NOVEL WEB Chapter 15
Episode 15
A week had passed since Gyeoul signed her trainee contract with SS, and she decided to just wait.
It was clear that there couldn’t possibly be a dedicated road manager for the trainees, so she figured it would take time to create a position.
As the week went by, she turned on her happy circuit.
“Perhaps they’re just busy,” she thought with a generous heart.
But by the third week, doubts began to creep in.
Not getting even a single reply was strange.
Still, she believed and waited.
She trusted the pride that Cheon Jong-hoon had shown for the last ten years.
That man would break a promise?
The embodiment of pride would go back on his own word?
…No way.
Based on my experience, this was hard to believe.
When the fourth week came, she stopped waiting.
With the mindset that it was her fault for staying silent, she tried to reach out through every possible means, including public work phone numbers as well as private numbers and emails.
Yet, there was still no response.
It seemed she had been blocked.
Finally, she accepted reality.
Cheon Jong-hoon had deceived her.
After bouncing around in anger, she decided that she would someday pay back this grudge and accepted her new reality.
Then she searched job sites.
She chose to give up and work as a road manager for a small entertainment agency.
In the middle of that, a thought flashed through her mind.
Wait a minute, I haven’t used the Future Fragment yet, have I?
“Compensation Window! Compensation Window!”
[Future Fragment ‘Medium’ (No monetary gain restrictions) [Usable]]
As Gyeoul shouted for the compensation window from an empty corner of the studio, the Future Fragment sat there demurely.
Remembering how she had won second place in the lottery using this fragment last time caused dopamine to surge in her brain.
[Would you like to use the Future Fragment?]
“Use it!”
Please, let it be the lottery numbers!
*
“One, two, three. Hello! We are Alcest!”
“Hello! It’s great to see you, Alcest. Oh, just having you here brightens up the mood of this dreary studio. Look at that camera director grinning! I didn’t know that person could smile like that until today!”
The audience erupted in laughter at the MC’s banter.
Gyeoul felt that laughter was mockery directed at her.
She rationally recognized it was just the cheerful MC making people laugh.
But her emotions wouldn’t accept that.
Gyeoul was scared of people.
“But Ms. Gyeoul seems to be quiet. Did the youngest get all her lines stolen by the older sisters?”
Gyeoul didn’t even realize the MC was referring to her by her real name.
It felt like the entire world was watching her.
It felt like the whole world was ignoring her.
She felt dizzy.
Her stomach churned.
She was about to throw up.
“I’m really sorry. Gyeoul said she hasn’t been feeling well since this morning.”
“What? SS, how much are you making our lovely juniors work? Should I tell SS’s president Cheon Seonsu to give you some days off?”
“Ah… no! Han Gyeoul can do this!”
Snapping back to reality, Gyeoul jumped up and started flailing her arms and dancing to show she wouldn’t be an obstruction.
The MC took it as a funny gag and chuckled before changing the subject.
“Now, I hear you’re here with a new album and a new song? We can’t miss out on listening to that! So, let’s play the music!”
“Did you really come out for our palette? I can’t just not listen to this, can I? So, let’s play some music now!”
Gyeoul barely held onto her dazed consciousness.
The recording was over.
As Gyeoul, clinging to her fragile sanity, tried to return to the waiting room to rest, Yoon Jeong, the leader of Alcest, grabbed her.
She suggested they go to the bathroom together.
Gyeoul had no right to refuse.
Once inside the bathroom and confirming it was empty, Yoon Jeong forcefully pushed Gyeoul against a wall out of sight.
Thud!
“Han Gyeoul. You’re such a nuisance that it happens every day, so I thought there wouldn’t be any new methods. But boy, was I wrong.”
Yoon Jeong mocked Gyeoul.
“Today’s way of being a nuisance is really something new. Impressive, truly.”
Every time Yoon Jeong finished a sentence, she poked Gyeoul in the chest with her unusually sharp fingernails, which were fitted with fake nails.
The force was stronger than it looked, and Gyeoul almost staggered several times, but she managed to hold on.
Her eyes stung a little, but she stubbornly held back her tears out of habit.
If Yoon Jeong saw Gyeoul struggling or crying, she would apologize for being harsh and then escalate the ‘discipline’ in a more sinister and malicious direction.
This was knowledge gained from experience.
“I’m sorry, unnie.”
“What are you going to do just because you’re sorry? Is that how it ends?”
She repeated her apologies, praying for the current ‘discipline’ to end quickly.
In the meantime, she thought, “How did it come to this?”
Gyeoul tried to find the cause in her own mistakes, but the situation had been tangled since before she became a member of Alcest.
Cheon Jong-hoon told the SS trainees that his planned girl group project, Alcest, would consist of five members.
He said that anyone wanting to be in that group would have to train hard enough to be soaked in sweat and blood.
All 32 trainees poured their lives into the single goal of debut, which Cheon Jong-hoon dangled as bait.
In the process, they had to cut out all the side pleasures that girls their age typically enjoyed—school, snacks, romance, hobbies—because while they wasted time on those, their competitors in the next spot were dancing and singing more.
They became a blade that could only fulfill the function of idols.
From an adult’s perspective, it was harsh and grueling.
Many couldn’t endure the journey and dropped out partway.
The remaining trainees classified them as losers and castaways, vowing not to leave in such a pitiful manner.
With a determination to not end up like that.
As those that left departed, some cried sorrowfully, while others bowed their heads, feeling guilt and shame.
They looked like losers.
However, their departures didn’t always match expectations.
Those leaving sometimes seemed to feel a sense of liberation.
That looked incredibly sweet.
Every time the fallen competitors showed such relief, it shook the resolve of the remaining trainees.
Could the time they were investing bring them rewards?
Was the sacrifice they were making worth it?
No one could give them a definite answer.
Amid this anxiety, they became sharper.
They regarded the trainee next to them as nothing but a competitor.
What would have been small troubles they’d laughed off before now turned into aggressive assaults.
They felt joy in seizing an opportunity to gain an advantage rather than offering help in mistakes and shortcomings.
She felt a thrill, seeing the opportunity to gain an upper hand rather than just go with the flow.
They pushed each other, turning SS’s practice room into a more precarious and unpleasant space.
But there was one person who stood in the way of that flow.
It was Yoon Seo-ah, the oldest trainee among them.
She mediated the conflicts and always boosted everyone’s spirits.
She took on annoying chores like tidying up the practice room.
No matter the situation, she wore a smile and exuded positive energy.
For the female trainees of SS, Yoon Seo-ah was like a mental pillar.
The same went for the debut team—Lily, Coco, Amy, Yoon Jeong—who had their names added to the final entry as announced by Cheon Jong-hoon.
They believed she would fill the last remaining spot in Alcest’s debut group.
After all, Yoon Seo-ah was considered to have the ability and qualities to do so.
And they hoped for it.
They thought that with a strong person like Yoon Seo-ah leading them through the grueling practice and schedules, they could endure it.
“The last spot in Alcest will go to this girl.”
But that expectation was betrayed.
The last member of Alcest revealed by Cheon Jong-hoon was not Yoon Seo-ah, as they had hoped.
She wasn’t even a competitor who had trained alongside them for at least three years.
It was Han Gyeoul, who had been a trainee for less than a week at SS.
They struggled to accept that fact and couldn’t embrace Gyeoul as a teammate.
Being still young, with immature selves, they were swept up in feelings of betrayal.
And they expressed it.
They began to turn hostile towards Gyeoul.
Gyeoul could sense this atmosphere as well.
However, having never built proper human relationships, she lacked the charm to break the tension between the members.
She didn’t have the courage to approach and improve the situation.
Therefore, instead of actively trying to better the situation, she assumed it was her lack of ability and worked even harder.
That was the worst choice.
She should have mustered the courage to approach them.
At the very least, she should have clashed with them in anger.
But she couldn’t.
As a result, Lily, Coco, Amy, and Yoon Jeong became increasingly exclusive.
Even though they were bound as a team, they started to draw a line separating themselves from Gyeoul.
When Gyeoul tried to talk, they responded with curt and irritated replies.
It became routine not to inform her about practice schedules or test times.
When Gyeoul wanted to eat with them, they moved away.
Afraid of their reactions, Gyeoul grew more passive.
It was a vicious cycle.
Even after finishing their time as a debut group and debuting as a team under the name Alcest, the ostracism continued.
On set and in official schedules, they appeared harmonious.
But in other situations, they treated Gyeoul as an outsider.
They didn’t visibly harass her, like in cases of outright bullying.
The members were smart enough to understand the consequences of such actions.
But their subtle and continuous behaviors that didn’t cross certain lines persisted.
That was the current state of affairs.
Still, Gyeoul tried hard to show herself in a good light to the members.
Undoubtedly blaming herself for all the problems, she worked to ensure she wouldn’t be a burden to the name Alcest.
Done.
Before a certain incident,
there had been a scandal between the visual member Chanyeong from the popular idol group Shade and Gyeoul.
Gyeoul thought it was just ordinary gossip.
After all, she and Chanyeong were never that kind of close.
However, the situation changed drastically when Chanyeong left a cryptic post on social media.
It was as if suggesting Gyeoul was cheating on him.
SS tried to intervene, but the raging flames couldn’t be stopped.
On the internet, malicious comments and personal attacks against Gyeoul piled up, while Chanyeong’s obsessive fans sent her threatening letters, messages, and even vandalized her place.
They even caused a ruckus at Gyeoul’s grandfather’s workshop.
Amidst all this chaos, Gyeoul only worried about the impact on those around her.
She first thought of the feelings of Alcest members who were affected by her problem.
She apologized and apologized again.
That was until they posted something on social media.
Their post, while seeming concerned for Gyeoul, implied that she had a loose moral compass when it came to relationships.
It was a malicious message meant to stab at Gyeoul, harboring the possibility of negatively impacting both her and the team.
Gyeoul felt terror.
The bond with the Alcest members felt like an unbreakable heavy chain.
It seemed like there was no one on her side in the whole world.
Then came the news of her grandfather’s passing, which completely shattered Gyeoul.
From then on, every time she heard laughter, it felt like everyone was laughing at her.
Everyone hated her.
She was someone who couldn’t become friends with anyone.
She wished she had never been born.
With powerful antidepressants and sleeping pills prescribed from the hospital, Gyeoul could finally fall asleep.
Under the haze of the medication, Gyeoul thought about it.
“I want to hear Teacher Taeyang’s voice.”
Gyeoul took out her smartphone and entered Taeyang’s number, which she had vowed never to forget.
It was already saved as number one, but she wanted to enter it herself.
But she couldn’t press the call button.
Since her trainee days, she’d tried calling Taeyang whenever she had the chance, but he rarely answered.
When he did, it was usually a short conversation ending with, “I’m busy now, I’ll call you back later.”
As a road manager for a small agency, he seemed to have a more hectic life than anyone else.
He said he once only got two hours of sleep for three straight days.
Fearing that she would interrupt Taeyang’s precious rest, Gyeoul slowly stopped reaching out.
Gyeoul was featured in the promotional All-Tube for the girl group Taeyang debuted.
The content with the seven girls was lively, showcasing them as the main characters.
But being a small agency, Taeyang also appeared as the MC, looking after them like a busy bee.
He was hard at work, caring for them with kindness, much to the joy of the seven girls, who received his attention like kids.
“I envy that.”
Gyeoul couldn’t help but feel so envious of that scene.
She imagined herself there, crying at any given moment, while Taeyang would tenderly wipe her tears away with a tissue he always kept on hand.
It was so sweet yet bittersweet that all Gyeoul could do was burst into tears.
*
[“Future Fragments” usage completed!]