The Toxic Member Has Returned! Episode 29
* * *
The morning after all the trainees had met with the original artists.
The multinational roommates were each engaged in conversation with faces far more relaxed than before.
“Jesus. Senior Nina said, ‘The arrangement is so good that we want to sing it too.’ Definitely, I was right!”
Logan, wagging an invisible tail and rocking his body back and forth wildly, was the happiest face I had seen while preparing for this competition.
“I was told I could debut right away. As expected of Gao Yan, the star of Hong Kong. Logan doesn’t even compare.”
Perhaps having lost some confidence after being pushed by Liu Wei, Gao Yan had begun excitedly preaching about that overwhelming future once again.
In other words, things were going pretty well for everyone.
“Ehh? Gao Yan. You’re lying right now, aren’t you!? There’s no way!”
“I’m not lying! It’s all the same even if you translate it into Cantonese!”
“If that’s how it works, then I’m the star of Japan too, Gao Yan!”
“Yeah, yeah. Guys. You’re all stars. Don’t fight over that.”
Leaving the roommates who were chatting excitedly behind for a moment, I moved my steps toward another room.
I needed to check if this side had also gone well.
Knock, knock…
“W-who is it?”
Fortunately, it wasn’t someone else but Siu’s slightly subdued voice that came from inside the room. I cleared my throat and blurted out as cheerfully as possible.
“It’s me, Kim Chunyong. Can you come out for a sec?”
“…”
“One moment.”
Soon, upon seeing Jang Siu’s face as he opened the door and came out, I had to gape my mouth open briefly in bewilderment.
“Uh…”
“It’s not… practice time yet. Why did you come so early…”
His eyes were swollen and red. His voice was completely hoarse. I clicked my tongue lightly and scratched my cheek.
He cried his eyes out, this kid.
“Trainee Jang Siu. Shall we talk somewhere private?”
After the discussion with Senior Min Siyoung yesterday, once we had built up enough filming material, the senior immediately called Jang Siu to another office.
Because the other trainees were warned not to follow, I couldn’t know how the senior had treated Siu.
She might have scolded Siu as she had originally intended, or she might have compared him to his brother and said something to snap him out of it.
Or, as I had subtly reminded her, she might have emphasized “empathy” and prioritized understanding.
Well, the youngest staff members chased after them, so it was probably caught on camera.
Anyway, that wasn’t what was important right now.
“Do you… have something to say to me too, hyung…?”
“Huh? Did someone say something to you?”
“Ah, last night, well. You came to see me separately…”
Siu trailed off without saying who it was, but I instinctively knew it was Yuchan-hyung.
Since Yuchan-hyung had learned the whole situation. I could roughly guess how he had framed it in relation to himself.
If being too nice is a problem, then that’s a problem with that hyung too.
“So, why did you come, hyung?”
“No, just… I had something I wanted to ask you.”
I quickly fished out something from my pocket and said awkwardly to Siu, who was still staring at me.
“Do you like this kind of thing by any chance?”
“Huh…?”
Seeing Jang Siu’s eyes grow wide, I made up a plausible story, mixing truth and lies half and half just as I had done with Hwaseong before.
“Well, I was digging through my bag and found this. I don’t like it because it’s too sweet, you know? But my roommates are all foreigners, so they found this kind of snack awkward. So I thought of you because—”
“I like it.”
Siu quickly took what was in my hand and mumbled.
“If, if you have any left, you can give me more. I grew up in my grandfather’s care. I’m used to eating this kind of thing…”
“…Yeah. I’m glad you like it at least. I’ll give you more if I find any after looking.”
I had actually packed it from home just in case I could give it to you.
I swallowed the words that had risen to the tip of my tongue and spoke in a playful voice.
“So. Can you practice hard today, Jang Siu? Was yesterday’s talk okay?”
“…….”
At my voice striking at the core in a roundabout way, Siu, who had bitten his lips once, hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.
All this time.
“I’m sorry… for causing trouble.”
Jang Siu rubbed his already swollen eyes roughly and continued.
“Since it’s a team competition, I shouldn’t have done that. I think I acted too childishly. I have, um, something I struggle with…”
“You don’t have to say it. You just have to do well on stage from now on.”
I quickly cut off Siu’s words, which were struggling to mention his own trauma. I was the one who already knew, and I didn’t want to see the youngest, only seventeen, struggling.
At my words, Jang Siu pouted his lips uneasily before bowing his head deeply.
“…No. I feel bad about it. I’ll apologize separately to the other hyungs later. Hyung, and…”
Thanks for the yanggaeng.
Watching Siu’s back as he waved at me and went back inside the room, I let out a bitter smile.
“Manager hyung, can you buy me just one gangnaengi?”
Our youngest, with his grandfather’s palate, then and now.
Truthfully, I had wanted our team members to directly cheer each other up and help him focus on practice again, without going through Senior Min Siyoung.
Because he’s the youngest who had done me too many favors. Because he had suffered irreversible losses because of me.
But ideals and reality are always bound to diverge.…
Not now. Before coming back, I should have treated him this well.
Feeling a slight bitterness at this situation, I clicked my tongue, and the moment I turned around.
“—Did you talk to Siu?”
Someone grabbed my shoulder with a thud and pressed something cold against my neck.
“Uh, uhh? Uwaack!”
I shrieked in terror at the sports drink clinging coldly to my neck. Thinking that sight was quite funny, the one who had startled me laughed heartily.
“Aha, ahaha! You’re really funny, Chunyong.”
The oldest member of team “Us Beyond the Waves,” who looked to be in an especially good mood today.
“Ah, Yuchan-hyung! I was really surprised, sheesh.”
“Well, I did mean to startle you. Though, I had a feeling you’d come here.”
As Yuchan-hyung said that, he glanced once at the closed door of Siu’s dorm room. Following his gaze, I spoke in a low voice.
“…You talked to Siu yesterday, right, hyung?”
“Ah. So you heard already.”
“Yeah. Right?”
“…Shall we go somewhere?”
Yuchan-hyung and I, exchanging glances, slowly walked back toward the emergency stairwell where we had talked yesterday.
Because both of us thought that what we were about to discuss shouldn’t be picked up by the camera audio.
* * *
“How was it?”
“…What?”
“Your talk with Siu. I thought you might have had a lot on your mind too.”
“Chunyong, you really….”
At my question, Yuchan-hyung, as if dumbfounded, smoothed his pitch-black hair and opened his mouth with a slightly hollow voice.
“Honestly, at first… I thought Siu was being too complacent.”
As Yuchan-hyung said that, his eyes were sunken heavily. I listened to his words in silence.
When I didn’t react at all, hyung raised his thin eyebrows with a surprised expression.
“…You’re not very surprised?”
“Well, it’s not a story worth being surprised about. From someone else’s perspective, it could definitely look that way.”
“No, well. It’s just that these words don’t match the image I’ve shown you or the others…”
Admittedly, if I had heard these words without knowing Yuchan-hyung at all, I might have been really surprised.
I might have even said something like, “How can you not understand that?”
But the current me knows Siu, and knows Yuchan-hyung too.
I flashed a grin at hyung and answered brightly.
“But now, it’s not like that, which is why you’re bringing this up. Right?”
“…Yeah.”
Tap.
-Tap-
Yuchan-hyung tapped his foot against the floor a few times before continuing.
“As you know, I spent time in a bit of a different environment from you guys before preparing to be an idol now.”
“That’s right.”
It was exactly as he said. Yuchan-hyung was someone who had experienced the outside world that other trainees like me and Siu had never experienced.
A young man in his early twenties who had attended middle school and high school normally and even taken the college entrance exam. Since Yuchan-hyung had gone through something that came up while filming
“I wondered why he was like that. If he crumbles over every little thing like that, what is he going to do when something else happens? And it’s putting me in a difficult position right now too.”
“I understand. I can’t say I didn’t have those thoughts at all either.”
“So, when you first suggested covering up Siu’s problem for now and solving it later. Ah, I thought, he’s saying this because he sees the kid as a nuisance too. That’s what I thought. So, uh…”
“Ah, did you think I was just going to give Siu a free ride?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s it. Yeah. I thought you were just going to be the bus driver.”
As Yuchan-hyung said that, he lowered his head once. And when he raised it again, his face was.
“But, when I saw you talking to Mentor Min Siyoung yesterday…”
It wasn’t like that.
It was filled with a somehow relieved smile.
“Of course, I would have understood even if you had been the bus driver, but should I say I’m relieved that wasn’t the case?”
“…I’m unlicensed, hyung.”
“I don’t have a license either! With school, and, uh. I was so busy with other stuff.”
Yuchan-hyung patted my shoulder thump-thump at my joke, and though slightly embarrassed, he conveyed what he had wanted to say seriously.
“Anyway, thank you. Chunyong.”
Me, Ryota, and even Siu further down the line.
Thank you for thinking things through and acting properly.
At Yuchan-hyung’s words, I felt a little choked up, but I nodded while trying not to show it.
Actually, the ones who suffered were hyung and Siu.
There was no way I, the person involved, didn’t know how much they had struggled while leading a team together with a troublesome member who was of no help whatsoever.
“We look forward to your support, we’re Arrows!”
Yuchan-hyung worked furiously on featuring jobs for all kinds of singers as long as his stamina allowed, and Siu debuted after us and helped with concert stage production for juniors who had done better than us.
And I had been floundering in a liquor vat all that time.
So what I had done these past few days couldn’t even be called hardship.
It was simply something I had to do to atone.
“So hyung… what did you talk about with Siu yesterday?”
“Huh? Siu didn’t tell you that?”
“No. His face was so swollen from crying that I thought it would be a bit much to ask…”
“Haha, if Siu didn’t tell you, then I can’t tell you either. It was a conversation between the two of us.”
“…How dull.”
So, there was no need to feel disappointed about not hearing this part.
I saw Yuchan-hyung, who had a recording schedule with Siu, off to the vocal room and let out a big sigh.
“Anyway… it seems like everything is going well for now.”
There were four days left until the second round evaluation, including today.
The teamwork of team “Us Beyond the Waves” would be fine from here on out, and the other people I was worried about would also be handling their own matters smoothly.
But that was that.
I rubbed my face once with both hands and glared toward the empty lounge at the end of the hallway.
That voice that had imitated Jang Siu’s ad copy with excessive aegyo still appeared in my dreams.
As a nightmare, that is.…
Like a damned hamster bastard.
Apart from the fact that our members and I were sorting things out, I couldn’t keep leaving unchecked that mouth which kept making light of things without fear of the world.
Kim Juan.
You’re dead.