“I have a really fucking bad feeling.”
I’d woken up early out of habit and made myself coffee, but I couldn’t swallow a single sip and just sat at the table bouncing my leg. Kang Ichae glanced over and spoke up.
“What are you doing?”
“Something feels off.”
My bad-vibes radar is never wrong.
The moment he heard my answer, Kang Ichae’s eyes darted between me and the room I shared with Seong Jiwon. Where Seong Jiwon was still inside.
With instincts like that, this bastard should be laying out a mat in the middle of Gangnam reading fortunes, not being an idol.
“You’re only figuring that out now?”
The punk shook his head, dropped that loaded remark, breezed right past me, and disappeared into his room.
My leg shook even harder.
Doesn’t someone other than the birthday person usually go buy the cake?
I wanted to grant pretty much any request Seong Jiwon made, but this one was seriously suspicious.
“Hoyun-ah, let’s go.”
But when Seong Jiwon finally came out ready to leave, I followed without a word.
I half expected him to avoid eye contact again, but today he was all smiles and chatted warmly.
“They say the cakes here at the hotel are really good.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hm, supposedly amazing.”
His cheeks were even flushed, and he kept repeating himself. He seemed way more hyped than usual.
Seeing him like that, the petty resentment that had been bubbling up—wondering if I’d stuck my neck out for nothing, especially after yesterday—quietly retreated.
We moved without even a manager, fully armed with hats and masks.
Maybe because it was a weekday morning but the hotel was fairly empty.
“How about this one?”
“If you’re buying, go with the biggest one. Jeong Dajun’s an elephant these days.”
My mouth was answering on autopilot, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.
This was the hotel Yoon Heeun had been frequenting, and I was on high alert. If this place got linked to the rumors quietly circulating about Seong Jiwon, it would only lend them undeserved credibility.
Would it be better to get out as fast as possible?
Or should I loiter around the lobby so any sighting would get spun into a heartwarming account of members buying a birthday cake together?
“…Since we’re here, want to grab a meal before we go?”
I was still deliberating when Seong Jiwon suddenly suggested eating and dragged me to the restaurant in the hotel’s lobby lounge.
Thankfully, this place wasn’t crowded either.
Watching me settle into a corner seat with practiced ease, half resigned to my fate, Seong Jiwon asked,
“Have you been here before?”
“A few times.”
I’d practically lived here, actually.
Not for any good reason. Just because of an investigative program I’d been working on. A colleague on the team had been digging into research and managed to piss off someone important before the project even properly started. It nearly got us all royally screwed.
I couldn’t even remember how many days I’d spent pulling all-nighters holed up in this place.
I was resting my chin on my hand, gazing out the window, when I heard Seong Jiwon’s voice, slightly trembling.
“So you have been here before.”
But the Seong Jiwon in front of me wore a calm expression.
I sipped the water the staff had brought over, thinking I should at least feed him something good since it was his birthday and then get us back to the dorms quickly. Then Seong Jiwon spoke again.
“About Yoon Heeun-ssi.”
“Pfft—!”
The water going down my throat reversed course. I slapped my hand over my mouth, but water sprayed through the gaps between my fingers and dribbled down.
I knew I had a bad feeling!
So this was what he’d dragged me out here to talk about.
I pulled out napkins and wiped up, trying to wrangle the thoughts whipping through my head into some kind of order.
“Mm, we butted heads over everything, so I didn’t have warm feelings toward him. But seeing him go down like that… I can’t say it feels good either.”
“Well, he dug his own grave.”
Was having a lot of relationships really the problem? Look at Joo Woosung.
No—it was a problem.
But the guy’s biggest issue was that he looked down on everyone around him.
“You saw those texts too, so you know… Yoon Heeun-ssi had been contacting me a lot. Said a lot of things that got under my skin.”
“Mm.”
“But I understand why he thought the way he did. My former agency was really… truly awful.”
I know.
Was there anyone here who didn’t know D.go was garbage?
“I know you went through a lot of trouble for my sake. Thank you.”
“…….”
He didn’t seem inclined to ask directly, the way he had at Christmas. But he clearly wanted to express his gratitude, so he was conveying it in a roundabout way.
I just shrugged at the consideration.
“They’re not contacting you anymore, right?”
“Mm-mm. Not anymore. Seems like they’re busy.”
I smiled back at Seong Jiwon as he lifted the corners of his mouth ever so slightly.
Ah, well.
It had been worth it—pouring in time, energy, and mental bandwidth to deal with all that tedious shit over and over.
If someone important to me didn’t have to look at that garbage anymore, that alone was more than enough to offset every bit of trouble.
So he was nervous about saying this?
That’s nothing.
We finished eating in a reasonably warm atmosphere and were having tea for dessert. I was thinking all I had to do now was head back and celebrate Seong Jiwon’s birthday, when—
“You said you’d been here before.”
“And?”
“I’ve been here too, a long time ago…. Because of my former agency.”
Hearing that, I peeled my back off the sofa and downed the rest of my tea in one go.
“Want to leave?”
Better to get up before unpleasant memories could surface.
But Seong Jiwon waved his hand.
“No, that’s not it. Umm, where do I even start.”
Rolling his eyes as if sorting through his thoughts, Seong Jiwon spoke slowly.
“…First of all, nothing happened that you’d need to worry about. I only ever saw the lobby lounge. A company staff member told me we were going for a profile shoot, then just handed me a keycard and dropped me off at this hotel.”
I tried not to let a single expression show on my face.
“When was this?”
“Three years ago. It was my birthday that day.”
Did this kid just bring me here deliberately? Same day, same place?
…Why?
I had no idea what was going on, so I studied Seong Jiwon. Strangely, he looked as taut with nerves as the day of our first showcase.
“…I was just sitting in the lobby like an idiot when someone came up, acted like they knew me, and asked for the keycard. Definitely someone I’d never seen before.”
As if recalling that moment, the line of Seong Jiwon’s lips curved faintly.
“So… I don’t know why I did it, but I just handed over the keycard on impulse. Even now, looking back, I can’t believe it.”
In that instant, I remembered what Seong Jiwon had said at Christmas.
—”There’s someone I’m looking for.”
—”They helped me when I was going through a hard time.”
—”Right before I left my old agency.”
This sounds like my story…
“Remember what I told you before? That I was looking for someone who helped me when things were hard.”
“…Are you sure they helped you?”
“Ahaha, now that I think about it again, maybe not. But one thing’s for sure.”
A clear, bright laugh spilled from Seong Jiwon’s lips.
“They scared me.”
Me? Scared Seong Jiwon?
“What did they say again… That people like me were the most incomprehensible in the world, that if I kept living like a parasite what good would it do me later—”
“Ah, stop! You can stop there—”
“—That could I really hold my head high and walk around.”
Hearing that speech pattern, I could be going 100 km/h and still know with certainty that was me, but I scrubbed my face with both hands and prayed it wasn’t.
Ding!
But as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, the system window appeared, betraying my wishes.
[Some memories have been unlocked.]
It’s me!
Fuck. I was losing it.
When I’d been desperately waiting for the scenario quest, there hadn’t been a trace of it, but the moment I didn’t want it, it showed up with impeccable timing.
—”…How old are you?”
I remembered it now. A slightly younger Seong Jiwon, sitting blank-faced in the lobby lounge I’d passed through earlier.
Back then, I’d needed the keycard Seong Jiwon was holding to clean up a mess my colleague had made.
Knowing full well what those keycards were given out for, I’d looked at him with contempt at first. But once I realized his agency had tricked him into coming, I think what I’d felt more than anything was really pity.
—”Don’t do this kind of thing. You’ll only regret it.”
—”…What am I supposed to do now?”
The Seong Jiwon I’d met back then was nothing like the one now.
Dry. Guarded. Aggressive.
Like someone who had no concept of what warmth was.
Probably because he had no room to spare for himself, let alone anyone else.
“Don’t worry, that wasn’t all they said.”
Seong Jiwon tapped the teacup he hadn’t taken a single sip from.
“Like I said before—rough, but a good person to me. I was wavering so much back then, and it’s basically because of them that I stayed in this industry.”
“…….”
“And because of that, I’m here with you now.”
A gentle smile bloomed across Seong Jiwon’s face, and at the same moment, the system window chimed.
Ding!
[You have earned “Seong Jiwon”’s complete trust.]
[Infamy points decreased.]
[You have heard all of “Seong Jiwon”’s past. Private status has been lifted.]
It’s progressing like this all of a sudden?
The guy who said he only wanted to show good things and say pretty words to the people he cared about—what kind of change of heart did he go through to bring up something this deep?
It didn’t seem like this was because I’d helped with the Yoon Heeun situation. He’d used that to open up, but the direction things were flowing felt wrong.
Let’s get out of here.
Something more was coming. My bad-vibes radar was sending warnings.
“Right, well. Good thing you had someone like that.”
The moment I tried to wrap up the conversation and stand—
“I waited.”
Seong Jiwon’s voice drove straight into my ears.
“I waited the whole time. No matter how much I searched, they weren’t there. They were clearly an industry person, but no matter which broadcast station I searched, no matter which agency I looked through—nothing. They’d left such a strong impression, an unforgettable face, but I couldn’t remember a single detail. As if someone had erased them on purpose.”
“…….”
“But I clearly remember the way they talked and their presence. That’s everything I have of that person, so I went over it countless times.”
With every word Seong Jiwon added, my unease grew.
“But you know what? About a week ago, one memory suddenly came back.”
The moment he said that, I simultaneously recalled the system window warning me things were unstable and to lay low, and Seong Jiwon hovering around me more than usual.
“They had a scar.”
Seong Jiwon’s gaze slowly traced up my arm from below.
“…In exactly the same spot as yours. The same shape.”
Red emergency lights flared in my head, and I raced through the criteria for unlocking scenarios—criteria I’d glossed over just moments ago.
Resolving the incident alone couldn’t be enough.
If it were that simple, I would’ve finished Seong Jiwon’s scenario back at Christmas. And besides, he hadn’t opened up to me like this back then.
Then it came down to the depth of trust.
Ding!
[Seong Jiwon, The Dawn’s Main Vocal]
[Note: In the past, he received advice from Player “Seo Hoyun” and continued his trainee life without giving up on his dream. Having received a pivotal push from the Pl■yer in the past, ■■ Seong Jiwon tru■ts his benef■ctor Seo ■oyun.]
[Main scenar■o 57% compl■te.]
[Proceeding to next main chapter——]
Ding-a-ling!
Ding-a-ling!
Ding-a-ling!
Ding-a-li—
Din—
———
—…….
The alarms that had been ringing loud enough to burst my eardrums cut off abruptly, and the system window went black.
So, did the current Seong Jiwon trust me more than the Seong Jiwon from the previous world?
“Was it you?”
No.
[E R R O R]
[E R R O R]
[E R R O R]
[E R ———]
[E ————]
[—————]
He simply equated then and now as one and the same.
The same trust.
If that was the case—
[Ch■ract■r “■iwon”—]
[Char■cter “Seong Ji■on” ■■■ the Pl■■■r—]
[Character “Seong ■iwon” su■pe■ts the Pla■■r—]
The dead system window flickered off, and a single new window rose in its place.
Ding!
[Character “Seong Jiwon” suspects the Player.]
“Hoyun-ah, was that you?”
Scenarios can be broken.
