Chapter Text
“You aren’t serious,” Cheongryeo said with a thin, displeased smile.
I hadn’t told him anything, but he’d shown up at the agency while I was in meetings and waited until I came out to find him in the hall like a displeased dog left tied up outside a shop. Now we were having an impromptu meeting of our own in one of T1 Stars’ conference rooms.
“Who told you I was leaving?” I asked. It would be nice to hand Testar the name of a rat in the agency before I left, a kind of going away present. But Cheongryeo ignored the question.
“Is someone blackmailing you?”
“No. Why, did you get scooped? Wanted to blackmail me first?” I grinned. It was fun to be able to talk to him however I wanted, without having to think about the scandal if anyone heard.
He didn’t seem to think this conversation went two ways, because he ignored that too. “Are you going solo? If someone advised you to leave Testar to do so, they gave you bad advice. At this point, while Testar’s at its peak, you should continue in the group while you build your solo career.”
At its peak? Testar could go even higher than this. I wasn’t sure if he was underestimating us or making a subtle dig.
But no, it wasn’t “us” anymore. I was leaving. And that was going to affect Testar’s trajectory.
The past year might turn out to have been the peak of Testar’s career after all. I hoped not, but it would be naive to ignore the possibility that I was hurting their chances forever. Losing a group member was a delicate thing. If following comebacks were good enough, it might eventually be forgotten that there had ever been another member. But if the quality faltered at all at such a crucial time, the group’s popularity might never be the same again. How much leeway fans would give a group depended a lot on how popular the member who left was, and I had finished first on Idol Inc. That was years ago now, but by definition I had always been a “popular member.”
It was almost enough to make me change my mind. If even one of the members had the guts to try to guilt trip me into staying, it probably would have worked. But after the initial outcry when I told them, they were very careful not to pressure me.
I had heard, when I wasn’t supposed to, Chungwoo saying sternly to Lee Sejin, “Do you want him to stay because he feels like he has to, or because he wants to?”
Since then, the members may have done their best to make staying in Testar seem attractive, but they didn’t disparage the idea of leaving. No one implied I was being selfish, even though they would be right.
To make up for it, I’d done my best to set them up for success. I told them far in advance that I wouldn’t be renewing my contract alongside them, maneuvered to get Testar its own sub label within the agency, and helped brainstorm Testar’s future steps for dozens of sleepless nights. I was at the agency today to discuss how to best announce my departure to minimize the damage. With a lot of luck and even more hard work, losing a member would become nothing more than a hitch in Testar’s stride to the top.
And the top was still, for the moment, occupied by VTIC.
“I’m not going solo,” I told him. “Why do you care? Anything bad for Testar is good for you.”
“VTIC doesn’t need Testar to fall in order to keep our position. Even at your best, we’re ahead of you.”
His demeanor was calm and confident, but I didn’t believe that it was as effortless as he claimed. VTIC had had to work harder than ever to keep ahead of us in the past year. After all, they had lost a member of their own not so long ago.
“Sure,” I said, not bothering to sound like I believed him. “Anyway, why are you here?”
His cold eyes searched my face for a long moment. Finally he said, “After surviving all the penalties, you’re just tapping out?”
As expected, he couldn’t understand but had a compulsive need to try. Cheongryeo cared too much about his career, had died for it too many times, to comprehend someone willingly stepping away.
“Yes. I never dreamed of being an idol. Now that I’m not in danger of dying and my contractual obligations are ending, it’s the ideal time to retire.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said quietly. “You love it. You were made for this industry.”
He wasn’t wrong. I’d enjoyed performing since my first Idol Inc stage. But it wasn’t the only thing I loved, and he was conflating being in the kpop industry with being an idol. I had to suppress a smile, because I had no intention of enlightening him.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” I said. “But I don’t want to do it forever. Five years is enough.”
This conversation was clearly not satisfying him. “You’re making a mistake.”
“You only see it that way because your goals differ from mine. If the objective isn’t to be the top idol in the world for as long as possible, then leaving isn’t a mistake, it’s just a choice.”
Cheongryeo thought: Park Moondae had always taken his career too lightly.
That was a statement that would make anyone who really knew him scoff. Park Moondae had emphatically never taken being an idol lightly. He had worked very hard to debut, to hone his skills, and to protect Testar from the vagaries of public opinion.
But Cheongryeo still had stuck in his head the time he had laid out the worst possible outcome of his career to Moondae while tied to a chair, lip split from a punch to the face, the taste of blood metalic in his mouth, and Moondae had calmly responded, “If things don’t work out, I can simply quit.”
Of all the things that day that knocked him out — from the literal strangling, to the revelation that Park Moondae was not Park Moondae, to the knowledge that there were no more restarts for him — Cheongryeo couldn’t say this blase attitude was the most shocking, but it wasn’t insignificant. When the bruises had faded and he’d come to accept everything else, the memory of Park Moondae claiming he could simply walk away as soon as his penalties were over remained as incomprehensible as it was the first time he heard it.
Each time he lingered on it, he came to the same conclusion — Park Moondae was wrong. He may think he was willing and able to leave, but if it came down to it, he would fight tooth and nail to stay.
But against what logic told him back then, here was Park Moondae, just as his informant had warned him, refusing to renew his contract as an idol under T1. And not just taking his solo activities to another agency, but leaving Testar entirely.
Cheongryeo nodded slowly. “I see. You’re right that this doesn’t have to be a mistake. In some ways, this choice is an opportunity.”
Moondae shrugged one shoulder, like he didn’t need Cheongryeo’s validation to know that.
Cheongryeo considered for a moment. Ideally, though this desire wouldn’t make much sense to anyone else, he’d wanted to convince Moondae to continue with Testar. Maintaining the status quo seemed like the safest option. They had both been happy like that, in healthy competition. But Moondae’s attitude was a smooth glass wall that Cheongryeo’s questions and arguments slid right off of. That left the second option.
Cheongryeo folded his hands on the table. “Then let’s discuss you signing at Leti.”
Moondae burst into laughter, head tipped back. The sight of laughter bubbling up his smooth exposed throat made a strange feeling go down Cheongryeo’s spine.
When had Park Moondae last shown such unrestrained emotion in front of him? When he punched Cheongryeo post-kidnapping?
From the first time they met on the set of Idol Inc, Park Moondae had presented him with wariness or a polite facade, at most a hint of smugness or a reserved smile leaking through. That stretch of a few days while Cheongryeo tried to convince Moondae to kill himself was the only time he had let Cheongryeo see anything real, and it had been all fear, panic, anger and disgust. Cheongryeo had never had Park Moondae’s real grin directed right at him, or faced his lips quirking up at one corner like he was ready to laugh again any second.
It wasn’t a particularly nice smile. It was a smile that seemed to say he had put one over on Cheongryeo, had won this round of whatever game they were playing, even though that wasn’t the case at all — he was folding, not winning. But still, that satisfied cat type grin lingered, and it was surprisingly… distracting.
“That’s the third time you’ve tried to recruit me,” Moondae said.
“Let’s not drag this out. You already know quite a bit about Leti’s artist management.” (From when he tried to convince Moondae to start over.) “Let me tell you what you can expect as a—“
“Thanks, I’m not interested.” Moondae beamed at him. “Are you done wasting my time? I have more meetings to get to.”
Amusing yet annoying, how much his junior reveled in this little freedom. He must not have realized it wasn’t going to last. Park Moondae was too good to leave the industry, Cheongryeo was sure of that.
“You’re enjoying this a little too much. You may be leaving Testar, but it could still be unpleasant for you to gain a reputation for being rude to your seniors.”
“People will have to find me first, before they can make it unpleasant.”
“You think you’re going to disappear?” The thought displeased him… a lot. Park Moondae had been a competitor who motivated Cheongryeo to stay ahead, and someone he could honestly talk to about their shared supernatural experiences. He was someone who shone on stage like he was meant to be there. He couldn’t just dip out of sight on a whim, it wasn’t right. It would make Cheongryeo’s life less interesting. It couldn’t be allowed.
Should I just kidnap him again? he wondered idly. It probably wouldn’t help, but maybe it would convince Moondae he needed to keep a career in the public eye so people would notice when he went missing?
“Hey, what are you thinking? You have your sledgehammer face on.”
“What?” Cheongryeo was rarely astonished in this lifetime; he left true astonishment behind many failed lifetimes ago. But a statement that nonsensical coming out of Park Moondae’s mouth could at least surprise him. He had never touched a sledgehammer.
“It’s the look you get on your face when you’re considering a completely deranged solution to your problems without realizing it’s an insane and morally objectionable idea.”
“I didn’t realize I had that look. Thank you for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome,” Moondae said politely, slipping easily from cheeky equal to deferential junior like it was a disposable mask he could pull on and off. It was equally aggravating in both directions, apparently.
“Freedom doesn’t suit you,” Cheongryeo told him.
“There you go saying weird things again.”
“Within a year you’re going to want to return,” Cheongryeo said, “and you’ll have burned your bridges with both T1 and Leti and have to settle for a small company that can’t do you justice, and you’ll have lost the attention from leaving Testar by then, and your career will never reach the heights it should have.”
“You’re not a very good fortune teller,” Park Moondae said. He stood up and went to the door. It took Cheongryeo until Moondae actually stepped out of the room to realize that was supposed to be goodbye.
“Just like that?”
“Yes, I’m quite busy. We need to decide how to announce my retirement. You can see yourself out, can’t you?” He tossed the words casually over his shoulder. It was the last time they met face to face for months.
In the end, we went with a story rooted in facts everyone would know. The statement announcing that all Testar members except me had renewed their contracts alluded to “health concerns” that would become dangerous if I kept up the demanding schedule of an active idol, and the agency had some amenable idol news sites post stories linking the statement to Testar’s car crash.
It would be easy for fans to believe, since our concert documentary had pushed the narrative that I was dealing with stamina issues and lingering injuries, and the concern had popped up in fandom spaces on a recurring basis since then. We were careful to emphasize that the health issues weren’t about a current injury though, but about my inability to sustain an idol’s busy lifestyle of schedules, performances and touring without endangering myself.
It was still distressing to hear for many fans, and I would have rather spared them the worry, but this way was better for Testar, I explained to the members.
Saying I was leaving due to health reasons made it clear there were no interpersonal issues and, as a bonus, made it hard for anyone to talk shit about my decision without sounding like a callous asshole. Moondae seems fine to you, so he should keep performing until he’s done permanent damage to his body for the rest of his life? Are you a doctor or an idiot? Get out of here. That would be the general type of response awaiting anyone who put a foot wrong when complaining about me leaving.
Anyone who didn’t want to seem cruel would have to take a softer tone, something like That’s so sad for him and Testar! I’ll miss Moonpuppy but health comes first TT Stay safe and happy Moondae! I hope he can re-debut as a non-idol singer if that wouldn’t be too hard on him.
Hopefully, a little pity that Testar lost a member for this kind of reason would also keep my solo stans from tuning out. The success of this scheme would still depend on the quality of the first comeback after renewals, though, so Raebin and I were hard at work.
Learning more about music production started as just another way to exert more control over Testar’s career. I couldn’t help it, I was a natural micromanager and navigating the penalties only encouraged someone to become a control freak.
Plus, the more I knew, the more I could help Raebin and lessen his workload. If I could help polish and arrange some b-sides for a comeback, Raebin might actually be able to get a decent amount of sleep after focusing on the title track and promoted b-sides. Sure, outside producers helped, but we valued Testar’s reputation as a self-produced group and trusted our creative direction the most, so Raebin had always had too much on his plate ever since our debut. It was only right that I tried to contribute.
All of the members had written lyrics, and most of us had even been credited as composers at least once due to Raebin incorporating our ideas and feedback, but those kinds of things didn’t help him with the hardest, most time-consuming parts of composing and producing. To do that, someone would need to fully learn the kinds of computer programs used to put songs together, and practice composing until they could write, or help write, a decent song. I started small by observing Raebin work, creating remixes, and started learning an instrument for the first time. It wasn’t easy to find time for learning piano, but it felt like a very self-improving hobby.
Learning more about music was also a way to increase my vocal stats, or so I hoped. At the level I’d achieved, it wasn’t easy to keep progressing. So understanding music at a deeper level seemed like it might open up a way to boost my skill.
These were all major reasons why I tried composing and producing songs, but the biggest reason I stuck with it, despite the initial difficulty, was that I liked it.
Since the beginning of Idol Inc I’d enjoyed being involved in creative development. At this point, it probably wasn’t too arrogant to say I was good at it too, since so many of my ideas had ended up being used for Testar’s comebacks, music videos and special stages to great success. Of course, that owed a lot to the other members’ input, too.
It was always satisfying to see my ideas come to fruition. It relieved my need to exert some control over the tailspin of my life while under the pressure of the penalties. Even after I no longer had the threat of death hanging over me, I still felt the need to actively guide Testar’s course. Maybe it was inevitable that my brain chemistry had been forever altered by living with the penalties.
Anyway, a few years after I first committed to seriously learning composing and producing, I still wasn’t at Raebin’s level. He was a true genius. But I also knew our respective strengths. Raebin had far more skill than me, but he often struggled to find the inspiration to surmount creative blocks. I lagged far behind him in terms of the skill to execute ideas, but I was never at a loss for them. Basically, despite my deficiencies, we made a great team.
And now I would have the time to devote myself to becoming a better producer.
It was afternoon of the second day in my new place by the time I had everything set up enough to place my laptop on my new desk and boot up my composing program. I’d chosen good light over a larger space so it was warm and bright in the corner dedicated to my desk and digital piano keyboard.
It was quiet compared to the dorm, but that wasn’t bad, I thought. I’d get used to it. After all, it was what I’d chosen.