The Malicious Member Has Returned! Episode 90
A furrowed brow, the corners of his eyes trembling finely, cheekbones jutting up.
“Bullshit.”
But as if what I had just seen had been an illusion, Liu Wei’s face returned to normal.
Restrained emotion, using the bare minimum of facial muscles—as usual.
“I’ll say it again. Leave. …
Because the way I feel right now, I want to kill you.”
“No. You’re the one who did wrong, but you’re talking weirdly… Forget it. I just texted the writer that you’re here, so—”
“Wrong?”
Maybe my last word had scraped against his nerves, because Liu Wei, who had been sitting collapsed on the ground, slowly rose and approached me.
One step, then another.
“……”
Because we were about the same height, our eyes met—and the emotion contained in his gaze made me fall silent for a moment.
“I did it because I could. I did it because I had to, and there’s no reason to bring morality into it. In the middle of all that, what exactly did I do wrong?”
“…
Ah, seriously.”
I really didn’t want to talk to this guy any longer, but things like this kept happening.
Holding my forehead as a headache surged in, I slowly chose my words.
“…
So you’re saying you did well when you threw microphone equipment at Hwaseong?”
“That bastard started it—”
“Started it, my ass. I heard you brought up Jaeha-hyung to Hwaseong. Purely to piss him off.”
Liu Wei kept justifying his actions by saying it was because he could, because he wanted to, or because he had to.
But if you thought about it even a little, it was nothing but contradictions.
No, seriously, think about it.
“Logan, me, and what happened with Hwaseong today. You started all of it first. So why are you talking like we’re responsible for it? If it weren’t for you, none of it would’ve happened.”
“No. If you and that English bastard hadn’t been here, my debut would have gone smoothly. And Ji Hwaseong. He was the one who needlessly grated on my nerves first. You bastards were the ones who interfered in the first place.”
“We interfered? Who decided that?”
“From the moment this program was created. You were never part of the plan to begin with.”
“No, what the hell. Do trainees need your permission to go on a survival program? Did you get permission from someone before coming on?”
“……”
For a moment, Liu Wei’s mouth clamped shut at my irritated words. I was the one who felt flustered by that.
I’d only said it because I was tired of our argument going in circles, and I didn’t want him nitpicking anymore.
What the hell, Liu Wei.
Don’t tell me…
“Did you seriously ask Director Shin for permission to come on here—”
“I have no reason to seek permission from that sort of person.”
Nothing had changed, and yet Liu Wei’s voice had risen slightly.
And since I had been talking with him this entire time, there was no way I wouldn’t notice.
“Then it was your parents.”
“…
Shut up.”
That huffing voice wasn’t scary to me at all in this situation.
It only gave certainty to my guess.
“Hah….”
I quietly clicked my tongue and put a hand on my hip, feeling drained.
No, well. I’d roughly figured as much since the engagement thing.
“…
You. You act like you do whatever you want, but in reality, you’ve been doing everything while watching your parents’ reactions.”
“……”
“And because you can’t let that get found out, you wrapped it up as, ‘I did it because I could,’ ‘I’m doing it because I have to’—”
Thud!
“Ugh!”
“Why is a bastard who knows nothing saying that to me?”
Before I could even finish, Liu Wei took another step closer and shoved my shoulder hard, enunciating each word.
“If you remember what I did to you, you should be careful.”
However.
“…
Why can’t I?”
Unlike the polished Mandarin Liu Wei usually spat out so elegantly, the Korean coming from him was unmistakably trembling.
So I had no intention of keeping up appearances anymore either.
Ah, unlike the broadcasting station, the only people here right now were related to Targeting Star, so there was no need to choose my words carefully.
“What are you going to do? Just shove me off this railing?”
“What nonsense.”
“There are a ton of staff down below. Then it’d be obvious what would happen to you. Go ahead and try it.”
Normally, I would have tried to choose my words as carefully as possible, but watching him act like this made sentences form quickly without any filtering.
He was the kind of guy who would create malicious rumors to try to bury me, sure, but still.
In this situation… he didn’t even look like he had the nerve to actually push me.
“……”
Our gazes crossed without conversation.
Between my eyes, cold despite my bright red hair, and Liu Wei’s pupils, calm-faced yet blazing as if they were about to burst.
“Hoo….”
It wasn’t a problem in itself that Liu Wei cared about his parents.
In the first place, the reason I had come back like this was because of my family and the members of Arrows.
But that didn’t mean the method was allowed to become twisted.
Do you know how desperately I struggled not to become a nuisance to other people?
And now he was saying that after doing every rotten thing he wanted, he’d done it because he wanted to be loved by his parents.
“……”
“I really didn’t know you were this kind of guy….”
I glanced once at Liu Wei’s clenched fist and muttered like a sigh.
Right. I hadn’t known when we were promoting together as Arrows, nor when I went through all that because of Targeting Star.
“Liu Wei, do you even talk to your parents?”
“……”
One of Liu Wei’s eyebrows rose at my words. His face clearly demanded that I explain what I meant, and a sigh escaped me on its own.
No, but seriously.
“Your parents are alive and well in China right now. Why aren’t you saying anything to them?”
“…
If you’re doing this because I touched your family too—”
“No. I mean it exactly as I said it. If you hate something, you can say you hate it. And in that process, you might get scolded, or… I don’t know, something might happen. But because you don’t do that and just think and act alone, you only end up doing weird shit.”
The wind blew.
It was a wind slightly colder than when I had first stepped into this place.
“…
You’re the one who broke yourself because you couldn’t do that, so why are you blaming other people?”
“……”
Liu Wei had family who would shield him if he did something wrong.
At the very least, you could tell from the fact that after the controversy about his fiancée broke out, he would withdraw and return to China.
At the very least, Liu Wei’s parents would be by their son’s side once he returned to his home country.
I couldn’t dare to guess what kind of conversation would happen in that process, but…
“I’m home….”
I couldn’t even apologize to my family for my mistakes.
Even if I wanted to act spoiled, when I went home, all that waited for me was a cold silence.
“Hey.”
But seeing a guy who clearly did wrong, who couldn’t even properly consult with the people who could take his side, acting confused…
“Get a grip on the situation.”
Why the hell do I have to listen to that?
“Well, I can’t know everything about your family atmosphere. They might have been so oppressive you were scared to talk to them, or maybe you just assumed things on your own and didn’t say anything.”
“……”
“But now, whether you, with your family issues, go to your parents and crawl around begging them not to abandon someone like you, or whether you got twisted because you felt starved for affection there, that’s none of my business.”
“……”
“If you’re planning to come up onstage at the end, tell the staff properly and come up. Though I don’t know if that’ll be possible after what you did to Hwaseong.”
“…
Kim, Chunyong.”
“Don’t just talk nonsense about doing things because you can, or because you have to. If you really can do it…”
Not because you’re watching your parents’ reactions, or because you want to be loved.
“Judge it properly yourself, and then do it.”
Tang—
Leaving Liu Wei standing there frozen, I turned around and headed straight for the stairs.
It wasn’t as if there was no room for the horrifying possibility that he might follow me and push me from behind, but…
“……”
Seeing him frozen in place, looking as if he were thinking about something, he didn’t seem to have the presence of mind for that at all.
“Hah, Kim, Kim Chunyong trainee?! Where is Liu Wei!”
“Ah, he was up on the rooftop moping by himself.”
“Aaaack! Th-thank you!”
The youngest writer, who had belatedly run up with two other assistant directors, looked utterly exhausted.
Right, Liu Wei really did make people angry in every direction.
“He should learn what it means to reap what he sows too….”
Waaaaaaaah—
On my way down, I could hear people shouting from outside the performance hall.
Mixed in between, Targeting Star’s original song, “Aiming,” could be heard in brief snatches.
On the outdoor electronic display the production crew had installed early that morning, the live broadcast trailer for Targeting Star was playing.
I looked once at the floor above where Liu Wei was, then once out the window, and took in a deep breath.
Time would no longer wait.
If I wanted to keep hearing those cheers, if I wanted to beg my family and the members of Arrows for forgiveness.
I had to properly pull off what was waiting next.
* * *
The live broadcast audience for Targeting Star, which had originally been planned with 5,000 seats.
“No, what do they mean 5,000 people in a place that can hold 20,000! Does that make sense? If they moved from a studio to an indoor gymnasium, shouldn’t they have increased the number of people tenfold too?”
“Write that on the message board. For reference, I already wrote it. Don’t mix in curses. You’ll get reported.”
However, perhaps thanks to the additional 1,000 seats added because of inquiries filled with netizens’ anger, the heat was beyond intense—it was on the verge of bursting.
Waaaaaaaah!
To the point that even at the short typography VCR playing before the stage, they let out piercing screams.
‘This is seriously insane. A live broadcast in this kind of situation? Even I’m nervous.’
Standing at the MC spot in an outfit cleaner than ever before, Choi Gaon swallowed hard and groaned inwardly.
At first, they had clearly said it was just helping juniors from the same agency prepare for their debut, and that he could go in with a light heart.
‘How does this look like something I can take lightly, Chief?!’
When he glanced at the audience shots that were briefly caught on camera, it was easy to see that Choi Gaon’s thoughts were not excessive.
[All that remains for Son Jaeha now is debut]
[My star from Mars, JIMARS]
[Toward debut, BANG! The tomorrow I’ll walk with Yuchan♡]
Not only the slogan phrases, which had become more direct than in previous audiences, but also the expressions of the fans holding them.
The words those resolutely hardened faces wanted to say were all the same.
Please, let the trainee I’m cheering for debut no matter what.
Or.
Even if he isn’t in debut range right now, please let a tiny miracle happen.
Unconditional love made people strong.
That did not change just because the object of that love was someone they had fallen for through a screen, a complete stranger.
That explained the feelings of the 6,000 people gathered in this place—no.
Going even further, it explained the feelings of the 40,000 people who had crowded in to apply.
Choi Gaon, who was standing there now as the MC, had also been able to climb to this place thanks to that kind of love.
‘…
So there’s no way I can take this lightly.’
He took one deep breath and shifted his gaze toward the area below the stage.
Among the staff moving even more breathlessly because this was a live broadcast, the assistant director sending a signal to Choi Gaon soon drew a large circle with his arms…
— “Toward the dream called debut, shoot!”
Along with the voice whose volume had been raised high, the dart object and typography everyone had seen to the point of exhaustion poured across the electronic display.
For someone, it was the first time. For someone else, the second.
The curtain rose just like that on a stage that would be the last, and perhaps a new beginning.