Dong-dong’s Revenge (1)
Hmph! That face is a sight to behold.
Seok O-young, the producer on site, stood with his arms folded as he watched Kim Ji-rok.
That’s your punishment for committing a crime on my broadcast. Suffer for it.
Ever since the day he took Myeong I-dam’s call, Producer Seok had been keeping Kim Ji-rok under what was practically round-the-clock surveillance, monitoring him through cameras and staff alike.
That was when he noticed Choi Liam’s strange behavior. He got along with the other contestants, smiling and mingling easily, yet whenever Kim Ji-rok was near, he became unreasonably frightened.
When Seok called him in and asked about it, the contestant, Choi Liam, confessed that he had joined the program with impure intentions.
“I’m sorry. I wanted revenge on Kim Ji-rok. I planned to hold out until the decisive moment and expose him then. I didn’t think people would believe me if I just wrote about it online.... And even if they did, I was afraid it might get buried right away. I’m sorry for trying to use the broadcast for personal reasons.”
Oh, dear. How tragic. How hard that must have been.
That ought to have been the first thought in his mind, and yet what flashed through Producer Seok’s head first was This is it. One decisive blow that would send Kim Ji-rok crashing into a pit from which he would never return.
Once the antifreeze incident comes out, everyone will know what kind of bastard Kim Ji-rok is anyway....
But was there any need to wait until then?
Trash should be taken out quickly. If not, insects gather and the stench starts to spread.
There would be a flood of articles the moment the program ended, and that despicable bastard would be crushed by the law soon enough. But Producer Seok’s patience was not wide enough to sit quietly and wait for that.
He offered to help Choi Liam with his revenge.
“Contestant Choi Liam. If you’re scared, you don’t have to step forward yourself.”
But Choi Liam had crossed the ocean from America for this revenge, and his resolve was unshakable.
“I want to take revenge with my own hands.”
And so they had reached the present moment.
All the announcements were finished, all the eliminated contestants had given their closing remarks, and the broadcast should have been wrapping up. Instead, no one could step into the moment; they could only stare blankly.
Producer Seok spoke.
“All right. Let’s start wrapping this up....”
“Producer-nim! Look at the ratings!”
Then the assistant director thrust a tablet PC in front of him. The instant Seok saw the exploding viewer count, gooseflesh raced down his arms and he wrapped them around himself.
The final episode of Idol Travel, which was being streamed live right now, was already recording the highest ratings since the day he first began working in broadcasting.
On top of that, the online viewer count, both domestic and overseas, was hitting new highs in real time, rewriting history as it went.
And then came the school violence exposé, and the chat was flying so fast no human eye could hope to keep up.
Reporters who had watched the broadcast flooded the portal news pages as well, and the front page was plastered with the headline [Kim Ji-rok school violence controversy].
Onstage, Kim Ji-rok’s face went paler and paler.
“Fuck.”
After spitting out the curse, he gave up on explaining himself and ran. He shoved past a staff member standing by the stairs and bolted, the whole thing pouring out live on air.
Logan came over and patted Choi Liam on the shoulder.
“Liam Choi. Don’t cry. Tears? Too precious! My house has a gun! Want me to lend you one?”
Choi Liam laughed despite himself, as though he had been comforted by Logan’s blazing, all-American offer. He rubbed at the corners of his eyes with his sleeve and said, “No. The gun’s fine.”
Kim Ji-rok would be socially annihilated anyway. With that alone, Choi Liam seemed to consider the revenge complete, and a refreshed smile spread across his face.
That was when it happened.
All at once, a single article link began flooding the chat.
At the same time, on the portal site, articles about school violence were pushed aside as a brand-new piece took the very top of the news page.
It was the article Won Hasin, the representative, had instructed a reporter from one broadcast company to post after the show ended. But because Kim Ji-rok’s school violence scandal had broken and the broadcast finish had been delayed, the reporter had lost patience and uploaded it early.
[“Kim Ji-rok was filling a water bottle with antifreeze”.... The reason Myeong I-dam quit Idol Travel]
The article included Myeong I-dam’s detailed testimony, along with the fact that prosecutors had applied for an arrest warrant against Kim Ji-rok.
As the conversation shifted to Gal Neoul, the remarks he had made in the first episode surfaced again. How he had kept his distance from Kim Ji-rok, and how, when they were assigned to the same team, he had used the Team Member Change Ticket to flee to another one.
— Gal Neoul knew.
— Oh, right.
— The narc-hunting whale was right after all, damn it.
— Landmine-hunting whale T_T
— Wow; Ji-rok’s fans were trashing Neoul because they said he was making Kim Ji-rok get hated when he was actually innocent, and now they’ve all gone silent and disappeared lol
— They’re busy cursing out Kim Ji-rok right now.
— What pisses me off most is that he used a dog to try and brand himself as a good guy.
— I’m honestly blown away that Neoul spotted the landmines that fast. Does he actually have some kind of gift or something?
— Celebrities and shamans are only one step apart, apparently....
— Didn’t they say Gal Neoul could see ghosts before?
— He was just teasing Ha On-ha about that lol
The chat, SNS, the MuTube comments, and everything else were all blazing with talk of Kim Ji-rok, Gal Neoul, and Choi Liam.
At the venue, MC Jeong Ondo hastily brought the broadcast to a close while announcing the benefits given to first place and the seven survivors.
“Contestant Gal Neoul, who came in first place, will receive the 100-million-won prize and an exclusive advertising shoot for the beauty brand Mnemosyne! The seven survivors will debut simultaneously in Korea, Japan, and LA through a global debut showcase as Jjokbit! Congratulations!”
The audience, some of whom were still stunned by what had just happened and others of whom had been sniffling over someone’s survival or elimination, finally broke into applause and congratulated the seven.
“To all 81 contestants who took part in Idol Travel and have shown such incredible talent and charisma over the past months, thank you for your hard work. We’ll be cheering on the path ahead of you as you take on new challenges. And sincere thanks as well to our three judges and to all the passengers who brightened this stage with us.”
After MC Jeong’s closing remarks ended, Woo Cheong, the first of the seven sitting in the survivor chairs, jumped down and ran toward the eliminated contestants.
Without saying a word, Woo Cheong threw his arms around the members of Team C. He seemed sorry that he alone had survived, and sad to be parting with friends he had grown close to during all that time.
Ha On-ha and Baek Gi-yeom also ran over to greet the eliminated contestants, and the rest of the survivors and Neoul followed after them.
“Un-gu! Stay strong and do well. Make sure you debut. We’ll see each other on stage again.”
“Congratulations, hyungs!”
“Are you going back to Japan, Daiki?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go back to Japan, and then I’ll come back to Korea again la-ter!”
Farewells flew back and forth in the noisy uproar. Logan said to Neoul, “Bro! If you come to Texas, call me! Got it?”
Neoul had no real idea where Texas was, but he nodded obediently.
The contestants greeted the fans filling the audience seats as well, and only then did they leave the stage. The cameras shut off.
Even after the broadcast ended, the live chat continued to buzz for a long while.
— So where is Kim Ji-rok now? Didn’t he run away?
* * *
After leaping down from the stage, Kim Ji-rok spotted police officers waiting in front of the dressing room.
Fuck. What the hell.
His history of school violence had been exposed, but that was from a long time ago. There was no reason for police to be here over something that old.
Sensing something ominous, Kim Ji-rok turned and ran. He hadn’t even changed clothes, and he had left without grabbing his smartphone or wallet.
He slipped out the back and immediately hailed a taxi. He told the driver to wait a moment, went home to grab a spare card, then logged onto the internet with his laptop and searched his own name.
[“Kim Ji-rok was filling a water bottle with antifreeze”.... The reason Myeong I-dam quit Idol Travel]
“Myeong I-dam! That son of a bitch!”
Grinding his teeth, Kim Ji-rok slammed his fist against the desk.
On social media, his crimes were spreading and every kind of curse and abuse was pouring in. Among the fans of Myeong I-dam and Gal Neoul in particular, some people were flat-out saying they wanted to kill Kim Ji-rok.
The fans who had supported Kim Ji-rok were shaking with a sense of betrayal.
Fuck. I’m suing every last one of them for defamation.
Before the police could come pounding on his door, Kim Ji-rok hurriedly changed clothes. He grabbed the card and got back into a taxi, heading straight for the neighborhood where Myeong I-dam’s parents lived.
“Huh? Young man, this card doesn’t work.”
When it came time to pay the fare and get out, he was told the card payment had been declined.
“What? That can’t be. Try again.”
“Nope. It says insufficient balance. Don’t you have another card?”
“Ugh....”
Only then did Kim Ji-rok remember how he had transferred thirty million won to that filthy traitor of a friend. Since he had scraped together everything he had, and even borrowed from loan sharks to send it, of course there was nothing left.
He pretended to rummage through his pockets for another card, then quickly opened the door and jumped out. And just like that, he ran.
He ignored the taxi driver’s shouting and curses about calling the police and kept sprinting.
Which house is it?
A residential neighborhood lined with two-story houses and three- and four-story villas. Kim Ji-rok wandered the alleys until he happened upon a construction site, where he picked up a brick that looked sturdy enough.
Then he saw, from the direction of the main road, two women walking happily down the alley together.
“Oh my, Miss Dong-dong. Isn’t that heavy? I told you there was no need to carry it!”
“It’s perfectly light! Even if I seem weak because I’m so short, I could lift a woman like Mrs. Myeong without a problem!”
One of them was a middle-aged woman who, even from afar, looked exactly like Myeong I-dam. Anyone seeing her for the first time would have known at once that she was his mother.
In fact, Kim Ji-rok had already met her once at the hospital, which made her even easier to recognize.
The other woman was very small. Her skin had a slightly reddish, sunburnt cast, and her long black hair was tied up high.
She looked much younger than Myeong I-dam’s mother. In her hand was a heavy-looking shopping basket.
Kim Ji-rok pulled his cap low and tucked the hand holding the brick inside his coat. He waited for the women to pass, then quietly followed behind them.
If they ignored the warning, they should pay the price.
Choi Liam was no different.
You couldn’t even make a peep when you were a kid, and now what? Congratulations? My life starts today?
Fuck that nonsense. He had so little presence that Kim Ji-rok had even forgotten the bastard’s face, and he’d never imagined that the guy would show up like this and stab him in the back.
Wipe your own damn back before you worry about mine, you bastard. You’re next.
If your life is starting now, then yours is ending now! My life’s already wrecked after all that school violence and attempted murder got exposed. At this point, whatever I do next, it’s all the same shit.
With the brick in his hand, he could no longer see anything clearly. Kim Ji-rok quickened his pace and caught up to the two women. Then he raised the hand holding the brick toward the middle-aged woman.
Thwack!
With a dull sound, Kim Ji-rok’s vision flipped over.
“Huh...?”
Only after he smashed against the stone pavement and collapsed did Kim Ji-rok realize something had gone terribly wrong.
The brick he had lost from his hand rolled across the ground. The younger woman stood there, looking down at him with the shopping basket held in both hands.
“Oh dear. The watermelon’s shattered! And I said this was the last watermelon of the year! What are we supposed to do now?”