The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

‘What the hell is this?’ I recalled the voice that rang in my ears. It just told me to stop Park Young-Ho from leaving Only One, and I tried to check again to make sure. However, it was impossible to reconfirm because this damn voice only rang out once.

If this supernatural being went through the trouble of regressing me, I thought they should have given me something like a status window. Instead, the ability they gifted me was a weird ability called Insight that rang in my ear only once and ended. When I wanted to complain about their unfairness, the voice rang out again.

[A surprise mission]

[Stop Park Young-Ho from leaving Only One.]

[Upon success, you will gain partial control of ‘Insight’.]

[Upon failure, there will be a boycott against ‘The Showcase 2- First Chance’.]

‘What the?’ Did they hear my complaint and allow a second hearing? It was even more annoying because they only listened to me in certain situations and not most of the time. But first of all, I had to accept that this unexpected dilemma was indeed real. Then, two questions popped into my head.

First, Park Young-Ho’s departure had some kind of connection with The Showcase 2’s boycott because otherwise, his departure wouldn't necessarily cause the boycott ofa whole show. This meant that Park-Young had to leave the group due to some controversy, or he might leave the group after disclosing classified information. However, I decided not to speculate further because I needed more information. The second question was about the reward for success.

‘What does it mean by 'receiving partial control over Insight'?’ Was my ability upgrading because I was a regressor? If that was the case, they should give me a status window instead and allow me to invest points in Insight. It was an uncomfortable and inefficient system for the users any way I looked at it. My head became muddled with all kinds of thoughts, but I had to accept the mission.

‘I have to stop him.’ If the show went down, so did we. It was almost impossible to achieve 100,000 album sales in the first week without The Showcase 2. And if we failed, we could lose one of our members.

‘Do-Seung…’ I couldn’t let that happen. I cleared my head and moved back with the members.

* * *

Only One’s dorm. After waking up at dawn, the Only One members were sitting on the sofa and waiting for their manager. The person who always finished getting up and taking a shower first was Kang Hyun-Sung. He always woke up twenty minutes earlier than the other members and finished his shower.

Starting with Kang Hyun-Sung, the other members finished getting ready and sat on the sofa. The members did individual activities such as watching videos or listening to music with earphones. Then, the members’ eyes gathered in one place. Maknae Park Young-Ho had finished his shower and exited the bathroom.

Kim Si-Woon looked at Park Young-Ho with concern and asked, “Young-Ho, are you okay?”

“You’re not overdoing it, right?”

“If it’s too difficult, you don’t have to do today’s shooting.”

“If you don’t heal properly from an injury, it’ll keep bothering you in the future.”

Although Only One’s dorm was more on the quiet and awkward side, the members were not cold enough to remain callous about their injured maknae.

Kang Hyun-Sung also looked at Park Young-Ho and said, “You should rest today.”

Since the members knew Kang Hyun-Sung was not the type to easily say words like that, they looked at him with concern.

Kang Hyun-Sung paid no heed to their reactions and said, “If you carelessly move and your injury worsens, the gap in our choreography would only get bigger.”

The members turned their heads and thought ‘as expected’ at his following words.

“I’m really fine. It wasn’t broken in the first place, and the tendon only just got a bit stretched. It doesn’t have any effect on walking.” Park Young-Ho said and walked in one place. His posture itself was not very strange.

“Maybe because he’s young, he recovers really fast.”

“Are you wolverine, Young-Ho?”

“You’re really like Piccolo[1].”

The Only One members seemed to think Park Young-Ho really had completely healed. On the other hand, Kang Hyun-Sung’s gaze was somewhat different from the members. He stared at the top of Park Young-Ho’s foot as Park Young-Ho pretended to walk normally. Because he took off the cast that he had been wearing until this morning for today’s schedule, there was a clear cast mark on top of his foot. Although there was no problem with his walking, the cast mark was still clearly visible.

Kang Hyun-Sung asked, “Where’d you put the cast?”

“It’s in my room but…” Park Young-Ho hesitated and replied.

“You don’t need to put it on?”

“Yes, I’m really fine.”

Kang Hyun-Sung stared at Park Young-Ho and turned his gaze away. Just in time—

Beep Beep.

They heard the door unlock.

“Let’s go,” Kang Hyun-Sung said, and the members began to get up one by one. Park Young-Ho moved along with the members and relaxed his ankle as a test and a sharp pain shot back up.

‘Endure it,’ Park Young-Ho thought and followed his members without showing it on the outside.

* * *

We went back to our dorm and after taking a shower, we all got in the car. Then Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna drove us to the salon in Gangbuk. Now that we’ve been here a few times, we were used to it and after settling down, we greeted the makeup and hair stylist. Since we met them whenever we had a shooting schedule, the members had gotten quite close to the stylists.

“Oh my, why are you guys all so handsome today?” The friendly salon owner came out and praised our appearance. Since she always smiled and said nice things, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but the other stylists also complimented our appearance a lot today.

Dong-Jun’s stylist said, “Everyone looks really handsome today.”

Dong-Jun replied, “Ah~ so we used to be ugly?”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying! You guys are all good-looking usually, but you’re all even better-looking than usual.”

Starting from Dong-Jun’s stylist, everyone started praising our appearance. Praises about appearance could be rude depending on the context and situation, but in this situation, it was a great compliment as the reason why we went to the salon was to improve our appearance.

“Wow, look at that jawline. It looks like I’ll get a cut from it,” Yeon-Hoon’s stylist said.

Yeon-Hoon asked, “Really? Is my jawline that sharp?”

“Look here. Look at how sharp it is.”

A huge grin appeared on Yeon-Hoon’s face.

Woon’s stylist also said, “I thought our Woon was slightly the innocent type, but you also have a manly side.”

Woon asked, “Me?”

Woon heard that he looked manly, and the same was true for Do-Seung.

Do-Seung’s stylist said, “Did you always look this sharp?”

“What?”

The members’ moods seemed to rise as the salon stylists bombarded them with compliments about their appearances.

‘I guess being haggard has its benefits sometimes.’ Since we had slept for three hours a day for the past week and continued to practice high-level choreography, we all lost a lot of weight. Our eyelids also looked hollow and fatigued.

Others might look at us and think we looked worn-out or sick, but it was different on TV as makeup could cover our faults. We could become more handsome than usual if the parts that made us look tired were erased and makeup was used to liven up our facial features and shape. I thought my stylist would compliment my appearance too. It seemed as if she was trying to say something.

“Uh, Mr. Tae-Yoon, um…” Then, when our eyes met in the mirror, she asked, “…Did you eat breakfast?” She suddenly asked about my eating habits.

“No.”

“Ah, yes.”

I haven’t been able to get close to my stylist. Maybe it was because I was not the chatty type, and I also hadn’t talked to her more than three times. The other members seemed to chat with their stylists a bit and then soon fell asleep.

Since we were practicing every day with little to no sleep, they dozed off whenever they had time to sleep. I pushed away the drowsiness and organized my thoughts as I had basically received a solo mission from the system today. If that was not resolved, the problem would inevitably grow bigger and affect us. Therefore, even though I felt like I was going to fall asleep at any moment, I had no choice but to clear my mind again.

‘What does it mean to prevent Park Young-Ho from leaving?’ While riding in the car, I organized information about Park Young-Ho. He was one year older than me, being twenty years old. He was Only One’s maknae, and his position was the lead vocalist.

This was information that everyone knew, so I began organizing information about his personal history. Since Only One’s fame was at a different level than ours, it was not difficult to find personal information about each of the members, and thanks to my previous life, I also roughly knew personal information about them.

I compared the information in my memory with the information leaked on the internet. As a result, I could rule out one possibility—the possibility of Park Young-Ho dropping out due to a controversy. Usually, when idols dropped out of a show due to a scandal, it was related to verbal abuse, school violence, drugs, or criminal history.

Park Young-Ho didn’t fit into any of these categories. In the first place, he was only 20 years old and hadn’t been in the entertainment world for too long, so there wasn’t enough time for him to do drugs or commit a crime. Above all, school records and alumni testimony were most important.

‘He’s the very definition of a model student.’ I remembered that he was always selected as the model student type in broadcast programs that gave information about idols. From what I knew, he served as a leader of a student club or a church’s student council. In fact, he had never been involved in a controversy before I regressed. How could a person like that have such a serious controversy now?

If he got older after a long time, his childhood innocence could disappear and he might get a controversy then, but this couldn’t be true at a time when he was only 20 years old. Above all, Park Young-Ho was famous for his good and gentle character before my regression. He was also famous as the first celebrity to sponsor donations whenever there was a disaster in the nation or the world.

In other words, Park Young-Ho was a person who maintained his original character to some extent until he turned 25. The remaining possibility was that Park Young-Ho exposed some scandal or classified information but—

‘That’s not it either.’ I’m sure he could have accumulated complaints about the team, company, or show’s production team. However, too little time had passed for complaints to accumulate enough to expose the show, as we’ve only just finished the first round. Then, it was probably a third possibility that I hadn’t thought of.

‘I really hope this isn’t the case.’ But the third possibility was—an accident. An accident in which Park Young-Ho was seriously injured. The accident would cause Park Young-Ho to drop out, and people would find out and start a boycott. Since he had already injured his ankle once, he was most likely to be involved in an accident during today’s shooting. If a piece of equipment suddenly fell or the set collapsed, he might not be able to respond quickly due to his ankle pain.

‘If then, should I just stare at Park Young-Ho all day?’ I had to keep my eyes fixed on Park Young-Ho at all times because I didn’t know when and where the accident would happen. Even though I had to focus on my shooting, I now needed to take care of a member from another group. I was already feeling drained.

“It’s over.” My makeup and hair were finally done. When I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror, I looked a little brighter than usual. After removing the dark circles and highlighting the shades of my face, I definitely looked more like a celebrity than before.

“Let’s go~”

“Ugh~”

The members also woke up one by one and got up from the salon chair.

“Thank you~”

“Thank you for your hard work!” We greeted the salon stylists and got back in the car.

“Let’s crush the shooting again today!”

“Let’s raise our energy and do well!”

Yeon-Hoon and Dong-Jun pumped up the group’s energy.

“Let’s just not get hurt.”

“Don’t overdo it either.”

While Woon and Do-Seung were taking care of our condition, I worried about Park Young-Ho.

‘What shall I do with him?’ While we all had different thoughts like this, we moved toward the studio where the shooting was going to take place.

1. A character with a regeneration ability from an anime called Dragon Ball. ☜