Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

I could not come to my senses for a long while, but once the senior group’s stage began, I finally regained my composure. My ears, which had felt clogged, seemed to clear up at last. With my hearing back, the familiar sound of music flowed in. On stage at that moment was DAYN’s Wave.

Seungchan, the one who had spoken to me earlier, was dancing in a full three-piece suit without an inner shirt.

He said he had been active for four years since debut, and his outfit was bold. His body seemed to have grown a lot too. His tanned arms looked thick and muscular. Both in my past life and in this one, I had always been pale and skinny, so I envied that kind of masculine look.

After DAYN’s stage ended, other senior groups with many years of activity began performing one after another. It meant AAM was heading toward its finale.

“Uh…?”

Seungchan came back to the artist section after finishing his performance, but seeing our seats switched around left him looking a bit puzzled. I only dipped my head slightly to greet him. Just then, I felt a gaze from the side, but I deliberately ignored it.

“That…”

Even with the massive wall called Baek Jae-heon sitting right next to me, Seungchan seemed to want to talk to me. He leaned back, peeking around, but Baek Jae-heon straightened his back and blocked Seungchan’s line of sight entirely. It felt almost like a reversal of a company directive that had been to protect Baek Jae-heon.

Whether Jae-heon did it knowingly or not, I did not feel bad about it.

Time passed, and eventually our company’s most senior idols came on stage. Seeing them perform made me realize that the moment had finally come. Once this stage ended, AAM would close with all singers gathering together to sing one last song, after which the awards ceremony would be officially over.

All the idol groups, including ours, stood and clapped for the senior’s stage. When the performance finished and the MC announced the conclusion of the awards, all the idol groups began moving toward the center of the stage.

Baek Jae-heon stood still, blocking the path, as though waiting for DAYN’s group to all go ahead first. It was proper etiquette, but why did it feel so much like he was hiding me from Seungchan?

Could this be what people call “love cells”?

That thought suddenly popped into my head. Since I had never dated before, I wondered if this strange feeling was some kind of vicarious satisfaction directed at a fellow member.

“…”

Thinking about it, that might really be the case. After my body became young again, my dormant “love cells” could have been reawakened, but with nowhere else to go, they were being directed at a fellow member. Yes. That had to be it. Since it was my first time feeling this kind of emotion, I was simply projecting it onto someone I spent the most time with.

“Did you see Medusa? Why are you not going?”

Baek Jae-heon remained still until Seungchan finally left his seat last. Behind us, Go Hee-min, who was also blocked by him, stretched out his hand and pushed Jae-heon’s back, asking what he was doing.

Only then did Baek Jae-heon move forward. Having reached my own conclusion, I felt relieved. Smiling at Go Hee-min as if to say “good job,” I turned back, then froze.

Was it not that I was projecting onto just any fellow member…?

If Go Hee-min had done what Baek Jae-heon did earlier, how would I have felt? To be honest, I probably would have thought he was crazy. Or maybe, I would not have thought anything at all. I might just assume he wanted to switch seats with me, maybe because he wanted easier access to the restroom.

So, was appearance a major factor here?

It could be. Baek Jae-heon had a strangely beautiful yet masculine, handsome face that even men could not help but admire. Ah… that must be why I felt this vicarious fluttering only toward him.

That realization was actually a relief. If I had felt this tingling attraction toward Go Hee-min as well, then I might really be homosexual.

But those thoughts quickly faded when the weight of the ending awards hit me. Another matter filled my head.

What mattered now was not repeating the tragedy from my past life.

I walked toward the center of the stage with the three members who had exited from the other side. That was when a small problem arose. Our company’s senior idols were already in the very front, singing, and when they saw us coming, they gestured for us to come to their side, as if wanting to take care of their juniors. That made it hard to slip away unnoticed.

“Joo I-rip.”

“Huh?”

So, as we headed toward the seniors, I drew close to Joo I-rip, who was walking in front of me, and called to him from behind. There was no better excuse for slipping away than this.