Kim Woohyun set out on a secret outing.
Creeeak.
At a crossroads in the United States famous for having heavy foot traffic, there was a famous franchise burger restaurant.
The reason he had deliberately come here was not simply because he was “hungry” or because he “wanted to eat.”
Right.
It was more like he had come for a preliminary investigation.
Jingle!
When he stepped inside, despite it being an awkward time of day, the place was packed with people.
To look natural, Kim Woohyun decided to order and stood at the very back of the line.
Wouldn’t it be strange if he came to a burger place, kept looking around, and then left?
Right. It was absolutely not because he was hungry.
Slide.
Kim Woohyun’s gaze turned toward the newly released menu item.
Gulp.
As if his salivary glands had malfunctioned, he swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth and waited for his turn to come quickly.
“Excuse me.”
At someone’s irritated call, he pulled his gaze away from the menu board he had been staring at for quite some time.
“If you’re not going to order, I’ll take the next person first.”
And the person he faced was….
“Ah, I’ll order.”
The reason he had come here was an employee of this burger shop.
A Black man with a fairly sturdy build and a tall frame.
“I’ll have the Cheese Spice Crunch Burger set, please.”
As Kim Woohyun placed his order with the man, he held out his card and gave a bright smile.
In truth, he had curled the corners of his eyes to sneak a look at the name tag.
[ Mr. HS ]
This was the man. He was an influencer who was quite popular among America’s MZ generation.
The person who first uploaded a Reels challenge video using group 4WAY’s new song and made it trend.
And for some reason, the man who used the nickname “HS” both at work and in-game.
Tap!
The man wordlessly took the card and finished the payment, then indifferently placed a burger, drink, and fries on the tray set on the counter.
“Thank you.”
Kim Woohyun accepted the tray and offered a formal greeting, thinking he might at least exchange a few words with him.
“What would you like to order?”
But the man was already taking the next person’s order.
‘He hasn’t been fired even though he acts like that.’
The fierce-looking man was far from kind. In fact, he was on the considerably unfriendly side.
Still, seeing that he had not been fired, it seemed he must be good at his job.
Rustle, rustle.
Kim Woohyun chose a seat where he could see the counter as well as possible, sat down, peeled back the wrapper, and took a big bite.
‘Mm, this is tasty.’
After ravenously finishing off the new menu item for a while.
‘Ah, right.’
He realized the reason he had come here and moved his gaze again.
Since fans who liked “HS” had also started appearing in the United States, he could have brushed it off as someone simply using a musician’s pen name as their nickname because they liked him.
But something was suspicious.
It felt like he would not use it just because he was simply a fan.
Right.
It was because something about it kept leaving him with an uneasy feeling. There was nothing bad about being careful in advance.
Munch, munch.
Kim Woohyun continued watching the man from the corner of his eye while eating fries.
Jingle!
The shop door opened, and several young-looking Black men poured inside.
“Hey!”
At that, the man standing at the counter with the name tag “HS” brightened and came outside.
Soon, all of them opened the shop door together and went out.
“Huh? Huh?”
Feeling regretful, Kim Woohyun stuffed a few fries into his mouth and hurriedly chased after them.
‘Where did they go?’
After searching around for quite a while, Kim Woohyun found the group standing in a shadowy alley, but…
He could not move rashly.
Because fear surged over him that if he pointlessly got caught among these sturdy young men, something unfortunate might happen.
‘This feels kind of dangerous…’
After hesitating, Kim Woohyun stood at a slight distance, pretending he had come over to smoke.
It was because his curiosity to know was greater than his fear.
With a deliberately serious face, Kim Woohyun pretended to look at his phone while studying the group from the corner of his eye.
“Jamal, doesn’t the video we pulled have killer vibes?”
“Insane.”
“Now that editing’s all done, we just need to upload it.”
What kind of video were they planning to upload? Were they uploading another new Reels challenge this time too?
Kim Woohyun moved step by step, very slightly, to listen more closely.
“But it does feel awkward seeing you, who used to be a plug in the hood, wearing a uniform and working like this.”
“What, are you trying to pick a fight?”
“No, that’s not it. I’m just saying it feels awkward, but it’s also nice to see.”
“If you’re going to talk nonsense, you’d better shut up. I’m not doing this so it looks nice to you.”
As he listened to the rough conversation, one thought came to him.
‘Ah, I should not have come in here.’
Startled, Kim Woohyun forced down the hiccups that burst out tactlessly and naturally turned his head.
“Hic, hic.”
‘Let’s hurry back.’
Step, step.
Just as he thought that and hurriedly moved his feet.
“Excuse me.”
The voice that had called him earlier came from behind his head.
Why? Why is he calling me?
This was not Korea, so there was a chance they might have guns.
And judging by their conversation, they did not seem to have lived ordinary lives.
‘Hyunseung, Ms. Danbi, I’m going ahead first.’
Kim Woohyun swallowed dryly and forced his stiff neck to turn.
“What is it?”
Then the man wearing the yellow uniform with the name tag “Mr. HS,” presumed to be a former “hood plug,” came striding toward him.
Ahh.
He had truly never imagined that after following Hyunseung to America, he would be killed by a man wearing an HS name tag.
Whoosh.
When the man suddenly reached out his hand, Kim Woohyun instinctively squeezed his eyes shut.
Thump, thump, thump.
The situation was so tense that the sound of his heartbeat rang in his ears.
However, no impact or pain came.
‘What is it?’
Feeling strange, Kim Woohyun carefully opened his eyes.
“You dropped this.”
When he shifted his gaze to the man’s outstretched hand, his own cigarette pack was there, covered in dirt and dust.
“Th-thank you.”
Kim Woohyun accepted the cigarette pack and fled the alley in one breath as if running away.
“Hah, hah.”
It seemed the nickname HS might be a code name from his days doing plug activity.
Hyunseung was deeply absorbed in the Worlds matches.
First, up to the quarterfinals, just as he had predicted, they had managed to secure a narrow but dramatic victory.
Still…
Since he had even made a tribute song for them, it would have been nice if they had won more overwhelmingly.
With that lingering disappointment, he waited for the semifinal match to begin.
Crunch, crunch.
Just as Hyunseung was about to finish an entire bag of potato chips.
Knock, knock, knock!
A familiar, but somehow urgent, knocking sound came.
‘Of all times, right now.’
Hyunseung looked at the match screen that was just about to start and wiped down his gaunt face.
He had wanted to watch it comfortably without being disturbed by anyone….
“Hyunseung!”
But judging by Kim Woohyun’s flustered expression and excited tone, that seemed unlikely.
“What is it?”
Hyunseung answered as if annoyed, but Kim Woohyun seemed to have come with a clear purpose and immediately walked in, holding out a tablet.
‘This damn tablet.’
Hyunseung resolved to confiscate this tablet sooner or later and shifted his gaze to the screen.
“Look at this once.”
The screen he showed him was clearly not a professional still video, but an MV that looked like an amateur had roughly filmed and uploaded it.
The poor image quality and audio.
The awkward composition and the tacky black-and-white filter too. It was the kind of video Hyunseung would never have searched for.
“You’re interrupting my time right now to tell me to watch a video of alley gangsters pretending to rap?”
“No, that’s not it! This man. It’s that guy. The influencer whose uniform name tag said ‘HS.’”
“And?”
“Ah, forget that. First, focus on listening to the lyrics.”
At those words, Hyunseung closed his eyes and focused on the music coming through.
But no matter how he listened, it was bad.
So bad that the music he had made with secondhand equipment after regressing would have had better quality than this.
Ahh.
Still, the sound of the instrument itself that came through was decent.
The diction and flow were good too.
However, not only the track itself, but even the audio quality was bad enough to make it hard to listen to.
“Do I have to keep listening?”
Just as Hyunseung asked, as if he could not bear it anymore.
— I don’t need drugs anymore. You do them. HS’s music is my drug.
Perhaps because of the familiar word, the sentence lodged itself clearly in his ears.
— If he hears my song, he’ll be soaked in ecstasy.
He gradually became wrapped in a strange feeling.
— Following behind HS, before I knew it, I was on the stage.
The video ended with the Black man pulling his hood deep over his head and raising a finger toward the sky.
‘Ah, it really is bad to the very end.’
No matter how he looked at it, it was bad in Hyunseung’s eyes, but for some reason, the view count and number of comments were quite substantial.
Was this the power of an influencer?
“Apparently this video is becoming a pretty big topic on American social media right now.”
Hyunseung nodded roughly and asked back.
“Is there perhaps another artist with the name HS?”
“No. I looked it up for that reason too, but you’re the only one.”
“Or maybe he likes Hamlet?”
“I don’t think that’s it. This person has been steadily uploading songs to SoundCloud. But most of the lyrics contain HS.”
As if he had already finished investigating, Kim Woohyun continued explaining without hesitation no matter what Hyunseung asked.
“Among amateur rappers, he already has a pretty strong reputation as a rapper who respects you.”
Hyunseung let out a small sound of thought for a moment.
“Yes, I understand, so please leave.”
He issued Kim Woohyun an order to leave. It was because he wanted to watch the Worlds semifinal match, which had already started and was well underway.
“No, wait a moment.”
“What is it now?”
“Be careful for the time being.”
At those words, Hyunseung asked, “Me?”
He had no idea why the conversation had suddenly jumped there, but Kim Woohyun’s expression was fairly serious, so he decided to listen to the rest.
“I went and quietly saw this man last time, and he seemed like a very dangerous person.”
“When did you go see him again?”
“That’s not important. First, I’ll strengthen security too, so you should also attach some personal guards besides Michelle…”
Cancel listening.
“Do you think someone who respects me would chase me with a gun?”
“Still, just in case…”
“Rather than that, please seriously leave a comment saying the MV is bad.”
With those words, Hyunseung pushed Kim Woohyun’s back and drove him out of the studio.
“Phew…”
At last, time alone had come.
Rustle, rustle.
Hyunseung put his hand into the snack bag and felt around, but the inside of the bag was already completely empty, with only crumbs left.
— Team DRY narrowly claims victory! But this is still only the first game, so they cannot let their guard down…
The first match of the semifinals had also already ended.
“Ah, I missed it.”
In disappointment, Hyunseung crumpled the snack bag.
Ding, ding, ding!
Next to the live match video, a burst of chat messages was going up.
↪ Hey, hey, hey, they really won just like in the theme song video.. Maybe DRY is actually going to win this time?
↪ Wow;;; damn;;;; Duel must have really sharpened his blade properly?
↪ At this point, isn’t the person who made the video a regressor?;;
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