And to think that I believed I was the problem.
I was so busy trying to make myself better for the group, for the band, that I never realised I was never the one in the wrong. I was hurting myself, trying to fix something I did not even break.
I didn't see how damaged I was back then, and that mistake cost me so much.
I wish I had loved myself more instead of trying to find comfort in someone else. Maybe then I would not be here today.
It wasn't because I didn't try.
I tried too much.
( Flashback )
Kim Sok-joo thought the worst part had already happened.
He thought the humiliation in the training room - the cold voices, the angry eyes of Rider, the way they told him they didn't need him - that was supposed to be the breaking point.
He was wrong.
The real breaking didn't come in loud words.
It came in silence.
The next morning, when Kim Sok-joo walked into the studio building, nobody looked at him. A group of assistants stopped talking when he passed. Two stylists glanced at him and then turned away, whispering something that made one of them laugh.
He told himself not to care.
He sat at his desk and opened the day's schedule. Half of the files he had prepared the night before were gone.
Someone had moved them.
He searched through the system. Nothing.
When he asked a coworker if they had seen them, the woman shrugged.
"Maybe you deleted them. You're always messing things up."
His face burned.
"I didn't delete them," he said softly.
She smiled without warmth. "Are you sure?"
It felt exactly like school.
The way people used to pretend he was stupid.
The way they would hide his books and then blame him for losing them.
Kim Sok-joo swallowed and rebuilt the files from memory.
An hour later, the director walked by.
"Where are the updated schedules?" he asked.
Kim Sok-joo froze. "I-I gave them to the assistants earlier."
The director frowned. "I don't have them."
Behind him, two staff members exchanged a look.
"Maybe you forgot," one of them said. "Again."
The word again hit him like a slap.
He felt the room tilt.
For a second, he wasn't in a studio anymore.
He was in a classroom.
A chalkboard.
Desks.
Children laughing behind him.
"Did you forget again?" someone was saying.
"Why are you so slow?"
"Can't you just be normal?"
His mother's voice slipped into the memory, soft and tired:
I wish you could just be normal.
Kim Sok-joo blinked hard, forcing himself back into the present. The director sighed and walked away.
All around him, people were whispering.
He could feel it.
The eyes.
The judgment.
The quiet, cutting laughter.
By lunchtime, someone had changed the time of Rider's rehearsal without telling him. When the band didn't show up, he got blamed for it.
"I told you we don't need a manager like you," one of the members muttered as they passed him.
Kim Sok-joo didn't answer.
He just stood there, holding the clipboard so tightly his fingers hurt.
Inside, something was cracking.
Later, when he went to the supply room to look for printed contracts, the door slammed behind him.
Two assistants were standing there.
One of them laughed. "You really think you belong here?"
Kim Sok-joo's throat tightened. "I'm just doing my job."
"Your job?" the other one scoffed. "You got this position by accident. Everybody knows it."
They walked past him, brushing his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.
He didn't say anything.
He couldn't.
Because suddenly he was fourteen again.
Standing in a hallway with his books scattered on the floor.
People stepping on them.
People pretending they didn't see.
He felt dizzy.
His breathing went shallow.
When he finally made it to the bathroom, he locked himself inside a stall and slid down against the wall.
His hands were shaking.
Why does this keep happening? He thought.
I left school.
I grew up.
I got a job.
So why does it still feel the same?
The mirror reflected a pale, tired face. A boy who had never learned how to fight back.
All afternoon, the bullying continued.
Someone sent him to the wrong meeting room.
Someone erased his notes.
Someone told Rider he hadn't passed on an important message.
Every mistake was blamed on him.
By the end of the day, Kim Sok-joo felt hollow.
When he walked past the practice room, he saw the Rider laughing together inside. For a second, he felt a sharp, childish longing - the same one he had felt years ago, watching them on a screen, wishing he belonged somewhere.
He didn't.
Not here.
Not anywhere.
A voice behind him said, "You okay?"
He flinched.
It was the Rider leader.
Kim Sok-joo opened his mouth, but no words came out.
He just shook his head.
The leader hesitated, then quietly said, "They shouldn't be treating you like that."
Kim Sok-joo looked at him, surprised.
"They think I'm your enemy," the leader said. "But you're not."
For the first time all day, Kim Sok-joo felt something warm break through the cold.
"I'm just tired," he whispered.
"I know," the leader replied softly.
As Kim Sok-joo walked away, he realised something painful and true:
He had not escaped being bullied.
He had just grown older.
But this time... someone had finally noticed.
After everything that had happened that day, Kim Sok-joo walked home as if he were drifting through water.
The city was loud - cars passing, people talking, lights blinking - but none of it felt real to him. His mind was still trapped in the studio: the cold looks, the whispers, the way he had been made to feel small all over again. It felt like he had gone back in time to being that bullied boy in school who no one wanted.
He didn't notice where he was going.
His feet kept moving, but his thoughts were somewhere else. He was replaying every word, every moment, wondering what he had done wrong, wondering why he always ended up in the same place - unwanted, misunderstood, alone.
That was when the street suddenly came too close.
A loud horn blared.
Bright headlights cut through the darkness.
Kim Sok-joo froze for half a second too long.
Then someone grabbed him.
A strong force pushed him hard out of the road. He felt his body spin, felt the ground rush up to meet him. His head hit the pavement, and everything went quiet as a car sped past where he had just been standing.
For a moment, there was nothing.
No sound.
No light.
No pain.
Just darkness.
When Kim Sok-joo finally opened his eyes, the world was different.
Everything was white and soft. The air smelled clean and sharp. There was a steady beeping somewhere nearby, slow and calm.
He was in a hospital bed.
His head throbbed. His body felt heavy, as if it didn't quite belong to him. He blinked a few times, trying to understand where he was.
Then he noticed someone sitting beside him.
It was a boy, about his age, with worried eyes and hands folded tightly in his lap. He looked exhausted, like he hadn't slept.
When Kim Sok-joo moved, the boy quickly looked up.
"You're awake," he said softly. "I was so worried."
Kim Sok-joo swallowed, his throat dry. "Where am I?"
"The hospital," the boy replied. "You... you almost got hit by a car. I pushed you out of the way."
Slowly, the memory came back - the headlights, the horn, the sudden shove.
"You... you saved me," Kim Sok-joo whispered.
The boy nodded. "My name is Junhoo. I saw you walking into the street, and I didn't think... I just moved."
Kim Sok-joo's chest tightened. His eyes filled with tears before he could stop them.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "I don't even know what to say. Thank you for saving me."
Junhoo gave a small, shy smile. "I'm just glad you're okay."
For a long moment, they sat there in silence, the beeping of the machines filling the space between them.
Kim Sok-joo looked at Junhoo and felt something strange and unfamiliar - a gentle warmth, a feeling that maybe, after all the pain and loneliness, the world had placed someone kind in his path.
And for the first time that day, he didn't feel completely alone.