Chapter 293

The members of Prism, who all possessed a keen intuition, felt an instinctive discomfort every time they saw Choi Jeokhyeon.

The reason was usually his inhuman tendency to regard others as less than trash on the street, but it was different for Yoo Jay.

“I owed him quite a bit since I was young. My circumstances weren’t great before I debuted.”

“So, like a sponsor? Like how it is with athletes…….”

“That label doesn’t really fit either. He came to me when I was a nobody.”

“…Then why on earth did he take care of you, hyung?”

“How am I supposed to know what that lunatic’s thinking?”

The Choi Jeokhyeon in Yoo Jay’s memories had always been Seo Yutae’s guardian.

He hated it so much, it made his skin crawl.

Unlike others his age, he had been wearing expensive, neatly tailored suits and dress shoes since his early twenties, and even his calm demeanor and way of speaking gave off an air of maturity. Yoo Jay didn’t like any of the things that made him seem like an adult, but what he hated most was that he was five years older than Seo Yutae, who was five years older than him.

It was because he’d come to realize that if Choi Jeokhyeon saw Seo Yutae solely as someone to protect , then Seo Yutae probably saw him in much the same way. The more distant and adult-like Choi Jeokhyeon seemed, the more pathetic he imagined he must appear in Seo Yutae’s eyes.

Choi Jeokhyeon had never shown much interest in Yoo Jay to begin with, so the times they crossed paths or spoke were few and far between. The problem was that every single one of those rare encounters had something to do with Seo Yutae.

“You just don’t want to accept the fact that he doesn’t need your help.”

Choi Jeokhyeon always spoke as if he could peer straight into someone’s innermost thoughts.

Each time he was made to face a painful truth he desperately wanted to ignore, Yoo Jay felt his inner world deeply shaken.

No one was perfect, so it wasn’t as if Choi Jeokhyeon was always right. But it was hard to dismiss what he said about Seo Yutae. They’d known each other for too long, and from an outsider’s perspective, it was clear that Seo Yutae relied on him more than most.

“Hyung, are you having trouble breathing again?”

“…Yeah, I feel a little nauseous.”

He used to rely on Seo Yuseong too, but now that Seo Yuseong was gone, the only person he trusted and depended on was Choi Jeokhyeon. So, Yoo Jay had no choice but to believe what Choi Jeokhyeon said.

“Live happily inside the cage, without knowing anything, not even realizing you’re being protected. That’s the most efficient way to avoid becoming an obstacle for him.”

Yoo Jay began to be helplessly swept along.

The words Seo Yutae had said just before, “ Stop being stubborn like a child ”, were still lodged in his chest, so wasn’t it only natural that the wound would deepen when the wind blew over it?

“…I admit that I’m lacking a lot right now. I also acknowledge that my approach this time was immature. So, I’ll leave for today. It seems like that’s what he wants as well.”

Of course, no matter how bitter it was to swallow, he still acted like everything was fine in front of Choi Jeokhyeon.

Because if he let it show that he felt miserable, it would feel like he had truly lost to him.

Acknowledging his own shortcomings, making an effort to fix them, and never giving up until the end. Yoo Jay had already internalized the image of growth that people considered ‘right ‘, so even if he was falling apart on the inside, he could still wrap himself in a flawless shell on the outside.

Even if it was a pretense, he believed it was okay.

Yoo Jay had overcome many situations where he wasn’t actually okay , so he believed that if he kept trying again, the day would come when his feelings would finally get through.

As a matter of fact, Yoo Jay was someone with the ability to make that happen, so whether it came sooner or later, he would have improved eventually.

But…….

“There’s a hidden safe in Kang Hyukwoo’s office. I’m sure his weaknesses are in there.”

The problem was that some crises were so harmful and deadly, they would crush even a flower blooming on the edge of a cliff. What Seo Yutae feared was precisely this harsh wall of reality.

“…Video?”

Yoo Jay knew all too well what kind of person Jo Inchan was and the life he had led, which made the video all the more painful to watch.

Jo Inchan was such a sincere and responsible person that he had never once set foot in entertainment establishments like clubs of his own accord.

Yoo Jay remembered how, whenever there was a drinking party, Jo Inchan would sit beside Seo Yutae—who never drank—and quietly strike up a conversation with him.

“Hyung, why don’t you drink?”

“If I get drunk and stumble around, I won’t be able to do my work. You never know what might happen, and if we’re all wasted, what are we supposed to do?”

“…Then I’ll do the same from now on.”

Seo Yutae was the kind of person who felt deeply uneasy when he wasn’t in complete control of himself, and Jo Inchan always followed faithfully in his footsteps.

Rather than alcohol, he preferred tea for the sake of his vocal cords.

Rather than partying, he chose practice for the performance.

He acted as if straying from that path even once would leave him stranded and alone in this huge, long journey. All the while, Lee Chise and Nam Yihwon, right beside him, were often drinking without restraint and passing out on the floor like it was nothing.

It was impossible for Jo Inchan to have touched something like that of his own accord.

There was no scene in the video of Jo Inchan entering the room on his own, nor was there any footage of him putting the substance into his body himself. It didn’t make sense that Kang Hyukwoo would deliberately leave out any part of the video that might have worked in his own favor.

Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that Jo Inchan had been brought there by force, and that everything in the video had been done to him against his will.

“……”

After watching the entire video, Yoo Jay was left frozen in place, unable to move.

The word that best described his state at the time was shock . Although it shared the same name as what Seo Yutae had felt after watching Jo Inchan’s video, in truth, it was something entirely different.

Seo Yutae felt a searing pain, as if his flesh were being ripped from the bone. He grieved as if he had gone through it himself. He thought of Jo Inchan with deep sorrow. And he vowed to do whatever it took to bring peace to him as soon as possible.

But Yoo Jay was different.

The first emotion Yoo Jay felt was fear .

Yoo Jay froze, stiff and paralyzed, like a child watching their parents collapse. Seeing someone he had always relied on and believed in fall apart so miserably filled him with a deep fear. It made him question whether he even had the right to witness it.

That was the difference between Seo Yutae and Yoo Jay, and it was the reason Seo Yutae had tried to keep the truth from Yoo Jay.

“Your courage comes from ignorance.”

The moment he realized that, Yoo Jay understood what Choi Jeokhyeon had meant.

And he finally grasped the reason for Seo Yutae’s adamant refusal until now.

‘…Hyung, did you already know I would become like this?’

Without meaning to, Yoo Jay recalled the blurred green eyes filled with tears, the unsteady breathing, and the limp limbs in the video. Then, he drew in a gasp, as if confronted by a ghost, and forced his mind to go blank.

‘What … what did I just do?’

And when he saw his own reflection in the glass wall, pale as a sheet, he was overcome with self-loathing.

He felt guilty for having felt afraid, even for just a moment.

Jo Inchan had endured something unbearably painful, and the other members were shouldering that weight alongside him. Yoo Jay couldn’t bring himself to admit that he’d been frightened by the mere sight of that despair.

The guilt kept growing, little by little, until it started to suffocate Yoo Jay.

In the end, when it finally reached its limit, Yoo Jay’s subconscious pulled forth another emotion—one strong enough to suppress the fear—for the sake of survival.

“…I’m going to kill him.”

Had he ever hated someone that much before?

He felt his mind go numb as the sound of his pounding heart echoed in his ears like war drums in the middle of a battlefield.

‘ I’m not afraid right now. Someone who’s paralyzed by fear wouldn’t be able to get angry for his hyung’s sake ‘. With that belief drilled into his mind, there was no room for hesitation. Hesitation would only dull the edge of his rage.

Yoo Jay began racking his brain desperately, deliberately seeking out the most violent and immediate way to express his anger. He was trapped in the illusion that if he didn’t go that far, his affection for Jo Inchan would seem like a blatant lie.

An overly rigid defense might protect someone from outside threats, but it also has the side effect of confining them inside. In Yoo Jay’s case, the reason within him kept screaming, “ You need to stop ”, but it never managed to break through his anger. That in itself was proof of how deeply he’d sunk.

He wanted someone to stop him, but he didn’t want them to get in his way.

What would happen to his life if he were to commit murder like this?

How would the members of Prism look at him if he became a murderer?

What would become of the fans who had loved him through all these years?

When he tried to picture the future based on everything he remembered so far, the only one smiling in it was Lim Seunghoon, who had tried to use him.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret. No one will be happy if you go through with this.”

Seo Yutae firmly hammered that point home to Yoo Jay.

However, Seo Yutae’s words never reached Yoo Jay in the end. Seo Yutae was the last person Yoo Jay ever wanted to show his weakness to, so rather than comforting him, his words only had the opposite effect.

“Is it because I’m getting in your way again? Hyung, you’re always like this … You can handle everything perfectly without any help from me, just like this time, but I can’t do the same.”

It felt as if someone had reached into the inner part of him that had been suppressed to its breaking point, and now everything he’d kept buried was pouring out in a relentless stream.

He felt deeply ashamed that, of all people, it had been in front of Seo Yutae that he had exposed the very depths of himself, by repeating Choi Jeokhyeon’s words word for word.

As Seo Yutae became more and more difficult for him to bear, Yoo Jay finally decided to push him out of sight. But sending him off to some unfamiliar place would only make him more anxious and fill him with regret, so he chose to tuck him away in the safest, most comfortable place he could think of; somewhere he could feel at ease.

“F**k! Put me down!”

At that moment, Yoo Jay couldn’t even properly hear Seo Yutae’s curses.

His foggy, clouded mind only fully cleared when he came face-to-face with Jo Inchan. The sight of the very face he had tried so hard to erase from his mind appearing before his eyes startled Yoo Jay awake, snapping his mind back into reality.

“Please cherish yourself a little more…….”

And as he looked at Jo Inchan’s face—twisted in pain, far more than it had appeared in the video—he felt as if he’d been struck from behind.

He barely managed to ignore the words that killing Kang Hyukwoo wouldn’t make the members happy.

But now, he realized that his actions were actually making them unhappy and hurting them.

The moment Yoo Jay heard those words from Jo Inchan, the very person at the center of it all, he froze in place like a machine that had lost its purpose.

“…What am I supposed to do?” He muttered as he blankly stared down at the floor.

Cha Woon, who had been watching them silently the entire time, answered the question.

“Staying together.”

“…….”

“Don’t try to handle it alone … now, we can work together. That’s the first step for us.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Lee Chise held out his hand to Seo Yutae.

“Give it to me, I’ll destroy it.”

After receiving the USB, he grabbed some tools from the toolbox in the corner and began to destroy it. Jo Inchan muttered, helplessly watching as the video, which had tormented Prism for years, shattered into fragments no bigger than a fingernail.

“…Is it finally over?”

Then, Seo Yutae slowly nodded with a faint smile.

“Yes, you don’t have to be at Kang Hyukwoo’s mercy anymore.”

How much time and effort had it taken to be able to say those words? Seo Yutae closed his eyes for a long moment, feeling a sense of liberation as if he had sent all the birds trapped in a cage flying into the sky.

And then, he wrapped his arms around the Prism members’ shoulders all at once and whispered,

“…You are free.”

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Translator’s Corner:

THE END hahaha just kidding….

ugh I caught cold … I hope I will be healthy when I wake up tomorrow, I have my dream job interview coming T_T

Anyway, I probably made a typo here and there, I’ll check them later….

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