Chapter 35 - Conditions for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader - Episode 35
Since the first shoot, there had been another one. It wasn’t a studio shoot, so it had gone by quickly enough.
They had chosen the songs they would perform for one another and sat down for a round of group discussion with the teams they would be facing. All it did was drive home how different Zero One and DTD were, not just in color but in every last member as well.
With Na Woo-ri at the center, a few of the others were loud and impossible to ignore, and Young-in had no idea how many times he had wanted to shout for the filming to stop while they kept trying to drag him into that noisy back-and-forth.
When he asked XINX’s Sio why Zero One and DTD had been paired up, he’d been told it was because the two groups seemed close and would probably understand each other’s songs well. If Sio had seen how haggard he looked, he might have apologized for having such poor judgment.
Among Zero One’s songs, the only one DTD’s usual repertoire could really handle was this new track. That naturally made him wonder whether they should simply hand over that song as it was, or choose something else.
So for now, he intended to wait and see what they gave them before deciding. If they picked some absurd song, Zero One would hand them something just as difficult to digest; if they acted in good conscience, then they would return the favor in kind.
He planned to take the path least likely to earn them hate. That didn’t mean he wanted to do the other team any favors.
For that reason, Zero One, who ranked higher between the two, stepped back and said they would choose later, and DTD went first to assign them a song.
At first DTD had tried to pick something that would suit Zero One as much as possible, but then they’d gone on about how the fans would want to see something different too, and that they had prepared a song with a concept they had never been able to try before.
Shit. No wonder Na Woo-ri had texted me to expect something. I didn’t read it then, but I guess that was what he meant.
Go Young-in sat on the bed in their dorm room, holding a tablet PC and staring at the screen with his full attention.
DTD’s stage was playing on the screen. It was also the song Zero One would be covering in the first round of the competition.
They were supposed to continue filming the program later that afternoon in the agency conference room, so he was checking it in advance, thinking it would be better to look first before going in...
DTD’s “Only You, Only You” was a track that combined pastel costumes, a bright mood, and light but energetic choreography. It had been their debut song, a cute confession number about taking an active step toward the person you had a crush on.
Zero One singing a normal love song like this. I’m getting cognitive dissonance just thinking about it.
From the concept to the lyrics to everything else, it was an utterly unfamiliar kind of song for Zero One, whose material had always been so grim that even the love songs were nothing but stories of ruined love.
How were they supposed to pull this off without getting torn apart? Covering someone else’s song meant attracting the attention of people who knew the original too, which also meant taking on a bigger risk.
If they handled it well and brought the original to life, that would be fine. But if it went badly, the comments would start with how they could never match the original and spiral into every comparison imaginable. On the other hand, if they did too well, there would be people saying they were better than the original and then, in the same breath, taking the original down in reverse.
Still, better to preserve the original as much as possible than to let the whole thing collapse. It was a debut song, after all, and it seemed meaningful to DTD’s fans too. No reason to make enemies.
─Only you, only you, you, you, this heart of mine
─It’s still not enough, so I’ll prove it, for me there’s only You
Just then, Na Woo-ri appeared in a close-up on screen, looking into the camera and putting on a whole performance of winks and blown kisses. Watching someone he knew work the camera like that was weirdly damaging. Shit. Worse than that, though, this meant Zero One had to do it too. Depending on how they arranged it, they could change a lot, but the lyrics still had to stay intact first.
─Jiiing.
Message
+8210-■■■■-■■■■
Check your texts lol
4 text messages
A notification popped up over the screen, and the video paused. Terrible timing. Wondering who it was, he looked up the earlier messages too.
It was Triple Shot’s Jeong Hae.
Why does he keep texting me? I didn’t even know he’d sent a message. We’ve got no reason to be in contact in the first place.
After a quick look, most of it was him asking what concept they were going with and how they were arranging the cover. If he was that curious, he could ask Kyeon In-woo himself.
Young-in closed the message window and played the video again. In it, DTD was dancing together and smiling with happy expressions, even acting out the lyrics with their faces at key moments.
It was less a performance built on flashy choreography than one built on what people called idol “charisma.” The dance mattered, but the real challenge was making that expression feel natural.
Acting… I guess I don’t need to worry about Zero One. Their whole lives are acting anyway.
It had been the same feeling when he’d watched them live: even in a light choreography like this, DTD’s leader, Park Ha-un, had a massive presence. Just a glance was enough to tell he had solid fundamentals.
He was also the one among the people Young-in had met after coming back that he liked most on a human level. Maybe that was why he only seemed to notice the positive parts.
Park Ha-un didn’t seem to have much interest in Young-in. After they’d introduced themselves, they hadn’t really talked separately at all.
Which made things easier. Zero One’s members didn’t deserve interest anyway, because even when they weren’t paying attention they were still rude as hell, and the rest were irritating enough to be a burden. Especially Na Woo-ri...
KaTalk
...Seeing even Na Woo-ri acting like that, he really wasn’t a gentleman either.
He closed the window, turned off message notifications, and tried to focus on the video again, but this time there was a loud bang from the door outside the room.
Watching one video all the way through is impossible, shit.
How much force had to go into slamming a door for the sound to carry all the way into the room? And which member was the kind of bastard who’d do something like that...
Someone shoved the door open and stormed in. The intruder looked pale and thin, but unlike his slight frame, he gave off a fierce, almost vicious atmosphere like someone who was angry enough to bite.
Right. It was Lim Se-bin. Of course it was him.
Lim Se-bin, wearing a murderous expression, strode straight over to the bed where Young-in was sitting and stopped there. In his eyes, looking down at Young-in, cold anger was flickering.
“Was it you?”
Young-in was dumbfounded that Lim Se-bin would throw out the accusation with no explanation at all, starting with the conclusion and leaving out everything else.
Shit. What the hell do you mean, me? Please say what you mean before you start. At this point, cutting out all the context and only saying what you want to say seemed like a defining trait of Zero One’s members.
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s no one else lately who’s been acting weird except you.”
“...Se-bin hyung, I really don’t know what you mean.”
“....”
Don’t just glare at me like you want to kill me. At least explain it.
The eleventh clause: a kind idol leader treats members with broad understanding.
Understanding, my ass. Try doing something understandable before you start talking. They said three repetitions of patience could prevent murder, but he felt like he’d already done three hundred.
Lim Se-bin stood there in silence for a moment, looking down at the floor as if lost in thought, then slowly spoke again.
“You haven’t come into my room before, have you?”
“No. I haven’t.”
Why the hell would I go anywhere near it?
Among the members, Lim Se-bin was the only one who used a single room.
There was no reason for him to go in there, and besides, given the way the members all were, they didn’t even care if someone stayed in their room all the time. They never went looking for each other just to talk either.
So could he please stop glaring already?
“The thing I left on my desk was in a different place, but you really didn’t know?”
How the hell would I know that? Setting aside how he’d noticed it had changed in the first place, why was he coming all the way here to ask about it? He hadn’t even said what the thing was.
“What thing?”
“....”
Lim Se-bin kept his eyes narrowed and glared at Young-in like someone trying to confirm a suspicion. Was this awkward silence really necessary?
After staring at him for a long while as though observing him, Lim Se-bin finally let the strength go from his eyes and returned to his usual calm expression.
“Guess it’s real.”
“Does this have anything to do with what you mentioned last time?”
Lim Se-bin moved his mouth as if thinking about whether to answer, then exhaled with a curse and a sigh. He said the desk clock he’d left on top of the drawer beside the bed had been slightly crooked.
He’d lined it up precisely with the drawer, so there was no way he could have missed it, he claimed. So it wasn’t that the object had been moved, just that it had tilted a little? More importantly, how had he even noticed a change that small?
And hadn’t he said desk, not drawer? Was he testing whether Young-in would lie by casually changing the word? What was this trust level, seriously?
Lim Se-bin passed by Young-in and looked at Cheon Sa-yoon. Cheon Sa-yoon, who had been sitting quietly in his own spot and exchanging messages with someone, also gave the same answer: he didn’t know.
After hearing Cheon Sa-yoon’s reply as well, Lim Se-bin shut the door and left as if he couldn’t stand staying there for another second.
Young-in was the only one left feeling wronged after getting suspected out of nowhere.
Still, both the way he’d been looked at and the fact that he could sense the position of an object had changed, even if only slightly...
What if a sasaeng really got in?
According to the manager, there wasn’t anything especially strange around here.... Could that be trusted? The manager wasn’t exactly doing his job properly either. Not after all the weird behavior lately.
“Se-bin hyung’s always had a talent for being pointlessly sensitive and making everyone around him suffer too.”
At some point, Cheon Sa-yoon had put down his phone and was now sitting with one leg crossed, tapping the tip of his shoe.
...Cheon Sa-yoon, that’s not really your line to say. Yet the way he delivered that cutting assessment so casually was so natural it almost sounded like praise if you only half-listened. It wasn’t even completely wrong.
“Too pointless to be pointless. There’s a lot to trip over.”
Whatever his personality was like, he wouldn’t be reacting like that for no reason.
Clause thirty-five: a kind idol leader does not suspect members without reason.
Was the status window making him more sensitive? Honestly, without the status window, he probably would have just dismissed it as some oversensitive asshole being oversensitive.
“And you told me to be careful too, Sa-yoon.”
“Wow. You remembered that? From the look of things, I thought you weren’t paying any attention, so I figured you’d forgotten already.”
Don’t cover your mouth and act that dramatically surprised on my behalf.
This bastard. He was usually good at mocking people with a detour, so why did he go so far off the rails whenever they were alone? Young-in thought he had paid attention, at least in his own way. Maybe he was just overthinking things.
“Looks like I gave you more to think about. Don’t overcomplicate it. No matter what happens, it’s not like you’ll die, right?”
He was confused enough already, and then Cheon Sa-yoon smiled as if soothing some kid who couldn’t follow along.
Cheon Sa-yoon’s tone was so blasé that Young-in himself started to feel like the kind of hypervigilant person Lim Se-bin was, but the moment he saw that obnoxious expression, his temper cooled right off. Thanks. Really.