The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

He definitely was the truck driver. All I could make out in this darkness was his silhouette and the glint coming off his eyes, but I was sure it was him. The only thing that flashed from his flickering eyes was pure bloodlust. The man’s hand reached for my neck and simultaneously, his feet swerved towards the inside of my feet and knocked me down by force.

Boom! With my neck in his tight grip, I lost my balance and fell to the floor. The man’s hands constricted my throat hard.

Gasp…!

“…”

The man didn’t make any noise again. I just saw that there was a sense of contentment in his chilling eyes like he had finally achieved what he hoped for. I extended my hand and gripped the man’s wrist. I rolled my feet desperately on the ground to free myself but the more I struggled, the tighter the man’s grip became. The man’s weight heavily pressed against my chest and my vision soon turned hazy.

My eyeballs felt like it was about to pop out from the intense pressure, and it felt as if I was on the verge of crossing death’s door. Since I never actually died before, I didn’t know what dying felt like. Perhaps, my members who had lived as regressors were much more knowledgeable in areas like this. After all, I was the only one who survived the first car crash too.

My brain understood that if I gave up on resisting right now, things would become easier and more pleasant. Yet, all the biological instincts in my body were screaming at me to escape from the danger I was in. If I had to think of a way to escape, there was one, which was to use Insight. Insight would probably provide me at least one path to survive from this man’s attack.

Gaaaasp! Yet, even as I clutched onto the man’s wrist and dug my fingernails into his forearm—or even as my heart beat crazily fast from the unexpected incoming of death and I felt my whole body pulse speedily, I didn’t use Insight. My main goal wasn’t to escape death. I had to be determined to die; think that perhaps, I could really die. However, the system I knew wouldn’t let me die like this.

‘…Please…just come…’ I waited until I heard the system’s voice. Before, the system had responded much quicker. Perhaps, it had acted like that because it never encountered a similar situation in its data before. Yet, since it contained relative data now, it was probably responding slower than that time. It probably thought that I would use Insight and free myself in the end.

Gasp!

I endured recklessly. Without using Insight, I persisted even at the threat of death.

‘Come. Please come.’ The reason why I risked death even while knowing I could die was because I believed that this was one of the few situations where I could make a crack in the system. I hoped that even at this moment, whole loads of cracks had already formed internally inside the system. and Yeon-Hoon penetrated the system’s core. If Yeon-Hoon just reached it, I knew this moment’s situation could completely overturn. If the system was completely overtaken by Yeon-Hoon, it definitely wouldn’t let me die.

I looked at the truck driver’s two eyes. I wondered how many people could make an expression like him while killing someone with his hands. His eyes looked out of it in his state of extreme frenzy and excitement and the edges of his lips upturned. His face was filled with hope as if he was waiting for the greatest moment of his life. I stopped resisting.

I loosened my body and relaxed so that the man’s wrist could cut off the breath from my throat. I thought I would hear the signal that would overturn everything in the moment when this man’s hope was at its greatest. My vision darkened and my madly thumping heart gradually cooled. I felt the vitality rushing through my body deplete at alarming speed.

It appeared death came mercilessly like this. The man’s mouth stretched out strangely in exhilaration, and he looked like he was going to beam in celebration when—

“…”

The man’s expression suddenly froze. His hands dropped from my throat and his legs stopped pressing on my chest.

“Haaaa! Kuh!”

Gasp!

I felt dizzy because of the sudden increase in oxygen intake. Yet, even in this terrible pain, my body didn’t stop inhaling to survive. Life began to rush through my dying body again and pumped my heart. It seemed great pain accompanied dying and living again.

“Ahhhh!” I felt pain so strong that my head felt like it was going to burst, and I intuitively let out a scream.

Cough! I also felt blood in my throat and spat out my saliva to see that there was red mixed in. Though I couldn’t make out what was in front of me due to this blinding pain, I raised my head to stare at the man. I was almost there—why did he stop? The man took some steps backwards at the last moment and looked at me confusedly.

“…Why did you stop?” I asked the truck driver. The man erased his perplexed expression and looked at me again.

“…I almost fell for your trap,” he said.

“…!”

There were many meanings hidden inside that one sentence. He must have realized that I was aiming for the moment when I was near death. Did the system attached to the man tell him? That seemed to be the only explanation. If that was the case, how did that system find out?

I was confused, but I thought it wasn’t a question I could find out just by pondering. The important part was that the man had found out my ulterior motive to use him to help Yeon-Hoon gain control over the system’s core. And if this man’s system had realized it, that meant there was a high chance that my system also realized what I was doing.

‘This is giving me a headache.’ But at the same time, how could it not know? I was doing something similar to a coup against the system.

“Haa.”

Siiiigh.

I inhaled deeply. I thought I would die mercilessly under this man’s hands but even dying took effort. I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at this ironic situation. Perhaps, dying under this man’s hands would be the only proper ‘death’ that would be acknowledged by the system.

“I just need to die under your hands, right?” Perhaps, all the conditions were fulfilled if just that man’s hands assisted in my death. The man’s eyes filled with shock. Our roles instantly became reversed, and the man began to escape the scene. I also got up and followed the man. Before, the relationship between the truck driver and I had been a form of a predator and prey, especially after he went through an awakening of sorts after getting one-sidedly beaten up by me at Yasan.

Even at Yasan, he tried to kill me and the last time we met, he ambushed me at the parking lot and showed his full intent to do just that again. Yet, the roles were reversed now. I clutched the man’s shoulders. I wondered if he at least possessed some kind of weapon. Though I couldn’t think of a clear method to get killed by this man, the first thing that came to my mind was to make use of something like a knife if the man possessed it.

“Piss off, you bastard!” The truck driver pushed my hands away and kicked me in the stomach. Though I was pushed to the ground, I still managed to clutch the man’s right ankle in the process. I twisted the man’s ankle while getting pushed away with all my might and rolled on the ground together with him.

“Ahhhh!” Based on the angle I twisted his ankle, the man probably had quite a sharp pain. I got up and looked at the man’s right ankle. If a person’s ankle was able to turn about 120 angles to the side, it appeared that this man’s ankle turned up to 190 degrees. And though I simply twisted his ankle, it seemed the man’s knees and hip joints had all twisted up in sequence. The man crawled on the floor with his right leg stretched out.

I wasn’t usually such a cruel person that I would simply watch a man struggling. Yet, I didn’t feel a shred of sympathy for this man.

“You should’ve…drove better. Why make all this trouble?” I asked and stepped on the man’s ankle hard once more.

“Ahhhhh!” It felt ironic that our roles had changed so dramatically once again. Considering how we each had a system attached to us, our relationship and ending had already been decided for us. Yet, the difference between him and us was that we had been suddenly struck by a curse while living our day-to-day lives while this bastard was receiving the punishment for driving drunk and hitting us in the freeway.

“Your mission is to kill us, right?” I crouched next to the man and asked. “It was to kill me first and then kill each of us in order after that, right?”

The man’s destiny was to kill us. We were fated enemies considering how this man had crashed into us with his truck thousands of times in thousands of universes. And now, he planned to kill us with his own hands instead of a truck.

“What is the reward of the mission…that you are going this far as to kill us?” I asked. Yet, even if this man was a victim, bound by the system like me, I didn’t have the slightest sympathy for him. The man made the decision to kill us and it was his own mistake that locked him in this curse.

“What is it…that you are dying to kill us?” I asked again. The man didn’t answer and crawled on the ground while groaning. Yet, in the end, he appeared to have given up on running away and lay on the floor with all his limbs spread out.

“Hmph!” The man moaned and tried to twist his ankle back into place. But of course, it wasn’t like I was going to just watch him do that, especially with the slow speed he was moving.

Crunch.

“Ahhhh!” Just at the moment the man was about to return his ankle into place, I stepped on it hard again. I didn’t even have to put much pressure. I simply made use of the man holding his hand on his ankle and reversed it so that the ankle was twisted further.

“I asked you what your reward is?” Though I didn’t have interest in torture, there was nothing more suitable than torture to get someone to answer your question.

“Haa. Haa. Shit…” The man murmured while lying on the ground.

“You think the whole world just works according to your will, right! You fucking bastard!”

“…?”

I had no intention to listen to his complaints and nonsense when I just wanted to hear his reason for killing us. Soon after, the man didn’t even have the intention to revert his ankle and rushed towards me with blazing eyes. Because I had been crouching over him, the truck driver easily tackled me, and I collapsed under him with no resistance. In a situation when I was prepared to die, I actually welcomed his attack.

“Who wouldn’t do what I’m doing! When the whole world would flip over and people like me can be in the highest positions if you guys die!” The man shouted right at my face while grabbing onto the collars of my shirt. It was an unpleasant experience to witness a middle-aged man showcase his greed and passion an inch away from my eyes.

“Do you really think I will kill you in this place?” he shouted. He just said his time would come if he killed me, so his words seemed to make no sense.

“Ahhhhh!” The man got on top of him and our positions were reversed again.

Drrr. I heard bones moving and the man’s ankle returned to its normal angle.

“You will die when you least expect it so wait for that moment. Things won’t go your way,” the man said and punched me in the face. I heard something burst inside my mouth. It seemed a vein or something popped, and I tasted blood. The man punched me a couple of more times after that. Though the punches didn’t threaten my life, it wasn’t like it didn’t hurt.

My vision blurred and the blood collecting inside my mouth stopped me from breathing. After reaching that point, the man got up while leaving me on the ground.

“…If you just wait, I will kill you on my own so just sit tight you bastard,” he said.

“…You really are a stupid bastard,” I said.

Grip. I clutched the man’s ankle as he moved farther away from me.

“…If I was you, I wouldn’t have attacked my opponent’s face but either their hand or foot.”

The man’s right ankle twisted again. Though I didn’t have the time to check, it was clear it was twisted past 190 degrees this time.

“Ahhhhhhhh!”