Chapter 170
Chapter 170
Translator: Penny
Chapter 170
"What is it?"
I frowned deeply as I opened my eyes, only to see Kim Dobin's tearful face right in front of me.
"Hyung...! The karaoke machine started playing on its own...!"
"Yeah, it's broken. Just turn it off."
Surely Kim Dobin, even with his fearfulness, could manage the short distance alone.
"I tried to turn it off because the melody was so eerie, but the music video... the music video...!"
"What about the music video?"
"It keeps showing videos of people dying!"
"All music videos from that era show people dying. They're not actually dead, you know. It's just acting, acting."
I pulled the blanket over my head and waved him off, telling him to hurry up. But Kim Dobin refused to go alone and kept shaking me persistently.
"Ah, if you're scared, go with the youngest member!"
"He's definitely awake, but he's pretending not to hear us!"
"Ugh, those damn jerks... As if being born seven months later is a crime. Hmph."
Being forced to share a room with the Maknae Line just because my birthday was late was infuriating.
To be forcibly woken up on my first day here? I vowed to squeeze myself between those narrow beds tomorrow and finally got up.
Rubbing my still-stiff eyes, I stepped out of the room and saw a spinning disco ball and karaoke screen displaying lyrics.
The slow, unfamiliar melody was one I'd never heard before.
I glanced at the song title at the top of the screen and grumbled, "What's this? They're playing random crap. This thing's totally broken."
Tap, tap, tap. No matter how many times I pressed the power button, the karaoke machine stubbornly remained on. Guess I had no choice but to resort to the final measure.
I punched the screen and the main unit several times. The music video flickered, the instrumental track crackled, and with a final pop, the machine shut down. The mirror ball spinning overhead also stopped, clunking to a halt.
"See? Machines always fix themselves when you hit them."
I grinned smugly, but Kim Dobin asked skeptically, "Was it even broken...?"
"Want me to turn it back on and prove it?"
"No!"
Kim Dobin desperately stopped me as I reached for the power button again.
"Lower your voice! Do you want to wake everyone up at this hour?"
Seo Yehyeon, who slept like a rock, wouldn't notice, but Gyeon Hajun was a light sleeper, you idiot.
I frowned and warned him, and Kim Dobin snapped his mouth shut. But only for a moment. He slyly removed his hand from his mouth and asked, "Where did it say it was broken?"
"On a sticky note on the refrigerator door."
Kim Dobin dragged me to the kitchen, flipped on the bright lights, and stood before the sticky note, scanning each item one by one.
As his gaze moved down the list, his expression grew increasingly strange. By the time he reached the last item, his face had turned completely pale.
"Salt? This is obviously weird! It's clearly for warding off ghosts!"
Restrained by my warning from raising his voice, he whispered urgently. I retorted dismissively, "What does a broken light have to do with ghosts? It's all superstition, superstition."
"Then why would they tell us to put out salt?"
"Maybe sodium releases ions that fix light bulbs or something."
I vaguely pieced together some chemistry terms I'd overheard while dozing off in class and tried to sound convincing, but Kim Dobin's uneasy expression remained unchanged.
"Then why specifically tell us to sprinkle it in the corners of the windows?"
"Should we sprinkle it on the light bulbs instead?"
Finally, my words seemed to have swayed him. Kim Dobin murmured, half-convinced, "Maybe...?"
But his moment of doubt was fleeting. He began trembling and pointed at the karaoke machine.
"It could be a ghost! They say karaoke rooms are haunted."
"Dobin-ah, is this a karaoke room or a pension?"
"A pension."
"Exactly! It's a pension, you idiot. And do you really think ghosts have nothing better to do than sing karaoke?"
I returned to my room with Kim Dobin still clinging to my side like a leech.
The late-night karaoke commotion eventually subsided, and morning dawned. I slept quite soundly, except for the times Kim Dobin woke me up.
"Yehyeon Hyung, do sodium ions actually exist?"
Still distrustful of me, Kim Dobin had cornered Seo Yehyeon, the most academically accomplished among us, first thing in the morning, demanding to know if the nonsense I'd spouted the previous day was true.
Seo Yehyeon deftly avoided Kim Dobin's earnest gaze and replied, "I'm a humanities major."
Ryu Jaehee, who had been diligently searching on his phone nearby, chimed in, "Hyung, it says sodium ions are real!"
"Whoa, really?" Kim Dobin's expression brightened considerably.
Sigh, that distrustful bastard. He wouldn't believe the Leader even if he said he could make meju from red beans. But sodium ions actually exist? That's insane.
Maybe I really do have the brains Grandfather always hoped for?
Breakfast was ramen cooked by the youngest member. I hadn't drunk enough to get a hangover, but the hot, spicy broth still settled my stomach.
Seo Yehyeon, who always claimed to be on the verge of death from hangovers after even a few drinks, gulped down the ramen broth—something he'd normally never touch. Even now, he stubbornly refused to eat the noodles, opting instead to mix rice into the broth.
Today's agenda: swimming and a barbecue.
"Should we soak this watermelon in the stream? We used to do that with my friends when we went to the valley—it gets so cold and refreshing."
I tapped the watermelon sitting next to the fridge, since it wouldn't fit inside, and asked if everyone agreed. They all nodded in approval.
After changing into our swimsuits, which had mostly dried on the drying rack, we grabbed the watermelon and headed back to the 계곡, just like yesterday.
"Someone grab my tube!"
We carefully submerged the watermelon near the water's edge, securing it with rocks to prevent it from rolling away. Gyeon Hajun tossed me my tube, and we started playing in the water as we had the day before.
"We should have brought water guns. That would have been even more fun," Ryu Jaehee said, smacking his lips in regret as he splashed water at Kim Dobin.
Kim Dobin grinned. "Next time, let's definitely bring them. Water gun war!"
"You guys are too old to be playing with water guns. Act your age," I scoffed.
Ryu Jaehee retorted cheekily, "You're the type to say that, but if we actually brought them, you'd be the first one playing with them the most enthusiastically. Eden Hyung, number one!"
"Shut up, you jerk."
We tried to eat the watermelon halfway through, but realized there was no knife or cutting board. Since no one bothered to go back to the pension to get them, the watermelon stayed soaking in the stream until we finished swimming.
"Shouldn't we get the watermelon?"
"It won't fit in the fridge anyway. Just leave it there to stay cool."
Back at the pension, we settled the shower order with another round of intense rock-paper-scissors, just like the day before.
"Ugh, seriously? By the time I get to shower, I'll be dry already."
I drew the last spot, right after Seo Yehyeon.
The chances of that guy showering quickly were about the same as him suddenly belting out a Ryu Jaehee-level vocal performance. So, instead of waiting, I decided to just shower in the master bathroom.
"Huh? Didn't you say the bathroom there was broken, Hyung?"
"I only said the toilet was broken, didn't I?"
"Wasn't that just something I made up?"
Ryu Jaehee's words made me scratch my head. I grabbed my clothes and headed straight for the bathroom.
If the shower doesn't work, I'll just come back out.
The master bathroom was smaller than the one outside but had a bathtub. What was odd was that the tub was filled to the brim with water.
Is this for a water outage?
A salty, sea-like smell hit my nose. I wrinkled my nose and turned on the shower—the water flowed perfectly. Just in case, I flushed the toilet, and it worked fine too.
Why did they tell me not to use a perfectly working bathroom? It's just making my shower take longer.
Grumbling, I slammed the door shut and started washing up. Barely five minutes had passed when the bathroom lights suddenly went out.
"Hey! Who's messing around? Turn the lights back on now!" I yelled, but the lights remained stubbornly off.
After calming down and thinking it through, I realized no one at Reve would pull such a prank on me.
Kim Dobin was too timid, Ryu Jaehee was too smart to do anything with consequences, Gyeon Hajun's personality simply wouldn't lead him to such antics, and Seo Yehyeon... that guy would never pull a prank on me.
I finished rinsing the shampoo and tried to open the door, but the handle was stiff and wouldn't budge. So that's why they told me not to use this bathroom—everything from the lights to the door was malfunctioning.
With a forceful tug, I finally yanked the door open.
As I emerged from the master bedroom, shaking the water from my wet hair with a towel, Ryu Jaehee, who was waiting for his turn, asked me, "Hyung, is the master bathroom okay? Is it working properly?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's fine except for the light being out and the door being hard to open. It's probably unusable right now because of the light, but even when the light's fixed, try not to close the door when you use it."
Later, we grilled barbecue in the pension courtyard against the backdrop of the setting sun.
The only real difference from the barbecue we'd had during our Jeju Island shoot was the grilling itself. We struggled for ages to get the charcoal lit, and I reflexively patted my pockets for a lighter when someone asked if I had one, a habit from my smoking days. This led to a fierce interrogation about whether I still smoked.
I cracked open a beer and clinked cans lightly with Gyeon Hajun.
"Hey Eden, you really don't smoke, do you?"
"Seriously, I don't. I swore on Seo Yehyeon's rap skills that I don't."
"Why do you keep betting my nonexistent rap skills?!" Seo Yehyeon, who was grilling the meat, snapped.
"Well, I can't bet my own rap skills, can I? Imagine Reve tracks with my rap sounding like Hyung's."
"So you're saying you do smoke?"
"How did we even get to that? I've never even put a cigarette in my mouth!"
That was true for this timeline, so it wasn't a lie.
After devouring all the meat and sausages we'd bought, we started craving dessert. Something like watermelon chilled in the stream would be perfect.
"Should I get the watermelon?"
At my suggestion, Kim Dobin shook his head vigorously.
"Why? Don't you want any?"
"No, it's not that... Didn't they tell us not to go to the valley at night?"
"Probably because it's dark and they're worried we might trip or slip. If you're really worried, I can use my phone as a flashlight."
"No, Hyung. You don't understand—we don't know what might happen if we break the rules. It's always the people who ignore warnings and break the rules who get eliminated first!"
"Who? In a manga? A movie? That's fiction, this is real life."
I scoffed, but Kim Dobin turned to me with an uncharacteristic seriousness.
"Don't regret going to the valley at night later, Hyung."
📝 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