[YOO JAY’S POV]
Yutae-hyung was a person who rarely talked about himself.
“Hyung, did something happen? You look tired.”
“I don’t know.”
No, it wasn’t just that he refrained from talking; he clearly didn’t even bother to check in on his own condition.
Yutae-hyung was someone who absolutely hated anything bothersome. He was practically obsessed with efficiency. That meant he wouldn’t waste his energy on meaningless lies. So, it was highly likely that the answer ‘
I don’t know
’ wasn’t something he made up, but he genuinely didn’t know.
Whether it was simply because that blunt and indifferent personality of his extended to himself, or because he feared he might break down if he became aware of his own condition, he desperately avoided acknowledging his own condition.
“I told you not to ride it!”
The incident at the amusement park was most likely caused by my hyung’s personality.
“….I’ll always stay by your side. It’s okay.”
The only thing I could say to him as he was having a breakdown was to repeat something I’d overheard a few times before.
Those words were something Yuseong-hyung used to say often whenever our hyung’s condition became unstable. Now that Yuseong-hyung wasn’t here, I thought maybe it would help if I said them instead, and while it was just a hopeful attempt, the fact that it worked so quickly felt like pure luck.
‘If Yuseong-hyung had been by your side instead of me, would things have been a little better? If that were the case, hyung, maybe you too.…’
I was always one step too late. It would have been better if I were just stupid and didn’t know anything. The helplessness of not being able to help even though I always read the situation correctly and faster than others drove me to despair.
[Wow, there’s a fake Seo Yutae in RH Entertainment’s new group omg omg]
Look. It happened again.
The cycle of helplessness and powerlessness was repeating itself.
I had sensed that something was off with the company’s employees, but I couldn’t dig up any more information. I never expected they were planning something like that.
Hyung, what were you thinking as you watched all of these situations?
And what kind of emotions did you feel?
He must be watching it clearly with his own eyes. This shamelessness of RH Entertainment trying to achieve success by using his dead body. And the reality that the member he trusted and cared for turned a blind eye to it and even assisted in it.
‘Damn!’
I was the only one who knew that Yutae-hyung was still alive in this world, and the only one who knew that he was watching this entire situation.
So, I wanted to resolve this no matter what. I wanted to break free from the deep sense of powerlessness and offer any help I could. Yutae-hyung probably didn’t even realize that this situation was hurting him.
“Prism will keep quiet about this matter.”
But the reality was not so easy.
“What the…..”
“No one should go against the company’s decision. The leader’s decision must be followed without question. Surely, no one has forgotten that, right?”
Cha Woon ordered us by mentioning the rules our hyung had set. As soon as I heard those words, I grabbed him by the collar.
All the members were gathered in the studio, but they didn’t register in my mind. It felt like countless emotions were storming through my head.
“How low are you planning to fall! How could you betray someone you used to follow and cherish like this!”
I definitely hadn’t planned on being this violent, but my body wouldn’t listen.
“Say something! You’re always so annoyingly sarcastic, so why aren’t you saying anything now!”
I pushed Cha Woon until his clothes started to stretch and his body wobbled a few times. If he had said even one word of excuse while I was pouring out my resentment, I might have been able to stop. But he didn’t.
“…Do you not even feel sorry for our hyung?”
“…….”
He simply watched me, who was spewing out anger, with eyes as dark as night, devoid of life. The moment I met his gaze, for some reason, I felt an indescribable fear. It was a fear so profound that it extinguished my boiling anger, leaving me gasping for breath.
Cha Woon was definitely a shameless person who tried to take advantage of our hyung.
He must have been someone who thought that it didn’t matter, that it was fine to take everything—songs, image, and all—since the person was already dead. Yet, I couldn’t understand why he had that kind of expression on his face.
Why did he seem to wither away despite making so much money by selling out our hyung? Why did he only listen to my resentment without saying anything? Why did he wear an expression as if there wasn’t a shred of hope left in his life?
“Yoo Jay, stop it.”
Why did Chise-hyung keep trying to stop me?
It was all things I couldn’t understand.
As I realized that, anxiety flooded my mind.
“What is it? What the hell is going on? Why are you acting like this? Just like our hyung…..”
I knew this feeling.
This was very similar to the fear I had felt unconsciously right before Yutae-hyung disappeared from our lives.
My grip on his collar loosened.
Then, Cha Woon collapsed to the floor without a sound. He just sat there, unable to get up, staring blankly at the floor.
On the floor lay a shattered picture frame that had fallen during the fight. Through the sharp cracks in the glass, a photo of Prism, smiling brightly, was visible. Only after taking in the two radiant faces in the center did Cha Woon finally manage to pull himself up.
Then, he carefully started to clean up the glass, as if he was making sure the photo didn’t get damaged.
I couldn’t bear watching him act as if he didn’t care about his own hands getting hurt, so I fled out of the studio.
“Heuk, huff, huff..…”
I felt like I had made an irreversible mistake.
***
When I came to my senses, I was already in front of my house, and the sky had taken on the color of the night.
I couldn’t remember how I managed to get home.
Judging from my shortness of breath, I must have run.
‘…It wasn’t even a short distance. I foolishly ran all the way here.’
What would Yutae-hyung say if he saw me like this? I tried hard to push that question away and mechanically moved my hand to unlock the door.
When I opened the door and stepped inside, I was welcomed by a dimly lit house.
“…….”
I crouched down in front of the sofa without turning on the light. I buried my face between my knees and replayed what had happened in the studio.
“…Do you not even feel sorry for our hyung?”
“Yoo Jay, stop it.”
The auditory hallucinations of sharp reproach that had escaped my lips, Chise-hyung’s warning, and the sound of the glass of the frame shattering intertwined into a maddening echo. After letting myself being tormented by it for quite a long time, a sound suddenly pulled me back to reality.
Beep. Beep, beep, beep.
It was my phone ringing. I quickly lifted my head at the sound, and only after seeing the phone on the living room table did I realize that I had completely forgotten about my phone and had headed straight to Cha Woon’s studio.
Beep. Beep.
I didn’t even need to check the phone screen to know who was calling me repeatedly. He must have been worried, so I should answer. With that thought, I reached for my phone and saw that there were seven missed calls.
He was someone who almost never called others first, so he must have been really worried.
After collecting my thoughts to maintain composure, I touched the screen, and the other person called my name.
“Yoo Jay.”
His voice sounded much thinner and younger than I was used to hearing, but the bluntness was still there. I switched the call to speakerphone, buried my face in my knees again, and answered.
“….Hyung.”
“I heard you had a fight with Cha Woon.”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t hear any reprimands about why I hadn’t answered the phone until now. The only sound I heard was a sigh of relief that I had answered the phone.
This was the kind of person Seo Yutae was.
He was this kind of person, that’s why everyone followed him.
He was this kind of person, and that’s exactly why he was someone we needed.
As I realized this once again, it felt like the old wounds were throbbing anew.
“Are you okay?”
I tried to keep my composure, but it didn’t work as well as I wanted it to.
It felt like I had become a child who, despite holding back well, would burst into tears as soon as they saw their parents’ faces.
I kept my mouth shut because I though tI wouldn’t be able to control myself if I opened it, and then from the speaker came the words, “
Yeah, of course you wouldn’t be okay. You’re a kind rascal”
.
“…….”
Hearing that made me feel like I had committed a sin. I felt an anxious urge to confess everything I had just said to Cha Woon and be judged for it. Yet, at the same time, I also felt a sense of relief, as if I could finally let go of all the anxiety I had been holding inside.
“I confronted Cha Woon. I asked him how he could betray you, hyung. I asked if he didn’t feel sorry for you.”
And before I could even realize the contradiction between the two, my mouth moved on its own.
“He didn’t say anything. He’s the type of person who always needs to express his side to feel better, whether he did something wrong or not, yet he just listened to me. I kept pouring out my resentful words at someone who didn’t even resist. I thought it would make me feel better if I get it all off my chest, but it doesn’t seem like it did.”
“…….”
My hyung listened to me quietly.
“Maybe if Chise-hyung hadn’t stopped me, I might have said or done something worse.”
As I said those words, recalling Chise-hyung’s firm stance in stopping me, I suddenly noticed that something was strange. I realized something I hadn’t been able to properly recognize, a problem I had overlookeed because I had been so distracted by Cha Woon.
“Something is strange.”
“What?”
“Chise-hyung is not the type of person to take sides. But this time, he stepped in between us and stopped me.”
All the members, including me, couldn’t understand Cha Woon’s decision. But Chise-hyung still chose to take his side in that situation. He was someone who never took someone’s side, even in situations where it was clear who was at fault.
As I pondered over this realization, a question naturally surfaced in my mind.
‘What if he judged that stopping me would be helpful to both Cha Woon and me?’
“…It felt like he wanted to stop me from making a mistake for my sake. As if he was worried I might regret it later. And it also felt like he pitied Cha Woon.”
My voice trembled.
“Yoo Jay-ssi, you tend to think too quickly, which makes you prone to excessive stress or becoming depressed. You have to constantly make a conscious effort to intentionally cut that habit.”
Ah, come to think of it, I was so distracted by the news that I forgot to take my medication. By the time I realized it, it was already too late to stop.
Cha Woon betrayed our hyung
. As that premise was shattered, the thoughts I had been intentionally blocking about Cha Woon began to spin, fueled by anxiety. If I thought any longer, if I found out the truth, I felt like I would learn something I shouldn’t know, but my quicker-than-necessary mind started racing toward the truth.
“Why does Chise-hyung think I’ll regret this? It’s probably because he has an idea of why Cha Woon turning a blind eye to the situation. Does he know that Cha Woon plagiarized your song, hyung? No, given Chise-hyung’s personality, he would have insisted on telling the public the truth and not covering anything up. But Chise-hyung just blocked the members and sided with Cha Woon.”
“…….”
“If that’s the case, then it means there’s another reason, not that the company has leverage over him with the plagiarism issue, or that a deal was made. A reason that’s fatal, but something he can’t tell the other members.”
The cut on his hand from the glass shards and the empty bank accounts without any withdrawal records kept coming to my mind. And the lyrics of “
Sing for you
” kept replaying in my head.
“Cha Woon seemed to still cherish the members, unlike what I had thought until now. It was almost as if he has more affection for us than for himself.”
“Yoo Jay.”
“If there was a situation where someone like him had no choice but to watch as they used you, hyung….”
If someone whose entire world was Prism chose to betray the members, then it could only have been in a situation where the lives of the same members were on the line. As I realized that and said it out loud, a noticeably flustered voice tried to stop me.
“Stop, stop thinking.”
As I heard it, I felt it in my gut.
Everything I had just said was the
truth
.
After repeatedly opening and closing my mouth several times, I finally managed to squeeze out a question in a strained voice.
“Is it because of us?”
“…No.”
The answer he gave was a negative.
And the very meaning of that negative answer was, in itself, the truth.
The moment I realized that fact, what came was not the joy or exhilaration of knowing the truth.
“Aa, agh…..”
What came to me was a feeling of guilt and regret that seemed to have no end.
[END OF YOO JAY’S POV]
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Translator’s Corner:
Happiness who?
It’s really funny actually that Jay had zero respect for Cha Woon at this point. Cha Woon is the second eldest in Prism just after MC, but Jay didn’t even bother to call him hyung, even Danbi still calls Nicholas hyung, so you can guess how deep the resentment he felt