Chapter 1: The Signal Flare

–Hyung. You need to come to the dorm right now.

A heavy voice came through as soon as he answered.

Han Hoseong felt his heart sink.

At the same time, he thought, it was coming.

Things had been going too well lately.

There was no way his path ahead would be perfectly smooth.

“What happened?”

– Let’s talk when you get here. It’s hard to explain over the phone.

“Haeil, I need to know what it is before I can prepare myself.”

– I haven’t even figured it out myself. I can’t explain it. I just can’t.

The voice was all over the place.

He really wanted to know what was going on, but meeting in person would be easier in every way.

Han Hoseong swallowed a sigh and ended the call.

“Fine. I’ll come as soon as I finish up the shoot.”

What on earth had happened this time?

He both wanted to know and didn’t want to know.

The dorm, which had only been full of energy this year, was somehow gloomy.

The air was so thick it was hard to breathe the moment he stepped inside.

Han Hoseong took in the scene carefully.

Mun Haeil, Seol Yitae, and zenon were confronting one another.

“…”

No one said a word of greeting.

Hoseong found that ominous rather than disappointing.

The vague anxiety that had washed over him when he got the call seemed to have taken a clearer shape.

“And who the h*ll are you? Are you in league with these bastards?”

The harsh voice cut through the silence.

Hoseong turned to the owner and flinched.

The voice belonged to zenon.

But he didn’t look like the zenon he knew.

His eyes were blazing as if he were possessed.

The vicious expression, the fury radiating from him, all of it was unfamiliar.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Fck, I should be the one asking. Explain this properly. What the h*ll are you people? What did you do to me?”

zenon shouted.

It didn’t sound like the person who’d been told his voice was too quiet since debut.

Confused, Han Hoseong asked Seol Yitae, who stood nearby.

“What on earth happened?”

“…zenon tried to kill himself.”

“What?”

The truth was beyond anything he’d imagined.

Han Hoseong had guessed at most a slip of the tongue or an attitude controversy.

His head spun.

“Hyung!”

His legs went weak and he swayed.

If Seol Yitae hadn’t caught him quickly, he would have fallen.

“Are you okay? Don’t you need to lie down?”

“I’m fine now. More importantly, what about zenon? The suicide attempt… what did he… how could he…”

He couldn’t bring himself to ask for details.

All sorts of horrible images rose to mind.

Han Hoseong squeezed his eyes shut.

“Once I get out of here, none of you are safe. Get ready for civil and criminal lawsuits, you bastards!”

“Kim Jeguk! Please calm down. I know you’re going through a hard time, so I’ve been trying to hold back, but you’ve really crossed the line. Do you seriously not see who would be in trouble if you file a lawsuit now?”

“Shut up and call the police. If you want any leniency, that is.”

Mun Haeil was literally throwing his whole body into stopping him, but it wasn’t working.

zenon looked ready to kick the door open and run to the police station.

“I’m not Kim Jeguk! I don’t even know who Kim Jeguk is! If I’ve said this much, you bastards better understand!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll call you zenon. Now let go of my hand… ugh!”

“F*ck, I’m not zenon either!”

zenon kicked Mun Haeil in the shin without mercy, then raised his fist.

Seol Yitae and Han Hoseong joined in, but they couldn’t stop him.

He was like a mad dog attacking everything in sight.

Granted, he was so small that he looked like nothing more than a chihuahua or a Maltese.

But his temper was no weaker than a pit bull’s.

“…zenon is safe. As you can see.”

Seol Yitae said.

Han Hoseong didn’t know whether to count that as a blessing or just plain misfortune.

“Are you sure he’s really okay?”

“There don’t seem to be any physical problems. He hasn’t gotten a full examination yet.”

“No, I don’t mean his body…”

“Ah.”

Seol Yitae nodded like he understood.

Right then, with his arms pinched by Han Hoseong and Seol Yitae, and his back pressed down by Mun Haeil, zenon screamed.

“I’m perfectly sane!”

He was definitely not sane.

To everyone there, including Han Hoseong, it was practically a confession.

It was also the first signal of High Five’s ordeal.

The chaos finally ended.

Mun Haeil had blocked zenon’s mouth with his necktie.

But the problem wasn’t solved.

If anything, the real problem was just beginning.

zenon hadn’t calmed down; he’d only been forced into silence.

Even now, tied up in chains that had been prepared as filming props, he was glaring.

“I’d like to hear an explanation of the situation first.”

Han Hoseong spoke with a heavy voice.

He had no idea what was going on.

All he knew was that Kim Jeguk had attempted suicide.

He hoped the rest was more reassuring than that.

“I found him first.”

Seol Yitae spoke.

His face, already pale, was now white as paper.

He was clearly shaken by what he’d witnessed.

“zenon wouldn’t come out of his room. At first I thought he was catching up on sleep, but he didn’t get up even after six in the evening.”

“Mm.”

“So I opened the door…”

Seol Yitae wiped his face and went on.

“…There was a magic circle drawn on the floor.”

“A magic circle?”

Han Hoseong had been bracing himself for rope or box cutters.

His eyes went wide.

“Yeah. You know those geometric patterns you see in fantasy concept music videos?”

“Mm.”

“It was drawn there. And it was in blood…”

Mun Haeil added from the side, saying it was like a scene from a horror movie.

“zenon was lying in the middle of the circle. Blood was running from his wrist.”

Han Hoseong reflexively looked at zenon’s wrist.

The sleeve covered the back of his hand, so he couldn’t see the wound.

But he saw bloodstains speckled on his clothes.

He hadn’t noticed that before.

“I was so shocked I couldn’t even speak. I thought I was going to pass out standing there.”

“No, you screamed. Really loudly.”

“Did I? I can’t remember. I was too stunned…”

Seol Yitae pressed his temple as if the memory made his head ache.

Mun Haeil spoke for him.

“When I heard Seol Yitae scream, I ran over. I understood the situation right away. I was about to call 119, but then that guy’s eyes snapped open.”

“He got up like nothing was wrong and started raging. He kept asking where he was and why he’d suddenly gotten short.”

“When I told him, what are you talking about, you’ve been that height since you turned eighteen, he made a terrible face. Then he asked to see a mirror. I took him to the bathroom…”

“That’s when he went completely crazy. He kept saying he had become someone else.”

“After that… well. You saw the rest, hyung.”

That was the end of the witnesses’ accounts.

After listening, it seemed the two had only found him at the scene.

They didn’t know the detailed reason either.

“zenon kept shouting earlier that he isn’t Kim Jeguk. Could it be amnesia?”

Han Hoseong knew next to nothing about medicine.

But amnesia was a favorite subject in movies, dramas, and music videos, so he had a shallow understanding.

“Maybe the shock from the suicide attempt made him lose his memory and even forget who he was…”

“I was thinking that too. Yitae said it might be an identity disorder.”

“Or perhaps another hidden personality had awakened.”

Seol Yitae added the theory.

It was a way of thinking fitting for an idol working in an industry full of concepts.

The problem was that this wasn’t a concept, but reality.

“For now, let’s take him to a mental hospital.”

Han Hoseong insisted.

But both of the others hesitated.

“Hyung, that’s the standard approach, but… leaving everything else aside, how do we even get him there?”

“Mun Haeil is right. Do you think he’ll go on his own? Even if he does, he won’t sit still for counseling.”

“…True.”

Whether counseling or medication, it required his consent.

The thought made Han Hoseong’s mood sink even deeper.

It hadn’t been great to begin with, and now it was falling endlessly into the abyss.

“What do we do.”

Someone muttered.

It could have been Mun Haeil, or it could have been Seol Yitae.

They were all on the same boat named High Five, sharing the same crisis, so anyone might have been lost in despair.

Han Hoseong felt the same way, of course.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

The Vampire Who Conquered Every World

DramaFantasy

Read Now →
Not interested