Debut or Die-Chapter 234
Bae Sejin stared at his smartphone with hollow eyes.
Most of the deliberately anxiety-stoking articles had been pulled down by the company.
Or at least the company claimed so, but Bae Sejin thought differently.
They’re just done milking it ’cause it’s climbed as high as it’ll go.
Since the company had completely stifled any insider details about the accident, there was nothing left for the press to chew on, so the articles faded away.
Right now the company was desperately blocking any mention of the former manager in the media.
In the end, the story was reported simply as an accident caused by the negligence of a soon-to-retire former manager.
This is bullshit.
Bae Sejin clenched his fist.
After some members pressed the staff relentlessly, they’d learned the route the former manager had used to enter.
The event company hadn’t been told the manager had changed... they assumed he was on another assignment that day and let him through.
So part of the blame lay with the company for failing to notify the involved parties that they’d fired the previous manager in time.
Bae Sejin intuited that the company, knowing this, was now scrambling even at headquarters to muzzle the press.
They were being slammed everywhere for lax oversight of their staff.
The clearer the facts became, the more devastating the blow would be—so they were stalling until the uproar died down.
They should be focusing on Park Mundae’s recovery instead of wasting time on this.
He didn’t expect much.
Had some members not rebelled so fiercely, they’d already be talking about carrying on with six members.
Disgusting.
Bae Sejin covered his mouth. He was thoroughly sick of this petty capitalist view that treated the group as mere business assets.
They behaved as if the safety of their own artists’ schedules didn’t concern them.
He’d grown up seeing it so often it was nauseating.
Accidents like this happened in the industry every day.
If you strip away that hollow sense of legitimacy they claim inside the system, they’re no different from his old agency.
Bae Sejin pressed so hard on his covered hand that it went white.
I need to find a better agency.
There must be one run by decent people who still value humanity.
He had to do it.
If I can just hold on three more years...
His thoughts threatened to spiral into the void, but he pulled himself back.
He thought of Park Mundae.
Still not awakened.
Bae Sejin’s hand fell from his mouth. His eyes gleamed.
I’ll do it.
He opened his smartphone to check a contact, took a deep breath, and began composing an email.
His hand trembled.
But I’m the only one who can do this!
He bit down and hit Send.
Was it the right move? He didn’t know. But it felt right.
He sat back down with a sigh and fiddled with the hamster-patterned phone case a fan had given him, trying to steady himself.
Just then—
♫♪♩~ ♫♫♪♪♩
He jumped at the ringtone.
He frantically checked the caller ID.
Seon Ah-hyun’s little brother.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he answered.
Yeah, what’s up...
A chorus of excited voices burst through the line.
...
Trying to stay calm, Bae Sejin froze when he grasped the full meaning of what they were saying.
Wait, hold on—just a sec...!
He stammered, unable to finish, and bolted out of the conference room.
His heart pounded.
After activating Nectar (S),
His vision went white, and he found himself drifting in an empty, blank void.
Or rather than drifting, he felt as if he were being sucked into something.
The opposite of when he’d first entered the dream.
Back then everything had turned pitch black.
Let’s just assume I’m waking up.
He instinctively folded his arms, but realized he couldn’t feel his body—and that it had been that way for a while.
How long must I wait?
At that moment,
Color bled into the white space.
Not colors, but waves.
From far off.
Strange pulses, as if emotions or thoughts had been made sensory, approached and crashed over him.
Fiiing—.
His whole body vibrated as an intense experience swept through him.
And then,
The first figure he recognized was Park Mundae’s home-studio photographer, staring at a smartphone.
She’d been photographing Park since before debut, and from the moment she heard of his accident she’d been glued to her phone, almost delirious.
Unable even to cry.
At 3 AM, after seeing the surgery article pop up on her phone, she posted on her social media:
Please pray a lot, please
Her trembling nails tapped the screen.
What on earth is this?
Next appeared a brother and sister.
The sister’s eyes were red and swollen from crying; she was furiously battling people arguing about Testar’s accident online.
Her brother sat beside her, nodding supportively instead of taunting or teasing as he usually would.
He casually dropped some baseless internet medical “facts,” saying Mundae had a much higher chance of being okay....
The wave felt searing.
A grad student who’d seen the breaking news spilled coffee as he poured a cup in the lab.
He didn’t even care about the mess on the floor; he just burst into tears.
His lab mates rushed over, taken aback, but then understood and comforted him.
Some thought it pathetic, but even they unwittingly offered solace in their intense grief.
It didn’t end there.
A working adult home-studio photographer, who’d once sneered at the industry’s habits as “haven’t they learned yet,” couldn’t hide his anxiety—he called in sick the next day, claiming to feel unwell, to follow the news on Park Mundae....
Why was all this flooding in? He didn’t know.
A person who’d come to see an idol concert for the first time in their life.
One who, after hopping between various idol fandoms, had zeroed in on Park Mundae; originally a fan of “May’s Groom.”
Someone who briefly forgot him after supporting him on the audition program, then liked another Testar member before switching allegiance back to Park.
People who didn’t particularly love him but were worrying.
Someone who’d bought albums in bulk to collect every photocard of Park Mundae....
Fiiing—.
The experiences and thoughts of everyone who knew Testar’s Park Mundae sparkled in every direction like stars in a summer-night countryside sky.
Countless worries, sorrows, thoughts—their complex hearts and simple, powerful emotions filled his chest.
And gently gripped it.
How could he feel such a profound solidarity with people he’d never even met?
He thought absently.
Is Park Mundae me?
No—that question was wrong.
Is Testar’s Park Mundae—the idol—the same as me?
How many entertainers adopt new names, faces, and histories?
Does that performer see themselves on TV and think, That’s a different person?
Is Park Mundae just a character I created, like “May’s Groom”?
No. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
Not so.
Park Mundae wasn’t my entire self.
But he was certainly ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) a part of me.
All these emotions and thoughts—though not all directed entirely at me—were shared with me in part.
So that definition was right.
They were the people who wished for my awakening.
I felt overwhelmed.
All those emotions and thoughts crashed over me in waves, leaving wet traces as they passed.
The white space soon filled with every color, droplets falling like tears.
It tasted salty.
It was ecstatic.
The sweet taste of life.
I was drawn upward into the colors.
It felt as if light were leaking from above.
Nectar (S)
Activation Successful!
“Ugh!”
I gasped it out like exhaling.
My limbs felt heavy as if sunk in mud.
But the air tasted exquisitely sweet.
Is it daytime?
My vision was blurry, perhaps from having my eyes closed too long.
But my hearing seemed intact.
“Park Mundae!!”
“M-Mundae...!!”
I could recognize these voices well enough.
They ought to be somewhere getting their own treatment, not prowling around someone else’s hospital room.
Still, I was grateful.
I endured the hands raining down on my shoulders and head as they screamed, feeling my ears might burst.
I was more than happy to let it happen.
When my vision cleared and the medical staff began removing the devices attached to me, I saw all six of them in the room.
A private room really is nice.
Seven grown men managed to squeeze in yet still have room to move.
They must have witnessed something when they came to visit.
“M-Mundae... I thought I saw you open your eyes... so I called them... I even alerted the staff....”
“Th-thanks.”
“N-No problem...!”
I had a fleeting thought: What if I hadn’t awakened? But I didn’t voice it.
I do have some sense.
You can’t break the spell of tears and congratulations.
And it was good to see them again, after all.
I expressed my thanks to the members as calmly as I could.
One red-faced guy piped up.
“Mundae-mundae, want some melon? It’s super sweet~”
“Sure.”
He really has an eye for this. I looked at Big Sejin with new appreciation.
“A-Are you marveling at what a true friend I am now~?”
“Pretty much.”
“...!”
Hearing that bullshit, I finally felt reality sink in.
I was back.
Big Sejin, still stunned, dramatically raised one arm to cover his face and sobbed.
“That’s so moving!”
He was probably faking tears on purpose, but I must’ve looked pretty terrible.
Given what I’d just seen, surgery was definitely happening...
The staff would call it a miracle, right? But I’d heard nothing special.
Honestly, my condition wasn’t that terrible. I wondered if I was this well because I’d activated Nectar.
Could I have healed this well just by resting?
Maybe I had overreacted.
But anyway, I was back, and that was enough.
I liked how I felt right now.
I nibbled on the melon they’d brought me as a special patient treat while I tried to assess the situation.
Maybe because I’d just regained consciousness, I felt a bit sluggish.
Then I saw Cha Yoo-jin, drooling at the sight of the melon.
...Want some?
“It’s fine! Hyung, you have to eat a lot to regain your strength!”
Still so energetic. He’d nearly throttled me in his welcome earlier, but he was the same as always.
And Kim Rae-bin looked like he had a lot to say, but he was busy crying, so I left him to it.
What I needed to ask now was...
Speaking of which, what day is it? And what happened to that former manager who caused the accident?
...!
Someone had the answer.
Park Mundae.
“Oh, yes.”
Surprisingly, Bae Sejin spoke up with a resolute expression.
First... listen to this before anything else.
Yes.
Bae Sejin took a deep breath and began to explain slowly.
The company... they tried not to mention anything about the former manager.
I suspected as much.
There’d be time to use that later.
What mattered was whether that guy who’d been driving was facing justice now.
Clenching one hand, Bae Sejin uttered the unthinkable.
So I made an anonymous report to the Human Rights Commission...!
...??
All the details so far!
...?!
What... what did you say?
