Pen and Paper Translations

Bzzzt.

“Don’t come to the hospital.”

“I’m not going to just leave this issue as is.”

“What the…? Why is manager-hyung like this?”

“Why? What happened?”

When Sikyung showed the manager’s text, the members were flustered. 

Hyung, you said you trusted us, right? We’re really not bullies or anything like that!

“But seeing manager-hyung say this… could it be we really did something wrong and just let it pass? They say perpetrators don’t remember.”

At the words of Sikyung, the leader, the members all fell into silence.

It was certain that manager-hyung, the moment Cheonghyeon woke up, had contacted the members, voice quavering, telling them to come quickly.

But seeing him send a text like this not even ten minutes later, this was clearly Cheonghyeon’s will.

At this point, the members could no longer assert that the bullying rumors were merely “rumors.” The article had been too detailed, and in truth they couldn’t remember what, if anything, Cheonghyeon ate at the wrap party, how long he’d been sitting beside them, or what expression he’d been wearing.

No, leaving aside the wrap party, their memories of Cheonghyeon in daily life were faint in general.

“But Hyeoni-hyung doesn’t show up well unless you deliberately focus. Not long ago, after a shoot ended, I came back to the dorm half-asleep, and I was so tired I just crashed on any empty bed. When I woke up, Hyeoni-hyung’s arm was stuck under me…. He said I looked so exhausted that he just let me keep sleeping with his arm as a pillow.”

At those words, all the members swallowed a low groan as they recalled similar incidents. Just as Yunwoo said, for reasons no one could understand, Cheonghyeon’s presence was truly faint. If you sat him down in front of you and examined his features one by one, he was handsome enough to dominate the entertainment industry, but let your concentration slip even a little, and he wouldn’t register to the eye, like some passing extra.

His existence felt like the stripes on a tiger in your imagination. Surely a tiger without stripes would be strange. It’s only natural for a tiger to have stripes, but if someone said to count them, how many would there be? It was that kind of feeling.

It was utterly natural that East included Cheonghyeon, but when it came to recalling exactly what his face looked like, or what expression he’d made a moment ago, nothing came readily to mind.

And it was common for him to have been standing right in front of them a moment ago and suddenly not be visible. Like when you’re holding your phone in your hand and still go, Where’s my phone?

When the president brought in Cheonghyeon just before debut, the members had been unenthused, since he lacked the aura unique to entertainers and didn’t seem to have any flair.

But living together, they found that Cheonghyeon had a clear and pure side, and he worked hard at everything, so one by one they accepted him. The only problem was that his presence was too faint.

An idol doesn’t automatically blow up just because their skills are outstanding or their face is handsome. How attractive do they appear to people? How much can they seize the public when they step onstage? Those things mattered more.

The members maintained a suitable business relationship with Cheonghyeon and got along fine. A decent colleague to live with—no more, no less.

Cheonghyeon wasn’t someone like Yunwoo, specialized for variety shows; nor did he have exceptional musical talent like Sikyung; nor did he dance well like Hando.

No—in fact, the broadcasting world, the agency, and the members all had no idea what Cheonghyeon liked or what he was good at. He was too devoid of a “character,” almost to an absurd degree.

So Cheonghyeon often got left out of schedules, and the members, thinking they were being considerate of him, entirely avoided talking about schedules or work in front of him.

At some point it became common for just the three of them to drink together or spend time without him.

Huh. Can we really say this isn’t bullying?

“I think we really are the perpetrators of bullying.”

At Hando’s blunt remark, Yunwoo gave a small nod.

“For now, it’s late. Let’s sleep and think after we wake up tomorrow. Once manager-hyung gets back from the hospital and explains, we’ll know what the situation is.”

Suppressing his heavy heart, Sikyung sent the younger ones back to their rooms. The Cheonghyeon who had always been somewhere in the dorm was now gone. For no good reason, this big dorm felt empty.

How selfish. We never looked for him when he was here.

Meanwhile, in the hospital room, Global Semicol’s president and East’s manager were looking at Cheonghyeon with grave faces. 

No. In the manager’s case, he kept thumping his chest in pity for Cheonghyeon, while the president, Hyun-gwang, was scrutinizing him with a sharp gaze.

“So, Hyeon-ah, you’re saying you don’t remember anything?”

When the manager spoke, gripping Cheonghyeon’s hand tight with aching affection, Cheonghyeon answered with an effort to keep his expression composed.

“Yes. The moment I saw you I just reflexively called you ‘manager’… but I don’t remember the details.”

When Cheonghyeon answered quietly, the manager’s emotions seemed to swell again, and his eyes reddened.

Such a gentle kid…!

The president watched it all in silence. The one propped up against the headboard was certainly the Cheonghyeon he knew, but something was off. Was that kid always… this noticeable?

It sounded odd to phrase it that way, but Cheonghyeon was markedly different from usual. Even though he’d just woken up and still looked unwell, he exuded a delicate aura with a pure atmosphere all his own.

In the six years they have together, Hyun-gwang had never seen him like this even once.

Even a flick of his hand drew the eye and caught the nerves…

Up to now, Cheonghyeon had always seemed like an extra, but in this moment, he looked exactly like the male lead in a drama.

Anyone seeing him now would ask with worried concern, “Why did you collapse? Are you okay?” That’s how full of story he seemed.

Moreover, whereas the old Cheonghyeon had seemed somewhat cowed, now he was subtly different. His tone was still gentle, but it didn’t come off as timid; his posture was straight, giving the impression of a fairytale prince or a third-generation chaebol.

Do people change after nearly dying and waking up?

The manager had said he swallowed dozens of sleeping pills and needed gastric lavage, but why was his face shining like that? Did he just swallow some vitamins good for the skin?

It was Hyun-gwang himself who had stomped the accelerator like mad, ready to accept a speeding ticket, when he heard that Cheonghyeon had woken up.

Would he resent me? Or, true to his timid nature, would he just let tears stream down?

In the stream of endless imagined scenarios, Cheonghyeon resented his president and was in agony. But the first words Cheonghyeon uttered on seeing him were something he hadn’t expected at all.

Cheonghyeon neither resented him nor suffered. He merely pointed at him with his chin and asked the manager, “President?”

“Um, can we terminate the contract earlier?”

At that, with one quiet sentence from Cheonghyeon, the atmosphere in the room froze in an instant. It cut cleanly through all of Hyun-gwang’s scattered thoughts.

The manager simply hugged Cheonghyeon, pressing at the corners of his eyes as if he’d expected him to say it.

Hyun-gwang was taken aback. He could have sworn the kid looked like he was annoyed at being hugged.

Did I see that wrong…?

Truth be told, he had expected a request to terminate the contract. But seeing the expression on Cheonghyeon’s face as he said it, Hyun-gwang couldn’t readily say, “All right.”

Can someone who attempted suicide really look like that? Is it that he’s lost his memory and doesn’t recall the detailed harm?

By anyone’s judgment, it wasn’t the expression of someone terrified who wanted to quit being an idol. It was more like tossing out a line, exactly the way a workplace superior would speak to a new hire. Suddenly, Hyun-gwang recalled his early twenties, when he first joined the company.

“Mr. Hyun-gwang, can you get this done by this afternoon?”

And when he actually handed it in in time for his boss’s quitting hour, he’d often hear, “Huh? You already finished? Well, it would have been fine by next week too.”

Why was a familiar, everyday office superior coming to mind in one of our own agency’s artists…?

Grasping for his slipping composure, Hyun-gwang asked Cheonghyeon:

“Cheonghyeon. I know you’ve just woken up, you’re disoriented, your memory’s fuzzy, and you’re confused… but tell me. Were the members really bullying you? No, do you remember the members at all?”

At Hyun-gwang’s words, Isaac considered. What answer would make things smoother going forward?

“I only have rough, general memories. But I don’t really think I was being bullied. It’s just… with no presence to speak of, what was I even doing making a fuss about being an entertainer all this time… and now that I’ve come back from the brink of death, suddenly everything feels empty, so I’m saying this. I’m going to retire completely.”

At Cheonghyeon’s calm words, Hyun-gwang was at a loss for words.

In truth, it was Hyun-gwang who wanted Cheonghyeon’s retirement more. It wasn’t because of money. The other three members were already steadily bringing that in. 

Rather, in raising Cheonghyeon, Hyun-gwang had constantly felt that he was ruining the kid.

The first time he saw Cheonghyeon on the street, he’d been sure: With that face, he’ll blow up!

He’d hurriedly brought him in, as if possessed by something. But after debuting him and watching him, Hyun-gwang bitterly regretted his choice.

Cheonghyeon didn’t have the temperament for an entertainer. He was just a kid starved for attention. The kind of loneliness that could have been fully resolved just by making friends or finding a lover.

But because Hyun-gwang had indulged a needless ambition and debuted him, he couldn’t shake the thought that he’d made a kid already prone to loneliness even lonelier.

Merch with Cheonghyeon’s name and face always had piles of inventory left over, and solo activities were not easy. Even after making the big decision mid-career to send him to the army, the public had no interest in Cheonghyeon.

At concerts, the cheers were quietest when he appeared, and on plenty of days there were no preview photos of Cheonghyeon after fansigns.

Support gifts, commonly called tribute, were also the smallest in his case. Because the disparity was too stark, the agency announced a total ban on support. Fans quickly grasped the reason and attacked Cheonghyeon. Fortunately, even that petered out because his presence was so weak.

“Then can you tell me why you swallowed so many sleeping pills?”

“I don’t remember that. I guess I just wanted to sleep well because I was tired.”

Cheonghyeon cut it off cleanly. Hyun-gwang thought he might have been more at ease if Cheonghyeon had just burst into tears saying the members tormented him.

Cheonghyeon was drawing a line between East and himself. It was surely true that his memory wasn’t complete, given that he hadn’t recognized them, but the claim that he didn’t remember anything at all smelled like a lie.

The way he was vaguely glossing over it felt like he was drawing a line: This is as far as you can interfere.

Then, as he spoke with Cheonghyeon, Hyun-gwang finally recognized the source of the persistent sense of incongruity he’d been feeling.

Cheonghyeon no longer watched others’ faces. Even in this moment when he was making a fairly difficult request, he wasn’t watching Hyun-gwang or the manager at all.

He spoke as if making a perfectly natural request, yet also as if saying that if the request was too much, they didn’t need to grant it. That calmly. Like an ordinary person.

“If you retire, is there something you want to do?”

When Hyun-gwang asked, Cheonghyeon’s eyes sparkled. 

What, even with a year left on the contract, you’re just going to let me go?

He reined in the corners of his mouth that wanted to curl up and answered quietly.

“An administrator… No. I’m going to sit for the civil service exam.”