Idol of the Heavenly One - Chapter 70.1
When I nodded, silence settled between us.
Baek Jae-heon was staring straight at me. His eyes held a mix of curiosity and something like confusion.
“I never heard your name. But I remember your face.”
His voice was low and clear.
I drew in a sharp breath. He remembered my face? Even though I was the one who asked, a chill crept down my neck. The fact that my past self still remained in his memory filled me with both relief and fear.
Fear.
Yes, ever since I began living as Ji Myeong-hyeon, I have always felt happiness and fear side by side. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason, but maybe it was because if my past self still existed in this life, then perhaps I was not really living in my body, but borrowing someone else’s. If that was true, could I really call this my life? Would I eventually have to give it back? Those thoughts crawled down my spine like cold fingers.
I wanted to hear about my past self, yet at the same time, I didn’t. Like the bittersweet taste that lingers in the mouth, longing and fear mingled together. But Baek Jae-heon once said that he was afraid I might have forgotten him, that he hoped I was not the same man from before.
In truth, I felt the same. I was afraid that the person I had been back then would disappear from the world completely, that no one would remember even a trace of him. That fear was both sad and suffocating. Because right now, the only people who remembered my past life were the two of us. Yet I had forgotten the face and the name. So the only one who remembered me was Baek Jae-heon. That was terrifying, but also, in a small way, comforting.
“My past self was…”
When Baek Jae-heon cautiously began to speak, I quickly stopped him.
“Later.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me later.”
I wasn’t ready to hear it yet. I was afraid of the truth that might come out of his mouth. I wanted to live a little longer—just as Ji Myeong-hyeon.
Baek Jae-heon looked at me in silence for a moment, then nodded briefly.
“Alright. I’ll tell you whenever you want to hear it.”
I gave a faint, bitter smile and nodded back.
Now that the air between us had lightened a little, I decided it was time to head back to the dorm. I began to stand up—
“Huh?”
A woman was standing behind a utility pole, watching us. My heart dropped instantly. Thinking it might be someone in a gray hoodie, my pulse started racing before I could think. Before Baek Jae-heon could stop me, I jumped to my feet and ran toward her.
The woman hiding behind the pole froze at first. When I got close enough, she suddenly realized and tried to flee in panic, but it was too late. I reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Who are you?”
My breathing came out rough.
“I-I-I’m sorry!”
“I’m sorry!”
But to my shock, there weren’t one but two women hiding behind the pole. And up close, they both looked like high schoolers, maybe college freshmen at most. The tension drained out of me all at once. The anger and adrenaline vanished just as quickly as they had come.
I simply stared back and forth between the two of them. Then Baek Jae-heon hurried over to stand beside me.
“What’s going on?”
“They… they were watching us.”
The two students looked as pale as if they had been caught committing a crime.
“W-we weren’t following you or anything!”
“That’s right! We—we just happened to see you getting into a taxi!”
“Getting into a taxi?”
“Y-yes…”
I frowned. They said they saw us getting into a taxi, not getting out of one?
That meant they had been watching even before we got in, and had followed the taxi here. I was stunned. This wasn’t just fan enthusiasm. This was outright stalking.
I looked at Baek Jae-heon with eyes that asked, What should we do? But he only gestured for us to leave. That confused me even more. What? They literally followed us here in a taxi.
Even as I gave him a bewildered look, Baek Jae-heon simply took my hand and pulled me along, calling for another cab. In the end, I let go of the girl’s arm and followed him.
“Wait, those girls were straight-up stalking us…!”
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