The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

‘We have a possible future collaboration with JayQueen?’ How could there be a collaboration between us and someone else without our knowledge? It didn’t make sense unless Yoo Won-Dong learned dance straight from JayQueen himself. It was unbelievable that an arbitrary collaboration without any of our input whatsoever was established.

‘Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like it’s been confirmed yet…’ It seemed like it was just a speculative article where Next Wave leaked information to publish. This was a tactic often used to assess the public’s sentiment, and the article could be summed up like this:

JayQueen posted our stage video on social media and gave us a ‘shoutout’. To put it roughly, she rooted for us on the internet. On top of that, she shared it on our agency’s official SNS and made a positive post. At first glance, it all seemed normal and logical, but—

‘Is this even worth an article…Won-Dong…?’ It was definitely not an event worth writing a whole article about, and it was clear that the article was made under a higher-up’s orders. I couldn’t accurately gauge how much Yoo Won-Dong was involved in this matter. It was a mystery whether JayQueen’s shoutout was even fabricated or sincere, or if Next Wave intervened later on.

However, it was not the scope of manipulation that was important. The important matter was—

‘Why would we collaborate with this person? Why?’ To be frank, JayQueen was a dancer who fell out of trend. She had been an active dancer about 10 years ago but completely left the chereograpgy scene since then. She now came out on variety shows more as an entertainer.

But above all, I thought, ‘She’s a Waacking dancer.’ Her dance style didn’t match our dance style. I wasn’t disrespecting Waacking, but the color and image Siren had shown so far did not match with the Waacking dance genre.

‘In short, he’s just trying to link us with a famous person.’ This was a move that didn’t consider who we were as a group and what kind of style or color we had.

“Tae-Yoon…Did something happen…?”

“What happened?”

“Tae?”

The members asked me what was wrong, and I took my eyes off the phone. This issue was not something I should just keep to myself, so I showed my phone to the members.

“Well, would you like to check this out…?”

“What?”

“What is it?”

Soon after, an awkward silence fell over the table.

***

Yoo Won-Dong smiled at the articles that began to fill the entertainment section. The conclusion at the end of today’s meeting was to promote Siren by announcing their collaboration with a famous celebrity. Although Siren was somewhat famous among idol fans, they didn’t have much recognition by the general public, so the purpose of this agenda was to tackle this issue.

Many promising figures were mentioned, but there were no suitable ones. Then one of the celebrities who showed a favorable response to Siren was brought up in the meeting.

‘JayQueen sounds good. She looks young, and she’s famous. Since she’s good at dancing, people who like idols will probably also like her.’

The one who was mentioned was the famous dancer, JayQueen. Since JayQueen made a post cheering for Siren on her SNS, it felt like an icing on the cake. Yoo Won-Dong immediately ordered the marketing team to draft a plausible plan for this idea and first published a speculative article to assess the public’s sentiment.

Since comments on entertainment articles were now blocked, the real reactions came from places like SNS. Since the data from such sources were difficult for him to search one by one, he waited for his staff to bring him reports of the organized data.

“Director, may I come in?”

“Ah, yes. Come on in.”

“This is the Bluebird’s response monitoring report on the collaboration between JayQueen and Siren.”

The public response for the first project he promoted came up in a report.

Yoo Won-Dong read through the content. “Oh, it’s good?”

“Since idols and dancers collaborate often, there doesn’t seem to be much public resistance.” The report consisted mainly of positive responses. However, Yoo Won-Dong didn’t know that the true reactions of Bluebird came from private accounts that couldn’t be searched, and that negative responses from the official account went through a preliminary filtering process by the moderation team.

***

The moment Jay Queen and Siren’s collaboration article came up, there were fierce reactions from private Bluebird users who were Siren’s fans.

—???hahahaha fuck is this a hidden camera prank?

—Ah this fucking Won-Dong has zero sense wtf

—Is Next Wave out of their damn mind?

—I can bet my entire fortune that these bastards have never heard even one of Siren’s song

People began to insult Next Wave and Yoo Won-Dong. Since comments like these were posted on private accounts, negative reactions were beginning to come out on the official account as well.

—But I honestly don’t think JayQueen and Siren’s styles match

—Siren and waacking is a bit…

—What…why wacking for idols who’ve become popular for strong, sharp performances?

Although most of the negative comments were self-censored, there were still some remaining. People hoped that the agency would properly search through the comments and realize this wasn’t the right direction to take. Thus, they softened their expressions so that their comments could appear in searches.

However, what the fans did not know was that even if they softened their expressions, the Next Wave team only picked out good responses among their comments. Thus, a tragic comedic skit unfolded, where everyone else–the fans and workers–knew the true reactions of the collab except Yoo Won-Dong. However, it wasn’t them who suffered the most.

“What should we do…”

Sigh…

It was the Siren members, the main characters of this collab.

***

This could put us in a tight bind, and we needed to avoid a collab with JayQueen at all costs. The most certain method to stop this collab was for JayQueen to show a firm refusal and post on her SNS that she had no knowledge of all this and had no plans for a collab with us. However, there was no reaction from JayQueen. I didn’t know whether she knew about this yet, or if she personally welcomed the idea. Whatever the case, the cleanest method wasn’t going to happen now.

‘Then the next best method is for the agency to deny it or just let it die down.’ However, I was sure that this was not going to happen. There was no way that a project that Yoo Won-Dong was supporting would be overhauled. If that was the case, we needed to reveal our denial in our SNS account.

‘But that’s not so easy.’ Yet, doing that could look bad on us. How could a new junior like us refuse a senior way above us in years? It was unimaginable in Korea.

“I think we need to organize our thoughts and convey it to the agency.” Yeon-Hoon was the first to break the silence.

“Yes, I agree.”

“The collaboration with JayQueen…I think we need to tell them we should do that next time.”

“Since this is going to be our debut, we need to be a bit more careful so…”

My members wanted to try to dissuade the agency from this collaboration, and I was in full support of it. This was something we needed to talk to the agency about. However, we couldn’t just bring the issue out suddenly and needed to understand Yoo Won-Dong’s side. We needed to learn why he carried out such a collab so hastily, and why he was trying to create results at all costs…

‘It’s probably because Next Wave is just a stepping stone for him.’ In Yoo Won-Dong’s mind, Next Wave was probably not an agency for him to take root in forever but a mere stepping stone for him to reach a higher place. Thus, he just needed to stack great results here, and results that credited him the most.

‘If that’s the case, we need to find something that would make him want to listen to us.’ It was difficult for us to change his mind and near impossible for us to corner or overpower him.

“Guys.”

“Yeah?”

“Shall we try getting close to Director Yoo?”

“…?”

“What?”

Thus, it was necessary for us to establish friendly relations with him strategically.

***

Even while Siren’s fandom was in a tense mood because of JayQueen’s collaboration news, there was a special event that was quickly taking away the fans’ attention.

—There are so many birthday cafés for Do-Seung

—I’m looking for someone to tour Do-Seung’s birthday café with me this week Thursday!

—2022 DO-SEUNG’S BIRTHDAY EVENT

YOU ARE THE RAY OF SUNSHINE IN MY LIFE

CAFÉ EVENT & MINI EXHIBITION

*Duration: May 3rd-May 6th

*Location: Hongdae XX café

#Happybirthday_my_forever_blackcat_Doseung

#Warm_as_spring_Doseung

(Cupholder design art and detailed explanation of the birthday special menu.jpg)

It was no other than the opening of Kang Do-Seung’s birthday cafés. The first week of May was when the reality show’s end date and Kang Do-Seung’s birthday overlapped.

People worked hard on promoting the birthday cafés with the mindset that they should take advantage of the reality show’s popularity and prepare for Kang Do-Seung’s goods and special events early on. The fans also pondered about what sort of special menus the cafés would have, which would remind them of Kang Do-Seung, and one menu came into their minds first: Do-Seung’s cola fruit punch.

—crazy, there is a Do-Seung’s birthday café that is selling cola fruit punch lollll

—hahaha what if Do-Seung comes to the café himself *fingers crossed

—as expected of a handsome guy, even the menus are bomb

Although it was too early of a season to make a fruit punch, there were still watermelons available in the supermarkets. In various birthday cafés, there was a menu where zero cola was poured into a venti-sized cup, and watermelon and cocktail fruits were added in. Of course, the cost of it rose that much more.

—I worked hard to buy watermelon in a bulk *whew. The café owner said she was having a hard time getting watermelons at this time, so I bought them myself…It doesn’t make sense if a cola fruit punch is missing from Do-Seung’s birthday café.

Fans were organized to celebrate Kang Do-Seung’s birthday café as a form of culture and entertainment. However, it wasn’t only Siren’s fans that were celebrating Kang Do-Seung’s birthday

—Today is Siren’s treasure and songwriting genius, Black Cat Kang Do-Seung’s birthday!

#happy_birthday_genius_blackcat

#kang_doseung_happy_birthday

#spring_day’s_blessing_Doseung_happy_birthday

(Picture of Do-Seung wearing a birthday hat.jpg)

The official account of Next Wave also posted a congratulatory message for Kang Do-Seung’s birthday with a series of hashtags. People shared the post and wished him a happy birthday on social media. However, it wasn’t just the congratulatory messages posted on the official Next Wave account that were released at midnight sharp. One post was also posted through Siren’s official account by Kang Do-Seung.

—Hello, everyone. It’s Do-Seung. First of all, thank you so much for your overflowing love. Today is my birthday, but I prepared a small gift for our loving fans. I hope you all like it.

People scrambled to check out the gift that Kang Do-Seung prepared. There was a video link at the bottom of his post.

—???

—Do-Seung *sobbb

—Wow I’m crying

—what is it? There are so many ppl in there that I can’t get in

—is it a fan song?

—aww I love you Do-Seung *sobbb

It was the fan song ‘Voyage’ that Siren made together while filming the reality show. In addition, there was a self-produced music video that looked as if it was filmed and edited by Siren themselves, so there could be no better gift.

—Guys I’m in tears

—no one is better than our guys

—ah fuck I'm betting my entire fortune on them

People were beyond delighted that they received gifts on a day Do-Seung should be receiving gifts instead.

***

My members and I confirmed that Voyage was uploaded properly. As expected, the reaction was explosive–of course, I meant this only within our fandom.

‘But the song is good, so it’ll go viral soon.’

I didn’t think this wave would end here, and we needed to move to the next step quickly. Now that we had established a grand plan to get chummy with Yoo Won-Dong, we had to carry out the plan without a single error. And the last part of my plan was to secure speakers to spread the news faster and further.

I said, “Let’s ask Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna to get the reporters’ contact information.” While I was thinking it’s going to be hard to “tame” Yoo Won-Dong—

Ziing.

“Huh? Tae-Yoon? You just got a call.”

“…Yeah.” My phone vibrated and the call was from no one other than—

‘What the, why him again…?’

It was Kang Hyun-Sung.