The Villainous Member Has Returned! Episode 165
* * *
A day and a half.
While I set aside the thoughts tormenting my mind for a moment and focused on resting with the members, I finally encountered my last opponent, Jaeha-hyung, and ended up straddling the swing at the playground near the dorm.
“Hah….”
After coming back, I dove straight into the survival show and debut preparations, so I barely had any time to watch the sunset or anything like that.
Watching the sun slowly setting beside the dorm apartment filled me with all sorts of emotions.
I’d played so much that I wondered if this was okay, but I definitely felt good.
Should I say I was in a state where I didn’t know how to define this?
“Haha….”
Jaeha-hyung, who watched my bewildered face for a moment, passed me a sports drink with a short laugh.
“You look deep in thought, Chunyong-ah.”
“Ah, yes. Well….”
Receiving the drink beaded with cold droplets, I let out an awkward laugh and glanced away.
“It’s just, today felt a bit amazing.”
“Hm? What was?”
Hearing that question, the events of the entire day flashed before my eyes like a panorama.
…
What was amazing.
The answer to that was, naturally, ‘the parts that differed from expectations.’
Hearing that the members had prepared separate time to hang out with me, I naturally had a vague image in mind.
Having spent 8 years together watching them, and through the survival show realizing ‘so this is what his personality is really like,’ there were things I thought I knew.
The active, activity-oriented ones would be Yuchan-hyung, Hwaseong, and Logan.
And I figured Jaeha-hyung and Siwoo would be calmer compared to the ones above.
This went without saying; it was an answer you could get just by looking at how they acted in the dorm.
“…
Logan. Isn’t that my cereal? Ah, no wonder it kept decreasing! I said the red tongs are mine and the blue tongs are yours!”
“What? This is mine. Look. Hwaseong has the original, right? I have the granola. Besides, would I ever use Hwaseong’s stuff? It’s a misunderstanding!”
“No, then the only ones eating cereal at the dorm now are you and me, so who else is eating it—”
“Ahem, guys. We don’t know who ate it yet, so don’t fight. And more importantly, we’re out of milk in the fridge. You should go buy some first.”
“Huh? Wait. Yuchan-hyung. Don’t you eat the meals the company sends separately because of your diet? Then how do you know we’re out of milk? …You ate Hwaseong’s cereal, Yuchan-hyung! That’s how you know we’re out of milk!”
“…
Damn it.”
“Wow, damn! Logan, you’re really sharp!? And Yuchan-hyung! Don’t try to run!”
“No, if I only eat chicken breast, my mouth tastes fishy… sorry, sorry!”
The three lively ones raising their voices.
“…
Siwoo, want to eat? There’s still side dishes left in the fridge.”
“Yes… I’ll heat up some instant rice.”
“Yeah, okay. Ah, let’s heat up Chunyong’s too. I think he just came out of his room.”
In between them, two were having a calm and peaceful conversation.
“…
I ate that with Yuchan-hyung.”
“What?! No, the people on diets have lost their minds right now! Why do you keep eating other people’s stuff, keep doing it! We haven’t even gotten our settlement yet and my pockets are completely empty!”
“Ah, then did Chunyong eat cereal early in the morning? …We can skip Chunyong’s rice, Siwoo-ya. Haha.”
And with me coming out a bit late, it got properly rowdy again.
Well, so I figured spending separate time together wouldn’t be much different from this.
“…
This is the last song. I think this is the first time I’ve sung for a whole hour like this.”
“Haha, after this Hwaseong is probably waiting properly to play with you? You can’t get tired from this!”
“Hah… it’s not like all five members are determined to go to karaoke, right? My throat is about to give out.”
“Why would you think that! No. Everyone has different plans. You can look forward to it, Chunyong-ah. Ah, the song is about to end.”
“…
Yuchan-hyung, but why did you reserve another song?”
“Hm? At karaoke, you have to sing ‘The 100 Great People of Korea’ as the last song. Originally when there’s 1 minute left, you cancel the last song and start that right away….”
“I don’t even know the second half of the lyrics…!”
From the start, Yuchan-hyung who kicked things off brilliantly took charge of the extreme karaoke guide, and then Hwaseong who I ran into at the dorm dragged me to his room saying things like ‘I’ll carry you.’
But I was a bit wrong about that.
“Ah, I really could have done well! I didn’t know you’d be lying in ambush there!”
“Hwaseong-ah. I’m asking because I’m really worried, but… do you even know what your Flash key is? Once I get my settlement, should I buy you an ROR keycap?”
“Ugh! Stop teasing, stop! Stop making fun of my tier too! I know how to press Flash! Hng… and, this is a secret just between you and me….”
“Sorry, sorry. But I already posted in the group chat that you’re really bad at the game.”
“Pleaaase!”
While Hwaseong grabbed his head in despair, having spectacularly thrown two consecutive games with his trolling rather than carrying.
“Now it’s really… my, turn.”
Siwoo, who dragged me to the traditional snack market in the early dawn, had a truly determined face.
“When things are hard, sweets… are good. That’s why, I wanted to come here… together….”
“Oh, I know that too. Then, let’s buy some together here and go back to the dorm….”
“Ah, no! We, we eat them here before going!”
“Here? Wait, then we’d have to do tastings and stuff. …Isn’t it hard talking to people you just met?”
“I, I can do… it. Really… Hyung, go over there first. I saw on the internet….”
“Hey there! Handsome young men? Come and taste this! 7,000 won for 300g. Huh? It’s good, right? I’ll give it cheap! We need to sell this all and go home too!”
“U-uh, I-I’m fine…!”
Well, the kid who struggled with dealing with people was earnestly talking with market vendors desperate to sell at dawn.
“Siwoo? …Really?”
“Yes. There were a few times he almost got ripped off in between. But he was firm. I didn’t expect that.”
“Right? I was really surprised to hear that too. …When I first saw him, he couldn’t even talk to me well.”
On the face of the person who heard my explanation, along with surprise at the unexpectedness, a gentle smile arose.
“…
Haha, anyway. Then you walked around that market with Siwoo for a whole hour? You must be a bit tired, Chunyong.”
“No, well. Since I had sweet stuff in my mouth in between, I wasn’t that tired thanks to the sugar high. Besides… yes. Logan was unexpected too.”
“Hm, right. No wonder Logan took a while to come back after saying he’d teach you guitar. So Hwaseong made a huge fuss about whether it was cheating.”
“Truthfully, I only learned guitar for about an hour. But….”
After returning to the dorm with Siwoo and taking a short nap, Logan immediately took me to a private practice room not far from the AG Company.
“…
Where did you find a place like this again? Logan, now you probably know the area around the company better than me.”
“Oh, not really. I searched, searched! They say you can use it all day once you rent it. Come on. Let’s go.”
Since he insisted on renting a practice room to teach me something he could have done at the dorm, I thought Logan was going to teach me electric guitar at least.
I mean, right?
It seemed like he’d do something active, and an electric guitar covered in stickers suited my image better than an acoustic guitar.
However, Logan, who hugged his guitar tightly and showed off his large-dog-like charm, the first thing he did after entering the private practice room was….
“So, first lie down.”
“Huh?”
“See, you have to get a bit friendly with it before learning guitar. To do that, you need to lie down and talk to it. Say please take care of me.”
“No, what the… you always tell Siwoo to move when you play guitar, was it because of this?”
“Whatever. Hurry! That’s not important right now, is it? Inner peace. We need to find that first.”
He said we had to get close to the guitar, but it turned out to be taking a short nap using the guitar as a pillow.
“No, Logan. Can you really sleep like this? This is a bit uncomfortable….”
“…….”
“Wow, you’re really sleeping!”
“Shhh… Chunyong-hyung, your voice echoes in the guitar….”
Sleeping while lying on a single guitar in a not-very-spacious practice room, two grown men.
My neck hurt, and in the quiet, Logan made sounds like ‘hnngh’ so I just kept laughing.
Looking back, it was an absurd and funny situation.
“Ah, ahaha! Wow, Logan really… I occasionally thought he was unique since we became members together. But I didn’t know he had that side.”
“Right? I didn’t know even though we shared a room throughout ‘Targeting Star.’ Maybe because he kept his guitar elsewhere….”
“Still, by your expression it looked like you had fun. Right?”
“Uh….”
At Jaeha-hyung’s bright smile, I lightly scratched my cheek and trailed off.
That they had planned this among themselves and started it without my knowledge had been a bit flustering at first, but….
“Is this a G chord? I just strum like this?”
“Holy, that’s right! Yes, yes. Just sweep down with your fingernails….”
“Ugh, this hurts a bit?”
“It’s because it’s your first time. Still sounds good, right? Congratulations!”
Waking up after sleeping for about two hours and peacefully learning guitar from Logan.
Being dragged out by Yuchan-hyung for the extreme karaoke experience, and playing ROR with Hwaseong whose skills were a mess despite liking it.
“Chunyong, hyung… this is, something I bought… separately.”
“Hm? What is this… ah, sikhye?”
“…
Yes. They sell it in bottles too….”
On the way back to the dorm together, Siwoo filling my arms with bottles of sikhye.
It was all good, fun, and enjoyable.
To the point where I could briefly forget that it had been almost a day since I checked X’s messages, and that I had so much to do next.
“…
Yes. It was really fun.”
“……”
At my belated answer, Jaeha-hyung, who had a smile on his face, quietly nodded and rose from his seat.
To be exact, from the swing he was sitting on.
“Chunyong-ah. Do you remember when you told me before that I think too much?”
“Um… I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to. You were really flustered then.”
At my mischievous answer, Jaeha-hyung burst out laughing like carbonation bubbles and nodded.
“Right? I couldn’t forget it either. It was the first time something like that happened. So… I wanted to make some good memories for you.”
Continuing softly as he approached behind me, Jaeha-hyung gently pushed the swing I was sitting on and patted my back.
“The other members don’t know what I’m going to do with you. I just told them it was a secret.”
“Hah… a grown idol group member pushing his dongsaeng on a swing is a bit embarrassing to talk about.”
“No, I thought if the other members knew, they’d tell you.”
“Hm? Tell me what?”
“…
Who knows.”
And then.
As Jaeha-hyung put a little more strength into his hand pushing my back, the swing that had been swaying slightly back and forth soared up.
“Surprises are important, right?”
“…
Huh?”
“Haha, I’ll go back up. Have a nice chat.”
With wide eyes, I stared at Jaeha-hyung who gave my back one last big push and slowly left.
“So hyung is the last one? Does Jaeha-hyung also have something grand planned?”
“Um. I don’t really have much to do. I was just thinking of going to the playground and talking with you, how about it?”
“…
That’s fine. I’ll grab a hat. Let’s go down together.”
I thought the reason Jaeha-hyung called me to the playground was, of course, because this was where the two of us had talked before.
Wasn’t that right?
Having done this and that earlier, it was natural to wrap things up with peaceful conversation.
Exchanging words of comfort like ‘you worked hard back then’ while we were at it.
Finishing the short vacation and talking about what lay ahead.
However, there was one thing I missed.
Back then, when I called Jaeha-hyung out to the playground.
“…
I didn’t contact him separately, but please talk to that Hwaseong who secretly followed us out.”
That there was a guest who had secretly followed along.
“Wow, crazy. What’s up with Kim Chunyong? A guy that size riding a kids’ swing?”
“Oh my, oh my… look at that hair of yours, hey! You won’t greet us properly? Didn’t Mom and Dad teach you? I came all this way, really….”
“…H-haha.”
Hearing their familiar voices approaching the playground before I knew it, I had to let out a hollow laugh.
Well.
Despite everything, I had a feeling this vacation would be a proper refresh for me.
Because those who had come to decorate the end of the vacation,
“Wait, Kim Chunyong shouldn’t ride it, but can’t I ride the swing a bit, unnie?”
“You too, please come to your senses, really….”
Were none other than my very own sisters.