Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Did Park Moondae change his name? I felt a chill go down my spine. This line of questioning couldn’t be good for me, but I couldn’t react awkwardly.

Immediately picking up the microphone, I said, “I was born Park Moondae.”

“Ehehe!” The emcee laughed riotously, hamming his reaction up for the camera.

I knew this much was true. The first thing I did after entering this body was check my resident registration and family relation certificates.

I would have been an idiot not to have done so—it was important to cover all my bases. Park Moondae had lived with this same name all his life and there had been nothing peculiar about that life. Other than dropping out of high school of his own accord, his record had been clean.

And after reading his final letter, I know that was because he was being bullied. There would be no barriers from his past to stop his debut, but the oddly specific question of whether he had changed his name bore some investigating. I’ll have to look it up as soon as we’re done here.

“Oh, I see! They must have asked this question because your name is so unique!” the emcee concluded, wrapping things up. He seemed to think there was nothing more interesting to be gleaned from the question.

He went on to ask the other contestants questions as well and I waited for the filming to come to an end.

***

Later, I discovered the social media post that had started the meme.

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[I was curious what Moon Puppy had gotten up to while growing up, but I can’t find anything. Maybe he’s an alien from outer space who gave himself a new name?]

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So this is where it came from. I felt a little dejected by the whole thing. The OP’s account belonged to a famous illustrator, which was probably what had led to the quick memeification of the post, though only among fan community sites.

- (Impossible... but maybe not?)

- He’s very serious about his food. He’s an alien all right, come to investigate Earth’s food culture

- Moondae’s real body has dog ears. I’ve seen them myself.

People making inane jokes like this wasn’t the problem, but the situation itself seemed a little questionable.

I didn’t think they’d find absolutely nothing. Park Moondae’s date of birth and name were on his profile. Frankly, I’d expected people to find his high school, at least, before the show ended. It wouldn’t have surprised me if someone had even uploaded a post saying something like “I used to go to the same school as him, but he was a bit of a weirdo. He never hung out with anybody and eventually dropped out.”

A statement like this would not have done any damage to speak of. The fans would have felt relieved, if anything, since it meant Moondae hadn’t spent his time picking on anyone, at the very least.

Maybe I look really different now? This seemed to be the most likely explanation. When I’d first entered this body, Park Moondae had been extremely thin, with bushy, unkempt hair. And since someone entirely different—me—occupied his body, no doubt his demeanor and vibe had changed. People would start asking about his background at some point, though. It wasn’t like I was using an alias.

I hope it happens after the show ends. I wouldn’t be able to use my phone until the live broadcast was over.

After we finished shooting the talk show, we returned to the dorms and turned in our phones, like we always did.

I should just focus on practicing. There was only a week left until the finals and I had no time to waste on anything else. Though, the thing was no matter how short on time you were, it was impossible to avoid being distracted when a problem erupted. I learned this the hard way before long.

***

The incident happened two days later, in the evening. I’d been shoveling dinner into my mouth, nearly falling asleep as I ate, when the production team sent someone to fetch me urgently. From previous experience, I expected they wanted me to do an interview or something, but the mood in the staff room was icy.

“Moondae,” said the writer who’d discovered me at the noraebang. She sounded worried and barely able to form words. “Someone uploaded a post on the internet.”

“Okay...” I didn’t like the sound of this at all. What was worse, the writer seemed to be choosing her words with great care, as if uncertain about what to say. I felt the onset of a headache as I held my hand out. “May I see it myself?”

“Uh... All right.”

She looked me up and down once before handing me her phone. I looked at the screen and found a familiar layout. It was the same community site the accusatory post about Big Sejin had appeared on. At the top was a title written in large font.

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[Here’s why Park Moondae quit high school: he got caught stealing sanitary pads LOL]

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I stared in astonishment.

What the f*ck is this? This was not what I had been expecting at all. I suddenly felt dizzy. It had been a while since I’d felt so blindsided. My brain felt like it had ground to a halt as I read the post.

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You guys all know Park Moondae used to attend Sijeong High School in Incheon, so I’ll skip the details on that. I attended that same high school and we’re the same age. He used to be in Class Three and he was a gloomy, strange kid. I didn’t even know his name, to be honest. I only just realized that he’s the same Park Moondae that’s on Idol Inc.

But this is where things get dicey fans LOL

★It’s one hundred percent fact that he tried to steal sanitary pads from a girl in his class and got caught, and that’s why he dropped out of high school.★

People started saying weird things about the girl, too, and she dropped out not long after. Everyone heard about it. There was a huge ruckus over whether the school council should convene over the matter, though Park Moondae ran off before that could happen.

Just in case you need proof, here’s pics of my graduation album and my school uniform. Even if I didn’t have any proof, though, I’m sure lots of other people will corroborate my story.

[Photo] [Photo] [Photo]

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There were a bunch of popular comments along the top of the comments section from people who claimed to be from Sijeong High School and were aware of the incident. A shiver went down my spine—there was no getting out of this one.

If he’d hit someone or stolen money it would have been preferable to this. Why had Moondae stolen a girl’s sanitary pads, of all things? If I’d seen someone else do the same thing, I’d have labeled them a moron, but this was coming out about me and I was currently on an audition show.

“Are you done reading it?”

I was but I had nothing to say for myself. What the f*ck had Park Moondae been thinking?

How could he write in his goodbye letter that he was the victim after doing something so stupid? Of course, there was the off chance that this claim was false and I could be wrong about him, but I had no way of proving that.

“Yes...” I managed to get out.

The writer didn’t waste time asking me if it was real or not. “You’d better think fast and figure out what you’re going to do.”

In other words, she was saying I needed to handle it or leave the show. I swallowed.

“Let me... think about it for a bit.”

“All right. Make it quick.”

I could hardly form words. trudged back to the dorms, my eyes out of focus. Everyone was still practicing and the room was totally empty. Feeling like I would probably get the impulse to smash everything on the table if I sat near it, I went to my bed instead.

Let’s try to be cool-headed about this—f*ck, cool-headed, my ass! I slammed my fist against the mattress, the dull thump of it resonating throughout the room. It didn’t do anything to placate my anger.

So I’m just supposed to die like this, then? How the f*ck am I going to work this out? It was spiteful, the way I’d been shoved into this flawed body and forced to try to debut within a year, lulled into a false sense that I was making good progress because I was leveling up. My head ached. I should have taken that goddamned Imperturbable Trait.

What do I do now? Hilariously, a deep sense of helplessness followed once my rage subsided. There was absolutely nothing I could do since I knew nothing. If I had my phone, at least, I could have done some research online. But no, I’d be nuts to look at the internet right now.

I was only doing ok because I wasn’t looking at what people were saying about me. Even if I was the sort of person who didn’t care what others thought of me, there was no knowing how I would take the indiscriminate malice the public was no doubt currently raining down. And that wasn’t all there was to it.

And what about the fans? How were Park Moondae’s fans feeling right about now? They’d spent money and time supporting him and probably hadn’t imagined that Moondae would betray them like this. It was even harder for me to stomach because I wasn’t actually responsible for it.

Goddamn it, this is driving me nuts! I hadn’t felt this hopeless since the day I’d become an orphan. For a brief moment, I wondered if I should just give up.

“Uh, h-hey...”

The most patience I’d ever exerted was in this moment, in not just telling Ahyeon to get the f*ck out. I ignored him and just sat on the bed, head hung low. My brain was overheating.

“Hey, Moondae,” cried Big Sejin, rushing in through the doorway.

It seemed the rumors had already made the rounds. It was no surprise that someone as perceptive as he had heard right off the bat.

“Is it true?”

I have no idea.

I didn’t think I’d said this out loud, but the stress seemed to be messing with my cognitive ability.

He replied, “What do you mean, you don’t know? Is this really why you dropped out?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

Why was he getting on my case? He only stood to gain from it if I dropped out of the show since only the finals remained.

“You do realize you’re making no sense, right?” Big Sejin said.

I gritted my teeth. “I can’t remember.”

“What?”

“I tried to kill myself and when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. Are you happy?”

Ahyeon dropped the chocolate bars he’d been holding as he stood awkwardly to the side.

I regretted my words immediately—they didn’t need to know the truth. Maybe I should have just been relieved that I hadn’t told them anything more, like how I wasn’t actually Park Moondae and that I was from the future. If I’d gone on to tell them about the status window, then that would have made me look like an utter nut job or a delusional moron.

But none of that matters, does it? If I couldn’t handle this problem quickly, debuting within a year was out of the question.

“Y-y-you really...”

“Yeah, I did.”

Why were they making me waste energy on pointless conversations? As if it isn’t already hard enough to stay calm in this situation.

“So just... leave me alone, okay? I’ll handle this myself.”

“How are you going to do that if you can’t remember anything?” Big Sejin asked.

“Just go.”

“If you don’t know anything, isn’t it better if you have someone to talk to? It’s not like you have an agency to help you.”

He was right about that much.

“Frankly, it’s a little hard to believe, but I don’t think you’re the type to lie about something like this,”
Big Sejin said. “And that rumor going around that you stole sanitary pads is even more strange.”

“Th-that’s right.”

“I don’t think a calculative guy like you would do something so stupid.”

“N-no... Th-that’s not what I-I meant... uh, that is...” It seemed as if Ahyeon’s ability to speak was failing him.

Big Sejin ignored him. “Yeah. Things would have been different if a victim or a victim’s friend had uploaded the post, but that isn’t the case here, either.”

I could feel my racing thoughts slowing down a little. I looked up at Big Sejin, who was sitting calmly on the floor opposite me. He wasn’t the type to get mixed up in other people’s business. Why was he doing this?

Is it because I helped him out before? Still, it was surprising to me that he would do this with the finals just around the corner, though I was in no situation to care about that right now.

“First of all... Let’s say that you can’t remember anything about this incident, then. Can you remember anything from your high school days?”

“I remember absolutely nothing, high school or otherwise. I woke up and found a goodbye letter in front of me.”

There was a brief silence.

“Was there anything specific in the letter?”

“No details at all. It said I’d been wronged somehow, but anybody could claim that.”

“You’re pretty harsh on yourself, aren’t you?” Big Sejin asked with a weak laugh.

I wanted to scoff, but couldn’t muster the energy to do so.

“I-I know,” Ahyeon stammered, struggling to speak. “C-can’t we... find her i-if she’s still around... s-somewhere?”

He had to be referring to the girl who’d dropped out.

“There’s no time to go looking right now since we have to practice... unless I quit, of course.” The way forward was becoming clearer to me by the minute. I’d first leave the show to get things under control and then look further into the situation. That would give me the best odds for survival.

“D-d-don’t.”

“What?”

“D-d-don’t quit yet. L-let’s wait f-for a bit longer.”