While they took a short break after dinner, Cheonghyeon habitually turned on his phone.
He scrolled through his photo album, looking for a picture he could upload for the fans, and then his finger stopped at one spot.
For a brief moment, Cheonghyeon went blank.
“Why?”
“Uh, uh… it’s nothing.”
Just then, Sikyung came into the room to grab an outer layer and looked Cheonghyeon over with concern.
But when Cheonghyeon continued to fiddle with his phone as if it truly were nothing, Sikyung only ruffled Cheonghyeon’s hair and left with his jacket.
If Sikyung had patted his back instead, he would have noticed immediately that something was wrong.
That was how violently Cheonghyeon’s heart was pounding.
What Cheonghyeon had seen was a contact he had received from the CEO earlier this year.
He remembered how, back then, he had taken a photo of the phone number of a graduate student who was under his father, then crumpled it up and threw it away.
The contact he had received then was still in his photo album.
Cheonghyeon hurriedly scrolled further down.
It was a photo he had taken before a fansign, to memorize the fans’ names.
- Secret fansign winner personal information verification. Staff, please destroy after confirmation.
<Kwon Ihwa> – last four digits oooo.
<Kim Seoan> – last four digits xxxx.
<Yeo Jiseong> – last four digits oxxo.
<Yoo Hyuna> – last four digits oxox.
<Jang Yeonju> – last four digits xooo.
Wanting to confirm for sure, Cheonghyeon called Hyeongwang.
“Hey, Cheonghyeon. What is it?”
“CEO, that number you told me last time.
The graduate student who’s my father’s assistant….
Could you send me that person’s name and number to my phone again?”
“Ah, I was actually going to tell you. Your father said that from now on, he’ll personally handle all contact related to you. You won’t need to contact that assistant anymore. Why, did something happen?”
“Ah… no. I just have something I want to ask him directly. Could you please tell me that assistant’s contact again?”
“Sure. I’ll send it right now. Filming’s going well, right?”
“Yes.”
After exchanging a few words with Hyeongwang, Cheonghyeon waited for the incoming message with hands that trembled sweetly.
It felt like there was a heart beating in his thumb, too.
In the quiet, empty room, there was only the ticking of the second hand and the pounding of his heart.
Then a vibration tore through that silence, ringing loudly through the room.
Bzzzt.
“Kim Seoan – 010. xxxx. xxxx”
Murmuring the contact information he had received from Hyeongwang, Cheonghyeon checked his photo album again.
<Kim Seoan> – last four digits xxxx.
Suspicion turned into certainty.
It was clearly the same person.
That graduate student is Hyeonbaragi?
When Cheonghyeon, stifled, got up and went to the window, he saw Changsik in the distance.
He motioned as if to say come here for a second, and Changsik ran over briskly.
“Hyung. That… among my fans, there’s someone called Hyeonbaragi, right.”
“Yeah. I know. Why are you asking all of a sudden?”
“Did that person ever meet me before?”
“No. Actually, the company contacted him a few times. But ‘contact’ was really just sending notes through the cafe. Back then we said we could arrange for him to meet you in person, but he refused. That person probably hasn’t even shown up to any in person events.”
“Maybe because he’s a male fan? There aren’t many male fans, so even if they come to just one fansign, their face sticks in your memory. Look at how people still talk among the fans about that male fan who came to your Cheongsansu fansign.”
“Of course, I think they talk because he was handsome… Anyway, you’ve never met Hyeonbaragi. You’ve probably never even run into him. Why? Did something happen?”
At the manager’s words, Cheonghyeon gave a bitter smile and brushed it off, saying it was nothing.
He had no idea how things were unfolding.
So Hyeonbaragi was an assistant under Gi Cheonghyeon’s father?
Cheonghyeon recalled the promise he had made to meet Ihwa this weekend.
Since Ihwa and Seoan had prepared support together, maybe the two of them knew each other.
Ihwa didn’t tell Seoan that their souls had switched, did she?
With thoughts tangling, Cheonghyeon drew his knees up and buried his head deep.
He could not remember at all how the rest of the evening shoot proceeded.
His mind was filled only with thoughts of Hyeonbaragi.
Did Hyeonbaragi really like Gi Cheonghyeon?
Was he watching Gi Cheonghyeon’s activities because my father told him to?
No, if it were because my father told him to, then Professor Gi wouldn’t have no interest in Gi Cheonghyeon.
Then why did he suddenly show up at the Cheongsansu fansign after not showing his face for six years? Why all of a sudden?
“Good work!”
With the clap of the staff’s slate as the last sound, the long shoot came to an end.
Only when it was nearly dawn could the members return to the dorm.
With the grueling schedule, the survival game and stamina test that began in broad daylight, the board game against production staff from Korea University, the members were already asleep in the car.
Only Cheonghyeon, awake alone, stared endlessly at his photo album.
“Alright, since the game is over, I’ll talk briefly about the next filming segment.”
The PD gathered the exhausted members together.
“The next two episodes of filming will be about meeting the person most precious to you.”
At that, all the members looked at Yoonwoo.
Last week, when they were discussing ideas for the next filming item, they had talked about a guerrilla date with fans.
At the time, Yoonwoo had hesitated, then suggested that maybe instead of fans, they could meet family, and that memory rose in everyone’s mind.
At the PD’s words, Yoonwoo, tired from the consecutive games, showed a sparkling gaze.
“Like most celebrities, I’m sure, but East especially has been really busy since debut, right?
Even on holidays, you’ve probably spent more time fulfilling schedules than being with your families.
So for our final shoot, we’re going to capture, on broadcast, a meeting with the precious person who helped East get to this place.
Is everyone okay with that?”
At those words, the members, conscious of the camera, tried their best not to pay attention to Cheonghyeon.
As far as they knew, Cheonghyeon’s family relationships were not very good, and he did not have any friends he kept in touch with separately.
Forcing their eyes, which wanted to drift toward Cheonghyeon, to stay on the PD instead, they tried not to show their worry.
But Cheonghyeon himself was calm, with a blank face, as if he had no particular thoughts.
Right after learning that Hyeonbaragi and his father’s assistant were the same person, his mind was too tangled to have room to care about something like this.
Still, at the PD’s words, the true source of all this briefly came to mind.
If only I could, I want to grab those chasa bastards by the collar and drag them here, the ones who threw me into this and left.
Behind Cheonghyeon’s blank expression, complicated thoughts rose and fell again and again.
He half listened to the PD while focusing on sorting out his own mind.
The day after filming ended, the members were busy asking their precious person to appear on the show.
Sikyung contacted his homeroom teacher from his senior year of high school, and Hando contacted an older hyung from the same dance crew, the one who first taught him to dance.
Yoonwoo had already told his family, on the night filming ended, to prepare to appear on broadcast.
While everyone was passionately working to secure their guests, Cheonghyeon was preparing to meet Ihwa.
“I’ll be back.”
Changsik grabbed Cheonghyeon’s hand with a complicated face that looked like he had a lot to say and hesitated, but when Cheonghyeon gave him a small nod as if to say it was fine, he finally let him go.
Ding dong.
Cheonghyeon, sitting blankly, hurriedly got up at the bright sound of the doorbell and opened the door.
The moment he opened it, he met Ihwa’s eyes, and he could feel her big eyes rolling as she examined him from head to toe.
Seeing that gaze full of worry, a whiny voice slipped out of him without him realizing it.
“Noonaaa….”
“Cheonghyeon, what is it? My god, there’s really nothing in here. Let’s go inside and talk first.”
As the door closed, the sound of the door lock engaging rang out clearly.
Since it was no longer a situation where he could meet Ihwa freely like before, Cheonghyeon had asked Changsik and gotten the key to the unit on the floor below the dorm.
In the wide living room, only a table and sofa left behind by the previous residents sat there alone.
After briefly checking on Cheonghyeon, Ihwa sat on the soft sofa and listened to his story all the way through.
Until all the ice in the iced coffee Ihwa had brought melted away.
“So that’s what happened… Could it just be a simple dream?”
“I don’t think it was just a dream. I’ve never seen the Empress Dowager laugh that loudly. And it was the first time I really looked straight at hyungnim’s face.”
Seeing Cheonghyeon answer with a downcast face, a surge of pity rose in Ihwa’s chest.
She was genuinely happy that the boy she cared for was doing well there, but it was also true that the Cheonghyeon in front of her looked heartbreaking.
From what she heard, Cheonghyeon had lived in Isaac’s body without major complaints.
But overnight, it had been forcibly switched back, called a mistake by the chasa.
Adapting little by little to a new world would be exhausting enough, but if he even had to see, in a dream, the boy living well there….
“Cheonghyeon. Lift your head and look at noona for a second, okay?”
As if the emotion had welled up while he talked, Cheonghyeon’s face grew even more gloomy.
When he lifted his head, Ihwa’s heart hurt even more.
Even when you work diligently like an ant, there are moments when everything suddenly feels empty.
When you feel that you, as an individual, are so small and ordinary in this vast society, you might have thought more than once that you wanted to possess the protagonist of another world, like in a web novel.
You dreamed of becoming a cool protagonist, someone who knows every development in the story, who plays a key role among the main characters, and is treated as special.
But reality was cruel.
The sight of someone dropped into an unfamiliar world, too busy adapting, the sight of someone missing those they left behind, was enough to make your chest ache just from watching.
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