Chapter 25
Everything felt wrong.
Andy stared at the jumbled mess piled inside his open suitcase, a hastily folded sweatshirt in his hands, his mind a million miles away.
He hadn't slept since that night. Not really. Every time he’d closed his eyes, the scene had replayed on a relentless, brutal loop.
The sickening twist of Min Jae’s knee, the strangled cry of pain, the image of his face, flushed and stricken, just before the medics had pulled Andy away.
And now Min Jae was MIA.
Andy hardly remembered jumping from his seat in the backstage viewing room, plowing through a combined army of SCG and SBN staffers as he rushed toward the stage like his hair was on fire.
One minute, he was watching Min Jae’s fall.
The next, he was by Min Jae’s side, the pain radiating off him in almost physical waves as he’d stupidly tried to apologize for fucking everything up.
As if the accident was his fault. Well, maybe it was, sort of.
But Andy didn’t care about that. Watching the paramedics load an unconscious Min Jae onto the gurney as Woo Jin held him back had to be one of the most tragic moments of his young life.
All he cared about was whether or not Min jae was okay. And he had no fucking idea.
Not that Andy hadn’t tried to find out what was going on.
He’d cornered at least a dozen people from the production team, demanding to know what was happening, getting angrier and more upset every time he was denied.
They all read their answers from the same script.
“We don’t know anything about his condition.
” A fucking lie, of course. A polite but firm and totally impenetrable corporate wall.
They knew. They just couldn’t–or, wouldn’t–tell.
The rumor mill naturally worked overtime to fill the vacuum of silence.
Besides the many, varied predictions for the final ranking, Min Jae was all anyone could talk about.
Andy had heard a dozen different theories openly whispered in the hushed corridors on the off day before the final broadcast. He tore his ACL.
They took him to the hospital for emergency surgery.
He faked it for the sympathy vote. They already sent him home in the middle of the night.
Each theory drove a fresh spike of anxiety into Andy’s already frayed nerves.
He was completely in the dark, left to flounder in a potent, helpless cocktail of worry and a fear he couldn't shake.
“Aren’t you done with that yet?”
Andy shook off his frustrated thought spiral at the sound of Leo’s voice from the doorway behind him. Leo had already finished packing, leaving a glum, silent Andy behind to eat his last Sky Village breakfast before a long day of filming.
Andy tossed the sweatshirt onto the pile with a huff and reached for a pair of jeans. “No.” He held the jeans aloft, briefly wondering if they were even his? How did he get someone else’s jeans?
“Damn it, Andy.” Leo huffed, crossing to Andy’s side and taking the pants from his hands. “Where even are you this morning?”
Andy scoffed, reaching for one of his shirts. “I’m right here.”
Leo sighed. “I don’t love the attitude, but at least you're speaking with me now.” Leo carefully refolded Andy’s jeans, set them aside, and pulled the sweatshirt from his suitcase.
“What?” Andy frowned. “Since when was I not speaking with you?”
Leo set Andy’s folded sweatshirt beside his pants. “You’ve hardly said two words to me since that night.”
“Oh. Well, I had a lot of shit on my mind. With, you know–”
“Yeah, I know,” Leo interrupted before quietly sighing.
“Look, I saw all that, right? We all did. The way you bum rushed the stage? I saw your face. The way you looked at him” He paused for a beat, his eyebrows flexing as he chewed his lip.
“I get that you and Min Jae were trying to hide your–” Another beat.
“–friendship. And I guess I get why. But why all that rivalry shit? Were you just playing it up for votes or something?”
Why, indeed. If only he could just tell Leo the truth. In another world, maybe. But not stuck in the middle of Sky Village with Choi lurking in every shadow ready to pounce on the smallest misstep. “Yeah” he muttered. “Just for the votes.”
Leo huffed. “Come on, Sacramento. You know you can trust me, right?”
Andy glanced at the camera in the corner of the ceiling.
Supposedly they’d all been shut off since the showrunners had no need for any more dorm footage.
But that could’ve been a lie. The rooftop supposedly being camera-free had been a lie.
“It’s not you I’m worried about.” He handed his shirt to Leo for folding and tried his luck with another pair of pants.
“But, here’s what I can say.” What could he say, exactly?
Nothing, technically. But the show was basically over, and Leo was probably one of the Final Eight.
He at least deserved to know something about what he might be walking into.
“Min Jae and I were told that it would be better for the show if we ditched our bromance and went back to being rivals.”
Leo carefully placed Andy’s newly folded shirt in his suitcase. “Told by who?”
Andy shook his head. “It’s better if you don’t know.” He gently rested his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Listen. I’m sorry I’ve had to keep things from you even though you’re supposed to be my friend. It’s just this place, you know?”
Leo nodded, giving Andy a sad half-smirk. “It’s this industry, too. But, yeah, I get it.” He mirrored Andy’s gesture, putting his hand on Andy’s other arm. “And you should know by now that we really are friends, okay? No matter what.”
Andy raised a single eyebrow. “No matter what?”
Leo nodded again. “Yeah. No matter what.” He held Andy’s gaze as the pair stood, hands on each other’s arms, letting Andy see the truth in his eyes.
He knew.
Andy wasn’t sure how, or for how long. Definitely since his little onstage melodrama the night before. Maybe longer, maybe not. And he probably wasn’t the only one, at that point. But he was the only one who’d come to Andy, assuring him that it didn’t matter. That meant a lot.
Leo quietly helped Andy finish packing so he’d have time to get something to eat before they left for the Vision Center.
They joined the remaining guys who had yet to eat, the mood in the cafeteria lively and intense.
Andy normally would’ve loved it, but his heart wasn’t into faking a charming smile when all he could think about was his missing Min Jae.
He did his best to participate anyway, plastering on a grin that probably didn’t fool anyone.
Then again, no one seemed to pay him any attention.
That was fair. They were all wrapped up in their own shit in the competition’s waning hours.
All but eight of them were headed home that night, and Andy was most likely one of the eight.
He had nothing to worry about as far as that went.
If only Andy’s other worries were so easily dismissed.
His anxiety had him so wound up on the final bus ride back to the Vision Center he probably could’ve jumped out and run alongside.
He would’ve missed the now familiar Gyeonggi landscape blurring past, but he was hardly paying attention anyway.
He fidgeted instead, rapidly tapping out a random beat on his knee for a while until Leo finally made him stop.
When they arrived, everyone was herded off the bus into the backstage holding area and handed off to the dozens of stylists and makeup artists to perfect their final, on-camera appearances as Dream Boys.
After that, they’d either debut as members of Pr1ze, or go home.
The muffled roar of the crowd was a distant, drowsy, monstrous sound, a physical vibration that traveled up through the soles of Andy’s shoes and settled deep in his chest. Woo Jin mentioned that he’d heard there were five thousand Dream Makers in attendance.
It was the only thing he’d said to Andy that day.
Andy had managed to pack away enough of his worry by the time makeup handed him over to wardrobe that he could fake acting more like his old self.
Maybe it was the pre-performance ritual he’d slowly gotten used to over the course of the competition, the rhythmic ceremony of fixing his hair and face, his hairstylist’s soft tutting every time he moved.
Andy's wardrobe stylist mostly approved of what he’d chosen to wear.
He called it Sacramento chic. Light khaki pants with an athletic fit rolled at the ankles, a blue denim jacket dyed so dark it was almost black, and a burgundy, Western-style button up with black piping and white pearl snaps.
She vetoed his skate shoes, swapping them out for a pair of chunky, military-inspired boots that he reluctantly agreed were a much better choice.
Finally stylist-approved, Andy watched the live feed on a wall monitor as a sound tech fitted him with a lavalier mic and wireless pack.
The main soundstage had been transformed into a small concert hall, packed to the rafters with thousands of screaming Dream Makers, a sea of glowing light sticks and hand-painted signs.
The slick, smoothly curving risers for the final contestants were set off to one side, angled to face both the roaring crowd and the main stage.
The scene would’ve terrified him a couple months ago.
He was a long way from his little dance studio in Sacramento.