The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

At this point, maybe I had some kind of connection with Kang Hyun-Sung in my past life. What else could explain how we got tangled up in every big event to this extent? Perhaps, we were arch nemesis, lovers, or both in our past lives. I scratched my head. I couldn’t guarantee whether or not Kang Hyun-Sung recorded what he just saw or not. His promises were meaningless without evidence.

Perhaps, Kang Hyun-Sung read my doubtful eyes, and he offered, “Do you want to see my phone or something?”

“…”

“I told you I didn’t record anything, but you don’t seem to believe me.”

“Do you not have a recorder on you?”

“…?”

“…Never mind.” I thought Kang Hyun-Sung might carry a recorder with him, but I quickly changed my mind, thinking that I was being too skeptical. But as I was thinking this, Kang Hyun-Sung pulled out a recorder from his pocket.

“Here it is. I didn’t turn it on. I just carry this around to hear myself when I sing. You know, since there is a limit to recording on your phone.”

It was a reasonable excuse. For now, I confirmed that his recorder wasn’t on. Then, Kang Hyun-Sung turned on the recorder himself and showed me the records. Among the records, there was none that had today’s date.

By then, I wondered, ‘Why does it seem like he’s trying to cover for me?’ He was totally capable of recording the situation since he carried a recorder around with him everywhere, yet he didn’t leave any evidence behind as if he had purposefully wanted to cover up the situation for me.

“With this, my debts are paid.”

“…?”

“Let’s go now to look at the accommodations.”

‘What was he talking about? He owed me debts?’ Even after racking my head, there was nothing I could guess what he was referring to. But since he was the one saying this, I just glossed over the situation while thanking my good fortune.

***

Kim Joon-Hyuk and Lee Young-Joon murmured curses as soon as they got out of the bathroom.

“Fuck. Shit! What’s wrong with that bastard!”

Since they were on a deserted path where staff didn’t usually enter, they could yell and curse as much as they wished. But they still soon lowered their voices, knowing that someone could find them if they continued to scream repeatedly. They were outside, after all.

“Haaa. Fuck. What do we do now?” Kim Joon-Hyuk asked Lee Young-Joon. They couldn’t act rashly when their private conversation had been recorded.

“It’s not a big deal for people to curse and stuff. How dare he use that against us?” In the end, Kim Joon-Hyuk couldn’t withstand the anger overflowing out of him any longer and kicked at any random tree root. But of course, the tree didn’t budge and only his toes felt pain from the kick.

In their hearts, the two knew that they hadn’t simply said some curse words; they demeaned some people and tried to harm another person. Furthermore, their word choices were beyond repulsive. Yet, these two didn’t think about these points and were simply displeased by the fact that someone had caught their weaknesses and used them to exercise control over them.

“Joon-Hyuk.”

“What!”

“Should we just fight that bastard?”

“What?”

“We can hold him down and pound on him. Then, we can take his phone and erase all the recordings.”

“He said he made backups.”

“Even if he did that, he probably just moved the recordings to chat rooms or uploaded them on his cloud.”

“So, how will we erase those?”

“You know everything is done with fingerprint verification. We can unlock everything with his fingerprint and erase everything.”

“…Will we be able to handle the aftermath?”

“Then, do you want to live the rest of your life listening to that bastard? We can just hit him in places that aren’t visible.”

“Well but…” Kim Joon-Hyuk was about to say something but closed his mouth. If he could, he also wanted to follow Lee Young-Joon’s suggestion. He wanted to capture Tae-Yoon, beat him up, and erase the recordings. But the tiny shred of conscience—what others called morality—seemed to hold him back.

‘Besides, it might leave us more screwed.’ It would be good if they succeeded, but if they failed, he couldn’t fathom how much this issue could escalate. If anyone caught them attacking Bong Tae-Yoon, it would be over.

‘They could really sue us then.’ And this incident wouldn’t end with just a scandal, but they could really go to jail. But the most crucial factor holding him back was this:

‘He’s seriously scary.’ Truthfully, Kim Joon-Hyuk couldn’t realistically imagine winning against Tae-Yoon even if they attacked him together. It had been his first time seeing someone make such a frightening face. Tae-Yoon was usually cold-looking, and when he scowled threateningly on top of that, it intimidated him a bit. Furthermore, the physical differences between him and them were drastic. There was probably an over ten centimeters difference between their heights.

“So, what? Are you going to fucking do it or not? Why did you stop talking suddenly?” Lee Young-Joon asked.

Kim Joon-Hyuk had a hard time opening his mouth. If things went wrong, this wouldn’t end with just their wrongdoings. It could lead to the cancellation of the program or even the disbanding of their group. Their company already had little money, so if they didn’t catch the public’s attention this time, they could really not work anymore. If Tae-Yoon’s recordings became released to the public in this situation or they were sued for assault, the little fame they managed to amass would backfire on them.

“Hey, so are you not going to do it? How long are you going to ignore me?”

“I’m thinking, you idiot,” Kim Joon-Hyuk finished thinking and said, “…Let’s not resort to violence.” No matter how much he thought about it, beating someone up wasn’t the right way to go about this situation. Furthermore, they might end up getting beaten up by Tae-Yoon instead.

“How about we just steal his phone? While that bastard is sleeping, we could use his fingerprint to unlock his phone.” This seemed like a much better plan. Though Lee Young-Joon seemed displeased by the idea, he eventually replied.

Sigh.

“Fine. Then, let’s take his phone and try to unlock it somehow.” It seemed Lee Young-Joon also realized that this was the most realistic plan. Thus, the two decided to act during the night and solidify their plan.

***

I returned to the lodging place with Kang Hyun-Sung. Perhaps, it was because of the tense conflict I had in the bathroom, that I couldn’t get used to this atmosphere at all.

“Mr. Tae-Yoon! Look here! Jacuzzi! Jacuzzi!” Young-Ho pulled me towards the jacuzzi as soon as I returned. The jacuzzi was installed on the second-floor veranda. I couldn’t understand how such a structure could fit into a veranda, but I quickly changed my mind when I saw the place. The veranda wasn’t a normal veranda.

“…This is insane.” The veranda was more like a mid-sized garden attached to the second floor and floating from the bottom. There were a total of three jacuzzis installed in total and next to them, there was a massage chair, foot bath, and other spa goods.

‘They sure used some money,’ I thought. The place looked like someone’s dream resting place.

“Wouldn’t it be so nice for us to use this all together after finishing our practice?” Young-Ho jumped up and down like an excited dog. If he had a tail, he would probably be wagging it around like a motor. Even Kang Hyun-Sung appeared shocked about our accommodations and looked at the space wide-eyed.

“Well, that’s nice but we also have to practice. Everyone change your clothes and gather at the practice room.” Kang Hyun-Sung seemed to have realized that this wasn’t the type to dilly dally and relax. And though people appeared regretful to hear this, they went down one by one. Young-Ho looked back at the jacuzzi sadly but Kang Hyun-Sung clutched his arms around his shoulders and dragged him down. Like that, we all went to prepare for our practice.

***

After taking out our practice uniforms from our individual carriers, we all gathered at the practice room. The producers had changed karaoke rooms and pool halls commonly found in premium villas into practice rooms, so there was a room for casts to practice in each lodging place. After removing all the pool boards and karaoke machines, the rooms were spacious and empty, so that it was perfect for us to practice for our performance.

“The speaker’s performance is unexpectedly good.”

“Well, this place used to be a karaoke room.”

After getting familiar with the place, everyone focused on their practice. We had all memorized our dance moves by now and were just adding details to the performance. The song composition would soon be finished, and one could say that we were already in the safe zone when competing. Yet…

[Probability of winning first place: 65%]

My group’s possibility of winning didn’t seem to rise any further. Was it because I failed to do something at the center? But I had memorized the dance moves by even utilizing the Insight ability. I had done as much as I could at the center and wondered what the problem was.

‘Perhaps, it’s not me who’s the problem.’ We wouldn’t be able to win by just me doing a good job. My group members all needed to individually get high scores for us to get first in the end since the third performance’s results were decided by adding each of the individuals’ scores and getting the average of it. Everyone needed to do well to increase that average. And I thought our probability of winning would naturally go up since I caught OnebyOne’s Kim Joon-Hyuk and Lee Young-Joon’s weaknesses, but the probability remained the same.

‘What?’ At this point, there seemed to be two remaining possibilities. Perhaps, I was doing a really bad job at this, or Kim Joon-Hyuk and Lee Young-Joon still hadn’t come to their senses yet. There was no way my group members wouldn’t do a good job in their performance. They were guys who could’ve debuted a long time ago and actually had opportunities or got close to debuting in big companies. I thought I should check up on Kim Joon-Hyuk and Lee Young-Joon again when somebody’s phone vibrated. It came from Kang Hyun-Sung.

“Let’s rest a bit.” Kang Hyun-Sung stopped the music and went to get his phone.

‘What’s going on?’ I wondered.

After reading the content, Kang Hyun-Sung’s face turned serious and he said, “I will share what I just got with you all. Please check it.” Then, he uploaded the message he got onto the group chat.

—There’s no point in camping altogether if you all just practice by yourselves! Thus, we will have a midterm checkup on each of the group’s performances in the form of a competition!

—Please gather at the central yard one hour from now on and show us the stage you have prepared until now.

—Prepare your hearts because you will be harshly scrutinizing each others’ performances and criticizing them!

This was basically a time for us to batter and bring down the other teams.

“Did everyone read the messages?” Kang Hyun-Sung asked. Everyone nodded. There seemed to be no one among our team who seemed to welcome this event much. As trainees, we were already reluctant to show an incomplete performance.

‘But I suppose this is an opportunity for me to check on how Kim Joon-Hyuk and Lee Young-Joon are acting.’ This was an event that was good for me in some ways, but everyone else looked worried sick.

Kang Hyun-Sung seemed to have noticed their reaction and proposed, “Okay, why don’t we do this? There’s no need for us to show our performance as it is and reveal to all the other groups our tricks and plans.”

Kang Hyun-Sung came up with a couple of ideas to relieve his members’ worries.

“Rather than showing them our final arrangement version, let’s show them our original version. In other words, we shouldn’t give it our all.” This made sense to do. If we did this, we wouldn’t be completely lying, and even if we were reprimanded for not trying our best, we could still be forgiven in the end.

“And Mr. Tae-Yoon.”

“Yes?”

“I will stand in the center this time.”

“Sorry?”

And that wasn’t all. Kang Hyun-Sung asked to change the center positions. I wondered if this guy was suddenly coveting the center position and grabbing his chance now. It had been suspicious how well he seemed to have been treating me.

“Mr. Tae-Yoon, you are the core of this performance. There is no need for us to show this hidden card too. So, why don’t you stand in the back for today?”

“…?” I couldn’t understand what he meant and that wasn’t all.

“And you can learn from me...”

“…?”

“What it means to be the center,” Kang Hyun-Sung said.

I almost doubted my ears. How could he say such arrogant words with his own mouth?