The Malicious Member Has Returned! Episode 156
Hwaseong, Jaeha hyung, and Euni's plan was brilliant.
So much so that I wondered if it was truly their first appearance on *Catch Me, Catch You*.
“Ahem, sorry. But our team also needed proper screen time, so we couldn’t help it….”
“…Jaeha hyung, Hwaseong alone would’ve been enough!”
“Haha, Chunyong. But… since we’re on this tag program anyway, we can’t win with just one member’s charm. Right?”
“Hyung, really… you’re too smart for your own good.”
“Yeah. You, Chunyong, are too soft-hearted.”
To think they’d ambush us from behind while we were huddled together claiming to have a meeting, lowering our guard for just a moment.
Attacking people from behind while they’re gathered together may seem like a surprisingly ordinary idea, but it’s actually hard to pull off when you know you’re outnumbered.
“Cowards! Hwaseong, Jaeha. I’m your hyung. How could you do this to your hyung?!”
“Eheh, Yuchan hyung! I tried to win with my cuteness earlier too, but I failed. Since you’re not cuter than me, it won’t work.”
“What are you saying?! Ack, my armband!”
“Wahaha! Congratulations on your elimination, hyung!”
On top of that, they realized Yeonu hyung’s philosophy that “stealing someone else’s armband is more profitable than focusing on the mission itself” faster than anyone else.
Yeonu hyung, An Taei, and I managed to dodge quickly, but in the end, Yuchan hyung and Han Danu had their armbands snatched away.
If only the armbands were taken, that would have been fortunate?
“Danu hyung. We’ll just take what was stolen from us just now.”
“What are you saying, really….”
“Hey, Euni-ssi? Don’t be like that and just take everything they have, please? I really have to win this game! Ah, my mom and dad said they’d watch this broadcast, you know?”
“…That’s what they said, hyung. Sorry.”
“Hey, hey!”
They lost their armbands, and even the medals Yuchan hyung and Han Danu had were plundered.
“…I won’t go down alone! Come here, dongsaeng!”
“Gurk, Yuchan hyung! Ack! Wait! My hair, my hair!”
“I grabbed your clothes, what do you mean hair, you punk!”
Of course, since we managed to wrest Hwaseong’s armband away in that chaos… it couldn’t be called a complete disaster, but.
“So… now the two medals that Yuchan-ssi and Danu-ssi had were taken too. Right? And on top of that, both of you were eliminated as well.”
“Sigh… I was trying not to let this get taken! The situation has really gotten bad.”
Meaning, the plan to win cleanly and resolve other matters as well had strayed about five steps off course.
“Huh? But if we quickly exchange the medals we have, won’t it somehow work out?”
“No, Taei-ssi. Now that we’re behind in the number of medals, even if we exchange quickly, if we can’t win at armband snatching, we’ll lose.”
“Huh… I didn’t know that!”
“Of course, if we could strip Team 2 of all their armbands right now, that would change things… haha, but that’s not easy, is it?”
The more Yeonu hyung calmly explained to An Taei, who still hadn’t grasped the situation, the more the mood sank.
“…….”
At the same time, devastation rose on the face of Han Danu, who had had every medal and armband he possessed taken away.
And I also saw something like strange resentment directed at me, who had in a way brought about this situation.
I didn’t know it would turn out like this either!
I had requested a brief meeting with the intention of avoiding trouble and wrapping up filming flexibly—who knew another team would suddenly ambush us?
— “Elimination! Team 1’s Siu and Hawon are eliminated! Please move to the elimination room!”
And just as I was trying to figure out how to handle this, that cold announcement rang out over the set’s internal speakers.
Is this what they call being caught between a rock and a hard place?
“Goodness… this is quite a dilemma. I was hoping we could increase our numbers at least, but they’ve only decreased. Now Danu-ssi and Yuchan-ssi will also have to move to the elimination room soon.”
The thought revealed on Yeonu hyung’s face as he smiled broadly and sorted out the situation was unusually clear:
*This isn’t the direction I was thinking, but it’s not exactly boring.*
Hyung was right.
This was a dilemma.
And so, just as I was sliding my hand up to the armband still safely fastened on my arm, pondering how to resolve this predicament for a moment—
“Uhh, Chunyong. Chunyong!”
An Taei suddenly popped his face in front of me.
While everyone else was worrying about how to solve this crisis, he alone wore an expression that seemed to hold no thoughts.
“…Huh?”
“Are you going to fight again? Huh? If so, I’m confident I can try hard to stop you! Um, though I don’t know what I should say….”
A nonchalant sentence flowed from his neat, innocent expression. “Fight again.”
To someone who didn’t know better, those words would sound like asking if we were going to fight another team with everything we had, but strangely, they reached me with a different meaning.
Words with intention.
A meaning like… even though I brought about this situation, was I going to quarrel with someone else, or ruin a relationship once again?
And there was only one person here who had that kind of relationship with me.
“—Taei-ssi! Haha, Chunyong isn’t someone who would fight with just anyone. Of course not.”
“Ah, what I meant! Chunyong did really well throughout the mission earlier. I was saying I’d stop you if the physical fight got too intense.”
“…….”
Thanks to Yuchan hyung hastily stepping between us, no further issues arose, but his words had given me a lot of hints.
An Taei, you slippery little bomb-maker.
Giving the disease and then the cure.
I wondered whether to thank him for this, or to flick his forehead for causing the disease in the first place, but…
“…Hoo.”
Well, thanks to the hint he just threw me, I’d be able to give him a different gift instead of a flick.
I’d put that on hold for now.
“…Shall we move for now?”
Anyway, with my head now clear, I took a deep breath, threw my arm around Yuchan hyung’s neck, and drew people’s attention with a slick, drawling voice.
“Those who need to go to the elimination room, go. The rest of us will finish the mission. I think we need to handle this quickly before more time passes.”
“Right now? Chunyong, are you sure we can go without discussing more? I’m a bit worried….”
“Haha, Yuchan hyung. It’s fine. I’m the one who created this situation, so I should be the one to fix it, right? Right, Yeonu sunbaenim? …Danu-ssi?”
When I belatedly called his name, Han Danu—who had been watching me from a step back with a complex mix of emotions—opened his eyes wide.
Seeing the expression that seemed to say, *Did you even remember I was here?*, a lot of emotions welled up.
As if I wouldn’t know?
I spent years as a trainee with you, for heaven’s sake.
I locked eyes with him for a moment, then looked at the other gazes fixed on me one by one, and slowly spoke.
“Well, things blew up in an unintended direction… but it’s not like there’s absolutely no way to break through this situation.”
“…Haha, is it the method I’m thinking of?”
“It’s probably similar, sunbaenim.”
Having roughly finished my answer to Yeonu hyung, I poked Yuchan hyung’s cheek—who was still looking at me with worried eyes within the crook of my arm—with my finger and laughed loudly.
“Hyung, go wait in the elimination room for now. If you go with Danu-ssi and watch the monitor to see what we do, you’ll understand. Ah, don’t you trust me, Yuchan hyung?”
“Geesh… Chunyong, you really… why are you talking like Hwaseong!”
“Guess I learned by ear since we’re on the same team.”
I let that last remark slip and quietly clicked my tongue.
Yeah. If you’re on the same team, there are things you learn by watching and listening from up close.
Just as I naturally spoke now with a slightly teasing tone like Hwaseong, or just as Logan’s Korean gets more and more fluent.
So…
“Yeonu sunbaenim, Taei-ya? Let’s go.”
“…Yeah, okay!”
An Taei, looking at me with a transparent expression that said, *I thought you’d fight again*, must have also seen and heard things from the WIZ members.
Maybe thanks to the program name *Catch Me, Catch You*, or anyway.
I had finally found the thread to the puzzle I needed most right now.
* * *
The elimination room was utterly chaotic.
“Nonsense. This is absurd. If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have been eliminated.”
“No, no. Jayden, think carefully. Even if that deal had succeeded, one of the two couldn’t have survived.”
“No. This is purely Logan’s fault.”
“God, you’re so adamant! Weren’t we going to be soccer friends?”
Some giggled, saying each other was the reason for their elimination.
“…Yuchan-ssi! You snatched my armband so decisively, and in the end you’re eliminated?! You should have survived until the end at least!”
“Haha, sunbaenim! It’s not like I wanted to be eliminated…! I died together with your team member!”
“Argh, Yuchan hyung! How can you suddenly sell out your dongsaeng? I’m your dongsaeng! Your dongsaeng!”
Pointing fingers at each other, saying you killed me, you saved me, they waged a three-way battle.
“…It’s not because of Siu-ssi, so don’t be too discouraged. It’s okay.”
“I-if I hadn’t been so obsessed with exchanging medals… only I would have been eliminated…”
“No. Anyway… I also thought this wouldn’t work. Haha… I’m a bit slow. Really.”
“Hm, still… I’m sorry. I-I won’t do this… next time.”
Some even comforted others with kind words, saying this elimination wasn’t the other person’s fault.
In this chaos, only one person sat quietly watching the monitor showing the current mission situation.
“…Hoo.”
That protagonist, Han Danu, let out a low sigh as he watched Gim Chunyong and An Taei running somewhere with his own two eyes.
— “For now, this way….”
— “Huh? Sunbaenim! I don’t think that’s the right place?”
— “No, Taei-ya. This is where sunbaenim said to go. Didn’t I say earlier we should go straight down to the first floor?”
— “Haha, you two are both so… lively.”
The two people who were the main culprits of his stress, past and present, were running rampant without being intimidated even while standing next to their senior sunbae.
“…….”
Watching that from the isolated space, it was true that Han Danu’s heart felt stifled.
Gim Chunyong might remember it as a hazy incident from the past, but to Han Danu, their fight was a vivid memory from less than a year ago.
His opponent from back then was together with a group member who scratched at people’s insides at every turn—how could his heart be at ease?
Right away, even looking back at An Taei’s attitude inside the van heading to the *Catch Me, Catch You* set, it was like that.
“Wow, so you guys… you’ll meet Chunyong again at the filming set. Right?”
“…Why bring that up all of a sudden? We’re filming a variety show, did you think we’d fight or something?”
“Well, I mean. Fighting isn’t something that particularly chooses a location.”
“…Seems like you’re wishing for it, you punk.”
“Haha, rather that would be better. Talking is better than not mentioning it at all, isn’t it?”
“Shut up. Don’t think about opening your mouth for no reason, just keep your mouth shut and stay still. Got it?”
“Urk….”
Recalling that time, a throbbing headache returned, and Han Danu groaned, clutching his head.
It was hard to even figure out where things had gone so wrong.
And to the side of Han Danu, who was suffering like that, Bang Yuchan approached, having broken through the three-way battle with the confident declaration that “Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be my fault!”
“Ah, are you watching our team’s mission situation?”
“…Yes.”
Han Danu, having re-equipped his face with composure, soon nodded slowly while keeping a slight distance from Bang Yuchan.
A fellow trainee’s group member, who he had thought would become his own group member, was still somewhat difficult to deal with.
“Ah! This is a shame. If Chunyong was here, we could have snatched other people’s armbands too!”
“…Is that so?”
“Ah, yes. Chunyong is good at these sleight-of-hand tricks. Ah, maybe because he learned from Logan? Our group plays a lot of card games.”
Moreover, he was talking about a side he knew absolutely nothing about.
“…….”
If asked to organize the words floating in Han Danu’s head right now, it would be complicated.
A subtle feeling toward a fellow trainee from the past.
And the turmoil toward a group member who had nothing to do with that trainee but only tried to drop absurd bombs on both teams.
And himself standing in the middle of it, and the eldest member of the other team.
“Phew, I am a bit worried. Right?”
“Yes. Our Taei is rather… willful.”
“Ah, Chunyong too! He does well on his own, but somehow. He keeps stirring things up and resolving them before you know it, you know?”
In that mutual misunderstanding, Bang Yuchan brought a chair and sat beside Han Danu, flashing a cheerful smile.
“Originally, I was going to stop him from doing things alone this time. To show a bit of hyung’s dignity, or to try talking more. But the situation didn’t work out well.”
“…….”
He said the situation didn’t work out.
It didn’t work out with the former trainee colleague, and it was all tangled up with the member too.
Ah, seriously…
The person who was all tangled up was right next to him—how could he say such words?
Han Danu tried to force an awkward smile toward Bang Yuchan, but gave up with the thought that *what won’t work just won’t work*, and turned his gaze to the monitor.
Or so he thought.
“…Huh?”
And then, the two eyes behind Han Danu’s dark lenses opened wide.
— “Wait, wait! Chunyong, I’m sorry!”
— “Sorry for what? You just have to do this, Taei-ya. You said you were confident.”
— “…I think either side would be fine as long as it’s fun. Haha.”
Before the final clash of this *Catch Me, Catch You* filming.
Because on the screen, Gim Chunyong, An Taei, and Jeong Yeonu were having a conversation that no one could have predicted.
— “Taei-ya. Do you understand? So you won’t do that again next time?”
— “Ah, I got it…! I promise, okay!”
…The tangled thread that Han Danu had been about to give up on, thinking *what won’t work just won’t work*, was somehow unraveling smoothly.