It wasn’t me they loved, but the other members.
Always the others.
“Jae-ha, what are you doing here? The van left ages ago,” a voice called out, sharp and impatient.
I lingered, clinging to the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, I could borrow a phone from one of them.
A small act of kindness to tether me to the world.
“Hey, how can you even ask that?” another voice snapped, dripping with disdain.
“It’s obvious they ditched him. Look at this—I told you my oppa would hate him too, didn’t I?”
“Wow, Jae-ha, abandoned already?” a third voice chimed in, mock sympathy laced with glee.
“What are we going to do with you?”
“Why’d you have to act all high and mighty and make everyone hate you? A trainee like you, riding the coattails of the talented members—be grateful and keep your head down!”
“You didn’t seriously think you got into this project group because you’re special, did you? They just needed a body to fill a spot, someone for the fans to tear apart. Got it?”
“Pretending to be the adored maknae, acting all innocent—ugh, always whining!”
“It’s infuriating. Do we really have to hear our oppa mention another fan club because of him?”
The truth had been creeping up on me, cold and undeniable.
Thebrother’s, already established in their own groups, resented this makeshift project group.
Whispers floated around that it was created just to prop me up, and those rumors drove a wedge between us, pushing them further away.
At workshops, at fan signings, I faced countless fans, their eyes alight with devotion—but never for me.
Not a single one was mine.
I knew it.
I knew.
Yet fear gripped me, raw and suffocating.
Their words cut like knives, each syllable laced with the vivid hatred in their stares.
The faces around me blurred, morphing into the faces of my group members, then into the familiar, indifferent visages of company staff, before dissolving into a haze.
All that remained were those hateful gazes.
“No one here likes you, you know.”
“I wish you’d just get hit by a car and break something. Or better yet, just die.”
“Do you hear it, Jae-ha? Do you finally get what people think of you?”
“Look at him, shaking like a coward. Pfft.”
Their curses echoed in my skull, sharp and indelible.
My vision clouded, breath catching in my throat.
I had to run.
If I stayed, I’d unravel completely.
I’d die.
I lurched from my seat, heart pounding, but a hand seized mine, pulling me back.
I tried to wrench free, but strong arms enveloped my shoulders, grounding me.
“Brother, it’s me. Eun-jae.”
“Eun-jae…?” My voice trembled, barely a whisper.
“Yeah. Seo Eun-jae. The kid you practically raised.”
Eun-jae.
Skinny, small Eun-jae—handsome, kind, with that boyish charm.
“Brother!” His voice was a lifeline, pulling me back from the edge.
A warm hand pressed against my forehead, steady and reassuring.
“Sorry,” Eun-jae said, his tone calm but firm.
“Brother hasn’t been feeling great all day. Practice took a lot out of him, and it’s chilly at night—probably a cold coming on. He was out of it, and you must’ve misread the situation.”
“Yeah!” another voice piped up.
“I thought he looked feverish earlier!”
I recognized that voice instantly.
Hang-yeol.
The one who claimed to be my fan, who could recite my lackluster filmography like it was poetry.
‘This isn’t that place.’
The realization hit me.
I was on a filming set, in the middle of a shoot.
A message flashed in my mind, cheeky and familiar:
[The god, “Butterfly’s Wingbeat,” asks if you’re finally coming to your senses.]
The words steadied me, and I forced strength into my trembling legs.
“Sorry for killing the mood,” I said, voice rough.
“Got dizzy for a second—probably the fever.”
The assistant MC glanced toward the writers in the back before responding, his tone warm with concern.
“Oh, that makes sense. It’s still cold at night; lots of people are catching colds. Hurry to the health room, alright?”
A staff member beckoned me forward.
I gently stopped Eun-jae from following and let the staff guide me out of the meeting room, my steps heavy but resolute.
***
It wasn’t a cold, not really, but I swallowed the medicine they gave me and collapsed into sleep.
When I woke, I found myself staring into a constellation of worried eyes—Eun-jae, Hang-yeol, and the trio we called the three musketeers.
“No practice today?” I asked, my voice groggy.
“Brother!” Hang-yeols eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
“Is practice what matters right now?”
For a moment, I wondered if I’d been diagnosed with something fatal in my sleep.
“Then what does matter?” I shot back, half-teasing, half-irritated.
Hang-yeols lips pursed into a pout.
Eun-jae watched him quietly before turning to me, his gaze soft but searching.
“Brother, you okay?”
“Senior Brother, you alright?”
“Don’t get sick, please.”
“I thought we were in for a disaster earlier.”
The musketeers’ voices tumbled over one another, a chaotic chorus of concern.
Watching them, I couldn’t help but laugh, the sound bubbling up unexpectedly.
“What’s this? Did I get a terminal diagnosis while I was out? You’re all acting like grandkids rushing to their grandpa’s deathbed.”
“Yeah, our Brother’s back,” Hang-yeol said, a playful glint in his eyes.
The musketeers erupted into laughter, and I let out a soft chuckle, the tension easing.
Then, almost without thinking, I spoke.
“I have panic disorder.”
The words slipped out, impulsive and raw.
But the moment they left my lips, a weight lifted, like a long-held breath finally released.
It was the first time I’d said it out loud, by my own choice.
I’d never wanted to tell anyone.
I’d wanted it to stay buried, a shameful flaw I could hide.
Exposing it felt like handing over a weapon, inviting judgment for being too weak to conquer a single memory.
‘ “You’re only struggling because you’re weak-willed,” ‘ the managers and staff had said, their words like stones.
Silence settled over us, heavy and thick.
Hang-yeol and the musketeers’ faces shifted in a quiet drama—confusion, shock, then a shared pain that made their lips tremble.
Eun-jae only furrowed his brow slightly, a flicker of something unspoken in his eyes.
‘He knew.’
I tapped his hand where it rested on the bed, a reflex.
Normally, he’d laugh, but now he just pressed his lips together, silent.
“What, did I say I’m dying or something? Why the faces?”
I tried to joke, desperate to break the mood, but their expressions didn’t budge.
Unbeknownst to me, outside the room, the faint sound of footsteps stirred.
Loki, the invisible camera capturing our every move, tilted its lens toward the crack in the door.
***
On a crisp weekday afternoon, a line snaked outside the SGV building in Sangam-dong.
Some arrived in casual clothes, others armed with towering placards or cameras heavy with purpose.
Park Eun-young, a college student turned accidental fan-celebrity, was among the latter, her camera slung around her neck.
‘Portraits aren’t my thing,’ she thought.
Photography was her passion, her escape.
At university, she was the landscape enthusiast of the photography club, chasing horizons over faces.
She’d hesitated to bring her camera today, but the pull was too strong—a primal urge to capture perfection.
‘Jae-ha dear isn’t just a person. He’s a living masterpiece.’
She’d come to photograph a moving sculpture, her heart thrumming with anticipation.
‘I can’t wait to see him.’
Did he know?
That she, Park Eun-young, who refused to call even her closest family “dear,” reserved that title for Kim Jae-ha alone?
Farther back in the line, another soul was drowning in regret.
“Why am I here?” the office worker muttered, her eyes swollen from a night of drinking.
“On my day off?”
It was her thirtieth repetition of the same lament.
“Enough!” her friend snapped, camera dangling from her neck.
She was a die-hard Seo Eun-jae fan, the mastermind behind the ‘Silver Starlight’ fan site.
“You’re here to pay off last night’s drinks. I covered you, remember?”
“Why did I let you drag me here?” the office worker groaned.
They were childhood friends, once united in their love for the same group.
But as the fandom soured, overrun by toxic stans and members who seemed to lose their spark, the office worker walked away.
Her friend, though, doubled down, devoting herself to Eun-jae.
When Eun-jae joined the actor survival audition, her friend couldn’t stand the thought of him struggling.
She’d bribed the office worker with promises of drinks and covered tickets, pleading, ‘Just vote for Eun-jae as MVP. That’s it. I’ll handle everything else.’
After relentless coaxing, here they were.
‘Should I just knock her out and drag her inside?’ the fan site master thought, half-serious, a smirk tugging at her lips.
“You never know,” she teased.
“Maybe you’ll meet your soulmate here.”
The office worker’s eyes narrowed.
“You wanna die? I’m done with stanning. An actor? Not even an idol—why would I?”
“They’re mostly debuted or aspiring actors. Pretty good-looking bunch.”
“Looks,” the office worker scoffed.
“Looks are all that matter.”
She muttered under her breath, “I hyped up some plain guy, and he got cocky, stringing along five girls. If a hot guy pulls that, at least I can shrug and say, ‘Well, he’s gorgeous, of course he’s trouble.'”
Her former bias, the one who’d set gossip columns ablaze, flashed in her mind.
She gritted her teeth.
“That jerk. That scum. I’d drown him in a gutter.”
“Come on, stand for Eun-jae with me.”
“Nah. Sweet-faced kids aren’t my vibe. Real men are bad boys, you know.”
“You’re hopeless.”
The office worker swore she was done with fandoms, yet she’d text her friend mid-workday, ‘I need a dangerously hot guy to stan. Any matchmaking events?’
The fan shot her a sidelong glance, thinking of one participant.
‘Kim Jae-ha would be her type.’
She’d considered mentioning him, but her friend had shut it down instantly, declaring she’d never touch someone with a bad reputation.
‘Your so-called perfect bias got exposed for playing five girls, didn’t he?’
The words nearly slipped out, but twenty years of friendship held them back.
‘They’re selling Jae-ha as the noble leader on the show,’ she mused.
But how long would that last?
Early buzz had been positive, but whispers of him being the PD’s favorite were starting to circulate.
Other contestants were gaining traction too.
‘Kwon Ha-bin’s fans, especially.’
Maybe it was the shared history as child actors, but comparisons were inevitable.
Ha-bin’s fans had never warmed to Jae-ha, though the reason eluded her—she hadn’t cared enough to investigate.
‘Whatever. As long as they leave Eun-jae out of it.’
Rumors swirled that Eun-jae and Jae-ha were on the same team this round.
Still, she trusted Eun-jae.
She knew they’d been trainees at YM together.
She’d heard the old fan’s theories—that the “grateful Brother” Eun-jae spoke of in interviews was Jae-ha.
But no one had ever seen them together.
She trusted him.
She had to.