Survive! Foolish Bottom!

 

Haeun finally let out a breath of relief after entering his room. After quickly escaping from Seongjae, he washed his hands, and came back to the living room but none of the other members were anywhere to be seen.

It was a relief not to have to deal with multiple people at once. Since there weren’t any other schedules, they were probably in their rooms, but the fact that no one even bothered to come out, let alone question him like Seongjae, was a little strange.

‘Ah… is it because of Lee Seongjae?’

Thinking about it, that seemed to be the case. Considering how Seongjae had been standing guard at the entrance with such an intimidating aura, the others had probably chosen to stay out of it to avoid getting caught up in the mess. If even they had avoided him, then maybe slipping away as quickly as he did was the right call after all.

For some reason, his favorability score had increased out of nowhere, but he wasn’t sure why. Well, unexpected timing for affinity boosts wasn’t exactly unusual, so he didn’t dwell on it.

Lying on his bed, Haeun finally picked up his phone, which he hadn’t been able to check because of Kim Gyowon. Seeing a few KakaoTalk notifications, Gyowon naturally came to mind first, since he had just taken Haeun’s number. But despite basically extorting it from him, Gyowon still hadn’t sent a message.

The one who had messaged him was Yejun.

[Yejun]

Are you back home?

It was a simple four-character message without any extra words. Ha-eun stared at the screen for a moment, confused, before letting out a small exclamation and rolling onto his side. He had been so caught up in everything that he had completely forgotten.

Yesterday, after getting Yejun’s message, he had been looking forward to meeting up today and getting a free meal out of it. If things hadn’t gotten so complicated, he probably would have at least asked when Yejun’s meeting was going to end.

Even though it wasn’t really his fault, he still felt a weird pang of guilt. Strange. He wasn’t usually the kind of person to feel guilty about this sort of thing.

Was the system working hard behind the scenes, casting some sort of daily ‘be a better person’ spell on Park Haeun? 

Thinking about it like a joke, Haeun made sure to respond in the most ‘Park Ha’-like way possible, while still putting in some effort.

➥ Yessㅠ I wanted to get a meal from you today, sunbae, but too bad ㅠㅠ

That should make him seem friendly enough, right? Just in case, Haeun added a sad bunny emoji before hitting send. To his surprise, the little ‘1’ next to the message disappeared much faster than expected.

“Oh?”

Haeun didn’t have the kind of petty mindset that saw reading messages quickly as some sort of competition. He also didn’t particularly care whether people left him on read or ignored his messages altogether.

So, seeing the read receipt disappear so fast, only one thought crossed his mind—He’s got more free time than I expected.

Top idols were supposed to be busier, weren’t they? But considering how much Yejun liked interfering in his life and how fast he read messages, maybe that wasn’t always the case.

Haeun waited a bit, curious about what kind of reply he’d get, but nothing came right away. Did he just read it and ignore it? Or was he actually busy? 

His interest waning, he was just about to toss his phone aside when another notification popped up.

It wasn’t Yejun. And it wasn’t Gyowon either.

[Seongjae]

Are you kidding me? What the hell happened?

It was Lee Seongjae, who was in the same dorm as him. So much for quietly slipping in—now he was interrogating him over text instead.

Haeun already knew exactly what had happened. Seongjae had probably kept his mouth shut earlier because he had been too thrown off and awkward, but now that some time had passed, curiosity and frustration had kicked in, so he had sent a message instead.

Haeun knew Seong-jae’s patterns well. Despite appearances, he was pretty simple, and since their ways of thinking were oddly similar, he was easy to predict.

➥ I told you I’ll explain later, okay? ㅡㅡ;

Haeun was about to hit send without a second thought, but once again, the button wouldn’t respond. The system wanted him to add an emoji. You’d think he’d be used to this kind of petty restriction by now, but he kept forgetting.

With a sigh, Haeun picked an angry bunny emoji and added it to the message before sending it off. The emoji was supposed to be angry, but the character just looked cute. 

The contrast was ridiculous—he had typed in his usual casual tone with Seongjae, but the addition of a little bunny emoji made the whole thing look absurdly funny.

Seongjae must have been staring at his phone, because the “1” indicating an unread message disappeared instantly. Unlike Yejun, his reply came just as quickly.

[Seongjae]

ㅗ answer properly

(Praying bunny emoji)

Everything is fine, right?

Haeun received Seong-jae’s response almost immediately, but at that exact moment, another message came in from Yejun. Without thinking, he tapped on the notification and ended up reading Yejun’s message first.

[Yejun]

I heard you left in someone else’s car.

So the fact that Kim Gyowon had come all the way to the broadcast station to find him was already spreading around.

Just like when they talked in person, Yejun was sparing with his words, always asking things in an indirect, probing way.

➥ Ah, well, there were some circumstancesㅠ

Along with that message, Haeun attached a sweating bunny emoji. He hadn’t even explained things to Seong-jae yet, so he definitely wasn’t about to spill every detail to Yejun, who wasn’t even in the same group. Besides, it wasn’t like Yejun had asked directly, so it should be fine.

[Yejun]

Nothing bad happened, right?

Instead of prying for details, Yejun only sent that one question.

Haeun had expected people to be surprised that Kim Gyowon had come looking for him, but he hadn’t thought their first reaction would be concern. Both Seongjae and Yejun had asked if anything bad had happened before anything else. Were the two of them just particularly cautious, or was it the lingering effect of that article?

➥ Yes, nothing bad happenedㅋㅋ

This time, he added a laughing bunny emoji. Yejun would probably take the hint that he wasn’t going to elaborate any further. A brief pause followed before Yejun’s next message arrived.

[Yejun]

I guess I’ll have to schedule a meal with you in advance if I want to eat with you.

At first glance, it seemed like a casual remark, but for some reason, it made Haeun feel a bit uneasy. Was Yejun being sarcastic? Something like,

“Wow, you’re such a big star now, huh?”

 

He doubted Yejun would even bother responding if that were the case, but he still hesitated over how to reply.

Just as his overthinking started to drag on, another notification popped up.

“Ugh, Seongjae, this persistent bas— …Huh?”

He’d been expecting yet another relentless interrogation from Seongjae, but it wasn’t him.

A new message had arrived.

As soon as he tapped on the notification, he was taken to a brand-new chat window.

A banner at the top indicated that the sender wasn’t registered as a friend. Dismissing the alert, Haeun finally read the message.

[Kim Gyowon]

Hello, I’m the guy who stole your number earlier ^^

The profile picture was blank, and the saved name was just his full name in plain text. There was no particular rule for how an actor’s Katalk account should look, but something about the straightforward profile struck Haeun as odd.

Out of curiosity, he tapped on the profile. There was no background photo, no visible history—just a completely clean account. Unless there was some imposter running around stealing Kim Gyo-won’s number, it had to be the real deal.

Why are they all messaging me at the same time? Did they plan this together or something?

For a moment, it really hit him—he was inside a dating sim.

In

Idol Love

, multiple characters often messaged or called at the same time, triggering events where the player had to choose whom to respond to or meet up with. The only difference was that here, he didn’t actually have to pick one person.

 Hey guys, this is Flo!

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