Become a Star - Chapter 167

Chapter 167

Woo-Jin was on his way back from working out at the gym late in the evening. Suddenly, a shadow jumped out on the street in front of his house, and he hurriedly stepped on the brake.

Woo-Jin got nervous as he had some enthusiastic fans who occasionally found their way to his house. Although he respected and loved his fans, those who came all the way here never really had good manners. It was inappropriate to meet them in such a situation, and it would’ve been even worse if an accident had happened just now.

Woo-Jin rubbed the back of his sore neck because of the sudden stop before looking outside. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have hit anyone.

But then, a rough sigh of dismay left Woo-Jin’s mouth.

A man stood tall in front of Woo-Jin’s car, wearing jeans and a sweater with a cap pressed down. No matter how many times Woo-Jin rechecked, the man receiving the full power of the headlights on the dark evening street was Blue Fit’s Lee Yeon.

Woo-Jin did not leave his car and honked first. But his adversary barely even flinched and stood tall, showing his determination in wanting Woo-Jin to exit the vehicle.

The face under the cap did not belong to the pretty boy inside Woo-Jin’s memories. Lee Yeon had lost so much weight that his jawline was razor-sharp, and his cheeks were sunken. His white, dry lips were chapped and cracked.

Woo-Jin hesitated for a moment and tapped the steering wheel with his finger.

He could avoid Lee Yeon, but the latter would definitely follow him nonetheless. Additionally, Lee Yeon could jump in front of the car again, so it wasn’t a reasonable solution.

Woo-Jin glanced at Lee Yeon from head to toe, then backed his car and parked it on the side of the street. Thankfully, Lee Yeon stood still and waited on the spot as it seemed he had understood Woo-Jin’s intentions.

As Woo-Jin got out of the car and approached him, Lee Yeon faltered and took several steps back towards the sidewalk until he finally stopped.

He had bravely leaped in front of Woo-Jin’s car, but Lee Yeon hadn’t thought his plans through and showed a weak, fearful look.

Woo-Jin stood quietly in front of the tense Lee Yeon.

Thus, they silently faced each other for a while. All kinds of thoughts and emotions may have crossed Woo-Jin’s mind, but there was no expression on his face.

Therefore, Lee Yeon’s gaze slowly lowered and kept going down until he could only stare at his feet. He didn’t have the guts to maintain eye contact with Woo-Jin.

“What is someone who should be in the hospital doing here?” Woo-Jin asked bluntly.

Although Lee Yeon had only suffered a cut on his head in the accident, his body and strength were deteriorating due to malnutrition. Moreover, he showed early symptoms of alcoholism.

Thus, he was supposed to be recuperating at the hospital for a while. So Woo-Jin wondered why this sick patient was here.

On the other hand, Lee Yeon’s mind was a mess. There were so many things he wanted to say that he had no idea where to begin.

“This is all your fault….”

Lee Yeon’s words came out a bit fumbled, potentially because of his alcoholism.

“Yes, it’s all my fault.”

Lee Yeon raised his head in surprise. He was expecting Woo-Jin to deny his claim, but the latter simply concurred.

“If you can only have peace of heart by thinking that way, feel free to do so. I don’t care about it. It’s just your own opinion.”

Lee Yeon bit his lips at Woo-Jin’s indifferent response.

He didn’t hate Woo-Jin in the beginning.

On the contrary, he wanted to be on good terms with Woo-Jin, the main vocalist, and have the group succeed. That was until Min Si-Hoo became jealous and forced Lee Yeon to pick a side in the conflict.

“Your bullying wasn’t my fault. So do I have to be punished for it? If only you had defended us and said that Min Si-Hoo was the only bully, things wouldn’t have gone this far!”

“That’s true. But then why didn’t you go easy on me back when I was being harassed? If you had, I would’ve been grateful to you.”

“That’s…. I didn’t have any power…. But you have the power to save me now.”

Woo-Jin laughed at Lee Yeon’s mumbling. He didn’t say aloud how Lee Yeon had plenty of ‘power’ when he punched Woo-Jin back in those days. Woo-Jin thought it would be dirty to twist the other’s words like this.

“I’m also powerless. I’ve never had any power to save you, hyung, whether in the past or now,” Woo-Jin stated.

“Don’t lie to me! If only you had told us who your father and grandfather were, we wouldn’t have done those things to you. You were mocking and playing around with us!”

Even in this situation, Lee Yeon brought up Woo-Jin’s biological father and maternal grandfather, which showed what these people thought of Woo-Jin. They only saw the value and benefit of Woo-Jin’s background and the people behind him rather than his value as an individual facing the world alone.

“Do you seriously believe that you are worth the time and energy to be played around with?”

If Lee Yeon really thought that Woo-Jin had suffered their punches and kicks in an attempt to mock them, then Woo-Jin had nothing else to say. Lee Yeon would truly be hopeless.

It wasn’t even worth his time to continue this pathetic conversation with this drunkard. Woo-Jin clicked his tongue and was about to turn around when Lee Yeon’s voice held him back.

“Your cousin came looking for me. The one called Yi-Yeon like my name….”

Woo-Jin faintly frowned at those words. He could sense the strong anger and deep shame in Lee Yeon’s voice.

Perhaps the humiliation and contempt he suffered from a person sharing his name made it even worse for Lee Yeon to endure. Moreover, the fact that the person in question was Woo-Jin’s cousin seemed to play a big role in it.

“You told him, didn’t you?” Lee Yeon asked.

“Tell him what?”

“Tha-that I had a sponsor….”

“As if.”

“There’s no way you didn’t. How else could your cousin happen to investigate me? The CEO told me that you knew everything from the start….”

It appeared that CEO Kim Seok-Hyung had driven the wedge between the two with misinformation. There was a lot of room for misunderstandings in this amazingly arranged situation, which left a bitter taste in Woo-Jin’s mouth.

“I already told you. You and the other members aren’t impressive enough to be worth the trouble. And I’m not some incredible figure who can make the prosecution office do my bidding. To be honest, if only CEO Kim hadn’t tried to make me fall into that trap, nobody would’ve known the truth. So it’s a real pity it ended up getting out in the open.”

“That’s…!”

“So, do you feel relaxed now that you’ve blamed everything on me?”

At Woo-Jin’s question, Lee Yeon shuddered and retreated several steps until he eventually bumped into the wall of some house and stopped.

Now that he had a place to lean on, he could barely stand still on his trembling legs.

Woo-Jin spoke to Lee Yeon, who was clenching his teeth.

“Let’s be real. All of this happened because of your decisions, hyung.”

At the very least, Lee Yeon should be resenting the person who pushed his back and forced him to do what he didn’t want. Woo-Jin couldn’t understand why Lee Yeon was trying to vent his anger on him, who was just another victim.

Woo-Jin and Lee Yeon had simply made different choices in the same situation.

Although they were met with different results, in the end, it was true that the two had been exploited by despicable people and suffered from it.

However, Woo-Jin escaped from their trap, while Lee Yeon sank deeper and deeper into the quagmire along with the others.

But now, it was as if Lee Yeon was kicking a fuss about how Woo-Jin didn’t come along with him and follow those despicable people.

By shifting the responsibility and blame onto Woo-Jin, Lee Yeon was also cursing him for being the only one left unharmed.

It didn’t seem like Lee Yeon would understand no matter how much Woo-Jin explained that everything was a result of his own choice, in the end, so Woo-Jin silently stared at Lee Yeon dead in the eyes.

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. The frustration swirling around in Lee Yeon’s eyes was also transferred to Woo-Jin’s heart.

Then, Woo-Jin immediately recognized the new emotion that wasn’t in Lee Yeon’s eyes before. He had seen it many times before. No, to be precise, he had seen them many times in his past lives.

Those were the eyes of someone ready to die. It was clear that Lee Yeon had decided to take his own life.

“You always make the worst choice until the very end, hyung. Do you think it’s that easy to kill yourself?” Woo-Jin asked.

Lee Yeon raised his head and glared at him. The craze that seemed to be extinguished instantly returned to his eyes.

“What do you know? Who do you think you are to say anything? Do you know how miserable I am right now?”

“Of course, I know. If you die like this, you’ll be miserable for a long time, hyung.”

Woo-Jin didn’t mean that Lee Yeon’s emotions would remain after death and continue feeling miserable. He meant that the press would narrate his birth, accomplishments, and death, only to conclude it as a miserable life in the end.

Although Lee Yeon would not feel it personally, his miserable life and death would be brought up on TV every once in a while, even after it was forgotten over the years.

The trembling Lee Yeon sat down on the spot and grabbed his head with both hands. He didn’t know where everything had started to go wrong.

Everyone around him said that he had fallen into this hell because of Chae Woo-Jin. They pitied and sympathized with Lee Yeon, saying that he was a poor victim who naively fell into Chae Woo-Jin’s trap.

So Lee Yeon planned to kill Chae Woo-Jin and kill himself afterward.

CEO Kim Seok-Hyung informed him of Chae Woo-Jin’s address and the date of his bar exam interview. CEO Kim even provoked Lee Yeon even more, saying that the latter’s life was only going downhill while Chae Woo-Jin was rising above the skies.

Thus, Lee Yeon drank all night long and waited in front of Chae Woo-Jin’s house until morning. He had made up his mind. He’d kill Chae Woo-Jin and die as well.

But at the last minute, he unknowingly spun the steering wheel and avoided Woo-Jin’s car, crashing into the wall.

‘You’re just a shit for brains who can’t even die properly.’

Min Si-Hoo looked down at Lee Yeon and sneered when he came to visit a few days back. Min Si-Hoo was currently preparing to study abroad.

Even though they were in the same situation…. No, even though Min Si-Hoo was the culprit behind everything, he always had room to breathe whenever the same problems plagued them and quickly found an escape route.

Their manager only sighed as though they felt frustrated by Lee Yeon and didn’t even bother coming to visit anymore. In fact, as it became known that Lee Yeon was being investigated for sponsorship issues, those who used to visit slowly stopped showing up.

When Lee Min-Soo realized that he had gotten into more trouble because of Lee Yeon, he came to the hospital room and wreaked havoc before leaving.

Meanwhile, the TV Lee Yeon happened to watch was overflowing with Chae Woo-Jin’s commercials. His radiant and beautiful appearance took over the screen. The admiration and honor that Lee Yeon used to have—and should’ve received in the future—had all gone to Chae Woo-Jin.

Lee Yeon’s throat was dry, and his hands trembled, so he secretly left the hospital and bought alcohol at a convenience store.

However, the poster of Chae Woo-Jin on the store’s wall annoyed him even further. Even though Lee Yeon was drinking to escape from reality, Woo-Jin seemed to be mocking him while leisurely holding a cup of coffee.

Moreover, the students who happened to enter the store were talking about Chae Woo-Jin and the latest news about the actor. They supported Chae Woo-Jin, who had passed the bar exam yet chose his own path in life with firm conviction. Their voices carrying envy and admiration struck Lee Yeon’s ears and endlessly echoed in his mind.

The students also talked about the recent episode of Life Depicted. It seemed that the photobook was a very hot topic within the group of friends.

They described how they were upset about not being able to buy the photobook Woo-Jin had made with a friend for a school assignment and how they were only able to appease their frustrations through the photos posted online but still regretted having missed the sale. Their words were all filled with love and affection for Chae Woo-Jin.

However, there was only one thought going through Lee Yeon’s mind.

‘The love and fame Chae Woo-Jin is receiving was originally mine.’

An unhinged Lee Yeon bought a fruit knife and left the convenience store, seemingly having lost his mind.

And now, he was standing in front of Chae Woo-Jin himself.

All he had to do now was take out the knife from his inside pocket and kill Chae Woo-Jin, then kill himself afterward. So why was it so difficult to follow through?

There was a steep cliff just one step behind him. The wind blew strong and kept pushing him towards the edge. So why was he still resisting like this? What lingering feelings did he still have?

Lee Yeon suddenly came to the realization that he wanted Chae Woo-Jin to stop him from killing himself.

If so, that would become his one and only reason to keep on living in this world.

The other members of Blue Fit and CEO Kim only seemed to want Lee Yeon to die. He felt suffocated like everyone was grabbing him by the neck and shaking him.

But it appeared that Chae Woo-Jin also didn’t plan on preventing him from committing suicide, and a cold wind swayed inside Lee Yeon’s chest. Wasn’t it normal to stop someone when they were trying to commit suicide?

Lee Yeon kept asking himself why Chae Woo-Jin didn’t stop him despite originally being such a nice person.

“Is there a knife or something in there?” Woo-Jin asked straightforwardly.

“…!”

“You’ve been stroking that area of your chest for a while, and now you even put your hand there. Why? Do you plan on stabbing me with that knife and killing yourself afterward? But that’s too bad. It would be different if I didn’t know, but I’m not so weak that I’d just let myself get stabbed now that I’m aware.”

Despite all appearances, Woo-Jin was still an actor who filmed all his action scenes without a stuntman. Moreover, he went to the gym every day to get in shape and was learning martial arts for the role he would start filming in January. There was no way he’d be hit by a knife swung around by some drunkard.

“Don’t you even feel sorry for me? How can you say such things to a person who is about to kill himself?”

Lee Yeon tried to flip over the situation and turn Woo-Jin into the story’s villain. But the latter simply responded coldly.

“I do feel sorry for you. But this world is overflowing with people in much more miserable situations than you, hyung. In spite of that, those people don’t think of escaping reality by killing themselves.”

“I’m different from them! I’m… I’m Lee Yeon from Blue Fit!”

Blue Fit, the source of his honor and success. The pride that he was a member of Blue Fit kept Lee Yeon alive.

But it was also the chain that tied him down and made his life a nightmare.