The Malicious Member Returns! Episode 23
* * *
It took a long while for the production staff and Choi Gaon to stop laughing, so amused were they by the sight of the idol trainees returning in tatters after just 10 minutes.
“Ahak, ahaha! Everyone, no, did you fight? Gong Minho trainee, why is your shirt so stretched out like that?”
“Well, Sang-u grabbed me and pulled...”
“And pulled?”
“...
I twisted my body trying not to get caught.”
“Why did you twist it! Are you really a thief?”
The trainee pointed out by Choi Gaon picked up his drooping sweatshirt with an embarrassed expression.
It was because he was belatedly ashamed of himself for trying to flee with all his might.
Not just Gong Minho, but the state of almost all the thief trainees was unusual. It was a mess when hot-blooded male trainees played a game like cops and robbers.
If there were anyone neat and tidy, it might be Bang Yuchan or Liu Wei.
Well, everyone assumed that Liu Wei, as always, was caught without resistance with a robot-like face, but...
But why was Bang Yuchan?
As all eyes naturally turned to him, Bang Yuchan scratched the back of his neck with a deflated look and said in a dispirited voice.
“...
I was putting down the romance novels I got as a prize and was caught first.”
“Wahahaha! Ah, I'm crying! Crying! Jiyu, I need a makeup fix!”
Finally shedding tears, Choi Gaon hurriedly got her makeup fixed and soon returned to the main hall.
The trainees, drained of energy from the short game, were huddled together in their respective teams.
Choi Gaon quickly took control of the tone again and led the situation.
“Alright, now then, the police from each team, would you please come out beside me? Ah, the benefits for the final 4 thieves will be revealed gradually, so don't worry! Yes, yes, please come out quickly, police.”
Soon, after checking all the trainees standing beside her, Choi Gaon nodded and quickly received a small box from the production staff.
“First, before proceeding with the cover mission, we'll draw to see which senior artists we'll cover. Inside are the names of many of your idol and senior singer sunbaes. Seong Wonhyeop trainee, if there's a senior you'd like to pick?”
Seong Wonhyeop paused for a moment as if hesitating, then smiled brightly at Choi Gaon and answered.
“Of course, it's our targeting star's superstar MC, Choi Gaon-nim!”
“Ah, you're embarrassing me! Suddenly giving me such flattery? Then which of my songs do you like the most?”
“Uh, of course... ‘Madness Boy’, your most recently released song?”
“Madness Boy! It's a good hip hop R&B dance song I also participated in writing the lyrics for. Thank you for giving me a chance to promote it, Seong Wonhyeop trainee. But unfortunately, my name isn't in here.”
Seong Wonhyeop genuinely looked ‘disappointed’, but Choi Gaon didn't care.
You can't make something that isn't there appear. Of course, I appreciate the flattery.
“If I tell you more, it won't be fun... so let's talk as we draw, shall we? Starting from Han Sang-u trainee on my left, we'll draw in order.”
With the production staff's arrangement pursuing analog in this digital age, the low-ranking trainees who got to draw songs by hand rummaged through the box with a mix of reluctance and picked out one slip each.
Like a professional broadcaster, Choi Gaon reacted with surprise each time they unfolded the slips.
“First, Han Sang-u trainee drew senior male idol, Leopold! Wow, Leopold. There are many great songs. As expected of male idols, they should try such an intense concept at least once, right?”
Han Sang-u let out a sigh of relief with a look of having put down a big burden.
Of course, although Leopold has particularly tricky and difficult acrobatic choreography, at least it's a male idol.
Moreover, if it's really too hard, they could choose a song from before Leopold did such difficult choreography.
Of course, what kind of reactions and results such a complacent choice would bring, the current Han Sang-u couldn't foresee, so it was a thought he could have.
“Next, Seong Wonhyeop trainee. 2OCD? Another male idol! Your luck is great in a row. At this rate, I wonder if we'll all end up covering male idols! Ah, Lee Chaehyeok trainee, perhaps you too?”
But did Choi Gaon's fussing bring misfortune?
Lee Chaehyeok's face turned pale as he opened the slip.
“I, I...”
Normally such an expression wouldn't appear, why?
As Choi Gaon momentarily dropped her broadcast face and genuinely wondered, Lee Chaehyeok stammered on.
“Lady Swan sunbaenims... I drew them...”
Oh no.
For a moment feeling sorry, Choi Gaon patted Lee Chaehyeok's shoulder heartily and spoke excitedly.
“Drawing your agency senior, your luck is too good! Wow, President Do Jaechan will dance with joy from his shoulders!”
He would dance indeed.
Along with tears of grief, lost in the agony of having ruined his own swans with his own hands.
Lady Swan.
A female idol group that are senior labelmates, a girl group that gloriously failed. Could there be anything harder than covering a song of such a group?
Up until then, everyone including Choi Gaon thought that Lee Chaehyeok's team had drawn the biggest bomb.
That is, until Ryota, with an expression that didn't seem convinced somewhere, called Choi Gaon in a crawling voice.
“MC-nim. I, I also drew an AG agency sunbaenim...”
“Oh, Ryota trainee! You volunteered to speak even without me prompting. Impressive! So who did you draw?”
“Well, I...”
But there was one.
“I drew Min Siyeong sunbaenim...”
An even bigger bomb.
Everyone's gaze instantly flew to someone in Ryota's team.
“......”
To Kim Chunyong, who had frozen with an energy bar he shared from Gao Oyan's prize halfway into his mouth.
And they simultaneously thought.
‘That team is done for.’
* * *
After team confirmation and cover artist selection ended, came the autonomous meeting time for each team.
With trembling legs, Ryota stood before his team members and immediately threw himself into a dogeza.
“I'm, I'm sorryyyyy!”
From Ryota's perspective, he had committed a sin worthy of death.
Because he got too immersed in the game, he already had few team members, and on top of that the singer to cover is a huge senior, female solo artist Min Siyeong?
‘Because of me, others got caught up in trouble!’
It was a situation where the pressure was too much for Ryota, whose self-esteem was already at rock bottom from placing 17th, to handle.
“Huh? Why the sudden bow? Get up, quickly! No one has said anything to you yet.”
Bang Yuchan, who had been the first to be caught while struggling with a thick romance novel, hurriedly grabbed Ryota's shoulders to help him up.
But Ryota's voice, as if crawling out of hell, was still full of despair.
“Then you will say something to me someday...”
“No, I won't!? Hey, Chunyong. Help me out.”
“...
Ah, huh? What's up. Why is Ryota like that. Wait a sec.”
Kim Chunyong, who had been looking off into the distance with a thoughtful expression for a moment, also quickly joined in raising Ryota from his dogeza.
As the two held and exerted some strength, Ryota, who had been stuck to the floor like a frog, eventually had no choice but to move his body.
Now the situation was fit for conversation.
Sitting on his knees, Ryota bowed his head as if about to bury it in the ground and began to speak cautiously.
“Well, once I became a police, rather than a plan to form any team...”
“You just caught whoever you saw first?”
“Yess. So I caught people I had already been on a team with...”
“And caught my roommate Chunyong, I see.”
Every time Kim Chunyong and Bang Yuchan accurately guessed his inside thoughts, Ryota's head dropped lower and lower. And in the end, he resumed the dogeza position.
“I'm sorryyyyy!”
“No, stop it! This is forbidden! If you do it again, you'll get scolded!”
“Banning dogeza... that's too cruel a measure...”
“What cruelty. You keep doing this when there's no need for it.”
Bang Yuchan patted Ryota on the back a few times to soothe him briefly, then turned his head slightly toward the person sitting in front of the mirror hugging their knees without saying a single word in this comedic situation.
“......”
Hair gently swaying in the air conditioner breeze. A tear mole under the right eye.
A 17-year-old pure-blood AG trainee with a pretty face, still closer to a boy than a young man.
Zhang Siu.
Although he was a trainee who had already been on a team with Ryota and Bang Yuchan to perform the original song ‘Aiming’, Bang Yuchan still found Zhang Siu difficult.
“Huasheng hyung. Jaeha hyung.”
Well, he was friendly and behaved well with Ji Huasheng and Son Jaeha, whom he had practiced with for a long time.
“Ah, Siu, hello?”
“...
Hello.”
“Siu, do you want to eat with hyung? They said the other team members all ate—”
“I'm fine.”
“Siu! Where are you going! Say hello to hyung!”
“......”
For some reason, whenever he sees others, a cold wind blows.
After the ‘Aiming’ stage, he even ran away the moment he encountered Bang Yuchan.
Even though we were comrades who performed together!
‘I have no idea what he's thinking. Of course, I went through that time too... but I don't think I was that bad!’
For Bang Yuchan, who could become close with anyone given just 10 minutes even if they were first-timers, such a person was a first.
‘But we ended up on a team together again, like this.’
Bang Yuchan swept his gaze over the practice room for a moment and fell into thought.
Team members total four: Bang Yuchan, Ryota, Zhang Siu, and Kim Chunyong.
The singer to cover is the great senior Min Siyeong.
Bang Yuchan looked at the baseless, contextless team and broke into a cold sweat.
Well, he had comforted Ryota saying there was no need to be sorry, that in the end everyone starts from the same starting line... but.
‘Is this really okay?’
“First, I think we should pick a song. Does anyone have any thoughts?”
It was Kim Chunyong who broke Bang Yuchan's contemplation.
Bang Yuchan felt a strange sense of reassurance looking at Kim Chunyong like that.
Now, covering Min Siyeong should be the most embarrassing for him. But such a composed reaction.
“...
With me? You want to get close to me?”
The person who had been marked by Min Siyeong in the first ranking evaluation and worried if it might not harm Bang Yuchan too.
‘As expected, he's a good kid. My eye for people isn't often wrong. ...’
Because a lot has happened so far.
Bang Yuchan quickly approached and sat next to Kim Chunyong with a proud heart and opened his mouth.
“Hmm... how about we first pick only dance songs from among sunbaenim's songs? Ballads would be hard to choreograph anyway.”
“Ah, I agree too. Though I'm a completely unhelpful Ryota, I can agree.”
“I told you not to say that. And, as for Siu... Ah, Chunyong, do you not know Siu yet?”
Bang Yuchan and Ryota's gazes alternated between Zhang Siu and Kim Chunyong. Zhang Siu looked at Kim Chunyong for a moment and answered in a small voice.
“...
While practicing, I've heard the name. That he dances well.”
At Zhang Siu's words, Kim Chunyong grinned and replied.
“I've also heard the name. That there's a genius trainee called Zhang Siu at AG.”
“Huh? Siu is a genius trainee?”
“Of course. Word spreads among agencies that he's a genius good at arranging, rapping, singing, dancing, everything.”
“Uh, it did seem like Siu had nothing he couldn't do...”
Bang Yuchan turned his head sharply at the first-time-heard comment and looked at Zhang Siu. But Zhang Siu's expression didn't change much.
“...
While practicing, I've never heard anything like that.”
“Huh? I heard it tons while practicing at a different agency. It's more surprising that you haven't heard it.”
Saying that, Kim Chunyong slowly slid his bottom next to Zhang Siu. The distance between them grew a little closer.
Watching that scene, Bang Yuchan felt the emergency bell ringing in his head.
‘No, Chunyong! I already tried that, and Siu just ran away!’
“Ahaha, wait, let's get up and do some stretching—”
Bang Yuchan belatedly tried to flip the situation, but it was too late.
Kim Chunyong had already sat down next to Zhang Siu without any hesitation.
In that state, Kim Chunyong smiled leisurely and naturally tapped Zhang Siu's shoulder.
“Genius Zhang Siu. Want to give some opinions so we can do well on stage?”
‘It's ruined. Even if it's Chunyong, that won't work. Now Siu will get up and run away...’
“...
I think I'll have to think about it. Nothing comes to mind right now.”
... He's not leaving?
Bang Yuchan stared blankly at Kim Chunyong and Zhang Siu. Even though Kim Chunyong was touching him, Zhang Siu seemed to be picking his words without any particular sign of dislike.
The adolescent male student who would run away whenever I just spoke to him!
‘Wh-what is this? Does Chunyong emit some kind of aura?’
Of course, it's not like there's an aura.
If there's something Bang Yuchan doesn't know.
For the sensitive and sensitive cat, Zhang Siu, there is a set manual for approaching him.
And it's a fact that Kim Chunyong found it out by butting his body against it over 7 years.