Chapter 11: Your Past and Everything That’s Yours

The van’s heater was on, making it nice and warm.

Yu Chu leaned back in his seat and slowly drifted off.

He was quiet in his sleep, breathing so faintly it was almost impossible to hear.

The moment Yu Chu fell asleep, everyone else in the van quieted down.

Hughes even slowed the movement of his hands as he unwrapped his sandwich. But it was wrapped in paper, after all, and opening it was bound to make some noise.

The rustling made Yu Chu’s brow furrow slightly, but it didn’t wake him.

In the back row, Yuan Xiangdi and the other two lowered their voices from a normal volume to barely audible whispers.

Jian Yuyang gazed out at the snowy landscape and pulled out his phone to snap a picture.

That tiny click was enough to make Yu Chu’s eyes spring open.

He was unusually sensitive to the sound of a camera shutter. No matter how tired he was, hearing one would wake him instantly.

Hughes, who was eating his sandwich, noticed Yu Chu was awake. “Not sleeping anymore?”

Yu Chu rubbed his eyes lightly. “Was someone taking pictures?”

“Ah, that was me. I was taking a picture outside.” Jian Yuyang switched his phone to silent. “Did I wake you?”

Yu Chu murmured that he hadn’t, then soon fell asleep again.

This time, Yu Chu slept all the way to their destination.

He vaguely felt the van come to a stop and struggled to open his eyes. Looking out the window, he saw they had arrived.

Hughes had been about to wake him. Seeing him stir, he handed Yu Chu a bottle of milk. “Drink this.”

Yu Chu blinked. “Thanks.”

After getting out, Yu Chu took a look around.

The fansign was being held in a gymnasium beside a theater. Snow covered the ground. Yu Chu stepped into it, then lifted his foot, leaving a perfect footprint behind.

When Fang Lin had told them where the fansign would be, he’d dragged out the reveal so dramatically that Yu Chu had thought they were going to sign albums inside the theater. How much would it cost to rent a theater that big?

“Look at this venue,” Yuan Xiangdi said. “I was starting to think we’d come to perform a musical.”

Hughes was quietly taking in the place where they’d be holding the fansign: Nancheng City, Weihai Province, a place with a climate much like Capital City’s.

More importantly, he remembered that Yu Chu was from Weihai.

“Bro,” he called.

Yu Chu slowly turned around. “Yeah?”

“You’re from Weihai?” Hughes asked.

Yu Chu nodded. “I came to this theater when I was a kid.”

He rarely talked about his childhood in front of other people.

Hughes was a typical nepo baby. The media had documented his life from birth onward; there was nothing about him that was private. By comparison, Yu Chu was much more of a mystery.

All they knew was that Yu Chu had been born in 2006 and became an official trainee in 2019.

Everyone had been a child once. Nobody simply appeared out of thin air. Hughes had once asked Yu Chu why he couldn’t find anything about his childhood online.

Back then, Yu Chu had only said, with an inscrutable air, “Because I sold those years to the company.”

Now that Yu Chu had finally brought up his childhood on his own, Hughes pressed him. “Did you come to see a musical?”

“No,” Yu Chu said. “I just happened to pass by.”

The weather was bitterly cold. Their breath turned to white clouds as they spoke.

Yu Chu didn’t say anything more about it.

Seeing he didn’t want to continue, Hughes didn’t press him.

Fang Lin saw them dawdling and called from up ahead. He clapped twice, like a gym coach. “Pick up the pace!”

“Coming!”

Yu Chu had been sleepy all the way there after a poor night’s sleep, but the moment he saw the fans attending the fansign, he perked up.

They greeted the fans below the stage, then took their usual seats behind the long table.

Yu Chu sat in the center, as he usually did, with Hughes and Qin Yun to his left and Jian Yuyang and Yuan Xiangdi to his right.

The fansign hadn’t officially started yet. Yu Chu picked up the microphone and chatted with the fans. “It’s getting colder and colder, so make sure you bundle up. Catching a cold now would be miserable.”

He was telling the fans to stay warm, even though he wasn’t dressed for the weather himself: just a shirt and a creamy-white knit cardigan.

The fans obediently promised they would.

Yu Chu looked carefully over the people sitting below the stage. Most of them were women. He spotted several familiar faces.

He seemed to have a special talent for remembering faces. Once he’d met someone, he usually remembered them, at least a little.

After chatting with the fans for a while, Yu Chu set down the microphone. He felt Hughes poke him under the table and turned to him. “What is it?”

Hughes handed him an unopened hand warmer.

Yu Chu smiled. “Thanks.”

After the opening segment, the fans lined up to come onstage for their signings.

They went in order, starting with Qin Yun at the far right and moving down the line, ending with Yuan Xiangdi at the far left.

After signing albums for a few fans he was meeting for the first time, Yu Chu spotted someone familiar.

“Little Nan,” he called before she sat down, greeting her first. “We meet again.”

The girl named Little Nan froze for a couple of seconds. Her face and ears reddened, and she nodded awkwardly. “Mm.”

She’d attended a video fansign before, so Yu Chu remembered her.

He’d realized during their first fansign that Little Nan was very shy.

Some fans were naturally outgoing and would start a conversation during their signing. Others, like Little Nan, needed him to get things going.

“Last time we met, you said you were really nervous.” Yu Chu took the album she wanted signed from Hughes and asked gently, “Are you still nervous meeting me this time?”

He kept a slight smile as he spoke, his eyes on the girl in front of him.

Little Nan started stammering again. “A little bit…”

“That’s okay. The more we chat, the less nervous you’ll feel.” Yu Chu looked at her. “Did you cut your hair? I remember you had long hair before.”

He pointed to his own neck.

Little Nan nodded. She was clearly less nervous now.

“I got it cut yesterday. I don’t know if this style suits me.”

“I think it suits you really well.” Yu Chu lowered his eyes to the album on the table and flipped to the page marked with a tab bearing his name. As he signed, he asked, “Since you just got it cut, does it still feel a little strange?”

Each signing was given a time limit. After Yu Chu and Little Nan had chatted for a few minutes, the staff member behind him reminded him that his time was up and that he should let the next fan come over.

Little Nan clearly still had something to say. Yu Chu held the staff member back and let her finish.

Once she’d said what she wanted to say, Little Nan finally remembered the letter she’d written. She’d been so nervous that she’d completely forgotten about it.

She took out the letter and handed it to Yu Chu, then moved over to get Jian Yuyang’s signature.

Yu Chu continued signing for the fans who came after her. The next few had attended previous fansigns, so he remembered them a little.

One of them was a fansite master. Yu Chu often saw her at his events. She told him he could just call her KK; many of the fans who followed her called her Sister KK.

KK took out a crown covered in rhinestones.

At first, Yu Chu thought it was just an ordinary crown. Then he noticed a white veil attached to it.

KK asked if he could put it on.

Fans often gave idols little accessories at fansigns, so Yu Chu wasn’t surprised to see the veil. He put it on right in front of her.

The staff member standing behind Yu Chu was quick to help, adjusting the veil and spreading out the folds where it had bunched up.

Jian Yuyang, waiting for the next fan beside him, let out an exaggerated “Wow.” “That looks like a wedding veil.”

“I also brought a pair of cat ears,” KK told him ruefully, “but I accidentally left them in a taxi on the way here.”

Yu Chu quickly finished signing her album, then looked up. “You didn’t leave anything valuable behind, did you?”

KK shook her head. “No! Everything else is fine.”

“Good.” Yu Chu hooked a finger under the veil. “This is really pretty, too.”

KK, who’d just been lamenting the lost cat ears, immediately brightened. “It looks even prettier on you.”

Yu Chu smiled bashfully. “You think it looks that nice?”

After finishing with that fan, Yu Chu turned his head and saw Hughes wearing a cowboy hat and holding a toy gun from a fan. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of Red Dead Redemption.

Yu Chu smiled and glanced toward the fans below the stage. Quite a few of them, like KK, were fansite masters with cameras raised, taking pictures of the group. He waved to them.

During the break, Yu Chu wore the veil and performed the cover dance they’d done earlier.

As the fansign reached its second half, a man wearing a mask and a baseball cap sat down in front of Yu Chu.

Unlike the other fans, who followed the rules and went from member to member, this man skipped Qin Yun and Hughes and headed straight for Yu Chu.

Yu Chu was surprised, but he couldn’t let it show too much.

He was just about to greet the man when the other reached out and seized both his hands, gripping them tightly.

The staff member immediately stepped in and told the man not to do anything that might make a member uncomfortable.

Yu Chu managed a smile and said, “If you keep holding my hands like this, I can’t sign your album.”

The man’s gaze clung to him. It reminded Yu Chu of slick seafood or soft-bodied insects. Disgusting.

Fortunately, the man finally let go. Maybe Yu Chu’s words had worked; maybe it was because the staff member had warned him that security would remove him if he didn’t release Yu Chu.

Yu Chu picked up his pen and politely asked what name the man wanted him to write.

The man said there was no need to sign his name. Yu Chu could just write his own.

“Are you sure?” Yu Chu asked.

If it had been another fan, he wouldn’t have pushed. But this man was different. Yu Chu wanted to know his name.

The man still said it wasn’t necessary.

As they talked, Yu Chu’s mind kept returning to something else: a sasaeng fan had been harassing him.

[T/N: “Sasaeng” (私生 / 사생, short for “private life”) refers to an obsessive, intrusive stalker fan who invades an idol’s personal life—such as camping outside dorms, buying leaked phone numbers/flight info, and stalking them off-duty.]

Somehow, the sasaeng had gotten his number and often sent him messages. Yu Chu had received one on the night after the MMF, too.

It had been brief, just four words: Congratulations on winning.

Yu Chu suspected the man in front of him was the sasaeng who’d been harassing him lately. He had no proof yet; it was only a gut feeling.

When the fansign ended, the five of them returned to the van.

Qin Yun closed the door, rubbed his hands, which were nearly frozen solid, and hurried to his seat. He looked toward Yu Chu in the front. “What the hell was up with that guy today? He was acting like a lunatic.”

They hadn’t wanted to talk about it where anyone might overhear. Now that they were back in the van, surrounded by their own people, Qin Yun finally dared bring it up.

Yu Chu had carefully wiped his hands with a wet wipe earlier. He’d felt uncomfortable ever since the man had touched him, and wiping his hands had helped.

He picked up the bottle of milk he’d left in the van, shook it hard, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.

Everyone except Yu Chu had been skipped over.

They’d been in the business for years and had seen fans skip members before, even in extreme cases. But they’d never seen one fan skip four members at once.

“And another thing,” Yuan Xiangdi said. He’d been wanting to bring it up and had held his tongue until now. “The guy was wearing a mask and a hat. Why show up to a fansign dressed like he was going incognito? Could he be a fugitive?”

Jian Yuyang frowned. “That’s a bit much. He was probably just an extreme fan.”

Hughes asked Yu Chu, “Bro, have you seen him before?”

“No.” Yu Chu paused for a moment, then offered an even more alarming guess. “But I have a feeling he’s the sasaeng fan who’s been messaging me.”