Survive! Foolish Bottom!

 

When he opened his eyes that have been feeling agnotizing since he entered the game, he was back in his dorm. The unfamiliar ceiling of

Park Ha

‘s room came into view. He immediately noticed the cute cat stickers, likely placed there by

“Park Ha”

himself.

 

Before he could finish wondering what had happened,

 

“Are you awake?”

 

He heard Il-hyun asking him calmly. When he turned his head and saw him sitting next to his bed with a book in his hand. What is that? Even in that moment, he found himself wondering about the book Il-hyun was holding, and mumbled in a dazed voice.

 

“What is it…?”

 

Even though he knew it was his room, he looked around anyway. Luckily, he quickly remembered what had happened before he fainted. Feeling embarrassed, Haeun scratched the back of his head and promptly offered a simple apology.

 

“Oh, sorry.”

 

Il-hyun did not answer. Instead, he put down the book he was holding on the small round table beside the bed. Reading a book instead of looking at a phone was a hobby that Park Haeun couldn’t even imagine.

 

“You must have been sick.”

 

Il-hyun spoke slowly. It didn’t seem like he was responding to the apology.

 

Meanwhile, Haeun was sneaking glances at the title of the book he had put down. He could vaguely make out a title like “The History of Something” on the dark, monochrome hardcover, but couldn’t read it clearly. As he was stretching his neck out like a turtle to get a better look, Il-hyun slightly pushed his chair back. The scraping noise made Haeun look up in surprise. Il-hyun continued speaking in a calm voice, seemingly without any specific intention behind his actions.

 

“Come to think of it, you haven’t been skipping practice or doing strange things, so I was wondering if something was up.”

 

The content of his words was quite sharp, despite his calm tone. It didn’t seem like he was trying to convey that he understood Ha-eun. It felt more like he was trying to convince himself.

 

“Well, people can act differently when they’re not feeling well.”

 

Despite the slightly uneasy expression on his face, it seemed he was trying to wrap things up. Il-hyun probably didn’t want to scold or question someone who had collapsed from being unwell. He had a good-natured personality, after all.

 

Shrugging lightly as if to indicate he wouldn’t say more, Il-hyun changed the subject.

 

“For now, there’s no more schedule for today, so just rest.”

 

“

You

, ah, no, what about hyung?”

 

Haeun almost blurted out “

you

” and made a strange noise as he corrected herself. Fortunately, Il-hyun seemed to think he had made a weird sound because he had just woken up. He answered without any sign of concern.

 

“I have some monitoring to do.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Monitoring together wasn’t an option, and Haeun couldn’t think of anything more to say. He nodded vaguely, glancing at Il-hyun for any cues. Hearing the word “schedule” made him curious about the detailed schedule. In the game, all he had to do was press a button labeled “practice” or “work.” He had no idea what the schedule was for the next day or where he had to go.

 

But, it felt awkward to outright ask about tomorrow’s schedule. He didn’t want to come across as a lazy member who didn’t even know the schedule.

 

“…….”

 

As Haeun remained awkwardly silent, Il-hyun didn’t say anything either. He wished he would leave if he wasn’t going to explain the schedule voluntarily. The awkwardness was becoming increasingly unbearable.

 

Thankfully, Il-hyun didn’t linger any longer and stood up. Haeun brightened, thinking he might finally get some time alone. However, instead of leaving, Il-hyun approached him with his phone in hand.

 

Haeun scooted back on his rear, trying to keep some distance. It wasn’t that he felt threatened, but being so close to a guy, especially one designated as a romantic target in the game, made him uneasy.

 

Il-hyun calmly asked a persuasive question as if he didn’t care about Haeun moving away.

 

“Could you lie down again for a moment?”

 

“Huh? Why?”

 

The question felt oddly suggestive, causing Haeun to break character for a moment and respond sharply. He murmured without realizing that his tone wasn’t very

Baek Ha

like.

 

“I was going to sleep once hyung is gone anyway.”

 

Despite his words, he lay down, ready to retaliate if he tried anything funny. Il-hyun casually waved his phone and replied.

 

“It’s not for that.”

 

What was he trying to show? He waited but noticed he was just looking at his phone alone. Then, as he sat on the edge of the bed and held his phone up high, he finally understood his intention.

 

‘Oh, he wants to take a picture? But why ask me to lie down?’

 

Haeun thought as he pulled the blanket up to her neck. Il-hyun adjusted the brightness on his phone and then gave instructions to Haeun.

 

“Pretend to be asleep again.”

 

“I mean, why?”

 

Haeun asked again, feeling increasingly frustrated. Despite his polite tone, it felt more like a command. Il-hyun finally looked down at him, speaking in a slightly perplexed tone.

 

“Didn’t you hear the manager? She told us to post a picture on SNS.”

 

“And what does pretending to sleep have to do with that?”

 

Il-hyun noticed Haeun’s still puzzled expression and kindly explained again.

 

“Because we can’t take a picture while you’re actually sleeping.”

 

Of course, Haeun couldn’t understand Il-hyun’s consideration of not taking a picture of someone sleeping without their knowledge or the reason for going through all this trouble to take a picture of him pretending to sleep. He simply closed his eyes tightly, still confused.

 

After a moment of silence, he peeked through one eye. Il-hyun had already finished taking the photo, seemingly using a silent selfie app. He was scrolling through the photos in his gallery, sliding his finger across the screen repeatedly.

 

Unable to resist, Haeun sat up and started to peek at Il-hyun’s phone screen. Il-hyun, who was adjusting the screen angle as if to let Haeun see better, muttered softly.

 

“I think this one is good.”

 

The photo looked fine to Haeun as well. Il-hyun chose one, made a few light edits with a few taps, and then opened the SNS app from his home screen. With a composed expression, he quickly typed a caption, reviewed it, and uploaded the photo swiftly.

 

As Haeun watched the loading screen absentmindedly, his interest piqued when the photo was successfully uploaded.

 

“Let me see. How many followers do we have?”

 

In the game, his group was only described as

Mang-dol (망돌) is derived from the word

망한 which means failing or struggling and idol (아이돌).

that the public barely recognized, without showing any exact follower counts. Though Haeun knew nothing about the idol ecosystem, he was aware that there were varying degrees of

Mang-dols

. He thought it might be important to understand where his group stood.

 

Il-hyun silently showed Haeun the follower count. Unlike the single-digit following count, the number of followers displayed was 58.3K.

 

“It seemed like there were fewer the other day when I checked. Did it go up a bit?”

 

“……”

 

Haeun couldn’t respond to what sounded like a rhetorical question. Partly because he felt that today’s incident might have contributed to the increase in followers and also because he had no sense of what that number really meant. He was curious but didn’t dare to ask, thinking it would be odd for an idol like Park Ha not to know such things.

 

One thing was clear: it was more than he expected. The game emphasized the group’s struggling status so much that he thought their SNS followers might be in the thousands. However, it was evident that even a so-called mang-dol was still a celebrity with a decent following.

 

While Haeun was staring at the follower count, a few notifications started popping up on the screen.

 <stonerliet commented on your post> <mintS2lover liked your photo> <(looking for

poca trades

^[1]

Poca means photocards of an idol from albums, fan meets and concerts. Idol fans tend to collect their bias’ photocards or the group’s photocards from a particular era and trade with one another.

) Eun-Saem liked your photo> 

.

.

.

 

Haeun, who was curiously watching the notification popping up, spoke to Il-hyun. “Someone commented?”

 

He only mentioned it because they hadn’t checked the notifications, but Il-hyun looked at him as if he was acting strangely. 

 

‘Was there some unspoken rule not to check?’ 

 

Feeling embarrassed, Haeun tried to brush it off as a joke.

Il-hyun left it until more notifications were accumulated, and then scrolled down to check the reply as if he thought Haeun wanted to see it.

 

Seeing that the post garnered a fair amount of comments and likes right after being uploaded, Haeun realized that even struggling idols received this much attention. The comments were filled with hearts, clearly sent by fans.

 

Fans. 

 

I can’t believe I have fans. 

 

While it was true that these were fans of “Park Ha” and not Park Haeun specifically, for now, Park Haeun was Park Ha. The idea that he had fans made him even more curious about the content of the comments. However, upon glancing at them, he noticed they were all in English and decided not to attempt reading them.

 

As Haeun’s interest faded, Il-hyun naturally put his phone away. Having completed his task of uploading the photo, he finally left the room.

 

After being left alone, Haeun immediately grabbed his own phone. Seeing the SNS account had made him curious about many things, but he couldn’t thoroughly check their SNS accounts in front of others.

Hey everyone! I hope you are enjoying the story so far! I will try to translate as much as I can so that I can hopefully do two releases a week.

If you find any mistakes or mistranslations, please let me know. I will fix them immediately. <3