The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

I must have heard the mission wrong. When I wanted to listen to it again, this damn system kindly recited the mission. However, it was the same content even if I heard it again. Our group needed to enter the Billboard Hot 100 within three months. In the event of failure, Do-Seung and Woon would die, and the worldlines that I worked hard to attach together would be separated from me.

Furthermore, there was no reward for this ridiculous mission. With this level of balance, the system was basically just pushing me to die. Why did this mission come out? There was only one thing that came to mind.

‘Was it because I approached the worldline?” The only reasonable answer to this ludicrous situation was because I had seen the worldline in that short moment. Since I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, I thought the system was telling me to pay the corresponding price or die. I had never lost strength in my legs after hearing a mission, but today, my legs lost strength on the way down to the backstage.

“Bong Tae-Yoon?”

“What? What happened?” Thanks to Do-Seung holding me, I didn’t fall on the stairs.

“Did Tae-Yoon almost get hurt? Are you okay?”

“Are you hurt?”

“Is it because you’re tired…We should really eat a lot of nutritional food today.”

“Let’s really have a cheat day today!”

“…Well, it would be good to eat something delicious on a day like this. Haha.” Since I couldn’t ruin this atmosphere, I went along with my members’ vibes. Dong-Jun and Yeon-Hoon smiled brightly and moved to the waiting room while Do-Seung and Woon, who supported me, were left behind.

I said, “Let’s go too guys. Since this is a day to celebrate, let’s only leave good memories.” I didn’t want to ruin the members’ mood on the day we won first place. But…

“Bong Tae-Yoon, are you okay?”

“What happened to you?”

They held me back. I stared at Do-Seung and Woon and instinctively realized the change.

“Guys?”

“Did…you get a weird mission?”

“What in the world did you get?”

Do-Seung and Woon were currently switched with their regressor state.

***

I moved to the emergency stairs with Do-Seung and Woon. The most deserted place around here was currently here. It was time for everyone to get off work, and there was no structure here worth taking a commemorative photo. After checking that there were no people up and downstairs, we began conversing.

“What’s going on?” Woon talked first.

“…I got the Billboard Hot 100 mission.”

“Billboard?”

“Right now?”

Do-Seung and Woon’s eyes widened as soon as I mentioned the word ‘Billboard’.

“It’s a mission that shouldn’t come out now?”

“That mission should have come out after getting the grand prize…Why is that coming out for you when you guys just won first place on a music show?”

Just as I expected, it was not a mission that should have popped up in our current circumstances. I also told them the failure penalty for this mission.

“We’re going to die?”

“It’s the first mission where two people die at the same time…”

Although the separation of the worldline was also a penalty, I didn’t reveal that information. Our conversation would get too long if I explained that information, and I thought it might not be the information that I needed right now.

“…Why is only your regression’s progress strange?”

“It feels like…the system is out to get me.”

Do-Seung and Woon looked at me with concern.

“Do you have a plan in mind?”

“No. I just heard the mission, so I didn’t have any time to make plans or whatsoever.”

“What’s the time limit?”

“Three months.”

“You have to get into the Billboard Hot 100 in three months…”

“Geez…”

Do-Seung and Woon’s expressions looked deeply troubled.

“How long did it take you guys to first enter the Billboard chart/”

“In our third year.”

“Me too.”

“Really?”

“After getting a grand prize after the end of our second year, we first got into Billboard 200 in our third year with our full album comeback.”

“I think getting into Billboard 100 took a little longer than that.”

My future looked even more bleak after hearing them. Even my members who regressed multiple times and overcame all kinds of strenuous trials entered the Billboard chart in 3 years. Furthermore, they said it took them a bit longer to get into Billboard 100 after first entering the Billboard 100 chart. Thus, in other words, entering the Billboard Hot 100 within three months was basically telling me to give up the mission and start my regression from scratch.

“…Tae-Yoon.”

“Hmm…”

“I really didn’t want to tell you this but…It may be better for you to quickly give up on this mission.” Do-

The members must have thought the same as me as they told me to give up on the mission.

“Regression is difficult the first time, but once you do it the first time, you get a bit used to it.”

“Yeah, it might be better to give up when such a ridiculous mission like this comes out. If you regress because of someone else’s failure or because of an external incident, hatred will only grow in your heart.”

“That’s right. Since you’ll be failing because of how ridiculous the mission is, you don’t have anyone to blame even if you fail. Regressing might be the answer for this kind of situation.”

I looked at Woon and Do-Seung. I knew that they weren’t wrong but…

“I don’t want to.”

“Tae-Yoon?”

“Hmm…”

“I’m…not going to regress twice.” I didn’t want to lose what I had already lost twice. Woon and Do-Seung could say that because they had already regressed multiple times. However, I felt extremely reluctant to follow their advice, considering that I hadn’t even gone through the first regression yet.

“I’m going to end everything with this one regression to the best of my ability.”

“…”

“…End?”

Woon and Do-Seung looked at me curiously when I said the word finish.

“But there’s…no end?”

“Didn’t I tell you that the missions don’t end?”

Woon and Do-Seung seemed to think that I was dreaming a hopeless dream. I also knew that according to my members, the missions didn’t end. Whetherwe got the Grammys or made a new world record, the system kept giving new missions as if they were testing us how long we could hold out.

“All we can do is..repeat our lives as many times as this system allows. So instead, we can at least be happy for that amount of time.”

“It’s easier if you think of it as being given multiple opportunities even though no one lives till the end.”

I stared at Woon and Do-Seung. For the first time, I got a different feeling from them and me. I had always thought of them as strong and supportive advisors who had my back, but I had forgotten one fact.

‘That’s right…This is normal.’ They were people who had already regressed more than 10 times. It was only natural their hearts had been damaged in the process, and I was sure that a part of their humanity had been worn out. I had overlooked this aspect.

I looked at them again but with a new-found affection and regret. Although I respected and liked Do-Seung and Woon, I had the mind of a person who only regressed once.

I said, “I don’t want to think like that.” I thought that ironically, from the moment I repeat my regression, I would move further away from completely clearing the missions. Although it might be hopeless, I tried to think about the moment when the missions would be over.

“Then…How are you going to end these endless missions?” Woon asked.

“First…I don’t have a specific method in mind, but I’m going to take a similar approach to what I’ve been doing.”

“What have you been doing?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to keep challenging the system, try to figure out the system’s mystery, and if I continue with that, I’ll probably find a gap in the system at least once. You guys know it too—the system is not perfect. If it was perfect, your memories wouldn’t have been overlaid with this world.”

Do-Seung and Woon silently listened to me without a word. It was true that they had regressed much more than me, but I was the one who dug deeper into the system.

“…I can’t argue against that.”

“Since you’ve been solving the missions in a different way than us…I’m sure the result would be different from ours.”

Woon and Do-Seung laughed a bit bitterly as they spoke.

“Then let’s go back to the beginning…How do we reach that Hot 100 mission?”

“If you don’t want to regress again, you have to accomplish that mission anyhow.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Shall we first each tell you the songs that made it to the top 100?”

“What?”

“They’re our songs in the end.”

“Yeah.”

Woon and Do-Seung said they would tell me the songs that made it to the top 100.

“Although I don’t know how you would use this information, I think it would help if you know about it.”

Although there was no guarantee that a song would make it to Billboard 100 just because it was good, it was also true that the probability of getting in that chart increased if it was a good song.

“Then would you be able to record the top line and overall mood of that song?”

“Yeah.”

“Take out your phone.”

Woon and Do-Seung sang the future hot 100 song on my phone. It wasn’t very impressive because they sung it flatly without any accompaniment, but…

“…Guys.”

“Yeah?”

I asked, “Did I write the lyrics of those songs?”

“Oh.”

“That’s right.”

“As expected, a lyricist recognizes his own song.” Surprisingly, I must have also written lyrics in another universe.

I was able to notice it quickly because I’ve never seen anyone else use those words or sentences in song lyrics other than myself. But that wasn’t the important part.

“Then…Shall we go to the waiting room now?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go for now.”

“We’ll turn on a v-live right away, right?”

“Since we won first place today, we have to turn it on for the fans.”

I paused before opening the emergency stairway door. Then I asked a question that suddenly came to mind.

“But right now, you two are switched with the Woon and Do-Seung of this world, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.”

“Then if you switch back to the original Do-Seung and Woon…How would they remember these conversations we had?”

“It naturally blurs out.”

“Blurs?”

“The memories are changed into old memories that feel just out of reach like smoke covering up a picture.”

“Yeah. The important parts are gone, and I think they just remember vaguely where they went.”

It seemed like a very convenient ability. Or maybe the system that managed this universe naturally created that buffer zone so that various data didn’t collide against each other. Well, I thought it would be enough if it wasn’t a problem right away. I was going to open the emergency door and go out to the waiting room when—

Creak.

The door opened outside before I could open it. I grabbed the door handle and tried to turn it around, but I was pulled outside instead. The person who turned the door outside the emergency stairway door was no other than—

“Huh? What? Were you all here? Yeon-Hoon and I’ve looking for you guys forever~”

“Ah…”

It was Dong-Jun.

‘But wait a minute… ‘ Woon, Do-Seung and I had conversed right behind the door just now, and Dong-Jun was behind this door.

‘Considering where he was, he definitely heard us?’ Anyhow I looked at it, Dong-Jun must have 100% overheard our conversation.