“Cheonghyeon. Have you had something to be happy about lately?”
Cheonghyeon, whose expression was usually cool and impassive, had been oddly in a good mood these days, grinning to himself since morning.
“Ah, um. Well, it’s nothing much.”
He said it was nothing much, but his face was still bright. Watching him carefully, Changsik finally spoke up.
“Aren’t you bored just staying at the dorm? There’s a show that introduces homes, and the writer really, really wants to film with you at least once.”
When Cheonghyeon just held his phone and didn’t give much of a reply, Changsik got antsy. Ever since the recent sighting posts, Cheonghyeon’s popularity had been skyrocketing.
There’s a reason people say you row while the tide’s in. Now was the perfect time to push him. The show he brought up happened to be filming tomorrow, and because a certain actor’s drama shoot got delayed and they bailed, a slot had opened up.
For idols, once you secure your position, there’s basically no more inflow—unless you have a miracle reverse run. The higher up the first tier you are, the worse that gets.
Sure, within a group, reality shows or variety appearances might switch fans’ “biases,” but it’s extremely rare for general-public popularity to swell and then all those people convert into true fans. Yet with just a couple of sighting posts, Cheonghyeon was drawing the explosive attention of a rookie.
They couldn’t afford to let the crumbs dry up now! All those precious new fans would fly away!
Oblivious to his manager’s burning urgency, Cheonghyeon half-listened, then suddenly stood up.
“Hyung, handle it however you want.”
“W-wait, wait! The shoot—are you going to do it? They’re filming literally tomorrow, so we need to tell them quickly so they can adjust scheduling on their end—”
“Ah, yeah. I said you can handle it.”
As if it were a bother, Cheonghyeon slipped right into his room, and the manager, smiling from ear to ear, texted the junior writer.
— Yep, Shinju. Our Cheonghyeon is definitely available!
Click.
As soon as he went into his room and quietly shut the door, he hurried to check his phone notifications.
the East. (EAST) official fan café: [[Hyun-baragi]] has posted a new entry [The weather is so lovely].
He quickly tapped in and up came the familiar opening he’d grown used to from reading for the past two days straight.
“Cheonghyeon, how’s your day today?”
He knew a lot of fans had started taking an interest in him lately. Just as fans roamed around gathering info about him, he too wandered Twitter and Instagram and various communities collecting information.
In the process he read a thread on Twitter.
Hyeongae @hyunpuppy
There’s no info on our baby anywhere.. Let’s just all start from now together
41 Retweets 102 Likes
Hyeongae @hyunpuppy
The fansite master who hit no.1 on trends every April Fool’s? Main is Gi Cheonghyeon.
That idol fan who used to post sentimental quotes on Facebook and Insta every day? Main is Gi Cheonghyeon.
Guys, isn’t that enough for you?
Left hand: Gideon, right hand: Baragi.
I feel secure.
16.2k Retweets 998 Likes
Hyeongae @hyunpuppy
Stanning a 6-year idol and getting to feel like a debut-era fan isn’t easy. If not now, there won’t be another chance—everyone hurry up and come.
368 Retweets 402 Likes
Come to think of it, there were entries about Hyun-baragi and Gideon in the diary too. Hurrying into the fan café, he found Hyun-baragi practically monopolizing the “to. Gi Cheonghyeon” category. Recently, other nicknames had started peeking in, but scrolling down, almost all the posts were by Hyun-baragi.
Since anything he marked “of interest” would be visible to fans, he’d secretly joined the fan café under a different ID and even turned on new-post notifications.
It was rare for a fan to turn on alerts just to read another fan’s posts, but Hyun-baragi was a long-time, very symbolic fan of Cheonghyeon, and their writing was so good that many fans had alerts on—so he slipped himself in among them.
At first his heart pounded, but given the subscriber counts for Hyun-baragi and Gideon, one more person didn’t make a blip. In hindsight, all that fretting was pointless for those two were that famous.
When he’d first read only the diary, he’d thought Hyun-baragi was just a longtime male fan, but they turned out to be quite famous. Apparently, the short lines in Hyun-baragi’s letters to him had blown up, making Hyun-baragi famous by extension.
Sometimes it got distorted with titles like “A letter to my crush of four years,” but most of the time the posts were credited as written by a fan of a certain idol singer, and Hyun-baragi’s writing was very well known.
The problem was that while Hyun-baragi had gained 30,000 followers in six years, Gi Cheonghyeon’s own fans didn’t even number thirty.
At first, he’d agonized over whether he had any right to read these letters. Paradoxically, the attention Hyun-baragi and Gideon showed Cheonghyeon felt both uncomfortable and good.
Since they’d loved Cheonghyeon for six years, he wanted them to love him too. By now Gi Cheonghyeon would be receiving love from his mother and, as a prince, holding status and being attended by Henry. And that had originally been Gi Cheonghyeon’s.
In that case, he should also discard the name Isaac and grow used to the name and station of Gi Cheonghyeon. He wanted their affection to be aimed not at the past Cheonghyeon but at himself now. It was a complicated yet honest desire.
At first, he told himself he was reading them to gather information about Gi Cheonghyeon. But aside from starting with his name, the letters went on to talk about what happened that day, what the weather was like. They were diaries in the form of letters.
Within the plainness that made it hard to say they were addressed to only one person, Isaac shed a bit of his lingering guilt; and after he woke up, when a new letter appeared, he felt relieved.
Unlike the other diary-like entries, seeing one ask after his well-being made his heart pound strangely. He even felt as if he were being recognized as the real Gi Cheonghyeon.
“Sometimes quietly listening to an ordinary person’s day can be a comfort. Isaac, when you are older, you’ll understand your mother’s words.”
Only now did he feel he could understand his mother. For Cheonghyeon, still not fully adjusted to this world, the “to. Gi Cheonghyeon” category felt like a small nest.
Whenever his mind was a tangle, simply reading Hyun-baragi’s letters without thinking somehow soothed him. Others probably subscribed to Hyun-baragi for the same reason.
It took less than a day for him to become Hyun-baragi’s fan. He’d read so many of Hyun-baragi’s posts that he’d ended up a fan himself.
Ggongji @ggongji
Among Hyun-baragi’s letters, 20xx.08.01 is so good… I keep turning it over in my head ㅠㅠ
12 Retweets 103 Likes
Rockhyun @rockandhyun
Hyun-baragi has mad days too ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Was it April 27? If you read that one the overall tone is just pissed ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ “Maybe literally anyone can be a professor, huh, Cheonghyeon.” F*** ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Looks like Hyun-baragi’s a grad student ㅜㅜㅜㅜ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
35 Retweets 221 Likes
KimDiary @kimtoday
Hyun-baragi’s posts don’t feel like listening to an idol fan’s rabid stanning—they feel like reading a healing short story….. I’ve been so busy surviving my loneliness and grind that I ignored them on purpose, but I feel like I’m being told it’s all okay ㅜㅜ And when I get lazy I watch Hyun-baragi living so diligently and it fires me up to study again ㅠㅠ
71 Retweets 338 Likes
Hyeongae @hyunpuppy
First thing I did after falling for Gi Cheonghyeon: read Hyun-baragi’s posts.. When will they post again—is this what “free if you wait” means??
1,991 Retweets 2,023 Likes
Hyeongae @hyunpuppy
Y’all f/f shippers must’ve been shook when you got into Baby Cheonghyeon… First time seeing an idol with zero fanfic? We’ve still got what matters… Isn’t it enough to have a top-tier fansite master and a god-tier writer
801 Retweets 997 Likes
He too was diligently reading Hyun-baragi’s posts as he browsed fan reactions. With nothing much to do these days, it was his one joy.
“Cheonghyeon, how’s your day today?”
Just reading the opening made his heart race. Because this letter, too, was really talking to him. It was like getting a note from a favorite writer. The day was off to a good start.
“Hyung. I don’t know anything about houses. Will that be okay?”
“There’s an expert among the panel anyway, so it’s fine. You can just talk about what you thought was pretty among what you saw today, what you liked about things like that, then come back. Think of it as casually going around to look at houses.”
He’d already been feeling that dorm life didn’t really protect his privacy, so he wanted to move out. In the palace he lived alone, with staff taking care of him in an unobtrusive way, but here it was a shared space for five, counting the manager.
No matter how big it was, it was still uncomfortable. He’d be living on his own soon. He’d just pretend he was going to look at his future place.
They had to stop by the salon for his hair and makeup and then get to the studio, so time was tight. He grumbled about whether they really had to go to the salon, but on this point the manager was firm.
“This is your first time in front of a camera since you were sick! We’re going all-out today and crushing everyone.”
Crushing who, exactly… Still, seeing this combative side of his manager was unexpected, and since he wanted to do it professionally if he was going to do it at all, he obediently got in the car.
The manager cleared his throat a few times and then, trying to hide it, wore a smug little smile.
Honestly… such a simple hyung.
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