Chapter Text
Ryu Chungwoo’s phone rang. He sort of recognized the number, but his phone didn’t. No contact info popped up on screen. After a long moment, he accepted the call anyway.
A familiar voice said with relief, “Oh! You picked up! Um, you might be wondering how I got your number, but, first of all, my name is Kim Raebin, and–”
“Raebin,” he said, too disoriented to watch his language, “what the fuck is going on?”
“I told you it’s all of us!” That was Cha Eugene’s voice in the background, blaring from Raebin’s end of the call. Chungwoo had never been more relieved to hear Eugene yelling his head off.
“Hyung, we–” Raebin started, but Eugene yelled over him: “WE TIME TRAVELED! WE FUCKING TIME TRAVELED!”
“WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!”
“IDIOT RAEBIN, WE TIME TRAVELED, WHO CARES!”
“What about the others?” Chungwoo demanded, shoving feet into shoes, arms into a jacket. The jacket may have been inside out. The shoes may have been on the wrong feet. Neither mattered right now.
Since he woke up half an hour ago in his parents’ apartment, rather than in the dorm he was sure he fell asleep in last night – since he groggily tapped his phone until the screen woke up and displayed a date three years earlier than it should be – since his parents looked at him with confusion and concern when he asked why the date was wrong – well, since all of that, nothing else mattered as much as finding someone who understood that this was not right.
“You’re the first person we could reach,” Raebin said. “Neither of us has anyone’s phone numbers memorized. I got in touch with your cousin who worked on Idol Inc through our agency’s TNet contact and told her that we’re friends and I lost your number and I needed to speak with you. Our next step was going to be calling Happy Friends agency to try to reach Lee Sejin hyung.”
“That’s very smart, Raebin. You did a great job getting in touch with me.” He tried to shove all his fiercely-meant sincerity into those words, because Raebin deserved them.
It would be easy to panic in this situation. Just minutes ago, he had been sitting on his bed with his head spinning, considering whether he needed to check himself into a psychiatric ward, when Raebin called. It was a good thing the two youngest roomed together at their agency back then (back now?). He didn’t want to think about how long it would have taken him to wonder if all of Testar was affected and locate a member to check on his own, if they hadn’t figured it out first.
“Me too, hyung! I helped!”
“You too, Eugene. You’re the best. Listen, I’m heading to Ahyeon’s place now. I have Moondae’s number memorized so I’ll call him as soon as I hang up with you. That leaves Lee Sejin and Bae Sejin. You already have a good plan for Lee Sejin, so one of you try that. Then can one of you research Bae Sejin’s agency and– oh, wait.”
He was getting another call. He grinned at the number on screen, because like Raebin’s, it was also vaguely familiar. Relief and happiness made his chest swell up warm with relief, because they were all coming back to him; it was scary for a bit but they were all coming right to him. He accepted the call and added the new caller into the mix.
He said, “Eugene and Raebin are on the line.”
“Oh, thank God,” Bae Sejin said. His voice shook. “I don’t… I don’t know what’s going on.”
“TIME TRAVEL!”
“Shut up, Eugene! He means why it’s going on!”
“It’s okay,” Chungwoo said, “none of us know what’s happening, but we’re working on it. Can you find a good cafe or some place to meet up that’s as central as possible to all of us? Actually, find one as close as possible to the kids’ dorm, the rest of us will have an easier time getting to wherever that is. And do you have Ahyeon’s number?”
“Yours was the only one I kind of had memorized. I’ll figure out the meeting place though!”
“Alright, no worries. The kids will contact Lee Sejin and I’m going to get the other two same age liners. Raebin, Eugene, listen to your Sejin hyung, text me the meeting spot, and I’ll call back when I have news.”
“Haha. Sure, dads,” Eugene snickered.
Chungwoo didn’t have the heart to scold him for teasing when he was so relieved to have company in the craziness.
As he left his parents’ building and made his way downtown to Ahyeon’s apartment, he called Moondae’s number, pleasantly anticipating how relieved Moondae would be to hear from him. Chungwoo will be relieved to hear him, too, of course.
“The number you have dialed does not exist.”
He stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk, other pedestrians muttering and cursing as they reeled around him.
It’s… it’s okay. He must have dialed it wrong. He tried again, and the robotic voice answered again. Now he was panicking even as he walked briskly, on autopilot, to Ahyeon’s.
So, he didn’t know Moondae’s number after all. Maybe the last number wasn’t a 5? Methodically, he went through all the possible phone numbers with the first 8 digits that he was sure of, replacing the final digit each time. He reached some real phones, which made his heart jump each time, but it was always strangers’ voices that answered. Never Park Moondae.
He arrived at Ahyeon’s house in a whirl of anxiety that was only alleviated by Ahyeon crashing into him for a tight-squeezing hug.
“Hyung, you remember too?” he cried.
“We all do, all of Testar,” Chungwoo told him. Saying it aloud made his heart start to calm. If they all remembered, then Moondae did too. Whether Chungwoo managed to reach him by phone or not, Moondae would surely find a way to contact one of the others, the same way the rest of them had.
“Do you have Moondae’s number memorized?” he asked Ahyeon anyway.
“I don’t… my parents were right, it really was bad not to memorize phone numbers anymore…” he looked so put out that Chungwoo had to laugh.
“That’s alright, I’m sure he’ll–”
“But I remember where he lived before the stalker incident!”
Again, relief was heady. “Perfect, we’ll go get him.” He showed Ahyeon the text that just came in from his newly re-added contact for Raebin. “Lee Sejin is confirmed. We’re all going to meet up by the maknaes’ dorm. It’ll be a good surprise to show up with Moondae, right?”
“Right!”
If Chungwoo needed any evidence that everything he remembered really happened, he realized as they left, he had it now. Ahyeon was only stuttering as much as he did in the future, which was far less than he did at the beginning of Idol Inc.
That meant everything they did for each other, all the ways they impacted each others’ lives, were real. Those things could be erased from the outside world but not from their internal reality. Even though they were younger again, Ahyeon was the Ahyeon who went through therapy and gained confidence from Testar’s successes. Chungwoo was the Chungwoo who knew these boys and loved being their leader and would do anything to keep them together.
And that meant, too, that Moondae must be the Moondae who cared about his friends enough to cross mountains to find them. So they would make it easier on him, and find him first.
Chungwoo hadn’t seen Moondae’s building before. He hadn’t even looked at the leaked stalker photos of his apartment back then, because it felt like an invasion of privacy. So he hadn’t realized until now…
Well, Moondae’s circumstances back then really hadn’t been good.
“Let’s not wait until the stalkers incident this time,” Chungwoo said. “He should move in with one of us before the show starts.”
Ahyeon nodded and led the way in, confident in his steps up to the top floor. “I remember the apartment number from when he made the report at the police station. It should be this one.” He knocked on the door.
There was no response, not even when they tried the handle, which was locked. Chungwoo concluded, “He must be out. Maybe he already went to find the others.” Which of their residences would Moondae know the address of? Ahyeon’s, of course. “We should have left a note on your door.”
“I did,” Ahyeon said. “I wrote his name and my phone number on a sticky note and put it on the door before we left.” He checked his phone. No calls.
As Chungwoo texted the others to see if Moondae had reached out any of them, a resident down the hall came out, a tired woman who eyed them suspiciously.
“You moving in?” She seemed skeptical, especially of Ahyeon and his very nice coat.
“No, we’re looking for a friend.”
“You’re in front of the wrong door, then. That unit’s been empty a few months.”
Chungwoo and Ahyeon exchanged a despairing look. A text chimed: no luck from the others, none of them had heard from Moondae.
Ahyeon hesitantly asked the woman, “Uh, then, have you heard of a Park Moondae in this building?”
“No.” She went into the stairwell without another word. As expected; Moondae wasn’t someone to be friendly with his neighbors. At least, his personality when Idol Inc started didn’t seem to be.
As Chungwoo scraped his brain for any idea of what to try next, Ahyeon suddenly said, “We can check the mailboxes!”
“Good call.” The mail box labels should tell them which apartment number was Moondae’s. They hurried downstairs to the bank of tiny mail boxes with peeling labels in the wall of the entranceway. The box with the same number as the apartment they’d thought was Moondae had no label. None of the ones that had a label were labeled “Park,” which felt like a slap in the face. How could there be no Parks in the entire building? Well, it wasn’t that large of a building… in which case, maybe they should just…?
“Should we just knock on all the doors?” Ahyeon asked, echoing Chungwoo’s thoughts. It was too stupid to walk out of the building they know Moondae lived in, just because they don’t know where in it he lived. But it was a strange thing to do, and the others were waiting for them.
“We’ll leave a note,” Chungwoo decided. They left Ahyeon’s stickies on (maybe) Moondae’s door and mailbox, the door to the building, and the doors into and out of the stairwell on each floor. “PARK MOONDAE! CALL US!,” with their phone numbers. Even if residents took some of them down, Chungwoo thought, Moondae had to see at least one.
At the café Bae Sejin had found for their meeting, Eugene launched himself at Chungwoo and Ahyeon as if they had been apart for months rather than… a day? It was hard to quantify time at the moment. They had all said goodnight to each other less than 24 hours ago, three years from now.
The other few patrons in the place gave them bemused looks at the kerfuffle. It was weird. Back in the future, they weren’t able to go out in public like this without gathering attention as a well-known boy group, the winners of Idol Inc and the singers of several popular songs – not to mention, they were the group who had been in a car accident covered extensively in the news recently. Before time turned back, going out like this would have gotten them mobbed with fans asking for autographs or photos or news about Moondae’s health after waking from the coma. Now they only got a few glances.
The thought struck him, as he wrestled Eugene back into his own seat, that coming back in time might be a blessing. Moondae’s body must be back to normal. He would have no scars from taking an injury in Chungwoo’s place.
He wanted to check for himself and make sure, though.
“Everyone, are you sure you didn’t miss any calls or messages? Remember, your phones won’t register his contact information, so you need to pick up calls from any unknown numbers.”
“I’m answering all of them!” Raebin assured him. “Even if they look like spam, just in case!”
“Yeah, he almost gave his social security number to a phone scammer just now.”
“Don’t tell lies, Cha Eugene!”
Bae Sejin put his head in his hands. Being in charge of the maknaes for all of two hours looked like it had mentally aged him years, despite his now even more youthful face. “Children, please.”
“We’re not children.”
“You’re three years younger than I’m used to you being. You’re infants right now.”
“We’re mentally grownups!” Eugene insisted.
“No, that’s a good point, actually, we’re now biologically younger, so our hormones and brain development–”
“Can we get back to the Moondae situation?” Lee Sejin said. “Let’s think. If you were Park Moondae and you inexplicably time travelled, what would you do next?”
The problem was, understanding what went on in Park Moondae’s brain was something Chungwoo struggled with at the best of times. These were not the best of times.
“Um… maybe he checked himself into a mental hospital?” Ahyeon offered. “Because Moondae’s very rational and this is… a little insane. Maybe he woke up and got confused by his surroundings and decided to seek mental help. I was thinking of doing that myself before Chungwoo showed up.”
Well, that would be a pain. In fact, Chungwoo realized, that would be extremely bad. If Moondae had gotten himself institutionalized, they would have no way to let him know he wasn’t crazy or alone. Even if they could figure out what facility he was in, they had no relation to him that would convince a doctor to let them speak.
Lee Sejin just looked amused. “Ahyeon, this is Moondae we’re talking about. We know what he does when he thinks something went wrong with his brain – absolutely nothing. Before Idol Inc, he got amnesia and didn’t even try to see a doctor about it. He hasn’t checked himself into an institution over a little bit of time travel.”
“Oh, right!”
They all breathed a sigh of relief – except for Bae Sejin, who couldn’t seem to breathe out his stress. “Ugh, this is so annoying. You probably just missed each other. Wouldn’t Moondae go to Ahyeon’s place? That’s the only one of our pre-debut homes he’s been to.”
Chungwoo had been thinking about that. After giving up on Moondae’s apartment, he’d thought the note Ahyeon left at his place would be the thing to make Moondae turn up. The fact that there was still no word from Moondae forced him to consider something: “Unless he’s not trying to contact us. There isn’t really any reason he should, is there?”
Raebin admitted, “I guess it wouldn’t have occurred to me to check if you guys were experiencing this, if it wasn’t for Eugene. It’s only because we were together when we woke up here that we figured out it wasn’t an individual phenomenon.”
The same was true for Chungwoo, and Ahyeon and Lee Sejin hadn’t tried to contact the team first thing either. The only Testar member who had done so all by himself was…
“Bae Sejin, why did you call me earlier? When you realized you’d time travelled, what made you think I might have too?”
“I didn’t think that. I just wanted to call you.” He met Chungwoo’s eyes just briefly, then looked away too quickly, awkward. “I don’t know. For the last three years, if I had a problem, the right thing to do has been to tell the team about it. So I just did.”
He said ‘the team,’ but it was Chungwoo he’d called. Even if only because it was Chungwoo’s phone number he could remember, that meant something, didn’t it? There was that same strange warmth in Chungwoo’s chest as earlier. Was this his pride as leader? Or something else?
Eugene punctured the blushy glow of his warm feelings by saying, “Anyway, this is boring. We time travelled. It should be fun. We need to get Moondae hyung.”
Chungwoo didn’t quite follow his train of thought, but he wasn’t wrong.
Bae Sejin said, “We’re just going in circles. We still don’t know where he is or how to contact him.”
The mood around the table drooped again. As if voicing a deep, dark fear, Raebin asked, “What if hyung isn’t contacting us because he doesn’t remember?”
It was an appalling thought. They moved past it silently.
“Moondae was cast for Idol Inc at a karaoke place around this time… does anyone know the name of it?” Ahyeon tried.
That was a good thought, but none of them did.
Eugene suggested, “We could just hang around the karaoke places in his neighborhood until he shows up.”
“We don’t know that it was a place in his neighborhood. Even if it was, we’d be lucky to guess the right one.” Chungwoo hated to shoot down an idea without offering one of his own, but… this wasn’t viable. After all this discussion, the only real option was still to wait for Moondae to make a move himself. “We just have to be patient,” he concluded.
Eugene burst out, frustrated, “No, we have to do something!”
“It’s not helpful to tell me that–”
“Guys,” Lee Sejin broke in, half laughing, a hand on Eugene’s back to calm his outburst. “I know it’s stressful, but it’s not like our only option is to find him now. We know exactly where Park Moondae is going to be in eleven days. We all will be.”
It was like a bucket of freezing water on a hot day – maybe not pleasant, but much-needed. Lee Sejin was right, they were catastrophizing.
Even if Moondae didn’t get in touch with them this week. Even if, God forbid, he didn’t remember the future they lived together. They were still going to meet him when Idol Inc began filming.
Chungwoo let out a deep sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry for not staying calm. Everyone, let’s work on our audition stages, okay? Until we have Moondae to help strategize, I think our best bet is to try to stick as close as possible to the past, since that got us exactly where we wanted to be. So let’s not show off too much. Who knows how TNet will try to shake things up if they get seven obvious finalists making it clear they’re the winners in episode one? We don’t want them messing with things. Bae Sejin especially – you’ve improved so much since Idol Inc, but you’re supposed to be an actor with no dance experience right now, so you have to tone it down or there could be unintended effects.”
‘Wait patiently’ wasn’t the best plan in the world, but at least Chungwoo knew they’d looked for alternatives. Before leaving the café to go their separate ways, they passed their phones around and put all their contact info back in.
Eugene named their new group chat “getting the band back together.”
“Do you think he’ll do PopCon again?” Lee Sejin whispered to him backstage. All the members kept twisting around to look for Moondae in the crowd, but no one had spotted him yet.
The idea briefly distracted Chungwoo from his ever present anxiety as he considered it. Moondae had a grudge against PopCon, or more specifically against people refusing to let him live it down. He might well take the opportunity to scrub it from his career. But he was also a practical, clear-eyed strategist who knew how much attention PopCon earned him, so Chungwoo thought he wouldn’t risk not doing it.
“Maybe he’ll do Cotton Candy,” he suggested, naming Marshmallow’s follow up cheesy single to PopCon with an equally ridiculous dance that never caught on the way PopCon did. Lee Sejin’s face lit up, which was Chungwoo’s only goal in saying it.
He had a bad feeling. No one had yet spotted Moondae by the time trainees started being called onto the stage. From the waiting area, Chungwoo watched Lee Sejin do his performance with fellow trainees from his agency. Part of him worried that Sejin wouldn’t be able to resist showing off his improved idol skills – but he managed to land the exact same ranking as he had originally.
Chungwoo breathed out slowly. They were okay. Everything was on track. So Park Moondae would come out soon.
But he didn’t. The judges didn’t call for Park Moondae during the entire audition stage filming.
“Contestant Park Moondae?” The staff member he asked consulted a clipboard. Chungwoo could feel the members’ gazes boring into his back from where they waited with wide eyes and tense stances. “There aren’t any names like that.”
He thanked the man and walked back to the members. His hands were trembling. For the first time, he had no idea what to say to them.
They gathered in a hushed dorm room, huddled on the trainee bunkbeds. Lee Sejin had unceremoniously ripped the wires from the only camera in the room to get them some privacy.
“If Moondae’s not competing, what happens to our plan to stick to the past?” Bae Sejin asked. “Things are going to be different without him. The team challenges will play out differently. Do we still try to do exactly what we did last time, even when things inevitably change?”
Lee Sejin shook his head. “That won’t work. So much of what I did on Idol Inc was in reaction to what Moondae did, or only possible because he did something first. We might as well make an entirely new plan.”
“If we go off script, we don’t know what will happen.” Ahyeon wasn’t objecting, exactly. It sounded like he was asking for comfort. Chungwoo put a hand on his shoulder, but couldn’t tell him he was wrong.
“I just don’t understand why he’s not here,” Eugene said, the thousandth echo of what they’d been saying for days.
“What if it’s not time travel? What if this is an alternate universe where Moondae hyung doesn’t exist?”
The moment the words left Raebin’s mouth, Eugene shot up and began pacing between the beds. He didn’t even say anything, which concerned Chungwoo the most. Eugene’s reaction, good or bad, always started with noise.
“I don’t see why that would be true,” Chungwoo said.
“We don’t see why we would time travel either, and yet…” Lee Sejin caught the look Chungwoo threw him and backpeddled. “But yeah, being shifted to a dimension where everything’s the same except for one person makes even less sense. Moondae’s definitely out there.”
There was a tug at Chungwoo’s sleeve. He obediently leaned in closer to Bae Sejin.
“I know you don’t want anyone panicking, but shouldn’t we consider that it’s possible?” Bae Sejin whispered.
“I’ll consider it. The kids don’t need to. It’s just making them upset.” Anyway, the solution was the same regardless.
He raised his voice to include the others. “Alright everyone, new plan. We’re not going to go rogue, but we are going to make some changes to fill in for Moondae. Ahyeon and Sejin, you’re going to need to do some acting to recreate the episode where Moondae gave Ahyeon his confidence back. That was highlighted in the show, so we don’t know what will happen to Ahyeon’s popularity if he doesn’t get that character arc. Sejin will take Moondae’s place in that scenario. Then Ahyeon, take Moondae’s role when it comes to suggesting the vampire concept for the stage. Going forward, we’ll take turns doing the things Moondae did.”
As they split up to go back to their assigned rooms, Bae Sejin walked close enough alongside him to brush elbows. “I get it.”
“Hm?”
“The new plan. If Moondae is out there somewhere, seeing us do the things he was supposed to do in the show will make him realize we remember the future.”
That was the beauty of it, and Chungwoo was pleased to have it acknowledged. He really hoped that somewhere out there, Park Moondae would soon scroll past a video of To a New World performed on Idol Inc, recognize his own work, and do a doubletake.
If that didn’t happen… if Park Moondae didn’t exist here… he didn’t know how to fix that. Not right now. But he knew there was a point at which reality had twisted before and might twist again. They needed to make it to three years in the future. When had it happened, on that seemingly insignificant night that changed everything? The moment the clock hit midnight, as they were asleep in their beds, thinking they were safe and sound now that Moondae was back home with them? If he stayed awake that night this time, could he catch the moment it happened, and somehow do something about it?
If it was possible to take hold of the universe and demand to be taken back to a world where Park Moondae existed, Ryu Chungwoo would manage it. He would.
“Chungwoo… is this really going to be okay?”
“Yes.” Well, he was the leader, so he couldn’t say anything else.
“Are you going to be okay?”
The question came so awkwardly that Chungwoo smiled despite himself. Bae Sejin was so awkward when trying to take care of people. It was sweet. “Yeah, because I have you guys.”
“...Right! Let’s try our best.” Bae Sejin frowned to himself. “But who will do Moondae’s bridge in To a New World?”
“Ah… you?”
“I’m not supposed to be that good of a singer yet. I’m not sure I am that good, anyway.” Sejin nudged his arm. “Maybe you should do it?”
Chungwoo laughed. “Did you forget? I wasn’t in your group for that stage. I did VTIC’s Sangun.”
“You might not this time. It was TNet who divided us up between Sangun and To a New World.”
“The teams were divided randomly,” Chungwoo said.
Bae Sejin looked at him pityingly.
“...Oh. I guess they wouldn’t have left the team balance to chance.” Every once in a while, he was forced to realize he was still naive about show business. He thought he understood it because he knew the dark side of sports, but it turned out every industry was terrible in its own unique ways.
He should have been more cynical, like Bae Sejin. Maybe then his team wouldn’t have been nearly broken by a rotten manager. Moondae wouldn’t have gotten hurt.
“TNet definitely rigged it that time and they will this time,” Bae Sejin agreed. “And without Moondae, the New World team will need another vocalist, and you’re a vocalist. If they put you on our team this time, you should do the bridge part.”
But was that okay? Chungwoo wondered as he watched Bae Sejin head off alone. To a New World had been Park Moondae’s shining moment. It had defined for the viewers what kind of performer he really was – not the memeable PopCon dancer or even the surprisingly good solo singer, but a main vocalist who elevated his entire group. Was it okay for Ryu Chungwoo to take that?
He knew it was a stupid hangup. He already told Ahyeon and Sejin to steal other things that had made Moondae stand out to the viewers in the original timeline. Why shouldn’t he take this part?
Maybe because he had already coveted it. He’d watched Park Moondae sing that bridge three years ago (by some measurements of time) and wished it was his performance, envied this younger singer his breakout success while Ryu Chungwoo was stuck trying to do a decent cover of Sangun that ultimately left no lasting impact.
He’d wanted this, so it felt impure to take it. Bae Sejin should do it, or Ahyeon. Because they were better, purer, more deserving. Ryu Chungwoo should stay where he was, and not try to take what wasn’t his just because its rightful owner was absent.
“Bullshit,” Lee Sejin said.
They were conferring quickly in a stairwell because TNET had put Chungwoo, unexpectedly (unexpected to everyone except Bae Sejin), in the New World group. Chungwoo needed someone to validate his next steps – he needed Moondae. But Moondae’s absence was the exact problem, so Lee Sejin was the closest thing.
“Of course you should do Moondae’s part. He’d want you to.”
Chungwoo was taken aback. Moondae would want one of the two members he was closest to to do it, surely. But rather than start an argument about which members Moondae liked more, which would be too childish, Chungwoo said, “I’m not supposed to get too popular. Remember, by the end of the show I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make the final line up. If I get attention for doing the bridge and gain the fans who are supposed to be Moondae’s, everything will be thrown off.”
“We’re not going to be able to recreate the past perfectly, hyung. We already agreed on that. We just need to all make the final group.”
Lee Sejin was right. But it still set Chungwoo’s heart racing and made his hands clammy.
A week later, he stood on stage and sang the ethereal bridge that had once made him envious of Park Moondae for what would not be the last time. He knew he was on the winning team, and he could hear Eugene whooping in support from the trainee section of the audience, and he was now part of an iconic stage that he had always wished to be part of.
But it just felt like he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t.