Chapter 52
“Moving?”
“You want us to move?”
“All of a sudden?”
The members looked at me as if a bombshell had dropped on them out of the blue. Their reaction was expected as we had never talked about moving so far. In fact, I hadn’t expected to bring up this topic so soon. I thought I’d bring it up after the first performance of the show. However, based on the reactions I saw online, I found our security situation alarming.
The show was too focused on us, and more importantly, a rivalry between us and Only One had been strongly emphasized. This meant that there would be many people invested in this rivalry and overreact. Our fandom wasn’t that big right now, but it was a different ball game for Only One.
‘Only One’s fandom is quite big.’ The opponent who posed as our rival was way bigger than us, so I had no idea what might happen. Of course, I might be worrying needlessly as even if people got too invested in the story, there were very few people who would actually commit crimes like property damage, theft, or trespassing. There were probably 1 out of every 10,000 people—no, not even 1 out of every 100,000 people who might go out of their way to commit one of these crimes.
‘On the other hand, this also means that there is a very small chance that people could act out and harm us.’ In problems like this, even one person out of a possible 1 out of 100,000 people could cause serious problems. In the end, there was a serious concern that a stalker fan may or may not follow us.
“I think we should move to a safer place than here.” I thought we needed to leave as soon as possible.
“Is it because we revealed our dorm?” Yeon-Hoon asked.
“Yeah, it got revealed too much.”
“I agree. Honestly, I think everyone in our neighborhood would recognize it.”
“But to be blunt, it’s too difficult for us to move right now.”
All the members pinched in their thoughts about the topic I brought up. And the result was—
“We would have to move someday, but let’s just think about it a bit more for now. We don’t know if our agency will listen to us or not yet.”
They gave an ambiguous answer like this. Although it wasn’t the answer I wanted, I thought, ‘it can’t be helped.’
That answer was the most realistic answer for our current situation.
“I’ll get up tomorrow and make a suggestion to the company first, but let’s go to bed for now guys.”
“Yes.”
“Good night.”
“See you tomorrow~”
In the end, our midnight meeting ended with just one plan. I soon followed the members and lay down and just hoped that nothing much would happen and that 1 out of 100,000 people would come to find our dorm as late as possible.
At the same time, I also thought, ‘If it’s Dong-Jun’s wealth...it will probably be possible to move.’
I thought that if it was Dong-Jun, he could solve our housing issue. However, this thought quickly disappeared as soon as it came up in my mind. Just waiting for Dong-Jun’s support didn’t suit my personality, and it wasn’t polite or right for me to expect him to solve our housing situation. I thought of an easy way out but quickly shook my head at the thought. For now, I thought we should make a request to the agency or try to find a new dorm by compromising as much as possible. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, praying that tonight would pass quickly.
* * *
Praying for safe passage yesterday night might have set some kind of flag as around 3 am, an incident that instantly woke all the members up occurred.
“Aghhhhhhhh!” Yeon-Hoon suddenly started screaming.
“W-what happened?”
“Aghh?”
“What?”
“...Yeon-Hoon?”
Yeon-Hoon’s loud and strong voice was enough to wake everyone up. “The front door’s handle...it moved by itself...!” Yeon-Hoon said in a terrified voice.
“What?” And the first person to react was Do-Seung.
“Who the hell...!” Do-Seung immediately ran out of his seat as if he were about to burst the front door open.
“Do-Seung, wait!” However, I stopped him before he could open the front door. “Why are you opening the door without knowing who’s behind it!” This was not a problem that should be approached in an emotional way. If it was a crazy person who wanted to terrorize us, there could be serious consequences.
“No! If someone is trying to open the door at this time, they have to be a thief! We need to catch them and immediately go to the police station!”
Do-Seung angrily responded, but I strongly stopped him, “No, we can’t!”
Was it because we made a loud noise?
Tap, tap, tap.
We heard a sound outside the front door. It was the sound of someone quickly going down the stairs. When I heard their footsteps—
“...It’s not just one person?”
“Ahhhhh....”
“Crazy...I’m getting goosebumps...”
There were at least two people outside, maybe more than three people who were standing behind the front door. After the disturbance passed, we stood still with blank expressions and organized our thoughts. The person with the worst expression was Do-Seung, who had tried to open the front door.
“First of all, I apologize for almost opening the door so hastily. I think I almost put everyone in danger because of me.” Do-Seung seemed to realize how dangerous the situation had been after thinking about it.
“...No, Do-Seung. This isn’t a problem to apologize about. It’s okay.” Yeon-Hoon comforted Do-Seung and patted him on the shoulder. Then silence passed between them again. It seemed all the members were deep in thought.
“I think the moving issue that Tae-Yoon brought up earlier was a really important issue,” Yeon-Hoon opened his mouth again and led the conversation.
“I never imagined something like this would happen today. For real,” Woon said in a dazed voice as if he was shell-shocked.
“They say people are scarier than ghosts. Haa.” Do-Seung also murmured with a despondent voice, and among us, only Dong-Jun was keeping his silence. Since earlier, he had been staring at the floor with a thoughtful expression.
“First of all, it’s too dangerous for us to sleep here today. I’m sorry, but let’s call Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna and find another dorm. I think we should go to a nearby hotel first.” Yeon-Hoon took out his phone and tried to contact Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna.
“Then I’ll look for some hotels with good security nearby.”
At this rate, we might all have to sleep at a hotel tonight. It was the right choice as we couldn’t sleep in a dorm that got almost broken in. The only place with good security that we could go right away was a hotel. The problem with that was—
‘I don’t think we have the money to pay for a hotel.’ If we looked for a hotel right now, we couldn’t get anything close to a discount. Although it was pitiful to worry about money in a dire situation like this, it couldn’t be helped as this was our reality.
“Or shall we go to my house first? I’ll tell my parents.” Yeon-Hoon came up with an alternative solution other than hotels.
However, I didn’t support this idea and said, “What if your family's house gets broken into then?”
“Ah...”
There was a high possibility that the people who tried to break in earlier were still waiting nearby. If we moved somewhere else, they would try to break into an empty house or follow us. If Yeon-Hoon’s home address was exposed during this process, the scope of damage increased. In the end, I thought going to a hotel would be the safest.
But just as when I was about to speak up, Dong-Jun finally said after contemplating for a long time, “Let’s go to my house.”
All the members looked at Dong-Jun.
“Dong-Jun, it could get dangerous for your parents. As Tae-Yoon said earlier...”
When Yeon-Hoon tried to stop him, Dong-Jun corrected him. “No, not my parents’ house, but my house.”
A short silence followed as it seemed everyone didn’t understand the meaning behind his words. They all just stared at Dong-Jun blankly. I could empathize with their reactions as I had only found out about how wealthy he was after meeting his parents in my past life.
“One of my apartments is empty because a contract just expired, so we can just use that one.”
Dong-Jun’s family was rich, and this was the reason why Dong-Jun enjoyed the whole process of being an idol regardless of whether the group did well or not. Being an idol really was just a hobby for him.
“...What?”
“Your house?”
“Dong-Jun?”
The members all stiffened at his words, but Dong-Jun was calm. He said, “Let’s pack up first.”
* * *
We immediately packed all the necessary luggage and called a taxi to move to an apartment owned by Dong-Jun. As expected, the people who tried to break through our front door were waiting nearby when we got a taxi, and another taxi quickly followed ours. However, we were also prepared for them.
“Sir, please follow the most complicated route as possible so that we can lose them.” We told the taxi driver to drive on a complicated route, knowing these stalkers would follow us closely from behind. At first, they managed to stay close by, but we were able to lose them by a narrow margin thanks to a signal change. Moreover, we made sure to lock the dorm we just came out of with double and triple locks so that we wouldn’t get robbed.
Later, when we entered Dong-Jun’s apartment, Do-Seung was truly impressed. “...Crazy.”
Dong-Jun’s house was a premium brand new apartment in Gangnam, and we got off inside the darkest area of the apartment. Then the taxi left, and we were the only ones left in the luxury apartment.
“Let’s go up,” Dong-Jun said and led the way, guiding us up to his apartment. We took the elevator connected to the underground parking lot and quickly moved up to the 23rd floor. It was an apartment with only two households per floor.
“Wait a minute.” When we stood in front of the door that said room 2301, Dong-Jun took the door lock key out of his pocket, opened the front door, and said, “I’m glad I kept one spare key.”
When we were inside, a spacious living room with a huge window welcomed us.
“It’s quite empty because the person living here recently moved out. Let’s just use it for now, since we can add furniture later on,” Dong-Jun said and turned on the lights. The interior of the apartment, which was exposed to the light, shone brighter. It had an elegant hotel-like lighting on marble floors, and the living room was already four times bigger than our practice room. The other members still looked dazed. Honestly, I would be the same if I found out that the person who I used to eat and sleep with in a shabby dorm was born with a diamond spoon in his mouth. They were so shell-shocked that they were left speechless.
The person who finally managed to speak up was Yeon-Hoon. “Dong-Jun, I’m more surprised by this than the stalker fans...” He showed a pure expression of surprise.
“Why did you live with us on the rooftop...?”
“Did you want to get the commoner experience...?”
“Why did you become an idol...?”
The members all asked questions in turn, and Dong-Jun smiled at them and said in his usual carefree voice, “The rooftop was actually cozy and nice, so I wanted to continue living there. Don’t look so betrayed. I was planning to reveal it someday~”
Then Dong-Jun moved to the corner of the living room. “I’ll explain more tomorrow~ Let’s sleep for today.” Dong-Jun used a touchpad in the corner to turn on the boiler in the apartment, and the floor quickly heated up. We laid the blanket we brought from our dorm on top of it. The house was nearly 5 times bigger than our practice room, but it was ironic that we were still lying down together on one blanket.
“Um, guys, let’s sleep for now and talk again tomorrow.”
“Good...night.”
“Let’s sleep first. Pweh.”
“Let’s sleep and talk again~”
Like this, we spent the first night in a very unusual place.
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