Bang!
“Hey … are you really that slow? Do you really care that much about whether the person who’s f*cking cursing at you has eaten or not?”
“Nam Yihwon!”
Lee Chise, who was inside the studio, rushed out at the sound of my body being slammed hard against the wall. But Nam Yihwon paid no attention to Lee Chise’s appearance and spoke in a grim voice.
“You can’t just toy with people like this … What are you? Some kind of Seo Yutae copycat? And my members are so overjoyed to find someone similar to him that they can’t think straight?”
“…Ugh.”
As I was grabbed by the collar by an opponent who was in a completely different weight class, a weak groan escaped from my constricted throat. When I frowned at this, Nam Yihwon let out a weary laugh and muttered to himself, “Now you finally seem a bit alive. You haven’t reacted at all until now.”
“Kang Hyukwoo didn’t send you, did he? You were probably told,
those Prism bastards are all out of their minds right now, so if you approached them and acted like Seo Yutae, they’d wag their tails in delight
. Did he even make you practice?”
“…….”
“I guess it makes you feel better to waste your life imitating dead people. But no matter how desperately you try, you’re nothing more than a substitute. Even if you die, you’ll never be Seo Yutae. Why? Because Seo Yutae is dead. He’s been turned to ashes and placed in that urn! He’ll never come back.”
Nam Yihwon’s body shook several times as he vented his anger, almost as if he were writhing in pain. I stared at him, frozen, as he screamed his rage.
“How dare a little bastard who doesn’t know a damn thing about how I’ve lived until I finally admitted that fact try to imitate Seo Yutae? What incredibly great thing are you trying to get that you’d go this far?”
His usually hushed and calm voice was now a tempest, revealing an unbearable turbulence of emotions. He yelled out his anger and curses, not even bothering to steady his breathing, and then, perhaps feeling dizzy from his rage, he stumbled backwards. He bent his waist and gasped for air, a choking sound coming from his throat.
“…Heuk, don’t act like my hyung in front of me. Ugh, seriously, I want to kill you.”
But even in that condition, his bloodshot yellow eyes still glared at me murderously, holding a gleam of resentment in them.
“Fine, I get it. Hyung, I understand why Cha Woon-hyung and you are so hung up on this guy … Ha, I understand it too well. That’s why I hate it even more. Don’t look at me with that expression, don’t talk to me in that tone! It’s disgusting!”
Even though he was breathing raggedly, he couldn’t stop himself from spitting out a string of curses at me. I watched with devastation as he staggered, and when his knees buckled, I unconsciously reached out my hand to grab him.
Tak!
“…Don’t touch me.”
Then, before my hand could even touch his body, Nam Yihwon roughly swatted it away. The recoil caused me to take a step backward, and I heard a rustling sound as the heel of my shoe stepped on something.
It was the lunchbox I’d handed to Nam Yihwon earlier.
Looking down at it for a moment, I suddenly remembered the memory of my first encounter with Nam Yihwon, when I caught the wandering child to feed him.
“…What is this?”
“Make sure to eat. That way, you’ll have the energy to rebel.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed the ruined lunchbox, as Nam Yihwon’s face twisted in disgust. He raised his hands and pressed them firmly against his eyes before continuing.
“You can tell just by looking … I’m not normal. I don’t care about my life as a celebrity or anything else. If you don’t want to see me in all my ugliness, you should toy with people in moderation.”
“…….”
“…Are you doing this to torment me, to make me kill myself? Is that it?”
Every single word felt like a dagger being stabbed into my heart.
For some reason, it hurt in a completely different way than the words Nam Yihwon had used to attack me in the past few days. His self-hatred was wounding both him and me.
When I stood there frozen, unable to move, Lee Chise hurriedly supported his body and tried to calm him down.
“Hwon-ah, I understand, so calm down for now. Take a deep breath.”
“…You understand? Hyung, do you even know how I feel?”
“…….”
“No, of course you wouldn’t know. It’s selfish of me to even expect you to. After all, you did nothing wrong to Yutae-hyung, while I’m one of the scumbags who ruined his life! … I was the reason Prism started to crack. No matter how selfish a bastard I am, I know that much.”
“It’s not your fault that things turned out this way. You didn’t know it would end up like this either.”
“If I had done it with good intentions, I could at least feel a little better. But that wasn’t the case, so how can it not be my fault?”
“…….”
“I wanted Yutae-hyung to sever ties with his father, so I intentionally screwed him over. I thought that if that bastard got humiliated in front of his son’s friends, he would never show his face again, so I did it on purpose. Yuseong already warned me to ignore what that person said.”
“….Hwon-ah.”
“If only that incident hadn’t happened, Jo Inchan wouldn’t have made that slip-up, and then our hyung wouldn’t have left. If we had stayed together, things might have been different right now. If Yutae-hyung had been by our side at that time, maybe no one would have died. I am the one who brought this all upon us.”
Lee Chise frowned and shook his head slowly, feeling sad for Nam Yihwon, who was blaming himself. However, it seemed that Lee Chise’s feelings didn’t reach Nam Yihwon, as he brushed off Lee Chise’s hand and left the studio.
***
After Nam Yihwon left the studio and Lee Chise left for his schedule, I, who had been in a daze, went straight to resume my work as if on autopilot.
“…Are you doing this to torment me, to make me kill myself? Is that it?”
I didn’t know what I was thinking. I only had the thought that I had to disappear from Nam Yihwon’s sight as soon as possible.
I continued to work relentlessly, not even pausing to take a sip of water, and only after I finally produced the result did I stretch out my stiff body, which had been locked in one position.
‘…Thank goodness, I managed to finish it today.’
Although the final details still needed a bit more work, it was a level of quality that Lee Chise or other arrangers and composers could easily handle. It was good enough. With this, I no longer had to torment Nam Yihwon and could distance myself from the members of Prism.
While I was catching my breath, feeling like the sense of being chased had slightly faded, I suddenly heard the sound of the door lock button being pressed.
Beep, beep, beeeep!
Then there was silence, with the door not opening.
The person must have entered the wrong number.
Beep, beep, beep!
And again, I heard the button being pressed again, and again, the door didn’t open. After this process had been repeated several times, I slowly and silently pushed myself to my feet.
‘…Who is it?’
My first suspicion was that the person on the other side of the door could be a sasaeng, since I’d already had a few nasty experiences with them. The most recent troublemaker, Dalli, was still walking around freely without facing any proper punishment, and even if it wasn’t Dalli, there were plenty of sasaengs out there.
“…….”
I checked the intercom’s screen, but saw nothing.
Something seemed to be blocking the camera.
‘No way, is it really a sasaeng?’
The only reason someone would cover the front door camera was if they were up to no good and didn’t want to be seen by the person at home. With that in mind, I calmly picked up my phone and prepared to inform my manager of the situation.
“Open the door.”
But I immediately relaxed and let out a sigh as a familiar voice came over the intercom’s speaker.
“Hyuuuuuung, Seo Yutae … Ah, right. This is Chise-hyung’s studio … Lee Chiseeee.”
It was Nam Yihwon.
As my relaxed nerves tensed up again after hearing the slurred speech, I hurriedly opened the door. I was worried that people might take photos.
Then, I immediately spotted Nam Yihwon slouched against the wall, looking completely disheveled. He was curled up in a ball with his long limbs folded tightly together, and his eyes were barely open. Obviously, he was drunk.
‘…How much have you been drinking?’
His skin was naturally dark and almost devoid of veins, so there was no flush at all, and he didn’t look like a drunk person at first glance. However, as soon as the door opened, the strong, distinct smell of alcohol hit me. And seeing that he could barely keep his body steady, it seemed like he had drunk far beyond his limit.
‘He’s lucky to have made it this far.’
As soon as I confirmed his condition, I frowned and grabbed this guy’s body, dragging him into the studio.
It was absolutely hell trying to move this huge man, even heavier now that he was unconscious, with Han Seungbeom’s body. Lee Chise’s studio was so large that it was not easy to get into the living room through the long hallway.
I knew that he had a bad drinking habit from the beginning, but I never expected that he still hadn’t fixed it. I slung his arm over my shoulder and started dragging him toward the bedroom.
Then, Nam Yihwon, who had been silent until halfway, suddenly walked to Lee Chise’s room, opened the door, and started shouting.
“Chise-hyuuung, I’m here!”
Thank goodness the soundproofing was done well; otherwise, it could have been a big problem.
“Where did you go!”
I watched Nam Yihwon drunkenly ranting for a while, and when I finally decided enough was enough, I grabbed his body and spoke to him calmly.
“Lee Chise-sunbaenim is out for a schedule. He’s not in the studio.”
“…Because I acted like a jerk, now he’s lost his affection for me and doesn’t even want to see my face anymore?”
“…….”
“Is he going to quit Prism like Yutae-hyung? Because of me?”
As drunk people typically did, no matter how many times I told him that Lee Chise wasn’t in the studio, he didn’t seem to want to listen. He continued to search for Lee Chise in the thin air, apparently bothered by his recent sharp reaction to Lee Chise.
After quite some time had passed, Nam Yihwon, who had been blankly turning his head, quietly opened his mouth after spotting me.
“Look at me. I’m a complete mess.”
“…….”
“…What should I do to make you disappear? Should I get down on my knees and beg you not to touch my family? If you want me to, I’ll do it.…”
“You’re very drunk. Please get up.”
Nam Yihwon tried to kneel as if he was really going to beg. Unable to bear watching that sight, I forcibly tried to pull him up, a heavy weight settling in my chest.
“If you sleep well tonight, I won’t come tomorrow. I promised.”
The moment I said that, his hand grabbed my ankle. Then he muttered “I hate it”, and continued in a dry voice.
“…Hyung, what should I do?”
His tone sounded familiar, almost exactly like the way he had spoken to me in my previous life.
“I heard that Inchan has been caught with a weakness, and Woon-hyung is being blackmailed with it … What’s real? I don’t know where to start or how much of this to believe.”
“…….”
“I’m scared. I’m scared something bad will happen to the members. Hyung, is this what you’ve been dealing with all these years?”
“…Sunbaenim.”
“When will we be able to live well without you, hyung?”
Nam Yihwon, with his eyes fluttering closed, said those words in a barely audible voice, before immediately falling fast asleep on the spot. I struggled for a while, dragging him, who had fallen to the floor, onto the bed. After turning off the lights, I was about to leave the room.
But something Nam Yihwon said stopped me in my tracks.
“….Hyung, don’t go. It was my fault.”
The words he mumbled vaguely in his sleep were exactly the same as the ones I had heard once before.
It seemed like he was dreaming about the memory of that time.
If you’re going to dream, you should dream of something good. Why on earth did you have to dream of that?
“…….”
I turned back from my steps to leave the room and approached the bed where he was lying. Then, through his disheveled white hair, I saw a familiar face.
I stared down at him for a long time, and eventually a thin teardrop fell from between his eyelids, which were heavy with fatigue.
After a moment of hesitation, I distanced myself as much as possible to avoid touching his body, and gently wiped his tear-streaked eyes with the back of my hand. Then, after covering his body with a blanket, I left the room.
I felt like I needed to get some fresh air.
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Translator’s Corner:
and i can go anywhere i want …. anywhere i want, just not home …. and you can aim for my heart, go for blood … but you would still miss me in your bones … i didn’t have it in myself to go with grace … and so the battleships will sink beneath the waves … you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same …. cursing my name, wishing I stayed…….
ugh this is why i really love this arc … the feelings …… dont you just love Prism …. why i’m so invested in a fictional boygroup when i never gaf to a real boygroup ….
also you guys … let’s make a wordpress account … why the comment sections always anon replying to anon who’s replying to anon … i can tell who is who ….