Chapter 165
Yoonseul emerged from her capsule late at night.
Without even having the energy to check the community, she collapsed onto the bed.
‘That was fun...’
How long had it been since she had last felt such a sense of liberation?
She still sometimes blamed herself when the words failed to come out properly, no matter how hard she tried.
But Adella and Name never made a big deal of it, waiting for her to finish clearly even when she stammered.
They were all kind friends.
[I think that’s enough for me. It’s not like you did anything wrong, unnie.]
Name seemed like a mature and clever girl, just as the rumors said.
But Yoonseul was so ashamed of herself for failing to live up to Name’s expectations that she only sank deeper into the quagmire of depression.
She couldn’t agree that she had done nothing wrong.
“No matter how I think about it, Chena unnie died because of me in the end...”
She unfolded the suicide note the bereaved family had handed her with trembling hands.
It was a section they had deliberately kept from the public for her sake.
[Lastly, Yoonseul, to be honest, I kept thinking that I didn’t want you to succeed.
I don’t know how many times I cursed you for cowardly running away from the agency by yourself.
But when I met you again after so long, you shone so brightly that I felt terribly ashamed and pathetic for doing nothing but badmouthing you behind your back.
Thank you for meeting me. You turned even an anti-fan like me into a fan, so I’m sure you’ll continue to succeed at whatever you do. Please live happily, even for my sake.]
Yoonseul found herself wondering whether the emotions Chena had felt while looking at her might have been similar to what Yoonseul felt toward Name and Adella.
A star that shines too brightly silences all the stars around it.
And to Yoonseul, Name and Adella were that kind of presence.
In particular, she had modeled Kariri’s way of speaking after Adella’s because, back when she was avidly watching WoA’s Nightmare Story, she had tried to imitate Adella’s behavior.
More than anything, she found the relationship between the two girls, who cared so deeply for each other, painfully tender and enviable.
‘Why was I the only one born into a family like this...’
Yoonseul soon shook her head violently. It was better not to let such negative thoughts begin in the first place.
To begin with, Ttagapdae had been a competition Yoonseul had entered after steeling herself to make a change.
Conversations with other people had gone more smoothly than she expected, and her condition seemed to be gradually improving.
That was why she had even suggested a collaboration with Name, trying to overcome her trauma, but panic attacks were not so easily predictable.
“Let’s just hold out until the competition... Just until the competition...”
She did intend to do her best, since she couldn’t afford to cause trouble for her teammates.
“After that...”
Yoonseul couldn’t come up with an answer easily.
As expected, the first impulsive thought that came to her was that she wanted to give up on everything and kill herself, just like Chena.
* * *
“You’re going to the hospital even though it’s sports festival day? Why?”
“Like I said earlier, it’s for a medical checkup.”
“Why did it have to be today, of all days, when we have the sports festival!”
“The sports festival was postponed for a week because of the rain. It just happened to overlap with the checkup appointment we already had.”
“Can’t you just not go? Sniff...”
The sports festival scheduled for mid-May had been canceled because of an untimely monsoon.
So when it was postponed by a week, it ended up overlapping with a medical checkup appointment that had been scheduled months ago, making it impossible for me to participate.
I tried my best to explain this, but the children pretended not to hear me.
“There’ll be another sports festival next year, and the year after that. Besides, there are so many fun events besides the sports festival.”
I had only stopped by the school briefly that morning to submit my absence form, but the children’s protests kept delaying my schedule.
“That’s right, Yuna. Don’t bother Name and let’s hurry up and go help the teacher.”
“Tch... I’ve been waiting for today for so long... Sniffle...”
“Yoon Sihoo, take good care of Yuna. If she gets hurt today, even by accident, I’ll kill you tomorrow, got it?”
“Why me...?”
I handed my absence form to Ms. Jacqueline and was told to be careful and come back safely.
It wasn’t as if I was going far; the hospital was close enough to walk to from the academy.
These days, I kept repeating the same home-school-home-school routine, so even the scenery that unfolded when I strayed just a little from my usual route felt entirely new.
Could this be the severe level of VR addiction they talked about on the news?
The news kept reporting that more and more patients were falling into depression because they were so immersed in the VR world that they couldn’t bear the excessive disconnect from reality, as if those reports were merely filler.
It didn’t apply to me, since I used an avatar that looked exactly like my real self.
Flutter-
I submitted the form with my personal information to the hospital in advance and waited.
After that, the tedious examinations continued. It was even more merciless because I had signed up for the full course.
I got a CT scan, lay down inside a mana resonance device whose operating principle made me curious, and even had my blood drawn. Fortunately, it was red.
“Look at her shoes, they’re so adorably tiny...!”
“Exactly. I’d have no wish left in life if I had just one granddaughter like that.”
“Ah! I’ll send you the results by email! Good work!”
The nurses saw me off with peekaboo expressions. Am I a baby?
They were making such a fuss that I hurried home before more people started glaring at me.
As I walked, I continued reading up on Kariri.
What had remained most on Yoonseul’s mind was, naturally, the ‘Idol Chena Death Incident.’
It was a tragic incident in which Chena, despairing over her excessive schedule and the agency’s abuse of power, took her own life.
I remembered that at the time, billboards, news broadcasts, and everything else had been plastered with tributes to Chena.
The reason the suicide note had been released so late was that her family intended to report the agency that had forced Chena to provide sexual services while she was a trainee.
And even now, a fierce legal battle was still ongoing.
The mayor of Seoul, who had been implicated in the same allegations, resigned after his acceptance of bribes was confirmed, but he continued to vehemently deny ever having had any physical contact with a minor.
What a complicated, filthy world.
Before I sank any deeper into the maze that was TriWiki, I returned to the main point.
In any case, Kariri’s connection to Chena was that they had collaborated the day before Chena’s death, and that they had also been trainees at the same agency.
When Yoonseul left the agency and started as a VTuber, Chena debuted at the age of eighteen in the four-member idol group ‘Envy.’
After achieving mediocre results for a while, Chena’s solo song became a worldwide smash hit, and the agency kept pushing her.
[Chena April 2049 World Tour Schedule.jpg]
Looking at the itinerary one fan had compiled, I couldn’t help nodding at how brutal the schedule clearly was.
She had kept up that schedule for more than two years without a break. It would have been too much for a young girl to endure.
[Kariri/Controversies and Incidents
2.15. Regarding the Idol Chena Death Incident]
The information available under this entry did nothing more than list signs of Chena’s suicide.
It mentioned her lack of motivation in everything she did, her complaints of chest pain during a broadcast, her refusal of Kariri’s offer to sing, and her remark that she, too, wanted to become like ‘Wild Chrysanthemum,’ one of the songs Kariri had sung.
‘This is ridiculous. How was Yoonseul supposed to know from something like this?’
What angered her most was the speculative passage claiming that, given Kariri’s broadcast style, in which she openly discussed her inner thoughts, Kariri must have encouraged Chena’s suicidal urges.
Each of these things must have been driving Kariri toward the edge.
Just as she was beginning to feel disillusioned with broadcasting, Professor Cheon called her.
[Name, are you still outside? Did your checkup go well?]
“Ah, yes. I’m almost home. They said I can get the results by email later.”
[Then could you come home quickly? There’s something the two of us need to talk about.]
“Oh, are you home right now? Yes, I’ll be there shortly.”
He had apparently gone to work early again today, so why was he home at this hour?
He couldn’t be suffering from dementia already. Worried for no particular reason, I decided to buy him a bag of walnut pastries on the way home.
Not because I wanted to eat them or anything.
When I got home, it was just before two.
It was such an awkward time that, if the appointment had ended just a little earlier, I could even have gone to watch the sports festival.
In the end, it looked like I would have to postpone my academy sports festival experience until next year. I wonder if our class won?
“I’m home.”
He really was home?
Professor Cheon’s black dress shoes were neatly lined up in the entryway.
“I bought some walnut pastries on the way home. I’m not sure if you’ll like them.”
There was no answer. He must be in the master bedroom.
I deliberately turned around to take off my shoes. It was the optimal movement for avoiding bending at the waist.
After confirming that my tiny shoes were neatly parked alongside the others, I firmly closed the sliding door.
“You’re back?”
Professor Cheon’s back was already half visible from the entryway.
“Oh, you were in the kitchen? What were you doing that you didn’t even answer me—”
There was another man sitting across from Professor Cheon.
I knew very well the person who awkwardly raised a hand in greeting.
“Haha... hi...”
“Cheon Semin?”
Why are you here?
* * *
“You mean Cheon Semin is your nephew?”
No, my accent had come out too strongly and might have sounded like an insult, so I said it again, enunciating each word.
“Your nephew?”
Cheon Semin sprang to his feet, looking flustered, and answered.
“Uh, yeah, right! This is my uncle!”
“I called him.”
Why?
What kind of coincidence was this?
I was so flustered that I couldn’t even speak properly.
I knew that Professor Cheon had a younger brother he had disowned, but honestly, why would I have any reason to be curious about that side of the family?
But now that Cheon Semin had suddenly claimed to be his nephew, I couldn’t help feeling bewildered.
Professor Cheon silently held out a letter to me.
[Seoul Serious Crime Investigation Agency
No. 2051-00628
To: Cheon Semin, NoName
Subject: Notice of Results of Processing Request for Reinvestigation]
“What is this?”
His words carried restrained emotion.
I looked toward Semin, and he shook his head with an awkward expression.
With his lips, he roughly mouthed the words, ‘I didn’t tell them anything.’
“It would be best if you heard it directly from Name.”
Today was going to be a very long day.