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. nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.
* * *
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?”
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.