The Sunbae Who Paves a Flower Path

What was he going to do if he had complaints? When I said jump, he had to jump.

While Gowon was gone, I briefly closed my eyes and wiped a hand down my face.

“I’m going insane...”

So, in other words, the reason I got dragged into Gowon’s debut work wasn’t only because I got unfairly caught up in it.

“Hah...”

I couldn’t even complain about what kind of wish fulfillment this was... because the memory of my eyes going wide when I saw Gowon’s stage in the practice room was still vivid.

He had been the image of a muse who dealt me a shock, as if telling me to wake up from my sluggish slump.

Now that it had come to this, I would make him succeed no matter what.

Having renewed my resolve like that, I set out once again on the road of suffering.

The recording ended only after twenty long hours of revision after revision.

As a result, a song that fit Gowon perfectly was born.

Brother Taeyoung

The song was good. You worked hard.

You’ll handle the mixing yourself, right?

“Hah...”

Of course. After suffering through all this, I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I watched it through to the end.

Kwon Taeyoung replied that the engineers would start the tuning right away, so I should rest a little and check it afterward.

That was that, but personally, there was something I absolutely had to say.

Brother, but that song was one I was going to bring out for a Young Ace comeback.

That was why I’d thought all my hair would fall out while tearing a group song apart and remaking it into a solo song.

Stop cleaning up after other people and give us an album too, leaderㅡㅡ

Hurry up and negotiate while holding both hands of the Division Five director.

Brother Taeyoung

Okay. Thank you, and I’m sorry.

Damn it. It really was a song I’d been saving.

The empty place of that song in the old cloud storage felt hollow, like a missing tooth.

Still, it had flashed into my mind, and I had gone ahead and played it for him right away. On top of that, it suited Gowon extremely well.

To be honest, I felt as relieved as I felt regretful.

Could this song have become part of a Young Ace album one day?

Because I couldn’t answer that, it had been buried in a folder for the past several years.

It’s about time to let it go.

Besides, if Gowon failed, I failed. If I failed, Kwon Taeyoung died, and Young Ace ended. If Young Ace fell apart, our fans would be sad, and that could basically be considered the end of the world.

In other words, if Gowon failed, the world would end, so it was only right to show my utmost sincerity.

Only after repeatedly monitoring the recording until the very end and writing the notes to send to the engineers was I able to stand up.

“Gowon.”

When I called his name, the guy sitting on the sofa with his soul halfway gone lifted his head.

“...Yes. Is there something else to do?”

“No. It’s over. I’m going to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“If you’re tired, just close your eyes there for a bit before you go. You’re going to choreography practice later too, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Maybe he was really tired, because the tension seemed to melt slightly. But then he quickly came back to his senses and stiffened the softened wall back up again.

With a prickly face, Gowon gathered his notebook and the outerwear he’d taken off. Whether he did or not, I went into the bedroom and flopped face-down onto the blanket.

I thought I’d black out the moment I touched the pillow, but my head, heated by deep immersion, and the thrill of finally creating a finished product I liked kept my mind awake.

It felt like I had pushed my creative ability to the limit for the first time in ages. Since all of it might be blown away if Gowon failed to debut, burning it one last time wasn’t so bad...

No, there was no way that would happen.

I guaranteed it.

Gowon will have a successful debut.

As someone who had benefited from the quest window first, I could say that with certainty.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door, and the studio entrance quietly opened.

So he was going to completely forget the death camp we’d shared while living and suffering together and leave without even saying goodbye. What an outrageous bastard.

“Hey, Gowon! Gowon!”

“Why, why?!”

“Come here! You forgot something important!”

“What is it?”

When I urgently called him, Gowon turned back from where he had been about to leave and ran over with a startled face.

“Turn off the lights before you go.”

“......”

A surge of frustration rose over Gowon’s exhausted face. I thought I heard a faint “shi...”

Oh?

Now he didn’t even have the stamina to put on his mask, so his temper was slipping out.

Soon, the room light went out. The work area was also thoroughly turned off.

“...Goodbye.”

Before closing the final door, he did at least say farewell.

“Gowon, I heard the ‘shi.’ Come here.”

“......”

Gowon stopped for a moment, then moved inside with hesitant steps.

“It wasn’t a curse, I’m sorr—”

At that moment, I reached out and yanked Gowon toward me.

Caught off guard, he collapsed onto the bed just like that.

“Sleep here, you bastard. If you collapse on the way out right now, Brother Taeyoung will scold me.”

Gowon looked at my face in confusion, then frowned and let out a sigh.

“They say you can’t spit in a smiling face, but you’re sighing so hard you’ll bore a hole through mine. Are you cold-blooded?”

“...I’ll go.”

“Wow, you’re really cold. Now that you’ve sucked all the sweetness out of your senior, you’re just leaving?”

“No...! That’s not it. Senior, you...”

Gowon tried to say something, then snapped his mouth shut.

Maybe because he was so taciturn and always held things in, even this kind of reaction was a little funny.

Maybe Gowon predicted that the more he tried to leave, the worse my teasing would get, because he took over the very edge of the corner and lay down.

His large back, curled up pitifully despite all the spacious room available, was just funny.

“Hey, Gowon.”

“......Yes.”

He was very slow, but he still answered pretty well.

“Aren’t I amazing? Making a song just like that in a few days.”

“Yes.”

“It feels good after clinging to something like your life depends on it and finally completing it properly, right?”

“...Yes.”

“Where else would you find a senior as kindhearted and good as me?”

“......Yes.”

That answer sounded like “don’t make me laugh” wearing the mask of “yes.”

Ah, teasing a junior was more fun than I’d expected.

His temper seemed worthy of his face, so how had he ended up living a life where he suppressed it like that?

I was too physically exhausted to continue that train of thought. Watching the back in front of me rise and fall regularly made sleep pour over me even more.

Flinch.

At that moment, Gowon lightly trembled and slowly sat up.

My eyes were already closed. With careful movements, Gowon quietly slipped out of bed.

Did that guy doze off for about ten minutes?

Moving stealthily like a cat, Gowon walked just as carefully to the door, closed it, and went outside.

It seemed the wall full of wariness did not allow him to fall asleep beside someone.

“That was an expensive price for coffee, pretty boy.”

Though, in truth, the coffee he’d bought when he first came here hadn’t been to my taste.

Once Gowon disappeared, complete silence settled over the room that had been full of all-nighters for days. Soon, I was slowly pulled into sleep.

Q1-1. Crisis on the Brink!

Progress: 40%

Current Stage: Filming the prerelease track’s music video

The weather was cold enough that white breath rose and became indistinguishable from clouds.

For a while, the weather had been unusually warm for winter, but starting today, a cold wave had suddenly arrived without warning.

At the outdoor set, all kinds of filming equipment and staff members busily came and went.

I sat alone on a plastic chair placed in a corner.

“Ugh, damn, it’s cold. What’s with the weather?”

Team Leader Shin, sitting beside me, said this while sniffling. He had said he was taking his hands off Gowon’s case and that he was annoyed by all the ridiculous things that had happened, but in the end, he had followed us all the way here.

“That’s why you’ve been gently roasted and boiled by that raccoon-like Kwon Taeyoung for ten years, brother.”

“...Whew, Won is going to suffer. Good thing he’s young.”

In the direction where I quietly turned my gaze, that young kid was suffering.

Right now, he was wrapped in a long padded coat, but once filming began, the guy who was the main character of the music video would have to throw off all the outerwear he was wearing in this cold.

Did he spend all his dice rolls on looks and talent, leaving his luck stat at rock bottom?

With that thought, I watched him speak seriously with the director.

Gowon, whom I hadn’t seen in several days, had sharper facial lines than when I’d last seen him.

I could see that he had been spending his days preparing for debut just as frantically as during recording. The childishness that had lingered here and there on his face had completely vanished, leaving only sharp lines behind.

“But Hanje, why are you here?”

“Guess I’m not a raccoon either.”

The raccoon controlling me was probably the quest window...

No matter how carefully I had checked even the master track, the objective of a “safe debut” still hadn’t been achieved, so I was equally anxious.

Gowon’s music video filming was scheduled once at a racing circuit in Inje, Gangwon Province, and once at an outdoor set near Seoul.

On the previous filming day, when I hadn’t gone to the site, I’d had a nightmare with my eyes open.

Q1-1. Crisis on the Brink!

Progress: 25%

Q1-1. Crisis on the Brink!

Progress: 31% (▲6)

Q1-1. Crisis on the Brink!

Progress: 28% (▼3)

“Why the hell is it going up and down?!”

I later heard that, depending on the on-site situation, there had been many improvised changes, such as revising the storyboard and filming new shots.

Without knowing any of those circumstances, I had to watch the progress percentage rise and fall in real time, and it was truly hell.

Taking the nightmare of that day as a lesson, I had rushed to this shoot, which was being held not far away, under the pretext of the composer’s intentions or whatever.

I’m going to die of nervous exhaustion before Gowon even debuts...

“Let’s begin!”

At the director’s shout, Gowon took off the padded coat he was wearing without hesitation and set it down.

Left only in a tight black outfit, Gowon briefly shivered his shoulders, but that was all. After that, he walked to the center of the set as if he couldn’t feel the cold at all.

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