The Stalker
In the dead of night, a shrill, skin-crawling ring cut through the silence and woke even the members who had been asleep in their rooms; one by one, they shuffled out into the living room.
Jake said firmly, “Turn off the intercom.”
“Could it be sasaeng fans?” Baek Yuri asked in a hushed voice.
“Probably… yes. It seems so.”
“What if it’s someone from next door? Or a fire, or someone got hurt in the apartment beside us and needs help…?”
At Baek Gi-yeom’s suggestion of a possible explanation, Jake raised a finger for silence and pressed the call button.
“Who is this?”
— Huh? Who’s this? Isn’t this the Jjokbit dorm?
“It is not.”
— What the hell?
At the unfamiliar male voice instead of the members’ voices, the caller recoiled, scowling. Jake hit the disconnect button.
“Yes, it’s a sasaeng. I’ll shut it off.”
He examined the intercom, found no on/off switch, and ended up ripping it out and yanking the power cord free altogether. The members stood frozen in place, gooseflesh prickling up both arms.
So this is how it begins.
Even celebrities who lived in tightly secured apartments were plagued by stalkers; for them to have gone this long without incident while staying in a small villa with weak security was, in truth, the real miracle.
“I’ll have the staff contact us by phone, so leave the intercom as it is. We’ll need to take steps to move your dorm as soon as possible.”
Jake let out a short sigh.
Then, from the very end of the line, Neoul emerged from his room at a shuffle, rubbing his eyes. He glanced toward the window and said, “There is a person hanging outside the window.”
Rattle!
No sooner had Neoul spoken than the window slid open. A man was hanging outside by both hands gripping the railing, somehow using his body to lever the window open. How he had planted his feet, no one could tell; his posture was unnervingly steady.
We’re on the third floor…?
Everyone went pale and stiffened where they stood. The man, his face hidden by a mask, smiled with a greasy little curl of his mouth.
“Yeah. This is it. See? I told you I was right.”
He was speaking to the group gathered below the building.
“Neoul! Galseonul! Come out here! I’m your fan!”
“Isn’t this room cramped? Do they use the whole building?”
Voices from the women gathered below drifted up on the cold wind, riding through the window as they laughed and chattered. One of them was the same voice they had heard through the intercom earlier.
Neoul caught a faint stench, but the word fan made it impossible to ignore the man outright. As he moved toward the window to confirm the intruder’s face, Baek Yuri jerked him back by the arm and yanked him to a stop.
“Baek Gi-yeom. Lock it.”
Still rigid with shock, Baek Yuri called out to his cousin in a rush and practically hurled Neoul and Lee Gal-chae, who were closest to the window, back into the room. Baek Gi-yeom moved at once to close and lock the window, but Ha On-ha was one step faster.
Rattle!
The person clinging to the railing shoved a hand inside, but Ha On-ha ignored it and slammed the window shut with a crisp crack. If it had been Baek Gi-yeom, he would have hesitated, worried the intruder might scream in pain and lose his grip, falling straight to the ground.
“Agh!”
But Ha On-ha didn’t even let him decide to fall on his own. He held the window down hard, making sure it wouldn’t pop open again. The man, having trapped his hand, let out a yelp and wrenched it free.
“Oh no. That must’ve hurt. Sorry, sorry. Why’d you stick your hand in while I was closing the window~?”
Ha On-ha spoke with a sweet, cheerful smile, and without missing a beat he snapped the window shut and locked it.
Jake, who had been horrified that Ha On-ha might simply shove the man off the railing, finally let out a breath of relief and looked around in panic.
“The police… we need to call the police first….”
He was searching for his smartphone so he could report the intruder.
“I already sent a text report.”
But Ha On-ha had already used the emergency text-report function he’d set up on his own phone to call the police.
Woo Cheong, who had been pushed back into the room by Baek Yuri, planted himself stubbornly in the doorway and let his eyes shine.
“Whoa. On-ha hyung is seriously fast! It feels like I’m watching a movie.”
“Get in there. Cheong-ah. Do-bin too. On-ha, you’re dangerous too, so get away from the window. Come here already.”
As Baek Yuri urged the members into the room, he held up his phone with one hand and diligently filmed the man hanging from the railing. He snapped several photos and then even recorded a video as evidence.
Even if they had proof, the man probably wouldn’t be properly punished and would be out again before long, but evidence was still better than none.
Woo Cheong poked his head out of the doorway and asked, “Hyung, why do you keep telling us to go inside?”
Neoul and Yeo Do-bin were curious too, and both of them leaned out side by side.
“That man might break the window, you know.”
“Huh?”
There was no way to know what his purpose was in ringing the doorbell, climbing the wall, and trying to force his way up to the third floor. Maybe he was some thug with a stone in his pocket, or maybe a terrorist with a knife—who could know? They couldn’t let their guard down just because one window was locked.
The worst-case scenario Baek Yuri could imagine was the man smashing the glass, injuring the members with the flying shards, and then stepping inside to pick up a sharp fragment and press it against them.
Then he might threaten them to open the front door so the rest of his group could come in, steal all their things to sell, or even take the residents’ ID cards from their wallets and use them for something terrible.
No, if theft had really been his goal, it would have been easier to break in when the members were out of the house… which meant maybe his goal was to directly harm them.
Should I call 119 too?
“It’s okay… I can subdue him. I can do it.”
Baek Yuri drew a deep breath and murmured to himself, so softly it was almost a whisper.
He grabbed a thick blanket to block the shards if the window broke and glared at the trespasser.
Realizing what Baek Yuri was thinking, Baek Gi-yeom caught one end of the blanket in his hands and spread it wide, helping to hold it up. At the same time, he gestured to Jake.
“Representative, you should get in the room too.”
“W-what? No, I can’t! I have a duty to protect the artists….”
“Sorry, but I think you’d just get in the way.”
Baek Gi-yeom said it firmly, though his eyebrows drooped into an apologetic slant.
Jake had a wiry build with nothing but bone beneath the skin.
His thick horn-rimmed glasses, which made his eyes look twice as small, only made him seem even more like someone who had never so much as exercised in his life. Perhaps it was a prejudice, but he looked exactly like the sort of man who had spent his days sitting at a desk and nowhere else.
Neoul asked, “You tell us to hide, but why don’t Baek Yuri-sen-saeng and Baek Gi-yeom-sen-saeng hide as well?”
“Right! Hyungs! Hide with us!”
“Y-yeah…!”
Woo Cheong and Yeo Do-bin chimed in.
Baek Yuri shot a glance at Neoul and the members, who kept poking their faces out despite being told not to, his expression growing increasingly exasperated.
“At least we know how to fight. Regular people, keep quiet and put your faces back in, right now. What if you get hurt and end up with a scar?”
“We need to protect the hyungs’ faces too! What, are we the only idols here or something?”
“Exactly…!”
Baek Yuri bit his lower lip with his front teeth. He had spoken as firmly as he could because the situation was so serious, but the members weren’t budging at all.
Fortunately, the worst Baek Yuri feared did not happen. The man clinging to the railing shouted a string of curses at Ha On-ha, then carefully began to climb down toward the ground.
“Hey, the police are on the way. Let’s just go.”
“Huh? What did we even do to make you call the police? We just came to look because we were curious! Ah, I guess we startled you because it’s late. How cute!”
“Are you insane? Cute, my ass. That guy’s scary as hell. You see my hand? It’s hurt.”
“Good for you. Should’ve offered up the other one too.”
“What did you say?”
“Bye! We’re leaving! Neoul! On-ha! Sleep well!”
One of the women looked up at the window and waved both hands broadly. The group of nighttime intruders—two women and one man—took off before the police arrived.
The members and Jake stayed rigid, staring only at the window until the strangers disappeared into the distance and were no longer visible from the sill.
“…….”
“They’re gone…?”
When the sound of footsteps finally faded, Baek Yuri let out the breath he had been holding. The strength left his grip and the blanket slipped from his hands with a soft thud.
* * *
A little later, the police car arrived. Jake explained the situation to the officers.
Ha On-ha, standing beside him, smoothly cut in with an air of extraordinary composure and added a detailed account.
He made a point of emphasizing that the man had climbed up the railing, opened the window, and shoved his hand inside as though he intended to come in.
“Please catch him for us, Officer.”
“Ah, yes.”
The officer looked at the video Baek Yuri had recorded and asked them to send it over as well. Then, saying they would patrol the area and contact them later, they took Jake’s business card and left.
After the police were gone, the members locked every window and door and checked them two or three times over to make sure they were truly secured.
Jake spoke up.
“Even if they didn’t fully break into the house, I understand that attempted trespassing can still be punished. I’ve heard there have even been cases where simply ringing the doorbell was enough for the charge to be recognized and a fine imposed. From now on, let’s make sure this doesn’t happen again and have them properly punished without a settlement.”
The members nodded.
“As your representative… I can only apologize to all of you. We’ll need to find a new place to live as soon as possible.”
At Jake’s words, Woo Cheong asked, “Ikhoo-nim. What about the dorm we were supposed to move into originally? We’re debuting soon, so can’t we just make money and go there?”
“That is….”
Jake hesitated as though it were difficult to say.
“That place is supposed to be used as the dorm for the next girl group that will be produced for Idol Travel Season 2.”
“Ah….”
Woo Cheong, unusually downcast, lowered his head.
“I see. I shouldn’t have asked.”
He was newly feeling how completely they had become unwanted after falling out with Flux’s Kim Woohwan.
And the shareholders who had installed Kim Woohwan in Flux made no sense at all, either.
“Still, um! That’s good! It’s better for one group to suffer less than for both groups to have a hard time.”
Woo Cheong quickly brightened and forced a grin. It was a relief that the next girl group would not have to go through hardships like theirs and could stay in a decent dorm instead. It was a good thing, and yet…
Even Woo Cheong, the eternal optimist, couldn’t help feeling deflated in the face of such naked discrimination.
It was obvious why miserly Kim Woohwan had left the dorm sitting there only to hand it over to the next group later.
He was probably deliberately showing the difference in treatment to crush the spirit of the Jjokbit members, who didn’t obey his orders and kept doing things their own way.
With Jake back and the label now separated as well, how much more of a thorn in the side would Jjokbit, already out of his favor, be?
The smile slowly faded from Woo Cheong’s face. Seeing him stare miserably at the floor, Neoul asked, “It seems that you liked that house rather a lot.”
“Yeah. The room was big, the view was pretty… but this place is fine too! It’s lively and fun because it’s so crowded, and it’s nice. Since we’re all together all the time, it’s easier to hold meetings and keep the work moving quickly too!”
“…….”
“Even the seniors who are successful now all started in small companies and small dorms, right? If you get everything from the start, it’s no fun! You have to build things one by one yourself to feel real pride, and then it’s even happier!”
Neoul listened quietly to Woo Cheong’s words.
“The hyungs take good care of us and look after us so much that it’s not really that hard… so the size of the dorm doesn’t matter much to me, whether it’s big or small. I just….”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then finally blurted the truth out plainly.
“I guess I’m not used to being hated by someone.”
Woo Cheong looked startled by his own words, his eyes widening round.
***