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Chapter 56

Upon failure, Only One drops out of the show? I swiftly made calculations inside my head to decide whether it would be beneficial or not to carry out this mission. If Only One dropped out—

‘Isn’t that great for us?’ I thought this for a moment and wondered whether this was a mission I should fail in.

‘But The Showcase 2...without Only One.’ Frankly, the reason why The Showcase 2 was popular was because of Only One. The show used Kang Hyun-Sung, their golden boy, to garner attention and popularity from the very beginning and hit the jackpot. If anyone asked if the rest of us could fill the gap left behind the huge missing hole of Only One, I could easily answer, \'no\'.

No one had as many fans or fame as Only One. In short, they were a group we couldn’t throw away. Furthermore, the fact that they would drop out after coming out in episode 1 meant that this was no small problem.

‘The problem must be serious.’ Perhaps it may be a serious problem that led to a boycott of the program like last time.

‘...Did he go missing or something?’ Kang Hyun-Sung’s disappearance was a huge incident by itself.

‘I guess I have no choice but to...move directly again.’ I couldn’t help but stick my head into another group’s problem once again.

I said, “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“What?”

“Just go.”

“Why do you even ask?”

The members didn’t seem interested in me.

I added, “I probably won’t be able to come back for a long time.”

“Huh?”

“What the heck are you telling us that now?”

I replied, “My stomach really, really hurts, so just pretend like you don’t know.”

“Ah.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s something I didn’t really want to know, but thanks for telling us.”

I went outside with the excuse that my stomach hurt. I even changed my clothes because I thought I would get too much attention if I went out wearing my outfit. When the members asked why I was going to the bathroom after changing my clothes, I just replied that my stomach really, really hurt again. I just said anything on my mind, but the members nodded in deep understanding. I didn’t know what they understood, but I glossed over this matter because they accepted my excuse.

I wore a mask that I always carried around since the first episode aired. Since my makeup could be ruined, I tried not to wear a mask as much as possible, but I couldn’t do that this time. If I went around with this face, I would stick out like a sore thumb and would basically be screaming at everyone to look at me.

I went out of the studio and tried to assess the situation. First, I knew that Only One hadn’t arrived at the studio yet as when we went down for the rehearsal, I heard the staff members saying, ‘Is Only One not here yet?’ At that time, I thought they overslept or something and didn’t think too much of it, but I supposed it wasn’t something that could be easily overlooked.

I went outside while avoiding the staff and quickly used my phone. Bluebird app was the fastest way to get news about celebrities. If Kang Hyun-Sung had disappeared, there would definitely be messages about it.

The moment I turned on Bluebird to do a search, I realized—‘I don’t even need to do a search.’ A familiar name appeared on top of Bluebird’s real-time ranking.

—Kang Hyun-Sung hospitalized

I clicked on that keyword, and it already had hundreds of retweets.

—Fuck Kang Hyun-Sung hospitalized from exhaustion

It was a post with clear content and photo and showed a figure who appeared to be Kang Hyun-Sung lying on the emergency room bed while receiving an IV.

Reply: He’s Kang Hyun-Sung?

Reply: Fuck that’s crazy

Reply: Is he wearing a stage outfit?

Reply: I think that’s right. Today’s the 2nd round of The Showcase 2

People were saying all sorts of things while retweeting the photo of Kang Hyun-Sung receiving an IV. There were often cases in which celebrities got fluids because they were having a hard time with their schedules. However, it was not common to go around the internet with pictures taken like this. There were heaps of insults towards TH Entertainment agency, which Kang Hyun-Sung was part of, and there were also a lot of insults towards The Showcase 2 that they might have set an unreasonable schedule. Well, they were both right to some extent but—

‘It’s not to the extent of being hospitalized.’ I thought Only One’s schedule wouldn’t be packed enough to be hospitalized for exhaustion yet as they were probably going all-in on The Showcase 2 too. They probably had something else going on behind the scenes. I looked for the hospital shown in the picture. Judging by how he was wearing his outfit, he must have gone to the hospital after visiting the salon.

This meant that there was a high chance that it was a hospital near the studio, and geography-wise, there was only one hospital near us that also had an emergency room. Furthermore, the interior of the emergency room overlapped with the interior of the emergency room where Kang Hyun-Sung was lying in the picture. Since it was only about a 10-minute walk, there was nothing stopping me from going.

I didn’t think Kang Hyun-Sung would be calmly lying down in the emergency room. If Kang Hyun-Sung had been in the emergency room, the system wouldn’t have even given me a mission to go find Kang Hyun-Sung.

Although I had no idea what was going on yet, I thought, ‘I guess I’ll see when I get there.’

After all, It wasn’t like I could find out anything by just standing here.

* * *

I arrived at the hospital where I predicted Kang Hyun-Sung was. It was the main gate of the hospital just across the crosswalk, but I decided not to go there as I saw some suspicious-looking people wandering around the main gate. Seeing that they had a camera on their shoulders, I thought they might be a stalker fan. I didn’t want my picture taken while walking to the main gate and have it spread around online.

Instead, I went through the underground parking lot to go inside. Although I had to walk a bit more, I successfully entered the hospital. When I entered the emergency room, the space was quieter than I thought. In dramas, the emergency rooms were always so busy.

As soon as I said, “It’s very peaceful.”

“Patient incoming!” The doctors rushed out quickly.

...Maybe I raised another flag again. I looked around the bed and looked at where Kang Hyun-Sung might be. However, I couldn’t see Kang Hyun-Sung but another member from Only One.

“Mr. Tae-Yoon?” It was Only One’s maknae, Park Young-Ho.

“Ah, yes. Hello.” I awkwardly greeted Park Young-Ho, and he stared at me in disbelief.

“Um, why are you here...” It seemed as if he couldn’t understand why I was here. His reaction was understandable as there was no reason for a member from another group to come all the way to the emergency room to see their member.

It would be a pain to explain so instead of answering, I asked a question, “Where did Mr. Kang Hyun-Sung go?”

“Ah, he said he was going to the bathroom and went somewhere. I was just about to go look for him because he’s been gone for a while.”

“All right, I got it.”

“But Mr. Tae-Yoon, why are you—.”

“Let’s see each other in the studio later.”

“...?”

I left the emergency room, leaving behind Park Young-Ho in a baffled state.

While walking around the hospital lobby, I thought, ‘First, it’s true that Kang Hyun-Sung has disappeared.’

And it seems as if the other members hadn’t realized that yet and thought he was just in the bathroom for a little longer than usual.

‘I wonder where he went.’ I stood in the lobby and pondered. He was probably still inside the hospital; since stalker fans were walking around, he couldn’t carelessly move around. He probably went somewhere to organize his thoughts, using the bathroom as an excuse.

‘Hmm.’ A classic get-away place was the rooftop as people often organized their thoughts on rooftops in dramas. However, I wondered if Kang Hyun-Sung would do that. He probably looked for places where people didn’t often go to, so I first crossed off places like the rooftop and break rooms. After eliminating my choices one by one, the last remaining space I had was...

‘The prayer room.’ There was a prayer room inside the hospital. The prayer room and Kang Hyun-Sung—these words didn’t go along together very well, but it was the most likely option at this point.

‘Let’s try going.’

* * *

Kang Hyun-Sung sat in the corner of the prayer room and quietly recollected his breathing. The orange halogen light cast a dark shadow on top of his face. The IV fluids dripped one drop at a time and entered his body. He began to regain some of his vitality in an artificial manner, and a gentle hymn flowed out of the prayer room.

It was a space for hospital patients and their guardians, but Kang Hyun-Sung was currently using it alone. Although he was not religious, he liked spaces like the prayer room. It was a space where it felt like he could say anything and be allowed to let out his emotions completely. It was a magical space where everything felt like it could be healed just by entering its space.

Of course, Kang Hyun-Sung didn’t say anything; he wouldn’t burst into sobs and let out his emotions, or have the delusion that everything would be healed and restored in an instant.

However, he quite liked the space that created an atmosphere like that as he finally felt like he could breathe. There was about 30 minutes left until all the fluids would be injected into him. After 30 minutes passed, Kang Hyun-Sung had to head back to the stage. Kang Hyun-Sung firmly believed that the stage was his dream and life. He hadn’t doubted this for even a moment in the past few years but—

Sighhhh.

There were times when life and dreams could sometimes be overwhelming. Kang Hyun-Sung took deep breaths. The hymns that had been constantly flowing for the past few minutes stopped for a minute; there was probably a short delay during the repeated playback of the music. While a short moment of silence flowed into the prayer room—

Squeak—

The door opened and a figure entered his vision. He thought it might be Park Young-Ho or another Only One member. He was impressed that they found him so quickly but—

“You were here, senior.” A disgustingly big guy, way too big to be his group’s maknae, was in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

“...That should be my line...?”

Siren’s maknae, Bong Tae-Yoon stood in front of him.

* * *

My prediction was right. Kang Hyun-Sung was in the prayer room, and when I opened the prayer room’s door, I saw him sitting in the corner, taking deep breaths. Perhaps thanks to half of the fluids entering his body, the complexion on his face looked all right.

However, his current state looked so frail and contrary to his usual persona that I asked unintentionally, “What are you doing here?”

I knew that this wasn’t the appropriate question to ask a person who had gone into the prayer from a mental breakdown, but it came out intuitively.

“...That should be my line...?” Then Kang Hyun-Sung asked me the same question.

“Oh, that’s right.”

“What do you want?”

“Ah.” I looked for Kang Hyun-Sung because the system told me to, but once I found him, I realized that my behavior had been completely out of the norm. I thought I needed to make some kind of excuse and ended up saying, “Um, because I was worried?”

“What?”

I thought it was a ridiculous answer, even from my perspective. We had provoked each other and exchanged sharp words just on the stairs a few weeks ago. There was no way he was going to believe me.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that?” As expected, I knew he would say this. I stared at him without saying anything, and Kang Hyun-Sung also looked up at me.

“Aren’t you going to answer? Why are you here?”

At Kang Hyun-Sung’s following question, I just decided to be brazen. “...There’s no reason why I should tell you.”

Kang Hyun-Sung looked at me with an even more incredulous expression, and I acted even more shameless. If I retreated from here, the atmosphere would become extremely strange, so it should remain a mystery why I came here till the very end. I couldn’t tell him that I came here because the system told me a terrible catastrophe would happen if I didn’t come here to find him.

Kang Hyun-Sung continued to glare at me so that I would answer, but I confidently met his gaze while keeping my mouth firmly closed. A tedious staring contest lasted for a few minutes.

...This whole mission really was draining the life out of me.