If even death is nothing more than a coincidence, then this possession probably doesn’t hold much meaning either.
Still, did it really have to be like this?
“Hyung! Are you okay?”
After dying in a sudden accident, I possessed a character in a novel I’d been reading before my death.
None other than Baek Doha—an idol who constantly made entertainment headlines with his messy private life and eventually decorated the social pages with drunk driving, a total nuisance character.
“Do you remember me?”
Five hours since opening my eyes in the VIP private room. The doctor diagnosed Doha, who couldn’t remember anything, with amnesia. That’s not what this is though.
Well, anyway, just as I was barely adapting to reality, I came face to face with the protagonist of this world. His name is Lim Sehyun. OnX’s maknae. And… a regressor.
The title of this novel is <The Epic Flop Idol Gets Saved by the Maknae>.
It was about the protagonist before my eyes grabbing the already-failed team by the collar, reforming them, and turning them into the best idol team.
‘But is this before or after the regression?’
Doha looked up at Sehyun, who had gotten excessively close. Sehyun’s eyes were glistening with moisture. Soon Sehyun gripped Doha’s hand tightly and dropped to his knees right there.
‘Judging by his reaction, it’s after the regression…’
Doha found this situation quite uncomfortable. From the perspective of someone who had just possessed this body, holding hands with someone he was meeting for the first time wasn’t exactly easy.
“Haah…”
The future looked bleak. Forget being a nuisance character or a flop idol—that wasn’t even the problem.
‘I’m tone-deaf and have no sense of rhythm…’
An engineering nerd loser with not a shred of talent becoming an idol in this world? Just kill me instead. For an extreme introvert, this was a path of torture laid out like a smooth highway.
On top of that, I hadn’t even read the novel properly. I’d barely gotten through the beginning before dying in a bus rollover accident. Even if I had read it all, nothing would have changed. Either way, even if the world turned upside down, I fundamentally had zero entertainer qualities.
“I thought hyung was going to die…”
Sehyun’s palm, still clasping his, was drenched in sweat. It was truly the appearance of someone who was nervous. Doha felt his heart twinge somewhere.
‘But what accident was it again? Don’t tell me it was drunk driving.’
One of ‘Baek Doha’s’ nuisance acts that appeared in the novel was precisely drunk driving.
Just then, the manager who had finished talking with the nurse and entered the hospital room spoke up.
“The stage he fell from was pretty high, so the impact must have been severe. Especially to his head… His ankle ligaments are stretched too. But it’s not life-threatening.”
Ah. The incident where he went to a club the night before, fell off stage because the alcohol hadn’t worn off. Because of that, he developed a phobia and couldn’t dance properly, earning the label of a wooden block, wasn’t it?
The manager was right. Just because he fell from a stage doesn’t mean he’d die. Sehyun’s reaction was excessive.
‘Come to think of it… did the protagonist regress around this incident?’
It seemed to be correct. The point of possession coincided exactly with the regressor’s regression point. That’s why he couldn’t prevent the accident. I tried predicting the future development. Probably, pushed along by the nagging of the maknae, I’d have to do practice, self-improvement, and character training to death.
That would definitely be too much though.
“…Let go… a bit…”
I asked because the tightly clenched hand showed no signs of letting go. The blood’s not circulating. Then Sehyun, who had been firmly gripping with both hands, brought just one of them to his own eyes. He was wiping away tears.
“I won’t… leave you alone anymore.”
…What. Why. For what reason? Why make such an ominous promise out of nowhere? It was an extremely bad idea.
I wanted to recommend abandoning the failed team members and starting fresh instead.
To begin with, the character named Baek Doha was someone who wasn’t desperate to be an idol. A third-generation chaebol born with a real estate mogul’s golden spoon in his mouth. In other words, if he could safely exit the team, a fairly decent second act of life awaited him.
‘This… might not be bad after all?’
Thinking it over carefully, it wasn’t just “not bad”—it was better than winning the lottery. These days, even winning first place in the lottery only gets you around 1 billion won, right? By that measure, living as Baek Doha was no different from winning the lottery dozens of times.
This is it. This is exactly it.
I decided on a solid plan in an instant. Quick early withdrawal from the regressor’s team, then living a happy life.
Doha hurriedly put on a forlorn expression and opened his mouth toward Sehyun.
“…Who are you?”
Starting with amnesia.
Crack.
At that moment, even more strength went into Sehyun’s hand.
“Ow.”
Hey hey, you’re going to break my bones.
* * *
Hospital life was pretty decent. Aside from the manager who came occasionally to check on his condition and Doha’s grandfather, there wasn’t really anyone else visiting.
‘What kind of fuss did you make about becoming some entertainer… Just come back home and make dumplings.’
Baek Doha’s only family member, his grandfather, had accumulated wealth with a 100-year-old traditional dumpling shop, and became a near-chaebol with the real estate he acquired that way. Three buildings on Seoul’s golden land, and thousands of pyeong of land bought up here and there.
Doha’s grandfather couldn’t hide his displeasure at seeing his grandson who had thrown a fit about becoming a singer and even lost his memory. It was a grateful thing.
‘But the penalty fees…’
‘No need to hold back my only grandson for such chump change!’
Isn’t this what a true adult is like?
Though we’d just met, deep respect and familial love welled up. So this is the backing of a child from a wealthy family. If I was going to have backing anyway, I wanted to lean on it big time.
The contract termination and penalty fees tied to advertisements were reduced to chump change in an instant.
The original Baek Doha apparently absolutely did not want to become the heir to a dumpling shop, but the thoughts of the person who had now become Baek Doha were different. Dumplings are good, right? Anything would suit my aptitude better than being an idol. So Doha firmly grasped grandfather Baek Suncheol-ssi’s hand and drew the beautiful life of a dumpling shop young master in his head.
That was just three days ago.
“Wow. It’s a room…”
The place Doha arrived at after finishing treatment and being discharged was, naturally, the dorm. As he unpacked his bag—which didn’t have much luggage to speak of—in a room barely 3 pyeong, and looked at the beds placed side by side against both walls, he suddenly had this thought.
Could the reason the human named Baek Doha became an icon of wandering perhaps be due to the harsh realities of being an idol?
What thoughts must Baek Doha, who owned a 40-pyeong officetel with a view of the Han River, have had while being forced to share a 3-pyeong room under the pretense of teamwork? Of course he couldn’t help but wander outside out of frustration.
How did Baek Doha, who grew up like greenhouse cannabis, endure and bear this?
Baek Doha, this guy, he was serious about being an idol.
The real Baek Doha, who had been a nuisance idol, suddenly felt impressive. No, the more I thought about it, the more respectable he became. Why on earth did he try to live as an idol while enduring such hardship?
‘Why else. The author’s whim.’
Youth and dreams. Those were magic words that could plausibly package any absurd situation.
‘Who’s the owner of the bed next to mine?’
First, Baek Doha’s bed and nightstand were so simple they looked devoid of warmth. White bedspread and blanket, with only a charger and clock on the nightstand. But the tendencies of the owner of the neighboring bed were the complete opposite.
The purple blanket was left unorganized with the hole where a person had crawled out remaining intact like a snake shedding its skin, and the nightstand was full of cute animal-shaped figures and adorable picture frames. Most of them seemed to be gifts from fans.
Thanks to that, though it was one space, the left and right contrast was clear.
Just as Doha was scanning the room that was as small as a booger, the door opened with a knock-knock sound.
“We have dance practice today, but with your condition like this, what should we do? Want to rest at the dorm? Or will you come to the practice room?”
Kim Cheolhwan, 28 years old. A third-year road manager for OnX under Lim Entertainment. I barely memorized it after he told me several times, like imprinting it on a dementia patient.
The manager’s eyes, asking for Doha’s opinion, were trembling anxiously for some reason.
‘He must be worried about leaving me alone.’
But was the manager’s reaction really concern for someone with amnesia, or was it fear of leaving an accident-maker alone? It was probably accurate to say both.
“I’ll stay here.”
“Right. Let’s go to the practice room for now.”
The Korean language is truly difficult. How can we be having a conversation in the same language yet not understand each other at all?
Doha blinked blankly and opened his mouth again.
“If you’re going to do this, why did you even ask?”
“No matter how I think about it, leaving you alone seems a bit much. The doctor also said that continuous exposure to familiar environments helps memories return, didn’t he?”
The poor manager, unaware there were no memories to return, was extremely anxious. It was because the company, having heard the news about Doha, had been grilling him while agonizing over the situation.
“Let’s go. Anyway, if you go and see the members’ faces, maybe your memory will return faster.”
Though I clearly knew his circumstances, my conscience pricked me to just keep resisting. Though I never wanted this possession, I didn’t want to make things difficult for someone sincerely doing their job.
“Let’s go.”
In the end, Doha headed to the practice room where the members were.
