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Kim Hongjoong of ATEEZ fame is crumpled in front of her, sponged by the musty LEDs of this studio hallway. With the jangling toe of her Alex Wang boot, she nudges his thigh.
“Hello, calling Kim Hongjoong-ssi? Still alive down there?”
No response from Hongjoong. He’s curved in on himself like an earthworm or a mole rat or a dandelion weed, freshly ripped from the earth. The sight squeezes a soft wave of pity out of Soyeon. Poor little kitten.
“Helloooo?” she tries again, waving a hand in his face. He’s larger, stronger than she had expected from the reductive frames of her YouTube suggestions. Cuter too, despite - or maybe because of - the lack of makeup, rainbow brite hair poking out in tufts.
Would a quick snap be impolite? Just for her finsta. She’s not really a monster, just a moodboard enthusiast. Soyeon pokes her tongue out and squints one eye shut, makes sure the flash is on.
Here’s the shot: The yolk of his Adidas tracksuit haloed against the rust carpet. Hongjoong’s eyelashes fan across his cheeks, a neat allowance of porcelain teeth showcased through his gapped doll mouth. He could be a cherub in the midst of a much needed snooze. Asleep, everyone looks a little younger.
Anyway, it’s perfect. It fits the brassy-juicy Diner Redux Moment she’s been looking to fill her grid with this summer. She just finished shooting the Beam Beam MV and she’d like to stay in character until the live stages. To get that bleached 2000s look, Soyeon drags the exposure slider all the way right. Three lightning bolt emojis later, it’s posted. No text in the caption, ‘cause the image has to speak for itself.
Hongjoong’s eyes snap open. Soyeon jerks back, fumbles her phone.
“Yo,” she calls, lifts two fingers in a wobbly pastel salute. “Doing alright?”
He looks kinda unfocused. The first hint of a comedown or maybe a concussion? There had been that EDM trend lately with the boy groups, that was bound to cause some latent brain damage.
“Hey! Kim Hongjoong-ssi? Can you hear me? If you want me to call the ER, blink twice.”
A flutter of the eyelashes. “Uh-” starts Soyeon. “Mm. Bit of an unclear answer there.”
Thankfully, it’s then that Hongjoong chooses to rise and shine. He rubs at an eye with a yellow sleeve, bows his head over and over. “No, thank you sunbaenim. So sorry.” Damn, his voice is as nasally as her’s. “I’ll be alright. Sorry again. Just a fainting spell, happens every so often. You know how it is when you come down-” he makes a vague waggling gesture like a little clown. “From the clouds of FL Studio. Haha.”
“Ah,” she says. “Comeback season, then? Finishing touches?” She pulls him up, careful not to nick him with her claws.
He shakes his head, “Not till August. This is more of a personal project.” For Soyeon, that had been code for her solo album.
“I see,” Soyeon smiles as she clicks her phone off. She shoves it into her tiny purse, trades it for a mask and a Yankees cap. “Congratulations! Hey, Kim Hongjoong-ssi, I have an idea.”
“What’s that, sunbaenim?”
“Let’s go out and grab a bite! And stop calling me sunbaenim!”
“But it’s,” he checks his phone, “3:12am, sunbaenim?” He winces. “Noona?”
“Yeah,” she admonishes. “So it’ll be a breakfast of champions. Gotta treat your body like a temple, a proper studio. Otherwise you’ll pass out again and your solo debut will flop.”
Hongjoong runs a hand through rainbow hair, “Oh, but it’s not my solo-”
“Eh, well, still. Can't work on an empty stomach, can you. Come on, my treat.” She’s not sure why she offers. Hello God? It’s her, Jeon Soyeon, Mnet’s kindest daughter. Just kidding.
For as much as her brand hinges on being one of a kind, the similarities between Hongjoong and herself are pretty inevitable. They’re seminal trainees, the first pulsing vertebrae in the backbones of their respective band myths.They know each other at least as well as they know the rest of their crop of competitor-colleagues. Which is to say obsessively, through the neurotic drip of content consumption, and then some. But the formality that should be guiding their professional relationship through its nascent stage has been undercut by a current of familiarity so effortless that it must be mutual.
Soyeon slides her sunglasses up her ski-slope nose and into her spider lashes so they can obscure anything unintended. It’s funny. Soyeon usually skrrt skrts around this sort of navel-gazing. It’s all a bit psycho-delulu, stalls her productivity.
“I’m down,” he nods firmly, gives her a sharp little smile. “Let's stay in the area. I need to finish this guide for noon tomorrow. Er, noon today.”
“No worries,” she says. Her first schedule starts at 6:00am sharp. “It’s a date.”
Definitely stalls her productivity. But, well. Lately, she’s been feeling a little lonely.
“You’re wearing sunglasses at night,” he says, pulling out a giant bucket hat and his own pair.
She giggles.“Doesn’t it feel like we’re on vacation?”
As Hongjoong stuffs his bag, Soyeon fit-checks in the glass pane of the studio booth. Cropped banana tricot over a creamy shirt, plaid mini, lacy thigh-highs. Soyeon’s really been trying to embrace her true self on camera lately and it tests well. Inoffensively provocative and bubbling just the right amount of bad press.
They cross into the streets, walk side by side in companionable quiet. Between his inserts and her platforms, they’re pretty much eye to eye. In their flashy yellow drip, they prowl like two cool cats, masks and glasses working hard to anonymize. Should she reach for his hand? As a senior? A competitor? A cute blonde with a sweaty palm and a schedule at 6:00?
She hesitates. It’d be lame to scare him off now, before they get to the good part.
He solves her crisis by reaching for her hand first, fingers loosely curling in hers.
She squeezes her eyes tight, memorizes this raw beating thing in her chest to tenderize for future lyricism. Something sweet and nuanced for next spring, to soothe the general public’s imminent girl crush fatigue.
---
So Soyeon’s been taking L’s on public broadcast since the age of 16.
Public flagellation does wonders for the ego by way of total annhilation. It does the opposite too: bloats wallets and exhilarates martyrs. Psst, psst. Have you heard of Mnet's daughter, Jeon Soyeon?
Being on a show like Queendom, it’s like telling a crowd of thirsty millions: it’s all for you. Here are the terms of our agreement. Body, soul, love me and it’s all yours. For a girl group, or even a future solo career, years down the line, it’s also a proof of concept. Competitor feedback, audience interest and marketing functions all rolled into a digestible, magnetic performance.
And then, little by little, Soyeon starts to win: teammates, music shows, creative input, brand value. Once she flips enough dominoes, momentum kicks in.
So now, Soyeon’s used to losing and she’s used to winning. Now, it’s fake burgers she flips under sweaty camera lighting, steady and patient, monitoring the details. She wipes her brow when it gets clammy but keeps her mask on, even after the director yells “Cut!”. Now, Soyeon is 24 and has a stomach made of steel.
Her heart, though. Well.
It’s still a flighty little bird, simply looking for a place to rest.
---
It’s 3:32am and they end up at McDonalds, huddled around the glowing order screen. Soyeon lowers her sunglasses to frown at the specials.
“I’m on a diet,” Hongjoong echoes her usual excuse, eyes tracking as she swipes through the burger feed.
“Let’s share something then. Have you tried the BTS meal?” she asks, more of a formality than a real question. In their world, everyone knows you’ve gotta drop a couple thousand won at the temple of Bangtan, in exchange for that plastic shrine charm you hang in your stomach lining. Manifestation by way of the global nugget. God, I see what you’ve done for others...
Hongjoong confirms that he has.
“Sauce?”
“Sweet Chili. Drink?”
“Pepsi.”
Hongjoong picks up the tray as she swipes her card. He follows her to the backmost corner, away from counters and windows. She unfolds the napkins, he distributes the chicken nuggets. He blushes. There’s only one straw!
She likes that he scarfs down his half of the food like a hamster with perfect teeth, like he knows there’s more where that came from. Before long both their sides of the napkin are empty. They trade the rest of the Pepsi back and forth, like an indirect kiss.
“Have you seen that Travis Scott documentary?” he asks, further proof that they’re on the same track. Boys have two psalms: Sicko Mode and their wedding vows. She tells him she’ll make time for it eventually, maybe after promotions.
“It’s about music but not really, it’s about an all-consuming wave. It’s not just music, it’s an infinite ascent. You can release an album and build a theme park in Houston. Launch a nugget menu.” He waves a hand around them, at the empty neon restaurant. “Build an empire or better yet, a household brand. A franchise! Where’s the limit?”
“The trick with riding roller coasters is to never look over the sides,” says Soyeon.
“Yes. But for something to be sublime, doesn’t it have to be intimate? Can an ear worm be a tidal wave? If I write a good enough song, can I wash through the darkest, most personal corners of every single brain that lets me in?”
“No,” replies Soyeon, gently. “You have to knock first, ask politely. Excuse me, hello, can I please help you love me?”
“But even then how can there ever be enough room for all of me to fit?”
Is this his thesis, what he’s been building up to all this time? To Soyeon, this is the least consequential of his queries yet.
She shrugs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Trim as much fat as you need to.”
“The scariest thing,” he says, looking straight at her. “Is that this dream doesn’t seem so unfeasible at all. In fact sometimes I feel like it’s right there, in the corner of my vision.” His face falls. “I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
“This can’t be the first time you’ve weighed your losses?”
“It’s the first time I’ve had to imagine them at this scale.”
Just wait til your solo, Kim Hongjoong.
“Well, if it helps,” she says. “You only feel that way because you’re on the inside - at the epicenter, the bone marrow.” she says. “From the outside, no one cares very much, outside of the ones that really really care.”
To the teen girls who scream your name like a benediction, there are two things you can offer: bone marrow, business deal. They see you just as well as you see them, squinting down camera lenses and from the far seats of concert halls, blurred by stage lights.
Soyeon wants to remind him that big dreams are hedged by tipped dominoes, one after the other. In the ascent of the thrill park ride, you’re fighting the weight of gravity. There is no rickety ride system to pull you along unless you've tipped your domino quota. Dreams are heavy, after all. But he already knows all of this. Sometimes it’s just reassuring to say this sort of thing out loud, from one seminal trainee to another. So instead she shows him the rough cut of her MV, trades a secret for another. Hongjoong comes to sit next to her as she points out the bits that need retouching and where the 3D models will be added. He says he likes the groove of the guitars, gets a Hyuna vibe, thinks her hat is so dope, who makes that.
“It really does look like you filmed in LA,” he laughs, after she corrects him. She expects him to return to his seat but he doesn’t. His thigh is warm against hers, and that sends a giddy thrill down all the way down to her ankles.
“We should write a song together,” he says, wiping fried salt off of his hands. He fiddles with the straw in their drink.
“If we did, Dispatch might write articles about us,” she says, “About the weight of the world on our genius-songwriter-idol shoulders.”
Hongjoong laughs, “Are you asking me out?”
‘Yes,” she says mock-serious, “I’m taking a very big risk.”
“We’ll have to be very careful.”
“Two years?”
“Three? With a three-act structure, we’ve already got most of the work done for us.”
“Enough time for the tapered denouement before an amicable split. End things properly before they even start, really.”
“Sold on a three year relationship.” she swirls the last chunk of ice around the bottom of her paper cup. “We’ll get caught twice by the press due to our unmistakable couple items. Then, eventually, unfortunately, we’ll split due to creative differences.”
“Okay,” he smiles his pointy cherub smile. “To avoid mutually-assured destruction, we’ll need to leak the info to Dispatch and our respective companies at the exact same time. Probably hold hands while we do it, just to make sure no one cheats and leaks the news first.”
Soyeon really likes how he’s always in on her jokes. And if there’s no joke, then they make one. She had felt that too, as soon as she had met him, that he was just like her in that way. Don’t worry, she wants to tell him, I won’t tell. It’s just another secret to keep. But then he already knows all of this.
Under the table, their ankles are twined. “I accept these terms,” Hongjoong says. “What would be a good couple item?”
“A ring?” She simpers, flexes her fingers. “Something shiny and timeless, please.”
“Got it,” he says. “In the meantime…” He grabs two straw wrappers, wrinkles one around her finger, then his.
It’s a cold joke, a secret code, a heart-fluttering pact bound by paper and the buoyant energy of sleep deprivation. It means: I’ve got your back, you've got mine, I’ll send you a postcard if I have to, but I’d rather meet you there, under the sun of the Inkigayo lights, sharp and blonde and the closest we’ve ever been to the crest of the wave.
They end the meal with a pinky promise. He has one nail painted pink, hers are long, mixed sherbet, with a little dangling diamond that sparkles in the McDonald's lighting.
“Want my finsta?” he asks.
“I do,” she says. She drops her white chiffon napkin to get her phone.
The first pic he sees on her profile is of him, passed out in the hallway. “Oh,” he assesses, admirative. “I don’t usually see my face at this angle. Nice composition.”
She’s happy with it too. The bigger picture, she could preen, is all in the details. It reminds her of the Vice pics of Tokyo businessmen splattered on concrete, and of retro Stüssy campaigns bustling with drunk stick and poke teens. She likes that Hongjoong is framed by her anonymous, slinky ankle, flexed to show off the chunk of her platform Sloanes. If she squints, she can pretend it’s a sponsored post, kinda like CL-sunbaenim’s. One day.
The future is as bright and smooth as butter, and Soyeon can hardly wait for the day to rise, to live the rest of her life out under the warmth of the sun. In the meantime, it’s 4:34am, still pitch black outside. Her first schedule of the day starts at 6:00 sharp.
“Hey, Kim Hongjoong” she laughs. “Don’t you think we need to celebrate this engagement? Let’s go dancing.”