Chapter 29: Manufactured Conflict

“They all say that at first, but once we start filming and they have honest conversations with each other, things tend to come out one by one. Of course, it also becomes an opportunity for them to grow closer.”

That’s because you deliberately stir up conflict and then write scripts to resolve it afterward.

I swallowed those words and took a sip of water from the glass in front of me.

But seriously, what kind of conflict could they possibly create between us?

I glanced one by one at the members sitting beside me, but nothing came to mind. We’d never had any huge fights before. Back when we lived together in the dorm, we were usually too exhausted to do anything besides collapse where we stood. Everyone was immersed in their own hobbies and interests too.

Then Jungwon suddenly announced he wanted to move out and live alone, and that had caused the tiniest bit of tension, if you could even call it that….

Knock knock.

The sound of someone rapping on the door cut through the room.

Everyone’s attention shifted toward it, and when the door opened, a face suddenly appeared over the top edge. Sitting down like this, I had to tilt my head back farther than expected to see Jungwon properly.

The PDs and writers greeted him with even louder enthusiasm than they’d shown us earlier. No—at least the PD and the head writer definitely sounded more excited.

“Oh, Jungwon-ssi’s here. Traffic must’ve been awful, right?”

“Sorry for being late.”

“This time of day is always like that. Come on in.”

As he said that, the director held onto Jungwon’s hand for a long handshake. The head writer too. Even the assistant writer, whose cheeks flushed red as she eagerly reached out her hand.

After greeting everyone in order, Jungwon took the empty seat beside me.

Maybe because this wasn’t an actual filming day and there’d been no makeup, he was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit. A pale blue-toned jacket over a white shirt gave him a dry, intellectual sort of atmosphere. Without makeup, his skin looked clean and flawless, and his hair had been neatly brushed back.

Seeing him like this, he honestly looked like some office employee.

Curious, I leaned closer and asked quietly,

“Did you put something on your face or not?”

“I didn’t.”

“Seriously?”

“Touch it.”

As he spoke, he tilted his cheek toward me, so I brushed a finger lightly beneath his cheekbone.

Smooth.

His skin felt ridiculously nice.

Even after checking my fingertip again, nothing came off on it.

Seriously? His skin’s amazing.

I rubbed my own cheek once before lowering my hand again.

While my attention had been completely stolen by Jungwon on my left, I heard dishes arriving at the table. Thankfully, the meat had already been partially cooked, so we wouldn’t have to struggle grilling it ourselves.

As I watched the meat being laid onto the grill, I noticed the assistant writer sitting diagonally across from me pulling out a notebook and scribbling something down in the cramped space between the side dishes.

That instantly snapped me back to reality.

Right. They said they might already be filming this.

I lightly slapped both cheeks with my hands to wake myself up. The drowsiness weighing down my body seemed to vanish all at once.

Jungwon grabbed my wrist and lowered the hand I kept smacking myself with.

Only then did I casually pick up my chopsticks again, pretending nothing had happened.

The meeting proceeded in a surprisingly cheerful atmosphere.

Because we’d agreed to the schedule on such short notice, the PD and writers were more accommodating than expected, and the mood on our side wasn’t bad either.

Honestly, it was hard for things to go poorly when this was basically an all-you-can-eat meat party approved by our manager.

Since Woosung and Yeonho-hyung handled most of the talking, I could relax and focus on wrapping meat in lettuce and eating in peace.

A thick slice of grilled pork belly on top of fresh lettuce, with chojang and roasted garlic too.

Meanwhile, Yeonho-hyung was discussing the group dorm situation with the PD.

“I heard CROSS members all live separately now. How does it feel moving back into a shared dorm again?”

“We actually just finished unpacking before coming here. Jaeha and I were looking at the cups lined up side by side and saying it felt like we’d just debuted again.”

I’d just taken another piece of meat when my name suddenly got dragged into the conversation.

I smiled automatically.

Right then, the assistant writer sitting across from me suddenly burst out laughing.

I had no idea what was so funny, so I looked at her, and she hurriedly waved her hands in embarrassment, cheeks slightly red.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

“Were you laughing because of me?”

“Not in a bad way at all. It’s just… Jaeha-ssi, you really seem to love eating. It was kind of cute. Sorry.”

“Yeah. I really love food.”

Mostly because our manager was always nagging only me about it.

Still, ever since I’d started going back and forth to Black-hyung’s studio working on compositions, everyone had stopped complaining about my eating, so life had been blissful lately.

I placed another piece of meat onto the lettuce in my hand and wrapped it up again.

Jungwon silently pulled the basket of lettuce closer toward me.

Meanwhile, the conversation gradually shifted from Yeonho-hyung to this side of the table.

“Who was the first member to move out of the dorm?”

“Jungwon.”

“Oh? The maknae? Why?”

The writers and PD all turned their attention toward Jungwon at once.

He slipped off his jacket, probably because it was getting in the way while he moved, then smiled politely again as he focused on the people across from him.

At times like this, Jungwon really felt like a completely different person.

“We were all really busy back then, and… honestly, I don’t remember clearly.”

“You just let the youngest move out first without trying to stop him?”

“It was definitely unexpected at first, but it was renewal season back then, and everyone had started individual activities too, so eventually we all moved out one by one. We still saw each other all the time during promotions anyway, so not much really changed.”

What Yeonho-hyung said was true. There was nothing to hide or feel defensive about.

One night—when was it again?

We’d come back from a live radio broadcast at dawn, and suddenly Jungwon announced he was moving out of the dorm.

I hadn’t even heard it directly from him. Woosung had told me afterward.

That was around the time Jungwon landed his first drama role too.

The scripts he’d left lying around the TV would sometimes appear beside the bed in the room we used to share, then disappear again. Meaning he’d been carrying them around constantly and studying them.

I’d wanted to ask what was going on, but every time I entered the room, Jungwon wasn’t there. He was probably away filming somewhere.

Then one day he quietly packed up his things and disappeared.

At first I enjoyed suddenly having the room to myself, and I tried contacting him a few times after that, but since he seemed fine, I eventually stopped asking questions.

Then everyone became busy focusing on their own schedules.

At that moment, the head writer—who’d been constantly jotting notes down—suddenly looked up and asked,

“Who was sharing a room with him back then?”

“Jaeha-hyung.”

“Oh. Is that why Jungwon-ssi and Jaeha-ssi are so close?”

“Uh… yeah, I guess that’s part of it.”

I’d been about to finally eat the lettuce wrap in my hand when I had to answer instead.

Then Woosung suddenly cut in from beside us.

“Jaeha-hyung is close with everyone.”

“Really? Is that so?”

The head writer murmured almost to herself as her pen flew across the notebook again.

Even stretching my neck from here, I couldn’t tell what she was writing. Just messy lines connecting to densely packed little notes.

It made me slightly uneasy, but since this reality show had come together so suddenly and they’d promised to take it easy on us, it probably wouldn’t become a huge problem.

I lowered my head again and focused back on eating.

The meeting—where it was impossible to tell whether filming had already begun or not—went more smoothly than expected.

And after we finished eating, cleared the table, and started choosing between coffee and tea for dessert, the head writer—who’d seemed detached from most of the conversation until now—finally set her notebook down.

This time, she deliberately pushed it toward the center of the table so everyone could see it.

All eyes naturally followed the tip of her pen.

“So originally, we were thinking about focusing on the five of you living together again after a long time and the conflicts that might happen in the dorm.”

She smiled apologetically.

“But your agency asked us to portray things as naturally as possible, almost like you’ve all still been living together this whole time, so we brainstormed a lot of different approaches instead.”

Her voice was soft—painfully soft—carefully smoothing every word.

“Of course, showing the behind-the-scenes preparation for your album would already be interesting, but we still need at least one conflict.”

I’d expected this much already, so I just nodded quietly.

I had absolutely no idea her gaze would suddenly land on me.

“So after thinking about it, since Jaeha-ssi seems to get along best with all the members…”

“Me…?”

“Yes. And you’re especially close with Jungwon-ssi too. Since Jungwon-ssi was the first one to leave the group dorm, we thought maybe we could revisit that period—how close you two used to be before things changed…”

Even the head writer seemed slightly uncomfortable continuing.

She tapped the notebook repeatedly with her pen before finally lifting her brows into the most apologetic expression possible.

“We were hoping you could build a conflict storyline with Jungwon-ssi. A relationship dynamic, basically. Since he’s the youngest member you care about most, right? You said you’d looked after him ever since his trainee days.”

“…Ah. Yeah.”

“We’ve done this enough times to know that shallow conflicts don’t work well anymore. Stuff like ‘he annoys me’ or ‘we don’t match personalities’ feels too weak.”

She smiled gently.

“What CROSS fans—and idol fans in general—really want are unexpected emotional dynamics. Deep relationships people didn’t know existed.”

Her eyes carefully watched my reaction.

“So we thought maybe from Jaeha-ssi’s perspective… there could be complicated feelings watching Yoo Jungwon become so successful lately. Like wanting to show a better side of yourself as his older member. We thought maybe building conflict from there could work.”

I slowly processed her words in my head.

So basically…

Right now…

Was she asking me to act out some kind of inferiority complex?