Chapter 17.1
Combining both A-class and B-class, there were 22 trainees including myself, so why the hell was picking out Reverb members this hard?
Excluding myself, the A-class trainees I’d narrowed down for debut were four: Go Ha Ram, Choi Hyun Hee, Zhang Ziyi, and Hwang Eui Jae. Cheon Tae Rim was still on hold.
The reason Tae Rim was on hold was because, no matter how irritating he was, he was a regressor. I couldn’t risk making the mistake of placing another regressor into a different group. Future information only had value if monopolized.
Plus, later on, I’d need him—not just for idol activities, but for cross-checking our knowledge about the future when investing in stocks and real estate. He was useful to me either way.
But since he seemed determined to kick me out, I couldn’t exactly welcome him with open arms. Recently, Tae Rim even seemed annoyed by how close I was with Ha Ram.
Maybe it was just because he naturally had such a nasty-looking face, but even his silent stares were intimidating. It made sense why, in my past life, there’d been a brief rumor that he used to be a school bully. It wasn’t easy for someone to naturally look so thuggish…
Anyway, even if I forcefully included Tae Rim, we’d still have only six members including myself. Considering nobody knew how the votes would pan out on Pick Your Romeo, I needed to secure at least nine. But aside from Tiki, there weren’t any promising candidates in B-class.
It wasn’t that they were terrible; they just weren’t particularly great. They clearly knew they were B-class, and it showed in their subtle defeatism. Maybe it was just because I was sitting there, judging them, but their fundamental mindset seemed very different from the A-class trainees.
“Ha Ram.”
“Yes?”
“You have any close friends in B-class?”
“In B-class? Hmm, Hye Joon hyung?”
“Jang Hye Joon?”
“Yep. He buys me food a lot.”
I immediately looked around the practice room for Jang Hye Joon. But he was nowhere to be found.
Checking the time, it was definitely B-class’s scheduled practice hour. Being absent during official practice probably meant he wasn’t exactly diligent.
“And maybe Ji Oh hyung?”
“Who’s that again?”
“Hyung, you really don’t care much about other people, huh?”
“I just haven’t matched names to faces yet. I haven’t been here long enough.”
“True, but you greeted Ji Oh hyung quite warmly before.”
“Did I? I don’t really remember.”
“…..”
“Stop looking at me like that, and just tell me who Ji Oh is. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by not recognizing him.”
“Ji Oh hyung’s also a long-time trainee. You know, dyed his hair red, speaks informally to everyone?”
“Oh, now I remember. Has Ji Oh trained longer than Hyun Hee?”
“I think around the same? He gets along well with most trainees. He and Sung Hoon hyung are practically inseparable.”
Only after Ha Ram’s detailed explanation did I recall who Shin Ji Oh was.
Fuck… isn’t that the guy who ostracized me before? I instantly marked a huge X over Shin Ji Oh’s name.
The bullying itself didn’t particularly bother me, but it had kept me distant from most trainees in my previous life.
Even now, there was still a small group clearly reluctant to accept me. But back then, even Ha Ram hadn’t approached me this openly.
Other than Cheon Tae Rim, Choi Hyun Hee, and Go Ha Ram, most trainees barely spoke to me. Maybe it was resentment over my talent gap, or maybe because I’d been such an unbearable asshole at the time. But the truth I heard three years after our debut was different.
‘Back then, Ji Oh hyung wanted us to gang up and kick you out. We’re screwed because we couldn’t.’
Those words had come directly from Myeong In Woo’s mouth.
Myeong In Woo, who’d always disliked me as a leader, frequently badmouthed me when talking with other members. He was careful not to say much around Ha Ram or Hyun Hee, but freely gossiped with everyone else.
He’d practically shouted it in our dorm’s living room anyway, so it wasn’t even gossip—it was basically said straight to my face. Even though I hadn’t been eavesdropping intentionally, that’s how I found out Shin Ji Oh had planned to ostracize me.
Wait, so he and Kim Sung Hoon are best friends? Then did Sung Hoon also support isolating me?
As soon as I reached that conclusion, Kim Sung Hoon—someone I’d briefly considered bringing along despite his age—also earned a big X mark next to his name.
Maybe this time, since I was acting nicer, neither of them planned to ostracize me. Still, there was no way someone who’d schemed to kick others out was normal.
“Is Jang Hye Joon also close with Shin Ji Oh?”
“Hye Joon hyung? He’s three years older than you, you can’t just call him by his name like that.”
It was hard to believe a grown man of twenty-two had actually led the bullying of an underaged rookie trainee.
I suddenly felt grateful toward Myeong In Woo. Back when we were in the same group, I thought he was a rare breed of bastard, but looking back now, he’d practically been a walking information broker. Since he was headed to Ciel to debut as a flop idol anyway, I couldn’t even hate him anymore.
