Chapter 343

Chapter 343

Kwon Heeseung, whom we liked to call Goldie #2, belonged to the group Spacer, and I liked to keep on top of their activities. It was only natural. He was signed under the same agency as us and had a similar background as ours, but was newer on the scene. It was wise to always be aware of any possible unexpected developments. And more importantly, he knew a little of the future. We had no way of knowing what benefits he was drawing from that knowledge. Though that wasn’t the main reason that I was watching him, of course.

He’s a card that I could potentially use later. I recall bumping into him at the agency a few months ago, when he had been preparing for his first end of year awards ceremony.

“Hello, Moondae!”

To be more precise, I had checked his status window. The timing had suggested that his status abnormality should have been close to wearing off, but it still hadn’t. The content of it, however, had changed.

[Status abnormality: Make It Work]

- Perhaps there is nothing like teamwork for an idol, after all?

: Failure guaranteed unless the team releases a collaborative work within the given timeframe.

He had a new status abnormality.

“The mood in the team has improved so much since Chae Seodam quit of his own accord. At this rate, if we can continue to be on good terms with each other, we’ll be able to succeed at the mission—wait, what? We already succeeded?”

“No way! There is another one? I have to do something else now? What in the world?”

In other words, he had already cleared a status abnormality, but a second had taken its place. It seemed that the system had deemed eleven months counted as a year, since he’d been given a second status abnormality.

Have the conditions become harsher? I wasn’t sure, so I put the thought aside for now. In any case, this meant Goldie #2 was holding onto the system, so I didn’t have to look for the next person who had it—all in all, not a bad thing. It required less work on my part.

By collaborative work, the system must mean the group needs to produce its own music. We were from the same agency, so if I got a little bit involved, clearing the mission within a year would not be very difficult. Managing him would be easy. As a result, I had contacted him on and off and kept a close eye on him. Or so I thought, until the leader of VTIC sent me an audio file.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to check?”

I would’ve made him pay for running his mouth if it hadn’t been for his dog, however I said nothing for the moment. Instead, I stared down at the audio file from the radio show Goldie #2 had made an appearance on.

This radio show. I remembered Mirae’s Future Radio. It had quite a long tradition, and we had been on it once when we had been rookies. A radio personality who went by the stage name Mirae hosted it. The playful skits that she did on the show, guessing about what would happen ten years from now, were famous.

“Kim Raebin will give me a hundred songs!”

“Cha Eugene, even if 10 years passed, it would be difficult to give 100 songs to a single person—”

“Two hundred!”

“I’m not doing that!”

“Guys… I mean, you’re old enough to know better! Calm down already.”

I thought back to the hilarious and completely random skit involving Raebin and Eugene had delivered, then mentally returned to the matter at hand. I stared down at the phone with a suspicious look on my face.

Don’t tell me he also… I lowered the volume as much as possible and played the file. I heard the host’s voice first.

“…A special friendship has become a talking point. We hear that Kwon Heeseung still has a friendship with VTIC’s Cheongryeo and TeSTAR’s Park Moondae.”

Sh*t.

“We hear that you recently went on a trip to celebrate 10 years of friendship together. How did you get to know each other?”

“Well, it was because all of us knew the future.”

“I’m sorry?”

“…! Oh, I meant this show, Future Radio. That was what we had in common”

“Ah! It seems that you found your first appearance on our show ten years ago very memorable, then.”

“Y-yes! Hahaha!”

It seemed that he had been trying to make a joke about the show’s name, only to realize what he had said was actually true, turning awkward thanks to shock as a result.

You bastard, you should know better… I wonder if I should have taught him a lesson when he referred to us in an earlier interview as his friends. I withheld a sigh.

This is not a big deal. Rookie idols were extremely busy, and if he had gotten almost no sleep, I could perfectly understand him making such a mistake.

Kwon Heeseung’s fans had probably been angry that he had been asked about other groups he knew at his first interview, then simply moved on. I did understand, however, why Cheongryeo had shown this to me. I gripped my phone in my hand.

Is this a warning? Put nicely, he was giving me a silent word of advice. He was warning me about the dangers of sharing my secret with others.

“This situation seems to need a little bit of maintenance. I could do it myself… But I didn’t think you would like my methods,” he said with a grin. “He might be from the same industry, but he doesn’t seem like the careful sort… I thought I would give you a heads-up. What do you think?”

It seemed to me that he had been trying to make a joke about the show’s name, “It’s people that are always the hardest aspect to manage.”

He wasn’t referring only to Goldie #2 here. He was also referring to the fact that I had told the other members of my group my secret.

“Park Moondae,” Big Sejin finally said. He seemed to have guessed what was going on, and muttered with a rigid look on his face, “Is he… Kwon Heeseung… also in on the secret?”

“Huh?”

Cheongryeo reacted to this before I could. He looked between me and Big Sejin with a look of slight puzzlement on his face, then nodded as if he’d understood something. “Oh, so he doesn’t know. Sorry about that. You said you told them about me, so I assumed you told them everything. I guess you didn’t.” He turned away, looking somewhat impressed. “You know where to draw the line, don’t you, Moondae?”

Son of a b*tch.

I repressed the urge to cuss at him and responded calmly, “If you were so worried that I might bring a disaster down on our heads, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He seemed to be unhappy that I had explained this absurd, completely unrealistic situation to Big Sejin.

Cheongryeo simply tilted his head to the side. “Hmm… I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here.”

A misunderstanding?

“Moondae, I have nothing to lose from you doing this.”

“…!”

“I’ve got more than a few solid excuses that I can use if I get sucked into controversies of this sort.” He smiled at me. “I have already tested exactly how to word it and what tone to use in order to be convincing. I am beyond suffering any sort of damage from something somebody else says by mistake. You didn’t really think I hadn’t experienced something like this before? You are smarter than that.”

I stared at him. “So you have told somebody else, too?”

“Of course. I thought it might be useful. As it turned out, however, it wasn’t useful enough. That’s why I never did it again.” Cheongryeo seemed lost in thought for a moment, staring into space. His eyes soon came into focus, however. “So I’m saying this for your sake, not mine. I told you, didn’t I? This is meant as an apology.”

F*ck. I massaged my brow. The most annoying thing of all was that he seemed to be serious.

“Is that right? Then listen up. First of all, as for Goldie #2… I’ll meet with him soon and get him back in line.” I looked at Big Sejin, who had been tactfully listening quietly. “And you don’t need to worry about him. He isn’t the sort of person who will talk about this.”

“Of course not,” Big Sejin said, holding out his fist for a fist bump.

Must we really do this now? It would be even sillier, however, if I didn’t react. I gave him the fist bump.

Cheongryeo did not seem impressed. “Right. Well… he probably said he would believe you. They usually do.”

What?

“You’re operating under another misunderstanding… Believing does not equate to understanding.”

“…!”

Cheongryeo said this without hesitation, as if he was quoting someone directly. “We are good friends, we’ve known each other for long enough, we are in the same group… They’ll cite all sorts of reasons for believing you. And it’s not surprising. If they don’t believe you, it means that one of their members is mentally ill. They don’t want to believe that.”

I listened.

“But that’s about it. They won’t be cooperative after that… So I gave up on trying. It became more of a bother than anything else.” He continued smoothly, “You can’t expect people to empathize with situations as unrealistic as ours unless they have experienced it themselves. So don’t expect too much from them.”

Is this why he’s always acted like this? I had gotten the impression that he did not feel any sort of personal connection with his own members, whom he had known for so long. Maybe this was part of the reason.

It’s almost like… He’s not entirely human. It was a decision that felt a little chilling, even. This was all the truer since Big Sejin was standing right in front of him, listening.

“Hmm.”

I crossed my arms and made to speak. However, an unctuous voice spoke from beside me before I could.

“But Cheongryeo! I’ll have you know that I’m very cooperative with Moondae.”

“…!”

It was Big Sejin. What was the matter with him?

“Ah, is that right?”

“Of course. I mean, come on. People can’t all share the same experiences. We’re friends. Our similarities, as well as our differences, make our friendship richer.”

“So that’s what you think.”

“Yes. It can’t be helped if you don’t really understand what I mean. Everyone’s situation is different. I really don’t mind.”

This was his roundabout way of saying that Cheongryeo had no friends. I was surprised he had managed to pull off saying it with a straight face. The problem was that this was Cheongryeo, who tended to revert to his unhinged past actions.

I hope this doesn’t push him over the edge. I watched as Cheongryeo stared at Big Sejin without expression. There was a brief silence.

Please, Big Sejin. Why are you smiling and glaring at him at the same time? I sighed and decided to bring the conversation to an end.

“Right. Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. In any case, thank you for the audio file. And I hope… your dog gets better.”

“All right. Call me if you ever have anything to talk about, Moondae.”

“Sure thing,” Big Sejin said smoothly in my place.

What are you, the right-hand man of some Mafia boss? There is some serious tension in the air right now.

The door opened with perfect timing. Frankly, I welcomed the interruption. The person responsible was Ahyeon, who seemed a little bit nervous.

“E-excuse me… I-It’s past time to start our meeting.”

“…!”

“Oh, sorry. So you were working.” Cheongryeo smiled and nodded softly. “I will be on my way, then.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Yes, all right.”

It seemed that the conversation was finally ending. Go home already.

Instead of turning away immediately, however, he added hesitantly, “I’ll contact you when I have my dog back.”

“Right.”

I nodded as he put on his face mask. Despite everything, he just wanted his dog to be safe.

Cheongryeo turned away, got in the elevator, and disappeared.

“Let’s head inside,” I said.

“Yeah,” Ahyeon said.

We finally returned to the dorm.

Big Sejin took the lead, checking if Ahyeon was listening as he walked into the living room. He whispered to me quietly so that Ahyeon wouldn’t hear, “Wow. He has such an irritating way of talking. My god, Moondae. How did you put up with him all this time?”

I was embarrassed to find myself nearly agreeing with him out loud. “Well, I managed.”

“Hmm… All right. You were pretty sharp with him at times. That must help relieve the stress a little.”

I realized I had slipped into the habit of not being particularly polite without being aware of it. He snickered and thumped me on the back. I turned to him and spoke, bringing up the thing he must have been curious about following our conversation.

“About Kwon Heeseung…”

“Oh, I know. You weren’t able to tell me because it wasn’t your secret to tell. I understood that right away.” He’d understood from the context that Kwon Heeseung was my follow-up. He didn’t seem to have any complaints that I’d kept this a secret. “But now that I’ve found out, would you like me to warn him for you? I’m pretty good at that sort of thing.”

“We’ll see.”

I hadn’t wanted to involve him at all, but at this rate, I would even be sharing my goal of destroying the system with him. I sighed as we returned to the living room.

“Is he gone, that bastard?”

“Yes. He left,” Big Sejin said cheerily. “Ugh! It was disgusting. He was acting like he was such a close friend of Moondae’s!”

You are a natural liar.

“…! And you just let him?” Bae Sejin said.

“Of course not. I was quarreling with him the entire time.”

“All right. I can help next time—”

“No. If you do it, it will become a real fight.”

“Hey!”

I left the two Sejins to duke it out in comfort and returned to my seat.

Ahyeon, who had been sitting next to the spot, said, “M-Moondae. Did something happen? That took… longer than I expected.”

“Hmm…” I debated for a moment, but decided to tell him the truth, for the most part. “It was nothing much. We had some differences to sort out.”

“Oh…” Ahyeon hesitated, but eventually visibly forced himself to say, “Wh-what differences?”

I was silent for a long moment.

“A-actually, never mind. Sorry!”

His habit of apologizing when he didn’t have to hadn’t abated any. I withheld a sigh.

So is this the second time? I was referring to how many times he’d inadvertently asked me to tell him what was going on. He wasn’t asking me out right if I had a secret, but it still made me uncomfortable. He seemed to have guessed that Big Sejin had already heard.

Instead of telling him that he didn’t need to apologize, and that it had been something rather personal, I clammed up. Something told me saying that would have the opposite of the intended effect.

Ahyeon doesn’t look upset right now, so maybe I’ll wait this one out. The situation seemed to be over for the moment.

However, that evening, Ahyeon’s attitude toward the retreat suddenly changed—not in a bad way, of course. He became far more eager than I had ever seen him be.