Free Web Novel“Lee Sion, you troublemaker! What kind of mess is this because of you!”
“Whoa, whoa, calm down, PD. Causing internal division in a situation like this will only add to the chaos.”
“You’re the last person who should be saying that!”
At Lee Sion’s utterly shameless attitude, Raon felt the back of her neck seize up.
Seo Ryujin, standing beside her, also seemed enraged by Lee Sion’s shamelessness and suddenly started toward Lee Sion, only to realize there was no point getting angry and merely let out a sigh.
The most infuriating part was that Lee Sion was not wrong.
Thud.
Raon sank down where she stood, without even the strength to get angry.
‘Look at all this dust. How long has it been since this place was cleaned?’
Then the storage room, piled high on every side with things nobody used, came into view.
A storage room on the first basement floor of the KJ Entertainment building.
It was a place where they had gathered unused items because the leftover space after making the practice rooms was awkward, and right now, it was also the place where Raon was trapped together with Seo Ryujin and Lee Sion.
-Lee Sion! I told you not to touch the refreshments for guests!
-Wouldn’t an artist under the agency count as a guest too?
-Do you want to die?!
As usual, it had started with Lee Sion causing trouble and Raon chasing after her.
It was a chase that began so Raon could punish Lee Sion, who had eaten every last one of the expensive refreshments specially bought for guests because visitors had been coming by often lately.
Lee Sion was so quick, darting this way and that as she ran away, that Raon had broken a sweat trying to catch her.
-Too slow!
-When I catch you, I’m seriously not letting this slide this time!
Normally, Raon would have chased her for a bit and then given up, but today, she could not do that.
-PD, did you see this···?
-What is it?
Because she could not allow the remarks Lee Sion had made on the Idol Ground 100 Season 2 pilot program, which aired not long ago, to become reality.
[Remembering old and sick Raon]
「(A gif of Lee Sion mentioning Raon from the judges’ seats)」
⤷LOL Is there an idol who describes her own producer like an old person on the verge of death?
⤷Is Raon an angel? How does she endure that ridicule?
⤷During Three Kingdoms, they even held a funeral for her
⤷If Raon sees this broadcast, she might get so mad she actually collapses
⤷That really is a devil’s mouth. She attacks Raon while attacking Hyeryeong too
⤷No. 1 idol you don’t want to meet on the opposing team
Because of Lee Sion, who had publicly said that Raon had now grown old and weak, so even if Lee Sion ran away, Raon would not be able to chase after her, Raon had to receive countless check-in calls from acquaintances after the broadcast, asking if her health was all right.
-Well, Raon, you’re not exactly that young anymore either, so you should take care of your health···.
-I’m perfectly fine?!
Even after retiring from singer activities, Raon had steadily received personal training to take care of her health, but because of Lee Sion’s slander, she had gained the image of being old and sick.
-They say frail beauty is trending these days···.
There was no way she could endure without twisting the legs of Lee Sion, who made excuses that did not even count as excuses.
Of course, separate from Raon’s determination, capturing Lee Sion was not easy.
She was naturally fast and nimble, so she was good at running away, and because her wicked little brain spun especially brilliantly when she was doing bad things, there had been more than one or two times when she had broken through the encirclement of KJ Entertainment employees and escaped.
However,
-Yunsik, Jiu! You two guard the exits!
-Yes!
-Ryujin, you surround Lee Sion from the opposite side with me!
-Yes, PD!
Over the past year of dealing with Lee Sion, Raon, too, had reached expert level when it came to capture.
It was a fact she did not want to admit, but it was certainly difficult for Raon to deal with Lee Sion alone.
That was why, while facing Lee Sion, Raon had mastered how to use terrain and comrades.
In the wild, pack hunting was basic when standing against a predator that was difficult to face alone.
No matter how Lee Sion she was, did she have any way to withstand the combined attack of Raon and Seo Ryujin inside a company building with the exits blocked?
And so Raon had arrived in the basement while chasing Lee Sion, who had been driven into a corner.
-Why don’t you surrender quietly?
-How bitter··· Sluggish Ryujin, are you betraying a member again!
-It’s not betrayal. It’s justice! Get caught quietly!
Lee Sion, driven to a dead end, suddenly hid inside the storage room, and there had been no problem at all up to the point where Raon and Seo Ryujin followed her inside.
-Huh? What’s wrong with this!
Until they confirmed that the door had locked, right as they were about to grab Lee Sion and leave.
“To think the door would be broken.”
“What do we do? We all left our phones behind too···.”
“For now, we have to wait. When the employees realize we’re gone, they’ll come looking for us.”
To make matters worse, it was a bleak situation where they had left their phones behind and could not ask anyone to get them out, but Raon was trying to stay as calm as possible.
The situation was certainly not good.
‘Of all times, right before vacation!’
For the KJ Entertainment employees, who had been running breathlessly all this time, Sanghyeok, as CEO, had generously given everyone vacation until January 1.
And that made sense, since right now, with the year-end stages over, they were free for the moment, while once the new year began, their schedule would be tight with award ceremonies, their Japanese expansion, and preparations for their full album, so this was the last chance to give the employees vacation before that.
Thanks to that, once today’s work was over, the KJ Entertainment building would be perfectly empty until January 2, without even the cleaning lady.
‘Still, wouldn’t they come looking if they realize the members disappeared?’
The only thing Raon was counting on was a faint hope that people might realize Lee Sion or Seo Ryujin was missing and come looking for them. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
However,
“I don’t think the members will know··· I told them I was going straight home today. I didn’t even contact home because I wanted to surprise them···.”
“What? Lee Sion, what about you?!”
“I said I was going to my parents’ place too, and I did tell Madam Sukja I’d come.”
“You did, but?”
“With our Madam Sukja, even if I don’t show up for a day or so, I think she’ll just assume I wandered off somewhere else.”
“Ah···.”
At Lee Sion’s answer, Raon had no choice but to let out a sigh.
If an ordinary daughter failed to show up on the day she said she would come, her family would be worried and call, and might even report it to the police just in case.
But if that daughter was Lee Sion?
‘Even I wouldn’t worry.’
Because they would worry that Lee Sion had caused some accident, not that something had happened to Lee Sion.
“What do we do?”
“Let’s shout first! Before people leave work, we have to let them know we’re here somehow!”
Bang, bang, bang!
Raon and Seo Ryujin began pounding on the solid iron door and shouting that there were people inside.
As if proving they were both singers, they shouted with clear, bright voices, putting desperate emotion into it with all their strength, but unfortunately, no response came back.
But since there was nothing else they could do, just as they were about to squeeze out their voices and shout again,
“Lee Sion, how can you sleep right now?!”
“The basement is only used by our members and you, PD, going back and forth to the practice rooms. No matter how much you shout, it’s useless.”
“We still have to try, just in case.”
“First principle of survival. Conserve energy.”
“What?”
“Right now is the time to save our strength. There’s a high possibility this confinement incident will be prolonged.”
As if proving the words she had just spoken were not a joke, Lee Sion immediately lay down on the floor, closed her eyes, and began trying to sleep.
***
“I’m hungry···.”
“Ah, there’s iced Americano left in the office.”
Voices of hunger and thirst echoed through the storage room.
Just how much time had passed?
Since there was neither a clock nor a smartphone, they had no idea how long they had been trapped in the storage room, but by their sense of time, it felt as if several hours had already passed.
Then the hunger and thirst they had forgotten at first because of the fear of being trapped in the storage room began to rise.
Ryujin was accustomed to hunger.
Starting from her trainee days, and then while working as Iam, diet control was something she did periodically, so she had skipped a meal countless times.
However, separate from being used to it, being used to hunger did not mean hunger was pleasant.
Surely, since she had gotten used to it this much, the pain ought to have lessened too, but strangely, the bastard called hunger felt new no matter how many times she went through it, and every time, it hurt as if it were the first.
Especially because she had managed her weight harshly for this promotion, and the company had specially given her permission to eat as much as she wanted during vacation, she felt even more wronged. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
‘When I went home this time, I was going to ask Mom to make braised short ribs···.’
How excited had she been that she would be able to eat a meal made by her mom, not Madam Sukja’s side dishes?
Being trapped in a storage room during such precious vacation time made her stomach churn violently beyond endurance.
And it was not only Ryujin.
“Ugh··· my iced Americano!”
Perhaps thirst was worse than hunger, because Raon desperately called out for the iced Americano she had left in the office as if it were an ex-lover.
It seemed her throat was dry thanks to shouting as hard as she could for rescue earlier, and since that was the same for Ryujin as well, she was currently suffering the double torment of thirst and hunger.
“I told you not to waste your strength for nothing.”
“Lee Sion, we’re trapped here because of you!”
“A foolish person blames others, and a wise person prepares for the future.”
“What nonsense are you saying!”
However, while Ryujin and Raon had been using their strength on escape, Lee Sion, who had been sleeping as if she was not scared at all, looked extremely fine.
When Ryujin snapped at that Lee Sion because she found her annoying, Lee Sion spouted some incomprehensible nonsense and finally rose from her spot.
Rustle.
Then Lee Sion began rummaging through the boxes piled full inside the storage room.
“What are you doing?”
“Wait a second. There’s some food here.”
“What?!”
Soon, Lee Sion pulled two bananas out of a box.
“Why is that here?”
“I hide the food I loot from employees or Gahyeon in here.”
Plop.
After saying that, Lee Sion handed one banana each toward Ryujin and Raon.
“What about you?”
“I’m fine. I’m a survival-type human, so I can still hold out.”
“···Thank you.”
“Still, since I’m the adult, I should hold back···.”
“Now, now! PD, you spent a lot of stamina earlier. We don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here, so eat it.”
“Sion···!”
Raon’s eyes welled with tears, as if moved by Lee Sion’s action of sharing precious food even though she was clearly hungry herself.
‘Lee Sion may be mischievous, but at times like this, she’s strangely dependable.’
Ryujin also knew how much Lee Sion usually loved food, so she could not help being moved too.
And so Ryujin and Raon began carefully eating the bananas Lee Sion had shared with them.
But,
“Wait, you have to eat the peels too!”
“The peels? How do we eat banana peels?”
When Ryujin and Raon tried to throw away the peels after finishing the flesh of the bananas, Lee Sion was horrified and told them to make sure they ate even the peels.
“Right now, we need to store up even a little more nutrition. Banana peels are a treasure trove of nutrition, full of beneficial substances for health, from antioxidants like tannins and flavonoids to dietary fiber.”
“How do you even know that?”
“···I saw it in a book a long time ago. Anyway, that’s not what’s important right now! In a situation like this, not eating the peels is practically a criminal act!”
“But I’ve never eaten the peel before···.”
No matter how rich in nutrients it might be, a peel was still a peel.
Ryujin and Raon could not bring themselves to even consider eating it, and Lee Sion made a sorrowful expression toward them.
“You have to steel your hearts, PD! Seo Ryujin, get a grip too! Are we going to end our idol lives in this storage room? Are you going to regret not eating the banana peel right before you collapse from exhaustion?”
“···.”
It sounded forced, but when she listened to it, there was also a point, so Ryujin’s heart, which had at first been determined not to eat it no matter what, began swaying like a reed.
“Ryujin, let’s eat it.”
“PD!”
“It’s the banana Sion yielded to us. How could we leave the peels behind?”
“···All right.”
Soon Raon made the decision, and the two of them brought the banana peels to their mouths together.
Unlike the flesh, the banana peel was tough and had no sweetness, and the more they chewed, the more a bitter taste rose.
It tasted so bad that, in their hearts, they wanted to spit it out immediately.
“Khup.”
“What’s wrong, Lee Sion?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just hungry.”
Lee Sion, who had been watching the two of them, suddenly turned around and made a sniffling sound, so Ryujin asked in confusion. At the answer that she was only like that because she was hungry, Ryujin came sharply to her senses.
‘Right. Lee Sion gave up food even though she’s hungry, so this isn’t the time to complain.’
Sometimes. Really only very sometimes, but Lee Sion was strangely mature, and looked dependable, should she say?
In the end, Ryujin and Raon ate up every last bit of the banana peels.
“There’s something to drink too, so please have some of this.”
“Something to drink?!”
It had only been a single banana, but perhaps because they had eaten even the peel whole, their stomachs were somewhat filled. Now what they needed was something to drink.
But there was no way there would be anything to drink, so just as they were about to endure their thirst, Lee Sion once again rummaged through a box and said there was something to drink.
Plop.
“This is···.”
“I know. It’s certainly a vicious beverage we normally wouldn’t even put our mouths on.”
Budion.
Lee Sion held out a strange drink whose name they had never even heard of.
Judging by the Korean written on the outside of the can, it was clearly a Korean drink, but it was one they were seeing for the first time in their lives.
They could not tell what sort of drink it was, but instinctively, it was a drink they felt averse to.
“Why is this here?”
“That’s not what’s important! This is the only thing we can drink.”
“Ugh···.”
Since she was too thirsty for now, Ryujin accepted the can Lee Sion handed her.
Click.
Without even hesitating, Lee Sion opened the can tab, turned her head, and drank it down just like that.
“Khup··· I’m going to make it out of here alive no matter what. If you’re not going to drink it, give it to me!”
Then, with a grimacing expression, she tried to covet the Budion Raon and Ryujin were holding.
“I-I’m going to drink it!”
“Yeah, well, it won’t kill me!”
In the end, following the banana peel, Ryujin had no choice but to drink the Budion this time too.
“Uuup!”
Onion.
The moment she drank it, the smell of onion rose thickly up her esophagus.
And that was not the end. Whether something else had been mixed into the onion or not, a strange smell was lingering inside her mouth.
While she was mumbling, unable to swallow it and unable to spit it out,
“Swallow! You can do it, Seo Ryujin!”
Gulp.
At Lee Sion’s sudden encouragement, Ryujin swallowed without meaning to.
