Capítulo 99: Debut Prep (6)

"My name is Park Joon-Woo… I'm 18 in Korean age and 17 in international age… Uh…" Joon-woo looked at his bandmates around him. They looked at him with interest and tired eyes. "I can speak English and–"

"How did you learn?" Mi Yong purposely interrupted with a sly smile.

Joon-woo rolled his eyes, "I like learning languages." He lied.

"What other languages do you know?" Ryeo Hyun chimed in, stoic nature broken down due to the slightly humorous atmosphere.

What other languages did he know? He hummed. Some Japanese, a few phrases in Tagalog and Mandarin… If he said all the languages he knew a considerable amount of phrases in he knew it would be brought up like crazy. He didn't want to come off as a genius because he didn't think he could uphold that reputation with his double-dropout status.

"Japanese." He watered it down.

"Wow… Our maknae is trilingual…" Mi Yong hummed.

Reggie huffed, "I thought I knew the most languages…" He slightly pouted, earning a small smile out of Joon-woo.

"It's a waste you dropped out…" Baek Du-Ho listlessly commented. It was harsh to Joon-woo's ear.

He grimaced, was that dig at Joon-woo? He didn't think Baek Du-Ho disliked him, but the comments he made didn't make them seem close in the slightest.

"Not all of us were lucky enough to attend an art school." Joon-woo scoffed, slightly snappy due to his hunger. Dieting always made him more irritable.

The room was silenced.

Mi Yong and Reggie visibly grimaced at the tension between the two. Ryeo Hyun and Jung Hyun-Ok seemed mostly clear-minded due to exhaustion.

"I'll go next!" Reggie spoke up after a moment of awkward silence.

Joon-woo nodded curtly in agreement, only feeling hostile towards his bandmate across from him.

"My name is Reggie Lee! I am 19 years old in international age, but 20 in Korean." He hummed, "My mom is famous in Korea and I've danced for… 13 years."

"Your mom was my childhood crush, you know…" Jung Hyun-Ok admitted.

Lee Ju Kae was a two-time winner of Actress of The Year for a reason. Famous actors were always good looking even with varied skills.

The whole table besides Reggie nodded in agreement.

Reggie's eyes widened and his face shaped into one of disgust.

"My mom..?"

"She is so hot." Mi Yong mocked her American accent.

Reggie grimaced. He looked towards Joon-woo, betrayed.

"Joon-ah, did you have a crush on my mom?"

Joon-woo shook his head. He wasn't even in the body of Park Joon-woo when Lee Ju Kae was in her prime. "No, not really." He shrugged. He couldn't deny that Reggie's mother had aged well and in her prime was conventionally attractive, but he had never cared about crushes and all those things.

Reggie awkwardly leaned on Joon-woo with an exasperated sigh. "Thank god…"

The mood was effectively lightened.

–+–

Kim So-Yeon couldn't believe her eyes. ASCEND would finally debut tomorrow!

Producer10 had ended three months ago now, and besides a vlog and a fifteen minute live stream, Flights had gotten nothing.

They knew that it was a three-song mini album. The title track was Beach Day and it had two b-sides, Dearest and A Minute Longer. Albums were available for pre-order for a long while. Each site had their respective POBs and Kim So-Yeon had spent about three of her part time paychecks buying them.

She had joined fan cafes and kept up with ASCEND's bare Weverse page. She had even begun a ASCEND updates account on Witter and had gained almost 15k followers over the last few weeks.

ASCEND was set. With an already decently large fanbase and sold-out pre-orders for albums, Kim So-yeon only saw a bright future for her boys.

All public appearances so far had been brief with hats often covering the members hair and masks & glasses their eyes. In fact, Kim So-yeon had attended an airport visit of ASCEND. There weren't heavy crowds (yet, in Kim So-yeon's opinion), but just seeing her biases in person made her year.

Her phone buzzed and she practically jumped on it to find a notification from ASCEND's official Witter account.

Her smile widened even through her bit lip as she watched a video labeled with the caption 'TOMORROW' load over her screen.

It was a teaser.

It was a minute and a half seconds long and as soon as she could, Kim So-yeon played the video.

It began with a black screen. Just for a moment everything was black until the screen flashed a bright light to show someone sitting by the trunk of a tree seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was Mi Yong.

There were no trees within view other than the one Mi Yong leaned against. A bright light was blocked by the tree, and with the way Mi Yong was shifting fearfully away from it, it was an object of fear.

The camera suddenly zoomed as Mi Yong took a cautious glance towards the light. There was a shot of him wincing at a sudden wave of light. Then it was fully white for a moment, then black.

A beat of electronic and xylophonic suddenly began. It wasn't in-your-face, but rather soft and slow to contrast the electronic sound.

The black screen changed to a common Seoul home, ASCEND being the occupants.

Reggie and Joon-woo were sharing popcorn watching something on an off screen TV. Ryeo Hyun was playing uno with Baek Du-Ho, and Jung Hyun-Ok appeared to be sleeping on the couch Reggie was getting popcorn all over.

The beat suddenly got louder when Mi Yong burst through the door, panic clear on his face.

Then he stopped. As if realizing the identity of the people in the room, his gaze softened. The camera zoomed in on his face during this.

"[I haven't texted any of them in a long while…]"

It was Reggie talking faintly over the beat. Joon-woo on the receiving end of the words. There were Korean captions to translate the words.

"[Why not?]"

Joon-woo replied.

The camera zoomed on Reggie's almost lost seeming eyes.

A slightly opaque video of ASCEND shopping together played over his eyes for a beat. Then one of them ran through a park. Then of them playing football. Them practicing dance. Each video got slowly more clear until Reggie's eyes were not in the shot at all.

After a few more short and cut off clips of ASCEND hanging out, it returned to a black screen. Text appeared.

'FOREVER: US' was centered towards the top, '5/29' a little below it.

Kim So-yeon's smile would've come off creepy to anyone watching. Everything was shaking in her head. The visuals were there, the beat was catchy, and the concept was relatable… Her arms shook uncontrollably by her sides as she let out a small and quiet cheer.

–+–

"What the f*ck!" A loud bang against what appeared to be thin metal rang and echoed as if in a large empty space. "Let me the out of this sh*thole! You said if I did my job you would give me peace!"

It was a man's voice yelling such profanities. He banged against thin metal again, not allowing the echo to disperse for banging a few more times.

"I did what you wanted! I did it so well! You got what you wanted so what the f*ck is this?" The voice was almost hysterical. Emotional and on the verge of tears, a scoff emerged from the other side.

"Suicide doesn't send people to paradise. But I thought you knew that the best, Producer Jang-Soo?" A much calmer voice replied. "Carre's moved on already and everyone's long forgotten you, so stop fighting me. It'll be easier for both of us this way."

Producer Jang-Soo ever-so-slightly gasped.

His anger dispersed like his bangs against the thin metal, like his memory, like everything he had ever worked for.