Chapter 5: The First Concert

Jun kept talking after that.

Thanks to him, Seo Ye-jun learned that the person in the bed next to Jun’s mother had been discharged and the new patient was a student, and that she spent her days chatting with the woman in the bed in front.

The call he thought would end soon dragged on, and Ye-jun, who had tried to pretend he hadn’t heard and go back to sleep, never managed to fall asleep.

He was definitely not the type who couldn’t sleep because of noise around him, but for some reason his ears only grew sharper.

“I’m sorry I can’t visit the hospital often. …No, I miss you, Mom.”

His head slowly dropped.

The words ‘I miss you’ echoed in his ears.

It was a voice that didn’t suit the word complaining.

There was no more speaking, as if the call had ended.

And after that, faint sounds of crying began.

He covered his mouth and clenched his teeth so hard that even though he was crying so close, the sound was completely stifled.

If not for the very small sound of him gasping for breath, Ye-jun wouldn’t have known he was crying.

In the end, Ye-jun got up from bed.

Like someone who had just woken up, he mechanically rubbed his eyes and set his feet on the floor.

The moment he did, the soft sobbing stopped.

The sight of Jun swallowing the sound so quickly made Ye-jun’s heart ache, so he roughly tousled his hair and sat down next to him.

“…What are you doing?”

“I just couldn’t sleep.”

Jun didn’t look surprised at all.

His expression calmed in an instant, and Ye-jun narrowed his eyes in the dark.

He had been crying so hard just moments ago.

Jun must have felt the tears in his own voice; Ye-jun could sense him swallowing slightly.

“Go inside and sleep. You have a busy morning.”

Hearing the choked voice, Jun calmly lowered the phone in his hand, hid it slightly behind him, and smiled his usual square smile.

“I was just about to go in.”

Then he slowly went into his room and closed the door.

Come to think of it, in all the years they’d promoted up to their fifth anniversary, he had never seen Jun’s mother.

Except for the day their debut was confirmed, when she came once during their last broadcast holding a bouquet.

Which meant he had never heard a phone call like this before either.

He hadn’t even seen her at Jun’s graduation.

None of the members cared much about each other’s parents, so he hadn’t thought much of it.

Considering how Jun usually acted cute with his hyungs, it was definitely strange.

Ye-jun limply moved his body from the sofa back onto the bed.

How old was Jun this year again?

Ye-jun blinked slowly and thought.

Ah, nineteen.

He still carried his student ID more often than his resident registration card.

Hospital, recovery, discharge.

In the dark living room, the clock’s second hand ticked slowly and steadily.

Because it was the day of the rehearsal, when condition mattered most, Ye-jun forced himself to sleep.

He arrived at the concert hall early in the morning for rehearsal.

Ye-jun, who had been half-heartedly flipping through a boring magazine in the waiting room, turned his head.

“You ate ramen last night before bed, didn’t you?”

The manager was turning Jun’s face this way and that, scolding him.

The manager, who had been diligently checking only Ha-hyeon’s condition, was suddenly scolding the wrong kid, so of course attention turned that way.

“It’s a good thing today is just rehearsal, with your eyes swollen like that.”

“Ah… is it that obvious?”

“Very obvious. Did you eat it alone?”

“Yeah… I was too hungry.”

Jun smiled sheepishly and admitted his fault.

At his still bright face, the manager couldn’t say more and just laughed it off.

“You absolutely can’t eat today.”

The manager slightly raised a fist in warning.

“Ye-jun. You keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t eat anything tonight.”

“Okay.”

Ye-jun answered half-heartedly and closed the magazine.

Eat what?

His eyes were swollen from crying.

Jun wasn’t immature enough to boil ramen alone late at night right before a concert.

Even when he complained about hard times, it was always just talk, and once it came down to the real thing, he pulled it off no matter what.

Besides, there was no way Ye-jun, sleeping in the living room, wouldn’t have known if he boiled ramen.

“Are you okay? Has your fever gone down?”

“Yes. They said it’s a low-grade fever.”

Ye-jun, who had been lost in thought, turned his head in surprise at the sound of the manager and Ha-hyeon talking.

‘Why did Ha-hyeon have a low-grade fever?’

It was a strange thing to say, but to Ye-jun it was a natural question.

During the past two concerts, Ha-hyeon had been sick.

So sick that he collapsed as soon as he came offstage after finishing.

On rehearsal day, he had definitely been burning up with fever and should have gone back to the dorm after only a little while, but now Ha-hyeon looked relatively fine.

“I took medicine yesterday and slept well, so I’m okay.”

No, you weren’t in a state where sleeping well would make you okay.

Ye-jun frowned slightly and seriously wondered.

‘Would medicine work better if I put it in his mouth?’

For their first concert, main dancer Ha-hyeon’s poor condition was a major event.

It caused such an uproar among fans that it properly instilled vigilance about condition management in everyone.

During the last regression, everything flowed the same way.

No matter what Ye-jun did in between, the major events didn’t change, and he walked through his first life exactly as if it had been decided.

But then that suddenly changed.

“You were dying until yesterday. Are you okay?”

“I’m alive now.”

Hwi-young naturally put his arm over Ha-hyeon’s shoulder and sat next to him.

“Let’s post a photo on the official fan cafe.”

Then they leaned close together and started taking selfies.

Ha-hyeon was seriously bad at selfies, so Hwi-young usually held the phone.

They had no overlapping tastes or hobbies, but just because they were the same age, Ha-hyeon and Hwi-young had grown close.

Hwi-young, who used to be so shy he couldn’t even speak to other idols first, now naturally initiated skinship.

Still, for now, their friendship seemed like one where the awkwardness hadn’t fully faded.

In four years they would seem like true ten-year friends.

It was nice to see them being warm with each other after so long, so Ye-jun pushed aside his various thoughts and looked at the two fondly.

Well, as long as they were healthy, that was enough.

“We’re starting rehearsal.”

They each dressed comfortably in casual clothes and began rehearsal.

They checked and adjusted their movements one last time, and it went more smoothly than expected.

There really seemed to be a big difference depending on whether a member with poor condition was present or not.

Ye-jun was originally a leader who didn’t step forward much.

The members had chosen him as leader simply because he had the most money and was the oldest, and usually he played the role of clapping when the younger members decided something.

But this time, he stepped forward and took the lead in checking and revising the formations.

It was because doing this for nearly ten years had given him a sense of responsibility.

“Try running to the front. Can you get there before your part?”

“If I run at full speed.”

“Just stop around the middle, and when the intro starts, walk all the way to the front.”

Mixed in among the rookies in their first year since debut, Ye-jun instantly transformed into the brain.

With his experience, decent ideas popped out one after another, and the members were busy following his instructions and adjusting.

“Ye-jun hyung has been weird lately.”

“Right. Like someone who has lived a whole life alone…”

“A few days ago, he was smiling while watching you and Jun play games.”

“…”

Ye-jun had sharp ears, but unfortunately he couldn’t hear what the members were gathered around talking about.

Watching his back as he actively discussed stage equipment with the staff, the members took turns making awkward expressions.

He finally seemed like a leader… but because he seemed like a leader, it was strange.

“Thank you for coming. I hope you enjoy yourselves.”

About twenty thousand people waved light sticks all over the large concert hall.

Looking at the fragile intensity of the lights that seemed about to go out, Ye-jun missed the official light stick that had only come out around their second debut anniversary.

It was a design chosen through a contest fans participated in, and it was so pretty it became famous even among other fandoms.

But what fans were waving in front of him now was a fragile stick that looked like it would break at any moment.

Fifteen songs, from the short intro to the ending song.

Since he was the only rapper in the group, Ye-jun had a lot of parts.

Without stopping, he looked at the mass of light surrounding the stage and kicked off the start of a journey that would last over three hours.

Ye-jun was perfectly specialized for concerts.

How to dance while rapping, how to gather his breathing in his center and breathe stably, how to endure the heat of the hot lights and handle live vocals excellently.

The skills that couldn’t be bought even with money were already stored in his body through countless experiences.

They said even mountains and rivers change in ten years, so there was no way a person wouldn’t change.

With three songs left, Ye-jun looked around the concert hall once.

It was the same space as the fifth-anniversary concert hall where that damn regression kept happening.

It was smaller because construction hadn’t been done yet, but aside from that, everything was the same.

The only thing different was the time.

“Ye-jun! Why are you so good today! You should be an idol for life!”

Just before the members’ comments, a fan in the front row threw out a personal comment.

It was something he could have ignored, but Ye-jun naturally took the microphone.

For a moment he almost called out the fandom name, then realized it hadn’t been decided yet and swallowed it back down his throat.

“I’ll keep standing here for twenty, thirty more years, so don’t worry.”

Tossing out lengths of time that didn’t suit a first-year idol’s mouth, Ye-jun turned around and went down from the stage.

Not long after, he came back up with the final songs.

“Get home safely.”

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