[YOO JAY’S POV]
Ever since I got close to Yutae hyung, my very first thought about him was, ‘He’s really a strange person.’
His abnormal level of star power and brilliant talent played a big part in that impression, but even without those, Seo Yutae was still far from ordinary.
[Ha ㅠㅠㅠㅠ I was seriously terrified. The kids almost fell headfirst off the lift, but Yutae caught them just in time and stopped it from turning into a huge accident. Yutae nearly fell too. All the Seras were screaming, it was total chaos.]
[He scratched up his arm on the equipment while catching the kids, and it was bleeding, but he just told the fans and the members that he was fine. He went to get a quick treatment, then came back and performed on stage … It seemed like he was pretending nothing was wrong on purpose, probably worried that showing he was in pain would only make everyone worry more ㅠ]
How many people in this world could throw away their own life without hesitation for someone else?
Even without the impressive numbers of 10, 20, or 30 years to boast about, Seo Yutae was the kind of person who would do anything for those he had given a place in his heart.
“Alright, it’s time for our regular segment, ‘Have I Lived My Life Well?’. You pick one of your acquaintances, give them a call, and ask, ‘Can you lend me 500 million won?’, then we see how they react. Originally, this segment was set at 100 million won, but since Prism are world-class idols, we raised the amount to make it more challenging. Jay-ssi, are you ready?”
“Hmm … yes.”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure he’ll pick up the phone right away…….”
“Aha, you picked someone who might not even answer the phone? This is truly an unexpected choice, isn’t it? I’m curious to see how it’ll turn out. Alright, please make the call!”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you take so long to pick up? I’ve been waiting forever.”
“I’m working. Why.”
“I’ve got something urgent going on right now … can you lend me some money?”
“How much.”
“…About 500 million won.”
“I’ll lend it to you. Give me your account number.”
“…Huh?”
“But first, you need to properly explain why you suddenly need that much money. I’ll help you, so tell me.”
“Hello, Seo Yutae-ssi! Sorry for cutting in. This is Kim Songha, host of Morning Morning! You must’ve been surprised, right? This was a hidden camera prank!”
“…Yoo Jay.”
“Sorry, hyung…….”
“Haha, please don’t be too harsh on him. It was for the program segment, so he had no choice but to ask. Wow, Yutae-ssi, you answered you’d lend the money without even hesitating for a second. Honestly, even with family, I think I’d have a hard time with that kind of amount. May I ask why you agreed?”
“…If Jay is asking to borrow that much money, he must have his reasons. I don’t want to turn a blind eye to my members when they’re in trouble.”
“And you have the means to lend that amount right away?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow, I’m so jealous. You’re so cool!”
‘Someone out there will probably praise that side of you and put you on a pedestal for it, hyung.’
Isn’t this a world full of wounds and starved for love?
No matter where he was, what job he had, or how he lived, I could at least be sure of one thing: people would always be swarming around him.
Just having someone with a love that immense in front of you stirs a vague hope that all your loneliness might be swept away. Having experienced it myself, I knew better than anyone how much comfort and happiness the feeling of being wholly loved could bring.
“Hyung, do you think that’s normal?”
And at the same time, I really didn’t like it.
That’s why I called Hyung’s kindness foolish, abnormal, and self‑destructive, and every time he sacrificed himself for someone else, I did everything I could to get in his way. I did it even though I was fully aware of the greatest irony—that I was the one who benefited the most from that very foolishness.
The reason I acted that way began with a single feeling I felt one day, when Hyung, in poor condition, began showing abnormal signs.
“You’ve been really stressed lately because of your father, haven’t you? That’s probably why you can’t sleep.”
“I don’t get why he can’t just give up. He could just stop caring whether that person lives or dies and go on with his own life. Why does he keep running around cleaning up his father’s mess, all in the name of ‘family’? … At this rate, he’s going to collapse.”
‘If things go on like this, Hyung might burn himself out and disappear.’
It felt as if that fear had suddenly leapt right up to me.
I wondered how many of the people receiving my hyung’s help were feeling the same way I did.
No matter how much I thought about it, no one came to mind except for Prism and … yeah, Lee Saehwa. That alone made everyone else start to get on my nerves. What frustrated me even more was knowing full well that my hyung was the kind of person who never expected anything in return.
‘Since Hyung won’t take care of himself, I have no choice but to do it for him.’
And after actually losing Hyung, those feelings only grew worse, to an almost pathological degree. A wound big enough to shake someone’s entire life always leaves a scar, no matter how much time passes or how hard you try to heal it. My hyung’s death left me with a deep, gnawing anxiety, and it will go on living and breathing in my heart forever, never to disappear.
“Who’s that child?”
“…….”
“Don’t tell me he’s someone Kang Hyukwoo loves.”
And in the midst of all that, I came face‑to‑face with a child who, strangely enough, resembled the very person I had despised so much.
It felt as if a thread had snapped, and my reason slipped away.
I knew he was soft when it came to children, but I never could have imagined he’d bring home the child of his enemy and hold him in his arms.
In truth, there was something we all knew but could never bring ourselves to say out loud.
The only way to give Kang Hyukwoo the most miserable end was to tear apart, right before his eyes, the being he had been most obsessed with. Nothing else would suffice.
Unless we could drag Kang Hyukwoo’s head close as he wept, clutching the pitiful body of his dead son, and whisper, ‘This is your doing. An innocent child was sacrificed because a vile man like you dared to long for love’, the pain we had lived through would never be completely relieved.
“Inchan-ah, your life may have gone down the drain, but that doesn’t mean you get to drag the other members down with you, right? What did they ever do to deserve that?”
[Seo Yutae’s Father, In Debt of Hundreds of Millions of Won to His Agency]
“Say that again? You’re telling me to take the song Seo Yutae composed and submit it as my own?”
Because that’s exactly the kind of thing we’d been put through all this time.
I believed that simply not acting on the things I imagined was already showing him more mercy than he deserved, and I still feel the same way now.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can bring myself to wish that person well.”
“That person must have known full well what Kang Hyukwoo did, but they still chose to love him and stay by his side. There’s no way I can ever forgive them.”
That child was raised and fed on the money Kang Hyukwoo earned by ruining all of our lives. His very existence was an insult to us, and, though it’s a terrible thing to admit, I hated that innocent child.
‘That child is innocent’. I was hanging on with nothing but that one thought. The mere thought of it made me feel sick to my stomach.
But my hyung…….
“Calm down. This isn’t a situation serious enough for you to get this agitated.”
“…Stop, let’s talk about this later.”
He reacted as if I were just a nuisance to him. And when Lee Chise-hyung showed up and we argued, that feeling only grew stronger.
***
“What on earth are you doing? Get back this instant.”
“Let go of me. I can’t stand watching Hyung live so foolishly any longer. Taking care of Kang Hyukwoo’s kid? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Can you really guarantee that everything you’re doing right now is for Hyung’s sake?”
I was struck speechless by those words, my breath catching in my throat. Countless things came to mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to say any of them out loud.
‘Why can’t I answer?’
Lee Chise-hyung didn’t say those things to rebuke me. He was simply asking whether what I was doing right now truly aligned with my stated intention of ‘doing this for Seo Yutae’. I was the one who felt guilty for no reason and stumbled over it.
“…….”
I wanted to be someone who didn’t just receive love from Hyung, but someone who could give love to him as well.
Perhaps, I simply wanted to shout that I wasn’t just a leech clinging to him and wearing him down, that I had the right to stay by his side.
Caught in a whirl of confusion, I eventually had no choice but to ask Hyung this question.
“Hyung … am I a nuisance to you?”
It was humiliating, having to say something like that in such a pitiful voice and with such a pathetic expression, and right in front of Lee Saehwa of all people. I would have been better off just leaving without a word. But I chose to lay my neck on the guillotine, all because I felt like I’d go insane if I didn’t hear him say, ‘That’s not true.’
“…….”
But my hyung didn’t answer.
He turned his head to the side, avoiding me completely.
…I was rejected.
And to me, nothing could have been more devastating than that.
“…Let’s go back.”
From that day on, my daily life was a complete mess.
“Jay-ssi, have you not been sleeping well lately? Why do you look so pale? Your dark circles have gotten worse too.”
“No matter how busy you are, you still need to eat. I haven’t seen you eat anything these days?”
To shut out the thoughts that endlessly swelled inside me, I threw myself into work. I grew afraid of taking breaks, lost my appetite, and began neglecting my meals. There were other problems as well, but in the end, the biggest one was that I simply couldn’t sleep.
“You must never take more than the prescribed dose or mix the medication in any way other than as instructed.”
“Patients who take it long-term tend to become too desensitized to the risks that come with it.”
And today, it seemed my body had finally reached its limit. Before I could leave for my schedule, I ended up collapsing in front of the toilet and emptying my stomach. Barely a moment after I thought it was over and stepped out of the bathroom, my stomach, as if on cue, twisted again, and another sudden wave of nausea hit me.
“Ugh!”
Before I could even make it back to the bathroom, I started retching right there, and something suddenly surged back up my esophagus. At first, I thought I had vomited. But before long, a metallic smell began to sting my nose.
“…….”
It was the exact same, vivid red smell I had smelled the day my hyung was hit by the car.
The moment I realized it, I felt a pain like my stomach was being stabbed and violently torn apart with a knife.
The pain was beyond anything I could imagine, and I was suddenly seized with fear.
“…Hyung, something’s wrong with my body.”
Without thinking, I blurted out something so childish and turned around, but all I saw was the empty living room. The only sound I could hear was the cold sweat clinging to my body dripping onto the floor, like raindrops.
I stared blankly into space and let out a stupid little “Ah”. Then I hurriedly covered my mouth and laughed.
“…Ha.”
But no real laughter would come.
Because I looked so pathetic right now.
“But that didn’t last long either. My hand slipped on the liquid on the floor, and the body I had been forcing to stay upright crashed down. Lying there, unable to get up, clutching my stomach and groaning in pain, I suddenly thought, ‘What am I going to do about my schedule?‘. It was a realistic thought, yet absurdly nonchalant given the situation.
And at that moment, Cha Woon’s name appeared on the black phone screen.
With all the strength I could muster, I dragged my hand over and press the accept button.
“Hello? Yoo Jay? Why aren’t you answering your phone? Is something wrong?”
Even after picking up the call, the pain kept me from saying a word, and all I could do was focus on catching my breath as a voice full of worry came through the speaker. I let his endless shouting go on for a while before I finally managed to force out a single sentence.
“…Promise me, you won’t tell Hyung.”
“What exactly are you asking me to keep from him! Are you hurt?”
“…….”
“Alright. I promise.”
Was I relieved that the name on the screen wasn’t Seo Yutae’s, or was I disappointed?
I couldn’t figure out the answer, but what escaped my lips was a choked voice, heavy with tears.
“…Woon-hyung, please come get me.”
“Jay-ya! Yoo Jay!”
And with that, I lost consciousness.
[END OF YOO JAY’S POV]
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Translator’s Corner:
Yutae-ya, you’re so over …. your original maknae is dying here…..
Come to think of it, Jay got his POV the most among the other characters. Author-nim, he’s your favorite isn’t he …. it’s not Prism if there’s no angst, so I’m going to make myself happy first before moving to the next chapter …… I’m going to reread the survival arc and meet Trainer Jay again
Oh sorry for the lack of update yesterday. Today is Red Velvet’s 11th Anniversary, and I ran a big fanbase so there’s so many things I have to prepare and post. I still have to translate a few old debut era things too ……. so many things to do, so little energy i have …..i feel like the only thing i do is sleep these days….
Anyway, if anyone following Boys 2 Planet, vote for my boy GUO ZHEN, guys. Please. Mnet gave him zero screentime except 5 seconds of eating I’m going to die from anger. Next week is already first elimination too, if he got eliminated without screentime like this I would be really depressed. He’s literally so funny. When watching survival show, I like funny trainee the most T_T and the eliminated C-trainees shared that he cooked for them too (since the food Mnet provided for the C-trainees was far from decent to eat). He got everything from talent to personality but at this point I feel like there’s like only 10 people include me voting for him I’m going to cry T_T
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