Chapter Text
Sunoo lay down on his bed facing the roof, mind was racing through millions of thoughts. it was true. he did go back in time. His physical appearance and his voice were his adolescent one’s, the friends that visited him was his friends from Chilbo, he surfed the internet and everything were old news to him. He tried to pinched himself several times, trying to wake up from this dream (if it was one). Sunoo closed his eyes. why? how?
“I don’t get it.” Murmured Sunoo.
“Sunoo! Dinner’s ready!”
He pulled his body up, “I’ll be down there!” He walked down the stairs and joined his family at the dining table, reflexively smiled on the sight. Back then— or in 10 years? Well, in his previous lifetime, he was so busy that he could only experience this once or twice a year.
“Here, here.” His older sister, Eunsun, patted the seat next to her repeatedly. Sunoo nodded and sat next to her. They put each of their hands together, “Thank you for the food.” Sunoo lifted his chopsticks to pick up a slice of the rolled egg, then put it in his mouth. Eunsun eyes followed the movement and stayed, waiting for Sunoo’s reaction, “How is it? Your first non-hospital meal?”
Sunoo huffed a laugh, “Really good.”
“Your noona made it for you, you know?” Bragged Eunsun, holding her chin up high and bumped their elbows a few times.
“Oh really? It’s a million times more delicious then.” Said Sunoo in a teasing sarcastic tone.
Their mother held a fond gaze over her children. Even more so to his youngest right now. She had been worrying about him recently. Especially after he woke up following the operation. He was zoning out a lot. She even told the doctor about her concern, but the doctor concluded that nothing was wrong with him. That didn’t really lift her worry up. So, seeing him joked around normally with his sister was extremely relieving for her. She chalked his behaviour up to him being homesick.
“You’re able to join that survival show now. Have you informed the company?” Asked his father, bringing up the topic that Sunoo wanted to avoid the most. Sunoo looked down at the question. He had been thinking about it these past few days. He went back to the time before I-Land even started, which meant he could choose to not go. The aspects of his previous timeline haunted him. The hate train he had to suffer, the depersonalization he experienced, the scrutinizing eyes of strangers. a fleeting image of six people was on his mind, he ignored it. He wouldn’t have to went through all those things. He could live his life without being an idol.
The silence stupefied the rest of the Kim family. Eunsun softly tapped his brother’s shoulder, “Sunoo?”
“Uh! Yeah. Actually…” Sunoo chewed his bottom lip then hesitantly said, “I don’t think I’ll join. I… Don’t want to become an idol anymore.”
An audible gasp left Eunsun’s mouth. Now this, astounded the Kim family. Sunoo, who was so eager to do the operation so he got the chance to join his agency’s survival show to debut, said that he doesn’t want to join it? He, who was dreaming of becoming an idol since forever, suddenly doesn’t want to become one anymore? Doubts filled their head immediately.
“Are you sure?” Asked Sunoo’s dad.
Sunoo thought for a while before answering, “Yeah, I think so… I tried to search up the pro and cons of being an idol. And I don’t think I’m suitable for that.”
His parents looked at each other. His mom sighed inwardly, “Are you not going to think about it? You were so excited about it.” She paused for a second, “Don’t get me wrong. We’ll respect your choice at the end but we don’t want you to regret anything, okay?”
Sunoo nodded, “Okay, Mom. I’ll think about it some more.” Him and his parents dropped the topic. Eunsun however was still looking at Sunoo skeptical. not suitable? are you kidding me? In her opinion, no one else was more suitable than him. He was born to be an idol. Something was not right and she was going to get the bottom of it.
When dinner ended, Eunsun held Sunoo’s arms and pulled him to her room. Sunoo yelped and look at their parents for help. They let them be, because they knew what Eunsun was trying to do. Sunoo pouted, “Noona, it hurts!” That fell on Eunsun’s deaf ears. When they arrived at her room, she threw Sunoo to her bed. She crossed her arms, stared daggers on his brother.
“Now spit it out.”
Question marks decorated Sunoo’s face, “Spit what out?”
“The reason why you suddenly don’t want to be an idol anymore.” Elaborated her.
“Well… Just like I said earlier. I don’t think I’m suitable for it.”
“And?”
“Nothing else.” He flinched when he heard his sister scoffed.
“Yeah, right. And the sky is green.” Eunsun took a seat on her chair and rolled to in front of Sunoo, “Spit out the real reason why.”
Sunoo stilled while playing with his fingers, “It’s just that the industry is a very harsh one.” Memories after memories flooded his head. Days where he stayed up all night practicing his dancing, days where he ate half an apple to lose weight, days he hid under the blanket scrolling through negative comments about him, days he spent walking down the park at night when he was feeling down, days he feigned a smile in front of the cameras, days where he felt the most alone even though he was surrounded by many people. “I don’t think I could stand it.” Muttered him, tears brimming up on his eyes.
Eunsun was stunned by the raw emotion she felt behind the sentence. She moved to sat next to Sunoo, arms wrapped around his shoulder. “You really thought about it, huh? I thought it was an impulsive decision. I’m sorry.”
Sunoo shook his head, “Don’t worry about it.” He wiped his tears away and sniffled. Eunsun snickered at the sight, “Aigo, look at you. So emotional. I almost thought you experienced being an idol already.”
Sunoo’s body froze, “Haha… No way.” He said robotically.
Eunsun clapped, “Well now. Wipe your tears and go to bed. We’ll have to wake up early tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Well, I just thought I want to hang out and loosen up. Maybe buy some new clothes. What do you think?” Eunsun raised her eyebrows to Sunoo. He understood her intention, he exhaled a laugh, “I’m down for it.”
—
“Hurry! Hurry! This café is crowded before it even open!”
Sunoo was trying to put on his hat while being pulled around by his sister, “Okay, okay! Mom! Dad! We’re leaving!” Not even waiting for an answer, they rushed to the bus stop as soon as they stepped out from the house. The bus came less than a minute later.
“For two people.” Eunsun tapped her phone to the censor twice. They quickly took a seat before the bus sped off.
Sunoo panted and took off his hat to wiped sweat from his forehead. “Do we have to go to this café?”
“There is a special fall menu.” Eunsun showed a picture on her phone, “See, look how cute they are!”
Sunoo looked at it. okay, it’s pretty cute. So, he nodded in approval. The rest of the bus trip was filled by their usual mundane conversation. It lasted 20 minutes. When the bus arrived at their designated stop, they got out.
“It’s this way.” Eunsun guided them to a corner. Sunoo stopped in shock on what he saw, “Um… I think I can see it.” In line of his sight was a line of people that plastered the side walk with the approximate length of 150 meters. Eunsun grimaced, “That is a long one.”
“It has only open for half an hour. We’re still going there?”
Eunsun who experienced a longer one answered, “Do you think that ever stopped me before? We’ll wait.” Then she entered the queue. Sunoo sighed, preparing himself for an excruciatingly long wait, followed his sister.
After what felt like forever, they finally stepped inside the café. They both took a seat on the table the waiter’s appointed them too. Sunoo looked down on the menu then looks around the café and found out that the foods looked pretty accurate compared to their promotional photos. “Let’s order the fall dishes.”
Eunsun nodded in agreement and called a waiter, “We’ll order these two of the fall limited dishes and two portions of the apple pie. For drinks, I’ll order a pumpkin spice latte. And he…” She looked at Sunoo, waiting for his choice. He pondered, “I’ll take… Iced cranberry tea please.”
“Is that all?” The two siblings nodded. “I’ll repeat the order once more. One pumpkin waffle, one fall harvest sandwich, two apple pies, one pumpkin spice latte, and one iced cranberry tea. I’ll be right back with your order in 10 to 15 minutes.” They expressed their thanks as the waiter left.
Around 10 minutes later, their drinks came. Their food followed 5 minutes after that.
Sunoo glanced at his phone, “We waited for a total of 2 hours. I hope the wait worth it.”
“Exactly my thoughts. It looks good though.” Eunsun said while snapping pictures on her phone, Sunoo followed suit. When they felt that they took enough picture, they lifted their cutleries. A “Thanks for the meal” was said in unison. They first ate the pumpkin waffle. The immediate moment the flavour met their taste bud, they both exchanged a look.
“Well…” Sunoo pursed his lips, holding down a comment.
“That’s… Interesting.” Eunsun continued for him, sipping on her drink to washed out the taste.
“Let’s try this one.” He grabbed the other half of the sandwich and took a bite out of it. “Oh, this one’s pretty good.”
Eunsun, convinced by Sunoo’s claim, also took a bit of the sandwich. “Oh, yeah. I guess it taste okay.” She shrugged. They both scarfed down their foods and quickly got out of there. When they thought they were far enough, both of them looked at each other.
“That was bad.”
“So bad.”
They laughed at the situation.
“Well. Lesson learnt. We’re not going back there. Now, let’s go shopping!”
They walked for a few minutes, crossed a bridge, and arrived at Lotte Mall. They were looking around for a bit when they found out that a good movie was playing on the cinema.
“Oh, I heard this movie is good. There are a lot of positive review on Naver.”
Sunoo looked at the movie poster. It was an old one for him, but he agreed anyway. “Sure. Let’s watch that.”
Eunsun ordered two tickets for the 2PM schedule. In the meantime, they were going to go shopping. Both siblings love shopping. So, the amount of fun they had was through the roof. They spent 3 hours alone on shopping, which made them pretty late on the movie. Once the movie ended, Eunsun walked out the cinema with her eyes covered in tears, she glared at Sunoo, “How are you not crying? You’re more of a cry-baby than me!”
Sunoo laughed out loud, because I watched it already, “That’s just proof that you are the cry-baby.” Then stuck out his tongue. Eunsun rolled her eyes at him and walked in front of him. They only look around a bit more then left the mall.
“Where should we go next?”
Sunoo looked at his phone, it was about 4PM. “Should we go to the underground station?”
“Oh yeah! There’s a lot of street foods at this hour.”
Thus, they rode a bus to Suwon Station. While there, they did some more shopping despite already bought a fair amount of stuff at the mall. Both of them also stuffed their stomach with various street foods in exchange of dinner. It was 6 PM when they decided to go home.
They got on the bus. Sunoo leaned on his seat, looking out the window, a familiar sight of his hometown was outside. Sunoo could barely hold his happiness just by doing this normalesque activities without having the need to be cautious of anything. The contrast of his feeling with the last view of his previous life was distressing to say the least. It made him realize how worn out he was. His mind blanked for a second, maybe not being an idol is the right choice.
“We’re here! Let’s go!”
“Huh? This is not our stop.” Before he could process anything, he got pulled by his sister. He looked around as they’re out of the bus, “Noona, where are we?”
“I just need to get to this one place.” Sunoo resignedly followed her. Not long after, they arrived at an empty stair at the Hyanggyo Street. Eunsun sat down and tapped a spot next to her, “Here.”
Sunoo sat next to her, “What are we doing here?”
Without needing to hear his sister’s answer, he got it. A group of people that he didn’t notice before, gathered in the middle of the street. A music sounded from the speaker on their sides and they started dancing. Sunoo went still. Eyes stuck on them. He noticed some people passing by, laughing and whispering, talking about how pitiful it was that nobody was watching them. But how could he, when he knew best what those boys were dreaming of. The joy and hopeful faces overlapped with something from his past. Memories started flooding his thought again, this time though, it was the exhilarating feeling when he was on top of the stage, the smiles he saw on the faces of people watching him, the supports and encouraging words he read when he felt down, the feeling to know that he impacted someone's life out there, the happiness he felt just now could never beat the happiness he felt back then, he just realized. Whether he liked it or not, tears overflowed from his eyes. The comforting rubs on his back made it even harder to hold back.
“They’re amazing, huh?” Muttered Eunsun softly.
Sunoo nodded, trying to stopped his crying, “Noona.”
“Hm?”
“I still want to be an idol.”
"You’ll do great at it. I’m sure”
That night, as soon as he got to his room, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number, “Hello?”
“That show, I-Land, I’ll join it.”