The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

“Hmph…! Urghh…” Yeon-Hoon was about to burst into tears. Though I liked everything about him, this was the part about him that I found a bit hard to bear. He cried about everything, and I had even heard stories where he lost weight because he cried too much.

Yet, that wasn’t even the main concern. I wouldn’t have stopped him if he was the type to cry beautifully on stage but his crying was more like a baby wailing. Perhaps, it could look cute to fans but if he cried in front of this audience, most people would be wondering, ‘Huh? What is he suddenly crying for?”

I tried to stop the situation before it happened, but in the end, someone murmured, “Oh my.”

“Oh….”

Yeon-Hoon was already crying and ringing a siren on top of the stage. The audience looked at us a bit baffled. Since it already started, I knew it would take a while for Yeon-Hoon to recollect himself. There was nothing I could do now.

Woon who stood closest to his side hugged Yeon-Hoon to his chest and at least, muffled Yeon-Hoon’s cries. Well, I supposed this could be the special end to our performance, and I looked down the stage. The audience was looking at us with a smile on their faces and seemed to enjoy the moment.

“Don’t cry!”

“It’s all right!”

They even shouted some encouragement.

“Thank you! We are Sirens! Hahaha!” We quickly retreated from the stage and went down the big stage. And as soon as we went down, the hosts came up and said their commentaries.

—All right! It’s time for you all to cast your votes on Siren’s performance!

The audience began to vote for our ranks. By their responses, I expected them to rate us highly.

‘Though there are mostly Kang Hyun-Sung’s fans here, the audience’s responses were good despite that.’ The atmosphere was better than I expected, and there were some people who were hollering passionately. I also saw some people genuinely impressed when we revealed our werewolf concept too.

Of course, there were some people who didn’t cheer for us and looked disapprovingly till the very end, but that was something we couldn’t change. It was a consequence we needed to accept with all the attention we drew at the beginning.

‘I think we turned a lot of people’s hearts though,’ I thought. The situation was much better than I hoped for. Then, after we circled around the big stage and returned to the waiting room, Yeon-Hoon’s tears finally stopped.

“Are you okay, Yeon-Hoon?” I asked.

“…Yeah.”

Though his eyes were swollen and half their original size, I was thankful that he stopped crying.

Sigh. "I’m glad everything ended well!” Dong-Jun said while stretching his arms. It seemed all the nerves that had been piling up inside him disappeared instantly.

“Yeah, the audience gave really good responses,” Do-Seung said. He appeared to be satisfied by the performance just now and his face was brighter than usual.

“I never expected the audience to cheer for us this much,” Woon said, looking dazed as if he was still raptured by his moment on stage.

“We did a good job,” I said. I felt a swell of pride seeing my group members appear so happy. I had felt bad for them when they ranked fifth place in the last shooting since the performance had been my idea.

Though placing fifth helped us leave a lasting impression on the show, it still didn’t take away my guilt. It was only natural since emotions were multi-faceted and complicated. Thus, I finally felt a bit relieved. It felt as if we had proven ourselves again.

“…Tae-Yoon and Do-Seung, really good job,” Yeon-Hoon said in a slightly hoarse voice. His face still looked like he was in a daze, and his eyes were teary.

“Come on, Yeon-Hoon. You should finish crying before talking.”

“Ugh! Why do you scold me even when I’m trying to compliment you!” Yeon-Hoon threw a cushion at me. Laughter spread inside the waiting room.

“But I think this performance’s quality really improved thanks to Do-Seung and Tae-Yoon,” Woon said, following up with Yeon-Hoon’s statement. “Tae-Yoon’s lyrics fit really well with Do-Seung’s melody. I think this performance was only able to come alive thanks to a good song.”

I looked at Woon with a bit of awe. It was quite a rare talent for a person to say such nice things to another person without a change in their expression. I thought the world would become a better place if there were more people like Woon.

“I-Is that right?”

But if there were people like Woon, there were also people like Do-Seung. Do-Seung was the type of person who had a hard time saying compliments and felt embarrassed when he heard them. However, though Do-Seung acted like a person suffering from allergies hearing Woon’s compliments, he also looked pretty pleased with himself.

I wondered how two people who couldn’t be more different from one another could be so close. One person was friendly and didn’t shy away from giving compliments, while the other was extremely resistant to it. But perhaps, this was what made the two close from the first place.

“Oh yeah, Tae-Yoon’s expression at the end was really good!” Woon complimented me specifically this time.

“Huh?” I was a bit taken aback by his compliment.

“At the end, I loosened up my pose a bit and glanced behind and saw your ending pose. You had a really good gaze then.”

“Ah…”

I thought nobody had seen me then, and it felt like I had been found out.

“What? Is Tae-Yoon a pro at even making expressions and grabbing the audience’s attention?” Dong-Jun said jokingly and poked my sides a couple of times.

“No, that’s not it,” I said annoyedly.

“Let me see your expression!” Dong-Jun became more excited at my annoyance and poked my sides harder.

“Ah, seriously Dong-Jun.”

“Ahhh! Seeeriously!” Dong-Jun copied me.

“Hahaha!” Laughter filled the waiting room again. It was then someone knocked on the door and came in.

“It’s Siren’s turn to do the interviews.”

“Yes!” We all got up and headed to the interview room.

***

It was tense inside Only One’s waiting room right after Siren’s performance just ended. The mood hadn’t always been this bad. Besides Kang Hyun-Sung, who sat alone, the other members were usually able to say a comment or two in between. And Kang Hyun-Sung interacted with them sometimes so that he wouldn’t come out like an unfriendly guy on camera. Yet, Kang Hyun-Sung pressed his lips tightly when Sirens came on stage.

The members also sensed the change in Kang Hyun-Sung’s mood and stared at the monitor. At first, they thought Kang Hyun-Sung was simply monitoring a competitor’s show.

“It’s a self-produced song?”

“Wow…”

When he learned that this song was self-produced by Siren, Kang Hyun-Sung’s face slightly altered. For everyone else, his face would’ve probably looked expressionless as before but for his members—especially for the youngest, Park Young-Ho—they could see a clear change. As the performance continued and the members realized that the song’s quality was even higher than they expected, all signs of emotions on Kang Hyun-Sung’s face began to disappear.

“The song is good…” somebody said.

“Yeah, the song is good,” Kang Hyun-Sung responded. Though he was agreeing with them, Park Young-Ho sensed a prickliness in his voice. And it wasn’t only the song that was good. Siren’s choreography, concept, and general performance were of high-quality. And when they found out that Siren’s song wasn’t simply a historical song but one that combined the werewolf concept, a couple of members expressed their genuine admiration for Siren’s performance.

“Oh…”

“They are insane.”

“Sirens are good,” Kang Hyun-Sung admitted with a more genuine tone this time. It was then the atmosphere inside the waiting room turned cold. Nobody said anything, but they all watched Siren’s performance without saying a word. It was for many different reasons, including feeling threatened after seeing how good their competitor’s performance was and feeling overwhelmed by it; or possibly, it could be because they were worried about a specific person’s worsened mood.

Park Young-Ho scanned Kang Hyun-Sung’s face. Their eyes met.

“Is there something on my face?”

“Ah, no. Haha.”

“Then, why are you staring at me?”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Okay then,” Kang Hyun-Sung said and turned his head. Then Siren came down the stage. It sounded like there was some commotion before they went down, but Park Young-Ho missed it because of his conversation with Kang Hyun-Sung. Park Young-Ho tapped his chest with his palm.

For some strange reason, this uncomfortable feeling in his chest appeared a couple of months ago and hadn’t disappeared since. It felt like he had an upset stomach though he didn’t eat anything.

“Are you feeling sick?” Kang Hyun-Sung asked him.

“No, I’m fine,” Park Young-Ho said his habitual line, ‘I’m fine’. Still, the suffocating and heavy feeling in his heart didn’t disappear.

***

The team’s interview came to an end. The content of the interview didn’t change much from the introductory performance. The interviewer asked what hardships they went through while preparing for this performance, what their thoughts were about today’s performance, and if they had any regrets. But this time, they asked more about the song composition.

“So, are you saying that ‘victory0505’ is you, Mr. Do-Seung?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Why did you hide this fact in the beginning?”

“Well, it’s complicated to explain, but Tae-Yoon brought my account suddenly and…” Do-Seung had already said this part in the last practice shooting, but he said it again this time. The need for repitition seemed to highlight how important this issue was, and how it could be something that might garner negative criticism for Do-Seung.

After all, other people could think that Do-Seung had simply hidden his name in the beginning only to reveal it later on to garner attention. But we just needed to remain firm and bold in this part since it was true that Do-Seung had been hesitant to reveal his account at first.

“I didn’t have confidence in my work, so I tried to hide the fact that it was me who composed the song. I didn’t want to draw too much attention to the fact I composed songs, but after thinking about it a great deal, I decided to reveal who I was,” Do-Seung explained.

The interview finished after we talked generally about our performance, and we returned to our waiting room.

“Haaaa!” Dong-Jun stretched as soon as we returned and slumped to the sofa. We also followed Dong-Jun and began to sit on the sofa one by one. While we were doing our interviews, it appeared Luminin finished their performance since they were showing the ending clips. I felt a bit regretful to have missed this group’s performance because I was wondering how well they would do after purposefully giving us the color blue.

Fortunately, the audience’s response was lukewarm. It appeared that their stage was nothing special and the Luminin’s members’ expressions appeared downcast. Perhaps, their performance looked even worse compared to us, and I was sure our skills were definitely better than Luminin’s.

—Okay! Please vote for Luminin's ranks for this performance now!

When Luminin came down the stage, the voting began. I stared at the monitor blankly and the voting stopped. There was a period of silence and even all my members became quiet. It was because it was going to be Only One’s turn next. Yeon-Hoon broke the silence to say, “…It’s time for Only One to come out.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Everyone looked a bit nervous. They knew they could be heavily criticized if they made the wrong responses since a surveillance camera was going on even inside the waiting room. They all intuitively knew that they would only be able to survive in this industry by managing their conduct. Thus, we exchanged looks and signaled to each other to give positive reactions.

“Ohhhh! They are coming!”

“Wooow!”

The stage lights turned on and Only One came up. We did our best to cheer for them to avoid being marked as lacking sportsmanship.

“Huh…?”

Gasp!

Yet, in the middle of the stage, our reactions couldn’t help but falter a bit when the youngest of Only One, Park Young-Ho made a mistake.