Our Team's Two Major Problems
If I had to name the problems with our team, there would probably be two. The first was that none of us possessed a superpower flashy enough to seize the audience's attention on stage. Listing our members' abilities made it painfully clear: Seong Jiyeong—exceptional flexibility. Tasha—monstrous stamina. Ji Seoeun—expression direction. Yu Hana—beautiful voice. And me, Na Yeri—beauty.
Physical powers like flexibility and stamina might help during the preparation process, but they were difficult to turn into anything spectacular once the lights hit. A beautiful voice would undoubtedly be a huge asset for our activities, yet if you asked whether it could deliver that instant, jaw-dropping impact on stage, most people would shake their heads. As for my so-called beauty… well, that went without saying. It might as well have been nonexistent.
The only ability with any real potential was Ji Seoeun's expression direction. Being able to switch expressions in an instant could create some genuinely intriguing moments. Think of those Sichuan face-changing performers—if her face could shift like that, shak shak, it might actually be pretty cool. Still, even that felt lacking when compared to something with real scale, like levitating into the air, flying, or spewing flames. The sheer impact was on a different level. Of course, actors would kill for an ability like expression direction, but we weren't actors. We were idols. In that sense, levitation would have been far more useful.
The second problem was what truly kept me up at night: the total absence of communication between members.
Superpowers were already a fixed variable. There was nothing we could add or subtract, so we simply had to maximize what we had. But the communication issue was different. This one depended entirely on how we chose to move forward.
In that regard, our members seemed… strange. How could they be this quiet? During practice I could understand—it was exhausting and there wasn't time. But even during breaks, there was zero conversation. It wasn't as if our training sessions were short, either. Even excluding individual physical training, we spent roughly five hours training together every day. The fact that not a single personal word was exchanged during all that time felt genuinely serious.
At first I assumed it was because they were still adjusting. After all, aside from me and Yu Hana, the others hadn't been trainees for very long. But that wasn't the case. These people simply had zero interest in others from the very beginning.
Any fan would naturally want the members of their favorite group to get along. All that talk about chemistry and relationships wasn't just empty noise. As idol trainees, they couldn't possibly be ignorant of something so basic, yet here they were, acting completely indifferent.
Looking at it logically, this was a group formed for business purposes. If they believed there was no need to build personal relationships, I couldn't exactly tell them they were wrong. Still, we'd be working together for several years. Thinking about the future, it was only normal to at least make an effort to get along on the surface. The terms "business gay performance" and "yuri fanservice" didn't come out of nowhere, after all.
I wasn't suggesting we force anything—preferences are preferences—but at the very least, they could pretend to be close. The reason I was taking this so seriously was because every moment of our practice was being meticulously filmed by the staff. Fans are always curious about what their idols were like before debut, so the company seemed to be planning to release the footage like little bits of bait. The filming itself wasn't the issue. More material was always better, and the staff wouldn't release anything that could damage us.
The real problem was that even with the cameras rolling, the members' behavior didn't change in the slightest. If they had at least shown some gesture the moment the cameras turned on, I wouldn't have worried. At this point, I was genuinely tempted to ask them directly what the hell they were thinking.
Feeling like something was off, I'd once asked one of the staff members filming us. Weren't the members being too distant? Was it really okay to let things continue like this? At first, the staff member had actually said it seemed fine. From their tone, they believed it was just initial awkwardness and that things would naturally improve over time.
"Honestly, I don't think so. A whole month is way too long for an adjustment period, isn't it?"
But what influence did I have? For now, all I could do was watch.
"Yeriyeri~ What are you doing over here?"
In situations like this, the trainee with the most experience should really take the lead. In our team, that would be either me or Yu Hana. Since I had too many personal complications, it should have fallen to Yu Hana to step up—but this girl showed zero intention of doing so.
"Mhm~ Let's see… Today's menu is…"
As for what our company's social butterfly, rapport master, and ultimate insider Yu Hana had been doing all this time, the answer was simple: she'd been glued to my side. For some reason she seemed to have taken a liking to me and spent her time stuck to me like glue, spilling all kinds of random TMI. Today was no different. The moment lunch began, she plopped down right next to me with a thud.
It was obviously the stalking behavior of a scheming, squinty-eyed character with something to hide. The situation was enough to make me sigh out loud.
Given my personality—I hated overthinking and scheming—I could have easily made sure that no matter how crafty this squinty-eyed girl was, she wouldn't even consider sticking to me. My conversational style was extremely rough and masculine, after all. No matter how sly she might be, as a woman she would have found it difficult to handle.
The reason I hadn't done so was because the TMI she kept feeding me was surprisingly useful. She probably knew I found her annoying and was doing it anyway. She really wasn't an easy opponent.
A lot of the information she possessed was about the other members. Most of what I'd been paying close attention to lately came from that source.
"I heard Tasha caught a bear when she was nine."
"Nine? You mean a real bear, like a brown bear?"
"Yep. There's even a photo in her locker."
"…There's no way she caught it herself, right? She probably just tagged along on a hunt and took a picture."
"Who knows~ Maybe~"
Of course, not all the information was valuable. Some of it was completely ridiculous, like the story about Tasha beating a bear at age nine. If she'd awakened her powers very early and received proper training, a nine-year-old catching a bear wasn't impossible, but what parent in their right mind would allow that? This wasn't the Stone Age.
Still, if you filtered out those wild stories, there was actually quite a lot of useful information. Especially when it came to Seong Jiyeong—the amount of details was almost overwhelming.
"Jiyeong did rhythmic gymnastics when she was young."
"So that's why her dance lines look so…"
"Exactly. Her dance lines wouldn't lose out even when compared to most first-tier main dancers."
"Tasha's on a completely different level, but she's incredible too. Our team really does have a lot of talent."
"And the top of them all is the B.E.A.U.T.Y. Na Yeri~?"
"…Hey. Tone it down a little."
Seong Jiyeong, whose dance lines always looked particularly elegant, had apparently been a promising rhythmic gymnast in her youth. She'd been quite well-known as a rising star. The reason someone like her had suddenly become an idol trainee was because of an abrupt awakening. Current laws prohibited superhumans from competing in sports, so her retirement had been forced.
It was unfortunate, but it was also a common story. Even now, articles about promising young athletes being forced into retirement after awakening kept appearing. And those stories would continue to appear in the future. Until superhumans disappeared entirely or the exact conditions for awakening were fully understood, the same cycle would keep repeating.
"The really interesting part is this~ Jiyeong entered the company through investor connections."
"Really?"
"S Investment. I think it was last year? That company acquired a bunch of our shares. Our largest investor used to be an individual, remember? That person transferred their shares over."
"Last year was when the company was in the worst shape, wasn't it?"
"'Purple Swan' had officially disbanded and 'Black Dust' had completely fallen apart. It was the darkest period imaginable."
"I can understand wanting to liquidate shares during a time like that, but…"
S Investment had originally been a small firm focused mainly on real estate, but they suddenly bought up a significant portion of our company's shares—fifteen percent. It was a position substantial enough to make people pay attention.
Even after the acquisition, S Investment had maintained a relatively mild attitude. They'd even made an official announcement that the purchase was purely for investment purposes, with no intention of participating in management.
The one and only time S Investment had interfered in company affairs was to bring Seong Jiyeong in as a trainee.
According to Yu Hana, when Seong Jiyeong first became a trainee, the other trainees had been quite shaken. They were afraid she would use her investor backing to influence debut team decisions.
"Those three were so wary of her back then. It was really something to watch."
"If it was those three, I can imagine."
"Why are you talking like it's someone else's business? Weren't you worried at all, Yeriyeri?"
"No matter how much investor support she had, I didn't think the CEO would just sit back and allow something like that."
"Oho~ Well, our Yeriyeri does have some special connection with the CEO, so maybe that's why you weren't worried."
It was something I didn't remember, but even if the original Na Yeri had been in my position, I doubt she would have worried. CEO Cha wasn't the kind of person who would let something like that slide.
From the rest of the explanation, it became clear that the trainees' concerns had been completely unfounded. CEO Cha had accepted Seong Jiyeong on the explicit condition that he wouldn't interfere with the debut team, and indeed, she hadn't been included in Plan A.
To think he would deliberately keep a trainee who came in with investor backing out of the debut team, even after giving prior notice—CEO Cha really was no ordinary person.
"Investor connections, huh. So that's why…"
Seong Jiyeong had come in through investor backing. Was that the reason she hadn't tried to exert any influence over the other trainees? Although she'd eventually been betrayed, I'd heard that during the founding of Dragon Blood, her charisma had been tremendous. The absurd PMC that prioritized civilian welfare over profit had managed to survive for four years thanks to her leadership.
That's why I'd already decided internally that when our group debuted, Seong Jiyeong would be the leader. Tasha was a foreigner and the oldest, and among the three of us who were the same age, neither I nor Yu Hana were exactly leader material.
But seeing Seong Jiyeong show absolutely no interest in the other members had been honestly disappointing. It felt like being stabbed in the back by someone I'd trusted. Of course the current Seong Jiyeong and the one from back then were different people, but that was still how I felt.
After hearing the full story, though, I could understand. Given her strong pride and upright personality, she probably hated the very idea of becoming a trainee through a parachute drop. She might even be under the misunderstanding that she'd only gotten into the debut team because of the investor.
If that was the case, the fact that she was still fiercely throwing herself into training to do her part despite everything was actually quite admirable. And once all the misunderstandings were cleared up… maybe things would start to change.