Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

I had always been on stage, so looking up at the stage from below like this felt strange. Being in this spot felt unfamiliar. I stood in the front area slightly apart from the fans, flanked on both sides by the security team.

I thought it might be excessive, but if I did not do this, Baek Jae-heon would keep worrying. Even though we were still in a cold war, I did not want to let him feel anxious about potential dangers. After all, he knew I had taken a blade in his place, so he tended to worry more than usual.

“Ji Myeong-hyeon—”

I heard someone calling my name from behind. At first, I thought I had misheard, but the voice called out again, as if amplified through a megaphone.

“Ji Myeong-hyeon—!!!”

When I turned, I saw fans waving light sticks and their hands toward me. I was a little surprised. I had thought almost no one knew I would be here.

“You knew it was me?”

I shouted toward the back, and the fans nodded. When I shrugged my shoulders with a gesture that said ‘How?’ someone yelled loudly.

“You can tell even from the back of your head!”

Laughter broke out around me, and I laughed too. I waved my hand in greeting. The fans shouted even louder in response. Their reaction was so cute that I instinctively pulled out my phone and pointed the camera at them.

“Let’s take a picture together.”

I said it with my lips, and the fans started posing, hiding their faces, making peace signs, or resting their cheeks on their hands. It was so adorable that I kept laughing while taking the photos.

Looking at the pictures afterward felt strange. On the screen, I was in the audience, but behind me, YEARZ’s light sticks were still waving like a sea of waves. For a moment, it felt as if I were standing on stage.

“Hello—”

“Minute, hello—”

One by one, the members began appearing on stage. Simultaneously, the fans erupted in cheers. Joo I-rip waved to the fans and tested his microphone, speaking into it.

“Is it not too hot outside? We sent ice cream trucks. Did you eat?”

The fans replied loudly, “Yes—!!”

“Where is Cheonmyeong?”

Then Go Hee-min glanced toward the audience and spotted me. He must have heard that I would come to watch the stage. I raised my hand to indicate I was there, and Go Hee-min asked the fans, “Did you say hi to Cheonmyeong?”

The fans all shouted together, “Yes~!!” The members burst out laughing simultaneously. The fans were so cute. They were like kindergarten kids.

“They’re like little sparrows…”

Lee Soonbok’s comment made everyone on site laugh. I also laughed and looked back at the fans. Their eyes sparkled with excitement and joy. Their expressions were so endearing that I could not stop smiling.

“Let’s start the stage—”

At the staff’s signal, the members smiled and moved to their positions. Soon after, the lights changed, and the music began.

The bass reverberated through the entire stage. The intro started playing. Looking up from below, the sensation was unusual. I was always on that stage with the members, but now I was seeing it from underneath.

The members danced in sync, taking turns moving to the center, each time drawing cheers from the fans. The roar was audible even from above, but hearing it from below felt different.

Whenever the lights flashed across each member, the stage seemed to come alive. I held my breath for a moment, watching.

Was it always this cool?

Performing the same choreography, the same setlist, on the same stage every day, I had always thought of it as just my job. I had to work hard, be perfect, and avoid mistakes. That was always the priority.

But today, watching as an audience member… it felt completely different. The members were not simply hardworking performers. They were people who wanted to be on stage. Their joy while dancing, the expressions hoping this joy would last—they were so vivid. And within that, there was clearly happiness.

These were expressions I had overlooked, seeing the stage as merely a duty and thinking I only needed to make the fans happy. Perhaps it was only now that I was truly seeing what it meant to be an idol.