Not Caught
I wasn’t caught.
Now I think I understand a little better why Teacher Baek Yuri works so hard to keep his expression under control.
Until now, Neoul had never understood it.
If he wanted to laugh, he laughed. If he wanted to cry, he cried. If he was tired, he simply sprawled out and said so, and that was that.
Why did Baek Yuri and Yeo Do-bin hide themselves so carefully and suffer in secret? Why couldn’t they be honest in front of the cameras, in front of other people, and instead wore themselves out trying to conceal what they felt?
Because they may not be accepted as they are….
Once he realized that, the road to debut suddenly seemed far less easy than he had imagined.
Neoul had never been any good at keeping his face under control. Worse yet, if he didn’t say what he wanted to say, it felt as though thorns grew in his mouth.
At one point, he had even asked his younger sea serpent brother, “May I take hold of your head and tail and play jump rope with you?” and had gotten his hair yanked for it.
I should be more careful from now on.
In the Dragon Palace, he would never have cared what anyone thought of him or what sort of reputation he had. But this was different now.
Father’s health and the safety of the Dragon Palace are at stake.
First he had to debut. Only then could he naturally build ties with the rabbits and figure out who the true rabbit was.
And… he truly wanted to reach debut on his own.
Still, he could not stop the fundamental question from rising in him.
“Why is that?”
“Huh? Why make the evil edit?” Won Hasin shot back.
Neoul nodded.
“That’s… for entertainment. There has to be conflict, or viewers won’t enjoy it and the ratings won’t go up.”
“But there’s no haha.”
“What are you talking about?”
Neoul held out the smartphone screen he had been looking at to Won Hasin.
“There’s no laughter marker, the haha. When Koreans find something funny, they go haha haha haha, but no one is laughing here.”
Won Hasin stared at him in disbelief. “Where the hell did you learn that?”
“On the internet.”
“Well… sure, people do use it when something’s funny. But people don’t always watch because they need to be amused. Sometimes they watch because it’s entertaining to curse at people.”
Entertaining to curse at people?
Neoul had a hard time following Won Hasin’s logic.
“How can cursing someone be entertaining?”
“It’s stimulating. There’s a saying that watching a fight or a fire is the most fun thing there is. Doesn’t the Dragon Palace have a saying like that?”
“There is no fire beneath the sea. Naturally, there is none in the Dragon Palace either.”
Neoul looked at Won Hasin as though he had just heard the stupidest thing in the world.
“And I don’t particularly want to watch Representative Won and Dong-dong Gyeomsabok fight either. It’s noisy.”
“What’d you say, punk? We fed you and put a roof over your head, and this big lump of yours— I’ll make it even noisier if I have to!”
Offended, Won Hasin hurled a cushion at him.
“That’s how the world is! People judge others based on one slice of them and yap away however they please!”
Then, with a sour look, he went on, “The evil edit gives those people a reason to curse someone. He’s got a bad personality, he’s not good with people, he’s stupid, he looks unpleasant, so it’s okay to hate him. That’s the excuse it hands them.”
At those words, Neoul shook his head.
“But that isn’t true.”
“The people making all that noise don’t care whether it’s true or not. They just don’t care.”
Won Hasin dragged a hand over his forehead, looking thoroughly fed up.
“That’s why image management matters for entertainers. It’s impossible for a public figure to have no antis. The more famous you get, the more popular you become, the more harassment sticks to you. A lot of people even say that since entertainers are public figures, they just have to put up with it. But….”
“…….”
“Even if ten thousand people curse me and try to drag me down obsessively, it’s fine if a million people believe in me. What you do in everyday life is what creates the people who’ll trust you.”
Neoul listened quietly, taking Won Hasin’s words to heart.
You have to make people who’ll believe in you.
For some reason, that struck him deeply.
It was advice he would need to remember not just in the survival show, but after debut as well.
So he really is the head of a company. He can say things that sound fairly impressive, too.
Because Representative Won was always teasing people, stirring them up, and acting foolish, Neoul had thought him nothing but light and frivolous. But there was an unexpected side to him.
Besides, Neoul knew absolutely nothing about the entertainment world… no, about humans in general, so each of Won Hasin’s explanations had been a great help.
He had wondered if a company run by someone like Won Hasin could really function properly. Now he realized his own thoughts had been too shallow.
Seeing the serious glint in the man’s eyes, it seemed Won Hasin was the sort who became a real professional the moment work was involved.
Just as Neoul, deeply impressed, was about to tell Won Hasin that he had been reassessed in a new light—
“Nooooo! But theeeeennnn!”
After speaking so seriously for the first time in a while, Won Hasin abruptly changed expression and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Am I the only one who doesn’t understand why those kids are acting like this?!”
“Pardon…?”
“So what if there are fourteen team members, or fifteen, or whatever? They could debut as a large group later anyway. If their faces go all gloomy over something that small, what are they going to do when it’s time to debut? Will they still be making funeral faces then? If they’d been trainees under my company, I’d have sent them straight to one hundred hours of mental training!”
“…….”
“What’s the problem! They should be bouncing off the walls just because they got a chance to get on stage! Why are they making miserable faces over something so trivial and giving people something to latch onto? They don’t have the basics! The basics! In my eyes, Yeo Do-bin is the only victim here! The rest of them brought this on themselves!”
How is being good at a game on an entertainment show wrong? It’s a good thing, isn’t it? Huh? Isn’t that right?
From the perspective of an entertainment company representative, Yeo Do-bin’s situation—getting unfairly cursed at—was apparently infuriating beyond belief.
Watching him go berserk with spit flying everywhere, Neoul quietly covered his ears.
As expected, he is a noisy human.
Neoul thought of Yeo Do-bin, crouched alone on the stairs and crying.
He seemed fragile.
Yeo Do-bin had promised to bring back an accompaniment that suited Neoul’s song Wave, but he still hadn’t contacted him.
If he had seen people’s sharp reactions, maybe he had collapsed somewhere dark again.
Neoul said, “Then it should be corrected.”
“Huh…?”
“The unfairness should be cleared away, and what is wrong should be set right.”
For some reason, Won Hasin felt a chill run down his spine at Neoul’s words.
“W-why… why, why?! What are you planning to do? Hey, don’t do anything stupid! Don’t go sticking your nose in it and making things worse for yourself too! I mean, I do feel bad for him, but!”
Neoul smiled gently.
“You will need someone who believes in him.”
“No! That’s not what I meant! I said make people who’ll believe in you! You!”
Won Hasin was in the middle of shouting in frustration when Dong-dong’s kick shoved him aside.
“You’re loud! Just be quiet and let us watch!”
Dong-dong had been utterly absorbed in the broadcast. His upper body leaned forward so far it looked as though he might get sucked straight into the TV.
He had discovered the fun of survival shows.
And besides….
“Isn’t this about to talk about Lord I-dam right now?”
He had already grabbed a bias.
The one she was cheering for was trainee Myeong I-dam from a major company, a contestant who had no real connection to Neoul yet.
He had even been one of the center candidates.
“Hey! Dong-dong! You should be rooting for your prince! Why are you looking at some random guy? That’s disloyal!”
“N-no…! Disloyal?!”
Dong-dong glared at Won Hasin in shock, then bowed his head toward Neoul with a flustered look.
“Prince! Please don’t misunderstand! This servant’s loyalty has not changed!”
Neoul shook his head at Won Hasin, who was cackling to himself. Then he said generously, “It’s all right. Dong-dong Gyeomsabok isn’t even my subject. Follow your heart. Whoever you cheer for, I won’t doubt your sincerity.”
“I am deeply honored.”
Dong-dong looked up at Neoul, moved to the core.
Neoul merely smiled and added one more thing.
“But you will give me at least one vote, I trust?”
“Yes! Of course!”
While they were talking, the teams had been decided, and the song selection moved along quickly. It was here that Baek Yuri’s team, which had seemed reasonably harmonious, showed the first signs of division.
After that came the interview with Woo Cheong’s team. It was meant to show the members’ bewildered reactions to having an unexpected song selected.
Participants listened to the song, trying to stay positive. But everyone had complicated expressions….
— lol Gal Neoul really does have guts
— There’s always a faster runner above the runner, and a more playful one above the playful one… Looks like Gal Neoul is a genius because he enjoys it
— It really does look fun lol
— Hey, did you come here to play or what lol
— I was taking this song selection way too seriously, but Neoul looks happy, so I’m laughing like an idiot too lol Fine, if you like it, that’s all that matters lol
Their meeting drew viewers’ attention when Neoul smoothly acted as Daiki’s interpreter in Japanese.
— ?
— ???
— What is Gal Neoul saying in Japanese?
— Holy crap
— Wow, simultaneous interpretation is insane
— Oh my gosh?
— Daiki looks so moved lol adorable
— His pronunciation is completely native…?
— whoa
— Did Gal Neoul live in Japan?
The conversation was a little strange, though.
— I thought Gal Neoul had an actor’s face and would be calm, so why is he such a mischievous kid? lol
— Seriously, he speaks in this dead-serious tone while joking like he’s breathing lol
— Somehow he feels quiet but noisy…
— No, no. He seems quiet himself, but he makes everyone around him noisy with nonsense.
— lol
— I knew it the moment he started hopping around like that lol definite comedy character lol
— Speaking Japanese in native-level pronunciation while pretending not to know anything is ridiculously sly lol
Won Hasin and Dong-dong looked at Neoul at the same time.
“Fish. You trying to get found out?”
“Princesss!”
Neoul, having been diligently watching the viewers’ reactions, turned the phone toward one human and one octopus after the two of them burned from the stare.
— He’s amazingly faithful to the concept lol
— Human-language, seriously? lol that’s killing me lol
“See? I wasn’t caught.”
Neoul said it proudly, his expression filled with satisfaction.
“Yeah, good for you.”
“Yes….”
Won Hasin and Dong-dong both went sour-faced at once.
“Ugh! At least advertise properly! Advertise properly!”
“You’re being way too careless!”
Neoul only shrugged.
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