Chapter 60 - Conditions for Becoming a Gentle Idol Leader - Episode 60
60
“Haaah~ I’m so sleepy I could die.”
One Zero One fan, who had spent nearly a month getting a live, up-close taste of survival-show brutality, yawned so hard it hurt. It was lunchtime, but the fatigue still clung to them. The night before, they’d gone to war with their keyboard over a post trashing Zero One and, without meaning to, ended up staying up until dawn. Making it to work on time at all had been a miracle.
LIVE STARTED!
[ ZER01LIVE ] Hello, Aons.
After grabbing coffee from the break room and settling back into their seat to skim internet news with a dead-eyed stare, their phone suddenly rang.
— Ding.
“Huh?”
LIVE STARTED!
[ ZER01LIVE ] Hello, Aons.
This was a live-broadcast alert that had dropped in without warning.
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Yoo In-woo’s face filled the screen. Thanks to that, the fans knew at once whose broadcast it was, even before they had a chance to register the accidental close-up.
Yoo In-woo said nothing. He just stared intently at the hearts and viewer count climbing in real time at the top of the live screen.
When he decided enough time had passed, he snapped his fingers once.
“That should do it, right?”
The fans, delighted to see him, started showering the chat with questions the moment Yoo In-woo looked down at it.
“Hey there, Aons. I’m here~”
Yoo In-woo rarely did impromptu lives unless it was a group broadcast or something planned in advance, so he rubbed at the back of his neck as if embarrassed for no reason at all.
“Where am I? I’m at a café near the filming studio.”
He had taken a seat at the outdoor terrace, pulled off his cap and mask, and set them on the table. Then, while sipping the iced coffee he’d ordered ahead of time, he fixed the streaming device in place with his free hand.
“I just came by before my schedule, so I can’t stay long. I’ll hang out for a bit and head back.”
He brushed a hand through his messy hair and grinned. That didn’t mean the way he’d behaved up to now had gone anywhere, though.
“Where are the other members? Ah, you already came in knowing it was me, didn’t you? Don’t be rude and go looking for the others. They’re all inside the studio. I just stepped out for some fresh air.”
“This? What was it again… some kind of coffee. I don’t really know. Young-in said this one was good.”
“Who's the K is on tonight, so make sure you watch it live. Promise?”
Yoo In-woo kept chatting with the fans in a casual stream of small talk, and just as he was getting into the swing of it, strange comments began appearing in the chat one by one.
“A voice?”
Even Yoo In-woo’s ears caught the faint murmur of conversation.
“That’s Young-in’s voice.”
Yoo In-woo was just about to turn his body toward the side where the voice was coming from when he abruptly stopped. He recognized the voice as familiar, and yet the conversation it was having with someone else sounded anything but ordinary.
…
The more he focused on the conversation, the more the grin on Yoo In-woo’s face slowly faded and hardened into something else.
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LIVE STARTED!
[ ZER01LIVE ] Hello, Aons.
Go Young-in steadied himself as he checked the alert on his phone.
I hadn’t meant to take it this far.
Was this really the best he could do? He’d already failed to end things cleanly, without controversy. Then what about the bigger controversy—would the trouble caused by doing this himself be worse, or would the fallout from letting it slide and getting edited into exactly the kind of malicious cut the PD wanted be worse in the end?
Go Young-in let out a soundless sigh. His head hurt just thinking about it.
Fine. Since it had already come to this.
Yoo In-woo in the screen was still running the live stream. He looked absurdly natural, as though he were just face-to-face with someone he knew well and chatting casually.
That bastard really was the type to just charge in headfirst. He was the same back in school…
Hmm. What was it again? The details had gone fuzzy, but there had definitely been something about him even back then—some kid who was always causing trouble in ways that were impossible to ignore.
Go Young-in’s original plan had been very simple: make it look like an accident and leak the show’s unfairness. Indirectly, as if by chance, with no hint of intent.
The important part was that it had to look like a mistake. Even if they found out it had been deliberate, it couldn’t look deliberate. In the end, appearance was what mattered. Whatever had the stronger pretense was the side that came out ahead.
Directly complaining that he’d been wronged, only to hand them an obvious excuse to retaliate later, was too risky. The company and the broadcaster were tangled up together, and there was also the confidentiality clause in the appearance contract he’d signed before filming began.
But if he let it go, he had a bad feeling the group would be dragged back down the same old road without fail. After everything he’d endured among those bastards, he wasn’t going to swallow it quietly.
Go Young-in remembered the conversation he’d had with Yoo In-woo a few days earlier.
When Yoo In-woo suddenly said he wanted to be looped in, Go Young-in shook his head. He didn’t show it, but he’d been deeply thrown off.
He was trying to keep the whole group from getting hated. What was the point of dragging this idiot into getting hated too?
“In-woo, isn’t that a little too hasty?”
“Why?”
“What do I even have to do…?”
“You said it wasn’t a big deal.”
Fuck… That was just how he talked. He was a pro at picking apart the last syllable of a sentence only when it suited him.
And, honestly, he seemed like he’d just get in the way. If he did it alone, at least his mind would be at ease. If they did it together, he’d have to worry about a dozen extra things and probably couldn’t focus properly…
He swallowed the words he really wanted to say, already familiar with the motion. Yoo In-woo had let it go at the time, so he’d assumed the matter was closed.
He had underestimated that bastard’s stubbornness. The son of a bitch.
After that, as if he’d been bored out of his mind, Yoo In-woo had kept badgering him every chance he got for days, throwing tantrums so shameless they wouldn’t have suited even preschoolers, until Go Young-in finally threw up both hands and gave in.
Sometimes it felt like that bastard knew he couldn’t freely swear back and was doing this on purpose.
At that point, Go Young-in decided to think positively. Fine, one more set of hands couldn’t hurt. It was more natural this way than doing it alone anyway…
“Aren’t you going to say it already?”
Half-surrendered, Go Young-in laid out what he’d been thinking in rough terms. Really, it wasn’t that complicated.
“You know Yoo In-hyeok from Triple Shot?”
“Yeah. That foul-mouthed bastard.”
That’s rich, coming from you… but whatever. Go Young-in took the comment in stride and kept going.
“Ever since before, he’s been talking like he knows something. I want to dig into that. And if it works out, it’d be great if he’d spread it himself.”
“Spread it himself?”
Even with that explanation, Yoo In-woo unusually didn’t cut him off halfway. He listened all the way through.
“That’s about it. Honestly, there isn’t much for us to do on this side. Depending on what he says, it could turn into a tiny little incident—or into a real controversy.”
“Tiny? Just look at the way that bastard talks on camera. You can tell what kind of mess it’s going to become.”
“Shouldn’t the cleanup be their problem, then?”
“Hey, you’re reckless as hell too. Totally unhinged.”
I don’t want to hear that from you.
And so Yoo In-woo, unintentionally, had been dragged into it as well.
After hearing the whole story, he’d argued that if they were going to screw somebody over, they should do it properly instead of half-assing it, and he’d tossed out all kinds of suggestions, but the core of the plan remained the same.
Go Young-in could at least agree on one thing: anything half-baked was the worst kind of mess.
That was how the division of roles came about. Yoo In-woo would handle the live stream, while Go Young-in would play bait to draw Yoo In-hyeok in.
Yoo In-woo had even volunteered to host the live himself, saying he’d rather do that than deal with Yoo In-hyeok at all.
It was enough to make the heavens blink in surprise, hearing the words “I’ll do the live” come out of that bastard’s mouth.
Not only Go Young-in, but everyone on set knew that Yoo In-hyeok wandered off to smoke every day as if it were his job. He didn’t even bother hiding the smell, so there was no way not to know.
The reason Yoo In-woo had chosen the café’s outdoor terrace as his live location was because he knew Yoo In-hyeok usually smoked behind the building nearby.
Go Young-in had chosen a spot where he could be caught, however faintly, by the microphone on Yoo In-woo’s broadcast device without standing out enough to look suspicious, and was waiting there.
These days, devices were good enough that even if you were behind a wall or some distance away, the audio pickup was absurdly clear. It was enough if the conversation was only faintly audible.
As long as he placed himself somewhere visible from the path Yoo In-hyeok walked, that bastard—who seemed to treat picking fights like a hobby—would no doubt come drifting over, all smiles and enthusiasm.
He can take the bait once or twice.
True to form, the man was walking toward Go Young-in with a cigarette between his lips, as carefree as if he owned the road. Smoking out in the open like it was nothing.
Go Young-in tucked his phone back into his pocket, then slapped both cheeks hard with his hands.
The status window nagged him to be careful with his face, but he already knew from experience that this much force wouldn’t even earn him a Caution, so there was no need to worry about it.
“Oh?”
Having spotted Go Young-in standing alone, Yoo In-hyeok wore an expression that said he’d stumbled onto something perfect. Just looking at him, you could tell he was thrilled to have found someone to pick a fight with.
Just as expected.