The Conditions for Becoming a Gentle Idol Leader
23
[55th Place ??? 'ZER01 - BLUE WAVE' ❤️9,235]
…It worked.
Thank goodness. They’d made it in at fifty-fifth place. For a new challenge, the response was excellent. Better than last time, right? No matter how he looked at it, the result seemed a whole lot better. Hadn’t they failed to even crack the sixties last time? This new challenge seemed to have landed surprisingly well.
When he checked the other music sites, the album tracks were all settling in steadily, too.
It was strange how seeing a song climb the charts still felt so unreal. Maybe it was because it had been so long since he’d seen Zero One’s name up there, ranked among the rest. So this was how it felt.
There were still a lot of problems to solve right away, but for the moment, it was a new song and a fresh start.
He must have stood there too long, lost in the feeling of it, because someone behind him gave his back a light shove.
"What are you doing standing there like a statue? You're in the way."
It was Cheon Sa-yoon. Come to think of it, the others hadn’t checked yet either.
"Have you seen our ranking?"
Go Young-in showed him the screen with the chart position. Cheon Sa-yoon’s gently smiling face didn’t shift one bit.
"Not bad."
That’s all? Seriously, fuck? He’d kind of expected that, and yet—still, was that really it? He hadn’t expected enthusiasm, exactly, but the answer still managed to suck the air right out of him.
"Nothing else to say?"
"What more do you want? I’m not your fan, are I?"
So because he wasn’t a fan, there was no need to show any pleased reaction.
The others didn’t seem particularly bothered either. At least Pyo Jae-ho was staring at his phone, so he was probably checking the ranking too. It wasn’t a bad result by any means, so maybe he could tell them without it being weird.
"Our song entered at fifty-fifth place."
"Ohhh. Nice."
Kyeon In-woo gave a low whistle and sounded impressed.
"Well, of course it did. The song’s good."
Pyo Jae-ho said it with that same expressionless face of his. Damn it, so in the end he was just saying it did well because he’d done a good job. Not wrong, but still annoying.
Seeing everyone react at least a little made him think they weren’t entirely unmoved after all. For these guys, even this much was something to be grateful for.
And Lim Se-bin…
He stayed quiet, his face still shadowed and lowered, looking as if he was present and not present at all.
[Clause 2 | A gentle idol leader talks with the members often, even if only briefly.]
It was the status window he’d been seeing most lately.
He wasn’t even ready to talk, so what exactly was he supposed to say? He glanced at the clock. Soon there wouldn’t even be time for a conversation. If Se-bin went on like this and couldn’t manage his expression on stage, then what?
Haa…
Go Young-in stood up from the chair he’d been sitting in and took a seat beside Lim Se-bin. Se-bin flicked him a glance, then shifted a little farther away, as though avoiding germs.
Seriously petty and immature.
First he gave the surrounding area a quick scan.
Pyo Jae-ho sitting alone in the corner sofa, checking something; Kyeon In-woo getting his makeup touched up, with the manager beside him—when had he even gone over there?—Cheon Sa-yoon talking with the youngest staff member. And the rest of the staff, all busy with their own tasks.
Nobody seemed interested in them. Still, just in case, he lowered his voice as much as he could.
"Se-bin hyung."
"…"
"First of all, this is the place where we’re meeting the fans face-to-face, and it’s also our first time showing the comeback song, so let’s all do our best together."
"…"
"So, could you set aside any personal feelings for a little while?"
"None of your business."
He’d been staring blankly ahead without even looking at him, so Go Young-in had thought he wasn’t listening. But apparently he had been. At least he answered. If he really hated it, he probably would’ve ignored him entirely—or just cursed him out.
"…I don’t have any bad feelings toward you, hyung. We’re on the same team."
What a life, just making things up all the time. Was this really okay?
Well, sure, he was annoyed, but that didn’t mean he hated him.
Hating someone… hm. In any case, he didn’t even have the energy to waste on that. He was already more than overwhelmed enough as it was.
In fact, if anyone had bad feelings, it seemed more like Lim Se-bin than him. If he had a reason, he could at least say it out loud.
But Se-bin’s expression only darkened further. It didn’t look like anger. More like something gloomy, something weighed down. This guy’s face and his temperament never seemed to match. Then again, there wasn’t a single member in here who did.
"Go Young-in."
"Yes."
Lim Se-bin, who hadn’t given him so much as a glance until now, finally turned to face him. Even then, Go Young-in still couldn’t read his expression.
"Don’t say things you can’t be responsible for."
"…"
Did he really sound that irresponsible? Or was saying they were on the same team somehow too hard to accept?
"I’m not expecting a second time."
Before Go Young-in could even figure out how to answer that cryptic line, Lim Se-bin got up and left first.
…
Even as he walked down the hallway, Go Young-in kept turning the exchange over in his mind. Not expecting a second time? What exactly had he been expecting from this team in the first place?
Go Young-in, you bastard. What the hell had he been saying and doing at this age to cause this mess?
Something felt off. Not just with Lim Se-bin, but with every conversation he’d had with the members. They were impossible to pin down, impossible to understand what anyone had actually wanted to say. Even who he himself had been—and what he’d done—felt hazy and out of reach.
[Clause 2 | A gentle idol leader talks with the members often, even if only briefly.]
I did talk. I know that much.
Not only he, but all the other members must have known the conversations were lacking. If they didn’t, that would be stranger. But there were things in life that you knew and still couldn’t run headlong into. That lifeless status window bastard would never understand it in a hundred years.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The fan showcase was held as a simultaneous online and offline live stream.
It had been a long, long time since they’d met the fans like this in person. It felt incredibly strange.
Maybe it was because he couldn’t quite feel proud of himself. If they knew what kind of person he was, wouldn’t they be terribly disappointed? He didn’t know what else to do except give everything he could.
Like the press showcase, this stage went off without a single mistake. They performed the album track first, then did a short talk about what they’d been up to lately and shared their impressions.
Usually they’d film a separate music-video reaction segment to upload later, but this time they’d decided to watch the MV together with the fans during the showcase.
But damn it, no matter how he thought about it, if the members watched the video for the first time together with the fans without having seen it beforehand, it felt like the whole thing would go to hell because of one person in particular who absolutely would not keep his mouth shut.
So just before going on, he’d hurriedly cajoled and soothed the members into watching the music video together in advance.
And once again, he was reminded that had been an extremely wise decision.
Even now, the voices of Pyo Jae-ho, picking apart every cut while finding every possible blemish in the MV, and Cheon Sa-yoon, who’d been politely phrasing his complaints while verbally beating people to death with a smile, still lingered in his ears.
Fuck.
[Line 1]
[Line 2]
[Line 3]
[Line 4]
The music video started much like the teaser had.
Sunlight scattered in tiny fragments across the waves. The sound of incoming surf and the wind. Clear blue water visible beneath the gentle ripples.
The camera dove headfirst into the sea.
A muffled, underwater hum filled the scene. Then, as if slowly rising from a deep sink, the opening intro began in time with the school bell ringing faintly from somewhere far away.
During the intro, the members appeared one by one in different situations.
It began with Kyeon In-woo, ash-gray hair flying, dragging a skateboard along with one foot, then Cheon Sa-yoon driving a classically designed open-top car to school. Pyo Jae-ho sprinting toward a door at the end of a long corridor. Lim Se-bin leaning against the rooftop railing, wind tugging at him.
And finally, Go Young-in standing in front of the lockers.
The video adjusted color and props so each member felt like he was in a similar but slightly different place, a different space altogether.
As the camera moved from member to member, the sound swelled, and the surf and wind returned, sharper than before.
The song began.
—Rolling waves
Across the sea, white and breaking
A blue trail surging forward
As the lyrics carried over the ocean backdrop, the members, whose hair and outfits had already changed by then, appeared one after another. Finally, Go Young-in’s turn came. Just like in the teaser, he threw open the locker room door.
The drab screen flared bright all at once, and the background and music transformed.
Blue light poured down.
—Swaying with the wind
The wide-open cry of the waves
pouring in, surfing more
The camera quickly showed the members, who had been alone, beginning to gather one by one.
First, Kyeon In-woo and Cheon Sa-yoon meeting on the beach, dragging a board, then running into Pyo Jae-ho as he jumped into the water. Go Young-in standing in the middle of the sandy shore, and Lim Se-bin on the seaside cliff, eventually meeting too.
With Go Young-in’s laugh as he grabbed Lim Se-bin’s arm and pulled him in when he still hesitated to approach, the group dance part began.
—Rather than running away
Just keep waving
The rhythm sped up even more. Scenes of the members splashing each other, laughing, talking, and spending a blissfully happy time together flashed by in a wash of peace so complete it was almost unreal.
In the middle of it all, Lim Se-bin, looking down at the waves crashing below the cliff, let a small smile touch his lips as he continued the rap, carrying the song’s hopeful lyrics forward.
Getting those beach scenes where they actually went into the water and played around had been a nightmare, especially at first when everyone looked so stiff that they’d had to reshoot multiple times. Truthfully, he barely remembered what state of mind he’d been in while filming.
Still, the final result came out well enough. That’s what matters.
—Don’t hesitate
Let’s ride the wind together
Do a wave
Again, the members in their fresher outfits gathered and performed the choreography in formation. Both the background and the music kept holding onto that bright, sparkling blue mood.
—Don’t be afraid
Let’s ride the flow together
Do a wave
Ending with all of them gathered to take a photo, just like during the concept-photo shoot, the music stopped and once again showed Go Young-in standing in front of the locker room. The drops of water hitting the floor and the ticking of the clock’s second hand formed a strange harmony.
"Ah, we did a lot of retakes for that part. The scene where everyone’s smiling together."
Cheon Sa-yoon spoke up lightly, even clapping as if a memory had just surfaced while watching the MV.
"Getting the timing of the smiles to match was unexpectedly hard, wasn’t it?"
There was a hidden meaning in the way he said that. When they’d watched the MV in the waiting room ahead of time, that bastard had definitely said, at that scene:
"I’m wondering how they even thought they could become idols if they couldn’t even smile properly. Must’ve had some real trouble going on, otherwise why would it have taken them so long? Or are they just slow?"
It had been a broad insult, of course. The three members other than Cheon Sa-yoon and Kyeon In-woo were people who, if you searched their memories, might not have a single recollection of genuinely smiling brightly. It wasn’t entirely wrong, either.
[Clause 2 | A gentle idol leader talks with the members often, even if only briefly.]
"Yes. We went through a bit of trouble because we wanted to show Aions only the best side of us."
Since Cheon Sa-yoon had ended with a question-like inflection, he had to answer in a suitably natural way. The fans were watching.
Once the topic turned to behind-the-scenes MV stories, the whole thing basically became a mini talk show. When Pyo Jae-ho finally couldn’t stand it anymore and said, “Could you at least finish watching it before you talk? Don’t cut off the flow,” they were somehow able to move past it.
This bastard—just what the hell was wrong with him… He reminded himself to check later, because no matter how he thought about it, it was the kind of line that could cause at least a little controversy.
As if by a mirage, everything returned to where it belonged.
And yet, from somewhere in the distance, the sound of waves crashing still reached him faintly. Go Young-in met that blue silence head-on.
Before long, the music video was nearing its end.
Back in front of the locker room, Go Young-in, drenched in unexpected water and holding a Polaroid in his hand, realizes that what he’d gone through hadn’t been a dream, but reality.
Go Young-in pinned the photo to the back of the locker room door and closed it. The footsteps of someone running off somewhere grew steadily farther away.
—If we can’t stop it
If we can’t become the sea
Let’s become the wave
—No two ways
Not too wave
The camera didn’t follow Go Young-in. Instead, it closed in on the group photo pinned to the door.
What had seemed like it would end there instead finished completely differently, revealing the number of members left in the group photo growing smaller and the appearance of a few remaining members changing.
It was a pretty meaningful ending.
In the end, it was the producer’s tiny little addition at the end, something he’d slipped in because he couldn’t let go of the worldbuilding. And without even consulting the members, naturally. So that’s why he’d only shown them the final cut.MP4 file and kept refusing to show the final_final_final_revised_really_final.MP4 file.
Still, maybe because it only appeared for a moment at the very end, and the meaning was open enough to interpret in different ways, they must have decided it was fine.
"Everyone, please share your impressions one by one."
Go Young-in asked, trying to squeeze reactions out of these people for the sake of airtime. With the red light on the camera, they couldn’t exactly ignore him outright.
"It reminds me of when we filmed it. The weather was nice."
"Since it was something we hadn’t tried before, it was fun. I hope our Aions feel the same way."
"Well~ the video came out pretty well."
"I think it matches the song reasonably well."
Everyone’s answers were perfectly decent, and Pyo Jae-ho’s mouth was still doing its usual excellent work.
At least in the waiting room, where they’d only been saying things that had zero chance of being relatable because there was nothing to reflect on, he’d been glad he’d begged them to talk about the music first. If they’d said in the waiting room what they were saying now… fuck, that had been a terrifying thought.
[Clause 28 | A gentle idol leader offers warm words and actions to the members.]
Warm words, huh. So he was supposed to praise the music or something?
"And this time, Jae-ho took part in the title track. He worked really hard because he wanted to show our Aions a song he made himself, so please enjoy the stage we’ll be showing you soon."
Fine. Give the bastard another rice cake just to keep the peace.
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