Chapter Text
Isn’t it a fundamental rule that when you open your eyes, you’re supposed to see an unfamiliar ceiling and find that the world has changed?
That was what Ryu Gunwoo thought, but reality turned out to be entirely different—he had woken up in a musty motel room instead.
“Ugh—”
He felt as though his head were about to explode. Clutching his forehead, he forced himself up. The blanket, heavy with the stench of dampness, pooled beneath his feet.
What the hell was going on?
The last thing he remembered was that, after confirming he had failed the university entrance exam yet again, he went out to buy a drink and ended up passing out while drinking alone.
He had a vague recollection of exchanging a few words with someone while walking back toward his apartment after visiting the Han River. He had been drinking by the riverbank and accidentally slipped into the water after tripping, though he wasn’t entirely sure who that person was, nor did he think it mattered much at the moment.
Cursing under his breath, he walked into the bathroom, desperate for a drink of water. His throat was parched.
The cold ceramic tiles beneath his bare feet jolted him harshly back to the present. The bathroom smelled of stale humidity, cheap disinfectant, and a faint, metallic undertone that clung unpleasantly to the roof of his mouth.
When he turned on the tap, the roar of the water echoed through the cramped space like a small detonation. Gunwoo thrust his hands under the ice-cold stream, feeling the sharp sting of the low temperature against his palms. He gulped down a mouthful straight from the faucet; the water tasted of old pipes and dry chlorine, but the sensation of the liquid rushing down his scorched throat served as his first real anchor back into his own body.
He raised his head. The mirror above the sink was speckled with dark spots and mold creeping around the edges. When he wiped his damp palm across the glass to clear the invisible mist, the reflection staring back at him stopped his breath cold.
It wasn't him.
Or, at least, it wasn't the worn, haggard face he was used to dodging every morning after failing his exams. The face staring fixedly back at him was painfully young, defined by sharp features, pale skin, and an expression of exhaustion that didn't quite belong to it, yet settled onto his features with a strange, heavy weight. He touched his cheek; the reflection's fingers mimicked the movement with uncanny precision.
Why did he look thirteen years younger?
This was how he had looked a long time ago, back when he was barely sixteen.
“Ugh! Shit!” He cursed on instinct.
Gritting his teeth, he couldn't believe what was happening. He ran a hand through his hair with trembling fingers, staring at the mirror once more.
A low humming began to vibrate just behind his ears, not as a physical pain, but like static interference clouding his thoughts. Who was the person he had spoken to before losing consciousness? What on earth was going on? The memory was nothing more than a frayed thread, a shadow floating in a sea of hangover and failure.
Gunwoo gripped the edges of the sink until his knuckles turned white. The cold reality of the moldy wood, the persistent dripping of the faucet, and the frantic pounding in his chest confirmed he wasn't dreaming.
If this was the cliché of waking up in another world or traveling back in time after years had passed, then the welcome was anything but grand. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
He looked into the mirror again, still staring at the face of his younger self.
He was just a young, skinny, fairly average-looking kid, almost attractive, really. He had never noticed it before, but his boyish face had quite a bit of potential if he just took a little more care of himself.
“Ugh…” a voice groaned.
It was only then that he realized he wasn't alone.
He moved quickly out of the bathroom, coming face-to-face with a body lying on the floor. As he stepped closer, he noticed a note beside an empty box of medication, a suicide note.
Who was this guy? What the hell was wrong with him? Everything pointed to an attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Gunwoo stood uncertain of what to do as he scanned the letter.
The guy in question was an orphan and a high school dropout who had tried to die because he felt depressed and hopeless. Though, judging by the number of pills left in the bottle, it was obvious he hadn't actually gone through with it yet, maybe he was just gathering the courage to do so.
Gunwoo felt a bitter taste in his mouth for no apparent reason. Why did he always end up having to take care of orphans when he was one himself? Even growing up in the orphanage, the younger kids always seemed to seek him out and run to him for help instead of going to the adults. It made no sense, and it wasn't fair, Gunwoo didn't even know how to take care of himself in the first place.
He cast a glance at the guy, who appeared to still be sleeping, before walking over to the cheap motel vanity. Looking around, he found a few banknotes and an ID card.
The guy's name was Park Moondae, and he was barely seventeen, having just turned seventeen on December 15th. He was a kid. A thin, frail-looking, rather handsome kid with baby fat still clinging to his cheeks. Looking a bit further, Gunwoo realized his own identity documents were there as well.
Ryu Gunwoo, sixteen years old.
It shouldn't have surprised him, yet it slammed home the realization that he had indeed traveled back in time.
He forced himself to stay calm, trying to wrap his head around the broader picture. He had gone back in time somehow, and for some reason, he had ended up sleeping in a motel room alongside Park Moondae. The strange thing was that he had no memory of ever meeting a Park Moondae, so perhaps this was simply a side effect of whatever brought him back.
He grabbed his wallet, which held only a couple of bills, and pulled open the motel door.
His expression hardened when he saw snow falling outside the window across the hallway.
…He hadn't gotten drunk until July, so he had assumed he had woken up around the same time of year.
“Oh, shit.”
Swallowing hard, he dashed back into the room and snatched the calendar sitting on the desk. It read December 16, 202X. It was a calendar from three years ago.
No, but—
If it was a calendar from three years ago, then why was he sixteen instead of twenty-six, like he was supposed to be? What the hell was happening?
His vision blurred as he collapsed to the floor, creating a loud crash.
“Ryu Gunwoo-ssi?” A drowsy voice called out to him, and Gunwoo reflexively turned to look at the kid beside him who had turned seventeen just yesterday. “Are you okay?”
“What the hell am I doing here?” he demanded.
The boy seemed to tense up, shrinking into himself as he looked at him with wide eyes full of worry and a spark of fear. Gunwoo forced himself to relax. He couldn't go around scaring a kid just because he was... what? Scared of his own circumstances?
“Y-you fell asleep near the bank of the Han River,” Moondae explained nervously. “You seemed… uh, you looked drunk, and it was snowing, so I brought you to my apartment…” His voice trailed off, avoiding eye contact.
If Gunwoo were anyone else, he wouldn't have even noticed the trembling in the boy's body or how he tried to make himself look smaller, but he wasn't anyone else. He was himself. And he recognized a kid who was being bullied when he saw one, having lived through something similar during his own school days and often comforting other kids at the orphanage when they were targeted by their peers.
On the other hand, the kid had mentioned bringing him to his apartment after finding him asleep by the Han River. Gunwoo, of course, knew he had gone there while drunk because he used to do it often, but… Why did he look younger? And why didn't his age match the age he should originally have if he had only gone back three years in time?
He raised his head at the flash of random thoughts that suddenly rushed into his mind. In reality, this might not be the past at all, but rather a different world—a dimension separate from his original one—where he had been born several years after his original birth year, though on the exact same month and day.
It was a wild idea, but it felt oddly convincing given how overwhelmed he was by this bizarre situation. Besides, this sort of thing seemed to happen all the time in the webtoons and web novels he used to read. Was it called Hunter…?
“Status window,” he muttered under his breath.
“Ryu Gunwoo-ssi?” Moondae called out timidly, looking confused.
Of course, nothing happened.
Damn it.
A wave of embarrassment washed over him, his cheeks suddenly burning hot.
“Did you say 'status window'?” Moondae asked again. “W-Woah!”
The boy stumbled back in alarm as a translucent blue window unfolded in front of them.
[Welcome, players!]
“D-Do you see it too, Ryu Gunwoo-ssi?”
“Yeah, I see it,” Gunwoo replied.
Why did it work when Moondae said it? No, wait… that blue screen was greeting both of them, so was this system-like thing waiting for them both to say the phrase before revealing itself?
Gunwoo reached out and tapped the stats button. Instantly, the information for both of them appeared.
[Name: Park Moondae]
Level: 0
Title: None
Voice: C (Natural Tenor / High-range Potential)
Dance: -
Visual: C
Talent: -
Traits: Infinite Potential
Status Abnormality!: Chronic Depression (Apathy)
(His 'Charisma' stat drops to zero if he spends too much time alone!)
[Name: Ryu Gunwoo]
Level: 0
Title: None
Voice: G/D (Textured Baritone / Low-range Control)
Dance: -
Visual: C-
Talent: Producer's Eye
Traits: Infinite Potential
Status Abnormality!: Fear of Failure
The contents of the status window were not what Gunwoo had expected.
Could Moondae see both of them as well?
Their eyes met, and Moondae quickly looked away again, visibly nervous.
Without a doubt, this was a situation that defied the laws of physics. Gunwoo could feel that whatever was happening was no joke.
[Outbreak!]
Status Abnormality: Debut (together) or die!
The blue screen shifted abruptly, lines of text continuing below the bold red lettering.
['Debut or Die']
If you do not debut as an idol within the given time limit, you will die.
(WARNING: You must debut alongside your partner, Player, or it will not count!)
Remaining Period: D-365
“What?”
The contents were absurd. Nonsense. Utter nonsense.
“W-What do we do, Ryu Gunwoo-ssi?” Moondae asked, looking terrified.
Gunwoo felt a freezing pang right in the center of his chest, as if a block of ice had forced its way between his ribs. The spectral glow of the floating blue screen cast an almost clinical light across Moondae’s drained face, highlighting the dark circles under the boy's eyes with a sickly greenish tint. A heavy silence hung in the air, broken only by the steady, dull drip of the bathroom pipes and the muffled howl of the wind beating against the window outside.
Debut or die?
The phrase echoed in his head with the persistence of an electric buzz. The word 'Die' wasn't flashing on the screen; it simply sat there, cold and unyielding, like a final verdict. Gunwoo clenched his fists, feeling the rough, dry texture of his palms pressing against his thighs. His heart hammered against his sternum with chaotic violence, making his pulse thud in his ears like a distant drum.
“B-But… this makes no sense,” Moondae’s voice broke the trance, barely a trembling thread that threatened to snap at any moment. “An idol… I can’t… I can barely even talk to people, Ryu Gunwoo-ssi. H-How could we…?”
Gunwoo turned his head slowly toward the boy. Moondae was curled up on the worn linoleum floor, rubbing the sleeves of his threadbare hoodie with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. The smell of old dust and the faint chemical scent of the unused medication still lingered in the corner of the room, reminding Gunwoo just how close this kid had come to disappearing tonight if he hadn't found him.
[Status Abnormality!: Fear of Failure]
Your stress doubles if you lose control of the situation!
The warning on the blue screen popped up again, though this time it seemed he was the only one who could see it. He felt a sudden tightness in his throat, a slick surge of panic trying to claw its way up from his stomach.
‘If I lose control, my stress and fear will double,’ he thought.
He took a deep breath, swallowing the bitter lump of chlorine and bile burning in his mouth. He couldn’t afford the luxury of collapsing now. If he—the one who was technically older in terms of accumulated life experience—yielded to the absurdity of the situation, the kid in front of him would simply crumble completely.
“Calm down,” Gunwoo said. His own voice sounded strange to his ears, too raspy, yet firm enough to cut through the incipient hysteria filling the room.
He stood up slowly, feeling the dry pop of his young joints. He took two steps over to the window and rested his forehead against the icy glass, needing the cold surrounding him to wake his mind up. Condensation blotted out the Seoul landscape, but down below, through the mist, he could see snowflakes falling diagonally, illuminated by the amber glow of a streetlight. The cold emanating from the glass restored a breath of lucidity to him.
This wasn’t a game, but it wasn’t an illusion either. If the interface was real, then the rules were real too.
“Thirty-six days… no, 365 days,” he corrected in a low voice, turning to look at the pop-up screen that continued floating in the middle of the musty air. “A full year.”
“Ryu Gunwoo-ssi…?” Moondae was looking up at him from below, his large, vulnerable eyes betraying the sheer fear he was feeling in that moment.
Seventeen years old, Gunwoo reminded himself. Park Moondae was just a seventeen-year-old kid, of course he was terrified of what was happening.
Gunwoo walked back toward him, crouched down slightly, and extended a hand. Moondae looked at him in surprise before timidly reaching out to take his hand, pulling himself up until he was standing.
Gunwoo instantly noticed the height difference between them. Moondae seemed to be at least six or seven centimeters taller than him.
Damn it.
“I don’t know what the hell this system is, or why it dragged the two of us into this madness,” Gunwoo said, staring intently at Moondae until the boy stopped avoiding his gaze. “But I’m not going to die in a rundown motel room just because a blue box orders me to. And you’re not going to die here either.”
The screen flickered softly, reflecting in both of their pupils. The countdown timer had begun to tick down.
[D-364 / 23:59:59]
“Get up, Park Moondae,” he ordered in a stern whisper, keeping his voice gentler so as not to startle the boy. “We have one year to figure out how the hell we’re going to become idols.”