Conditions for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader — Chapter 14

"There’s still one important thing I need to say."

"What is it? Young, what are you plotting now? What else is there?"

Kyeon In-woo had taken the slice of pie he’d cut earlier and started jabbing at it with his fork. At a glance, it still looked delicious.

Haha…

Go Young-in relaxed every muscle in his face, doing his best to look like someone who was obviously hiding something. Kyeon In-woo was still bullying the pie with his fork. Poor pie…

Dammit. If you’re going to eat it, then eat it. If not, stop messing with it.

"Why are you, for ju—"

"Huh?"

I’m so annoyed I can’t even speak. He’s not a child, so why in the world am I supposed to tolerate that? Fine... he’ll probably eat it anyway. No way he’d crush it like that if he wasn’t going to touch it, right?

"Eat slowly. You’re going to make yourself sick…"

I’m the one who’s about to get sick first.

As expected, the answer was to just ignore him.

He left it there, wrapped up the closing greetings, and finished the broadcast after promising to meet everyone again on social media.

"A lot of people probably expected this, but rather than having you hear it later through someone else, I wanted to tell our Aonis first. Representative, I’m sorry in advance."

And just before ending the stream—

"Then we’ll come back later with our summer album. Please wait a little longer. I love you, Aonis."

With that surprise comeback announcement — one that hadn’t even been officially made public yet — Zero One’s ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠second-anniversary live broadcast came to an end. Naturally, the fandom went into absolute meltdown.

Idols are getting exposed to hateful comments way too much these days, so there’ll probably be a lot of fans getting that secondhand catharsis from watching him read the comments aloud ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and mock them like that, yeah.

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[ 677 comments ]

Go Young-in really is cute. Sorry, but if you’re not on Team Cute, I’m not dealing with you. The initials of his name are basically “cute,” from the very start — how could you possibly argue?

+) Damn, you filial son of a bitch. So that was a comeback spoiler attack for the sake of the comeback? Fuck. Go Young-in, seriously, fuck. Normally, by now the comeback promotions would already have started or be finished, and because there was still no news at all, I thought the first half of the year was shot... but now... T_T T_T T_T

[ 607 comments ]

The second-anniversary live broadcast was over, but the fans had moved straight into full festival mode.

As soon as the replay clip went up, countless edited stills and cropped videos started appearing, and thanks to the sudden, massive spoiler Go Young-in dropped right before the stream ended, everyone shook loose their hair and joyfully began occupying the timeline.

A comeback. And not just any comeback — a summer comeback, a season Zero One had never once attempted before, all because of Double D’s bizarre taste. Since the group had always released songs that felt far removed from summer imagery, the fans were even happier. It made them dare to hope, however faintly, that maybe this time they were trying a complete image change.

Thanks to that, Pyo Jae-ho’s early troll-baiting had been drowned out by the comeback spoiler.

Even after the live broadcast ended, his feet still wouldn’t move. Somehow, he’d gotten through it... but had it really gone well? For now, he’d slapped the whole thing down with a comeback spoiler, but what if something like this happened again?

At least for the moment, his goal of getting through the live stream safely had spectacularly failed.

Fuck. I thought it was a modest goal, but no — the word “modest” didn’t mean the difficulty was modest at all.

No, wait. Since he’d managed to patch it up somehow, maybe it didn’t count as a full failure. Let’s call it a middle ground. Go Young-in mentally drew an X over it, then quietly changed it to a triangle.

Just then, while he was standing there blankly trying to sort out his thoughts, he noticed a staff member moving equipment. The person looked exhausted, and since he needed to clear his head anyway, he walked over.

"I’ll help you."

"Huh? Oh, no, it’s fine! This is our job."

Come to think of it, maybe helping would only get in the way. Then, over the staff member’s shoulder, he noticed a single-seater sofa standing all alone. Something was covered with a blanket on top of it, and the corner of a box-like object was peeking out from under the fabric.

Huh? What’s that?

Normally it wouldn’t have been the kind of thing that drew his attention, but for some reason, it seized his gaze. Go Young-in stepped closer to get a better look at the sofa.

What? Isn’t that a cake box?

Even from the portion that was visible, the box looked luxurious, high-end, and carefully designed. The cake itself must have been sizable too, because the box was tall enough to fit at least a two-tier cake.

He was just about to reach out and lift the blanket covering the top of the box when—

"Is something wrong?"

He had been so absorbed by the cake that he hadn’t even noticed someone coming up behind him. A staff member slipped in between Go Young-in and the sofa. It was the same employee who had apologized to Lim Se-bin before the live broadcast started.

With the space around him suddenly cramped, Go Young-in instinctively stumbled back a step.

Shit. Something’s off.

It wasn’t like he was actually planning to make a big deal out of something so small, but this man’s timing was strange, and everything about him felt vaguely suspicious. What was he hiding? It didn’t seem like he was hiding just a single cake.

"Oh, it’s about what happened earlier. I thought you must have had a hard time preparing everything so quickly, so I wanted to thank you."

The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became. Maybe it was because it looked like the pie from earlier had been replaced with this instead. What on earth was going on? It wasn’t even a big deal, so why…

At Go Young-in’s answer, the staff member smiled brightly and began chattering on about this and that.

That smile only made it feel more like he was hiding something. Once Young-in had decided something was suspicious, even the grin itself felt oily and malicious.

"No, no, we’re the ones who should be sorry... We couldn’t even make a prior announcement, and then we had to rush to prepare it. One of the new staff members who just joined us accidentally tipped the cake over while carrying it. It got completely ruined, so that’s how it ended up like this. We’re really sorry, especially since it’s the second anniversary."

It’s suspicious as hell, plain as day. Do I really look that easy to fool? I’m standing here looking at the box, and he still has the nerve to say that? Haha…

Once one small change in the past started to take effect, memories he didn’t even have began to spring into existence. No matter how bad his memory might be, he refused to believe he was stupid enough to forget something like this.

He’d gotten so uneasy that he wanted to keep the staff member there and say something — anything — to prolong the conversation when suddenly—

"What are you two doing here?"

With that familiar voice came a familiar face right before his eyes. A bright smile, lips curled up softly, and a kind expression that hid a thoroughly rotten personality underneath.

A bastard, yes — but when he was on your side, he was the most reassuring bastard in the world. It was Cheon Sa-yoon.