The Trashy PD Has To Survive as an Idol - Chapter 188

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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188

In any case, I called a Kakao Black taxi at Seo Ho-jin’s request and left the parking lot.
With the atmosphere lightened, I unleashed all the questions I’d been curious about—how was school going, did he have friends, was he seeing anyone, and so on.
Seo Ho-jin had been answering halfheartedly at first, but at my last question, his expression darkened considerably.

“That’s so outdated.”
“Damn it….”

After going to university and even becoming a Student Council member, he’d grown sharp enough to reduce me to a clueless fossil from the Paleozoic era with just one remark.
But what was funny was that I felt oddly satisfied by it.
After all, Seo Ho-jin seemed to be living well with the common sense of his generation.

I spotted the taxi waiting at the designated location, opened the door, and helped Seo Ho-jin inside.
I handed over the taxi fare—the second time today—and added a request.

“Please take good care of him. Safe driving all the way home, please.”
“Haha, of course! Don’t worry.”

His ears flushed slightly, embarrassed by my plea.

“Hyung, how old do you think I am?”
“Fourteen?”
“No, I’m just going to be four.”

I chuckled and was about to send the taxi off when Seo Ho-jin grabbed my arm.

“I’m sorry for hitting you that day.”
“Your apologies sure come quick, you insubordinate little brother.”
“Come on, getting hit with flowers—that’s a first-time experience for you, right?”
“I’ve already been hit with flowers before.”
“What?”

There was that one time.
I glanced away awkwardly, but Seo Ho-jin tilted his head curiously and asked.

“To whom?”
“Why do you need to know?”

As if he were about to dig into my history.
My younger brother shrugged his shoulders with an expression that said he could already predict everything, then burst into laughter.

“Anyway, chill out a bit and live your life, Hyung.”

How much more could I chill out here?
Any further and I’d be ascending to heaven as an angel.
I closed the taxi door and smiled softly.

“Go.”

Watching the taxi disappear into the distance, I realized that the real Seo Ho-jin in front of me had grown far more than the Seo Ho-jin in my head.
As I made my way to the dormitory and checked my phone, messages from Joo Woo-sung came pouring in.

[Joo Woo-sung: Wow;;;]
[Joo Woo-sung: Yo yo yo is that guy your younger brother or older brother]
[Joo Woo-sung: Oh wait he called you hyung so he’s gotta be the younger one]
[Joo Woo-sung: Insane resemblance]

The messages reeked of alcohol.
My brow furrowed involuntarily.
The one person I wanted to avoid had just blurted out the exact thing I didn’t want revealed.

[Me: Bullshit]
[Me: Go home and get some sleep]
[Joo Woo-sung: Can’t tell from the face tho]
[Joo Woo-sung: Expression]
[Joo Woo-sung: Eyes]
[Joo Woo-sung: Attitude]
[Joo Woo-sung: Vibes]
[Joo Woo-sung: Seo Ho-yoon 2.0;;;;;]

It was the most absurd thing I’d heard all day.
Just moments ago, I’d confirmed he was growing up perfectly normally. Where was he getting this comparison from?
Not bothering to reply, I left him on read and headed into the dormitory when Jung Da-jun came rushing over.

“Brother, Ho, Ho, could you maybe just call Ho-jin once…?!”
“No.”

I gave Kang Yi-chae and Jung Da-jun, the architects of this whole scheme, a playful flick on the forehead each. Sung Ji-won got a pass.
Then I entered the bedroom, collapsed onto the bed, and spent a long moment studying the photograph Seo Ho-jin had given me.
I gazed at ten-year-old Seo Ho-jin’s chubby cheeks, then examined our mother’s face—the one he resembled so distinctly—before my eyes finally settled on our father’s face, which bore such a striking similarity to my own.

“Mm….”

My chest ached, yet a faint sense of contentment bloomed within me.
I considered carrying it in my wallet, but feared losing it or having it leak out, so I slipped it between the pages of a book on the nightstand instead.

Right now, only memory gave me substance—gave me existence.
Sometimes that reality terrified me deeply.
Yet the fact that there had been a time when my entire family was together, just like in this photograph, rarely offered me solace.

I closed my eyes.
I shifted my body a few times on the bed before sinking gradually into deeper sleep.

***

“Alright!!”

Jung Da-jun slammed the whiteboard with a sharp rap.

“Come on, everyone! Let’s dig deep and keep pushing forward!!”
“Yeahhh….”
“Yeah, yeah―.”

Everyone else responded like zombies, barely mustering the energy to cheer, but Jung Da-jun alone radiated boundless vigor.

“Why’s he so fired up all of a sudden?”
“He got a perfect score on the road test.”
“What?! Jung Da-jun?!”
“He made such a fuss about getting his license the moment he turned eighteen.”

I lifted my head sharply from where I’d been slumped against the table in exhaustion, and Jung Da-jun flashed me a proud, grinning smile.

“Hyung, the maknae will burn it down with the comfort of unwavering stability!!”
“That’s not really necessary.”

Jung Da-jun didn’t even listen to me as he slapped his driver’s license onto the whiteboard with a decisive thwack, then stared at the members with bright, eager eyes.

“This is our 11th comeback meeting!!”

With the concert successfully wrapped up, The Dun had safely settled into the second division and thrown themselves into comeback preparations.
Kang Yi-chae, who had continued working even during Shining Star Season 2, had produced songs across various genres.
Among them, there was a track that struck the perfect balance between uniqueness and mass appeal, earning an overwhelming evaluation from the A&R Team and passing unanimously as a B-side.

“Wait, this actually works??”

It was a fresh yet poignant unrequited love song with an oddly distinctive flavor—and knowing Kang Yi-chae’s usual style as I did, I couldn’t help but be astounded the more I listened to it.

“…Kang Yi-chae, hey.”
“What.”
“That…”
“…”
“Could it be…?”
“…”
“…Are you dating someone?”
“—Are you joking?!”

Kang Yi-chae’s expression turned sharp and serious.
I mean, the song was just so remarkably soft.
Or maybe not.

“Ugh… I’m actually annoyed now.”

As I awkwardly looked away, Kang Yi-chae glared at me and spoke.

“It’s not that. I’m just trying to challenge myself with as much variety as possible.”

Then he turned on his phone and showed me a message. It was a conversation with Chung Beom.
Lim Hyun-sung had answered his question about how to write a love song.

[God-Genius Composer!!: My disciple]
[God-Genius Composer!!: Love is just an illusion…]
[God-Genius Composer!!: People don’t actually want to know reality anyway, so just marinate your brain in like ten disgustingly sweet romantic comedies]
[Me: Truly worthy of the Composer’s wisdom]

Had Lim Hyun-sung turned cynical again?
I clicked my tongue watching Lim Hyun-sung revert to her sardonic self, as if all that California sunshine had evaporated.

“So following the master’s teachings, I curated ten masterpieces, crammed them into my head, and created this. It’s actually pretty fun.”
“Does your heart race?! You said you only put songs on the album if your heart races!!”

Kang Yi-chae offered a bittersweet smile.

“As long as it makes someone else’s heart race….”
“…!!!”

Kang Yi-chae, who had once only preached rock and hip-hop, seemed to have finally grasped reality and decided to compromise slightly.

“Oh my little rapper…. What do we do, our Hyung? He’s becoming a real person.”

The track was genuinely excellent.
Kang Yi-chae’s natural talent aligned perfectly with his passion, creating a synergistic effect.
But his taste couldn’t always be accepted by the masses.

“If I only insist on my own preferences, I can’t share them with the fans.”
“Exactly. Just follow the scent of money.”
“Sigh….”

Even though I offered advice from beside him, Kang Yi-chae just sighed heavily while looking at me, then turned his head away sharply.
Just then, Lee Ji-hyun burst through the Conference Room door.

“What’s this? Why is a driver’s license stuck on the whiteboard?”

Lee Ji-hyun seemed slightly flustered but quickly regained her composure, setting down a proposal on the table as she spoke.

“I’ve reviewed the outputs you’re working on with the A&R Team. The genre diversity is incredible.”
“Yep, just pick and choose whatever suits your fancy.”

Lee Ji-hyun gave a thumbs up to Kang Yi-chae, who responded with a sly grin.

“I had so many concerns. Whether to prioritize broader appeal or solidify our core fanbase. But then it suddenly hit me—I couldn’t waste this moment while we’re in the spotlight. The right move was to create a concept that could captivate people’s very souls.”

Lee Ji-hyun uncapped a marker and began writing on the whiteboard.

“Avocado and rib steak?”
“Just don’t say whatever random food comes to mind.”

Jung Da-jun had squinted at Lee Ji-hyun’s notoriously terrible handwriting, spotted the characters for “Apocalypse,” and blurted that out.
Lee Ji-hyun shook her finger side to side.

“It’s ‘Apocalypse Trilogy’—pick whatever you want. There’s definitely something here you’ll like.”

Then she pulled out a paper from beneath the proposal and handed copies to each member.

“It took me about a year and a half to figure out what concept actually works.”
“What is it?”

Lee Ji-hyun swept her sharp gaze across us.

“Fresh, pure, sexy, cocky moments.”

My mind was reeling trying to process whether that was even proper Korean when Lee Ji-hyun wrote something else on the whiteboard.

“What does that mean?”

Sung Ji-won tilted his head in confusion, and Lee Ji-hyun suddenly pointed at me.

“That person. Especially the final part.”
“…What?!”
“Hey, how did you understand that?”

Sung Ji-won snapped his fingers as if it all made sense now.
After everything I do for him?!
As I protested indignantly, Kang Yi-chae burst into giggles from across the table. I tried to shut him up by kicking under the table, but he dodged nimbly—and Kim Sung-hyun took the hit instead, yelping out in pain.
I turned my attention back to Lee Ji-hyun, pretending I had nothing to do with it.

“Are you confident you can pull off the sexy and pure concept?”

Lee Ji-hyun concluded decisively that the fans loved it, and there was no one foolish enough to argue.

“I was planning to go with a slave concept anyway.”
“…That’s not bad?”

Taking it a step further, Lee Ji-hyun’s eyes gleamed as she eagerly seized on the idea.
As long as it sold in the market, whether it was a slave concept, ancient civilization mythology concept, or anything else—we had to do it, she said with such genuine conviction that I left the moved Lee Ji-hyun to her thoughts and turned my gaze to the members.

“But who’s going to play the villain? I’ll go with fresh, pure, and sexy.”
“Can someone please establish a law that makes Seo Ho-yoon less shameless….”

I was laughing at Kim Sung-hyun, who was muttering while rubbing his shin as if it hurt, when Lee Ji-hyun suddenly slammed both hands on the table.

“Before that! There’s one more important matter I need to convey.”

Then, with a serious expression, she looked directly at me, Kim Sung-hyun, and Kang Yi-chae—only the three of us.

“Since it’s summer, you’ve all built up your bodies nicely, right?”
“….”
“….”
“….”

The three of us, understanding her meaning immediately, fell silent.
If it made money.
If the public liked it.
If the fans wanted it.
This time, she was saying she’d strip us completely bare and feed us to them.

.
.
.

After going through dozens more meetings, the comeback teaser photos finally made their way into the world.

[What the hell is this]

The Noeul fans descended on the photos like madness, released one by one on each date.

[Collapse…]

There was an overwhelming amount to discuss—the costumes, the concept, the faces, the faces, the faces, the faces, the faces.
But setting everything else aside, there was one thing that stood out unmistakably in the comeback teaser photos.

It was that Kang Yi-chae—

[Just kill me already…]

—had black hair.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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