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ㅤㅤ

— Are you okay, hyung?

— Sejin-ah, let me take a look at the condition of your ankle.

— ...

Lee Sejin looked at his ankle with his pale face, then gritted his teeth and pulled up his pants so we could see his condition.

His ankle was swollen.

"...It doesn't look good."

I can confirm that it is an injury.

— ...!

— I-it is okay! It's just a little swollen... B-but if you go to the hospital soon...

Seon AhHyun raised his voice to let us know after seeing his condition. Since he had studied dance for years, he seems to have some knowledge about ankle injuries.

— Yes, Sejin-ah, sit down first. I'll call one of the managers to take you to the emergency room right away.

— ...Okay.

With the help of Ryu CheongWoo, Sejin sat on the chair in the corner of the practice room, and then went to the hospital with the manager we had called.

— W-we can go together...

— No!! You can't delay the rehearsal because of me... I'll be back later.

Sejin vehemently refused to let us accompany him and left the practice room with the manager.

— I hope it's not serious.

— Me too.

— I-it's not that swollen… I-it'll be fine.

Since it was just a fall, we assumed it was nothing serious and continued our rehearsals.

After finishing our practice time, he came back, but he didn't come back alone.

— Ah~ Is this your apartment, Sejin? It looks very good!

— ...

— What's the matter? From now on, I will come often.

— ...Because of my schedule, I'm rarely here.

— Oh yeah~? Then your dad can come take over. You can't refuse.

— ...It's okay.

Sejin was walking leaning against a middle-aged man, who looked like a wealthy person.

However, hearing his way of speaking, he seemed to be a part-time convenience store worker who was drunk.

— ...?

— Oh. You're my Sejin's friends~ I'm Sejin's dad.

— Oh, good evening, sir.

— Good evening!

— Don't call me “sir”~ Every time I go out with Sejin, people think I'm his hyung...

— Haha, you look very young, sir,

Keun SeJin cut off the man's conversation and CheongWoo smiled before giving a brief reply.

— Thank you very much for bringing Sejin. We'll be busy doing some filming, so...

— Oh, I'll sit there quietly, film what you want,

— ...

Cheongwoo looked uncomfortable.

I checked Sejin's expression and saw that tiredness, shyness and embarrassment alternated on his face, perhaps for showing us his disrespectful father.

"...he seems to be someone troublesome."

SeJin spoke to the man again.

— Well~ Sir, we will officially invite you another time. How could we carelessly attend to our parents? We will prepare to welcome you well and will contact you when we have everything ready!

— You don't have to do that. Don't worry, I'll be leaving in a bit. It's just that I've had a hard time coming to help Sejin.

That said, there is only one way to get rid of it.

I quickly went to my room and came back with something in my hands.

— Sir, you must have tried very hard. It would be good for you to go home so you can have dinner and rest comfortably.

I handed him the red ginseng set that I had received as a gift after our vacations..

— ...! Aigoo, why are you handing this over to me, huh? I didn't mean to ask for something like this.

Although he said that, the man quickly received the ginseng. I just nodded my head and replied meekly.

— I know you just wanted to see the apartment where your son lives now. I'm giving it to you because we're so happy about it, but we're sorry we can't show it to you right now as we have our busy schedule.

— Okay~ Huh? You're the friend who won first place, right? The friend who got Sejin chosen. Oh, you are so trustworthy. Sejin, thank him.

— ...

— Oh, because of our filming shoot, we have to go in and talk to our manager. I hope you return safely to your house.

— ...Well, okay, I'll go. I'll be back soon.

The man looked at Sejin and those around him, slowly opened the apartment door and walked out.

— ...

Sejin bowed his head, looking at the ground.

— Ah, y-you have to sit down...

When Seon AhHyun reached out to help him move, Sejin jerked his arm up reflexively, as if he was defending himself.

— ...!

Fortunately, AhHyun avoided getting hit. Realizing this, Sejin looked terribly surprised.

— I… I'm sorry!!

— I-it's alright!

What a mess.

Sejin looked around as if he wanted to run away, but perhaps he remembered his past experiences and went to sit on the sofa in the living room instead.

"... It may be difficult for him to go to our room, he must be uncomfortable because of his leg."

They had put half a cast from the middle of his foot to almost his knee.

Anyway, thanks to what had happened, an atmosphere of conversation was created.

— ... Was that your father?

— ...Yes.

In a heavy atmosphere, Kim RaeBin carefully raised her hand.

— Why did you come back to your father when you went to the manager?

— ...It seems that he had a problem, that's why he quickly contacted him because he had to leave.

In case he had problems, every manager should have contacted someone else in the agency, but the one who took Sejin to the hospital was the second manager who was just working with us and had not yet become familiar with his work, so he must have called his parents.

Despite the gloomy atmosphere, Cha YooJin managed to ask the most important question.

— Is your ankle okay?

— ...! Ri-right, your ankle!

— How long do you think it will take to recover?

— ...It is not a big thing. I just have to be careful.

— Hmm, considering your situation, you've been given the proper treatment.

— I think they over-tightened the cast on purpose… I told them I wanted to get well quickly.

Some guys gave thumbs up in approval. It was the underage dongsaengs.

— Hyung...

— That's great!

NT: The half cast or shell should not be tight because it can worsen the swelling and aggravate the problem. It may be hard on the outside, but on the inside it's padded so you don't feel pain.

At this time, Sejin's expression relaxed and, as if he felt shy, he told us with a slight smile.

— ...I'll make sure not to cause a disturbance in the group.

— Ya~

But his smile darkened a little.

— ...I'll make sure my father doesn't come back. Do not worry.

— ...

He said it in an ambiguous way.

"They must have family matters to resolve."

It wasn't the kind of thing we could ask and fix ourselves.

— ...? Wouldn't it be better if he came?

...But I forgot that Kim RaeBin was here. He didn't seem to have noticed the strange atmosphere flowing before.

At RaeBin's question, Sejin was embarrassed and began to reply with an insecure stammer, as if he were a vomiting sea cucumber.

NT: Sea cucumbers vomit up their digestive systems as a defense mechanism against predators, who are distracted and eat those organs while they escape. They don't die, they regenerate. In this case, Sejin makes excuses to distract him from asking him to return his father.

— Eh… The apartment is big and spacious, so I can live comfortably, no problem.

— But you can tell the agency so they can give him permission to help you...

— ...NO! He has a bad habit with his hands… It's not good to be with him.

NT: “Bad habit with your hands” is a euphemism for “kleptomania”, a mental health disorder that makes you steal objects, whether they are expensive or not.

Seeing Sejin's expression, it seemed that even he didn't know why he was telling us that story, so he finished speaking.

— ...I won't let him come. Don't worry about it.

He quickly got up from the sofa and headed to our room.

The remaining members in the living room looked at each other blankly.

— ...

— Hmm, well… now that we know his ankle will be fine, are we going to sleep?

— Yes, let's do that.

We all got up from our seats, following SeJin's suggestion.

— YooJin-ah~ Don't watch Netplus, go to sleep.

— I don't want to...

YooJin, who was opening Netplus in the living room, turned off the TV and dejectedly went to his room dragging his feet and tripping on the way.

...Hmm.

Net plus. He reminded me that at dawn I saw Sejin crying in his bed.

"He shouldn't have cried for Netplus... maybe it was for his father."

...I hope he doesn't cause a big problem.

If it did happen, not only would it be very difficult to solve, but I don't know what would happen to Sejin's weak paper mentality.

I headed to my room feeling uncomfortable.

My eyes met Sejin's, who was trying to accommodate his shelled leg on a hamster-shaped pillow.

— ...

— ...

He turned to avoid my gaze, feeling embarrassed.

"I'll pretend I didn't see it."

I pretended to look at my phone and went to sit on my bed.

So he talked to me.

— ...I'm sorry. Take my red ginseng set.

Oh. He told me about what happened with his father. I nodded my head.

— I will use it well.

— Okay.

Just as the room was about to sink into peaceful silence, Sejin, who was muttering something to himself, hurriedly continued speaking.

— ...B-but I think I had a bottle or two. I'll buy a new set to give you.

— ...? Okay, I'll wait to take it.

— ...Huh.

I heard him take a long breath. It sounded more like embarrassment than relief.

Seeing his leg crush his hamster pillow, he muttered.

— Why am I still... a burden?

— You are not like that at all.

— ...But I'm going to recover, so don't worry about me.

— ...You can do it.

I looked to my side and saw Sejin looking at something on his phone. His eyes burned with great will.

Was he watching the video of our choreography?

“...Passion is good.”

It's good that you're more motivated now, but you don't need to ask me to get your spirits up.

I turned off my phone and put in earplugs. I took a last look at how Sejin looked, who was looking at his phone with a serious expression.

Somehow, the memory of seeing him grip his phone tightly overlapped my mind.

"...I wonder if he would have been trying to work out the issues with his father."

I often saw posts on the internet asking for solutions to these types of problems, but in reality, family problems are never solved that easily.

"Well... it would be funny and ridiculous if you ever ask me about that."

It would be strange for a person who has no family to support someone else in his family problems. Thinking about it, I decided to sleep at once.

The funny thing was that this time, Lee Sejin stared at his phone for quite a while.

* * *

A few days later, we had our last meeting with the representatives of the game we collaborated with.

We were told that the dev team got really excited when they saw our trailer, so they did their own work, and as a result…

— Wow, they modified the characters a bit to look like us.

— He is just like me!

— He also has a mole on his cheek...

Some of the physical characteristics of the members of TeSTAR were reflected in the initial characters.

— No, we don't fix everything. We only slightly modified the physical features of the characters we already had~

— What are you talking about? It totally reminds me of the trailer!! Especially Lee Sejin-ssi's rimless glasses! As soon as we saw it, we unanimously decided to add them to our character right away!

...The comments were something like that.

By the way, the character he played, who had double eyelids, now had no creases at all. I'm sorry, but… I don't see much of a difference.

— Woah, it's hard, but it's also fun.

— We can do it!

— Let's do our best!

The music video was released a few days later. The schedule got busier, but the "feeling good" was definitely addictive despite the rush of work.

Thanks to that, all of the TeSTAR members had a happy face regardless of small problems that arose. This included Sejin, who looked more refreshed and was currently conversing comfortably with CheongWoo.

His sprain seemed to be healing well, so I thought he might perform well when we make our comeback, but...

An incident occurred when we wanted to leave the agency.

— Lee Sejin!! Come here!!

— ...!

A middle-aged man, who was sitting in front of the back door lobby of the company, jumped up when he saw Sejin.

Obviously it was his father.

Sejin's face darkened.

"Shit."

It was fortunate that the two managers immediately blocked his path.

— Father, you can't do this!

— Please calm down!

— Let go of me! You guys have no fucking manners! Oh, you are oppressing me!

Sejin's father hesitated when he was blocked and pushed away by the manager who was taller than him, but in the end, he ended up yelling and pointing his finger at his son.

— Do you think I'll let you go? You will be punished for this, you dirty bastard!!!!

— ...

The noisy lobby fell into calm silence after that man was taken away.

However, after a few hours, we learned something more disturbing.