Chapter 110
Chapter 110
If I had to pick one area of talent essential to an idol that's nearly impossible to fill no matter how hard you try... I'd choose variety skills.
Mostly because I happen to be one of those people sorely lacking in that department.
To be perfectly honest, I've hardly ever genuinely laughed while watching variety shows that everyone else finds hilarious.
Isn't it generally true that people who love singing become good singers, and people who love dancing become good dancers?
Extend that theory, and people who laugh well ought to be good at variety too.
So, in that sense, if I were to roughly gauge our members' variety potential.......
'Wow, this is seriously dire.'
Inside the van heading to the filming location.
In an atmosphere so solemn you couldn't find a trace of laughter, I sighed inwardly.
Isn't this mood perfectly normal because it's a grueling early morning commute?
No. Even looking back over the past several months, I could count on one hand the times I'd witnessed any of the members burst into uproarious laughter... wait, for a few of them, I wasn't sure it had ever happened at all.
'Should I add a rule about living life smiling more?'
......Good grief, not even a kindergarten would nag like this.
Anyway, in that sense, today the leader's true worth would finally be revealed. He was, after all, the only one in the team responsible for maintaining our bright and cheerful image.
I caught Kim Yuri's eye through the rearview mirror and offered some encouragement.
"I'm counting on you, hyung."
"Ah, no, this is my first time too!"
He sounded weak with his words, but internally he was surely already formulating a perfect plan to hard-carry all six of us—calculating every possible joke, every optimal reaction timing cue, and the chemistry dynamics between members down to the last detail.
He'd show us a truly professional front once the cameras started rolling. He was the leader, after all.
"You're all we've got, hyung."
"Stop it! Don't put pressure on me!"
Han Neuti, sitting behind me, looked... well, predictably nervous.
Kim Sanho and Baek Gyeonwoo wore their usual blank, thoughtless expressions.
Jeong Sowol beside me was brimming with enthusiasm. He seemed to live under the happy delusion that he was hilariously funny, and since that baseless confidence could be considered a positive if you squinted hard enough, I'd kept my mouth shut about it.
And what about me?
'......It's my first time too, so of course I'm nervous.'
Granted, we'd shot quite a bit of our own self-produced content. It just hadn't been uploaded yet because the editing wasn't finished.
But filming at the company put my mind at ease in many ways—the faith that the staff would review everything, and the comfort of a familiar shooting location.
And... I'd assumed proper variety shows like this would come much later.
'I had no idea landing a variety show would be this hard.'
Truth be told, aside from B-tier or lower shows that would just burn through our image, no decent schedule had been coming together.
I'd heard that 'Idol Comprehensive Review' was usually filmed before an album release, but judging by the timing, it seemed they'd checked our post-debut results first before extending the invitation.
Well, no reason to feel slighted. It was strictly business on their end too—of course they'd cast a team that seemed poised to generate buzz.
'So... we'd better do well, to live up to those expectations.'
While I was lost in thought, the van arrived at the parking lot before I knew it.
Before heading up to the set, Kim Yuri gathered us together and said a few words.
"What the viewers see is the edited version anyway, so don't stress about the mood going stale—just toss out whatever comes to mind. Saying anything at all is better than dead silence."
Yeah, I really could just trust hyung after all.
Soon enough, after a brief waiting period, we stepped onto the set... and found an empty space with nothing but six chairs and a panel displaying our profiles.
We took our positions as directed by the staff.
'......We can get through today just fine, right?'
Anxiety crept up on me, but I pushed it aside.
I waited for the cue signal that would come any moment now.
* * *
The writer for 'Idol Comprehensive Review' had put HAZERD on her casting wish list quite a long time ago.
Before the outline of the group called HAZERD had even taken shape—back when Kim Yuri made a surprise appearance featuring on 'Between Walls,' in fact.
No, to be precise... she'd been keeping a close eye on the company called Sorasum ever since 'MAKE100%' wrapped.
And when the teasers finally dropped, the writer thought to herself.
'This is going to blow up.'
Which meant she absolutely had to snag these kids' first variety title.
'Idol Comprehensive Review' was a program optimized for introducing idols, so it would become that legendary episode fans would revisit over and over for nostalgia trips once HAZERD soared to great heights!
But her casting proposals were repeatedly shot down in scheduling meetings.
—Hmm, a rookie from a mid-sized agency as a solo feature? I'm not sure.......
—The number of teams we can air per season is limited. Isn't giving HAZERD a full episode a bit of a waste?
—Wouldn't it be better to bundle them with other rookies later and do a 'Rookie Special' all at once?
In the end, HAZERD was pushed into a holding pattern of 'let's see the post-debut reactions first and decide,' and the powerless writer could only hope that HAZERD would blow up spectacularly and flatten the noses of those clueless higher-ups.
And that hope became reality.
Drawing extraordinary reactions right out of the debut gate, HAZERD shot up as rising stars overnight, and at last, a standalone special featuring HAZERD was greenlit.
The decision was made so nearly on the spot that another mid-sized idol group's comeback special got pushed back by two full weeks.......
Regardless, the writer prepared everything meticulously for HAZERD.
Expecting seasoned variety instincts from freshly debuted rookies was, of course, asking too much.
Which meant that to squeeze an entire episode's worth of content out of these baby chicks, she'd have to lay the groundwork herself rather than relying on their wit.
So she prepared something.
'Surprise Camera: Extreme Autonomy!'
The concept went like this.
The members would have naturally come having studied the program format. MC introductions, individual member self-intros, talent showcases, TMI talks, game segments... they'd be expecting that familiar, stable flow.
But today, those expectations would be completely upended.
The production team would give no instructions whatsoever, and there would be no MC.
Nothing but the chairs and profile panels, left standing stark and bare.
In other words, it was a mission that was practically abandonment: figure it out yourselves.
Naturally, the goal wasn't to generate laughs, but to capture footage befitting subtitles like flustered, bumbling, and trembling.
After squeezing out plenty of that fresh rookie flavor, they'd finally deploy the MC and proceed with the prepared game segments.
'There might be some pushback about us looking down on a mid-sized agency group, but.......'
But this was truly for the broadcast's sake and theirs.
Far better this than cobbling together unbroadcasted clip scraps because they couldn't generate enough screen time, and branding the show—or the group itself—with a no-fun image forever!
The writer wore a satisfied smile, outwardly acting as if she was doing HAZERD a favor while secretly anticipating the members' faces as they grew subtly panicked and at a loss.
However.
"Huh? ......You want us to figure it out ourselves?"
"The MC isn't coming?"
Things did not go as planned.
"Figuring things out on our own is what we do best, though."
"In that case... I think we can start by going over the profiles we filled out, this here."
They paid absolutely no mind to the MC's absence or the production team's brutal silence.
"Dolphin? Who told you you look like a dolphin, hyung?"
"Huh? I just wrote down what I wanted to be."
And for over twenty minutes since filming began, without a single hint of fluster, the members chatted amongst themselves far too naturally.
Even the confused reactions the writer had anticipated—'What do we do now?', 'Please tell us something!'—never materialized.
"I'm a cat."
At Jeong Sowol's somewhat random declaration, Seo Cha-gyeom coolly acknowledged it.
"Sure, you're a cat."
"But there's a problem."
Jeong Sowol stared pointedly at Han Neuti this time and spoke.
"It overlaps."
"......Is that a problem?"
"I don't wanna overlap! I want to be the only cat!"
Unable to watch the childish squabbling any longer, Baek Gyeonwoo mediated in a flat, indifferent voice.
"Whoever makes a cat sound first gets to be the cat."
"Nya, nya, meow......."
"He actually did it."
"You told me to!"
At Han Neuti's timid meow, Jeong Sowol squared his shoulders triumphantly.
"The fact that you're embarrassed shows you've still got a long way to go. I, on the other hand, have been playing the frequency for becoming a cat at max volume every night when I go to sleep, to become a real cat."
"But you two are roommates. You'd be listening to it together regardless."
"Oh crap. Right."
"No wonder Neuti hyung's been favoring corners lately......."
"He's always been like that."
'What kind of conversation even is this.......'
The writer couldn't hide her bewilderment.
Far from panicking, the members had been dissecting the single topic of 'representative animals' for a solid twenty minutes. And there were still so many profile sections left to go.
What was even more astonishing was that they were spouting all this nonsense with dead serious faces, without a trace of laughter.
In the meantime, Kim Yuri, who had been fighting solo to fill the MC's vacant seat, skillfully kept the proceedings moving.
"Alright, alright, no fighting. Can't we just decide by vote? Vote for the member who's more cat-like!"
Kim Yuri swiftly conducted the vote, even borrowing slips of paper and pens from a nearby staff member.
And moments later, holding the collected slips, Kim Yuri solemnly announced the results.
"Okay, the results are in! Jeong Sowol, one vote. Han Neuti, one vote. Seo Cha-gyeom, one vote."
"That's one more cat."
Kim Yuri spoke shyly.
"I wrote that one. Chaegyeom has wanted to be a cat since way back."
"I did?"
"You did. Back then, you stopped practicing and stared out the window, saying stuff like 'I want to be as free as that stray cat' and whatnot."
"I did......?"
Ignoring Seo Cha-gyeom's expression that screamed 'This is the first I've heard of it,' Kim Yuri wrapped up the topic at just the right moment before the talk spiraled into beating a dead horse.
"Okay, so, the three cats can play nice together. And, well, whichever member the fans end up calling a cat, I don't think it's our place to go stamping approvals on it! We have to respect the fans' freedom of interpretation!"
Seo Cha-gyeom nodded and chimed in.
"That's true. It changes all the time anyway. Gyeon-woo's been called a bear lately, apparently."
At those words, Baek Gyeonwoo, who had been utterly placid every moment until now, shot up from his chair.
"......What's wrong?"
Seo Cha-gyeom asked, startled.
"I'm a bear?"
"So they say."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why. The fans must see you as bear-like."
Baek Gyeonwoo's expression was clouded with dismay.
"Before, they said I was a rabbit."
"......You can be rabbit-like and bear-like at the same time. It's possible."
"No, bears and rabbits are way too different. One literally eats the other."
As Baek Gyeonwoo trailed off, Seo Cha-gyeom asked cautiously.
"......Do you want to be the rabbit?"
"Rabbits are cute."
"Bears are cute too. In their own way......."
Kim Yuri hastily scrambled to do damage control.
"No, Gyeon-woo, not like those grizzly bears that rip people apart! Like a teddy bear! A cute bear like a teddy bear, the cute kind!"
But Baek Gyeonwoo, as if already plunged into deep shock, flopped down into his chair with a devastated, blank expression.
Watching this, Kim Sanho remarked.
"Gyeon-woo hyung got real quiet."
"I'd be upset too if I were a bear."
The writer, observing their exchange, pressed a hand to her forehead.
Wasn't this flowing in a direction completely different from the original planning intent of capturing a rookie idol group's fresh, naive growth period......?
But at the same time, she thought to herself.
'Can we even... fit all of this into episode one?'