The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

I caught Yeon-Hoon, who was falling in my direction. I couldn’t grasp what was happening, but I couldn’t just let him fall so I safely caught him in my arms.

‘I’m sorry, Tae-Yoon.’ What was he sorry about? And was that person just now Yeon-Hoon from this world or another world? My head hurt thinking about it. I hugged him and checked his face. It was a face I was familiar with, and looking at his expression, he seemed to be back asleep. There was no way a person could stand upright in the kitchen and fall asleep like this—unless he had an illness.

‘It seemed like he got possessed.’ I wasn’t sure if he was possessed or something inside him had awakened. What was clear was that Yeon-Hoon just now didn’t seem like the Yeon-Hoon in this world. It was the first time my Insight had been so forcibly deactivated like that. I tried to pull it out, but it didn’t budge like a rock.

The system had obviously intervened. Otherwise, this situation didn’t make sense. I first laid Yeon-Hoon on the blanket. He seemed to be deep asleep as he didn’t wake up in the middle, and I organized my thoughts while laying him down. What was this world, and why did I come here? And who in the world was Yeon-Hoon just now? I couldn’t get an answer no matter how much I thought about it. Everything was too surreal for a mere human like me to understand it, and I also lacked information.

Sigh.

I sighed deeply and closed my eyes. It was hard to sleep, but I forced myself to close my eyes. Whether I liked it or not, tomorrow would come, so I needed to save a little bit of strength for that. Like this, a long night began.

* * *

In the midst of this long night, the internet, including various media platforms and online communities, were actively talking about The Showcase 2. It first started when a famous SNS account posted their excitement for the program.

—Let’s watch The Showcase 2 first episode with me and find new oppas.

It was a simple phrase that wasn’t particularly long. While Siren and other idol groups were holding mini-game competitions, The Showcase 2 was making headlines and being talked about among various people. The influencer’s account’s words were just one of those examples. However, soon after, a random post was uploaded on an internet community forum. It was a community that mainly talked about games and sports rather than idols and the article title was—

—Shit I seriously fucked up while working part-time at a broadcasting station

—I tried to film something while working at a broadcasting station but got caught and they kicked me out. I think I might get sued. I’m seriously fucked. shitshitshittttt

The content was like this. The user gave no further details. He had also posted on the community forum just to lament his troubles, but the comments below excitedly picked on him like hyenas.

Reply: Why are you so confidently posting this after you got fired for illegally filming?

Reply: hahaha, karma

Reply: Isn’t this the punk who’s been making a huge show about working part-time at a broadcasting company a few days ago?

People jumped at the chance to throw stones at another person’s fall. In the end, this article was ridiculed and deleted from the forum. The author also seemed to have thought that if this spread any further, he might really get sued and deleted the post. However, this post quickly spread like wildfire.

—I heard this is about The Showcase 2? (Communitytextcapture.jpg)

It spread to community forums that talked about idols.

Reply: Why would you film when you were told not to lol

Reply: But what did he secretly film?

Reply: Did someone get harassed?

Reply: Did the idols fight each other? lolol

This would have been buried quickly if it was just a photo, but the post spread to various places and began to get more and more rumors added in. Eventually, it turned into a completely different post from the original. Rumors about the production crew abusing their authority, someone getting a huge injury, the members cussing at each other and fighting, and various other baseless rumors spread. Of course, since there were so many parts that couldn’t be confirmed such as what kind of accident it was, whether it was power abuse or verbal abuse or a fight, so it didn’t grow to a full-blown controversy. However, it was enough for news about The Showcase 2 to spread.

—Everytime Wnet does something, there’s always such a fuss

—Isn’t it intentional at this rate?

—LOL How can there be so much gossip every time they do a survival show??

—Didn’t someone get hurt in The Showcase 1?

—Yep, there was a rumor that someone broke their knees while performing. Of course, it was all fake in the end. haha

Even those who were not very interested rushed to talk about the rumors surrounding it and didn’t hesitate to rip the show apart. However, there weren’t only negative feedback.

—There’s no evidence and nothing is confirmed, but who said it’s about The Showcase 2? WTF, did someone get a divine message?

—Don’t spread rumors without proof please

—I’m not shielding Wnet; I’m just saying stop making false assumptions with no evidence

—If you have time to look at baseless rumors, look at Hyun-Sung’s picture one more time instead

It was because there were people who didn’t pay attention to these rumors and focused on selling the show and members. People who became more interested in the show after reading rumors naturally came across these sales pitches. During this process, rumors about accidents naturally lost their power from lack of evidence, and instead, awareness of the cast members of the show increased.

—Wait a minute…Hmm…? Who is this guy…?

Reply: Siren’s Woo Yeon-Hoo! Team leader and main vocalist! —Wow, why did I watch the preview only now? The survival show’s theme is right up my ally

—So everyone agrees Siren’s Woo Yeon-Hoon is insanely handsome, right?

—Wow, are they really doomed idols?

Among them, Siren benefited the most. Siren already had the most recognition besides Only One, so as awareness about the show increased, their fame increased at the same time. In particular, thanks to Woo Yeon-Hoon always standing at the center, Siren was able to get the image that they were a visual group.

—Woo Yeon-Hoon’s face is amazing fr

—Why are these handsome babies doomed idols??

Fundamentally, there was the most response from the trailer, and then the application video posted by Siren had the second most response.

—He is serving looks all day

People didn’t consume Siren’s application video as a comical video but only watched it to see their faces like a video shoot.

—Looking at him close-up…Woo Yeon-Hoo…is even more handsome…?

—Seeing them like this, aren’t all of them good looking?

—Who’s the guy at the end?

Reply: The big cutie at the very end is Bong Tae-Yoon, the youngest of Siren, who has come to challenge the whole k-pop industry! March 4th is when the first episode of The Showcase 2 will air! Please show a lot of support.

Reply: Maknae? Not the oldest?

Reply: The oldest is Woo Yeon-Hoo

Reply: WTF make it make sense;;

—I think Siren members’ animal face type is:

Wolf-type: Tae-Yoon, Do-Seung

Rabbit-type: Yeon-Hoon, Woon

Puppy-type: Dong-Jun

Reply: no, Yeon-Hoon is angel type

Reply: Isn’t Dong-Jun more like gaejuk[1] style than a puppy? (gaejuk.jpg)

Reply: lol it looks exactly the same as him

Siren once again raised their popularity before the show aired.

—I think Only One and Siren’s rival story would be chef’s kiss

—just thinking about how they would be posed as rivals is already giving me goosebumps

—a survival show with handsome boys…let’s all just debut together

—won’t be a bad idea to get a ten-member group with both Siren and Only One

The night before the show aired passed like this. Thanks to a post written by a man in an online forum, the Showcase 2 was able to get a huge boost in garnering attention before the show even aired.

* * *

The morning dawned. As soon as I woke up, I looked at Yeon-Hoon next to me first to make sure he didn’t change like last night.

“Hmm...” However, Yeon-Hoon was in a deep sleep without any change.

Sigh.

Looking at Yeon-Hoon’s peaceful face, I felt strangely calmer. Last night’s events seemed to blur as if they had happened a long time ago. I checked my watch while sitting down. I usually woke up at 6 a.m., but it was almost 7 a.m. now. I overslept; I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I had a lot on my mind, but it seemed like I had fallen asleep again without realizing. As a result, I overslept in a while.

When I just sat there blankly, Do-Seung came out of the bathroom and asked, “Bong Tae-Yoon, are you up?”

“Ah, yes.”

“It’s not like you to oversleep.”

“I guess I was a bit tired yesterday.”

“Go in and wash up. I’ll make breakfast today,” Do-Seung said and threw me a new towel. I caught it and went to the bathroom. I became wide awake after splashing water on my head. However, the clearer my mind became, the clearer my memory of last night became. Yeon-Hoon, at that moment was clearly a different person.

‘…Who could it be?’ I thought it might be the person who called me right before I regressed, but it was hard to confirm my conjecture. I shook my head and decided to stop thinking about this as there was no point. I needed to focus on the present.

When I quickly came out after a shower, Do-Seung had already finished preparing breakfast.

He said, “Can you pass the rice out for everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Give half portions to Dong-Jun. He ate too many snacks during yesterday’s shooting.”

“Got it.” I replied and filled a little more than half for Dong-Jun’s bowl. After setting the table, the members began to get up one by one.

“Hmm.”

“Breakfast is done?”

“…It smells delicious.” Dong-Jun woke up right away without complaining. Usually, he always whined that he won’t eat breakfast and just sleep more, which usually resulted in Do-Seung forcing him to get out of bed, but he must have been hungry that morning. The members gathered at the table.

“Hurry up and eat, wash up, and let’s go practice,” Do-Seung said and started eating first. Other members also busily moved their spoons and ate. Everyone still looked half-asleep, but after a bit of food got in their system, they quickly woke up. In particular, Yeon-Hoon couldn’t even open his eyes at first, but after taking a spoonful of soybean paste stew, his eyes flashed wide open.

He cried out, “It’s so good, Do-Seung!”

“Thank you.”

“I only want to eat the soybean stew you made for the rest of my life!”

“That’s a bit much.”

I smirked while seeing Yeon-Hoon. Yeah, this was the Yeon-Hoon I knew. I decided to forget the version of him I saw last night for the time being, and like this, a peaceful mealtime continued. However, a change occurred near the end of the meal.

“What?” Woon, who kept touching his phone while eating, suddenly stopped.

“Why did you stop eating?” I looked at Woon’s spoon that stopped in the air and asked.

“Woon?”

“What’s the matter?”

The other members also asked as they saw Woon suddenly stop as if he was experiencing a lag in his system. Then he turned the phone screen to us without saying anything. Woon’s SNS feeds were full of stories about Siren.

“…I’m subscribed to this, but I’ve never seen so much feed about us…”

There was a moment of silence at what Woon said. Most of the stories on the feed were compliments like we were handsome or cute. Of course, there were a few hate comments mixed in but most were positive. I hurriedly took out my phone and entered The Showcase 2 homepage. Then I clicked the tab where the application video was posted.

—WD Entertainment debut group Siren’s application video

—Number of views: 351,648

Our views, which were around 100,000, had tripled. Today was the day TheShowcase 2 first episode aired. I thought it would be okay for us to slowly garner attention as the show increased in popularity, but—

‘It feels like something might blow up.’ I thought something big could happen today.

1. A famous dog character of a dog hanging in a bamboo. ☜