after a scandal, wooyoung, a defunct k-pop idol, runs away to his sister's hometown. he craves anonymity, yet his quiet routine is disrupted by a chance encounter- a local with a warm presence, who offers him a glimpse of a life beyond the spotlight...
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now that the others had completed the difficult aspects of their mission—finding a journalist and persuading seonghwa to help them—all they could do was wait.
it had been a day since they approached seonghwa, convincing wooyoung to stay at home because seonghwa was 'not someone he wanted to meet', which wooyoung believed was his decision, but the firmness in hana's eyes persuaded him to follow her advice. wooyoung, with nothing else to do at 5:45 p.m. on an uneventful evening, decided to start another television series.
the pink-covered living room was dimly lit, with the only source of light coming from the flickering images on the television screen. wooyoung lay sprawled on the couch, his thoughts drifting in and out of the plot of the show. he picked up his phone and scrolled through his messages, half expecting an update from hana, who was still at her pilates class, or san, who was most likely on his way home from work. he sighed and tossed the phone aside, staring at the ceiling instead.
he wondered how long this limbo would last. days felt like weeks, with each moment passing without resolution. the sudden urge to do something, anything, gnawed at him, but he felt trapped in a cycle of waiting for others to act, for news to arrive, and for a seemingly elusive breakthrough. furthermore, wooyoung wondered why everyone seemed so wary of seonghwa, particularly when it came to him. was seonghwa a super fan? or was he the complete opposite?
wooyoung glanced over at the open laptop on the coffee table in front of him. he reached out and tapped the touchpad to bring the laptop out of sleep mode, deciding to do something productive with his life, only to be hit in the face with a dozen 'ding' sounds one after the other.
taken aback and temporarily scared, wooyoung slobbered to the ground, trying to figure out which of the nearly 50 open tabs was causing his pounding heart, only to discover it was the forum for lumi's lullaby.
wooyoung's face lit up with realisation and pure joy. the game! he'd been so preoccupied with fixing his own image and racking his head about how he was supposed to do so that he'd completely forgotten about the mobile game that had gotten him into that situation in the first place.
and all of the new discussions seemed to be about rumoured release dates for the next season... was god really helping him out of his seemingly never-ending boredom?
overcome with a sudden rush of energy, wooyoung scooted closer to the laptop and leaned in. however, before he could go through any of the new threads, a red circle to the top-right of the screen caught his eye. he blinked in confusion. even with all the comments he'd left, he never had over 3 or 4 notifications on the forum in a day. how on earth did he have 22 notifications in less than a minute?
when he clicked the button, he was even more confused to find out that it was the same person who had liked all of his comments. at the end of their liking spree, they sent him a follow request.
if anything, wooyoung would have been cautious. as a celebrity, he understood better than anyone else the importance of internet safety; however, the requester's username got the best of him.
