“Bai Shijun is afraid of heights, so let’s not include bungee jumping.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the conference room went silent.
At that exact moment, I was in a meeting with my team members, preparing NOVER’s travel-variety show.
I’d been looking down and writing on the proposal until I realized there wasn’t a sound beside me. Only then did I slowly raise my head.
Three pairs of eyes were staring at me.
The hand holding my pen froze.
“W-What?”
Minseo, sitting on my left, blinked.
“Zhixia, how do you know Bai Shijun is afraid of heights?”
Crap.
I glanced down at the proposal on the table.
A moment ago, Minseo had only suggested, “If we arrange a mountain trip for season one, should we add a high ropes course or bungee jumping? The footage should look amazing.”
And then my mouth moved faster than my brain, blurting out—
I really wanted to swallow those words back.
“Well…” I pretended to be calm as I flipped a page of the proposal. “Isn’t it in the research?”
The three of them lowered their heads and started flipping through the pages together. I followed suit.
Page one.
Page two.
Page three.
Nothing.
Minseo slowly raised her head.
“Which page?”
“…Maybe I saw it in some research I read before.”
“We got the same research, though, right?”
“Online.” I immediately changed course. “I saw it while doing character research.”
Hyunwoo, sitting across from me, suddenly nodded.
“Oh, right. You always do really thorough research, Zhixia.”
I immediately took the offered escape route.
“Exactly.”
Great. I’ll give you an extra chicken leg at lunch today.
“So let’s leave out bungee jumping for now.” I crossed that item out with my pen. “It’s only the beginning of season one. It wouldn’t be worth scaring the leader so badly he refuses to film season two.”
Minseo burst out laughing.
Today was our first small-group content meeting since we’d officially taken on NOVER’s travel-variety project.
The tentative title for the show still hadn’t been completely decided, but we’d settled on the general direction. The entire project would run for a year.
We’d arrange one major trip each in spring, summer, fall, and winter, with each season focusing on a different country or city.
If NOVER happened to have an overseas tour, our team would fly along with them and schedule additional filming before or after the concert work.
During months without overseas travel, we’d focus on short domestic trips.
Camping, skiing, rafting, the beach, rural experiences, farms, mountain lodges—or even telling them absolutely nothing and dropping the three of them in an unfamiliar place to figure out how to survive on their own.
In short, the concept had only one goal: let NOVER go have fun.
And, as a bonus, let the fans see different sides of them offstage.
“I think we shouldn’t make season one too intense.” I pushed the materials toward the middle of the table. “This is our first time working together, after all. We should get a feel for the rhythm of all three members first.”
“What about camping?” Hyunwoo asked.
I nodded. It wasn’t a bad idea.
“Two days and one night. Camping in the mountains.”
“They have to set up their own tents?”
“Of course.”
Minseo immediately looked excited.
“That’ll definitely be fun. There’s no way three grown men can set up a tent properly.”
“How do you know they can’t?”
“Idols usually can’t, right?”
I was silent for two seconds.
“…Liu Junxia can’t.”
There I went again. The air fell silent once more.
I closed my eyes.
Yin Zhixia, are you ever going to learn to control your mouth?
Minseo slowly turned toward me.
“Seriously, how do you know that too?”
I didn’t change expression.
“He was on a camping show before.”
This time, it was actually true.
“Ohhh.”
Everyone accepted the answer, and I secretly let out a sigh of relief.
The former EVER database in my head was seriously dangerous. How much NOVER content had I watched back then?
Four years had passed. How was all of it still stuck so firmly in my brain?
I picked up my pen and drew a circle beside the tent section.
“They can set up the tents themselves, but don’t actually let them lose sleep all night. The staff needs to prepare a backup plan.”
“What about cooking?”
“They’ll do that themselves too.”
Minseo immediately raised her hand.
“I know this one! Li Zhihao isn’t very good at cooking!”
I instinctively chimed in. “He’s not just not very good. He literally—”
I stopped abruptly. Everyone looked at me again.
I slowly took a sip of coffee.
“Never mind.”
Minseo’s smile was incredibly punchable.
“Zhixia, you really do your research.”
“I’m always thorough.”
“Sure you are~~”
She deliberately dragged out the ending.
“Anyway, cooking can stay.” I continued arranging the schedule. “Also, don’t pack the first day too tightly. They have work the day before. After meeting up in the morning, they can travel first, arrive at the campsite in the afternoon, and do only two or three missions.”
“Can we arrange a heart-to-heart at night?”
“Too cliché.”
They’d been debuted for years. Fans had seen that bit so many times they probably suspected every answer came from a script.
“Ghost stories?”
“Don’t tempt fate.”
Especially in the mountains. Please take basic safety seriously.
“Drinking?”
I looked up at Hyunwoo, who had made the suggestion.
“You want the company to kill you?”
Hyunwoo immediately crossed that item out.
Minseo suddenly thought of something.
“What if we do a member-chemistry quiz?”
I paused.
“That could work.”
“We prepare the questions ahead of time—like who’s most likely to be late, who takes the longest showers, who’s hardest to wake up, that kind of thing. Then we keep the questions secret from them, so their answers will definitely be genuine!”
“Mm.” I wrote it down on the proposal. “But don’t make it only about things the fans already know.”
“What else can we ask?”
I thought for a moment.
“For example—”
Some NOVER videos I’d watched in the past suddenly surfaced in my mind. I bit the cap of my pen.
“If the three of them weren’t idols right now, what would they most likely be doing?”
“Who’s most likely to suddenly leave the group chat?”
“If you could take only one member to a deserted island, who would you choose?”
“And…” I raised my head. “If something really important happened today and you could entrust it to only one of them, who would you choose?”
Minseo’s eyes lit up.
“That’s a good one. We could do it at night around the campfire.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Make the beginning more humorous, then leave a short, more heartfelt segment at the end.”
I’d always thought the best part of a travel-variety show wasn’t playing games nonstop. It was the natural reactions that came out when people left their familiar surroundings.
Especially with a group like NOVER, who had been active together for almost ten years.
What was genuinely interesting about them wasn’t the personas created by the company. It was the relationship between the three of them—so familiar that they couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to be polite anymore.
As a former EVER, I knew that better than anyone.
“For the first one, let’s settle on a two-day, one-night camping trip.” I tapped the table one last time. “Somewhere in the mountains, but keep the drive under three hours.”
“Got it.”
“On day one: set up the tents, make dinner, do the chemistry mission, and have a campfire. On day two, we can arrange a simple morning hike, pack up before noon, and then do an outdoor activity nearby.”
Hyunwoo flipped through the materials.
“There’s a stream nearby. We could arrange rafting.”
“What are the water conditions?”
“I’ll check again.”
“Good. Safety first.”
Hyunwoo nodded.
Minseo suddenly raised her hand.
“If rafting is feasible, can we make them compete?”
I lifted my eyes.
“How are three people supposed to compete while rafting?”
“Make teams with the staff.”
She looked at me.
“Zhixia, do you want to join too?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m the PD.”
“PDs can go too. The footage would look great.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Bai Shijun could be on your team.”
“Even more absolutely not.”
The conference room suddenly went silent.
“Okay, let’s discuss the next item.”
I immediately turned the page.
You are not allowed to ask me anything else.
Once the initial planning was finalized, actually starting production wasn’t nearly as quick as I’d imagined. Just coordinating the schedules of NOVER’s three members took more than a week.
Location scouting, insurance, filming permits, reserving the entire campsite, equipment, backup lodging, meals, medical staff, and the schedules of the camera, lighting, and sound crews—as well as the staff from the artists’ agency—all of it had to line up.
By the time everything was truly settled, a month had passed.
The day before our first official shoot, I was so busy that I didn’t leave the company until ten at night.
“Yin PD, we’re meeting at six tomorrow morning.”
Minseo stood by the door with her bag on her back.
“I know.”
“Don’t be the last one to leave again.”
“You go ahead.” I lowered my head and checked tomorrow’s preparation materials one more time. “I’m going to go over the schedule again.”
“You’ve already checked it four times.”
“The fifth time will make me feel better.”
“Bai Shijun’s a perfectionist, and so are you. You two really are so—”
I looked up.
“So what?”
Minseo immediately shut her mouth.
“Nothing.” She stuck out her tongue. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Be careful on your way home.”
The office fell quiet again.
I looked down at the schedule on my desk.
NOVER—Bai Shijun, Li Zhihao, Liu Junxia.
In the past, I’d seen those three names on albums, concert tickets, and show listings.
Now they were printed on my own filming schedule.
It would be a lie to say I felt nothing.
But the feeling wasn’t the excitement of “I’m going to see my idols!”
It was more like…a strange sense of unreality.
I used to chase after them. Now they were the ones who had to follow my schedule. Life was seriously weird.
After signing my name on the last page, I shut down my computer.
Starting tomorrow, work was work. As long as Bai Shijun didn’t cause another door-related incident, everything should go smoothly.
…Probably.
Six fifteen the next morning.
I stood at the meeting point with a walkie-talkie in hand.
“Camera van two, go ahead.”
“Copy that.”
“Is all the equipment accounted for?”
“All set.”
“Remember to save three breakfasts for the artists. What about the medical kit?”
“I have it.”
Minseo raised her hand.
I looked down to check the list. Most of the staff had arrived, but NOVER still hadn’t shown up.
Six twenty-two.
A black van slowly pulled into the parking lot.
“They’re here.”
Someone said it.
I raised my head.
Liu Junxia was the first one out.
He wore a gray hoodie and black sweatpants, with no makeup at all. One side of his hair was sticking up slightly, and the moment he got out of the van, he let out an enormous yawn.
“It’s so early…”
“Called it. I told you to go to bed earlier last night.”
Li Zhihao followed him out in a black jacket, his hat pulled low. Compared with Liu Junxia, he looked much more awake.
“Who was sending videos in the group chat at two in the morning?”
Junxia immediately turned around.
“That was you, hyung.”
“I only sent one.”
“Did you?”
“I did.”
The last person to get out of the van was Bai Shijun.
He had a coffee in his hand and was looking down at his phone as one foot touched the ground.
“You two started arguing the moment you got out.”
Junxia immediately pointed at Zhihao.
“He started it.”
Zhihao remained expressionless.
“Immature.”
“Hyung, you literally just—”
“Morning.”
I interrupted them, and all three turned toward me at once.
The moment Bai Shijun’s gaze landed on me, the corners of his mouth lifted.
Crap… That smile again.
“Yin PD.” He walked two steps toward me. “See? I told you we’d meet again.”
I hadn’t expected him to be right about what he’d said at the convenience store.
I hugged the schedule to my chest.
“You’re a regular cast member on the show, and I’m the PD. It’d be weird if we didn’t see each other.”
“But didn’t I say it would be soon?”
“A month and a half counts as soon?”
“Sooner than I expected.”
I stared at Bai Shijun without expression.
“Congratulations on your successful prediction.”
His smile grew even wider. The other two looked between him and me at the same time, and Li Zhihao politely nodded at me first.
“Hello, I’m Li Zhihao. I look forward to working with you.”
I nodded too. “Hello.”
This was my first time actually speaking to Li Zhihao. His face had already seemed absurdly handsome through a screen.
Standing right in front of me now… No wonder he was the visual. His features were perfect to an unreasonable degree.
Liu Junxia stood beside him. When our eyes met, he immediately straightened.
“Hello, I’m Liu Junxia. Please take good care of us.”
“Likewise. We’ll work well together.”
I smiled, and Junxia smiled too. His sleepy face instantly became strikingly similar to the youthful face he’d had right after debut.
Even though I hadn’t followed them for four years, the moment the three of them stood side by side in front of me, my mind automatically supplied the thought—
NOVER. This was really NOVER.
The three people who used to be impossibly loud inside my phone were now standing right in front of me.
And then—
“Hyung, you got coffee on your clothes.”
Junxia suddenly pointed at Shijun.
Shijun looked down. “Where?”
“Here.”
He reached out naturally.
Bai Shijun lowered his head too.
The next second—Junxia flicked him right on the forehead.
Smack.
“Hey!”
Bai Shijun immediately looked up, but Junxia was already laughing as he ran away.
“Liu Junxia!”
“Hahahahahaha!”
“Stop right there!”
“Hyung! We haven’t even started filming!”
“That’s why I need to hit you even more!”
Bai Shijun chased after him, and two men pushing thirty ran circles around the van.
Li Zhihao stood beside me and calmly took a sip of coffee.
I slowly turned my head.
“L-Let’s get going…”
The first official scene began before they even got in the van.
As soon as the cameras turned on, the three of them moved into their assigned positions.
“One, two, three.”
Bai Shijun led them.
“NOW! FOREVER! Hello, everyone! We’re NOVER!”
The three bowed together.
I stood behind the monitor, and that moment still gave me a strange sense of familiarity.
I’d heard that slogan countless times before, always shouting along from outside the screen.
But now—
“Yin PD, audio is good.”
A staff member’s voice came through my headset.
I immediately snapped back to reality.
“Okay, keep going.”
On camera, Bai Shijun was looking at the mission card.
“Where are we going today?”
“Don’t know,” Junxia said.
“Isn’t it written there?” Zhihao pointed at the card.
Junxia looked down.
“I’m too lazy to read it.”
Bai Shijun shoved the paper in front of him.
“You read it.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the maknae.”
“Hyung’s the leader.”
Zhihao suddenly snatched the mission card away.
“If you two keep arguing, we probably won’t make it there today.”
The air went quiet for a second. Bai Shijun looked at him, and Junxia looked at him too.
Zhihao read in an expressionless voice, “NOVER members, please proceed to today’s travel destination and arrive before noon.”
Junxia muttered, “Hyung’s in a terrible mood today.”
Zhihao turned around.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
I couldn’t help smiling behind the monitor.
Sure enough, the three of them needed absolutely no coaching. They didn’t even need deliberately designed punch lines. They created their own.
Things got even more ridiculous once they got in the van. The planning team had prepared several small games for the ride.
None of them were needed, because the three of them started arguing over the seats alone.
“I want to sit in the back,” Junxia said.
Bai Shijun had already sat down.
“I got here first.”
“Hyung, do you get carsick?”
“No.”
“Then sit in the front.”
“Why?”
“Because I do.”
Zhihao stood outside the van door.
“Junxia, you said last month you’d never been carsick in your life.”
“People change.”
“In one month?”
“The human body is amazing, right?”
Bai Shijun leaned against the seatback. “You just want to lie down in the back today.”
“Hyung gets me.”
“Get out.”
“No.”
In the end, Li Zhihao took the most comfortable seat all by himself.
The other two kept arguing, and the cameraman laughed so hard the camera shook.
I watched the monitor. We weren’t cutting any of this. Keep it all in.
At the rest stop, filming paused for fifteen minutes.
I was checking the schedule for the next segment.
“Yin PD.”
I knew who it was without looking up, so I kept writing.
“What?”
“Are you busy?”
“Can’t you tell?”
A bottle suddenly appeared on top of my proposal.
I stopped writing and looked up at Bai Shijun.
“Here. Coffee.”
I glanced at it. An iced Americano.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I took a sip, then looked up again and realized he hadn’t left.
“Do you need something else?”
“Nope.”
“Then why are you standing here?”
“…Taking a break.”
“There are chairs over there.”
“I can stand here too.”
I lowered my head and continued working. Bai Shijun really did stand beside me.
After about ten seconds of silence, he finally couldn’t hold back.
“Yin PD, did you design today’s show?”
“Our whole team did.”
“The camping trip too?”
“Yeah.”
“Why is the first episode camping?”
I finally looked up.
“Because it’ll be fun.”
Bai Shijun raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not going to spring something terrifying on us later, are you?”
I stared at him, suddenly thinking of the bungee-jumping discussion in our planning meeting.
The corners of my mouth lifted despite myself.
“Are you scared?”
“What do I have to be scared of?”
What a stubborn liar. Who was it that got so scared on that skyscraper show he practically glued himself to the wall?
I remembered perfectly.
But obviously, I couldn’t say that.
“Nothing.”
I lowered my head and took another sip of coffee. Bai Shijun watched me.
“That smile just now was weird. It looked like you knew something.”
“You’re overthinking it.”
“Yin Zhixia, you haven’t secretly been researching me, have you?”
My heart clenched.
“Why would I research you?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned forward slightly. “But I get the feeling you know me really well.”
I was at a loss for words.
Fortunately, a voice called from a distance.
“Shijun! We’re leaving!”
I immediately raised my hand.
“Someone’s calling you.”
Bai Shijun turned around. Junxia was standing beside the van, waving.
“Go on.”
I waved him away like I was shooing a fly.
He laughed at my reaction.
“We’ll talk later.”
“No need. I don’t want to.”
“Then I’ll talk at you.”
“Bai Shijun.”
“Coming.”
He ran off with a smile, and I watched his back.
Two seconds later, a head suddenly popped up beside me.
“Zhixia.”
“Ah!”
I jumped. Minseo was wearing an extremely nosy expression.
“Are you close with Bai Shijun?”
“Nope.”
I answered so quickly even I was impressed.
“Really? He was standing beside you the whole time.”
“He had nothing better to do.”
“He even bought you coffee.”
“He was getting one anyway.”
“He even called you Yin Zhixia just now.”
I froze.
“…Did he? You must’ve misheard.”
I shoved the schedule into her arms.
“Okay, go check the equipment.”
I cut off Minseo’s gossip and turned away from her.
The real chaos began once we arrived at the campsite.
The first mission: set up the tents.
We had prepared three of them.
The rules were simple.
The three members would draw lots, each take responsibility for one tent, and whoever finished last would wash everyone’s dishes that night.
Junxia was extremely confident when he drew his lot.
“This is basically free points.”
Bai Shijun looked at him.
“You know how to set up a tent?”
“I did it in high school.”
Zhihao was studying the instructions.
“Didn’t you graduate from high school ages ago?”
Junxia: “…”
“And you still had time to go camping?”
“It was a school activity!”
Bai Shijun laughed.
“Okay, let’s just start.”
Three minutes after they began, Liu Junxia was the first to assemble the tent frame. He looked extremely pleased with himself.
“See?”
Then he let go, and the entire thing collapsed.
Smack.
Behind the monitor, I laughed so hard my shoulders shook.
Junxia crouched on the ground.
“There’s something wrong with this tent.”
Bai Shijun stood beside him.
“There’s nothing wrong with the tent. There’s something wrong with the person.”
“Your own tent isn’t standing either.”
“At least it hasn’t fallen over.”
The moment he finished speaking, a gust of wind blew by, and Bai Shijun’s tent flipped straight onto its side.
This time, even the staff were shaking with laughter.
Zhihao didn’t look up.
“Don’t talk about other people.”
And somehow, the first person to finish was Li Zhihao.
He stood beside his tent, looking perfectly calm.
“Done.”
The other two turned toward him at the same time.
“Huh?”
I froze too. This was completely outside my database.
Hadn’t Li Zhihao once installed even a camping chair backward?
Junxia immediately ran over.
“Hyung, you cheated!”
“How did I cheat?”
“Did you practice ahead of time yesterday?”
Bai Shijun walked over to inspect it too.
“Is this part not inserted properly?”
Zhihao looked at him.
“It’s inserted properly.”
“What about this part?”
“That’s done too.”
Zhihao suddenly reached out and pushed Bai Shijun’s forehead.
“Go take care of your own.”
Bai Shijun took a step backward from the push.
“Hey.”
Junxia crouched beside them, laughing.
The entire scene was a chaotic mess, but I slowly stopped laughing along.
Maybe I was overthinking it.
The way Zhihao had just pushed Shijun away looked completely natural.
Bai Shijun hadn’t actually gotten angry either.
But…something about it felt off.
I stared at the monitor.
Over the next few minutes, I began unconsciously paying attention to the two of them.
Bai Shijun went over to help Zhihao carry something. Zhihao took it without looking at him.
Junxia told a terrible joke.
Bai Shijun laughed, and Zhihao laughed too, but the two of them didn’t make eye contact even once.
It was too strange. They hadn’t been like this before.
I knew that better than anyone.
In the past, whenever those two stood together, Bai Shijun would always pick a fight with Zhihao for no reason.
Zhihao would complain that he was annoying, but he’d always respond in the end.
They were both in the older-member line, yet they were often more childish than the maknae.
On the surface, everything looked completely normal. An ordinary viewer probably wouldn’t notice anything at all.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something between them—something small, like a barrier.
“Zhixia.”
Minseo suddenly called from beside me.
“Yeah?”
“Can we start the next segment?”
I came back to myself.
“Sure.”
“What were you looking at just now?”
“Nothing.” I adjusted my headset. “Get ready for the next segment.”
Maybe it was just because we’d started so early.
Maybe the two of them had simply been tired from work the day before.
They’d been active as a group for so long. There was no way their relationship would look exactly the same every day.
I told myself not to jump to conclusions.
This was work. I wasn’t a fan—
Much less some kind of relationship analyst.
“Camera ready.”
“Copy that.”
“Sound?”
“Good.”
I looked at the three people on the screen. Junxia was trying to shove Bai Shijun into a tent, while Shijun grabbed him with his other hand and the two started fooling around again.
Zhihao sat beside them, watching with a smile.
The scene looked perfectly normal. It looked exactly like NOVER.
But the moment Bai Shijun turned to look at Zhihao—
Zhihao lowered his head at exactly the same time, avoiding his gaze.
My hand holding the walkie-talkie paused.
It wasn’t my imagination. Between the two of them—
Something really was off.