Round 17: We will go down in (dark, very dark) history
Title: We will go down in (dark, very dark) history
Team: Future
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Big Byung
Pairing: None
Summary: A look at the producers Brave Double Tiger and the members of Big Byung as they struggle towards comeback. Now with behind the scenes footage and interviews, shining the light on what it means to be Big Byung and whatever their concept this time means.
Author’s note: My big thank you to our patient team mod who graciously allowed me more time with this fic. I owe a lot to T and E for their speedy feedback (all remaining mistakes are mine!) Also thanks to the team for their encouragement and the inspiring company :D
Prompt Used: Koyote’s 1999 and the supplementary prompts
Big Byung is trash?
“It’s their new concept!” said a girl in a snapback, clutching her lightstick of aqueous pearlescent cerulean bottle blue. She wore a Big Byung shirt from the Stress Come On era, matching drawstring shorts and knee-high sports socks. Her free hand held up a big signage exclaiming BIG BYUNG IS NON-BIODEGRADABLE TRASH = BIG BYUNG IS FOREVER in obnoxious neon green. “Well, we think it’s their new concept. N- um, Dolbaegi oppa posted a tweet about it. Pics of trash bags filled with weird costumes and stuff like that. It’s all very deep,” she said.
A noona fan beside her had reservations. “I don’t know.” She looked at the dark empty stage in the middle of the stadium. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the group’s ridiculousness and I’m happy there’s a comeback at all, but did anyone else recognize what even half in those trash bags were? I swear I saw white fuzzy gloves and highschool uniforms.” As a slow curtain of incomprehension fell on snapback girl’s face, the noona fan waved her own lightstick around. Like a stern teacher willing her students to understand the significance of this information. “Fuzzy gloves! I’m having terrible flashbacks.”
Speculations were high following the sudden drop of teasers from the legendary Big Byung. A return to the scene after repeatedly disbanding five years ago? Or a one-off like so many of their previous releases? What were the thoughts of the general public about this?
Outside the stadium, amidst the crowd of mostly female fans, a male university student shared his views: “They needed the time to reinvent themselves, you know? They’ve always been reinventing and evolving themselves through their music. That’s what true artists do.” He curled into himself, tightened the thick hoodie jacket around him. “Sure, they only release an album every five years or so. But (beep) whatever people say, they haven’t disbanded. They will always be representative of the best of hiphop and Korean music in the past decade.”
That’s… someone else I think.
“What’s this for then?” he said, sounding a little defensive.
Big Byung. A project group produced by Defconn and Hyungdon.
“Oh.” The guy scratched the back of his neck and started glancing around him, seeing the venue for the first time. “I don’t know them.”
__
D-23
Hyungdon flopped back into the leather couch of Daejun hyung's small recording studio and bemoaned the ill fate of all creatives on earth.
“It’s funny,” Daejun assured him. Sure, if you were drunk on five bottles of soju and makgeolli. Which Daejun wasn’t. They had been disgustingly sober this whole week, trying to finish a Hyungdon and Daejun album. And while the beats were appropriately catchy, the song themselves were dry and dull and uninspired. Hyungdon felt he’d broken something in his brain.
“Is it time to surrender to the man?” Hyungdon said to the ceiling. “To the pressure of corporate greed, the mainstream, or god forbid, the netizens?” He could hear Daejun rummaging through the in-studio fridge, a recent and very welcome addition to the furniture. He turned his head and saw Daejun pluck a can or two.
Daejun handed him beer. So Hyungdon was reaching that stage of maudlin already.
“You’re over forty years old with a kid on the way. Stop acting like a teenager.” Daejun opened his own can and took a contemplative sip. "I guess we should contact the boys. The music is more their style than ours anyway."
Hyungdon sat up from the sofa in indignation. "No. We’re sticking it to the man. I’m going to finish this beer and I’m going to finish writing these other songs and we are not going to keep beating a dead horse of a joke. We'll have something new and original-“
"I’m not going to stand by and watch you title our songs Cass or Hite or that horrible weak canned piss you like from the States." Daejun took out his phone and started to type. "Which restaurant should we meet?"
"I'm thinking beef," Hyungdon said, pulling off the tab and chugging the beer back in defiance. "Cass isn't so bad."
"Would you name your kid after beer?” There must have been something on Hyungdon’s face, Daejun’s backtracking. “That was rhetorical. Is Thursday okay?"
"Lemme check with my manager," Hyungdon mimed taking a phone call with his right hand. "All signs point to yes."
"It could be funny." It was more sincere, less pitying. Hyungdon wasn’t in the least convinced.
"Yeah. Maybe we could even make a documentary out of it, comment on the state of South Korea's music industry, have Hakyeonnie wear questionable stage costumes and make him cry." They could hire a PD and a small filming crew, or they could borrow MBC’s. It would be easy. Easier than being middle-aged and fumbling in front of a crowd.
Daejun was laughing. "See? You're already thinking about it."
"God, I hate my brain."
__
Yook Sungjae of BTOB, more commonly known as Yookdeok these days, tittered uncomfortably at the question, sitting straight-backed at one of the leather couches in Defconn’s studio. He looked over his shoulder as if expecting some heavy animal to tackle him from behind, but only caught sight of Hyuk, who had ostensibly returned from his trip to the fridge bearing more snacks in his arms.
“It was definitely a surprise. To be honest I don’t think any of us knew what we were getting into at the beginning,” Sungjae said.
Brave Double Tiger never told you about their comeback plans?
“It’s just, cameras followed us whenever we met up.” He gave a pointed look at the camera. “And then you suddenly find yourself practicing in some disreputable noraebang singing about recyclables and proper segregation and you start to wonder about your life choices a little bit.”
Hyuk offered Sungjae a cookie in consolation.
__
D-18
If there was a time to regret Hyungdon’s decisions in life (getting out of bed that day, alternating between awed and freaked out at the swell of his wife’s belly, getting a pillow to the face because ‘stop staring, seriously’) it was now, at 1:30 in the morning, with Hyungdon trying to quell the sad rumbling of his tummy with kimchi. Late Thursday dinner meeting turned into an absurdly early Friday breakfast. Even though the boys had been conscientious about setting the time there were unavoidable circumstances-a delayed flight from the US, musical practice running late, the next radio host not turning up as he should. Hyungdon knew too well how idols owned little of their time. So why did he think this was a good idea?
Hyuk had been staring at the rice a little too intensely for the past half hour, so he let the kid eat, for god’s sake, he wasn’t too much of a brute.
Hakyeon arrived last, having just wrapped up his radio gig. Took a few precious seconds surveying the table and their little gathering, before walking up to Daejun to hang onto him like a limpet.
“Whoa, it’s like a reunion! Of course, you missed all of us, huh, hyung?” Hakyeon said. Daejun snorted into his samgyetang, looking red and a little pleased from the attention. Hyungdon raised both his arms in self-defense against a clingy dongsaeng. Hakyeon didn’t seem to be deterred, dodging Hyungdon’s pointy chopsticks to give him a hug.
“No.” Hyungdon pushed Hakyeon’s face away and concentrated on grilling the meat. He could almost hear Daejun raising his eyebrows and went on to ignore him. “We just felt like eating meat and didn’t want to pay for it.”
“Don’t be like that, hyung.” Hakyeon continued on his serial hugging ways from Hyungdon to Jackson to Sungjae, then settled himself beside Hyuk, who was looking at anything but the newly-occupied seat.
Hakyeon poked him. “Hey, stop pretending you didn’t see me. You could have told me you were coming too. We could’ve gone together.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hyuk said as he passed the pitcher of water to Daejun.
A second serving of hot soup and some bottles of soju later, Jackson sat up and made a startled noise in his throat. “Hyung, are we filming for something?” He’d been squinting past the nearest set of windows, into the darkness of the cold winter night. “Is that a camera?” he said and pointed outside.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Daejun said, giving Hyungdon a look behind his sunglasses-your idea, you explain-and proceeded to stuff his face with more meat.
Sungjae stopped eating to look out the windows too. “There’s a person crouching behind a tripod outside in this weather. I don’t think that’s nothing at all?”
At this point if Hyungdon was an honorable producer, an honorable man, he would’ve immediately said, “Yes, that is a camera, and yes, they’re cold and they’re filming something, sorry about that.” He would’ve explained their whole sorry predicament with MBC yadda yadda, giving us a concert stage and airtime blah and Hyungdon couldn’t finish their own album in time because he’s a sad broken man. Would the boys do the hyungs a solid and put on a show in over two weeks’ time on a brainfart of a concept? Hyuk was staring at the ceiling where the PD hid the boom mic and it was only a matter of time before Hakyeon joined in and the questioning reached critical mass.
“You’re all not drunk enough to be seeing things,” he decided to go with instead and unscrewed three soju bottles in quick succession. There was nothing like plying people with multitudes of soju shots to turn them to your way of thinking.
__
“Was I perfectly aware that what I did wasn’t entirely the best, nor the most ethical way of signing a group of hardworking idols?” Hyungdon shoved a handful of wasabi peas into his mouth, munching noisily as he pondered over this issue. “Kpop is a filthy, dirty, underhanded industry. If they haven’t learned that by now it’s my responsibility to show them.”
Defconn rubbed his face hard. One would think he was trying to scrub out the memory of that night, or the last five minutes of this interview. He mumbled about how all subsequent lawsuits should be directed to the (beep) who almost gave them alcohol poisoning.
Han Sanghyuk or HyukDdi, the leader of Big Byung, had a different take on the situation:
“Can I say this on camera?” He glanced around the salon for support. Jackson, Sungjae, and the beautiful N made encouraging noises at him. Everyone was waiting to get their makeup done for the MV filming.
“The hyungs really got hilariously drunk,” Hyuk said. “Especially Hyungdon hyung. He was crying about his wife, about his child thinking he was uh-“
“-a sellout capitalist pig,” Sungjae said.
Hyuk nodded. “Yeah and something about being a washed up comedian. Hyung looked so sad and pitiful, it wasn’t hard for me to agree to working with them again.”
“As expected of our great leader!” Jackson said, clapping.
“So generous of our Hyukkie!” N said. He looked like he might shed a precious tear. The beautiful leader N always had a soft spot for Hyuk.
“And when I said the hyungs got really drunk, that includes both Jackson hyung and N hyung,” Hyuk added, unable to stop the laughter in his voice. “Without warning, they both started stripping and slow dancing to trot music playing in the restaurant. Sungjae and I were so embarrassed, we didn’t know what to do-“
“Those are lies! You traitor! I treated you like a brother!” Jackson made to get up from his chair but was scolded by the stylist noona to stay still.
Sungjae guffawed.
“Han Sanghyuk! You’re dead, you hear me?!” N threw a box of tissues at the back of Hyuk’s head.
__
D-17
The next time all of them meet, it was in Daejun’s studio. Hyuk and Sungjae looked as fresh as a field of daisies, bright-eyed and a little too cheerful, even after all the drinking that happened yesterday. Hyungdon hated them both with the power of all the aspirin bottles in South Korea.
“I called this meeting so we could brainstorm about the album, the concept, and the upcoming mini-concert,” Hyungdon wanted to say. But the headache was still out in full force and his tongue was a useless muscle sticking to the roof of his mouth. All that came up at the moment was a garbled mess of, “newsongcomebackconcert”.
“Concert?” Jackson sat up in the couch, groaning from the remains of a massive hangover. The side of his face was dripping with condensation from holding his iced Americano against his head for too long. “Are we finally going on a world tour? I want to go to Europe like Hakyeon hyung and see more of our fans.”
“Nnngh,” Hakyeon said into the couch armrest.
Daejun massaged his forehead. Hyungdon understood the feeling too well. “We’re sticking to Seoul for now. Don’t get too excited.”
“Wow, it’s becoming real. A Big Byung live concert.” Hyuk was gaping like a fish.
Hyungdon made handwavey gestures to cut off Sungjae. He looked like he might be asking valid questions. “Mini-concert is for later.” Over two weeks later, in fact. He tapped at the agenda written on the whiteboard. “Concept and album first.”
“I’m thinking of a more mature sound for the group since both Hyuk and I are 27 next year. A darker, heavier song maybe?” Sungjae said.
“A ballad!” Jackson said.
“Give-Hakyeon-hyung-all-the-difficult-rapping-lines concept!” Hyuk shouted in the near vicinity of Hakyeon’s head. Hakyeon whimpered about too-loud noises.
“I like the way you think,” Hyungdon managed to say. “But if you’re shouting all over the place and making my head hurt more I’m kicking you off the group.”
__
So, Big Byung’s concept. What does it all mean?
“It’s a parody of the current state of Korean Pop music industry. The plastic bottles. The trash bags. The garbage segregation. It’s all a big metaphor, you see?” a music critic explained. He seemed to have put a lot of thought into this as he had prepared a slide presentation of Big Byung’s MV stills as well as various colorful charts about Kpop history.
“The scene has been inundated with samey music for years-all these recycled ideas, all these recycled sample tracks and trends and concepts. This is not a surprise given that the whole of Kpop has had the same three or four producers writing the same songs again and again and again.”
What do you think of your concept and comeback album?
“It’s a good album that the public could listen to comfortably.” Jackson Wang, Wangkong of Big Byung, made a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders.
That’s…all?
Jackson was shaking his head, palms up in surrender to appease what he might have seen in the staff’s expression. “Please don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I don’t get our concept. But you see our beloved leader, HyukDdi, he’s in charge of introducing our mini album. He’s always memorizing his lines and practicing his introductions in front of me. Honestly, all the Korean words are mixing up and flying away from my head whenever he does that.”
Jackson looked straight at the camera. “I’m sorry, HyukDdi. I love you but please stop doing that. Hyung is in a lot of variety and other shows now. I plan on working a lot longer in this country. I can’t afford to lose my Korean.”
__
D-16
Hyungdon: its a unanimous decision
Hyungdon: we r doing a retrospctv mini album
Hyungdon: *retospectve
Hyungdon: dammit
Jackson: RETROSPECTIVE you mean
Hyungdon: yeah
Hyungdon: that
Sungjae; but hyung we only have 2 singles so far
Sungjae: how does a retrospective album work
Sungjae: ?
Hakyeon: I don’t remember having a retrospective as one of the options..? ☹
Jackson: i didn’t vote
Hyungdon: weve written 1 new song
Hyungdon: sending it now
Hyungdon: will add remastered stress come on and ojingeo doenjang then instrumntals
Hyungdon: song covers?
Jackson: who voted for this concept hyungdon hyung?
Hakyeon: Is it a ballad? Give me lots of main parts to sing, hyung *aegyo*
Hyungdon: brave double tiger producers voted
Hyungdon: and a neutral judge
Hyungdon: 3rd judge had a rly powerful kick. feels strongly abt concept
Sungjae: the 3rd judge is not your baby is it?
Hyungdon: 3rd judge unable 2 comment
Jackson: i got song. hah! listening to it now
Hakyeon: This doesn’t sound like a ballad. It’s…upbeat. The chorus sounds a lot like H.O.T. sunbaenims’ Candy.
Sungjae: it’s about recycling?
Hyungdon: recycling everything. i call it ‘message in a big byung’
Jackson: it’s not a cute concept right? we're doing something different right?
Jackson: hyung?
Hakyeon: I am over thirty, hyung! I’m not sure Candy 2.0 would fit me anymore! Hyukkie will back me up on this!
Hakyeon: If he manages to check his phone before the next apocalypse
__
“N hyung has always been like an older brother to me,” Hyuk began, opening his third snack of the afternoon. “The thing with N hyung though? He’ll deny this for a million years and put up the token protest--because let’s face it, he’s middle-aged already and no full-grown man post-army will act like this--but he loves doing cute concepts the best.” He shoved a whole potato chip into his mouth. “Some days I think he envies Ken hyung, or me as a maknae in VIXX.”
Why are you always so mean to him?
“What?” Hyuk coughed and reached out for his bottled water.
__
D-12
Daejun phoned the MV filming set a few minutes before their call time.
Hyungdon answered him with, “When are you getting here? I just got the costumes.”
“Hey, are the kids there?” Daejun asked.
“Still primping themselves,” Hyungdon said into his phone. He sorted through the trash bags at his feet. “I know we’re trying to cheapen things for the concept by finding old stage costumes for them to wear, but can we find something a little less moldy? The Candy gloves aren’t supposed to be this shade of green.”
“Doni, MBC decided to cut off our funding.” Daejun’s voice sounded far away, like coming off from another galaxy, and Hyungdon sat down among the trash bags and tried to breathe.
“You still there?”
“Yeah.” The filming staff was ignoring him for now. That was good. He didn’t have any idea how to pay all of them yet. He didn’t know where he was going to get all that money for the boys either. He ran an aggressive hand all over his hair. “And we just finished recording the new song the other day too. Too little too late for them, hm?”
Daejun sighed. “Seems like it. Look, I have some spare cash from my Defconn gigs. We could still go through with it. We’re just tightening the budget a bit more. I’ll start to shop this documentary around to other networks, see if it gets picked up. But we need to know if the kids are still with us.”
“We don’t need to tell them about this,” Hyungdon said.
“It’s one thing that we kept them in the dark in the beginning. We had the blessing of the network and their companies and it was funny. This is serious.” Daejun made sense. Of course, he always did, he was the saner of the two of them. Daejun didn’t wake up at nights getting choked up by his own inadequacy and oh god he was over forty years old, where did all the time go? There’s a real living person inside the woman he married that in a few years would be asking for allowance, would be asking questions like, what have you done daddy, and, why was I named after a beer brand?
Still. “I have spare money too. Between the two of us funding this thing, they won’t notice at all. They’ve been working hard. They really want this comeback concert to happen. They already have a lot on their minds, we don’t need to worry them more.”
Daejun let out a longer sigh on the line if it was possible. “So, us hyungs will just take care of everything on our end, huh?”
“If ever my child entertains the idea of going into all these idol shit, I’m packing everything up and deporting them to another country,” Hyungdon muttered back.
__
The process of coming up with the look and feel of this MV, would anyone care to explain that?
Hyungdon sat up. “It might come off like we’re making fun of Kpop. It’s a homage actually to the whole industry. Baggy hiphop pants, the large ill-fitting uniforms, the ubiquitous perm and ramen hair. Everything’s a throwback to the classics.” Everyone appeared to be in complete agreement with this as they nodded at Hyungdon’s words. Or at least everyone except Jackson. He’d been nodding behind his sunglasses with erratic timing, chin knocking his chest. Sungjae tried to be discreet in elbowing him. It had been a long filming day.
“We’re paying our respects to the long tradition of synchronized singing and dancing,” Hyungdon said, turning to Hyuk. “What about you kids? What do you think?”
Hyuk blinked fast, suddenly coming into himself. “I think the whole music video is about remembering where we come from, of the things that influenced us and that inspired us as idols and how we are bringing those back. Recycling it, so to speak.” He put up air quotes. “It is looking back so we are able to move forward into the future of Kpop music,” Hyuk said.
Hyungdon made a face in Hyuk’s direction. “Honestly, where did you get all these lines? We don’t teach you anything. It’s like you’re spouting alien language sometimes.”
N, Big Byung’s Cha Dolbaegi, beautiful leader of VIXX and beautiful sometimes actor Cha Hakyeon leaned forward in his chair to check his reflection in the camera lens.
“I was initially worried about the costumes to be honest. I was not sure if we could all pull it off,” he confessed. “There has to be an age limit for some guy to be wearing those brightly-colored jumpers and the whole fuzzy gloves without looking ridiculous.”
You still looked cute in them. Cool, too. They suit you.
N grinned. “Right?”
“Oh god,” Defconn exclaimed to the ceiling.
“It was a particularly healing moment for me when our Hyukkie-” Hyuk buried his head into his hands, probably out of embarrassment. “-when our Hyukkie came out in the yellow jumper and the pink Candy gloves. I felt rejuvenated? Energized?”
“He was laughing and taking pictures the whole time,” Hyuk said, sullen.
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D-9
It was Sungjae this time who called Hyungdon with more bad news. It was half past ten in the evening and Hyungdon was already in bed when his handphone rang.
“Hyung, the company representative said we couldn’t use Cube’s practice rooms for any Big Byung activities? We were supposed to practice some more tonight, but the PD wasn’t even allowed inside our building.”
Hyungdon got up from bed, moving as little as possible to not disturb his wife. “There was a bit of a problem with MBC, that must be it,” he managed to lie through the haze of his muddled consciousness. “We are working on it. In the meantime you could practice in JYP or Jellyfish, and if there’s nothing else there’s Daejun’s studio, although it’s a bit cramped there.”
He felt more than heard his wife make a noise. Maybe the baby was acting up again inside her. Maybe it was the baby wanting to kick Hyungdon’s head in because Hyungdon was a horrible horrible person.
“Ok, hyung. We’ll try to coordinate with Jackson hyung’s manager,” Sungjae said.
Hyungdon shut off his phone and laid back down on the bed. He failed to get any more sleep that night.
__
Jackson admitted that things had been off lately. “Yeah, it’s weird. Our companies, JYP on my end, are usually okay with us doing Big Byung. It gets the name of my own team out there. It’s all fun. I don’t see it interfering with my other responsibilities. But now, they don’t like me doing it anymore?” He lifted both hands in exasperation. “Like what happened there?”
Sungjae was nodding. “Mine too. All of a sudden our representative was telling me: do Big Byung in your own free time, the company isn’t getting anything from this, we can’t use the practice rooms anymore, and things like that,” Sungjae was slowly working at the muscles of his neck while he said this. He’d just gotten off musical practice and they were waiting for the other members in Defconn’s studio. Jackson leaned over to ask him if he needed to rest, but Sungjae shook his head at him. They seemed to take care of each other well.
“It’s just, it gets tiring for a while, though we try to ignore it.” Sungjae said. “Now we don’t have a place to practice, either.”
“And it’s a little embarrassing to keep imposing on N hyung and VIXX, you know?” Jackson said, referring to rumors of VIXX’s own impending comeback in about a month. “I hear N hyung’s doing all their choreo this time, on top of what he’s doing for Big Byung and getting his rap right.”
“N hyung keeps falling asleep into his dinner. He doesn’t notice,” Sungjae said.
“I let him catch up on sleep on my shoulder sometimes. I just pretend that nothing happened afterwards so he won’t feel embarrassed by it,” Jackson said.
What?
__
D-5
Daejun: we lost the concert venue
Hyungdon: dammit
Daejun: we really should tell them
Daejun: they’re running themselves to the ground
Daejun: practicing around their sched & restrictions
Hyungdon: theyll hate us
Hyungdon: they worked so hard
Daejun: we’ll work this out with them
__
“Where are we?” Beautiful if exhausted N said as one by one Big Byung members trickled out of the van. It was ten minutes before midnight, three days before Big Byung’s comeback mini-concert. Usually around this time the members would be busy practicing-either in Jellyfish’s practice rooms, in Deffcon’s studio, or during one memorable occasion in a shabby noraebang near the Cube building. At least they will be getting some well-deserved rest soon.
“PD-nim, what are we supposed to do here?” Hyuk did a quick flick to rearrange the bangs on his forehead. He looked around, staring at the empty wide open space illuminated only by the occasional beams coming off from the streetlights. Turned back to Sungjae and Jackson, a clear question on his face. “If Hyungdon hyung and Deffcon hyung wanted us to practice here for laughs, it’s not possible. We won’t be able to see--”
N coughed.
Hyuk made a wounded sound. “I was not trying to make a joke about you. We really won’t be able to see anything here.”
N turned to the camera. “What is this?”
This is the concert venue.
Jackson’s frown could be seen even in the poor lighting. “It’s an abandoned lot.”
Yes. It is.
“That can’t be. MBC was supposed to prepare a proper comeback stage for us. Like a mini-concert for Big Byung fans,” N reasoned.
The producers didn’t tell you that MBC withdrew from the agreement. This is what the producers got for you instead. They are using you guys. Using your fanbase.
“So who’s paying for the MV then? For all of this if it’s not MBC?” Sungjae gestured at the parking lot, at the camera. “Who’s paying you?”
That’s not important. The issue here is they are taking advantage of you, getting money out of your popularity while being as cheap about it as possible. You’ve been working so hard, practicing everyday into early morning. You all need to rest-
Hyuk pulled at the sleeve of N’s coat, looking younger than his 26 years. “What do we do, hyung? The fans expect the mini-concert to be in three days. We can’t hold it here. No one will want to come and watch us.”
“Two days,” Jackson corrected, glancing at his watch.
“PD-nim, thank you very much for showing this to us,” said N, something unreadable flashing across his face, “but I think we need to speak with the producers first.”
__
D-2
Hyungdon felt like puking his guts out.
“Is this morning sickness?” he asked Daejun. “I thought it just happens to the mother, and only in the first couple of months of pregnancy?” He guessed Daejun was feeling similarly jittery and uncomfortable. He was only sitting there and silently sipping his lone glass of water.
It had been the same restaurant where they met up with the kids a few weeks ago. They had decided to come clean to the boys because it was hard to disguise the fact they were holding a concert in an abandoned lot, no thanks to both Hyungdon and Defconn running out of cash. It lent some sort of cosmic symmetry they were going to do it here as well.
“Maybe she knocked you up in revenge. Congratulations, you are pregnant with your second child,” Daejun said, deadpan. Definitely nervous. Hakyeonnie hadn’t been replying to their texts after confirming they would be coming to the restaurant and that was strange and scary.
As if hearing his thoughts Daejun said, “You know what’s stranger and scarier than the idea of you being pregnant?” He pointed at the corner of the restaurant where the camera was located. “I’m betting you all the hanwoo in this restaurant that we’re being skewered and flayed alive in that person’s mind right now. Did you do something even vaguely offensive to our PD?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Hyungdon said, hands up in surrender. And that was when all the boys arrived in the restaurant, like catching Hyungdon red-handed in some evil act, and Hyungdon knew by the air of quiet disappointment around them that he no longer needed to tell them anything. They already knew every single detail of how their hyungs have failed them.
The camera moved to get into a tight shot. Hyungdon only spared a half-thought on feeling self-conscious about it before blurting, “I’m sorry we fucked things up.” Good. Like ripping a band-aid off. Let the PD deal with all the profanities, he didn’t care.
Instead of the burst of outrage he’d been expecting, Jackson calmly pulled a chair. He sat down across him and released a long sigh more fitting someone twice his age. “I admit it didn’t feel nice. I know half of it is for variety purposes, to make everything look funny. But still, that wasn’t nice, hyung. You should’ve just been honest with us. We could’ve done something about it earlier,” Jackson said.
Sungjae was examining his fingernails like he could find his words there. “Did the hyungs-Brave Double Tiger paid everything out of their own pockets, didn’t they?” he asked.
Daejun nodded.
“I see. It must have been difficult,” Sungjae said.
“We lost the deal with MBC midway.” It seemed like a good place to start, Hyungdon decided, when you were both embarrassed and relieved, when you were feeling out of your depth. Hakyeon and Hyuk have seated themselves on either side of Jackson. No violent reactions so far. It was like he’d been handed a gift he didn’t quite know how to deal with yet. “We can still go through with the album and MV release. Everything’s done with post-production anyway. But the comeback concert and your salary, that’s the tricky part. I understand if you want out of the whole mess, or if you plan to sue our asses off-“
Hyuk cleared his throat. “With all due respect, hyungnim, don’t you think that decision is up to us?”
“Ah.” Daejun took off his sunglasses and motioned at Hyungdon to stop talking.
“We knew perfectly well how the hyungs go about their work and we still signed the contract,” Hyuk continued, face placid but there was something determined in the tilt of his jaw. “The album concept and the costumes were a bit weird and silly to be honest. But we still continued to show up and do the work. We still practiced. Can’t we have a say on what we want and don’t want to do this time as well?” Hyuk asked.
Hakyeon was blinking back something a little too fast. Hyungdon suspected he was doing the same thing. He felt oddly moved.
“Okay,” Hyungdon said, “Of course you can all do what you want.”
Then there was a noise making them all jump in their seats: a loud percussive bang, like maybe the ahjumma had been setting down the dishes a little too hard. But it wasn’t a dish, it was a fist. The PD had stopped recording and pounded a fist against the smooth wooden surface of their table.
“I can’t believe this!” And there, right there was the moral outrage Hyungdon had been missing the whole morning. “That’s it? You are too kind to them. Too kind!” Daejun was right, their PD was angry at them in ways Hyungdon didn’t get at the moment.
“He just says sorry like that-“ At this the PD made a rude gesture in Hyungdon’s direction, and what was the problem exactly? “-and everything’s okay? No hard feelings? Don’t you remember they made fun of you this entire time?”
Sungjae frowned. “Have you never shot a variety show before? I’m honestly curious.”
The PD ignored him, facing Hakyeon, palms out in supplication. “And you were so tired you were falling asleep while you were eating! They all worked you to the bone and they weren’t even going to pay you!”
Daejun looked hurt, “Hey, we can’t pay them right now, at this very second, but we are going to pay them.” Their PD glared at him and Daejun added, “That goes for you too. We are not going to skip out on anyone.”
“Thank you, PD-nim.” Hakyeon stood up, held both of PD’s upturned hands, and smiled gently. “For all your concern about our health and our livelihood.” The PD stopped, taken aback, calming down despite the intensity of their rage. Of course, Cha Hakyeon was charming their PD. Cha Hakyeon was being kind.
“Hyungdon hyung, I hope you find another PD after this,” Hyuk leaned over and whispered.
“What?” Hyungdon said.
Jackson nodded like he understood the hidden wisdom in Hyuk’s words. “Hakyeon hyung is very, very angry.”
Hakyeon was still smiling.
I am a soft type of guy, Hyungdon remembered Hakyeon saying some years ago. Also remembered laughing uncontrollably when Hyuk mentioned how Hakyeon was the scariest hyung he had ever met. It seemed hard to imagine crybaby Hakyeonnie breaking someone in two. But Hyungdon understood that those things weren’t mutually exclusive.
“I understand it was difficult for you to see us like this,” Hakyeon continued. “But this is something that we need to work out between ourselves-between us Big Byung and the producers.” The PD must have finally gotten it, Hakyeon’s kindness and hard sharp edge of it. There was a visible flinch. “You are not Big Byung. We need you to back off,” Hakyeon said.
__
N considered the question for a while. “The whole experience of preparing for this comeback reminded me a lot of when VIXX was just starting out, that time when we did our first global showcase. This strange mix of excitement and sheer terror and exhaustion and insecurity. Will someone come and see us? Will they enjoy our music? Those kind of feelings.
“I admit it was a struggle getting it all together. We had to deal with changing our venue. Thrice.” N laughed. “And the concert got delayed a bit. But seeing all the reactions from the audience, how they stood and endured the cold and sang along to our songs, the hope that somehow, even for a moment, we were able to free them from any worries they had.” He sniffed. “It was all worth it, I think. It’s like rediscovering why I go back to music again and again.”
__
“If I were a girl and date a member of Big Byung?” Jackson scratched his chin. “N hyung maybe?”
Why N?
“He’s kind. He’s good-looking. He dances really well. And you know, he’s sexy, but not because he has broad shoulders or that his arms look particularly muscly or anything.” Jackson shrugged. “It’s his presence? Like his whole presence is sexy?” He explained, complete with hand gestures. “What? Did I get your question wrong?”
Uh, no.
“Okay.” Jackson drummed a beat on his knees. “N hyung didn’t happen to choose me, did he?”
He chose Hyuk,
“Hmm.” He continued drumming on his knees. “Sometimes I wonder if N hyung secretly hates himself.”
__
Five years have passed since your last comeback. How does it feel being the leader of Big Byung this time around? Has it changed much?
“I’m older now?’ Hyuk laughed. “And I guess I have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a leader other than memorizing scripts, nagging your members, and taking responsibility for your team’s mistakes.”
It must have felt weird in the beginning, what with N being older and him being the leader back in your original group.
“I actually gained a lot of appreciation for N hyung and his role in VIXX. How irreplaceable he is as a leader,” Hyuk said. “Because N hyung being a member is a much, much worse alternative. Trust me on this. I’m speaking from experience.”
__
“My wish for next year, my personal wish, is for BTOB to have our own movie documentary too,” Sungjae said. “Big Byung is just a project group. But for something that started out as a joke to be known to the general public in a relatively shorter time, to have a more exponential growth in fans compared to an equally talented and hardworking group that debuted a couple of years earlier is just-“ Sungjae coughed, choking on some emotion.
“Can you edit that out? That was a little embarrassing.”
__
“They are like the sons I never had,” Hyungdon said in reply to a question about the relationship between Brave Double Tiger and the Big Byung members.
“You will have an actual son by the end of this year though,” Defconn reminded him.
“I will?”
“If you find yourself suddenly homeless in the next three weeks, don’t come running to me for help,” Defconn said.
__
Given the chance, would you do it again?
“Hmm, yes? But I could do with less drama,” Sungjae said. Jackson yelled an enthusiastic ‘yeah!’ in his direction and gave him a fist-bump.
“Of course,” N said and smiled.
“I would like it if the hyungs gave us more money,” Hyuk said.
Hyungdon looked horrified at the prospect. “No. Oh god, no.”
THE END
Poll
Team: Future
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Big Byung
Pairing: None
Summary: A look at the producers Brave Double Tiger and the members of Big Byung as they struggle towards comeback. Now with behind the scenes footage and interviews, shining the light on what it means to be Big Byung and whatever their concept this time means.
Author’s note: My big thank you to our patient team mod who graciously allowed me more time with this fic. I owe a lot to T and E for their speedy feedback (all remaining mistakes are mine!) Also thanks to the team for their encouragement and the inspiring company :D
Prompt Used: Koyote’s 1999 and the supplementary prompts
Big Byung is trash?
“It’s their new concept!” said a girl in a snapback, clutching her lightstick of aqueous pearlescent cerulean bottle blue. She wore a Big Byung shirt from the Stress Come On era, matching drawstring shorts and knee-high sports socks. Her free hand held up a big signage exclaiming BIG BYUNG IS NON-BIODEGRADABLE TRASH = BIG BYUNG IS FOREVER in obnoxious neon green. “Well, we think it’s their new concept. N- um, Dolbaegi oppa posted a tweet about it. Pics of trash bags filled with weird costumes and stuff like that. It’s all very deep,” she said.
A noona fan beside her had reservations. “I don’t know.” She looked at the dark empty stage in the middle of the stadium. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the group’s ridiculousness and I’m happy there’s a comeback at all, but did anyone else recognize what even half in those trash bags were? I swear I saw white fuzzy gloves and highschool uniforms.” As a slow curtain of incomprehension fell on snapback girl’s face, the noona fan waved her own lightstick around. Like a stern teacher willing her students to understand the significance of this information. “Fuzzy gloves! I’m having terrible flashbacks.”
Speculations were high following the sudden drop of teasers from the legendary Big Byung. A return to the scene after repeatedly disbanding five years ago? Or a one-off like so many of their previous releases? What were the thoughts of the general public about this?
Outside the stadium, amidst the crowd of mostly female fans, a male university student shared his views: “They needed the time to reinvent themselves, you know? They’ve always been reinventing and evolving themselves through their music. That’s what true artists do.” He curled into himself, tightened the thick hoodie jacket around him. “Sure, they only release an album every five years or so. But (beep) whatever people say, they haven’t disbanded. They will always be representative of the best of hiphop and Korean music in the past decade.”
That’s… someone else I think.
“What’s this for then?” he said, sounding a little defensive.
Big Byung. A project group produced by Defconn and Hyungdon.
“Oh.” The guy scratched the back of his neck and started glancing around him, seeing the venue for the first time. “I don’t know them.”
__
D-23
Hyungdon flopped back into the leather couch of Daejun hyung's small recording studio and bemoaned the ill fate of all creatives on earth.
“It’s funny,” Daejun assured him. Sure, if you were drunk on five bottles of soju and makgeolli. Which Daejun wasn’t. They had been disgustingly sober this whole week, trying to finish a Hyungdon and Daejun album. And while the beats were appropriately catchy, the song themselves were dry and dull and uninspired. Hyungdon felt he’d broken something in his brain.
“Is it time to surrender to the man?” Hyungdon said to the ceiling. “To the pressure of corporate greed, the mainstream, or god forbid, the netizens?” He could hear Daejun rummaging through the in-studio fridge, a recent and very welcome addition to the furniture. He turned his head and saw Daejun pluck a can or two.
Daejun handed him beer. So Hyungdon was reaching that stage of maudlin already.
“You’re over forty years old with a kid on the way. Stop acting like a teenager.” Daejun opened his own can and took a contemplative sip. "I guess we should contact the boys. The music is more their style than ours anyway."
Hyungdon sat up from the sofa in indignation. "No. We’re sticking it to the man. I’m going to finish this beer and I’m going to finish writing these other songs and we are not going to keep beating a dead horse of a joke. We'll have something new and original-“
"I’m not going to stand by and watch you title our songs Cass or Hite or that horrible weak canned piss you like from the States." Daejun took out his phone and started to type. "Which restaurant should we meet?"
"I'm thinking beef," Hyungdon said, pulling off the tab and chugging the beer back in defiance. "Cass isn't so bad."
"Would you name your kid after beer?” There must have been something on Hyungdon’s face, Daejun’s backtracking. “That was rhetorical. Is Thursday okay?"
"Lemme check with my manager," Hyungdon mimed taking a phone call with his right hand. "All signs point to yes."
"It could be funny." It was more sincere, less pitying. Hyungdon wasn’t in the least convinced.
"Yeah. Maybe we could even make a documentary out of it, comment on the state of South Korea's music industry, have Hakyeonnie wear questionable stage costumes and make him cry." They could hire a PD and a small filming crew, or they could borrow MBC’s. It would be easy. Easier than being middle-aged and fumbling in front of a crowd.
Daejun was laughing. "See? You're already thinking about it."
"God, I hate my brain."
__
Yook Sungjae of BTOB, more commonly known as Yookdeok these days, tittered uncomfortably at the question, sitting straight-backed at one of the leather couches in Defconn’s studio. He looked over his shoulder as if expecting some heavy animal to tackle him from behind, but only caught sight of Hyuk, who had ostensibly returned from his trip to the fridge bearing more snacks in his arms.
“It was definitely a surprise. To be honest I don’t think any of us knew what we were getting into at the beginning,” Sungjae said.
Brave Double Tiger never told you about their comeback plans?
“It’s just, cameras followed us whenever we met up.” He gave a pointed look at the camera. “And then you suddenly find yourself practicing in some disreputable noraebang singing about recyclables and proper segregation and you start to wonder about your life choices a little bit.”
Hyuk offered Sungjae a cookie in consolation.
__
D-18
If there was a time to regret Hyungdon’s decisions in life (getting out of bed that day, alternating between awed and freaked out at the swell of his wife’s belly, getting a pillow to the face because ‘stop staring, seriously’) it was now, at 1:30 in the morning, with Hyungdon trying to quell the sad rumbling of his tummy with kimchi. Late Thursday dinner meeting turned into an absurdly early Friday breakfast. Even though the boys had been conscientious about setting the time there were unavoidable circumstances-a delayed flight from the US, musical practice running late, the next radio host not turning up as he should. Hyungdon knew too well how idols owned little of their time. So why did he think this was a good idea?
Hyuk had been staring at the rice a little too intensely for the past half hour, so he let the kid eat, for god’s sake, he wasn’t too much of a brute.
Hakyeon arrived last, having just wrapped up his radio gig. Took a few precious seconds surveying the table and their little gathering, before walking up to Daejun to hang onto him like a limpet.
“Whoa, it’s like a reunion! Of course, you missed all of us, huh, hyung?” Hakyeon said. Daejun snorted into his samgyetang, looking red and a little pleased from the attention. Hyungdon raised both his arms in self-defense against a clingy dongsaeng. Hakyeon didn’t seem to be deterred, dodging Hyungdon’s pointy chopsticks to give him a hug.
“No.” Hyungdon pushed Hakyeon’s face away and concentrated on grilling the meat. He could almost hear Daejun raising his eyebrows and went on to ignore him. “We just felt like eating meat and didn’t want to pay for it.”
“Don’t be like that, hyung.” Hakyeon continued on his serial hugging ways from Hyungdon to Jackson to Sungjae, then settled himself beside Hyuk, who was looking at anything but the newly-occupied seat.
Hakyeon poked him. “Hey, stop pretending you didn’t see me. You could have told me you were coming too. We could’ve gone together.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hyuk said as he passed the pitcher of water to Daejun.
A second serving of hot soup and some bottles of soju later, Jackson sat up and made a startled noise in his throat. “Hyung, are we filming for something?” He’d been squinting past the nearest set of windows, into the darkness of the cold winter night. “Is that a camera?” he said and pointed outside.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Daejun said, giving Hyungdon a look behind his sunglasses-your idea, you explain-and proceeded to stuff his face with more meat.
Sungjae stopped eating to look out the windows too. “There’s a person crouching behind a tripod outside in this weather. I don’t think that’s nothing at all?”
At this point if Hyungdon was an honorable producer, an honorable man, he would’ve immediately said, “Yes, that is a camera, and yes, they’re cold and they’re filming something, sorry about that.” He would’ve explained their whole sorry predicament with MBC yadda yadda, giving us a concert stage and airtime blah and Hyungdon couldn’t finish their own album in time because he’s a sad broken man. Would the boys do the hyungs a solid and put on a show in over two weeks’ time on a brainfart of a concept? Hyuk was staring at the ceiling where the PD hid the boom mic and it was only a matter of time before Hakyeon joined in and the questioning reached critical mass.
“You’re all not drunk enough to be seeing things,” he decided to go with instead and unscrewed three soju bottles in quick succession. There was nothing like plying people with multitudes of soju shots to turn them to your way of thinking.
__
“Was I perfectly aware that what I did wasn’t entirely the best, nor the most ethical way of signing a group of hardworking idols?” Hyungdon shoved a handful of wasabi peas into his mouth, munching noisily as he pondered over this issue. “Kpop is a filthy, dirty, underhanded industry. If they haven’t learned that by now it’s my responsibility to show them.”
Defconn rubbed his face hard. One would think he was trying to scrub out the memory of that night, or the last five minutes of this interview. He mumbled about how all subsequent lawsuits should be directed to the (beep) who almost gave them alcohol poisoning.
Han Sanghyuk or HyukDdi, the leader of Big Byung, had a different take on the situation:
“Can I say this on camera?” He glanced around the salon for support. Jackson, Sungjae, and the beautiful N made encouraging noises at him. Everyone was waiting to get their makeup done for the MV filming.
“The hyungs really got hilariously drunk,” Hyuk said. “Especially Hyungdon hyung. He was crying about his wife, about his child thinking he was uh-“
“-a sellout capitalist pig,” Sungjae said.
Hyuk nodded. “Yeah and something about being a washed up comedian. Hyung looked so sad and pitiful, it wasn’t hard for me to agree to working with them again.”
“As expected of our great leader!” Jackson said, clapping.
“So generous of our Hyukkie!” N said. He looked like he might shed a precious tear. The beautiful leader N always had a soft spot for Hyuk.
“And when I said the hyungs got really drunk, that includes both Jackson hyung and N hyung,” Hyuk added, unable to stop the laughter in his voice. “Without warning, they both started stripping and slow dancing to trot music playing in the restaurant. Sungjae and I were so embarrassed, we didn’t know what to do-“
“Those are lies! You traitor! I treated you like a brother!” Jackson made to get up from his chair but was scolded by the stylist noona to stay still.
Sungjae guffawed.
“Han Sanghyuk! You’re dead, you hear me?!” N threw a box of tissues at the back of Hyuk’s head.
__
D-17
The next time all of them meet, it was in Daejun’s studio. Hyuk and Sungjae looked as fresh as a field of daisies, bright-eyed and a little too cheerful, even after all the drinking that happened yesterday. Hyungdon hated them both with the power of all the aspirin bottles in South Korea.
“I called this meeting so we could brainstorm about the album, the concept, and the upcoming mini-concert,” Hyungdon wanted to say. But the headache was still out in full force and his tongue was a useless muscle sticking to the roof of his mouth. All that came up at the moment was a garbled mess of, “newsongcomebackconcert”.
“Concert?” Jackson sat up in the couch, groaning from the remains of a massive hangover. The side of his face was dripping with condensation from holding his iced Americano against his head for too long. “Are we finally going on a world tour? I want to go to Europe like Hakyeon hyung and see more of our fans.”
“Nnngh,” Hakyeon said into the couch armrest.
Daejun massaged his forehead. Hyungdon understood the feeling too well. “We’re sticking to Seoul for now. Don’t get too excited.”
“Wow, it’s becoming real. A Big Byung live concert.” Hyuk was gaping like a fish.
Hyungdon made handwavey gestures to cut off Sungjae. He looked like he might be asking valid questions. “Mini-concert is for later.” Over two weeks later, in fact. He tapped at the agenda written on the whiteboard. “Concept and album first.”
“I’m thinking of a more mature sound for the group since both Hyuk and I are 27 next year. A darker, heavier song maybe?” Sungjae said.
“A ballad!” Jackson said.
“Give-Hakyeon-hyung-all-the-difficult-rapping-lines concept!” Hyuk shouted in the near vicinity of Hakyeon’s head. Hakyeon whimpered about too-loud noises.
“I like the way you think,” Hyungdon managed to say. “But if you’re shouting all over the place and making my head hurt more I’m kicking you off the group.”
__
So, Big Byung’s concept. What does it all mean?
“It’s a parody of the current state of Korean Pop music industry. The plastic bottles. The trash bags. The garbage segregation. It’s all a big metaphor, you see?” a music critic explained. He seemed to have put a lot of thought into this as he had prepared a slide presentation of Big Byung’s MV stills as well as various colorful charts about Kpop history.
“The scene has been inundated with samey music for years-all these recycled ideas, all these recycled sample tracks and trends and concepts. This is not a surprise given that the whole of Kpop has had the same three or four producers writing the same songs again and again and again.”
What do you think of your concept and comeback album?
“It’s a good album that the public could listen to comfortably.” Jackson Wang, Wangkong of Big Byung, made a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders.
That’s…all?
Jackson was shaking his head, palms up in surrender to appease what he might have seen in the staff’s expression. “Please don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I don’t get our concept. But you see our beloved leader, HyukDdi, he’s in charge of introducing our mini album. He’s always memorizing his lines and practicing his introductions in front of me. Honestly, all the Korean words are mixing up and flying away from my head whenever he does that.”
Jackson looked straight at the camera. “I’m sorry, HyukDdi. I love you but please stop doing that. Hyung is in a lot of variety and other shows now. I plan on working a lot longer in this country. I can’t afford to lose my Korean.”
__
D-16
Hyungdon: its a unanimous decision
Hyungdon: we r doing a retrospctv mini album
Hyungdon: *retospectve
Hyungdon: dammit
Jackson: RETROSPECTIVE you mean
Hyungdon: yeah
Hyungdon: that
Sungjae; but hyung we only have 2 singles so far
Sungjae: how does a retrospective album work
Sungjae: ?
Hakyeon: I don’t remember having a retrospective as one of the options..? ☹
Jackson: i didn’t vote
Hyungdon: weve written 1 new song
Hyungdon: sending it now
Hyungdon: will add remastered stress come on and ojingeo doenjang then instrumntals
Hyungdon: song covers?
Jackson: who voted for this concept hyungdon hyung?
Hakyeon: Is it a ballad? Give me lots of main parts to sing, hyung *aegyo*
Hyungdon: brave double tiger producers voted
Hyungdon: and a neutral judge
Hyungdon: 3rd judge had a rly powerful kick. feels strongly abt concept
Sungjae: the 3rd judge is not your baby is it?
Hyungdon: 3rd judge unable 2 comment
Jackson: i got song. hah! listening to it now
Hakyeon: This doesn’t sound like a ballad. It’s…upbeat. The chorus sounds a lot like H.O.T. sunbaenims’ Candy.
Sungjae: it’s about recycling?
Hyungdon: recycling everything. i call it ‘message in a big byung’
Jackson: it’s not a cute concept right? we're doing something different right?
Jackson: hyung?
Hakyeon: I am over thirty, hyung! I’m not sure Candy 2.0 would fit me anymore! Hyukkie will back me up on this!
Hakyeon: If he manages to check his phone before the next apocalypse
__
“N hyung has always been like an older brother to me,” Hyuk began, opening his third snack of the afternoon. “The thing with N hyung though? He’ll deny this for a million years and put up the token protest--because let’s face it, he’s middle-aged already and no full-grown man post-army will act like this--but he loves doing cute concepts the best.” He shoved a whole potato chip into his mouth. “Some days I think he envies Ken hyung, or me as a maknae in VIXX.”
Why are you always so mean to him?
“What?” Hyuk coughed and reached out for his bottled water.
__
D-12
Daejun phoned the MV filming set a few minutes before their call time.
Hyungdon answered him with, “When are you getting here? I just got the costumes.”
“Hey, are the kids there?” Daejun asked.
“Still primping themselves,” Hyungdon said into his phone. He sorted through the trash bags at his feet. “I know we’re trying to cheapen things for the concept by finding old stage costumes for them to wear, but can we find something a little less moldy? The Candy gloves aren’t supposed to be this shade of green.”
“Doni, MBC decided to cut off our funding.” Daejun’s voice sounded far away, like coming off from another galaxy, and Hyungdon sat down among the trash bags and tried to breathe.
“You still there?”
“Yeah.” The filming staff was ignoring him for now. That was good. He didn’t have any idea how to pay all of them yet. He didn’t know where he was going to get all that money for the boys either. He ran an aggressive hand all over his hair. “And we just finished recording the new song the other day too. Too little too late for them, hm?”
Daejun sighed. “Seems like it. Look, I have some spare cash from my Defconn gigs. We could still go through with it. We’re just tightening the budget a bit more. I’ll start to shop this documentary around to other networks, see if it gets picked up. But we need to know if the kids are still with us.”
“We don’t need to tell them about this,” Hyungdon said.
“It’s one thing that we kept them in the dark in the beginning. We had the blessing of the network and their companies and it was funny. This is serious.” Daejun made sense. Of course, he always did, he was the saner of the two of them. Daejun didn’t wake up at nights getting choked up by his own inadequacy and oh god he was over forty years old, where did all the time go? There’s a real living person inside the woman he married that in a few years would be asking for allowance, would be asking questions like, what have you done daddy, and, why was I named after a beer brand?
Still. “I have spare money too. Between the two of us funding this thing, they won’t notice at all. They’ve been working hard. They really want this comeback concert to happen. They already have a lot on their minds, we don’t need to worry them more.”
Daejun let out a longer sigh on the line if it was possible. “So, us hyungs will just take care of everything on our end, huh?”
“If ever my child entertains the idea of going into all these idol shit, I’m packing everything up and deporting them to another country,” Hyungdon muttered back.
__
The process of coming up with the look and feel of this MV, would anyone care to explain that?
Hyungdon sat up. “It might come off like we’re making fun of Kpop. It’s a homage actually to the whole industry. Baggy hiphop pants, the large ill-fitting uniforms, the ubiquitous perm and ramen hair. Everything’s a throwback to the classics.” Everyone appeared to be in complete agreement with this as they nodded at Hyungdon’s words. Or at least everyone except Jackson. He’d been nodding behind his sunglasses with erratic timing, chin knocking his chest. Sungjae tried to be discreet in elbowing him. It had been a long filming day.
“We’re paying our respects to the long tradition of synchronized singing and dancing,” Hyungdon said, turning to Hyuk. “What about you kids? What do you think?”
Hyuk blinked fast, suddenly coming into himself. “I think the whole music video is about remembering where we come from, of the things that influenced us and that inspired us as idols and how we are bringing those back. Recycling it, so to speak.” He put up air quotes. “It is looking back so we are able to move forward into the future of Kpop music,” Hyuk said.
Hyungdon made a face in Hyuk’s direction. “Honestly, where did you get all these lines? We don’t teach you anything. It’s like you’re spouting alien language sometimes.”
N, Big Byung’s Cha Dolbaegi, beautiful leader of VIXX and beautiful sometimes actor Cha Hakyeon leaned forward in his chair to check his reflection in the camera lens.
“I was initially worried about the costumes to be honest. I was not sure if we could all pull it off,” he confessed. “There has to be an age limit for some guy to be wearing those brightly-colored jumpers and the whole fuzzy gloves without looking ridiculous.”
You still looked cute in them. Cool, too. They suit you.
N grinned. “Right?”
“Oh god,” Defconn exclaimed to the ceiling.
“It was a particularly healing moment for me when our Hyukkie-” Hyuk buried his head into his hands, probably out of embarrassment. “-when our Hyukkie came out in the yellow jumper and the pink Candy gloves. I felt rejuvenated? Energized?”
“He was laughing and taking pictures the whole time,” Hyuk said, sullen.
__
D-9
It was Sungjae this time who called Hyungdon with more bad news. It was half past ten in the evening and Hyungdon was already in bed when his handphone rang.
“Hyung, the company representative said we couldn’t use Cube’s practice rooms for any Big Byung activities? We were supposed to practice some more tonight, but the PD wasn’t even allowed inside our building.”
Hyungdon got up from bed, moving as little as possible to not disturb his wife. “There was a bit of a problem with MBC, that must be it,” he managed to lie through the haze of his muddled consciousness. “We are working on it. In the meantime you could practice in JYP or Jellyfish, and if there’s nothing else there’s Daejun’s studio, although it’s a bit cramped there.”
He felt more than heard his wife make a noise. Maybe the baby was acting up again inside her. Maybe it was the baby wanting to kick Hyungdon’s head in because Hyungdon was a horrible horrible person.
“Ok, hyung. We’ll try to coordinate with Jackson hyung’s manager,” Sungjae said.
Hyungdon shut off his phone and laid back down on the bed. He failed to get any more sleep that night.
__
Jackson admitted that things had been off lately. “Yeah, it’s weird. Our companies, JYP on my end, are usually okay with us doing Big Byung. It gets the name of my own team out there. It’s all fun. I don’t see it interfering with my other responsibilities. But now, they don’t like me doing it anymore?” He lifted both hands in exasperation. “Like what happened there?”
Sungjae was nodding. “Mine too. All of a sudden our representative was telling me: do Big Byung in your own free time, the company isn’t getting anything from this, we can’t use the practice rooms anymore, and things like that,” Sungjae was slowly working at the muscles of his neck while he said this. He’d just gotten off musical practice and they were waiting for the other members in Defconn’s studio. Jackson leaned over to ask him if he needed to rest, but Sungjae shook his head at him. They seemed to take care of each other well.
“It’s just, it gets tiring for a while, though we try to ignore it.” Sungjae said. “Now we don’t have a place to practice, either.”
“And it’s a little embarrassing to keep imposing on N hyung and VIXX, you know?” Jackson said, referring to rumors of VIXX’s own impending comeback in about a month. “I hear N hyung’s doing all their choreo this time, on top of what he’s doing for Big Byung and getting his rap right.”
“N hyung keeps falling asleep into his dinner. He doesn’t notice,” Sungjae said.
“I let him catch up on sleep on my shoulder sometimes. I just pretend that nothing happened afterwards so he won’t feel embarrassed by it,” Jackson said.
What?
__
D-5
Daejun: we lost the concert venue
Hyungdon: dammit
Daejun: we really should tell them
Daejun: they’re running themselves to the ground
Daejun: practicing around their sched & restrictions
Hyungdon: theyll hate us
Hyungdon: they worked so hard
Daejun: we’ll work this out with them
__
“Where are we?” Beautiful if exhausted N said as one by one Big Byung members trickled out of the van. It was ten minutes before midnight, three days before Big Byung’s comeback mini-concert. Usually around this time the members would be busy practicing-either in Jellyfish’s practice rooms, in Deffcon’s studio, or during one memorable occasion in a shabby noraebang near the Cube building. At least they will be getting some well-deserved rest soon.
“PD-nim, what are we supposed to do here?” Hyuk did a quick flick to rearrange the bangs on his forehead. He looked around, staring at the empty wide open space illuminated only by the occasional beams coming off from the streetlights. Turned back to Sungjae and Jackson, a clear question on his face. “If Hyungdon hyung and Deffcon hyung wanted us to practice here for laughs, it’s not possible. We won’t be able to see--”
N coughed.
Hyuk made a wounded sound. “I was not trying to make a joke about you. We really won’t be able to see anything here.”
N turned to the camera. “What is this?”
This is the concert venue.
Jackson’s frown could be seen even in the poor lighting. “It’s an abandoned lot.”
Yes. It is.
“That can’t be. MBC was supposed to prepare a proper comeback stage for us. Like a mini-concert for Big Byung fans,” N reasoned.
The producers didn’t tell you that MBC withdrew from the agreement. This is what the producers got for you instead. They are using you guys. Using your fanbase.
“So who’s paying for the MV then? For all of this if it’s not MBC?” Sungjae gestured at the parking lot, at the camera. “Who’s paying you?”
That’s not important. The issue here is they are taking advantage of you, getting money out of your popularity while being as cheap about it as possible. You’ve been working so hard, practicing everyday into early morning. You all need to rest-
Hyuk pulled at the sleeve of N’s coat, looking younger than his 26 years. “What do we do, hyung? The fans expect the mini-concert to be in three days. We can’t hold it here. No one will want to come and watch us.”
“Two days,” Jackson corrected, glancing at his watch.
“PD-nim, thank you very much for showing this to us,” said N, something unreadable flashing across his face, “but I think we need to speak with the producers first.”
__
D-2
Hyungdon felt like puking his guts out.
“Is this morning sickness?” he asked Daejun. “I thought it just happens to the mother, and only in the first couple of months of pregnancy?” He guessed Daejun was feeling similarly jittery and uncomfortable. He was only sitting there and silently sipping his lone glass of water.
It had been the same restaurant where they met up with the kids a few weeks ago. They had decided to come clean to the boys because it was hard to disguise the fact they were holding a concert in an abandoned lot, no thanks to both Hyungdon and Defconn running out of cash. It lent some sort of cosmic symmetry they were going to do it here as well.
“Maybe she knocked you up in revenge. Congratulations, you are pregnant with your second child,” Daejun said, deadpan. Definitely nervous. Hakyeonnie hadn’t been replying to their texts after confirming they would be coming to the restaurant and that was strange and scary.
As if hearing his thoughts Daejun said, “You know what’s stranger and scarier than the idea of you being pregnant?” He pointed at the corner of the restaurant where the camera was located. “I’m betting you all the hanwoo in this restaurant that we’re being skewered and flayed alive in that person’s mind right now. Did you do something even vaguely offensive to our PD?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Hyungdon said, hands up in surrender. And that was when all the boys arrived in the restaurant, like catching Hyungdon red-handed in some evil act, and Hyungdon knew by the air of quiet disappointment around them that he no longer needed to tell them anything. They already knew every single detail of how their hyungs have failed them.
The camera moved to get into a tight shot. Hyungdon only spared a half-thought on feeling self-conscious about it before blurting, “I’m sorry we fucked things up.” Good. Like ripping a band-aid off. Let the PD deal with all the profanities, he didn’t care.
Instead of the burst of outrage he’d been expecting, Jackson calmly pulled a chair. He sat down across him and released a long sigh more fitting someone twice his age. “I admit it didn’t feel nice. I know half of it is for variety purposes, to make everything look funny. But still, that wasn’t nice, hyung. You should’ve just been honest with us. We could’ve done something about it earlier,” Jackson said.
Sungjae was examining his fingernails like he could find his words there. “Did the hyungs-Brave Double Tiger paid everything out of their own pockets, didn’t they?” he asked.
Daejun nodded.
“I see. It must have been difficult,” Sungjae said.
“We lost the deal with MBC midway.” It seemed like a good place to start, Hyungdon decided, when you were both embarrassed and relieved, when you were feeling out of your depth. Hakyeon and Hyuk have seated themselves on either side of Jackson. No violent reactions so far. It was like he’d been handed a gift he didn’t quite know how to deal with yet. “We can still go through with the album and MV release. Everything’s done with post-production anyway. But the comeback concert and your salary, that’s the tricky part. I understand if you want out of the whole mess, or if you plan to sue our asses off-“
Hyuk cleared his throat. “With all due respect, hyungnim, don’t you think that decision is up to us?”
“Ah.” Daejun took off his sunglasses and motioned at Hyungdon to stop talking.
“We knew perfectly well how the hyungs go about their work and we still signed the contract,” Hyuk continued, face placid but there was something determined in the tilt of his jaw. “The album concept and the costumes were a bit weird and silly to be honest. But we still continued to show up and do the work. We still practiced. Can’t we have a say on what we want and don’t want to do this time as well?” Hyuk asked.
Hakyeon was blinking back something a little too fast. Hyungdon suspected he was doing the same thing. He felt oddly moved.
“Okay,” Hyungdon said, “Of course you can all do what you want.”
Then there was a noise making them all jump in their seats: a loud percussive bang, like maybe the ahjumma had been setting down the dishes a little too hard. But it wasn’t a dish, it was a fist. The PD had stopped recording and pounded a fist against the smooth wooden surface of their table.
“I can’t believe this!” And there, right there was the moral outrage Hyungdon had been missing the whole morning. “That’s it? You are too kind to them. Too kind!” Daejun was right, their PD was angry at them in ways Hyungdon didn’t get at the moment.
“He just says sorry like that-“ At this the PD made a rude gesture in Hyungdon’s direction, and what was the problem exactly? “-and everything’s okay? No hard feelings? Don’t you remember they made fun of you this entire time?”
Sungjae frowned. “Have you never shot a variety show before? I’m honestly curious.”
The PD ignored him, facing Hakyeon, palms out in supplication. “And you were so tired you were falling asleep while you were eating! They all worked you to the bone and they weren’t even going to pay you!”
Daejun looked hurt, “Hey, we can’t pay them right now, at this very second, but we are going to pay them.” Their PD glared at him and Daejun added, “That goes for you too. We are not going to skip out on anyone.”
“Thank you, PD-nim.” Hakyeon stood up, held both of PD’s upturned hands, and smiled gently. “For all your concern about our health and our livelihood.” The PD stopped, taken aback, calming down despite the intensity of their rage. Of course, Cha Hakyeon was charming their PD. Cha Hakyeon was being kind.
“Hyungdon hyung, I hope you find another PD after this,” Hyuk leaned over and whispered.
“What?” Hyungdon said.
Jackson nodded like he understood the hidden wisdom in Hyuk’s words. “Hakyeon hyung is very, very angry.”
Hakyeon was still smiling.
I am a soft type of guy, Hyungdon remembered Hakyeon saying some years ago. Also remembered laughing uncontrollably when Hyuk mentioned how Hakyeon was the scariest hyung he had ever met. It seemed hard to imagine crybaby Hakyeonnie breaking someone in two. But Hyungdon understood that those things weren’t mutually exclusive.
“I understand it was difficult for you to see us like this,” Hakyeon continued. “But this is something that we need to work out between ourselves-between us Big Byung and the producers.” The PD must have finally gotten it, Hakyeon’s kindness and hard sharp edge of it. There was a visible flinch. “You are not Big Byung. We need you to back off,” Hakyeon said.
__
N considered the question for a while. “The whole experience of preparing for this comeback reminded me a lot of when VIXX was just starting out, that time when we did our first global showcase. This strange mix of excitement and sheer terror and exhaustion and insecurity. Will someone come and see us? Will they enjoy our music? Those kind of feelings.
“I admit it was a struggle getting it all together. We had to deal with changing our venue. Thrice.” N laughed. “And the concert got delayed a bit. But seeing all the reactions from the audience, how they stood and endured the cold and sang along to our songs, the hope that somehow, even for a moment, we were able to free them from any worries they had.” He sniffed. “It was all worth it, I think. It’s like rediscovering why I go back to music again and again.”
__
“If I were a girl and date a member of Big Byung?” Jackson scratched his chin. “N hyung maybe?”
Why N?
“He’s kind. He’s good-looking. He dances really well. And you know, he’s sexy, but not because he has broad shoulders or that his arms look particularly muscly or anything.” Jackson shrugged. “It’s his presence? Like his whole presence is sexy?” He explained, complete with hand gestures. “What? Did I get your question wrong?”
Uh, no.
“Okay.” Jackson drummed a beat on his knees. “N hyung didn’t happen to choose me, did he?”
He chose Hyuk,
“Hmm.” He continued drumming on his knees. “Sometimes I wonder if N hyung secretly hates himself.”
__
Five years have passed since your last comeback. How does it feel being the leader of Big Byung this time around? Has it changed much?
“I’m older now?’ Hyuk laughed. “And I guess I have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a leader other than memorizing scripts, nagging your members, and taking responsibility for your team’s mistakes.”
It must have felt weird in the beginning, what with N being older and him being the leader back in your original group.
“I actually gained a lot of appreciation for N hyung and his role in VIXX. How irreplaceable he is as a leader,” Hyuk said. “Because N hyung being a member is a much, much worse alternative. Trust me on this. I’m speaking from experience.”
__
“My wish for next year, my personal wish, is for BTOB to have our own movie documentary too,” Sungjae said. “Big Byung is just a project group. But for something that started out as a joke to be known to the general public in a relatively shorter time, to have a more exponential growth in fans compared to an equally talented and hardworking group that debuted a couple of years earlier is just-“ Sungjae coughed, choking on some emotion.
“Can you edit that out? That was a little embarrassing.”
__
“They are like the sons I never had,” Hyungdon said in reply to a question about the relationship between Brave Double Tiger and the Big Byung members.
“You will have an actual son by the end of this year though,” Defconn reminded him.
“I will?”
“If you find yourself suddenly homeless in the next three weeks, don’t come running to me for help,” Defconn said.
__
Given the chance, would you do it again?
“Hmm, yes? But I could do with less drama,” Sungjae said. Jackson yelled an enthusiastic ‘yeah!’ in his direction and gave him a fist-bump.
“Of course,” N said and smiled.
“I would like it if the hyungs gave us more money,” Hyuk said.
Hyungdon looked horrified at the prospect. “No. Oh god, no.”
THE END
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