Chapter 285

Chapter 285

This was the one thing I hadn’t expected to hear—in fact, it was the one thing that was perfectly contrary to my expectations.

Do I need help? He wasn’t trying to press me for answers about why my statements didn’t make sense. Instead, he seemed almost to be asking out of concern for my well-being…

Is he just setting the mood? I tried to read his face, wondering if this was just bait so that he could pry a more specific explanation from me. I immediately put aside that thought. His expression was clear. He wasn’t that sort of guy. That meant he was really trying to help.

“Phew…”

I didn’t know what to think.

I had no idea he would ask me a question like that. It seemed he still felt deeply indebted to me after our car accident.

I didn’t give much thought to that. I had told him to be grateful if that was what he wanted—or something to that effect. During our variety show filming on that island, I’d said the following to Chungwoo, who seemed to feel very much indebted to me.

“Fine. Let’s say I did save your life, all right?”

“…!”

“You can be grateful if that’s what you want. I’ll ask you for help if I need it, so be sure to give me a hand when I do.”

Chungwoo was simply living up to his word.

We were hiking then, too. Hearing my words handed back to me in a similar setting was hilarious.

“Hmm.”

I rested my arms on the railing and smiled wryly. After I’d processed my thoughts, I felt even stranger. I was on the receiving end of goodwill rather than doubt.

How odd. I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t hate it. My reply was slow in coming.

“Well… first of all, thank you for saying that. You could have been angry.”

“Not at all,” he said firmly, leaning against the railing easily himself. “You didn’t lie to me, and it’s not like it harmed me in any way. Why would I be angry?”

That he didn’t think I’d lied was what surprised me, though. I nearly lost myself in an odd train of thought but caught myself. I still had some things I wanted to say.

“As for my situation… It’s hard to explain everything or even understand it… But things aren’t so bad that I need help.”

I ruminated on my life. I had achieved work success, my status abnormality was gone… and the guys I lived with were all pretty good people. Life was all right.

In fact, it’s better than I deserve. Risk management, of course, was just something that came with the job, and at least it had context, compared to something like suddenly dying thanks to a status abnormality.

“All the difficult stuff is behind me. What I’m doing now is… just making things harder for myself. I’ve been trying to understand why the contradictions you mentioned happened at all.”

I had no idea why I was in this body, doing what I was doing, so I had to learn the truth. That was all there was to it now. If I don’t know the cause of all this, who knows when things will suddenly go wrong again?

He nodded. “And that’s what you need information on Ryu Gunwoo for.”

He’s pretty perceptive when it comes to things like this.

“Yes. That means you’re already helping me, Chungwoo.”

He gave a short laugh. “All right. I’ll do all I can with regard to that, so don’t worry about it. Anything else?”

“That’s all—”

Oh, there is one thing.

“I really need to get the daesang this year. I’m going to need your cooperation.” That was the only way I could get my mission reward—a chance to speak with the real Park Moondae.

“What?” Chungwoo finally looked a little shocked. But it wasn’t long before he relaxed and smiled. “That should be the goal for our team anyway, right?”

“I guess so.”

He hadn’t asked me why I suddenly needed to win so badly, but he probably thought I was playfully changing the subject.

And I don’t really have anything I can say to disabuse him of the notion. There was this… sense of liberation that came with being able to speak so openly, however. The tension left my shoulders.

“All right. I’ll try to work even harder,” he said.

“Thank you.”

We grinned at each other, then stared out at the scenery again. Halfway up the mountain, it was quiet and secluded.

“It’s a little hot, but the weather’s nice,” he said.

“Yeah.”

It was too hot to be truly pleasant, but I didn’t bother to point this out.

Chungwoo did not ask for any more details or explanations after that. He did check one thing on the way down, however.

“Your situation matches Ryu Gunwoo’s… and that’s not a coincidence, is it?”

“No…”

“All right.”

And that was that. He dropped the subject entirely.

Doesn’t he feel at least a little frustrated? If I were him, I’d have demanded that he tell me all he knew, to hell if he thought I would understand. His equanimity was surprising. He ended the conversation by saying that if I ever needed help in the future, I should just tell him.

He didn’t stop there.

“Moondae, why don’t we speak more casually?” He brought this up while he was driving us back to the dorm. “I just realized I’m not an athlete anymore. Maybe I forced you to treat me like I still was.”

“Not at all. That’s all right.”

Don’t be absurd.

“I don’t think people would have thought well of me for being too casual. And doing so could have sparked some controversy.”

If I’d been too easy-going with Chungwoo as soon as we debuted… people would have given me a real beating online, saying I was being arrogant after getting first place on the audition show. Chungwoo wasn’t giving up on the idea just yet, however.

“Hmm. Is that right? How about we do this, then? We can try being a little more casual with each other.”

Why bother? I thought I could guess, however, why he was saying such a thing. In the end, I grinned at him.

“Sure. If you want.”

“Haha.”

There was no music playing in the car on the way back, but the silence didn’t really bother me. I realized that my concerns had been assuaged.

There’s going to be no repetition of the summer package controversy, I guess? And so, I grew more comfortable with my new roommate.

But as things often went, when one problem was solved, another was bound to pop up.

***

After my conversation with Chungwoo, we resumed our intense prep for the comeback. Early one morning, I received a message.

[VTIC Cheongryeo: Aren’t you going for a run?]

I was surprised by the random text.

What the hell is he texting me for?

[VTIC Cheongryeo: (Dog photo)]

I stared at an excited dog walking along a familiar apartment pathway. I recognized the dog, too. It was the same one I’d encountered in the early morning fog while jogging.

Come to think of it, I never did go back to that path after that. It was hard to believe, but I’d actually forgotten to because of all the hiking.

I typed out a quick response with the hand that wasn’t laden with decorations.

[I’ve been exercising in other ways]

[VTIC Cheongryeo: I see. I thought I’d text you, since you seemed busy. Today’s probably the last time I’ll be out here, too]

This meant I could start taking early morning walks without worrying about bumping into him. This was good news, but I’d be busy with comeback preparations anyway.

Wait, that means he won’t be able to come, either. And that has to mean… I directly asked him about the possibility that bothered me the most.

[Are you preparing for a comeback?]

He threw me a curveball.

[VTIC Cheongryeo: I’m always preparing for our next album :)]

F*ck. The bastards were doing a comeback. He was being evasive, and that could mean only one thing.

What’s the interval between comebacks for them? I thought frantically. Our comeback this year had been in January, and they’d done theirs in February. It’s the end of May now, and judging from the way he was talking, VTIC was having a comeback in June or somewhere around then.

That’s a four-month interval… and it’s the perfect time for a repackage album, considering their level of popularity. Repackage albums generally did not sell as well as the previous album. Repackages were the same as the previous full album, just with a couple of additional songs.

That didn’t make it worth purchasing for a lot of people, and the short period that had passed since the last album would make it difficult for fans to spend a lot of money, having spent all their cash already—four months, however, was more than enough time.

They’ll experience almost no losses. New groups usually paced their promotional cycles like this, and because VTIC was so well-known for their album quality, anyone who was interested would buy their album when it came out.

The precise timing also indicated that they were doing their best to get good performance results by the end of the year. A comeback early in the third quarter was probably the latest they could have a comeback without any adverse effects, so they’d probably planned their schedule carefully since early this year.

They want half a year’s worth of sales to count, at least. At the same time, they were confident the repackage album would do well.

This isn’t going to be easy. I smiled bitterly.

They have the same plan as us. We were also aiming for a comeback this summer for precisely the same reason.

“Moondae, it’s your turn in front of the camera now!”

“All right.”

I put down my phone for now and followed the staff, but my brain was in overdrive.

“Please tilt your head forward a little… Yes, that’s it.”

As I posed for our album concept photos, I had one single wish.

Please don’t let it be in the same month as us, at least. July was as late as we could go, same as them. I hoped they would have theirs, as planned, in June so there would be a month between our comebacks, at least.

Not long after that, however, we received urgent news from the agency that told us the opposite.

“July, huh…”

“Yes. Darn it…”

I’d taken Chungwoo’s phone from him, and I could hear a guy from the Planning Team trying his best not to swear in frustration.

I withheld a sigh. Two days after I’d gotten that text from Cheongryeo, articles had spread that VTIC was coming back in July.

[The “Kings of K-pop” VTIC to be back in July… Countdown for album preorders begins]

There had been absolutely no hint of the news before it exploded in our faces. If I tried to look on the bright side, they’d released the news about a month and a half early. They were probably warning potential competitors that they should reschedule if they didn’t want to be eclipsed.

That kind of hurts. My agency was terrible at holding back information, which meant that our comeback schedule had probably been leaked through T1 already.

Does this mean they really are willing to take us on, no holds barred, if we don’t delay until September? Would Cheongryeo really do something so dangerous?

“They knew that ours was in July, too, right?”

“No… They probably thought it was June. That’s what the initial articles said…”

It seemed that when T1 released some slides and articles for stockholders, and mentioned TeSTAR’s upcoming activities in the process, they’d said the comeback was in June when in reality it was still up in the air, wavering between June and July.

June is the second quarter, so I bet that made a difference in the slides. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book. If LeTi, VTIC’s agency, had scheduled thinking ours was in June, then VTIC’s comeback would really be near the end of July. That was even worse. Our comebacks might really end up being nearly simultaneous.

“All right. Thanks for telling us.”

I ended the call coolly and returned Chungwoo’s phone to him. We were on our way to another item on our schedule, and couldn’t talk anymore, anyway.

“Here.”

“Yeah.”

The members had all been listening, of course.

“Does this mean our comeback overlaps with VTIC’s again?”

“Yeah.” I sighed deeply.

Big Sejin also sighed, wearing a bitter smile. The others looked nervous, too, and that was fully understandable. This was a repeat of the nightmare that had been a VTIC comeback at the same time as our debut album.

We’d somehow managed to get first place then, but the amount of suffering we’d endured was not easily forgotten.

“Um… Okay!” Eugene said in English.

Oh, except for him. He’s not nervous.

Bae Sejin sounded frustrated as he said, “Well, if you’re so upset about it, we can just delay, right? The end of August is fine, too.”

“If we schedule it that late… It won’t be good for our end-of-year results.”

Releasing our album after the early third quarter, the damage to our end-of-year digital track performance indicators would be too great. We could just aim solely for the physical album daesang, but… VTIC had us beat there. We needed to come to some kind of decision now.