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Chapter 166

“Hello.”

—Ah, you got the phone in one try today.

Kang Hyun-Sung seemed somewhat surprised that I answered his phone in his first try.

—You ignore my call for days usually, so I thought that would be the case this time again but I guess not.

“I answer when I’m not busy.”

—You’re not busy? Shouldn’t this be your busiest time?

“...I was on a walk.” His words hit right on the mark, so I had no excuse to make. It was true that right now should be the busiest time for me as it was decided that we would debut together in the third week of June.

—Can you debut in the third week of June?

“Yes, we told the agency and received the final confirmation. What about on your side?”

—We also confirmed our debut in the third week of June. I think the teaser will be released sometime this week.

“...We are also planning to release the teaser this weekend.”

—Our teasers would overlap first.

“Yes.” Meaningless conversations like this passed. What was important to me now was not to gauge each other’s progress before our debut; we already did enough of that in our last phone call. However, did Kang Hyun-Sung call me to talk about this again?

—Did you decide on the concept?

He kept trying to fish for more information.

—Did you get the studio and the director of the teaser?

I wondered what he would use this information for. Was he trying to follow the company we were planning to work with? It felt like a conversation between the first and second-place-ranked students in school during the exam period as they tried to gauge their competition.

Since I couldn’t go around in a circle like this, I didn’t answer Kang Hyun-Sung’s question and just began saying what I had to say, “Um...I came out for a walk and strayed a bit too far...”

—...What did you say?

“I went on a walk and walked...too far...”

—...So what?

Yeah, it was understandable that he would respond like this. He didn’t say this to mock me, but he really was genuinely asking me why I was telling him this.

“By any chance...do you want to pick me up?”

—...What?

I didn’t even know what I was saying, so I doubted Kang Hyung-Sung would know. He probably couldn’t catch the topic and flow of this conversation at all, since we were talking about the debut album, and I suddenly told him I came out for a walk and wanted him to pick me up because I went too far.

Honestly, I was well aware that I was not in my normal state of mind right now. Even before I answered the phone, my sense of judgment and thinking skills were already at rock bottom. Today was a very difficult day for me, and my body and mind were already completely exhausted. Right now, my mouth was just blabbering on its own by impulse.

—Did you drink or something? Aren’t you a minor?

Kang Hyun-Sung must seriously think I was drunk.

“I didn’t drink.”

—But why is the conversation flowing like this?

“...Um, that’s how far I walked. Can’t you just think of it like that?

—...You have no idea how much you’re talking without context, right?

“No...”

—...You know but you’re acting like that?

A random onlooker might think Kang Hyun-Sung and I were performing some kind of skit because of how bizarre our conversation was. When I became silent, Kang Hyun-Sung must have decided to give in and asked in a softer voice than before.

—Ha...So where are you?

“Sokcho.”

—...?

“It’s not all the way to Sokcho, but...I’m on a hill between the Seoul Yangyang Expressway. If you’re coming here, you have to put the address on a navigation app."

—...Are you filming a show right now?

“No.”

—...This makes...no sense...

I had never heard Kang Hyun-Sung’s voice so flustered, and my face felt as if it was going to burn in shame. I sounded insane to anyone right now. Who in the world would ask to come all the way to Sokcho after saying they walked a bit too far?

“Are you not able to come?”

—...Do you think I can?

“...Yeah, no.” There was no way anyone could come to Sokcho at this time. The answer was obvious if I thought of it for even a little bit. I wondered what I thought of Kang Hyun-Sung, and I tried to force myself out of my dazed state. I started to get a bit of my reasoning back.

‘For real...ha...this is driving me nuts.’ Now that I’ve regained some of my reasoning, I realized how ridiculous my actions were. Because I had been worried about calling Yeon-Hoon and I felt too bad to call Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna, I chose the worst possible option. Frankly, the more anxious one got, the worse choices one made.

“Um...in fact, everything I said was a lie.” Thus, I tried to fix the situation by saying the first excuse that came up in my head.

—I wish everything was a lie.

Kang Hyun-Sung must have noticed by now what happened to me.

—I can’t go all the way up to Sokcho. Well, there’s no reason for me to be sorry but...sorry.

“Why are you saying sorry when you have nothing to be sorry about then?”

—But don’t you usually call a cab in cases like that?

“Ah...!” My mind went blank for a moment when he told me to call a cab. My goodness. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this. I really must have been traumatized today, or did I hit my head too hard while fighting the truck driver?

—I’ll give you the driver’s number that I sometimes call. He’s a driver who does short or long distance or even places that don’t come up in navigation if you just give him money. He also drives for a lot of people in this industry, so he maintains the utmost secrecy.

“...Yes.”

—Come back to Seoul safely. I’ll end the call here.

Kang Hyun-Sung said and hung up the call. Immediately, I received a text from him.

—Secret call: 010-xxxx-xxxx

It was the taxi driver’s number. I stared at the number, and I felt embarrassed to death.

Sigh... I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this method. A strong sense of shame sprang forth in my heart. However, I decided to push off insulting myself as calling the taxi driver was higher priority.

*

The call taxi arrived. I thought he seemed like an unusual person from the very moment I called him. When I told him my current location and destination, he answered only the time it would take him to get there and the necessary expenses and immediately hung up. His strong will to not share any private conversations was clearly conveyed, and of course, I was very satisfied by his attitude.

After waiting for about an hour, the taxi really arrived. He was a taxi driver wearing sunglasses and a mask, and it felt like he valued privacy even more than me. Once I got into the car, he asked for my destination once more and immediately left.

‘I can see why Kang Hyun-Sung sometimes uses his service.’ There were often moments that needed to be kept secret while living as a celebrity, and due to the nature of our job, it was easy for people to recognize us, and we couldn’t act carelessly. Thus, this was a taxi service that could be used during those times. However, there was one problem.

“One million won. You can give it to me in cash right now.”

“Yes...” The price was insanely expensive. Upon entering Seoul, the taxi driver searched for the nearest ATM and stopped there before reaching my final destination. I supposed he didn’t drop me off at an ATM near my house because he didn’t want me to run off without paying. Thus, he dropped me off at a place where I couldn’t easily run off on my own.

It didn’t feel pleasant to be distrusted, but I thought, ‘He’s got a good system.’

I strangely liked that he seemed to be a reasonable person. I inserted my card and took out a million won from the ATM. Since I didn’t carelessly spend all my money, I still had some savings left.

‘But it’s still too much.’ It was crazy to use a million won for a single taxi ride. When I returned to the taxi and handed him 1 million won in cash, it was only then did the driver nodded and left. On my way, I got a bunch of calls from my members. Dong-Jun texted me, ‘are you ok—?’ and stopped and Woon and Do-Seung repeatedly sent out messages asking me where I was and if anything had happened. In particular, Yeon-Hoon kept calling me.

I answered the phone, thinking that I had finished taking out the money and sorted out the situation somewhat.

—Where are you Tae-Yoon? Shouldn’t you have come back before dinner? Do you know how worried we are about you? You’re not sick, right? Did you go to see anyone?

Yeon-Hoon bombarded me with questions, and I said, “No, it’s nothing like that. I\'m sorry. I was working on the lyrics, and I went out for a walk because I got stuck...and the walk took longer than I planned...”

—Who in the world goes on a walk all day!

“So I will...I’ll quickly return home.”

—Where are you now?

“Uh...Well...Seoul?”

—Where in Seoul?

“Um...I’m almost there! Then I’ll hang up.”

—Tae-Yoon! Tae-Yoon...

I one-sidedly hung up on Yeon-Hoon’s call. I thought it would be okay because I was within an hour from the dorm anyway. I looked out the car window and took a deep breath. I felt like I was returning to my normal life now that I was talking to my members on the phone and taking the taxi; but in fact, I was extremely tired both mentally and physically.

‘It’s not easy.’ I closed my eyes for a moment and organized my thoughts. I desperately needed time to calmly organize what happened today.

*

I took a short nap, and before I knew it, we had quickly arrived at our dorm. The time was 11:30 p.m. Although it went about 30 minutes over the time than I expected, I thought this was good enough since it wasn’t the next day yet.

“Thank you.”

“Get home safely.”

I exchanged standard greetings with the taxi driver and left the car. Since he dropped me off at the apartment entrance, I needed to walk to the dorm. When I walked towards the dorm, I saw a familiar figure.

“Oh...?”

“See who’s here. Bong Tae-Yoon is finally here.”

“Do-Seung?”

Do-Seung was standing in front of the apartment.

“What...why are you here?”

I wondered if he had been waiting for me here until I came back, but he said, “Oh, I came back from the gym. I have to go at night so that I can exercise alone.”

“Aha.” He had come back from a workout.

“So, how are the lyrics progressing? Was your long wandering worth it?” Do-Seung put his arm on my shoulder and asked.

Frankly, I had already finished the lyrics before I left and edited it later on. “Yes, I finished it.” However, I couldn’t say that, so I lied that the lyrics came out after a long walk.

“I’ll look forward to it. It better be good, considering how worried you made all of us.”

“You can look forward to it. It’s not bad.”

I got on the elevator with Do-Seung. We pressed on the floor where our dorm was, and the door soon closed.

While going up the elevator, Do-Seung suddenly said, “Oh, that’s right. I took a short nap after lunch today, and I had a strange dream.”

“What? What was it?” I wondered why he suddenly mentioned his dream, but the content of his dream sounded familiar.

“In my dream, we were preparing for our debut performance, and you suddenly disappeard.”

“...What?”

“I don’t know why you disappeared, but you were just gone. Anyway, we were shocked cause you suddenly disappeared on our debut day. We were angry and frustrated, but then, Yeon-Hoon, Woon, and Don-Jun suddenly all fell to the ground.”

I stared at Do-Seung with shock.

“And when I came to my senses...there was no one around.”

“...Do-Seung?”

“Yeah?”

The second regressor I met today had told me I had disappeared on our debut day. How did Do-Seung know that? I grabbed Do-Seung’s hand.

“...What are you doing?”

Paying no heed to his reaction, I used Insight.

Ziing—!

The world came to a standstill, and my thinking was accelerated. All the information in this space poured into my head one by one in real-time—how much tension force was on the elevator cable to hold us up, the materials of this space, and what height we were at now. Furthermore, I could hear Do-Seung’s inner thoughts.

—Why is he holding my hand all of a sudden...what’s going on...?

I hadn’t used Insight to hear thoughts like this. After using Insight several times, I realized a bit about the root of this power. The basis of this ability was literally the power to see through objects and people.

It was the power to see the essence beyond mere appearance, and what I was trying to see was the essence. I wanted to know what was the true nature of Do-Seung in front of me, and why Do-Seung had the memory of the second regressor. I planned to backtrack that process.