Episode 2: No, Reality
It’s a story from quite some time ago.
After Polaris unexpectedly succeeded in breaking into the U.S. market, appearances on variety shows dwindled, but early in our debut, we were on quite a few.
One of those was a show where contestants had to accurately transcribe song lyrics to win delicious food from various regions across the country.
The show invited two guests each week, and I, as the main vocalist and producer, was chosen for promotional purposes for our new single, alongside our youngest member, who had the best variety-show flair.
The prize for our episode was famous tteokbokki from a market in Iksan, North Jeolla Province. Upon seeing it, our youngest member (real name: Jang Jun, stage name: J.J) whispered to me:
“Hyung, what are we gonna do? You can’t handle spicy food. You hate tteokbokki.”
He was right.
When it comes to anything with red pepper powder, I’m a total wimp—I’d sweat buckets even with mild instant ramen, and something like spicy stir-fried noodles? Even with half the sauce, I’d dread the inevitable bathroom trip.
Ordering spicy food at the Polaris dorm was unthinkable unless I had no appetite, so that says it all.
But there’s one thing Jun and the other members didn’t know.
Despite being a spice-averse wimp, I’m a paradoxical wimp who loves spicy food.
How much do I love it? Enough to confidently make delicious tteokbokki even after 16 years.
“Here.”
I placed a plate full of tteokbokki in front of Zia, her mascara-stained face now wiped clean.
This tteokbokki, which I could make blindfolded with a mix of bravado and jest, was Zia’s favorite dish.
The reason I grew to dislike tteokbokki was exactly because of that, but of course, that dislike means nothing now.
Yet, despite her usual love for tteokbokki—so much so that one bite could melt away any anger—Zia didn’t even pick up her fork. Instead, she turned her back to the table, hugging her knees and crouching.
“Not eating? No appetite?”
No response came from Zia, her head buried in her knees.
Seeing her like that weighed heavily on my heart.
‘All because of that damn dream…’
Zia left me because of that dream.
Back then, I didn’t realize how my relentless pursuit of it, clinging to it to keep my spirit from breaking, must have burdened her.
It should’ve been a regret that came far too late.
But,
‘It’s different now.’
Was there some kind of magic in that Grammy award?
As if my wish to it had come true, I was seeing Zia again.
Not just any Zia—the Zia from the past.
Why had the world initially appeared monochrome, like a dream?
Why did color return the moment I held her hand again?
I couldn’t explain any of it with certainty, but somehow, I felt clearly that this wasn’t just a dream filled with wishful thinking.
And I knew what I had to do.
I needed to resolve this far-from-ordinary breakup event.
The fact that she cried so openly the moment we stepped outside, and didn’t pull away from my hand as we returned to this rooftop room where we’d spent so much time together, made it clear that the breakup wasn’t her true intention.
‘So I need to settle this properly.’
In a way that minimizes Zia’s guilt as much as possible.
Luckily, a decent plan came to mind.
“Zia, look at me.”
She didn’t budge, but would she stay that way after my next words?
“I know why you did it. It’s because of the offer to be the main vocalist of a boy group, right? They told you idols can’t have girlfriends, so we should break up?”
As expected, her head shot up the moment I finished speaking.
“How did you know that…?”
“Of course I know. How could I not?”
I smiled casually, as if it were no big deal, and her head tilted in confusion.
“But she said she hadn’t told you yet…”
“You believed that? Obviously, an offer like that would come to me first.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Ugh, seriously. Why would you believe something like that? What if she was a scammer?”
Her face began to flush, a mix of emotions swirling.
‘Honestly, that makes more sense.’
It’s not common for a company to dig into someone’s personal life and eliminate risks just because they like a potential recruit, without even a formal contract.
Of course, one reason Lee Heekyung succeeded as an entertainment mogul was her willingness to do the unthinkable at times, but Zia wouldn’t know that.
As embarrassment, anger, shame, and self-reproach colored her face red, I drove the point home.
“But that’s kind of messed up. I clearly rejected the offer, and she still went to you with that story? Lee Heekyung, was it? She’s kind of awful. Don’t you think I dodged a bullet by not joining her company?”
The blame wasn’t on Zia but on Lee Heekyung, who deceived her despite my clear rejection. I redirected the arrow of resentment away from Zia and toward Heekyung.
It wouldn’t erase all her guilt, but…
‘At least I can frame today’s events not as a breakup but as a near-miss with a scam.’
The rest would have to fade with time.
With that in mind, I quietly approached Zia, who had buried her head in her knees again. The earlier prickly atmosphere had vanished, so I gently pulled her into a light embrace and apologized.
“Sorry. I rejected the offer and didn’t think it was worth mentioning since it wasn’t exactly pleasant. I should’ve told you.”
“I feel like such an idiot…”
“Well, you are kind of an idiot. Who actually agrees to break up just because someone says so? Next time someone spouts nonsense like that, just splash water on them and walk away.”
“Okay…”
Normally, her fiery personality would’ve snapped at being called an idiot, but her quiet agreement showed she was still uneasy.
But now was the perfect time for my trump card.
“The tteokbokki’s probably gone soggy. Guess we should toss it.”
“No, I’ll eat it.”
Watching her perk up, grab a fork, and head to the table, I just smiled.
I hid the cold resolve in my heart to properly close out today’s unfinished business.
***
“Yes, I understand. That’s a bit disappointing. I wish you the best with your music.”
Lee Heekyung ended the call with a smile, but the moment she put the phone down, her brow furrowed, and she rubbed her forehead.
Seeing her unconcealed discomfort, Lee Heeyeon, who had been staring blankly, asked lightly,
“Who was that?”
“Han Yujin.”
Heeyeon didn’t immediately recall the name, but a beat later, she remembered something from a while back.
She pictured Heekyung proudly declaring, after bringing in a guide vocal track, “This guy’s gonna be Polaris’s main vocalist.”
“Oh, that guy you were obsessed with? When did you even contact him again? Didn’t he say he wasn’t interested?”
“Yeah. Apparently, being an idol isn’t the kind of music he’s pursuing.”
“Hah! He’s got some nerve. Let him chase his precious music and starve—he’ll come to his senses then.”
Despite Heeyeon’s sharp sarcasm, Heekyung’s expression didn’t soften.
Guessing the reason, Heeyeon clicked her tongue and continued.
“Forget it. Why bother trying to sweet-talk some pretentious indie kid, then retrain his mind and body? From the way he talks, he’s a lost cause. Just go with Seonghoon for the main vocalist. He’s good enough. Unnie, we don’t have time to waste, do we?”
“I know.”
Heeyeon wasn’t wrong.
Polaris’s debut was already on a tight schedule.
If someone wasn’t willing to join voluntarily, no matter how much Heekyung liked their voice, it wasn’t worth the effort to recruit them.
But despite knowing this, Heekyung’s unease stemmed from something else.
‘Why is this guy so calm?’
Her approach wasn’t a standard recruitment.
Contacting Woo Zia first was a calculated move to eliminate risks tied to Han Yujin while making his recruitment easier.
Exploiting the vulnerability of a lover’s betrayal was, for Heekyung, a simple task.
Of course, she’d accounted for the possibility that her plan could fall apart.
In her eyes, Woo Zia was an easy mark, but considering they were young adults in their early twenties who thought love was everything, Zia might later share the proposal with Yujin.
That wouldn’t have mattered.
Heekyung had brought it up to Zia without giving her a chance to record the conversation. Without evidence, people would believe Heekyung’s word over theirs, and she could simply deny it ever happened.
She was prepared to crush any insolent kid who dared come at her.
Yet, Han Yujin had been nothing but polite to someone as vile as her, who had urged his lover to betray him.
‘Almost as if he knew I was recording the call…’
Not only did he avoid mentioning her proposal to Zia, but his reason for rejecting the offer—his pride in his music—was something any self-respecting musician might say.
‘Did Zia not tell him?’
She considered it briefly, but it didn’t quite add up.
There was a subtle anger in Yujin’s polite tone, faint enough that others might miss it, but Heekyung could sense it clearly.
‘Could he have seen through me…?’
Approaching Zia first was a shortcut born of her limited time. Given that, all Heekyung could do now was shift her focus away from Yujin and back to Polaris.
If she hadn’t noticed his anger, it would’ve been a classic case of being played. If she had, it was a warning to back off.
In other words, a perfect defeat that could only happen if someone saw through both Polaris’s production schedule and Heekyung’s personality.
But there was no way a young guy like him could have that kind of insight.
“Haha, this guy’s interesting, isn’t he?”
A laugh escaped Heekyung’s lips.
Heeyeon, watching her, shook her head.
‘This crazy woman’s at it again.’
That’s all it could look like.
***
Sipping a beer while gazing at the rooftop room’s view—starkly different from the Han River view of my penthouse—I thought to myself,
‘That should take care of Lee Heekyung for now.’
Saying that being an idol isn’t the music I pursue was just an excuse to get her to lose interest in me.
Knowing Heekyung, it might actually make her more interested, but that’s not a problem.
‘They don’t have much time at Starlight.’
The process of Polaris’s debut is etched clearly in my mind.
The time I spent suffering alone in this rooftop room was so hellish that, in contrast, every grueling moment of training that erased that pain is vividly remembered.
And in my memory, Polaris’s debut date—before I was part of it—isn’t far off.
‘Once they debut, they won’t have time to care about me.’
In my original life, I joined the debut lineup, which delayed things by a couple of months due to training.
Then, as someone who wasn’t even a trainee but a random recruit, I ended up taking on Polaris’s production because of that incident, which pushed the debut back even further.
But now, without me to uncover the clue to that incident, Polaris’s debut should proceed as scheduled.
While they’re busy handling the fallout of that incident exploding outside the company, Heekyung will likely forget all about me.
‘Come to think of it, I did gain something from Starlight.’
The shallow ego that ranks music genres has long since vanished.
If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have lasted 16 years, let alone swept rookie awards or won a Grammy.
I can’t deny that my mental transformation came naturally from grinding away at Starlight.
But I don’t feel grateful.
‘It’s like thanking imperial Japan for building modern infrastructure.’
Without my experience at Starlight with Polaris, I wouldn’t have been able to master such a wide range of genres.
But that was clearly not done for me.
At least to me, the logic of equating Heekyung to imperial Japan doesn’t feel like a stretch.
‘For now, I should probably go the idol route.’
Take senior artist AZ, for example—it’s the truth.
No one can deny that her foundation for earning the glorious title of “K-hip-hop’s top dog” was built on the popularity she gained from a cute, bubbly idol-style follow-up track after her debut song, full of her unique flair, flopped.
There’s an undeniable difference between a male and female solo artist, but without a special opportunity, the best approach right now is to lower the bar as much as possible and build recognition.
‘There aren’t any notable audition shows at the moment… maybe I should start a YouTube channel.’
The know-how of a 16-year veteran top idol, main vocalist, producer, and Grammy winner is still intact in my mind.
If I can just catch the algorithm’s favor, I can break through the red ocean of YouTube.
My scratched-up phone buzzed right after that thought.
‘Huh? Why is this person calling at this hour…?’
The name on the screen was one I truly hadn’t expected.