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Keun Sejin shuts the door softly and Ryu Chungwoo smiles on automatic. “So?” Chungwoo asks, modulating his tone so that it doesn’t come out too impatient. “How is he?”
Keun Sejin doesn’t answer right away. He’s smiling too, but his eyes look a little tired. “He’s alright,” he says finally. “Between the drugs and the fever, he’s a little… loopy? Or… out of it, maybe?”
“Loopy,” Chungwoo repeats. Now that’s an image. He hasn’t seen Moondae anything other than calm and resolute, except for their concerts—a loopy Moondae? Chungwoo has the sudden premonition that, in the near future, he’s going to wish he were better at taking pictures.
“It’s not too bad,” Keun Sejin rushes to correct. “He’s just, ah…a bit…” He trails off, then grins. “Okay, maybe it is that bad.”
Chungwoo laughs. As the leader, he says, “Thanks for finding him.”
“No bother,” Keun Sejin dismisses. His smile drops a bit; his words seem genuine. “I figured I should check up on him, because we hadn’t heard from him at all. And I was in the area.”
“Good thing you did,” Chungwoo tells him. He lets his own smile turn wry. “Is it bad that I’m not too surprised?”
“No,” Keun Sejin says ruefully. He glances back at the door, then checks his phone. “It’s odd being in there with the cameras off.”
“I guess I’ll see that for myself soon,” Chungwoo agrees. “Have you…?”
“I put post-it notes on them,” Keun Sejin says.
Chungwoo nods with just a bit of relief. He didn’t think that the agency would keep the cameras running without TeStar’s consent, but—mistakes happen. And, as Chungwoo is all-too-aware, mistakes can have terrible consequences.
Keun Sejin checks his phone again. Chungwoo takes his cue. “You should get going,” he says. “Thanks for doing this. Oh, and happy birthday, in person this time.”
“It’s no bother,” Keun Sejin says again. “Right. I’ll be on my way.” Yet he doesn’t leave. Instead he just stands there, staring at Chungwoo, disconcertingly serious.
Chungwoo is too well-trained to do anything but stare back with a slight, bewildered smile.
Keun Sejin speaks first. “Did you hear about…?” He taps the side of his head.
Chungwoo’s smile gets more bewildered. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says.
“Right,” Keun Sejin says. “Well. Ask Moondae, and he’ll tell you if he wants to, I guess.” He smiles again and the seriousness falls off of him. “Anyway. Shoot me a message if you need anything. Bye-bye!”
Chungwoo stares after Keun Sejin’s retreating back for a long moment, then looks at the closed door of their dorm. Trepidation coils in his stomach.
Stop that, he scolds himself. It’s just a sick Moondae. Chungwoo is the leader. He shouldn’t be intimidated by a few cryptic words and one ill patient.
Yet intimidated he is.
Did your courage flee as soon as your vacation started? Chungwoo interrogates himself severely. The resounding answer is YES.
Perhaps it's not as much courage fleeing as it is his effort. Chungwoo very much wants to take another hike in the woods. He was hoping his vacation would be a little bit longer and more vacation-y than this. He’d only gotten in a few days of relaxation before Keun Sejin had called him and asked him to keep an eye on Moondae for a few hours because he’d just gotten out of the hospital and hadn’t entirely recovered yet. Keeping an eye on his sick coworker really isn’t how Chungwoo wanted to spend the last days of his vacation
Well, whatever. Chungwoo knows the best way to stop being a—excuse his coarse language—pussy-ass bitch is to get shit done. He picks up his bag of supplies, opens the door to the dorm, and steps inside.
The cameras, he sees, are indeed plastered with yellow sticky-notes. Some of them have smiley faces on them. Chungwoo closes the door to the dorm behind him.
Otherwise the dorm looks almost exactly as they’d left it. Even Moondae is in the exact same position: sitting up on the couch, watching the TV play a video.
The video is a compilation of deer breaking into houses and eating all of the table-salt.
“Hey, Moondae,” Chungwoo says carefully, setting his supplies down. “How’re you feeling?”
Moondae turns to him and blinks. “Oh,” he says, “you came.”
“You’re too sick to leave entirely unsupervised,” Chungwoo says. He suspects Moondae wants him here as much as he wants to be here, so he takes a gamble: “If you get better quickly, I’ll leave quickly.”
Moondae pauses, then nods. “I’ll try my best,” he says. He turns back to his video.
Chungwoo unpacks his snacks and puts them into their little refrigerator. He debates internally for a moment before taking out a bunch of water bottles and going back over to Moondae.
“Here,” Chungwoo says. Moondae accepts one water bottle carefully and Chungwoo dumps the rest on the coffee table, then sinks into the couch beside him. “What are you watching?”
Moondae looks at the video. “…Deer.”
There are indeed still deer on the screen. One of them jumps over a very high fence.
“Huh,” Chungwoo says. “Impressive jump.”
“I was watching fan-compilations of TeStar,” Moondae says. He sounds put-out. “I don’t know why there are deer now.”
“Ah,” Chungwoo says. “It must be on autoplay.” That makes sense to him; he’d been mildly confused as to why Moondae was watching deer videos. If he was watching any animal videos, it should’ve been puppies.
Regardless, he’s starting to see what Keun Sejin meant by Moondae being loopy. Normally Moondae comes across as more purposeful than… this. It’s a little unsettling.
Moondae sits up and grabs the remote. He pauses the video. He stares at the frozen screen for a few moments. “I should monitor fan reactions,” he says.
“I can do that,” Chungwoo volunteers. He’d like something to do. Chungwoo isn’t very good at lying around and doing nothing, especially with his coworker acting oddly. “You should just relax.”
“No,” Moondae says. “You won’t be any good at it.”
Chungwoo raises his eyebrow, then drops it because Moondae isn’t looking at him anyway. “Wow, thanks,” he says, too impressed by Moondae’s bluntness to be really offended. “Nice to know your real thoughts.”
“Mm,” Moondae agrees. “Cameras off.”
Chungwoo glances at the cameras, then huffs a laugh. “True,” he says. “It really is different.”
“Yes.” Moondae fumbles for his phone. Painstakingly slow he unlocks it, then starts to type on it. He has to backspace every two characters.
“No, give it to me,” Chungwoo interrupts. “That’s too hard to watch.” He plucks the phone from Moondae’s hands and Moondae stares down at his empty hands with an aura of despair.
“You won’t be good at it,” Moondae says again.
Now Chungwoo really is offended for a moment. No, Moondae probably didn’t mean anything by it. “How hard can it be?” Chungwoo asks rhetorically. He pulls up Instagram and starts to scroll. “I’ve stalked myself a little bit before.”
Actually, Chungwoo is pretty proud of the extent of self-stalking that he did, because it’s still bizarre to see himself talked about on such a big scale—but then again, most of the comments were better than he expected. And Chungwoo already had a bit of practice in the archery circuits, so maybe he should consider his own efforts the bare minimum?
Moondae very obviously doesn’t care for Chungwoo’s internal debate. “I’m looking for anti-fans, not regular fans,” Moondae says. “I haven’t looked at what they’re up to yet.”
Chungwoo’s eyebrow goes up and this time he lets it stay there. Wow, productive choice, Moondae! His older… no, younger teammate is always so on top of public opinion. “Why would you want to look at them?” he asks. In general, but—“Especially when you’re sick?”
A thought bubbles up. Maybe this is what Keun Sejin was trying to warn Chungsoo about; it doesn’t seem related to heads, but maybe Keun Sejin was referencing overthinking?
Moondae considers the question. “It’s good to know,” he decides on. “In case they try to break in or something.”
Chungwoo can’t entirely dismiss that as paranoia. In a strike of worry he wonders if he should’ve been doing checking out antifans too, for both himself and the rest of the group. “Fine,” he says, “I’ll do it for you.” If he finds anything that seems important, he decides, he’ll do it again.
In a surprising display of emotion, Moondae blatantly frowns. “They’re not very nice,” he warns Chungwoo.
The concern feels a little good. Chungwoo smiles and pats Moondae on the knee. “I’m the leader. This is probably part of my job.”
“Okay,” Moondae says skeptically. “Type in Mo0nda3, with the second O as a zero and the E as a three.”
Chungwoo does as instructed and hits enter. Immediately he’s flooded with posts. Moondae, oblivious, hits play on the TV video.
“Huh,” Chungwoo manages after a moment of scrolling.
“Mhm,” Moondae agrees.
“And you… look at these?”
“Sometimes,” Moondae says, watching a moose step into a swimming pool. “Haven’t had a lot of time lately.”
“That is… probably good,” Chungwoo manages. “These are—they’re a bit worse than ‘not very nice.’” He scrolls past a bulleted list of reasons Moondae should be kicked out of TeStar (‘number three: he’s a gaslighting whore’) right into an all-caps rant of ‘DIE DIE DIE’.
“They aren’t all that bad,” Moondae says. “Half of them are just censored out of respect. Because they don’t want us seeing their RPF.” The moose on screen wades out of the pool.
“Ah, yes,” Chungwoo says. He’s stopped on a post about… ABO? “I can see that.”
For a while the only sound is Moondae’s moose video. Chungwoo scrolls and scrolls through the posts. They’re mostly all awful—and explicit in some way, wow, Chungwoo doesn’t even recognize all these terms and he’s heard some shit before—but as far as he can tell, none of them indicate organized action.
This really seems like a job for their manager, Chungwoo decides. He has no experience in telling whether any of these threats are real, and as far as he’s aware Moondae doesn’t either. Chungwoo feels a little bad thinking this, but Moondae is probably only checking anti-fan reactions because of his own experience with them breaking into his house—and the water bottle incident. It’s justified paranoia, but paranoia all the same. Besides, without a practiced eye, Chungwoo doesn’t see how looking at anti-fan posts will help.
Also, these posts are disgusting. Chungwoo is starting to feel a sick and pissed off at the same time, which is a bad combination.
About an hour passes. Moondae, unmoving, watches whatever videos YouTube recommends and occasionally tells Chungwoo to try a different search term. Chungwoo pretends to look at the anti-fan posts and does a very good job of not asking Moondae how the fuck he expects Chungwoo to scroll through a torrent of personal vitriol for an hour straight. Chungwoo hopes that Moondae isn’t basing his assumption of Chungwoo’s mental strength off of Moondae’s own mental strength.
The most recent video—honey-bee keeping—stops and Chungwoo stands and stretches. “I’ll go get dinner prepared,” he announces.
Moondae’s attention jerks from the autoplaying-next screen to Chungwoo. “I can do it,” he says promptly.
“You’re sick,” Chungwoo reminds him. “I’m here to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Moondae says. He says it more like he’s bewildered than anything else; like Chungwoo has implied that the sky isn’t blue, and Moondae is confused as to how he got that notion in his head.
“Of course,” Chungwoo says. He tries for the same tone of voice but suspects that he fails. He switches to something more playful. “But it’s my job as the leader to do this sort of stuff! Don’t go usurping my leadership!”
Moondae’s eyes widen. They’re red-rimmed with his fever. “Oh no,” Moondae breathes, entirely genuine. “Yes, okay, you do it. Keun Sejin left galbi-jjim in the fridge.”
For a moment Chungwoo hesitates. Moondae just took him more seriously than he intended—should he do something about that? Well, it worked. And it’s nice to get that extra confirmation that Moondae really doesn’t want anything to do with a leadership position, because even though he said he didn’t want it before, Chungwoo is certain that Moondae could take leadership of TeStar with ease.
Chungwoo is growing lost in his own head, standing in the doorframe. This is what he gets for overworking himself so much. He turns back to the kitchen to tackle the galbi-jjim.
Luckily, the galbi-jjim doesn’t put up too much of a fight. Chungwoo wrangles it into the microwave and waits for it to heat up, then plates it and carries it out to Moondae.
Moondae hasn’t turned back on the TV; instead he’s moved to the table and is watching the kitchen sharply. When Chungwoo walks out Moondae turns quickly to face the table instead of the kitchen. “Thanks,” he says.
Chungwoo nods in acknowledgement and gives Moondae his food.
Moondae tucks in with care.
“Did you have any medicine you have to take?” Chungwoo asks after a few moments of eating. The pork is chewy, like it’s been microwaved too long. The vegetables are hot in his mouth. He scarfs it down quickly.
Moondae finishes chewing slowly. “Yes,” he says. “Painkillers. For the fever aches.”
“When’d you last take them?” Chungwoo prods.
Moondae looks at his phone. “I can take some now,” he decides. Then he goes back to his food.
Chungwoo rests his chin on his fist and watches. “Don’t forget,” he says.
Moondae gives him a vaguely offended look. “I won’t,” he says.
Another few minutes of silence. “It’s good,” Moondae comments to the food.
“Yes,” Chungwoo agrees. He assumes Moondae is talking about the pork.
“Keun Sejin should’ve eaten it himself,” Moondae continues, lifting a piece carefully and placing it in his mouth.
“Was it a birthday present?” Chungwoo asks. Moondae nods. “Then he probably was trying to pay it back,” Chungwoo continues. “Sometimes the best thing you can do on your birthday is give a gift to someone else.”
Moondae gives Chungwoo a deeply suspicious look.
Chungwoo gives Moondae his best enigmatic smile.
“He must’ve had too much food,” Moondae decides.
Chungwoo concedes the point. “Or that, yes.”
A few more minutes of silence. Moondae finishes up and measures out two pills from a little plastic bottle. Chungwoo looks down at his phone. The screen reminds him of all of those anti-fan messages; he searches for a change of topic.
“Keun Sejin said that I should ask you about your head,” Chungwoo comments. “Do you have a headache you should take care of, too?”
Moondae dry-swallows his pills and tilts his head, puppyish. Chungwoo resists the urge to tease him about it. “I don’t have a headache,” Moondae says. “He was probably talking about the amnesia thing.”
“The what.”
“Oh,” Moondae says. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No.” Chungwoo blinks. “I think it’s good you said that. The—amnesia thing?”
“I thought they might’ve already told you,” Moondae says. “Well.” He stands up; for a moment Chungwoo thinks he’s going to his bedroom, but he just picks up his plate and starts to carry it, waveringly, to the kitchen.
Chungwoo picks up his own plate and trails after Moondae. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says honestly. “Can I—ask for an explanation?”
“If you’d like,” Moondae says idly. “The cameras are covered.” He puts his plate down in the sink, then turns to eye Chungwoo’s plate speculatively. “Is the dishwasher loaded?”
“I’m not sure,” Chungwoo says. “An explanation would be great, if you’re willing to provide it.”
Moondae opens the dishwasher. It’s full. “We’ll have to leave the plates in the sink,” Moondae informs Chungwoo solemnly. “I woke up next to a suicide note and sleeping pills. I don’t have any memories of being Park Moondae from the day before I was scouted for ICorp.”
“What the fuck?” Chungwoo asks, politely.
“I guess we can wash the plates by hand,” Moondae says with skepticism.
“No—you woke up with amnesia? Next to a suicide note?” Chungwoo blinks rapidly.
“Yes,” Moondae confirms.
Chungwoo rapidly re-evaluates everything he knows about Moondae. Again he wonders: should I feel more surprised? “You woke up and… immediately decided to go on to an idol show?”
“Well, I had to,” Moondae says. He turns away from the dishwasher and looks Chungwoo in the eye. “It’s alright,” he says. “I enjoy being Park Moondae.”
Chungwoo feels a bit like he’s having a mental breakdown, but the world hasn’t really changed at all, and he’s still standing on his own two feet, and his arms move the way he wants them to. “Okay,” he says, and it comes out less shaky than he feels like it ought to. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Moondae nods. “I’ll try not to drop any more bombshells,” he tells Chungwoo. “I just keep saying stuff that I don’t mean to say out loud.”
“Okay,” Chungwoo says again.
“It’s probably because I’m not used to being around people while I have a fever,” Moondae says. “I think that’s it. Would you like a lollipop?”
“Sure,” Chungwoo says.
Moondae opens up a high cabinet and pulls out a tissue box. Inside it’s full of lollipops. He hands one to Chungwoo. “You look like you need to sit down,” he says.
“Ah,” Chungwoo says. “Sorry. I’m still trying to process your… amnesia. You’re a very competent amnesiac.”
“It’s an odd situation,” Moondae agrees. “I’ve gotten some of Park Moondae’s memories back, which has made it odder.”
“And by Park Moondae, you mean the Moondae you were before you lost your memories?” Chungwoo checks.
“Yes,” Moondae confirms. “Him. We’re different people.”
“Is that why you’re able to read the anti-fan messages so much?” Chungwoo blurts. “Wait, I’m sorry, don’t answer that. Have you seen anyone about this?”
“You mean the hospital?” Moondae pulls out a lollipop for himself. “Why? I’m in good health.”
“Good health like you are now?” Chungwoo says.
Moondae gives him a blank look that still comes across as judgemental. “No,” he says. “Do you want to watch more videos? You don’t have to pretend to look at the anti-fan stuff now.”
Chungwoo gives in to the urge to massage his temples. “Yeah, okay,” he says. He doesn’t bother arguing that he did read some of the anti-fan stuff. Instead he unwraps the lollipop and sticks it in his mouth. It clacks sugary against his teeth. “What do you want to watch?”
Moondae leads the way back to the couch. “Gacha games,” he decides.
“Why?” Chungwoo can’t help but ask.
“I want to know if I can game the system,” Moondae says.
“Oh, okay.” Chungwoo sinks into the couch.
“Do you need a water bottle?” Moondae asks.
“Sure,” Chungwoo says. Then he stops. “Wait, Moondae, I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
“Oh, sorry,” Moondae says. He hands Chungwoo a water bottle from the coffee table. “It’s probably like with the birthday gifts,” he tells Chungwoo. “Sometimes the best way to take care of yourself is to take care of other people.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Chungwoo disagrees, but he accepts the water bottle anyway.
In a way, he supposes, this is a good thing. Not that Moondae is an amnesiac—a previously suicidal amnesiac, fuck—but that he’s willing to tell Chungwoo about it. The events have already passed; Chungwoo can only be grateful that Moondae is still here, and, from what he said, happy to be alive.
Chungwoo likes Moondae, desperately, all of a sudden. He’s terribly glad that he’s here with Moondae. Moondae is confusing and straightfaced and he makes Chungwoo forget who the oldest member of the team is supposed to be, and Chungwoo doesn’t know what TeStar would be like without Moondae. It would be lonely, Chungwoo thinks, or perhaps it just wouldn’t be TeStar at all.
He’s grateful too that he’s here with Moondae now. It could’ve been any other member watching videos in the dorms, but instead it was Chungwoo, and it’s Chungwoo now who feels like he understands the world just a little bit better.
Moondae’s selected video starts to play. Chungwoo doesn’t recognize the game. He pulls out his phone and messages Keun Sejin, Moondae has amnesia?
Yeah lol, Keun Sejin sends back after only a few minutes of waiting. Wouldn’t know it at first glance right lololol
No shit, Chungwoo sends back. You’ve known him for longer than I have—is he alright?
This is Moondae, Keun Sejin reminds him.
Chungwoo sighs around his lollipop and puts his phone down. That’s right. This is Moondae. Moondae, who’s watching him text and slowly easing another water-bottle in his direction.
“Relax,” Moondae says, having obviously noticed he’s been caught but pretending like he wasn’t up to anything. He’s a good pretender. “You’re on vacation. You just had an emotional roller-coaster. You should choose the next video.”
“I’m supposed to be the one saying that to you,” Chungwoo says again. He’s started thinking about what it means that Moondae is a good pretender; it’s making him concerned.
“You can say it now,” Moondae suggests.
“No, then it won’t mean anything,” Chungwoo says depressedly. “Let’s watch a throwing-darts competition.”
“You like those?” Moondae asks, very gentle.
“Yes,” Chungwoo admits. In a desire for mutual connection he shares, “They look silly. It cheers me up. I may not be an archer anymore, but at least I don’t throw darts. Let's watch some of those videos.”
Moondae reaches out and pats him on the knee. For a moment he looks genuinely understanding. Chungwoo can see in his eyes, fever-bright as they are, that Moondae understands that Chungwoo isn't getting paid enough for this, and that Moondae himself isn't getting paid enough for this, either. For just that moment Chungwoo feels a conncetion between the two of them. Then Moondae says, “Sure we can, sport.”
Chungwoo inhales. The moment is lost. “Moondae, again, pardon me, but what the fuck.”
Moondae smiles at him. It’s a very schadenfreude-filled smile. It’s the most emotion Chungwoo has seen Moondae display short of his stage performances and a few caught-in-the-moment bursts of laughter.
Chungwoo has changed his mind. He’s had enough emotions for the day, thanks. He likes Moondae a lot, but all the same he makes the objective, leaderly decision that he never wants to get stuck with a sick Moondae again.
The dart-thrower on the video huddles themself into a terrible posture.
Moondae gives Chungwoo another lollipop.
Overall, Chungwoo decides, it could be a worse vacation.