Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

When I opened the front door of the dorm, the members scattered into their rooms, exhausted. Everyone shut their doors without a word, and in the living room only Baek Jae-heon and I were left. Because we were roommates, even at times like this we had no choice but to face each other.

That went for me as much as it did for him.

As soon as I entered the room, I shut the door. Baek Jae-heon was sitting on the bed as usual, his bag still unpacked, sipping a mouthful of water. Under the dim glow of the bedside lamp, his face looked strangely calm.

“Baek Jae-heon.”

My voice slipped out before my will could stop it.

“How… how did you know to come down there?”

Baek Jae-heon lifted his head. His gaze did not waver. On the contrary, it was steady, as though he were quietly observing my urgency.

“What about it?”

His answer was short. He spoke as if there was nothing remarkable about it at all.

“You blocked the switch room door. How did you know?”

In the end, I poured out the question I had been holding back. I kept my voice as low as possible, but I could not keep the impatience from seeping through.

“……”

He stared straight into my eyes for a while, then slowly curved his lips into a faint smile. But it was not a lighthearted smile. If anything, it carried a guarded edge, as though concealing something.

“Why were you there?”

His sharp gaze swept over me. For a moment my throat closed up, but I forced myself to appear calm and opened my mouth.

“I asked first.”

Even I knew how childish that sounded. Yet it was the only answer I could give. How could I possibly say something like, “Do you also remember your past life?” The suspicion was there, but I could not be the first to put it into words.

Because suspicion was still only suspicion.

If I got carried away and started talking about past lives, and the response I got was, “Are you out of your mind?” then I would really be finished. The executives had already come down on me hard earlier, while Baek Jae-heon had not been criticized at all. That alone showed how absolute his presence was within this team. The group’s very identity was tied to him, to the point where it was possible the team had been built around him from the start.

Which meant that even if I was ninety-nine percent certain, the one percent of uncertainty could ruin me. So if Baek Jae-heon really did know something, I had to make sure he was the one to say it first.

“You ran off wearing my clothes.”

“Then you could have just let me go. But instead you came right after me, and even chased me all the way down to the station, and blocked the switch room door on top of that…!”

“Myeong-hyeon.”

His low, solid voice cut me off.

“I don’t know what kind of answer you want to hear, but think about it carefully. You disappeared in the middle of the ending. You secretly took my clothes and went to the subway station.”

“……”

“I thought it was strange, so I followed. I wondered if you might be sneaking off to meet a girlfriend, so I called out to stop you. But then there was an explosion inside the station, and you ran straight in.”

He spoke calmly, as though everything had been nothing more than coincidence.

“Would you not have followed, if it were you?”

“I can accept that much. But the switch room door—!”

I pressed on relentlessly.

“Did you forget? You shouted. You said the door must not be opened.”

There was not a flicker in his voice.

“You reacted like that just from hearing me shout? Without knowing anything else?”

The way he parried everything so smoothly almost made me wonder if he truly remembered nothing of a past life, if maybe he had really just followed me and acted on impulse. Thinking about it that way, it almost made sense.

“And you—”

His voice dropped low and spread through the room.

“How were you there?”

But at that question, I immediately sensed that what he had said earlier was a lie. The contradiction was too clear.

He had claimed he only followed me because I looked suspicious. But if that were true, he would not have asked how I ended up there. He would have asked what I was doing there.

Baek Jae-heon knew what was going to happen. That was why, even before entering the station, he had shouted my name without hesitation in that crowded place. “Ji Myeong-hyeon!”

Given his usual personality, if he had really thought I was sneaking off to meet a girlfriend, he would not have gone so far as to follow me.

He must have known that a fire would break out, and tried to stop it. He must have been startled to see me move first, and so chased after me. He had probably already sensed that I knew something. And even so, despite the fact that he could have told me, he kept his mouth shut.

Why?

Did he want me to speak first? No, that was not it. I had already made it obvious enough that I wanted him to speak first, but he had drawn a line, saying, “I don’t know what kind of answer you want to hear.” That clearly meant he had no intention of telling me.

If that was the case, then neither would I.

I slowly lifted my head and met his eyes straight on. With the calmest expression I could manage, I spoke.

“To meet a girlfriend.”

Short and firm, I made it clear that I too had no intention of saying more.

His expression froze. His gaze wavered slightly, and his lips pressed tightly together, as though caught off guard by an answer he had not expected.

Seeing that reaction, I let out a small laugh. Inside I was still tangled up in confusion, but at least this time it felt like I had taken the upper hand.

“If you are curious, keep asking.”

Baek Jae-heon said nothing. He only watched me with eyes that had grown subtly sharper. And yet, that silence spoke volumes more than words ever could.