Survive! Foolish Bottom!

 [Seongjae]If you don’t answer by the count of ten, I’m storming in.

Seriously, what’s going on? Is Kim Gyo-won treating you well?

Don’t hang around weird people. [Me](Sparkly-eyed bunny emoji)

Oh really? ㅋㅋ I’m way less busy than you, obviously. Let’s meets up before your show starts then. [Seongjae]What the hell was that?It’s meet up, not meets up, you idiot.*[Gyowon]I gathered all my courage to ask for your number, and now you’re saying I can’t even message you without a reason? If you’re this cold, hyung will be hurt. [Me](Bunny emoji with its back turned)

➥ Ugh, stop spamming me. What am I, a cheating husband?

Stop acting like an overprotective mom cracking down on delinquent teens. ㅡㅡ;*[Yejun]I’ll match my schedule to yours. [Me](Fist-clenching bunny emoji)

➥ Ah fck, why are you being so weird? Drop the whole concept thing, it’s annoying.*

Haeun stared at his phone screen with a bewildered face. Not wanting to believe what he was seeing, he rubbed his eyes, but no matter how many times he looked again, the result was the same. 

The messages had already been sent and the “1” indicators had all disappeared. He couldn’t understand why such busy people would read KakaoTalk messages so quickly. A dejected voice escaped from Haeun’s lips.

“I’m fcking screwed……”

Whether it was fortunate or not, only Seongjae had replied so far. What should he do? Should he hurriedly delete the messages even now? But since Gyowon and Yejun had already read the messages, deleting them now would only make things more awkward without explaining anything.

Haeun stared at his phone screen as if trying to bore holes through it. Let’s think about this. The message sent to Seongjae clearly showed that it was meant for someone else. He seemed to take it lightly and had already replied, and since they were in the same dorm anyway, it wouldn’t be difficult to explain if needed.

The same went for what was sent to Gyowon – it was obviously a misdirected message. He had been using formal speech and suddenly switched to casual speech, and the content had nothing to do with what Gyowon had said, so Gyowon probably understood the situation quickly. Probably.

The problem was Yejun.

“Ah… what if he thinks that message was actually meant for him……”

The message sent to Yejun was particularly prone to misinterpretation. The speech style was consistently formal, and what Yejun had said just before… could be interpreted in that way. Although it wasn’t the case this time, there had been times before when he thought Yejun was flirting with him, which made him feel even more guilty.

Haeun’s hand still hovered over the KakaoTalk chat window where no reply had come. Should he quickly explain that it was sent by mistake before getting a reply? But explaining through KakaoTalk somehow felt rude, like breaking up through text, and seemed a bit cold. After deliberating, Haeun finally made the bold decision to call.

Yejun didn’t seem to have a ringtone set. The plain, monotonous dial tone repeated several times. Just when Haeun was beginning to wonder if Yejun was avoiding the call, the tone cut off.

― ……Hello?

Yejun’s voice came out slightly hesitant for the greeting. He seemed quite shocked by the message, as expected. Haeun quickly spoke up before the call could potentially end.

“I sent it by mistake!”

Was that too direct, jumping straight to the point? Yejun was silent for a moment, but the silence didn’t last long. Rather, his response came as if he had been waiting.

― You weren’t seriously thinking I was flirting?

“How could I? Even if I had thought that, I would have kept it to myself instead of sending it directly……”

Haeun answered without hesitation. Yejun seemed momentarily speechless at this brazen response. But it seemed he had done quite a bit of thinking after seeing the message, as his next words came easily.

― And it wasn’t that you were trying to talk about me behind my back and sent it to me by mistake?

“Ah, have you been deceived a lot? If it was something like that, I wouldn’t have sent it so nicely.”

― You call that sending it nicely……?

After delivering just that response to Haeun’s answer, Yejun remained silent for a while. He seemed completely unconvinced. While Haeun sincerely thought that level was quite polite, Yejun’s prolonged silence made things a bit awkward.

― No one’s bothering you, right?

Yejun spoke up again. Fortunately, the topic had changed without needing further explanation. Haeun felt slightly relieved, wondering if this was Yejun’s way of being considerate.

― Like being stalked or something.

Though the follow-up was a bit startling.

“Who would stalk me?”

Haeun asked, not hiding his surprise. Having not been a celebrity until recently, and given his background, he had never experienced having a stalker, so Yejun’s words felt completely foreign. But after saying it, he realized his mistake. Well, if there were anti-fans who threw eggs, there was no rule saying he couldn’t have stalkers.

Yejun launched into a lecture about how, as a celebrity, he should maintain proper vigilance and never let his guard down about such things. Was this his usual image? Haeun remembered him being more reserved, so the lengthy lecture was surprising.

― Don’t you think you need to be aware that your public recognition has increased a lot compared to before?

‘But if I become any more vigilant than I am now, wouldn’t you be the first person I’d have to block…’

While thinking this, Haeun still gave proper verbal responses.

“Yes. I’ll do that from now on. But it’s not a stalker, so don’t worry.”

― If not a stalker, then?

Why was he being so persistent? Now that the situation had been explained, the tension had dissolved, and Haeun felt only indifference to the questioning. But hearing Yejun’s question made Haeun wonder himself. How should he explain Kim Gyowon to others?

Yejun would have no way of knowing that the person he just suspected of being a stalker was actually a top actor who would never realistically stalk a

nugudol

^[1]

“nugudol” (망돌) is a self-deprecating term some idols use, combining “nugu” (unknown/nobody) with “idol”

like Park Ha. The thought was somewhat amusing.

“Um… just a guy I know?”

H-eun answered after some consideration. Honestly, Gyowon was difficult to describe in those terms, but there wasn’t much else he could say. He couldn’t exactly confess that they’d somehow started texting and were now exchanging curse-filled messages.

― Really?

“Yes.”

― …….

When Yejun fell silent, Haeun also had nothing particular to say. Just as he was wondering if he should try to drag in some non-existent topic to keep the conversation going, Yejun finally spoke.

― Ah, I need to hang up now. The members are calling for me.

“You must be close with them?”

Haeun found it curious that he was being called by members this late at night, and wondered if it might be an excuse.

― Not particularly.

“You’re not trying to smoothly end the call because you’re mad at me, are you?”

Haeun asked directly without hiding his thoughts. Yejun laughed somewhat awkwardly. Hearing that laugh, it felt like his cool first impression was melting away.

― Mad? ……It was just a bit unexpected. Seeing that you even curse at this hyung you know.

“Haha… Come on, hyung, who doesn’t curse at this age?”

Haeun didn’t notice the slight edge in Yejun’s voice when he said

“hyung you know.”

Perhaps unable to hold back at Haeun’s nonchalant response, the System, which had been quiet until now, suddenly sent a notification.

『A professional idol doesn’t curse! Stop making incorrect generalizations! ( ; ﾛﾟ)ﾟ』

Haeun easily ignored this. The System had kept quiet when he was sending wrong messages on KakaoTalk, so there was no point in it speaking up now. Unlike the System, Yejun simply replied with “Well, I guess you’re right,” though his voice sounded a bit disgruntled.

The call ended there. Fortunately, he seemed to accept Haeun’s best attempt at an explanation. The argument that he would have said much worse things if he’d been serious must have been convincing.

Haeun casually checked the time. Though it didn’t feel like they’d talked much, over 20 minutes had passed since receiving the call. Slightly surprised, he opened KakaoTalk.

[Seongjae]You ghost after making a mistake?[Seongjae]-_- Let’s talk tomorrow

Seongjae hadn’t sent anything else. Since he hadn’t barged into the room either, that was one worry off Haeun’s mind. Now there was just one person left. Haeun sighed.

Although he was being unintentionally reckless, checking Gyowon’s message was a bit harder than with Seongjae, who was a member – perhaps because Gyowon was someone he was less comfortable with. After dwelling on the cursing for a while, Haeun finally pulled himself together enough to enter the chat room. Something had come in, but… the content made no sense.

[Gyowon]Do I look hermaphroditic to you?[Gyowon]Who is this person you’re calling an unfaithful husband

Two messages sent two minutes apart. Haeun stared at the screen with a puzzled expression. ……What was hermaphroditic again?

Worried that asking Gyowon directly would make him seem ignorant, he used search instead. Looking it up, it seemed to mean having both male and female characteristics in one body. It seemed Gyowon was making a joke about being both dad and mom, but wasn’t the whole “dad” thing just self-proclaimed in the first place?

While grumbling internally, Haeun read Gyowon’s messages again. As expected, he seemed to have realized it was a mistake, but an unexpected problem appeared to have arisen. Hopefully he didn’t think it was meant for a girlfriend. Given the mom joke, he might misunderstand even more.

He didn’t want to get caught up in any more scandals. Though Gyowon probably wouldn’t spread rumors even if he misunderstood, an explanation was still needed.

It was meant for a member not a lover -_-; I don’t have a girlfriendThe message I actually meant to send to you was accidentally sent something to someone else and I was dealing with that

After sending the messages, Haeun stared intently at the screen. It was frustrating how quickly messages were read when making serious mistakes, but not when trying to explain. Though some time had passed while talking on the phone with Yejun, knowing this didn’t make it any less unsettling when the “1” indicator didn’t immediately disappear.

Even after waiting a while, there was no reply, not even a read receipt. Haeun quickly gave up and turned on YouTube.

While searching for variety show videos to kill time, he thought about what Kim Gyowon had mentioned earlier. What format would the variety show they were supposed to appear on together be? 

Under the pretense of preliminary research, Haeun played videos and chuckled, occasionally pulling down the top bar to check if there were any KakaoTalk notifications. It was a half-habitual action.

But no message came until he fell asleep.

Hey guys, this is Flo!

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