A Perfect Day
The fan meeting was in full swing.
"Inah, come here a second."
One of the fan club staff called over Kwon Inah, the club president.
"What's up?"
"Has that guy done anything to you?"
"What?"
At the sudden question, the president could only look baffled. When she asked what on earth she meant, the woman jerked her chin toward someone across the room.
"Him, over there."
"Who? The temp worker?"
"Yeah. He's been staring at me this whole time, and I thought I was imagining it, but he just sexually harassed Minji. Asked if she wanted to do it with him."
"What?"
The president was horrified. The man the woman had pointed out was one of the day laborers hired for today's fan meeting—the event had grown larger than expected, and they'd needed extra hands.
The man, a black hat pulled low over his face, looked perfectly ordinary at a glance.
Damn it. Of all people, we had to get a complete lunatic.
The president pressed a hand to her throbbing temple.
"Everywhere you go, there's some deranged bastard. Did he actually touch you?"
"No, just words. Looks like there wasn't even a chance to record it. He seems like a repeat offender—don't go near him either."
"Ugh… understood."
The president let out a long, deep sigh. She considered reporting it to security, but that risked blowing things out of proportion for nothing. Guys like that always loved to raise their voices and cry witch hunt the moment you accused them without hard evidence.
She wanted nothing more than to throw him out on the spot, but today was Bambi's birthday. She refused to let a fan meeting that Bambi himself had spent nearly a month preparing end in an ugly scene.
"How much time is left in the fan meeting?"
"Less than thirty minutes."
"Okay. Then we ignore him until it's over, and tell the girls to stay away from that guy."
The woman nodded. Hoping to purge the irritation poisoning her mind, the president turned her eyes back to the stage.
There was Bambi, smiling like sunlight, completely unaware of any of it. Because he'd insisted on giving the fans everything they could possibly want, he'd changed outfits several times over the course of the two-hour fan meeting, and his hair had gone wispy and tousled because of it. That soft cotton-candy pink floated up around his face like dandelion fluff.
Adorable.
The sight restored a little of the faith in humanity she'd lost. After a brief moment of healing, the president took a deep breath.
There are crazy people everywhere you go. At a crowded event like this, that went without saying.
Just get through the remaining time safely.
The president turned her head toward the problem child.
You lay one finger on anyone, and I'll kill you myself.
She resolved to personally keep an eye on the man to make sure he didn't try anything with the other girls.
Hold on… where am I?
It was a few minutes later that the president realized something was wrong. Her mistake had been moving in parallel with the man in the black hat for fear of losing sight of him. She was sure she'd kept a careful distance while following him, but when she came to her senses, she was standing alone in a dim, shadowy corridor.
Where did that bastard go?
He'd been right up ahead just moments ago.
"……"
She looked around, but the only sound was the low whir of machinery. Having just left a space packed shoulder to shoulder with people, the dead silence felt oddly chill.
Let's just head back.
The president turned around with a carefully calm face.
"Hey there, pretty girl."
Ah, f***.
The face looming directly in front of her made the president squeeze her eyes shut.
"You've been trailing after me this whole time, haven't you? Wanted it from me? How filthy of you."
The man in the black hat was smiling, his cheeks lifting unpleasantly. Disgusted, the president kept her face blank. With guys like this, the one thing you couldn't do was give them any reaction.
"I think you're mistaken. I took a wrong turn. Please step aside."
"You don't have to make excuses. I like a little thrill myself."
What the f*** is this bastard saying?
Backing away, she swiftly scanned her surroundings. The corridor was narrow, with nowhere to run.
"…!"
The moment her guard slipped, the man's hand shot out toward her.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down."
"You—"
"We don't have time to do this properly anyway. Right? Let's just have a quick bit of fun."
Frantically shoving away the hand crawling toward her body, the president screamed—or tried to scream. The man had clamped his hand firmly over her mouth. Just as his other hand began to move down her body—
BANG!
A massive hand reached out from behind and hurled the man straight into the wall.
"Ugh, what the—"
Startled by the sudden attack, the man tried to say something, but the giant hand simply shoved his face harder against the wall.
"Do not move."
"Mmph—"
The man's bulk was enough to blot out the corridor's overhead lights. The president was just as rattled by this stranger's sudden appearance as the other man was.
Who is—
As she stared dazedly at the two men locked in a standoff, a voice reached her.
"President. Are you all right?"
Pink hair swayed gently before her eyes.
"……Bambi?"
Lee Yeonjae was kneeling in front of her. At that familiar voice, the president finally came back to herself. The one who had subdued the man in the black hat was Lee Yeonjae's manager, Ahn Jinbae.
"Are you hurt anywhere? Should we go to the hospital?"
When she only stared at him blankly, Bambi's brow furrowed with worry.
"No, I'm not hurt…."
Still unable to grasp the situation, the president looked around. There was Bambi watching her with concern, the manager keeping a firm hold on the man in the black hat—and a production crew holding a camera.
……A camera?
She gaped at the crew. They, in turn, looked every bit as dazed as she did. One of the staff members muttered under his breath.
"What on earth is going on…?"
It was the very thought running through everyone's heads.
"Actor-nim. We've safely sent every fan home for now."
"No one's missing?"
"No, sir. We checked the entire entry list."
Only after hearing Jinbae's report did I let out the breath I'd been holding this whole time.
"Haa…."
The man had been dragged straight to the police station. The moment he'd tried to assault President Kwon Inah had been captured unmistakably on camera, leaving him no room to plead his innocence.
Because we'd found her quickly enough, we'd stopped things before anything worse could happen—but put another way, that meant his crime had stopped at attempted. And the punishment for attempted sexual crimes in this country was absurdly light. At best, he'd walk free with a warning or a small fine. It was all but guaranteed.
I can't just leave it at that.
Not if I could help it—I refused to watch that happen, even if I had to shovel dirt into my own eyes. I rubbed my fingertips, cold with fury.
"…Jinbae-hyung, please make sure to tell the company."
"Of course. Go ahead."
"This is entirely our fault. A problem came from the staff our company hired, and because of that, a member of the public was nearly seriously harmed. Tell them not to just bury the press coverage—make absolutely sure the victim is taken care of first."
"Understood."
"And I'd like your help too, hyung. By any means necessary—just make sure that lunatic never crosses paths with the president again."
"Don't worry, Actor-nim. I'll see it through properly."
I met his steady, dependable gaze and nodded. When I opened the door to the meeting room, the president shot to her feet.
"Bambi, how did you know to come earlier? And what was that camera about?"
She'd been so shaken she was even dropping honorifics, which she never did. I eased her back into her seat, draped a blanket over her shoulders, and gave her a quick rundown of the situation first.
"We were scheduled to film a behind-the-scenes interview after the fan meeting. The production crew arrived earlier than expected, so we were on our way to the filming location."
"Ah, I see… so you just happened to find me."
In truth, we'd been actively searching for the missing Kwon Inah. But I swallowed the details she didn't need to hear and apologized first.
"I'm so sorry, President."
"Hm? For what?"
"For what happened to you today. It happened while you were helping at my fan meeting."
"Bambi, come on—don't say that."
The president waved her hands, insisting that no one could possibly have known the temp worker she'd hired was that kind of lunatic. But I had known. That was why the guilt weighed on me.
I should have found her sooner.
In the lead-up to the event, I'd used Angae's ability to skim the pasts of everyone attending the fan meeting. To check whether anyone was likely to cause trouble. To see whether there was anything I could prepare for in advance.
I wanted to make sure no one could ruin the perfect day. And after all that thorough preparation… the man hastily hired as a day laborer just a few days ago had been the variable I'd missed.
Reading his memories confirmed it—he was utter trash. The kind of scum who made a habit of sexual harassment but stayed just inside the line where it was hard to pursue legally. If he had a record, maybe I could have acted; but I couldn't exactly bar someone with a spotless file just because he gave me a bad feeling.
And above all, there was no guarantee he'd actually do something like today.
Angae's ability was limited to seeing people's memories. Through the misfortune factors clinging to a person, I could roughly gauge how badly they might be hurt the next day—but I had no way of knowing what actions they would take. So the most I could ever do was surveil. I couldn't brand someone who looked perfectly fine on the surface as suspicious for no reason.
So while I smiled brightly up on the stage, I'd kept stealing glances at the man in between. Mercifully, nothing caught my eye over those two hours, and before I knew it, I'd let my guard down. It was only after the fan meeting had wrapped up that I noticed the man and President Kwon Inah had both vanished.
Huh? Where did Inah go?
The moment I heard it from one of the fan club staff, my heart plunged. Without a second to think, my feet were already moving.
Places without CCTV.
There were three blind spots I'd scouted in advance. I made straight for the one closest to the fan meeting venue, and the production crew, cameras in hand for the interview, followed me without having any idea why.
Fortunately, the president was at the first spot, and I'd managed to stop the man before it was too late.
But that was all it was. I'd merely stopped it.
Some perfect day.
It had been a complete disaster. I'd wanted to resolve things cleanly, like the heroes in the movies.
Of course, I wasn't a hero, and I had no superpowers—I knew that. I knew I couldn't stop every crime in the world. The man had nothing to do with my misfortune factors, either.
I know. I know full well that none of this was my fault.
And yet…
Was it really none of my fault? A person who was my fan, in a place built for coming to see me—was it truly not my fault that she suffered something like that?
It happened because she likes me, in the end.
Could I honestly claim that this, too, wasn't something she went through because of me?
A dozen thoughts flooded my mind at once, and after a long time, the helplessness was making me seasick with dread.
"Bambi, I'm fine."
The president patted my shoulder, her eyes brimming with worry as they turned to me.
"How can you say you're fine after what happened to you?"
"Really, I'm fine. Hmm… honestly, I'm not totally fine, but I'll feel better little by little. If you hadn't come when you did, it would've been really bad. Thank you—really."
Being thanked for something like this felt wrong in every direction. When I didn't respond, the president spoke again.
"Bambi, you looked so happy today. Was it really? Were you happy?"
"……I was so, so happy."
"Good."
I gazed for a long moment at her radiant smile, then lowered my head.
I couldn't bring myself to ask the question—not whether she wanted to stop being my fan now.
Because I was afraid of what the answer would be.