The Conditions for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader - Chapter 59
─ Creak.
After opening the car door and carefully checking the seat, Go Young-in climbed into the van. The seat wrapping around his back felt unusually soft today.
Filming for the first round of the infamous second-stage competition had finally wrapped up. They’d still have to come back to the set a few hours later to prepare for the second round, but even so, that miserable first round was over.
He’d been happily thinking only about getting off work when the PD had stubbornly kept only the dance team behind, droning on with excuses no one had asked for. It was only after midnight before they were finally released.
Judging by the first-round results, it seemed they really did intend to push Jeong Hae’s team. And, inconveniently, Zero One looked like the sacrifice chosen to take the hit.
Hard to call that a coincidence.
During the stage shoot, he’d watched Jeong Hae’s team carefully, thinking he could at least tell whether only the song overlapped or whether the stage composition was similar too. The moment he saw that even the set had stairs in it, he’d given up on thinking about it altogether.
At this point, there was nothing left to see.
It had been obvious enough to make him scoff, and yet since they’d already switched to a different song, it really did seem possible. Even after that, more and more small overlaps kept popping up.
Sensing someone come in, Kyeon In-woo—who had tilted back the seat beside him and was sitting half-reclined—hooked a finger under the brim of the cap covering his face and lifted it slightly.
He opened his eyes to a slit and spoke.
“You not sleeping?”
“Just monitoring.”
“Ha, fuck. Like any of that shit’s gonna sink in now. Do whatever you want.”
His voice was low and exhausted, but it still didn’t stop being sarcastic. Why start picking a fight the second I get here?
He wasn’t so clueless that he didn’t understand why Kyeon In-woo was saying that.
Getting beaten by Jeong Hae’s team by a hair was one thing.
In the end, Zero One’s dance team had had to choose a new song and start from scratch, so they’d had far less time than the other team and hadn’t been able to show what they could really do. It hadn’t been a disaster, but it was hard to call it a satisfying stage. If you wanted to make excuses, that was one too, I guess.
And then there were the judges, a bunch of people so lacking in basic evaluating ability that it made you wonder whether they were even real experts at all, spouting nonsense like they’d been paid to fill time.
So Kyeon In-woo was in a bad mood because the preparation process and the result both sucked, and on top of that, the rest of the team hadn’t lived up to his standards either.
And that Na Woo-ri bastard screwed up too.
The mistake itself wasn’t wrong, not at all.
It was just that Na Woo-ri had made one little mistake after another throughout the entire program performance, and he’d spent the whole practice grumbling the entire time. It was the kind of situation that made people suspect he hadn’t been taking rehearsal seriously.
That said, snapping at another group member wouldn’t help anyone, so they’d exchanged a few words and let it go.
Even if his displeasure was already written all over his face.
For now, the cap over Kyeon In-woo’s face made it impossible to tell whether he was even awake, let alone what expression he was wearing.
Before he knew it, there wasn’t much broadcast runtime left. Unfortunately, this had been one of those moments when his head was full in more ways than one, and the stage itself had already gone fuzzy in his memory.
A short making-of video played before the stage began. It showed Zero One rehearsing, and it didn’t leave out the parts where Pyo Jae-ho and Go Young-in were working together either.
[Zero One enters the arrangement meeting]
What bothered him, though, was that the subtitles were pushing the members far too hard, hyping them up as if they were a team of genius idea-makers and self-composing masters, the kind of people who wrote their own songs and never missed a beat.
Come to think of it, even in the broadcast cut of Episode 3, they’d gone out of their way to emphasize descriptors like self-written and self-produced.
One of the behind-the-scenes videos uploaded to NewTube for Episode 3 had even been an outright Zero One composition special, stuffed with weird, unheard-of epithets from God-knows-where.
It wasn’t that the image was bad. In fact, it was probably calculated to be a good one to some degree. That was the problem. They couldn’t possibly be showering them with praise for free. It wasn’t gratitude; it was a setup with a rotten backside.
Or maybe this was the screentime compensation PD had promised Manager Kwon Je-won.
...
As if.
No, the members had definitely said their piece in their own way too. Sure, it felt like he’d used 85 percent of the audio by himself, but it wasn’t as though everything had come from him.
That wasn’t reluctant agreement; that was the final line. Fuck, that finicky bastard of a group had accepted it only after several rounds of rejection.
He should be picky about comeback concepts like this sometimes, not when it came to everything, but he’d practically bet his life on rejecting whatever proposal he personally made.
He never properly explained what he wanted, then kept knocking it back or tearing it apart with roundabout digs, so it felt like he’d accidentally enrolled in a lecture on how to talk like an aristocrat.
Maybe this was all just a scheme to cut his screentime. Or maybe it meant this wasn’t the final opinion after all.
“Young, move your hand. I can’t see well because you’re blocking it.”
“...You weren’t asleep?”
When he looked over, the bastard who’d been lying down was now sitting cross-legged and staring at the screen.
When had he started watching with him? If he wanted to watch, he could’ve just used his own phone—or at least said something.
Muttering his complaints internally, Go Young-in tilted the phone slightly toward Kyeon In-woo and propped it on the armrest of the seat, then handed over one of his earbuds too.
Go ahead. Watch all you want.
It was Triple Shot’s turn already. Just like Zero One, Triple Shot began with a short making-of clip before showing the stage.
So upright.
The Triple Shot members were actively exchanging opinions.
Every word Jeong Hae said seemed inventive.
Ideas bubbling up!
...
In the end, they decided to adopt Jeong Hae’s opinion as the final choice.
Each member looked satisfied with the decision.
Why did the flow of the meeting feel so strange? Wasn’t it following a pattern very similar to Zero One’s?
They keep switching between them so often, and they’re the same age with overlapping positions, so I keep comparing them without meaning to. It feels like the broadcast keeps bringing it back up just when I’m about to forget? From the first episode they were subtly showing off that “they don’t care, they’re friendly” vibe, so maybe that was the goal from the start lol. Still, feels weird.
The writer’s talking about how the broadcast keeps comparing them. They haven’t gone fully blatant yet, but they keep showing the same situations back and forth, highlighting how each side acts and what result they get.
2222 Even in yesterday’s broadcast, lol... It felt a little like they were using my idol to drag another idol down, so I didn’t like it.
Looking at the screenshots, there really is some comparison happening. Overall, the group atmosphere and the leader’s control look different;; what is this, though? I didn’t get this feeling much when I watched the live broadcast yesterday.
This was edited so the subtitle timing and expressions look awful together, fuck lololol. Do they think the viewers are suckers?? Who’s stupid enough to fall for this kind of thing these days, sigh.
Nope, if you just post screenshots right away and open a thread, there’ll be a whole crowd of people who seize the chance to go overboard with their comparison commentary. The broadcast people probably know that, which is why they keep trying these obvious little tricks.
What would Zero One fans even say to this? Random question, but doesn’t Jeong Hae kind of resemble Kyeon In-woo? Not the face—more the vibe, maybe...? They say friends start to look alike, right? I know you can’t really compare their looks... don’t beat me up.
Where in the world...? They’re completely different...??
lolololololol user, when you go shopping, don’t go alone—make sure you take a guardian with you~ okay? You’ll go buy a razor and come back with a vegetable slicer lolololololol
How clueless do you have to be to reply to a post complaining about comparisons with more comparisons?
Could this be it?
Somehow... the fact that they were emphasizing the idea that he’d come up with the concept himself, and the fact that they were comparing him with that Jeong Hae bastard...
Looking at it, it seemed like it would keep going this way.
Planting the frame that I plagiarized Jeong Hae’s idea... is that too obvious? Well, this isn’t some makjang drama. It’s a sleazy trick that’s plain as day.
[Article 80 │ Even a perfect idol cannot avoid every incident.]
So they were doing it. They weren’t just checking the box; they were nailing the coffin shut too. Fuck.
So this time it was him instead of Pyo Jae-ho...?
If things had flowed as they were supposed to, Zero One and DTD should’ve been the ones to clash by now. But then there was the way things had gone with Triple Shot too. Hm. If it had been Pyo Jae-ho like before, would it have naturally collided with DTD instead? Conveniently enough, that side also had a composer.
It felt like the more he tried to stop the members from getting into trouble, the more he got dragged into it himself. As if the controversy that should have happened to Pyo Jae-ho was being forced onto Go Young-in instead.
Maybe this was better. It wasn’t the worst outcome, was it?
This time, since it was him instead of Pyo Jae-ho, maybe the plagiarism scandal that would explode later could be sorted out more easily than expected—or fade away entirely.
“This is fucking exhausting.”
“Haha...”
Kyeon In-woo looked completely fed up. That was how these kinds of programs usually were, to be fair. This one was definitely on the excessive side.
“You really think that’s funny? ...Forget it. You idiot, Go Young-in. I already know you’d just let it slide anyway.”
“No. I’m not planning to let it slide.”
“Yeah, fuck. I knew you’d—”
Kyeon In-woo cut himself off mid-sneer and met Go Young-in’s eyes. For once, he looked genuinely surprised.
Honestly, even now, he still didn’t feel much. So long as it didn’t violate the rules, getting cursed at wasn’t a big deal.
But this time, between the status window and the way the whole thing felt, he had a bad feeling about it. He needed at least a minimum insurance policy in place.
At this rate, it didn’t look like it would stop with him taking the heat alone. There was a good chance the whole group would get swept into it.
So could you please stop staring at me like your face has a million question marks on it?
“Why?”
“Why?”
“You’re not Go Young, are you.”
Fuck. What did you think I was all this time, you asshole?
Kyeon In-woo, who’d been casually needling him and irritating him with that sly, casual tone for ages, suddenly leaned in as if he’d discovered something interesting and got strangely serious.
“So what are you gonna do?”
“Nothing major.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s not like it’s anything special, I—”
“Hey, Go Young. I want in too. Let me join.”
...Was he even listening to a word I said?