Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

It was closer to the kind of noise I did not want to hear. Who would wake me up from such a rare deep sleep like this?

“…Haa.”

I forced my heavy eyelids open and looked toward the direction of the sound. Whoever it was, their voice was so powerful that it rang through my body.

“Ji Cheonmyeong! The Abyss is waiting for your soul!”

There stood a man in a black robe and a hat, holding an old book.

“…Who are you?”

“The time has come! You must follow me now!”

Was this a movie shoot? A drama? Or was someone filming a hidden camera prank on me?

Who on earth was that? My eyelids were so heavy that it was hard to keep them open. I rubbed my face roughly with both hands and tried to focus my eyes again.

“…A grim reaper?”

What I saw was the very image of the grim reaper we usually know.

“…Is this self-content?”

But if it was exactly the stereotypical image of a grim reaper, then it could not be a real one.

Most likely it was makeup for filming. The only way they could come all the way into the dorm to film was if it was for our own content. Ah, so that was why the manager hyung told us to definitely stay in the dorm yesterday.

“You, you there! The river beyond has been waiting for you for so long!”

He must have been flustered, I guessed right. He stuttered, which was funny, but I was in no mood to laugh. I was just far too tired.

“What time is it?”

Since the room was still dark, it seemed to be dawn. Come to think of it, if they were calling out like this, what about Baek Jae-heon? I rubbed my eyes and turned my head toward the bed across from me.

“……”

On the other bed, Baek Jae-heon was fast asleep, but that was strange. With how sensitive he was, if someone shouted in the room, he would normally wake up immediately. Yet he was still asleep?

“Baek Jae-heon.”

I called to him, still sitting on my bed.

“……”

There was no response. Normally, Jae-heon was also a light sleeper. If I woke up and stumbled around, he would wake too, and if Joo I-rip or Kwon Ji-hak got noisy in the van, he would immediately tell them to quiet down. But even with someone yelling like that, he was not waking up?

“Jae-heon.”

“……”

That meant Baek Jae-heon was also in on this filming.

I wanted to say, “I know you are not really asleep,” but then it would not be entertaining for the broadcast. So instead, I got up slowly and walked toward his bed.

The person playing the grim reaper looked startled when I approached Jae-heon, but when our eyes met, he quickly pretended nothing was wrong, which I found amusing.

“Asleep?”

I sat down on Jae-heon’s bed and gently shook his chest with my hand. But when did he work out like this? His chest muscles were so firm that it did not feel like the body of a high school student. I really needed to start going to the gym myself.

“Jae-heon, they say I am going to die.”

“……”

“So I have one last thing I want to ask you.”

“……”

Jae-heon’s body flinched slightly. As expected, he was also taking part in this hidden camera prank. But when had he gotten up earlier to join in on this?

Either way, I had to use this chance so that misunderstandings about my relationship with Jae-heon did not grow worse.

Jae-heon had said the videos fans posted were about pairing him and me together, but if I thought about it, they were not entirely wrong. Fans would take clips of us looking awkward, then put them together with coincidental moments where we looked close, and call it a “hate-ship.” But to people who did not see it that way, Jae-heon and I just looked like members who did not get along.

“…You.”

So I had to use this opportunity to erase even a little of that suspicion.

“You really are on your second life, aren’t you?”

“……”

“You debuted in your past life, didn’t you?”

“……”

“You are a recycled rookie, right.”

I leaned close to his face and whispered with a chuckle, like I knew full well he was playing along with the prank.

By joking like this, I hoped fans would see us as at least a little closer.

Haa—

At my joke, as if he understood everything, Jae-heon gave a disbelieving smile and opened his eyes. But then.

“……”

Oh no, the distance was far closer than I had expected.

Jae-heon and I were staring at each other with only a hand’s breadth of space between us, and without realizing, yesterday’s memory came back to me. My gaze drifted down toward Jae-heon’s lips.