Chapter 70
Chapter 70
When I picked the lock and walked into the room, Lee Se-jin, who had been sitting gloomily on his bed, jumped in surprise.
"Ugh...!"
"Get a hold of yourself."
I sat on the bed opposite him. Ryu Cheong-woo and Keun Se-jin, who I thought would follow right behind me, were nowhere to be seen.
...I guess they made themselves scarce.
It was just like those two to be so tactful.
Well, whatever. Since Lee Se-jin was acting like this, sleeping was out of the question anyway. I might as well hear what was on his mind.
I wish I had some alcohol.
But there was no way a rookie idol group’s dorm would have something like that right at the start of their career. I just spoke up, making do with what I had.
"Hyung, you know the company is going to call you in for an interview tomorrow morning or at dawn anyway, right?"
"......!"
"If that's the case, wouldn't it be better to just organize your thoughts comfortably here before you go? It's not a situation you can avoid by running away."
Perhaps the trait 'That sounds right (C)' didn't trigger this time, as it took quite a while before Lee Se-jin finally opened his mouth.
"...I don't know."
"What don't you know?"
"What I want to do..."
"...?"
Isn't it a bit too late to be having a career crisis now?
"Do you want to go back to your old agency and keep acting?"
"...I don't want to go back."
"Then does that mean you want to act?"
"......Isn't that obvious?"
Lee Se-jin buried his face in his palms.
"I never even considered being an idol in the first place..."
"......"
For some reason, this reminded me of myself when the status effect first popped up.
I clicked my tongue.
I guess he didn't participate in the audition of his own free will.
"I suppose you participated in Idol Inc. because of your old agency."
"...Yeah. I'd been on a long hiatus... and they said I had to do something like that to get work."
"Hmm."
I said nonchalantly.
"For someone who felt that way, you worked pretty hard."
"...I had to at least work hard. Since I'm not good at it."
Lee Se-jin got a bit defensive.
Hmm, that's a different nuance than before.
I remembered what he said to me during the finals.
- You're going to debut, so it won't end for you. Is that what you mean? ...Must be nice.
Didn't that mean he wanted to keep going? Besides, I could see the changes in Lee Se-jin's status window.
The Fs are gone now.
Lee Se-jin had raised his dance stat, which was an F when filming started, to a D+ now.
That wasn't a level of growth one could achieve by just going through the motions without any passion.
So, I had a rough idea.
"Actually, it was fun, wasn't it?"
"......!"
"It was fun once you tried it, so you ended up working harder without even realizing it."
Lee Se-jin kept his mouth shut. He couldn't deny it.
"Yeah... being on stage was good. I even thought about wanting to keep doing it. But acting... I want to keep doing that too."
"...? Then do it."
"What...?"
I really didn't understand why he was agonizing over this.
"In two or three years, this agency will probably start booking individual activities for you anyway. Just act then. Once you hit the five-year mark, it'll be contract renewal season, so if you want to stop being an idol, you can just focus on acting."
Lee Se-jin listened with his mouth slightly agape for a moment, then dropped his head with a bitter smile.
"...I can't."
"Pardon?"
"You don't know what my old agency is like."
"......"
Well, I didn't know much. Actors weren't my field.
As if he had half-given up, Lee Se-jin started spilling the details of the situation.
"Dream K... they aren't a decent agency. If I stay under this company like this, there's no telling what they'll leak out of spite."
"Did they catch you in some kind of weakness?"
If drugs were involved, I was planning to be the first to suggest he leave the group.
Fortunately, Lee Se-jin frowned.
"I didn't live my life that recklessly. ...I mean they'll just leak whatever plausible rumors they can in the form of tabloids."
According to his explanation, there were already several actors they had ruined like that because they didn't renew their contracts.
Apparently, they even spread rumors on purpose when the renewal season approached to lower the actor's market value.
They sound like a textbook example of a villainous agency.
"Hmm, what's the expected lineup of rumors?"
"For me, it's obvious... First, they'll set the mood by saying the audition was just for my comeback as an actor and that I didn't even want to be an idol."
"Hmm."
"After that, they'll spread weird blind items about affairs or... well, anyway, things that aren't crimes but can't be proven, just to finish me off."
"Hmm, our investor is T1, so I don't think they can act that recklessly."
"That's exactly why they'd leak the first part to set the mood. To make T1 cut me."
Lee Se-jin muttered bitterly.
"I was... just an extra addition at the end anyway."
"......"
"Public opinion about me on the internet isn't good right now either. There are plenty of people saying to go on without me... because I'm not... good enough..."
"......Hmm."
I guess he looked all of that up.
It was true that such talk was circulating.
Since he was an additional passer, a former actor, and had the lowest stats, people were saying the group would be much better if they just left him out.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"That public opinion will probably weaken once we debut."
"......I don't need useless comfort."
"No, I just mean that's how it'll be."
"...What?"
"We're releasing at the same time as VTIC. That means the fandom will unite internally to keep them in check."
"...!!"
Naturally, when a powerful external enemy appears, the internal group unites.
"Besides, if you leave, someone else will become the target. That's just how it is. So, I don't think you need to use that as a reason."
Wanting to remove the person who seems the weakest is a behavior seen in any group. It didn't mean this was happening specifically because it was Lee Se-jin.
Lee Se-jin seemed a bit choked up, but he soon composed himself and shook his head.
"Still... there's no way to stop my old agency right now. Even if I tell my current agency, it's not like they can completely block the rumors at the source."
"Then I think you should just do it yourself."
"What?"
I crossed my arms.
"You can just announce it yourself, first."
"...First?"
"Post that you participated because of your old agency's coercion, but you found your calling and don't want to go back. Make sure to emphasize 'coercion' and 'pressure' from the old agency. Frame it like you successfully escaped them thanks to the audition."
"......!"
"Then even if rumors come out, they won't be very effective, right?"
The idea was to create an atmosphere where fans could defend him, thinking, 'Oh, the old agency is spreading rumors again.'
Once public opinion shifted, the old agency would find it burdensome to drag out a lawsuit, and T1, not wanting to give up their shares, would handle the rest.
Lee Se-jin was speechless for a moment, his mouth hanging open.
"...You, what did you do before dropping out of school?"
"I went on an audition."
This repertoire never changed. At least this time, the NIS story didn't come up, which was a relief.
"Then try talking to the agency like that."
"...Okay."
Anyway, I had roughly settled the situation. Ryu Cheong-woo would probably handle the rest of the comforting. I suppressed a sigh.
"...Should I post it on the SNS account?"
"Make sure to say you'll write it by hand."
After the news of the lawsuit from Lee Se-jin's former agency, Dream K, broke, the online entertainment news sections were filled with at least one related article.
Since it was indeed an unfair contract, various reactions poured out, intertwined with the issue of the broadcasting station's power trips.
In particular, the reactions from people claiming Lee Se-jin should be removed were fierce.
It was a vicious cycle where Lee Se-jin's fans were hurt by those words.
And the next morning.
A new post notification popped up on TeSTAR's SNS, which had been silent since the first post.
Fans who clicked at the speed of light saw a post with a photo of a handwritten letter attached.
-...!
It was Lee Se-jin's post.
=========================
[Hello. This is TeSTAR member Lee Se-jin.]
: I am writing this to share my thoughts regarding the recent news and stories.
=========================
The content, written carefully in neat handwriting, began with a story about his life in the entertainment industry as a child.
To summarize, it meant that his former agency had overworked his young self tremendously.
=========================
[...Due to such an excessive schedule, my health deteriorated, and I had to stop my activities as a child actor. It seems it was too much for a 12-year-old body to handle a schedule where I couldn't even sleep properly for 3 hours a day.]
=========================
And then, just as he was trying to make a new start after barely recovering, he was forced to participate in the audition by his former agency.
=========================
[...Since I had never stood on a stage before, I refused several times. However, I participated in <Idol Inc.> under great pressure from explanations such as 'If you don't appear on this program, you won't be getting any roles.']
=========================
And the audition he participated in.
Lee Se-jin wrote that he felt an unexpectedly great joy there.
=========================
[The good friends who approached me, even though I was passive in peer relationships, and the stages we created together were so enjoyable. Standing on that stage was incredibly thrilling and happy.
It was completely unexpected, but I truly wanted to continue this work. I became desperate for it.
And thankfully, that dream has come true, and being able to debut with good friends is such a precious opportunity for me.]
=========================
Lee Se-jin concluded the letter by saying that he definitely wanted to debut as TeSTAR with these friends.
=========================
[I am sorry that I couldn't greet you with pleasant news for my first post. For the next post, I will return with news that can bring joy to you all as a member of TeSTAR. Thank you for reading this long letter.]
=========================
Not long after this post was uploaded, the public opinion of TeSTAR fans who were even slightly favorable toward Lee Se-jin revived.
People who had been fans since his child actor days were even more heartbroken.
And once the tide of public opinion turned, quite a few people who enjoyed excluding Lee Se-jin dropped off.
Of course, there were still many people being sarcastic, but they were now outnumbered.
Because of the empathy they felt for Lee Se-jin's post as fans of the audition winners, even the individual fandoms within TeSTAR began to feel a sense of repulsion toward the hate comments regarding this incident.
Seizing this opportunity, Tnet handled Dream K with a small carrot and plenty of sticks.
On the day the articles were quietly taken down and the fans' atmosphere was reversed.
As if to drive the final nail in the coffin, another teaser dropped at midnight.
However, this time it wasn't uploaded to TeSTAR's official WeTube channel.
Instead, it was added under the TeSTAR reality show section on Tnet.
[TeSTAR 'Hi-five' Official Teaser]
'Is it a channel mistake?'
'It's not Magical Boy...?'
The fans' confusion lasted only a moment as they quickly clicked on the video.
"......!"