Chapter 288 : It'll Be Okay (3)
Chapter 288: It'll Be Okay (3)
Do Seohan's reaction was anything but normal.
The moment he heard that Manager Lee Jaeyoon had contacted Do Seojun, his expression subtly stiffened.
There was no way someone as perceptive as Cha Seongbin would miss that.
“......”
Sitting beside him, absentmindedly picking at his pancakes, Cha Seongbin set down his fork.
Furrowing his brows, he turned toward Seohan.
Surely not...
“You didn't tell your family?”
“No, that's not it.”
Seohan hurriedly waved both hands.
If the answer ended with that's not it..., that meant he was hiding something.
“...I only told my parents.”
Knowing Do Seojun's personality, he simply couldn't bring himself to tell him.
If his brother heard about this, it wouldn't have been strange at all if he packed his bags immediately and dragged him back to Korea on the first available flight.
Rolling his eyes, Seohan trailed off.
“My brother's personality is... kind of insane....”
“You told your parents everything properly, right?”
“I mean, I did....”
Ending with I mean... also meant he was hiding a great deal.
Cha Seongbin audibly sucked in a breath.
Seohan scratched the back of his head with an awkward smile.
“I just told them some strange person rushed at me on my way to work.”
“What?”
“And that there were bodyguards beside me.”
“The bodyguards didn't do anything!”
“So we called the police... and everything was resolved very well....”
Jin Sehyun, who had been quietly listening, squeezed his eyes shut.
None of that was technically wrong...
But it left out an awful lot of important details.
Does that really count?
Seohan shamelessly continued,
“It is true that someone rushed at me on my way to work.”
“That's true.”
“And it's true the bodyguards were there.”
“You call that an explanation...?”
It was so ridiculous that his brows furrowed on their own.
“What about the awl? You conveniently left that part out again. Hey, that's the most important part!”
“...They'd worry.”
Mumbling softly as he chewed his pancakes, Seohan looked like he was about to get indigestion just from the expression on his face.
“I was planning to tell them gradually once the timing felt right.”
The news would come out in the articles eventually, so it was never going to remain a secret forever.
He probably thought that dropping everything on them all at once would only make them worry more, so he wanted to ease them into it little by little....
“Hmmm.”
Clicking his tongue, Cha Seongbin declared,
“You're dead.”
Though whether that would work on Do Seojun...
was another matter entirely.
It was the kind of busy life where the phone rang dozens of times a day.
Agency staff.
Broadcasting station employees.
Managers of various cast members....
There were simply too many people calling, making it impossible to take his eyes off his phone even for a moment.
Early that morning, Do Seojun had been completely absorbed in dealing with the mountain of paperwork piled on his desk.
Right then.
A familiar number appeared on the phone of rookie PD Do Seojun, who was already overwhelmed with work.
Without thinking much, he answered in the office.
“Yes, go ahead. This is SBC's Do Seojun.”
His tone was purely professional.
His indifferent voice remained calm even after the other person introduced themselves.
But as the conversation continued, he finally lost his composure.
He had just heard something he couldn't easily accept.
“What?”
His lips finally moved after silently listening through the receiver.
He spoke only one word,
yet his voice was icy.
“......!”
The PD sitting across from him stared in surprise.
After all...
It was the first time anyone had ever heard such raw emotion in Do Seojun's voice.
“Why would you....”
He unconsciously began raising his voice before lowering it again.
If they hadn't been in the office, he would have shouted long ago.
Taking a short breath, he spoke quietly.
“Why are you only telling me this now? The kids have already left the country.”
—I'm sorry. I have no excuse....
The younger brother he'd sent off to America had been stabbed in the chest by an insane person carrying an awl on the very day he departed.
Apparently, he had been wearing a stab-proof vest, so fortunately he wasn't injured....
None of that registered right now.
There must have been a reason he was wearing a stab-proof vest in the first place.
Are these bastards not protecting their artist?
Do Seojun knew exactly how this industry worked.
There wasn't a single excuse they could offer that he would accept.
“If something this serious happened, you should've contacted me before anything else. No... that's not even the important part right now.”
They could discuss responsibility later.
What he couldn't understand at all was everything that happened afterward.
“You're seriously planning to make him continue the overseas schedule in this condition?”
—He insisted that he wanted to....
“You actually have the nerve to call that an excuse...”
A curse rose all the way to his throat.
Running a hand through his bangs, Do Seojun let out a short sigh.
“Hoo....”
The PD sitting across from him was now openly watching his every move.
The murderous aura radiating from Do Seojun was unmistakable.
“......”
Chewing on his lower lip, he weighed the most rational option.
Meanwhile, the voice on the other end hurriedly continued,
—We opposed him leaving the country as much as we possibly could.... But Seohan was just too stubborn. We thought it would be better if you talked to him first before making any decision.
The other person did nothing but repeatedly apologize.
How should I deal with these bastards?
He set that question aside for the moment.
There were more urgent matters.
Seohan's stubbornness?
Honestly, that wasn't something Do Seojun even considered.
He should drag the kid back to Korea by the collar if he had to.
“...I'll hang up and contact you again.”
He had answered the manager without a moment's hesitation.
Yet the instant his eyes landed on Seohan's contact information,
his firm resolve wavered.
He must've had his reasons.
He didn't know much about this so-called Global Festival, but apparently it was a fairly major event overseas.
There were also the overseas schedules afterward.
Perhaps there really had been a reason Seohan had fought so desperately to stay on stage....
“Ha....”
Pressing firmly against his temples, Do Seojun let out a deep sigh.
“This is driving me insane.”
Should he drag this brat back immediately,
or not?
While agonizing over a problem with no easy answer,
his eyes drifted toward the monitor.
A newly published entertainment article.
A familiar name occupied the headline.
Do Seojun tightly shut his eyes.
Ah.
His head throbbed.
“...It broke.”
The article even Doubles had failed to suppress.
The news had spread much faster than expected, throwing the entertainment section into chaos.
[Stardust's Do Seohan Attacked with a Weapon, 'Sasaeng Fan Who Had Been Loitering Around His Residence Charged at Him']
The entertainment industry continues to suffer from incidents involving sasaeng fans.
Following last month's incident in which a sasaeng fan unlawfully entered Tiple's dormitory, it has now come to light that Stardust member Do Seohan was threatened by a sasaeng fan outside his residence.
An assailant rushed into the group as the members were preparing to leave the country.
A woman suddenly charged forward while holding a weapon, causing a major disturbance outside the dormitory.
Fortunately, according to the police, the injuries were minor.
The weapon used by the woman was reportedly a 10-centimeter awl.
With a heavy heart, he scrolled down.
Before they left the country? On the actual departure day??? Am I reading this article correctly? You put him on stage in that condition? The very next day? Have these bastards finally lost their minds?
└Doubles really are insane bastards.
└Wow. They released a notice to the fans right before the article came out. The audacity.
└These hopeless bastards deserve the beating of a lifetime.
Explain exactly what happened using the five Ws and one H before I go join the truck protest.
└All my fellow fans are absolutely furious. Explain yourselves properly.
└Doubles... they're just hopeless....
Below were countless furious comments from fans.
It was only natural.
They had learned about everything through the article.
Apparently, Doubles had wanted to prevent this level of detail from becoming public as well,
but they had failed.
“So it was really this serious.”
His head burned.
Do Seojun was just as consumed with anger.
He slowly unclenched the fist he'd been gripping.
“Haa....”
The moment he let out a deep sigh—
“Hm?”
The words on the monitor wavered.
Startled, Do Seojun hurriedly rubbed his eyes.
What's going on all of a sudden?
The text before his eyes became increasingly blurry.
Like an afterimage, it shimmered...
before suddenly beginning to squirm.
The distorted letters crawled across the monitor like living insects.
At the same time,
a sudden wave of nausea struck him.
“......!”
The dizziness became unbearable.
“Ghk!”
Do Seojun grimaced as a violent headache crashed over him.
The monitor, which had looked perfectly normal moments ago, warped more and more.
Words rapidly flashed before his eyes.
[Star■dust....]
[St...ar...dust....]
[■■■...■■....]
[Participant of the Star■u■t Project....]
“What is this?”
It felt as though the contents of the article were changing.
Static covered the screen.
A blinding flash exploded before his eyes.
An unbearable pain pierced deep into his brainstem.
“Ugh!”
The wavering letters finally returned to their proper places.
His hand trembling violently, Do Seojun slowly raised his head.
The words before him were covered in static.
['Cargo Truck ■■ Crashes Into ■■', 1 Dead, 1 Seriously Injured]
['■■ Charges Straight Into Café, Devastating Scene']
It was ■■ that Do■han, who had previously appeared on the same program as former Stardust member ■■■, was present at the scene....
The incident occurred at a café near ■■, and it appeared he had been unable to avoid the sudden collision....
“Ah.”
Even though he had never experienced this before,
a sickening sense of déjà vu washed over him.
A horrifying emotion with no discernible source gripped him.
The scene he had dismissed as nothing more than an unpleasant dream now overlapped with the monitor.
'Seohan!'
'Please... please.... Do Seohan, stay with me!'
“What is this?”
A feeling like profound loss.
Like guilt.
Like irreversible regret....
That emotion relentlessly burrowed deep into his heart.
“Why is this happening?”
What exactly were these agonizing memories?
“Haa... ha.”
Do Seojun gasped for breath.
Barely clinging to consciousness, he forced himself to scroll further.
“Ugh... ngh.”
No matter how many times he read it,
the article never changed.
Nor did the damned headache disappear.
His heart ached.
Ah.
It felt like he was dying.
Breathing raggedly, Do Seojun struggled to grip the mouse.
The strength gradually drained from his hand.
He instinctively realized he couldn't hold on much longer.
Before he knew it,
his consciousness slipped away.
“Ghk....”
At last,
darkness swallowed his vision.
.
.
.
.
[[Warning] The current world and Universe No. 1517 are 39% synchronized.]
[[Warning] The current world and Universe No. 1517 are 41% synchronized.]
[[Warning] The current world and Universe No. 1517 are 44% synchronized.]
The Status Window messages instantly drove away all traces of sleep.
Enjoying a peaceful break from promotions, The Way's Kim Woochan shot to his feet in shock.
“...What is that?”
Something was going wrong.
No—
something was going very wrong.
“What did they do?”
Without any warning,
something had gone wrong with the universe.
[[Warning] The current world and Universe No. 1517 are 46% synchronized.]
[[Warning] The current world and Universe No. 1517 are 47% synchronized.]
“I... wasn't informed about any of this.”
Frantically, Kim Woochan rummaged through the Status Window.
No matter how desperately he reached out and manipulated the message window,
nothing happened.
“Why is this happening all of a sudden?!”
The Status Window gave no answer.
Only error-filled windows continued appearing.
His face soon turned deathly pale.
At least give me some kind of clue if you expect me to fix this.
“Ah, damn it.”
Grabbing at his hair, Kim Woochan muttered like a madman.
Even then, warning after warning continued flooding the message window.
“Fuck, what am I supposed to do?!”
[[Warning] The synchronization rate is increasing abnormally.]
[[Warning] The synchronization rate is increasing abnormally.]
[[Warning] The synchronization rate is increasing abnormally.]
The Status Window was completely covered in error messages.
[[Warning] The synchronization rate is increasing abnormally.]
[[Warning] The synchronization rate is increasing abnormally....]
The rapidly scrolling messages suddenly stopped,
leaving behind a single line.
[Synchronization failed due to an error in data &@!13#€&.]
[Would you like to delete some of the data?]
Kim Woochan slowly lifted his head, his face drained of color.
“Ah.
We're fucked.”