The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

After finishing the live music show, we came back to our dorm and had a quiet dinner. Dong-Jun joined us on the music show live that day; at first, he seemed to ponder about whether he should really go up or not more than thousands of times, but he finally chose to go on stage. However, I was not sure that choice had been right.

“Dong-Jun…are you okay?”

“…Yes, I’m all right.”

He seemed to have overheard someone talking about him while walking around the hall today. He had been fine while waiting to go on stage in the waiting room, but his expression looked a little blank since he went to the bathroom. Fortunately, the stage ended without any major problems, but he showed no facial expressions in any situation other than the stage. His face was still expressionless at dinner time.

“Should I take out more of this side dish?” The members prepared a regular dinner menu, not a diet meal, for Dong-Jun today. Nevertheless, Dong-Jun couldn’t eat properly.

After leaving half of the rice, he said, “I’ll go in and rest. Sorry for dampening the mood. I’ll be all right soon.” Then Dong-Jun went into his room.

The four of us left at the table exchanged glances. It was a taciturn sign to discuss how this issue could be resolved.

“…I’ll go to the agency’s CEO’s office tomorrow and strongly appeal to him.”

“I’ll go with you. I don’t think this is a matter that we can resolve by ourselves.”

“Yeah, I agree. I want to go too, since I think this is a problem that will be solved only if the agency takes legal action.”

The members all planned to go to Yoo Won-Dong and ask him to solve the issue, and this was the most common solution.

Thus, I also said, “I’ll also go visit CEO Yoo Won-Dong.”

However, unlike them, I didn’t plan to go with my members. In order to have an open discussion with Yoo Won-Dong, I needed to go alone. Thus, I planned to go to Yoo Won-Dong as soon as it became tomorrow morning after finishing all my preparations tonight.

“Let’s eat first.”

The members began moving their chopsticks again. However, because we were all worried about Dong-Jun, the members didn’t finish their meals properly. Like this, we finished our meals in silence and put our utensils and plates in the sink.

“Since tomorrow is Monday, let’s sleep tight until after 9 o’clock. We have to save as much energy as we can at times like this.”

“Yes.”

“And let’s wake up tomorrow and go to work together around lunch.”

“I got it.”

“Good night.”

“See you tomorrow.”

My members and I went into our rooms, promising to go to work tomorrow.

***

It was 11 o’clock at night. Woon was already asleep. I slowly got myself out of bed. From here, it was about a half-hour drive from where the people who posted Dong-Jun’s libel were. It wasn’t very close, but it wasn’t very far off either. I came out of the dorm, wearing a hat deeply over my face and mask.

Then I took a secluded path around the apartment complex as much as I could and called a taxi. I had looked up the convenience store that Woon told me in advance. The taxi app told me it would arrive in about 5 minutes. I kept my head down even more, just in case anyone recognized me.

Then I took out a pair of non-prescription horn-rimmed glasses from my pocket and put them on. I bought it as a temporary measure to hide my identity, and I think I would get more attention if I wore sunglasses at night. I couldn’t get caught by anyone today, and I wasn’t going to leave any evidence for people to identify me.

“I really can’t recognize you after your disguise.”

“What the.” There was a big man standing behind me. “Do-Seung?” All kinds of thoughts passed through my mind. Had he followed me now? I wondered what excuses I made. However, his next words erased all my worries.

“Don’t worry. I’m not Do-Seung. I mean, I am Kang Do-Seung, but not this world’s Kang Do-Seung.”

“Ah.” Just as Woon switched today, it seemed as if Do-Seung had switched. “I roughly heard the whole situation in Do-Seung’s body. You don’t have to explain.”

“You can do that…?”

“You’re the one who did this. Why are you surprised?”

I didn’t have a thorough grasp of what I did, so I was surprised.

Do-Seung continued, “Anyway, I waited until the night and followed you because I thought you would do something suspicious.”

“…Really?”

“I thought you might be planning something by the way you were deep in thought during dinner time.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“When you’re deep in thought, you separate each grain of rice with your chopsticks. You didn’t know?”

“…Why the hell do you know such a thing? It’s annoying.”

“If you regress 15 times, you’ll know even the condition of everyone’s internal organs.”

“You’re joking.”

“You feel like something is pressing down your stomach every morning, don’t you? It’s reflux esophagitis. Stop pouring coffee into an empty stomach first thing in the morning.”

I literally got chills this time. He even saw through the chronic condition that I suffered alone and hadn’t told anyone. I couldn’t even grasp what he experienced through his 15 regressions.

“So why did you come out today?” Do-Seung noticed that I had been planning something, but he didn’t seem to know what I was going to do in detail. Well, if he knew that too, he would have been a god.

I said, “I’m going to order them to write an apology post and make them use real names to make it easier for us to file a defamation complaint by using Insight.”

“That’s not a bad idea. It’s short and simple too.”

“I’m just laying the groundwork so that situation can be overturned tomorrow,” I told Do-Seung the plan I made with Woon today word for word. Then a question popped up in my head.

“Did you also have a mission like this? During your regressions?” I wondered if Do-Seung also had a mission that both Woon and I had.

“No, I didn’t. This is the first time I went through something like this.”

Do-Seung said that even though he regressed 15 times, Dong-Jun’s attitude controversy never erupted. This meant that events were not always the same among all regressors.

‘That’s interesting.’ Since he regressed 15 times, I thought this mission would overlap at least once, but it seemed anything was possible.

Do-Seung asked, “Did you call that taxi?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get on.”

Do-Seung and I got on the taxi that arrived just in time. The taxi left towards the place I had set up in advance. Do-Seung and I didn’t talk at all during the ride, and we only thought about what was the best way to resolve this issue.

***

Kim Won-Joong laughed like a madman, relishing the comments that criticized Park Dong-Jun one by one.

“Payment.”

“…”

“I want to pay for this.”

“Ah, fuck.”

“…What?”

Kim Won-Joon accidentally spat out a curse word to a customer. While he was thinking this wasn’t even a big deal—

“Did you just say fuck to me?”

“Ah…no, sir. I was just talking to my friend…and accidentally said it. While texting him…” However, after realizing that the person in front of him was a big man, he quickly changed his attitude. Kim Won-Joong quickly completed the payment and greeted the customer.

“That fucking bastard, he acts so fucking tough. Just cause he’s a bit big…” After calming down for a while, he turned his eyes back to his phone.

He hadn’t expected Park Dong-Jun to be criticized this must from a post he had written himself. It felt as if an existence that stood far above and always looked down on him was falling to the same level as him from a lie he wrote. No, considering how he felt now, it felt like Park Dong-Jun was beneath his feet. It was an indescribable feeling to look down at an existence he had always looked up to.

Kim Won-Joong smiled joyfully at the growing public criticism of Park Dong-Jun in real life. Frankly, the public criticism towards his post garnered as much public criticism towards Park Dong-Jun. However, Kim Won-Joon didn’t care in the least about that. He only focused on the fact that his writing was ruining Park Dong-Jun’s life and savored each and every comment criticizing Park Dong-Jun. And while he was consoling his inferiority complex by watching videos made by trolls criticizing Park Dong-Jun—

“Are you the one who wrote Park Dong-Jun’s bullying scandal?”

“…Excuse me?”

Two big shadows suddenly appeared in front of him. Kim Won-Joong took his eyes off his phone and looked up at the two large men standing in front of him. Despite wearing a hat, mask, and glasses and covering most of their faces, he could recognize who they were.

“…What? The hell.” He had looked at Park Dong-Jun all day today, and Siren was the group to which Park Dong-Jun belonged to. Thus, he instantly knew they were two members of Siren. He wondered why they had come to find him and what they were planning to do to him. While he was flustered and had no clue what they were planning—

Ziiiiing—! His head suddenly began to ache like crazy. His vision grew blurry, and his body fell as if he was being sucked into a deep pit. In a situation where he felt like he couldn’t lift a finger, one command rang out with the intensity to burst his whole body.

—Change the initials in the posts to real names.

He couldn’t think of anything else besides this command, and he just carried out the orders that had been set.

***

It was my first time using Insight to command someone to do such a long and detailed task. The culprit, who wrote the post, was in the convenience store as Woon said. It wasn’t difficult to identify him as the culprit as he had been looking at Dong-Jun’s posts on his phone for a long time. He was even chuckling while watching a malicious and slanderous video of Dong-Jun made by a cyber troll. Nevertheless, I used Insight to make sure that he was indeed the culprit.

—Fuck. Is there any way I can ruin this bastard’s life even more thoroughly? It would be nice if I could just drag him down a little more. A little more, just a little more. Until his life is into fucking shambles…

I saw raw, pure malice from his head. I was fuming as soon as I heard his thoughts and almost split his head then and there, but I barely managed to reel in my anger and said, “Are you the one who wrote Park Dong-Jun’s bullying scandal?”

I asked him if he was the one who wrote the post about Dong-Jun. Honestly, I didn’t even need to hear the answer. The moment he looked up at me, I saw fear on his face. I found it ridiculous that Dong-Jun was suffering so much from a person who was intimidated by a mere face-to-face encounter. I activated Insight without delay and gave orders.

The first order was to change all the initials to real names. It was easy up to this point. The next part took a lot of my mental strength, and it was ordering him to write and post an apology with only the truth. Since it took time to write the post, and he had to write down the sentences himself, it required a lot of brain activity.

I realized something new that day. The greater the brain activity needed for an order, the greater the rebound.

“Are you okay? You have a nosebleed…!”

After all the orders were given, I got a serious nosebleed. While I was blocking it with my hand, Do-Seung took out a tissue from the convenience store and handed it to me. However, I couldn’t stop from here. When the bastard in front of me finished writing an apology and even posted it, I used Insight for the last time today.

“Forget that you saw us and delete the CCTV records.” After giving orders up to here—

Ziiing—!

I didn’t even try to stop, but my Insight broke.

“What the hell! Bong Tae-Yoon!”

At the same time, I lost consciousness.