Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

My activities were completely halted. And it was only after returning to my family home that I realized how many sounds I had been living surrounded by all this time. My life like this was so incredibly quiet and monotonous. In the space where the noise of the airport, the bustle of the backstage, and the voices rushing me to match the schedule had all disappeared, only the ceiling was looking down at me.

Both the fact that an overseas tour had been planned and the news that the schedule had been canceled entirely felt distant, as if it were a story that had nothing to do with me. As soon as I arrived at my family home, I went into my room and closed the door, and after that, I no longer counted how many days had passed. I had never resolved not to eat. I just didn’t feel the sensation of hunger, and I would simply stare blankly, then sleep whenever drowsiness came. Not long after opening my eyes, I would fall asleep again, and while inwardly surprised that such a thing was possible, I let the days pass.

My body was throbbing. It felt as if my whole body were creaking, as though I were suffering from growing pains. Yet, I didn’t know exactly where it hurt. When I was stabbed with a knife in the past, the physical pain was clear, but now, even though there wasn’t a single place where I was injured, my entire body ached as if it were throbbing. And back then, because the thought that I had to get well quickly and stand on stage again was clear, I had moved forward with recovery as my goal, promising my return to the stage. But now it is different. I don’t know where I should go. A terror for which I cannot accurately state the reason continuously remains inside my chest. When I thought of the stage, my heart would race, but it cooled down even faster. Rather than the thought that I must sing again, the imagination that I must stand before someone’s gaze again follows first. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, but it’s not that a desire to do it arises either. For the first time, I realized what it meant when people say the heart just isn’t in it.

My parents did not readily approach me. It wasn’t that they lacked worry, but they didn’t force me to stand up, nor did they urge me to eat. They seemed to have chosen the option of just leaving me alone until I grew exhausted. There were days when they would open the room door, open the curtains just once, and leave, and there were days when they would place food in front of the door and turn back without a word. Most of the food grew cold without even being touched. There were times when a thought of being sorry crossed my mind, but I couldn’t hold onto even that for long. It felt as if I had to save even the strength to feel guilt. So, I repeated the exact same routine every day. Sleeping, waking, sleeping again, resting, doing nothing. It was a lifestyle where no trace remained even after a day passed.

A message arrived from Baek Jae-heon once a day. [Did you make sure to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner well?] The content was always similar. Not asking me how my day was, but only leaving behind his own reassurance. I could feel his heart wanting me to just rest deeply without thinking about anything. Because I also didn’t have anything in particular to say, I just pressed a single smile reaction. A sign meaning I checked it, a signal that I am also doing well. Even while receiving only that smile day after day, Baek Jae-heon did not badger me. I was truly grateful for that quiet consideration.

I slept a lot. However, sleep did not become a complete rest. The moment I closed my eyes, the exact same dream repeated. The scene of being stabbed with a knife, the scene of someone chasing me with scissors, the sensation of suffocating, the feeling of a sense of terror spreading into my body even before blood. On some days, the person stabbing me could not be seen, and on some days, it was so vivid that even after waking up, the face was not forgotten. When I tried to run away, my legs would not listen to me, and even when I tried to scream, no sound came out of my throat. When I woke up, my heart was beating like crazy and my palms were drenched. If I fell asleep again in that state, the dream continued from the middle. It felt as if sleep had become a repeat playback button heading toward a nightmare rather than rest.

I deliberately did not look at articles. I didn’t look up fans’ reactions either. I kept my phone notifications mostly turned off and didn’t open search bars. Even so, the feeling of being chased seldom disappeared. Even though no one was looking for me, it always felt like someone was around. When the sound of the front door occurred, my heart flinched for no reason, and even at the sound of a car passing outside the window, my body froze first. Rationally, I know it is a safe space, but my body and mind were making a completely different judgment. That discrepancy was the hardest to endure.