The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

“Park Dong-Jun! Stop eating the macarons!”

“Ah, come on. If we have to eat it anyway, it’s better to eat it quickly.”

“You’re already on your tenth macaron! You can freeze them and eat them later.”

“For desserts…you have to eat it on the same day you buy it…even if your stomach rips…”

“You want to do plank until your stomach rips?”

“Are you a demon…?”

We were doing Do-Seung’s birthday celebration while looking at his birthday café goods at the same time. We just uploaded a group shot and a picture of all the special goods Do-Seung gathered together and uploaded on our SNS. Of course, Ms. Hyuna and Ms. Seung-Yeon examined the pictures before we uploaded them. It was a chaotic but warm birthday.

“…Bong Tae-Yoon, where did you get the money to buy me this?” Do-Seung whispered to me, seeing the headset I got for him.

“I bought it with the bonus I got.”

“What, I know exactly the amount you received…isn’t this a bit too much?”

“But we won thanks to the song you composed.”

“It’s also the song you wrote.”

“Just take it.”

“Well…okay. Look forward to your birthday.” Do-Seung said and kept touching the headset.

Frankly, I did go slightly over budget. However, after transferring our contract, we received bonuses from not Next Wave but Jaeil Group, so I bought Do-Seung’s present with that money.

Furthermore, I thought, ‘Won’t I be receiving copyright fees soon?’ Although I hadn’t received a formal payment yet, since I was registered with the Lyricists’ Association, I would probably soon receive copyright fees for the songs I wrote. Thus, this amount of spending was not a huge burden on me.

‘I should buy Yeon-Hoon’s birthday present again soon.’ Since I bought such an expensive birthday present for Do-Seung, I felt bad about the gift I gave to Yeon-Hoon before. I had only given him a tumbler because I didn’t have much money back then. I thought if I bought him either the Apple-pad or the Apple-watch that Yeon-Hoon always wanted, it would sufficiently match up to Do-Seung’s present.

“Shall we start wrapping things up now?” It was then that Do-Seung suggested wrapping up the birthday party.

“Why, we still have some time until 12.”

“There’s no need for us to go until 12. Dong-Jun is going to eat up everything at this rate.”

“…Did I get caught?”

Sighhh.

“…What in the world shall I do with him…”

As Do-Seung said, I thought Dong-Jun would keep eating if we left food on the table. In the end, we decided to freeze the food that could be frozen and leave the rest in the refrigerator and eat them within a week. And for the drinks, I thought we could just drink one every morning.

“But it felt really strange when I went to today’s birthday café.”

“Yeah, I agree.”

Do-Seung and Woon were talking about going to the birthday cafes today.

“I think it really was a great move for all of us to split up and go around different birthdays like Tae-Yoon suggested.”

“Yeah. If we’d all been around together, we would have only been able to go to two or three places and return home.”

The members thought well of the guerrilla that I proposed.

“Well, that’s more efficient and fun.”

However, I thought it was an idea that anyone could think of, so I didn’t think it was worth being complimented for.

“I also want to go to my birthday café…” Yeon-Hoon was disappointed that a birthday café hadn’t opened up on his birthday. However, it couldn’t be helped because his birthday was on Feb. 29th, which was even before The Showcase 2 aired. Our fandom had been non-existent then.

I said, “We’re going to all be in Siren next year too. We can go then.”

“Are we all also going to do guerilla together then?”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“Yeah, sounds good!” Yeon-Hoon smiled broadly as he seemed to already feel better again. Then he closed the refrigerator door and said, “Then shall we get together and organize what we have to talk about at the company tomorrow?”

We plan to go to the company tomorrow and talk about our debut. However, we couldn’t do it impromptu, so we had to go after setting up a pretty clear plan.

“I’m all for it~”

“Yeah, we have to talk about it.”

“That sounds good~” The members said and hastened their cleaning.

***

Late at night, Kang Hyun-Sung was sitting at his desk, checking out the concept references of his group’s debut album. The dorm provided by Another One had a total of four rooms. Thanks to that, three members, including Kang Hyun-Sung, had their own room, and the two youngest shared a large room.

“Haaa.” He looked at the materials late until the night, so his eyes began to feel heavy and dim. Kang Hyun-Sung took off his glasses and lightly pressed his brows.

‘Should I get lasik?’ He thought this briefly, but after thinking that wearing lenses was an extension of his job, he thought he would be putting too much pressure on his eyes if he got lasik too. He closed his eyes for a bit of relief and wore his glasses again.

Only One’s debut concept was somewhat set; finer details like the title song, the number of songs included in the album, and which artist would be commissioned for the artwork to be included in the album were already all decided. Now, the only thing left was to finalize the schedule and record and produce the album. They now only had to decide the date of their debut, but…

‘Hmm.’ He kept thinking of Siren. They had come out on The Showcase 2 together and were set up as rivals there, and it was highly likely that they would probably debut around the same time. Of course, they could avoid overlapping their debut dates as they could wait until Siren's debut and debut after them. Or they could postpone their debut until next year.

‘But one of the terms of this contract is to debut this year.’ Their contract with Another One was made on the premise of a speedy debut as Another One chose Only One because they wanted to secure an artist who could represent the agency’s brand image as soon as possible. Thus, they would have to debut as early as the first half of this year or within three quarters at the latest.

‘If that’s the case, we would overlap with them at least once anyway.’ Thus, the timing of their activities would inevitably overlap at least once with Siren. Even if their debut date didn’t overlap, they might overlap in subsequent activities after their debut.

‘If then, would it be better to meetthe rival storyline to induce stronger reactions and immersion from their fans?' However, Kang Hyun-Sung wanted to avoid overlapping with Siren as much as possible. It would be difficult to reap much benefit from having their promotional periods overlap.

‘But if we can’t avoid it, we have to beat them them soon?’ He wondered if he should end the rivalry between Siren and Only One as fast as possible, or add more fuel to the fire. Winning was the only answer.

‘But why isn’t he answering his phone?’ Thinking about Siren naturally reminded him of Bong Tae-Yoon ignoring his message. Kang Hyun-Sung frowned and after biting his lip, he went back to focusing on the concept references again.

***

It was the day after Do-Seung’s birthday. We had organized our ideas for our debut album the night before, and we were having a meeting with the company based on the materials we gathered. It seemed as if the A&R people hadn’t expected us at all to come to the company for our debut album as they all looked quite flustered.

“We sincerely apologize for coming without notice.” Thus, we apologized first, but it was not a sincere apology.

‘This is karma for not having a meeting about our debut album after all this time.’ I forced myself to apologize to hide these feelings.

They must have felt guilty as they made excuses like this, “Hahaha…no, not at all. To tell you the truth, we also thought we needed to talk about your debut album, so we were planning to call you all to our agency sometime this week.”

We didn’t linger on this matter, and the conversation swiftly moved on to the next topic.

“First of all, this is the concept direction that we talked about yesterday.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes! To explain from the first chapter…” Yeon-Hoon took the lead and talked about our debut album with A&R. “The song we sang at The Showcase final was related to our universe. We would appreciate it if the company could make a music video with that song and release it in advance.”

“Ah…pre-release…”

“And all the songs we performed during the show were self-composed songs. Ah, except for the Light’s song we rearranged in the coalition mission. Anyway, we want to include all of the self-composed songs in the album.”

“Ah, yes. That’s not much to ask.”

“And we want to include about three songs that have never been released to the fans.”

“Three unreleased songs…”

“Ah, I think we should also include the song ‘Voyage’, which was released on Do-Seung’s birthday.”

“Oh…”

“So we would like to make a mini album with 7 songs in total for our debut album.”

“7 songs…that’s a lot for a mini album.”

“But it’s not to the extent of a full album size.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

Was it because we came up with the general structure and arrangement? A&R people’s expressions became brighter than we first saw them.

“Then one out of the three unreleased songs will be the title song, right?”

“Yes, that’s right!”

“Then shall we ask composers for all three songs? Or do you want to make them on your own?”

“Hmm…” Do-Seung answered this question instead, “Please request it. But I’ll also produce songs as well.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. And I think it would be most fair and reasonable to do a blind test to choose the best title song.”

“All right.”

Then we talked about the overall direction of the album, the message we wanted to convey, the direction of the performance we wanted to do, the color of the music video, and so on.

We discussed various matters necessary for our album, and around the time A&R people lost their energy, and their expressions became blank, we said, “Then shall we do another meeting after we receive the requested songs and the blind test is completed?”

“Yes! I think we should do that!”

We wrapped up the meeting. We went to the company around lunchtime, but after the meeting, it became evening rush hour.

“Shall we go now?”

“Yes, let’s start heading back to our dorm.”

“Even though we just sat down all day, I feel so tired.”

“We’re tired because we sat down all day.”

“Really?”

“On that note, shall we go to the gym together then?”

“…No.”

The members and I got into the car parked in the parking lot. After arriving at the dorm, we each went into our respective rooms and enjoyed our personal time. Do-Seung went to exercise, Dong-Jun went out to play, saying he had a personal matter to attend to, Woon went to the practice room, and Yeon-Hoon said he wanted to catch up on dramas he was behind on.

I also planned to sit in the living room and look for lyrics or album references that I could use for the debut album. The moment I picked up my phone to find references—

—Can I call you?

“…What the.” I got a text message from Kang Hyun-Sung. He asked me if he could call me. I was about to say no, but since something similar happened before, I thought about it for a while.

‘I just ignored it without picking up last time.’ I was worried that he would harbor unnecessary bad feelings about me if I kept pushing him away one-sidedly like this.

‘What does he want to say over the phone?’ I couldn’t help but think negatively and then thought, ‘I should at least first hear him out.’ Since I needed to get his call sometime later anyway, I decided just to pick it up now.

—Yes, you can.

The very moment I answered and waited for the call—

Ziiing.

My phone immediately vibrated, and I got a call from Kang Hyun-Sung.

[A surprise mission.]

[Debut in the same week as Only One.]

[Upon success, meeting with the second regressor.]

[Upon failure, your Insight will be taken away.]

‘…What?’ The system threw a mission at me as if it had perfectly planned it out.