Chapter Text
After a night of a horrible dream, Jinu found himself staring for the thousandth time at the screen floating in the corner of his vision, like a sentence suspended between time and his head.
[Debut or die]
A threat, a mockery, a reminder that his life, if it could still be called that, already had an expiration date. Jinu stayed lying down, unmoving.
He could do it. He could end it all right there. There were still pills in the bottle the other Jinu used. No one would miss him. No one would remember him.
Rumi probably wouldn’t even know he ever existed.
He clenched his eyes shut.
Rumi…
He didn’t want to live if it meant hurting more people.
But dying without seeing her one last time, that was probably the worst punishment. To die without regrets, he needed to know she was okay. He didn’t plan to speak to her, or get close.
He didn’t want to get entangled in her life, or burden her with a memory that no longer belonged to her.
He just wanted to see her from afar, without bothering, without existing.
He took a deep breath.
“I’m going to die,” he whispered, “but not yet. I refuse to be as pathetic as the other Jinu.”
After deciding to live a little longer, Jinu dressed in the same clothes he had found yesterday in the apartment: a shapeless jacket, some worn-out pants, a random t-shirt. He left without looking back. No headphones, no wallet. Only one idea keeping him upright: if he wanted to see Rumi one last time, even if it was from the furthest crowd, he needed money. And for that, as much as he hated to admit it, he had to work.
He walked through the city like a stranger, observing everything with tired eyes, stopping every so often in front of a “help wanted” sign only to move on without asking. It wasn’t fear, he just couldn’t accept the idea of begging the world for something as basic as being allowed to exist. But when hunger started to hurt in his stomach, he knew he didn’t have many options.
He entered a mini-market, asked if they needed someone. They said no. Did the same at a bakery, then at a clothing store. Rejection after rejection, uncomfortable looks, empty words. They didn’t treat him badly, they just didn’t see him. He was invisible.
After a few hours of wandering, he stumbled upon an old coffee shop on a side street. It wasn’t pretty or particularly eye-catching, but it had lights on and people working inside, which was enough. He walked in, and the smell of cheap coffee hit him immediately. In the back, a girl was scrubbing a machine. She didn’t look up at first, but when he approached the counter, she raised her eyes with the weariness of someone already having a bad day.
“Are you hiring?” Jinu asked bluntly. His voice wasn’t particularly cheerful, but not defeated either.
She looked him up and down, as if evaluating whether he was trouble or just sad. Finally, she sighed and nodded slightly.
“Have you cleaned storage rooms?”
“I’ve cleaned worse things,” he answered without thinking, with the dry tone of someone telling the truth.
She didn’t laugh, but she didn’t kick him out either.
“You can sort the back room. There are expired boxes, dust, and a bunch of crap. If you don’t leave within an hour, we might let you come back.”
It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no. Enough to survive another day.
They handed him a t-shirt with the cafe’s logo, wrinkled and with a stain on the sleeve. He didn’t ask how much they’d pay. He put it on over his clothes and followed the girl down a narrow hallway to a metal door that creaked as it opened. The smell of humidity was overwhelming. The storage room was dark, with flickering lights and boxes stacked haphazardly. The floor was dirty, the walls stained. The kind of place where things rot without anyone noticing.
They gave him a broom, a rag, and a handwritten list of expired products to throw out.
And he did.
He started moving boxes carelessly, separating torn bags, tossing empty jars. He did it without thinking much, because thinking hurt more than moving his body. Physical work wasn’t so terrible when you wanted to stop feeling.
At some point, without realizing it, he started singing. It was soft, barely a murmur, a familiar melody that lived in his memory without being called. It was a Huntr/x song, one of the first Rumi had taught him in their early meetings. Remembering it hurt, but not enough to stop. He kept humming while organizing coffee bags and empty bottles.
His voice didn’t sound happy or sad, just empty, robotic, almost perfect.
He sang like someone who had nothing.
And because of that, unintentionally, he sounded like someone who had everything.
The day had ended. Jinu still had dust on his sleeves and smelled like coffee. His fingers were numb from the storage room’s damp cold. He didn’t know that someone from the staff had noticed his little concert. A barista had seen it, not in person, but through the store’s cameras. She was captivated by Jinu’s voice. And as if it were a cruel joke from fate, which always seems to go against all of Jinu’s plans lately, the barista didn’t think twice before sharing the video with her aunt, who, by chance or because of that same fate, just happened to be looking for singers for a new idol survival show.
The producer, Ryu Seorin, who barely replied to her messages and almost never opened the links she sent, opened this one. She was bored, waiting for the subway, with no data to watch dramas. The video her niece sent was loading slowly. She watched it without headphones, with the volume low. She didn’t need more. It was surprising and pleasant when she found a guy singing. He was the kind of guy born to be an idol: good form, nice voice, and a wonderful face. And yet, what caught Seorin’s attention the most was something else. Jinu had something.
A messy honesty.
A wound that wasn’t fully closed.
And that is the best thing one can show on television.
Seorin sat up, grabbed the phone, and hit play again.
Then again. And again. Eventually, she called her niece.
“Who is he?”
“Hi aunt, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“Hi Ryumin, glad you’re fine, now tell me who he is.”
“His name’s Do Jinu, I think. He doesn’t talk much. He’s my new coworker at the cafe.”
Seorin nodded slowly. She looked exhausted, as always, but her eyes were awake for the first time in weeks.
“Can you get me five minutes with him?”
“For what?”
“To see if he sings like that knowing someone is watching.”
Ryu Seorin wasn’t the best producer in Korea. She worked at TNET, caught up in a show that never quite took off. Idol Incorporated was an idol show that never achieved much. After a moderately successful first season with a girl group, they tried to replicate the formula by launching a second season aiming to debut a co-ed group. But one of the participants ended up pregnant, and the second season turned out to be a complete failure. She didn’t understand what would be different in the third season they were about to launch—until she saw Jinu.
Two days later, Jinu was leaving work with the uniform shirt folded under his arm when Ryumin intercepted him halfway.
“Hey, someone wants to talk to you.”
“Why? I didn’t steal anything.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about the video.”
Jinu frowned.
“What video?”
She didn’t answer, just nodded toward a table in the corner of the store, where a woman with tied-back hair and a brown jacket was sitting with a glass of water and an expression that mixed boredom with lack of sleep.
When Jinu approached, she looked him over like someone inspecting a garment with a hard-to-ignore stain.
“Do Jinu?” she asked without standing up.
“Depends on who’s asking,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. Sarcastic, but without energy.
“I’m Ryu Seorin. I work in production at TNET. I saw a video of you. You sing well.”
Jinu tilted his head.
“What video?”
“One where you thought no one was listening. Do you always sing like that?”
“Why do you ask?” Jinu asked cautiously, defensively. He didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“I’m looking for talent for the third season of a survival show, Idol Incorporated. I’m interested in you joining,” she said, pulling a slightly wrinkled card from the back pocket of her jeans and extending it without even sitting up straight. “If at any point you decide you want to do it, call me.”
Jinu didn’t respond. He didn’t ask anything. He didn’t make eye contact. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets and his head slightly lowered, as if the words had fallen on him with the weight of the whole world. She didn’t wait for confirmation, or a reaction, or politeness. She just left the card on the table and walked away, leaving him there.
That night he returned home dragging his feet, with the work shirt in his hand and the smell of coffee clinging to his skin. He closed the door without turning on the light and collapsed on the worn-out couch, exhausted. The card was still there, on the table, exactly where she had left it, as if it were waiting for him. He looked at it without touching it, frowning, as if just by looking he could guess what decision to make.
He shouldn’t do it. He had promised to stay away for Rumi.
He thought of her laugh, her eyes, the bracelet she gave him when he had no hope left, how she looked at him with a mix of sweetness and determination, as if she believed in him even when he didn’t. He remembered the last time he saw her, that final look that hurt more than any goodbye.
He clenched his teeth with anger, a huge rage at himself. He couldn’t understand why he felt the need to go on that show.
But then he understood. His goal wasn’t to relive the past or hold onto the impossible. He just wanted to see her. To confirm once and for all that she didn’t remember him. That in this world, in this absurd timeline, he was just another face among millions.
And if that was the case, then he could leave in peace. Not without sadness, not without emptiness, but without unanswered questions.
He could do it like he had originally thought, admiring her from afar, praying that, with some luck, their eyes would meet even just once. But no, he was selfish.
He didn’t want to be just another one. He didn’t want to be another forgettable face in the crowd. He wanted to leave a mark, an impossible-to-ignore trace. He wanted that, at the end of the path, she would remember him. Not as just another fan.
But as an equal, as an idol who reached the top, who managed to surpass her cleanly on her own turf. He wanted to become that thought that returned to her again and again, even when he was no longer there.
Because if he was going to disappear, as he always should have, at least this time, he would leave something behind.
He picked up the card with a completely renewed determination.
“Alright then, it’s time to change this industry again.”