The Conditions for Becoming a Gentle Idol Leader - Episode 77

It had already been a month since Kwon Dae-do’s ban from the practice room finally ended. Go Young-in was sprawled on the practice room floor.

Even thinking about it now, it’s ridiculous.

He still couldn’t believe that the broadcast had ended in a way like that. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Who would have ever guessed it would go down like this? Go Young-in shook his head and brushed away the hair tickling the corner of his eye, letting out a short laugh.

It had been a long time since he’d seen the Condition Clause, and it felt strangely good. Ha. Fuck. Maybe it was a blessing that his memories were still hazy, because his mental recovery came quickly.

In the end, he still couldn’t remember exactly what had happened when he was in high school. He’d asked Kyeon In-woo, but even he had stubbornly refused to answer in anything remotely direct, which was unlike him.

Then again, the guy had always scolded him for even bothering to try remembering, so maybe that was to be expected.

As long as nothing suddenly blew up again like this, well. That would be a relief, wouldn’t it?

At times like these, having gaps in his memory wasn’t such a bad thing.

There were even entertainment agencies involved, so unless the broadcasting station had gone completely insane, there was no way they could have done that without consultation. As it turned out, though, it had been the PD’s own unilateral decision.

There was no way the station and the agencies could simply reconcile and cut ties cleanly, either.

There were occasional cases where a broadcasting station’s music programs vanished over trouble between a PD and an agency, but those were rare.

In the end, they’d settled on pretending it hadn’t happened after quietly arranging things so both sides could get something out of it.

One result of that had been the switch in Knet’s music show MC a few days ago, replaced by DTD’s leader, Park Ha-un. It wasn’t an unfair dismissal; from what he’d heard, the previous MC had already been set to step down because of scheduling conflicts.

The broadcast had been a total anticlimax, but it had still pulled in the buzz, so the station could bury it for now, and the people involved had all gotten plenty of exposure out of it. In that sense, it was a win-win.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission had issued its ruling, but that was only about broadcast standards. Real consequences for the PD were only just beginning.

He didn’t know whether the PD would actually be arrested. There were rumors that viewers had organized a fact-finding committee over the manipulation and were planning to sue the PD and the broadcaster for fraud.

If every charge stuck, wouldn’t prison be hard to avoid?

Unfortunately, the mysterious informant known only as “B-ssi,” who had exposed the suspicions about the PD’s acceptance of money and favors, was widely rumored to be fired for whistleblowing.

Come to think of it, Bae So-jin hasn’t been seen since then either. She used to stick to Cheon Sa-yoon like glue.

Thanks to the fallout from the controversy, interview requests had also come pouring in from everywhere.

They wanted a clear statement of his position, but what exactly was he supposed to say?

Exaggerating only a little, it felt like the current situation was drawing far more attention than their summer comeback had a few months ago.

Even people who didn’t know idols were talking about it, so it made sense.

Bad news really did travel faster than good. He’d gotten more calls lately than he had in ages. That was just how sensational stories worked.

Still, among all those calls, there had been one that was actually useful.

It was a group variety show booking for Zero One, not a solo appearance.

It was a daily part-time-job variety show called “None of Your Business,” airing on the cable channel Ntvc.

After looking it up, he found it was a fairly middle-of-the-road program — not wildly popular, but not obscure either. Its ratings were steady, which meant it probably had a solid base of regular viewers.

He remembered that last time they’d been booked for something else instead of a variety show, but bad as the controversy was, the resulting buzz had changed the kinds of offers coming their way.

What mattered was that they’d been booked at all. Anything that got them on air was a chance. Group variety bookings weren’t easy to come by, after all.

As television gave way more and more to internet platforms, there were fewer places left for idols to appear on TV. In that climate, a variety show offer was genuinely encouraging.

It would also be a good way to ease the fandom’s vaguely restless mood after the last incident. Just showing that they were doing well would help a lot.

When the fandom atmosphere got this messy, it was better to appear often. He was the leader, after all…

Since he was thinking about it, maybe he should upload something else too. And while he was at it, he might as well slip in a spoiler.

Click. Lying there, he stretched out one arm and took several photos before uploading them to social media.

He’d done today’s upload too. After posting the photo, he returned to the notes app and slowly read the memo reflected on his phone screen. He was glad he’d written it down in rough form, telling himself to record things before he forgot again after coming back.

Just a few months had passed, and things were already growing hazy again. Maybe it was because new memories were piling up and mixing with the old ones.

What we did after the survival show ended was…

Originally, they’d come back right away instead of doing a variety show. It had been noisy, sure, but exposure was exposure, and he remembered the talk being that they’d ride the momentum and release a full-length first album. Then Pyo Jae-ho’s plagiarism controversy had broken out in the middle of it, so the full album was postponed and they went back to a mini album…

Now the school-violence scandal has broken instead, and the similarity controversy is gone. So are we going with a full album this time?

He flipped past the notes for record-keeping and found the memo where he’d written down his goals waiting for him.

Ha… “Finish filming the final broadcast without any major controversy,” my ass.

He crossed out the sentence he’d written as a short-term goal. Another failure. He’d thought it was realistic, but it wasn’t.

Was it really that hard to finish a broadcast without incident? What about the next variety shoot? Looking at them now, there was no guarantee something similar wouldn’t happen again.

Ka-talk

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?Chat

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[Zero One / Kyeon In-woo]

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy (1)

[.]

⚠️ This user is not registered as a friend.

Your phone is Young-in’s, right? It is, isn’t it, Young-in? You don’t have to reply, I already know everything, I love you, I’m really the only one for you, read the text and reply, if you don’t I’ll kill myself (212)

[Manager]

Young-in. I’m taking Jae-ho to school, so wait a moment. I have some shooting notes to pass along. (1)

[coolguy]

⚠️ This user is not registered as a friend.

I think I might actually have talent for broadcasting lol maybe I should try streaming for once (12)

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Kyeon In-woo was acting weird.

Lately, he’d been doing things he normally never did. Go Young-in put his phone down and turned his head. The bastard was sitting by the practice room’s mirror wall.

If they were together, he could just say it out loud, so what was with the sudden feast of consonants?

Even though he could feel Young-in’s gaze on him, he was pretending not to be doing anything at all, and he was doing it with surprising composure.

He’d guessed it the moment In-woo had said he’d come along instead of going downstairs to work out. He must have been horribly bored.

“Bored?”

“I’m dying because of you.”

What the hell was he talking about? Kyeon In-woo held up his phone screen.

There, along with the words YOU FAILED! BUT A SYSTEM REVIVED YOU :), was a game character lying dead.

And above that, social-media notifications were pouring in like mad. The phone kept lagging and stuttering because the updates never stopped.

In other words, he’d game overed because of the notifications, but wasn’t the idiot the one who’d left them on? No, if he’d kept SNS notifications active all this time, using his phone must have been miserable.

Kyeon In-woo went on shamelessly.

“Damn, I shouldn’t have logged in. Do you use the account alone? Why do you keep posting stuff?”

This punk. It looked like he’d only installed SNS and never actually logged in once until now.

He ought to post something himself if he was going to complain. Communication my ass — he was the one who barely ever showed up, so this was ridiculous. Kyeon In-woo ignored that and kept scrolling through Zero One’s social media account.

“Hey, Go Young. Is this really our group account? Every recent photo is just you.”

Fuck, that’s because none of you post anything.

“You even managed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do Halloween in between. Why did you smear all this nasty-looking stuff around your mouth? Is that blood?”

The bastard cheerfully browsed the gallery and delivered his commentary like a critic at a film festival.

“Well, look at you, showing off.”

At first, Go Young-in thought he might be picking a fight.

“You should at least loosen your face a bit when you’re walking around. Do you only smile for selfies? You look like a different person.”

But considering how diligently he kept hitting like here and there, it seemed he wasn’t trying to pick a fight after all — he was just bored.

It’s the same account either way. What’s the point of hitting like? It just makes you look full of self-love.

“This is basically Go Young’s account… what? Cheon Sa-yoon posted too?”

Kyeon In-woo acted as if he were staring at a completely unfamiliar account for the first time. No, that was the Zero One shared SNS account, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠remember?

“Yeah. He posts.”

“Fuck, my eyes are ruined.”

“Sa-yoon takes good care of the fans.”

“And I don’t?”

“……”

He couldn’t bring himself to lie.

It’s not like you never do anything, but… honestly, you barely ever come around. Compared to Cheon Sa-yoon, you’d fall into the ‘doesn’t take care of them much’ category.

“……”

Kyeon In-woo suddenly went quiet.

What was really unexpected was that, in Zero One, the member who communicated most often with the fans after Go Young-in was Cheon Sa-yoon. He even showed up regularly, on the dot. As for the bottom of the list, it was Pyo Jae-ho without question.

If his personality was hopeless, at least Cheon Sa-yoon was the best to work with… or so he definitely might have thought not long ago.

But after this incident, maybe that wasn’t true either.

Come to think of it, this incident had happened because of Cheon Sa-yoon’s impulsive behavior in the first place. He had apologized, but an apology didn’t guarantee he wouldn’t do it again.

Would this have been preventable if he’d kept a closer eye on Cheon Sa-yoon? Not that he was the type to listen even if you tried to stop him, but still.

They shouldn’t have left the members as they were just because it was a long-term project.

It was ridiculous to imagine a hypothetical after the fact, but he couldn’t help thinking it anyway.

What the hell am I supposed to do to get these members to cooperate even a little?

Haa. At the very moment Go Young-in had gone limp on the floor, defeated—

Click.

A photo?

Go Young-in lifted his head. Kyeon In-woo was already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠standing in front of the mirror. He tapped his phone a few times and grinned.

“Not a big deal.”

Although it had only happened once, the shutter sound had definitely gone off, so it seemed he’d taken a photo. Go Young-in checked social media, and sure enough, Kyeon In-woo had already uploaded a new post.

What the hell got into him…? Is he crazy?

The quick rise in reposts made it obvious everyone was shocked. Go Young-in could scarcely believe it with his own eyes, so how much more intense must the fans’ reaction be?

As Kyeon In-woo checked the photo he’d posted and watched the flood of notifications, he suddenly snickered and pointed to a corner of the image.

“Ah, fuck. Look at this. You came out looking like a squashed potato. That’s hilarious.”

What. The fuck. He looked like sweet potato taffy or something. He was the one who took the picture, so what was he supposed to do about it? Since it wasn’t a selfie he’d taken himself, the status window didn’t scold him for the shot, but for Go Young-in, who had never once uploaded a photo that looked like this, it was still absurd.

“Go Young, got anything else? Should I upload that Bubble thing from last time or something?”

“Yeah. If you go visit them, they’ll be happy.”

Why was he suddenly working so hard? Go Young-in would be glad if Kyeon In-woo helped group activities, of course, but he couldn’t tell what exactly had motivated him.

“Why now?”

“Because if I don’t, it’s bullshit too.”

Damn it. Go Young-in added belatedly,

“No, I mean, it’s a good idea. I’m just curious why. If you go visit them, In-woo, everyone will be happy. Who wouldn’t be?”

As Kyeon In-woo slowly scrunched up his face, Go Young-in kept talking nonsense with all his might. He was really a disgusting bastard to please. The words that followed were even more outrageous.

“If even that fucking lunatic can do it, there’s no reason I can’t.”

Ah… so this was because Cheon Sa-yoon had been praised for taking care of fan service? He’d known that all along and still reacted like this? Was that really how little he ever paid attention to anything Cheon Sa-yoon did?

So Kyeon In-woo was the type who only responded when his competitive streak got poked. Hahah… you little shit, are you a kid? Even children aren’t this childish.

He couldn’t exactly pour cold water on the fact that he was offering to do it voluntarily. Just a moment… Go Young-in fell into thought.

Among the members, Kyeon In-woo was the only one who could actually hold a normal conversation with him. From the way he was acting, there might be some hope after all.

…Can I really suggest that In-woo help out?

Conversation. So this wasn’t against the rules, then. Go Young-in found himself belatedly pondering human interaction.

“In-woo.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got a variety shoot coming up soon, right?”

“And?”

“There’s something I’d like to ask for cooperation on…”

He decided to just throw it out there.

* * *

“Hello! Zero One, nice to meet you! Today’s day labor on ‘None of Your Business’ is exactly this! A part-time job that’s hot these days. That’s right!”

Ta-da! The MC, acting as the guide, dramatically unfolded a placard.

“It’s a part-time job at a kids’ café!”

Just as he was wondering whether they’d have to do child care too, not just cleaning, the MC continued with the explanation.

“Since it’s a large kids’ café, it’s divided into several sections. Each of you will go to your assigned area and take care of cleaning and tidying up. If there are children who need help from time to time, please lend a hand. All right, everyone, fighting~!”

And so, with that hopelessly vague explanation, Zero One was dropped, without warning or preparation, right in the middle of the kids’ café.

Putting children together with Zero One’s little gang of maniacs? If no broadcast accident happened, it would be a miracle.

Go Young-in quietly pressed a hand to his forehead.