Idol of the Heavenly One - Chapter 62.1
I wanted to tell him the same thing. That it was a relief. I didn’t know exactly what Baek Jae-heon meant when he said “I’m glad,” but I wanted to say it too.
That I was glad he grew up well.
Of course, I didn’t know how Baek Jae-heon had grown up. I didn’t judge his family just because he stayed at the dorm instead of going home for New Year’s. I’d heard that even within D4PR, our senior group in the same agency, three of their members were foreigners who spent holidays alone at the dorm. Maybe Baek Jae-heon’s family lived abroad, which was why he stayed behind. So it wasn’t a pity that made me feel grateful for him.
‘Not yet… there’s still a year left, so why…’
I was certain yesterday. Baek Jae-heon had been reincarnated like me. When I first saw his stage gestures and sense that didn’t seem like a rookie’s, I thought he had simply been born for this line of work. But the way he had chased me down after our ending stage at Arena Station, before it even finished, the way he pushed past the manager and came running into the station still in his stage costume, blocking the electrical room door at the exact moment—those weren’t things someone could do unless they had lived through them before.
And what happened yesterday confirmed it completely.
It wasn’t the reaction of someone who’d never experienced it. Baek Jae-heon had not been born as a completely new person like me. He had been reborn exactly as “Baek Jae-heon of YEARZ.” When I was reborn, I started a life that was entirely new to me. So how was he able to choose to be born again as himself? Then again, the very act of reincarnation itself is already a mystery.
Anyway, the fact that Baek Jae-heon was living the same life again, even while feeling fear after seeing that woman yesterday, yet still choosing not to give up his dream and to become part of YEARZ again—it made me proud. And I’m grateful.
But I couldn’t say that to him directly. For some reason, Baek Jae-heon seemed to both want to hear from me that I had really been reincarnated and not want to hear it at the same time.
Even so, I needed to know what would happen to him in the future. That was the only way I could prevent whatever it was that had frightened him yesterday from happening again. I needed to figure out how to talk about our past lives without making him feel burdened.
“Get some sleep.”
“Huh?”
“Your eyes are bloodshot.”
I must have looked exhausted after a sleepless night full of thoughts. Hearing that made the fatigue hit me all at once. And since I was in my parents’ home, I felt oddly safe. It seemed like if I closed my eyes now, I could fall into a deep sleep.
“Let’s sleep together.”
“Together?”
“Yeah. Sleep next to me.”
I wanted him to lie down beside me. Just like earlier, when he’d peacefully slept in my father’s car. I wanted us to lie down together in a safe place and worry about nothing more than trivial things, like what we would eat next. I just wanted him to rest well.
“…Alright. Let’s do that.”
‘Mister.’
‘……’
‘Mister…!’
‘Huh?’
I slowly opened my eyes at the sound of a child’s voice that didn’t feel unfamiliar. The sky before me was painted in sunset colors. Shades of red and orange bled together, spreading across the horizon. The shadow of an old elementary school building stretched long across the ground.
Once again, I was sitting in a worn plastic chair in front of a stationery store. And beside me sat that same child, as if the dream I had been seeing had simply continued from before.
‘What’s this teddy bear?’
The child’s gaze was fixed on the small plush keychain hanging from my bag.
‘Oh, this? That’s Moongbaek.’
‘Moongbaek?’
‘Yeah. Do you want it?’
The child’s eyes widened in surprise, and he looked up at me with a sparkle in his eyes. Then he nodded cautiously and asked,
‘…Really?’
I smiled faintly. I reached out and unhooked the Moongbaek plush from my heavy leather bag, pressing it gently into his small hands. The moment I did, his face lit up.
His big eyes sparkled in awe, as if he had just received a gift he could hardly believe. He kept looking between Moongbaek and me over and over. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his lips.
‘Moongbaek is so cute…’
‘Right? He’s my favorite character.’
‘…But is it really okay for me to have it?’
‘Yeah. I have a hundred of them at home.’
I said it with a playful grin, though in truth, it wasn’t a hundred but probably a thousand. My small room had been filled wall-to-wall with Moongbaek dolls. The child, hearing that, looked even more amazed. With his small fingertips, he carefully stroked the plush.
‘I’ve never gotten a present before…!’
‘Really?’
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