Idol of the Heavenly One - Chapter 13.2
“Should we practice again?”
Baek Jae-heon had good looks, skill, and personality. Maybe that was why he had been so popular in the past. He was a born idol, someone who should be an idol even if he were born again. If I wanted to be in the same group as someone like him, practice really was the only way to survive.
“B-but…”
“Hm?”
“T-that…”
Just as I was getting into position to start practicing again, Lee Soon-bok hesitated as if he had something to say.
“Y-you’re k-kind too…”
“Huh?”
“T-to me… y-you never asked w-why I st-stutter… E-everyone else did…”
What a strange compliment. And what came next was even more surprising. Lee Soon-bok said that since coming here, every trainee except Baek Jae-heon had asked why he stuttered so much. And they had looked at him with eyes that seemed to say, “He stutters like that, so there’s no way he’s debuting. Poor guy.” Joo I-rip, Go Hee-min, even Kwon Ji-hak.
“…”
I was sure they had not meant it in a bad way. They probably just felt bad that someone like Lee Soon-bok, who was handsome and danced so well, stuttered so much.
“They probably didn’t mean it in a bad way. They just thought that was your only flaw.”
“M-my o-only flaw?”
“Yeah. Because you’re good at everything else.”
“M-me?”
For kids that age, stuttering might look like a fatal flaw for an idol. But with a bit more age and distance, you realize that stuttering is not a flaw at all.
“You don’t stutter when you sing.”
“T-that’s true!”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
In fact, it made him even more admirable that he didn’t get discouraged or hide but kept working hard.
“Y-you’re r-right! Th-that’s all that matters!”
“Right. So let’s get back to practice.”
“Y-yeah!”
Lee Soon-bok smiled and hopped in place. Seeing him gain confidence and cheer up from such simple encouragement made me realize how much he had been worrying about what his peers thought.
In my past life, when I worked on the school violence response team, we often got calls about kids being teased for stuttering or speaking awkwardly. At the time, I had thought those reports were a bit over the top because there were serious cases of assault and extortion to deal with. But that had been a complete misjudgment.
Even someone like Lee Soon-bok, who was handsome and a great dancer, could get this discouraged just from those comments. How desperate must those other kids have been when they reported it? And I had thought it was just a nuisance because it made my job a little more complicated. Being fifty does not automatically make you mature. Even after a combined sixty-nine years of life, there are still things to learn.
“H-huh? J-jae-heon! Y-you didn’t l-leave?”
At Lee Soon-bok’s sudden shout, I turned toward the mirror to look. There was Baek Jae-heon, standing by the practice room door as if he had been about to leave.
“I was just about to.”
What the heck? When had he gotten back? He had disappeared first earlier, and because the practice room was so big, I hadn’t even noticed when he came back in.
“Y-you h-heard e-everything…!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“R-really?”
It was obvious from his face that he had heard everything, but he answered calmly as if he had not. Lee Soon-bok seemed relieved and accepted it just like that. He was probably embarrassed that Baek Jae-heon had overheard me complimenting him.
“Don’t overdo it. Rest is important too.”
“Y-yeah!”
Baek Jae-heon told Lee Soon-bok not to push himself too hard.
“You too, Ji Myeong-hyeon.”
He even said it to me.
“Ah, okay.”
The more I watched Baek Jae-heon, the more he struck me as a strange character. He looked like the type who only cared about himself, yet he was quietly looking out for everyone else. And specifically for the ones who were most likely to debut together.
Could it be that he had noticed too? That the company was gathering trainees with similar names to debut them together. He was smart enough that he might have figured it out.
But there was one thing even he could not know. That this group would go on to become the most popular idol group in all of Korea—YEARZ.
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