Chapter 317

Chapter 317

Four days after the incident was when the press would have started reporting that I was showing no signs of waking up.

I spoke immediately. “It’s all right. I’ll recover.”

“But they said… on the news… that you’re going to die!”

“I’m not going to die.”

I had no idea what sort of lunatic had gone ahead and described my coma like that, but I deeply wished to have a word with them.

“You’re not really dead, are you…? Is that how you’re here, helping me?”

“I already told you no. I was on stage receiving a daesang. What are you saying?”

You were the one who vanished. I had no idea what would happen to him after this supposed reward was over. Hearing him say something like that made me feel a little strange.

Repressing a sigh, I said, “Sorry. I should have warned you in advance, but I didn’t think to. I woke up and got back to work with no problems.”

Every problem I’d encountered throughout my career had been handled quite well, so I hadn’t thought there was anything in particular I needed to warn him about. He didn’t have to intervene in any way. But he didn’t know that, and I could see why he might be worried, especially if someone important to him had died in an accident.

I was careless.

I sat on the edge of the bed and said calmly, “You wanted to check that I would show up after you got the new status abnormality, right?”

It was still only June. He was supposed to stall for time a little more before getting the new status abnormality, but he’d done it early to confirm if I would still return.

Honestly, it’s impressive he managed to wait four days at all. The news kept on saying I was going to die, so I could understand just how anxious he must have felt.

Moondae seemed to calm down not long after that, then grew upset again, his voice trembling. “S-sorry. I was supposed to wait until September, but—”

“No. You did the right thing.”

Even when looking at it from the perspective of what was most efficient, it wasn’t a bad thing to have done. I was his guide, and from his point of view, I was potentially about to vanish.

It’s much better to confirm than to take the test in this state and fail. I sighed with relief and got up.

“You dealt with it well. Don’t worry about it. The exam is a month away, so I can point out the right questions for you one more time. This is actually a good thing.”

“Okay…”

He sounded relieved, his voice growing softer. So I was right—he’d been panicking.

“Hey, I know you must have had a hard time these past four days.”

I could hear the voice sniffling. I checked my body just in case, only to realize that my stomach was sore.

“Don’t tell me you went without eating?”

“I did eat some… but people kept on talking about your accident while I was eating…”

Apparently, the people at his boarding school who weren’t interested in idols still talked about them when they had accidents. Disasters unfolding in other people’s lives were always bound to be a topic of interest. I could see why it might be painful to hear that someone you knew was dying while trying to eat. I repressed the urge to tut disapprovingly.

“Even so, be sure to eat proper meals no matter what.”

“Okay…” the voice agreed slowly.

It seemed the tension draining out of him had made him incapable of proper conversation. I decided to puzzle out the rest of what was going on by myself.

First of all… today is Monday. This year’s test was not too far away, so I’d expected him to stay at the boarding school from the weekend onwards. But I was at the studio apartment.

He must have excused himself to come back here in time for me to return. The schedule on the phone screen suggested he’d been attending school faithfully.

I opened up the internet.

[TeSTAR’s Park Moondae unconscious for four days… Agency claims “he is recovering,” but what does that really mean?]

The article had been uploaded in the general news section and was getting unified hate from everyone for having such a provocative title. I read the comments. It had been four days already, and people were beginning to realize this was serious. A lot of the trolls had fallen silent, and most comments were left by worried fans. I could clearly see worry, panic, despair, and anxiety.

At the time of my coma, I hadn’t known what was going on until after I woke up. All this raw emotion was new to me, and seeing it play out wasn’t a particularly good feeling. I would remain unconscious for eighteen more days, after all. On the one hand, however, I was a little pleased… which was rather silly.

Enough useless thoughts. I sighed and scrolled down through the news. The other members had probably come to by now and were being treated in the hospital.

Most of them had fairly light injuries, I heard… By the time I woke up, Eugene had been the only person who’d still been recovering from a major injury. The others had been wearing guards, and nothing more.

Hmm. I guess this would warrant the agency planning to cut me loose and trying to come up with a new plan. Now that I thought about it, I was a little puzzled. The agency was sure to have taken drastic actions two weeks into my coma. The agency itself, being an affiliate and being largely on the hook for the recent manager issue, might have refrained, but I knew that T1, the parent company, wouldn’t have shown such restraint.

Wait a second… I recalled what Ahyeon had told me in the past.

“A-after the accident… Big Sejin really tried his best! He came to the h-hospital often to check in about your operation… H-he did! He couldn’t even eat properly because he was so worried…”

I considered for a moment, then created a new anonymous email address. Then I composed an email to the agency, but not to the main contact address—instead, I was writing directly to the head of the Management Office.

The title was as follows:

[A plan to force TeSTAR to start fourth quarter promotions about to be announced]

The email was meant to sound like an anonymous tip-off regarding the public backlash that would arise when the group continued its activities with only six members.

This is bound to work, since he’ll be busy fighting the director at this point. With this email as a warning, the head of the Management Office would be able to react quickly even if the director spoke with the parent company about this plan, since I had made him well aware of its weaknesses.

Little progress would be made while the two were at each other’s throats, and the members would have less to worry about. At this point in time, Big Sejin was the only member of the group capable of having a proper conversation with the agency. If the agency were to come forward with such an unpleasant suggestion, the resulting stress would be terrible. Who knew what it would do to him?

Though I think he kept it together pretty well until I woke up. I hoped doing so would help him a little, at least. I pressed send, feeling a little better afterward.

The voice finally spoke up faintly, “Gunwoo, may I ask where you are sending that?”

“Oh, to the agency…”

Wait. Talking with him reminded me of something else.

“An article was going to be released about it last year, but the agency stopped it.”

His parents’ plane crash. I’d assumed that the agency had stopped the articles from being released at around the time I left the hospital, but now I wasn’t so sure the bastards had been capable of that much foresight amid all this confusion.

“Park Moondae…”

“Yes!”

“I need to… ask for your understanding regarding something.”

I explained the situation to him, that the press might come for his family soon. I couldn’t let that happen when the publicity was probably annoying enough for him as it was. My plan was to write to the agency like a journalist who wanted an exclusive, reminding them of the trouble that was afoot. It wasn’t the most appealing option, but the space and time constraints made it the most effective one.

“I have to write an email about it. Sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable.”

“No… Actually, I’m perfectly fine with it.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yes,” the voice said, echoing calmly. “That doesn’t really feel like me, you see… I mean, the Moondae in TeSTAR looks different, too, and… I’m not sure how you’ll take this, but it feels like I’m really watching you on TV, not me.”

“Uh… All right.”

“Maybe it’s just me, but it makes me feel closer to you, you know?”

“I guess I’m grateful for that.”

The voice seemed to laugh despite himself. It was a good thing he felt this way, since it meant I could do what I pleased… but for some reason, I wasn’t entirely comfortable.

Do I feel guilty? I would think about this later. I frowned, making yet another anonymous email address and finishing off the task at hand.

I spent the rest of the day giving him spoilers about the promotions I would engage in after I woke up, and what date I would wake up. It seemed to help, since he calmed down quite a bit.

“I’ll wake up on July 6th, so don’t watch the news until then.”

“Okay!”

“Enjoy the charity concert after the second round is done, all right?”

“Right…”

I was sure to coach him on one more thing. If he passed the second round, he would then have the third round to deal with—an interview. The status abnormality was sure to revolve around this third round, which meant he needed to prepare for it.

“First, take that interview, and only trigger the next status abnormality when you’re certain that you qualified.”

If he received the status abnormality too early, he would only have one chance to clear it. He’d never done an interview in his life, which meant there was a chance he could fail.

“I’ll be sure to do that!”

I did think, though, that it was possible he would pass the first time around.

When I woke up next, I very quickly realized something.

“Gunwoo…”

“Yeah.”

It was only spring. He’d failed the interview.

***

Park Moondae had failed the third round. It wasn’t because he’d done particularly badly in the interview itself, of course.

“I’m sorry… My scores landed me outside the number of openings, and I was too nervous during the interview…”

His scores hadn’t been good enough to get him into the shortlist, which had been the point of the third round.

“Good. If you passed the second round, you’re almost there. Just one more year of hard work, and you’ll get it.”

All he needed to do was pass this year. The voice said anxiously, “But what if I fail this year?”

He seemed scared following his recent failure, but there was no need for that.

“No, you can do it. I’m not just trying to encourage you. I mean it.”

In my case, the questions had stumped me to the point that I’d ineffectually tried to talk around my interviewer, netting me a failure. All he needed to do was work on his scores a little. He would be able to do it.

“You got your scores high enough that you were nearly accepted in only two years. That’s impressive, to say the least.”

He made a little sound that indicated discomfit.

“With this grade, your scores are bound to go up in the first three years if you work hard at it.” I went on without hesitation. “You’re already close to being accepted, so just a few more months of studying hard is likely to get you there.”

“Okay!”

The strength seemed to return to his voice.

Good. His motivation was back. I nodded and finally started my day.

He would have to study like mad leading up to this last chance, so I cooperated with him, letting him get as much rest as possible. I let him do whatever he wanted and answered his questions. It went something like this.

“Gunwoo, about the next comeback…”

“July 12th. Don’t look it up anymore, and just listen to the music when it drops.”

“Okay!”

As I spoke, I realized that the song for the comeback on July 12 would be our most recent one, “Promise.” I’d already arrived at the year I’d left.

I caught up pretty quickly, I see. And I hadn’t really figured out anything in particular about the system, either.

Moondae doesn’t seem to know anything at all about it. I folded my arms. Even so, I’d had plenty of conversations with Moondae. I felt a little closer to him now. What was more, I had the feeling that Park Moondae would do away with his status abnormalities more successfully than I’d initially thought.

That’s oddly satisfying. This whole experience had also netted me some benefits as well.

“What’s that, Gunwoo?”

“Something I need to take care of.”

I had a neatly timed exposure post to write—one that would help put down the person who was bothering me most at this point in the timeline. It involved Seodam’s secret account, made to carry out his secret romances.

I didn’t do much, of course. I was supposed to be studying for an exam, and I couldn’t risk getting Park Moondae in my body sued. All I did was upload a post to an anonymous site.

========================

[Chae Seodam’s antifans seem to be working on generating a new rumor]

The way they chose a username that is similar to a former account owned by Chae Seodam’s. It was made recently, however. It makes me wonder what makes them hate him so much

========================

I’d purposely described Seodam’s private dating account as one made by an antifan. Doing so would attract those who wanted to claim it was real… and there could also be someone among them who was capable of hacking the account, which was what had actually happened. It was just a possibility, though I’d already seen the final outcome unfold.

If it really wasn’t him, he could have used it against his antifans and forced them to shut up. Sadly, it had been his account, and he’d paid for his foolishness. I watched as the comments poured in on my post, waiting only five minutes before deleting it.

Neat.

“Hey… Did you just help him after he was framed?”

“No. The opposite.”

The voice seemed confused, but I didn’t explain further.

You just focus on studying.

We did nothing but rest after that, as planned, and the time flew past quickly.

The voice said gloomily, “It’s already eleven…”

“Yes.”

It was time—if my calculations and guesses were right, soon we would have to handle his fifth status abnormality. I didn’t give him much in the way of details, but he also believed me when I told him that passing this test would probably be the end of the status abnormalities. He did seem curious about what happened after that, however.

Just before the day ended, he asked, “So if this ends after this… What happens next, do you think?”

I’d been thinking about that too, but I spoke in a casual tone. There was no need to alarm him. “Nothing special happened to me. The status abnormalities vanished, nothing more.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And even if your case is different… You won’t suddenly be threatened with death again.”

The voice echoed, laughing.

“You’re right!”

Yes. And even if I returned to Park Moondae’s body, to the point in time where I’d been about to get the daesang, I had a plan ready.

“You do your best, all right? See you in half a year.”

“Right!”

“And if I don’t return, use the number I gave you and get in touch in December.”

Moondae’s voice shook with tension and expectation. I assumed this was an answer in the affirmative.

Whatever the result might be, we can control it—given he passes. I fell asleep thinking about all the various possibilities.

***

When I opened my eyes again, I realized I was still lying in the studio apartment bed. I was once again in Ryu Gunwoo’s body. Nothing seemed to have changed much. A glance outside the window told me… it was late fall and about the time that the results for the grade seven exam would be announced. I knew right away.

He passed. That was the only possible reason for me returning at this point in time.

I grinned and sat up, saying, “Park Moondae.”

Well done.

There was no response, however.

“Ryu Gunwoo?”

There was no voice and none of the odd vibrations that had filled my mind. What is going on here? I waited for a bit longer. Was he playing a prank on me now that he’d passed? Five minutes went by, and nothing. I was alone.

I swallowed nervously.

“Status window.”

[Currently receiving reward]

This wasn’t over yet. I was still receiving my reward, which was a conversation with Park Moondae. This wasn’t the worst-case scenario I’d feared, then.

So why is he gone? What in the world is happening? I repressed the urge to swear and got out of bed. I would gather clues from my environment and try to figure things out.

Then my phone, which was lying near the pillow, vibrated.

[Unknown number]

I took the call right away, desperate for information. I heard a voice over the line, and it was one I immediately recognized.

“Found you.”

It was Cheongryeo.