The ballad ended, the final note hanging in the air, thick with a sadness that felt way too real. The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating. Ha-neul was gone.
San, his hand still on his wrist where Chae-rin had grabbed him, felt a prickle of genuine panic. He pulled out his phone, his thumb moving automatically.
San: Are you okay?
He hit send and watched the screen. The message status clicked to Delivered. It never changed to Read. She wasn't even looking.
He looked up as Myung-Dae put the mic down with a quiet thud. The rebel was gone, replaced by someone who just looked... tired.
"She's gone?" Myung-Dae asked, his voice rough. He was already pulling his hoodie back up, rebuilding his walls.
"Yeah," San said, standing up. "She just...Looked upset."
Myung-Dae scoffed, a bitter, ugly sound that was nothing like his singing. "Whatever." He grabbed his backpack from the floor. "She's just Jun-seo's lapdog anyway. Can't even hear a song without him pulling her leash? Pathetic."
He didn't wait for a reply. He just shoved his hands in his pockets and walked out, the plaster on his nose stark under the club's dim lighting. San was left alone in the room with Chae-rin, who was calmly finishing a can of soda.
The silence was, once again, awkward.
"So..." San said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Are they... always like that?"
"Like what?" Chae-rin asked, not looking at him.
"You know... like... that... It seems... complicated."
Chae-rin crushed the soda can with a surprisingly strong grip. "It wasn't always like this."
"But what happened?"
She finally turned to him, her eyes as cold and flat as a winter lake. "I'm not the school historian. If you want gossip, go ask Kang Min-ah."
She stood, grabbing her own bag.
"Right. Okay," San said, relieved. "Should we... should we go, then?"
"I'm not finished."
Her voice was sharp, cutting him off. She faced him, her arms crossed. "Our project."
"Oh. Right. The festival..."
"Don't look so happy." Her Korean suddenly shifted gear, becoming a rapid-fire assault of perfect, sharp syllables that made San's brain scramble to keep up. "I don't care about the mark. My grades here are a formality. But you,"—she poked him hard in the chest—"you're the scholarship kid. The 'Representative.' You're one kimchi-stain away from being on a plane back to... wherever. You need this grade. Your position isn't stable."
He was stunned into silence. She was completely, terrifyingly right.
"So," she continued, "I'll do it. I'll practice with you. I'll get you your stupid grade."
"Really?" A spark of hope.
"If," she said, her voice dropping, "you do three things for me first."
San's hope died. "Three things?"
"First," she said, her eyes raking over him, from his messy, self-tied bun to his worn-out sneakers, "you have to change... everything. You're... you're ugly."
'Well, looks like she never minces words.'
San physically flinched, the insult landing like a slap.
"Your hair is a disaster. Your clothes are... disgusting. You look like a charity case. Go buy a mirror. Fix it."
He just stared, speechless.
"Second," she said, her voice getting colder, "I'm sick of this. This stupid, childish war. This whole school, this... company... it broke apart because of what happened last spring. I want it fixed. I want the real Kirin band back. The one with Jun-seo, Myung-Dae, and Min-woo."
San's mind went blank. Min-woo? Who the hell is Min-woo?
"You," she commanded, "will get them to play at the festival. You will get them to reunite. And you will be the one to join them."
"Me? Join them? But they hate each other! They had a fight!"
"That's your problem, 'Mountain.' Not mine."
'First Min-ah, now this Ice Cube! Why the hell they want me to join it?!'
"And third," she finished, "if you manage those two impossible things... I choose the song. No arguments. No complaints. What I pick, we play."
San was reeling. He was trying to process the rapid-fire Korean, the insults, the impossible, labyrinthine task. This wasn't the Ice Queen from school. This was... a general. A beautiful, terrifying, manipulative general.
Chae-rin, seeing his stunned silence, held out her small, elegant hand. A contract.
"Do we have a deal, 'Deoreowo'-ssi?"
He was so dazed, so completely overwhelmed, he just nodded. "A... a deal."
He reached out his own hand to shake hers.
And, because his life was a cosmic joke, his sneaker caught on the leg of the sofa.
"Blyat—!"
He yelped, lurching forward. He windmilled his arms, trying to catch his balance, but he only succeeded in grabbing her shoulders as he toppled over, knocking her off her feet. They crashed onto the plush leather sofa in a disastrous, tangled heap of limbs—San, mortifyingly, on top of her.
"Get... OFF... me!" she shrieked, her face a furious, blotchy red.
"I'm trying! I'm sorry! My foot got stuck!"
"Chae-rin? What's going on? I heard yelling..."
The door to the karaoke room slid open.
Han Min-gyu stood there, holding two cans of soda. His face, the one San had last seen looking like a devoted puppy, was now frozen in a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. He was staring at his girlfriend, pinned under the new, "disgusting" Ukrainian kid.
San froze, his body rigid.
"Oh... yobana."