During the holiday, all the company staff were off too, so with the option of going to the practice room gone, Cha Min-seong and I had no choice but to spend our time inside the dorm.
I sat at the dining table racking my brains over the extra homework the CEO had assigned, and Cha Min-seong sat on the living room sofa quietly reading a book.
"Your family doesn't call you home?"
"I only have to go on the day of the ancestral rites."
He does keep up with that much, at least.
Cha Min-seong answered as if it were no big deal and turned a page of his book.
When I snuck a glance at the cover, it looked like some kind of SF novel.
With that, I gave up on talking with the guy, turned on my cell phone, and browsed the internet to see if any new information had come out.
Not for any particular purpose—it's just a kind of occupational disease.
When I was a reporter, checking all the portal sites at every opportunity had been part of daily life.
As I was mechanically flipping through pages, a certain article gracing the top news section caught my eye.
"Cha Min-seong."
"What."
"Want to go see a movie?"
Cha Min-seong looked this way for a moment with eyes that said he was hearing all sorts of absurd things, then focused on his reading again.
"They say a famous movie just got rereleased."
"Go see it alone."
"Should I really go see it alone?"
I went over to the living room sofa and thrust the screen with the article on it right in front of Cha Min-seong's eyes.
Cha Min-seong, who had been reading down the contents with an indifferent expression, suddenly started getting a light in his eyes.
Right. However uninterested you are in others, you can't just pass this one by.
Once the legendary 'Sleep King,' always the Sleep King.
***
Before Baek Ji-hyuk took his place as the unshakable number-one member, the most recognized member of PLUTO was, surprisingly, Cha Min-seong.
How did that guy, who wasn't more motivated than the other members and whose variety-show sense was hopeless, get chosen by the public?
The reason was simple.
That hopeless variety-show sense hit it big in a different direction.
Cha Min-seong was the only PLUTO member who had taken part in a survival program as a trainee.
As for what the one-minute individual PR video he filmed back then was about:
>In the Pastel 1-min PR, someone is explaining the birth of stars
⤷ The show's called Find Your Stella so he dives straight into the fundamentals, what class
⤷ Professor, I'm sleepy
⤷ Dunno about the lecture but the professor's face is fun so I'll give generous course evaluation scores
⤷ Fucking scary part: even though he's explaining without a script, he doesn't get stuck anywhere, meaning he has all of that memorized
⤷⤷ Wait wtf it's true, I only noticed after seeing this comment
This video—an odd combination of looks like a literary boy, a feast of natural science that was anything but, and a trainee's one-minute PR—suddenly started spreading by word of mouth, starting with a post by one social media user.
>Rob @reworil0303
My insomnia's been acting up lately but the moment I put this on I passed out and woke up in the morning (video)
🔁 11K ❤ 25K
As testimonies continued among other social media users who saw the post, saying they too had slept soundly after watching that video, Cha Min-seong's one-minute PR video spread like wildfire beyond social media to all sorts of online communities under the name 'Idol Sleep King.'
>@seungmin1 Here to sleep
⤷Dozed off holding my phone and smashed the corner into my philtrum, hurts like hell
⤷Woke up and came back to watch again and I'm sleepy again, Pavlov's Sleep King
⤷Pavlov was the one doing the experiment, so shouldn't it be the Sleep King's dog
>@Woojinie-zpo I seriously can't sleep without this anymore please could you make a one-hour version one minute isn't enough
⤷A talent from the science of sleep, stolen by the idol industry
⤷Calm mid-low tone + just the right speed + content that's definitely Korean but I have no idea what it means = perfect ASMR
⤷People who fall asleep watching this are fkn amazing, I woke up staring at his face
>@user-itweoti If you've ever had a sweet sleep after watching this video, please vote for the space-loving 186cm classic handsome clean-living rapper ★★No. 51 Cha Min-seong★★ pleeease♡♡♡ Min-seong, I love you! Let's debut for sure!
⤷Hwaiting, hope you debut
⤷He was a rapper? He doesn't have the face for it at all
So, did Cha Min-seong debut?
No. He was eliminated in the finale.
The debut team had been planned out in advance from the start, so there was never any chance of Cha Min-seong debuting.
Anyway, this Sleep King's eccentricity seems to have been a path he took from the bottom of his heart and not a concept act, since I remember info that he'd enrolled in an astronomy department after the show floating around the internet under the title 'Sleep King update.jpg.'
There was no way a guy that deep into stars and space hadn't been deeply moved by the famous SF movie 'PROVE.'
I'd also caught wind that it was a masterpiece even professors who majored in astronomy recommended.
However uncomfortable I may feel around him, we're in a position to debut together anyway, so I intend to at least build the minimum friendship needed to maintain the relationship.
For the sake of future work efficiency, if nothing else.
Imagine just ignoring each other, then falling out even worse with that guy so he objects to every single thing I do. What a pain that would be.
Cha Min-seong, his eyes filled with something like life for the first time, looked up at me and asked.
"You haven't seen this yet?"
"I have, but I watched it on an OTT, so I want to see it on a big screen once."
Cha Min-seong closed the book he'd been reading and got up from the sofa.
"There's a movie theater if you take the bus."
"Which of the three—Yuseong Cinema, Gigabox, or UGV?"
"There are all of them, but the closest is Yuseong Cinema."
"Then I'll book two tickets for the 3 PM show, so pay me for your ticket separately later. What about seats? Wouldn't it be better to sit a bit apart?"
"Do what you want."
"Yeah, I'll do what I want, like you said."
I booked two seats far apart within the prime row and showed them to Cha Min-seong.
A seat selection showcasing a catastrophic friendship that no one would take for a party of two.
Cha Min-seong and I finished lunch at the dorm and then headed to the movie theater.
Maybe because it was a public holiday, the theater was bustling with all kinds of groups, from big families to couples.
"We're trainees, supposedly, so eating popcorn would be a bit much, I guess."
"Do what you want."
"Let's just go. I'm flat broke right now anyway, so I don't even have the money to buy any."
I passed by the food court and was about to go into the screening room when Cha Min-seong called out and stopped me.
"Go on in first. I'll be back after a quick phone call."
"Suit yourself."
At times like this, don't people usually ask you to wait? But it was Cha Min-seong, so it was no surprise at this point.
As Cha Min-seong said, I went into the screening room ahead of him and was watching the ads when, a few minutes later, Cha Min-seong appeared at the entrance with a combo set in his hands.
Apparently he'd come in separately on purpose to buy that.
Did he feel awkward buying only his own? He's buying food for himself with his own money, so what does it matter?
I thought he'd head to his own seat, but contrary to my expectations, Cha Min-seong came closer and closer to me, then abruptly held the combo set out in front of me.
"...What's this?"
"A medium Coke, a medium original popcorn, chili cheese nachos."
Are you a receipt?
"No, I know that. I'm asking why you're giving this to me."
Instead of answering, Cha Min-seong just stood there like a post, holding out both hands.
Judging by his expression, he had no intention at all of going back until I took it, so in the end I took the combo set the guy held out.
Then, before he could even hear my thanks, Cha Min-seong turned on his heel and headed for his seat.
Did that guy eat something bad today? Surely there weren't spoiled vegetables in the clear-out-the-fridge bibimbap I fed him for lunch.
I tossed the popcorn Cha Min-seong gave me into my mouth and waited a moment, and then the movie finally began.
***
Earth in the near future, with science more advanced than now.
Signs of an ever-worsening food shortage, land growing barren from reckless development.
Preparing for the end that was inevitably coming, people threw themselves ever harder into space development to find a new home.
While everyone was racing to devote themselves to research for survival, the protagonist, Dr. Morgan, pours all his time into research on 'the possibility of extraterrestrial life,' which he had dreamed of since childhood.
People pointed at Morgan and laughed, calling him a crackpot who didn't know reality.
Only one person, his close colleague Skyler, never made light of Morgan's dream and always cheered him on from his side.
One day, a suspicious signal, presumed to have been sent from outside Earth, arrives at the radio receiver in Morgan's office.
After many twists and turns, Morgan gets permission for a flight into space and, despite his family's attempts to stop him, heads with Skyler to the planet presumed to be the signal's point of origin.
But the spaceship they're on is damaged by a system error, and to make matters worse, it's caught up in an unknown force and ends up crash-landing on a remote planet.
Astonishingly, traces that could definitively prove the existence of extraterrestrial life remained there.
However, caught up in the unknown force, Morgan realizes he's been living in a different flow of time from Earth and learns that, in Earth time, 120 years have now passed.
Sensing that all the family who would have been waiting for him must have died, Morgan loses the will to live amid a surge of emptiness, yields the only return ship to Skyler, and decides to accept death on the remote planet.
『I'm satisfied with this. I've achieved my dream.』
『Don't be satisfied here. Your dream has only just set foot at the starting point. Go back to Earth. Go and prove what you saw to everyone yourself. Shout proudly with your own mouth that you—that we—weren't wrong.』
Skyler, having put Morgan on the return ship in his place, holds on to him as he refuses to return to the very end and says a final goodbye.
『...Don't be lonely, my friend. Because I'll keep watching over you from this place that you and your dream found.』
In the end, Morgan leaves Skyler there and returns to Earth alone.
Along with the will his friend left him.
***
My personal verdict was: reasonably watchable.
I'm not very interested in SF, so I don't know whether the science was accurate, and watching it again, I was just satisfied because the backgrounds were pretty.
I remember that even at its release, the main selling points were less the meticulousness of the science than the art design that captured the grand beauty of its space setting well, and its message of hope.
I don't really understand the protagonist's actions, though. In a situation where you could die in the not-so-distant future, how can you be carefree enough to pour yourself into that kind of research?
Same goes for the friend. Supporting the protagonist's dream is nice. But what about his own dream?
He must have had a life of his own too, yet he appeared only in the role of the protagonist's devoted helper from start to finish, which leaves me slightly disappointed.
When I turned my head to look toward Cha Min-seong, the guy still didn't take his eyes off the screen even while the staff roll was going up.
So, whether the audience left or not, I stayed in my seat and waited with him until the staff roll had gone all the way up.
When the staff roll finally finished, I tidied up my seat and went over to Cha Min-seong.
"Let's go."
Cha Min-seong nodded and came out with me.
Throwing away our trash and heading to the theater lobby, I casually asked.
"Was it that fun?"
"Moderately."
Seeing him watch all the way through the staff roll, he enjoyed it more than moderately.
While we waited for the elevator down to the first floor, this time Cha Min-seong asked me.
"Why'd you suggest seeing this?"
"Because I thought you'd like this kind of thing."
"How'd you know?"
"I saw the video you filmed when you went on that survival program before. And most of the books in your room seemed to be SF novels, so I figured you might like this kind of thing. If not, oh well."
Cha Min-seong didn't answer.
The elevator soon arrived, and when we rode it down and came out of the building, a cold winter wind brushed past my face.
"Let's head to the dorm now. Thanks to you, I got spoiled on my birthday."
"Today's your birthday?"
"Yeah."
The one thing that didn't change while both time and age changed.
My birthday on my resident registration: February 18th.
It's been a long time since I bothered with birthdays, so it doesn't move me much, but since I got treated to food anyway, it'd be nice to say something that would make the guy who spent the money feel a bit prouder.
Hearing my answer, Cha Min-seong widened his eyes, which was rare for him, then said in his usual flat voice.
"...Happy birthday."
"Yeah, thanks."
To think the first to congratulate me would be, of all people, that Cha Min-seong.
Life really is unpredictable.