Chapter 217
“Why? Is there something wrong?” Kang Hyun-Sung asked why I cut him off.
“Haa...” I sighed and fumbled my hands below the table. How is there a recorder? What kind of place was this café?
‘Moreover, why is nothing easy these days?’ I felt like the number of tiresome things I had to do these days increased. Perhaps, it couldn’t be helped since I was a regressor chosen by the system, but it felt like I couldn’t rest a day peacefully without something getting on my nerves.
“What are you doing? What are you looking for below the table...?” Seeing me move my hands below the table, Kang Hyun-Sung seemed to have caught what I was doing and closed his mouth. Then he mouthed the words.
—A recorder?
I nodded and then saw Kang Hyun-Sung’s face pass with slight dread. I wondered why he would feel such an intense emotion when I recalled, ‘Ah, he said this place was his friend’s café.’ I got an inkling of what led to this situation.
Tap. It was then I felt something made from plastic attached to the center backside of the table. I ripped it off and saw that it was a recorder just as I had expected.
‘It’s here.’ I surveyed the recorder’s model carefully. Seeing how there was nothing like an antenna or something similar on its exterior, it didn’t seem like it had the function to record and simultaneously transmit information to outside sources in real time. Yet, just in case, I took a picture of the machine and searched for the type of model it was. It was a device that only allowed simple recording as I expected.
“I think we can talk. It seems like it doesn’t simultaneously send out the recordings.”
“...Is that so.”
I looked to see if there were any other components attached to the recording device and found none. It seemed this recorder was an all-in-one device, and the only method to deal with it was to destroy it whole. I placed the recorder on the floor and stomped on it with all my might. Then, there was a loud, ‘crunch!’ and plastic debris scattered all over the floor. But just in case, I ground the remains with my foot, wrapped it with a napkin, and placed it into my pocket. With this, we escaped the recording crisis and the system told me of my mission success.
[Mission success]
[You successfully destroyed the recorder.]
Kang Hyun-Sung blankly stared at the space where the recorder was. Then, he quickly regained his composure and got up.
“Let’s go somewhere else.”
“Is there anywhere else to go?”
“Anywhere will be better than here.”
“If you don’t have a place in mind and just head out, it could cause a commotion.”
“I can borrow a rental car nearby. There won’t be any problems if we take out the black box memory.”
I supposed there was a way like that. It would be less comfortable than talking in the café but it was a good method.
“I will make the reservation first.”
While Kang Hyun-Sung rented a car with an app, I fumbled with the recorder debris in my pockets. I thought about what would’ve happened if our conversation had been recorded and released to the public.
First of all, since confidential information was leaked, our companies would raise a huge fuss. We would have to change the majority of our schedule and plans so that they would differ from the information released to the public and the cost of that would amount to more than a couple thousand and hundred-thousands of wons.
Furthermore, it wouldn’t help our image at all if it was leaked that we shared a conversation like this. It could make us appear sly or deceptive. Before my thoughts became more depressing, I said, “Let’s go.”
Besides, no matter how heavy my heart felt, it couldn’t compare to Kang Hyun-Sung. I followed Kang Hyun-Sung outside.
***
Kang Hyun-Sung’s rented car was near the café. Kang Hyun-Sung went to get the car while wearing a hat and a mask and I waited for him in the parking lot. Eventually, Kang Hyun-Sung arrived at the parking lot with the car and I got on it.
“Did you take out the Black Box memory?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I heard doing stuff like that could lead to problems.”
“They won’t open it up as long as we don’t have any accidents.”
With the car, we were about to make our way out when I saw the café owner running towards us. He was the man whom Kang Hyun-Sung greeted with his eyes before, and the man looked at us quite devastatedly.
“Hyung-Sung, could you come out for a bit, so....” The café owner was about to say something but Kang Hyun-Sung disinterestedly stepped on the gas pedal. Eventually, the car started, leaving the café owner behind.
The car smoothly zipped past the highways and Kang Hyun-Sung simply looked forward without saying anything.
“Are you all right?” I asked out of politeness.
“...Yeah, well,” Kang Hyun-Sung replied like he wanted me to keep asking questions.
‘Haa....’ I thought while looking at Kang Hyun-Sung. If I counted my time before the regression, this guy was younger than me. Thus, I thought I should talk to him like I was talking to a younger brother.
“Are you really okay?”
“...”
“Wasn’t he someone you were close to?”
“...Hm. Yes.”
“Then, I think it will be difficult for you to feel okay. Isn’t that right?”
“...”
I thought he should admit it at this point. His expression seemed to scream he was in pain but he was trying with all his might to not admit it. I wondered what he was trying to do. Then, Kang Hyun-Sung appeared to ponder for a long time before he opened his mouth.
“I’m fine since things like this happen often. I suppose it wasn’t meant to be a long-lasting relationship. I’m glad I was able to find that out fast and end it, so I’m grateful to you.”
I stared at Kang Hyun-Sung wordlessly. I thought it would be rude of me to ask more, but Kang Hyun-Sung was the one who continued.
“He wasn’t someone I knew from way back but someone I got to know while working as Yours. I went to his café often and he approached me asking if I was Yours’ Kang Hyun-Sung. After a couple of conversations like that, we became close,” Kang Hyung-Sung began to explain how he got close to the man.
“From that point on, we contacted each other from time to time. He even offered a space on the second floor if I had anything important to talk about. And today was the first time I used that second floor.”
I got the gist of the situation then.
“But he took that chance...to attach a recorder. How much would he get from the press if he sold the recording that he would act like this...seriously?” I murmured.
This seemed to be the common way celebrities lost connections. At some point, they kept finding their private information leaked to the public and after some search, they found that the culprit was among the people around them.
“I don’t know why all the people I meet after debuting are like this.” Kang Hyun-Sung’s face looked dark. I didn’t know Kang Hyun-Sung well, but in my past life, I had kept up with Only One news, and in my current life, I shared a couple of conversations with him. In short, although I couldn’t say I completely knew the man, I knew him to some degree.
Though the Kang Hyun-Sung I saw was cold and calculative, he was also the type to get lonely. He always put a distance between himself and people, that distance seemed to have been formed not by his own will but was a form of survival instinct of sorts to protect himself. Of course, this was the image I had of him through the screen and observing him from the side so it was hard to say how accurate it was.
I looked at Kang Hyun-Sung quietly. There were no comforting lines I could tell him. The only thing I could do was tell him the method I personally used.
“Just don’t make friends. Your members are enough.”
I didn’t have any friends besides my members. I thought I had some before but after not contacting them for so long, erasing my contact list, and not having a personal SNS account, they all eventually drifted away. Kang Hyun-Sung stared at me as if he was asking, ‘Do you really call that a consolation?
But these were my genuine feelings. I thought I might have sounded too cold and added, “Focus on relationships that will last forever and invest in them. That’s the real blue chip of life. In that sense, Only One members are the stocks of your lifetime. Even if they fall sometimes, they will rise again and you will be able to collect the dividends.”
Kang Hyun-Sung really stared at me like, ‘What is this bastard, for real?’ and smirked. I also expected him to laugh at me because of how silly my suggestion was. It seemed I really had no talent for comforting other people. Who else would compare building connections to investing in stocks? Yet, that was the only thing that came to my mind then. Kang Hyun-Sung began to aimlessly go through the highway.
“There’s a tablet PC behind there. Open it,” Kang Hyun-Sung said. I did as I was told. The files inside were Kang Hyun-Sung’s activities plan that he had planned to show me at the café. I slowly read through the files.
“...These are quite detailed.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Is it okay for you to show me this?”
“It’s what I thought on my own anyway, and I didn’t get a confirmation from the company yet. So, it could change anytime.”
“...Hm.”
“Well, I don’t think we would deviate too much from that general framework.”
I scanned the activities. A couple of activities overlapped with ours while some didn’t. Our side was probably not going to rest and keep working. We would probably keep coming out with new stuff until the end of the year, but since I didn’t need to reveal that, I kept my mouth sealed. Then, I moved the last page of the file and checked the content titled, ‘Goal of this Year’.
“Is getting the ‘Rookie of the Year’ your goal?”
“Yes, isn’t that natural?”
“I suppose so.”
“What about you?”
I thought about what I should say for a bit and said.
“The Grand Prize.”
“...?”
I just got right to the point. Since Kang Hyun-Sung was showing me all his cards, I thought it wasn’t right for me to hide either. Besides, even if I kept things a secret from him, I thought he would find out the truth somehow and bother me. Kang Hyun-Sung appeared surprised by my proclamation and put more force onto his grip on the steering wheel.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure there are already groups who have planned their activities with the Grand Prize as their target since the beginning of the year.”
“That’s why we are planning to continue working without rest.”
“Don’t you worry about overselling your image?”
“We plan to build up our image faster than it sells.”
“...Ha, seriously.” Kang Hyun-Sung looked at me baffled again. Then, he parked the car on the side of the road.
“What? Why are you parking the car?” I wondered if Kang Hyun-Sung parked the car to insult and mock me, asking if someone like me could get the Grand Prize. I knew it was unlikely, but I couldn’t help imagining something like that to happen.
“What in the world happened that you are acting like this?” Kang Hyun-Sung then suddenly asked.
“...Sorry?”
“I understand wanting to work hard at your job, but this is going too far.”
“...Hm?” I looked towards Kang Hyun-Sung. Kang Hyun-Sung wasn’t joking but was serious.
“You said you weren’t in it for the money, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then, is someone really chasing you with a knife from behind?”
“...”
“Is the company ordering you to do this?”
“...No.”
“So, you planned all this by yourself.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem like the person to work so hard on your own will. What sort of reason do you have for pushing yourself so much?”
How dare he say I wasn’t the type of person to work that hard? Though it annoyed me, I couldn’t retort because I knew it was true.
‘At the same time, it’s chilling.’
With just a couple of interactions, Kang Hyun-Seung managed to analyze me as a person and deduce what kind of situation I was in. Yet, I could never tell him that a system was trying to kill my team. I had no intention of mentioning anything even close to that.
But perhaps, it was because I had been lacking so much sleep these days or had grown comfortable with Kang Hyun-Sung—or maybe I just wanted to get this over with and go home, but I contemplated his question a bit more and replied, “...I have my circumstances.”
Kang Hyun-Sung looked at me like he was egging me to go on.
‘Ah.’ Seeing his gaze, I regained my senses.
“But I can’t really say it.”
Kang Hyun-Sung looked at me for a bit like he had a brain freeze. But what more could I say? I already said more than what I wanted to. Eventually, Kang Hyun-Sung laughed humorlessly and said, “All right.”
Then, he turned his head away from me, and I thought silence would fill the car when he said, “I don’t know what kind of pinch you are in, but...should I help you?”
“...Sorry?”
“I said I will help you—at least, if it’s something I can help.”
“I won’t tell you what my circumstances are even if you say that.”
“I have no intention of finding out. Just tell me if you need help and I will.” Kang Hyun-Sung turned his head back towards me again. I didn’t know what kind of expression I had on my face then but one thing was for sure.
‘...What is up with this bastard?’ My head went blank then, and I felt like Kang Hyun-Sung was acting out of character.
“Do you really not need my help?”
...This was a complete demolition of his original character.
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