The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

I had been wondering when this system would give me another damn, surprise mission. It had been dead quiet recently so I thought it would pop out one of these days.

‘It always picks the worst timing to come out.’ I was baffled that it would give me a mission to debut in the same week as Only One right before a conversation with Kang Hyun-Sung.

‘Is the system really trying to suck me dry…?’ My head hurt and my phone continued to vibrate.

Zing— Zing—

‘Or else it will take away my Insight…’ I debated whether not debuting with Only One in the same week would be preferable to giving up Insight. All sorts of scenarios shifted in my head in a short time frame. But what I needed to do in this instance was to take this phone call.

“…Hello.” I ignored my concerns for a bit and took the call. I needed to first listen to the reason why he called me first. Perhaps, Kang Hyun-Sung could tell from my voice that I had a lot of worries, or he was just a mind reader as he asked:

—What’s wrong? Are you worried about something?

He knew I was worried about something right away.

‘…What is the deal with him, seriously…?’ I felt goosebumps on my arms.

Kang Do-Seung got a new membership at a nearby gym and began his workout there. Fortunately, nobody recognized him there yet, but he thought, ‘I will no longer be able to do this if I become really famous.’

He thought he couldn’t go to this gym for too long. First of all, too many people came to this gym and the number of equipment was severely lacking compared to the number of people. Above all, the owner of this place had bad music taste.

‘I can’t believe…he cut off our song in the middle…’ There was a time when Siren song flowed out while he was in the middle of training. Some part-timer probably played some male idol playlist, but just when Siren’s song was playing, the song got cut off and changed to a medley of girl group songs. From then on, his affection for this gym dropped significantly.

Well, that was that and he came to exercise. Today was his leg day, so he waited a bit for the squatting area to clear. Do-Seung put on the headset that Tae-Yoon bought for him and listened to the music. Just at that moment, the squatting area cleared, and to make a gradual progression, he planned to start with the low weights first.

After finishing the first set and confirming that blood was rushing to his leg, he raised the weights and finished the second set. Then, he checked that his leg muscles were pumped up. His body heat increased while sweat began to trickle down, and from then on, he began to enjoy his exercise. Since the warm-up was over, he planned to increase his weights and officially begin his exercise.

Zing. The headset he connected with the Bluetooth vibrated for a bit and he read the alarm.

—It’s a message from YM Entertainment Yoon Dong-Hyuk

Do-Seung froze in place when he saw the name of the sender through his Bluetooth headset. Yoon Dong-Hyuk used to be his fellow trainee at YM Entertainment and was someone who became a member of the final debut group instead of him and Woon. He was still working as an idol and a song producer right now too.

Do-Seung instinctively took off his headset and slowly reached for his phone. He contemplated to himself if he should open the phone screen a thousand times. He was curious about what the content of the message would be but also just wanted to delete it because it was a message from a person he never wanted to meet again.

Sigh. In the end, he decided to take a look. This was the message coming from Dong-Hyuk:

—How have you been?

It was an ordinary message, except that the two’s relationship wasn’t one to exchange greetings with one another. The main point seemed to be in the next message, which said:

—I heard that you're going to debut soon. Congratulations haha It took you sooo long lol

The tone of the message strangely sounded like it was mocking him, but the most problematic line came afterward.

—Want me to write you a song?

“…Are you kidding me?” Do-Seung almost sent back a message filled with curses. However, he knew he would be the one losing if he lost his cool right now. Even if he lost to everyone else, he didn’t want to lose to this bastard.

“Did you finish using the equipment?” Someone suddenly asked behind him.

“Oh.” He realized then that he had stood in front of his exercise machine while typing for too long. How rude of him.

“Yes, I finished using it.” Though he wasn’t finished using the equipment, he left the area. Then, he took his belongings and glared at his phone again. He had already got another message by then.

—I will send a song to your company’s A&R team~

Do-Seung didn’t know what to write then. He didn’t know whether he should reply to Dong-Hyuk to stop or just ignore him. He couldn’t get a sense of what to do at all.

“What are you doing there?” It was then, he heard a familiar voice from behind. Do-Seung turned around and saw Dong-Jun standing while holding a shopping bag. This guy would never come to a gym unless Do-Seung dragged him here, so he was surprised to see Dong-Jun.

“Here, take your birthday gift.”

“…” Dong-Jun handed Do-Seung a shopping bag. Do-Seung’s head already hurt because of Dong-Hyuk and wondered what this was about now.

“I didn’t plan to get you something this expensive, but because Tae-Yoon got you a headset, I ended up going a bit overboard.”

Do-Seung accepted Dong-Jun’s gift with a blank expression. It was a sportswear set and a pair of exercise shoes from a famous sports branch. Since both the sportswear set and shoes were limited editions, they could only be bought with a great amount of money.

“…Why would you give me such a…”

“I couldn’t bear giving something less expensive than our maknae.”

“Even Woon and Yeon-Hoon didn’t give me something so expensive.”

“Even those two gave you quite pricy things. I thought I was the only one who got something too cheap, so I bought these.”

“…”

“If you don’t like them, I will refund them.”

“That’s not it.” Do-Seung took away the shopping bag behind him. His head seemed to clear a bit then.

“But why aren’t you exercising and standing in a corner like that? You usually exercise without a minute of rest.”

“What? I’m not at that level.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“So, what is it?... Did someone pick a fight with you or something?” Dong-Jun asked.

Do-Seung flinched a bit in surprise, but then, he quickly changed his expression and said, “I just suddenly got a muscle ache.”

“It would be stranger if you didn’t with the way you exercise.”

“So, do you want to also exercise since you are here?”

“…No.”

“No, just do it.”

“I said, I won’t.”

“I said, do it.’”

Then, Do-Seung forcefully stopped Dong-Jun who was trying to run away, and made him change into exercise clothes.

***

When Kang Hyun-Sung asked me if I had any worries, I couldn’t answer for a while and froze in my spot. Honestly, I shouldn’t have been this taken aback. It could still just be a standard question that a person could ask on a call, but the timing of his question had just been too perfect. It felt as if my feelings were found out somehow, and I was going to tell him I didn’t have any worries when Kang Hyun-Sung spoke first.

—I suppose it’s natural you will be worried. After all, you are preparing to debut.

This guy was so good at taking the lead. And well, at this point, there was no need for me to keep insisting that I had no worries since that would make me appear more worried instead.

“Yes, well, that’s true. Do you have any worries?” I asked.

—I also have many since I am preparing for our group’s debut.

There was a short pause. We were circling the issue instead of getting to the main topic. At times like this, it was better for someone to just get to the point since both Kang Hyun-Sung and I weren’t the types to strategize by hiding our cards.

“When is your debut date, senior?” I asked first.

—…

I heard another pause through the phone.

—…You just got right to the point without warning.

“Didn’t you call me to ask me this question too?”

—…Yes

“So then, let’s get to the point. It’s better for us to avoid each other if we can.”

There was another silence.

—We don’t have anything planned yet. Personally, I think we will do it around the middle of July.

“July?” It wasn’t bad. There were two months and a half left until then, and though it wasn’t much time, it was still enough for us to release an album within the time frame.

—When is Siren going to debut?

“We also have nothing decided yet.”

—But don’t you have an estimate?

I chewed my lips. Many things would change depending on how I answered.

‘If we debuted on the same week as Only One, we would hit either a jackpot or dig our graves.’ Because the rivalry set in The Showcase 2 could continue, it could create a good synergy effect that would draw in more attention.

‘But upon failure, either Only One or we could die.’

One side could consume all the attention and take away the growth of the other team. The amount of popularity and fame we could gain from one season was limited; and for Only One and us who needed to battle for the domestic idol market as newly debuted idols, we could both potentially fail to secure our positions and fall together by debuting together.

The progress of an idol career often rolled like a snowball. A little tilt, in the beginning, snowballed so that some groups became first-tiers while others couldn’t even step into the edge of third-tiers. In a situation where I needed our group to be first-tier at all costs, each step and decision we made felt extremely precious.

‘We need to reach 500,000 sales within this year…’ This was a game I was playing with Woon’s life in the line. Perhaps, it was better to place my coins on a safer bet even if I had to give up my Insight ability.

‘But in my past life, even Only One couldn’t go past 400,000 sales in the first week even after all that attention they got,’ I thought. This was the concern that hung on my mind. I wondered if we could really reach 500,000 sales no matter how well we did. The popularity and attention a new idol group could amass was limited since there were already idol groups capturing parts of the idol market.

‘Then…my only method could be stealing fans from other fandoms.’ We couldn’t just do well for trainees or could simply be one of the main groups in the idol business.

‘If we want to reach a first-tier group’s first-week sale count, we might need to become the only main group that season.’ All sorts of calculations passed through my head. I reviewed all the experiences I had gone through until now and assessed my members’ skills. Then, I calmly thought about how I could reach the best result realistically.

—…Are you planning to end the call after just listening to our information?

Kang Hyun-Sung pressured me then. I had finished my calculation by then. Though the system pushed me to a corner, it didn’t suggest me the wrong path.

“We are planning to release our album around June.”

I said June instead of July.

—Ah, yes. It’s best if we don’t overlap.

“No.” Though I said June, I didn’t plan to avoid Only One.

“Please prepare your group’s debut around June too,” I said. If I gave too much time to Only One, the quality of Only One’s album would be high since they were at a company with the industry’s best. Thus, it was more advantageous to us to give them a limited time frame since the only way to increase the quality of a project in a limited time frame was money.

‘And Next Wave is above Another One in terms of resources and money.’ Only One’s company was at best an Entertainment Company, yet our company was part of a chaebol business in the list of top five national companies.

‘If I manage to convince Yoo Won-Dong well, this is the best way.’

I made my call and passed it to him.

—Ha….Seriously…

It was now Kang Hyun-Sung’s turn to decide.