The Concept That Was Decided For Us
After we finished filming, I reviewed the footage that would be uploaded. To my surprise, my makeup application took up a significant portion of the video. When I asked why, they told me it was the highlight of this episode.
“It’s because you’re really bad at it, but you’re so serious about it. It’s actually pretty rare to see someone as stunningly beautiful as you be this unfamiliar with makeup.”
“That’s true, but… if it’s that rare, won’t people start accusing us of faking it?”
“I don’t think so. You look way too sincere, and it’s obvious you’re genuinely frustrated with yourself. Besides, what would we even gain from faking something like this? For an idol, the best outcome is always to look as pretty as possible.”
“I… guess that’s right.”
“For most idols, something like this could be toxic. But for someone as overwhelmingly beautiful as you, Miss Yeri, it’s actually more endearing when you show a flawed side.”
I honestly had no idea what she was talking about, but I just nodded and left. The PR team at Cha Entertainment were all experts in this field—veterans who had been through every kind of storm with Purple Swan. It wasn’t an area where a former streaming failure like me had any right to butt in.
“By the way, Na Yeri. You really can’t do makeup at all. Was that weird style you used to wear back then actually serious?”
“Well… yeah.”
“Oh my god. I thought you were doing it on purpose to hide your face.”
“Why would a trainee want to hide her face?”
“Now that you mention it, that’s true. But didn’t the people around you try to stop you?”
“Ah, I didn’t really have any friends. I couldn’t exactly call the kids who giggled while watching my clumsy makeup attempts my friends. As for family… you already know how that was.”
“Ah… um, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Whatever my feelings were, the PR team’s reactions weren’t bad, so it seemed like the video had turned out better than expected. But that was it. From now on, I was never going near that kind of content again.
Seong Jiyeong, who had been rambling to herself and then suddenly feeling guilty, would probably be fine if I just left her alone. Right now, the far more important issue was checking what concept the planning team had come up with. Since the meeting they’d requested was coming up soon, I decided to head straight to the conference room.
It took quite a while for the group’s concept to be finalized. The company seemed to have agonized over it a lot. But they couldn’t deliberate forever, so they’d finally made a decision.
What kind of concept would the company assign us? I was willing to bet my wrist that it wouldn’t be anything standard or safe. After all, from the very beginning, we had been a group that was miles away from anything normal.
When I thought about it that way, I actually felt a little sorry for the company. In the first round, we had debuted with a clean, pure, dreamlike concept and immediately taken first place on music shows. The three girls with flight abilities would float up during the performance, and Yu Hana would blow everyone away with her vocals during the highlight.
But now that the debut lineup had completely changed, we were taking the hard route instead of the easy one. This was… largely my fault. While it wasn’t entirely my responsibility that the team had been formed this way, I was definitely the reason the three flying members were gone.
Still, I believed struggling in the beginning was better than the group falling apart later due to internal conflict. Whether we could properly pursue idol activities was still uncertain, but I was determined to make it happen no matter what.
To fully embody my role and avoid triggering any Errors, idol activities were absolutely necessary. And besides, I had decided that as an idol, I was going to become at least somewhat wealthy. I needed to start living like a proper human being now. And to live like a proper human, you needed a certain amount of money.
“Alright, everyone’s here. The reason I’ve gathered you all today is to announce the activity concept for your group.”
After waiting a short while in the conference room, Cha Wooseok, the planning team manager, entered and began his explanation. He said our next concept had been decided.
And just as I had predicted, the concept was villain.
Honestly, I had expected that much. But as the explanation continued, even my usually rock-solid mentality began to waver little by little. Because our concept wasn’t just any ordinary villain—it was something extremely close to a phantom.
“I’m not sure if you’re all aware, but there’s a phantom organization called Blood Rabbit that’s been gaining massive popularity lately. We plan to benchmark that style.”
“Ah… Blood Rabbit?”
“Yes. It’ll definitely have more competitive edge than a regular villain concept. The image is much better too. Especially since there hasn’t been a time when the phantom image was this positive, we’ve really timed it well.”
On top of that, they were going to benchmark Blood Rabbit. We were Blood Rabbit, and now they wanted us to benchmark ourselves? Was this a joke?
“Of course, we’ll only be taking the overall atmosphere and vibe. Excessive imitation would only create anti-fans, right? We’ll handle that part carefully, so you don’t need to worry too much.”
Manager Cha said they wouldn’t be directly copying us—just borrowing the mood and feel. But my shock didn’t fade easily. Looking at the atmosphere, it seemed like the reason he had brought in this concept was precisely because we had been active as Blood Rabbit.
How should I describe this feeling? Mysterious? Bizarre? Subtle? It was an incredibly uncomfortable sensation, yet I couldn’t come up with any particular counterargument. In any case, it was a strange feeling I had never experienced before.
Yeah, if it had stopped there, I might have just let it go. But the TMI that followed was truly shocking.
“We actually debated this quite a bit. But there was no helping it. After all, this is the team with Miss Yeri in it. We’re convinced this is the only concept that can properly highlight her aura.”
“…So, me?”
“Yes. You, Miss Yeri.”
He said that if I hadn’t been in the group, they would have gone with a cool-sexy concept or a standard, universally appealing girl-crush vibe for the debut album. In other words, my presence was the biggest reason we had been locked into the villain concept.
Wait, was that even fair?
A squinty-eyed villain who smiled brightly but gave off an oddly chilling vibe.
A space battleship villain whose face was usually so expressionless it was hard to even strike up a conversation with her.
A hot-blooded idiot whose presence radiated intensity in every direction even when she was standing still.
An ultra-chic cat-like queen who could send two or three people running with just a glare and some sharp words.
These were the members of our team, and they were saying it was because of me?
“Yeri really does have a uniquely intense aura~”
“Unnie, her presence is seriously insane.”
“That may be true. A villain concept… but it doesn’t feel like we’re purely playing the bad guys, so it should be fine.”
“It will definitely leave a strong impression. And it seems especially well-suited for Na Yeri.”
Even the damn villain girls were nodding along and backing up Manager Cha’s statement. This… something was seriously wrong here.
I was the one who could pull off a soft, fluffy, dreamy concept. My appearance was literally made for that kind of style. I was on a completely different level from those four villains.
“Please keep that in mind for now. We’re planning to go with the group name ‘Ashy-Bloom.’ If you have any other good suggestions, feel free to let us know. It hasn’t been finalized yet. Oh, and it seems like we’ll need to choose a team leader soon. Do any of you have someone in mind…”
“The leader should be Yeri.”
“It’s Yeri.”
“Yeri unnie.”
“Wouldn’t YeriYeri be good~?”
“Ah, it seems you all already had someone in mind. Then we’ll go with…”
While I was still reeling from the shock, the position of team leader had been decided as me. The moment Manager Cha asked who we thought would be good as leader, my name had come flying out in rapid succession with literally zero hesitation.
What the hell was this unity?
Weren’t we a team that usually had pretty poor teamwork?
Apparently our unity only kicked in when they were screwing me over. Just like I’d mentioned briefly before, most of our group decisions were made by majority vote. Since all four of them were in perfect agreement, there was no way for me to refuse.
Seeing how they had all said my name almost simultaneously, it didn’t seem like they had planned this in advance to push me into the leader role. So why had it turned out this way?
My small plan to make Seong Jiyeong the leader and then just sit back and enjoy the benefits had completely fallen apart. Was it really okay for someone like me to be the leader? Everything felt chaotic right from the start.
“Ashy-Bloom… that’s a combination of Ashy and Bloom~”
“Probably. Ashes and flower buds.”
“I can kind of guess what kind of concept they’re going for.”
“Doesn’t seem bad.”
The moment we left the conference room, the members started chatting about the group name. Seeing them like this, it seemed they weren’t completely uninterested in being idols after all. If they had been, they wouldn’t have performed in those rabbit-ear masks with such idol-like choreography.
The combination of the two words meaning ashes and flower buds. For a team that would be active as villains with the unique concept of phantoms, I thought it was a pretty fitting group name.
However, the name Ashy-Bloom wasn’t without its problems. Once you debuted as an idol, you were bound to get hate nicknames. If people openly used the group name while cursing, fans would immediately report them, so most hate nicknames started from the initials.
When you wrote Ashy-Bloom in Korean initials, it became ‘ㅇㅅㅂㄹ.’ At first glance, didn’t that look exactly like ‘EshibalX’?
Of course, all hate nicknames were like that, but starting from the initials being a straight-up curse word? Well, whatever. Even if it wasn’t this, they would have made one anyway.
But why weren’t any of them saying anything about me becoming the leader? It felt like they had decided from the beginning that the leader position was mine.
“There’s no one else but you anyway. The other four are basically all lone wolves. You’re the only one who can actually pull the members together.”
“I don’t listen to anyone weaker than me. You’ve experienced that once before, haven’t you?”
“I think it’d be the most fun if YeriYeri did it~”
“Just Yeri.”
When I casually asked, that was the general response. I wasn’t sure about the others, but Seong Jiyeong’s words were pretty convincing. She had some subtle rivalry with Tasha and Yu Hana. Tasha and Yu Hana, on the other hand, were like people watching a fire from across the river. And Ji Seoeun only showed interest in the members when they were wearing the equipment she made.
When I looked at it that way, it really was only me. I was the only one who hadn’t realized it.
Was our group really going to be okay? At this point, it wouldn’t be strange at all if we self-destructed from internal conflict.
“Ah, Miss Yeri and Miss Tasha, could you both come back to the conference room around 5 o’clock? There’s something else we’d like to discuss separately.”
While I was lost in those thoughts, Manager Cha left a message for me and Tasha as we were leaving. What was it this time? Now that the concept had been decided, the atmosphere felt completely different from before.