Chapter 382

Chapter 382

Looking into Bae Sejin’s current situation, surprisingly enough, required only a single internet search.

Lee Sejin. He already had a profile that showed up inside the search engine when his name was searched.

Lee Sejin (actor)

Recent filmography: Seahorse (12/15/ 20XX)

He was an actor who was currently soaring to new heights in his career. Every movie in his filmography had hit at least the two million mark in viewer count. Anyone who was into movies would have heard his name at least once.

[Wow. But it seems like he didn’t film any dramas.]

Probably on purpose. It looked like he’d tightly controlled what work he took ever since his child actor days. He was a highly paid actor, obviously. In the current day and age, actors were considered superior to idols, which put him almost at TeSTAR’s level. Everything was going great for him, but the information that followed his discography was troubling.

- Agency: Dream K Company

He was still with his old agency, which was infamous for exploiting child actors and spreading rumors come contract renewal season to ensure the agency got a good deal.

That must suck. It seemed that instead of protesting and taking a break from his work, he had immediately resumed acting after a short break from being a child actor. Instead of having a long hiatus, he’d built a solid career. Even though he liked to remain mysterious for the most part, his agency promoted him left and right through the press and social media. I put my chin in my hand.

This should be easy.

[What?]

He wasn’t likely to have tight security. It would be easier to dig up information about him since people didn’t follow him around to the dorm or the agency like they would have if he were an idol.

Simple stuff. I skimmed through Dream K agency’s social media account. Using the keywords that I found there, I located the personal social media accounts of their employees and went through them, comparing them by date. Then I came to a conclusion.

Bae Sejin is currently working on an unannounced film. Even though no names were used, I could gauge the frequency with which indirect mentions were made to an anonymous person who I guessed to be Bae Sejin.

[Oh, he must be at his workplace often.]

This was true. He was mentioned frequently, especially when he was working on a film. It was almost as if he stayed at the agency, except when his schedule took him outside. That meant it was highly likely that he would be at the agency even now, if he was not filming.

“Hmm.”

The day after awakening Bae Sejin, I took a shower, put on my hat and face mask, and left the apartment. I wasn’t just taking a shot in the dark, of course.

[Bae Sejin: Staring at the president, who is wagging his finger (ˋ^´+)]

I had been keeping an eye on his status. Now I had a pretty good idea of what he’d done today.

He was filming early in the morning. Then he moved via a van, entered the building, and met his agency’s president. And the president of an agency could usually be found in his own building. This made it very likely that Bae Sejin was at the agency.

[Do you intend to go there, then?]

“Yes.”

I’ll check in on him in person.

His agency was in Gangnam. The company building was not as impressive as those belonging to large idol agencies. It was an old-fashioned, four-story building with no signboard. This meant the security wasn’t very tight on the first floor. I had the feeling that the back door used by people who maintain the building would have a simple sign that read “employees only” and nothing else.

Is this the place? To make sure, I stood and waited nearby, and watched as a truck stopped at the back of the building. Uniformed employees passed in and out of the back door. I waited for the perfect time and smoothly walked toward the back, moving in a way that would make it easy to mistake me as someone hired to move shipments.

A shaky pop-up appeared from Big Moon.

[Uh, Gunwoo. If you are caught trespassing, won’t that be a problem?]

I just need Bae Sejin to hear about it, and he definitely will. It’s fine. I was only doing this so that I wasn’t cut off at the entrance, and so no one would think a LeTi trainee had made an official visit to the agency. This was an agency building, after all. Getting caught was actually not a bad thing.

I’m already pretty well known. There were benefits to becoming famous through an idol survival show.

Employees only? No problem. I will tell them I am something like that. Since I had a similar job and was well known, people were probably likely to believe me if I said I had agreed to meet Lee Sejin and wanted to keep things quiet.

And it doesn’t matter if they believe me or not. All that matters is that Bae Sejin hears about it. That his name had changed to Bae Sejin after he awakened meant he had gotten back his memories of TeSTAR. The confusion, if nothing else, would prompt him to try to meet a stranger who appeared out of nowhere.

Worst-case scenario, the agency keeps word of my visit from ever reaching him. Since his number was never listed anywhere, that was a definite possibility. It was certainly a potential problem. I moved through an emergency door on the first floor, entered a bathroom, and hid myself inside a stall.

I was about to check if Bae Sejin had left the building, just in case, before coming up with a route to follow when the bathroom door flew open. I heard somebody walk inside.

Security can’t be here already. I was right. This newcomer was simply using the sink. I shrugged and turned back to the status window.

[Bae Sejin: Washing face with cold water (#^#)=3]

Wait, don’t tell me… I opened the door to my stall carefully, and I saw someone standing at the sink. He wore a suit and was bent over as he splashed cold water on his face. The moment he looked up, his face became visible in the mirror.

“…!”

It was Bae Sejin. He had not dyed his hair, and wore no contact lenses, which was the style typical of an actor.

So this is where we meet again? The memory came to me right away. It seemed that we were destined to always meet in front of a sink when I was in Ryu Gunwoo’s body.

“Lee Sejin, right? Sorry about that. I’m a fan, and I was just surprised to see you here.”

It was odd. I had no time to be dwelling on that right now, however. I checked that there was nobody else in the bathroom, then spoke to him.

“Hello,” I said.

“Yes…”

An odd look had appeared on his face the moment I emerged from the stall, but he immediately covered it up. This was an actor, all right.

“I’m a fan,” I said.

“Uh, thank you… Are you a new employee here?” he said, his tension seeping away.

I got straight to the point. “No. I’m a fan of TeSTAR’s Bae Sejin.”

“…!”

He reacted immediately.

“Who are you?” he demanded sharply. He looked ready to grab me by the collar or lock me in the bathroom.

It seemed that being direct was the best course of action. I answered immediately. “I’m Park Moondae, Sejin.”

“…?!”

Something dropped to the floor behind him. I looked down and noticed that it was something shaped like a pen. I assumed it was a recorder.

“P-Park Moon—”

“Yes. It just happened this way.”

I supposed I would have to start explaining before he grew any more upset.

***

Sadly, it was impossible to take him to a restaurant or café. Both of us were too well-known, and his situation would not allow it, anyway.

“I can’t leave the building right now,” he said.

“What kind of situation are you in, exactly?”

“It’s a long story… In any case, wh-where’s your original body? What are you doing here?”

I couldn’t be sure if he really believed me or if he was just pretending, but I supposed this was a good start, at least, that he was willing to ask questions.

“Actually…” I said.

“Actually?”

“This is my original body. Park Moondae’s body wasn’t originally mine.”

This made very little sense, but given the situation, Bae Sejin seemed shell-shocked.

“A-are you a ghost?”

“No.”

Wait a second. I died and found myself in another person’s body. Describing me as a ghost wouldn’t be totally wrong.

[It’s different! Completely different!]

“Well, maybe it’s something similar to that…” I said.

He groaned, looking as if he was about to faint.

I corrected myself. “In any case, I began my life as Park Moondae right before I participated in Idol Inc., though it wasn’t by choice.”

“So you were in a situation similar to this? with the world changing and all that…?”

“Something like this. In any case, the Park Moondae that you know was me from the start… Though I suppose there is no way for me to prove it if you don’t believe me.”

Bae Sejin’s face turned a variety of different shades of purple before he reacted surprisingly. He tried to speak, but instead ended up sighing about four or five times. Then he said, “I know… You never changed once.”

“Thank you…”

I didn’t know if he was acting, but it felt good to hear him say that.

“But that doesn’t mean we are glossing over things! This situation doesn’t make any sense right now, and you… Explain!”

While I would love to do that…

“In the bathroom…?” I asked.

He sighed and gestured to me. “Come with me.”

He took me to a storage room near the emergency exit on the third floor.

I guess he comes here often when he wants to be alone. There was something about his movements that suggested he was familiar with the place.

He closed the door behind him and said gravely, “We should have privacy for the time being. Now tell me.”

“Okay.”

I nodded and began to explain the current situation as concisely as possible.

“So…”

I never get used to this. Even so, my story flowed rather smoothly, perhaps because I had already told it once to Cha Eugene. Bae Sejin turned pale, then completely ashen, then a sickly yellow, too. He settled on red in the end.

Okay, I’m not sure why he turned red.

“S-so you’re that person?”

“What?”

“Uh… Ryu Gunwoo. The person who encouraged me!”

Oh, that. No wonder he had an odd look on his face earlier. Though my current face was a mixture of Ryu Gunwoo and Park Moondae, it seemed that he had recognized Ryu Gunwoo to some extent. I rubbed the back of my neck and said,

“Well, yes. I wasn’t trying to lie to you on purpose. I just wanted to encourage you.”

He quickly waved his hand.

“N-no. I just wanted to thank— Wait, but you were Park Moondae then. How does that make sense?”

“Well, that’s complicated.”

I hadn’t thought I’d end up having to tell him about this, too. I explained the story of the real Park Moondae and Big Moon briefly. Big Moon, oddly enough, seemed excited and interrupted here and there.

[Tell him about how I passed the civil servant exam because of you, Gunwoo!]

Bae Sejin did not seem overwhelmed by all this, which surprised me. But he did not seem to accept the situation as-is, either, like Eugene had. He grew more and more grave before starting to come up with various theories of his own. I could see his appreciation for the humanities coming out.

“Do you know about time paradoxes? I think your situation might be a paradox…”

“So this is a sort of mock test, you might say. It’s similar to reality, but less difficult.”

“Maybe it’s a virtual reality. Like in the movies, you know? Digital worlds and people in tanks and all that…”

I did my best to answer his many questions, but the conclusion was always the same.

“I’m not sure. I am mostly guessing here,” I said.

Nothing was certain.

“In any case, I’m betting that we are able to go back, given the way things are structured here.”

“And your goal is to get a daesang as an idol?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Right… That does make sense.”

Bae Sejin took a deep breath. It seemed that he was running out of the bandwidth necessary for accepting all this absurdity. Perhaps for that reason, he said something similar to what I was thinking.

“So this is like a dream, since we are going to go back to reality, anyway.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good.”

“…?”

What do you mean, good?

“Give me a second. Let me have at them.”

“What?”

“This agency!” he said, his eyes burning. “This isn’t reality. That’s good. The aftermath be damned, I am going to take the proper legal approach.”

“Uh…” I had no intention of stopping him, of course. “But if you find acting here fun, why not enjoy it a little?”

Back when he had been TeSTAR, his solo activities had always been delayed, and his acting career had been close to nonexistent. I was of the opinion it wouldn’t be bad for him to get some practice here, and perhaps make some changes to his personal schedule once we got back to the real world. Bae Sejin was having none of it.

“I like acting! But this is not the way I want to do it.”

“Why not?” I asked.

He balled his fists. “They are always forcing me to play the same role! I have been playing the same psychopath role for four years now. Even I can see that this is getting old!”

“Hmm.”

I could understand why he was upset. Lee Sejin was a prominent actor now, and it made no sense that he didn’t get to have a say in what movies he acted in.

Anyone in his situation should be able to have the final say in his choice of movie. He was obviously being treated unfairly. Then I recalled something.

“Don’t tell me the fact that you don’t have a personal number—” I began.

“How did you know? Yes. They are saying that in order to help me maintain my mental health or something like that, I can’t even have a personal phone.” He muttered coldly, “They are treating me like I’m under a conservatorship.”

I believe that this was a legal term. It seemed that he had been thinking about this even after he had become TeSTAR.

“That sounds rough,” I said.

“I didn’t really care, to be honest, as long as I could act. The agency had to be cautious of public opinion, so my schedules were not as packed as they were when I was little. They give me enough money to ensure my mom has everything she needs…” His expression grew dark, then his eyes began to burn again. He closed his fists. “But I am me, and I don’t have to put up with this any longer. Even if this is the real world.”

“Correct,” I said.

He declared, “I am going to change things right now! You are getting ready to be an idol right now, right?” he asked.

“Well, yes.”

I told him briefly about LeTi’s survival show. He nodded and shouted, “I’ll join that show!”

Hmm.

“I don’t think it will be easy.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“You’re twenty-five.”

This was true. He was by far the oldest person among all the people I’d checked in on so far. He grew red in the face and looked down at the floor.

Perhaps this was inevitable, since he needed to be a certain age in order to be successful as a proper actor, not a child actor. I guessed this was why he wasn’t made younger.

“Is that too old to be an idol? There were contestants who were about my age in Idol Inc…”

“No. That isn’t the problem,” I said. I explained slowly. “Because of the career you’ve built here, people are going to be turned off by you appearing on the show at all—though I think it’s not right to feel that way.”

The issue was that he was a twenty-five-year-old actor who had a proper career. He was enjoying his heyday at the moment. This wouldn’t work out for him unless he was a far better idol than he was an actor. If he was going back to the real world, there was no need for him to put up with that sort of pain.

He groaned, then sighed. “You’re right…”

“Hmm…” It seemed he hadn’t given up on the idea of helping, however. He balled his fists. “Then I will support you.”

“What?”

An ambitious smile flitted across his face. “If your hypothesis is correct, I don’t have to worry about my long-term future or my influence while in this place,” he said.

“R-right.” He laughed quietly. “I’ve discovered more than a couple of shady things this agency has done while in the real world.”

Wait…

“I am going to find a lawyer and hound them. We’ll see if they’re so brazen once all their weaknesses are aired. If I’m not leaving, I will fix this place!”

His eyes gleamed with the desire for revenge. I didn’t see any problem with him doing this. He wasn’t an idol, and he wasn’t trying to win a battle of public opinion—he was merely looking to teach the president a lesson.

“Good luck,” I said.

“Yeah!” He looked proud, then excited as he said, “After this is over… I’ll have a say in my activities. Why don’t I ask them to create a social media account, and I’ll vote for you?”

“No,” I said immediately.

This was a terrible idea. After a long discussion about whether that would be even fair, he decided he would delay this plan until I’d debuted.

He is so full of drive right now. With no worries about the future, he had suddenly become the embodiment of justice.

“And you—” he began, about to ask me about how I had been doing recently.

My phone vibrated.

“Oh, I should buy one, too,” he said.

“For now, take my number,” I said.

I opened my phone, only to see that I’d received a text.

[Hello! This is Xyrop’s Lee Sejin. Are you Ryu Gunwoo from Wise? (smiling face emoji)]

Right. We had agreed to make contact after filming was done.

Bae Sejin brightened. “You found Lee Sejin, too? Does he have his memories back as well?”

I answered reluctantly, “No.”

“…!”

“I ran into him by chance, but I don’t have a way to get his memories back yet,” I said.

He looked slightly put out. Then he stood beside me quietly, as if trying to comfort me. “You and him were the closest, as well as Ahyeon…” Then he stopped short, asking cautiously, “Did you see the news about Seon Ahyeon?”

I nodded slowly. Bae Sejin seemed anxious for a moment, before he patted me on the back generously.

“It’s fine…

We can go back quickly after you get that daesang! Y-you’re good at making plans. I’m sure we’ll do fine!”

“Right…”

I sat quietly next to him in the storage room for a while longer. Hilariously, I felt comforted by his presence.

A while later, he said, “They are going to start looking for me soon… I will get in touch with you as soon as I buy a phone. I’m going to do that today.”

“Will that be okay?”

He scoffed. “I’m not asking them for permission.”

That afternoon, a new group chat was created.

[TeSTAR / 3 members]

It was Cha Eugene who texted first, not me.

[Cha Eugene: Bae Sejin? WOW!]

[Bae Sejin: (hamster saying hello emoji)]

[Bae Sejin: You seem to be doing well. I heard Raebin is, too]

[Cha Eugene: YES! (smiling face with sunglasses emoji)]

It almost felt like we were back in the real world.

[Cha Eugene: Let’s recruit more quickly!]

He even pinned an announcement.

[Take your 7 STARs! We can do this!]

It felt like a long time since I’d last seen our slogan. Then I slowly typed into the phone.

[Yeah (puppy with arms raised emoji)]

There were less than half of us at the moment, but this was a start, and it felt good.

Not long after that, the fourth episode of Wise aired successfully, and another day of filming was just around the corner.

“You have shooting starting today, right?” Chungwoo asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Have a good day… See you soon.”

I left the studio apartment and headed to the set. There, I was met with the most competitive set of rules the show had ever thrown at us.