The Conditions for Becoming a Kind Idol Leader - Episode 72
[Please understand that a few expressions during the broadcast may have been somewhat inappropriate.]
The broadcaster hastily rolled out a caption apologizing for the on-air mishap, but the aftershock of what Jeong Hae had said showed no signs of fading. The MC tried to smooth things over with an apology and calm the room, but the uproar was not so easily hushed.
The words had already gone out over the air. It had only been seven or eight seconds at most, but there was no way to stop the audience in the studio or the viewers at home from seeing and hearing every last bit of it.
The ones suddenly on the back foot were the innocent broadcast staff and the employees from the agencies.
Shouts flew back and forth from all directions. The staff had to push the live broadcast through to the end no matter what. Everyone was racing around at breakneck speed, doing everything they could to salvage the plan and keep the show on track. It was chaos, like a street market gone feral.
Cheon Sa-yoon, one of the chief culprits behind the commotion, stood apart from it all and watched from a distance.
“Coffee...? This is over coffee...?”
“You say that like it’s nothing.”
Not only had Jeong Hae gone around recklessly trashing other people’s things, he’d also managed to make Cheon Sa-yoon feel like absolute shit.
Cheon Sa-yoon had already explained it nicely, and yet Jeong Hae still didn’t seem to grasp it in one go. He tilted his head, genuinely puzzled.
“It’s an important matter to me. You can’t just go around dirtying other people’s things.”
For such an absurd situation, the answer was disturbingly calm. Jeong Hae was left speechless for a moment before finally exploding in anger.
“You little fucking bastard!”
“The one who got played by that little fucking bastard is the idiot. What is that attached to your neck, a coat hook? If you’re not going to use it, why carry it around?”
“Shit... you insane bastard... You, you’re really, you fucking—”
“A damn son of a bitch?”
“What...?”
Jeong Hae stopped dead, his expression blank with disbelief at the unexpected reply. Cheon Sa-yoon hummed to himself without a trace of concern.
“You already said bastard and crazy bastard, so I figured the next one would be son of a bitch.”
“...”
What the hell was wrong with this guy? Jeong Hae couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or just toying with him.
“And then? Is that all?”
But Cheon Sa-yoon asked it back so brightly that Jeong Hae, somehow catching himself nodding with a stupid look on his face, suddenly shouted again a beat later.
“Shit! How can you joke around in a situation like this? Can’t you see the mess you caused?”
“Hmm.”
Not a joke. The barking was terribly stale.
It had been entertaining for a moment, but as expected, the reaction was well below expectations.
Cheon Sa-yoon let out a soft sigh.
“Blaming other people is a bad habit.”
He genuinely found the scene in front of him pitiful. To see someone act like the world was collapsing over something this small.
“You should really fix that.”
Jeong Hae, slumped there with a dazed, stupid face, was no longer of interest to him.
Cheon Sa-yoon’s attention, already slipping away, landed on Go Young-in instead, the center of the controversy.
Even amid all the frantic movement, people kept their nerves trained on Go Young-in and Jeong Hae. Although it had been Cheon Sa-yoon and Jeong Hae who had openly stirred up the trouble, Go Young-in was the one trying to contain the situation with a calm face.
Even so, the whole thing had blown up because of Cheon Sa-yoon and Jeong Hae.
He looked like it was someone else’s business entirely. Anyone who had watched Go Young-in for long enough might have read the faintest shadow of embarrassment on his face, but at least on the surface, that was how he seemed.
“...”
Cheon Sa-yoon worried his lip with his teeth and tipped his head to one side. The corners of his mouth, which had been curved in a soft smile, were slowly sinking now.
Not enough?
He doesn’t get angry. Cheon Sa-yoon’s quiet murmur never fully formed, dissolving naturally in his mouth.
His eyes dropped to the floor for a moment before returning to Go Young-in. In that short span, Go Young-in had already been surrounded like ants swarming a dropped piece of sugar— agency staff, managers, even Kyeon In-woo.
Cheon Sa-yoon couldn’t hear the conversation from where he stood. But he already knew exactly what Go Young-in would say.
“I’m fine.”
The words Cheon Sa-yoon had mouthed matched Go Young-in’s lips. Even without hearing properly, Kyeon In-woo’s frustrated expression and the manager’s stricken face made the answer obvious.
Soon enough, the manager left Go Young-in with a few words to Kyeon In-woo, telling him to take the rest of the members and wait in the dressing room before taking Go Young-in somewhere else.
Kyeon In-woo stared after the manager and Go Young-in until they disappeared, then roughly shoved back his hair and left as well, dropping a half-hearted “To the waiting room” into the group chat he never even used properly.
Cheon Sa-yoon’s phone vibrated with a new message. He had seen Kyeon In-woo pull out his phone and send something, but Cheon Sa-yoon didn’t bother to take his own out.
Far off in the distance, the manager of Triple Shot was finally running over to where Jeong Hae stood, looking flustered and late.
Without hesitation, Cheon Sa-yoon turned away and headed out of the backstage area. His steps were light, almost cheerful.
Jeong Hae had already been forgotten in Cheon Sa-yoon’s mind.
* * *
Because it was a live broadcast, they couldn’t simply stop filming by force. After hurriedly cleaning up the mess, the live feed continued, and before long the show was heading into its final stretch.
“Now, all participating groups, please come up onto the stage.”
Only the ranking announcement remained. At the MC’s call, every group gathered onstage.
Jeong Hae clenched his fists tightly.
He had completely ruined the stage. Once the choreography lanes started to slip, one mistake led to another. Flustered and stumbling around, Jeong Hae had finally collided with one of the members and gone down in a clumsy, humiliating heap.
He knew the people rushing around were still paying close attention to this side despite how busy they were. The mocking stares, sharp enough to sting all over his body, felt painfully clear one by one.
It was his first time drawing this much attention on stage, and his first time drawing this kind of attention, too.
Everyone was pretending not to, but they were glancing back and forth between Jeong Hae and Go Young-in, whispering behind their hands. Jeong Hae, who was experiencing direct comparison and condemnation from the crowd for the first time, swallowed the humiliation with effort.
Jeong Hae felt as though everyone was laughing at his “mistake.” Everyone was looking down on him, making him their entertainment.
By then Jeong Hae had already lost all objectivity, though he didn’t realize it himself.
“...Hey, calm down a bit. Your face is giving you away.”
“Shut up. Useless bastard.”
He cut off the member beside him coldly, irritated by the whispering. He no longer had the spare energy to wrap his words in the usual veneer of politeness.
Even a member who usually never dared boss him around had started meddling, as if Jeong Hae had become laughable.
Jeong Hae lifted his hollow eyes and shot a glare toward Go Young-in. He was furious, humiliated, half-mad with bitterness, yet Go Young-in looked infuriatingly calm.
“Now, let’s take a look at the two teams currently in the danger zone from the vote tally. Can they escape elimination by the final announcement? I’m curious as well!”
The MC’s voice, the member next to him trying desperately to stop him, even that pleading tone—none of it reached Jeong Hae’s ears. The MC droned through a throwaway comment while showing the first candidate for elimination, then moved on to the next slot.
“And here is the second team in the elimination zone! Unfortunately, they had quite a few mistakes on today’s stage, didn’t they? Compared to their usual performance, this has been described as a rather messy stage! That team is...”
Zing. With the electronic sound, the screen displayed a familiar image.
“Triple Shot.”
By rights, by the original plan, the elimination candidate should have been a different group, not Triple Shot. But looking at the current situation, it was almost a foregone conclusion that things had gone sour with the PD.
Applause followed, but anyone could tell it was the kind of response given out of politeness and reluctance. With the broadcast mishap and the stage already in shambles, the live audience’s reaction toward Triple Shot was somewhat cold.
“Now that we’ve seen the teams in the elimination zone, we should look at the teams competing for first place too, right? Here’s our first candidate.”
Of all things, Triple Shot’s turn was followed by Zero One’s.
— Waaaah!!
“Zero One made especially impressive use of props and stage direction to deliver a truly memorable performance! We’re eager to see whether they’ll take first place with tonight’s vote!”
The MC’s commentary, the huge cheers compared to Triple Shot, the comparing eyes of the audience.
“Then let’s do a quick interview with the leader of our first first-place candidate team, Zero One’s Young-in.”
And, unlike his own seething anger, there was Go Young-in, standing straight ahead with a faint smile on his lips, looking composed and proud.
“...”
Go Young-in received the microphone amid thunderous applause. Originally, that should have been his spot.
Go Young-in should have been beneath him. He should not have been standing there so openly, so proudly.
“Yes. I’m Young-in, the leader of Zero One.”
“Did you expect the result?”
Jeong Hae quietly laughed along with the interview. It would have been unfair to be the only one left dirty at the end. He couldn’t be the only one to go down.
If he wasn’t going to get back on stage, then the only thing left was to grab hold of the others however he could and drag them down with him. If he had to become the loser and be pointed at and forgotten, he’d rather they all got dirty together.
Having reached a silent resolve, Jeong Hae snapped his head up—only to meet the eyes of Kyeon In-woo, who was standing right behind Go Young-in.
Kyeon In-woo was radiating such a fierce, murderous aura that he looked ready to charge over and beat Jeong Hae into paste.
“...”
He desperately wanted a cigarette. Jeong Hae, who had been planning to storm the interview and wreck everything, ended up doing nothing at all.
Jeong Hae ground his teeth.
If Go Young-in had never become an idol. If he had never blocked Jeong Hae’s path. Then maybe, just maybe, things could have been different. Maybe they could have been fairly close.
If that had happened, he might not have felt this miserable, and Go Young-in wouldn’t have had to suffer those things either.
As far as Jeong Hae was concerned, he wanted to turn the entire stage over right then and there. But he was not the kind of person who had that much courage. His lifelong habit of sneaking around and sowing discord from behind people’s backs wasn’t something he could shed so easily.
Cheon Sa-yoon had been the one who forced him to spit everything out with his own mouth, but the fact that the arrows of resentment still landed on the easier target, Go Young-in, said plenty.
He still didn’t have the nerve to shoulder the blame himself and step forward when he knew for certain he’d be cursed at for it.
For Jeong Hae now, this was the limit.