Becoming An Idol Wasn’T On My Plan [EN]: Chapter 151

151.

“Glamorous.”

“Shhh.”

After wrapping up the music show filming in Bangkok and saying goodbye to the staff, I was heading to the van when Ryueidan’s ridiculous nickname made me frown.

“No, that’s not it. I mean, H’s current days are just filled with practice and studying, so I figured he hasn’t told you what’s going on in the world.”

‘What kind of person do these beasts see me as?’

Surely not some kind of hermit who has cut off ties with the world and lives in seclusion.

“…Okay.”

The words, ‘If it’s something I need to know, I’ll find out,’ almost escaped my lips, but I held them back. Ryueidan’s social skills lecture, seriously.

“There are so many requests to release the song ‘Mokwha’ as a single. So many.”

Hmm, should I just release it? I’m the one who wrote the song, so if I release it for free, the company can’t really say anything… Ah, Mokwha is from a big agency, damn it. Since Mokwha’s voice is on it, I can’t just release it carelessly.

“It seems like a lot of people watched that broadcast, surprisingly.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course, the fans are the loudest, but even my sister is begging for the song, begging.”

“…Don’t mention that.”

Ryueidan chuckled and replied playfully.

“My sister is a potential customer, you know?”

Crazy businessman. Capitalism has killed his soul.

As we were having this trivial conversation, I saw a silhouette standing in front of our car. It wasn’t the manager’s silhouette, so what was it? Did the security guards look away for a moment?

Everyone seemed to notice, and as we approached with slightly stiff steps, the sound of someone laughing like a madman echoed from over there.

“I’ve been waiting! I’ve been waiting! Donghwa over there! Let’s talk!”

Oh dear, his madness has relapsed. How unfortunate. What number do I call in Bangkok to reach the police station?

“…Prophecy hyung?”

Hmm, doesn’t his voice sound too different, H, currently?

Tap, tap.

The sound of running, and then Prophecy’s face popped out of the darkness and grabbed my collar.

“Wow… so he can act like this too.”

I’m sorry, but what are you going to say while grabbing my collar? I understood that he could read future possibilities from birth. I watched Prophecy let go of my collar, grab my shoulders, and shake his head.

“Yeah, my head is still spinning. The memories in my head keep getting twisted. If they get twisted like this, it’s better not to have them at all, you know?”

Prophecy seemed overly happy. Even with my collar grabbed, my head was constantly analyzing Prophecy’s words. Honestly, it was just fun. A secret that even Gijisaeng [a Korean term for a female entertainer, similar to a geisha] couldn’t properly articulate; the sentence itself was exciting.

“Ah, I think I know. You’re wondering how to treat me right now, aren’t you? What to say to me! Should I guess? I think there are about four possibilities.”

I looked around. Everyone was staring at us with bewildered expressions.

“It’s okay. These guys aren’t Junseong hyung. In my life, the only person who believes me is Junseong hyung. Everyone else probably thinks I’m spouting nonsense, right? Tomorrow, it will be revealed that the guy who made a name for himself as an MC [Master of Ceremonies] has a mistress. But no one will believe it!”

“Hmm, can I tell an acquaintance who’s a reporter about this today? I have to repay the favor I received.”

If I give it as a gift to Ryueidan’s sister, she could just put out an attention-grabbing prediction article, and if the truth is confirmed with tomorrow’s scoop, her position would improve.

In response to my answer, Prophecy, with his hands still on my shoulders, started jumping up and down like crazy. He was making a fuss as if he was overjoyed.

“Yeah, it’s strange. Why do only you believe me, composer? Originally, it was just a relationship where Junseong hyung and I would each get a song and that would be it, but why are we getting entangled like this again? Wow, we even meet up for coffee in our thirties.”

Prophecy closed his eyes but testified as vividly as if he was seeing something. It felt like he was directly seeing and describing a vast landscape beyond his closed eyes.

“Oh? Suddenly, we’re not drinking coffee anymore. Don’t distance yourself! I called you, why aren’t you coming?”

Wow. I didn’t expect the feedback to be so immediate.

“Now he’s coming again. What a fickle person.”

Prophecy grinned slyly while pressing his temples as if his head hurt.

Surprisingly, the members were listening to this nonsensical conversation and still wondering if Prophecy was sick. If they were rational beasts, they wouldn’t come to that conclusion, and if they were genuinely thinking that, they would be failing as beasts.

‘…I have no idea what’s going on.’

I don’t know why Prophecy is acting like this. I went to a secluded place under the pretext of calming Prophecy down.

“Wow, I’m so excited. It’s the first time besides Junseong hyung. Are you ready to talk?”

Prophecy had a habit of stretching his words even normally, but it was especially worse today.

“…Oh my, oh my. So you were experimenting with me?”

I haven’t said anything yet.

“Haha, of course. If you use this well, you can even use it like mind reading. The future usually doesn’t change once it’s set.”

Prophecy plopped down on the street and grabbed his head with both hands.

“…Ha. Now it’s too hard to look through the memories. My head hurts.”

I squatted down on the floor following Prophecy. So, the way Prophecy can know the future is…

“Is it memories?”

“That’s right, composer.”

A giggling sound.

“From birth, as if it were natural. When I got older and started looking through my memories, I roughly knew how I would die.”

And Prophecy cleared his throat once.

* * *

When Prophecy was fourteen, he learned that his mother would die in a year.

Even though all the memories were already in his head, there was a limit to the amount he could remember, and when he was young, his brain didn’t function as quickly as it does now, so, quite surprisingly.

The cause of his mother’s death was too obvious. Cancer. If they had found it early, she could have lived, but Prophecy would hear that fact after his mother’s death, when his father was drinking and talking to himself.

That’s why Prophecy was excited. He intuitively knew that he was different from other people. After receiving mental counseling in his childhood, when he didn’t know that being different was a problem, he never showed it outwardly.

However, this time the situation was different. He could change the sad future. Even if he couldn’t be the main character with this strange ability, this much would be okay, right?

“That’s the first attempt.”

“…The first?”

“Yes! A damn attempt to change the future.”

Prophecy shouted at his mother that she had to go to the hospital. If he shouted that her son was worried about her health and that she had to go to the hospital for a checkup, if he kept nagging like that, wouldn’t she give in?

“…Then.”

“That’s right. Of course, she didn’t go. Then I remembered. Damn it. I was so shocked by the fact that my mother was going to die that I didn’t look at the memories before that.”

Prophecy said that while smiling. At the same time, his eyes showed deep helplessness and sadness. It was as if he didn’t know any other way than to smile.

“…Okay.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m glad you’re calm, though. Junseong hyung was crying so much! That’s… really unbelievable. That hyung is different from Donghwa. He’s suppressing it, the aversion.”

Prophecy shook his head. Ji Donghwa frowned as he looked at Prophecy, looking pained for a moment. It seemed he had difficulty gauging Prophecy’s pain.

“How could my mother do something she couldn’t even do for her son…? Anyway, that’s the first.”

The second was stopping a friend who was trying to run away from home. He knew that running away from home would lead to a path of delinquency, but he couldn’t just stand by.

This time, he had a lesson. As a result of carefully retracing his memories to think of a different method.

“There was no way to stop it. In my memories, I had already used every possible means. Amazing, right? My memories are like that. As if they have already determined everything I will do!”

So Prophecy decided not to do all those things. He tried to watch the runaway happen differently from the memories.

“Tada, then surprisingly, time doesn’t flow! Amazing, right? Consciousness is awake, but the body can’t move, and the world stops!”

Prophecy was smiling and crying.

Being thrown alone into the world and having various thoughts, a terrible headache came each time. Clearly, time wasn’t flowing, so there were no senses, but the pain seemed to be happening on a conscious level. As if the world was pushing him away, as if to say, ‘Won’t you come to your senses even now?’

If Ji Donghwa had heard it, he might have gained a brief realization: ‘There must have been something wrong with the activation of the nerve fibers.’

“Wow, really. Isn’t it amazing? I know the future, but I can’t change it. At least I thought I would have the right to ‘not do’ according to that future, but tada! I didn’t! So I just decided to become a thoughtless train. I was going to run well on the predetermined tracks and just die.”

This time, Prophecy, who was talking, lay down on the spot. Like a homeless person.

“But, but, once four years ago. And once today. The future has changed.”

Prophecy burst into laughter. Then he coughed a few times and laughed again as if he was going to die. Gradually, the laughter subsided, and his expression became empty.

“It’s you.”

A voice that had no expectations for the world. It felt like the lively appearances from before were just acting.

“You changed it, didn’t you?”

Because Prophecy, when he was with someone other than Junseong, was just an actor playing a script in his head.

“…It’s hard to be sure.”

“No, I’m sure. How else can you explain it?”

Prophecy’s voice is getting lower and lower.

“I’m not resenting you or anything. I don’t want to include nonsense like, ‘Why did you appear now?’ But, just…”

Prophecy said that while slowly shedding tears. This time, he contorted his face without a smile.

“Just once… I wish you had given me that chance… to save my mother, or.”

Prophecy closed his eyes and tried to smile again.

“Just once, I wish Junseong hyung would accept me without aversion.”

But it didn’t seem to work, and he contorted his face again.

“Just once, it would be okay. Just once…”

The crying gradually intensified.

“Please…”

* * *

This is a big problem. I jumped into something like this with too light a heart. How rude. This is why ignorance is dangerous.

‘…Wait, so from Prophecy’s point of view, I’m like some kind of last hope.’

Good heavens. The last hope of one person, if I were the leaf that appears in ‘The Last Leaf’ [a short story by O. Henry about hope and sacrifice], would this be how I feel? An extra 1 like I am now is enough.

While I was agonizing, Prophecy seemed to have regained his composure and jumped up from his seat.

“Just once.”

Then he faced me head-on and said firmly.

“Just once, will you help me change the future? I won’t shamelessly ask you to stay by my side. There’s one thing I desperately want to change.”

Prophecy took a deep breath.

“In return, I’ll give you a free pass.”

…A free pass?

“Prophecies have always been valuable, right? Even though it smells a bit like a cult, the story of the Temple of Apollo [a famous oracle in ancient Greece] is also famous. Of course, I don’t know unless I’ve indirectly experienced it, but this should be enough to navigate the entertainment industry.”

Hmm, isn’t there a lack of fairness in this deal? You’re like someone who doesn’t even know what cost-effectiveness is. Can you survive in this disgusting capitalist society like this? And you’re more like Cassandra [a figure in Greek mythology cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed].

“Are you worried? Then a down payment.”

He smiled playfully.

“When you go back, Blossom will get entertainment offers. But, one of the fixed cast members of that show is about to have their dirty private life exposed. And wow, one of the members with good social skills happens to be meeting that person privately a few times?”

…I’m telling you, the cost-effectiveness doesn’t match.

“Are you curious about the name?”

Prophecy smiled again. But beyond that smile, there was desperation lurking, but he wasn’t foolish enough to show it.

“Let’s make a deal.”