Free Web NovelEven after I closed the door, the afterimage of Junhyun flapping like a shrimp remained.
I shook my head to dispel it, but the shrimp-Junhyun in my mind flapped back, as if saying, “Why are you trying to shrimp-erase me?”
“.......”
He’ll appear in my dreams again. Every time Junhyun does something odd, he shows up in my dreams. Not long ago I dreamed he was levitating.
“It’s easy to levitate, hyung.”
“Really?”
“You just push the ground with your arms, then lift your hands—voilà, levitation.”
“Wow! It works!”
Why is it that in dreams, you never doubt the stupid things you imagine? I wondered as random thoughts swirled—but I sighed in relief. Everything seemed fine.
He’d gone silent watching the pitch video, wearing a peculiar expression—I’d feared he was troubled. “.......” Still, I felt I should check on him, so I turned the doorknob.
He was still in his shrimp pose, greeting me with enthusiastic flapping.
“Junhyun.”
“Yes?”
“But why a shrimp?”
“Just felt like it.”
I laughed and stepped inside, ready for a chat. He beckoned me to crouch beside him.
“Crouch down, hyung.”
“Why?”
“There’s a camera outside.”
“Again?”
We crouched behind the terrace railing.
“Where?”
“Looks like a rooftop some distance away—glints like a camera lens.”
This building’s design prevents any inside view from outside angles, but sometimes someone with a powerful zoom lens tries to shoot in from afar. Our managers guessed it was a tabloid reporter or a sasaeng fan.
“Do you think they could actually capture us from here?”
“They will—they have lenses with 100× zoom.”
“Really?”
I trusted him—he knew cameras. Our managers had tried to stop such invasions before, but without solid proof, there’s little recourse, and the laws are weak.
I shivered in the October night breeze.
“Here—cover up, hyung.”
Junhyun took off his jacket and draped it over me. Its warmth felt nice. I stuck my hands in my pockets, surprised by candy wrappers.
“Want something to eat?”
“Sure.”
“I have cup ramen.”
“Oh—!”
His offer made me grin. As he poured hot water from the kettle, I tore open chopsticks.
“Watching baseball was fun.”
“Right? I’ve told you it’s fun.”
“Yeah—but I don’t think I could be a fan.”
I tapped my chin, teasing. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
“You got so worked up. I thought, ‘Even Junhyun gets mad at baseball.’”
“But that’s what happens.”
I watched him snap the chopsticks apart.
“Have you always been a Dragons fan?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since birth.”
I blinked—he wasn’t literally born an official, but he smiled warmly.
“Hyung, local baseball fans are basically registered at birth—‘Kim Junhyun: KG Dragons supporter.’”
“I see.”
Growing up with baseball-mad family and neighbors, he naturally joined. I peeled back the ramen lid; steam rose. I savored the first slurp.
“Tastes amazing.”
“Delicious.”
We toasted with “wooaaah” and laughed.
“Eating ramen at night like this is so pleasant.”
“It is. Want the kimchi Grandma Deok-soon sent?”
“Yes.”
Her aged kimchi arrived moments later—its tang perfectly cut the rich broth. As our conversation warmed up, I watched him inhale noodles and spoke again.
“You threw really well earlier.”
“I was on the school baseball team—I had to.”
He seemed disappointed he couldn’t throw better. I smiled.
“How was it, pitching again after so long?”
“It was fun. It’s been ages since I played baseball. You know I love physical stuff, hyung.”
“That’s true.”
I chuckled.
“But after you left, your expression got... odd.”
“Oh.”
“Just wanted to check you’re okay.”
“I am.”
He waved it off with a laugh. I waited, and he finally spoke.
“Um... I remembered my elementary-school days.”
“The baseball team?”
“Yes.”
I wondered if he’d regretted quitting. He stared at the sky for a moment, mid-noodle.
“As a kid, I was really shy. I was so timid my parents hardly let me out.”
“Like Biju.”
“But I’m nothing like him,” he shot back, frowning.
“Anyway—my parents asked me to try something, so I joined the baseball team.”
“Out of nowhere?”
“The coach was a friend of my dad’s.”
“Oh.”
“And I was good at sports. Even little me had a knack for physical activities.”
The shy youngster soon became the team’s ace.
“But it got tiring.”
“From the seniors?”
“Yes.”
He scratched the back of his head.
“They bullied me—but I don’t mind most things.”
“Right.”
“So they’d pick on me when no one else was around—teasing, insults. I think it was jealousy, but I can’t even recall their faces.”
He shrugged—he was so easygoing that their harassment only spurred them on. My chest burned at the injustice—an incident from over ten years ago, barely remembered, yet it angered me.
“Did you tell anyone?”
“I didn’t even know that was ‘bullying.’ As a kid, I couldn’t fathom malice. I didn’t understand hatred.”
“Oh...”
“And once they tried to trip me; I fell and cracked a tooth.”
The fire cooled. He sipped his broth.
“But you know when? I was napping on the sofa in the dugout, sleepy from meals... and they shoved me off.”
Thud! He recounted, and when he stood, a few onlookers giggled.
“It was the first time someone hit me—so I ran home.”
“So you quit.”
“Yes—I was scared. I realized there are truly bad people.”
He laughed softly.
“That memory stuck. I even slept in my shoes once, and now I can’t sleep if I have shoes on.”
“Oh...”
I remembered the maknae saying, “If Junhyun wears shoes, he’ll bolt up!” I’d teased him with that. My face burned.
“Hey... give me a heads-up about that.”
“But my body just reacts. It’s not unpleasant. Just don’t tell the others.”
“Got it.”
Embarrassed, I scratched my cheek.
“And those bullies?”
“My family handled it. Next day, they avoided me.”
That detail sent a chill through me.
“But one of them ended up with a broken bone from that tackle.”
“.......”
“Do they... even live on?”
“I don’t know. But people who wrong me usually end up poorly. Why are you rubbing my shoulder?”
“Just... easing it.”
He kneaded my shoulder, then smiled.
“So that’s why you looked unsettled earlier?”
“No, not that. It was something else.”
He explained: he’d been planning to quit baseball anyway.
“My coach kept saying, ‘You’ll go pro,’ and wouldn’t let me leave.”
“Why?”
“It stopped being fun. And my nature is not to do things that don’t interest me.”
Then he confessed the reason for his earlier expression.
“I imagined: if I hadn’t quit and become a player, what would life be like? And I couldn’t picture being happy.”
“What about rap?”
“It’s different. It’s my work, but I enjoy the process itself.”
He drained his broth and wiped his mouth.
“I thought: if I hadn’t quit, I wouldn’t have met Biju, the others, or you. It feels like pure coincidence.”
“It does.”
We often marveled how fate brought us together. If not for that accident on the way to the college entrance exam, we’d never have met. Life is strange.
“I felt weird today, as if I were a coach teaching my [N O V E L I G H T] teammates how to pitch.”
“I understand.”
I sometimes imagine that too. So many coincidences led us to form NewBlack. Lately, with things going well, I wonder what if my life hadn’t worked out at TJ. As I gazed at the sky—
“I don’t know why I thought of this.”
“You had time to think.”
When you run full speed and suddenly pause, your mind wanders. You realize: you were climbing a gentle hill, but when you stop and look back, you’re hanging from a cliff above the clouds. You wonder, how did I get here? And which choices got me this far—and what if one had gone wrong?
“But how did we really get here?”
“I know....”
Despite topping charts and massive success, today it truly hit me. When we entered the stadium to cheers, I felt it in my skin: we’ve reached the very top.
“Junhyun.”
“Yes, hyung?”
“You’ve been so thoughtful tonight.”
“I surprise myself sometimes, too.”
He laughed and offered his palm for a slap.
“Now that we’re up here, let’s climb higher.”
“Right.”
Our slaps echoed through my body. I wondered: what nerve did those seniors have to pick on him? As I pondered—
“Ramen finished... huh?”
“Why?”
I tried the terrace door.
It rattled.
“The door’s stuck... you have your phone?”
“The handle’s broken?”
Junhyun rose and nonchalantly took hold of the frame. Only then did I realize who I’d been sharing ramen with.
“Step back, hyung.”
He gripped the frame firmly with both hands—
“Whoa...!”
With a creak, he lifted the entire window by its sill—
“Aaah!”
The pane he wasn’t holding swung into the room. I shut my eyes at the crash—
Then, a deep groan—
“.......”
“.......”
I cracked one eye open. The frame hung on the bed’s edge, narrowly avoiding a fall. Relieved, I brushed back my hair.
“Junhyun.”
“Yes, hyung?”
“I asked for your phone...”
“I didn’t think that far.”
“Right. Now I feel like I’ll go crazy....”
As I stared at the shattered glass frame, my siblings burst in, followed by frantic doorbell ringing.
“Damn! Are you okay?!”
“Answer us, hyungs!”
Neighbors must’ve called the buzzer. Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Between ringing bells and my brothers’ frantic yells, the room was chaos.
The frame was reinstalled. Ri Hyuk had already called a repair crew, who arrived and stared in amazement.
“You lifted this by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
They looked at Junhyun in awe. In any case, the incident was resolved.
“That scared the hell out of me.”
“When I heard the crash above, I thought something terrible happened.”
We even reconnected with our downstairs neighbors—handsome youngsters who were amused, not annoyed, by the commotion. I’d worried our chart success might strain relations, but they seemed unfazed.
“Can we take some pork belly on our way out?”
“Sure.”
Ri Hyuk measured exactly 1.818 kg on a scale—they were delighted. They complimented our first pitch and swing, looking at me and Junhyun with sparkling eyes—a bit overwhelming, but it showed how impactful that moment had been.
“They said our pitch and swing were all over tomorrow’s morning news.”
“Really?”
We heard we’d appeared on lifestyle shows and morning news—even Italian outlets and the BBC. A fast pitch by a celebrity isn’t unheard of, but a celebrity hitting a grounder like that was unprecedented.
Mingi hyung laughed:
“The KG Dragons promotion team asked about next year’s schedule already.”
“Guess they liked it.”
“They said anytime we want tickets, we’re welcome—NewBlack always has a home here.”
We were thrilled. But what made me happiest was something else.
“These fans are powerful, huh?”
We laughed at baseball fans stepping into YouTube comments to defend us from haters. It felt like a temporary goodwill, but it was still wonderful.
After Monday night’s first pitch, we dove into the final week of October.
“Now, this week’s MusicOn #1... Congratulations, NewBlack!”
Our song Empire scored perfect broadcast scores and took the top spot on every show but HBS. Three trophies from K-net, PBS, and TBC decorated our display case. A #1 is always sweet.
On the day we won TBC, Seokhwan hyung congratulated us and shared end-of-year stage news.
“I don’t think we’ll appear on the HBS year-end show. They broke off.”
“Good.”
Given tensions between HBS and our agency, it’s a relief.
“So everything else stays as planned?”
“Yes.”
The awards season loomed just two weeks away. First came the Mango Chart Awards, then KMA and our Japan tour. Autumn’s short run gave way to winter.
“I MOVE finale breaks ratings record”
“A new frontier in dance competitions”
“Will I MOVE Season 2 come?”
I MOVE’s final episode, featuring Biju, became its highest-rated. Ri Hyuk’s OST, released under Empire, held firm on the charts, and Jiho’s “God” ended teasing a next season. Overseas critics praised Junhyun’s mixtape. And as my family prepared for the last Alien broadcast—
“Hey, friends! Ready?”
Halloween—the release date for “Blue Moon,” my collaboration with Hailey Blue—was just around the corner.
