Chapter Text
Please, no, Gunwoo thought as Ahyeon turned toward the sound of Keun Sejin calling his name.
No, don’t, he thought as Ahyeon responded to the invitation to join them by hesitantly approaching.
Fuck, he thought, as Ahyeon sat down at their table, dragging Park Moondae in tow.
Keun Sejin welcomed him with a big grin, already making introductions. “Ahyeon! Have you two met? This is Ryu Gunwoo. And that’s Lee Sejin the actor. They’re on the team performing Rock With You.”
“He’s Lee Sejin A,” Gunwoo corrected, because otherwise Sejin A, who hated being labeled ‘Sejin the actor,’ would do the correcting himself, and things would get tense again. Who knew what drastic measures Keun Sejin would take then? One minor bout of awkwardness when Sejin A implied thar Keun Sejin wasn’t speaking quite respectfully enough to his elders had been enough to make Keun Sejin call Ahyeon over, which was already too drastic. (Gunwoo still wasn’t sure if Keun Sejin meant Ahyeon to be a buffer between them or a sacrifice to Sejin A’s disapproval, but he didn’t think Ahyeon was built sturdily enough for either purpose.)
“Hello.” Ahyeon awkwardly greeted both of them – more awkwardly than usual, that was, probably because Gunwoo and Sejin A were the eldest contestants on the show. The age gap wasn’t as terrible here as it was with, say, Choi Wongil, but Gunwoo still felt the years between him and Keun Sejin’s set acutely, so maybe Ahyeon did too.
“Ahyeon’s on my team,” Keun Sejin told Gunwoo. “Um… and would Moondae like to say hello?”
It made sense that Keun Sejin would prompt him. Park Moondae hadn’t said a word as he sat next to Ahyeon with his lunch tray. He didn’t start eating or even acknowledge anyone at the table. And with his bland expression, he couldn’t get away with that. Gunwoo winced, his head already aching. How annoying.
Moondae snapped out of his glazed-over look like a glitching video game character suddenly responding to controls. “Yes. I’m Park Moondae. Sorry. I don’t have any experience dancing, so today’s been difficult… I’m a bit…” He made a vague gesture that might mean he was completely out of it due to exhaustion, or might mean there was a fly buzzing around his head.
Keun Sejin beamed, networking mode fully activated. “No problem, man! We’ll get you through it. I’m a great dancer. So’s Gunwoo hyung, and he’s good at explaining things to newbies! Even though he’s on another team, he can probably give you some tips.”
Fuck, no.
Park Moondae quickly turned down Keun Sejin’s offer of Gunwoo’s help. “Thanks, but Ahyeon’s already helped me a lot, so I won’t burden anyone else.”
Silence fell. What a terrible group of people for a lunch table conversation. Shy Seon Ahyeon, spacey Park Moondae, gloomy Lee Sejin A, and Ryu Gunwoo with a splitting headache darkening the edges of his vision.
The only one here who was fit to carry a conversation was Keun Sejin, and he was now looking at Gunwoo with a questioning tilt of his head. Probably wondering why Gunwoo hadn’t complained about his services being offered up by someone else. Gunwoo didn’t usually hold back with Keun Sejin – a side effect of trying to get rid of him – so Sejin probably expected to be scolded for speaking on his behalf. But Gunwoo didn’t have the wherewithal right now. He couldn’t even answer his unspoken question.
Keun Sejin leaned in, growing concern on his face, so he could ask in a murmur only Gunwoo would hear: "Hey, you good?" If Gunwoo didn’t know better, he’d think Sejin was truly, selflessly worried about him.
At the same time, Ahyeon whispered to Park Moondae, “M-Moondae? Aren’t you hungry?”
Gunwoo’s headache throbbed. Park Moondae was starving from endless dance practices and he should be eating. He should pick up his utensils. He should be acting like a person.
Keun Sejin said, “Hyung, seriously, are you alright?”
Seon Ahyeon said, “Moondae, you need to keep your strength up for dancing…”
Keun Sejin said, “Your face is pale.”
Seon Ahyeon said, “Do you want something else to eat?”
Something had to give.
“I’m fine,” Gunwoo said curtly, and Park Moondae stood up.
“I’m sorry,” he told Ahyeon, “I’m so tired, I think I need to sleep before I can eat. I’ll see you in the practice room later.” He picked up his tray and left too quickly for Ahyeon to make more than a few confused noises.
Gunwoo’s shoulders relaxed in increments as Park Moondae got farther and farther from their table. “Just a headache. I’m already feeling better,” he told Keun Sejin.
But Keun Sejin bulldozed over that and asked, “You don’t like that guy?” Too perceptive by half, as always.
Ahyeon, who had been watching Moondae’s retreat with a worried frown, snapped around to stare at them with wide, concerned eyes.
Gunwoo sighed. “Who? Park Moondae? Why would I mind him?” He went back to his lunch, mentally making a note to bring some food to Park Moondae’s room when he could escape the Sejins and Ahyeon. Moondae really did have to keep his strength up. “I don’t know him.”
“Exactly, so why did you look like Ahyeon brought over your mortal enemy just now?” Keun Sejin laughed as he took the cue to continue eating his own lunch. Ahyeon didn’t seem to feel like laughing along, though.
“Moondae is n-nice!” He said it so earnestly. Sweet kid. Gunwoo was careful to keep his tone light in response.
“We haven’t spoken, but I’m sure he is. Sejin didn’t mean anything by it. He’s just teasing me for having an unfriendly face.”
“Aw, hyung, we would never tease you about your face! Top notch face card, for real.” A chin plopped onto Gunwoo’s shoulder, and when he turned his head, he got a face full of Cha Eugene’s toothy grin.
“Sit properly,” Lee Sejin A told Eugene. “Gunwoo isn’t a chinrest for you.”
“Hyuuuuung,” Eugene whined, but he shoved onto the bench between Gunwoo and Keun Sejin, carelessly pushing his tray between theirs.
“Ack! Hey!” Keun Sejin had to grab his drink to keep it from spilling everywhere. He probably wanted to say something sharp to Eugene, but except for a heated glance, he held it back, instead forcing a friendly expression when Eugene smiled at him.
“You’re the other Sejin hyung, right? What do they call you again? Raebin told me but I forgot.”
“I’m Keun Sejin, because I’m tall. Unlike that guy.” (‘That guy’ bristled on the other side of Gunwoo.) “Where’s Kim Raebin? I always see you two going around as a pair.”
“He said he got an idea so he’s scribbling something somewhere. He said he would meet me here when he finished writing it down but he won’t because he’ll forget. So I looked for Gunwoo hyung and Sejin hyung to eat with instead! Where’s everyone else from our team?”
That last part was directed at him, so Gunwoo nodded to where the other four members of their team were sitting with fellow contestants from their agencies. “You could sit with them.”
“Don’t try to get rid of me!” Eugene playfully punched him, which not-so-playfully hurt. “I’m already mad at Kim Raebin!”
Gunwoo didn’t see what that had to do with him, but anyway. “Don’t forget to take some food back for him if he doesn’t end up coming.”
“Why? He’s the one skipping lunch! We’re not even on the same team! I’ll eat his portion!”
“I’ll bring something for Raebin,” Keun Sejin assured Gunwoo, craning over Eugene’s head to make eye contact. He sounded quite self-important. Gunwoo had to tamp down a smile. Keun Sejin often did that around him, drew himself up all serious and acted like he was a grownup too, and it never failed to amuse Gunwoo. It only made him seem younger when he played at being older. “That kid forgets everything else when he gets an idea.”
“No, I’ll bring food for Raebin! He’s my friend!” Eugene insisted, offended, as if he hadn’t a second ago threatened to abandon him.
Lee Sejin A spoke up. “Sejin B will bring it, since they’re on the same team. You’re coming back to our practice room after we eat.”
“Bleh. Can I have that?”
Sejin A’s habit of only speaking up to tell Eugene what he should or shouldn’t do might make it appear that he didn’t like Eugene, but he handed over the pudding cup from his tray as soon as Eugene asked. Maybe he only did it because he wasn’t going to eat it anyway, but Gunwoo knew Sejin A wouldn’t have done it for just anyone.
A notable example of ‘just anyone,’ Keun Sejin caught Gunwoo’s eye with a disbelieving expression and mouthed something like ‘Can you believe this guy?’
Gunwoo wasn’t actually sure whether he was referring to hyper Eugene shoving into their table, or to the elder Lee Sejin blatantly allowing Eugene to act casually in a way he would undoubtedly have scolded Keun Sejin for. So he just shrugged noncommittally and applied himself to eating lunch.
He sighed as he left the cafeteria where Ryu Gunwoo was eating with his… friends? Acquaintances. Dependents.
It was still difficult to be near Gunwoo as Park Moondae. Being in the same room was okay, but being included in the same conversation really tested him. It made his brain all confused, not to mention the headache.
Shitty system. This was supposed to be helpful. “Two heads are better than one!” and all that. But having two bodies was sometimes much more difficult than just being either Park Moondae or Ryu Gunwoo alone.
Well, skipping lunch wasn’t all that bad. He would bring himself some food later on, and use this time to get some extra practice in as Moondae.
Gunwoo didn’t know why he was offered the trait draw that led to all this. It appeared as he stood empty-headed in the bathroom, staring at Park Moondae’s face in the mirror without really seeing it, wondering if it was even worth trying to survive. One year to become an idol? What a joke. The system might as well have informed him that he would die in one year regardless of what he did.
Then the new window opened without warning, not silently and easily as it had when he called for it, but with a strained zipping sound, like it took effort for it to burst into being. It was a small pop-up, less intrusive than the giant window that opened when he asked for the status window. He might not have even noticed it if it wasn’t for the strange sound it made.
! Would you like to draw a Heroic Trait? it asked.
He looked at it. He didn’t know how to respond.
Strangely, what really stood out to him was that the font was somehow different from the usual status window. As if that was a detail that mattered right now.
When he only stared at it, the window zooped again, stacking a new pop-up on top of the first.
! This is a free welcome gift.
Zoop! again. ! Please draw a trait.
“What?” he muttered.
The message pulsed urgently, but not threateningly. Maybe it was its small size that made it look so much less ominous than the other system messages, or its gently rounded edges. If the system usually reminded him of a computer virus, this index card-sized pop-up reminded him of a word processor’s unnecessarily helpful warning pop-up, the kind that would warn you there were unsaved changes before quitting or something like that.
!! Please draw a trait.
He supposed he didn’t have much of a choice. “Sure. Draw a trait for me, please.”
The tiny window stretched out like someone had dragged its corner to enlarge it, and a prize wheel began spinning before it had even finished rendering, like it was in such a rush it couldn’t wait to finish loading.
Ding! Trait received: two heads are better than one.
“What the hell does that mean?” Ryu Gunwoo asked, and then a sledgehammer of pain hit his head and he passed out on the bathroom floor.
He woke seconds later, groggy, head pounding, vision blurring. His first instinct was to immediately squeeze his eyes shut, trying to blink away the doubling in his vision, but that made it worse.
Something must be wrong, he must be dissociating, because he could see himself from someone else’s point of view, and he kind of couldn’t feel the bathroom tiles underneath him, but also he could and it was uncomfortable. He tried to breathe but it was like the air went somewhere else. He gasped and heard the noise come from somewhere a few feet away. The self he could see was Park Moondae, sprawled on the floor, but as if he was the one on the floor he could also see Ryu Gunwoo, standing in the middle of the room like he had simply been dropped there, face blank as an NPC.
It took a long time for his head to stop hurting, even after he figured out what was going on.
It was like a video game. Some kind of video game where you had to build a team of fighters, maybe. Definitely something strategy-based.
He had two players to control. Two shots at winning Idol Inc. Two pools of resources to spend developing his players. But, with two pools of resources, didn’t it make sense to invest them all in just one of the players, focus on maxing him out and ensuring his success, rather than investing less effectively in both? He’d rather have one 100% certain player than two 50% certain players.
Gunwoo sat cross-legged on the bed across from Park Moondae. He sat cross-legged across the bed from Ryu Gunwoo. He toggled his vision back and forth, focusing from one set of eyes, focusing from the other. That was a mistake. His head hurt again.
He closed his eyes. Then he had to close them again, because he’d accidentally closed Ryu Gunwoo’s eyes instead of Park Moondae’s.
Letting the darkness dull the ache that formed from swapping viewpoints, Ryu Gunwoo thought about strategy.
Park Moondae was his best bet. He was more approachable looking, cuter, and most importantly younger. He was more likely to attract voters. So it was Park Moondae he should try his best to max out.
As he explored the system windows, he came up with his plan. Main vocalist was a position absolutely necessary to the final group which relatively fewer contestants would be gunning for, so he should go in as a main vocalist candidate. By that, he meant Moondae should do it. Entering as a main vocalist twice would just dilute his own strategy by giving voters more main vocalist options. He didn’t want that. He wanted to dominate the vocals of the competition as Park Moondae and concentrate the votes of absolutely everyone who cared about good singing on him.
Gunwoo, then, would have to be a dancer. (He considered going for a rap position only briefly before writing it off. He didn’t have… swagger.)
Ideally, he would just put the points he earned as Gunwoo into Moondae’s stats, but the system stuttered and balked when he told it to do that. The screen violently glitched around the edges and his stomach dropped, waiting for something terrible to happen. The numbers in the countdown to his death buzzed and scrambled and he was two seconds from hyperventilating when they finally stabilized, unchanged. He didn’t try that again.
Understood. Gunwoo’s and Moondae’s points were not transferable. The points Gunwoo earned from completing Gunwoo’s missions could not be invested in Moondae’s stats. But not all his resources were controlled by the system. Some resources were more nebulous: namely, time. The system couldn’t keep him from spending time as Ryu Gunwoo, while Park Moondae’s body was sleeping, working on Park Moondae’s strategy.
So Park Moondae practiced his audition all his waking hours. And while Moondae slept, Ryu Gunwoo both practiced his own audition and took care of things on Moondae’s behalf, like making meals for both of these bodies and memorizing lyrics for Moondae’s audition so that Moondae could get right to the important stuff faster.
The first day, he split it 12 hours evenly for each of them to be active. Then he started getting used to letting both of his bodies be awake for overlapping hours, because sleeping for 12 hours every day was a waste, even for a kid as unhealthy as Park Moondae. For the two hours both his bodies were awake, he figured out how this could work. Singing as Park Moondae while dancing as Ryu Gunwoo was difficult, but it started getting easier, becoming less an impossibility and more like… rubbing his belly while patting his head. Just situate yourself, separate your limbs, and let them move independently.
It remained hard to interact with himself, but it was surprisingly easy to manage if his bodies weren’t in the same room, distracting one self with what the other self was doing. When he was buying groceries as Gunwoo while grinding through practice missions as Park Moondae back in his shitty apartment, he thought maybe this is doable after all.
Before Idol Inc began, he got himself – both selves – onto a normal sleeping schedule, awake and asleep at the same hours. By the time he stepped onto the stage as Ryu Gunwoo, he had no problem completing his audition performance while Park Moondae talked to Choi Wongil back in the waiting area.
In addition to the ability to live as two different people at once, Gunwoo was starting to develop something else, something much less useful: hope that he might actually survive this year.