Chapter 5: The One Who Left First

As they continued their activities, a few fan accounts started popping up on social media.

When Shim Eunchan searched their name on SNS without much expectation and found a post gushing over Lee Haemin, the team’s visual member, for the first time, he couldn’t contain the strange, overwhelming emotion.

He buried his face into a cushion, sniffling and laughing to himself.

And that was despite the fact that the fan wasn’t even his.

By sheer luck, that account turned out to be what fans called a “homma” account.
Thanks to that, the pace at which fans gathered gradually picked up.

Eunchan eventually gained personal fans as well, and with that came good things.

Looking back now, it almost felt like he’d spent the entirety of his life’s luck right there.

A photo was taken of Shim Eunchan wearing glasses and a school uniform meant for self-produced content, smiling and waving at fans, and it was uploaded to SNS.
The row of trees in the background had caught the sunlight, glowing green and fresh, instantly lifting the mood, and even by Eunchan’s own standards, it was an insanely good shot.
It was the kind of bright, refreshing photo that made him think, Yeah, this is a once-in-a-lifetime picture.

The photo quality itself wasn’t great.
But what mattered was that anyone could tell it came out beautifully.

Perhaps because the quality wasn’t perfect, the photo evoked a strangely nostalgic feeling.
As it spread through online communities, it gained modest attention and was even given the nickname, “A photo that rewrites your memory of your first love in school.”

Plenty of people didn’t know the name Shim Eunchan or the group B the 1, but they recognized that photo.

Thanks to that incident, some cable programs started looking for B the 1, which was a good thing.
As they kept pushing forward, invitations eventually came from terrestrial music broadcasts as well.

How happy they’d been on the day they first appeared on a major network music show.
Even during the dry rehearsal, they were so nervous that the members shared half a Cheongsimhwan each and chewed them together.

After that, programs began inviting B the 1 regularly, right up until they released their sixth single.

It wasn’t a massive hit, but he’d thought that if they worked hard enough, things might somehow work out.

But the world wasn’t kind enough to nurture vague hope into blooming flowers.

There was hope—but that was all there was.
Every year, countless boy groups debuted, and amid that crowd, the chance to survive and make a name for themselves never quite reached B the 1.

No matter how much the members encouraged one another, people had limits.
At some point, a vague sense that they were approaching the end began to settle in.

Despite their abysmal album sales, the stubbornness of PotenHigh’s CEO—who continued to invest, sending members to vocal coaching and acting classes if they wanted, and releasing singles all the way up to six—was astonishing.
He even suggested they try learning foreign languages, to the point where the members whispered among themselves that maybe some hidden chaebol was running the agency as a hobby.

And then, when even the agency president hadn’t (at least outwardly) given up on them, Lee Haemin—the most popular member in the team—escaped first.

Which made sense.
Lee Haemin was exceptionally handsome.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that visuals were the single most important requirement for an idol.
When Shim Eunchan first met Lee Haemin as a trainee, he’d never seen someone that good-looking before.
It was like a meticulously rendered piece of computer graphics pasted into reality.

They’d crossed paths with other idols during promotions, but it was hard to find anyone better-looking than Lee Haemin.
Even after becoming teammates, there were moments when Eunchan found his gaze drawn to him.

If even Eunchan, who trained, lived, and worked alongside him, felt that way, how could others not?

In reality, B the 1 benefited greatly from Lee Haemin’s presence.
He practically grabbed the team’s rock-bottom recognition by the collar and dragged it upward.
Fans half-jokingly called him the team’s “boy breadwinner.”
There were even individual fans who, full of resentment, begged people to just let Haemin go.

If he hadn’t been at PotenHigh—if he’d been under even a small agency capable of pushing him—wouldn’t Lee Haemin have risen long ago?
Unfortunately, PotenHigh wasn’t even a proper mid-sized company.
The result was a visual member trapped in a failed group.
No matter how handsome you were, it meant nothing without exposure.
Even appearances on terrestrial or cable music shows had clear limits.

No one said it out loud, but everyone knew that someone like Lee Haemin must have received multiple offers from larger agencies.
That only deepened the mystery of how PotenHigh’s CEO had managed to bring him in.
Lee Haemin must have known that too.
Yet he never once acted arrogant.

The Lee Haemin who smiled brightly and told everyone to hang in there seemed to have lost hope in a team with no visible escape.

If there had been no hope from the beginning, he might have quit cleanly and gone elsewhere.
But when even a sliver of hope exists, people cling to it.
That lingering attachment eventually tightens around your neck in another form.
When you keep narrowly missing success while thinking just a little more, people collapse and compromise with reality.

There might be people who aren’t like that.
But Lee Haemin was.

Shim Eunchan couldn’t confidently say he wouldn’t have wavered either if another agency had approached him.
That wasn’t an easy thing.
Pulling it off was admirable—but failing to do so wasn’t something worthy of blame.

It took just under three years for B the 1 to transform, in Lee Haemin’s eyes, from comrades into a burden dragging him down.

Lee Haemin appeared one day with his parents and a lawyer, his expression stiff, and a meeting was held with the agency president present.
After a long discussion, the conclusion was the termination of Lee Haemin’s contract with PotenHigh.

He left the agency office without even looking at Jung Minyu or Do Junseo, who tried to stop him.
Eunchan attempted to contact him, hoping at least to talk, but all he heard was a recorded message saying the number didn’t exist.

That wasn’t just any phone number.

It was the very number Lee Haemin had chosen on the day he became an adult, when all the members went together to open new phone lines because he insisted he couldn’t live without a phone anymore.

They’d even talked about never changing those numbers, no matter what happened later.
And yet, he’d erased it.
Maybe it was silly to attach so much meaning to a phone number, but it felt like the bond connecting them had been severed.
And it didn’t seem like Eunchan was the only one who felt that way.
He remembered Ryu Seoro sniffing during a late-night drinking session, muttering, “How could he throw away that number so easily.”

It had already been six years ago for Shim Eunchan, yet for some reason, it resurfaced in his mind as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.

Was this also something the existence behind the notification window had done?

Shim Eunchan glanced at the empty air.

“…….”

The notification window remained silent.

It didn’t seem like any more alerts were coming.

After leaving the team, Lee Haemin joined a major agency and debuted two months later as a core member of the five-member group D.knight.
How they dealt with non-compete clauses after contract termination was unknown.
But since it happened, it must have been possible.

That same year, after re-debuting with D.knight, his team achieved first place on a terrestrial broadcast.
Smooth sailing.
In people’s memories, only D.knight’s Lee Haemin existed now—not B the 1’s.
He soared as if he’d been given wings.

But two years later, Lee Haemin caused a scandal for drunk driving.

At the time, Shim Eunchan could barely take care of himself.
And it felt wrong to reach out over something so negative, so he never learned the details.
Besides, he didn’t even have Haemin’s new contact information.

“…….”

In the end, those were all excuses.
Back then, he was still active in broadcasting, so if he really wanted to, he could have found Haemin’s number.
He just didn’t have the courage to see him.
The mix of pity, reproach, and the ugly thought—you left the team and still ended up like that—made him hesitate.

If you were going to move to a big agency, you should’ve done even better.
Why drunk driving of all things?

Shim Eunchan bit his lip.

“……Yeah. If anything, it’s better that it’s now.”

Not before debut.
Not before Lee Haemin left.
Now was better.

Enough thinking.
The goal was a Grand Prize.
The others were probably waiting outside, so he should head out first.

Click.

He pulled down the door handle, the door opening with a sound.
As he stepped out, inhaling, he saw the members huddled together in the living room.
The familiar faces—still young, still unpolished—turned toward him.
It seemed he was the last one out.

Do Junseo, the same age as him, who’d been sitting with his back turned, looked over.

“Finally out?”

It hadn’t happened yet at this point in time, but in Eunchan’s memories, there was a clear instance where he and Junseo had fought.
A strange memory—past, yet future.
His stomach churned again.

Saying he’d wash up quickly, Eunchan headed into the bathroom.
As he splashed cold water on his face, the nausea faded.
Even with an SS-rank mentality, he was still shaken.
Maybe that strange phrase—Soft Steel—was there for a reason after all.