Chapter 61 - The Qualities of a Gentle Idol Leader - Episode 61
Yoo In-hyeok, as usual, kept Go Young-in pinned in place and chattered at him with tireless malice.
"I even gave you friendly advice, didn’t I? I told you to know your limits. You’ve only got to do a little, and the answer comes right out, but you had to go and make things hard for yourself."
"I appreciate the advice, but... I don’t want to show our supporters anything embarrassing. Doing my best is only natural, so—"
"Ah, damn, you’re irritating as hell. That’s why you can’t make it."
"Pardon?"
Go Young-in hadn’t expected Yoo In-hyeok to hurl insults straight to his face, and his expression twisted with surprise before he could stop it.
"So how’d that work out for you? You were in so much pain that it wouldn’t have been strange if you’d dropped dead any minute, and still you kept at it. You know what you got for all that effort?"
Yoo In-hyeok made a pair of scissors with his fingers and mimed cutting something apart. Editing, you bastard.
"If it only ended with bad editing, you’d be lucky. They stole every idea and made a damn mess of it. You watched last week’s broadcast, didn’t you?"
Go Young-in’s pupils trembled in tiny, rapid shakes. He forced his voice to harden to hide the expression that was threatening to collapse, but he couldn’t quite smother the agitation underneath.
"...Stole our ideas?"
"You already figured it out, didn’t you? What, you didn’t know? If you really didn’t, then you’re a fucking idiot."
"What are you talking about?"
This bastard. If he fell into water, his mouth would probably still float.
He was spilling everything so easily that it was almost more shocking than it should have been. Go Young-in already knew the man never watched his mouth, but who did he think was nearby, talking like that?
If even he knows about the ideas, then it means the PD or Triple Shot’s agency really did get involved. Damn it. Shameless bastards.
"W-well, I mean... I just thought it was a coincidence."
He said that, but honestly, it was hard for the contestants not to suspect some kind of backroom interference. Even so, once they caught on, they had only pretended not to know, denying reality and acting as if they were still in the dark.
The muttered insistence that it couldn’t be true grew smaller and smaller, until it finally fell silent. Yoo In-hyeok watched him until he was quiet, then spat out the cigarette butt from his mouth and ground it under his heel.
"You really are pathetic. Of all the people to get caught up in this and suffer like a dog, it had to be you. Tsk."
He’d chosen this method because he knew what sort of person the other man was.
"I told you, didn’t I? Working yourself to death like that won’t get you anywhere."
"...Did I... fall short somewhere?"
Go Young-in trailed off unsteadily, then went on in a weak voice, as though he were half-admitting the truth. He lowered his head to gather himself, as if only for a moment.
Playing the pitiful one is fucking hard.
By now, Go Young-in had drilled one thing into his skull over and over: at this moment, he had to be the kind of person who looked miserable.
He hadn’t thought his acting was that bad. Damn it, was pretending to be pitiful really this hard? Still, thanks to the system, his facial control had become pretty solid, which was something.
Somehow, not even a single tear came out for appearances’ sake. He was so dried out it was practically enough to trigger dry-eye syndrome. How did Cheon Sa-yoon do this kind of thing every time?
For a moment he even wondered if he should go insane and stab himself in the eye just to force some tears out, but thankfully, there was no need to worry.
He didn’t have to nudge Yoo In-hyeok at all; the man was already acting like a bomb disposal unit, eagerly stepping on every mine in sight. And more spectacularly than Go Young-in had expected, too.
"Shortcomings? You’ve got a hell of a lot."
Apparently he hadn’t expected to be told so bluntly that he was lacking, because he blinked at Go Young-in with a blank, vacant look. Yoo In-hyeok laughed as if he were looking at some fragile little wimp, then clicked his tongue.
He fished a cigarette pack out of his pocket with his free hand, shook one loose, put it between his lips, and lit it.
"What, are you some kind of loser? Don’t tell me you’re hurt because I said you’re lacking?"
"......"
"Now think about it. What, you think you can succeed just by dancing and singing well? In this business? Luck’s not on your side either. You don’t have enough where it counts. And then you go and get targeted too."
A teasing note slid through Yoo In-hyeok’s teeth.
"From now on, listen carefully to what I’m saying. I’m telling you because I feel sorry for you, and because it’s not some other bastard’s problem."
As long as Zero One didn’t collapse, Go Young-in didn’t care whether Yoo In-hyeok destroyed himself or not.
Even if it was his own actions that had led this matter to unfold in what looked like coincidence but was really inevitability.
Unlike taking the abuse himself, if the whole group was dragged in and blamed together, he had no idea how the members would react—or what fresh bullshit the system would pull next.
Anyway, whatever he says now is entirely something he’s choosing to bring on himself.
* * *
Because it had been a fan live rather than a broadcast, the issue initially spread only through a few communities. On first listen, the volume was low and the sound was muddled, making the details hard to catch, but not so much that people couldn’t make guesses.
Anonymous 202N.09.23 │ Views: 46,179
At the beginning they were chatting with fans, so most of it got swallowed up by the noise. I only wrote down the parts I could catch.
If you turn the volume and audio quality up as much as possible, you can hear it pretty clearly, even if it gets a little shredded.
Zero One’s fans were furious that the singer they loved had been talked about like that behind his back, and fans of the other contestants were just as worried that maybe the idols they liked were being treated the same way.
There were also plenty who said it made no sense for something like this to happen at the exact moment a fellow group member was live-streaming, that it must be staged, that there must have been a reason for those remarks, or that a short audio clip alone couldn’t possibly reveal the whole situation.
Generally, incidents like this burned hotter than cases where the crime itself was obvious and undisputed.
Crime was black and white, but with controversies like this, there was also the question of whether the video had been manipulated; until a definite conclusion came out, opinions remained split, and people argued over right and wrong from different angles.
But because the conversation between Go Young-in and Yoo In-hyeok consisted mainly of one-sided abuse and profanity, public sentiment did tilt in Go Young-in’s favor.
All over the major celebrity communities, the story raced through the rankings and fierce arguments erupted everywhere.
The issue truly exploded that evening, once the main broadcast of Who's the K aired.
The problem that had originally been raised involved The Road, who had been eliminated in the first round of the first mission, and the topic choice for the first round of the second mission. But perhaps because of the video controversy, the part that drew the most attention was the latter.
[Zero One’s Young-in Brings Out a Concept That Feels Weirdly Familiar]
~Team meeting, Triple Shot and Eternal Seven, a few days ago~
[Triple Shot’s Jeong Hae: Don’t you think the seniors in Industry Stream’s Crack Down are pretty good? We could even build stage equipment like a multi-level structure, and...]
[Eternal Seven’s Ho-su: The song is good, but will it fit our image? Yesterday, we were... ]
[In-hyeok breaks into laughter]
[Triple Shot’s In-hyeok: Ah, that’s fine. I’m all for it no matter what.]
…
[Triple Shot’s Jeong Hae: I’ll submit the concept proposal.]
[Jeong Hae submits the proposal and leaves at leisure.]
[The next contestant enters]
[Zero One’s Young-in: Dance team. I’m here to submit the proposal.]
…
[? Sudden incident occurs]
[An unprecedented situation in which the dance teams’ songs overlap]
[Zero One’s Young-in stands alone, calm among the flustered contestants]
[A vague smile that suggests he knows something]
[DTD’s Us: Ah! We should’ve announced first!]
[The production crew rushes into a meeting!]
If you don’t know what happened, refer to the link below.
It seems like “idea stolen” means the song and concept overlapped?
Judging from what was said on the live, wasn’t it originally Zero One’s side that submitted the idea first, and someone else cut in ahead of them? Lol. Damn, in the broadcast it looks like Go Young-in submitted the proposal later, but did they change the order through editing? That’s really fucking harsh. I know ratings matter, but still;
If it hadn’t been for the V App, today’s community would’ve been plastered with nothing but hate for Go Young-in. “So this is the composer-idol, the idea bank,” they’d have said, only to find out he was actually stealing someone else’s ideas, lol.
Just before the broadcast, there were already tons of people saying shit like, “You want to be famous so badly you’d fake that much?” and “If people are saying things like that, maybe the one getting cursed at really does have a problem.”
#YooInhyeok_Apologize
#ZeroOneVApp
#TripleShot
#OurYoungin
#Knet_FakeEditing_Explain
#WhoIsTheK_BadEditing
#DoubleD_Die
With the broadcast pouring fuel on the fire that had already been smoldering, things only burned harder. Hashtags flooded social media, and related articles began pouring out in waves.
Even people who weren’t especially interested in idols found themselves clicking one article after another, and as attention kept building, Yoo In-hyeok poured oil on the blaze with spectacular timing.
Yoo In-hyeok acted like it had nothing to do with him, absurdly calm. He simply uploaded a single bleh emoticon to social media and made no statement at all. It was blatantly intentional to anyone with eyes.
gyeongganglikepeace @jottggaimangry
It takes talent to make someone feel like absolute shit with just one emoticon.
What the fuck is wrong with him? Low-effort as hell, damn lol.
Reposts 1,985 │ Quotes 877 │ Likes 2,010
jeonghaewonhae @JH_Yousaman
Damn, I want to beat the shit out of some other-group member blocking my member’s future. We worked so hard to build up the group, and now YooInhyuck’s mess has completely ruined it.
Reposts 30 │ Quotes 379 │ Likes 42
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r @dfzGE8QvbOInb
Replying to @JH_Yousaman
YooInhyuck and ShawnJounghoon, lol. Your member hogs all the screen time and gets the one-shot treatment, and you’ve still got the nerve to complain this much? Watching one person get all the spotlight makes it look less like K-pop and more like J-pop.
As the controversy deepened and arguments over editing manipulation and voting fairness resurfaced, there was no sign of it dying down for days.
[Knet: “It’s different from the facts; there was only a mistake in transmission, not manipulation” ... regrets for Zero One]
[Hello, this is Triple Shot’s Yoo In-hyeok. On the 23rd...]
In the end, the Knet broadcast station that had expected this to pass quickly was dragged into the mess too and only belatedly issued a correction article, while Triple Shot’s agency uploaded Yoo In-hyeok’s apology statement and hurriedly brought things to a close.