Chapter 45 |
Usually, the process of reading a person’s mind was likely to use oneself as a reference.
Mainly with the mindset of, “I had this thought, so that guy probably thought the same thing.
Even if something is said with good intentions, if the other person’s heart is tainted, the meaning eventually fades. That was an example. Also, a person who didn’t know a malicious heart wouldn’t be able to read the true intentions of a malicious person.
Didn’t they say empathy comes from understanding someone’s heart?
“Does it make you feel more at ease to cunningly change things just before the competition to make yourself stand out?”
“From the beginning, the problem was having someone like you on our team. If it had been someone else, we wouldn’t have had to sacrifice Jeongsu. Look at the result now. You finished off a kid who didn’t need to be eliminated in the first place. Apologize. Get on your knees.”
‘How much longer are these bastards going to obsess over this betting system!’
I could not empathize with the psychology of someone who tries hard to torment others.
So, it was difficult to make perfect predictions.
If it were me, I wouldn’t create any situation where I could be caught on camera.
Such regret was meaningless.
“….I don’t like it. It’s scary.”
The words Do Yuda had said to me the other day kept replaying in my head. Perhaps I was just wanting to prioritize his feelings, over his actual reality.
Song Hanseo’s malice should not be judged by common sense.
He must have known.
He must have known that Do Yuda would never have the courage to make it public, no matter how much manipulation he used.
But he must not have known.
He must not have known that manipulating others wasn’t something only he could do, and that there were adults who had seen through his true nature.
‘The production team must have already foreseen this kind of situation.’
If the scene of Do Yuda being bullied by the members was captured on camera and then edited provocatively for broadcast, it could have a great impact on Do Yuda’s future image.
‘If it’s shown on broadcast as it is, Song Hanseo will probably suffer a bigger blow. But this isn’t good for Do Yuda either.’
I had to stop it.
“Damn it!”
It’s absolutely ridiculous that the victim had to try to cover up the situation.
‘They’ve already proven they can install hidden cameras without the trainers noticing. Hiding it from the trainees would be a piece of cake.’
Song Hanseo’s tricks would only work on children of the same age, but they didn’t fool the adults with more experience.
There was no way the production team didn’t notice. Song Hanseo was arrogant, and the moment he was convinced there were no cameras, he was the type of person who would commit a fatal mistake.
“Retrieve the camera later and start editing right away. If the agency hears about it, things will get messy, so move quietly without the trainees finding out.”
As if to confirm my prediction, the main PD’s voice echoed in my head.
There was a room that the production team had intentionally left unused since the beginning of filming the program. When the trainees needed to do something they wanted to hide from the production team, they often used that room.
However, they had fallen right into the production team’s trap
“If you turn left and keep going, you’ll find a storage room. It’s a place the production team hardly ever touches, so they must have dragged him over there.”
“Got it!”
After hearing my instructions, Woo Kangwon quickly sprinted off.
My rational mind was calculating the ripple effect of Song Hanseo’s actions, but my pounding heart kept flashing back to Do Yuda’s terrified face.
Do Yuda was the kind of person who felt a great fear of exposing his vulnerable side in front of others.
What if his conflict with his teammate became public knowledge?
He could have given up on his dream of entering the entertainment industry and hidden away somewhere out of sight of others.
‘No way. I would never let that happen.’
How many years did you think that child had spent on this nonsense? Such a thing should never have happened.
After running for a while, the storage room in question finally came into view. I gasped for breath and gestured towards the storage room.
“Over there.”
“Okay.”
Woo Kangwon followed my gesture and found the storage room right away. As soon as he pushed open the door, his face hardened, and he called out Do Yuda’s name.
“Yuda-ya!”
Seeing that behavior, it was clear that they were inside this storage room. I hurriedly ran after Woo Kangwon.
“Hyung!”
As soon as I entered the storage room, the first thing that caught my eye was Do Yuda, crouching on the floor with tears in his eyes. Around him were Song Hanseo’s group, looking flustered, and Woo Kangwon, who was standing between them and Do Yuda.
“What are you guys doing!”
Song Hanseo’s group quickly revealed their hostility and approached me threateningly. I checked that Woo Kangwon was helping Do Yuda and immediately walked in, starting to search through the storage room. The gang members didn’t catch my attention at all.
‘Found it.’
It was more obvious than I thought. The camera was tucked away in a corner, out of sight of anyone who didn’t know about its existence.
“What do you think you’re doing, barging in like this!” One of Song Hanseo’s henchmen shouted, grabbing my shoulder violently.
I shook off his arm roughly, turned my back to him, and took out the camera’s SD card.
“Listen to what people say…….”
“Wait. Stay still.” Perhaps sensing something was off, Song Hanseo stopped his minions. He then fixed his shaly gaze on my fingertips.
Only then did I look around at the now quiet group and asked Song Hanseo, “Is this the result you wanted?”
“Give me what’s in your hand. Is that an SD card? You mean it was recording all along? How did you find out about this?”
It was an answer that didn’t match the question. Song Hanseo, who had been pretending to be composed all this time, began to sweat profusely. It seemed that he didn’t have the luxury of thinking about the answer to my question.
Because the object that would determine his future was in my hands.
“You already know, how I’m going to act.”
I clenched what was in my hand and hid it from Song Hanseo’s view. Realizing that I had no intention of handing it over to him, that bastard gnashed his teeth before lunging at me.
“Hand it over!”
However, his attempt was pathetically blocked by Woo Kangwon.
Song Hanseo, with one arm grabbed by Woo Kangwon, struggled violently as if he had lost all sense of reason.
“Hanseo-ya?”
“What’s wrong?”
Song Hanseo’s minions, who still couldn’t grasp the situation, were confused by his unusual behavior.
“Do Yuda!” Song Hanseo shot a cold glare at Do Yuda. It seemed he thought all of this had happened because Do Yuda had ratted them out.
“Where are you looking? If you want to blame someone, you should blame yourself. All of this happened because you were acting like some big shot, playing the leader card.”
“Are you going to release that video to the public?”
“That depends on your behavior.”
I had no intention of making the contents of the SD card public, unless Do Yuda wished to do so. That would only end up hurting Do Yuda as well.
But I had no intention of revealing that to Song Hanseo.
He would have to live in fear for the rest of his life.
He would have to live in fear, constantly being cautious of Do Yuda, knowing that this video could be exposed to the world at any moment.
“If I were the CEO of your agency, I’d definitely want to weed out any trainees with flaws from the debut group as soon as possible.”
“…….”
“Snap out of it. This isn’t a journey for your dreams. This is business. Do you think those people are going to care about your circumstances?”
At those words, the color drained from Song Hanseo’s face in an instant. He seemed to finally realize his position.
“What did Hanseo do! We just held him accountable for eliminating Jeongsu, that’s all!”
“That guy didn’t even apologize for suddenly changing the stage! We deserve an apology for that.”
“Please be quiet!”
As the gang shouted as if they were being wronged, Song Hanseo yelled and stopped them.
It seemed that Song Hanseo had bullied Do Yuda for his own amusement, even though he knew the truth, while the other members, influenced by Song Hanseo’s instigation, genuinely believed they were the victims.
I decided to personally reveal the truth to these fools who seemed completely unaware.
“On the contrary, you should be grateful. Thanks to him, during the camera rehearsal, you received high praise from the trainers for working hard to make good changes within a day. You kept your mouth shut back then, but now that the results are out, you’re this upset?”
“Still, he should have told us before making the changes!”
“You slept, didn’t you? The next day was the live broadcast, and the stage was still the same after receiving harsh criticism. How could you even sleep at that situation? You must be out of your mind.”
“…….”
“The third-place team ranking is not the result of your hard work. That stage was created by Do Yuda, Baek Kiryang, and me. It was a result you didn’t deserve.”
“It’s a stage where we all stand together, so of course, we did well too!”
“Then your individual rankings wouldn’t have been that low.”
“That’s because Do Yuda monopolized the parts!”
“Despite having a similar amount of parts as you, Baek Kiryang stayed in the top ranks. And the parts were distributed by you guys, weren’t they? Because you couldn’t handle that range of notes.”
Unable to find anything more to say, they quickly turned to look at Song Hanseo.
“….Hanseo-ya, say something too!”
However, Song Hanseo only avoided their gazes. Now, his top priority was not to offend me or Do Yuda.
“Song Hanseo … what are you doing?”
The gang members threw resentful questions at the sight of their leader who had lost his power.
I chuckled at the ridiculous scene in front of me, leaned in close to Song Hanseo, and said,
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out of my sight. And don’t go near Do Yuda ever again. I don’t want to hear your apology either.”
Song Hanseo held his breath and looked into my eyes with a trembling gaze.
“If you see Do Yuda in your line of sight, run. If I catch you approaching Do Yuda even once more, I’ll dig up all your dirty secrets and expose them to the world. Do you understand?”
“….I understand.”
After hearing the warning, Song Hanseo hurriedly got up and rushed out of the storage room. His minions, frowning in displeasure, chased after him.
“Take Do Yuda and go up to our room.”
I wiped Do Yuda’s damp face with my sleeve and pushed him into Woo Kangwon’s arms.
“Seungbeom, you’re not going with us?”
Woo Kangwon asked me with a puzzled look. I slowly shook my head and pushed the backs of the two people.
“….I have something I need to do.”
Wasn’t there a culprit behind all of this?
I need to have a word with him.
***
Creak.
As I sat alone on the couch in the quiet room, I heard the door open.
The person who opened the door was the main PD. He looked at me with a face as if saying, “why are you here?“.
And for good reason. Because this was the main PD’s personal room.
‘You want to take unauthorized pictures of others, yet you’re so wary of cameras yourself…..’
The only places in this Lucky Center that I could be certain didn’t have cameras installed were the outdoors and the main PD’s personal room. Therefore, I had no choice but to choose this place as a place for conversation.
“I’ve been waiting for you, PD-nim.”
“Trainee Han Seungbeom!”
I placed the camera that had been in the storage room on the desk and shook the SD card in my hand.
Then the main PD’s face turned pale.
“Why do we keep running into each other over things like this?”
I slowly looked down at the main PD’s face and smiled.
“It’s so unpleasant.”
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Translator’s Corner:
MC is so patient if I were in that position, I would already beat that Song Hanseo