DON'T DATE THE DJ

META: Cola. Peridot. Brooklyn. Flash & Morning, Paris, JT, Mimi. 2015/The Drinking Scandal.

WRITING: AN EPITAPH IN PROSE (1k): Here lies Cory, and long live Cola. PRODUCED BY SHIGEKI KOUSHIRO (5k): The ballad of Cory and Koushiro. LIFE SUCKS FOR EVERYBODY (4k): Just a quick favour. LIKENESS (1k): What's so bad about Pure Heroine? GRADUATION (2k): It's time to grow up. (Side Story)

DISCOGRAPHY: PERIDOT | TBA COLA | Pretty Everlasting (2015), ICON (2017), Richer Than God (2019)

“Y’know,” Cory says as he enters the main room. Migum is leaning against a booth, thumbs flying across his screen. They don’t stop until he’s hit send, not even as his eyeline diverts itself up to meet Cory. Cory doesn’t know what it feels like to have such confidence that you can send a text off like it’s nothing. He has to reread it a thousand times. “Someone’s missing.”

Migum’s face drops, immediately settling into an expression of very clear bemusement. “Cause he wasn’t in the music video I got the statues from. I’m not gonna pay for one.” He says, voice flat.

“Yeah, but the only reason he’s not on that song with us is because we didn’t invite him.” Cory points out. “When you add everything together, it looks a little bad. It’ll look that way to, like… fans, too, I mean, and especially to people who don’t like us.”

“Okay, then you can be the one to ask JT to pose for a statue.” Migum dismisses, which makes Cory understand that he’s not going to get his point, which is that there doesn’t need to be any statues of anybody in the entrance of any nightclub. “I feel like you were kidding, but he actually would start talking about the perils of deifying celebrities or whatever. He literally doesn’t want to be famous.”

“He’s still associated with this place as much as we are. He’s gonna think it’s a slight,” Cory chirps. He knows Migum’s brain; someone made something big and cool and shiny with his face on it and he wants to show it to as many people as possible. But Je t’aime seems to live for finding reasons to feel excluded.

“Oh no, is he gonna be mad at me?” Migum exhales in an overblown faux shaky tone. ”What do you think he’ll do to me? Ignore me for a couple of weeks? Or say something to Paris behind my back?”

“If you don’t care, then take all the blame yourself,” Is all Cory has to say. He couldn’t get involved even if he wanted to. It’s impossible for the pair of them to hold a conversation these days, and If he fights with Je t’aime, Brooklyn’s going to take it upon himself to play mediator again. He can’t think of a worse way to kick off the summer.

“Yeah. Story of my life,” Migum scoffs, as if he’s not the only one to have really gotten away scott-free. As if he’s not the only one who could ever dream of pulling a stunt like buying this place and rebranding it back to how it was, reminding everyone of the one thing Cory and the girls have worked their asses off trying to make them forget. “By the way, you can’t be referencing Pure Heroine in 2023. It’s dated. You used to be cool, Coke.”

“Whatever, I haven’t had time to develop many new interests.” Cory tuts out, scripted dialogue for conversations about how he’s old now. He drops into the seat of the booth. It feels weird. “I sorta missed the last ten years.”

“Ten.” Migum repeats, dumbly. “That’s the first time I thought about the fact it’s been ten years. That means it’s been ten years since we met, too.”

Cory hadn’t thought much about that, either. For a second, he tries to think about those days, but it’s hard to isolate any of them anymore. They’d happened so quickly and he’d been fully present for so little of it. It had been fun, but that’s where he has to leave it. Thinking too much about that kind of fun isn’t a good idea, and it’s already kind of stupid just to be here at all. Even in the day, even when he’s just with Migum, who he trusts to beat the shit out of him if he even looks towards the bar. He feels a pit in his stomach like when he misses someone terribly, and clears his throat, forcing himself out of his head and back to his friend. “And look where we still are.” He snorts weakly, gesturing to Flash around him. It’s always a little unsettling, but home always has been.

Migum hums. “You know, Cola, we’ve done pretty well, all things considered.”

Each word is a needle. The tempest in his chest pulses and washes through his veins, and the waves crash with a realization that splinters Cory's heart. 

It'll be eleven years this year. And for the twentieth or so time in his life, he loses all respect for Karina Oh. 

“Mom didn’t tell you?” Cory asks, and when a panic sparks in Woosung’s eyes, Cory suddenly wants nothing more than to run out of the cafe and never look back. But he doesn’t, a question forms on Woosung’s lips, though it doesn’t make it to the air. Cory must have grief on his face; the way he always did whenever Adam became the topic of conversation. He takes a deep breath, hand wrapping around the mug of hot chocolate he'd bought because he doesn’t like coffee. “Adam, um… I’m sorry you have to hear it from me, but Adam passed away.”

The silence in the air is heavy. Cory's eyes flicker down to the rich brown ocean in his white mug, internally cringing when Woosung asks the questions he always dreads most.

“What?” Woosung snaps loudly. His voice almost sounds angry, and Cory feels irrationally afraid, the way he always does when men take even the slightest negative tone with him. “How? When?”

Cory bites his lip. “A long time ago. He was fifteen. I think it might have been meningitis. But I’m not really sure, they didn’t tell me much at the time because I was a kid, and I've never felt ready to ask. I'm sorry.” 

There's another pregnant pause, and Cory is frightened to look up, and suddenly a fist falls down on the table with a thud that splashes a few drops of Cory's hot chocolate out of his mug. Cory hears himself wince, audibly, shoulders tensing, and every instinct is pointing towards flight. He cannot be around angry men. He tries to rationalize with himself that Woosung isn’t angry at him, he’s just angry, but it does little to quell the fear. 

“How can you not be sure how your own fucking brother died?” Woosung barks. Cory feels guilty tears well in his eyes, and urges them not to fall.

“I- I was only thirteen-”

“And in the decade that passed you never thought about it again? It never seemed like important fucking information to you?” Woosung isn’t truly yelling, but he talks in a cadence that suggests he would be were they not so surrounded by onlookers. A fleck of spittle flicks from his lip as he hits a harsh consonant; and Cory, who’s neurotic under stress as is, has the sense to train his eyes as far from where it lands as he possibly can. 

“Please stop it.” Cory chokes out. His voice quivers over the lump in his throat. He sounds like a child and he hates himself for it. He hates feeling like he’s being scolded by a man who has spent the past twenty-one years pretending he wasn’t his son. “I want to know but I'm too frightened. He was my best friend. Please stop yelling at me.” 

Cory looks up at Woosung, and perhaps it’s the tears in his eyes, but his angry expression softens. He lets out a long sigh, burying his face in his hands. “I'm sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry, Cory. I've upset you. This is just a lot for me.” He shakes his head, pushing a hand under his baseball cap, as if to smooth hair that isn’t there. “To find out that you’ve lost a son… you have no idea what that feels like.”

And all of a sudden, as if a slideshow had triggered in his head, everything flashes by. Karina wailing into Seweryn’s chest. Fat tears rolling down Seweryn's angular face. Anniversaries where they’d send balloons into the sky. The sound of Brooklyn crying himself to sleep through the wall. 

Cory used to sit alone in his bedroom, after everyone had gone to sleep, playing home videos on his bedroom TV, watching as he and Adam and a tiny little Brooklyn danced a self-made routine to a Destiny’s Child song. They’d had to bribe Adam into being the third, and Brooklyn had declared himself, against his rank on the pecking order, the Beyoncé. 

‘Just suck it up, Cor’,’ Adam had said, as Cory started to protest. ‘You have to be Kelly Rowland sometimes. That’s what being a big brother is about.’ 

He remembers rewinding and replaying the same segment of footage, barely a second long. Just replaying the word ‘Cor’.’ Just to hear it in his voice again.

“Are you insane?” Cory asks, grip tightening on his mug. The words pour from his mouth before he even realizes he’s speaking. “I have no idea? I have no idea? You didn’t even know him. You didn’t lose him, you abandoned him. We lost him. Brook found him lying dead in his bed. He was eleven years old and he still has nightmares about it. I hear him waking up screaming to this day. No idea!?” 

Woosung hangs his head, sighing. For a second, Cory’s worried that he’s going to yell for real, or that maybe he’d just burnt a bridge forever. That would probably be fine with him, if he’s totally honest, but it wasn’t fair on Brooklyn.

“Look, I’m sorry, I just-”

“No, you’re right.” Woosung cuts in, looking back up at Cory with a guilty expression. Cory can’t help but be relieved, because he didn’t really know where he was going with that. “That was a shitty thing to say, I’m sorry.”

Cory offers a weak smile in forgiveness, and Woosung sits in silence for a minute or so before dropping his face into his hands. He stays there for a while, and Cory can do nothing but look around the room and wonder if he shouldn’t have just made up some fake life Adam could have hypothetically had, with a fake job and a fake wife, something that would make Woosung happy instead of whatever this is. But that would feel awful, and if Woosung truly cared about Adam, he would have found this out for himself by now, whether Karina was willing to pick up the phone and call or not.

Once the quiet grows unbearable, Cory takes a sharp inhale, folding his arms across the table and leaning in, trying his best not to let the tension get to him. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, Woosung-nim. It must be a shock. If you’d like me to leave-” 

“I…” Woosung looks up to him with an intake of breath, eyes dry and still blocking out the inside. He puffs from the corners of his mouth and shakes his head.  “Don’t be silly, I’ll process it in my own time. This is meant to be about getting to know you.”

The words come with a look of expectation, as if urging him to provide some information about himself. Cory nods, shuffling uncomfortably. “Well, uh, I guess you know about my job, and stuff. Uh… I’m living in Gangnam, with Brooklyn and Daphne.” 

“Daphne?” Woosung asks. 

“My auntie Helena’s daughter. She’s one of the twins, her and Émile. They’re only a year younger than I am, so I imagine you’d have met them when they were born.” 

“Right, right, Helena’s twins. I remember her oldest is Flora. But your aunt picked complicated names, it’s hard to remember them. She had three kids too, right?” 

Cola takes a sip of his hot chocolate and thinks that neither Daphne nor Émile are that ‘complicated.’ It’s not like anyone would hold it against Woosung for forgetting the names of his ex-sister-in-law's kids, not when he’d only known them as infants and had been out of the family’s lives in less than a year after their birth. He wonders what the point is in making excuses. “She had another boy a few years after those two. His name is George but we all call him Georgie, he’s still in high school. Anyway, they're all still in Queens, besides Daph. She’s here for school, and I have a room, so better that than having her worry about rent in Seoul.” 

“It’s nice that you kids are together. I’m glad you’re close.” 

“Yeah,” Cory says, and then a little pointedly, “My family is very important to me.” 

Woosung furrows his brow and doesn’t say anything. Neither of them do, for a while, not until a waitress comes to ask if they’d like anything else, and Woosung says no before Cory can say that he’s starting to feel a little hungry and wouldn’t mind a bagel, or something. She’s off to another table in seconds. 

“Anyway, what brings you to Seoul?” Cory asks. The only information Karina had ever volunteered about Woosung was that he lived in Manhattan and has some kind of job related to the stock market. Cory knew nothing about stocks beyond having seen Wolf of Wall Street, and even then he’d only really taken interest in Margot Robbie’s character. For the first fourteen years of Cory’s life, he’d felt weird about the fact that his birth dad was within driving distance and yet he’d never met him, that he could have even passed him on his way to school or sat by him on the train and been none the wiser. When they’d moved to Korea, however, Woosung had completely dropped out of his head. “Have you moved here, now?”

He’d sometimes vaguely worried, whenever he had gone back to New York to perform or promote with Peridot, that Woosung may show up and surprise him, but it had never happened. Seoul was the last place he’d expected to run into him. Woosung wasn’t supposed to be a factor in Seoul. 

Woosung draws his lips into a line and looks downwards. “Shit kinda hit the fan at my old job,” he says, in a tone of voice that makes Cory remember a little more about what happens in Wolf of Wall Street, though he can’t imagine the fall of Woosung’s career was anything so extreme. Dramatic or not, he never hears the story, as it’s Woosung breezes past the statement quick, almost as if he’s purposefully avoiding elaboration. “I wanted a fresh start, y’know? I have an underclassman from college here, so he’s been helping me out.” 

Cory can't describe it, but something uncomfortable begins to stir in his stomach. “That’s nice of him,” he says, because he has to say something. 

“It’s not like he’s putting me up for free, or anything.” Woosung suddenly says, though Cory had had no reason to believe so. “He runs a business, so I’ve been helping him out with that.” 

“Right. Like a café or something?” Cory asks. It just seems like the likeliest option. Many of the older staff at RNN have stories of trying to open a little cafe or takeout place in Seoul; whether it was their brainchild or someone in their family. The little hole in the wall on some side street that blossoms into a franchise across the country is kind of like the Korean dream - that or just getting a job at some big company. 

“No, nothing so pedestrian. It’s a cool idea. He’s got this truck and he’s like filled it up with all these video game consoles, so he like drives it around so kids can come play.”

Cory furrows his eyebrows. “And he makes money from that?” He asks, incredulously. It slips his tongue before he can stop it. Fortunately, Woosung doesn’t seem to take it the way Cory meant it, and instead nods a little enthusiastically. 

“I mean, it’s a fresh idea, right?” He asks with a smug grin.

‘No,’ Thinks Cory, but knows better than to voice that one aloud. He’d definitely seen those before; but he hadn’t ever really seen one that seemed to be doing very well. He purses his lips, raises his eyebrows and gives a small nod, feigning interest. “So do people hire him for, like, weddings and stuff, or-”

“Sometimes, but he mostly just drives it around different neighbourhoods and stops. People take interest because it’s such a novel thing, you know, and kids love it.” 

Cory breathes in through his nose. “Well, it’s good that you’re work-“

“The only thing is, is that a lot of the consoles are kinda outdated, you know, and the games themselves just keep getting more and more expensive…” Woosung trails off, face setting backwards as he eyes Cory a little too carefully, as if trying to gauge his expression. Because of that, Cory makes a point to keep it neutral. 

“Yeah,” He laughs, trying to redirect the conversation from where he fears it’s going. “I remember when I was a kid, a new game was like thirty, thirty-five dollars, and now-”

“If we could get some backing behind it, we’d be able to upgrade our stuff, then we could charge more and get more interest in us in general.” Woosung once more interrupts to state. 

Cory bites the inside of his cheek, and pretends not to notice that it’s gone from ‘he’ to ‘we.’ “I see.” 

“So, you know, if you’re in a position to offer your cousins free room and board in Gangnam, and all, it kinda sounds like investing your money could-“

“Woosung-nim, didn't you sell stock for a living?” Cory cuts in firmly. It feels as if he had been slapped in the face. He had been wary, of course, to meet his birth father. It had felt odd, and Cory couldn’t have possibly imagined what he would have wanted to talk to him about two decades after walking out on him, but for some reason, he hadn’t expected this. He laughs slightly. How on earth could he have not expected this? “This is Seoul city. There’s an internet café on every corner. Anyone who can't just play video games at home is just going to go to one of those, where they can stay as long as they want and get, like, hot food and stuff. You have to know enough about investing to know that nobody in their right mind would ever back this. It’s a side hustle at best.” 

Woosung ducks his head. “I might not be as up to date with these things as kids your age are, but-”

“I don’t buy it. To do the job you did for so long, you have to be more intelligent than this.” Cory says. He can see a twitch in Woosung’s eyebrow, and it reignites the anxiety in him, that he might get angry, but now Cory is getting angry himself. He might just be a silly blonde pop singer, but he’s not a complete idiot. “I think you’re trying to scam me.” 

Woosung’s shoulders deflate. “So it’s not just Karina’s face you got,” he says, and has the nerve to look at him kind of fondly. “I could never bullshit her either. Fuck… I’ve really messed this up between us, haven’t I?” 

“Yup.” Cory mutters. “Astronomically.”

He pushes his chair back from his knees and makes to stand. Woosung beats him to it, and places a hand firmly on his shoulder. “Look, Cory, I didn’t call you here to take advantage of you, it’s just…”

Cory looks up at him and tries to swallow the nervousness in his throat. For all intents and purposes, this is a stranger. A stranger who’s putting his hand on him; who has been so distant that he doesn’t even know that that’s the one thing that’s guaranteed to upset him. He has no idea why. No idea that Cory was missing for a year, how he’d spent his fourteenth birthday,  what happened to him. He doesn’t know anything, not even his confirmation name.

And Cory knows just as much about Jung Woosung.

“There is no video game van, is there?” He asks. Woosung doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. It’s written all over his face. “Why bother making up such a ridiculous lie? Did you read that I liked video games on Namu Wiki or something? What would make you think I’d want to put money into something so random even if I did fall for it? You could have just asked. If you need money, you could have been honest and asked me and I might have said yes.” 

“I’m just… I’m in a lot of trouble, Cory. I’m in a lot of debt, and the interest just keeps raking up and I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost everything. And I never should have come here, but I did, I was weak and I ran away, and now if I step foot back in America I seriously think they’re going to kill me, or something-”

“Why should I care if they do?” Cola blurts out. Woosung pulls back his hand as if he’s been burnt. “It never had any effect on your life when one of us died. Why should we worry for your life?” 

“I… If someone had told me about Adam, of course I would have… I’m your dad.” 

“Excuse me?” Cory scoffs. “No, you’re not. You’re just my mom’s ex. My dad is called Seweryn Osada. You’re nothing to me.”

Woosung sits back down, looking as if he’s just been sentenced to death. Cory regards him, and maybe it’s the look of fear on his face; and it’s almost totally due to whose face it resembles. He can’t help but picture Brooklyn looking so hopeless, and so he can’t help but feel a little pity. And, he supposes, at the end of the day, this man is fifty percent of the reason that Cory is here. Against his better judgement, against every one of his brains’ wishes, his heart forces him to say; 

“How much?”

Woosung looks up at him with some wary hope, but it’s mostly embarrassment in his eyes. “In won, it’d be seven hundred and twenty five million. To round it up.” 

Cory closes his eyes for a few seconds. He'd have to make sure he’s credited on pretty much any song Peridot put out over the next few years, and he’s probably going to have to take a lot of gigs he’d probably turn down otherwise, but eventually, he’d make it back. Still, it’s enough to put a noticeable dent in everything he’d saved up since he started earning. 

“Well,” he says, speaking slowly, as he fishes a pen out of the pocket of the overcoat hanging on the back of his chair, reaching for a napkin to scribble down a phone number. “Round it back down. Then give me a couple of days to move some stuff around and call this number. It’s my manager. I’ll explain to her. Give her your details and she’ll transfer it to you. Speak to her nicely, or you won't get a penny.” 

Woosung looks at him as if he’s Jesus Christ, reaching out to clasp his hands in his. Cory pulls away harshly. 

“The condition,” he does his best to keep his voice firm, “is that once you get this money, you never, ever contact me again. And more importantly, don’t ever even dream of pulling something like this on Brook. He’s nowhere near as kind as me and a lot more prone to violence.” 

That’s not necessarily true, Brooklyn was only prone to violence when it came to Cory pestering him. In fact, his heart was far more open and he was worryingly easy to manipulate. Brooklyn would give away the clothes off his back to keep another person warm. Cory won’t let him be put in this kind of position. 

“You have no idea how much I appreciate this, Cory. You have no idea. You’re saving my life. I don’t deserve this.”

“No, you don’t.” Cory says, and he has to wonder why he feels so let down. It’s not as if he’d been excited to meet Woosung, but maybe there was a part of him that’d hoped it would at least go well. He stands and this time Woosung makes no effort to stop him. “Anyway, nice meeting you, I guess.” 

“Goodbye, Cory,” Woosung says, desperately trying to make eye contact as he stares up at him with too much earnest. Cory refuses to let their gazes connect. “I promise to try and pay you back, at least as much as I can. Thank you so much. And thank you for meeting with me.” 

Cory looks down at where he sits, and fantasises about punching him hard enough to shatter his nose, but all he does is nod once, in a final sense. 

Just as the homemade music video for TBH had hit it's peak of unwanted attention, the invitation to perform at FLASH came. CORY OH, (b. 25.09.1997) who had only been making songs for fun and hadn't ever meant for hundreds of thousands of people to hear them, had had the first instinct to ignore it. The only time he'd ever been in front of an audience was when he'd played Romeo in Junior High, and that hadn't involved rapping out loud in front of drunk people. It was JT, CORY's best friend, who convinced him to go. They played the show together, dragging their classmate PARIS LIM along as a familiar face, and would meet DIADEM trainee AHN MIGUM that night. As they continued to come back to the club, both to work and just hang out, MIGUM would introuduce them to his girlfriend RYU MIMI, a trainee under OHJANG ENTERTAINMENT, rounding out the lineup. Cola would become such a common performer at FLASH that he'd eventually be hired by the club to host the weekly event CANDY FROM STRANGERS each Friday. At this event, COLA would sometimes perform his own music; and always play a DJ set, usually featuring guest performances from some or all of the other club kids. Due to a high level of activity online and a tendency to bicker with his critics, COLA became one of the most known and most polarising of the five acts, especially following his debut in the k-pop group PERIDOT in 2014. His signing to STC MEDIA at the end of September 2013 and the subsequent deactivation of his social media accounts and end of CANDY FROM STRANGERS effectively killed off the online fad surrounding the kids until FLASH would resurface in the media in 2015.

It'd already been months since AHN MIGUM (b. 10.05.1996) skipped out on the fares for both the ferry from HEUKSANDO to MOKPO and the train from MOKPO to SEOUL. Running away from life in seclusion to be a star in the big city was old news; he'd already gotten signed, gone back home to actually get permission on account of some stupid law, booked five modelling gigs just by going to casting calls on his days off, and played a recurring character on TV before the night he'd snuck into FLASH and met CORY. MIGUM was just there to party that night, and most of the nights after it. MIGUM performed the least out of the five, only releasing two songs in 2013, yet his smalltime teen drama notoriety was responsibile for the largest percentage of their fanbase. MIGUM trained at the record label DIADEM ENTERTAINMENT before, during and after the FLASH era. He debuted as the main rapper and visual of the boy group GLORYDAZE in 2015, taking the stage name MORNING, (like A.M., get it?) which he'd keep even after leaving the group in 2022, as the only member not to renew his contract with DIADEM. He is currently active as a solo artist and a model, having become known as a prominent figure in fashion.

Everything about FLASH felt like pure freedom, and the only cure for the dullness of the overly-charmed life of PARIS LIM, (b. 11.03.1997) heiress to a chain of luxury department stores across Asia. Even though her first time attending wasn't to perform, PARIS already knew more about making and writing music than any of the others. Proficient in several instruments and on-track to graduate from high school early, PARIS had always planned for a career in music; but while she'd expected to find success in the field after earning her degree, she had been uploading music online recreationally under the name PRINCESS PARI$. It wasn’t long before she was pitching a setlist of her own to the club, desperate to join her classmates on stage. After being introduced to MIMI, the girls become fast friends who greatly enjoyed collaborating with one another, forming an informal duo known as PARI$&MIMI, releasing two short mixtapes together in 2013. PARIS would drop her iconic dollar sign and be signed by AOK ENTERTAINMENT in 2015, making her debut as the main rapper and leader of girl group SAKHMET in 2016. PARIS was the last to stop performing at FLASH, and legend has it she can often still be spotted stumbling down Homo Hill on a Saturday night to this day.

Though he would never admit it, JE T'AIME 'JT' EUN (b. 16.06.1997) has never understood how all of this luck and oppurtunity had just fallen on CORY's lap; yet nobody had ever cared about any of the songs he'd put on the internet. JT had written songs and made music his whole life, and CORY had just started doing it one day because it sounded like fun. And it had been fun, to make music with CORY; some of the most fun JT ever had. Playing FLASH had been fun the first couple of times too; it's just that making music with COLA wasn't quite the same thing as it was with CORY; and the more time they were spending in clubs, the more those felt like seperate people. Struggling to live in the shadow of someone stumbling their way through his life's goal, JT stopped appearing at FLASH or being seen with the others long before the end of the summer. Still, through recommendation of MIGUM, JT signed to DIADEM ENTERTAINMENT as a trainee after finishing high school, who pushed him into competing on the survival show IDOL:IZE in 2017. JT ranked in 6th place, and was launched headfirst into the chaotic schedules of the project group iD. In the two years the group promoted, JT was worked to the bone until, to his horror, JE T'AIME had become a household name; though he was mostly famous for looking tired and miserable all the time. Seemingly not enjoying the popstar life he'd once felt robbed of after all, JT has once more taken a background role, now rarely appearing anywhere other than a production credit.

Though the internet treats her the harshest of all, it's not hard to see that RYU MIMI (b.02.08.1996) scored the most notable career out of the five FLASH kids. Already signed to OHJANG ENTERTAINMENT by the time she started playing at FLASH and working as one half of PARI$&MIMI, her debut as a member of BOUQUET was already under preparation, the unveiling of the girl group only a matter of months away when the article dropped. Shortly followed by the exposure of her relationship with MORNING, MIMI was met with the most severe backlash of anyone and was subject to several more hits to her character as false rumours spread rampantly, leading to her removal from BOUQUET shortly before the group’s debut. Dropped from her label and left with nothing as her friends shot up into stardom and her relationship crumbled, MIMI was shunned from several labels until she was signed to RNN ENTERTAINMENT in 2017, two years after their acquisition of COLA’s group, PERIDOT. The next year she debuted as a member of BRAT, a girl group posed from the beginning as a rival to BOUQUET; everything about BRAT seemingly conceptualised to be opposite to BOUQUET. Unlike their struggling counterparts, however, BRAT debuted to huge success, reaching international audiences and becoming the final nail in the coffin for OHJANG ENTERTAINMENT, effectively ending their decades-long rivalry with RNN. In 2024, MIMI resigned her contract alongside the other girls of BRAT just in time to set out on their second world tour.

Inversely, many who felt that the backlash COLA had received over the previous two years of his career was undeserved appreciated his approach and saw humour in the lyrics of TRUTH OR DARE. The music video takes these themes even further; a mockumentary-style 'documentation' of the preparations for PRETTY EVERLASTING, featuring fictitious scenes portraying COLA engaging in less than ideal behaviour, such as sleeping in for studio sessions, causing trouble for stylists by mocking their choices, and blowing off PERIDOT schedules. The video is intercut with several mock interviews with friends and collaborators of COLA such as SHIGEKI KOUSHIRO, his fellow PERIDOT members, staff of RNN ENTERTAINMENT, and friends MORNING and MIMI, fellow idols known for once performing alongside a pre-debut COLA at the nightclub FLASH. Within the interviews, each person gives a negative statement about COLA, generally playing into his reputation as spoiled, selfish and lazy.

Although TRUTH OR DARE was written by COLA and met with good humour by the vast majority, the track would also become emblematic of RNN’s proclivity for utilising controversy and hate to promote COLA’s work; even the conception of PRETTY EVERLASTING itself having been accused of being a product of just that due to the lack of full album from PERIDOT. Though the song was instrumental in building COLA’s image as an open book lyricist with a sharp wit, it also contributed to negative opinions of him as petulant and attention-seeking. Due to the conversation surrounding the song, TRUTH OR DARE became COLA’s highest charting single at the time, reaching a peak of 20. As those who’s first introduction to COLA was TRUTH OR DARE decided to find out the lore for themselves, the rest of COLA’s independently released music as well as PERIDOT’s previous title tracks both received a modest spike in hits/streams as a result of TRUTH OR DARE’s release. COLA listed the BRITNEY SPEARS songs MY PREROGATIVE (originally by BOBBY BROWN) and PIECE OF ME as loose conceptual inspirations for TRUTH OR DARE. The song’s slowly built instrumental intro and COLA’s subsequent opening line (“hello, may I say something?”) is canonized by fans as an early iconic moment.

TRACKLISTING ㅤㅤ. . .ㅤㅤOutside of those who had written the album off purely because it was being released at all, PRETTY EVERLASTING dropped to a somewhat positive reception; though it put up a weak fight on the charts, the record was well-liked amongst critics, who commented on the large amount of growth in COLA as an artist in the short time since his independant days, praising him for his exploration of genres and for taking a relatively unexpected route from his mixtapes. COLA was also noted for his involvement in writing lyrics and in particular his vocal performance; singing rather than rapping on every song, in opposition to his role within PERIDOT. However, many were uncomfortable with certain lyrical themes within the record, particularly in relation to COLA's young age.

PRETTY EVERLASTING would be the first time COLA would work with now-longtime collaborator SHIGEKI KOUSHIRO, who executive produced the album, holding credits across the entire tracklist. The record was made with very little outside influence beyond SHIGEKI and COLA, though ONG JISEOK, CEO of RNN ENTERTAINMENT, took part in the creation of tracks 비틀비틀 (Stumbling) and BAD RELIGION, per tradition of his involvement in any RNN act's debut effort. The production of PRETTY EVERLASTING recieved vast praise and set an expectation for high production quality from COLA from there out.

Of the album, music journalist Jang Hyeko wrote; "Though TRUTH OR DARE sees COLA make a bid for enfant terrible as he plays on past scandal and pokes fun at his naysayers, the biggest themes throughout PRETTY EVERLASTING seem to be an absense of identity and sense of self, and most simply; how weird it feels to be a teenage K-pop idol. COLA's lyrics are at their best when they're brutally honest, providing a strange insight into child stardom given as it happens rather than reflected upon by an adult mind. This theme may have had to be snuck past RNN's CEO, ONG JISEOK, because it seems to fly completely over his head. COLA has writing credits on most of these songs, moslty co-writing beside SHIGEKI KOUSHIRO, but 비틀비틀 (Stumbling) and BAD RELIGION were both penned by the labelhead. Where the rest of PRETTY EVERLASTING's lyrics are largely introspective and vulnerable, even behind the sarcasm of tracks like TRUTH OR DARE, these two songs seem far less personal.

"Frankly, Ong's lyrics are jarring; 비틀비틀 (Stumbling) is so full of innuendo that it was promptly banned when they tried to drop it as the pre-single, but BAD RELIGION doesn't even bother with the wink or the nudge, and is just blatantly sexual. SHIGEKI's solid production does it's best to tie these songs into COLA's soundscape, e.g the SPICE GIRLS sample in 비틀비틀 (Stumbling), and COLA gives them the exact vocal performance they call for - which is uncomfortable on an album otherwise so fully characterised by teenage angst, released on it's artist's eighteenth birthday. Issues like these are not uncommon amongst RNN's younger acts; including SHIGEKI himself back in the day, but it makes you wonder how the rest of PRETTY EVERLASTING was ever greenlit at all. It seems as if marketing COLA through controversy is of such importance to ONG JISEOK that even letting him sing to the country the psychological effects of RNN's bad business practice is on the table."

001. TEENAGE DREAM. Written by Cola. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

002. THE JUNGLE BOOK. Written by Cola, Shigeki Koushiro. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

003. GLASSES. Written by Cola. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

004. 비틀비틀 (Stumbling). Written by Ong Jiseok. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro, Ong Jiseok. Samples Say You'll Be There by Spice Girls.

005. TRUTH OR DARE. Written by Cola, Shigeki Koushiro. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

006. SELF-FULFILLED PROPHECY. Written by Cola, Shigeki Koushiro. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

007. 10-20-40. Written by Cola, Shigeki Koushiro. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

008. BAD RELIGION. Written by Ong Jiseok. Produced by Shigeki Koushiro.

He buries his face in his hands, sighing through his fingers. He hears her suck in a shaky breath, and he doesn’t want to scare her. He just can’t think of anything to say. 

“You don’t have to be involved. I’m not going to ruin your career. I promise. I’m gonna leave L.O.V, leave the industry, I think…” He hears her shift, and though he’s not looking it’s as if he can see her, understand her body language just from the vague sensation of motion. She’s speaking calmly and slowly, having obviously rehearsed her words, but he’s gotten good enough at reading her to know that she’s not happy about giving her career up. “The press won’t find out unless they find out themselves, and I don’t have to say it’s yours. Everyone already thinks I’m a…” 

She hesitates for a second, letting an uncomfortable silence cloak the hotel room. Koushiro rests back in the uncomfortable chair, raising his head from his hands to look at her. He thins his lips. 

“Well,” she presses on. “They’ve made up their minds about me.” 

It’s not fair. They’re children. 

“You don’t need to do that.” He says. She looks at him, finally. She meets his eyes with determination. 

“I’m keeping it.” She says, in a final kind of way. “I don’t expect you to understand, but-“

“I’m not saying that.” Koushiro tells her. He reaches out to take her hand. She tenses. He knows that she’s still hurt, and he’s about to pull away, but she laces their fingers together. It’s not about love, or anything. Not anymore. But they’re in this together, now, he supposes. 

“I’m seriously not asking you to-“

“This is my problem too,” Koushiro says. He regrets it immediately; Hayana looks at him unsurely, and he shakes his head. “Not problem, but, like… you know.”

Hayana brings herself to laugh a little. “Yeah, I do.” She lets a few minutes pass, and Koushiro decides to as well. He holds her hand until her wrist twitches and she pulls away, and then she says, somewhat gravely; “So, what, we’re seriously gonna have a baby? And just, like… co-parent it?”

Something sprouts in him then. Maybe it’s reality. It shoots up quickly in the pit of his stomach, branching off into the muffled sound of crying through the wall, the empty spot on the shoe rack, weekends full of auditions and a smack for each misstep. Training rooms, sweat, tears, chronic pain, photoshoots with his shirt off at fifteen. 

Koushiro, Japan’s kid brother, just seventeen years old, is to be a father. 

“Guess so.” He says, as the balloon in his brain threatens to pop.

05.04.2013 Koushiro had only been a member of SF Nation for four years. It felt a lot longer than that. He was only thirteen when they finally put him in the lineup, though he’d trained for a year and a half before then. He’d grown five inches taller since he debuted. His voice had dropped a few octaves, and he thinks he’s already fallen in and out of love once. It feels like he’s lived a whole life in this group. But for all that had happened, his would be the second shortest service in SF Nation after 1996, when Kawakami Aoi was the first member to graduate, one year after the group’s debut. 

Around the halls of RNN Japan, Kawakami Aoi was a dirty name. Nobody knows why he graduated, but most people credit him with the necessity for the system in the first place. Had he not left, SF Nation likely would have been a by-the-books five piece boyband. Koushiro knows that this is taken as one of the labels most notorious fuck-ups, but he’s never really understood why. Had they not cycled members in and out, there’s no way the group would still hold relevance and top charts eighteen years later. 

SF Nation was a few months older than him. It had been a staple in pop culture for his entire life. Discussions of his graduation aligning with his eighteenth birthday had been happening for months. Koushiro’s childhood had been given to carrying the group into a new generation of idols. His prepubescent face had become synonymous with SF Nation, and his coming-of-age only served to represent just how much of a relic they’d become. 

Back in South Korea, the RNN mothership was remodeling itself for the future. If they wanted to keep their iron grip on the Japanese market throughout their projected reign upon the next chapter of pop music, SF Nation would need to be restructured alongside it. Whatever vision they have for this new era, Koushiro isn’t privy to it. He doesn’t need to be; he doesn’t factor into it.

When he and Hayana had visited Ong Jiseok and told him that she was carrying Koushiro’s baby and intent on keeping it, he handled it with a shocking amount of grace. Koushiro had only met the man a handful of other times, but he’d seen him fly off the handle almost as many. The youngest members of his highest earning acts in the two markets he relies upon most harboring this level of scandal should have sent him nuclear. But it didn’t. Maybe he expected it, or maybe the fact everyone already knew they’d dated had caused so much trouble that he was just glad to have a reason to see the back of them. 

Or maybe he’s not as disconnected a father as Koushiro had thought. Hayana is Deokhye’s groupmate, her friend, her age. Maybe he actually had some sympathy for her. Maybe the part of him that’s a dad is able to take over from the part that’s a boss sometimes.

Jiseok wasn’t a saint though, and all those previous talks about a post-Nation solo deal and acting career for Koushiro came to an absolute halt. But his greatest contribution to RNN had always been production; he’d given the group contemporary hits when they’d still been riding the coattails of a pop rock song from the 90s two decades later. They’d take him on as a member of their in-house production team, with the necessity of a pseudonym still to be seen. 

Hayana had been offered no such contract. She’ll just leave.

His birthday isn’t for another few months, but RNN wants his intent to leave out in the open before Hayana starts showing. Under contract, Koushiro isn’t allowed to tell anybody that the baby is his, but they still want him out just in case anyone finds out. They’d sent him back to Japan almost instantly, just in time to cancel the announcement of his hiatus and just in time for SF Nation’s annual Tokyo Dome show. Apparently his safety is, suddenly, no longer so under threat that he needs to hide away in South Korea. 

It had only been a week since a man had written him a letter in a muddy brownish-red ink that he has to force himself to believe is ink, threatening a brutal and detailed murder as repayment for ‘taking the innocence’ of ‘his’ Hayana. That was just the most viscerally alarming. He could no longer look at his instagram account for the number of men threatening violence against him. One of the managers had shaken Koushiro awake at 4am and hurried him into a car with tinted windows, spiriting him away to the airport hours ahead of schedule. Someone had gotten wind of the fact he’d be in attendance after all, and called the company and issued a threat at the meet-and-greet of the 14th Annual 1 NATION Festival. They told them they were bringing a gun. 

They’d upped security and he was going to skip the meet-and-greet, but he’d done the show. Applause had been quieter around his parts of the songs for months, but this time people seemed to make it a point to scream for him. He thinks they know what’s coming. It’s a small comfort to know that some people will miss him. It’s a nice enough feeling to somewhat offset the anxiety of what he’s about to do, and a slight distraction from the fact he may soon be murdered. It’s not a huge comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

“Excuse me,” he says, right before Makoto queues the last song. The sound guys know to wait for him, anyway. The only ones left in the dark are his members. “Before we finish, I have something I’d like to say.” 

The audience gasp. It’s been the opening line for at least ten of these announcements, Koushiro thinks. It’s kinder in a way, to clue the fans in. Around him, a couple of mics pick up the uttered surprise of the fourteen boys around him. They chip away at some of the resolve in him. He looks to his left and meets Makoto’s eyes. They’d joined the group at the same time, and he’d watched Makoto rise up the ranks to become leader. They’d seen each other through everything. He thinks Makoto knew this was coming too. He should have told him. 

He hesitates. 

“I joined SF Nation right before my thirteenth birthday.” He says, pulling his eyes away from Makoto as soon as he feels a lump forming in his throat. “I was a fan ever since I was a kid, but that’s not why I joined. I joined SF Nation to make money to help my mom take care of my little brother. It was really difficult on me at first, because I felt a lot of pressure to do well, but thanks to the older guys, I made most of my best memories as part of SF Nation, and when the new boys started to join, it stopped feeling like work at all,” 

He hears Makoto sniff beside him and, in desperation to look anywhere but at him, he makes the mistake of looking to his left. From his place in the formation, six of his members stare at him in varying levels of shock, varying levels of upset. To his immediate side, Kondou Aoi (known as Aoki, to avoid any potential invocation of the undesirable Kawakami Aoi) has already started to cry. 

Koushiro doesn’t want to do this. 

“I’ve caused my members and you guys a lot of stress this year. I love SF Nation, and I’ve given everything to make it work. I’ve worked hard with the goal of making sure we can stand on this stage every year. For every step of progress, we’ve run into another obstacle, and through perseverance we’ve overcome them all together. But now, the thing standing in the way is my fault. I’m not the little kid most of you remember me as. I clearly still have a lot of growing up to do, but I’m old enough now to be expected to do the right thing.” 

Makoto’s hand wraps around his wrist and he doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to leave. This is his home. It’s where he grew up. He’d seen five graduations in his tenure and he knew how much it hurt to have it sprung on you, and he hates himself for doing this to them when he so desperately wants to stay. He’s letting RNN use him like a puppet. Playing lamb to sacrifice to save their reputation, even amidst the melodrama of the apparent threat of a bullet in his skull before the night is up. He’s Kawakami Aoi.

“All good things come to an end,” Koushiro says, voice crackling. “So on May 6th, 2013, my eighteenth birthday…” 

He doesn’t mean to pause. He’s not twisted. It’s not to build suspense, no matter what people are going to comment online. It’s just that he has to choke the words out. His throat resists them all the way. He doesn’t want to do this. 

“I, Shigeki Koushiro, will graduate from SF Nation.” 

Tokyo Dome decides to like him again and roars in grief. Kamiya Makoto crumples to his knees. Koushiro, Japan’s kid brother, just seventeen years old, is to be a father. 

Cory looks up from the headphones to Koushiro’s face, and realizes that he has to give him an answer. “Are you annoyed that you have to work with me?” Cory asks, instead. He just blurts it out; it’s kind of embarrassing, but he supposes it’s been on his mind. He wouldn’t blame Koushiro if he didn’t want to work with him. Cory hadn’t had a choice in the matter and so he doubted that he did either. The Cola label had a habit of dragging anything it touched under scrutiny; and Koushiro’s reputation wasn’t stellar to begin with. Cory’s not sure that he’d want to work with himself either.

“I’m not annoyed,” Koushiro says, in a tone of voice that makes him sound like he’s lying. “I see why they paired us up.” 

Cory has to think about that, for a second. In a way, he’d grown accustomed to blindly following orders that didn’t make sense at STC. The move to RNN had brought about a lot of changes, but questioning instructions hadn’t been one of them. 

“I don’t,” He says. “I hadn’t even thought about why.” 

Koushiro regards him for a second. Cory doesn’t like it; it feels as if he’s trying to read him, judge if he’s smart or not. 

“Controversy,” He says, bluntly. It makes Cory snort; just at how self-important it sounds, and Koushiro quirks an eyebrow. “You don’t think that’s why?” 

“I can’t imagine so,” Cory says. 

“Oh, you can’t?” Koushiro echoes mockingly, a smirk decorating his face. 

Cory scoffs a little defensively, doubting his own savvy. Instinctively, he decides upon a strong dislike for Koushiro. It’s a wriggling feeling in his chest, somewhere between rage and anxiety, like when the boys in his class would ask him mundane questions and snicker no matter his response, and the punchline was him alone. Somehow, it feels more disturbing with no audience to be entertained.

“What would they gain to remind everyone of our scandals?” Cory asks. All formality is dropped in his tone; he speaks down to Koushiro as if he’s stupid, as if that’s enough to position himself as smarter, as if that would give him any superiority. 

“As scandals go, they’re pretty marketable ones.” Koushiro shrugs, fishing his phone out of his pocket. He never seems to be able to give Cory more than half of his attention at a time. That’s another reason he’s an asshole. “I got kicked out of SF Nation cause RNN wasn’t selling them as boys who got girls pregnant and didn’t marry them. But there’s still people who’ll be my fan, and those people will probably be willing to support underage delinquents like you. And when everyone else gets offended, they’ll become fanatical about us.” 

Cory folds his arms. None of that makes him feel comfortable at all. None of it feels right. He’s an idol. He’s supposed to appeal to the masses. That’s what RNN had said they’d help him do. 

“I don’t think anybody thinks I’m a delinquent.” Cory mumbles. 

“Right, but maybe it’s better if they do. Right now, you’re in a different position from the other boys because people saw how you were before you were trying to be an idol. You were covered in glitter playing Fin.K.L bootlegs in gay clubs. That’s not what STC were selling, and it’s not what RNN bought. But people also know that you and your other little gay rapper friends were all drinking underage. And that gives RNN’s edgy new boy group a little bit of real, tangible edge. So now it’s my job to help ruin your reputation a little bit more, so that the next producer can write you a really good song about your ruined reputation to win everyone back over.” 

Cory is silent for quite a few minutes. He doesn’t speak until Koushiro reaches for his headphones again, and when he does, it comes out quiet and weak and he hates how much he sounds like a kid. “He said he’d help me make everyone forget.”

He doesn’t say his name, but Koushiro must know who he means, because he just laughs. He twitches his head to the side, and says, “What a nice guy.” 

Cory sighs, letting his shoulders deflate. “I hate these songs,” he says. “And I know you must hate them too, because I’ve listened to a bunch of your demos.”

“How? Those are private.”

Cory draws in his lips, eyes drifting off to the side. “Well, you’re the one who always leaves me waiting in here alone with your computer, so it’s kinda on you…” 

Koushiro smirks again, though it’s brief. He shrugs again, clearly trying to paint his features in a more professional light. “This is what the label ordered. They want to piss people off.” 

“Well okay, but I’ve been so good at doing that on my own.” Cory presses, almost sounding as if he’s begging. “I know I’m just a beginner compared to you, but me and my friend made all of my music before I joined Peridot. I do kind of know what I’m doing, and people liked my lyrics. You don’t have to let me put my name on it, you don’t even have to let me write, just please give me a say. It might be a stunt to them, but this is like… my first album. Please help me make it good.” 

Koushiro pauses for a second, before exhaling slowly. He drops his hands back into his lap, tucking his phone under his leg and twisting his chair around to face Cory fully. 

“Okay, kid.” He says. Cory thinks he’s about two years older than him. “What kind of song do you wanna make?”

24.08.2016. “Kou-shi-“ Cory opens the door to the studio with a clatter, it’s solid metal handle thumping roughly into dry-wall. At the desk, Shigeki Koushiro flinches in fright, hair raising on his tattooed arms; his hoodie is draped over the back of his chair and his hair, curled from the August humidity, is uncharacteristically uncovered. “Rohh!” Cory finishes, a little anticlimactically as he kicks the door shut behind him. 

“Jesus, Coke,” Koushiro curses. “I’m fucking working.”

“It’s just Jumin-hyung.” Cory dismisses, kicking out of his slides at the door and waddling over the slippery linoleum floors in his white socks. He peers through the window to the recording booth and waves at Jumin, who greets him with the middle finger; which is par for the course. Cory offers his own finger back with a cheerful smile, before hoisting himself up to sit on Koushiro’s desk. “I came to show you something. Guess what I have in my pockets.” 

“The 50000 won you borrowed from me last month.” Koushiro suggests with a pointed tone. Cory just rolls his eyes and reaches into the deep pockets of his green parka, from which he produces a small rodent each. 

“I’m a mother now.” He announces, thrusting the rats into Koushiro’s face. 

Koushiro yelps, pushing himself backwards in his chair, scooting his feet along the linoleum to wheel as much distance between him and the rats as he could manage in the small studio. “What the fuck are those!?” He demands. 

“They’re dogs.” Cory answers dryly, as if Koushiro is the dumbest person on the planet. All the commotion must have been enough to get Jumin to look up from his phone, because the recording booth door soon swings open roughly. 

“What are those?” Jumin echoes, pointing accusingly at Cory’s new beloved pets. 

“These are my rats,” Cory answers, feeling a rising defensiveness in his chest. He cradles them close to his chest. “Their names are Lourdes and Matilda and I just adopted them.”

“You need to throw those things out onto the street where they belong.” Koushiro says, voice wavering. “Those are wild animals.” 

“Oh, c’mon.” Cory rolls his eyes. “They’re, like, bred domestically, or something. They’re just hamsters but, like, cuter.” 

"And you had to get two?" Jumin asks, raising his eyebrows. "Did you ask Sanhae-hyung?"

Cola frowns. "I don't need his permission, it's my money. Anyway, you have to get two. All the websites said you need to get at least two of them. They need a friend to live with."

Jumin gets closer, looking down at the rats inquisitively. He offers a hesitant finger towards Matilda, seemingly satisfied when she, equally bashful, slightly nudges her face against it. “They’re actually cute.” He says. 

“Vermin.” Koushiro spits. 

“Scaredy-cat.” Cory bites back. It’s not very clever, but it shuts him up, so he takes it as a victory. 

02.01.2017. “I don’t know why you’ve done this to yourself,” Koushiro says, tuttingly. He’d been going on to the same effect all day, but no matter how clear he’s been making his disapproval, he’d still arrived at Cory’s apartment bright and early to fuss over him. 

Cory appreciates that side of things, but with a heavy bandage around his nose and a numb face, he doesn’t really understand the point of chastising him for the operation now that it’s over and done with. It’s not like he can go and ask for his old nose back, after all. 

“I never thought I’d see an SF Nation member take an anti-plastic surgery stance.” He says, pausing for breath where he can get it. 

Koushiro offers him a middle finger. “I’m not an SF Nation member anymore, and I’ve never had any cosmetic surgery.” 

“Good for you, I have.” Cory grumbles, sinking lower into his bed. 

“It just healed, too.” Koushiro shakes his head. Cory feels an overwhelming urge to grab something and launch it at his head, but he’s too drugged up to find any energy to. 

“Okay, I fell and broke it before, so let’s not make it sound like I’m getting back to back surgeries. This is literally my first time.” 

“What about your eyes?” 

Cory thins his lips. “That’s just a vicious rumor,” he says. 

“Why’d you get a nose job without asking RNN, Cory?” Koushiro asks. Cory winces at the use of his real name - it makes him feel like he’s being scolded, somehow. “It’s not the kind of thing you just decide to do on a whim. Not a month before a comeback.”

“It healed crooked.” Cory says, reluctantly. Koushiro throws his head back, sighing in frustration. Cory feels irritation rousing in him and snaps; “What?”

“This again,” Koushiro groans.

A spike of anger shoots through Cory, and he pushes himself up into a sitting position, doing his best not to show the way his brain slushes around in his skull at the momentum. “Yes, this again!” He slurs as the room wiggles. “Because it healed crooked!” 

“Nobody would have ever noticed-“

“They would have, and you know it. They’d zoom in and hunt for any fucking thing they could find wrong with me. I’ve hated my nose for my whole life, Kou, I’d literally start, like, cutting myself or something if people started being mean to me about it.” 

Koushiro grimaces. “Okay,” he says. “Stop threatening self harm all the time.” 

Cory frowns. He lets Koushiro fall down onto the bed next to him, dropping his head against his shoulder. “They didn’t do much. They just straightened it back up and smoothed the bump out.” 

“I liked that little bump.” Koushiro laments. Cory doesn’t like the weird feeling of guilt that stirs up in his stomach. It was his mother’s nose bump. 

“It’ll look better on camera this way.” 

“I’ll miss it.”

“Why?” 

“It was Cory.” 

Cory doesn’t really know how to swallow that one. He coughs a little bit and hunts for the remote amongst his bed-sheets to turn the television on so that something other than Koushiro can fill the quiet. 

“Stop calling me that,” he mutters. 

11.12.2017. “My mom and dad think he’s in love with you.” It’s Brooklyn’s voice. It’s the first thing Cory hears as he wakes up. He hears it before he even opens his eyes. He can smell something chemical, and hear the beeping and the soft hum of machinery. It throws him off ease. Takes him somewhere bad. Better to just keep his eyes closed. 

“I don’t think he is.” The voice is deeper. Just as familiar as Brooklyn’s. Koushiro. Comforting. 

“Yeah,” It’s Brooklyn again. They must be sitting together. They’ll have been waiting for him. They’ll be worried. It would be easier on all of them if he just opened his eyes and let them know he was okay, but doesn’t do it. “Me neither.” 

“What do you think?” Koushiro asks. It’s quiet for a while. 

“You remind him of our big brother.” 

It feels numb. 

“I didn’t know you guys had a big brother.” Koushiro says. Why would he know? Cory had never mentioned it. “Where’s he?” 

Quiet for another little while. Brooklyn is upset. Cory doesn’t need to see or hear him to know that. Cory doesn’t need to feel himself to know that. 

“He died when he was fifteen. I was eleven.” He must point at Cory then, or gesture, or something. “Thirteen.” 

He can kind of remember being on the floor. Someone had spoken to him. He’d thought he was dying and he’d thought it was Adam. That Adam had come to collect him.

“Shit.” Koushiro says, after a heavy second. After another few comes an uncertain “Sorry for your loss.” 

Brooklyn sighs. “He was like you. Like, he was really into music, and stuff. You know, how you’re like… angsty about it, or whatever.” 

Koushiro seems to find being insulted funny. That’s one of the ways that he’s like a real adult. “Angsty?” 

Brooklyn laughs in a shy kind of way. “Or whatever, like, artsy… Anyway, I’m comparing you to my dead brother so you kinda gotta take that as a compliment, dude.” 

Koushiro doesn’t say anything, but he must smile, or something. Koushiro can communicate things through looks. Make them okay. 

“I think he finds him wherever he goes.” Brooklyn says again, after a while. “Je t’aime- that was his friend, I know it’s a weird name. His mom is like, a crazy- like, he had this friend called Je t’aime, and he was kind of like him too. But then when they stopped being friends, it was like he lost Adam all over again.” 

“He won’t lose me.” Koushiro says. 

“He might,” Brooklyn counters. “Like, he might. Realistically. You can’t make promises. He’s an addict.” 

Completely numb. 

Nobody says anything. When Brooklyn does, his voice is crackly, and he sniffs between his words. “I found Adam. I went to wake him for dinner and I found him in his bed.” 

Cory can’t remember clearly. Brooklyn was coming and he’d forgotten. He’s not sure how he got there but he was on the floor. And Brooklyn had brought his friend, and Adam had been gone for a long time. 

“Brook…” Koushiro’s voice is uncertain. It doesn’t exactly promise the end of the sentence.

“Please, Koushiro-hyung. He’ll listen to you. I really don't want to lose my big brother. I really don't want to be the only one left.” 

There’s another long pause. It swells until the tension feels like an anvil on Cory’s chest. “I’ll try to get him help, that I can promise.” Koushiro says. “But he has to want it.”

“I think he will,” Brooklyn says, quietly. 

“You think a lot, huh?” 

“It’s gotten me this far.” 

They fall into a silence that seems comfortable for them, but each second just leaves Cory to think about his little brother walking in and thinking he was dead. Brooklyn’s friend had been the one to help him- they’re on the same show, he was a Peridot fan and Cory had promised to meet him. It was an easy thing to do for Brooklyn. Instead, he’d traumatized that little boy one more time. 

Brooklyn hadn’t been able to move. He’d stood in the bathroom door and just cried and hadn’t said a single word until his friend went to phone an ambulance and Brooklyn’d told him to call the CEO instead. ‘Trust me,’ he’d said ‘for his own sake.’

“You should go home and get some sleep. I’ll call and let you know when he wakes up.” Koushiro eventually says. It comes shortly after Brooklyn stifles a yawn. Cory knows that it’s his clue to speak up and let Brooklyn know he’s fine, give him a bit more of an easier rest, but he can’t. He can’t bring himself to face him yet. He can’t bear the weight of everything there is to apologise for.

“Okay,” Brooklyn says tiredly, and the plastic ends of his chair scrape against the smooth floor. “Do let me know, though, yeah? Even if it’s like, 4am.” 

“Scout’s honour.” Koushiro swears. Brooklyn’s shoes squeak against the floor, and Koushiro says, “Hey, Brook,” 

“Yes, hyung?” 

“Congrats, by the way. Tenth out of a hundred. Not bad.” 

“Thanks,” Brooklyn says. Cory supposes the results are in. Yet another moment he’d ruined. “Made it by the skin of my teeth, but, I guess I still made it.” 

“You’re in the group, that’s what matters. I’m proud of you, kid. Voted every week.” 

Brooklyn laughs. “Thanks hyung. It’s pretty crazy. I’m an idol now.”

Completely fucking numb.

18.05.2018. Cory storms out of the greenroom, phone pressed tight to his ear. There’s a mounting panic in his chest, and he grips Jianliang’s shoulder as he passes him in the corridor, spinning him around. He looks at Cory with an indignant expression, eyes flickering up and down. 

“What’s up with you?” 

“Where’s Koushiro?” He barks. Jianliang makes a non-committal sound that somewhat resembles ‘I don’t know,’ and mutters something about psychos as Cory unhands him and sets back off down the hallway. 

His phone is still crowing out each ring of Koushiro’s. It’s only amplifying the unrest in Cory’s head. He’s about to tear it away and hang up when there’s a click, and muffled by a thump bassline is a familiar voice. 

“Hello?” Koushiro has the nerve to sound confused as to why Cory’s calling. Cory sighs. 

“You said you’d be here,” he complains. “I’m, like, freaking out.” 

“What is it this time?”

Cory holds his left arm, resting against the thinly painted wall. They were backstage at a venue; Peridot’s first ever American show. Cory thinks that they’re doing New York first as some kind of symbolic gesture of his homecoming. But that wasn’t communicated with him, and he’s not sure he really appreciates it. 

“You make me feel like such a nuisance to you sometimes, you know that?” 

“Nuisance.” Koushiro scoffs. “You talk like a fucking Oliver Twist character.” 

“Yeah, well,” Cory frowns. “You’re the worst moral support ever. You realize that the reason I invited you was so you’d be here right now, right?” 

“I am here, I’m at the bar. You need me in the greenroom to hold your hand?” Koushiro says. “You don’t need me around to kill it. You never have.” With his nerves as they are, Cory struggles to stomach the earnest in his words.

“Don’t try to distract me with compliments.” Cory warns.

“But you’re both the Britney Spears and the Virgin Mary of this generation.” Koushiro offers.

Cory just sighs. “That’s true, but both of them needed help at some point. What are you doing out there anyway?”

“I wanna watch the show from the audience, is that so bad? And I was also talking to a really pretty girl, but you kinda cramped my style and now she’s gone back to her friends, so thanks for that.”

Cory scrunches his face up. “That’s disgusting. You’re a father.” 

“Yeah but I’m not a husband, I can’t talk to girls?” Koushiro laughs. “Look, you’ll get out there and you’ll do what you do best. You don’t need to put any pressure on yourself about it being New York, because it’s not like you take it easy in Seoul. I promise you, you’ll be fine.”

Cory rolls his eyes; and he can’t help but feel like it’s a very flowery, very elaborate way to get away with abandoning him to drink and chat women up, but it does clear some of the noise from his skull. 

“Thanks, Kou,” He says, because he supposes that he should. “And leave my fans alone.”

“Hey Coke,” Koushiro cuts in, just before Cory is about to hang up. “Give ‘em hell, kid.”

20.11.2019. “Let me out!” Cory demands. There are tears streaming down his face, snot running from his nose. He knows that he’s not a pretty sight. He really couldn’t care less. “Please, Kou, he’s just in the parking lot, if you don’t trust me, then can’t you just go and get it for me, just this once, please-.” 

“I’m not doing that, Cory.” Koushiro says. His face is blank, but Cory can see the pain in his eyes. In a better state of mind, he’d care. It’d break him to see. Right now all it does is piss him off. He’s sick of having to worry about that stuff. Cory’s the one that this hurts.

“This is the only thing that’s going to make me feel better.” Cory insists. Koushiro’s locked them in the studio - the ‘Cola Room,’ pink and subterranean, two things that are supposed to make him happy. It’s kind of laughable. He has a fucking Hello Kitty Special Edition SEGA Dreamcast in here. It’s like a plastic Pharaoh’s tomb. He needs to get out. Koushiro won’t let that happen. Cory pushes himself up in his face, but Koushiro doesn’t flinch. “You’re denying me the one fucking thing that’ll stop me from killing myself, Koushiro.” 

“Cory, if you take anything right now, you are killing your-“ 

“Stop fucking calling me that!” Cory is overcome by rage, swinging his hand upwards, palm spread out. It collides roughly with Koushiro’s cheek, but he still doesn’t move an inch. It leaves Cory feeling stupid, so he digs his nails in deep, scratching down Koushiro’s cheek as he pulls his hand away. He closes his eyes at that. Cory can see his shoulders begin to tremble, hear his breath shaking. 

“Why?” There’s a croak in his voice. Cory thinks he could kill him. Could just start hitting him and not stop until he can never cry again. He doesn’t do it, though. That’s something, maybe. 

“Why what?” Cory demands.

“Why can’t I call you Cory?” Koushiro asks. “I’m your friend, and that’s your name.” 

“He’s gone,” Cory says, voice steely. It’s nothing he hasn’t said before. “They killed-“

“Oh, enough!” Koushiro loses his patience and yells. Cory stumbles backwards, blinking to himself. It does nothing to bring him back to reality - Koushiro should know that. He can’t be around angry men. “Get the fuck over yourself! You were not the first fucking kid to get famous! You think I auditioned for SF Nation at eleven fucking years old as a fun after-school activity? My mom couldn’t pay the bills and I had a baby brother, and someone needed to pay for his food!” 

“Don’t fucking shout at me-“

“It’s time somebody fucking did!” Koushiro yells. “You’re not the first person to ever have a hard life, Cory. You can’t keep living your life as a perpetual fucking victim and then whining that you’re depressed.”

It stings. It feels like Cory’s been slapped in the face. 

“But they’re sabotaging me, Kou,” Cory says. It’s a quick change of the subject, it’s desperate. It feels pathetic even while he’s dumping the words out, hands overcompensating and doing nothing but making him look even more manic than he’s already feeling. “They banned every fucking song on the album, it’s fucking- It’s because I’m actually getting success and they know I’m gay! They have to make sure that I don’t make so many people like me that it won’t matter if they out me. Like, they need to keep me in fear of them!” 

“Who’s ‘they,’ Cory?” Koushiro asks, a tired look on his face. “The broadcasting station, the government, the bad men in the sky? This is the worst case scenario, but you wrote those songs knowing they could be controversial-“

“Some of this is total bullshit, though-“ 

“You knew this could happen.” Koushiro stresses. “You named the album ‘Richer Than God and Twice as Pretty.’ You can’t now act like you weren’t trying to stir up controversy.” 

“I don’t do that.” Cory spits. He gets back in Koushiro’s face, puffing out his chest in a weak attempt to be threatening. He feels about three feet tall. “I don’t do that shit, I am not him. Do not fucking imply I’m like him.” 

“Sonic Adventure 2.” Koushiro says. 

They’re three very simple words. Utter nonsense to anybody else, but to Cory they’re like an MK Ultra trigger. He shoves Koushiro with all the strength he can find within himself. Koushiro actually staggers backwards, back thumping against the studio door. Cory puffs out a twisted sort of laugh, a thump of what he imagines must be testosterone swelling in his chest. 

“What, now you’re insulting my work?” 

“It’s not ‘work,’ Cory, it’s a bunch of fucking garbage you made when you were stoned out of our mind.” 

“Yeah, you know what, you’re right. I was. I was stoned. That’s a drug, right? So I was still doing drugs, right, cause now and forever all I’ll ever be is a stupid fucking junkie. I know all of this Koushiro, I’m aware and I’m so at peace with it. So let me the fuck out of this room or go and get me my fucking coke!” Cory yells so loud his voice breaks; louder than he naturally can, normally quiet as a mouse. A tear falls from Koushiro’s eye. It’s almost too perfect, he’s too handsome, and the LED lights halo him in pink. It’s not fair. He gets to be beautiful even now, when Cory is scraping the remains of his face off of rock bottom. 

Only fucking SF Nation member never to mess with his face and he easily bodies all thirty-three, or however many there is. That’s another reason he’s an asshole. Cory hates him so much that he can barely focus on what he says. He hates him for crying. He hates him for caring. 

“Contrary to what you seem to believe, I’m not your bitch.” Koushiro laughs, finally rubbing at the side of his face. “I’m not your gofer, I’m not your manager, I’m not really your producer anymore either. I’m the dumb bastard running your company for you because I actually went to school; which isn’t something I’m obligated to fucking do. Yet I do it, because you’re my fucking friend, Cory. But if you throw yourself off the wagon right now, then I can’t be your friend anymore.” 

Cory just stares at him, and he knew that this would happen, eventually. It always does. “You’re not my friend anymore,” He mimics, adopting a childlike intonation. He pouts cruelly, before dropping back to his natural tone and letting his face fall with it. “Jesus Christ. Are you twelve years old?” 

Koushiro stares him down, saying nothing. Cory feels a tension building inside him; there’s a part of him that starts to fear that he’s about to be hit, and with each passing second it hammers away at the rest of him. 

And then Koushiro laughs, shaking his head. “It doesn’t work on me.” He says, raising his hands. “You make fun of me all the time, Cokehead. You’re not gonna hurt my feelings.” 

Cory doesn’t know what to say. He feels caught out, like a deer in the headlights. A few more seconds pass, and with them, Cory feels the craving begin to subside. He imagines it’ll be a lasting tenant, at least for a little while. But it doesn’t seem so urgent anymore, and with blossoming lucidity follows a crushing embarrassment at the way he’s behaving. He takes a few steps back and then launches himself onto the studio couch. 

He pushes his face into the pillow and refuses to look up as Koushiro approaches. He stands over him, just hovering. 

“You done?” He asks, tentatively. Cory twists around in the couch and looks him in the eyes. “You can’t be doing The Basketball Diaries over party drugs, Cola, this is extreme.” 

“What am I going to do?” Cory asks. It feels like the weight of the world is truly on his shoulders. Sobriety had almost began to seem easy, with everything flying so high. But now his career was being fucked with, his relationship had crashed and burned, and the itch to numb it all felt stronger than it had even when he was using. 

“Sing 11:11,” Koushiro says, simply. “Cause it’s the only song that didn’t get banned by any station.” It’s a solution to the wrong problem, but Cory doesn’t even know if they’re going to speak to each other again after this. He’ll take it.

“Great,” he says. “A love song about the dude who just dumped me.”

“You should also move back in with the boys.”

There’s a helpful solution. Cory realises that he doesn’t want that, either. 

“No,” he answers, quickly.

“You need someone to keep an eye on you. I can’t do that, I have Suki.” Koushiro sits on the arm of the couch, looking down at Cory. 

“But Brook-“

“Brooklyn’s a grown man now, and he can look after himself for a month or two while you stay at the dorms. And he’ll still be there when you get back, in your house that you bought with money you earned. It’ll all still be there, Cory. But I can’t let you be on your own, right now. You will use, and then none of that stuff will be there waiting for you.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yes, Kou, okay.” Cory huffs. He pulls at the blanket on the back of the couch, letting it fall down atop him. 

“You sleeping here tonight?” 

“Yes, Koushiro~” Cory chirps sarcastically, irritation twanging in his words. He waits for Koushiro to start moving, he closes his eyes and expects the sound of footprints, the shuffle into his shoes, the slam of the door. After a minute passes and the sequence doesn’t come, he asks, “Are you staying with me?” 

Koushiro slips off of the arm of the couch and slinks over to the other one, poorly acting as if he’s forcing himself. 

“Of course I fuckin’ am.”

After they part the next morning, Koushiro is distant for what feels like forever.

21.09.2021. Cory nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his knuckle, twisting at his waist to rock side-to-side in his office chair. It’s not cheap, but its ergonomics feel a little ill in their design - a dull ache has formed in his lower back from six hours of sitting in it. (He’s used to aches though - as they say, if an acrobat hasn’t woken up in pain, it’s because they simply haven’t woken up.)

His left set of fingers twitch in their emptiness, staving off a deep-set craving for nicotine that he’s going to deny himself for as long as it takes to wrap things up and get home. He’s of very weak constitution and it’s an unfortunate fact that he’d never roll a joint without putting a little tobacco in it so he doesn’t choke on the inhale, and so technically, he had never actually given smoking up, but he’d force himself to battle withdrawal for a day or two because the satisfaction of an itch scratched bettered the payoff. It seemed a little fucked, psychologically, but as an American and, more importantly, a Catholic, he can’t imagine a little penance could hurt. Regardless, he hadn’t brought any cigarettes. 

“If you could ask Mr Kim to meet on Wednesday-“ he talks into the receiver, not an ounce of tiredness betrayed by the pristine phone-voice he’d co-opted from his mother. “- No, it can’t be Thursday, because I have to be there at the meeting; that thing about the stage costumes - Well, because I’m the one who has to wear them, sajang-nim. - Well, I'm free on Friday on paper, it's just that that that's my birthday. - No, it's not a national holiday. - No, I'm not Jesus.” 

It takes fifteen more minutes to reach the inevitable conclusion that he'd spend his twenty-fourth birthday meeting with Mr Kim, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping they’d just tell him to skip the meeting altogether. It was nothing overwhelmingly difficult; a talk with RNN Entertainment about switching distributors for his physical albums going forward. Cory doesn’t understand what it matters who distributes them so long as they get distributed, and is probably just going to nod and agree with everything RNN’s side suggest, but he wants them to start thinking of him as someone with at least a little bit of authority. Cory had decided, upon his somewhat-enforced-break from music, that he’d take a more active role in Chapel Records, including sitting in on the boring meetings. 

It hadn’t taken him long to remember that he had never even finished his freshman year of high school and the only profession he’d ever been trained for was teenage pop star. It had ultimately just ended up making Cory feel pathetic, to sit behind Koushiro and pretend he knew what everyone was talking about as he ran his company for him. But that’s what he gets for not paying his dues in the business world, is probably what his mother would say. You don’t go from nothing to an entire record label, is what she had actually said. 

It’s foreign to him, to feel lesser than in intellect. It’s bruise after bruise to the ego. But perhaps a little soul-crushing shame in his own lack of intelligence was just a part of learning. And anyway, he figures that anybody who grew up reading James Joyce novels and relating to Lisa Simpson like he did could only benefit from discovering that they’re not actually very smart. 

With a sigh, he drops the receiver of his office phone down and lets his head fall to the side, making eye contact with the wall-to-ceiling mirror on the back wall of the room, a constant reminder that upon request of an official office away from his recording studio, he, the so-called founder of the company, had been set up in an office that had been converted into a dance studio, only to be too small to be useful and turned hastily back into an office. The whole company building was a mess, and everything was in the wrong place, because Cory had been more concerned about making sure everything was cute rather than functional.

Cory sighs as he looks at himself and sees Cory Oh in his purest strain, as if all of his Co2 had bubbled away and in his tepidity lingered none of the glamour of his pink co-inhabitant.

Sure, some things about the most-external shell of the Cola Russian doll are not yet likely to chip away - like the pink car, which is a batmobilic symbol of ego in its own right. But as he regards himself, in his smart cashmere sweater and sensible slacks, he can’t help but wonder where the boy he used to see in the mirror went. 

It’s this weird sensation, right now, where Cory doesn’t really know himself anymore. For seven years his life had felt about six months long; constant recording and promoting and now that things have slowed down he just doesn’t know. When had he started dressing like a throwaway boyfriend in Friends? Where had it all gone? He used to wear vintage t-shirts boasting the names of punk bands that nobody (himself included) had ever heard of, used to doodle on jeans he’d buy two sizes too big, dye his hair fuschia on a whim, pierce or ink his flesh just because he was bored. 

Cory doesn’t know if these are just work clothes or if he’d grown into a more neutral sense of style. He doesn’t know if he stopped reading comic books or just doesn’t have the time anymore, he doesn’t know when he stopped swearing in front of the scary businessmen at RNN meetings or when he started learning their names and jobs and began to crave their peership. He frowns at the mirror, pulls at a bag under his eye and wonders why he’s twenty-four and why the fuck he’s not sixteen. The thing about being the weird kid, Koushiro had told him, last time he had this meltdown - is that you usually still grow up into a boring adult. 

For a second, Cory flicks the pad of his thumb over the side of his nose, where the scar of his healed-up piercing is, and then he turns his gaze back to the brain melting mush of words and numbers he’d been loading into a spreadsheet that he knows Koushiro is probably going to have to have to redo from square one tomorrow. He types in the numbers three and nine before a frustrated sigh tears through his throat and he closes out of the programme; because he doesn’t really understand what this is or why he’s doing it and he should probably just make himself actually useful and go downstairs to write a song, but he hasn’t been able to do that in months so he can’t. 

That longing for nicotine begins to mutate a little. He can feel it, twisting its tendrils around his insides. He lets out a weird gasp of recognition - this is the thread, he notices, that he could pull upon and unravel his whole life. He’s feeling particularly nostalgic lately, and what’s more Good Old Cola than a spontaneous self-destruction staged not during the hardest period of his life, but months after the dust settled and he had found himself comfortably back in stability? 

He plucks his phone from his pocket and pretends not to notice how light it is in his hand, gone are the overly-decorative cases and the tangle of charms weighing it down. 

It’s one of the few personal contacts he even has saved anymore. He raises the phone to his ear with humiliatingly symbolic ease and says, without waiting for a ‘hello,’ 

“Can you come pick me up? I’m at Chapel.”

“Why?” Asks Koushiro. “Did you crash the Barbie Jeep again?”

Cory, in the spur of the moment, decides to be honest. “No, I just think I’m going to do drugs, otherwise.” 

There’s silence for a few seconds. “Otherwise? Why do you fucking talk like that, man?” Koushiro asks, hanging up the phone. 

L2R : cho sanhae ('92), jeon kyunggu ('92), yoon jumin ('93), munemori madoka ('94), shen 'yara' jianliang ('96), cory 'cola' oh ('97)

The lineup would be no steadier upon debut. During the transition between STATIC and RNN in 2015, YARA was offered a large sum of money to sign with a huge agency in China. The offer came while the boys were actively seeking out labels, and with PERIDOT's future looking unclear, YARA accepted the deal and parted ways with the group to act in China. After appearing in three projects and getting slated for his acting skills in each one, YARA was dropped from the agency, and ended up rejoining PERIDOT again in 2018. Both his departure and his return hurt his reputation, with many to this day regarding him as self-serving or a traitor, in spite of the boys themselves not appearing to hold it against him; and frankly, the fact that he wasn't even good at acting really didn't help. While many criticised RNN's decision to accept him back, it certainly helped their reputation. The other five may have never outright left the group, but thanks to health issues, scandals, and military enlistment, the sight of PERIDOT with a missing member or two became more familiar than that of the complete group. By the end of their career, only MADOKA could boast that he'd promoted uninterrupted from the group's start until it's finish.

Since their disbandment in 2023, the boys of PERIDOT have largely gone their seperate ways. SANHAE has continued his solo music career, and is still far more relevant alone than he ever was in the group, having already collected two number one singles since the group disbanded. KYUNGGU has all but washed his hands of music, transitioning into TV and becoming a mainstay in the variety scene. JUMIN has ostensibly continued his music career as well, though outside of one single, his social media indicates he spends most of his time on vacation somewhere. MADOKA's first solo song was released a month after PERIDOT's final goodbye, and he's seemingly been taking every gig presented to him ever since - he's constantly promoting something or popping up at events he has no real business attending. YARA announced, in his words, a "maybe forever, maybe not" break from the entertainment industry following PERIDOT's disbandment, and is currently enrolled in university. He often goes live on Twitch and bans people for talking about PERIDOT.

Brooklyn never looked anything like Adam. Cory was his double. As Seweryn and Karina begin to play the role of loving parents to their youngest child, Cory starts to understand that, for the rest of their lives, he and Brooklyn will always be two very different types of reminder of what has been lost.

It's the first time he's ever felt completely alone.

Often, he finds himself longing to just sit in Adam's bedroom. Almost just as often, he'll run into Karina there. That makes him angry.

He wants to raise his voice and scream. He wants to tell her that it's too late for her to start paying attention now. That Adam might still be here, were she around more. That sitting in his room now won't change the fact that she didn't spend enough time with him while he was still here. That it's not enough to regret it. But he never does. He can barely get a conversation out of her anyway. Ever since she came home from the hospital that day, she hadn't been able to look him in the eyes. Cory looks like him.

Whenever Cory enters Adam's bedroom, or any room, Karina finds a reason to leave.

It's not about him, and he's always been a clever child. He's clever enough to understand. But it still doesn't numb the sting whenever he thinks about the fact that his mother cannot bring herself to look at him. It doesn't medicate whatever it is he feels in his chest when he hears Karina and Brooklyn next door, when Brooklyn sniffles and cries for his oldest brother and Karina gives him hushed whispers of comfort, and promises their hearts will stop hurting soon. It doesn't do him any good at all to understand, not when her shadow passes quickly by his bedroom door. She doesn't even check in.

He knows that whenever he's in Adam's bedroom, Karina is waiting down the hallway for him to leave. Cory can be spiteful. He stays as long as he can. He hates to let her back in. She cries, when she's alone in there. Cory can't stand the sound of it.

He deserves to mourn more than she does.

Cory has always hidden from life in books, even before life was worth hiding from. Between him and his brothers, he'd been the quickest to learn to read, and the only to ever really find the fun in it.

The only time he'd ever gotten a low grade in English was when he was eleven. He'd forgotten to do his homework, and so in it's place he had copied an Emily Dickinson poem from memory in a panic, fifteen minutes before class. The school had contacted his parents, expecting him to share their grim stance on plagiarism, but Seweryn had just been impressed that Cory had been memorizing 'stuffy old poems' for fun. Although Cory had been slightly offended on behalf of Emily Dickinson, his personal hero, knowing that he'd made his dad proud made him so happy that he felt like he could fly. Ever since then, he'd made it his number one priority to keep himself at an 'A,' - he'd looked forward to handing over his report card, and had taken every opportunity he'd ever seen to be called clever.

And so, after a year of his parents doing all they can to avoid dealing with him for too long, when he starts failing English to an extent that the school calls home, he thinks his parents are going to take notice.

He thinks they'll understand what he's doing. He wants them to sit him down, have a long talk, find out what's wrong with him. He hopes they'll care. He'll settle for a punishment.

He gets a tutor.

The next year of Cory and his family's lives is painful. That's all anyone needs to know, for now. Cory spends some time away from his family, and by the time he comes home, everything has changed. None of them really feel at ease in New York anymore. Home doesn't feel like home. It seems there's a ghost haunting the house, and when they leave it, everyone whispers about them.

Far too conveniently to just be convenient, his grandfather decides it's a good time to retire. Karina is bestowed her birthright position at the head of EOS. As early as they can, the Ohs say goodbye to Brooklyn (the place, not the brother) and set off for Seoul.

It's a fresh endeavour for Karina, too. Despite her Korean nationality, she hadn't stepped foot on her country's soil since she'd been shipped away as a pre-teen. South Korea feels new for all of them, and none of them will ever fully adapt.

But Cory will be enrolled in an English-speaking school, where nobody will ask uncomfortable questions, nobody has heard any rumours about him, and a boy in his class will turn to him and smile. Cory will say hello, and the boy will hesitate to say his name is je T'aime Eun, and beg to just be called JT.

JT loves to make music like Cory loves to read. Cory is fascinated by that, because JT tells him music can be stories. Cory has a lot of stories he needs to tell, and he writes them to JT's melodies. Some of them are kind of heavy, but his favourite ones are just stupid. JT tells him that he's funny; that he's good at setting up a punchline. When he makes him laugh, it makes Cory feel like he's good at something, and so he keeps aiming to do it. For a while, after he get's a bit older, he'll wonder if that had meant he'd been falling in love with JT, but the thing he's falling in love with is music.

He's not to know that childhood's about to be cut short. He's not to know that, by the end of the summer, this life is about to be unrecognisable. He's still too young to really know anything. Right now, all he knows is that it's a lot of fun to hang out in Seweryn's home-studio with JT, making up awful songs about embarrassing parties and boys in his class. It's a feeling he'll end up chasing forever.

"Wait." Cory hesitates, just before JT pushes upload. They're sitting on the floor, hunched over a laptop, and JT has convinced Cory to put one of the songs they made on the internet. It's just to make it easier to show one their friends at school. They'd never imagine anybody else would care. But still, Cory says;