When the road manager came in and told them to prepare to go straight to Cha Hohyeon’s funeral as soon as things were sorted out, Kang Juno abruptly stood up from his seat at that moment. At his ominous sign, the road manager hurriedly grabbed him, and Kang Juno resisted roughly.
‘Fuck.’
Kang Juno shoved the road manager trying to stop him hard against the wall.
‘Kang Juno! What are you doing!’
‘Everyone’s taking the joke too far. Why should we go to Cha Hohyeon’s funeral? Why on earth would we go for a kid who isn’t even dead……!’
Kang Juno was caught by the road manager and agency staff who came in belatedly and struggled, but was overwhelmed by the restraint of many people and slammed to the floor. As if deeply resentful of this, Kang Juno shook his body roughly and cursed. To them, Cha Hohyeon was more precious than anything.
‘Where does Hohyeon have family besides us! Why won’t you let us see him, why!!’
Because he was family.
Like that, Yoon’s hospital room became pandemonium, and nurses alarmed by the commotion rushed over. They were kicked out to an empty room next door for Go Yoon’s stability, and not long after, they headed to Cha Hohyeon’s funeral.
But everyone was already on edge, and seeing the reporters who had already heard the news and filled the place before they even arrived, Kang Juno finally exploded. When they should be quietly mourning, flashes were going off like at an awards ceremony with a red carpet laid out. The path through all that to reach the dead Cha Hohyeon was too much for them to handle.
“Juno-ya, let’s go.”
“Hyung.”
“We have to go see our Hohyeon. Hohyeon must be waiting for us a lot.”
Ha Moon tapped the back of Kang Juno’s hand as he leaned against the wall covering his face, lost in thought. In the end, seeing Ha Moon smile as if trying hard to be okay, Kang Juno gave a bitter smile.
“Hyung, I wish this was all a hidden camera.”
“……I know.”
“I wish if we go in right now, Cha Hohyeon would be smiling and asking if we were really surprised. Then I really could not be angry.”
Kang Juno covered his face again. Kang Juno, who had held firm until now, finally burst into tears. Seeing tears flow through the gaps of the hands covering his miserably crumpled face, Ha Moon slowly looked at the floor. His nose stung.
“We really have to go now. Everyone pull yourselves together. Lee Robi, come here.”
Having barely composed themselves, they left the bathroom, escaped the crowded reporters, and stepped inside the funeral hall where only a few reporters were present. And amidst the clicking sounds that burst out, the moment they saw Cha Hohyeon smiling brightly—
“Ah……”
Kang Juno shed tears like a waterfall that he had been holding back and releasing bit by bit. Realizing the cold reality, his body trembling and shaking, he tried to bow in front of Cha Hohyeon’s photo, but after prostrating himself, he couldn’t get up again.
No one could lift him up. Seeing the heaving shoulders of prostrate Kang Juno, the members slowly approached him and patted Juno’s back. Then Juno, as if to pour out all the tears he had been holding back, prostrated on the floor and let out a long, long cry.
Soon that sound of crying was buried by the clicking sounds of cameras the reporters were setting off.
* * *
I tried to pull out the rope hanging from my neck by force, but it wouldn’t come out easily, so I failed. I thought I should find a knife to cut it, so I looked toward the sink in the distance, but as soon as I saw the horrible state of the sink, I immediately shut my eyes tightly.
When would I find a knife in that chaotic space and when would I cut it? I’ll just have to undo this later.
Because more urgent than anything is—
“What do I do from now on?”
The direction forward.
At first, I thought about committing suicide. I thought if this was a dream, maybe I could wake up by committing suicide. But for a dream, the sensations and everything were too realistic. And suicide……
“I’m scared.”
In fact, just thinking about dying again feels like my breath is being choked. Even if this was a dream, I didn’t want to repeat dying again, so I absolutely didn’t want to commit suicide.
First, I opened the small drawer of the TV stand. I just opened it without thinking, but my eyes widened when a resident registration card and bankbooks came out.
“Oh my. To leave such important things here……”
What if someone steals them?
With this thought, I opened my mouth as if nagging my hyungs, but thinking about it, if there was a thief, I was the thief.
When I roughly added up the amounts in the bankbooks, there was enough money to cover living expenses to some extent, and fortunately, in a notebook placed on one side, there were public certificates, various site IDs and passwords written down.
Can I use this? After hesitating for a moment while just looking at the bankbook, I politely put my hands together, closed my eyes, and spoke as if praying.
“I don’t know if you’re watching, but it seems I need to resolve food, clothing, and shelter, so I think I’ll have to use this money a little. I’ll definitely fill it back in later.”
Is this how you pray? I closed my eyes tightly and waited to see if there would be any response, but since nothing happened, I sheepishly pushed the bankbook to one side of the drawer and picked up the student ID placed next to it.
“Ka Jerim?”
Is this the name? Even looking again, ‘Ka Jerim’ was clearly stamped there.
“Wow, first time seeing the surname Ka.”
I looked at the resident registration card with curiosity. In the resident registration photo, a young boy was listlessly staring at the camera.
<Ka Je Rim>
Is this the ‘ka’ from that crayfish? With a troubled face, I stared intently at the name Ka Jerim, then soon realized that the ‘ka’ I knew and this ‘ka’ were different, and smiled with an embarrassed face.
Like that, I started collecting information about this person named ‘Ka Jerim’ one by one. Whether this is a dream or reality, I can’t stay in this house forever anyway.
“He’s younger than me.”
The kid named Ka Jerim was going to turn nineteen next year. Aside from the student ID and bankbook, there was no more information to be obtained from the drawer. I wanted to know who this child’s family was, but that was all the contents in the drawer.
♩♬♪~
At that moment, a lively bell sound that didn’t suit this gloomy studio apartment at all suddenly rang.
♩♬♪♩♬♪~
“……Ah, what a shock.”
I was so surprised in that instant that I couldn’t even think of answering. However, the phone hung up and rang again, so I finally started looking for the phone in earnest. Fortunately, the phone was stuck between piles of clothes scattered on the floor.
“Does it work?”
It was a smartphone, but the screen was almost shattered. Fortunately, perhaps the main board wasn’t damaged, the name of the person calling flashed on the screen. As I was barely reading the caller’s name out loud, I froze.
“Ka-ga-eu…… Dog-like?”
<Dog-like Director-nim>
It can’t be a puppy that’s a director, and it can’t be a person named ‘Gateun’ with the surname ‘Gae’ (dog).
Wondering whether I should answer the call from a person who is a dog-like director to Ka Jerim or not, I thought I’d try confronting it once, squeezed my eyes shut, and answered the phone.
“Hello……”
[Ka Jerim! Are you crazy?! Don’t you know tomorrow is the end-of-month evaluation? But you skip vocal practice too, huh?! Can’t you get your head on straight these days?]
“Yes?”
[Get to the practice room right now! If you keep being habitually late like this, I absolutely won’t give you the convenience of living in the dorm alone!! Come running before your grade drops further, you bastard!!]
“……Yes?”
Before I could properly understand what the other person was saying, I just reflexively said ‘Yes?’ and hung up the phone.
Practice room, vocal practice, end-of-month evaluation, dorm life?
They’re somehow familiar words, but they were all jumbled up in my head and I couldn’t get my bearings. After sitting there dazed for a moment, with a ‘no way’ feeling, I struggled to press the phone that didn’t respond well to touches and finally entered the contacts.
“What is this…… more than that, I need to know who’s who.”
Since they’re all saved by name, I don’t know who’s who. While thinking that and scrolling down, I blinked my eyes when I found a noticeable phrase.
<O-All Entertainment Emergency Contact Network>
<O-All Enter Class B Leader Asshole>
“No way, really.”
It seems this kid named Ka Jerim—
“Is a trainee?”
Seems to be a trainee.
I, who was an idol in my fifth year of debut—
“What do I do?”
—had just become a trainee.
“God must have abandoned me.”
A trainee, of all things. Even in my previous life as Cha Hohyeon, I practically lived in the practice room, and thinking about repeating that was too horrifying.
“I don’t want to be a celebrity anymore.”
I could somehow endure trainee life. However, the biggest reason I was reluctant right now was because I didn’t want to become a celebrity as Ka Jerim.
“……I’ll meet them.”
If I step into the entertainment industry, there’s a high possibility I’ll run into the connections I made in my previous life as Cha Hohyeon. Then could I act like nothing’s wrong when I meet them? When people who were close to me treat me like a complete stranger?
The answer was no.
Fortunately, Ka Jerim is a trainee, so if I quit now, I don’t have to debut. So at first, I thought I’d tell them I’m quitting right away when I get there, but looking at my current situation, I couldn’t quit right away. Because currently, O-All Entertainment is the only place where I can learn what kind of person Ka Jerim is.
I searched through the phone diligently, but there was almost no information to obtain. In between the contacts, things like ‘asshole’ and ‘crazy bastard’ appeared, but I couldn’t just call them out of the blue and say ‘Mr. Asshole, are you my friend?’ Most of the messages filling the message box were [Where are you] from <Dog-like Director-nim>, and the gallery was completely empty.
“Where’s a knife?”
To live as Ka Jerim for a while, I need to at least know what kind of life he lived, so I decided to go to O-All Entertainment.
Getting up from my seat, I barely found a knife in the filthy sink to go out, cut the rope hanging from my neck, and then looked for clothes.
