Chapter 42
Chapter 42
Keun Se-jin gave a bitter smile.
"My agency... it's Happy Friend."
"Ah."
In that moment, the other idol trainees caught on to the atmosphere.
And I, a former data seller, realized it too.
That place... they’re famous for being unable to handle initial scandal responses.
Come to think of it, even as this mess was unfolding, there had been no word from his agency. It had been over an hour since the post went up, and social media was already in an uproar. If it were a reasonably sized, fast-acting agency, they would have already made contact with Keun Se-jin.
"Well... I joined because I heard they’re good at actually releasing albums. Haha."
Keun Se-jin forced a few laughs before pushing himself up from the bed.
"W-well, how about asking a friend to post for you? You have a lot of f-friends."
"Hmm... Our rules say official internet activity is banned during filming, so maybe I should try asking some kids I know. I know a few who would be thrilled to do it if I sent them the photos and asked them to post."
"..."
Should I just leave it alone?
I was right on the verge of regretting meddling so much. But since I’d already opened my mouth, I decided to see it through to the end and offered one more piece of advice.
"If you recruit them yourself, that leaves a record too. You’re better off telling the production crew and saying you’ll post it yourself."
I was indirectly telling him, "One of your acquaintances is likely the culprit, so be careful." Keun Se-jin seemed to catch on immediately and nodded.
"That would be better. Let’s see..."
Keun Se-jin opened a memo app on his smartphone, then flashed a grin at the rest of the team members who were still huddled around.
"You guys must be tired. Thanks for worrying about me. I’ll try writing this quietly on my own. You all should head to sleep now."
"Hey, it feels wrong for us to just go to sleep and leave you like this," Gold 1 said worriedly.
Keun Se-jin replied with a serious expression. "If we all lose sleep, won't tomorrow be a literal hell...?"
"..."
There was indeed a terrifying amount of work to do tomorrow.
It was a very persuasive argument.
Eventually, the rest of the team members returned to their beds with pale faces.
I lay down and fell asleep as well.
Unfortunately, I woke up again in the middle of the night. I was thirsty.
I guess I talked too much before bed.
As I quietly got up and headed for the sink, Keun Se-jin, who was sitting at the table staring at his phone, reacted.
"Oh. Moon-dae, you're not sleeping?"
"I'm thirsty."
"I see."
Seeing as he was still awake, it seemed Keun Se-jin hadn't finished writing his clarification yet. Or he was still scrolling through online opinions.
Neither was a particularly good sign.
"Did you finish writing?"
"Hmm... I wrote it, but..."
Keun Se-jin looked down at his phone with a conflicted expression, then continued after a brief pause.
"I felt like if I posted it directly, it would just spark another controversy."
"Like what?"
"Well, first, people would say it's preferential treatment to be communicating on social media during filming... And if my clarification is firm, they'll say 'I didn't know his personality was like that.' Conversely, if it's too soft, they'll say 'He's acting like that because he's guilty.' That sort of thing."
It was a plausible scenario.
"So I was thinking of writing it as if I were an anonymous acquaintance. Want to take a look?"
Keun Se-jin handed over his phone.
=========================
[I am a friend of Keun Se-jin.]
: The photos in the accusation post uploaded today are composites. I had the original photos among the ones I owned.
(Original Photo) (Composite Photo) The second photo was made by cropping the first one.
=========================
...
"..."
"How is it?"
What was I supposed to do with this?
If this were a normal college situation, it would be a fine explanation. It said everything that needed to be said and used a bottom-line-up-front style that was easy to read.
The problem was that it wasn't a post suited for an anonymous internet community.
I instinctively looked behind me. My bed was waiting for me.
But if I told him to post this, there was a very high chance that everything I did at midnight would go to waste.
Sigh...
I'll sleep... tomorrow.
"...This isn't it."
"What?"
"I said, this isn't it."
I eventually pulled out my own smartphone, doing it against my better judgment.
I'm really doing this, for f*ck's sake.
3:30 AM.
It was a time when most people were already in bed. Only hardcore internet users were pulling all-nighters, chatting about trivial things.
The Keun Se-jin school violence controversy had already swept through once, and it was at the stage where it only popped up in intermittent gossip.
Right then, a post was uploaded to an anonymous idol-related site.
=========================
[Wait, I think I found Keun Se-jin's photo.]
: (Composite Photo) Isn't this the original of this? (Original Photo)
=========================
Attached to the post was a group photo of Keun Se-jin and other students whose faces were roughly blacked out.
It was a casual post written from a common mobile carrier IP, but the comments from late-night users who checked the content exploded instantly.
The atmosphere in the comments heated up further at the author's feedback, and soon, someone who saw the post even brought back an accurate comparison shot.
The comments grew at an even faster pace.
Soon after, someone even discovered that the original photo was taken when Keun Se-jin was running for student council president.
Once it reached this point, screenshots of this post began to circulate on social media and other communities.
=========================
[Mysterious Justice Served.jpg (feat. Keun Se-jin didn't commit school violence)]
=========================
Just like when the first post went up, the comments increased in an instant.
Because of the added nuance that it was found "by chance," the post seemed even more truthful.
Public opinion quickly shifted toward mocking the school violence accusation.
Keun Se-jin's fans, who had been unable to sleep, quickly joined in on spreading the screenshots.
They aggressively posted comments, chasing away trolls who tried to say things like "The photo might be fake, but the content could be true," telling them to stop talking nonsense.
In no time, the information that the accusation post was fabricated dominated internet opinion.
It all happened before the morning commute had even ended.
"They deleted it."
Keun Se-jin muttered.
Once it was revealed that the photo was a fake and public opinion completely flipped, the person who wrote the accusation post deleted it and vanished without a trace.
It could have been difficult if they had dragged it out more messily, but it seemed they gave up because the tide had turned too drastically.
"...Thank god, seriously."
Keun Se-jin let out a deep sigh of relief and buried his head on the table. Now that the tension had snapped, he seemed crushed by fatigue.
"Thanks. I really... don't know how to face you."
He had every reason to be thankful. If he had posted his original draft, it wouldn't have turned out like this.
Data seller: 1 win...
I never dreamed I'd use the experience I gained from lurking around to check price trends like this. Let's just consider this hard work as... clearing my karma.
"In the first place... if I hadn't even touched a cigarette, this mess wouldn't have happened," Keun Se-jin muttered in a voice thick with self-reproach. It seemed he knew it had been a stupid thing to do.
"Why did you smoke?"
"...Ah, back then... I got cut from the debut lineup. We even recorded the demo... but they put someone else in instead of me, and they debuted well, and their album sold well too."
"...At 'Happy Friend'?"
Hadn't they failed to produce a successful boy group in the last five years?
"No, somewhere else. ...But they said they had no plans to debut another team for a while, so they connected me with this place."
"I see."
At this point, there were only one or two boy groups that had debuted three or four years ago and been successful from their first album.
And both were from major agencies.
...Wouldn't it have been better to just hold out, even if it took a bit longer?
Even if five years passed from age 17, he'd only be 22. That's a fine age to debut as the oldest member of a team. It would have been more rational to stay at a major agency rather than going to Happy Friend.
"...Back then, they were so confident that they'd debut a rookie within the year that I signed... but they haven't, and it's already been four years. Haha."
"..."
So that was it.
Normally, you shouldn't trust verbal contracts, but a tenth-grader whose mental state had been crushed probably didn't have the capacity to look out for things like that.
"As you can see, among the Happy Friend trainees here, there isn't anyone ready to debut right away. That's why I absolutely have to debut through this program..."
"..."
"That's why I'm saying this... thanks again for stopping me from dropping out. Park Moon-dae."
This was the first time this guy had been so blatant about evaluating others while baring his inner thoughts.
I guess this is his way of being sincere.
"Yeah. You'd better be very grateful."
"...What? Haha!"
Keun Se-jin laughed, then buried his head back on the table. He wanted to laugh, but he seemed too exhausted to even do that.
I pondered awkwardly.
...Have we become too informal?
I had intended to keep my distance since he was in the "high-risk junkie" category, but at some point, that plan had fizzled out, and we'd become excessively close.
Well, looking at his track record so far, the probability seems low anyway.
There was a high chance Keun Se-jin wouldn't have debuted because he would have resigned when the school violence scandal broke. Even if he hadn't resigned, it wouldn't have been easy to flip public opinion like this, so debuting would have been difficult.
Hmm, but the child actor Lee Se-jin doesn't seem to have much of a shot at debuting right now either.
Still, since Lee Se-jin's screen time and image could have been influenced by the variable known as "Park Moon-dae," that side was actually more likely.
Anyway, that's not the important issue right now.
Let's just leave Schrödinger's junkie in the box. What was urgent was the team match stage in two days.
Pa-pa-pam-pa-pam-pam-pam!
"Ughhh!!"
"Ugh..."
Right on cue, the team members began squirming and waking up from their beds at the sound of the morning wake-up alarm.
Another day without rest begins...
As I stood there with hollow eyes, Keun Se-jin spoke to me again. It seemed to be a continuation of our earlier conversation.
"No, really... I'll buy you a meal once this is over. What do you want to eat?"
"Beef."
"...It doesn't have to be domestic, right?"
"As long as it's delicious."
There were exactly 50 hours left until the team match rehearsal.
The third team match stage was held on a massive stage, one of the sets for Tnet's flagship music program, MusicBomb.
The idea was to show a cool performance on the same stage where actual senior idols stood, but in reality, it seemed to be because it was good for capturing reaction shots.
"On this very stage just three days ago! VTIC held their pre-recording!"
"Wooooo!!!"
The participants cheered at the MC's words.
In truth, the stage sets were completely different, so there was nothing in common other than occupying the same space.
However, the participants seemed excited just by the fact that they were using the same space as top-tier idols.
I didn't feel too bad either.
VTIC... they were decent guys.
Their photos were expensive, so they were worth taking.
"Just as your senior idols did, please show us your skills to your heart's content!"
After the MC finished the scripted lines and stepped down, the rehearsal preparations began in earnest.
"Everyone! We're going in the same order as the live broadcast!"
"Yes!"
In an instant, the stage became noisy with instructions and the sound of music.
According to the order, the participants still had a bit of time. So, the <Moon Rabbit> team gathered in a corner for now.
"Should we do a 'fighting' cheer before we go? We've worked so hard all this time, let's go show them a stage as great as our effort."
"Ah, sounds good."
"L-let's do that."
The team members nodded repeatedly with nervous faces. However, it was clear that their nervousness came from anticipation, not anxiety.
"<Moon Rabbit> team."
The team members piled their hands together.
"Fighting!!"
The shout was almost combative.
Good grief.
Even though there were no cameras following closely nearby, it felt strange that I had readily participated in this.
Still, it wasn't a bad feeling.
"Then, let's go!"
Truly, the stage was right in front of us.