The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

My head was in a mess. I didn’t have an inkling as to who the twenty-seventh regressor was or what nth regressor I was. Continuing on that, I still had no idea what the identity of this system was. In the beginning, I simply thought the system was like a god.

There were times when I thought it could be a demon who placed bets on my companions’ lives and drove me to the toughest corners. Yet, seeing how all the results ended favorably for us every time, I thought it could also be a god-like entity. But after hearing the twenty-seventh regressor’s words and Do-Seung who attempted to kill me just now, I didn’t know what to think.

‘Perhaps, it’s simply a phenomenon that loops for infinity.’ I thought perhaps, this wasn’t the work of some divine or evil entity but a mechanical existence that simply repeated the same sequence of events. Befitting the nickname I gave it, this ‘system’ could be nothing more than a part of a giant mechanism.

It could be a machine that simply received the command, ‘Lock Siren in a regression loop and make them suffer forever’ and could be tormenting us until eternity. I thought the system was our assistant, but was that not it? Perhaps, it could be our final villain boss that was driving us into madness.

“Tae-Yoon, are you listening to me right now…?” Yeon-Hoon asked me then.

“Ah…Sorry?” Because I was so focused on thinking about the system and regression, I didn’t know what was happening in the real world. Now that I regained my senses, I realized that my members were staying close to my side and looking at me with great concern.

“Why…do I look strange?” I asked.

“Are you seriously asking us? You don’t answer any of our questions and you are dripping in cold sweat. Even when we were approaching you, you didn’t realize it and stared blankly at your desk.” Yeon-Hoon said in frustration.

“Tae-Yoon…are you sick? Should we go to the hospital?” Woon placed his hand on my shoulder and asked.

“Are you hungry? Should we go eat something?” Dong-Jun grabbed my hand and asked.

“Do you have a fever?” Do-Seung extended his hand out to touch my forehead.

Slap. I instinctively struck Do-Seung’s hand away, hard.

“…?”

“…Tae-Yoon.”

“Ah…I’m sorry.”

Do-Seung looked at me wide-eyed in shock and Woon and Dong-Jun also stared at me in astonishment.

“I just… sweated a lot so…I didn’t want anyone touching me,” I explained, but it didn’t change the awkward atmosphere.

“Ah…yeah, it’s understandable,” Do-Seung smiled awkwardly, but he appeared shocked that I had slapped his hand away so roughly.

“Um…Is everyone okay…?”

“Mr. Tae-Yoon, should we search a hospital…?”

Not just us but Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna were also at the conference room and looked concerned.

“Ah, I’m fine.” I forced a smile on my face and replied, “I just…need to go to the bathroom for a bit. You don’t have to worry about me.” I got up from my chair and left the room.

“I will follow him.” Yeon-Hoon also got up to follow me. I wanted to tell him not to follow me, but because I understood my members’ feelings, I let him be. Then, when I went to the bathroom and saw my face in the mirror, I realized why my members had been so concerned.

“Ha…Seriously…” I had broken out in cold sweat all over my body, and my complexion looked very pale. I turned on cold water and splashed my face. Then, I wiped the water droplets with a paper towel and looked at the mirror again. Yeon-Hoon was staring at me from behind in the back of the bathroom. The face reflected in the mirror looked very worried.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m suddenly acting like this. I think…I just got nervous thinking that we were really going to debut now.” I just made up any words that came to my word to ease his worries.

“Did you meet the second regressor?”

“…Sorry?”

In the mirror, Yeon-Hoon suddenly asked me about the second regressor. I flicked my head around in shock, and then, my surroundings turned black.

Shaaaa! Yeon-Hoon wasn’t where he should be. I was also no longer in the bathroom. There was no sky or earth, and there was only darkness around me.

‘What is this…!’ If I was locked up somewhere, I thought I could try to find an exit, but there was only darkness here. I didn’t know whether my eyes were open or not. All I could say was, “Yeon-Hoon…?”

I didn’t think it was the system that created this situation but Yeon-Hoon who had spoken to me through the mirror. The system had never placed me in a space with only darkness like this. I quietly looked around my surroundings. There was a time when I thought a whole other entity possessed Yeon-Hoon’s body, but after going through what I did today, I had an idea of who this entity was.

“What regressor are you…?” I thought this entity inside Yeon-Hoon’s body right now and the one who locked me in this dark space wasn’t just anyone but Yeon-Hoon who had gone through multiple regressions. Hearing this, Yeon-Hoon began to walk out of the darkness.

“That’s not very important.”

How could he say it wasn’t? I stared at the existence before me. He clearly had the appearance and exterior of Yeon-Hoon. The way he talked, his voice, and his gaze were all like Yeon-Hoon but simultaneously, not at the same time. It felt as if I was looking at two separate entities at once.

“Listen to me carefully, Tae-Yoon. It’s not succeeding the missions that are important.”

“What…?”

“You won’t be able to achieve what you want by following someone else’s orders.”

“What do you mean?”

“Return to the very beginning.”

“What?”

After saying words I couldn’t understand, Yeon-Hoon left. Instead of answering my questions, he left me with more questions rising to my mind.

Shooooong! The black space seemed to constrict until it became as tiny as a dot and I returned to the bathroom.

“Hmph!” I felt my legs give out. I quickly clutched onto the bathroom sink and supported myself.

“Tae-Yoon!” Yeon-Hoon, who had been waiting for me from behind, approached me. “Are you really okay? Let’s go to the hospital! I’m really so worried about you…” Yeon-Hoon crossed his arms with mine and said.

I stared at Yeon-Hoon. He had a completely different atmosphere from the Yeon-Hoon who I saw in the dark space. I stretched out my hand towards Yeon-Hoon. I could reach for him and touch him, unlike the other Yeon-Hoon.

“Why…What is it, Tae-Yoon…?”

“No, it’s nothing.” I withdrew my hand. “Let’s go.”

I tried to go back to the conference room. We didn’t have much time before the debut and I thought I took up too much time right now.

“Let’s go to the hospital first. What are you doing?” Yeon-Hoon said in astonishment. “You were breaking out in cold sweat in the conference room and wobbling in the bathroom. If you refuse to go to the hospital in this state, it’s like you want us to worry about you.”

“No…but.”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses! Let’s just go!” Yeon-Hoon shouted in anger and dragged me outside. Yeon-Hoon was rarely persistent like this but he appeared very angry right now.

“Okay…” In the end, I had no choice but to go to the hospital.

***

As expected, the doctors at the hospital told me there was nothing wrong with me. Though they could do more detailed inspections, they said that they doubted anything would come up when all my results were coming out as normal. It was natural since I wasn’t really sick but just suffered the side effects of using the system.

When I returned to the company building from the hospital, Dong-Jun, Do-Seung, and Woon were still listening to songs in the conference room.

“What did the hospital say? Was there anything wrong?” Do-Seung asked first.

“Yeah, they say he’s healthy! Since he’s slightly underweight, they just told him to eat well.”

“Ah…thank goodness.”

“Sorry for making you all worried.”

I apologized to my members. It felt like I had ruined the mood on an important day when we were deciding our debut day.

“No, it’s fine.”

“It’s good that you don’t have any problems.”

“Since we are all here together like this, let’s choose our title song and album tracklist.”

Yeon-Hoon and I sat on the conference room chair. But before that, I thought I had to mention something else.

“I’m sorry for pushing your hand away that time. I was just surprised that time,” I said.

“Ah, that time? It’s fine. I already forgot about it.” Do-Seung smiled. He had looked hurt when I slapped his hand away that time but it seemed he understood because of how bad my state looked.

“Okay, then let’s talk about the songs~” Dong-Jun got his laptop and turned on the music.

“Are the songs that Do-Seung wrote also included in the list?” I asked.

“Yeah, there is. So, I won’t vote but just watch you guys,” Do-Seung said he would just watch us. I thought this was quite a cruel way to decide the songs, considering that we could not choose his songs.

“I’m not worried because my song will get chosen,” Do-Seung said with his arms crossed and backed away.

“Oh~ That confidence~ I want to purposefully pick something else now.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just joking~”

Dong-Jun and Do-Seung bickered like they usually did. There was a total of ten songs on the list, and we needed to choose three among them. And among the three songs, we needed to choose the title song.

“While you and Yeon-Hoon were at the hospital, we all listened to the songs once each. But we are going to go through it again to vote,” Woon explained and took a seat beside me.

“Then, I will really turn it on now~” Dong-Jun pressed the space button on his laptop and played the song. Though I already listened to a little bit of this playlist this morning, it made me a bit nervous that I was listening to make my vote this time.

Soon after, I listened to all the songs and it was time for us to collect our votes.

“Raise your hand if you thought the fourth song was the best.”

“Okay, put your hands down now. Now, raise your hand if you liked the sixth song the best…”

We all lowered our hands and only raised our hands according to Do-Seung’s voice. In the end, the song that received the most votes were:

“The third song got the unanimous vote while the sixth and seventh songs got three votes each.”

Thus, the third, sixth, and seventh songs were chosen.

“They are all songs written by me,” Do-Seung said.

“What?”

“That’s crazy.”

“I literally just got the chills.”

Woon, Yeon-Hoon, and I genuinely felt chills that Do-Seung had written all three songs that we liked the best. I didn’t know if our ears were trained to like his music by now, but I realized how impressive Do-Seung’s talents were again. Only Dong-Jun protested.

“This is a hoax! Do-Seung is lying!”

“You think I will be crazy enough to manipulate such important results!”

“There’s no way all these three songs are yours!”

“Dong-Jun, you were the only one to have raised your hand at all three of my songs, so what are you saying?”

“Ah, anyways, this is a hoax!” Dong-Jun yelled and Do-Seung sighed. Like this, our debut song was decided.

“Can we immediately work on the lyrics now?”

“Yeah.”

It was my turn to write the lyrics.

“I will write the drafts by today evening and try to finish all three songs by tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Don’t push yourself too much.”

“You know that I usually write fast.” Then, I asked Do-Seung to send me the song files by mail. But rather than working on the lyrics, something else hung on my mind.

“You won’t be able to achieve what you want by following someone else’s orders.’ This was what Yeon-Hoon told me in the black space.

‘Was he saying that I shouldn’t follow the system’s missions?’ I wondered. But if I didn’t follow them, Woon would die.

‘Hm.’ I felt conflicted. ‘He told me to go back to the very beginning.’ I recalled what he told me.

‘No way.’

A frightening thought came to my mind.