Chapter 256
How many deaths had they witnessed? Yeon-Hoon sat on the floor and thought while stroking Tae-Yoon’s face. While twisting the worldlines, they had to witness hundreds of deaths. Among these deaths, there were their deaths but there were also deaths that belonged to complete strangers. Though these were strangers’ deaths, there wasn’t a single one that wasn’t miserable and pitiful because they came from the worldline’s turning points.
Watching a shocking scene repeatedly was something that would wear down one’s soul. Though they believed that their mentality had superseded a normal person’s while regressing a dozen of times and trespassing into the universe as the system, this was something that they couldn’t endure with just supernatural mentality.
“…Hey guys,” Yeon-Hoon called the members in a low voice.
“…Sorry?”
“…Why?”
“…Did something happen?”
All their eyes looked quite soullessly from watching the repetitive, strange phenomenon for a long period. Tae-Yoon still didn’t wake up. What could he do as the leader in a situation who knew how long would continue? Perhaps, it would be better to make the members stop watching.
“Let’s think of this as sleeping. If we close our eyes and wait…then, this will definitely be over.”
“…Should we?”
“…That’s preferable.”
“…Haa.”
Siren members gathered to one spot and closed their eyes while leaning against each other. While that happened, the sky split, and they prepared for the upcoming change in the universe. Everyone remained calm in the face of a familiar phenomenon. Like that, Yeon-Hoon stroked each of the member’s faces once as they stood in a circle.
“It will be over soon.”
There were many emotions attached to Yeon-Hoon’s gesture. Yeon-Hoon felt apologetic to his members because it felt like all this suffering came to them because of him. At the same time, he felt proud of his members for enduring this far without letting each other go. Lastly, he had slight hope that in the end, everything would be over. All the members made a faint smile at Yeon-Hoon’s gesture.
They thought they would experience another gruesome scene again but a phenomenon different from before occurred. The sky stopped splitting and began to return back to normal as if it was rewinding. Siren members who had been closing their eyes in preparation opened their eyes and looked up at the sky.
“…Yeon-Hoon, something is strange.”
“What’s that…?”
“I think this is the first time something like this happened.”
When they were thinking that things were becoming strange, the ground shook intensely.
Boom—!
“Yeon-Hoon!”
“Ahhhh!”
“Grab Tae-Yoon!”
Yeon-Hoon clutched Yeon-Hoon tightly and Do-Seung pulled Woon and Dong-Jun with all his might. As if there was an earthquake, the ground began to shake harder and made more vibrations.
“Guys! Don’t panic…and always stick together!”
“…Okay.”
“I understand…!”
Siren members moved closer to each other above the shaking ground. Yeon-Hoon extended his hand out to Do-Seung while Do-Seung reached for Yeon-Hoon’s hand. The moment Do-Seung grabbed Yeon-Hoon’s hand, all five Siren members were able group together.
Boom—!
Booom—!
The ground’s shaking grew drastically worse than and the sky split once more. All the members hugged Tae-Yoon’s body together. In his unconscious state, Tae-Yoon could suffer big casualties if he was exposed to the chaos around them.
“Tae-Yoon will return…”
“…I know he will.”
“…He definitely will come back.”
“Let’s just wait a bit.”
They all hugged Tae-Yoon tightly and the ground began to flip.
“Ahhhh!”
“What the hell…!”
“Everyone grab each other tightly!”
The location of the sky and earth flipped while Siren members began to fall. Strong winds flowed onto them as if they were going to rip their bodies into shred. Yet, the members didn’t loosen the strength in their arms as they clung onto each other. They simply closed their eyes and prepared to pierce through this struggle.
The world’s background changed scenes continually—it became medieval, later modern period, and the current. Forest, ocean, and cities swept past them and all four seasons flowed in sequence.
As if they were traveling past time and space, they kept falling to somewhere. Then, the floating sensation they all felt with their bodies instantly disappeared. Yeon-Hoon raised his head cautiously and heard waves rushing.
Shaaaaa—!
It was the familiar smell of the ocean. All the Siren members raised their heads and looked around their surroundings. It was a scenery they couldn’t forget. This was the ocean in the nighttime—Sokcho. From a distance, there were the past Siren members who had never experienced a regression even once.
“I heard that they arrest people if they shoot fireworks here.”
“…Really…?”
“…Yeon-Hoon, you look really disappointed to hear that.”
“…No…I guess we can’t shoot any.”
“Then, should we shoot some and make a run for it?”
“What?”
“I mean…there’s going to be no problems if we don’t get caught.”
“What’s with Dong-Jun’s personality…”
“No, what?”
“Give me a moment.”
“Huh, Tae-Yoon? What are you doing…?”
Pop—!
“…Our maknae is crazy.”
“Wow…but this is so pretty.”
“Ugh…wait…someone is coming from over there.”
“Run guys!”
“Ahhhh!”
“Should we leave the firecrackers?”
“Ah…let’s just go! Quickly!”
Cheap fireworks shot to the sky. The past Siren members ran to escape the beach caretakers and, there was a plastic bag filled with firecrackers that they didn’t use yet casted away on the sand. The beach caretakers eventually gave up on catching the Siren members and only the black plastic bag remained on the beach.
“…This is Sokcho.”
“Yes, it is…”
“It is Sokcho.”
The Siren members stared intently at the Sokcho ocean waters that was dyed in black. Regardless of how many regressions each of them went through, they all unanimously had the memories of their day at Sokcho. They didn’t why they arrived at this place of all places after passing through time and space. But it would be foolish for them to seek a reason right now.
They walked towards the black plastic bag. Though they weren’t able to make physical contact with anything in the previous worlds…
“We can grab things now?”
“Wow…”
“There’s also a lighter in here.”
All their gazes gathered to one place. Yeon-Hoon placed Tae-Yoon on the sandy beach and made him lean against his shoulder. Do-Seung activated the light and tried flicking its wheel. Dong-Jun set up the firecrackers on the sand and Woon checked if the beach caretakers were far away. They didn’t know why they wanted to shoot firecrackers now, yet they simply wanted to see the sparks that they couldn’t see their last time here.
The firecrackers caught fire. The firecrackers were the type that shot up sparks into the sky and shriveled up. Five firecrackers shot up to the sky and burst.
Pop—!
Pop—!
Pop—!
Pop—!
Pop—!
Though it was a shabby and short explosion, it gave them quite a deep feeling as five firecrackers exploded one after the other.
“It’s nice.”
“It really is.”
“It would’ve been if Tae-Yoon also saw this.”
“I’m sure he is also watching.”
Eventually, the last explosion lost its spark and shriveled up.
Shaaaaa—!
Time changed once again and brought the members to the moment they barely managed to evade from crashing into the truck driver. Then, they were transported to the time they won The Showcase2 to their brilliant debut stage to the dream-like first win in a music show. There were many nights where they lost sleep from practice and evenings where they laughed their hearts out from the smallest jokes.
Scenes from this life that this world’s regressor Tae-Yoon had written unfolded before them like a panorama. Yeon-Hoon, Do-Seung, Woon, Dong-Jun, and Tae-Yoon looked at the world speechlessly. The thought about the dream Tae-Yoon had and the moments he yearned for the most; and how much Tae-Yoon gave up for those things.
Do-Seung chewed on his lips, Woon secretly wiped a tear, and Dong-Jun clasped his mouth shut. Yeon-Hoon repressed tears that were about to burst and watched the scenes while watching Tae-Yoon’s choices and thoughts. Soon, a bright light blanketed them. They each hugged one another and closed their eyes. When they opened their eyes again, they were sitting on the Hangang beach.
“…We came back…”
“…Ha…Haha.”
“Wow….”
“Haa…”
This was the place where Tae-Yoon fell to with Kang Seok-Du. The twisted-up wordline returned to its normal sequence and order. The countless deaths they had seen until now all felt like a lie.
“Ha…hahaha.” Dong-Jun laughed humorlessly as he lay with his limbs spread apart.
“We returned….” Do-Seung murmured in relief.
“Thank goodness…” Woon said while looking at the sky.
“…Hey guys, come here.” Yeon-Hoon was looking at Tae-Yoon, and at Yeon-Hoon’s call, all the members gathered. Yeon-Hoon’s gaze didn’t depart from Tae-Yoon’s face. Tae-Yoon’s eyelids were twitching.
“…Do you see this?”
“…What’s happening?”
“Wait.”
“…Tae-Yoon?”
The fact that his eyelids were twitching meant that his eyeballs were moving; and for his eyeballs to move, he needed to have consciousness.
“…Tae-Yoon,” Yeon-Hoon said in a low voice.
“Bong Tae-Yoon…” Do-Seung called Tae-Yoon’s name.
“Tae-Yoon.”
“Bong Tae-Yoon!”
“Ahhh! Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh!”
Yeon-Hoon clutched Tae-Yoon tightly and Do-Seung wrapped his arms around them. Woon and Dong-Jun also supported them from behind. As one lump, Siren members rolled over the sandy beach for a while. With tears and laughter mixed together, they sensed that they had freed themselves from all regressions and only had a rosy path waiting for them.
“…I returned you guys.”
This was the end to regressions that had continued on for so long.
***
During the month of December when one could feel the winter weather quite well, there was a music award overseen by WNet. It was the time when musicians who had displayed the most impressive results gathered to one place and congratulated each other’s works. My members and I wore our best outfits and attended the awards ceremony. We did our celebratory performance and also watched other singers perform.
Because it was the first major award ceremony of this year, it could be said the awards and recognition you get in this place could influence your results in other award ceremonies. Perhaps, because of that, my members appeared more nervous than usual.
“What are you guys shaking for?”
“You know, we have to get the Grand Prize…”
“Grand Prize…Grand Prize…Grand Prize…”
“Ahhhh. Do you think we can get the Grand Prize?”
“Haaa…let’s calm ourselves.”
Though they had received greater awards than this in their regressions, they were getting overly nervous.
“I thought you guys used to get the grammys? What are you getting so anxious about?”
“But this is…our last life.”
“There are no things like regressions anymore.”
“We have five regressors here. It will be pretty embarrassing to not get the Grand Prize on our first year.”
“How will other people find out that we are regressors?”
“We know. Us. We won’t be able to be proud of ourselves.”
“Let’s quiet our voices. The people in the next table could hear us.”
Perhaps, we had chattered too loudly, and Yeon-Hoon requested us to lower our volumes. We all talked in more hushed voices than before. Many things had happened for us to reach this place. First of all, the news that I fell into Hangang river with Kang Seok-Du became mega news in the nation and even spread overseas.
The news said that a kidnapper suffering from schizophrenia kidnapped me and attempted to committed joint suicide and shocked not just our fans but many across the world. It was one of the biggest event that happened in the entertainment world. It didn’t take long for Kang Seok-Du to get caught by the police and receive a sentence of twenty years; his sentence took into consideration that I was discharged from the hospital without suffering much injuries and case ended quite cleanly.
Then, I spent the next four months focusing on healing as various people from the company, broadcasting stations, Only One, and Kang Hyun-Sung asked about my well-being. And after that—although everyone was against it, we prepared for our comeback. We couldn’t let our image be kidnapped idols on the public’s mind for any longer.
With the skills and well-combined memories from my members’ regressor days, we were able to do a comeback that exceeded imaginations and had a massive hit. It was such a hit that we were able to erase labels of us as kidnapped idols to just successful idols. We swept the daily, weekly, and monthly charts with the album in question; and after receiving another Triple Crown from music shows, we halted our activities.
We succeeded in reaching 1 million sales in the first week for our album, and our album continued to sell well even after, recording an astronomical number of total sales. Though we were newbies and rested quite a long period, we amassed success even better than before. We busily carried out various schedules after that and while preparing for our winter anniversary singles, we were invited to attend the awards ceremony.
The award ceremony had already given out the rookie award and other special rewards. As expected, Only One took the rookie award. Nobody was surprised by this result, and we thought we could simply get the rookie award in other award ceremonies. Our goal was to get the Grand Prize here. The next award on the list was what could be considered the practical Grand Prize in the Wnet music award ceremony. It was called the ‘Song of the Year’ award.
A middle-aged actor went up the stage as the award presented. The actor was famous for working in Hollywood and going back and forth from East to West. The candidates for the ‘Song of the Year’ award rolled up on the screen. Among them, there was one song that confidently took one of the spots.
Siren—Blue Ocean
This was the song that put us on Billboard and marked our last regression. During the time when my kidnapping incident became huge news, ‘Blue Ocean’ became viral and even reached 9th place on Billboard. It reached its rank for quite a long period too, and it was the k-pop song that was mots played in and out of the nation this whole year.
“Haaa….”
“I should stay calm…stay calm…stay calm…”
“We can do it…can do it…”
Perhaps, that was my members were more nervous, because it really appeared like we could get the ‘Song of the Year’ award. The middle-aged actor scanned his audience while standing in front of the mike.
—This is the song that had received the most love this year. Many of you probably expected this song to win…
The actor trailed off to pique people’s interest. A tense and nervous atmosphere flowed across the giant concert hall. At the end of this suffocating silence, the actor announced.
—Congratulations. The Song of the Year is Siren’s ‘Blue Ocean’.
“…”
“…Oh.”
“…Wow.”
“Wooow.”
“Ahhhhh!”
“Ah, ah, ahhhh!”
“Ohhhhh!”
“Amazing…!”
We got the song of the year award. Sparks exploded and the spotlight scanned us.
—Siren’s Blue Ocean accomplished Triple Crown All-Kill, reached ninth place in the Billboard Hot 100, and so on. Above all, it was the most streamed K-pop song of this year. This song is still in the upper ranks in chart right now and…
While the announcer explained our song’s records and information in the background, we walked towards the award ceremony stage. There was Only One in our pathway. Whether it was the good or the bad, they were rivals who went through so much with us together. We exchanged hand shakes with them. Kang Hyun-Sung stood in front of me and said, “Congratulations.”
“…Thank you.”
“There’s no need to thank me. It’s you who did a good job.”
“I have many things to thank you for. I will pay you back whatever the means.”
“I got it. You should go now.”
After a short exchange with Kang Hyun-Sung, I moved to the stage. The award presentor gave us The Song of the Year trophy. Yeon-Hoon received the award as the group’s representative and passed it down across the group for each of us to carry it. It felt heavy and cold. Though it was just a simple chunk of gold metal, there was something about it that made my heart feel warm.
It was now our turn to give our award speech. Traditionally, it was the leader’s job to do this. Yet, Yeon-Hoon was about to speak but quickly handed the mike to me after glancing in my direction. I looked at him in surprise, but Yeon-Hoon smiled and nodded. I stood in front of the mike. I saw countless people. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. But I believed there was a truth that I could only express at this moment and carefully opened my mouth.
“There had been many hidden moments we had to work hard for until now.”
I looked at each of my members.
“There were times we despaired, times we rejoiced, and days we cried…all such time passed so that we could reach this point.”
Yeon-Hoon placed his hand on my shoulder. Do-Seung approached me from behind and Woon and Dong-Jun stuck closely to my side.
“Even from now on, we will continue to show you all a team that makes music happily. Sailors, Ms. Seung-Yeon, Ms. Hyuna, Director Yoo Won-Dong, and everyone, thank you.” Then, I thought about the last words to say to all those who had supported us until now. I needed to choose my words carefully because time was limited. Though I raced through the dictionary inside my head, the only farewell words that came to my mind was nothing extraordinary. 𝐟reew𝗲b𝐧𝚘𝐯𝐞l.c𝚘m
“This was Siren’s Bong Tae-Yoon. Thank you.”