The Rap Star [EN]: Chapter 288

< Verse 44. The End >

***

Nick Jonas and his friend, Paul Wattson, were completely panicked from the moment they saw FiveSix’s car cross the center line and collide with the truck.

The truck, a large vehicle weighing over 5 tons and loaded with cargo, was struck on the driver’s side.

It was an accident where the odds of dying were significantly higher than the odds of surviving.

“Shit, shit!”

Nick Jonas shouted, mixing curses into his words. He insisted he only wanted to mess with FiveSix, not cause an accident. Paul Wattson, in turn, cursed at Nick Jonas for doing something so foolish.

His heart pounded so hard he felt like the car was shaking.

Wattson, who had been speeding for five minutes straight, barely regained his senses and stopped the car.

“What, what? Why are you stopping? Why aren’t you driving faster?”

Jonas shouted like a madman, but Wattson remained firm and stopped the car.

Then he said,

“Let’s, let’s turn ourselves in.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“We, we have to turn ourselves in. We’ll get caught anyway.”

“We won’t get caught. We won’t get caught if we run away.”

Although laws varied by state, installing black boxes [devices that record data while you drive] in cars was generally illegal in the United States, and there were few CCTVs [closed-circuit television cameras] due to privacy concerns. Because of this, Nick Jonas thought he would be fine if he ran away.

However, Paul Wattson’s thoughts were different.

FiveSix was a celebrity, attracting significant attention in the lead-up to the Grammy Awards.

So, to avoid appearing incompetent to the entire United States, the LA police would do their best to find them, and they would eventually be caught.

‘Besides, I, I didn’t do anything wrong.’

He had only done a small favor at his friend’s insistence.

At that moment, Nick Jonas, who was sitting in the passenger seat, tried to start the car. Wattson, suddenly realizing this, opened the driver’s side door and ran away.

He felt that if he stayed with him any longer, he would truly become an accomplice, and that Jonas would harm him for trying to turn himself in.

He could hear Jonas cursing at him from behind, but Wattson kept running. Then, in a place he thought was safe, he picked up his phone and called 911.

“There, there’s been an accident on the Long Beach Freeway, on the way to Blue Mont! Ra, Rapper FiveSix collided with a truck, and my friend threatened me with a paintball gun…! This is not a joke!”

Paul Wattson began to explain the situation incoherently.

***

Myeongsan Ilbo [a fictional Korean newspaper] dispatched Han Woo-young, a reporter who had been in New York as a special correspondent for the Grammy Awards, to LA.

Internally, there were many who felt it pointless to dispatch a small team when so many large media companies would form large coverage teams anyway, but the editor-in-chief’s strong conviction made it possible.

In fact, the 52nd Grammy Awards, where Sang-hyun was highly likely to win, was too significant an event to ignore.

Moreover, Myeongsan Ilbo was a media company that had benefited greatly from Sang-hyun during MTB [likely referring to a music television program or event].

The moment a phone call came to Myeongsan Ilbo, the editorial office was thrown into chaos.

And the time it took for that chaos to spread to the internet was less than an hour.

*

Lee Sang-hyun, unconscious. Reported to be in critical condition.

News has been received that Lee Sang-hyun, who was heading to the Staples Center in LA to attend the 52nd Grammy Awards, was involved in a serious traffic accident.

Haidel Raines, CEO of H&R INC, to which Lee Sang-hyun belongs, said that a stranger threatened Lee Sang-hyun’s vehicle with a gun while he was moving, and that Lee Sang-hyun, seeing this, crossed the center line to avoid the shooting and collided with an oncoming truck.

Haidel Raines told reporters who asked about Lee Sang-hyun’s current condition that he himself had only received a brief report after the Grammy Awards started and did not know the details.

However, according to Haidel Raines, Lee Sang-hyun was unconscious throughout his transfer to the hospital and suffered life-threatening injuries…

*

Lee Sang-hyun’s terror, revealed to be an accidental crime caused by diss (an act in which rappers attack each other with music).

A likely suspect in the terrorist act of threatening Lee Sang-hyun with a gun has been revealed by the confession of an accomplice.

The suspect is a rapper from LA who uses the stage name Bell Force, and it is known that he committed an accidental crime after discovering Lee Sang-hyun, who dissed him.

Paul Wattson, who confessed to the crime immediately after the accident, testified that he had only driven the car at Bell Force’s request, and that Bell Force had threatened Lee Sang-hyun with a paintball gun, not a real gun.

Bell Force, a likely suspect in the terrorist act, is on the run after the accident, and the LA Police Department is investigating the exact circumstances of the terrorist act and has reportedly put Bell Force (real name Nick Jonas) on the wanted list.

*

Numerous articles about Sang-hyun’s accident poured out within an hour.

The content of the articles was as diverse as the number of articles.

Some media companies monitored American news channels and tried to write articles as close to the facts as possible, while others published sensational articles based only on circumstances and speculation without confirming the facts.

Even though it was not revealed whether the truck that collided with Sang-hyun’s car was a cargo truck or a pickup truck, the name of Ford Truss, a common pickup truck in the United States, was mentioned in the article.

An hour was a short time if it was short, and a long time if it was long.

During that one hour, the 888 Crew members canceled all their schedules and booked plane tickets to LA, and were about to arrive at Incheon International Airport [the largest airport in South Korea].

Sangmi cried non-stop, recalling May 13, 2005, and Junhyung held Sangmi’s hand without saying a word.

However, the 888 Crew members, who arrived at the airport, were able to receive new information from the many people who recognized them.

***

Haidel Raines went straight to the hospital as soon as the Grammy Awards ended.

Melody and Hime, with tears in their eyes, were in his car, and other musicians such as KRS-One and Eminem were scheduled to come in their own cars.

Haidel’s phone rang non-stop on the way to the hospital. However, Haidel did not answer a single call because most of them were from media companies.

Instead, he took out his personal cell phone and called H&R INC’s security team.

As soon as the call was connected, Haidel asked in a low voice.

“Why wasn’t there any security?”

-I’m sorry.

“I’m not asking for an apology, I’m asking for the reason.”

-He refused the security so strongly. He said that he suddenly had work to do and told the others to leave first…

“Even so……!”

Haidel tried to get angry but held back.

It was a time when it didn’t matter if he got angry anyway.

Perhaps Sang-hyun, who hadn’t been inspired for a while, suddenly received some inspiration, and he must have left first because he didn’t want to delay his other friends.

“What’s his condition?”

-He is not regaining consciousness. According to the doctor, the surgery was successful, but acute subdural hemorrhage occurred, cerebral edema is severe, and the key is whether or not he can regain consciousness.

“As long as he can regain consciousness, he’ll be okay, right?”

Haidel asked with hope.

However, the answer was not very optimistic.

-That’s… Even if he regains consciousness, there is a high possibility that there will be problems with nerve function, and if the prognosis is not good, brain death may occur…

“……Okay, I understand for now. I’ll go and hear it myself. Are all the other friends there?”

-Yes. I received a call before entering the photo zone, so everyone headed to the hospital. But…….”

“Why?”

-The media coverage seems a bit strange.

“It’s strange when the media is sane.”

Haidel said that and was about to hang up. He didn’t feel like paying attention to the media.

‘There’s nothing to worry about anyway. The whole country is buzzing with the name FiveSix, so what’s the point of stopping it? If he comes back to life, there’s no more perfect promotion than this. Then the next album should be Coma 56.’

The moment Haidel was thinking of a hopeful, self-deprecating joke, he heard the voice of the security team leader calling him over the receiver.

“What’s wrong? Did he wake up?”

-No, that’s not it, it’s about the media story I just told you. I don’t need to worry about these things, but I don’t think you know.

“What don’t I know?”

-The media is currently reporting that FiveSix was in an accident.

“Why is that?”

-I guess you didn’t know. It wasn’t FiveSix who had the accident.

“What are you talking about…….”

-It’s Standard who had the accident, DJ Standard.

***

Bell Force, or Nick Jonas, believed his friend Paul Wattson and thought that the owner of the BMW convertible passing through downtown LA was Sang-hyun.

But Sang-hyun wasn’t in that car.

Standard was in it.

Paul Wattson wasn’t lying.

He really thought the BMW convertible belonged to Sang-hyun. Because when he saw Sang-hyun in Pasadena, Sang-hyun got out of a car with the same license plate as the car they saw.

It was bad luck for him that the license plate he saw at that time was similar to the middle three digits of Paul Wattson’s phone number, so he remembered it right away.

He didn’t know that Sang-hyun and Standard had the same type of car, and that they lived and worked together in the same studio to make albums.

Even if he knew, he wouldn’t have known that Sang-hyun, whose car had a problem, had borrowed Standard’s car to run errands in Pasadena.

As a result, they threatened Standard and caused an accident, but they mistakenly thought that the accident had happened to Sang-hyun.

That’s how the LAPD, who received Paul Wattson’s confession, called FiveSix’s label, H&R INC.

The Mutual Cooperation Department of H&R INC, upon receiving a call from the police, contacted the hospital pre-transportation agency to check the condition of the patient being transported and requested transportation to a nearby private hospital.

The next thing they did was to inform Haidel Raines and the Golden New Era team of the bad news.

Bad news that the patient was dying.

At first, Sang-hyun was confused by the news that he had been attacked by terrorists and was wandering between life and death, and that he was being transported to the hospital.

However, he soon realized through the circumstances that an accident had happened to Standard. Hearing the name Bell Force, he was also able to realize that the accident was originally aimed at him.

The Golden New Era members, who had almost arrived at the Staples Center, immediately turned their cars around and headed to the hospital.

Standard was a precious friend to them.

Jay Cole and Kendrick hadn’t spent that much time with Standard, but Standard was always a friend who prepared the canvas for the picture they wanted to draw.

A friend who never frowned at even the most difficult requests, and never showed any complaints even if the canvas he had prepared all night was not chosen.

In particular, Sang-hyun felt like he was going crazy.

Originally, Standard was a top producer who was actively working until the moment he returned.

So, originally, it meant that he would be very healthy for 20 years from now.

So he changed that future.

He gave Standard much faster and brighter glory, but perhaps that light could be extinguished more quickly.

‘Please. Please.’

Sang-hyun and the Golden New Era members rushed into the hospital with fervent prayers.

The surgery was in progress.

Haidel Raines arrived at the hospital.

He received a detailed report on the way to the hospital and learned where the misunderstanding had occurred.

The Mutual Cooperation Department of H&R INC received a call from the police and checked the patient’s condition, but did not confirm that the patient was FiveSix.

In fact, it would have been stranger to confirm.

It was an urgent situation where every minute and second counted, and the LAPD, who received Paul Wattson’s confession, contacted them using the word ‘FiveSix’ directly.

After that, the staff who arrived at the scene realized that the patient was not FiveSix but Standard, but nothing had changed.

It did not change that their affiliated musician was in danger of death, and the situation was much worse than they thought.

Therefore, when Haidel, who had been organizing the issues related to the Grammy celebration performance for a long time, asked ‘How is he?’, no one realized that Haidel’s ‘He’ meant FiveSix, not Standard.

This was because everyone’s minds had been filled with concern for Standard for over an hour.

Haidel couldn’t hide his heavy heart as he entered the hospital.

Because he was worried about Standard?

Of course, that was right. He was sincerely worried about Standard.

But what really weighed on his mind was what he had thought just ten minutes ago.

The moment Haidel heard that the person who had the accident and was wandering between life and death was not FiveSix but Standard, he unknowingly thought, ‘That’s a relief.’

Perhaps it was a sigh of relief that the feeling that something bad was going to happen to FiveSix had been proven untrue.

But what if that wasn’t the case, and he really thought differently about the weight of life that FiveSix and Standard had?

Haidel couldn’t shake off that assumption.

If so, it was a shameful thing.

It was something that had to be atoned for.

And atonement can only be done when the other person has a sound mind.

However, Haidel’s atonement was postponed day after day.

Because Standard did not regain consciousness for a very long time.

***

< Verse 44. The End > End