Coffee Idol / kim taehyung (#29)

십삼

DongMi

I sat down on the couch at home, deep in thought about what Kim Taehyung had said to me, it was something that I have never expected, well no one would've expected that. I came up with a plan alongside JiHoon to persuade Kim Taehyung to allow me to continue working so that I can carry out with my plan of finding out Kim Taehyung's secret but instead I have just found out about his biggest secret, it was totally not expected because I was convinced that it wasn't the truth.

I was recruited into the company as one of the first members and TaeEun is already there, she has been training for a few years when I came over to the dormitory, I clicked with her on the first day and it was as if we have known each other for a long time. We basically have the same interests and we aspired to be the next girl's generation as well, we have the same taste buds and often enjoyed having simple meals for the next few years even after we have debuted.

Even though I am close with the other members of our group, TaeEun is like another sister born from another mother, it was as if our encounter was fated from the very beginning. We promised not to ever keep secrets from each other because we trust each other so much, we even told each other our deepest secrets but I have never expected her to keep such a huge secret of her family.

She told me that she was the only child and her parents were so supportive of her decision to become an idol, she is from a well-to-do family of farmers and she came here all the way from Daegu where she became a county girl to a city girl. I have never thought that she would have an older brother, that he would be South Korea's hottest boy groups, the ones that the country adores, to be her older brother and I have never expected that someone to be Kim Taehyung, the one who I have been trying to dig dirt on the past few weeks.

Park JiHoon waved a hand in front of my face and I flinched. "Hey, are you sure that he didn't fire you? You look like you just got fired from your job."

Taehyung didn't fire me from my job, instead, he wanted me to stay on to continue working with him and DaeYeon, just because I am his younger sister's best friend. "I'm fine, I'm just tired," I told him.

"What exactly did he say to you? You didn't threaten him, didn't you?" I nodded, I wouldn't have threatened him, I wasn't even in the right mind to threaten someone. He made me remember everything that I didn't want to remember, it is too ugly of a truth to remember.

TaeEun passed away because of me, if I hadn't been so assertive and wanted to seek justice for what my manager had done to poor TaeEun, she wouldn't have been raped once again and then committed suicide without anyone knowing about it. I should've kept quiet about the whole thing the moment I found out about it, that way I would've been able to prevent her from ending her life, in that way our group will be saved and we might start to get popular after a long year of seeking popularity.

But TaeEun is hurt from sexual assault, that is something intolerable, it could happen to anyone and she kept quiet about it because she wanted all of us to debut which is our end goal, our debut will definitely get delayed if she hadn't agreed to that dirty job. She did it all for us and I wished that she hadn't done that, we took our debut for granted and we didn't work hard enough to repay what TaeEun had done for me, it can't be repaid anyways.

"He didn't say anything much to me, he praised me for still staying on when he is so harsh on me and he wants to see my work that hard all the time." That is half of the truth, he told me that I am good at my job and I should continue to work for him until I graduate from university next year.

I better not tell JiHoon about what I have found out about Kim Taehyung, he doesn't have a clue about the truth of my retirement as an idol, I only told him that the group disbanded because we were lacking in popularity and there was no point of us continuing our careers when there is no one appreciating our talents.

"Then you are continuing to spy on him? Aren't you afraid that you might get found out the longer you stay there?" I guess that he still doesn't want me to be undercover to spy on Kim Taehyung.

"Why not? He has been completely convinced that I am just an average university student and I will not be any harm to him as soon as I continue to work there, and my pay might even get increased."

He deeply sighed. "Just to know that, I have planned out an alternative plan if you ever fail your mission at any point. I may not always be supportive of what you do but you can always count on me." I looked at him with an apologetic glance, I wished that I can tell him exactly whatever that happened that led up to Wish's disbandment but I can't, that would risk others knowing about it. I know that he is good at keeping secrets but it is best that I tell no one about it for now, and Kim Taehyung and the remaining members will be the only ones who know of the ugly truth of our debut and our sudden disbandment in less than a year.

If I could turn back time, I wished that I hadn't become a trainee nor persuaded my mother to allow me to take singing and dancing lessons. If I hadn't done all of that, TaeEun wouldn't have died and Kim Taehyung wouldn't have lost a younger sister that day. I would've been just been a regular high school student without any worries of becoming popular and I will only focus on getting good grades so that I will go to a good university. My life will turn out completely different if I hadn't thought of becoming an idol for even a moment.