The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

The live broadcast was over. Though we had originally planned the broadcast to be one hour and thirty minutes long, it went on for a bit longer than we planned and stopped two hours later. Though I clearly remembered what happened in the first hour, the last hour was a haze.

It was because my members began to say anything on their minds after Woon responded awkwardly to the chatroom’s question about Hwang Jun-Kyul, and they wanted to take the viewers’ mind elsewhere.

‘It seems pretty ineffective though.’ Their actions appeared pointless.

“Haa. Good work you guys.”

“Yeah, you all worked hard.”

“Don’t think too badly about today’s broadcast~”

After we returned to the waiting room, we each said a word of encouragement to each other as comfort. Yet, Woon remained quiet till the end.

“Woon?”

“Woon hyung?”

Though Yeon-Hoon, Dong-Jun, and Do-Seung each called him, Woon didn’t say a word and kept his head low. It seemed he was still out of it after seeing that comment from the chatroom or perhaps, he was sorry to have broken our vow of silence about this topic. Considering Woon’s personality, it was probably more the latter.

“Woon.” I slowly approached Woon. I clutched his knees and quietly looked at Woon’s head. Because his face was covered by his hair, I couldn’t see his expression properly.

‘He's crying…?’ Yet, I could see tears hanging from his eyes. He wasn’t crying because he was happy or sad. Both his eyes were red, and the edges of his mouth were fixed in place. He was crying because he felt so angry about the situation.

I put more force into my hands. I could understand what he was feeling. He probably thought Hwang Jun-Kyul’s trick to replace him was all behind him and in the past. It probably made him angry that he injured his leg and couldn’t debut because of that, but considering Woon, he probably tried to think positively of the situation and overcome it.

Yet, what he thought he had overcome now kept coming back to haunt him. It popped out when he least expected it and disturbed him. Yet, I couldn’t simply tell him that I understood how he felt as if I knew everything. Acting as if I perfectly knew what he was feeling could actually hurt him instead and disrespect him. I wondered what I could say to comfort him.

“Woon.” It was then Do-Seung came over and crouched over Woon just like me. At Do-Seung’s call, Woon raised his head. The tears in his eyes looked as if it was going to burst any moment. Do-Seung looked intently at Woon, and it was then, I realized that it wasn’t my place to intervene and moved away from the area.

“Do you remember that time? You know when we were informed that our time as trainees of YM Entertainment was over?” Do-Seung asked and began to say things only he and Woon were aware of.

“That day, I sat by the emergency stairs and was crying my heart out. I felt things were so unfair, but do you remember what you told me then?”

Woon calmly looked down at Do-Seung. Though his lips were still stiffened in place, his expression seemed to have loosened up more than before.

“You said we will do better than them. You said we should just wait out five more years.”

Woon nodded lightly to Do-Seung’s words.

Do-Seung continued, “You said that those guys were fated to fail anyways from all their evil deeds.” It was as if Woon had been able to tell the future precisely in the past.

“And look at us now. We didn’t debut yet…but honestly, our situation is better than Vision.”

Woon slowly nodded at Do-Seung’s words.

“You were so strong and resolute then. So, even now, you will be able to quickly overcome this,” Do-Seung said. Hearing this, the edge of Woon’s mouth began to wiggle. Then, he hugged Do-Seungs head and spoke.

“Yeah…we can quickly overcome this…And we will do better than them,” Woon murmured and finally let the tears collecting in his eyes drop. For a while, the waiting room filled with Woon’s cries. Yet, his cries didn’t sound sad or regretful.

As if he just released all the emotions he had been keeping locked up, it felt like he was just letting everything go. There was a refreshing feeling about it and when Woon was able to organize his emotions a bit, he said, “Haa…Give me a tissue.”

“Ah, yeah.”

Perhaps, Woon cried too hard but his face was bright red.

“Sorry you guys…the mood became ruined because of me,” Woon said.

“Come on~ What’s wrong with that~” Dong-Jun plopped next to Woon’s side and tried to act brighter than usual to ease Woon’s worries.

“Yeah, Woon. It’s fine. You really went through so much,” Yeon-Hoon said and took a seat besides Woon.

“You are also crying now?”

“…No. I’m not crying. I’m really not…’ Perhaps, Yeon-Hoon was moved by Woon’s crying but his eyes also looked teary. “It’s just that you two…are so cool and impressive…hmm.”

Yeon-Hoon raised his head towards the ceiling to prevent his tears from streaming down. Woon burst into laughter seeing this.

“What…why are you laughing…!”

“No, it’s just that you are so cute.”

“No, I’m not…I’m so sad right now…”

“Here, have this tissue.”

“…Thank you.”

Yeon-Hoon blotted his teary eyes with the tissue. I worried about our team’s mood after the comment with Hwang Jun-Kyul, but…

‘It’s fine.’ As I thought, our bond wasn’t so weak that it would be broken down by something like this. I pulled out the phone at the corner of the sofa.

“Where is Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna?”

“Won’t they come soon?”

If they don’t come even ten minutes later, I will give them a call!”

While waiting for Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna to come, we decided to have our individual rest times.

‘I wonder what happened afterwards.’ I quickly went to check what sorts of events cascaded after Woon’s awkward pause on live broadcast.

‘…?’ Yet, things were moving much more rapidly than I expected. “Wait…” It was shocking to the point that I even gasped out loud without meaning to. All sorts of stories were coming out about Woon and Hwang Jun-Kyul and even Do-Seung and Yoon Dong-Hyuk.

‘The situation…is already concluded…?’ In the period where we came back from our live broadcast, cried, and comforted each other, the situation was already wrapped up. The crucial reason was because of the posts on NacePann with evidence attached to them. Perhaps, Woon and Do-Seung also checked the situation, but they were murmuring to themselves.

“Huh…? What…is this…?” Woon suddenly said.

“Why did my teacher suddenly…contact me…?” Do-Seung asked.

They seemed to have caught the general situation with a couple of searches.

“Whaat…! What in the world…!” Woon even gasped while looking at his phone. “Isn’t this a post written by…Hyun-Jung…?”

“I think Mr. Sung-Joon made this post…”

The two seemed to know who the writer behind these posts were immediately. I understood why Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna didn’t come back yet then.

‘They are probably reporting to the company on their phones right now.’ They were most likely coming up with the direction we should take in response to the incidents that occurred.

Bang!

And just at this perfect timing, the door opened and Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna came inside the room.

“Hello everyone. Thank goodness you are all here.”

“You all did a great job on the broadcast!”

“But…we have to quickly discuss with you all about something right now…”

“Can we do a briefing?”

Though Woon, Do-Seung, and I were aware of the situation through searching on the internet, Yeon-Hoon and Dong-Jun appeared completely startled by what was happening.

“…Huh?”

“What’s happening…?”

They looked like they had no idea what was going on.

***

While Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk were approaching their doom, this incident was spreading out from entertainment news to even social and more public news forms.

—These young kids only learned bad things while growing up

—Hahaha they are seriously meeting their doom

—So, who are these guys?

—It’s not just in dramas that trainees are at each other’s throats

There were various factors why this was becoming such big news. First, there was the fact that a truth that had been hidden in the past was finally being revealed. Then, there was the plagiarism issue that Koreans were particularly sensitive about. And finally, there was a clear evil and good in the story and a dramatic transformation of the weak to the strong.

—Wow, a seriously big issue blew up ahaha

The incident with Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk quickly spread across not just to a minority group of people who liked idols but also to men and women across the public. And with this, it wasn’t just Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk who were affected.

The idol group, Vision’s image and name became tarnished and after getting a quick whiff of the general situation, YM Entertainment made an official notice within just one hour that they were discussing the expellment of the two artists.

At first, they wanted to get a general sense of the public sentiments and said they were going through an internal inspection, but as they noticed that the public was responding worse than they expected, they cut off relations with the two. Yet, their behavior didn’t appear to improve Vision and YM Entertainment’s image in the slightest.

—Hahaha they tried to escape unscathed but failed

—Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves…You are all adults but acting so immorally…

The public didn’t become deceived by the company’s shady actions. Though the ones most at fault were Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk, it was clear the company also shared blame for burying the incident. Thus, the public raged at Vision and the YM Entertainment. Perhaps, all this had a trickle-down effect, but Siren, who had only recognition in the idol fandom, instantly also gained public recognition.

—Who is Siren?

—Wow, if it was me, I would’ve just quit and dropped out of the business altogether; he persevered so hard

—Hahaha I respect them

Though it wasn’t our intention, we were clearly enjoying the effects of noise marketing.

‘But this…is dangerous…’ Though it was great marketing, there were also people who were feeling a sense of danger. Siren’s youngest member, Bong Tae-Yoon sat alone in the dormitory and watched the situation progressing. He searched through articles about Siren, watched the Nutube videos, TikTak videos, and other social media sites.

Comments kept pouring one after the other as if they were getting mass-produced from factories. Most of the comments were pitying Siren as victims, paying their condolences and were angry, sad, and happy that they were finally enjoying success. For a group that hadn’t even debuted yet, this was a very big opportunity and simultaneously, a very dangerous situation.

“I think it’s about time to put a break to all this…”