Chapter 148
Chapter 148
Translator: Penny
Chapter 148
"Aaaaargh!"
Comeback D-5.
This was a crucial time to maintain peak condition, but Kim Dobin's bloodcurdling scream jolted me awake in the middle of the night.
Rubbing my ringing ears, I opened my eyes, the scream still echoing in my head.
Fuck, if he'd screamed like that in the recording studio, I wouldn't have lost my temper with him.
Why the hell is he having a breakthrough at dawn?
"Dobin... what time is it?"
I already knew it was 3:24 AM from checking my phone the moment I woke up, but I asked anyway, intending to scold him. Instead, Kim Dobin gave a nonsensical reply.
"Hyung, the ceiling... the ceiling..."
Kim Dobin kept repeating "the ceiling" while pointing at it with his trembling finger.
"What about the ceiling? Is there a bug up there? If it's not a centipede or cockroach, you'll pay dearly for waking me up at 3 a.m. with your screaming—"
Following Dobin's finger, I looked up and froze. A pitch-black hole gaped in the ceiling.
Has that hole always been there? Did the wallpaper get stained?
My escapist questions were brutally shattered by the rustling movement within the hole—no, by the cockroach itself.
Kim Dobin, you lucky bastard. If that weren't a cockroach, I'd have torn you apart. But since it's a cockroach, I'll let you off this time.
Now, a confession:
I hate cockroaches. No, not just hate—I fucking hate them.
I doubt anyone in the world actually likes cockroaches, but I'm confident no one hates them more than me, especially since one once flew and landed on my face.
Thanks to that incident, I developed a deep-seated trauma toward Mr. Cockroach when it spreads its wings.
"119! 119! Wait, is this Cesco instead of 119?"
As I frantically muttered, instinctively calling for 119, Kim Dobin, who had fled from the cockroach clinging to the ceiling above his bed, rushed to my bed and shook me violently, his mind completely unhinged.
"Hyung, how can you be so scared of this when you're not even afraid of ghosts?! I only screamed because I trusted you!"
"Hey! If there's a cockroach—no, Mr. Cockroach!—you're supposed to catch it yourself, dispose of the carcass properly, and then report to me!"
I was giving Kim Dobin a thorough dressing-down for daring to make me witness this creature, even addressing the bug with utmost respect in case it thought I was calling it and flew at me. Just then, the cockroach began to move.
Straight toward my bed.
"Hwaaa... Sanity check, sanity check... Cthulhu is descending..."
"What are you babbling about?! Sanity check or whatever, just catch that thing!"
"Hyung, it's 'sanity check,' not 'Sanji check.'"
"Is that what's important right now?!"
"And how am I supposed to catch it?! I can't even catch a dragonfly!"
"I can't catch centipedes either, you little brat!"
As the cockroach drew closer, we panicked, waving our hands wildly at it, begging it to go away.
"Hyung, you caught the moth just fine! You caught Tinkerbell and the spider just fine! So why can't you handle Mr. Cockroach?!"
"They never crawled on my face!"
"Aaaah! It's horrifying!"
Kim Dobin screamed, whether from imagination or reality. Meanwhile, Mr. Cockroach continued to advance toward us.
Then, the door burst open.
"What's all this noise at dawn—"
Seo Yehyeon stood there, his face creased with a deep frown, still half-asleep.
As the door opened, Mr. Cockroach spread its wings wide. Horrific memories from the past resurfaced.
"No! Yehyeon Hyung!"
I yanked the blanket over my head just as Kim Dobin, still not fully grasping the situation, lunged forward and dragged Seo Yehyeon, who was standing there dumbfounded, out of the way. The cockroach landed with a thud against the wall right next to the door.
Seo Yehyeon glanced at where our eyes were fixed, finally realizing what was happening. He squeezed between me and Kim Dobin, pulled the blanket I was under over himself, and huddled beneath it with us.
"Hey, you jerk! Are you discriminating against people?"
"But... Yehyeon Hyung is my first disciple!"
While I was shaking off Kim Dobin, Seo Yehyeon, who had been catching his breath, pointed a trembling finger at Mr. Cockroach and whispered, "Shouldn't we close the door before that thing gets out?"
"Dobin, go close it."
"Why can't Hyung do it? You're closer."
"Our Dobin's gotten so comfortable with Hyung, hasn't he?"
"Forget about comfort or anything else. Instead of nagging like old men, someone go shut it already."
"Let's make the person who brought it up go shut it."
Seeing the two stubbornly rooted in their seats, showing no intention of moving, I squeezed my eyes shut and stood up.
At least the room was small, so it would eventually come out. But if it got into the living room and started rummaging through the whole house, we'd never find it.
"Cowardly bastards..."
I muttered through clenched teeth. Normally, Seo Yehyeon would have mocked me for talking about others' problems, but this time he clapped silently, offering genuine encouragement.
"Wow, so brave! Go get 'em, Leader! Fighting!"
Knowing better than anyone how terrible he was at acting, I could feel the sincerity in his support. Unable to retort, I trudged forward with heavy steps.
It felt exactly like stepping onto the debut stage, knowing I was about to fail and be ridiculed.
But I'd rather face a barrage of hate comments than be this close to Mr. Cockroach, goddamn it.
Keeping as much distance as possible, I reached out with trembling hands and gave the open door a gentle push.
I even went up on tiptoes to push harder, but there was still a gap. The moment I leaned forward,
"Agh! Agh!"
Mr. Cockroach took flight again. Terrified, I dove onto the bed and frantically yanked at the blanket, but it wouldn't budge.
Seo Yehyeon and Kim Dobin had pulled it so tightly over themselves.
"Hey! You ungrateful bastards! I closed the door for you! At least give me the blanket!"
Mr. Cockroach, who had been flying around the room, landed back on the ceiling.
The three of us, trapped in the room with the cockroach, huddled together under a single blanket, trembling in fear of when it might strike.
We had two options: either catch it ourselves or continue this standoff until Manager Hyung called Cesco.
Wait, how could none of the five of us catch a cockroach...?
Then, as if by a miracle, I remembered Ryu Jaehee effortlessly catching cockroaches before the regression. I whipped around to Seo Yehyeon and asked, "Hyung, Jaehee isn't awake yet?"
"If I was woken up, he definitely is."
Well, based on my experience as his roommate, Seo Yehyeon was a truly deep sleeper. If even he had woken up, the commotion we'd made must have been extraordinary.
Then Gyeon Hajun, who's so sensitive to noise, must have woken up too.
[ Jun-a, are you awake? ] 3:36 AM
Even though I knew Gyeon Hajun could only catch fruit flies and mosquitoes, I texted him anyway, clinging to a sliver of hope.
"But why did you come alone? Where's Ryu Jaehee?"
"I told him to go back to sleep. He's probably still asleep."
"He should have come with you! Both of you!"
"How was I supposed to know there'd be cockroaches in your room?!"
"Yehyeon Hyung, you shouldn't say Cthulhu's True Name! They can hear it!"
Furious at Kim Dobin's desperate pleas, I pointed at his bed and threatened, "If you utter another one of those incomprehensible otaku phrases, I'll smash cockroaches with your pillow!"
"I'm sorry!" Kim Dobin immediately apologized.
A reply from Gyeon Hajun arrived. As soon as I unlocked my phone, which was blinking with a message notification...
"Hyung, Eden Hyung! Quick, turn on your phone's light—"
Mr. Cockroach landed squarely on my phone. And I gained my second childhood trauma.
"Aaaaaah!"
Screaming, I shook my phone wildly. But the tenacious cockroach clung stubbornly to it. Only when I slammed the phone repeatedly against the bed did it finally detach and drop to the floor with a thud.
[Gyeon Hajun - I could roughly guess what was happening from the sounds. ] 3:38 AM
[Gyeon Hajun - I don't think I'd be much help, so I won't bother coming. ] 3:39 AM
I quickly skimmed the text, fearing Mr. Cockroach might cling to my phone again, and hastily turned off the screen. Now, Ryu Jaehee was our only hope.
Mr. Cockroach sat rigidly on the floor, staring intently at us huddled under the blanket, as if locked in a standoff.
"Hey, I think it's trying to have a staring contest with us."
"How could mere mortals like us possibly compete with the Great Cthulhu in a staring contest...?"
"Aish, Kim Dobin. Get your pillow."
"If we crush it with a pillow, it'll lay eggs!"
Afraid the cockroach might charge at the phone's light, I dimmed the screen to its lowest setting and covered it with my hand as I called Ryu Jaehee.
"Jaehee!"
As soon as the call connected, I urgently called out Ryu Jaehee's name. He replied from the other end of the line:
I'm already on my way.
The door burst open, and Ryu Jaehee strode in triumphantly, a wad of tissues in his hand.
That damn cockroach bastard didn't even flinch when someone opened the door and entered. It just twitched its antennae, remaining completely still.
It must have gotten too confident after dealing with those three weaklings.
"Hyungs, do you know when it's the worst when a bug appears in the house?" Ryu Jaehee asked with a grin, then, with lightning speed, he slammed the tissue wad over the cockroach, trapping it in his grip.
All eyes were fixed on the wad of tissues Ryu Jaehee held.
"When it touched you?"
"No. When it vanished right in front of me. Thank goodness I caught it before that happened."
The antennae peeking out from the tissues reassured us.
We couldn't bring ourselves to approach the youngest member, who was still holding the cockroach, so we clapped instead. Only after Ryu Jaehee flushed the tissues down the toilet did we rush over to hug him.
"Hey, seriously, if you hadn't been here...! We would have been trapped in that room and starved to death!"
"A cockroach in a basement dorm? That's unheard of!"
"Actually, there were some back then too, weren't there?"
"What? There were? I never saw one!"
Ryu Jaehee shrugged casually at our shocked faces.
"I caught them all. I knew you guys would freak out."
Typical Ryu Jaehee.
"But... how did you catch those cockroaches so easily with just tissues?"
"I've been catching them since I was a kid. I've gotten pretty good at it, I guess."
Ryu Jaehee's face darkened slightly as he said this, so we didn't press further.
With the night growing late and the cockroaches dealt with, we escorted our savior Ryu Jaehee back to his room with utmost respect, praising him all the way.
As expected, Gyeon Hajun, who had likely been awake the whole time, emerged from his room at the commotion and leaned against the doorframe, clapping.
"Good thing you caught them."
Gyeon Hajun grinned, basking in the resentful glares of the three of us.
"If all four of us scream, it'll be even louder. What if the neighbors upstairs, downstairs, and next door complain? Our group's image will suffer."
He had a point.
Following Jaehee's advice that seeing one cockroach meant there were more, I called Manager Hyung first thing in the morning to summon Cesco. Of course, we had already fled to the practice room.
"Wow, I really got the full 'mere mortal facing Cthulhu' experience. I was checking for cockroaches every second, doing sanity checks the whole time," Kim Dobin muttered with a sigh of relief.
What's with this Cthulhu obsession? He's been going on about it since yesterday. Is it some kind of cockroach monster?
📝 Translator’s Note:
You may notice that certain lines or phrases in this novel appear both in their original Korean (or Hanja) form and in English translation.
This is intentional — these phrases are classical idioms, divine titles, or poetic expressions that carry layered meanings.
To preserve their original tone and authenticity, the raw text has been kept for reference, while the English interpretation is provided right before or after it. This helps convey both the literal and cultural nuance of the original work.
but if you guys dont want tha raw for future chapters or my future other novels u can just text me on discord and say so discord name Mr.Penny