The Condition for a Gentle Idol Leader
Go Young-in ignored Na Woo-ri, who had been chattering away beside him, and turned his eyes to Pyo Jae-ho at the end of the row. Jae-ho had been staring at the stage with a hard, expressionless face ever since earlier, and for some reason he looked deeply displeased. He rarely changed his expression in the first place, but tonight it seemed even more rigid than usual. Just looking at that face made Young-in feel tired.
Ha....
"Anyway, I’m jealous, so jealous~ I wish I could hit it big by landing a song like that too. Hard work gets you nowhere; luck really is everything. Right?"
...
Na Woo-ri, left alone for a while, had gone from talking nonsense to talking complete nonsense. Young-in had no desire to correct him, so he chose to keep pretending to focus on the stage.
"Ah, this hyung’s spaced out again. Just half-ass it~ This isn’t some huge awards show anyway. Everyone else is probably watching half-asleep too. That’s how it usually is, right?"
"It wouldn’t be respectful to the industry peers performing earnestly in front of us."
"Wow, that sounds exactly like something our manager hyung would say. Guys like you are the ones who become idols, huh? I could never do it the way you do."
"Weren’t you doing it because you wanted to be an idol? You’re an idol too, aren’t you?"
"Of course I did it because I wanted to!"
Na Woo-ri bounced in place as if he’d heard something absurd. Based on everything he’d said until now, he hadn’t seemed like that kind of person, but apparently that wasn’t the whole story.
"But what am I supposed to do when I don’t have the talent? I worked hard in my own way. There’s no more room for me to improve here, so I swallowed the cringe, tried forcing a character, forced some aegyo, did every embarrassing thing under the sun, and it still didn’t work."
"Even so, I still do pretty well with our fans as the cute one. They call me Rabbit. It’s fucking hilarious."
Na Woo-ri held up two fingers and flicked them playfully beside his head.
Young-in had no idea where to even begin. He didn’t know how much effort Na Woo-ri had put in, and he had no right to comment on someone else’s hard work.
Before he could think of a response, Na Woo-ri laughed and asked why he was getting so serious.
"What about you, hyung?"
"...Me?"
"Yeah. So do you actually do it because you like it? Well, if I were you, I probably would too. It suits you, and you’ve got the talent for it."
Before he knew it, the question had been thrown right back at him. The unexpected words stole his voice.
I...
At first, it really had been something he’d started against his will.
Is it still like that now?
There were surely countless people out there who desperately wanted to become idols but couldn’t because they never got the chance, because they were unlucky, or because of any number of other reasons.
And yet he was the one standing here, having stepped over those people. He wanted to quit this, and still he was no different from someone being held in place by the status window.
Was he, maybe, deceiving the fans who said they liked him? Whenever he looked at them, he felt something strange. Their incomprehensible, excessive devotion, their almost abnormal level of faith, made his chest ache and tighten all at once.
There were already so many idols out there who were better, cooler, brighter—idols who fit the word perfectly, idols who shone like living symbols.
"Hyung?"
"Ah... I’m listening."
"Are you really listening? Why is it so hard to get a proper answer out of you!"
What, was he some damn colt? He hadn’t given him a second to breathe since earlier.
"Ah, right! This is something else, but our leader hyung said he can’t get in touch with you, so, u—"
"Hey, Go Young."
Just as Young-in was about to answer—carefully enough that the status window wouldn’t throw a fit—a voice cut in from the side.
"Scoot over and make some room."
Kyeon In-woo, who had finally come out of the waiting room belatedly after a small problem with his outfit, shoved Young-in away as if he were swatting at a fly and dropped into the seat beside him.
And the cheers exploded.
The instant Kyeon In-woo sat down, the roar from the audience grew louder. Right on cue, the giant screen above them was showing a close-up of Zero One’s faces.
The camera director moved closer toward the side where Zero One was seated. Thanks to that, the conversation with Na Woo-ri was neatly cut off.
As the cheers grew even louder in proportion to the close-up, Young-in was straightening his expression when Kyeon In-woo, of all people, started rustling around obnoxiously beside him.
Apparently he had decided to sit with one leg crossed in some obnoxiously smug pose, completely possessed by the concept.
He brushed his hair back, smiled, tapped his foot, hummed under his breath, and generally made a nuisance of himself by striking one pose after another.
What an idiot. He was having way too much fun.
As soon as the camera director moved away, Kyeon In-woo lowered his posture and dropped his voice.
"Fuck... my stomach feels disgusting. I shouldn’t have chugged that fucking tomato juice. How the hell does a place like this have only water and tomato juice in the fridge?"
Kyeon In-woo rattled off one useless remark after another.
Lately, he’d been acting like he’d gone back to being a student again—saying things he didn’t need to say, rambling about nothing in particular.
"Wasn’t that the drink Se-bin hyung put in there? If he notices it’s gone, he’ll go looking for it."
"If he’s annoyed, then he should’ve put his name on it."
Since that finicky Lim Se-bin was the only one who drank it, Young-in had been the one to clear it out in one go. But if it really was Lim Se-bin, he’d absolutely do something like that, so Young-in couldn’t even laugh it off as a joke.
He let Kyeon In-woo’s complaining pass by with only a light response and was just about to refocus on the stage when—
"Hey, Go Young."
Kyeon In-woo cut him off again.
Why now? Kyeon In-woo, who had only halfheartedly raked his messed-up hair back into place after striking a pose, tilted his chin at him.
"So what’s the problem?"
"Huh?"
"What was that thing you were just talking about with that flower-brain?"
"Flower-brain...? You mean Woo-ri?"
"Yeah."
Don’t say it so casually. He kind of understood the meaning behind that bizarre nickname, but still. Kyeon In-woo really was Kyeon In-woo.
"Looks like you’re getting distracted again."
Apparently he didn’t think he’d just said something completely insane. No matter how you looked at it, what kind of nickname was that for someone he wasn’t even close to?
He would’ve hesitated over whether to say anything, but... if he didn’t, Kyeon In-woo would just pester him twice as hard. Thanks to that, Young-in had gotten used to throwing out all kinds of random explanations to him.
No, but why is this idiot interested enough to ask about it in the first place?
"Lately—"
Clause 35 | A gentle idol leader does not suspect a member without cause.
"What about lately?"
"He looked like he was working hard."
"Hey. Be precise with your words. He’s always worked hard."
"Fair."
"Don’t change the subject."
Kyeon In-woo glared at him with a face that said to spit it out while he was still being nice, and Young-in couldn’t really dodge it any longer.
"...Nothing much. We didn’t talk about anything major. I just told him I don’t know much about the rumors in this business, so he explained them to me."
"What rumor?"
"It was about the composer who wrote the song for that stage, but... it’s really nothing."
"You mean that one-hit wonder guy?"
Go Young-in’s eyes went round. It was rare for him to be genuinely surprised.
"You know about him?"
"Yeah."
You?
Why?
Whether Young-in had questions or not, Kyeon In-woo just nodded and kept talking.
"So? That’s all it was? He’s not even someone you know. That doesn’t sound like something worth zoning out over."
"Just talking about it made me think we should hurry up and get ready for our comeback too. The company seems to want that as well."
Judging by the date and the schedule, they should already have been deep into comeback preparations. But after one incident after another, it seemed the agency had been too wary of his reaction to bring it up.
"Aren’t we buying a song again anyway?"
"Probably."
"We always have, so what’s the big deal now?"
"There’s a good chance this will be our first full-length album. I figured we should pay more attention to it. I thought we’d need to work even harder for this comeback."
Kyeon In-woo couldn’t quite bring himself to say that the company would just contact a decent composer on their own.
The problem wasn’t the company staff. No matter how many good songs they dragged in, the CEO’s taste was so stubbornly awful that the ones left standing always ended up sounding more or less the same.
If they wanted to get around that taste and make different kinds of music, there were only two real options: get someone inside the group to take part in the songwriting themselves, or find an outside composer good enough to persuade the CEO.
"Or, I dunno, there’s always that youngest kid with zero cute factor. Tell him to make one."
Pyo Jae-ho... Young-in had already been wondering what to do about him. If he only cared about the quality of the song, Jae-ho was the best option by far, but there were way too many other things tied up in it.
The last time had gone fine, so maybe this time would too? But when he thought about what had happened now, it didn’t seem likely. Even if they blocked the plagiarism issue, it felt like something else would come roaring back at them anyway....
Or they’d have to rewire the CEO’s taste, which was fucking hopeless. That ridiculous niche preference of his. And above all else, there was the most important question of all: did the person himself even want to do it?
Shouldn’t he be the one who wants to?
"If someone says to do it, then you do it. What kind of bullshit is that—ahh."
Kyeon In-woo, who had just been spouting off like some young-fashioned old man, suddenly seemed to remember something. He smirked and leaned back in his seat in a deliberately lazy sprawl.
"You don’t ask just anyone for help."
"...All of a sudden?"
What was with this sudden change of pace? Young-in couldn’t understand where that was coming from, but Kyeon In-woo was already lost in his own train of thought.
"Exactly. Jae-ho’s not exactly cooperative, is he? Or flexible. If he had even one dependable quality, you’d at least be able to bring it up. Right or not?"
"Well...."
"See? Right? You wouldn’t ask a person you don’t trust worth shit for a favor, would you, Go Young?"
"No, I wouldn’t...."
"See?"
Why was he like this? Why did he have to be so infuriating? Kyeon In-woo nodded to himself with that annoyingly cocky expression, then spoke again.
"Anyway. That’s all it was?"
In the end, Young-in could only tell him everything Na Woo-ri had said, because Kyeon In-woo kept glaring at him like he’d better spill it all while he still could.
"What? So it was all stuff everyone already knows."
Kyeon In-woo gave his flat assessment. So it was a story famous enough for even him to know it?
"Well. I guess you wouldn’t know, then... since you never pay attention to anything around you."
He had been indifferent just a moment ago, but after looking Young-in up and down, Kyeon In-woo snickered and shrugged.
No, that was unfair. Young-in did try to pay attention to industry matters in his own way.
"Either way, isn’t it something you don’t need to know? What are you going to do with that information? Half of it’s probably just bullshit gossip."
"Still, it’s better to know than not know, isn’t it...."
"How is that junk gossip supposed to help?"
Kyeon In-woo let out a derisive snort, as if Young-in were making meaning out of something ridiculous. Wasn’t that true? It was vague, sure, but it was still better than knowing nothing at all. Young-in nodded.
"Really? So that’s how it is."
Hmm. Kyeon In-woo muttered to himself for a moment, rubbing his chin, then continued.
"Well... got it."
Got what, exactly?