As soon as I heard Cha Woon’s anxious voice, I asked.
“Where are you now?”
Cha Woon remained silent, not answering my question.
Perhaps he had a hunch that if he answered, I would come to find him, or perhaps he simply didn’t want to see anyone right now.
However, I couldn’t shake the thought that Cha Woon was in no condition to be left alone right now. Cha Woon had said it himself that he neither hated nor disrespected me. If someone like him, who said such things, were to find out that I had been used by Kang Hyukwoo without him knowing, there was no way he would be in a stable state of mind.
I was also worried about how the other members would react if they found out that Cha Woon had worked on that group’s song.
“I’m nothing but a traitor to my members…..”
Recalling the words Cha Woon had let slip and the fact that I hadn’t received any contact from Jay, I hastily opened my mouth again.
“It’s okay. I would never go around talking about your affairs, sunbaenim.”
“……..”
There was silence again.
I was anxious that Cha Woon might hang up the phone and that I might never hear from him again. And at this moment, I had never resented my decision to give up my original body as much as I did now.
Cha Woon searched for someone who would listen to his story.
That must mean he needed
Seo Yutae
, not
Han Seungbeom
.
Why on earth was I willing to die just for the sake of revenge?
I couldn’t quite understand myself from that time.
“…….”
As I felt the gap between my past self and my present self, I experienced a strong headache that I had never felt before.
But I didn’t have the luxury of letting a headache stop me.
I pushed through the throbbing pain in my head and , once again, muttered a phrase that had become a habit.
“
People who gossip about others’ pain are bound to face consequences someday. You know that too. If I can be of any help, I’m willing to listen to your story.”
Then, this time, a faint sound of breathing, as if the speaker was shaken, was heard, followed by a tiny voice that seemed to be fading away.
“….I’m in the studio.”
‘Yeah, you’ve always locked yourself in your studio whenever something happens.’
I had a pretty good idea of what Cha Woon would do. This was something both I and the other members of Prism knew. If Cha Woon refused to tell me his location until the end, I was planning to just force my way into his studio.
I nodded and said in a soothing tone, “I’ll be there soon. Don’t go anywhere and stay there.”
As soon as the call ended, I immediately went into the set and looked for the manager. Then, I realized that the shoot had already finished, and the manager was in the process of leading the members to move to our van.
“Ah, Seungbeom-ssi! We’re wrapping up our schedule now and will be moving soon. Yuda-ssi said he wants to grab a drink, so we’re thinking of stopping by a cafe. Do you want one as well?”
The manager, who had been looking around for me, waved at me.
I opened my mouth immediately, relieved to hear that I didn’t have anything else scheduled.
“No, it’s fine. Something has come up, so if the schedule is over, I think I need to step out for a bit.”
The manager’s eyes widened in surprise at my urgent tone, which was completely different from my usual demeanor.
“Something came up? Is it urgent?”
“Yes, it’s something related to my senior, so I think I need to go see them urgently.”
As I subtly hinted at the fact that I was
going to meet my senior
, the manager nodded slightly to express that he understood. It was generally difficult for a junior to refuse a senior’s invitation, and since the manager had known that I often went out to meet Jay whenever I had some free time, he didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.
“Would you like me to give you a ride there?”
“No. I’m going to a studio, so I think a van would be too noticeable, and I’m also in a hurry.”
“Okay. Come back before it gets too late. Don’t forget to contact me if anything comes up. Make sure to cover your face well.”
With the manager’s permission, I put on the hood, mask, and glasses he handed me and left the filming set. I was so relieved that the filming studio wasn’t far from the city center. I immediately hailed a taxi and headed toward Cha Woon’s studio.
***
As soon as I got out of the taxi, I hurried to Cha Woon’s studio. In my haste, I habitually pressed the doorbell several times and knocked on the door twice.
Then, despite the fact that not much time had passed, I heard the sound of someone running from inside, and the door was hurriedly opened.
As the door opened, Cha Woon came into view. His hair was disheveled, dark circles were deeply etched under his eyes, and his eyes were bloodshot, revealing his exhaustion. He looked even thinner than the last time I saw him.
“…You came?”
Cha Woon had a hopeful look on his face, as if he was expecting something. But when he saw my face, that expression instantly crumbled, and his face twisted in disappointment. He harshly rubbed his dry eyes with the palm of his hand before looking back at me.
Our gazes locked for a moment, and then Cha Woon turned and walked back into the studio, leaving the door open as if to invite me in. I closed the door and naturally followed him. By the time I sat down, Cha Woon was staring at me, his face completely devoid of the expression he had shown me earlier.
As I sat down, the light from the ceiling fell, making Cha Woon’s condition even more apparent.
‘His clothes…….’
The clothes he was wearing were badly wrinkled and stretched around the neck.
As I frowned at the sight of him looking as if someone had grabbed him by the collar, Cha Woon covered his neck with his trembling hand.
He blinked slowly, as if tired, and then spoke with a hint of resignation, “…My members stopped by. It seems like Yoo Jay was really angry. If Lee Chise hadn’t intervened and stopped him, it might have escalated into a big fight.”
“…….”
‘As expected.’
As I expected, the members of Prism had already gotten wind of RH Entertainment’s new group. I was genuinely concerned about how the situation would end, knowing they would surely have gone on a rampage if left alone.
‘Cha Woon and Jay aren’t on good terms to begin with.’
It was a great blessing that Lee Chise was there. If a physical fight had broken out, he could have stopped it, and aside from matters of force, the members, with the exception of me, tended to follow his words the most.
I felt like I could have sighed so deeply that the earth itself would sink.
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly to keep myself from doing anything that might give Cha Woon a negative nuance, but then he rushed to explain, as if there was some sort of strange misunderstanding.
“It was my fault. The members of Prism aren’t cowards who would just stand by and let our company use our hyung. The members were just angry about something they had every right to be angry about, but I stopped them, and that’s why they felt betrayed.”
‘Cha Woon stopped the members?’
I hoped that the members would avoid a direct confrontation with Kang Hyukwoo. However, that was because I knew Kang Hyukwoo held our weaknesses, and if there hadn’t been such a reason, even I would have been gone on a rampage and overturned everything.
But I couldn’t quite understand why Cha Woon was so desperate to stop the members. I started to question whether it was because Kang Hyukwoo knew that he had used my songs, and if that was why he had no choice but to silently listen to him.
I opened my mouth in a firm tone to stop the words that were hastily spoken as if chased by something.
“I know. I know that Prism-sunbaenims are not the kind of people to just stand by. And I also know that it’s the same for you, sunbaenim.”
Cha Woon froze, as if greatly taken aback, and stared blankly at me. It seemed he had prepared several arguments to prove that Prism’s members weren’t bad people, and he was caught by surprise when they were all rendered useless in one fell swoop.
In a way, it was understandable. Cha Woon probably never imagined that the person in Han Seungbeom’s body would never criticize the members of Prism.
I deliberately didn’t react too much to Cha Woon’s surprised face and asked him a question.
“In my opinion, if you properly explain that the situation wasn’t something you deliberately intended, I believe everyone would understand. Don’t you think so?”
“…I wasn’t in a position to give an explanation that they would find convincing. So, I unfairly stopped the members simply saying that this was something that couldn’t be stopped, and that they should just follow the leader’s lead. Naturally, Jay, who knows that I stole our hyung’s songs, was outraged.”
Cha Woon seemed to recall Jay’s face as he reprimanded him harshly. He lowered his head and continued speaking in a subdued tone.
“For some reason, he didn’t reveal it in front of the other members, but I could feel it in the way he looked at me. That resentment saying, ‘
Are you making such absurd excuses just to cover up the mistake you made?
’. If I were in Jay’s position, knowing nothing, I’d be furious to my core too. So, there’s just nothing I could do about it.”
As I listened to what Cha Woon uttered, I felt another sense of strangeness.
‘Wasn’t it because of the plagiarism that he couldn’t be hostile to Kang Hyukwoo?’
Something seemed different.
It was as if he was weighed down by something heavy.
Cha Woon, while defending the members, was unconsciously revealing that plagiarism wasn’t the main issue. He described Jay as being in a state of ‘
knowing nothing
‘. It wasn’t the exposure of his plagiarism to the world that concerned him, but rather, it was as if there was an even bigger issue at hand.
“If it weren’t for the members, I’d just let it all go and run away, I don’t care if people cursed me. But if I did that, Hyukwoo-hyung, to the members!”
The way he spoke of the word ‘
members
‘ carried a weight of guilt and responsibility that was almost unbearable.
As soon as I felt it, a surge of anxiety hit me, and I inhaled sharply.
‘No way, it can’t be?’
After I left the Prism, Kang Hyukwoo would have been desperate to control the members of the Prism as he pleased.
“Alright, this is a promise. It’s fine to freely express your opinions, but when the leader makes an important decision, you must follow it without question. This is the first rule of Prism.”
The best way to control Prism was to control the leader who led them. Unlike other groups, Prism was made up of people who had an exceptionally deep trust and bond with their leader.
“If you don’t want to send the member you cherish so much to the path of ruin, then you better start behaving yourself.”
“Do you not care at all about what will happen to Jo Inchan? It’s not just Jo Inchan. I can create an incident that could bury all of you with just a flick of my finger.”
And the most effective way to control the leader of Prism was to threaten him with the safety of his members.
There’s no way I didn’t know that.
I am the one who knows it better than anyone else in this world.
What if Kang Hyukwoo did the same thing to Cha Woon, who has now become the leader of Prism, as he did to me? What if Cha Woon, just like me, was being threatened with Jo Inchan’s video?
“Even if I become a cowardly bastard who steals my hyung’s song and sells it to those who try to imitate him … my members just need to go on with their lives without knowing anything.”
“…….”
“I’ll bear the burden of this anguish alone.”
Cha Woon’s actions and words suddenly began to make sense.
“I really like your songs. I want to compose songs like you, hyung.”
“…I can’t just let them waste that song like that. I could never bear to see that happen.”
“Seo Yutae is not the bad person the media makes him out to be. I don’t believe what the reporters or the people from our company say.”
“Today is the last day I’ll feel this shaken. It’s okay. I can endure it.”
‘Aah…….’
This was a tragedy.
There was no other word that could describe it but a
tragedy
.
“Woon-ah, it’s okay. A leader is someone who protects everyone.”
“….A leader is someone who protects everyone.”
Cha Woon was saying the exact same words I had said back then.
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Translator’s Corner:
I was doing this while playing Red Velvet – Wish Tree on repeat, so it was by no means a sad song, but somehow THE HOPEFUL FEELING OF THAT SONG MADE ME EVEN SADDER. I FELT LIKE I CANT BREATHE AT THE SAME TIME AS THE MC DKJLHFLKJDSZ You guys tried it too … for the next chapter when it’s already here, play Red Velvet – Wish Tree while reading it. I assure you, the mood is 100% on point
Some of you guys really need to apologize to Cha Woon….