Chapter 199: The Best Move

“Are y-you okay?”

“Kim Woochan!”

“Do Seohan! Are you okay?”

Naturally, the event hall turned into chaos in an instant.

When the lighting rig fell, sharp plastic shards flew everywhere.

Kim Woochan dusted off the fragments and got up without a scratch.

“Whoa, that scared me.”

“Hey, Woochan!”

A man who seemed to be The Way’s manager ran over with a deathly pale face.

Manager Lee Jaeyoon was equally in a half-panic state.

Ah.

It wasn’t panic, it was…

“Fucking bastards.”

Someone I had never heard curse before muttered coldly, his face frozen stiff.

Hands hurriedly reached out to check my condition.

“Are you okay? You didn’t get hit by the lights, right? Any glass in your eyes?”

“I’m fine.”

I was just a little startled, not injured.

Panting, I turned toward Kim Woochan.

If he hadn’t suddenly appeared and pushed me from behind, I could’ve taken the falling lights head-on.

I bowed my head as I checked his condition.

“Thank you…”

The fans’ screams gradually shifted to shrieks of panic.

Voices of protest over the sudden incident began to rise.

Thinking it was better to get out of there, I quickly backed away.

Manager Lee Jaeyoon grabbed my arm and pulled me along.

“Let’s go inside and get you treated.”

“I’m not hurt. I’ll just go in for now.”

It felt like my heart had dropped. I walked quickly, trying to calm my heaving breaths.

As we rushed to the waiting room, shouting could be heard from behind.

“Wait, didn’t you check it? We talked about this thoroughly earlier!”

“I’m sorry. We definitely checked…”

“You said it was safe! Do you need everything spoon-fed?”

I glanced back and saw our manager arguing with the lighting staff.

That exhausting situation wasn’t the reason my head was spinning.

Holding my throbbing temple, I muttered quietly.

“What just happened?”

When I jumped to save Rina-sunbae, I had considered the risk of injury.

I had focused all my attention on the ceiling, watching the lights above her.

But—

What actually fell was on my side.

It wasn’t the lights above her, but the one directly above me.

If it hadn’t been for Kim Woochan, I would’ve been hit head-on. Just imagining it gave me chills.

“…Are you really okay?”

“Hey, your face is pale. Let’s call an ambulance right now.”

As I sat still, biting my lower lip, the other members rushed in with anxious faces and added their voices.

Jin Sehyun gritted his teeth, looking just as furious as Manager Lee Jaeyoon.

“This is insane. They said they saw the lights shaking earlier. Did they really check everything?”

“What? That happened?”

Seo Ian, who heard it late, now had a grave expression.

“How are they handling things so poorly…”

“I think our manager went to give them a piece of his mind.”

“There’s no way the company can stay quiet about this.”

“They need to flip the whole place upside down. Safety negligence? Two people nearly died.”

We couldn’t openly confront the event organizers, but this happened during a performance.

If the fans made noise about it, Doubles wouldn’t stay silent either.

As for the staff… some of them would probably be held responsible for this.

But that wasn’t what mattered most to me right now.

I tried to steady my pounding heart and took deep breaths.

“I was really shocked.”

“Still, it’s a relief you don’t seem hurt.”

“Sunbae saved me, didn’t he? I should go thank him properly…”

While checking my condition, Kang Siwoo tapped on his phone, probably trying to get Kim Woochan’s contact info.

A senior of Tiple’s generation had risked his body to save a member of the same team—it was only right to express my thanks.

Of course, I didn’t expect him to show up himself…

Just then—

Creeeak.

Right on cue, the waiting room door opened.

“Oh!”

“S-sunbae…?”

At the same time, Kang Siwoo jumped up in surprise.

Kim Woochan stood at the door, grinning with his head leaning against it.

“Junior, are you okay?”

Why was Kim Woochan coming out from there?

I greeted him with mixed feelings of gratitude and discomfort.

Well, if he hadn’t come, I would’ve gone to find him myself anyway… it just caught me off guard a bit.

“Just a moment. I was hoping we could talk.”

Kim Woochan’s deep, black eyes sparkled.

“How did you know?”

Since I’d already thanked him earlier, I opened this time with a question.

I swallowed dryly and asked cautiously.

“That the lighting rig would fall—did you know?”

The K-Walk Festival lighting accident was something from the future.

Not something a person who couldn’t even guess the future of entertainment stocks could predict.

That’s why I was curious if he had known.

Kim Woochan surprisingly answered my question clearly.

“Of course I didn’t.”

“Then how…?”

“I was just watching you. Ah, that sounds a bit weird.”

He chuckled awkwardly and scratched his head.

That crazy-looking smile made me not want to talk to him, honestly.

But still, what could I do?

I needed to talk to Kim Woochan no matter what.

Because…

‘Seohan, someday you’re going to need me.’

He had hit the nail on the head.

That moment he referred to—must’ve been now.

Kim Woochan grinned awkwardly and continued.

“I had a bad feeling, that’s true. Somehow, I thought things might escalate a bit sooner than expected. I held back all festival long from trailing after you.”

“…….”

“If this had happened during Stardust’s performance, I wouldn’t have been able to help. You wouldn’t have died, but you might’ve gotten seriously injured.”

Hearing it like that, I could guess what he meant.

Even if he didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, he had a bad feeling, and like I’d been watching Rina-sunbae, he had been tailing me.

I didn’t know how accurate that instinct of his was.

But I couldn’t deny that I survived thanks to it.

I bowed my head and thanked him again.

“Thank you.”

“Seems like you’re more curious about other things than feeling thankful~”

“That’s true too.”

“Wow, honest. Actually, that’s why I helped!”

Kim Woochan laughed sheepishly, scratching his head again.

He had the kind of passive smile that seemed constant like Seo Haim, but unlike hers, it lacked any refreshing charm.

At least his smile didn’t feel hostile—that was something.

Kim Woochan smiled gently and revealed his reason for saving me.

“I’m not comfortable around people who hide things just because they’re older.”

“Ah… dying early was a relief.”

“And he’s even cheerful about it!”

“Ha ha….”

Well, I guess even if I added the age from my past life, I didn’t live that long after all.

Just as I was coming to terms with the fact that I had died young, Kim Woochan casually spoke up.

“Now you can ask what you’re curious about. If it’s something I can answer, I will.”

So now that the moment came when I needed him, he was willing to cooperate?

I couldn’t fully grasp Kim Woochan’s intentions, but since he was the one who saved my life, I decided to let it go.

Just as I was hesitating with my lips slightly parted, Kim Woochan beat me to it.

“Oh! Right. Before that, I should get something in return. You know give-and-take, right?”

“Sorry?”

“You didn’t answer me that time! So, which entertainment stock should I buy?”

Kim Woochan clasped his hands together and smiled in an uncomfortably eager way.

What?

Even in this situation, he was worried about entertainment stocks?

His consistent nonsense made me laugh, but… this time I gave a straightforward answer.

“Doubles.”

“Gasp. Are Doubles stocks about to skyrocket?”

No.

In the future I remembered, the Stardust scandal would blow up one after another, and the stock would tank…

But in this life, I was here.

“Who knows. Our group is going to do really well, that’s all.”

“I don’t want to invest in that kind of uncertainty…”

“Heh.”

“I’m about to dump my entire fortune into it!”

Crazy bastard.

I swallowed the curse in my throat and just stared at him.

“Instead of entertainment, buy semiconductors. In the entertainment industry, every major company ends up with a scandal eventually.”

“Now that’s actually helpful advice! Celebrities should really spread their scandals around a bit more evenly~.”

Once I listed a few stocks I remembered, he finally nodded in satisfaction.

Seemed like he’d heard everything he wanted.

Now it was my turn.

“Tell me everything you know.”

“Sure.”

Kim Woochan smirked as he began answering my question.

.

.

.

Kim Woochan’s gaze darkened.

“I told you, I see all the possible outcomes. To put it more simply… parallel universes.”

“Parallel universes?”

“Oh! That’s part of your worldview, so it shouldn’t be hard to understand, right?”

There it was—our ‘worldview’.

The fact that this was reality just made me laugh dryly.

“Humans, you see, depending on the choices they make, can live out all kinds of possible lives. In this world, Kim Woochan makes a living as an idol, but in another world, he could be a shaman, clapping and chanting.”

“Oh. Speaking from experience?”

“Most of the time I ended up as a celebrity. I’m just overflowing with talent.”

Well, they say fate can swing on the thinnest of threads.

I nodded as I listened to Kim Woochan’s words.

“So whether Do Seohan is an idol in another world, or a part-timer at a café, or just an ordinary college student—that’s just one of many possibilities. Not some huge variable.”

“Right.”

“But… death is a bit of a different story.”

Kim Woochan bit his lower lip and lowered his head.

Though there was no one around, he lowered his voice.

“From what I’ve seen, in no parallel universe has someone who was supposed to die ever survived.”

“Death isn’t a choice…”

“Yeah. No matter the timeline, that part is always consistent.”

With a serious face, Kim Woochan asked me,

“How old were you when you died?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Then in this world too, Do Seohan has to die before twenty-five for the order of things to stay intact.”

So after all that effort to regress, I still had to die again?

I understood what he meant, but it wasn’t something I could easily accept.

“That’s just how the universe works.”

“Are you the universe or something?”

“No, it just feels that way. I can sense it.”

That damned intuition again.

Instead of nitpicking, I decided to hear him out a bit more.

Kim Woochan continued, his voice gentle but therefore more terrifying.

“This is where the problem starts. The original Do Seohan was working part-time at a café when…”

“Got hit by a truck.”

“Yeah, but this world’s Seohan wouldn’t be working at a café, right?”

Well, not unless I got kicked out of the entertainment industry for doing drugs or something.

I nodded and swallowed dryly.

“Then everything gets tangled. Seohan doesn’t exist in that café, so that accident can’t happen. A huge variable gets introduced into the equation.”

“……”

“Why? Because the person who was supposed to die in that spot survived!”

I chewed over Kim Woochan’s words slowly, lost in thought.

Judging by the fact that Lee Junhyeok’s name wasn’t mentioned, I seemed to be the only one who died suddenly in that timeline…

Anyway, a person who should’ve died had regressed, and that caused a variable.

Kim Woochan’s story was still just speculation, so I couldn’t fully trust it, but it did sound fairly reasonable.

He swallowed dryly and continued.

“I’ve never seen a case like this before, so I can’t give you a definite answer but…”

“Okay.”

“My guess is that the ladder accident, and now this lighting rig accident—they’re the universe’s way of correcting that variable.”

Kim Woochan’s logic leaned heavily on determinism.

“Makes sense.”

Maybe the ladder incident was just paranoia, but that lighting fixture definitely shouldn’t have fallen where it did.

“As much as I want to deny it… it’s possible…”

There was that old movie, Final Destination, about people who narrowly escaped a plane crash thanks to a vision, only to die in horrible accidents one by one.

Basically, if you’re meant to die, you’ll die.

Heh.

That story came to mind at the perfect moment.

I swallowed bitterly and admitted that Kim Woochan’s logic made sense.

And that made me wonder something else.

“Um… Sunbaenim.”

I looked over at Kim Woochan and gulped.

It felt a bit shameless, like asking for a favor after being saved, but…

Still, I had to ask.

“Why are you trying to help me?”

We weren’t in the same group, and we had no real connection.

It didn’t make sense that he’d risk himself and tell me all this.

Kim Woochan stared at me for a moment,

“Who knows.”

He grinned and shrugged at my question.

“I can’t reveal all my cards, you know.”

So there was something.

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