The Conditions for Becoming a Gentle Idol Leader - Chapter 95

It was simple. They had seized on that exchange—“Kyeon In-woo: Youngest, what are you here for?” “Pyo Jae-ho: I came because you called me.”—and used it as a pretext to pick a fight.

Maybe that was a blessing, at least. Unlike at first, the posts were now piling on more and more obviously forced accusations, practically begging people to join in and tear him apart, and as a result the sort of behavior that might actually have been a real issue for Pyo Jae-ho got buried under the noise.

All idols were like that, of course, but the job was especially vulnerable to being attacked for no reason at all. In recent days, malicious posts about Pyo Jae-ho had been spreading across every entertainment community at once, and even the people who had initially agreed and joined in on the abuse were starting to pull back, grumbling that it had gone too far.

Thanks to that, the issue was drawing less attention overall. Everyone was so sick of it that they weren’t even opening the posts anymore.

He didn’t know what Pyo Jae-ho’s real feelings were, but the boy kept making the same problem over and over with the kind of behavior that invited misunderstanding. Fuck... At least this time it passed without blowing up. But who knows when it’ll explode again? Leaving it alone won’t do us any good...

And it was a matter involving fans. From a legal standpoint, the crimes that usually made the news were far worse, but from the perspective of idol fandom, there were always people who hated the betrayal of fans even more than they hated scandals that merely made the social pages. The two representative forms of that betrayal were dating rumors and fan-hate. After all, an idol was a job that simply couldn’t exist without fans.

Deep in the abyss below, where Go Young-in’s search ability couldn’t reach, all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kinds of people had already been gathering for ages and tearing each other apart in a mud-slinging war over Pyo Jae-ho.

Haah... Go Young-in let out a quiet sigh where no one could hear it. Settling the composer issue was important, but this mattered too. If there kept being controversy like this every time they did anything, it would only wear the fans down, and that would never be good in the long run. He knew that from experience.

For now, at least, a meeting had been arranged. He’d caught Pyo Jae-ho before the boy could vanish the moment the live broadcast ended, and he had expected him to just brush him off and keep walking.

I never expected him to actually walk into his own studio so obediently. Go Young-in leaned back against the sofa and looked around. Somehow, he had ended up inside Pyo Jae-ho’s studio for the first time. It was definitely his first time here, and yet the place felt strangely familiar. Maybe because it was still just an agency building; one room was no different from another.

It was more serious than he’d expected. The equipment, the setup... even the speakers and MIDI gear, along with the smaller tools scattered around. Huh. That speaker is the one I gave him to try out before, and he’s still using it. Looking at it now, Pyo Jae-ho is kind of...

“I already said I’m not working with you. I’m not changing my mind, so if that’s what you came to say, just go.”

“No, it’s something else.”

I swear, if you stabbed this guy, he wouldn’t even bleed. Whoever was asking him to do this together—like they’d agreed out of happiness.

“Then never mind.”

Pyo Jae-ho, sitting across from him, was idly tapping at his laptop. No matter what was said to him, he carried himself like someone completely uninterested.

“Jae-ho.”

“Yes.”

This kid... He answered well enough. Shit, he only answers well.

Where was he even supposed to begin? Go Young-in couldn’t help feeling a fresh wave of despair over his own lack of eloquence.

He couldn’t exactly come right out and ask, Have you seen the hateful comments about you online? Even knowing about them would only make things worse.

So how was he supposed to pull an actual conversation out of this kid?

“Do you find talking to fans awkward?”

“No.”

The same maddening style of speech as always—just enough to make a person lose their footing. Shit. Then why, exactly?

“Or... do you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have something going on that’s making it hard?”

Maybe there was a reason. For example, maybe the boy had seen some cruel comments about himself and gotten hurt by them...

That really doesn’t sound like Pyo Jae-ho at all. Still, if it was something like that, Go Young-in could at least understand it. He’d seen it himself. There were definitely comments that crossed the line. Should I separately save them as PDFs and take them to the company?

“Not really.”

Pyo Jae-ho answered briefly, running one finger over the touchpad of his laptop.

“I see...”

Wrong guess. Go Young-in offered an awkward laugh and nodded along. Then what is it, you little shit?

At this point, he really couldn’t avoid asking the question anymore. He’d wanted to ask it for a long time, but he’d been too afraid of the answer to put it into words.

“...Jae-ho, do you maybe find idol activities really hard?”

Pyo Jae-ho looked at him with a completely unreadable face, as if he felt nothing at all.

“I never said they were hard.”

“And you don’t hate them?”

“I never said I hated them either.”

“Then why do you make music?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“And what do you think about other people listening to your music?”

“I’m grateful. I make it for people to listen to.”

...Right.

“You mean grateful to the fans, right?”

“Why are you asking something that obvious?”

Then why. Wait a second—was he speaking from the premise that the kid would not be that way? With a personality like Pyo Jae-ho’s, wasn’t the whole thing basically something he was doing because he wanted to? Maybe it was.

“Then how about showing that gratitude in a way the fans can actually see?”

“......”

Pyo Jae-ho, who had been answering in short, indifferent bursts as if the conversation had nothing to do with him, finally let out a low sigh and shut the laptop.

At the quiet stare he turned on him, Go Young-in managed an awkward smile.

“What...?”

“Isn’t doing it better than not doing it?”

So what exactly was he supposed to do?

I don’t know why he’s saying this while staring me down like that. It’s kind of irritating. Pyo Jae-ho went on in the same flat voice.

“I can’t promise I’ll keep going forever. It’s still something I don’t understand, and it’s inefficient.”

That was it. Pyo Jae-ho was, apparently, an extreme efficiency freak. Go Young-in understood the gist of it.

In other words, Pyo Jae-ho was saying his situation was like this: if you did well ninety-nine times and messed up once, you became a villain, but if you messed up ninety-nine times and did well once, people would suddenly start seeing you in a good light.

Pyo Jae-ho didn’t interrupt him and listened all the way through to the end. He even answered properly, one question after another.

“If it’s necessary, I’ll do it on my own. I just don’t get wasting time glued to a phone when it isn’t even required. In that time, I could write a song and still have time left over.”

Pyo Jae-ho was too rational, too objective. Which meant he had turned that same cold judgment on himself, too.

“I think that’s fair.”

Ugh. If he was being rational about it, Go Young-in couldn’t exactly deny that he felt the same way. No, he could argue, sure, but in his head he agreed, so the rebuttal wouldn’t come.

Unless the System had been hounding him, Go Young-in would have been on Pyo Jae-ho’s side. In a weird way, they were always strangely in sync when it came to this sort of thing.

So maybe he should just give up on this issue with Pyo Jae-ho...

“Ding.”

Fine. Not giving up—just a postponement period. Happy now? The status window still hadn’t vanished, though it didn’t give him any separate warning either. It just floated there, flashing occasionally like it was watching him and judging.

In cases like this, it usually meant the System was waiting to see how things turned out. A time bomb with no fixed schedule and no standards of its own.

And probably, thinking about everything Go Young-in had gone through so far, the status window that kept nudging him to look after the members wasn’t so different from the original one after all.

If the System decided he was being lax about this, then the thing he was letting slide now would snowball into something much bigger later and come back at him in some form or another. It had always been that way.

For now, he’d earned a postponement. So instead of obsessing over fan service—a matter he apparently had no intention of improving—he should deal with composer Cha Sung-hwan first.

Go Young-in was the kind of person more accustomed to resignation and giving up than to stubbornly clinging to something. The System window was clogging his vision right now, but he was already used to having one or two things floating there at any given time. Get exposed to it often enough, and you adjusted fast enough.

Couldn’t they at least give him a close button? Or let him adjust the opacity? Or, hell, let him change the layout? What kind of half-baked System was this?

Still, think about it positively. At least he didn’t need to make notes by hand. How convenient was that?

He couldn’t put it off too long, because he had no idea when the karma beam might hit him, but he also had no immediate solution, so he’d have to keep watching for an opening. And keep bringing it up in between, too.

Just as he was about to make that resolution—

“Then what about you, hyung?”

Pyo Jae-ho tossed the question right back at him.

Go Young-in’s instincts immediately told him that nothing good was about to come out of this.

“Are you sure you’re doing this because you like it?”

And that instinct turned out to be right.

“......”

“Are you really doing what you want, hyung?”

The situation had reversed itself. Until a moment ago, Pyo Jae-ho had been the one holding his silence, but now Go Young-in was the one shutting his mouth while Pyo Jae-ho began to speak.

It was true that at the very ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beginning, this had been something forced on him. The System had appeared, told him he had to become an idol, and since he couldn’t escape it anyway—and didn’t want to keep looping back forever—he’d thought he might as well do it...

“You can’t even explain what you’re doing it for, but you keep forcing it on me.”

“No. Of course I’m doing it because I like it.”

Maybe because the first button had been fastened that way, he couldn’t bring himself to say it with absolute confidence. He still thought he had never half-assed his activities even once, but maybe that wasn’t how other people saw it.

“Then I guess I’m the same.”

“......”

“Anything else you want to say?”

Pyo Jae-ho answered, as always, in that flat, unchanging tone.