Chapter 177

—So, how do you want to handle it?

Once he'd heard my whole account, Ji Suho asked me that.

—Now that hard evidence is out there, "it's baseless" won't fly as a response.

—The easiest route is to put it out publicly that you were the one who got ostracized and that's why you actually quit the company.

Flipping perpetrator and victim.

That would definitely make a good hook for flipping the overheated public mood the other way.

But….

I couldn't nod along easily at Ji Suho's suggestion.

—I don't know.

Flipping perpetrator and victim.

Was that really the best move?

—I'm not saying I won't defend myself. Just that flat-out claiming I was the victim probably isn't the way to go.

I was a victim, and I was also a perpetrator.

The truth was, claiming I'd been the victim just because I'd been the one to quit the company wasn't something I could do with a clear conscience.

If it were 'twenty-year-old Kang Hajin,' maybe — but the anger and the wounds of that day, what was left of them in the me of right now, were so faint, so shallow.

—One wrong move and this ends up reading not as those kids ostracizing me, but as the kids I'd hurt cutting me off. Like it was my karma.

—…

—Let me think about it a little more. Today, my head kind of hurts.

—…okay. For now we've got an article up saying we're checking facts, so today, rest a bit.

Leaving the company like that, I climbed into the manager's car waiting outside and headed back to the dorm. Sensing I was in no mood, the manager kept quiet the whole way, not putting on a single song.

Normally I'd have at least tossed out a joke — why are you being so careful around me — but today I really didn't have the energy to talk, so I just let him.

"……."

Staring out at the moving window, I sank once more into a tidal wave of thought.

At least Dan Haru didn't seem to be twitching toward regressing yet, which was some relief — but the thought that even that might be Retty pulling some kind of stunt made my already-crowded head hurt more.

"Hajin. We're here."

"…ah. Yeah, hyung. Thanks."

At the manager's voice I gave a small shiver, like someone waking from sleep.

Getting out of the car and heading up to the dorm, I felt a little dazed. My vision sometimes blurred like this under stress, so I moved my feet along, planning to get inside and rest.

"……."

But when I actually stood in front of the dorm's front door, I couldn't easily open it and step inside.

…if I go in, they'll all be there.

Today was the first day we moved in, so we'd originally been planning some kind of celebration for the evening.

Since we couldn't go out for it, we'd cook something ourselves, pick up a cake, and celebrate the formation of Kairos.

What am I supposed to say.

In that moment, I noticed — belatedly — that my hand was shaking.

I'd been hoping the members hadn't seen the exposé about me, but honestly I knew that was hoping for way too much. The one who'd spotted it first and told me about it was our search-king Seo Taehyun.

…what if they're disappointed in me.

Aside from having briefly touched on my past with Ju Eunchan, I'd never once talked about it with the other guys. The words and actions of mine described in that exposé were more than enough to disappoint someone, and the members would be no different.

Me….

The feeling was like someone had discovered the cracked, chipped, ugly glass base I'd kept hidden deep at the bottom of myself.

The feeling of the me I'd wanted to hide — the me I'd wrapped and re-wrapped in better and better paper — being laid completely bare.

What look would the members give me when I opened the door and stepped into the dorm? How would they act toward me? The thought terrified me. The fact that when they asked if the post was true, I wouldn't be able to say, standing tall, that all of it was a lie — I'd never hated a thing about myself this much.

title: S! 5UDD)#N QU 33ST@~ content: Take my hand. accept reward: I'll make it all go away.

As I stood pacing back and forth in front of the dorm door, Retty's quest window appeared in front of my eyes.

label: Retty Want me to turn time back to before the exposé went up? Or if you'd rather, I could tweak the timeline and make everything at KD Ent never have happened.

"…yammer, yammer. So noisy."

label: Retty These 'Comrades' you finally got — what if they get let down like this and turn their backs on you all over again? And your fans — the ones getting mocked right now just for liking you?

Retty threw up line after line of text as if to taunt me.

Still, I couldn't come back at any of it, and it burned.

label: Retty Think about your parents, watching you get torn apart. And your little sibling? School's going to be nothing but stories about you. What if that anger comes down on your sibling too?

At Retty, now dragging even my family in to torment me, I squeezed my eyes shut — but that goddamn Retty just kept whispering to me endlessly, even inside the darkness behind my closed eyes.

label: Retty Don't you want to go back? Don't you miss this morning, when nothing had happened? You were so happy up until this morning, weren't you, Hajin? Say it, Kang Hajin. That you want to go back. That you want to be happy. Then I'll take care of the rest for you.

"Please, just shut up, you psycho…."

title: S! 5UDD)#N QU 33ST@~ content: Take my hand. accept reward: I'll make it all go away.

Right when Retty's blood-red letters had almost my whole vision looking as if it were bathed in blood — the illusion rippling through me —,

"Huh? Hajin-hyung?"

The front door — which had been shut — opened, and Dan Haru popped out, wide-eyed and startled, backlit by the bright living-room lights.

"Taehyun-hyung! Hajin-hyung's out here!"

"Ah, Gwonuk-hyung. They found Hajin-hyung. Sorry. Yes, yes. Yes, understood. Take care~"

"What are you doing standing out there instead of coming in, hyung?"

Noise and bright light spilled together into the apartment corridor, which had gone dim after even the flickering ceiling light died.

The dorm living room, which had been completely empty just this morning, now had balloons of every color rolling around the floor, and the dining table was piled high with food. Add the members bouncing around all worked up, and the scene inside the dorm was exactly the one I'd been picturing all morning.

Even the expressions the members turned on me — not one thing had changed.

"Hyung, come in already."

"Huh? Y-yeah…."

Dan Haru pulled me through the front door by the hand, dazed, and Jung Siwoo — who'd been tidying the dining table in the living room — came over.

"You went by the company?"

"…yeah."

"Did you talk it through with the Bureau Chief?"

"Yeah, roughly."

At my answer Jung Siwoo nodded like he got it, then added, dryly:

"Then it's fine. Come eat. The kids have all been waiting for you."

What happened, is it true, how are you going to handle it.

The questions I'd been sure would come — none of them came.

There was no sign of anyone looking at me like I was pathetic, no averted eyes with a disappointed look.

"Hey, if someone drops you off at home you're supposed to come right up. What are you, a burglar? Why aren't you coming inside? Gwonuk-hyung said he dropped you off, and then you didn't come up — do you know how worried we've been? Enough that I was about to send Eunchan up to check the roof, of all places."

As Jung Siwoo headed back to the table, Seo Taehyun came over next — ladle in hand — and started laying into me.

"Why is your phone off? Your mom got worried when you weren't answering and called me, y'know."

"Ah…. sorry. The battery died so it turned off."

"I told her you were probably in a meeting at the office and couldn't answer, so charge it and make sure you call her. Okay?"

What is with these guys?

Did they not see the post?

No way.

While I stood there confused, Ju Eunchan appeared behind me and, apparently worried Seo Taehyun might actually start swinging the ladle, briskly snatched it out of his hand. Meanwhile Lee Yugeon grabbed the suitcase out of my hand.

"Your room's over there, hyung. Rooming with Lee Doha-hyung."

"…you already sorted the rooms?"

"You weren't at the meeting, hyung, so no vote for you."

Is that payback for me making him rap during Blue Flare?

I was too dumbfounded to say anything, but whatever — Lee Yugeon strolled off with my suitcase into the very room where Lee Doha and I had been locked in the other day.

As I stood there still spacing out, Dan Haru — who'd been standing next to me the whole time — dragged me along and steered me toward the room.

"Hyung. Change your clothes and come out quick. Doha-hyung just got back from somewhere and he's in the room too."

"Hey — no, wait a sec."

When I reached the door, I came face to face with Ju Eunchan, who'd just set the ladle back down in the sink.

Ju Eunchan glanced back at the other members gathered in the living room, then edged over quietly and whispered to me:

"…I didn't say anything."

"……."

"Hyung, um…. the stuff from your old company. I thought you might not want it out there, so I didn't tell the other hyungs."

Having said that, Ju Eunchan darted right back to the living room at the sound of Jung Siwoo calling him.

The members' reactions — so far from anything I'd imagined — kept leaving me dazed. As I stayed frozen in front of the bedroom door, Dan Haru — who'd been about to leave me there and head back to the living room — saw me and turned back.

"Hyung. …while you were out, we talked things over a bit."

"……."

"Um…. we just decided we're going to trust the hyung we know."

Trust me?

No.

The 'me' you saw isn't me.

"So, just…. when you're ready, hyung, please tell us yourself. Whatever it is."

I'm exactly what that exposé said — a selfish, self-centered, rough, clumsy, lacking person.

I just spent years trying to cover that up.

I just thrashed around playing the good guy because I couldn't stand to be pushed away.

"We trust you, hyung."

The 'me' you trust is….

I….

'Who am I?'

What kind of person am I?

In that instant my vision blurred and went hazy. Wondering if it was Retty again, I tried to force strength back into my body, but it wouldn't come.

"Hyung, hyung? Hyung, you're burning up…. Hyung! Hajin-hyung!"

Dan Haru's voice grew more and more distant.

The last things in my vision — Dan Haru's startled face, and the other members running over from the living room after hearing him — and then, slowly, everything went dark.

---

I dreamed.

The reason I recognized this wasn't the Unconscious Space was that the dream was far too familiar to me.

The opening of the dream was always the same.

—From here on, we've all agreed we're not practicing with you.

The chill, the darkness, the cold atmosphere of that practice room — I could still remember it, clear as day.

The eyes fixed on me, the sound of snickering laughter. That image of people who — just yesterday — had been laughing and joking with me, now all at once pouring accusations down on me.

—Well? You leaving?

Leaving all of them behind, 'I' walked out of the practice room alone.

Walking down the empty corridor, 'I' thought and thought without stop.

What did I do wrong?

What was the problem?

Which of the things I did hurt someone that badly?

Endless self-scrutiny and self-loathing slowly boiled up from inside, and regret and fear and confusion mixed together, bringing on a loneliness beyond imagining.

So what if I'm alone for a bit — I'd thought, but being cut off from the peer group where you had to spend most of your day turned out to be far harder than I'd imagined.

—Month-end evaluations are up to you, so form your own teams and submit them.

Not one person made a team with me.

—There's a two-hour gap coming up, so take a break.

Not one person spent free time with me.

—Hey, I heard you guys all went out somewhere together yesterday?

—Sorry?

—…ah. Hajin, you didn't go?

No one, not one person.

"……?"

As I watched 'me' left alone in that small, cramped practice room, at some point I was slightly startled to find 'me' looking back at me. And then, at some point, the practice room vanished, and inside a transparent, glowing space, I was standing face to face with 'me.'

"What. Isn't this a dream?"

After a startled glance around, I turned my eyes back on the 'me' standing in front of me.

The same face as the me of now.

But slightly older than the 'me' in the dream — a slightly calmer bearing, an expression that looked much more relaxed and self-assured.

I recognized in an instant who it was.

"You…. you're 'me.'"

It was twenty-year-old Kang Hajin.

In other words…. the 'me' who had never gone through a regression.