I’m a Genius Idol but my Passive is Sunfish Chapter 121

[Minseong: Gotcha!]

 

Minseong, who had been pretending he had no intention of attacking, suddenly charged toward Jihan. It was a decisive strike he had been saving all along.

 

However, no matter how much the rabbit leaped and hopped, he couldn’t even graze the cat’s tail.

 

Sensing that he might have to entertain the rabbit all day at this rate, Jihan let out a sigh.

 

[Jihan: I’ll give you just one last chance. If you can’t catch me this time, this bat is a goner.]

 

Jihan held out the bat by its neck in a threatening manner. Minseong nodded, accepting the final chance.

 

— Tiriririri~ wah-wah-waaah~

 

A whistle sound straight out of a classic Western standoff began playing as BGM.

 

A taut tension filled the air between the two as they slowly circled each other. Then, in an instant, Minseong raised his bug net with a battle cry and charged.

 

[Minseong: Iyyaaaah!]

 

[Jihan: Wait!]

 

[???: Ack!]

 

With that unidentified shriek, the camera cut to Yulmu’s cam.

 

A dark shadow fell over Yulmu, who was inspecting a bed with sharp, focused eyes. Having sensed nothing until the very last second, Yulmu quickly spun around.

 

[Yulmu: Who’s there!]

 

[Cheong: It’s me.]

 

The meek pushover who had gotten scolded by a hamster in the indoor garden was nowhere to be seen; only Cheong, looking down at him with chilling sanpaku eyes, remained.

 

[Yulmu: Why are you standing there like that and scaring people?]

 

[Cheong: You need to die quietly.]

 

[Yulmu: What? Ah, okay. I get it. So—huh?! It’s Baekya!]

 

[Cheong: Not falling for it.]

 

[Yulmu: Gah!]

 

Cheong grabbed Yulmu as he tried to run and shoved him onto the bed, then quickly stamped him.

 

As a red, round mark resembling a vampire bite was stamped onto his neck, the staff appeared and confiscated Yulmu’s mission card.

 

[Yulmu: Waiiiit! I haven’t even gotten to do anything yet!]

 

[Cheong: I don’t care. But Yulmu, weren’t you heading to the indoor garden? Why are you here? I’ve been looking for you the whole time.]

 

[Yulmu: That’s my business!]

 

Yulmu looked genuinely upset at having died after doing nothing but picking up stray hairs. Cheong, meanwhile, seemed delighted to have acquired such a reliable ally and gave Yulmu a pat on the back.

 

[Cheong: Smile. I said smile. And throw this away.]

 

[Yulmu: Noooo! My precious hairs…!]

 

[Cheong: You’re a vampire now too, hyung, so you’re on my team.]

 

Telling him to cooperate, Cheong threw the hairs Yulmu had collected onto the floor. But Yulmu, overly absorbed in his role as a priest, was not going down easily.

 

[Yulmu: Nay! Rather than becoming a traitor who sells out his comrades, I would choose death!]

 

Cheong’s face crumpled as the older member held his cross up high and began spouting theatrical, archaic speech once more.

 

[Yulmu: Do not let the enemy know of my death!]

 

[Cheong: What are you even saying? I really hate this.]

 

Frowning, Cheong grabbed Yulmu by the scruff of his neck and dragged him along.

 

[Yulmu: Uh, hey, wait a second…! I haven’t finished my line yet!]

 

[Cheong: Hurry up. We’re going to catch Yooyeon.]

 

The American, far more impatient than any Korean, had no intention of waiting for Yulmu to finish his lines.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, on Yooyeon’s Cam.

 

He had been on his way to the basement to catch a bat, but after seeing a sign saying the garden was full, he turned toward the study.

 

– Study: Find a book related to vampires (0/1)

 

[Yooyeon: Isn’t this just a library at this point?]

 

Books were densely packed between the massive, scattered bookshelves.

 

Yooyeon scanned the nearest shelf, looking for the word vampire, but it was basically like looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

[Yooyeon: How am I supposed to find it in here?]

 

Faced with a collection that easily numbered over a thousand books, Yooyeon looked entirely at a loss.

 

As he walked farther inside, muttering to himself, he spotted a sign explaining how to use the study.

 

Looking for a book? You can find out its classification number by taking an academic aptitude test.

 Please keep conversation to a whisper under 70 dB. (Exceeding this will result in a 5-minute speaking ban.)

 

[Yooyeon: An academic aptitude test?]

 

Turning his head, he saw six test papers and a decibel meter set up on a wide desk in the center.

 

[Yooyeon: DASE Academic Ability Test paper. Member Inquiry Domain? What’s this?]

 

The test consisted of seven questions in total. A helpful explanation stated that each point earned would reveal one digit of the book’s call number.

 

[Yooyeon: I’ll do it.]

 

Expressing his willingness to participate, Yooyeon selected Inquiry Domain Type A and sat down.

 

However, because he had repeatedly exceeded 70 dB by muttering to himself from the moment he arrived, Yooyeon was forced to sit there silently wearing an X mask for five minutes.

 

Taking off the mask shortly after, Yooyeon announced his challenge in a hushed whisper.

 

[1. Guess what name you are saved under in Baekya’s phone and state the reason. (1 point)]

 

[Yooyeon: Do I just say the answer out loud?]

 

[Staff: Yes, please say it. However, if your voice exceeds 70 dB, you cannot take the test for 5 minutes.]

 

Yooyeon moistened his lips under the strict supervision.

 

[Yooyeon: Answer: DASE Yooyeon. Because Baekdo once lost his phone at the dorm, and when I called it for him, I saw it.]

 

Switching to full ASMR mode, Yooyeon answered in a hushed whisper.

 

[Yooyeon: Seriously though, are we strangers or something? Now that I think about it, I’m getting upset again. I have him saved as ‘Baekdo’ in my phone.]

 

He grumbled toward the camera about it being ‘DASE Yooyeon’, not even just plain ‘Yooyeon’.

 

Next question.

 

[2. Name all members who like mint chocolate. (1 point)]

 

[Yooyeon: Only Minseong hyung likes it. He likes mint so much, he’d probably say toothpaste tastes good.]

 

[3. Name the food that Cheong cannot eat. (1 point)]

 

[Yooyeon: Cucumbers. You must never give him cucumbers. Back when we were trainees, he ate a sandwich without knowing it had cucumbers in it, and he got such a high fever that we thought he was in serious trouble. Naings, please never give Cheong cucumbers. Cucumbers are strictly forbidden.]

 

[4. State the symptom that appears when Yulmu gets angry. (1 point)]

 

[Yooyeon: His face goes completely expressionless. But to be honest, I’ve almost never seen him angry. Whenever you see this hyung, he’s always smiling. His job satisfaction is through the roof.]

 

[5. Name the members in order of longest trainee period to shortest. (1 point)]

 

[Yooyeon: Minseong, Yulmu, Yooyeon, Cheong, Jihan, Baekya.]

 

He answered that Minseong trained for 8 years and Yulmu for 6 years, making them the two longest-training members in DASE.

 

[Yooyeon: I trained for about 4 years. I’m a little fuzzy on Cheong and Jihan hyung, but I think it was a little over two years. They joined around the same time. And the shortest was Baekdo.]

 

He stated with absolute certainty that Baekya’s trainee period was a mere two weeks, making it likely the shortest trainee period in idol history.

 

[6. Name the body part you are most confident in and state the reason. (2 points)]

 

[Yooyeon: Dimples. Because I’m the only one who has them. I am DASE’s sole representative in charge of dimples.]

 

Yooyeon flashed a sweet dimpled smile at the camera.

 

Next was the final bonus question.

 

[7. State Jihan’s nickname. (2 points)]

 

[Yooyeon: Quiet Wei… cat. Quiet Cat.]

 

Yooyeon casually blurted out the nickname used among the members, then realized his mistake and hurriedly changed his answer.

 

[Yooyeon: When you think of Jihan hyung, it’s cat, right? His personality is kind of similar too.]

 

Having successfully answered the questions, Yooyeon received the full call number and rose from his seat.

 

[121.2 Cheong666 ch]

 

As he wandered the study searching for the bookshelf marked in the 120s, the study door suddenly swung open and Jihan stepped inside.

 

[Jihan: Thought I was going to get caught.]

 

Hearing the husky voice break the silence, Yooyeon instinctively ducked out of sight.

 

Panting as if he had just been chased, Jihan went as far as locking the study door from the inside. At this visibly suspicious behavior, a look of dismay washed over Yooyeon’s face.

 

Thump—.

 

Right then, a book bumped by Yooyeon’s shoulder fell to the floor.

 

[Yooyeon: Gasp.]

 

[Jihan: Who’s there?]

 

[Yooyeon: !!! (Shocked)]

 

[Jihan: It’s okay, you can come out. I won’t hurt you.]

 

In stark contrast to his gentle tone, Jihan was holding a decorative battle-axe in his hand.

 

[To be continued…]

 

***

 

At the inexplicably chilling final line, goosebumps broke out on Boksoong’s arms.

 

“Creepy….”

 

Yooyeon, who had suddenly found himself trapped inside the study, was clearly mistaking Jihan for a vampire.

 

Though she’d have to wait for the next episode to know for sure, seeing Jihan flee into the study like that made it almost certain that Yulmu and Cheong had raided the basement.

 

Curious about what other viewers were thinking, Boksoong began browsing the comment section.

 

— Did the genre just suddenly change? I actually got a bit scared at the end…

└ What’s with the axeㅋㅋㅋㅋYooyeon must be totally terrified ㅋㅋㅋ

— The Deer Hunter has entered the chat!

— Jihan, while you’re in the study, go take the academic test too!!

— I don’t think what Minseong caught was a cat, it looks more like my pet hamster ㅠㅠ What… give me back my hamster…

— Isn’t Cheong’s attitude toward Yulmu versus Baekya way too different? ㅋㅋㅋ Our little chick: soft to the weak, fierce to the strong

— Minseong has a bit of that Baekya vibe too, he seems kinda clumsy and dorky

— Baekya’s trainee period was 2 weeks??? Not 2 years, not 2 months, but 2 weeks??

└ Did he say it wrong? Two weeks is a bit ridiculous… Did he just join the debut lineup the moment he came in?

— I heard it was short, but a 2-week trainee period ㅋㅋㅋ Is ID kidding? They basically dragged in a kid eating a Pik*chu cutlet in front of his school and debuted him. The members said it while laughing, so I thought they were joking.

└ What if Baekya had refused to audition; I can’t imagine DASE without our Peach (main vocal)

└ Didn’t they say he rejected them at first thinking it was a scam? I think they said the casting manager circled around his school three times

— Joining the debut lineup in 2 weeks and actually having the skills to pull it off is seriously incredible

— Guess the rumors about DASE almost falling apart were true. Then did Baekya practice the debut song for a full month? Between recording and shooting the music video, he couldn’t have had much time to practice properly.. If this is true, it’s genuinely amazing

— Cheong and Jihan were trainee peers? ㅠㅠ Cuties

— Two weeks? Looks like they grabbed any random kid and drilled the debut song into them nonstop. No wonder he’s like that. Tsk tsk.

— How did that face manage to live a quiet school life for 18 years? If I were the casting manager, I would’ve camped outside his school every single day during arrival and dismissal ㅠㅠ

└ Apparently nobody at school knew except his really close friends

└ He was originally just a cute face, but the camera effect + clumsy cuteness + main vocal combo hit just right, so now he’s on another level.

└ Yeah right, plastic surgery~ Go look at his graduation photos ㅋㅋㅋ

└ If debuting after 2 weeks is true, he didn’t even have time to get plastic surgery, what bullshit are you spewing

└ To be precise, it’s not debuting in 2 weeks, but joining the debut lineup in 2 weeks. Still, debut took less than 3 months, so there definitely wasn’t time to reconstruct his face. FYI, even with double eyelid surgery, it takes at least 6 months to a year for the crease to settle properly.

└ He used to have nerd glasses, but now he doesn’t

— It’s absolute chaos in here

— He got bashed so hard for not being able to dance, but keeping up at that level after only 2 weeks of training means he’s basically a genius. We urgently need to re-evaluate Baekya

 

Among the diverse comments, what undoubtedly claimed the top spots were discussions about the members’ trainee periods.

 

Given their long training tenures, Minseong and Yulmu were famous enough that simply typing ‘ID Trainee’ into search portals brought up their photos, while Yooyeon was a member who had occasionally drawn buzz after performing as a backup dancer on senior groups’ stages.

 

On the other hand, the remaining three had been hidden trainees, so fans had generally estimated their trainee periods to be roughly one to two years.

 

Among them, Baekya’s trainee period was so absurdly short that it sparked a hot debate.

 

“If he’s performing this well after only two weeks of training, isn’t he a dance prodigy…? Sob.”

 

Our boy who lacked dance skills… turns out he was a natural genius all along?! The comment section was roaring with this sudden narrative shift.

 

Remembering how Baekya had been constantly bashed for his dancing since debut, and how his expression had frozen after accidentally reading hate comments live on U-App, Boksoong felt a sudden lump rise in her throat.