My friend Inha was cast by an idol agency when he was in his second year of middle school. It wasn’t his dream to be an idol in the first place, and he wasn’t interested in singing or dancing, so I thought he’d quickly get tired of it and quit. That was five years ago. While everyone else was preparing for their future, he was cooped up in a practice room, wasting his youth, and now he’s about to turn twenty. After five years of training, all he gained was a completely ruined knee and panic disorder.

And on the day his debut was cancelled yet again, he asked me with melancholic eyes,

“What would you do? If I think I might like men…”

What would I do, indeed? Looking at his lifeless face, stained with apathy and depression, I wondered why his life had to be so difficult.

So, can’t you just not be an idol?