Little Pink Starfish

Early morning.

The members, including myself, were gathered around the table at the dorm, having breakfast.

“Nothing but greens…”

Jeong Noeul sighed as he poked at his salad.

“We’ve got a big performance coming up. Couldn’t we pay a little more attention to nutrition?”

Han Iro hyung? he added.

Jeong Noeul grumbled with a sullen voice, glaring at Han Iro, who had prepared the meal.

“It’s a perfectly balanced diet, though.”

Han Iro shrugged, pointing his fork at Jeong Noeul.

“So stop complaining and eat. You’re too old to be picky.”

“How can I live on just this stuff…”

“I lived like this while living alone. So eat up.”

“Tch.”

With his lower lip stuck out, Jeong Noeul reluctantly obeyed.

“By the way, everyone, take a look at this.”

At that moment, Min Heejae, who had finished eating early and was sipping milk, pulled out his phone. He played a video on YouTube and placed it in front of everyone. It was a clip of Vanessa Bernstein being interviewed by reporters upon arriving in Korea.

“I was already quite familiar with Korea.”

On Min Heejae’s phone display, Vanessa Bernstein was smiling.

“It’s hard not to be, when you work in pop music. This place is sensational in many ways.”

Despite being over thirty, her appearance was incredibly youthful. Not just in terms of beauty, but her expressions and gestures exuded a pure, almost girlish innocence.

“So, if I can make a light confession… I was the one who insisted on performing here. When I first got the email from CYB, I was scheduled to work on a new song, and my manager advised me to decline. But I begged to come anyway.”

That manager she’s referring to must be the Demon God.

Thinking that, I silently observed Vanessa Bernstein in the video.

How much does she actually know? Beneath her seemingly innocent tone lay a certain sharpness. Perhaps that’s why I found Vanessa Bernstein even more suspicious than the Demon God. After all, she was the one who requested the contract with ‘The Savior Who Is One and All’ in the first place. That alone was enough to warrant caution.

“She’s so composed…”

Resting his chin on his hand, Han Iro spoke.

“Doesn’t she seem different from us? Sure, she’s much older, but she debuted around the same time as us. Yet she’s already playing at a world-class level.”

“Aren’t we world-class too?”

Madojin, who had been silently eating his salad, suddenly spoke up.

“No.”

Jeong Noeul answered flatly.

“We haven’t even reached our first anniversary yet. Well… neither has she, technically, but she was already famous worldwide before debuting in this field. She’s the only daughter of the famous Mateo Bernstein, after all.”

“Right.”

Min Heejae nodded at Jeong Noeul’s words.

“She was someone who could become famous for that alone. Then she added an inexplicable level of talent that drew everyone’s attention.”

“I see.”

Madojin nodded blankly.

“I’ll excuse myself now.”

After placing his empty dishes in the sink, he walked toward the door but paused beside me.

“Eunyul.”

“Yes?”

I looked up at Madojin. As always, his expression felt indifferent. In a way, I envied that. My face always revealed my thoughts too easily.

“Could you spare me a moment later?”

“A moment?”

I tilted my head. We were scheduled to start preparing for the performance today, and our schedule was packed. After breakfast, we were supposed to head straight to the practice room. While it wasn’t impossible to find time to talk, Madojin clearly meant he wanted a private conversation, which would be difficult given how we moved as a group.

“It won’t take long. Just a brief moment.”

“Well, alright.”

It’ll work out somehow, I thought, nodding.

“What are you planning to talk about?”

Jeong Noeul grinned playfully.

“Can’t you say it here, with everyone?”

“No… No, I can’t.”

Looking down at Jeong Noeul, Madojin answered firmly.

“That’s a bit alienating, Dojin hyung.”

Jeong Noeul pouted and stuffed more cabbage soaked in oriental dressing into his mouth, his face scrunching up.

---

That afternoon.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

Madojin and I met near a vending machine close to the practice room.

“It’s nothing special.”

Madojin retrieved a canned drink from the machine.

“Would you like one too, Eunyul?”

“I’m good.”

I leaned against the wall.

With a clunk, the can dropped from the machine. Holding it, Madojin stood next to me. The day was getting warmer. The early summer sun irritatingly scorched my scalp.

“My master told me.”

Madojin murmured with a blank expression.

Hearing that much, I already had a sense of where this was going. Madojin had learned from Mika about Vanessa Bernstein’s connection to the Demon God. He must also know everything about why CYB had invited them. I hadn’t expected Mika to reveal that to Madojin, so I felt a twinge of surprise.

“So I was curious. What are your thoughts on all this, Eunyul?”

“Well…”

I let out a lazy sigh.

“I have a lot of thoughts.”

But they were just thoughts.

“By human age, I’m still a child…”

Madojin took a sip from his can.

“Even the taste of this drink feels novel to me. I think I now understand why little kids beg their parents for soda. As for my master’s intent, or ‘The Star Hated by All’s intent… and the fear humans experienced because of the Gate—I know nothing. I only grasp dry facts.”

That’s understandable.

I nodded.

It was like reading about wars on the other side of the world from a textbook. For Madojin, these events were probably nothing more than inorganic information. It couldn’t be helped. I remembered struggling to stay awake while studying World War II, reading about the Holocaust in textbooks written so blandly that even horror felt distant, while fighting post-lunch drowsiness.

“Can you face the Demon God, Eunyul?”

In a calm tone…

Madojin cautiously asked me.

“Calmly? Probably not.”

I shrugged.

“I’ll likely be furious. That might be why I’m so calm now—it feels like the calm before the storm.”

It was true. If the Demon God stood before me now, I probably wouldn’t be able to restrain myself from grabbing its throat. Though The Star Hated by All would likely stop me before that happened.

“You’ve learned world history through Enoch, so you know this.”

Wars always end eventually, but individuals have little say in declaring that end. People say the world is at peace now, but no one would claim there’s no lingering resentment.

That’s just how it is. If we list humanity’s most notorious wars, after mentioning the two world wars, talk of the Demon God’s invasion would follow. And yet, between these periods, humanity was supposedly “at peace.” It’s strange. Even though people continued to die and bullets flew somewhere during those times, the term ‘war’ was rarely used.

“Both The Star and Mika are hoping for the best outcome. I have no doubt about that.”

I truly believed that. I held no resistance to that part. The Star intended to simultaneously punish and save his daughter. Mika seemed to believe that through this process, the struggle between Hell and Heaven could be temporarily mended. As a mere human, I couldn’t quite grasp the scale of their plans, but I could nod in quiet agreement.

“I think so too.”

Madojin readily agreed.

“Perhaps the reason you’re going along with this plan is because you trust The Star more than anything else.”

“That’s right.”

I admitted without argument.

I trusted The Star—no, the King of Hell—to make the right decision. Though we hadn’t spent much time together, we had been intimately close, and I believed he wouldn’t make a poor choice. Besides, knowing how he viewed the Demon God, even better than he himself did, made it impossible for me to reject or oppose him lightly.

Hearing my thoughts, Madojin fell silent, lost in contemplation.

“Is it… because you’re friends?”

“You mean The Star and me?”

I let out a hollow laugh.

“Well, maybe. Like being Satan’s only human friend…”

Not a bad title.

I mumbled.

“That’s part of it…”

I continued with a sigh.

“But also, because I want to know.”

“Know what?”

“How this cycle of resentment could possibly end.”

Angels hate demons, demons hate everything else, and humans cunningly find their own targets for hatred in between. If you start debating who’s right or wrong, you eventually conclude that the entire world itself was poorly made. Sometimes it feels like this world’s messy history is one long hypothesis trying to prove that ‘The Savior Who Is One and All’ is an idiot.

“I see.”

Madojin nodded.

“I want to see it too. So…”

Shall we see for ourselves? he quietly proposed.

“When The Star faces the Demon God…”

We’ll go find Vanessa Bernstein.

“And ask.”

Why did you summon the Demon God into this world?