Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

“……Are you really going to settle this with money?”

“I should.”

“……But from what I see, you shouldn’t pay him.”

His gaze fixed on me, as if asking why. A shadow fell over his eyes. Just talking about that man seemed to weigh him down with exhaustion.

“If you pay him, things will only get worse.”

“But if I don’t, he’s the kind of guy who will really spread the article.”

“Let him spread it.”

“If he does, my image will tank, and the team will get hurt.”

“There won’t be any damage.”

“Even if you say that, the other members…”

“The other members feel the same. There won’t be any damage.”

I couldn’t speak for everyone in the group, but there was one thing I was certain of. They would all feel the same way I did. Instead of thinking the team would suffer from Baek Jae-heon’s tarnished image, they would be more worried about how much the situation might break his confidence.

I spoke slowly.

“I might be in the same group with you for the first time, but the others aren’t. They’ve spent years with you.”

“They don’t know.”

“Of course they don’t. But look at the way you act.”

“What do you mean?”

“You act like you’ve already spent years with them.”

He didn’t answer, but his silence was an admission.

“They all feel it. That you look after them.”

I was certain of it. Everyone could feel that even if Baek Jae-heon acted indifferent or cold, he cared more deeply for the members than anyone else. He had been that way since the trainee days. He wanted to debut together, to stand on stage with good people. He filled in what others lacked, held them up when their resolve faltered, and became their pillar. Go Hee-min, Lee Soonbok, Kwon Ji-hak—there wasn’t a single exception. He bickered with Joo I-rip often, but that only showed how comfortable he felt with him.

“So don’t give in. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Baek Jae-heon stayed silent for a while. Then he let out a slow breath, and the shadow that had been cast over his face gradually faded. As if the weight he had carried for so long had suddenly lightened, the stiffness around his mouth relaxed. His expression softened, like the fatigue was finally beginning to lift. Just seeing that made my heart sink.

“……Then I’ll ask through our manager.”

The quiet words carried both resolve and consideration for others.

I blinked.

“You’ll ask through the manager?”

“Yeah. It might be too much pressure to ask them directly.”

Even now, Baek Jae-heon was thinking of the members. He wanted to go through the manager in case some of them didn’t have the courage to speak honestly. It was his way of making sure no awkward feelings lingered between anyone.

At that moment, a strange warmth rose in my throat.

‘……After living through four lives this hard, how can he still be like this?’

I quietly looked at him. He had lived with far heavier emotions than I ever had, despite being more than twenty years younger than me. He was the most unstable and yet the most tender-hearted person I had ever met. The pain and anger he had endured over four lifetimes, and the warmth he had managed to preserve through it all, were reflected so clearly in that expression.

I wondered what kind of person I had been to him in his past life. Back then, I wasn’t anyone special, so I doubted there was much worth remembering. Still, I was curious—whether he remembered my name, my face, or anything distinctive about me.

“What was I like back then?”

He answered without hesitation.

“An old man I wanted to see every day.”

The answer came so firmly, without even a pause for breath, that embarrassment welled up to my throat.

“……No, not that.”

“Not that?”

“Do you remember things like my name, or what I looked like?”

“Ah…”

Baek Jae-heon nodded, as if he quickly understood what I meant. Then he looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression and asked,

“Why? You don’t remember your name or face?”