Chapter 317
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 317
[What? Hearing him talk shit like that, I guess Seo Ho-yun is perfectly fine.]
A hint of laughter was embedded in the grumbling voice.
Ju Woo-seong hung up after saying he’d drop by once his schedule was over.
I fiddled with my phone for a moment before shoving it into the pocket of my hospital gown.
I lay back down on the bed, idly organizing the things I needed to do, when the doctor came by for a brief check-up. He told me we’d discuss my discharge after the test results came back.
Once the doctor left, I pulled a T-shirt out of the cabinet to change when the hospital room door swung open with a bang!
“Ho-yun!”
It was Seong Ji-won.
He walked toward me rapidly, the areas around his eyes and cheeks flushed red.
“…Seong Ji-won.”
In this world, barely two weeks had passed, but for me, it felt like I was seeing him for the first time in nearly a year. His appearance was strangely welcoming.
“Ho-yun, are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
I answered while pulling my shirt down and sat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“…A while?”
“Have you been eating well?”
Seong Ji-won’s downcast eyebrows twitched upward, and his lips contorted.
“…Ea-ting?”
As Seong Ji-won trailed off with an expression I had never seen before, Seo Ho-jin, who had followed him in, quickly interjected.
“Ji-won, calm down. He asked me something about school earlier, too. For the sake of your mental health, just think of him as a patient.”
“…Whew. Right, I guess so.”
What do you mean, you guess so?
Seong Ji-won let out a deep sigh and nodded.
I brushed their conversation aside and looked past Seong Ji-won’s shoulder.
“Where are the others?”
“…Uh, Seong-hyeon and Da-jun went to an album meeting and said they’re on their way now. I just got a message from them.”
An album meeting?
When I tilted my head slightly, Seong Ji-won gave a troubled smile.
“The kids said that even if you’re sick, we have to discuss the next album and keep the schedule running without a hitch. They said if we just sit around doing nothing, you’ll scold us once you wake up.”
As I stared at him in slight surprise, Seong Ji-won added softly.
“……Well, they’re not wrong. It’s not like staying still would change anything.”
Wait, they actually had such admirable thoughts?
However, I felt like even the gentle Seong Ji-won would get angry if I showed my true thoughts, so I kept my mouth shut and just rolled my eyes. Though it seemed he had already read my mind.
He brushed back his fine brown hair, looking exasperated.
“Sigh…… You really are something….”
While Seong Ji-won was choosing his words, the door swung open again with a loud noise.
And then, a familiar voice rang out.
“Youuu!!!”
“……Me?”
It was Jeong Da-jun, his cheeks already soaked and his eyes brimming with tears as he huffed.
“Seo Ho-yun!”
Kim Seong-hyeon was right beside him.
He was also sniffing, tears streaming down his face.
“Hey, Seo Ho-yun! You mean hyung!!”
Did he learn nothing but bad things from Kang Yi-chae?
“Using my name so casually….”
I started to get up to give him a piece of my mind, but Jeong Da-jun was faster, lunging at me and tackling me.
“Ack!”
A sharp pain shot through my waist. I think I sprained it.
“Hey, you brat….”
“Waaaaah! Hyung, you look so big and sturdy, and your personality is so nasty, so why, why are you so frail and weak like this… hic… making people worry… waaaaah….”
“…Hey, hey.”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
He’d gotten bigger and heavier lately, yet without any regard for his own weight, he slumped over me and pounded on my shoulders and chest.
“Sob… It’s so annoying, seriously…. You take so much red ginseng, too… Where did you even buy that stuff? It’s not worth the money. Waaaaah….”
He continued to whine after that, but I could barely understand what he was saying.
“…First, get off me.”
I gave up on deciphering his words and just stayed still, relaxing my body.
However, as the whining showed no sign of stopping, Seong Ji-won, unable to watch any longer, pulled Jeong Da-jun back. While I wiped my T-shirt—now smeared with the maknae’s snot and tears—with my hand, it seemed it was Kim Seong-hyeon’s turn.
“Seo Ho-yun, you bastard. Why are you so damn weak?”
You… what?
Everyone’s language has gotten rougher while I was gone.
“Why were you born so fragile, making everyone around you suffer like this?”
“I wasn’t exactly born fragile.”
“Do you have any idea how many times this has happened now?”
No matter how shameless I was, I couldn’t bring myself to argue with that.
“Right….”
Scratching my head, I said awkwardly.
“…I’m sorry.”
But despite my apology, a chilling silence descended upon the hospital room.
Even Jeong Da-jun, who had been loudly blowing his nose, stared at me with wide eyes.
“……Sorry?”
“…….”
“…….”
“S-S-Sorry??”
He asked again, looking around frantically.
“I think Hyung is sick again!!!”
Having reached an absurd conclusion, Jeong Da-jun jumped up and started screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Doctor!! Get the doctor!!”
“Shut up, please….”
I signaled Seong Ji-won, Kim Seong-hyeon, and Seo Ho-jin to stop him because he was being too loud, but they ignored my request with cold expressions, as if to say I had brought this on myself.
In the end, I had to step in and cover Jeong Da-jun’s mouth with my hand.
After finally getting the struggling brat to sit down and settling things, I scanned the members and asked.
“But where’s Kang Yi-chae?”
Kim Seong-hyeon glanced at Seong Ji-won and hesitated.
“Yi-chae is… uh.”
“Why? Is something up with him?”
“N-No. It’s not that.”
Seeing his reluctance to speak, I shifted my gaze past Jeong Da-jun to Seong Ji-won, who gave a calm answer.
“Yi-chae has a severe case of the flu.”
“……What?”
“He’s quite ill. Since you aren’t fully recovered yet, we were going to tell you slowly….”
I blinked, unable to process the sentence quickly.
Since becoming a part of The Dawn and living together, I had never once seen Kang Yi-chae sick.
“That’s why he’s hospitalized on the floor above this one.”
“That’s right! Yi-chae hyung has a burning fever, and he just! Collapsed…. He seems to be conscious, but he can’t even speak properly….”
I had a bad feeling about this.
“I’m going to go see Kang Yi-chae.”
“I want to go too!!”
“Hey, Jeong Da-jun, you stay here.”
Kim Seong-hyeon pressed down on the crown of Jeong Da-jun’s head as he tried to stand up again, then grabbed my collar as I acted like I was about to bolt out immediately.
“Seo Ho-yun, you don’t even know which room he’s in. Go with Seong Ji-won. I’ll contact the company in the meantime. And this time, make sure you get every single test done properly.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine.”
“Tsk.”
“I said I got it.”
I gave a half-hearted nod, pried Kim Seong-hyeon’s hand off, and stepped out of the room first. Seong Ji-won quickly followed behind me.
“Uh, don’t worry, we’re doing a good job of keeping it from leaking outside. We have the content videos we filmed before. Fortunately, he collapsed inside the company, so it didn’t spread much.”
“…….”
“Besides, Min Ji-heon sunbae-nim responded incredibly fast, so most people in the company just think it’s a bad case of the flu….”
“What about the trainee who was with him?”
“Trainee? Was there someone else? I don’t think I’ve heard anything about that….”
Was it the system’s interference after all?
Seong Ji-won tilted his head slightly but continued speaking.
“Ummm, and what else was there to tell you? The manager was really shocked, but he’s handling things well enough, and the album….”
On the surface, he didn’t look much different from usual, aside from his eyes being slightly swollen, but he seemed a bit distracted. Had he lost weight in his face?
I observed him, then slowed my pace and called out to him.
“Seong Ji-won.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s okay, so calm down first. …You don’t look well.”
Seong Ji-won bit his lip, hesitated for a long time, and then gave my shoulder a hard smack.
“……Ouch.”
“…Don’t get sick.”
He finally let out the feelings he had been suppressing.
“I won’t.”
I let out a small chuckle and opened the door leading to the emergency stairs.
We talked quietly as we went to find Kang Yi-chae on the upper floor.
“Yi-chae, Ho-yun is awa—”
However, the hospital room was empty.
“Huh?”
The blanket was tossed aside, and the bedsheets were crumpled.
It looked like he had left in a hurry.
“Where did a sick guy go?”
“Call him.”
“Right.”
Seong Ji-won pulled out his phone and called Kang Yi-chae.
“I’m a bit worried. He’s been having nightmares for days.”
“Nightmares?”
“Yeah. He was groaning and talking in his sleep, but I couldn’t hear him clearly.”
“…….”
But it seemed the call wasn’t going through; he frowned and pressed the call button a few more times.
“Do you want to wait here for a second? I’ll go look for Yi-chae nearby.”
I watched Seong Ji-won’s back as he hurried out of the room alone, then rubbed the back of my neck.
For some reason, my heart was racing.
‘Why am I so anxious?’
It might be nothing, but I thought I should go back down and let the others know the situation.
I moved toward the stairs, trying to call Kang Yi-chae on my phone. The calls kept getting cut off in the middle, likely because Seong Ji-won was also trying to call him.
[The subscriber is unavailable. You will be connected to the voice mailbox after the tone.]
‘Are you crazy?’
Ring… Ring….
I listened to the dial tone anxiously as I opened the emergency stairwell door and headed down. My palms were starting to sweat.
“Why the hell isn’t this bastard picking up—”
I was swearing in irritation when I heard a ringtone from above.
Trrrrring.
Trrrrrring.
Reflexively, I looked up.
A shadow was cast amidst the dim light illuminating the stairs.
I narrowed my eyes, scanning the figure thoroughly as I hung up the phone.
Trrrrring… Trrrr…—Click.
The sound echoing through the space stopped at the same time.
I called out the person’s name.
“Kang Yi-chae.”
With his eyes fixed on me, Kang Yi-chae walked down slowly.
“Hey.”
A heavily cracked, rough voice reached my ears.
“Why aren’t you picking up when you’re looking right at me?”
I responded even more calmly on purpose.
Because of the inexplicable tension rising from the tips of my toes.
“I heard you were sick. Where have you been?”
In moments like this, I was truly glad for my experience as an actor. I pulled out every bit of my polished acting skills to hide my trembling lips and stopped my feet from wanting to retreat.
“…Kang Yi-chae?”
He stood a few steps away, showing no reaction.
A chilling intuition spiked like a lightning rod.
The billboard I had wanted to check until the very end.
The synopsis of Shining Star where only one person was missing.
…The explanation that no one would remember me except for a specific individual.
Just as I was about to dismiss the clumsy hypothesis, telling myself it was impossible—
“Aren’t you going to ans—”
“Woo-ho.”
……Lightning struck right then and there.
“Why didn’t you contact me? You were busy enough running around shooting arrows.”
Kang Yi-chae’s feet left the ground as he approached me step by step. His downward gaze lingered around my hands.
I clenched my fists, wondering if he could see calluses that shouldn’t even exist, and took a breath.
Slowly lifting his eyelids again, Kang Yi-chae looked me straight in the eye.
“What’s with that face?”
And then, he smiled slightly.
“Are you that happy to see me?”