The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

Episode 5 of The Showcase 2 ended. We were sitting in the dorm and watching TV together. We’ve just finished the show, and if I summarized my review of it in one line, it would be—

‘As expected, we are the main characters.’ The episode was edited just as I expected. If I had one complaint, it was that–

‘Why did they emphasize the part I said nuna so much…?' Park Soo-Chul, that bastard, sneakily emphasized my nuna part. People who watched it without much thought would just gloss over it, but anyone who directed or was in broadcasting would know his intentions. He lowered the surrounding sound and focused the screen to more clearly convey my ‘pick me, nuna’ line.

“Mr. Bong nuna, how does it feel to be the real star of today’s show?”

“…Stop it, Dong-Jun.”

“What’s wrong Mr. Bong nuna? Isn’t it great to be the main star, Mr. Bong nuna?”

The members kept making fun of me, and Dong-Jun kept calling me Mr. Bong nuna.

“Tae-Yoon! The aftermath of your nuna comment is no joke! Bluebird is going crazy right now!” Yeon-Hoon, oblivious to how embarrassed I was, kept pushing Bluebird’s feed to my face.

“Tae-Yoon, this is really good. Don’t be so embarrassed.” Woon sincerely consoled me, but I strangely felt more hurt. As for Do-Seung…

“Wow, you really went all out that day. I feel this more now that I’m watching it on the show…You’re seriously tough.” I didn’t know exactly why, but he was admiring me.

I sighed and said, “This is painful.”

“There’s nothing to be feel bad about! This is really amazing.” Yeon-Hoon once again pushed the phone screen to my face as I was lowering my head down and lamenting my circumstances. I tried not to see it, but I couldn’t help seeing what was in front of my eyes.

—1-Bong Tae-Yoon 25,670 tweets

“…?”

“You’re number one in the real-time rankings!”

What, why? What was happening to this country? I couldn’t believe I was getting such a crazy reaction just because I said nuna once. I didn’t know if the members were trying to tease me or really liked the reaction we got. Perhaps it was both.

‘I shouldn’t have children.’ I felt too ashamed to show this dark piece of history to my children, and I felt like my dignity as a father would plummet to the ground if they found out about this.

Sighhhh.

“Why are you sighing? This is great for us~”

Even while my insides were burning into ashes, the members were smiling in glee. I thought I shouldn’t react so strongly anymore. I lost my composure for a while and reacted excessively, so the members jumped at the chance and teased me with greater enthusiasm. I returned to my usual self and pretended to be calm.

“Ah, what? It’s over? The first one to lose interest after I became calm was Dong-Jun. What did he mean by ‘it’s over’? I felt betrayed that he knew I was suffering yet still incessantly teased me. Thus, I endured the nuna teasing for a while, and before long, the members began to lose interest and get up one by one.

“Shall we clean up now?” Woon got up first.

“Yeah, let’s do that~”

“Yeah.” Yeon-Hoon and Do-Seung also got up.

For a second, I thought they might go to sleep like this, but that wasn’t the case.

“Everyone, get changed and come down to the practice room~”

“Yes~”

It was time for the final performance soon. We had to practice even if it took all night.

* * *

The Only One members, including Kang Hyun-Sung, were sitting in the living room of their dorm and watching the TV screen. Although the show was over, no one got up prematurely. There was only one reason for their behavior—it was because Siren became the main character of this episode.

“Pwehhh.”

“Siren must be in a festive mood.”

“I think they must be on a roll because they won first place before the final.”

Before, everyone except for Kang Hyun-Sung were not deadset on winning first place. However, after practicing with Kang Hyun-Sung and being gradually influenced by him, everyone was now willing to risk their lives to win first place.

“Since Siren did a good job, I can understand why they won first place, but… we also did really well…,” Park Young-Ho said and swallowed the rest of his words in disappointment. He hadn’t felt this disappointed on the day of the competition, but now that they were heading to the finals, he couldn’t help but feel regretful.

While everyone was staring at the screen in sour disappointment, Kang Hyun-Sung turned off the TV screen and said, “There’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s stop thinking about this.” Then he said, “Let’s go practice instead of wallowing in disappointment.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Haaa.”

“Let’s go practice~”

The Only One members got up from their seats and started getting ready to go practice. While the Only One members were changing into practice clothes, Kang Hyun-Sung took out a document envelope from the bookshelf in his room.

—TH Entertainment Artist Exclusive Contract

It was an exclusive contract signed with TH Entertainment.

Kang Hyun-Sung opened the document envelope and read the relevant clauses one by one. He read the parts related to the settlement fee and the contract maintenance period. After that, he read the agency’s responsibilities and the legal repercussions they would face if they failed to comply with them.

When he first signed this contract, he believed that the person in charge was simply following the industry’s standard contract; he was gullible and inexperienced enough to fall for those words then. However, after signing several contracts and experiencing what the industry was like directly, many parts of this contract caught his eye now, and he realized they were far from the norm.

“Hmm.” Kang Hyun-Sung put the contract back into the envelope. Just in time, the Only One members finished changing their clothes. Kang Hyun-Sung also left his room after changing his clothes.

* * *

Our practice continued in preparation for the final performance. We had to make sure that the final performance was absolutely perfect this time. We kept having discussions about the song, choreography, and concept, and if we found even a slight improvement, we did not make excuses about running out of time and actively revised our plan. Thus, every day was a struggle, and every day was a war against time. Moreover, though this was an obvious thing to say, we couldn’t be tight on budget for the final performance.

“Don’t worry about that!”

“We’ll get the money no matter what!”

In response, Ms. Hyuna and Ms. Seung-Yeon confidently reassured us and told us they would do the best they could. However, we were also well aware that there were realistic limitations to what we could receive from the agency.

Thus, Yeon-Hoon was the first to suggest using his own money. “This is the money I saved from all the holiday allowances I got since I was young! Don’t worry about using it because I've never considered that as part of my assets.”

Although it was quite a lot of money for it to have been simply holiday allowances he had saved up since he was young, we couldn’t reject his offer. After that, Do-Seung, Woon, and even I all pinched in a bit. The one who gave the biggest amount was—

“Don’t feel pressured~ I have a lot of money~” As expected, it was Dong-Jun. Thus, we secured a budget that was 2.5 times larger than the performance budget we’ve been using so far. It was to the extent that Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna were surprised and flustered by the amount of money we’ve collected so far. This was how serious we were about the final performance, and how much we were betting everything on this performance.

“Let’s not spare any money on clothes or anything.”

“…I feel bad for not doing more, everyone…”

“I’ll make sure to prepare thoroughly…so you guys won’t be lacking anything this time.”

“We won’t waste a single penny.”

From costumes to props, we planned not to go cheap on anything. Time continued to pass like this and practice continued. We pushed ourselves to the limit so that even sleeping 4 hours a day was sleeping a lot. Eventually, our song and choreography were completed, and even the costumes, concepts, and everything was decided.

Like that, April 6th arrived. As of now, there were two days left before the final performance, which was scheduled for April 8th. We had just finished our afternoon practice and had a short break while leaning against the wall of the practice room.

However, our break times were 10 minutes at most, and 10 minutes was only enough time to drink a glass of water. Since we were reaching our physical limit, everyone was just focused on resting without saying anything. It was because if we didn’t rest properly for even 1 minute of the 10 minutes, it would affect the three-hour practice that followed.

Ziiing—

Yeon-Hoon’s phone vibrated. We all turned our heads towards Yeon-Hoon without saying anything.

Sighh. “…I’ll check it guys…,” Yeon-Hoon said and picked up his phone. Frankly, everyone knew who contacted him. If Yeon-Hoon got a message in the middle of the day, there was a 90% chance it was from the broadcasting station. Judging by the timing, I was sure that it was…

“…It’s the MVP perk, haha…I’ll take a screenshot and post it on the group chat. It’s a text that tells me the location of the hotel and meeting time.”

Sighhh.

“Got it.”

“I’ll check it…”

Sure enough, it was the hotel suite accommodation that we received as the MVP perk during the third competition. It was a reward that included a live broadcast and ‘mention party (MP)’ event where we ‘mentioned’ the fans’ tweets by replying to their questions. Hotels, live broadcasts, and MP were all nice, but the reason why we were so annoyed right now was that we didn’t have enough time to practice.

‘Why the heck are they taking away practice time before the finals?’ Although it was a perk that I wasn’t super happy about in the first place, it was a mere annoyance now.

‘Haa, so annoying.’ Of course, since it was a reward we received during the competition, it was natural for us to use it before the competition was over. If so, I thought they would make us do it at the time that would raise the most buzz possible.

‘But I never expected them to call us the very day before the competition.’ I had hoped with all my heart that my prediction would be wrong this time.

‘…Those bastards.’ I swore and calmed myself down.

“One good thing is that they are going to reserve a practice room near the hotel. They said we can practice there and come to the hotel when we do a live broadcast or the MP.”

“Wow, hahaha…” It seemed as if these production villains at least had a bit of conscience as they reserved a practice room near the hotel.

‘This is a relief.’ It was an extremely small improvement that people, who were otherwise, totally inconsiderate of our schedules, did for us.

“Well, let’s practice today and tomorrow as much as we can guys.”

“…Yes!”

“Haaa...”

“Let’s raise our energy! Let’s go!”

We turned on the music again and moved our bodies. Perhaps because we’ve been dancing nonstop while sacrificing our sleeping and eating time for the past few days—

‘This is…possible?’ Even without thinking, I reached the point where my body instinctively moved as soon as we heard the song. Yeah, this was good enough.

‘It would be okay to shorten the practice time for just one day…’

I was relieved for now.

* * *

The next day arrived. It was the day we had to go to the hotel and get the MVP perks. On this day, we woke up at 5 a.m. and practiced again because Woon suggested squeezing in a bit of practice time before heading to the hotel.

Thinking that we had to practice again in the studio that the production staff reserved for us near the hotel, I thought, ‘This amount should be pretty good.’

I thought we could practice enough not to be ashamed of the day before the final competition. After we finished practicing early in the morning and took a shower, we packed up and went down to the parking lot.

Was it because it was the day before the final? Even though we’ve been practicing without sleeping properly for a few days, ‘…Why don’t I feel tired?’

My condition was fine. I knew that my body was intentionally using all of its strength since I was under extreme stress; I thought that maybe everyone would fall sick after the competition was over. However—

“We won’t be able to go to the practice room right away, right?”

“Ah, the hotel. They should let us go after the competition…”

All of the members, including me, were anxious to practice more, even after overworking ourselves.

‘If we don’t win after working this hard, the world has abandoned us then.’ I sat in the car heading to the hotel and looked at the window of the car. I wondered how far Only One, our only serious rival, would have finished preparing for their stage by now. Considering Kang Hyun-Sung’s personality, they probably practiced a similar amount of time as ours. Assuming that our practice amount was similar, the objective possibility of winning between us and Only One was…

‘It’s us.’ Ours was higher. It wasn’t that Only One was bad, and it wasn’t because I was especially good. It was because my members were just straight-out talented, and our individual skills were greater than Only One's. However, I had no idea how the performance would carry out until the final day, and there were always many external variables to consider in broadcasting. Therefore, I didn’t lower my guard and stayed focused.

Ziiing—

The phone vibrated.

‘What’s this?’ I wondered who contacted me.

—Do you have time tonight?

I opened my phone and saw that I got a very suspicious message…from Kang Hyun-Sung.