“But how much farther do we have to go?”
“We’re heading out of the city, so probably about 20 more minutes? But your voice is completely hoarse right now, are you okay?”
Should I drink some water? No. At times like this, it’s better not to consume anything at all. If I ate or drank something, I felt like I’d throw it all up, so I nodded my head and said I was fine, then shifted into a comfortable position and stared straight ahead.
For a moment, the car stopped at an intersection while waiting for the signal, and as I quietly looked ahead, I thought it seemed familiar somewhere, then soon opened my eyes wide.
……An intersection?
“Ka Jerim-ssi?”
The moment I realized where this was, I immediately wanted to get out.
I felt like I was going crazy wanting to get out of the car right now.
“Hey! Ka Jerim-ssi?!”
I could feel Yoon-i hyung shouting something from beside me, but I was in a state of panic, trembling like crazy.
Because I died at this intersection.
The noise of the car accident stuck to my ears like tinnitus. The hot impacts that had touched my back, and the feeling of my entire body twisting beneath them were so vivid. Coming to this place made me feel like I was experiencing that hell all over again.
“Ha, ugh.”
I was suffocating. The smell of the car choked my breath while my vision repeatedly blurred and cleared.
The van in the third lane at the intersection, and now me in the third lane at the same intersection.
I was helplessly shaken by the hands shaking me, then soon surrendered my body to my fading consciousness. Even as I was losing consciousness, I gripped the door handle tightly. With the hope that please, the door would open.
* * *
Of course, it was a locked car door that couldn’t be opened. Ka Jerim suddenly tried to open that car door, rattling it several times, then soon trembled like crazy. And he kept muttering something before collapsing backward as if fainting.
Go Yoon unconsciously caught the falling Ka Jerim with both hands.
“What on earth is this.”
Ka Jerim, caught in his hands, was completely drenched in sweat. And seeing that he was still ailing even now, Go Yoon looked at the unconscious Ka Jerim with a troubled face. Fortunately, he was breathing properly and seemed to have just fainted for a moment.
“Should I go to the hospital.”
How did what was supposed to be asking about one song turn into this. Sitting there dazed by the sudden situation that happened in an instant, Go Yoon pondered while turning the car at the honking sounds from behind.
Whether he should go to the hospital, or go to his own house.
“I don’t know.”
Go Yoon turned the steering wheel.
.
.
>Behind
“Remember <Poison Cup> that Hohyeon sang?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Some trainee was singing it, did you perhaps give him the song?”
Of course, I had never given that song to anyone. However, the <Poison Cup> that the trainee in the video that Yak PD-nim showed me afterward was singing was a completed song with even my rap part filled in with vocals. But the more I listened, the more my mouth gradually opened in shock and couldn’t close.
“This isn’t even a completed song, but he completed it. He filled your original rap part lyrics with vocals, and doesn’t this completely feel like Hohyeon wrote it?”
“……These are lyrics that Hohyeon wrote.”
“What?”
Yak PD-nim looked at me with a face that didn’t understand, but I was just staring blankly at the video.
<Poison Cup> was a song that only Yak PD-nim, me, and Cha Hohyeon knew about, but in fact, the version Yak PD-nim knew was an incomplete, ‘modified’ <Poison Cup> that had already been rearranged once.
‘I want to do this song together.’
One day, while listening to music in Cha Hohyeon’s studio, I happened to hear <Poison Cup>, which was his self-composed song, and I really liked that song. So I told him let’s do a collaboration together. Then Hohyeon readily agreed and rearranged <Poison Cup> anew, leaving only my part empty. I clearly remembered that he modified the perfect song into an incomplete one by leaving space in it.
“Actually, the <Poison Cup> that PD-nim knows has already been rearranged once.”
“What are you talking about. Wasn’t <Poison Cup> the first time I arranged it?”
Yak PD-nim looked at me with a face that didn’t understand at all, but I kept my gaze fixed on the video that was still playing and said.
“The original song of <Poison Cup> was a completed song.”
When I said let’s do it together, Cha Hohyeon said, ‘I’ll arrange it by tomorrow leaving out only hyung’s part and bring it. And we’ll have Yak PD-nim arrange it, and surprise-release it to the fans,’ and really brought the incomplete <Poison Cup> to Yak PD-nim and me the next day.
“I heard that original song and proposed to Hohyeon that it would be good to collaborate together, and Hohyeon rearranged the completed song back into an incomplete song.”
“Then the song that kid is singing right now is……”
“The original song. Moreover, the completed original song that Cha Hohyeon made.”
But there was something strange.
Because the original song was a song that shouldn’t exist in the world.
‘Aside from me and Hohyeon, there shouldn’t be anyone who knows that song. Who is that kid?’
That day, I saw Cha Hohyeon delete the original song file with his own hands.
As soon as our collaboration was confirmed, Cha Hohyeon said he would delete the song right away. Actually, I liked the original song so much that I said it was too precious to delete and there was no need to do that, but Cha Hohyeon said firmly.
‘If I leave the original song, there’s a high possibility that hyung will be influenced by it. I need to create a part that’s only hyung’s.’
‘But isn’t it too precious to delete?’
‘It’s okay.’
“It’s a song that only exists in Hohyeon’s head.”
‘I remember it all.’
But why does the original song remain in the world.
When Cha Hohyeon, who perfectly remembered the original song, doesn’t exist in the world.
No matter how much I heard the song, with just hearing it a few times, I couldn’t perfectly reproduce the original song. However, the trainee perfectly reproduced that original song as if he was Cha Hohyeon himself, and that felt too eerie.
I narrowed my eyes and stared at the video.
“His name is Ka Jerim?”
Who are you?
* * *
My body felt like waterlogged cotton, drooping down to the point where my limbs felt crushed. Groaning and barely managing to sit up, I squinted and looked around at the unfamiliar scenery.
“……Ah!”
At that moment, my eyes met with Yoon-i hyung, who was quietly looking at me from over there. Flustered by hyung standing in a completely unexpected place, I screamed, and hyung just looked at me silently.
Why am I here? My memory definitely cut off in the car, but when I opened my eyes, I was on a bed.
Belatedly trying to figure out where this was by looking around, I realized this was Yoon-i hyung’s house and opened my mouth.
“Did I perhaps……”
“You fainted.”
I’m screwed. In the end, it seems I fainted in the car, unable to endure the stress and trauma. My god, then was it Yoon-i hyung who brought me here after I collapsed?
“I’m sorry!”
I got up from my seat and repeatedly bowed my head, saying I was sorry. I’m dead now…….
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the verbal abuse that would fall on me. But even as time passed, nothing happened, so when I slightly raised my head, I was shocked to see hyung’s appearance as he answered me.
“No.”
Is that it? I made a stupid expression, flustered by hyung’s reaction that was different from my readiness to be severely cursed at. Because the hyung I knew wasn’t someone who would forgive this kind of inconvenience.
“These things can happen in life.”
“Yes. These things can happen in life……right?”
Could this be someone else wearing Yoon-i hyung’s mask?
Hyung, who couldn’t possibly know my confused heart like this, just continued making an inscrutable expression, then broke the silence first and asked me.
“Do you know Kang Juno?”
“Juno, sunbae-nim?”
The address “hyung” almost reflexively popped out. Quickly biting my tongue and correcting the address, Yoon-i hyung who heard my answer narrowed his eyes and asked again.
“You don’t know him?”
“I have no acquaintance with Kang Juno sunbae-nim.”
“Robi and Ha Moon hyung too?”
“I, I don’t know those people either.”
Surely Ka Jerim and the hyungs weren’t already acquainted, right? Wondering if I had perhaps answered wrong, I looked at Yoon-i hyung with a tense face, but rather than confirming whether my answer was wrong or right, he just looked at me as if observing.
“But why……”
♪~!
At that moment, the ringtone from the cell phone in my pocket rang.
♪♪♪~
The phone kept ringing tactlessly. Seeing that it wasn’t ringing just once or twice, it seemed like an important call, so eventually I cautiously asked Yoon-i hyung.
“Sunbae-nim. I’m sorry, but…… may I answer the phone for just a moment?”
“Go ahead.”
He readily nodded his head, and I made a tearful face. Yoon-i hyung also hates people answering phones during conversations, and he doesn’t make those strange smiles either…… Ah, is that it? Could it be irony, so he’ll kill me if I answer?
Although I received permission, when I didn’t answer the phone because I was reading hyung’s mood, he looked at me and tilted his head.
“Not answering the phone?”
“Then I’ll excuse myself for a moment!”
I found it awkward that hyung left the spot as if to let me answer comfortably. I even wondered if that person who even left the spot so I could answer the phone was really the same person who did group activities with me for several years.
I really couldn’t adapt. Of all people, it’s Yoon-i hyung talking gently to a junior. That Go Yoon. While I was still wandering in confusion, the phone rang again.
♪~
“Ah right, the phone.”
<Director Gye>
I hurriedly took out my phone and checked the screen, and sure enough, it was Director Gye. I took several deep breaths before answering the phone, knowing he would probably pour out nagging like a bomb, and sure enough, as soon as I answered the phone, the director raised his voice at me.
