“Why are you curious about that?”
I paused for a moment, for some reason feeling a little uncomfortable with Choi Jeokhyeon’s question, and then gave a vague answer.
“It’s just, there was a time when that happened, but I don’t remember it very well.”
Then, after spending some time in silence again, Choi Jeokhyeon replied in a gentle tone.
“There was never a time like that with me … are you sure you’re not mistaking me for someone else? Maybe one of the members of Prism. There was a time you avoided their calls, so that seems more likely. Or maybe you’re just confusing a dream with reality.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Choi Jeokhyeon’s calm answer, accompanied by a small chuckle, sent me into deep thought.
‘So it’s not him.…’
I had always maintained shallow relationships with others, so there weren’t many people who would reach out to me like that. Among them, I guessed the most likely person based on the tone of the message, but since he said it wasn’t him, I couldn’t just keep insisting otherwise.
“…….”
I tapped, tapped, and tapped the table in a steady rhythm with the hand that wasn’t holding my phone, lost in thought for a moment.
There was nothing unusual about what Choi Jeokhyeon had said.
But I couldn’t understand why I felt so irritated.
I knew, as Choi Jeokhyeon said, that the person who sent the text could be someone else, or that the scene I saw might have been nothing more than a dream. However, the years I had spent knowing Choi Jeokhyeon seemed to send me a signal, outrunning the objective facts right in front of me.
“Yutae-ya, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I was in the middle of work.”
“…Got it. Bye.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you later.”
“Okay.”
I felt like he was lying to hide something from me.
***
After finishing the call with Choi Jeokhyeon, I gathered the members in the living room and, with a meaningless warning of “Don’t be surprised and just listen”, I calmly brought up the topic of sasaengs.
“I got about 150 phone calls during the live yesterday. It was probably from sasaeng.”
Anyway, since we were living in the same dorm and that sasaeng, who had relentlessly contacted me during the livestream, had showed an aggressive attitude toward the members, I thought it was necessary to talk about this incident to prepare for any potential accidents.
The rest of the members, except for Do Yuda, who witnessed the phone call during the livestream, and Lee Hwayoung, who had heard about the sasaeng yesterday, stared at me with eyes widened as if they would pop out.
“What, what?”
“…150 times?”
I nodded to them once and continued with the rest of the story.
“There were some calls with restricted caller ID, and some came from unknown numbers, so it’s probably not just one person. But among them, there was one person who kept texting me, and the reason I’m gathering all of you to talk about the sasaengs now is because of that person. They really seem to have an unusually strong hostility towards our members. So everyone, please stay alert so nothing happens.”
Then, after hearing my words, Zen shook his head as if he found it really strange and said, “Members are like friends, like family. It’s not normal to hate us.”
“You idiot, they’re doing this because their way of thinking isn’t normal in the first place! They hate everyone except themselves. Don’t you understand that?”
“The one who calls others an idiot is the idiot one, idiot Do Yuda.”
“No? I’m not an idiot? I’m not? I’m not?”
“The more you say that, the more credence you give to Zen’s words.”
As I remained quiet, looking down at Zen and Do Yuda, who were bickering childishly, Baek Kiryang, who had noticed my expression, flinched and quickly intervened to stop the two.
“Guys, let’s listen to what Seungbeom has to say … you can talk about it later, okay? Look up…….”
Then, Pat and Mat, who belatedly looked up at my face, froze and quickly knelt down.
“We were wrong.”
“….We acted too boldly.”
After confirming that the members had quieted down, I opened my mouth again.
“I’ve already informed the company about the situation and taken some general measures.”
“Are you talking about that?”
As soon as I mentioned the phrase “
general measures
“, Woo Kangwon seemed to get it right away. He asked while glancing at the newly replaced door once. I nodded in confirmation and continued explaining.
“I installed a CCTV at the front door, installed a door-opening sensor, and changed the door lock to a fingerprint recognition one. I also requested additional bodyguards for when we move around. We’ve done everything we can for now.”
“Did you handle all that by yourself? You should’ve told us…..”
My eyes widened a little in surprise, but then I pressed down firmly on Lee Danbi’s head, whose eyebrows drooped in concern, and told him not to worry about it. Then, as I looked at the devices plastered all over the door, I thought to myself.
‘It’s a bit excessive. Other idol groups probably wouldn’t go this far.’
I did think it was overkill. But I couldn’t help but react more sensitively than necessary.
Among the many sasaengs, there was one who was particularly hostile towards the members and had been texting me, which could potentially drag them into trouble. If it had been something affecting only me, I probably wouldn’t have gone this far.
‘It would be easier if I could just meet them in person and have a warm conversation.’
As much as I would have liked to meet that sasaeng in person and take action, celebrities have no way of knowing theie identity, so all I could do was endure situations like this.
Due to the Personal Information Protection Act, telecommunication companies couldn’t freely disclose the caller’s information to private individuals. If I wanted to identify them, the only option would be to contact the police and prove that I’ve been a victim of an
actual criminal offense
.
‘It’s not like they’re sending scary photos like a ghost picture or sending abusive messages. There’s no way this level of persistent contact would qualify as a criminal offense.’
In other words, no matter how anxious the individual involved might be and how much fear of an accident they might have, the police would only take action once the accident happened. This hasn’t changed since my time in Prism, so I wasn’t even disappointed in the first place.
As I was sighing heavily, Woo Kangwon spoke to me.
“Don’t you think your mother and father should be aware of the situation, Seungbeom-ah?”
Then, Do Yuda and Zen nodded in agreement and added their thoughts.
“That’s right! I think we should contact your parents. I’m really worried.”
“Stalkers and stuff, you shouldn’t leave them alone. A serious accident could happen. The attention of guardians is needed.
Do Yuda, Woo Kangwon, and Nagi Zen held me back with worried faces, passionately expressing their concerns. All three of them were saying the same thing, “
We should contact your parents
“. But I was in a position where I couldn’t do that. The members probably didn’t realize it, since it didn’t seem like we had such a hostile relationship on the broadcast.
When I, who normally would have made a decision quickly, didn’t clearly nod my head at the talk about my parents, Lee Danbi, who had been listening to the conversation with a heavy expression the whole time, stepped in.
“This kind of thing will continue to happen not only to Seungbeom-hyung, but to all the members in the future. Even until now, there have always been people following us when we go out for schedules or waiting in front of the dorm. We can’t just tell our parents every time something like this happens, can we?”
“…That’s right. Since we are doing work now, I think the company should be the one to take proper measures…….”
When even the usually passive Baek Kiryang stepped forward and said that, the three people who had been making foolish expressions nodded, agreeing that it made sense.
I think about this every time, but is it really okay for you guys to be that easy?
After watching the simple-minded trio with even more distress than when I found out about the sasaeng’s existence, I calmly summarized the situation again.
“I’ll leave it to your discretion whether to inform your parents or not. As for me, my parents won’t be able to come, so I won’t tell them, but it’s always a good idea to be cautious about accidents, so there’s no harm in it.”
Then, seeming to be confused at the words, “
My parents won’t be able to come
”, Do Yuda asked me.
“Seungbeom-hyung, are you parents very busy? Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever met Seungbeom-hyung’s parents except for the final broadcast.”
“….Yeah. They’re busy.”
It was such an innocent and awkward question to respond. As I subtly avoided his gaze and answered, Woo Kangwon asked again with a serious expression.
“Still, there’s nothing more important than Seungbeom’s safety. If you just tell them, don’t you think they’d drop everything and come right away ?”
Bam!
At that moment, Lee Hwayoung suddenly stood up from his seat, looked at the the members with a straight face, and said quietly.
“He said it’s up to each person’s discretion. That’s the end of the conversation, so now let’s go eat.”
It was quite surprising that the guy, who usually sat quietly like a cat during times like this, suddenly spoke up. All the members stared at him in shock. However, Lee Hwayoung didn’t seem to care at all and grabbed my collar as if pulling out a radish. He pulled me up and dragged me to the kitchen.
I thought to myself as I was dragged out by him.
…Is he actually doing this to help me?
That childish young master? Me?
What … did he know?
***
After being caught by Lee Hwayoung, I was forced to eat even the dessert thoroughly before I could return to my room. I immediately opened my laptop and logged into the community.
It’s the shady community,
Ppappamo
, where our dorm location was leaked last time.
‘If the police won’t help me, I’ll just have to do it myself, f**k.’
By nature, if you want to catch a piece of trash, you have to search through the sewage.
People who would commit acts like stalking were often lacking in social skills, so many of them were addicted to communities where all sorts of weirdos gathered, creating a comfort group for themselves.
Given that the location of our accommodation was posted on this community, it was obvious that there were sasaengs among the users, so I decided to focus on this community to gather information about that sasaeng.
[(NEW) Have anyone seen Dalli lately? Am I the only one who hasn’t?]
‘….Dalli?’
I searched for my modified name
1
in the search bar, and clicked on a recent post that had an unusually large number of comments. When I looked into it, users were discussing a person named “
Dalli
“.
— Looks like they got banned for always posting gory pictures They’re a community addict, and seeing that they haven’t been around lately, I’m pretty sure they got banned
.
└ Huh? The mods here don’t ban people, that’s why it became a garbage dump
└ Huh? No, I saw a post last time saying they got banned for beating up the Coma kids.
└ What the heck, what’s the criteria for getting banned?
— Honestly, Dalli should have been kicked out. Those kinds of people always cause trouble and drag the community into the spotlight, haha. If they stab someone and it makes the news, causing the community to shut down, who’s going to take responsibility for my dopamine?
— Dalli who?
└ Dalli (the nickname used for their sasaeng activities) = NightBear = Violet = Yu Narin
└ Master Dalli, when they were really obsessed with Gong Seonghwa, they couldn’t get over their jealousy towards the other members. They ended up attacking another member, got completely beaten by that member’s fans, and became legendary for it. Wow.
└ There was a sasaeng who was pretty famous in the neighboring community. They’re a crazy person who keeps changing their nickname and sticking to the most popular and good-looking members of the group … They were really good at not getting caught and would always take and post private photos of celebrities. I think they switched to the next door neighborhood’s cult leader this time, but they suddenly stopped logging on this month.
└ I’ve only chatted with them once when selling my Gu-oppa’s info, and this person is really a legend in terms of being a psycho. It’s always these kinds of people who cause trouble.
There must be more than one or two sasaengs in this community, but this particular name stood out.
And the descriptions written by the users also bothered me for some reason.
‘….No way.’
A sasaeng who has shown hostility toward the members and recently became interested in me.
Doesn’t it sound similar to the sasaeng who sent me those texts?
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Translator’s Corner:
Oh this is interesting so I’ll explain it. The word used here is 써방. It’s from
써
치(Search) +
방
지(Prevention). Basically “name to prevents search”.
You know, in communities (Korean have many local communities, like you can think of it similiar to Reddit) and Twitter, if you search an idol name, every post that mentioned the idol will appear, right? So, sometimes people use the so called “search-prevent name” to avoid their post being found. It’s like how Pantheion was called PT8 before. In real life, if an idol name is, let’s say “Rora”, people would type it as “Rura” or something similiar. The modified name can be by changing or simplified the letters, of by giving them a special nickname. This was done either when you’re criticizing an idol (so you don’t want their fans to come at you) or if you talked about things you don’t want the idol to find about (like when you’re thirsting over them).
In this, MC’s modified name is basically “cult leader”, so yeah. ↩︎
Happy the first day of 2025! Omg I’m getting old. It seems like it was just yesterday when I wondered when will I grew up because I hated being a child .. but now I just don’t want to grow up …
Anyway, I took a morning (dawn actually, IT WAS STILL DARK) walk and it felt so nice. The air was so fresh because there’s not much human around for days. I wish I will find myself happy in this year. Let this year be less painful than 2024 amen.
It was funny how you can see which ones come from a happy family (Kangwon, Yuda, Zen) vs which ones aren’t (Kiryang, Danbi, Seungbeom). And then there’s one who’s from happy family but parents so busy the parenting was left to a questionable figure (Nicholas). Tbh, it was pretty realistic. I think people from “ordinary family” sometimes failed to understand that “other people’s family” is not as easy as them. Like you might think your life is already unfortunate, you hate your parents for always nitpicking what you do etc, but outside, there’s always someone who has it worse and you probably won’t be able to understand why they don’t talk to their parents. Like your parents pretty annoying too, but you still talk to them, so why can’t other do the same?
There’s no malicious intent and it’s a genuine question, but when you’re the receiver, it just sounds awkward. I think when it comes to family, even though someone may have seen numerous news reporting a terrible family or heard various stories, it’s still hard to understand unless you experience it yourself, or see it with your own eyes. I literally stayed in my current place for the last 3 years without ever going back, and every holiday, I still heard a lot of my friends asking why I didn’t just go home. I kinda can’t answer that I don’t have home to do that, you know … so sometimes it’s just upsetting when I kept getting asked that, like it should have been obvious after the first year ….. and I used to have this close friend who kept telling me during online class about how she hated being at home, she hated her parents, she couldn’t wait for the online class period (because of COVID) to end so she can stay at dorm. But when COVID ended and she stayed at dorm, she went back home every weekends. So yeah … the degree of
hatred
is different from everyone.
Like you probably wondering why MC “
not just telling them that he didn’t have good relationship with his parents
“, but admitting to your friends that you don’t have a good family is not only awkward but kinda … making you ashamed? It’s a natural for someone not to want other people that care for them that they’re actually “not being loved”. And on top of that, this is Han Seungbeom’s family, not his. You don’t just share other people’s business to
strangers
like that. I personally really hate it when people sharing other people’s misfortunes as if they have any right to talk about it.
And yes, I’m writing all of this because I can see the readers who haven’t experienced it themselves probably get frustrated why he’s not just being honest. I’m MC #1 defender. Okay I’m hungry, I’m going to eat now.