Page 57 of Idol Moves

After their opening banter and sharing the night’s lineup, Si Woo stepped offstage while Sunny stayed behind to introduce the first act.

“I had the pleasure of performing with our first group,” Sunny announced, “at last summer’s Kfest Japan. Here to perform a soon-to-be-released track from their upcoming album,Habitual, it’sCherry Squad!

The crowd began to scream as the floating partition blocking off the rear of the stage rose to the ceiling to reveal Viki, Min Ji, and Su Bin bathed in soft, pink light. They wore coordinated mini-dresses with a floral theme. And, of course, they each had their individual cherry hair accents. Viki had strands of cherry red hair mixed in with her long, black braids. Min Ji wore an impeccable cherry-red wig. And Su Bin had a bright cherry-red streak in her shoulder-length, bleached hair. But something was off. Their posture was stiff behind obviously forced smiles.

Yun Seo glanced at Tae Hyun, who shrugged. She’d seen it, too.

Min Ji, the center and leader, held her mic to her mouth. “Two, three–”

“Soft as a whisper,” the threeCherry Squadgirls called out, “fragrant as the breeze and elegant in pink. We’reCherry Squad!”

Their introduction felt forced, too. Even Sunny seemed to notice as she walked offstage. But the audience erupted into raucous cheers anyway when theCherry Squadmembers moved into their positions. The audience lighting dimmed to near darkness as the giant video wall at the back of the stage displayed an anime scene of cherry blossoms blowing in the wind. That had to explain their floral dresses. It was part of their new fashion era.

Then the music started. And Tae Hyun’s heart stopped. It was the intro forBlossom. Yun Seo looked at Tae Hyun with wide-eyed panic as the crowd around them roared. It couldn’t have been a different song. Tae Hyun had performedBlossomhundreds of times. He knew it the moment he heard the first note. But it had to be a mistake. Someone must’ve somehow cued the wrong track. That had to be it. But Viki, Min Ji, and Su Bin all danced to the beat, moving from their starting positions to the center of the stage, just as Tae Hyun remembered doing. They were about to perform his song. That’s why Min Ji had insisted he be there.

When Ji Hoon had done the interview about canceling theXTCtribute album, Tae Hyun had assumed that meant the covers wouldn’t be released. But why would KBR let that money go to waste when they could repackage the songs as part of the artists’ new albums? And they’d givenBlossom, one ofXTC’s biggest hits, toCherry Squad.

Just when it was time for Min Ji to sing, she stopped, standing silent and still in the center of the stage. No, all three of them stopped. Someone should’ve been singing. Had Min Ji missed her cue? Tae Hyun didn’t think that was possible. But he hadn’t expected to hear one ofXTC’s songs on the show, either.

The crowd finally understood something was wrong as the song moved into the chorus. Their enthusiastic cheers had fallen to restless murmurs as they tried to figure out what was happening. Was it a prank? Were they on a hidden cam? Then Min Ji reached up and tore her monitor from her ear, letting it dangle from its cord over her shoulder. Tae Hyun could only assume that she’d been getting an earful from someone in the tech booth. And it began to dawn on him what was really happening. The girls were deliberately not singing. It was a protest.

“Why aren’t you singing?” shouted someone from the audience.

“What’s going on?” called out someone else.

The video wall froze just before the track playback cut out mid-chorus. Tae Hyun imagined that the live viewers were seeing a cutaway screen proclaiming technical difficulties. Then, someone Tae Hyun didn’t recognize rushed onstage and confronted the girls, shouting and angrily gesturing toward the audience. But Min Ji shouted right back. Unfortunately, Tae Hyun was almost too far from the stage to make out what she said. Almost. But he clearly heard one thing when Min Ji pointed her finger at her opponent. “Because it’s not our song!”

Was that why they weren’t singing? Were they protesting being made to sing one ofXTC’s songs? One of Tae Hyun’s? Suddenly filled with grateful admiration, Tae Hyun wanted to shout some words of support but knew that would only make things worse, especially if anyone realized he was in the audience.

Tae Hyun leaned close to Yun Seo. “I guess now we know what Min Ji wanted us to see.”

“Are they going to get in trouble?”

Tae Hyun shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, they disrupted a live broadcast of the most watched K-pop music show, so, probably. Yeah.”

Then someone else marched onto the stage, and Tae Hyun’s heart stopped again. It was Ji Hoon, his face hard and set in an expression Tae Hyun knew all too well. He’d seen it hundreds of times. Maybe more. And a different memory surfaced–not of his last time performing onChart Masters, but his first. Just weeks afterXTC’s debut, a bright, young Tae Hyun caroused backstage with Xiang and Chang Min as they waited their turn to perform. But Tae Hyun hadn’t seen Xiang sipping his customary orange soda–a habit that had continued well past their debut–and accidentally knocked the cup from his hand, spilling it on his and Xiang’s costumes. There had been no time to clean it and barely enough time to change. And Ji Hoon was livid, shouting at Tae Hyun and Xiang about how careless they’d been. Then Tae Hyun had dared to speak up, reminding Ji Hoon that he needed to keep his voice down. Of course, that only set Ji Hoon off even more and earned Tae Hyun a sharp slap across the face. Tae Hyun’s hand automatically went to his cheek at the thought. Ji Hoon hadn’t struck him like that since he was a young trainee–when it happened more times than he cared to remember. And the makeup team barely had enough time to cover the red mark Ji Hoon had left behind. A few commenters had mentioned the lingering redness but attributed it to nerves.

Tae Hyun gripped Yun Seo’s thigh as a surge of paranoid fear made him light-headed. What if Ji Hoon looked into the audience and recognized him? But, no. He was masked. And he was the last person Ji Hoon would expect to see at the taping.

Yun Seo looked at Tae Hyun with wide-eyed concern, but he shook his head, forcing himself to breathe and let the fear dissipate. And the onstage argument quickly wrapped up with Ji Hoon escortingCherry Squadoff stage. Sunny and Si Woo returned shortly afterward. They were obviously flustered.

“We’re very sorry about that,” Si Woo announced. “Apparently, there were some technical issues with the sound. Unfortunately, we’ll have to move on with the show without a performance fromCherry Squad.”

“But let’s still show them our love,” Sunny added, “for coming out here tonight.”

Sunny and Si Woo started clapping. A few audience members booed, but they were quickly drowned out by cheering and applause. Tae Hyun loudly clapped along with them even as his dread lingered. And he wondered if Sunny and Si Woo knew what had really happened–thatCherry Squadhad refused to sing. They had to if they were watching the playback backstage. But Tae Hyun doubted anyone except the girls had known beforehand what they planned to do.

Tae Hyun recalled what Riki had said to him at Raven’s party–that people were talking about what KBR was doing to Tae Hyun. And they were taking sides even before KBR had given awayXTC’s songs to other artists. But re-releasingBlossomas aCherry Squadsong meant that, eventually, when people searched for it, that version would come up. It was a singular act of erasure. Tae Hyun wondered if, once they’d done that, KBR would even start pullingXTC’s catalog from the streaming services, too. That was a chilling thought. And it was a clear warning to any performers who might publicly support Tae Hyun. Do that, and your label could take your songs away.

Even though they’d already come to see what they were meant to see, Tae Hyun stayed for the entire taping. He would’ve insisted that they leave if he could’ve. But it was a live broadcast, and no one could leave until they were done. So Tae Hyun sat with his discomfort as it slowly became annoyance and then, finally, anger. He hadn’t thought about all the times Ji Hoon or the other managers had hit him in years. Just like his father had hit him, too. But Tae Hyun forced himself to calm down by reminding himself that things were different. As much as KBR and his father may have wanted him to act a certain way, he was free to be whoever he pleased. Still, once they were finally allowed to leave, Tae Hyun had to fight his urge to shove his way to the door. But they eventually made it to the waiting vehicle without incident.

“I don’t know what to think about that,” Yun Seo said when they were finally underway.

After all the time Tae Hyun had spent remembering how awful Ji Hoon had been to him, he’d hardly thought about what theCherry Squadgirls had done. “Me, neither.” They’d certainly made a bold statement to KBR, even if the audience wasn’t aware of it. But there would have to be fallout, and he worried about what that might be. “Part of me wishes they hadn’t done that.”

“What?” Yun Seo’s mouth fell open. “Why? They did that for you.”

Tae Hyun shook his head. “No. They did it for themselves.”

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