The Toxic Member Has Returned! Chapter 218
* * *
The words of someone who is hurting are, relatively speaking, more persuasive.
And that isn’t only when they’re physically ill. The same goes for the words of someone suffering mentally.
“It’s so… hard… I should’ve just, back then….”
“Rex….”
“…
Hey, hey. Drink. Drink and forget, even if it’s only for a little while! You still have to live, don’t you? Eat, drink, and maybe you’ll be able to forget for a bit. Cheers, come on.”
“Y-yeah. I’ll fill your glass, Rex?”
“Yeah….”
I had come to realize this fact when I was drunk, wandering from clubs to bars.
The alcohol I’d properly encountered for the first time while following Jo Taeuk around loosened my tongue like a blabbermouth, and the drinking buddies who had only heard my story through articles pitied me when I told them about it.
At first, I had definitely felt comforted in that atmosphere too.
“Ughhh… Ah, if only I’d held my brother’s hand properly back then….”
“Hey. Fill his glass. Just keep making him drink.”
“Huh…? But the mood right now doesn’t really seem like….”
“Shh, shh. Stop talking and fill it. When Rex gets like that, he’ll stay like that for an hour, two hours. You came here to have fun drinking, right? You want to sit through that?”
“O-okay!”
Of course, once that happened too often, people started looking at me like, “This bastard is killing the mood again,” and I sometimes got hurt by that instead.
“…
I’ll mix the drinks. You guys always did it for me.”
“Huh? Rex, haven’t you never done this before?”
“I’ve watched enough. I think I can do it. So, the ratio is….”
“…
Hey! You can really drink! Cheers, let’s toast!”
In that process, I didn’t want to let go of the human warmth I’d felt for the first time in so long, so I clung even harder to drinking gatherings. Before I knew it, the cart was before the horse, and I’d become buried in the act of drinking and losing my mind itself.
In any case, people always fundamentally tried to empathize with the hearts of others, and the more that other person was struggling, the more they listened.
Which meant this was exactly the right timing.
I had been living not as Rex, the trash of Arrows, but as Kim Chunyong of TOJ, so I’d kept my inner thoughts relatively hidden. And while the members were considerate of me, they had also subtly shown that they were curious.
“Cough… Ah, my head, my head….”
On top of that, I was even sick right now.
A sick member finally revealing his true feelings while his mind was hazy—doesn’t that sound like it’d work pretty well?
If what An Taei had told me to show was the fact that I had a cold, then this was the perfect chance to make full use of it.
Of course, I still wasn’t sure about him saying Yuchan hyung was stubborn.
“…
Hoo.”
I groaned quietly at the dizzying heat and headache rising through me, then slowly blinked my eyes.
“Y-you’re going to… talk now? Hyung, you’re sick….”
“No. Still, if I talk now… Ahem, ah, ah. If I talk with you, I think I’ll be able to sleep more comfortably….”
“I-I’ll sit! I’ll sit… down. Just, one second….”
In fact, Siu, who had come to my room a little while ago and then left, had seemed exactly like that.
What I said to Siu wasn’t anything particularly special.
For some reason, An Taei had firmly cut me off, saying, “Still, that was something I talked about alone with Siu, so even if it’s you, Chunyong, I can’t tell you the specifics,” which meant I had no choice but to roughly infer what Siu felt toward Yuchan hyung.
“…
It was because Yuchan hyung seemed too different from you, right? That’s why you felt uncomfortable?”
“…….”
But it seemed like I’d more or less hit the mark.
Siu had seen Jayden and Eun, then Han Danu and An Taei, and for the first time, witnessed “how to open your heart to someone whose personality doesn’t match yours.”
“I think… Yuchan hyung and you really don’t match, but still, I think Yuchan hyung does want to get along with you.”
“…
Really?”
“Yeah. You two are actually getting along pretty well right now, aren’t you? So from there… you just try being a little more honest. Yuchan hyung says he sometimes wants to do that too.”
“…
Yuchan hyung… said that?”
And in the middle of all that, if I dragged my sick body along and urged him like this, it would inevitably seep into his heart.
Siu was softhearted, and Yuchan hyung was always an easy mark who wanted to get along well with others.
Ah, this long, long member relationship issue is finally going to be resolved somehow today.
“Kheu….”
Just as I, feeling better, was giggling like a madman along with my high fever, the door slid open.
“Oh, what? Chunyong, you were awake?”
“Kheu, uh, yeah… Yuchan hyung.”
“You… you’re really okay, right?”
“…
Haha, yes. Of course.”
At last, it was time for Yuchan hyung to come to my room.
* * *
Before Kim Chunyong started the conversation.
“Whew, do you know how startled I was? I came in and you were laughing like you’d gone insane….”
“Haa… I think it was because of the fever. I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s not something to apologize for. I just wondered if we should take you to the hospital… Somehow, it seems like your fever’s gone up a bit. Are you really sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”
“Ah, yes. We have practice tomorrow too, so losing time like that is a bit….”
“Phew… Then let’s at least get you to take your medicine first. That’s how you’ll get better quickly.”
A typical scene of nursing a patient began to unfold.
Bang Yuchan sat on Son Jaeha’s bed across from him, and Kim Chunyong weakly raised his upper body to take the medicine he was handed.
“…….”
Within that, it was only natural that a slight silence flowed between them.
Beyond the bedroom door, from the living room, the voices of the members chattering away during their rare break could be faintly heard.
Somehow, it felt as if this space had been thoroughly cut off.
“…….”
Kim Chunyong swallowed the handful of pills down his throat, then quietly rubbed his flushed cheeks with his hand and studied Bang Yuchan’s expression.
“Mm, it would’ve been nice if you could come out and eat with us. It’s been a while since we could all have a relaxed meal together. Things always get tangled up like this. Ah, what a shame.”
Bang Yuchan didn’t seem to have changed much.
Even though he had had that conversation with Kim Chunyong on the emergency stairs at the practice room.
And that wasn’t all.
Even when they practiced with Wiz, and further still, even when he had ended up dancing while brushing shoulders with Jang Siu.
Bang Yuchan didn’t reveal anything on the outside.
As if he were like Son Jaeha, who had once tried to carry everything alone, or Kim Chunyong now.
But they were fundamentally different people.
Son Jaeha had the expectations he had received from people for a long time, and Kim Chunyong had his own resolve to atone to his family and the members by returning like this and making the group succeed.
Then what, exactly, was inside Bang Yuchan?
Kim Chunyong knew.
There was no way he wouldn’t.
After tapping the cup he had been holding for a moment, Kim Chunyong slowly opened his mouth and murmured in a cracked voice.
“…
Yuchan hyung.”
“Ah, you’re done taking it. I’ll clean up now and head out too….”
“Hyung, you’re….”
“Huh?”
“You’re a greater person than you think you are. You don’t need to be that desperate.”
It was a sudden thing to say, the sort of thing anyone would hear and think, “He’s delirious from the cold.”
In fact, when Bang Yuchan first heard it, he briefly wondered if he really should take him to the hospital.
But when he saw, beneath Kim Chunyong’s sharp eyes, those two pupils that were still clear despite being blurred by fever.
“…….”
Bang Yuchan instinctively had no choice but to understand what Kim Chunyong was talking about.
The person who had come in and left just before him had been Jang Siu, and that had also been the biggest issue between them over the past few days.
Ah, this kid really did observe people closely.
As if he’d watched them for a very long time, he understood people so well.
He even figured out what kind of desperation I have.
If Jang Siu was jealous of Bang Yuchan’s talent, then Bang Yuchan sometimes suffered over his own position, where he had to work hard to obtain the background Jang Siu had.
At the same time, there were times when he hated himself for that.
He’s so much younger than me.
He’s even a fellow member.
So why am I still thinking the same way I did during entrance exams, even after becoming an adult and getting older?
Even though I’ve debuted now.
Being bold and refreshingly straightforward was his strength.
And Bang Yuchan thought of that as who he was, and hated the version of himself that thought in the opposite way.
The problem started there.
Whenever he saw Jang Siu, Bang Yuchan had to keep confronting the version of himself he hated.
“Hoo….”
Bang Yuchan stretched his long body out across Son Jaeha’s bed, met the flushed Kim Chunyong’s eyes for a moment, then looked back up at the ceiling.
“…
Whew, Chunyong, seriously. Even when you’re sick, you do this?”
On his face, which had always been equipped with a bold, refreshing smile, there was now a subtle shadow.
It was after a brief pause that his mouth opened again.
“…
I know you’ve been trying for the past few days because you know what things are like between me and Siu.”
“…
Was it obvious?”
“Haha, how could I not know? You’re always like that.”
Bang Yuchan’s voice as he said that was slightly hoarse.
Even though the one who had caught a cold was Kim Chunyong.
Kim Chunyong’s thoughts had been right.
The words of someone who was sick were more persuasive than he had imagined.
Especially when they took precise aim at a worry one had been carrying all along.
The sense of separation between the living room and the bedroom seemed to grow even stronger.
- “Ah, Logan. Foul, foul! Put that card down. You cheated, didn’t you? Bring the sledgehammer, the sledgehammer.”
- “No! It’s not a foul! But what is a sledgehammer?”
- “Mm, Hwaseong. A hammer would be a problem….”
- “Nooo! Hwaseong, what on earth did you say? A hammer?!”
Outside, the other members were happily making noise, while Kim Chunyong and Bang Yuchan were in a quiet room that smelled of sickness, having a heavy, winding conversation with each other.
They were the same group.
In the past that only Kim Chunyong knew, they had been Arrows, and now they were Target of Xenon, TOJ.
So from the very moment that kind of separation was felt, something had gone wrong.
“Haha….”
After spending a long time simply meeting Kim Chunyong’s eyes, Bang Yuchan let out a short, hollow laugh and nodded.
“I’ll be honest. Even if I talk things out with Siu, I can’t guarantee it’ll go well.”
“Haa… I suppose not. Don’t hit him in the face, at least. Not the face.”
“Hey, do you really think I’d hit him? I absolutely won’t. Siu is too weak….”
“Does that mean you’d hit him if he weren’t weak?”
“No, it doesn’t?”
For now, what mattered was that they started.
Preparing to see each other as they were, without judging, without holding it in their hearts, simply facing each other.
That was where it began.
And until now, Kim Chunyong had worked himself into lying here sick in order to create that starting point.
“…
I’ll try talking to him when we do the collaboration stage. I think that’ll be a good time.”
“That alone will probably be enough.”
“Ugh, honestly, I’m not sure, but… Ah! It’s because the feelings I have are too base. You wouldn’t know, Chunyong.”
“Haha, why wouldn’t I know?”
Kim Chunyong slowly laid his body back down on the bed and chuckled.
Because the fever that had risen through his body seemed to be leading him into a dreamlike haze.
Would this be enough?
Were those two now ready to properly look at each other?
He couldn’t know.
Not right away.
“Rest. Got it?”
“Yes….”
Besides, right now, Kim Chunyong was sick, unable to think clearly, and weak.
Was Bang Yuchan’s voice bright or dark as he closed the door and left?
He was in no state to distinguish even that.
In any case, what mattered was that the two main characters of the reconciliation project Kim Chunyong had been preparing all along had each completed their own preparations.
“Hoo….”
Beyond Kim Chunyong’s vision, his fever burning even hotter after that brief serious conversation, his phone screen blinked with messages from An Taei and X.
At the same time, the date and time clearly etched across the screen also came into view.
“There’s not even… a month left now. Yeah.”
Once Kim Chunyong recovered his stamina and threw himself back into practice, the year-end stage would soon arrive.
The awards ceremony where prizes like the Rookie Award would be given, the year-end collaboration stage, and the other figures in the entertainment industry they would finally meet then.
Entangled and twisted.
Interwoven and bound.
And at the same time, untied against one’s will.
“It really is coming soon, so soon….”
And the new outcome created by all those strands gathered into a single rope was softly beginning to coil around Kim Chunyong’s ankle.