich families would sob about how hard their lives had been since childhood. These days, the selling point is how much someone lived like a princess or a prince. Do you really think you’re the only one with a story among all those kids pretending to have one?”
“.......”
“If it were some enormous private loan, it would’ve caused an uproar back when you were on <Debut Chart>. But it didn’t. The reason you’ve made it this far without trouble is because the debt is probably with banks or insurance companies. Something around that level.”
“.......”
At that moment, Gowon became acutely aware of Baek Hanje’s enormous, extravagant home—and of himself standing inside it like a crumb.
To someone who earned this much money, perhaps Gowon’s situation seemed ridiculous. But....
“Don’t talk about it like it’s nothing!”
“Exactly! It clearly isn’t nothing to you, so tell me! Hiding what you don’t want people to see, covering it up, and racking my brain over how to make you shine the brightest in front of the public—that’s what producing is.”
Gowon caught his breath.
“The adults who told your grandparents they would take responsibility for you and make you a singer are saying they’ll help you!”
“.......”
“Hey. You twenty-year-old brat. It’s my job to turn the things that feel enormous to you into nothing. So tell me.”
Along with his childish pride, the ground beneath Gowon collapsed.
He had thought he would plunge into a black swamp, but instead his body seemed to float.
It was not a gentle sensation. Baek Hanje had caught him by the collar and stopped him from falling.
Even before reaching adulthood, Gowon had been the head of his household. Grandma, Grandpa, and his young siblings all relied on him, so he had forced himself to act composed.
But in front of this man, he felt endlessly small.
I feel wronged, my throat is closing, I’m scared, and I can’t breathe....
So why did being helplessly torn open now feel more comfortable than forcing strength into his legs while everyone leaned on him?
Gowon’s lips trembled violently before finally parting.
“...Seven hundred million won.”
The instant he said the number aloud, a tear dropped from his eye.
His words poured out as though a dam that had never opened in his entire life had collapsed, releasing all the moss and filth that had gathered behind it.
“It’s debt my father created. I never expected him to act like a parent. I just wished he would live as though he didn’t exist. I wish he had at least done that.”
“.......”
“I-it was originally over one billion won, but Grandma and Grandpa put in everything they earned, and I did too. My part-time jobs, the income I started getting from <Debut Chart>, everything....”
“You’ve done well.”
A heavy hand settled on his shoulder.
“And you did well telling me.”
“.......”
Baek Hanje neither pitied Gowon’s poverty nor looked down on Gowon for being burdened by it.
For a moment, Gowon remembered when Baek Hanje had all but forced him to report the trouble with Kim Eumyul to Kwon Taeyoung.
It had been the first time something that happened to Gowon was resolved not through his own desperate struggle, but because someone else stepped in.
And now too.
Gowon bit his lip so hard it turned white. Everything felt unfamiliar. It was almost like the first time he had ever stood onstage.
The difference was that the heavy knot crushing his face and throat until they hurt kept forcing tears out of him.
He tried to hold them back, but humiliating sobs kept escaping.
“Then have you been sending all the living expenses the company gave you to your family too?”
Baek Hanje did not remove his hand from Gowon’s shoulder, so Gowon nodded as he was.
“Because I received prize money from <Debut Chart>, Grandma and Grandpa were removed from the basic-living-benefit program....”
“Ah.”
The fierce expression that had started to harden on Baek Hanje’s face suddenly loosened.
“Yeah, fuck. This one is the government’s fault.”
“Ah!”
His shoulders were kneaded firmly. Between the alcohol and the violent swing of his emotions, even his tense muscles had contracted tightly. His vision suddenly spun.
Baek Hanje removed his hand and looked up at the ceiling as he let out a long breath.
“Could you end up with more debt?”
“...That man is dead. ...Fortunately.”
“Yeah. Fortunately. Do you know there’s a system for renouncing an inheritance?”
“He secretly took out debt in Grandma and Grandpa’s names....”
“.......”
Baek Hanje fell into thought for a moment before continuing.
“Gowon, I heard that if things keep going like this, you should start receiving profit settlements soon. Once that happens, paying off the debt should be more than poss—”
Baek Hanje stopped mid-sentence and covered his mouth.
His expression was filled with shock.
“Wait..., it’s March right now. Did you set aside money for your comprehensive income tax before paying off the debt?”
“......?”
Gowon did not know what that was. The answer showed plainly on his face.
“Why are there so many things you don’t know? What the hell is the company doing? They didn’t even teach you this?”
“What is it?”
“You received prize money for winning last year, so you have to pay money.”
“To the company?”
“Hey! If the fucking company tells you to bring them money, report it to me! Even tiny garbage agencies don’t pull that kind of shit these days. I’m saying you have to pay it to the government.”
“......?”
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