The Villain Member Has Returned! Episode 32
* * *
A brief interlude to reset the stage for the next team’s performance.
At the very edge of the back row of the audience seats, the lenses of nearly a hundred well-hidden cameras were lowered down.
A woman armed with a hat and mask—a so-called “jjikdeok”—let out a sigh of relief as she watched a security guard with a fierce expression walk away in the opposite direction.
“That was close….”
Even for a survival show maniac jjikdeok, hardened through years of Music Days survival programs, evading security’s eyes was always a tense and difficult task.
If caught, she’d be blacklisted and banned from all future audience participations, of course. She didn’t have a fan club yet, so there were no fan club penalties, but still.
She had only been active briefly and intensely between a survival show and debut, satisfying her desire to film.
After that, there was none of the sparkle from the survival show days. She couldn’t see any desperation. So she returned to survival shows to find trainees who sparkled again.
Her own thesis, which others might call “disgusting” if they heard it. But she didn’t care.
Someday, if she met an idol subject whose every moment was desperate, then she could stop.
‘So first, I have to take as many pictures as possible of this moment. Because right now is when he’s most desperate. Let’s see, so this time it’s…’
[ㅇㅇ @FDNPFADKAD Stage order leak
1. Group song ㅇㅇㅁ
2. Loe Fold
-Shadow
3. Lady Swan
-Calendar
4. Min S.Y.
-Us Beyond the Waves
5. 2OCD
-Be the Low]
“Us Beyond the Waves,” the opening song of the children’s animation *Let’s Leave on the Gallion.*
Others would have been surprised that they were performing an animation song on stage, but to her, who had already conquered all sorts of songs and concepts through countless survival shows, it merely drew the clichéd conclusion of, “It’s a song with an ocean background, so it must be marine looks.”
‘Well. I didn’t know it was Min Siyoung’s song, though. It’s fine. It’s exciting, and the song is good. Besides, no matter how cliché marine looks are… they play it safe.’
Having finished her simple assessment, she gripped her camera tightly and waited for the stage to light up again.
The trainees she would be shooting this time were Bang Yuchan and Jang Siu.
Checking up on already well-known trainees beforehand was one of the basic qualifications a jjikdeok had to have. So she had checked the faces of likely trainees at the pre-entry hi-touch event.
Along with the aforementioned Bang Yuchan and Jang Siu, trainees like Son Jehwa, Ji Hwaseong, and Liu Wei.
“Excuse me, could we… talk for a moment….”
There had been a timid trainee who grabbed her at the end of the hi-touch event for some reason, but she hadn’t been very interested.
Because being captured by a trainee she never thought of didn’t happen easily.
‘If that happened, it would be a miracle, a miracle.’
A miracle.
Wasn’t it a word that seemed too distant and never to come?
“Then, let’s meet the team for senior Min Siyoung’s ‘Us Beyond the Waves’ right away!”
At Choi Gaon’s clear, ringing MC voice coming from the side of the stage, the jjikdeok woman quickly folded away her thoughts and brought her camera up to her eye.
‘Now I have to focus.’
Slightly dim blue lighting entered the hall, faintly revealing the silhouettes of the trainees.
On the screen behind them, a shining white moon and a calm night sea rippled.
Three people were kneeling on the stage floor, covering their bodies with a large cloth.
“…….”
One stood tall, holding his forehead and looking into the distance.
A refreshing acoustic guitar sound rang through the speakers, and a boy standing in a baggy white dress shirt and shorts spoke first, receiving the pin spotlight entirely.
- Last night, when I couldn’t sleep
The moon spoke to me
Asking if I had ever seen beyond the horizon
A slim, pretty face, a beauty mark beneath his eye.
‘Jang Siu!’
Having quickly identified her target beyond the lens, she pressed the silenced shutter wildly.
As if the moon had really spoken to him, Jang Siu reached out into the air as though entranced, exuding a purity that could only be seen in comics.
With an innocent expression on his face, Jang Siu broke away from the other members alone and spun around in a turn.
- Take me to that end
To the brilliant tomorrow I haven’t seen
And on his face as he looked at the audience again, a mischievous smile was fixed.
In that instant, as a variation entered the calm guitar melody, one of the seated people threw off the cloth and revealed himself.
And in that moment, a pin spotlight attached to him as well.
A trainee with a well-styled head and a generously worn, stylish bandana on his head turned to the opposite side of Jang Siu and sang with all his might.
- There’s still so much I don’t know
I want to know the things beyond the waves
Pouring jewels, sweet gold!
A fluttering, wide white dress shirt just like Jang Siu’s flapped with his movements.
But perhaps because the number of buttons on the clothes themselves was different. A strange maturity was felt in his movements.
Added to that, high notes that rose comfortably in contrast to his languid impression, and a booming voice.
It was Bang Yuchan.
The jjikdeok woman snapped a few photos of him as well, marveling at Bang Yuchan’s singing ability.
‘He sings fucking well… The studio roof is gonna fly off. So that’s why he’s the top student of the Korea University practical music department? He doesn’t have the face of a master singer. Interesting.’
And in the midst of it, she didn’t erase her curiosity toward the trainees still sitting in the center of the stage covered by cloth.
She understood they were adding some musical elements, but were they going to keep sitting like that?
Why?
And as if to answer her question, Jang Siu and Bang Yuchan sang back and forth as they lifted the cloth high at the same time.
- Take me
To that sea beyond
Where waves and wind float, where glass bottle letters drift
Take me
“…Huh?”
The jjikdeok woman raised her eyebrows as she realized the identity of the fluttering cloth scrap beyond her camera.
What she thought was cloth was not cloth.
…A flag.
It was a flag.
That flag was planted in the stand microphone at the side of the stage, and all four trainees gathered to begin their group choreography. And the spotlights that had only shone on Jang Siu and Bang Yuchan shot to the center, revealing the details of their costumes.
“Uh….”
The mouths of people who had vaguely thought, “It’s an ocean-related animation, so it must be marine looks,” slowly opened. The jjikdeok woman was no different.
That, I mean.
Pirate…
‘Pirates? Not adventurous marine boys!?’
A flag with a large white X on a black background, stuck in the microphone stand.
The shaped bandanas worn by Ryota and Bang Yuchan. The western-style boots with strings dangling below Jang Siu’s shorts.
- This feeling isn’t the first time
Since I met you
I was already dreaming of the next day
And even the black eyepatch that Kim Chunyong came out wearing as he danced in the center.
Though restricting the vision of a member in the main dancer position was a huge demerit, Kim Chunyong had to let people know the concept of this song “even if it meant doing that.”
The screen that had been a night background shone brightly, and soon changed into a vast ocean with high waves crashing.
- Beyond the shimmering water, I can see
Higher, higher
There’s nothing to fear because we’re together
The stage they had prepared by putting their heads together for arrangement, choreographing until dawn, and overcoming the adversity of Jang Siu’s mental breakdown—*Us Beyond the Waves*.
This wasn’t simply a song about leaving for an adventure.
- Take me
Let’s go together
Riding the wind
To a tomorrow waiting who knows what
Yes.
Us beyond the waves.
A journey to find the treasure chest called our “debut.”
A stage that layered synth sounds on a band sound that could be slightly childish, pulled the main melody with acoustic guitar and double electric, and included choreography that Kim Chunyong and Jang Siu had woven day and night….
‘Holy shit, this is fucking amazing…!’
It was truly beyond expectations.
Since the previous “Calendar” team had shown such a refined and clean stage, she had thought the next stage would be lackluster.
On the contrary, this stage overflowed with the freshness that only trainees could show, striking the hearts of the survival show maniacs scattered throughout the audience seats.
Eyes that searched for the camera even if awkward, smiles shown toward the audience when they weren’t the center. And dances and songs where the strengths outweighed the weaknesses.
And among them, what drew the jjikdeok woman’s gaze the most was.
- Even if broken oars and sails
Hurt us
The moon beneath that sea is smiling
It doesn’t hurt, not something like this
Beyond the wave (Beyond the wave)
It was Kim Chunyong, taking intense movements to the drum beat, exchanging rap with Ryota in a husky voice.
‘Him. He was at the end of that hi-touch event earlier….’
The jjikdeok woman’s lens turned toward Kim Chunyong unconsciously as her thoughts reached that point.
He was definitely not her type.
She hadn’t even paid attention to him earlier. The young and pretty Jang Siu, or Bang Yuchan who gave off a languidly sexy feeling, were more her type.
If anything, the cute Ryota with the band-aid on the bridge of his nose right next to him was more her taste!
‘Why am I taking pictures of such a scruffy-looking kid…?’
And right before the dance break using the handkerchief Kim Chunyong had made with all his heart.
- Yes, let’s go together
To a world we’ve never seen before
Kim Chunyong lifted the eyepatch covering one eye with a swift motion and pointed his finger at her camera.
“……!”
A canine tooth revealed beneath a cheerfully raised corner of his mouth, deep eyes shining from beneath the eyepatch, and sharp eyes to match.
All the wonderful elements Kim Chunyong possessed entered completely into the jjikdeok woman’s lens.
It was the perfect shutter chance.
“H-huh…?”
She pressed the shutter wildly while letting out a dazed sound.
He already recognizes a jjikdeok? A trainee who sees audience members for the first time?
‘I’m hiding from security in the very back row right now, how on earth!?’
What the flustered jjikdeok woman didn’t know, and what only Kim Chunyong—dancing as if his body would break apart on stage—knew.
“Rex! Do your best today too! I’ll always cheer for you!”
In Kim Chunyong’s memory, she was the top-seed fansite master who had always sent fervent support until she left. That she was “Shooting Rex.”
She always wore a mask and hat, trying not to reveal herself as much as possible, but there was no way Kim Chunyong wouldn’t recognize her.
Because when “Rex Trash” made a name for himself as a villain member and was cursed at by everyone in the world, “Shooting Rex” was the one who steadfastly left good SNS posts for him.
‘…I-it’s Shooting Rex noona. She came to the first broadcast again this time!?’
When he saw her at the hi-touch event, Kim Chunyong thought his heart had dropped to the soles of his feet.
He had shown sly, playful charm to other audience members, but to her, he had stiffly failed to get out even a few words.
Because he had thought that maybe it would help that noona to like a trainee other than him this time.
Guilt. A sense of indebtedness.
The sadness of not having been a complete joy to someone who liked him.
However, regardless of such feelings, her lens eventually turned to Kim Chunyong again. The moment he saw her camera lens glinting as she avoided security in the very back row, Kim Chunyong made up his mind.
This time, he really wouldn’t disappoint her.
Since she had come back through eight years of time and was still taking pictures of Kim Chunyong, Kim Chunyong had to show her through the stage.
[⎿Shooting Rex @Shooting_REX
I hope the day comes when we can start everything over again. For me, and for you.]
Since the day to start over had come, he would show her.
The stage Kim Chunyong was presenting now was a place of atonement, and a moment of resolution that would not come again.
* * *
“—Thank you! That was the ‘Us Beyond the Waves’ team!”
Even as the Min Siyoung team finished their brief greeting after the stage and the 2OCD team lightly warmed up on stage, the jjikdeok woman stared blankly at the photos of Kim Chunyong captured in her camera.
‘I-I don’t even know his name….’
She should have paid a bit more attention when she met him at the hi-touch event earlier.
No, she should have checked his profile beforehand!
“Uhh… His name is Kim Chunyong, apparently. I only found out when I got here too…”
She snapped her head up at the voice coming from beside her. The woman sitting next to her—AG Mulsan Company—whispered quietly, touching her chin with a slightly embarrassed face.
“No, you might have known. Just in case. I just….”
“No, no! Thank you for telling me. Really, really thank you.”
She bowed repeatedly to AG Mulsan Company and quickly began making a new SNS account on her phone.
‘His name was Chunyong, Chunyong. The pure Korean word for dragon is…’
Even without speaking directly to the other person, even without speaking honestly through tears, there are feelings that eventually reach.
[Neulbom Mireu @NBML__0000
#TargetingStar #KimChunyong #YongYong (dragon emoji) #IpdeokComplete]
And the last hashtag.
#Miracle.
Just as the owner of the “Shooting Rex” account had created a new account called “Neulbom Mireu” this time.