The original author of this article is Salrobyeol. Please check the first post.
"To, Rabbit... Is that you..?" From his shaking pupils to his trembling voice, it seemed like anyone who saw him would have thought he'd done something terribly wrong. Even when our eyes met, Jungkook finished his cigarette as if nothing had happened, dropping the butt to the floor. He then extinguished the cigarette with his foot and spoke.
“Oh, shit. This is fucked up.”
A curse that I couldn't even bring myself to utter flowed from the mouth of our lovely baby rabbit. No... There's no way our rabbit would do this... A rabbit... I couldn't recover from the shock for a while.
“Are you surprised? Because I am this kind of person?”
“…I think I misjudged the person.”
“Sigh- You don’t want to believe it?”
Jungkook hit me squarely on the spot. Just as he said, I didn't want to believe that my beloved rabbit was actually like that, so I tried to pretend I didn't know. But Jungkook wouldn't let me go.
“Tell me, I’m the one you loved so much. But you still don’t want to believe me?”
“……”
“Huh? You told me you loved me earlier~”
The rabbit I knew was nowhere to be found, and it seemed only a fierce beast with sharp teeth existed. Even in the midst of all this, my heart reacted to the fact that Jeongguk remembered me, as if I was crazy. Ha.. Kim Yeo-ju, come to your senses..!! This is.. wrong… really not right… .
“What, you seemed to be the one yelling the loudest earlier… You can’t even respond to something like this? Oh~ Are you surprised that I, the person you like, am like this?”
Jungkook's sarcastic words sent a burning heat through me. Should I say I was filled with anger and resentment? I'd spent years, money, and time on this person, but I had never imagined that the rabbit I'd loved would be this kind of person. Tears welled up in my eyes without me realizing it.
"I've been chasing you everywhere for years, just to see you. I loved you so much, it was worth the time and money! But... I never dreamed the singer I loved would be someone like this..."
“……”
"What I liked... wasn't this kind of rabbit. Absolutely not... I'll pretend I didn't see what just happened, so just out of courtesy, don't let the other fans find out. I'm going, goodbye, rabbit."
Feeling wronged, I shouted at Jungkook without thinking, and the shock must have been quite severe, as he took a step back, then two. I told Jungkook not to let other fans see me, then grabbed the reverse-gift I'd dropped on the floor, and ran away, turning my back on him.
I was running so fast that I didn't even realize I'd dropped my phone right there.
*
[Jungkook's point of view]
After finishing my morning routine, I brushed my hair and went outside. I naturally took out a cigarette from my right pocket. I put it in my mouth, carefully lit it, and took a deep breath.
“Whew- I thought my face was going to cramp up from laughing so hard.”
He held a cigarette in his hand, his face, which had been grinning like a corpse just moments before, hardened into a cold grimace. As he finished his cigarette, he heard the sound of something falling. He glanced toward the source of the noise and ended up locking eyes with a woman.
“Sat, rabbit…?”
A woman of relatively short stature called me a rabbit with trembling pupils. "Ugh... A rabbit?" Do rabbits know how to smoke? I laughed at her inwardly, then let out the curse words that came to my lips.
“Oh, shit. This is fucked up.”
Honestly, the broadcast, the cameras, the fans—it was all just a facade. This woman was the first person I showed myself to. This was the question I sometimes wondered about and feared. My true self. Which fans would truly love me? I always wondered. So, since I'd already been caught, I could have brought back the fake Jeon Jungkook and made it up again, but I didn't want to do that, so I showed myself.
As expected, the woman, who had been my longtime fan, seemed to feel a sense of betrayal at my behavior and seemed to resent me. "I knew it. My fans love my fake persona." Through her, I felt it deeply.
"What I liked... wasn't this kind of rabbit. Absolutely not... I'll pretend I didn't see what just happened, so just out of courtesy, don't let the other fans find out. I'm going, goodbye, rabbit."
This wasn't the me she liked...? Then what kind of me did she like? The fake me? Or the me in her delusions? I became curious. Curiosity filled me. I stared blankly at the woman who just kept talking and ran away, laughing hysterically as she ran away. I was dumbfounded for a while.
“Your eyes... look a little sad.”
I kept thinking about the things that woman had said to me earlier, shivering as she backed away. That she didn't like rabbits like this one. Thinking back, I realized how funny she had said that. At her age, she was calling me a rabbit.
“Who called whom a rabbit?”
The woman who called me a rabbit, with her large, round eyes, trembled and backed away, looked even more rabbit-like than I, the woman she'd described. It was like a world where the weak prey on the weak, terrified by a beast. Snicker— Thinking of that woman made me laugh. Not some other kind of laughter, but a pure, unadulterated laugh that was her own.
He stood there for a while, giggling as if he was crazy, and was about to turn around when he saw a cell phone of unknown origin lying where the woman had been.
“Is that the woman from earlier?”
I trudged along, picked up the dropped phone, and immediately recognized it as hers, judging by the case and lock screen. Her phone was filled with me. The sight of her phone case filled with my photos, her lock screen with my face prominently displayed, intrigued me.
“I’ll be in touch soon~”
I smirked, took her phone with me, and entered the broadcasting station's waiting room. I sprawled out on the sofa, waiting for her to call. I wanted to use her phone as bait to meet her again and let her know what was right. In the law of the jungle between you and me, I was the stronger one. It's the same with most people: the one who likes you more always loses. So naturally, she was the loser, and the weaker one, too.
After about ten minutes, the phone started ringing loudly. "Is this a call already?" I smirked, sliding the green button on my phone screen to answer. "Hello?"
*
Haa, ha… The shock of seeing that strange(?) Jeongguk earlier still hadn’t subsided, and I was out of breath, clutching my heart with my hand and sitting down.
“Ugh… why on earth is our rabbit… why, isn’t it the rabbit I knew…”
Although I was deeply shocked, fandom wasn't something that vanished or cooled in an instant. So, I couldn't let go of the reverse gift Jungkook had given me, so I hugged him tightly and muttered. But more importantly, I still didn't know where I was!
“Find directions.. Where is my phone?”
By the time I reached into my pocket to try to use directions, it was already too late. Only after a full body search did I realize my phone was missing, so I looked around for a nearby phone booth.
I turned my head this way and that to check, and found a payphone less than ten meters ahead. I ran over, jingled, inserted a coin, and dialed my number. A beep sounded, the line suddenly cut off, and then a voice that was all too familiar rang out. Hello? Huh? That familiar, refreshing voice...
"rabbit…?"
- You noticed right away?
“…Wouldn’t it be stranger if you didn’t notice? But why do you have my phone..?”
"You dropped it and left. Where are you now? I'll go over there."
The person who answered my call was none other than Jungkook. Of all people, I had to meet a rabbit after something like that… I was a little worried, but I also thought, "This is the kind of luck I'm known for." Despite all that, I'm a diehard rabbit fan, so seeing my beloved baby bunny is always welcome.
I casually mentioned a large building nearby, even mentioning that I was in a payphone, and then the call with Rabbit ended. My heart pounded like crazy. No matter how betrayed I felt by my favorite, no matter how angry and resentful I was, the news that my favorite was coming to me was always thrilling. It was an unavoidable trembling.
*
Guys, I don't know how to put that picture in... I think I'll go without itㅠㅠ
I think this is better than putting in photos haphazardly.
I'm sorryㅠㅠ