The Toxic Member Has Returned! Episode 139
Until the pre-recording for the music show begins, idols literally enter a state of infinite waiting.
You ask the manager when you’ll go up, hear that they still don’t really know, ask again about an hour later, repeat, repeat, repeat.
There were never just one or two teams doing pre-recordings to begin with, and when you considered the audience members coming and going in between and the stage setup, it was only natural.
Of course, upon hearing this, people couldn’t help but be overcome with curiosity.
Ah, then what do idols do while waiting?
That, too, varied depending on the broadcasting station they visited for the pre-recording, or where the waiting room was.
If the waiting room provided was spacious and privacy was respected, you could split up the time to practice parts or work out simple stage movements, but if not, you just sat there blankly.
“Uhm, Rex? What are you doing right now?”
“…A game.”
“Hm? You’re not even touching it or anything. What, watching old battle replays? Something like that?”
“No. It’s an idle battle game. You just pour money into it every month and leave it alone, and it levels up by itself.”
“…Is that even a game?”
Well, wherever I went, I would lie on the waiting room sofa suffering from a hangover or playing games I didn’t even enjoy.
But in the case of the Sangam Music Days Live Hall, things were a bit different.
In the basement fourth floor of the Sangam Music Days Live Hall, there was a pop-up snack bar that only opened on days with pre-recordings.
It wasn’t that famous, but it was the kind of snack bar that only select broadcasting staff knew about.
And I could say with certainty that there was no surer change of pace during waiting time than coming down to this snack bar.
Because….
“T-this… Chunyong… hyung, are you buying this…?”
“Yeah, yeah, just grab whatever. You can take two bottles of sikhye. Did you see the yakgwa over there?”
“……!”
They only sold sweet things here, and a sugar high in the early morning hours improved your mood more than anything else.
At my words, Siwoo, with a deeply impressed expression, rummaged through every corner of the snack bar and began gathering puffed rice snacks and yakgwa in both arms.
That was certainly a better sight than him staring at the completely melted, ruined green tea frappe in the waiting room earlier.
“Wow, amazing. Chunyong, how on earth did you know about a place like this?”
“Hmm, I wonder. I’d only heard about it; I didn’t know the exact location either….”
“Haha! Well, like I said earlier. It just happened.”
I gave a bitter smile and roughly brushed it off toward my two hyungs, one holding honey water that was good for the throat and the other holding a simple chocolate bar.
Hearing those words from the very two who had told me about this place’s existence was quite a strange feeling.
“Urrgh….”
“Um, Yuchan hyung, with me….”
“…Yeah. Rex. Get up. If you keep lying down like that, you’ll puke! This sofa isn’t even our dorm. If you break it, you have to pay for it.”
“Got it, ugh, but where are we going….”
As mentioned before, this was a place only insiders knew, an absolute secret to rookies.
With five convenience stores within a 100-meter radius of the broadcasting station, if it were an ordinary snack bar, word would never have spread, nor would I have bothered bringing anyone here.
The reason I knew about this place was thanks to Yuchan hyung and Jaeha hyung, who had found this place that sold handmade sikhye through their own legwork.
“How did you even know they sold stuff like this? I’ve been coming to the Sangam Live Hall for three years, and this is the first time I’ve seen something like this.”
“Haha, I asked the Serenia sunbaenims. About where they bought those big containers of sikhye they carry around every pre-recording day.”
“…Hyungs, you don’t usually talk to female idols much.”
“Hmm, that’s true, isn’t it? But… Rex, you don’t take convenience store hangover cures well.”
“…….”
“Did you know sikhye is good for hangovers? From now on, buy and drink it whenever you come here. Got it?”
And this was after I had already fallen out terribly with the hyungs.
“Are you really buying all this? Then can I get two more honey waters?”
“I think this is enough for me. If I eat more, I don’t think it’ll sit well.”
“Jaeha, if you do that, what does that make me?”
“Haha….”
Those hyungs chatting so harmoniously—I couldn’t fathom what they had seen in that good-for-nothing Rex Trash to go around asking other groups about such things.
“…….”
I suppressed the ticklish feeling in my stomach and approached the snack bar owner, who sat with an expressionless face watching a baseball game replay regardless of whatever we were chatting about.
“Boss, let me pay.”
“Total is thirty-two thousand won… wait. Fifty thousand? You don’t have a ten thousand won bill?”
“Ah, you don’t need to give me change. I’ll come eat again later.”
“Then give it to me when you come then. Write down your group name and name.”
“No! Please take it. I really forget those kinds of things easily.”
“…Geez, celebrities. They don’t know the value of money, they don’t. Hurry up and go.”
“Haha, I hope you sell a lot.”
“Do you think this place sells a lot?”
I gave a polite bow to the man waving his hand with a gruff expression, then led the members out of the snack bar.
It wasn’t exactly that I was a celebrity or that I really forgot things easily, which was why I handed him a fifty thousand won bill.
It was just that I had previously run up quite a tab with that man.
“…Hoo.”
Now that I had started full-fledged post-debut activities, the people I had met during my Rex Trash days and the things I had done back then became clearer to see.
And I kept realizing anew just how much of a mess I had been back then.
Because it was clear that an opportunity like this would probably never come again to someone like me, who had never properly apologized even once.
It had to be now.
I had to do well.
“Hyuung, uh. Thank you….”
“Hey, no. Did you buy a lot? Let me see. Sikhye, yakgwa….”
I pretended to count the various snacks cradled in Siwoo’s arms one by one, checking that the furrow between his brows had finally smoothed out.
“This sikhye is really sweet… It’s delicious.”
His mood might improve right now thanks to the armful of snacks I’d bought him, but if he went back to the waiting room and saw that watery green tea frappe, Siwoo’s mood would obviously sink again.
Jang Siwon sunbaenim had already been a star since Siwoo first learned to think and act, and Siwoo must have grown up always hearing stories about his older brother.
Just as I had temporarily patched up the situation through Min Siyeong sunbaenim during *Us Beyond the Waves*, this was also only a temporary measure.
So, although it was still a bit early….
Even if brief, we needed to have a conversation.
After naturally sending the hyungs ahead to the stairs, I tugged on Siwoo’s sleeve and muttered in a low voice.
“Siwoo.”
“Yes?”
“I brought you to the snack bar to cheer you up.”
“…….”
Siwoo’s expression sank slightly the moment he understood the meaning behind that single sentence.
If he hadn’t just gulped down sweet sikhye, he would clearly have looked visibly depressed.
“…I’m sorry… for showing it again….”
“No. I didn’t say that to get an apology. For now, if this cheers you up and you do well on stage, I don’t care. This is how it’ll be from now on too.”
“Uh….”
“It’s okay to show it a little. So what? You don’t show it otherwise. And you’re still young. As your hyung, I should take care of that much for you.”
This was my promise to Siwoo, who had watched me anxiously from the side as I mindlessly destroyed my own daily life while drunk.
I’ll trust and support you even if you wander a bit.
You’re still young, so it’s perfectly fine.
“…….”
At my firm answer, Siwoo fiddled with the sikhye bottle beaded with condensation a few times and pouted.
And a brief silence.
The guy, with his soft, pitch-black hair neatly down, opened his mouth again around the time our waiting room came into view in the distance.
“…I am Siwoo. Jang Siwoo.”
“Huh?”
A faint shadow still lingered on Siwoo’s face as he suddenly introduced himself, but his eyes looked far more resolute than before—unrecognizably so.
“I want to be remembered as Siwoo… and I want to do better. Without being… ambiguous.”
“Ah.”
Ambiguous.
The moment I heard that word, I couldn’t help but let out a light sigh.
Siwoo was good at everything he could do on stage.
Singing, dancing, stage composition, even the objective eye with which he viewed those things.
That’s why he had been called a genius trainee.
But perhaps because of that, he was often tagged as “ambiguous” for not having any one thing he was exceptionally good at.
A younger brother inferior to his older brother, an ambiguous younger brother.
And another label that had attached itself because of me….
The pitiful teammate of Rex Trash.
“I want to be known… by my name. Do you understand? Not as Jang Siwon’s younger brother, not as Rex’s pitiful teammate….”
I failed to control my expression for a moment due to the memories of that time, but perhaps it wasn’t noticeable as Siwoo’s words continued.
“My older brother cares about me too, so… that must be why. And what Yuchan hyung said to me during *Us Beyond the Waves*… it was because he wanted me to do well… it was like that.”
“…Right, I’m sure that’s it. If it’s Yuchan hyung.”
“I was just… worried earlier. Since I’m debuting with the hyungs… I was afraid my older brother’s name would be mentioned… even more.”
Ah.
So the depression from earlier wasn’t entirely his own.
He was worried about being a nuisance to the team.
Worried that it would have a negative effect not only on himself but on the other members too….
This admirable, good kid.
The one who had truly been a nuisance all this time wasn’t him, it was clearly me.
“Geez, you punk!”
Forgetting to keep my distance from him for a moment, I couldn’t help but hook my arm around his scrawny neck.
“Why are you worrying about something like that, huh? It’s fine, it’s fine.”
“H-hyung?!”
“That’s what being a rookie is anyway. You survive off other people’s name value, huh? You rise with that. That’s good enough!”
“Chunyong hyung….”
“Let’s go in. What we need to do today isn’t worry about that. It’s to do well in the pre-recording. Okay?”
Normally, Siwoo would definitely have tried to pull my arm away, but today, he quietly accepted my touch.
Like a black cat finally allowing its first bit of handling from its butler.
And perhaps to show that our hearts had connected to some degree?
“—Where did you all go! Logan and I, huh? Do you know how hard it was carrying these!”
“Oh, Hwaseong. That’s not it. Hobin hyung carried the most, then me, and Hwaseong only a tiny bit….”
“Hey, Logan. Please…! We agreed to take credit together earlier!”
“What? What does ‘taking credit’ mean?”
“Please don’t you two fight. Really, I should thank you for helping….”
After Yuchan hyung and Jaeha hyung went in first, the waiting room that Siwoo and I entered late was somehow noisy.
In other words….
“…Lunch boxes? Didn’t we say we wouldn’t accept individual fan support?”
“Ah, Jaeha-ssi. That’s right. We decided not to accept fan support. This isn’t something the fans sent.”
“Ah, is it the CEO? Phew, this doesn’t seem like something he would send….”
“Um, yes. It’s not the CEO. It was sent by Jeong Yeonu-nim of Sladix.”
“What? Jeong Yeonu sunbaenim? But why would he…? He’s not even from our agency.”
“Well, our b-side track this time includes a T.O.J version of *Loop&Repeat*, right? He said thank you for singing it well, so he sent these.”
“Hmm, this is truly an unexpected gift….”
Listening to the flustered members’ exclamations, I led Siwoo inside and carefully examined the expensive lunchbox sets that had taken over the waiting room.
Each lunchbox labeled with our members’ names contained simple fruits and side dishes that we had said we liked during *Targeting Star*, as well as stamina main dishes like eel and abalone.
As if proving that his words in the car back then—“I watched all the *Targeting Star* footage carefully”—hadn’t been a lie.
“…Hmm?”
At that moment, I discovered a small note attached to the bottom of my lunchbox.
[To. Chunyong
I put in a lot of snacks since you seem to like sweet things.
If you’re lucky, it’ll overlap with our regular album promotions ^^ See you then.
P.S. You didn’t throw away the smart watch I gave you, right?]
“Hah….”
At sentences that sounded as if they were spoken in Yeonu hyung’s own voice, I pressed my forehead lightly and let out a sigh.
Normally, I would think he was a truly inscrutable human, so thorough it was almost creepy, but really.
He’s helpful today.
“…Siwoo.”
“Y-yes? Chunyong hyung, why…?”
“Bring that green tea frappe you got from Jang Siwon sunbaenim earlier.”
“Why that….”
“Haha… why do you think?”
I shrugged at the youngest’s slightly sour expression, then called out to Hobin hyung, who was diligently carrying lunchboxes.
“Hobin hyung. We’re going to post a proof photo of this on social media anyway, right?”
“Ah, yes. Since it’s connected to the *Targeting Star* program, the Music Days side asked us to upload it too.”
“Aha… then we can post the coffee truck proof together while we’re at it, right?”
“Ah, wouldn’t it be better to post that separately? If we post them together, attention might be divided….”
“Ah, no! Together, together… posting them together would be… good.”
“Is… that so?”
“Yes. I really… hope we can do that.”
Siwoo, uncharacteristically cutting off Hobin hyung’s words quickly, looked at me with sparkling eyes.
Along with the joy that this way, his older brother wouldn’t be highlighted so much.
“Haha….”
I let out a light laugh, then gathered the gifted lunchboxes, drinks, and members in one place.
Well, not everything had flowed and resolved in the direction I had expected.
“Alright, then I’ll take the picture. One, two!”
If an opportunity you can use in the moment comes along, it’s good to seize it.
Moreover….
“Ah, T.O.J! You’ll be moving to the stage in 20 minutes!”
After resolving matters so flexibly, we had to eat and gather strength for our very first pre-recording that was to follow.