※ Episode 4 : Was the Suicide Attempt Just My Imagination?
Standing there before Bada and me was none other than the school's idol, Cheon Cheri.
Once she says she tried to kill herself, she'll never let this go quietly…
Completely forgetting the pure, wholesome idol persona that made her the most popular teen heartthrob in the country, she simply stared at me with hollow, empty eyes.
"W-wait… why is Cheon Cheri sunbae here?"
With her relentlessly positive personality, Bada had already collected herself and stepped forward to greet her.
But Cheri's usual warmth was nowhere to be found; her lips stayed pressed into a hard, unyielding line.
"Did you invite her to butter up Cheri? You know, like… 'I'm actually friends with Cheri!' That kind of thing?"
When she got no answer, Bada leaned over and whispered in my ear, asking if I'd brought Cheri in as a special guest. Was she here to play matchmaker, or to prove that even though I was a commoner, I was somebody on the rise?
"No way. We were in the same group for history class once, and that was the only time we ever talked."
We'd been thrown together in a group out of pure necessity, and that single project was the extent of our history with Cheri.
Maybe because she was an idol, kindness was practically ingrained in her — but her research work had been a hopeless mess, and I'd had to redo it all from scratch.
Don't tell me the fiancée who showed up today is…
Why would Cheri go out of her way to come here at all?
Either she'd overheard Bada talking about my suicide attempt, or she was the fiancée herself — one of the two.
"I-I'm so sorry… i-it's just that this is my first time in a situation like this, so I'm a little nervous…"
Cheri shook her head, wearing the same sweet smile she doled out to her classmates and fans.
"I gave you such a stiff greeting earlier, so let me try a softer one, okay? I'm Cheon Cheri. I work as an idol."
"I'm not a die-hard fan or anything, but I listen to your songs all the time! 'Blossoming nebulae, drifting like petals…' ♪"
"Ah! 'As if everything might return to zero…' ♪ Thank you so much for singing my new song, Your Heart That Touched the Quasar."
Cheri picked up the song Bada had started and finished the line — top-tier fan service, delivered effortlessly.
Whether she'd been genuinely moved by it or not, Bada wore the face of an unbroken colt and practically bounced with delight.
"May I sit down?"
"Of course! Please, sit!"
"Thank you for having me."
Bada pulled out a chair for her — a courtesy she'd never even extend to her own parents — and Cheri thanked her for the thoughtfulness as she took her seat.
"Yongsung… ssi. No — may I call you just Yongsung?"
Cheri said my name.
I, who had been sitting in silence, finally gave her a response.
"You don't need to be nervous on my account. Everyone here is a first-timer at this too, you know."
Despite everything that had happened, she even went out of her way to reassure me — someone she wasn't remotely close to — in just a few short words.
So that whole suicide thing really was just a misunderstanding…
The way Cheri had thrashed with a noose around her neck, making that horrible sound — was it just an unfortunate coincidence that it overlapped with a horror movie I'd been watching?
Which meant the only question left was…
"Yongsung oppa said you weren't invited here to perform or anything… so Cheri, are you…?"
"Calling me 'Cheri-ssi' feels so formal. Would you call me unni, or just Cheri instead?"
"You really are as nice as everyone says! Then I'll call you unni! Are you oppa's fiancée?"
I was about to say it myself, but she beat me to the punch.
Instead of me, drowning in my own confusion, it was Bada who threw the question straight at Cheri: was she really my fiancée?
"Fufufu… yes, just as Bada says. I am Yongsung's fiancée. I came here not as a performer, but as the fiancée herself."
So she really was my fiancée.
Cheri admitted it outright — that she was, in fact, betrothed to me.
The reason she'd come today, she said, was to talk about the marriage seriously.
Bada couldn't contain herself. "So Cheri unni is oppa's fiancée — and that makes her my future sister-in-law?!"
"Oppa already got engaged to Cheri unni through the adults, right? That's why she came to our school too!"
When Cheri had tried to take her own life, I'd told her, "I'm getting married too…" — but I'd only said it because our situations were similar, and I'd wanted to empathize with her.
So that's why she kept bringing Cheri up.
"What did Yongsung say about me?"
"Well… unni, he said he saw you doing something…"
"He saw me doing something? Could you tell me more specifically?"
Cheri was pressing Bada relentlessly, trying to dig out exactly what kind of things I'd said about her.
"I didn't say much. Just that I saw you dancing in an empty classroom."
Not a lie, technically? She was hanging in midair.
Bada relayed a half-truth — that Cheri had been dancing, and that I'd happened to see it.
"Fufu… that's right… I was practicing my dance routine… Though I do worry I made things awkward when I shooed you away out of embarrassment…"
Thank goodness she was playing along.
Whether out of consideration or obligation, Cheri lied with perfect composure — but the moment our eyes met, her face drained back into that hollow stare.
Still, "caught practicing dance" beat "caught attempting suicide" by a mile. It even showed her passion for her job as an idol.
"Okay, so I get why an heiress from a great family would be promised in marriage — but why did it suddenly get pushed through now?"
"That's… a bit of a complicated story. Hmm… if I were to explain it simply…"
Cheri promised to walk us through, step by step, why the engagement had been forced ahead so abruptly.
"My family has been an established noble house for generations, and while Yongsung's family are commoners, his great-uncle is a National Assembly member…"
None of that was news to me.
The only thing I hadn't known was that the other party involved was Cheri.
"There are certain interests entangled in it, and for those reasons the marriage was set in motion again."
When it came to this engagement, the adults' circumstances were so deeply tangled that the whole thing seemed more complicated than I'd imagined.
In any case, she brushed it off briefly: the match had been decided when they were children, there had never been any thought of calling it off, and so it had simply been resumed.
"But you're an idol and an heiress. Is it really okay for you to marry my oppa?"
Leave it to Bada to say exactly what was on everyone's mind.
She'd cut straight into the conversation and hit Cheri with an unexpected question.
Carrying the name of a prestigious family and riding high as a red-hot idol, marrying a commoner would be nothing short of a ball and chain around her ankle.
"It's fine. Even after the engagement, I intend to keep working as an idol. My heart for my fans won't change either."
"But idols live off their image! If an article drops — 'Cheon Cheri Secretly Engaged!' — wouldn't that be fatal?"
Idols survive on their image, plain and simple.
If it ever came out that Cheri had a fiancée, it would send shockwaves through society.
Just recently, a voice actress who'd been toying with flirty, almost-romantic antics toward her fans — despite having a boyfriend — caused a massive scandal.
"If a scandal ever breaks, I'll just come out and explain it myself."
Any problems that arose from getting engaged as an idol, she said, she would shoulder entirely on her own. She wouldn't let me suffer for it.
"And I imagine you're worried I might carry some sense of privilege, being from a noble family?"
"Exactly! I heard about someone who bad-mouthed their fiancé at their very first meeting because they didn't like him!"
"I would never. What era are we living in, that anyone would still fuss over 'noble house' this and 'commoner' that? If anything, I think it's because they're shackled to all of that that the old families never move forward."
We'd worried she might be arrogant because she was an heiress to a great house, but Cheri seemed entirely unbound by such things.
"Ahh… I see… Then what do you think of our oppa? He's picky, sure, but in my book he's the best groom there is!"
Playing matchmaker was one thing — wasn't she laying it on a little thick?
Compared to an idol like Cheri, I had nothing to recommend me, and the crushing weight of a marriage settled over my shoulders like a stone.
And besides — I'd watched this girl try to kill herself, and now here she was heaping praise on me to my face. Honestly, it was terrifying.
"What I think of Yongsung is…"
"Ah! Phone call! I'll just take this real quick!"
Cutting me off before Cheri could finish saying what she thought of me, Bada stood up, saying she'd take the call and be right back.
"Oppa! Sweep Cheri unni right off her feet!"
Thumbs up and a wink, Bada promised not to interrupt our little moment alone.
"Oh — and even though today's a special day, you'd better leave the dongpo pork and the eel alone, got it? If you eat them, I'm not cooking for you for a while! Understood?"
A moment later, Bada poked her head back in to declare that the dongpo pork and eel were strictly off-limits.
Not that it mattered — Cheri hadn't touched a single bite, and I'd managed two pieces. Bada had been monopolizing the spread anyway…
"About the suicide attempt…"
The moment Bada was out the door, there was no longer any point in hiding things, so I threw the question straight at Cheri: why had she been trying to kill herself?
Maybe — I offered — she'd simply been rehearsing? Idols did have to act from time to time.
"This is the worst… I tried to kill myself because I didn't want to get married… and the man who saved me turns out to be the one I'm supposed to marry…"
Ordinarily Cheri spoke in a gentle, clear voice, but…
She came out with the behavior of someone who'd given up on everything, swallowing back her tears.
"What am I supposed to do now… I should've just died… No… maybe I should die now… how should I do it… if I die, everything turns to nothing anyway…"