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This chapter contains material that may be triggering to some readers (including themes of suicide).

Please keep that in mind while reading.

It had been a long time since they’d said they were going somewhere fun.

Even though his father wrapped a handkerchief tightly around his neck, saying he couldn’t catch a cold, Park Juu felt light enough to fly from happiness alone. He hated carsickness, but if it meant going to an amusement park with his mom and dad, then riding in the car was okay.

“Mom, what about water? Should I put it in Juu’s bag?”

His mother always packed snacks and water whenever they went somewhere, so when she didn’t bring anything this time, he asked first. She said they’d arrive soon anyway, so it was fine. Even so, Park Juu stubbornly carried his yellow bag with him.

The amusement park whose name he’d never heard before was very far away. Without songs or the radio playing, the inside of the car was quiet. The only sound was his mom and dad talking softly to each other once in a while.

“Tell Juu too.”

He tried joining the conversation, but nobody listened.

Normally, his father—who loved exciting things—would have played songs a little too fast for Park Juu to sing along with without pause.

His mother would’ve sat beside him feeding him little pieces of fruit or telling him, “Our Juu gets carsick, so we should stop and rest,” while explaining how much farther it was until the next rest stop.

Today, Park Juu was alone. There was no place for him in the back seat or in the conversation.

No matter how long they drove, the destination never appeared, and the winding mountain roads made his stomach churn.

But Park Juu didn’t complain. He didn’t want to whine about wanting to get out and end up having the outing canceled.

Until yesterday, his mother had kept staring at empty spaces, and his father had only recently returned home. If not today, who knew when the two of them would take him to an amusement park again? He felt hurt, but he closed his eyes and endured it quietly.

The sky spun round and round along with the car. Even the trucks and motorcycles that occasionally passed in the opposite direction disappeared eventually. Only Park Juu’s family car remained in the endless mountains.

He wanted to say he felt suffocated. His stomach hurt too. From experience, Park Juu knew that if things kept going like this much longer, he’d end up going bleegh.

Pouting, Park Juu secretly unbuckled his seatbelt while his mother wasn’t looking. The adults didn’t notice. His mom and dad only kept talking while staring ahead, never once meeting his eyes through the mirror.

Mom’s stupid.

She never let me take my seatbelt off before. So the thing about the police officer arresting me was all a lie?

Hmph. Hmph. Swallowing down his sulking internally, Park Juu turned toward the window. When his small finger pressed the button, the window rolled open. He heard the sound of leaves crashing against one another.

“Park Juu. The window....”

“Just leave it.”

His father took Park Juu’s side. Cool air rushed inside. The wind blew his hair into a mess.

Park Juu felt like he could endure a little longer now. If the wind blew harder, maybe his stomach would feel refreshed too. A little more. If the car went even faster than now, if the number climbed past 100....

“Honey, honey!”

“I love you, sweetheart.”

His mother screamed. The shriek tore through his ears and burrowed into his head. Park Juu thought she’d gotten scared because the car was going too fast.

Park Juu scooted himself forward. He wanted to pat his mother comfortingly. Peeking between the driver’s seat and passenger seat, he saw his mom and dad tightly holding hands.

Ahead of them stretched a massive lake. Since Park Juu didn’t know the word reservoir, it looked to him like nothing more than an ocean-sized puddle. The gray metal barrier lining the roadside drew closer and closer.

A thunderous sound exploded before his eyes.

The car smashed through the guardrail and flew into the air. His body lifted weightlessly before his head slammed hard into something. It hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes.

He wanted someone to hug him and comfort him, but both his mom and dad were crying too. Screaming even louder than he was. How badly must it hurt for adults to scream like that? Unable to imagine their pain, Park Juu became terrified.

For a moment, his body felt light, as though he were floating in space. Then his heart lurched once, and something dragged Park Juu downward.

When he woke up, everyone was dressed in black.

“I heard the reservoir accident on the news was about this couple?”

“Ah, that....”

The people who cried in front of his mom and dad’s photos, stroked Park Juu’s head, and sighed deeply all said the same thing whenever they sat down together.

“They say they tried to commit suicide with the kid.”

“Why? Were they in debt or something?”

“No idea. Outsiders probably thought they lived perfectly normal lives.”

“What did the child ever do wrong?”

People pitied Park Juu. As long as they ended the conversation by feeling sorry for the child left alone, they acted like they could say anything beforehand. To Park Juu, whose family had sunk alongside that car, their goodwill felt unbearably light.

No. We were going to an amusement park.

Park Juu desperately denied it. He didn’t want to admit his mom and dad had left with only each other. Because his family had been happy.

“If you’re going to talk nonsense, then leave.”

“No, I just felt bad for the kid....”

“I said get out! Stop talking bullshit in front of the child!”

What hurt Park Juu the most was his aunt, who chased away the people insulting his parents....

“Terrible bastards. You deserve divine punishment. How could you do that with a child in the car? Are you even human?”

...and then late at night, crying alone while saying hateful things about his mom and dad.

“You shouldn’t have done that. At least for Juu’s sake.”

His aunt was a good person. Park Juu loved her. And she loved him too.

But his aunt cried. She said his mom and dad deserved terrible punishment for trying to take Park Juu with them. Even while crying herself. Telling them to come back in a choked voice, simply because Park Juu was a precious nephew she treasured more than anything else in the world.

It was something Park Juu couldn’t understand.

Because his mom and dad hadn’t done anything wrong.

All Park Juu wanted was to see his mother one more time now that they could never meet again.

Someone hugged him from behind. It was a warm embrace, like his father’s.

“Hyung.”

Park Juu looked up at Heo Sihu, who had come to pick up his younger sibling.

“Can’t I say I miss Mom anymore?”

Heo Sihu held Park Juu tightly.

“What about Dad?”

Even after asking twice, Heo Sihu didn’t answer. Instead, he hugged Park Juu even tighter. Like someone afraid Park Juu might run away.

“Let’s go inside. Let’s sleep, Juu.”

In Heo Sihu’s eyes, Park Juu recognized the same look he’d seen countless times over the past three days. This was the expression people wore in the face of tragedy. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

His daycare teacher. The mother who came to pick up his classmate. His kind deskmate and the apartment security guard too.

Everyone looked sad whenever they stood in front of Park Juu. Because his cruel mother and terrible father had left the world behind with only Park Juu remaining.

Even though he could’ve seen his mom and dad if he’d just walked a few more steps, Park Juu never saw their faces in the end. Only later did he realize it had been his aunt’s difficult decision, made out of consideration for her young nephew.

Maybe because his final memory was of saying goodbye and parting from them. Whenever he crawled beneath a white blanket, it felt like he could fall into his mother’s arms again. Beneath the blanket, the smiling mother who’d once led him toward the shoe cabinet saying they were going out to have fun called for Park Juu.

Park Juu hid himself there. Wrapped in the warm blanket, it felt like they were one again even while apart. Perhaps this was what it would feel like to finally step into the lake he’d failed to follow them into.

No one could live inside a blanket forever. The day the blanket went into the washing machine, his aunt sat the sobbing Park Juu down and told him the two of them had gone to the stars.

His aunt never knew that for a long time afterward, Park Juu’s dream became the stars.

Not because he was a child too young to understand death who vaguely missed his family.

But because even understanding it was an eternal ending, he missed the people who’d left so desperately that he sincerely wished for his own ending to come too.

And even so, whenever the news said a record-breaking meteor shower would fall, he stayed awake all night standing by the window because he worried about his mother, who’d always been frightened by falling things.

≫ Cases like Kim’s really make you wonder what family even means

Some families would honestly be better off not existing

≫ Park Juu should go solo

Being in a group is a loss for both him and the team

≫ Idols only last seven years at best, and even if contract renewals succeed, it’s basically guaranteed they lose momentum anyway

It’s not like he’s gonna stay an idol forever

When every day is lonely, when it feels like you’re the only person left in the world—when the value of the people you cherished is denied—humans lose their reason to keep living.

The time Park Juu endured alone had been very long and very lonely.

In the end, only one group remained in his life as though by fate. Spark was the only place left for Park Juu to stay. That was why he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

Even when people stayed together, they still disappeared. The moment he looked away, they might vanish from his life like a mirage, as though they’d never existed at all. And if that happened, Park Juu would never survive the emptiness that followed.

But....

The day Kim Iwol burst into his room, Park Juu came face-to-face with his own defense mechanism.

‘Do whatever you want. I’ll never make you do something you hate. I just....’

Even after Kim Iwol fell asleep, the desperate words he’d pleaded with kept circling inside Park Juu’s mind.

He wanted to stay with the members. Simply being together with everyone made him happy.

But was that truly Park Juu’s own will? By saying he wanted to stay with good people, was he merely hiding the deeper truth that he was terrified of becoming alone again?

To Park Juu, who agonized over those thoughts, the competition program arrived as a major turning point. Which choice he would make now depended entirely on the adult he’d become.

Inside his heart, Park Juu quietly called out, “Mom.”

The lack of any answer felt painfully familiar.

“I don’t want to be separated from Mom and Dad.”

If he stayed bound only to the two of them, he would remain frozen forever. He would fear being told to stand on his own, and while everyone else continued growing, he alone would ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) stay where he was. Just like always.

Park Juu placed both hands over his face. He could feel the trembling clearly.

If he wanted to move forward, there was only one thing left to do: bring things to a close.

Because Park Juu had no one to push him from behind and no one to pull him forward from ahead. He had to move forward using only his own strength.

Until now, every step had terrified him, but....

“I think it’s time to say goodbye.”

Because he didn’t want to fall behind the changing members.

Because he never wanted to return to the days when he was alone.

Trusting Kim Iwol—who promised to always listen to his side first and told him to come whenever he had something he wanted to say—Park Juu decided to tie off the loose ends of his past.