Consciousness was dragged up to the surface along with the feeling of waking from an old dream.
My eyes opened, but that was all. I was so dazed I was nearly vacant, needing time to recall what I had been doing before losing consciousness.
So… it was definitely the last day of the year. I had tried to end everything with my own hands, and I thought I had surely succeeded.
But the pure white ceiling spread before my eyes, the regularly beeping machine sounds, and the surrounding scenery made it clear.
I had failed. For some unknown reason, I couldn’t die and ended up opening my eyes again.
The first thing I felt about that fact was disappointment.
“Even dying doesn’t go the way I want…”
As I let out a deep sigh at the feeling of despair, I heard the sound of a sliding door opening, and familiar voices came pouring in.
“Huh? Han Ijae!”
“What? Ijae hyung woke up?”
“Ijae.”
Was this a nightmare I was having with my eyes open? Otherwise, there was no way the Starium members would be filing in like this.
Among them, there was one person who naturally caught my attention.
“Han Ijae, you…”
Hair bleached to a brilliant gold, piercings dangling all over, fierce yet gorgeous features.
The person I had clung to until the very end, and who had thus betrayed me even more painfully.
Kwon Seonho.
“…”
My heart raced urgently.
My last memory of Kwon Seonho was a one-sided breakup notification. A few hours before going to die, our relationship had ended with me carelessly sending a single text saying let’s stop this now.
Actually, calling it a breakup was inaccurate. Judging from the conversation between him and his friends that I’d accidentally overheard, I was apparently the only one who believed we were lovers.
A few minutes after sending the text, Kwon Seonho had called like crazy. As he always did when his pride was hurt, he probably intended to yell asking if I was insane. I didn’t answer those calls and cleanly deleted even the text I had sent so it wouldn’t remain on my phone.
So Kwon Seonho would be angry with me. Maybe he’d even slap me. There were other members here, but once he got angry, he couldn’t see anything…
“Are you okay?”
I ended up flustered by words completely different from what I expected. Are you okay?
“Looking at how dazed you are, you don’t seem okay at all. You do recognize us, right?”
A member who came in with him chimed in with a worried tone.
“…Ijae hyung, are you okay? Do you remember how you collapsed?”
“Do you even know how shocked we were?”
What is all this about? It was a situation that felt not just strange but even scary. Not knowing what to do, I looked around.
Something was off. I kept feeling an incongruity I couldn’t clearly explain.
A phone came into my lost, wavering vision. White text set to always display the date and time formed palely on my retina.
March 15th, Friday.
“March 15th…?”
Not December 31st?
“Yeah. You slept for two whole days. We were all so shocked thinking something terrible happened. And you had to wake up when we’d just stepped out of the room for a moment… Hey, are you really okay? You look even paler?”
“Should I go get a nurse?”
“Yeah. That’d be better. Call manager hyung too… No, I’ll do that.”
“…”
“Wait just a moment, Han Ijae. We’ll be right back, so don’t get out of bed. Got it?”
As soon as the members left, I turned on my phone with trembling hands and checked today’s date again.
The date wasn’t the only strange thing.
“…Two years ago?”
No matter how many times I rubbed my eyes and looked again, the numbers remained the same. Two years ago, and March 15th.
It didn’t make sense. I’d never heard of time going backwards. I wondered if I had gone crazy from failing to die.
However, the moment I saw these numbers, the subtle sense of discord I’d been feeling was explained all at once. The hospital room scenery that felt like I’d been here once or twice before, the members’ faces slightly more youthful than I remembered, Kwon Seonho acting as if he’d never received a breakup notification.
Two years ago from now. I had returned to the day I collapsed from overwork while wrapping up our first full album promotions.
To before my life started rolling downhill.
“…Ha.”
I felt hollow. I wasn’t happy or glad about this life I’d suddenly gotten back without knowing why.
What kind of time had those past two years been for me?
What kind of hell had that been for me?
If I had to pick even one fortunate thing, it was that everything hadn’t started yet. Even if I went out and walked the streets as is, I wouldn’t be showered with unpleasant looks or whispered curses.
If this wasn’t a dream, what could it be? A chance to change everything? Or just a punishment where I had to experience that hell once more?
I was just sitting there blankly, unable to get my bearings, when the hospital room door opened again. As soon as I turned my head, I made eye contact with Kwon Seonho, who entered first.
‘Right. Ijae, you in a scandal? Other idiots might fall for it, but not me. You only have me, right?’
A person I once loved with all my heart.
‘Seonho hyung. I only need you, hyung. If you believe in me, I can gain strength and do anything. Really.’
‘I know, our Ijae would even pretend to die if hyung asked.’
And who thus betrayed me exactly that much.
‘Fuck, boyfriend my ass. I just played around with him. It was funny how he clung to me desperately saying I was all he had left when he has no one in the world.’
If I had a choice, I wish I wouldn’t love you. No, I just wish we had never been anything to each other from the start.
It wasn’t a thought directed only at Kwon Seonho. I was exhausted, and I didn’t want to get entangled with anyone anymore.
“Um…”
So I decided to run away. It was quite an impulsive decision.
“Who are you?”
“…”
“Do you know me by any chance?”
Most of the problems surrounding me were because of people. Hands reaching out for reasons like twisted goodwill, greed, jealousy, or vengeance had practically brought me down.
So not getting entangled was the best option. First, I’d buy time by pretending not to remember anything, then somehow find a way to leave the entertainment industry.
‘I don’t want to go through it twice.’
It was a chance to re-button that first button of that massive disgrace. If I could just avoid repeating the mistakes of those past days when I got hurt over and over with pathetic faith, I could do this acting a hundred times over.
“What kind of situation is this now?”
“…”
“If you’re joking, it’s not funny, Ijae.”
“Han Ijae…”
Think. I need to think. The best way to safely deceive everyone and leave without this lie being discovered.
“…That’s my name, right?”
Kwon Seonho’s face crumpled with dismay. And it wasn’t just him—the other members were the same.
An expression I’d never seen before.
The moment I saw it, an unknown emotion seemed to ripple briefly.
“Didn’t you say it was just a simple case of overwork and malnutrition?”
“When he first came in through the emergency room, it certainly was…”
The doctor examining the chart answered with a sigh-laced voice.
“Even if there hadn’t been additional problems discovered, it wasn’t at a level I could call simple. The fact that daily life was possible with anemia levels this severe is a miracle in itself.”
“…”
“Perhaps his head was impacted in the process of losing consciousness. The fact that he didn’t regain consciousness for two days might be related to this.”
“Is there nothing certain?”
“Unfortunately not. Right now the patient’s condition is quite unstable, so we’ll need to approach things carefully one by one after getting sufficient rest first.”
Still, my experience consistently learning acting and even playing a supporting role hadn’t gone anywhere—I succeeded in showing that my memory was confused, at least.
But there would be limits to acting convincingly. I couldn’t fool even experts’ eyes with this pathetic acting.
So for now, I started keeping my mouth tightly shut and conserving my words while pretending to be confused. I planned to wait until the manager who didn’t want to make things big discharged me, then gradually get them to announce a suspension of activities due to health issues.
‘For the contract matter, I’ll talk with the CEO as best I can and try to settle on paying less in penalty fees…’
As I was steeling my resolve like that, a hand suddenly shot out and gripped my shoulder firmly.
“Hey. Tell me honestly.”
Kwon Seonho approached and bent down to meet my eyes.
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
