Chapter 39

“The promised tomorrow turned into a lie; The bigger the pain, the more you get that the time ran away – First Time”

“Ter! Terry!”

Terry looked up at his bud, waving excitedly at him.

Despite the weird sunnies, black face mask and hoodie that covered nearly all of his face, Terry He would recognised the voice anywhere.

He grinned at the weird combo Young K has put on as his airport disguise, and hastened his pace towards his friend, pulling his suitcase behind him.

“God, I’ve missed you man,” Young K gave his best friend a bear hug. “Come on, the boys are all waiting for you at home.”

They started to walk a few paces towards the main airport door, before they heard a voice.

“Terry? Isn’t that Terry He?”

“Who?”

“Terry He, the youtuber.”

They heard the girls asking.

“Gosh, it is Terry… and Young K!!!”

"Young K!!!"

The shrieks that came after, were almost defeaning.

And the two boys ran for their lives away from the screaming girls and into the awaiting van outside.

***

“Yessza..!” Jae gave a thriumphant woop. “Finally.”

Terry accepted his defeat on DOTA like a true bloke, thumping Jae behind his back.

“Ok, you win, man. It’s great to finally have a worthy opponent.”

“Just so you’ll know, I’ve been anticipating your arrival,” Jae grinned. “Gosh, I’m hungry, what’s taking these guys so long.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Come on, let’s see what they’re up to.”

The scene that greeted them was nothing less than Brady Bunch rerun.

Dowoon and Wonpil were busy setting the table while hitting each other with the dish cloth as they moved about.

Sungjin was grinning at his maknaes as he warmed the garlic bread on the pan.

And Young K was draining the pasta, while Momo tossed the salad beside him.

Terry grinned at the sheer domesticity of the scene.

Before he suddenly frowned and leaned sideways towards Jae.

Unlike the other members, Terry equalled Jae in height.

“Is it just me, or is Bri sweet on the girl?”

They had introduced Momo as their cordi and language tutor earlier.

They hid the fact that she was staying with them as Momo would be staying with the Chois throughout Terry’s visit, and would later leave after dinner. Their Canadian guest would be staying in Momo’s room, already devoid of her belongings.

But Terry was spot on.

Even for those who were unaware of their relationship, they could tell from the way Young K hovered around Momo. Even the simplest tilt of his head towards hers spoke volumes.

And Jae’s protective radar automatically went up. Even with a homey like Terry.

“Well, man, Brian is sweet on every girl,” he said in a loud voice, alerting everyone in the kitchen.

“Well yeah, that’s true,” Terry laughed. Though in his head, Young K looked different this time.

Momo turned towards the table with the salad bowl leaving Young K behind, acting like it was nothing.

“Momo’s our noona, omma and guardian angel all rolled into one, aren’t you, Mo?” Jae grinned, looping his long arm over her tiny shoulders, trying to throw the scent away.

“Ya..! You called me a headmistress yesterday,” she scolded him, playing along.

And the all around laughter broke the temporary nervousness for a while.

***

“You’d better be careful man, Terry may catch on,” Jae warned him.

“Should I tell him, you think?” Young K frowned, not wanting to hide anything from his old friend.

“What’s to tell,” Jae shrugged. “It’s not like you’re dating her or anything.”

“Yeah, well…” Young K faltered.

“Hey…” Jae nudged him, knowing his predicament, “I know you’d want to shout it out, but let’s keep it within the family for now, huh?”

They were having a private chat in the kitchen after everyone has adjourned to the living room after dinner, when Momo came out from the washroom and picked up her backpack.

“I’m off,” she said.

“How are you getting there?” Young K asked.

Jae discreetly left them on their own.

“The subway.”

“Choi-hyung not fetching you?”

“Naah, whatever for,” Momo scrunched her nose.

“I’ll send you then.”

“Yaah… Are you coddling me?” Momo gave him a mock scolding.

Then soften it with a smile. She knew he worried about her going about alone, especially late at night. In fact, they could seriously count with one hand the times she moved around without the group.

“I’ll be ok. Kwenchana, chincha.”

***

Young K sat with Terry with a few bottles of beer in the Junhyeok’s old room.

The others were still in the living room, either playing games or sleeping.

“By the way, are you the band’s visual now?”

“Visual?”

“Yeah,” Terry grinned, “how come yo get to be the main guy on Sunrise’s cover?”

“Oh,” Young K laughed. “Not main, really. Just the middle.”

“Yeah, but the most prominent.”

“Well, that’s ‘cause I won our private contest.”

“Contest?”

“Yeah, my submission was chosen as the album title.”

“You thought of the name, Sunrise?”

“Yeah,” Young K smiled. “It reminded me of a place I once went. It was a crazy hike, but the sunrise we saw from up there was totally worth it.”

Terry did not think much of Young K’s reminiscent of Hakuba, thinking it could be any Korean sunrise.

“Yeah, it’s clever. Still keeping with your ‘Day’ theme.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Young K grinned.

“You guys are really doing good this year,” Terry smiled at him like a proud father.

“Yeah, things are finally falling into place, I guess.”

“The tandem is just so good, man,” Terry waved his hands excitedly. “Your music has improved so much.”

Young K smiled gratefully, knowing it was Terry who taught him his first chords.

“Makes me wonder sometimes,” Terry continued, looking around the room, “how it would be if Junhyeok was still around.”

It was only last week that they met Junhyeok. The latter was in a reality show for ‘failed’ idols, called The Unit.

And it saddened them that their sweet-voiced ex-colleague was reduced to that.

Junhyeok did not say it in words, but the boys knew their former colleague regreted leaving the band.

And he was having problems trying to get back into the music groove.

“I dunno," Young K smiled wistfully. "I'd be rapping more than singing maybe."

"Which would be a shame,” Terry interjected his thoughts. “You’ve got great vocals, dude.”

“You’re just biaised,” Young K grinned.

“Hey, I raised you, I should know.”

Young K grinned.

Terry was right.

In a way, he did raise Young K in Canada.

Terry took him under his wings, taught him his first guitar and took him around the city he barely knew.

“It's been a while, hasn’t it?” Terry smiled after a while, almost sadly, noticing the chain Don and he gave Young K on the latter's neck.

“Yeah,” Young K turned towards his treasured teenage friend, “but of course, it was just cokes back then.”

It was a short four year stint, for Young K in Canada, but it was truly memorable.

It was where Young K first started his musical journey.

He smiled in remembrance, thinking of the many times he chilled at Terry’s house after school, singing and making videos for their Youtube channel.

Their other best bud, Don Lee, would be there too.

And sometimes, his sister Daniella would tag along as well.

“I feel bad man, not able to go back for her funeral,” Young K said suddenly, thinking of the latter.

“You were busy, we understand,” Terry knew who he was referring to.  

“How’s Don holding up?”

“I don’t know. Ok, I guess,” Terry shrugged. “It’s been a while since I called him.”

“He’s busy with his housemanship too, maybe.”

Where Terry failed the initial JYPE audition back in Canada, Don made the cut and flew to Seoul with Young K.

But he called it quits to return home and study medicine after a short stint at the agency.

“Yeah, maybe. Anyways, it’s been nearly two years now.”

“Two years already? Time flies, huh?”.

“Yeah, I still can’t believe the little princess is no longer with us,” Terry sobered up. “How are you holding up?”

Terry turned to Young K to ask.

“Me?”

“Yeah, we know how you felt about D.”

“That was way back in the past, man,” Young K grinned sadly.

“Yeah, but still… first love cuts the deepest, as they say.”

“Well, it’s easier when the love was not reciprocated, don’t you think?”

“I guess.”

“Besides,” Young K shrugged. “I won’t call it love… more of a crush, maybe.”

“More like lust, maybe,” Terry grinned.

The boys laughed but stopped suddenly, thinking how it was disrecpectful to laugh about a deceased.

“Yeah, D was a whole different story,” Young K looked front blindly, thinking of the y, confident Canadian Korean girl he used to like.

“She came here to apologise, you know,” Terry said, speaking of a time when Daniella came to Seoul to visit Young K.

“I guessed so.”

“But you didn’t see her.”

“I explained why I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, we know, you just debuted,” Terry nodded. “But you know the princess, she felt that you snubbed her.”

“She told you? “

“She came to Beijing after her time here.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. She was kinda of devastated.”

She was devastated because she thought she was dissed by a rising k-pop artiste.

But Young K kept his thought to himself.

“So, it didn't work out in China, huh?” Young K asked Terry, wanting to change the subject.

“Nope.”

“Wanna give this scene a try?”

“Naah, I think I just wanna go home. At least for a while.”

“Yeah, I understand.”

Finding your footing in a foreign land could be lonely. And humiliating if you do not succeed.

It can be humiliating for a local too, like Junhyeok.

So Young K guessed Terry did not want another lonely failure the second time around.

Because even if Young K was there to be around for him, their paths have divided years ago and Terry has to walk his new road himself.

They stared emptily in front of them.

“So, what’ll you do when you get back home?”

“Go back to college, I guess.”

“You mom will flip,” Young K grinned, thinking of the small high-pitched-voiced lady known as Madam He.

“Yeah, I now. But better for her to scream at me than some hateful producer.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Young K nodded, understanding his friend completely.

He knew how bad Terry had it in China, as they kept in close contact with each other. The Chinese entertainment industry was just as brutal as the Korean.

Terry, Don and him, started Third Degree years ago in high school, mainly for fun and to while their time away. But with steady following on their social media channels and encouragement from their teachers, family and friends, they thought doing music professionally would be their calling after school.

K-pop was on the rise then. So, naturally they tried their luck by writing to all the major Korean entertainment companies.

They did not expect their emails and applications be seriously considered; to the extend that JYPE sent their creative director all the way to Toronto just to audition them.

Third Degree did not even have to wait for an official American audition session the big companies normally hold.

No, JYPE specifically sent an impromptu scout to check them out.

But as luck would have it, Terry did not even make first cut and Don decided to abandon the dream after a few months in Seoul.

Only Young K, or then Brian Kang, persevered, to be be where he was today.

“I'm glad things are working out for you. At least one of us is living the dream,” Terry smiled proudly.

He was the original leader and actual mover of Third Degree.

Without Terry, there would have never been such a group, and perhaps never will there be a Young K.

That alter ego would not have been given birth to.

The person would have just remained as Brian Kang.

And in many ways, shy insecure Younghyun.

“Yeah,” Young K smiled wistfully, wishing all his Canadian mates would have walked the same path as he was.

Still, he can not imagine a life without his Day6 brothers at this point of time either.

“You’ve had some tough times too,” Terry replied.

“Uhmm?”

“That blackmailer... did he try anything else?”

“Nope,” Young K shook his head, not disclosing the recent hate mails he has been getting. “He got tired of it maybe.”

“That's good to know,” Terry sighed in relief.

He wanted at least one of them to succeed in this line.

And what more obvious person than the most talented of the Third Degree guys.

Terry may have been the PR man back then, and Don, with his family money, the manager.

But Brian Kang was the voice, heart and soul of Third Degree.

And whether they wanted to admit it or not, they could not deny the fact that the shyest, least western and latest addition to their high school posse, was the most gifted amongst them.

“By the way this monthly project of yours is just brilliant.”

“Yeah, it is, right? Tiring as hell though.”

“You guys seemed to do ok.”

“Yeah, but there are times when I personally wanna call it quits,” Young K admitted.

“Hey, don’t say that,” Terry scolded him. “This is the new you, ok. No more to being that scared kid.”

Terry was a protective mom around Young K. With his experience in China, he now knew how scary trying to fit in could be. And he knew Young K has to do it time and time again throughout his life.

“I know, I know,” Young K put his hands up. “I’m ok.”

“So who thought of it? Your project? Jae?”

“Nope, Momo actually,” Young K smiled fondly.

“Your cordi?”

“Uhuh.”

“She's cute.”

Young K kept silent.

“She’ll be a good distraction after D.”

“I told you I’m well over her. I don’t need any distractions.”

Yet Young K’s snappish words seemed to suggest otherwise,

“And Mo is certainly no substitute,” Young K emphasised.

I never said she was, Terry thought silently, observing Young K’s sudden change in mood.

“I should have made a longer stop over,” Terry sighed, changing the subject quickly, and thinking of his flight home in three days time. “Come, let's take a selfie."

"I’m gonna miss you, man,” Terry gave a bittersweet smile.

“Don’t miss me too much, dude,” Young K grinned, feeling bad about snapping at his good friend earlier. “I’m coming over soon. We got the North American tour approved!”

Foxi's Notes - Young K went to York Mills Collegiate Institute, Canada for 4 years til 2010. Him, Terry He and Don Lee were active as 3rd Degree from March 2009 to July 2010, when both Brian and Don left for JYPE.

Terry wrote on his YT channel that as 3rd Degree, they 'wanted to put a show so hot, they'd set the stage on fire & everyone watching would get 3rd degree burns'  :D

This bittersweet video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb34DU528JQ) was the last Terry posted as 3rd Degree. Check out Terry's (yet to be fulfilled) promise to YK, 'I'll meet you at the top' at the end of the vid :((

This one showed the very first time Brian Kang performed online with a guitar with Terry the Mom encouraging him (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnvQbpofJTo) & a cringey original 3rd Degree video with puberscent Bri Bri trying to be a man (lols) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRq0CqGAr2g)

DISCLAIMER - again, some real life details of the characters have been altered to suit the story.