The Conditions for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader - Chapter 39

The envelope tucked in with it was surprisingly thick—too thick to be nothing but a letter. For something that supposedly contained only scraps of paper, it had far more bulk than it should have, which meant there was something else inside.

What the hell did they stuff in there?

Since the box was already open, he lifted the flap of the envelope just enough to peek inside. The first thing to greet Go Young-in was a tangled bundle of long hair, the same color as the madman’s own hair.

Bad idea. Shit...

He snapped the envelope shut and shoved it far away. That alone was enough to tell him the rest of it would be just as foul. Better not look any further. He forced his attention to the pie instead.

Something that looked like ketchup had been smeared carelessly across the center, and a small paper card sat on top of it. In red ink, it read: “I made you a meat pie so you can eat and get your strength back ❤ Please eat it this time, T.T”

The envelope was already insane, but this was somehow worse. Everything about it felt wrong.

The smell was wrong, too. A pie was supposed to smell sweet, or at least savory and appetizing. This gave off a bizarre stench that had no business coming from food at all. If anything, it smelled rotten.

Lim Se-bin had already pulled on a mask from gods-knew-where and was wearing it like it was second nature. He did that sometimes even in the practice room, which meant his sense of smell was probably absurdly sensitive, too.

Calling him dramatic seemed unfair when the rest of the members were, in their own ways, already a little strange. Humans really did adapt to anything. That was the part that was most troubling.

And then there was the possibility that something had actually been mixed into it. At this point, that thought didn’t feel impossible anymore. By smell alone, this could have been some kind of biochemical weapon. The fact that it was a pie again, just like the second-anniversary broadcast, only made the suspicion settle in deeper. He wanted to dismiss it, but his doubt was hardening into certainty.

While he was examining the box for anything suspicious, he noticed a small store name printed in the corner.

Jini Handmade Tart & Pie Specialty.

“……”

Go Young-in wearily dragged a hand down one side of his face. He had thought the design looked suspiciously cheap from the start, and apparently he’d been right. A bad hunch had not only come true; it had swung around and walloped him right in the back of the head. He was already beginning to hate pies.

What had Cheon Sa-yoon said again? Right—according to him, it was the shop owned by Dong-yoon’s younger brother. He’d gone too far, maybe. A younger brother didn’t automatically mean they were connected, did it? Except, shit, that was clearly not the case. At this point, the evidence was practically waving a flag in his face.

Just looking at how openly it had been delivered, it was obvious they had no intention of hiding anything.

I’m losing it. So it wasn’t just one person causing problems.

This was beyond carelessness. No—Cheon Sa-yoon’s bastard of a comment had been right. This really was psychological harm.

And the “make sure you eat it this time” part was obviously about that pie from the second-anniversary live broadcast. Hadn’t nobody touched it back then? He’d apparently been watching in real time as if the thing were less important than a prop. Which meant he’d been sitting there the entire broadcast, tracking whether they ate it or not. Aside from the piece Kyeon In-woo had mangled with a fork, the members hadn’t touched the pie at all after the cutting ceremony.

So that was what had gotten under his skin enough for him to send this now.

Was the food made by that madman actually edible? No. Absolutely not.

Was he supposed to cut it open and check? It was hardly an exaggeration to call it a Pandora’s box version of a pie. At least Pandora’s box ended with hope. This thing looked hopeless from the outside already.

Seeing Lim Se-bin stare down at the pie with that uselessly resolute expression made him feel like they’d have to check it no matter what. Se-bin already looked like he’d dismantled the pie a hundred times over in his head.

“You’re going to check it, right.”

“……”

Without a word, Lim Se-bin rose from the chair, went to the kitchen, and came back with a kitchen knife. That was answer enough. Go Young-in understood there was no bread knife or paring knife available, but wasn’t a chef’s knife a little too menacing?

Still holding the knife in his right hand, Se-bin strode up to the table without hesitation and, with no warning at all, drove it straight down into the center of the pie.

With a sharp, ugly sound, something inside burst and the pie collapsed inward. Through the split crust, a dark red liquid gushed out. The white box slowly stained red, and the stench of rot grew stronger by the second.

…Jesus.

Inside the pie was the badly mangled carcass of a small animal. It was so ruined he could barely tell what kind it had once been.

“These bastards always have the most predictable fucking repertoire.”

Lim Se-bin didn’t look surprised or even particularly rattled. Apparently he had expected something to be inside. He wore only the expression of someone who had just witnessed something disgusting and irritating beyond belief. His voice and movements stayed flat, almost bored.

This guy really did not look okay. What the hell had he been through to get like this? If he’d at least shown some shock, it might have been different, but the way he took it all in stride made the whole thing feel even more unnatural.

Se-bin calmly set the dirty knife down at a distance and held out his open palm toward Go Young-in.

Telepathy wasn’t one of the conditions for becoming a perfect idol leader.

Not understanding what he meant, Go Young-in just stared at the hand. Se-bin let out an irritated sigh, like he was sick of having to explain the obvious. If Go Young-in counted the number of exasperated breaths that guy had already wasted in front of him, he’d probably be halfway to heaven by now.

“Phone.”

“My phone?”

Instead of answering, Lim Se-bin curled his fingers once, impatiently urging him on.

Why did he want Go Young-in’s phone instead of his own? Maybe the same slave mentality he got from the status window kicked in without him even thinking about it, because he handed it over automatically, but he still had no idea what Se-bin was planning.

Like it had been entrusted to him from the start, Se-bin took Go Young-in’s phone as if snatching it away, then opened the camera while it was still locked. He took a few pictures of the envelope, the pie, and the scattered photographs on the table before putting the phone down again.

Evidence collection was one thing, but why use someone else’s phone?

Unless this bastard didn’t want those disgusting proof photos cluttering up his own gallery.

No. That wasn’t the point. The bigger issue was that… this was insane. If he was saying it was predictable, then that meant he’d gone through something like this before.

However much his memories were scattered and unreliable, if something this major had happened after debut, there was no way he could’ve forgotten it entirely. So why couldn’t he remember? Usually, even faint fragments would come back to him, but nothing did. If it didn’t surface at all, that usually meant the event had been erased, but if it happened before now, before the resets—

Warm words? What was he supposed to say? It was just… a little unsettling how familiar Se-bin looked in a situation like this. The way he talked made it sound like he’d seen this sort of thing more than once.

“Just because it’s predictable doesn’t mean it stops being disgusting. And even if you get used to it, that doesn’t make any of it okay.”

He shut the box lid first. There was no point looking any longer. It would only make him feel worse.

Lim Se-bin gave him a look that practically said, And so what do you want me to do about it? If he’d been in a bad mood already, there was no way that look would have helped. Maybe if he were deciding whether to snap back or not, he’d have been annoyed already—but sometimes he seemed to get irritated no matter what anyone said, so it was hard to tell whether that reaction meant he agreed or simply wanted everyone to shut up. A difficult bastard. The mask covering half his face made him twice as hard to read.

“I just… said it because you acted like it was nothing. I don’t want you treating things like this as normal.”

“……”

“This isn’t normal.”

If they kept doing this, of course people would keep getting more and more on edge. Se-bin was already sensitive enough without this, and if he got any more wound up, it would be a problem.

Even after hearing him out, Se-bin stayed quiet. He didn’t fire back like usual. He simply fell silent for a long moment, as if he were recalling something.

To be fair, Go Young-in’s own thoughts had gone wandering somewhere else too, so maybe they were even.

He’d wanted to ask whether something like this had happened before, but the instant the question formed, a very strong—extremely strong—feeling told him that doing so would only make their relationship even more of a shitshow than it already was.

Still, if he were in Se-bin’s place, he’d probably be pretty stunned to find that another member didn’t even know something like this had happened after debut. Then again, he wasn’t even sure this had been after debut. It might have happened before, back when they were trainees.

After a silence that had stretched too long to be comfortable, Lim Se-bin finally reacted again.

“You’re annoying me. Shut up.”

After that, Se-bin said the pie smelled disgusting and disappeared into the bathroom to wash his hands again.

“……”

All he’d done was say a few words, and he was already sick of hearing it. If this were something he said every day, maybe he’d understand. This was the first time he’d ever said it.

That temperamental bastard. What, if he speaks nicely, do thorns sprout in his mouth? Does his personality come with serrated edges or something?

Ha. Shit. Right. Not exactly news.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

─Ding-dong.

Just as Go Young-in was exhausted from cursing Se-bin out in his head and wondering how they were supposed to clean this mess up, he heard the sound of the front door lock opening.

Was it the manager already? Or was it that other lunatic again? Before the door was fully open, a dress shoe slipped through the crack in obvious haste. Go Young-in, who had been staring quietly at the door, relaxed his grip when he saw who was coming in. Thankfully—or unfortunately—it was the manager. Pyo Jae-ho followed right behind him.

Pyo Jae-ho looked like he’d come straight from the studio and, from the state of his hair, maybe had gone to work out after that as well. Since both the studio and the gym were inside the company building anyway, they’d probably come together.

The company must have figured they couldn’t leave the members alone in a situation like this, so they’d just sent the manager over to keep an eye on things. Kyeon In-woo and Cheon Sa-yoon still hadn’t come back.

The manager, having kicked off his shoes in a rush, stepped into the entryway and immediately caught sight of the photographs scattered on the floor. He sucked in a sharp breath and stared at them, so shocked he could hardly get the words out.

“L-let’s clean this up first. We’ll have to turn it all in later anyway, so put it back in the shopping bag for now and…”

The manager hurried to the table and started scooping up the photos in a fluster. Meanwhile, Pyo Jae-ho came in as calmly as if nothing had happened. Not a flicker of surprise crossed his face; he looked, as always, completely dry and expressionless.

So he wasn’t exactly the type to care about the atmosphere around him either. If he had come in and asked a bunch of questions first, it would’ve been even more awkward.

After washing his hands again and returning without the mask, Lim Se-bin spotted the manager stuffing the photographs into a pile with no real order to them. Letting out an incredulous laugh, Se-bin’s face slowly cooled into something openly cold.

“That’s what you’re worried about first, you fucking idiot?”

Apparently he’d decided he no longer needed to maintain his image in front of the manager, because he didn’t bother hiding his irritation and just spat the curse out. The manager, startled, didn’t even get the chance to answer before Se-bin turned and went straight into his room.

The manager stood there in a daze, unable to get a handle on the situation, then hurriedly set down the photos he was holding and chased after Se-bin, calling his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠name as he went.

No, you at least should’ve cleaned up after yourself. You made the mess together and then ran off alone.

Unlike Go Young-in, who was already exhausted just watching this, Pyo Jae-ho came over without a word and casually scanned the half-cleared table and then Go Young-in himself.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. Se-bin and I weren’t hurt.”

“Will this affect the schedule?”

You were in Zero One too, you know. If he’d said something warm, he might have actually felt hurt by the lack of it. And yet, here he was asking about the schedule. Well, asking if someone was hurt was technically asking after their well-being, so maybe it counted.

The one who’d asked, though, looked like he had no idea why anything was strange. That was Pyo Jae-ho for you. Go Young-in took a moment to ponder just where that boy had gone wrong.

Still, let’s think generously. Maybe that was his way of worrying. Maybe his method of expressing it was just horribly flawed. Maybe what he meant was, “Did you get so shocked that it’ll interfere with the schedule?” Something like that. Ha… maybe the meaning of a dream depended entirely on how you read it.

“It won’t. Don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?”

Pyo Jae-ho, too, left only after extracting several reassurances and saying whatever it was he’d come to say. Did he really not trust him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that much?

Since he looked like he’d just come from working out, he probably went to shower. Naturally, Go Young-in never expected him to help clean up. The easiest way to avoid disappointment was not to expect anything in the first place.

He set the box aside for now and went back to sorting the photos. They’d made an obscene number of them. Was there really any need to turn in the evidence and all that? Couldn’t he just gather the whole lot and burn it?

Haah… just by rough count, there had to be well over a few hundred. More than half of them were fabricated shots of himself, which made the whole pile disgusting to look at.

─Bzzzz.

Huh?

While he was in the middle of what barely qualified as sorting the photos on the table, Go Young-in pulled his phone from his pants pocket. The phone, which he’d switched to vibration mode, was ringing.

It was an unknown number. Spam, maybe? He pressed reject. Just then he noticed there were a ridiculous number of new alerts stacked up. He’d turned notifications off earlier and hadn’t realized. He’d have to switch them back on.

─Bloop.

The timing was almost absurdly good: the instant he turned alerts back on, a message came through.