The Condition for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader

I went to the studio for the pre-interview shoot, greeted the producer, sat through a meeting, and filmed the teaser video and the pre-interview.

After that, until it was time to begin filming the first proper episode, I filled the gaps by researching the other teams that would be participating with us. There were six teams in all.

Eternal Seven, The Road, DTD, XINX, Triple Shot, and Zero One.

Honestly, aside from the fact that we’d crossed paths on music shows, none of them had left much of an impression. I could barely remember them at all. So I needed at least a rough idea of their musical style, who the members were, and what kind of concept each group had.

Normally, these kinds of programs were wrapped in tight security, and people often didn’t even know who was coming out on them. So it was almost funny that this one had gone ahead and revealed everything so blatantly. Did they think it wouldn’t matter even if we knew?

Still, we were going to be face-to-face with the other groups and filming together for a long time. If I wanted things to go smoothly, I couldn’t afford to start by ruining relations. Or rather, it wasn’t even so much about relations as the fact that I had no idea how any of this would play on air, which made me all the more cautious.

This time, I’d even laid the groundwork in the pre-interview. I’d started with the nonsense that the Zero One members were shy around strangers and didn’t talk much… Damn it. It had better work, even a little.

Before we went into the filming set, the manager kept asking me over and over if I was really sure about this. I had to tell him I was fine hundreds of times. It was the hard-earned result of barely holding back from asking why the agency had set up a schedule like this in the first place.

I just wished he’d stop before I really wasn’t fine anymore, but he kept at it so doggedly that it even forced the usually almost silent and outwardly obedient Lim Se-bin to tell him to stop.

After haphazardly finishing our preparations, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠glanced at the status window I’d long since grown used to and offered it another word of encouragement that was not, in any meaningful sense, encouragement. The response was still awful, but I took some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t being ignored outright like before. Or maybe not. Come to think of it, maybe being ignored would be better than hearing that rotten nonsense.

When I stepped into the studio where filming was already underway, every pair of eyes in the waiting groups turned to Zero One. Three groups had already arrived and taken their seats.

The first one to catch my eye was DTD. A seven-member group that had debuted two days after Zero One, they were mainly known for a refreshing concept, according to the search results.

They were the current representatives of the “refreshing idol” trend among male groups these days, which was why reporters had asked comparison questions like that at their comeback showcase too.

Right, that group. The one that had been forcibly pushed into a rival position by the broadcasting station, endlessly tied to us in all the wrong ways, until it all ended in a complete shitstorm of mutual destruction.

At the beginning, I was sure our relationship hadn’t been bad. Fans apparently saw some quiet tension between the groups, but even when fandoms hated each other, the groups themselves usually weren’t actually on bad terms.

We were all in the same industry, for one thing, and the world was small enough that you never knew where or how you might end up being entangled with someone. Since we’d be seeing each other often anyway, there was no point in being on bad terms.

Go Young-in always remembered outcomes to some extent, but not the process of what led there, or the details of human conflict. This time was no different.

Still, seeing the faces of those members brought back enough to tell me that yes, this had been the same group from then. And above all, maybe because they’d only recently had a comeback too, their hair colors matched the images I’d memorized from my search.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

For Go Young-in, who had first come to remember people by hair color and still checked that first even now, it was welcome news.

Even so, this was manageable. Their debut years were fairly close, and some of the teams had overlapping comebacks, so they all knew each other at least a little. I’d look at one face and think, Who was that again? and then, once I actually saw them, names and memories would come back one by one.

“Hey, Kyeon In-woo!”

One of DTD’s members, the one with orange hair, waved his hand dramatically and called out to Kyeon In-woo. They were obviously on friendly terms.

Kyeon In-woo looked up in surprise, then greeted him back and strode over.

“You guys got here first?”

“Check the group chat once in a while.”

Kyeon In-woo seemed to know a few people in that group. There were people he was close with, sure, but why was this surprising? Cheon Sa-yoon at least made sense—he was the type to get around and build connections everywhere—but I’d never seen Kyeon In-woo answer so readily before.

I’d thought he was just a foul-mouthed, indifferent bastard, but apparently that wasn’t all he was.

On the way past, I bowed politely and gave the other groups a cursory look.

Next to stand out was XINX, a team that, like Zero One, mainly pursued a dark concept.

They had flashy looks, chains hanging all over their clothes, and a pile of gaudy accessories on top of that. Even their faces had a generally sharp, fierce quality to them.

They were the kind of group that had more overseas fans than domestic ones. After looking up a few stage videos, I saw that they specialized in tightly synchronized choreography. Their songs featured hard-hitting beats that seemed designed for foreign listeners, and with so many foreign members, that tendency came through even more strongly.

In some ways they were different from Zero One, but there was also a subtle overlap in atmosphere.

What made them unusual was that more than half the team consisted of foreigners and mixed-race members. As we got closer, they all stood up and bowed at a full ninety degrees, and I found myself bowing back without even thinking.

Oh, damn. You really didn’t have to bow that hard.

Beside me, Cheon Sa-yoon returned the greeting with effortless ease. He already seemed to know the group, calling them by name and speaking to them with polished respect like a model junior. I guess I don’t have to worry about him… probably…?

After the greeting contest finally ended, the XINX members we’d properly faced seemed already dark-faced even before the competition had started. Whether they were intimidated or angry, after their polite greeting they barely said a word. They looked like people constantly checking the room for cues.

Was the group just naturally timid for a concept like that? No. Don’t be fooled by appearances or behavior, Go Young-in. Look at the people around you. There were a truckload of people who were one thing on the outside and another on the inside. Including me, of course.

One of XINX’s foreign members was muttering something in English with a miserable expression on his face. From what I could make out, the agency hadn’t even properly explained what kind of show this was to him.

It seemed Zero One wasn’t the only group that had ended up here against their will. Probably most of them, really.

It bothered me a little, but I wasn’t planning to get too involved. And yet the status window…

Thanks to it spitting out crap like that, I ended up tossing out a few words of comfort along with my greeting before I could help myself.

Lim Se-bin stared at me with an expression that clearly said I was sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, but what of it. Try dealing with the status window yourself.

Last was Triple Shot.

They’d debuted in the same year, apparently, but I had no memory of ever running into them at broadcasting stations.

They were a large group of thirteen members, but compared to the other teams there were remarkably few posts or informational articles about them. Even the ones I managed to find weren’t especially flattering.

Their debut had been around the same time, but unfortunately they still didn’t have any song that had really broken through. They were a performance-focused team rather than a vocal one, and they mostly made music built around EDM and synthetic sounds.

Triple Shot’s members wore their bad mood openly. Some of them couldn’t even smooth out their expressions, and a few were whispering among themselves, venting their complaints in little clusters. I didn’t understand why they’d put on pin mics and then act like that, practically handing the editors ammunition for malicious cuts.

With so many members, it took quite a while to look at each of them one by one. Just as I was about to sweep my gaze away, I met the eyes of one of Triple Shot’s members.

Ah… despite the wildly bleached hair and fierce eyes, he had a surprisingly likable face. He was a member who went by the stage name Jeong Hae. He was also, as it happened, the member about whom I knew the most.

He handled Triple Shot’s center position and was the same age as me. Among fans, he also seemed to be known as one of the nicer members.

As if he’d been waiting for it, the moment our eyes met Jeong Hae flashed a broad, almost exaggerated grin, baring his teeth as he waved one hand.

What’s wrong with my expression? I look perfectly normal right now.

What was this? Was he greeting me? Either way, if I didn’t respond immediately, it would become awkward. Even if it didn’t, I couldn’t afford to make a scene about ignoring someone’s greeting, so it was better to swallow my embarrassment.

So I gave him a brief smile and answered with a small bow. Worst case, I’d just be a little embarrassed and that would be it. But seriously, why?

After finishing the greetings as best I could, I finally reached my seat. The placard marked Zero One’s name sat on a cheap office chair the kind you’d usually see in a company.

Damn. It looks cheap even when you know what it is.

Looking at the other groups who had arrived first, Zero One’s seat was actually the best one among them.

When I looked at the seats assigned to the other teams, there were wooden chairs the kind you’d find at a school, plastic stools like the ones used at street food tents, backless bathhouse chairs… the place might as well have been a chair showroom. Those bastards had done this sort of thing back in Season 1 too, ranking even the smallest details by position. That was why they’d been torn to pieces as soon as the first episode aired.

Things like this always left a worse taste in your mouth the more trivial they were.

From the very start, this program had deliberately set up one small act of discrimination after another and arbitrarily arranged the cast into a hierarchy. Competition among equals and competition in a fixed hierarchy were bound to feel different from the very atmosphere alone.

How could fans possibly like something like this? It just made everyone watching and everyone being subjected to it feel disgusted, didn’t it? No matter how I looked at it, the broadcasting station must have gone insane chasing nothing but stimulation.

As for the two empty teams’ seats, naturally they were split between two styles: one was a magnificent chair that looked as if it had been modeled after a throne, while the other was an obviously luxurious, plush sofa.

The order of entry seemed to have been applied in reverse ranking order too.

Even so, this was a lot milder than Season 1. At the very least, the team presumed to be sixth place, Triple Shot, wasn’t forced to stand for the entire recording this time.

To be honest, I’d expected the members to be deeply offended by all this. They’d already looked unhappy when they heard they had to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠appear on the show. But, surprisingly, nobody seemed to care at all.

According to Cheon Sa-yoon, it was because they weren’t going to get angry over “that kind of petty division and ranking bullshit.” As expected, that guy really did change depending on his mood.

He got all filthy and sensitive when things were aimed at him personally, but when it was something like this, he couldn’t care less. It was also strangely an answer that separated the team from himself, which made it seem like team spirit was still a very long way off.

Kyeon In-woo and Cheon Sa-yoon were each naturally chatting with the groups they knew, while the other two…….

After sitting down and seeing Lim Se-bin and Pyo Jae-ho say nothing, their faces blank as stone, I found myself thinking maybe it was fine if they were a little quiet. Better to be dull and get edited out than to slip up and create a controversy.

Once all the members were seated, a huge screen mounted at the center of the stage lit up.

The giant display listed the group names, and above them, with the words Current Overall Rankings, the places were assigned.

An awkward, tense atmosphere spilled through the studio. They’d made the seating discriminatory from the moment people sat down, so of course the momentum at the beginning felt a little…… Exactly what they were aiming for, probably.

Even so, the atmosphere wasn’t fully frozen yet; it was only carrying tension for now. A few people looked displeased, likely because the subtle preferential treatment had irritated them.

No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t understand what kind of stunt it was to gather a bunch of kids and do this. It wasn’t like they were trying to hold the World’s Most Pathetic Contest. If they were going to make it a competition, they should at least have let everyone stand on equal footing. This was just bullying, wasn’t it?

Since the seating had been assigned by ranking order, DTD ended up next to Zero One. Kyeon In-woo, perhaps planning to talk more with the members he was already friendly with, had taken the seat closest to DTD’s side.

The DTD members ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he was chatting with would normally have been faces and names I’d only vaguely remembered, but thanks to the lineup being released in advance, I’d looked them up already and had them in mind.

Park Ha-un and Kang Ji-ho. Park Ha-un was DTD’s leader, and because he was the only member with ordinary black hair in a group where most of the others had colorful hair, he somehow stood out even more.

To be honest, the three of them were talking, but most of the words seemed to be coming from Kang Ji-ho rather than the guy named Park Ha-un.

Kang Ji-ho was the main rapper there… and as a rapper, his position overlapped with Kyeon In-woo’s too. I’d heard he’d already had some name recognition back in the underground scene. Maybe Kang Ji-ho and Kyeon In-woo had known each other since then.

“Excuse me!”

“Yes?”

I was quietly watching the group chatting with Kyeon In-woo when the person sitting right beside me spoke up.