One by one, the staff members left, carrying with them the exhilaration of a "rare interview."
Host Lee Woo-jin was still celebrating the exclusive scoop with his colleagues while images of Park Min-su flooded social media. The view count was already exploding, climbing into the millions.
To the world, everything was perfect.
Min-su's smile in front of the camera had looked professional to a terrifying degree—
so convincing that he had almost believed it himself.
No one noticed how his pupils widened in fear whenever the studio lights drew too close.
But for him...
It was a different kind of hell.
Inside his home, the silence was suffocating.
He stumbled forward, drenched in cold sweat, his body trembling as though something inside him were coming apart. His fingers clung to his phone, searching for a number he could barely see—as if it were the last thread keeping him from drowning.
His breathing was uneven.
Shallow.
Panicked.
"...Seo-hyeon... Hyung..."
His voice cracked.
The response came immediately, sharp with familiar concern.
"Min-su? Is it happening again?"
The question was enough to shatter everything.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
But the darkness behind his eyelids was worse.
"It didn't go away..." he whispered.
"Even when I close my eyes... it's still here..."
He paused.
"I'm... choking."
His voice suddenly rose, fractured and desperate.
"That sound... I can't stand that music! It's... it's announcing that the time has come!"
His trembling worsened.
"I barely managed to keep my mask on during the recording... It's back, Hyung..."
A strangled gasp escaped him.
"Why...?"
"Why does it have teeth?!"
His voice broke completely.
"Birds don't have teeth... so why is it smiling at me?!"
"Min-su."
Seo-hyeon's voice remained steady this time.
"Breathe. Focus on me. Inhale... slowly. Exhale... slowly. I'm here. You're not alone."
But Min-su was slipping away.
"The smell..." he gasped.
"It's choking me... I can smell something... rotten... everywhere..."
His voice grew weaker.
"Please... tell me you've come back... I'm drowning..."
Then came sudden warmth.
Two arms wrapped around him from behind.
"Hye-mi..."
She pulled him close with all her strength, as though trying to keep his soul from scattering.
He clung to her like a drowning man.
His fingers tightened desperately around her, as if she were the only thing anchoring him to reality.
"You're safe..." she whispered, though her own voice trembled.
"It'll pass... like it always does."
He buried his face against her.
Her heartbeat...
It was real.
"It's getting worse..." he murmured.
"Every time... it comes closer... it grows taller... and hungrier."
Gently, she lifted his face and made him look at her.
"Look at me.
I'm real.
And this... isn't your fault."
Silence.
For a moment...
The chaos stopped.
It didn't disappear.
It merely froze.
At last, he surrendered to sleep.
Not rest—
a truce.
Hye-mi remained awake.
She sat alone in the living room, surrounded by scattered medicine bottles.
Cold names on cold labels—
all trying to repair a broken mind.
She unlocked her phone.
The conversation.
Dozens of messages.
Every one of them read.
Not a single reply.
Her eyes stopped on the last message.
It's back.
She swallowed hard.
Being able to reach his number at all had felt like a miracle.
And yet...
There had been no answer.
She locked the screen quickly, as though she couldn't bear to look at that silence again.
"How much longer...?" she whispered.
"Are we going to keep sedating him... until there's nothing left of him?"
A faint groan.
From the bedroom.
She froze.
"No..."
She rose at once.
"Not again..."
Inside his mind...
The film began.
A child.
Thin.
Far too small.
Kneeling in filth.
Something in his hand.
...
A sound.
Chewing.
...
Screams behind a closed door.
Heavy footsteps.
The glint of a blade.
...
Red.
So much red.
Min-su jolted awake.
Gasping—
like a drowning man breaking the surface.
Slowly, he turned toward Hye-mi.
She was hurriedly wiping away tears.
"It's okay..." he said in a broken voice.
"You can cry...
It doesn't bother me anymore."
He fell silent for a moment.
"How long did I sleep?"
"Until dawn..."
He nodded slowly.
"I'm going for a run.
Along the Han River."
She looked at him with concern.
A faint smile touched his lips.
"Don't worry...
It won't come back so soon."
At the river...
The silence was absolute.
No fans.
No cameras.
Only the water...
And the cold air.
...And he was not alone.
He put on his earphones.
Pressed play.
The lyrics slipped into his ears:
I breathe, yet the air gives me no life.
It passes through me, cold... as if it cannot see me.
I want a home... somewhere to return to.
But my home is silent.
Moon...
Is this darkness my fate?
He stopped.
Looked out at the water.
One question lingered in his mind.
Did the world truly see him walking upon a path of red roses?
...
Or were his feet bleeding with every step?
Suddenly—
A scream tore through the silence.
He froze.
The sound...
Had not come from far away.
...
It was directly behind him.