There was a foolish bear sweating profusely.
And a dog who was watching both sides cautiously after making a blunder.
“Hyung, no it’s not like that….”
“It wasn’t anything important. I just didn’t mention it because it was too embarrassing to talk about.”
I quietly watched as they scrambled to clean up the mess, then spoke curtly.
“I’ll be the one who judges whether it’s something important or not.”
“…….”
“….”
Silence settled in for a moment.
And the color drained dramatically from the faces of those two guys who had been talking so enthusiastically.
When Baek Kiryang, who had been watching anxiously from the side, finally started gasping after seeing my expression, the two guys relented and started confessing.
“Kim Saemyeong-hyung got the nickname ‘
Angel
‘ because he claimed on the broadcast that he helped the trainees a lot in various ways. You know about this, right?”
“I don’t.”
“……”
Do Yuda seemed momentarily speechless after hearing my confident answer. He stared blankly at me with his mouth hanging open. Then, snapping out of it, he asked seriously.
“Are you serious? Still, we’ve been filming together for a few months?”
As I just sat there indifferently in response to the question, Do Yuda muttered, “Ah, this hyung is this kind of person”, and smacked his forehead.
Lee Chise once said something like this about me.
“That hyung can only see humans in three categories. ‘Useful’, ‘Kill Them’, and ‘The Rest’. And he has no interest in The Rest at all, so he doesn’t even remember their names or face. If I had been in that The Rest category, I would have been really hurt. Uugh.”
He threw out the words “
I would have been really hurt
” with an exaggerated gesture of hugging himself with both arms, but all the members made serious expressions and refuted it.
“What are you on about? Who else could fit that ‘Useful’ category as perfect as you? Don’t try to trick us.”
“In the first place, there are hardly any people who wouldn’t remember Chise-hyung after seeing him.”
Lee Chise, who faced head-on those firm rebuttals poured out like attacks, winked cheerfully and replied, “
That’s true!
”. Jo Inchan burst out laughing at his antics, then he gestured towards me and whispered.
“Aside from the fact that it’s impossible for Chise-hyung to ever experience that, it’s true that Yutae-hyung is seriously indifferent. Look, we’re making all this noise, but he’s not even looking at us. How can someone live like that, completely uninterested in other people’s business?”
At those words, Lee Chise tilted his head slightly, as if wondering what on earth he was talking about, but then he smiled and calmly replied.
“No. That hyung, he always listens to everything we talk about.”
And then he cupped Jo Inchan’s cheeks, whose eyes were wide open as if he didn’t understand what Lee Chise was saying at all, and said playfully.
“Inchan still doesn’t really know what kind of person our Yutae-hyung is, huh? It’s okay if you’re a little clueless! You’re cute because you’re so innocent!”
“Ahhh! You’re going to pinch my cheeks off! Be gentle, be gentle!”
As Lee Chise had said, I was actually listening to everything those guys were talking about, including that conversation. I believed that I should at least be aware of everything the members of Prism were going through while they were by my side.
Well, Lee Chise must have noticed that I was always paying attention to them, and Jo Inchan was probably too oblivious to pick up on it.
Back then, I didn’t feel the need to bother explaining myself, so I simply let them say whatever nonsense they wanted. It was true that I had no interest in those worthless people anyway.
Back to the present.
“Have you ever talked to Kim Saemyeong-hyung?”
“No.”
“…What do you know about that hyung?”
“Nothing.”
“Interest?”
“None.”
My bamboo-like indifference to all but a handful of humans continued beyond my Prism days and did not fade, even after I grew older and opened my eyes in someone else’s body. In short, I had no memories or feelings about Kim Saemyeong.
‘I have too much going on in my life pay attention to such a loser.’
I wasn’t stupid, so of course I knew it was a name I’d heard a few times.
However, I never had any personal interest in that guy. I would have certainly forgotten his name if RH Entertainment hadn’t recruited Kim Saemyeong for their new group and used him to attack Lee Danbi in their mediaplay.
“….I wish I could live like that, like a cut piece of bamboo. It would make my life less stressful.”
When I gave the same cold answer to every question about Kim Saemyeong, Do Yuda shook his head as if he was fed up. I stared at him with a sullen face, unfazed, and said.
“I don’t care, as long as they don’t harm my members.”
“Waah, you must be doing this on purpose to make me cry, hyung.”
“What nonsense is that? Don’t cry, you have makeup on.”
“Either make my tears fall or make them dry up, can you just do one of the two please?”
Just as I was thinking I couldn’t keep up with Do Yuda’s emotional state, he seemed to have given up trying to get memories of Kim Saemyeong out of me. He let out a deep sigh, and started chattering on and on about Kim Saemyeong.
“Whenever Kangwon-hyung helped the trainees, he would come over to help briefly , and then do interviews as if he did everything himself, and those interviews made it to the broadcast so frequently. But whenever there was even a slight unfavorable situation, he would shift the responsibility to Kangwon-hyung. He had already calculated that even if he acted like that, this hyung would tolerate him. But! I knew it was Kangwon-hyung who did all of it! My insides! Are about to explode in fury! He kept claiming he led the practice, even in front of the trainers! Aa! And since the trainers didn’t stay on the set for long, they didn’t know anything and ended up believing it and praising him!”
“Yu, Yuda-ya, calm down. It’s okay. I helped those kids because I wanted to, not for any praise.”
“This hyung always puts up with it like this! Watching him makes me feel like I’m going to lose my mind!”
At first, he was speaking casually, but somehow, as he went on, his tone gradually became tinged with anger like a gradient. Woo Kangwon desperately tried to calm him down, but the more he did, the more furious Do Yuda became.
From my point of view, there was no big difference between Woo Kangwon and Do Yuda.
“Don’t make that kind of noise, you’ll hurt your throat.”
“Yep.”
After silencing him with a brief remark, I pondered for a moment before speaking.
“Did he do that in front of Jay-sunbaenim too?”
I asked, thinking that there was no way Jay would fall for such a trick. Do Yuda paused, resting his chin on his hand, and thought about my question. It seemed he had never thought about that separately until now. After a moment, he stammered out a reply.
“Yes … I think Jay-sunbaenim snorted a little back then … Ah, but now that I think about it, didn’t it feel like that hyung’s screentime drastically decreased after he pulled that act in front of Jay-sunbaenim? And Danbi’s screentime increased a lot, right?”
‘That loser was acting pretentious, but Jay caught him.’
As soon as I heard Do Yuda’s words, I could tell that Jay was unhappy with him and had pulled some strings with the production team.
‘And then he got pushed out by Lee Danbi and fail to make it into the debut lineup?’
Getting the rough idea of what had happened, I patted Do Yuda’s head like I would a neighborhood dog and gave him some praise.
“You’re smart. You figured that out.”
“Of course. I told you my IQ is 500, didn’t I?”
“Yu-chan, isn’t that lower than last time?”
It was a compliment given out of the feeling that it was impressive for a fool like Do Yuda to notice that.
Thinking that I should cool his head down before he overloaded, I offered him ice cream. His lifeless eyes lit up again and he eagerly snatched it, stuffing it into his mouth.
“Mmm, yummy.”
It seemed like his brain had reset before it even had a chance to cool down.
I alternated between looking at Do Yuda, whose eyes were so clear that my tension melted away just by looking at them, and Woo Kangwon, who was still worrying about whether or not I was going to ruin Kim Saemyeong, and then summed up the situation in one sentence.
‘He sure lives a complicated life.’
To sum it up, Kim Saemyeong was a totally useless leech
1
, and Woo Kangwon was Woo Kangwon.
I found these complicated mind games the most annoying in the world.
Stop wasting time with this pointless nonsense and go head-on with your skills.
And the loser bastard should just get the f**k out of this industry without leaving a trace. Isn’t that fair?
“That hyung is already the subject of some talk among the Muses. No matter how much he tries to hide it, the strange parts are starting to leak out little by little.”
It seemed like no more than 30 seconds had passed since I’d given him the ice cream, but Do Yuda was already licking the ice cream off his fingers, and then he showed me his phone screen.
And what was on the screen was a timeline that contained several private accounts from fans.
I really don’t get what Kim Saemyeong is thinking. Did he join RH just to do that kind of mediaplay? He built such an extremely nice, innocent image throughout the whole SI, and now he’s just letting that happen? Haha, the feeling of betrayal is no joke right now.
└ But among our kids, there isn’t even one person who’s close to him, right?
└ . Aa … I can already feel it.
(A broadcast scene zoomed in and slowed down.mp4)
You shouldn’t listen to Saemfans when they’re trying to elevate his imagine by appealing to his character, saying things like he’s an angel without wings blablabla. In front of the camera, he talked like he was willing to give his everything for others, but if you watch the broadcast properly, in reality,
he didn’t help any other trainees at all.
└ Woah, it’s really true. He was all over the broadcast acting like he helped Go Gildong a lot, but he wasn’t filmed in the practice time-lapse, not even once. I mean, if you’re going to appeal with an image of helping others, you should at least be like the cult leader. The cult leader stayed next to the kids he’s taking care of, didn’t sleep and taught the trainees how to dance all day long…
└ Go Gildong also never mentioned Kim Saemyeong after the program ended. They don’t follow each other on Inheartgram either. The only people Go Gildong follows are the cult leader and Kangwon.
Captain, please brag a little. What’s with this real man attitude? You helped everyone out all the time, but then just casually walked away. Every time I watch the SI contestants’ interviews, good stories about you keep coming out in droves, it’s so
baffl
ing;;;;
‘The Muses have already started to catch on to the hints little by little
.
’
I glanced down for a moment at the writings about Kim Saemyeong that the Muses had written without even trying to prevent search, driven by a strange trust towards each other, and calmly organized my thoughts. Then, after reaching a suitable conclusion, I spoke to Do Yuda.
“The Muses will faint if they find out you’re lurking around like this, so tone it down a little.”
“I wasn’t in this situation by choice. When I first followed them, everyone’s accounts were public … but then they kept making their accounts private and diving into the abyss. It’s okay. I still love Myumyu. But, hyung, please don’t look at it unless I show you. It’s dark in here.”
“…….”
….What a real headache.
***
We went straight to the broadcasting station, changed into our makeup and costumes for the stage, and finished the basic preparations. Then, just like any other music show, the insanely boring waiting time arrived.
“We will go to the MC waiting room! We have to work hard to film our challenge too!”
“You can go after a few minutes.”
I took a few moments to sit those two, who couldn’t stay still for a second because they were so excited to film the challenge, down. While Pat and Mat, who were caught up in this without knowing what was going on, were barely managing to keep their butts from wiggling, the waiting room door swung open.
And an unfamiliar voice entered my ears.
“Ah, Kangwon-hyung! It’s been so long, everyone. How have you been?”
“…Saemyeong-ah.”
“I came because I thought it would be nice if we did the challenge together. But where did Danbi go? I really want to shoot the challenge with Danbi.”
I raised my head and saw Kim Saemyeong, followed by the COMA-1’s members and cameras that were already rolling, coming into our waiting room in a line. Watching Kim Saemyeong casually mention Lee Danbi in front of the cameras, I lifted one corner of my lips.
Congratulations on your promotion from ‘The Rest’ to ‘Kill Them’, Saemyeong-ah.
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Translator’s Corner:
The word for leech here is actually 얌생이, a derogatory way to call someone who’s stealing someone else’s belongings little by little. ↩︎
AAAAAAAAAAA I LET OUT A WEARY SIGH AS SOON AS I REACHED THE LAST CHAPTER.
I know it’s probably feel short when read, but it took me 5 hours, if not more asdfghjkl I KEPT WANTING TO RUN AWAY. Like … the words itself aren’t hard but it’s just … there’s no room to breathe at all in this chapter. Like … literally. There’s a crisis of period (.) here … like can you imagine a paragraph tellling up to 7 different actions were happening, but the only period is in the end of the sentence, the full of stop …. my brain so overwhelmed watching that …… you know that kind of feeling you got when you read a long-ass paragraph that only used commas and no period at all ….. my brain who got distracted every 5 second is not built for that …. this is actually a consistent pattern for the whole novel (this is way each chapter of this novel took sooo long to do), but THIS CHAPTER SOMEHOW FELT VERY WORSE ASDFGHJKL idk for any typos I’ll just recheck them tomorrow, i cant anymore now acnsdkjfdnvfkjhnfv my brain just drained drained.
Anyway, Yuda-ya … you didn’t say anything when you got bullied in the second mission yourself … let’s not judge Woo Kangwon during the fourth mission ….
And you think MC had it too easily for debuting with all the members he specifically wanted … but our Trainer Jay-nim was working hard behind the scenes to make sure no frauds debut with his hyung….
ALSO GUYS I GOT DISTRACTED BY TOO MANY THINGS THAT I FORGOT! BUT !!! TWO DAYS AGO, JANUARY 2ND, IS HAN SEUNGBEOM’S BIRTHDAY!!! It’s better late than never, you guys come out and wish our boy a happy birthday!
I’m really not playing about fictional character