Jion, who was rushed to the hospital, got an X-ray and was diagnosed with ligament damage. Unluckily, the spot Park Homin had stomped on was the same place he’d injured during dance practice last time. Jinyeong clicked his tongue seeing Jion come out with a half-cast, supported by Seonwoo Jin.
“Is there a ghost attached to your ankle? You injured the same injured spot again.”
“Ugh, don’t say creepy things. There’s no such thing. Hyung, are you okay?”
“Jion-ah, are you feeling a bit better? Can you walk?”
The members each threw out words of comfort and concern, and Jion nodded with a tired expression and smile.
“I’m lucky Park Homin was playing half-heartedly. If he’d been serious, my ankle would’ve been broken.”
“Didn’t that bastard do it for revenge? I heard he picked a fight with you hyung last time.”
“Even if it’s revenge, Seong Jion should be the one doing it, why is he doing it?”
The members clenched their fists and expressed their anger. Among them, the angriest was leader Ryu Geon.
“That bastard is definitely looking down on us because we’re not popular.”
For Ryu Geon, who had already been hit by a similar character today, Park Homin’s arrogance seemed to hit close to home. Ryu Geon rarely failed to contain his anger and shouted.
“The broadcasting station is the same. If Jion had stepped on Park Homin and he’d collapsed, would they have responded like it was someone else’s business like this?”
They might think it was a victim mentality, but all the BNCZ members sympathized with Ryu Geon’s anger. Jion also bit his lips tightly. No matter how much he thought about it, he could only think they’d been ignored because they were nugu idols with no manager present, weak agency power, and no fan seats.
“Ah, this is really pissing me off.”
Ryu Geon took a deep breath while touching his forehead. He seemed to be trying to calm his anger, but it wasn’t easy with the heavy atmosphere. In the quieted atmosphere, Eungi took out a credit card from his wallet.
“Should we call a taxi for now? My mom gave me a card to use for times like this.”
Normally they would have said it was okay, but now wasn’t the time to refuse.
BNCZ, who took a taxi and left work early, still had a sunken atmosphere even after returning to the dorm. Jion, who came out after washing up, lay on the bed and checked the fan cafe. As if rumors of Jion’s injury had already spread, the fan cafe was full of posts asking about Jion’s well-being.
[Is it true that Jion oppa got hurt at IAC?]
[Jion-ah, did you go to the hospital?]
[Oppa ㅠㅠㅠ We’re sorry we couldn’t fill the fan seats for you today]
(……)
Jion clicked on the most recent post among them and paused for a moment while trying to leave a comment.
What position should I take here?
If it were up to him, he wanted to leave a post like ‘Dear fans, I’m so sorry I got hurt. I should have been more careful during the game, I’m sorry for making you worry. ㅠㅠ.’ to draw out reactions like ‘No, why is Jion sorry ㅠㅠ’. But right now, his position was a bit ambiguous.
And just as he suspected. A moment later, Ryu Geon knocked on the door of the room where Jion was resting, holding his phone with an extremely angry face.
“Jion-ah, sorry while you’re resting. The manager hyung called, will you take it?”
“Uh, yeah. Hello?”
― Oh, Jion-ah. Did you go to the hospital?
“Ah, yes.”
The manager’s voice on the other end of the phone felt innocent, still unaware of the situation, and Jion was already getting a bit angry. And the manager hesitantly revealed the story he’d been told.
― IAC contacted us, and, um, they want us not to post anything until they make an official statement, and not to react to fans asking questions either, and they’d appreciate it if we could just wait a bit…….
After sending him to the hospital in Yoon Hyeok’s car, they must have belatedly thought they’d get criticized for not taking proper responsibility. So they were demanding that BNCZ keep their mouths shut until they got all their internal stories straight, and the manager who hadn’t seen the situation seemed to have answered okay for now. When the broadcasting station made such demands, he couldn’t very well say no.
“……Whew, understood.”
Jion sighed and hung up. Ryu Geon took back his phone with a hardened face and asked Jion.
“What did the manager hyung say?”
“The broadcasting station told us to stay quiet…… We’ll stay quiet for them, whatever.”
“……Got it.”
Ryu Geon left the room still full of anger. Of course, Jion wasn’t doing what the broadcasting station told him because he was soft-hearted and scared either.
“……What stance should I take now……”
After pondering for a moment, Jion searched for the current status of the female idols who had been on the same kinball team as him. Both groups had similar recognition levels to BNCZ, but since they were from agencies specializing in idols, they had communication apps with fans.
The female idol who had participated most diligently in defense
[I’ll go play kinball and come back!]
hadn’t posted anything else since then, and from the group of the girl who had given Seonwoo Jin her contact information, there was a message sent a few minutes ago.
[You were surprised when the game suddenly stopped, right?]
[Jion sunbae-nim got hurt so the game was stopped]
[I saw it briefly but he was hurt badly……]
[They said there’s no medical staff here]
[Sunbae-nim went straight to the hospital]
[Yes, I’ll be careful too]
“Haha…… What a good kid.”
They shouldn’t have just told me to keep quiet, they should have issued a gag order to all the idols. Jion smiled looking at the messages she’d sent.
With this, he had secured evidence that the broadcasting station’s preparations were inadequate, and next was Park Homin’s side. Jion searched through all of Venom’s Twitter, Park Homin’s SNS, and communication apps, but not only had he not apologized, he hadn’t even recently logged into his communication app.
VenomJiisJangnanini @fuxx_u_hm
Homin-ah, you have time to send sticky DMs to BJs but no time to communicate with fans
Looking at the callout that came up in the search, Jion gave up investigating Park Homin any further. Instead, he searched about Yoon Hyeok, who had helped him today.
Actually, Yoon Hyeok was a popular idol to the extent that even pre-regression Jion knew his name and face, but he didn’t know exactly what kind of person he was. Anyway, since he didn’t seem like someone bad to know, it seemed advantageous to grasp some preliminary information.
“Hmm…… Well…… Nothing much.”
Jion looked through his SNS and searched the internet to find fans’ reactions and his overall reputation. Fortunately, he seemed to be well-liked by the public and treated his fans well. On top of that, he’d even helped him, so Jion thought Yoon Hyeok was quite a decent person.
“Hmm…… He’s handsome.”
Not as much as Seonwoo Jin, but it was a quite respectable-looking face. While Jion was leaning against the headboard appreciating Yoon Hyeok’s face, Seonwoo Jin belatedly appeared, stealthily opening the door.
“……Are you resting?”
“Yeah……”
It’s a room they share, so why is he being so hesitant? Jion, who was about to laugh thinking he looked like a puppy poking his face through the door gap, hardened his face as he recalled in flashback everything that had happened today. But Seonwoo Jin, who thought their quarrel had ended when he’d carried Jion to the hospital, jumped onto Jion’s bed to act cute like before.
“What were you looking at?”
When things don’t go well, they don’t go well all day. Seonwoo Jin, leaning on Jion’s shoulder and naturally checking his phone, became serious at the screen full of another man’s face.
“……What is this?”
“What is what.”
“This.”
Seonwoo Jin tapped Jion’s screen with an angry face.
“This is that guy. The one who acted friendly with you earlier.”
“Yoon Hyeok sunbae.”
“No need to know his name.”
Seonwoo Jin, shocked by the fact that Jion had been diligently searching for and appreciating another man’s photos while he wasn’t by his side, had his buttons pushed.
“Why are you looking at this guy’s photos?”
“It’s my business, isn’t it?”
Normally, Jion would have made up some appropriate reason and smoothed over Seonwoo Jin’s mood, but today his leg hurt and there had been many incidents beforehand, so his words didn’t come out nicely. Seonwoo Jin was even more shocked by Jion’s sharp attitude and confronted him.
“Why are you talking like that? We agreed not to be friendly with other idols. But why were you talking with this person from when we were doing the relay race?”
“What? Friendly? Ha.”
Sparks flew in Jion’s eyes, which had been holding back at Seonwoo Jin’s childish stubbornness. Seonwoo Jin had picked a fight he couldn’t win. Jion put down the phone he’d been looking at as if he’d been waiting for this. And he put his hands on his hips and entered full fighting mode, and Seonwoo Jin felt something was wrong with Jion, who had suddenly become as imposing as a peacock with its tail spread.
“You said that well? Not to be friendly with other idols? Isn’t that what I should be saying to you?”
“What did I……”
“What were you talking about with Sollin alone since this morning?”
“……Huh?”
It was closer to dawn than morning. Seonwoo Jin, who had completely forgotten about having a conversation with Sollin because he was too tired early in the morning, was flustered.
“You looked like you were having fun alone with Sollin? We agreed not to exchange contact information. But what, did you contact each other behind my back?”
“No!”
“What about those girls at lunch? Why did you accept all of them talking to you and even accept their contact information?”
“No, I didn’t accept it……”
“Putting it in your pocket isn’t crossing the line?”
“No, at that time I couldn’t use both hands……”
“If you could use your hands, you would have received it with your hands?”
“No, that’s not what I meant……”
“I showed that I didn’t like you exchanging contact information with them. But while I was at kinball, you looked like you were having fun sitting next to them in a row?”
“No, that’s not it……”
Seonwoo Jin’s face gradually turned pale as he picked a fight for nothing and couldn’t even get his investment back, being completely shaken down.
