But despite Jinyeong’s mature mediation, Jion’s apology and the two people’s reconciliation were not easily achieved. It was because of the noisy surrounding environment.
Seeing the news of Jion’s injury that had taken over various communities, Jinyeong shook his head.
“Geez. As expected, people prefer to gossip about bad things.”
The news of Jion’s injury covered the idol scene at almost the same speed as when Seonwoo Jin’s face bombing happened. It was thanks to idol fans who hated seeing their oppas and unnies and their babies being dragged to IAC and suffering. They took Jion’s injury as an opportunity to hold a forum denouncing the despicable broadcasting station bastards’ forced idol labor and exploitation of fan labor.
[(Male idol) Public broadcast program recording and safety measures are this shitty +999]
Last year they also destroyed a male idol’s ankle in the relay race and learned nothing, right? No preparedness to deploy medical staff, right? Is it because they don’t have brains? No sense either, right? No intelligence either, right?
Comment 1
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ No wonder it was quiet this year
Comment 2
If this many people get injured every year, at least do a ritual the day before
Comment 3
Our member still has a scar from the injury two years ago and my heart breaks every time I see it ㅠㅠ Hey, a cultural treasure got scratched, you know, fuck
Comment 4
AbolishIACAbolishIACAbolishIACAbolishIACAbolishIACAbolishIACAbolishIAC
(……)
Most were posts meant to bash IAC rather than genuinely worrying about Jion’s injury. If attention wasn’t coming to the group and himself, whether a thousand or ten thousand such posts went up, they were neither very useful nor of interest. The only place where Jion found comfort was BengCZ World, which had surpassed 10,000 members in the meantime.
“This is the taste of having fans……”
Looking at the fan cafe pouring out posts of concern for him, Jion forgot the throbbing pain in his ankle. Jion, who was left alone in the dorm after all the members went to the practice room, added heart emoticons to all the posts worrying about him to show he was okay. If it were up to him, he wanted to post a photo of his casted foot and a selfie with a post saying he was okay to show he totally wasn’t okay, but the broadcasting station was still keeping them quiet.
“Ha…… So annoying……”
After adding hearts to the last post, Jion put down his phone. Sitting in the empty room, he felt somehow strange.
Last time when he injured the same spot, he had to lie down alone depressingly in a musty, moldy room, but in those few months, he had come to live in such a nice house. As expected. Being depressed in a new high-rise apartment with a great view and perfect ventilation system was a little less depressing than being depressed while smelling mold on the third floor of an old multi-family villa without an elevator.
Is this the power of money?
Jion lay blankly on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. Everyone told him to rest while he was at it, but whether it was because of his throbbing leg or his heart, he didn’t feel like he was resting.
I shouldn’t have fought.
Jion looked back at the empty bed next to him and regretted it. After that fight, or rather one-sided scolding, Seonwoo Jin hadn’t clung to him asking to sleep together. It wasn’t that he was keeping a huge distance or being cold, but it was somehow subtle.
If he were extremely angry or acting cold, Jion would seize the atmosphere and apologize, but maintaining an ambiguously neither distant nor close distance while not even making eye contact, he couldn’t tell how hurt Seonwoo Jin was, so he didn’t know how to approach him.
“Ha…… Really…… I should have held back……”
He should have just whined like usual, ‘Why were you giggling with other girls when I was watching? I told you I don’t like that. I’m worried because you’re too handsome. You can’t look elsewhere, got it?’ and given him a mental education, so why did he react so sensitively?
Greatly reflecting, Jion pulled the blanket up to his shoulders. The soft and fluffy blanket smelled of the good fragrance of fabric softener, but even this good fragrance couldn’t improve Jion’s gloomy mood. Being left alone in the dorm somehow made him feel lonely too……
Should I go lie on Seonwoo Jin’s bed?
Jion recalled Seonwoo Jin’s body scent that always lingered around his nose. And he got up to move to the other bed, then lay back down in his place listlessly.
No. Still, going to someone else’s bed to sniff around and sleep is a bit much.
Not knowing he had already come far down a path that was very much “a bit much,” Jion belatedly pursued normalcy. But having always been cramped with two full-grown adult men squeezed together on one narrow bed and suddenly lying alone, the bed felt too wide.
“……”
[Getting caught lying on the other person’s bed after unilaterally pouring it all out and not apologizing vs. Secretly using their belongings just a tiny bit and not getting caught]
The balance was broken. Jion, who no longer had anything to worry about, got up. And limping, he went to the vanity and brought Seonwoo Jin’s perfume. And after lightly spraying it in the air to coat his bedding with Seonwoo Jin’s perfume smell, he quickly put the perfume back in its original place.
“Phew…… I think I feel a bit better?”
With Seonwoo Jin’s perfume smell subtly wafting, Jion’s heart became a little more at ease and he finally closed his eyes to take a nap. It felt like he was finally truly resting.
Unlike Jion, who was peacefully sleeping after unauthorized perfume use that would have made Seonwoo Jin go ‘Ah, what……’ while twitching the corners of his mouth if he’d known, Seonwoo Jin, who had been extorted of a trace amount of perfume, was still in a state of depression and shock, saying nothing.
“Ugh, hey. Why are you killing the mood too?”
Finally unable to bear it, Jinyeong tapped Seonwoo Jin’s shoulder. Even Eungi, who usually found Seonwoo Jin a bit intimidating, finally approached and chimed in once Jinyeong opened the floodgates.
“Jion hyung must have become too sensitive because he’s in pain. Hyung, just bear with it once……”
Ryu Geon also subtly took Seonwoo Jin’s side and comforted the depressed him.
“Jion’s words were harsh.”
Seonwoo Jin was, how should he put it. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable to be with him, but he was a more difficult type compared to the other members.
Always acting sullen yet secretly disliking being alone, keeping distance as if to say ‘who are you to act friendly’ when you try too hard to please him yet liking to hear compliments—a difficult to handle, hard to get close to cat-like type. Judging by his build, puma or jaguar would be closer…… Anyway, with that personality, he strangely clung to only Jion submissively, so Ryu Geon had also gladly left all of Seonwoo Jin’s care to Jion.
But after Jion, Seonwoo Jin’s keeper and Woojin-mom, had thoroughly scolded him, the group atmosphere was really terrible. In reality, Seonwoo Jin looked like his mental state had been ground down after hearing ‘harsh words’ from Jion, his mind somewhere else.
“……”
He hadn’t been particularly talkative originally, but when he was with Jion, he would whisper in his ear and chime in with a word or two when Jion and other members were talking, so he wasn’t completely silent, but after being excitedly scolded by Jion, it became difficult to hear his voice.
But it couldn’t be helped. To Seonwoo Jin’s not-so-high intelligence, simple thinking ability, and serious affection deficit, Jion’s anger was fatal. Seonwoo Jin still didn’t understand why Jion had gotten so furiously angry at him, nor did he really know what he’d done so wrong—in reality, he hadn’t done anything majorly wrong.
He was just mentally out of it from the fact that Jion had gotten angry and said harsh things to him, with no time to think about other things. For Seonwoo Jin, this situation was almost like having one axis of his world collapse, being cut off by the person he had poured all his attachment into.
How could Jion get so angry at me?
When I like him so much?
Does Jion not like me?
How could he say that to me?
But then, does he hate me now?
Does he not want to be with me?
Doesn’t want to sleep together, doesn’t want to share the same room, doesn’t want to live in the same dorm, doesn’t want to promote together, doesn’t want to be in the same group…….
What do I do if Jion says he hates me?
Seonwoo Jin’s shallow thinking was focused solely on future relations with Jion, his only attachment object, rather than finding and analyzing the cause of this fight, so the more he dug into the ground alone, the closer he got to the inner core of his heart, but it was no help at all in resolving the situation.
“……Woojin hyung doesn’t seem to hear us.”
“Is he ignoring everything that’s not Seong Jion or does he really not hear……”
Even to those watching from the side, there was no clue visible in the mentally broken Seonwoo Jin’s appearance for improving this situation, so they could only feel frustrated. The members no longer bothered the soul-departed Seonwoo Jin and just left him alone. In the end, people who weren’t Seong Jion couldn’t resolve this situation.
However, there was something that even Seong Jion, the brainwashing ability user who could control Seonwoo Jin’s body and mind, couldn’t do. That was moving public opinion in the idol scene.
While Jion was taking a nap comfortably smelling Seonwoo Jin’s perfume and Seonwoo Jin was in mental collapse, the scene that had been noisy with IAC denunciation began to move in a strange direction.
