The First Broadcast (2)
“Neoul, what did you say back then?”
Baek Gi-yeom asked.
Neoul jerked his chin toward the screen and stuffed his mouth full of food. It meant: watch and you’ll see.
Baek Yuri, who had not known that Neoul had interviewed him, stared in shock.
“Cough!”
Hey! What are you saying that for? You madman!
Baek Yuri bowed his head low, barely managing to hide his trembling pupils.
Meanwhile, the Neoul on-screen went on shamelessly.
Neoul was not especially gifted at lying.
But he did know how to make a lie sound plausible. He simply mixed truth into it.
A lie mixed with truth sounded even more like the truth.
It was what he called a true lie.
It was a tremendous relief that the interview had taken place after they learned Yuri was human. Thanks to that, he could say it had all been a joke.
If it had been before then... they might have found out that Neoul had genuinely been after Baek Yuri’s liver.
“Ah, so that’s what happened?”
Baek Gi-yeom brushed it off without much concern and turned back to the screen.
Neoul shot a glance at the camera that had been recording them in full from the start, then smiled faintly.
As if to say it had all been a joke.
And then!
Thump, thump, thump.
Thud!
A caption appeared over the sight of Neoul hopping along only to keep falling over.
Could this Gal Neoul contestant not walk properly and kept tripping...?
— Why is he like that?
— ?
— What is that
Somehow, some way, Baek Yuri helped Neoul move along, and then the screen showed Yuri holding a microphone and starting to sing without accompaniment.
— Holy crap
— He’s really good
— It’s summer. So freaking summer.
— Memory manipulation is insane T_T
After Baek Yuri finished the song by Seoseim, famous for its difficulty, Neoul took the microphone.
— Oh, so we get to hear the mermaid prince sing?
— Is Gal Neoul good at singing?
— YES!!!!!
— His tone is just insane
— A legend!!!
— To have that face and sing that well too... he has everything T_T
— He sang the signal song so well too
As Gal Neoul began humming into the microphone, the chat that had been racing upward went still all at once. It was as though everyone had frozen mid-gesture.
Neoul looked at his past self on the screen.
Seeing and hearing his own past like this was strange, amusing, and a little embarrassing all at once.
Wet hair, a robe, a bag dripping with water... everything looks like a beggar’s mess.
Having swum from far away, he was exhausted, and even his humming came out rather weak. When it ended, Neoul coolly judged his own appearance.
“That does seem a bit... foolish.”
Baek Gi-yeom and Woo Cheong kept their eyes fixed on the screen, clapping in admiration.
“Wow, the finest fool of all.”
“A splendid fool, Raccoon Brother!”
Ha On-ha and Yeo Do-bin added their own contributions.
“The most outstanding fool in the world~”
“What’s a fool? What does fool mean? Best singer?”
“Yeah~ Something like that~”
Which left Neoul with an ambiguous expression.
Was that a compliment? Not a compliment? An insult that sounded like a compliment...?
Whether Neoul was satisfied with himself or not, the open chat was filling at a frantic pace with praise and exclamations.
On-screen, Neoul once again went hopping along, only to be carried forward like luggage by Baek Yuri.
Baek Yuri:Baek! Yu! Ri! Neoul!
— Baek Yuri is insanely strong lol
— His voice is amazing
— He’s just shouting, but the projection though...
— Is Gal Neoul’s leg hurting?
— If it hurt, how could he be jumping like that? He’s not even limping.
The parts where they wiped themselves down with towels, borrowed slippers, and got on the bus were all edited out.
Instead, all ten candidates for the signal song were shown seated on the bus at once, and then their faces passed by one after another until Neoul’s close-up shot flashed onto the screen for a moment.
He tilted his head at the camera, then smiled.
— OMG
— I’m done for
— Holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap
— Am I in heaven?
— It was a good life..
Then came a few exchanges as everyone got acquainted with one another, and at last, the problem scene appeared.
Baek Yuri, Woo Cheong, and Ha On-ha, who had all been there at the time, went deathly pale.
They had never imagined this scene would be aired exactly as it happened. It was the sort of thing that could get savaged online, so naturally they had assumed it would be edited out. Or at least, that it wouldn’t appear in episode one.
Baek Yuri covered his mouth, Woo Cheong clapped both hands over his ears, and Ha On-ha widened his eyes while keeping his ears open.
— What is Gal Neoul?
— ?
— What does he mean, the souls stink?
— Cigarettes.
— Bad breath.
— So Kim Ji-rok must smoke.
— He’s an adult, so why can’t he smoke lol
— But he’s a singer?
— Lungs rotting + voice ruined
— Gal Neoul is insane lol. Look at how disrespectful he is to the hyungs.
— Why is he like that?
— Acting up on the first meeting...
— No, lol, Neoul’s tone is polite but the content isn’t polite at all lol what is this lol
— Seems like Kim Ji-rok and Gye Tae-seok have really bad breath lol What an embarrassment.
— Even if it smells, isn’t it rude to say that to someone’s face when you’ve just met? He seems badly raised.
— If he acts like that in front of cameras, imagine what he’s like off-camera.
— So he’s the kind of face that’s all value and no character lol wow, he’s rotten inside too lol
— Ugh, that’s too much.
— I thought he seemed nice, what is this T_T
— What... I liked both of them, but they just became unlikeable.
Baek Yuri reached for the smartphone he had left carelessly on the table, as if he intended to flip it over. It seemed better for Neoul not to see this.
But by then Neoul had already seen everything. A single tear slid silently down from his eye.
“Are you crying...?”
“What? Neoul hyung is crying?”
“N-Neoul, are you all right...?”
Starting with Baek Yuri’s question, everyone turned in surprise to look.
Neoul lowered his gaze with a deeply subdued expression.
“My tongue...”
His tongue? Did he mean he wanted to rip out the tongues of the people who were cursing?
Or that humans really did have long tongues?
They were worrying that maybe they should turn off the camera before Neoul said anything worse, but then he cried out with a look of grievance and pain.
“My tongue feels as if it’s been cut off...!”
At that very moment, the quiet window outside flashed bright, and thunder rolled with a crash as if answering Neoul’s emotions.
Baek Yuri misheard him and recoiled in horror.
“You’re going to cut people’s tongues out?!”
“Pardon? What a horrifying thing to say!”
Neoul looked at Baek Yuri strangely, then pointed at the bright red food.
“You must not eat this! It’s poisoned!”
Looking more closely, he was holding a spoon coated in red sauce.
Representative Won Hasin ordered this dreadful thing because he planned to poison me!
It was far spicier than the ramen or kimchi stew he had tried before, so no matter how he thought about it, it could only be poison.
“Ahahahahaha!”
Ha On-ha, the first to understand the situation, slapped the floor and burst out laughing.
“It’s tteokbokki! You said you couldn’t handle spicy food, so why were you picking it up and eating it~”
The youngest, Ko Un-gu, who had been startled stiff a moment earlier, instantly relaxed at that and shouted, “Ah! What is this! You scared me!”
“Huh? Is the tteokbokki really that spicy? I ordered the mild version... I even added cheese?”
Woo Cheong, puzzled, picked up his chopsticks.
“It’s fine though? It tastes kind of like malatang!”
At Woo Cheong’s blasé review, one by one the others picked up their chopsticks too.
They had all been tensed up the whole time, too busy monitoring the screen to even think about eating, but seeing Neoul eat tteokbokki and start spouting nonsense from the heat made the whole thing so ridiculous that their nerves dissolved all at once.
Ha On-ha stepped toward the window and asked, “But didn’t thunder just strike? Shouldn’t we turn the TV off?”
They opened the window and checked the night sky. The moon and stars were visible everywhere else, but only around the house had clouds gathered. It was a strange sight. As they stared out, thankfully there was no further sign of thunder or lightning.
“Umm... I don’t think it’s doing it anymore...? We can probably keep watching.”
Yeo Do-bin came to the window as well and looked out at the sky.
Meanwhile, the Japanese member Daiki tried the tteokbokki out of curiosity, only to burst into tears and search desperately for water.
“This is pocktan! Tastes like a pocktan!”
He meant it was explosively, horribly spicy. Yeo Do-bin, the Korean-Australian, tried one too, then stiffened and hissed sharply through his teeth. The tongue-numbing heat made his pupils dart around.
“Oh, Mum’s tteokbokki wasn’t this spicy...”
“Aigoo, these foreigners~”
Baek Gi-yeom snatched the chicken breast salad from Baek Yuri and handed probiotic drinks to the three who couldn’t handle spice.
Neoul finished an entire pack of the sweet drink, then soothed his burning mouth with greasy fried food and cheese balls.
Once his mouth had calmed down a little, he fixed his eyes on the screen with a face that showed he cared nothing at all about the edits or the comments.
— No, how rotten would the smell have to be for him to react like that? I’ve got a sensitive nose too, and I can never keep my face straight on the subway. Maybe their breath really was that bad.
— Breath from hell lol
— ?? So now we’re defending that?
— He should’ve held it in. Basic manners. Gal Neoul seems to have zero social skills.
— He talks fine with everyone else though. Is this selective sociality?
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, only one side was not getting flak. There was more criticism, but little by little there were also comments defending Neoul.
Baek Yuri picked up his smartphone, checked the viewers’ reactions, and swallowed a sigh.
On TV, the signal song was unveiled. The show moved past the interview footage, gave airtime to the contestants who had stayed behind at the beach to busk, and finally showed the production staff packing up and leaving.
Baek Gi-yeom’s face, smiling brightly with cool, open features, appeared on the screen. His lightly tanned skin made his smile look especially healthy and energetic.
The scene rewound, showing the count of people boarding the bus.
Back to the present.
Baek Gi-yeom’s audition footage flashed by briefly.
It showed him performing with slick but not excessive gestures and a chewy, satisfying rap.
— Whoa, what is this?
— lol I came after seeing the preview, and here it is at last
— Sudden horror genre shift;;
— Baek Gi-yeom’s smile is insane
— ?
— Please give us more of that rap T_T It was too short T_T
— Goosebumps...
— Huh?
How on earth had this happened?
Three hours earlier.
Baek Gi-yeom, who had hidden inside the turtle-shell tube he had drawn, was mistaken by the production crew for a randomly selected ordinary contestant from the local area.
A beach visitor, unaware that a contestant was inside, placed a beach towel on top of the tube.
Much later,
— ???
— Right, Baek Yuri did a mission with Gal Neoul lol
— Did the partner switch?
— Baek Gi-yeom must have been so wronged T_T He couldn’t even do the busking stage T_T
— Huh.
The production crew, who had mistaken Gal Neoul playing in the sea for an ordinary contestant newly selected on site, had been completely fooled.
— Lmao
— Yeah, that face is confusing enough to make that mistake
— What is this lol Gal Neoul is insane lol Why is he so naturally joining in after swimming around?
— No lol He got picked up by accident and somehow became the visual main vocal lol
— As a mermaid prince, I ended up on an idol survival show?
— What is that above me lol Is that a web novel?
— Huh? If he’s not a contestant, why is he singing?
— lol??
— Gal Neoul is such a nuisance
— Maybe he did it because they made him do it without explaining anything? He might not have meant it. Calling him a nuisance seems harsh;;
— Who would tell him to do that there lol This is killing me lol
— No wonder he didn’t have a microphone;; I thought they left it out because the budget was low
— FLu got investment from a major corporation, so they have stupid money. What budget shortage?
— Baek Yuri got completely fooled lol
The chat grew noisy with the revealed truth.
The image of a gulping Neoul contrasted with Baek Gi-yeom hiding in a tube, holding a selfie cam and whispering into the microphone, all in one scene.
Baek Gi-yeom was giggling in the dark as if he were having fun, which made him look even more pitiable.
— Aigoo T_T
— Even so, seeing Gi-yeom curled up like that is cute lol T_T
— He’s smiling, so why does he look so pathetic?
— His legs must have gone numb T_T
— lol The important thing isn’t hiding-and-seeking, but he’s hidden so perfectly all by himself hahaha
— Gi-yeom got left behind by accident... so adorable...
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