The Malicious Member Has Returned! Chapter 182
* * *
After spending the entire dawn wide awake, unable to sleep, I watched the sun rise, slowly blinked, and pinched my own cheek once.
Because the sense of dissonance I felt was just as great as the moment I realized I’d gone back to the past.
No.
It was even greater.
“...
Ow.”
At the nail marks left on my cheek, the redness, and the stinging pain, I let out a low sigh.
It was real.
All of it...
Honestly, it wasn’t as if I’d never had that thought before.
The thought that the accident that happened right after the Rookie Award wasn’t my fault, and that my family and I had merely been caught up in it.
After all, anyone who goes through something shocking will inevitably look for something to blame, and I, immediately after the accident, hadn’t been much different.
Resentment, suspicion.
Pain, tears.
So at first, the person I resented was the limousine driver.
“...
Yuchan hyung.”
“Huh? Rex, no, Chun-yong! You shouldn’t be up yet. Sleep a little more. You’ve been greeting mourners nonstop since you got back from the hospital... and it’s not like your body’s completely fine either.”
“I’m fine. More importantly, what about that man? Is he... coming here? Shamelessly?”
“Thaaat...”
“No, actually, tell him to come. He has to come so I can make sure he doesn’t get away with it. To his face, right now...!”
If only that man had driven properly.
If only he hadn’t gotten needlessly excited at the words of an idol member asking him to take good care of them since it was their first overseas trip, and hadn’t shown off his driving skills for no reason.
If it hadn’t been for that, my family and I would have been drinking cool, sweet drinks in front of the sea in Cebu right then.
Shut away in a corner room of the funeral hall packed with people, I chewed hard on my nails and let that shadow of resentment grow.
However.
“I asked Manager hyung... and, well, they’re holding a funeral on their side too. They said it might take some time... before they can get in touch. There’s only one chief mourner there too...”
“Chief... mourner. Only one chief mourner?”
When I heard that the limousine driver had also passed away, and that his only son was guarding the funeral altar alone, that shadow lost its direction.
Because piling up those feelings toward someone who was already dead wouldn’t solve anything.
Because even the person who should have heard my curses was probably, right now, in the same position as me, bowing before a photograph.
“...
Rex. You don’t need to worry about what’s going on over there. Right now, just think about yourself. That’s the only way you can properly... send your family off.”
“......”
“...
Sorry. Hyung was thoughtless. Rest for a bit. Get some more sleep. Okay? You really need to sleep. You haven’t even slept two hours today. Please, take care of yourself...”
Yes, from then on, I became unreasonable.
The limousine company that had assigned the limousine that happened to be in the worst condition at that hour, the people at AG who had recommended the trip to Cebu to me, even the agency that had booked the limousine bus time for me.
“Why did it have to be that limousine bus? The next one, or even the one after that, would’ve been perfectly possible.”
- Customer. Our company’s automatic reservation system matches the most appropriate time based on your flight ticket...
“Three hours! Even taking departure procedures into account, wasn’t that too early? Why was that the most appropriate time? Can you really say there was no intent behind this?”
- Customer. We fully understand your distress, but if you raise your voice, this consultation may be terminated early.
“Even if you hang up like this, I’ll call again tomorrow. Please, just give me an answer I can accept...”
- ...
Hah.
But the moment I heard the sigh of the customer service employee at the booking agency during what was already my seventh call...
No matter how much I pretended not to know, no matter how much I tried to look away from it in my agony, I had no choice but to realize that every reason led back to me.
If only I hadn’t suggested we go on a trip.
If only I, so excited, hadn’t left everything to the agency without cross-checking because I wanted to get everything done quickly.
In other words, if it hadn’t been for me.
Ah...
The problem with all of it...
“...
I’m sorry. I won’t, I won’t call again. I’ll relay it... through the insurance company.”
Had been me.
“Hah...”
Clutching my throbbing temple, stirred by the memories and emotions from back then, I gritted my teeth.
All the things that still remained in my head as trauma even after I came back, and the newly learned truth, traveled from my head to my throat, then from my throat to my chest, clawing violently at my insides.
That incident, along with the thought “it’s because of me,” had completely changed my life from the roots.
Not taking care of myself, taking the lead in destroying myself, even turning away from the people who remained.
But that might not have been my fault?
Now, after all this time?
Then what changes?
Can I escape my guilt now and shout that I’m free?
Even if I do, the relationships I ruined myself after that won’t come back.
The twisted time is still stopped back then, and the more I try to untangle it, the more knotted it’ll become.
So what, exactly, changes?
“...
Hoo.”
After holding my head like that for a long while, I reached out with a slightly trembling hand toward the phone I’d left unattended all dawn.
To look at the sentences left behind in text, objective and indifferent, and regain my composure.
- Kim Chun-yong: Hey
- Kim Chun-yong: Do you even know what you just said?
- Kim Chun-yong: I can only interpret that as meaning other guys in the same position as me were involved in the accident
- Kim Chun-yong: Did I understand that right?
- Kim Chun-yong: Answer me
The messages I sent after X said, “Why do you think that accident happened?” were full of urgency, fear, and anger.
It would have been stranger if they weren’t.
This was a matter of the guilt I’d carried even after coming back, and the direction of my atonement.
It was no longer something that could be solved just by me doing well alone.
So instead of sending a short reply like “🖕🖕” as usual, I had no choice but to pour out sharp sentences.
- X: Ah no I only said that to motivate you, why are you reacting like thㅣs ;;
- Kim Chun-yong: Motivate me? Are you insane?
- Kim Chun-yong: Living only inside a phone must’ve made your social skills disappear
- X: Hey fuck, Kim Chun-yong, you hit me where it hurts ㅠㅠ
- X: Ah! I told you I can tell you everything after you get the Rookie Award!
- X: I’m seriously not supposed to talk about this either
- X: I’m already pushing it a liiittle right now, fuck
- Kim Chun-yong: Is that my problem?
Yes.
Honestly, whether X was pushing it or not wasn’t my problem.
I hadn’t expected any great comfort or empathy in the first place from a guy who acted like he lived to mock me.
What mattered was that he’d known that fact all this time and hadn’t said a word to me.
And that right now, the only person who could help me cross-check the issue was X.
How much of the information I’d known up until now was correct?
And how much did I not know?
- Kim Chun-yong: Tell me just one thing
- Kim Chun-yong: I’ll say it as indirectly as possible, so answer within the line that won’t get you caught
- X: Hey, why are you so serious today ;;
- X: Sigh... Just say it
- X: If I don’t receive the message, that means the company filtered it out on their end, got it??
- X: Hah, I said I’d tell you after the Rookie Award, but you just can’t wait
The moment I heard that someone had done something to cause the accident back then, only one possibility came to mind.
If there was a person terrible enough to take someone’s entire family away, that person had to bear clear malice toward me.
And naturally, in that process, the first person who came to mind was him.
- Kim Chun-yong: Is it a Chinese person I know?
- X: You really went no-brakes, huh
- X: You call that indirect?
- X: Are there like 100 Chinese people around you?
- X: I’m losing it, stars
Liu Wei.
This time, in order to get rid of me as a target of caution, he’d even dragged my family into it and spread bizarre rumors. So last time, hadn’t it been for the sake of making his escape to China easier?
[AG Ent, a string of misfortunes... after Rex, even Liu Wei? The snowball that began with Rex ▷ Read more]
[Arrows in crisis, after the malicious member comes the runaway member... “I’d do the same” vs. “That was too much,” netizens divided]
[“Leaving a sinking ship is a wise choice” — Entertainment columnist’s cold assessment, was Liu Wei right?]
In reality, thanks to me completely ruining my reputation through the activities after the accident, Liu Wei left while receiving relatively less backlash.
However, that thought of mine was easily sorted out by the reply X had sent earlier.
- X: [This message cannot be sent]
- X: [This message cannot be sent]
- X: What, I can’t answer this either? Argh! Argh! Argh!
- X: Fuck, ah, this is so annoying, it’s not someonefromyourcompany
- X: [This message cannot be sent]
- X: I told you this wouldn’t work, didn’t I??
- X: I’m totally writing an incident report tomorrow
- X: I can’t do this anymore, I am leaving this chat room bye
Apparently, it was true that he couldn’t speak carelessly because it was confidential, judging by the censorship messages I was seeing for the first time.
But thanks to the words wedged in between them...
The piece of trash who caused the accident was, at any rate, not someone from our company.
So it wasn’t Liu Wei, who was still under contract with AG, even if only in name.
The “other guy” who did such a thing was out there.
“...
Hoo.”
When I faced that fact with my own eyes once more and repeated it to myself inwardly, I was finally able to regain my composure completely.
In any case, no matter how vicious Liu Wei was, he hadn’t done that to my family.
The same went for the other people at our company.
Thud—
“......”
After tossing my phone roughly onto the bedside table, I opened my eyes sharply and stared at the ceiling.
My vision felt strangely wavy, and my heart was beating unsteadily, but I didn’t care.
I was too busy organizing the thoughts packed tightly in my head.
I’d thought it countless times already, but things like pity for my past or revisiting regrets over things I hadn’t been able to undo had no meaning anymore.
Feeling sad while dwelling on that time?
Where would I even find the time for that?
The release of the repackage album with my TOJ members was right around the corner.
My family was, right now, perfectly fine at home, living their daily lives.
So the facts I’d learned ahead of the repackage album weren’t so much a source of pain to me as they were a new guideline.
First, just as before, safely fulfill the terms of the contract with X: becoming “the greatest idol in K-pop history.”
And make plans in advance so that the “other guys” X mentioned couldn’t block that path with horrifying things like accidents.
And.
“...I should narrow down the candidates for those ‘other guys’ too.”
Muttering softly, I got up from my seat to greet the morning earlier than anyone else in the dorm.
Even excluding Liu Wei, there certainly were a few people who might harbor malice toward me.
Or people who could do such things without hesitation even if there was no malice.
Among them, the person I needed to check first was...
Rattle—
I opened the drawer of the bedside table, which I hadn’t opened in quite a long time, and stared for a while at what was inside.
Well, since he was someone I had to meet even if it wasn’t because of this matter, should I consider that fortunate?
“...
Tsk.”
Staring fixedly at the silver smartwatch lying quietly in the middle of the drawer, I clicked my tongue briefly.
He was difficult to deal with, and someone I’d wanted to avoid as much as possible ever since coming back.
[Kim Chun-yong: Hello, Jeong Yeon-woo sunbae-nim ^^]
[Kim Chun-yong: I wanted to contact you and ask whether your promotions are going well!]
[Kim Chun-yong: And there’s also the thing I said I’d give you before]
If I had to get hit anyway, it was better to take the most painful beating first.