Abyss wasn’t at the level where sasaengs would attach to them yet, but still, since texts occasionally came from strangers or fans, I was about to read it casually when I stopped after seeing the preview content.
[Hohyeon-ah. It’s me, Yoon. Can we meet at 8 PM today at ○○○ in K Building, △△ district?] >
“Yoon hyung?”
My eyes widened at the contact from Yoon hyung through a completely different number. Of course, anyone could say “It’s me, Go Yoon,” but absolutely no one could call me Hohyeon. I stopped unwrapping the candy and quickly sent a reply.
< [Hyung. Did something happen? What’s this number?]
[It broke. Can you come at 8?] >
< [I can come!]
Since it’s about 2 PM now, I should be able to go around 8 PM, right? I was going to write a new song, but since I have to meet Yoon hyung, I should submit a song I’ve already written to the meeting. Then I should make several versions of the song I’ve written. Arrange it a bit brighter, and also change the lyrics a bit…….
But these thoughts were brief—I found Yoon hyung, who had no contact until now and suddenly asked to meet, a bit strange, so I sent another text.
< [By the way, hyung, can you take calls? I was worried, why didn’t you contact me ㅠㅠ]
[Calls are difficult right now. Let’s meet at 8.] >
“This is a bit strange.”
It felt chilly. Somehow feeling uneasy, I scratched my head and sent several more texts, but apart from telling me the meeting place, there was no more reply from hyung. After that, I was also too absorbed in work to have time to contact hyung.
Time passed like that and it became 7 PM. I diligently tidied up the studio, told the members I was leaving first, then headed to the restaurant in the building where I was supposed to meet hyung. The restaurant in an odd place, perhaps on the outskirts of Seoul, seemed to operate on a reservation system in room format, and as soon as I entered and said my name, they immediately guided me to a room in a corner.
“It’s here.”
“Ah, thank you.”
I bowed to the employee, neatly took off my shoes, then hesitated as I was about to open the door.
‘What is it? I really have a bad feeling.’
It’s just an ordinary day meeting hyung, so why am I feeling like this? I patted myself, telling myself not to have useless thoughts, and opened the door.
Slide—
And as the door opened, seeing the man sitting quietly beyond the dining table, I realized something was wrong.
‘It’s not Yoon hyung. Who is it?’
Wearing a white cap and tapping a plate with a spoon with a bored face, the person looked up and stared at me as soon as I entered.
“Hello?”
The moment our eyes met, I was speechless at the familiar face, unable to say anything.
“Cha Hohyeon.”
Juno hyung called me.
As Cha Hohyeon.
Episode 11
“Cha Hohyeon.”
Hearing Kang Juno’s words, Ka Jerim gradually turned pale.
“What do you…… mean?”
“……”
“I received a text from Go Yoon sunbae-nim, so I just……”
He tried to speak as calmly as possible, pretending not to have heard the name Cha Hohyeon, but his voice trembled miserably. Watching such a Ka Jerim, Kang Juno suddenly lowered his head and laughed out loud as if he had seen something interesting.
“Haha. Go Yoon sunbae-nim?”
It was instantaneous. The flow in the room twisted sharply. Kang Juno quickly raised his head with a cold face devoid of any smile, as if the laughter from a moment ago was an illusion.
“In texts you called him Yoon hyung, hyung hyung so well, but you can’t do it in front of me?”
Ka Jerim froze, unable to give any answer. Kang Juno was about to say something more to him, but seeing Ka Jerim trembling while completely pale, he clicked his tongue as if losing his fighting spirit and grabbed the liquor bottle on the table.
“That text wasn’t from Yoon, I sent it. I didn’t think you’d fall for it so easily though.”
Ka Jerim still didn’t say anything. Rather, he shut his mouth even tighter and just lowered his head deeply.
‘It wasn’t a text from hyung. Then where did the story leak from? Yoon hyung wouldn’t……’
As Ka Jerim was thinking and thinking, Kang Juno rummaged through the few snacks on the table with one hand while pouring liquor into a glass with the other hand, saying,
“He said you’re Cha Hohyeon.”
“……”
“Go Yoon did.”
Ka Jerim had thought Go Yoon would never do that. Even if others found out, he thought it would happen by mistake, not intentionally. But Kang Juno was now speaking as if Go Yoon had told him directly.
‘Why?’
When Go Yoon suggested telling the members that he was Cha Hohyeon, Ka Jerim had asked him to wait just a little longer. Because just living each day as Ka Jerim was already overwhelming, he needed more time.
‘Why did he tell first?’
But Go Yoon told Kang Juno. And yet, the fact that there hadn’t been a single word to him until now—he found it hard to believe.
‘Why? You said you’d wait. You said you’d watch over me and support me until the day I could speak……’
Ka Jerim conflicted between the resentment and sense of betrayal blooming toward Go Yoon and the reason suppressing such emotions. Perhaps something happened to Go Yoon. But when he recalled that he did this without even a word, he felt resentful again. Ka Jerim’s thoughts spinning endlessly in his head were cut off by Kang Juno’s words.
“But you know what? After hearing that, I couldn’t understand it at all.”
Kang Juno’s voice was tinged with drunkenness. He staggered to his feet and began striding over the table. The bottles on the table tipped over, and the liquor inside spilled. Walking across the messy table, Kang Juno instantly stood right in front of Ka Jerim.
‘This is strange.’
Ka Jerim shrank back and retreated at Kang Juno’s face that had gotten close. Their eyes met.
Even though he was this close, hazy eyes from which he couldn’t read any thoughts at all, and a threatening appearance. Everything approached Ka Jerim too unfamiliarly.
‘……It doesn’t seem like hyung.’
It was a face he always missed.
They were faces that appeared frequently even in dreams because he missed them so much. Ka Jerim always chased after the members in his dreams, and if by any chance they didn’t appear in his dreams, he searched for them until he woke up. To that extent, Ka Jerim always wanted to see Fort’s members.
But as days passed, cruelly, except for Go Yoon, the members gradually blurred in his memory, which was agonizing.
When such a face he missed endlessly was right before his eyes, he should naturally be happy, but Ka Jerim wasn’t happy at all right now. Rather, he despaired.
‘I shouldn’t have met him.’
The fact that Kang Juno was looking at him with an endlessly unfamiliar and hostile face—it was unbearably hard to endure. His head knew that since he wasn’t Cha Hohyeon now, such a cold gaze from Kang Juno was natural, but it was hard to accept.
“I’ll ask straight.”
“……”
“What do you want?”
Kang Juno, who found Ka Jerim’s face blinking as if asking what he meant detestable, pulled his close face back slightly while simultaneously frowning and continued speaking.
“What do you want that you’re pulling such ridiculous bullshit on Go Yoon? Fuck. There’s a limit to bullshit too. How could you pretend to be Cha Hohyeon—”
“It’s not like that……!”
Kang Juno didn’t want to hear Ka Jerim’s words, so he cut off Ka Jerim’s words and continued speaking.
“Then say it with your own mouth. The Ka Jerim I know is a member of Abyss who debuted this time, nineteen years old, and doesn’t even have an opportunity to be acquainted with Cha Hohyeon. So who are you?”
“……”
“Just who the hell are you?”
Kang Juno’s black pupils silently stared at Ka Jerim. Ka Jerim looked at his own reflection in Kang Juno’s black pupils.
The image reflected in Kang Juno’s pupils was Ka Jerim.
Once, he blinked.
The image reflected in Kang Juno’s pupils was Ka Jerim.
Twice, he blinked.
Then suddenly Cha Hohyeon was contained in Kang Juno’s pupils.
Three times, he blinked.
Young Cha Hohyeon was contained in Kang Juno’s pupils.
And the fourth time, when he closed his eyes for a long time and opened them, Kang Juno was standing in front of him with a youthful face, and before such young Kang Juno, Cha Hohyeon crouching down side by side. He saw himself.
* * *
‘Hyung. Stop fighting with Teacher.’
Young Juno hyung was panting, leaning against the practice room wall, drenched in sweat. The small me in my memory looked at the disheveled Juno hyung with pity.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Hyung!’
When I pressed him as if scolding him for speaking as if throwing a tantrum, he chuckled as if young me getting angry was funny. But because his split lip seemed to hurt, he went ‘ah ah’ while cursing under his breath and had no choice but to lower the corners of his mouth again.
‘Just stay put. If you lose more weight here, you’ll really die.’
‘I’m fine. I can lose more.’
Right before debut, the agency imposed a particularly harsh diet on me, who was at an age when I should be growing.
Afraid that my unexpected rapid growth would ruin the concept of a small, cute youngest member. But the agency couldn’t stop my growing height, so somehow to make my physique look smaller, they cruelly starved me under the name of diet.
‘Idiot. You can’t even open your eyes properly.’
‘I can open my eyes well, look!’
At that time, when I survived only on water and nutritional supplements, I only slept endlessly. Also, even when awake, as I continued living as if half asleep, I reached a point where I couldn’t even properly understand what people were saying.
So I was scared at that time.
Afraid that I might die like this without even debuting.
But I couldn’t say I didn’t want to starve.
