‘Drinking too much’?
I stared at Bae Sejin in disbelief.
“I had one can.”
I had never drunk enough by myself to get excessively drunk.
I wasn’t an idiot.
Why would I drink heavily when I had schedules every day?
Especially when tomorrow was the final Seoul concert.
But Bae Sejin replied with a tense expression.
“…Drinking while you’re in the bath is dangerous. And I don’t just mean today. You drink too often.”
“I only drank today because I felt like celebrating. I don’t normally drink like this. And it’s not that often….”
“No, it is often!”
Bae Sejin suddenly shouted.
Then he startled himself and glanced anxiously toward the other rooms.
‘What are you doing?’
As I stared at him with a reluctant expression, Bae Sejin lowered his voice slightly and continued.
“You drank a few days ago too. And last week.”
“That was one can too.”
“The amount isn’t what matters. …Why did you drink then?”
“Well, to relieve some stress…….”
Bae Sejin clenched his fist.
“That’s what I mean… Lately, every three or four days, you keep drinking because you say you need to relieve stress!”
“…!”
“You’ve been doing that constantly recently.”
Bae Sejin lowered his gaze.
“…S-Since we came back from America.”
“…….”
It felt as though I had been struck in the back of the head.
“I saw it too often while we were sharing a room.”
As I listened to Bae Sejin’s testimony, I started calculating in my head.
‘I… drink once every three or four days.’
Right.
Bae Sejin was correct.
Twice a week.
Almost once every three days.
There were more days when I didn’t drink than days when I did, and since I drank without thinking and finished quickly, I hadn’t really felt the frequency.
Meaning I was habitually drinking every time for the sake of “relieving stress.”
“I-I tried calculating it, and I think the frequency went down a bit when you were getting counseling. But… after you got hurt during vacation, you started drinking often again.”
“…….”
“And when someone messes with your alcohol, you seem annoyed. You’re happy when someone gives you alcohol too…… From what I can see, it looks like you depend on it too much.”
Dependence.
Come to think of it, wasn’t I treating drinking beer while resting whenever something difficult happened as far too natural?
‘It’s even worse than before I entered Park Moondae’s body.’
It couldn’t be helped.
‘It’s cost-effective.’
Considering time, effort, and money, there was simply no way not to instinctively recognize how convenient a method it was.
“You could try relieving stress some other way. L-Like Seon Ahyeon does embroidery and things like that…….”
I looked down at the empty can in my hand, then answered.
“……You’re right.”
“…!”
“I’ll be careful.”
“R-Right!”
Bae Sejin looked a little surprised, then answered forcefully.
‘…He helped me.’
I looked at Bae Sejin again with renewed appreciation.
“Thank you for paying attention.”
“What! Ahem, I-I notice this kind of thing pretty quickly…….”
His family circumstances probably had something to do with that.
I nodded.
“Then I’ll throw this away and go to bed. I won’t drink any more, so don’t worry.”
“Yeah. Go to sleep quickly. It’s already late. Um, uh, we need to do well at the concert tomorrow.”
“Of course.”
I threw the can into the kitchen trash.
Then I returned to my room and lay down on the bed.
Cha Eugene was already completely asleep, lying upside down across his bed.
It looked like he had fallen asleep while eating popcorn.
‘A new hobby…….’
Now I even had to develop a hobby specifically for stress relief.
Still, at this point, I could probably choose without worrying about money.
My savings were substantial.
‘Should I just buy expensive food?’
Seeing the empty popcorn bag on Cha Eugene’s bed made my thoughts go straight in that direction.
‘As long as I control the amount, maybe that would actually be better…….’
I briefly wondered whether I should start eating Hanwoo beef or something.
Then I apparently fell asleep.
Read only on MUGEX
And the next day—
Before leaving early in the morning to prepare for the concert, I casually opened the refrigerator and immediately noticed a change.
Every beer was gone.
Naturally, there was only one obvious suspect.
“…….”
Bae Sejin, who had been quietly peeking into the kitchen, avoided my gaze, then shouted with surprising shamelessness.
“W-What! You said you weren’t drinking.”
That was true.
‘Looks like I really did have some signs of dependence.’
For a moment, I got a little pissed off.
I shrugged, took out the sparkling water I had planned to bring, and closed the refrigerator.
“That tastes terrible!”
Ignoring Cha Eugene’s forceful recommendation that I drink cola instead, I drank the sparkling water.
The question from last night returned to mind.
‘A hobby…….’
It wasn’t like I’d ever deliberately developed one of those before.
Whatever.
For now, I should just finish the concert properly.
“Thank you!”
“I love you! I love you!”
“Get home safely! We’ll see you again!”
Maybe because this was the final Seoul concert, every single one of the guys seemed emotional, and the closing remarks dragged on.
“SEE YA~”
Aside from Cha Eugene sticking his hand beyond the closing screen to wave and nearly getting it trapped, it was still a satisfying ending.
“Idiot! That’s how you get hurt!”
“I’m not stupid! I have Passion.”
He really did have ridiculous stamina.
He would probably get a few words from the equally energetic Ryu Chungwoo soon.
I drank water and wiped around my face and neck with a towel.
Around me, the guys still caught up in the afterglow were breathing hard or talking excitedly.
“Moondae, your phone too!”
“Yeah.”
We could have just gotten them in the waiting room.
They were going out of their way to distribute them here today.
I gave a small nod to Big Sejin, who had received all the smartphones from a staff member and was handing them out.
Eventually, the cheering from above began to diminish and the venue announcements started.
Once they had calmed down, the members began moving through backstage.
“Ah, didn’t it feel like everything clicked even better today? I mean, of course all the concerts were good~ Maybe because it was the last one?”
“Haha. Could be. I liked it too.”
“I-It was… really good!”
“If it were not for the staff’s overtime workload and the issue of nighttime noise, I found myself wishing we could perform one more song.”
Listening to them while walking down the corridor, I didn’t particularly feel like disagreeing.
‘It was fun.’
There hadn’t been a single accident or troublesome unexpected situation.
The entire performance had fitted together and run precisely.
It was like the best-case scenario had happened exactly as imagined.
Even the impromptu stage during the talk segment had gone that way.
A bit of luck and coincidence had lined up and created an entertaining situation.
‘Who knew every single one of us would get the punishment.’
Because there was no winner’s-team stage, we did that one again during the encore.
From what I saw, the fans had apparently conspired among themselves specifically to make sure everyone received the punishment.
They must be extremely proud of themselves.
“How was it for Moondae-Moondae?”
“It was good.”
“Ooh~ Well, you were shedding great big tears again today too… Ack.”
He talked smoothly every single time despite having bawled just as much as everyone else.
I walked past Big Sejin after throwing a towel over his face.
At the other end of the corridor, the manager approached.
“Uh, ahem, Moondae!”
“…? Yes.”
“Could we talk for a second? It won’t take long!”
“Ah, sure.”
Hmm.
Nine times out of ten, this would be about the company.
I’d briefly forgotten about it because I had been busy thinking about alcohol and the concert, but wasn’t the company currently in a state of emergency because of the “<Idol Inc.> Season 4 appearance at the TeSTAR concert incident”?
By now, it might already be getting added to a wiki under “Controversies and Incidents.”
‘Though I don’t know why he specifically singled me out.’
Well, maybe because of the industrial-spy incident, they had gotten the impression that I was the kind of person who picked up all sorts of information.
I shrugged, nodded goodbye to the others, and followed the manager.
The manager took me to a restricted parking area reserved for staff, then handed me an iced Americano.
“Uh, why don’t you drink this first?”
“Sure.”
I drank it while considering the usefulness of beverages as a potential hobby and waited for the manager to get to the point.
But by the time I had completely destroyed the Americano and there was nothing left but ice, the bastard still hadn’t opened his mouth.
“……?”
Watching him stand there awkwardly and pretend to stare at his smartphone for no reason, I finally spoke first.
“What is it, hyung?”
“…Ah~ Um. Moondae. Do you have anything bothering you lately?”
What the hell was that out of nowhere?
‘Since when does the company care about things like that?’
I answered reluctantly.
“Nothing in particular. Why?”
“No~ Um, hmm, ah, counseling! Have you thought about starting counseling again?”
“…….”
I frowned, then gave a short laugh.
“Why? Did the members say I need counseling?”
“…! Uh, it’s not like that~ You just look like you’ve been having a hard time lately!”
Sure.
‘Judging from his attitude, someone definitely said something.’
And if they were going to use that as an excuse, they should have done this when I was hospitalized.
I shook my head.
“I’m fine. It’ll be hard to attend counseling once the tour starts anyway.”
“Hmm, that’s true. Uh… hmm, right. Still, if you need it, make sure you say something!”
“Yes.”
“…….”
“…….”
Was that really all?
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“Hmm… Right, right! Should we head back inside now? Moondae, keep fighting from here on out too!”
“Yes.”
What a ridiculous sight.
I looked the guy over with mild suspicion, then let it go.
‘It’s hardly the first time the company has done something weird.’
Maybe they had heard something somewhere and were making a token effort to cover themselves.
With the now-silent manager following beside me, I headed back toward the waiting room while fiddling with my smartphone.
‘Shouldn’t I post some thoughts or something?’
While walking, I immediately opened the camera app.
Then I switched it to selfie mode.
‘I can take a decent one with this now.’
Of course, I wasn’t so unskilled that walking would make the focus shake.
All right.
Level it.
Click.
With a small sound, a decent photo was saved.
‘Fine.’
I’ll upload this.
Nodding inwardly, I began writing the post.
========================
Hello Loviewers
The concert was really fun. I don’t even know how the three days passed so quickly
========================
‘Ah, I forgot the introduction.’
While adding “I’m Moondae” to the beginning, something suddenly bothered me.
‘Hmm, it would probably be better to have a group shot too instead of uploading only one of me.’
It was a concert.
That would make it feel more meaningful.
It would also prevent pointless bullshit comparing the members or making sarcastic remarks.
‘I’ll take one as soon as I get into the waiting room.’
Conveniently, the waiting-room door was already right in front of me.
Out of habit, I knocked and opened it.
…But suddenly something glittering exploded in front of me and blocked my vision.
Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop!!
It was some kind of event confetti cannon… similar to the confetti I had just seen onstage.
“…??”
By the time I came to my senses, I was covered in strands of something shiny.
While I stood there dumbfounded and speechless, guys wearing cone-shaped party hats in every color suddenly appeared in front of me.
And in the hands of the two standing at the front… were cakes.
Chocolate, maybe.
A messy dark-brown dog decoration had been piled all over it.
The words read…
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”
“Happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday!”
“…!!”
Birthday?
I suddenly calculated the date in my head and…… jolted in shock.
December 8.
My birthday.
Meaning… not Park Moondae’s birthday.
My birthday.
The day Ryu Gunwoo was born.
“How did you know….”
I didn’t even know what I was saying.
I started to blurt out something pointless, then hurriedly stopped myself.
But my mind still wasn’t working properly.
What the hell was this situation?
“Haha!”
Apparently my expression was funny, because Big Sejin burst out laughing and slapped my shoulder.
“Hey, don’t tell me you forgot? Your birthday’s next week!”
“W-We heard we’d be on the plane then… S-So we thought it would be nice to celebrate at least on the same day of the week…!”
“…….”
Ah.
That was it.
‘Right. There was no way they could know.’
Cold sweat broke out.
Only now did I finally understand.
…I still didn’t know how they had happened to choose this exact day.
Maybe, like the improvised stage where everyone had ended up with the punishment… it was simply a coincidence created by luck lining up.
“Yeah. And it’s the final concert day too!”
Ryu Chungwoo added with a smile.
“Moondae loves concerts so much.”
“…….”
“We worked really hard! The birthday cake! Me and Kim Raebin made it!”
“Cha Eugene has no skill. Strictly speaking, it is practically the same as me having made it alone.”
“No! I’m good at drawing!”
The two youngest members argued energetically over who deserved credit for the cake decorations.
Big Sejin grinned.
“Anyway, he really looks surprised, right? Surprise party, huge success!”
“S-Success…!”
‘Oh my God.’
Then I noticed the manager standing slightly off to the side, watching with a pleased expression.
I immediately understood everything he had been doing.
“So all that random stuff you were saying was…….”
“Hey, these guys asked me to stall you for a while~ What could I do! Hyung only said exactly what I was ordered to say, Moondae!”
“…….”
The manager showed me his smartphone.
The group chat on the screen was filled with messages like, “Try bringing up counseling,” and, “We need you to stall a little longer.”
For reference, the room was named <Tibetan Moondae Surprise Birthday Extravaganza>.
I didn’t even have to ask whose naming sense that was.
As I looked at Big Sejin snickering, he reduced his grin and spoke seriously.
“Anyway, happy birthday for real!”
“Happy birthday, bro~”
Then a completely chaotic birthday song mixing English and Korean filled the waiting room.
The staff members who happened to be there were grinning too as they sang along.
“…….”
It felt really strange.
‘…No.’
It felt good.
Yeah.
This was something good.