Chapter 98: Time Bomb
The lights in the practice room stayed on late into the night.
The members of The Core let out heavy sighs, their eyes sunken.
They had gathered for the fan song meeting, but on their faces remained only weary exhaustion, not affectionate feelings for the fans.
They had urgently requested a usable track from KJ Entertainment and managed to get one.
Spending hours each day in meetings, they had also discussed the lyrics and scheduled accordingly.
It was the other members who had to hustle when leader Kang Ji-hyuk casually tossed out a comment.
Ray was quite displeased about that fact.
Creeeak—
As the glass door of the practice room opened, Ray's cold gaze turned toward it.
Using the excuse that he had to stop by the dorm, Kang Ji-hyuk once again arrived late at the practice room.
Naturally, there was no way anything nice would come out of Ray’s mouth.
“You said we were writing a fan song. Where were you?”
“I told you. I went back to the dorm.”
“Hyung, do you know what time it is right now?”
Ray gestured toward the clock with his eyes.
It had already been well over three hours since Kang Ji-hyuk left.
They had secured the track to use for the fan song, but since he had claimed he'd write the lyrics himself, given the schedule, they needed the lyrics written by Kang Ji-hyuk today.
The recording was scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Ray frowned and got straight to the point.
“How’s the lyrics coming along?”
“Still writing.”
“What?”
The icy words slipped out unintentionally.
Ji Yeojoon gave Ray’s shoulder a light tap, trying to ease the tension.
It seemed like the two might actually start fighting.
But if such gestures could calm his anger, he wouldn’t have even opened his mouth in the first place.
Ray ran his fingers through his bangs and let out a deep sigh.
“We’ve already told the fans, and we’re insanely short on time. And you still haven’t written the lyrics? Are you out of your mind, hyung?”
“…What did you say?”
Kang Ji-hyuk’s expression instantly darkened.
He had been late for practice and acted selfishly, but until now, none of the members had ever called him out on it.
At most, he would watch his behavior in front of company staff. Within the team, the members had always been beneath him.
But that team atmosphere was starting to crack.
“If you were going to half-ass it like this, you shouldn’t have started in the first place. We even put out an article—what do you plan to do? How are you going to explain it to the fans?”
“What did I say? I said I’d write it by today.”
Kang Ji-hyuk let out a hollow laugh and looked down at Ray.
‘What the hell is up with him today?’
Unless he ate something really bad this morning, this didn’t make sense.
Ray was usually a bit naggy, but had always been easygoing. Yet today, he was staring him down with an ice-cold glare.
“You picking a fight with me right now?”
“……”
Now he shut his mouth tight.
Kang Ji-hyuk sneered and said,
“Hey, look at those eyes. Like you’re ready to kill me.”
Ray didn’t back down either.
“So what. Want me to take a swing?”
“Hey, are you insane? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”
Ji Yeojoon quickly stepped in between them. The younger members behind him had gone pale and shrank back in fear.
“Why are you two like this….”
“What’s with this sudden outburst?”
“Ray hyung must be tired and on edge.”
“Yeah. This is all because he hasn’t gotten any sleep.”
Really?
Was that really the reason?
Ray let out a cold snort and nodded.
“Guess I didn’t get enough sleep, hyung.”
No, it was just that hearing that made him lose all affection.
Because they were on the same team, he had trusted, relied on, and waited for him. And now, all of those feelings were gone.
He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.
So, he just walked out.
“Ray hyung, ah. Where are you going?!”
“Hey, where’s he going?”
“I’m seriously going to lose it….”
Bang—
Leaving behind the members’ panicked shouts, Ray closed the glass door and stepped out into the hallway.
He didn’t know where he was going, just walked aimlessly.
He quickly descended the stairs, and his feet brought him outside the KJ building.
It was a bit late.
For May, the air was quite chilly, piercing through to his lungs.
“This is messed up.”
Yeah.
“This is seriously fucked up.”
He didn’t even know what exactly had gone wrong…
But he felt like he was about to explode inside.
For a moment, everything felt revolting.
He didn’t even have anyone to call.
But one person came to mind, the one who had last messaged him with something silly.
Ray let out a hollow laugh and scrolled up the texts they had exchanged earlier that day.
-You’re recording the fan song today, right?
└Wow
└You’re opening the fan song on the same day, I heard?
└Is this like… some info-digging operation or something?
└(nervous emoji)
He had claimed he didn’t care when the article came out, but had been grumbling for days—junior member of Stardust, Do Seohan.
-I was just curious about the schedule
-Are you mad?
-Mad?
└Busy….
-You’ve got time to use TalkTalk though. I watched the drama yesterday, it was fun
-I said it was fun
-Wow, really ignoring me ㅠㅠ
└Busy….
└Our member hyung is on a rat hunt with our recording right now
-You're the rat though
└;;
Apparently, the hamster-writing didn’t work, as the guy just dropped a few beads of sweat and disappeared.
After that, he must’ve really been busy—he became hard to reach.
Would he answer if I called?
We weren’t that close.
If I called at this hour, he’d probably find it annoying, right?
Such tangled thoughts swirled in my head.
In the end—
Like I was possessed, I pressed the call button.
“Ah.”
I must be insane.
As I snapped back to my senses, I hurriedly tried to hang up—
Click—
An all-too-familiar voice came through the receiver.
-What is it?
The recording had started fairly early but stretched late into the night.
This time, Cha Seongbin was handling the producing entirely on his own.
Since he was one of the hyungs in the group, I thought it’d go a bit easier—but nope.
From the moment I saw the other hyungs getting torn apart in the booth, I had a bad feeling.
Nothing ever passed on the first try.
Even when I thought, “This is actually pretty good,” it still sounded off to his perfect pitch ears.
That hyung wasn’t easy to please.
The moment one line finished recording, Cha Seongbin spoke up.
“Oh, Seohan. Your vocalization’s good.”
“Really?”
“Let’s do it again.”
“Huh? Why does the algorithm lead us there?”
Cha Seongbin lowered his headset and gave a sly smile.
We had already repeated the same phrase over ten times.
As if trying to preserve my mental state, he offered sweet and salty feedback in turn.
“You’ve improved a lot since the Starf days. Honestly, it’s perfect, but it’s not Billboard-tier~.”
“……”
“Ah~ just one more~.”
“Wow, that’s going straight into my headset, you know?”
Chills.
With Cha Seongbin’s whining, I had no choice but to go back in for another take.
“Just now—redo this part again.”
“The rhyme’s insane.”
“Yep, again.”
“……”
Cha Seongbin, the main rapper, was obsessively perfectionistic when it came to music to a bizarre degree.
Thanks to that, by the time the recording was finally over, my soul had practically left my body—but the result turned out well.
.
.
.
.
“The song’s so good.”
The quality was too good to be just an included track.
“Ah, it hits different hearing it like this.”
Now that all seven members' voices had been layered over the guide recording Cha Seongbin had done solo, the track gave off a whole new feel.
The song’s bright and youthful energy felt even more exciting now.
How could the blend of voices be this good?
The members' voices painted the track with fresh new colors.
“It’s… really good.”
“We could release it just like this.”
Maybe it was because of Cha Seongbin’s production direction to sing with as much emotion as possible,
But even these simple lyrics made my heart race.
Before I knew it, a smile crept up on my lips.
“Why? You like it?”
“Totally.”
Even more than me, the Dusty members would probably love it.
That was the first thought that came to mind after hearing the complete song.
“As long as everyone’s happy with it.”
Cha Seongbin, too, lifted his head with a satisfied look.
“It’s late, let’s go~ Everyone worked hard today.”
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
“I’m seriously going to crash the second I get home today!”
We were finally leaving the recording booth that had held us hostage all day.
Bzzz—
My phone vibrated.
It was quite late.
I glanced at the screen and saw an unexpected name appear.
[The Core_Ray sunbae]
“Huh?”
Ha Junseo’s eyes widened as he saw the name at the top.
“Uh, at this hour?”
“He does message often though….”
“That hyung really must like you. What’s going on?”
Who knows.
Maybe he was just bored.
But even if he was bored, he wasn’t the type to randomly make calls out of nowhere.
“Hold on a sec.”
I said to Ha Junseo and carefully stepped out.
“Yeah, go take the call.”
Even as I stepped into the hallway and answered the phone, I wasn’t thinking much of it.
Someone who probably had tons of friends—why was he bothering me this much?
But—
The moment I brought the phone to my ear, I instinctively sensed something was wrong.
-Hey, what’re you doing?
“Is something wrong?”
That guy, who was always so cheerful, had a noticeably sunken voice today.
-I... I can’t take these guys anymore.
To be honest, I hated Kang Ji-hyuk.
Even though we didn’t have much direct interaction, there weren’t many people who rubbed me the wrong way as badly as he did.
But then—
‘He took a picture and tattled to the manager?’
That memory, now a little hazy and distant.
Back then, Kang Ji-hyuk had been even more petty and unpleasant than I remembered.
I don’t expect trainees to be all buddy-buddy or anything.
But really, burying someone like that—can you even call yourself human?
I had seen with my own eyes how badly he tormented Seo Ian, but I never imagined the photo incident.
No wonder he trained like he was about to collapse.
It made me think—maybe that crazed passion he showed during the Starf days was because of trauma.
A person lacking even basic human decency.
That same guy was now poisoning the atmosphere in The Core.
I didn’t care about the discomfort of a few members who were cut from the same cloth, but Ray hyung, who had suddenly taken on the leader role, seemed mentally wrecked.
Otherwise, there’s no way he’d be confiding like this—spilling everything to a rookie from another company, practically a competitor.
“Just asking to be sure.”
-Hmm….
“Did you drink?”
-Yeah. I did….
Alcohol is the real enemy, seriously.
Same with Lee Dokyung, and now Ray too.
Why did they all vent their drunken rants to me, someone who’s officially still a minor?
The only saving grace was that in this case, alcohol had just been a catalyst. The conversation was mostly sober.
-I’m not drunk. Just bought some beer just now….
As I half-listened to Ray, my mind started spinning.
What should I do?
I still hated Kang Ji-hyuk just as much, but this wasn’t like the Starf days.
Kevin and Lee Junhyeok—there had been clear reasons they had to be ‘let go’.
No way I could debut with those ticking time bombs. What else could I have done?
But Kang Ji-hyuk—though disgusting—was someone I could technically just ignore.
I’d probably see him now and then at award shows, occasionally at music broadcasts. If I got really unlucky, maybe even in a variety show like during the VS Rookie Battle.
But that was it.
He could self-destruct in his inferiority complex for all I cared—as long as it didn’t affect me directly, I didn’t need to do anything.
He was a current idol tied to his agency. Even if he tried to provoke me, how far could he really go?
It made more sense, logically, for both of us to just forget and move on.
But—
‘Pisses me off.’
Maybe my personality had twisted along with my age.
I couldn’t let things go the easy way anymore.
After hearing the whole story, I could vividly imagine how hellish Ray hyung’s time at KJ must have been.
And now, the guy who did that was living his best life—that made my blood boil.
So I opened my mouth, harboring a tiny bit of hope.
“So what’s really on your mind?”
-Huh?
“Do you want him out of the team that badly? Enough that you want to get rid of him?”
Silence lingered on the other end, as if he was seriously considering it.
A long pause.
-…….
And then.
Finally, Ray spoke.
-Maybe.
That one word told me everything.
That hyung would never be able to beat Kang Ji-hyuk.
“Really?”
I let out a bitter smile as I replied.
Hmm.
If there were a scandal that’d blow up around Kang Ji-hyuk within the next seven years, well—there was one.
It wasn’t a card I could use, but if it came from a teammate, it was a slightly different story.
I spoke calmly.
“There are people with no secrets, but that hyung seems like someone with a lot of them.”
-Huh?
The only advice I could give.
“If you go through his phone, you’ll probably find something.”
Would it explode?