WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 98: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (98)
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#98.
Why was it?
Ju-won could not easily take his eyes off the short reply.
Even counting the punctuation, it was only five characters long, yet he kept reading it over and over.
"No mom?"
Chats and hateful comments claiming someone behaved a certain way because they had no mother, or no parents, were something Ju-won often used against Onik.
Not too openly aggressive.
Phrased as though he were worried or saddened for them.
Filled with hypocrisy that artfully toed the line, and dark, hidden malice.
But that had only been for a time.
The more he wrote messages like that and left comments like that, the more miserable Ju-won himself began to feel.
The reply he was looking at now had been posted belatedly beneath a hateful comment from last autumn.
In his room, where he anxiously feared the door might suddenly fly open, the tightly repressed high school student bit his lip.
'The one without a mother is Jo Onik...'
Yet Onik, who truly had no parents, did not look unhappy in the slightest.
Onik on the screen was always bright, lively, and kind to people.
It was hard to find even a trace of shadow on his face.
...He was supposedly unable to make easy eye contact with other people, but Ju-won was beginning to suspect even that was a lie.
Lately, Jo Onik had often met the eyes of those around him, smiling at them with crinkled eyes.
Meanwhile, Ju-won, whose mother and father were both alive, lived a dark and dreary life.
Amid loneliness and isolation that only grew deeper by the day, Ju-won's days were increasingly marked by wounds and pain.
He could not even remember when he had last felt happy.
...Ju-won wanted to smile and live happily too, like that young entertainer on the screen.
"...Fuck."
Ju-won finally dragged his eyes away from the reply.
The stream. He needed to watch the stream.
If he watched it, perhaps he could forget this filthy feeling for a while.
At some point, Ju-won had stopped writing nasty things in live chat.
The same was true of hateful comments.
More than a month had already passed since he had last left one.
His final hateful comment, written out of habit and something close to obligation, had lost all its venom even to Ju-won's own eyes.
As frustrating as it was... the repressed high school student found Onik's broadcasts more enjoyable than objectionable.
In truth, what Ju-won felt was something beyond simple enjoyment, but he could not admit that to himself.
Admiration. Envy. And a small sense of liberation.
Things his pride could not accept.
The repressed high school student brought up the live stream on his phone.
#
When Ju-won began watching, Onik was outside in the cold wind, busy preparing to shoot arrows.
"Many of you have been asking me to show you pyeonjeon shooting, right? Master Bowyer made me a guide tube and some baby arrows this time!
"I tried shooting with them, and they really weren't difficult to use! I got used to them before I had even fired two rounds!"
"You want to know how powerful they are? Hmm, it'd be a spoiler if I told you now...
"Unlike what some of you said, they're not superior to ordinary arrows in every way.
"That's all I'll say for now. Watch and see the rest for yourselves."
Eight targets had been set up at intervals of twenty-five meters.
The nearest was twenty-five meters away, and the farthest was one hundred seventy-five meters away.
Sorin, one of the girl-group members who had come outside with the boy, used a laser rangefinder to show viewers the distance to each target.
"See, everyone? The distances are exact, right?"
Then Yesul and Mina showed eight drawings they had made on large poster boards.
"Ta-da! These are the pictures we drew! Reindeer pulling Santa Claus's sleigh against a night sky!
"And UFOs from an evil alien force trying to stop Santa Claus!
"We're going to attach these pictures to the targets! Onik will shoot the UFOs and save Santa Claus!"
"You're so bad at drawing that Santa Claus looks like an alien too... Isn't Rudolph just a four-legged alien with a red nose...?
"Um, Manager? Please ban the person who just said that. That was really mean. They could at least say we drew well, even if they didn't mean it."
"Come on, Mina. We really did draw well. The viewers just don't have an eye for art."
"...Is that so?"
"I'm telling you. Van Gogh wasn't recognized as a painter while he was alive either. People ahead of their time are always lonely.
"We only need to feel the loneliness of geniuses. Being too talented is a crime, I suppose..."
"Unni, do we really need to drag Van Gogh into this? It didn't even take us thirty minutes to draw these. And we used colored pencils and crayons..."
"Then what about Hitler? He wasn't recognized as a painter while he was alive either, but his paintings sell for quite a lot now. I heard they can go for tens of millions of won each.
"Come to think of it, he and Van Gogh both killed themselves with pistols."
"Why is there no middle ground in your comparisons?! And why are you comparing Van Gogh and Hitler? That's disrespecting the dead!
"If we end up with some weird nickname, are you going to take responsibility?!"
"Weird nickname? What, Nazi-dol? Or Idol-f Hitler? Hmm... Idol-f Hitler... Pfft... Heh..."
"Ahhh! Seriously, Unni! Why are you laughing about something like that?! We're idols!
"Please, let's manage our image! What if some weird news article comes out because of this?!"
"What would happen? All roads lead to Seoul. Wouldn't it be good if we became widely known, even like this?
"Nazi-dol, Nazi-dol... That has a surprisingly nice ring to it too."
"It doesn't! I don't want to become famous like that!"
"Mina, calm down. You said we needed to manage our image. Are idols supposed to shout like that?"
"It's because of you! Seriously! Sorin Unni and Yesul Unni are driving me crazy!"
"You look ugly when you get that angry. I thought you were cute and pretty until now, but maybe I was mistaken."
"Fine! Let's fight! From now on, I'll be the unni!"
"Good! Come at me, Aizen S○suke!"
"Who is that supposed to be?!"
Watching the two bicker, Ju-won's lips loosened without his noticing.
Sorin, the second oldest, had an older man's easygoing bluntness. Yesul, the third oldest, had the strange, offbeat air of an internet community regular.
And Mina struggled to manage the group's image while suffering because of the two of them.
This was one of the things the tightly repressed high school student enjoyed about Onik's broadcasts.
After the uproar passed, an unexpected advertisement began.
"We'll take a brief advertising break! Sera noona will handle today's commercial! Noona, please!"
Ads this shamelessly obvious had become part of this channel's personality.
Ju-won had consciously wiped the smile from his face when Onik reappeared, but it softened again when he saw Sera.
The product being advertised was a portable television that could even be used outdoors.
Its screen folded into a hard case, and it had a built-in battery, so it needed no separate cables.
Onik unfolded it on the table.
It seemed he planned to connect the television to a separate camera and show the arrows striking the targets in real time.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Yu Se-ra, the leader of Truffle Candy."
Standing demurely beside the television, Sera introduced the product in the tone of an awkward news anchor.
"This product is a portable television that can be carried conveniently like a suitcase.
"As you can see, the screen, stand, and speakers are all integrated, so you can use it right away without any extra setup, just by opening the case.
"It's also incredibly durable. It has passed the U.S. Department of Defense standards for military equipment..."
It was unnatural, but that made it all the more fresh and charming.
Her tone and manner were awkward, but her projection and diction were excellent. Every word came through clearly.
But her younger members booed her.
Sorin stood at an angle, scolding her with half-lidded eyes.
"Unni. Do you think we'll get another advertisement if you do it like that? Read it naturally, and make it a little prettier. We need to satisfy the sponsor."
"Uh... Do I look that awkward?"
"Yeah. Fucking awkward."
Mina shrieked beside her, scolding Sorin for using ugly language when they were idols.
But Sorin ignored her completely.
"Try to bring out a little more, what was it, sex appeal. Unni, you're the center of our group, right?
"And what's the center's job? Being the group's visual. In simple terms, making people horny..."
"Eun So-rin."
This time, Sera's face suddenly hardened before Mina could interrupt.
It was the stern side of the eldest sister that the other members rarely saw.
"It's fine to speak casually, but there are still things you shouldn't say.
"Onik is listening. Don't forget that he's only in his first year of middle school."
"Uh..."
"If you teach Onik bad things, even once, I really will get angry."
"...Hmm, sorry. I was careless."
"You should apologize to Onik, not me."
Sorin obediently apologized to Onik, saying she had carelessly said something inappropriate.
Onik accepted the apology with a faintly troubled smile.
He said it was fine, but his grandfather might not like hearing it, so it would be better to watch their language when they were together.
It was somehow a scene that made Ju-won's heart itch.
As he watched it, Ju-won felt warmth in his heart, along with jealousy toward Onik.
A feeling he himself believed was not jealousy, only displeasure.
'Sera noona is way too overprotective. It was only a little talk about being horny or whatever... Middle school students these days use far worse words.
'That Jo Onik must go around calling his friends bastards and things like that at school too.'
Ju-won assumed that everything Onik showed other people was an act and false modesty.
When he was with his closest friends at school, Ju-won thought, he probably swore and used vulgar language just like any other child his age.
People see only as much as they know, and everyone judges others by their own standards.
By Ju-won's common sense, a middle school student like Jo Onik could not exist.
'...Anyway, he's young, but his acting is truly amazing. He's a born con artist.'
To Ju-won, the Truffle Candy members were truly kind people.
Truly kind people were being deceived by a country boy pretending to be kind.
'If people worried about me with such pure hearts... I could pretend to be a good child too.'
Ju-won himself did not realize it, but beneath his desire to keep treating Onik as a bad child was an unconscious longing.
That longing was the repressed high school student's desire to escape his daily life.
In the unconscious part of his mind, Ju-won kept putting himself in Onik's place.
It was because he wanted to escape the suffocating reality he had been given.
It was a melancholy process of imagining himself in that warm place among those kind people beyond the screen.
To imagine that comfortably, Onik had to be a bad child like himself.
That was right.
Ju-won knew that he was a bad child.
Still, he did not want to think that he had no right to enjoy such happiness, so he kept wanting to drag Onik down to his own level.
Beyond the screen, in the space Ju-won admired, Sorin and Sera continued their conversation.
"Anyway, back to the point... Unni, you need to appreciate how valuable advertisements are. So, Unni, do that. You know, that thing."
"What thing?"
"You know. The one we practiced yesterday. The Shiny Shiny dance challenge."
At the word dance, Sera panicked.
"W-wait. We agreed not to do that."
"That was because you were too embarrassed. It's your fault for reading like a Korean textbook during a valuable ad.
"Now the dance is our only choice. This is the disaster you brought upon yourself."
"Ugh..."
"It'd be a waste not to use it after we practiced it so much. Challenge trends don't last long.
"Do you think we'll get another chance once this moment passes? In half a year, it'll probably be an outdated trend.
"So come on, dance already. Hurry. Set an example as the leader!"
Sera squeezed her eyes shut at Sorin's urging.
But in the end, she began dancing and singing as she was told.
She ran her fingertips over the corners of the portable television and swayed her shoulders and hips.
"Shiny, shiny, so shiny♪
The picture is clear, so clear♬
Tough, so tough♪
Handy, so handy♬
The sound is clean, so clean..."
Only the pitch, rhythm, and opening lyrics resembled the challenge currently in fashion.
Sorin, who had a talent for this sort of thing, had made the dance.
Sera's reddening face, even while she earnestly performed it, showed her personality clearly.
Beside the embarrassed Sera, Sorin suddenly performed the original dance.
Sera had good lines too, but Sorin was even better.
"I'll join too!"
Onik raised his hand and suddenly joined in, dancing the original dance beside Sorin.
As expected of Onik, who was good at anything involving his body, his dance lines were absurdly polished.
Obscure as Truffle Candy might be, he seemed to dance better than an active idol group's center and main dancer.
When Yesul and Mina joined in at the end, the dancing became almost complete chaos.
The live chat filled with LOLs.
What were they even doing? Was this an ad from another dimension?
"Pfft...!"
Ju-won was overcome with amusement and nearly laughed aloud.
He reflexively covered his mouth and glanced at the closed door.
'The sound didn't get outside, did it?'
It would be fine. He had stifled it before it became loud.
Having gone rigid as he listened carefully, Ju-won slowly relaxed over several breaths.
After the dancing ended, the scene beyond the screen became busy for a while.
They needed time to attach the ugly drawings they had shown earlier to the targets.
Then, when Onik was about to shoot his bow, the live viewers began sending donations and making various comments and requests, as always.
Ju-won felt emotionally thirsty.
'...I want to donate too.'
The repressed high school student wanted to communicate with the people beyond the screen.
He wanted the warm people over there to speak to him and smile at him.
Even if it was the con artist boy speaking and smiling, he did not think he would dislike it...
But he could not do that.
It was not because he lacked money.
Ju-won's nominal allowance was considerable. It was set at the average level of other students attending his school.
But he could not spend that money however he wanted.
Ju-won's bank account and card were linked to a household budget app. Every expense was recorded.
Of course, his parents checked those records.
During their regular inspections, if there was even one suspicious expense, Ju-won had to explain it until his parents were satisfied.
Every time, it was an explanation that made his chest feel tight and left him unable to breathe.
Ju-won's father had said:
"All the money you use belongs to Mom and Dad, so we need to know where you spend it.
"This is all part of learning. If you don't learn healthy spending habits while you're a student, when will you learn them? If your parents don't teach you, who will?"
Ju-won's mother had said:
"Do you know how happy you are? You have parents who let you spend as much as you need on things you should spend money on. Poor children would cry with envy if they saw you.
"So know that you're blessed. Always be grateful to Mom and Dad, understand?"
By his parents' standards, spending hundreds of thousands of won at a time on post-fall treats for the riding school's "young aristocrats" was fine. That was a wise investment for the future.
But spending even a few thousand won to donate to an internet broadcast would turn the household upside down.
In the end, the repressed high school student's best option was vicarious satisfaction.
Like quenching his thirst with saltwater, he watched other people communicate and felt a deeply insufficient kind of satisfaction.
Whenever a donation sound played, Ju-won's mouth turned bitter.
'Must be nice. Being able to spend money however they want.'
The donation amounts appearing on screen were freedom proportional to their numbers.
The con artist boy who received the donations continued speaking with those free people.
"Thank you for the donation, RlyehResident. But... don't shoot the aliens, shoot Santa Claus...
"Uh... Why? Do you have some grudge against Santa Claus?
"What...? Santa Claus is a very evil communist, so he needs to die...?
"Why is that? Why is Santa Claus a communist?"
The viewer speaking with the boy kept sending donations and strongly argued that Santa Claus was a wicked commie.
He liked to wear red, had a Marx beard, and distributed goods to children for free every Christmas. That proved the suspicious old man was a commie.
His habit of trespassing into homes under the excuse of giving presents was also communist behavior that did not respect private-property rights.
And that old commie had never once distributed goods to him for free, so how could he not be an evil commie?
It was a joke, but one that was funny while somehow carrying sadness too.
"Hmm, I see..."
The boy looked into the camera with the eyes of someone looking at a pitiful person.
Not only the boy, but the Truffle Candy members looked the same way.
"I understand what you mean, but you're seriously mistaken about that."
Shaking his head, the boy spoke firmly to the pitiful viewer.
"Santa Claus isn't a commie.
"Santa Claus is actually the vanguard of crass capitalism and a stooge of ruthless capitalists!"
While the live chat filled with question marks, the con artist boy began vigorously spouting nonsense with a serious face.
"Think about it. Santa Claus supposedly distributes goods for free, but does he do it equally for every child?
"No, he doesn't! The richer a child's family is, the more likely they are to receive a present. The poorer a child's family is, the less likely they are to receive one!"
"The same goes for the prices of the presents! Expensive presents for children from rich families, cheap presents for children from poor families!
"Would a communist really behave that way? I don't think so!"
"Communists say religion is the opiate of the people, right?
"Santa Claus is the same! He makes poor people hold on to empty dreams and hopes!
"He makes people briefly forget the pain of reality by giving them the illusion that goods are distributed freely at Christmas!"
"What about how he doesn't give presents to bad children or crying children?
"Doesn't that mean he only gives presents to good children, children who conform to the current system and order?
"This is capitalist gaslighting secretly carried out on children!"
"To put it simply, Santa Claus is a guardian of the capitalist order operating in the shadows!
"He serves as a stooge for ruthless capitalists and falsely deceives children from poor families!"
The con artist boy, who had read widely and spoke well, pretended to be outraged and clenched his fist.
"Just wait! One day, the iron ranks of proletarian children who have learned the truth!
"They'll tear down capitalism's fortress built on lies and deception, and judge Santa Claus!"
"The Earth is round, so when proletarian children all over the world keep walking and walking!
"Santa Claus's secret gift factory, built on exploited labor, will be trampled beneath the iron ranks of angry children!
"And the poor reindeer who have suffered through harsh forced labor for so long will receive the red, burning joy of class liberation-"
When his nonsense reached that point, the Truffle Candy members, who had been listening blankly, stopped him.
"Hey, hey, Onik! Don't get any redder!"
"Right! At this rate, the broadcast will violate the National Security Act!"
"Where did Jo Onik, the anti-communist fighter who burned the portraits of the three Kims, go?!"
"What do we do? Onik has broken down! We haven't even used him for that long...!"
It was fun. Truly fun.
Onik might be a real con artist, but Ju-won could not deny that he was an excellent talker.
There was a reason he kept succeeding as an internet broadcaster.
Ju-won had to struggle to keep his laughter from bursting out.
It was fortunate that there was something enjoyable on a Christmas Eve he had expected to be bitter.
In the house cold enough to sting, the only warmth comforting the tightly repressed high school student existed in Jo Onik's world on the small screen...
Footnotes:
Onik's line about the Earth being round parodies a familiar Korean children's-song lyric about walking around the world.
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