Kang I-yul stepped into the practice room.
At that moment, my feet seemed stuck to the floor.
I'd seen it clearly: the hand lying limp on the cold asphalt, so pale that not a trace of blood remained in it.
Yet the Kang I-yul before me now was alive.
He was breathing, moving, sweating.
"Thank goodness……."
The words slipped out on their own.
Only then did the tension leave my body.
He was alive. He really was alive.
I let out a breath of relief and lowered my gaze.
'Huh?'
A white cast encased his left arm.
My heart lurched. My gratitude that he was alive lasted only a moment; now I couldn't take my eyes off that arm.
"I had a bit of an accident on the way. I just got it treated and came over."
The practice room stirred.
"What? What kind of accident?"
"Are you okay?"
"You weren't badly hurt, were you?"
But I couldn't hear any of them.
'An accident? He said an accident?'
Kang I-yul had always been free of injuries. He'd even said with a laugh on the radio:
"I've never had surgery."
……That was the kind of guy he was.
'Something's wrong.'
I didn't hear a word of Song In-hyeok's explanation of the survival show.
This was too strange to dismiss as a simple injury. It hadn't happened in the past.
My mind began racing.
What had changed from before?
Only one thing.
'……Risk Level.'
The words flashed through my mind.
'Don't tell me—'
What if he was alive but still in danger?
[※System Information Unlocked!]
[S: Risk Level indicates the probability that an accident will occur.]
[S: An accident may occur at any time until Risk Level reaches 0.]
As if to confirm that I'd found the answer, the status window flashed before my eyes.
FuXk. A curse I hadn't uttered even as I died came out on its own.
Risk Level was a matter of probability. As long as it wasn't zero, an accident could happen at any time.
And the person at risk was Kang I-yul.
***
Song In-hyeok, who'd come from a major agency, often acted like a parrotbill trying to keep pace with a stork.
The multicolored star blinds covering one wall of the practice room were one example.
He'd installed them because he wanted an iconic practice room like a certain company's "cloud blinds."
'His sense of style, seriously…….'
He had to be the one who'd given Kang I-yul that Ppoppi dye job.
But right now, even those gaudy stars didn't catch my eye. Group dance practice had started right after the survival show announcement.
"All right, from the eight-count—"
At the trainer's instruction, everyone moved at once.
Everyone except me.
When I raised my hand, my feet tangled. When I turned my head, I fell behind the beat. I danced worse than a dancing robot.
'This is driving me crazy.'
Of all the people in the mirror, I was the only one moving out of sync.
'This is pretty bad.'
Knowing the beat and making my body move to it were entirely different things.
"Again."
I got it wrong again.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
"Seong-woo, you're going to run into someone!"
"Seong-woo, look ahead!"
"Seong-woo, right foot, not left!"
My head dropped on its own.
"I'm sorry!"
I'd lost count of how many times they'd called my name.
"Ha, seriously."
"He thinks he can be an idol with a body like that?"
I heard people openly laughing at me from the back.
"He's going to make a complete fool of himself on TV."
Well, they weren't wrong.
'If I could dance from the start, I'd have become an idol ages ago.'
That was why, despite all the business cards I'd received before returning to the past, I'd never even considered becoming one.
"We'll start again from the beginning."
Just then—
"……Excuse me."
I turned toward the low voice.
It was Kang I-yul. His expression wasn't particularly friendly.
"Don't try to watch every movement."
His tone was colder than I'd expected.
"S-sorry?"
Kang I-yul gestured behind him with his chin.
"Ha. Please just get behind me."
For a moment, I was stunned.
'Did I-yul always talk like that?'
Before I returned to the past, I-yul had always smiled, and his voice had been gentle.
But now—
"You keep making us stop, you know."
Oh.
"……I'm sorry."
I bowed my head reflexively.
'That's our I-yul. Everything he says is right.'
……And every word was a blow to me.
His voice was fierce.
But strangely—
'I like it.'
……?
'No, wait.'
My thoughts slammed on the brakes.
'Get a grip, Yu Seong-woo.'
But I'd never heard him speak like this, whether on broadcasts or at fan signings.
Low and dry. This was his genuine voice, something precious and rare.
"Just watch my legs from behind."
"Yes!"
"Forget the upper body and get the steps right first."
The music started again.
This time, I did as I-yul said and watched only his legs.
One, two—
"Oh—"
For the first time, I was on the beat.
I-yul had probably offered the advice because he was frustrated, but it really was a solution tailor-made for Yu Seong-woo.
'If there's one thing I'm good at, it's watching Kang I-yul.'
Watching I-yul move once helped me more than ten lessons from the trainer.
"Seong-woo's finally keeping up. All right, let's move on to the next step!"
"Yes!"
I wasn't perfect, but at least I wasn't holding everyone back anymore.
"That's how you do it."
His tone was still dry, but it was the first praise I'd received.
'I'm writing about this in my diary tonight, no matter what.'
"Yes, sir. Thank you!"
"You don't have to be that formal……"
I nodded vigorously to hide how wildly delighted I was.
The force of it made Kang I-yul laugh softly. And at that moment, the place around me seemed to become the place where I'd first seen him.
Before I'd returned to the past, there had come a day when I suddenly couldn't write music.
No, it was worse than that. However hard I tried to squeeze something out, my mind was empty.
It had happened just as I was starting to make a name for myself as a producer. Requests poured in, but I couldn't come up with a single line of melody.
It was a terrible slump.
I tried bungee jumping, drank myself senseless, and ran down rainy streets without an umbrella.
Nothing I did made a difference.
Music was the first thing I'd ever wanted so badly, which made losing it without warning even more painful.
That day, too, I'd been wandering the streets on the pretext of looking for inspiration.
That was when I happened upon an Impacter performance.
There was almost no audience. Nine out of ten people walked past without a glance. The stage was small enough that I couldn't blame them.
I was no different.
'What is this chaotic song?'
But just as I was about to turn away, that awful fluorescent hair caught my eye.
My first impression was simple.
A ping-pong ball.
'His hair fluttering in the breeze was exactly the color of one.'
It was an outdoor stage in the blazing midsummer sun, with heat rising straight off the asphalt. Even so, he danced with a smile.
Sweat ran down his face and his hair was soaked, but every movement was alive.
At that moment—
Pop, pop—
Something burst inside my head. A melody. A new melody.
I pulled out my phone and frantically wrote down the notes, my hands trembling with urgency.
For the first time in six months, I was writing a song.
That day, I went back to my studio and finished a song. I thought that was the end of my terrible slump.
……But I was wrong.
I knew instinctively that to write music again, I'd have to see him perform again.
From then on, I searched for him like a madman.
It wasn't easy. First I had to find out the name of that ping-pong ball, then track down the schedule of Impacter, a flop group by then.
I'd never intended to go to anything like a fan signing.
'What would two men even talk about?'
I just needed to watch a performance, and another melody would come to me.
But, absurdly enough, the only events where I could see Kang I-yul perform were fan signings.
I finally figured out how to enter the draw. I'll never forget the crushing reality check I felt when I arrived at my first fan signing.
I even asked a staff member if I could please skip the autograph and just watch the performance, earning a look that said, 'What is wrong with this lunatic?' The time at the signing that other people thought was too short felt like an eternity to me. More than once, I got through it by repeating, "Oh, really?" until I could leave.
But Kang I-yul was the same offstage. He constantly asked how he could improve and what had been lacking in that day's performance. He truly got better with every stage.
And he was always kind. When I'd been up all night working, he worried about my bloodshot eyes first; when I caught a cold, he was the first to notice the change in my voice.
As those moments accumulated, Kang I-yul became more than a source of inspiration. He became someone I wanted to root for.
"Seong-woo, the next move!"
The voice striking my ears snapped me back to my senses.
"……Yes!"
In front of me was Kang I-yul as he was now, not the one from the past.
His face as he caught his breath and stepped to the beat, his sweat-soaked hair, his focused gaze—everything.
Seeing him, I understood.
'So that's why.'
Why I'd become your fan.
It wasn't because you were talented or glamorous.
You were someone who did your best in any situation. Someone who never gave up, right to the end. Someone who inspired me just by letting me watch.
I gritted my teeth.
'I'll make Impacter a top-tier idol group. I swear it.'
I'd take the place of Go Jae-seong, that XXXX, and use the production skills I'd honed all these years to make sure the group never became a flop. Then he'd only have his hair dyed when it was absolutely necessary, at considerable expense, with dye that would protect that precious scalp of his.
From his ping-pong-ball hair to the final moment I never wanted to remember again, this time it was my turn to change Kang I-yul's life.
***
"Make sure you turn off the lights. I'm heading out."
Han Sang-yun, who had been Impacter's leader, was the last to leave. Now there were only two of us in the practice room.
It was my third day since returning to the past. Nothing had changed.
Kang I-yul stayed to practice until everyone else had left. And since he was still here, naturally, I couldn't leave either.
Kang I-yul didn't move away from the mirror.
He repeated the same movement over and over, refusing to let go of choreography that looked perfect to me until he'd mastered it completely.
'Was he always this relentless……?'
I'd thought I knew everything.
How many times he'd been turned away on the verge of debuting, and how desperately he wanted this.
But seeing it for myself was different.
Watching him do all this with his arm in a cast made it hard to breathe.
An injury he hadn't had before I returned, a factor that could only put him at a disadvantage.
'It's my fault.'
Guilt tightened around my throat again.
I didn't know how much time had passed. It had been well past one in the morning for a while.
My eyelids drooped. Kang I-yul's movements grew blurrier and blurrier.
THUD!
But it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me.
"……!"
Kang I-yul had hit the wall. His feet must have tangled.
I was instantly wide awake.
I remembered the day Kang I-yul had fallen before I returned to the past. Heavy rain had made the stage slippery, and every time he fell, I'd wanted to run onto it at once.
What I'd only imagined doing then, I could do for real now.
But I couldn't move. Kang I-yul wore an expression in the mirror that I'd never seen before.
His face contorted in pain; he clutched at his hair in frustration.
"……."
My eyes stung. I turned my head away quickly.
The music started again. Kang I-yul went back to dancing as if nothing had happened.
"……Ha."
The feelings I'd held back crumbled with that sigh. Once the tears broke free, they kept running down my face. I didn't even have time to wipe them away.
I couldn't bear the fact that I was the one who'd killed Kang I-yul. Unable to stay any longer, I got to my feet. I wanted to get out of that room at once.
CLICK. As I opened the door—
"Huh……?"
Our eyes met.
A staff member stood there with a phone in her hand, filming Kang I-yul. She hadn't opened the door or made a sound, hoping to capture a raw moment.
A brief silence.
I hurriedly wiped my eyes, but it was too late.
Her camera had already caught me in its frame.