The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

“Is it okay for you to tell us?” I asked. I was worried foremost when Do-Seung told us that he would tell us the reason why he and Woon were dropped from YM Entertainment’s pre-debut team. I thought we would be probing open a wound that hadn’t even healed yet.

“It’s all right.”

“It’s already in the past anyway.”

Contrary to my worries, Woon and Do-Seung nonchalantly nodded and assured us.

“Well...It actually doesn’t bother me too much. I guess it only affects me mentally.”

“Yeah, it’s not like we are YM Entertainment trainees anymore nor part of the Vision pre-debut team.”

“I don’t know where I should begin, but...my relationship with Hwang Jun-Kyul started when...” Woon then explained what happened between him and Hwang Jun-Kyul. But unlike Woon who calmly told us what happened, our expression twisted and turned by what we heard.

“So, Hwang Jun-Kyul waxed the floor during the time I was supposed to practice.”

“...Sorry?”

“He waxed the floor...?”

“Yeah, he waxed it pretty heavily so that it was easy to slip on the floor.”

He went overboard from even the beginning, but the summary of the incident went like this. Hwang Jun-Kyul waxed the practice room’s floor while Woon was practicing; and of all times, this was the time when the agency was deciding who to place in the pre-debut group for Vision. Though it had already been internally decided Woon would be part of the pre-debut group, the decision became null because Woon twisted his ankle completely at a critical misstep.

“The doctor told me that I would have to wear a cast for a month, and I couldn’t do rigorous exercise for three months. Thus, naturally, I couldn’t debut.”

In the meantime, Vision’s pre-debut group was set in stone, and Hawng Jun-Kyul filled Woon’s place.

“But I understand. The company already planned and prepared to debut a group at the beginning of the year, and they probably decided it wasn’t a good idea to put a member who couldn’t even practice properly for three months,” Woon said.

“...Woon, you could’ve sued him for this,” I said. Though Woon appeared understanding, we couldn’t understand at all. If the same thing happened to me, I would’ve sued the other person and more.

“No...haaa...Of course, it’s great that Woon didn’t debut as part of Vision in the end so that we could meet like this, but...” Yeon-Hoon also looked at Woon in shock.

“I knew he was trash, but he was a worse bastard than I thought,” Dong-Jun said in enragement. Then, he calmed down to ask what he was curious about, “But how did you learn it was Hwang Jun-Kyul who waxed the floor?”

I was also curious about this point.

“Someone else who was a trainee with me told me. It seems Hwang Jun-Kyul went around telling his pre-debut members that I slipped because he waxed the floor as if he was retelling some great feat,” Woon replied, still maintaining his calm.

‘Another trainee told him?’ This point bugged me but I pushed it off for the time being to ask, “But wow, he contacted you again after doing something like that? Moreover, talked about how close you guys have been on live broadcast?”

“Yeah...how could someone be that brazen....?”

“Seriously...If I happen to meet him on the streets, I’m going to drag him to a dark alleyway and...”

“Dong-Jun, you can’t do that.”

“All right.”

My group members continued to bash Hwang Jun-Kyul as their rage continued to boil. It was understandable why Woon had been disturbed by Hwang Jun-Kyul’s call; no, it was actually very impressive that he had been able to keep his cool to this extent.

“You went through so much, Woon,” I said.

“No, it’s all in the past anyway.”

Now, everyone turned to stare at Do-Seung. It was now Do-Seung’s turn to tell his story.

“Hm, it’s also been so long for me too, so I’m not sure if I can get my story straight,” Do-Seung began, and we quietly listened to him. I thought Woon’s story was unbelievable, but Do-Seung’s story was shocking from the very beginning too.

“I got my song stolen by Yoon Dong-Hyuk.”

“Oh...”

“What? That’s crazy.”

“Haa...”

How could he get his song stolen? From the get-go, I couldn’t grasp how enraged I would get from hearing Do-Seung’s story this time.

“YM Entertainment’s training method is to pick a specialty for each member and make them do a focused training on that. My specialty there was song-producing, so I took classes related to that there.”

I was aware of all this up to this point.

“Other trainees were taking the same class as me during that time and one of them was Yoon Dong-Hyuk.”

So far, there were no problems.

“But whenever we were supposed to present our music during our lessons, Yoon Dong-Hyuk particularly picked mine to nitpick and criticize. And it wasn’t just him but everyone who was taking the same song-producing class did the same thing to me.”

“They only dissed your song?”

“Yeah. My teacher said my songs were good but because all my fellow students said something completely different, I didn’t know what was right.”

It appeared that students from his song-producing class tried to gaslit Do-Seung for a lengthy period, but I wondered how the amateur students could look down on him when the teacher spoke otherwise.

“Did Yoon Dong-Hyuk lead the other trainees to bully you or something?” Dong-Jun asked the same question I wanted to ask. freewe bnovel .com

“Yeah,” Dong-Jun replied nonchalantly.

“How could a fellow trainee make others act according to his will?” Yeon-Hoon asked.

“Well, I suppose I can say that it’s because I wasn’t in Yoon Dong-Hyuk’s group.”

“His group?”

“You know how there’s always a mean group of students who look down on others? They were a group like that, and Yoon Dong-Hyuk was the boss. I was the last trainee to join the song-producing class and couldn’t be part of their group—not that I wanted to join them either.”

“Ahh.” Yeon-Hoon nodded like he got what happened now.

“They just tried to bully you for no good reason.” The group probably felt an inferiority complex towards Do-Seung, who wasn’t part of their group but had superior skills.

“So, I thought my songs were good, but many people would tell me they weren’t. Then, my teacher would call me in person and tell me separately that they were good. Anyways, all that drove me crazy.”

It would’ve been best if he had only listened to his teacher’s words, but when one was so young, it was difficult to do so. As a young male student, his ears would’ve leaned more toward his fellow classmates’ opinions, and his heart would’ve wavered.

“So then, how did you get your song stolen?”

“Ah, well. It was what I found out after I was dropped from the pre-debut team. The producers kept wondering between me and Yoon Dong-Hyuk, but in the end, Yoon Dong-Hyuk was chosen.”

“Ah, really?”

“Yeah, but I found out later that Yoon Dong-Hyuk had gained some extra scores with the producers by presenting them with a song he copied from me.”

“...What?”

“It is just as I said. I heard later that the producers were conflicted between me and Yoon Dong-Hyuk, so Yoon Dong-Hyuk took a song to the producer in charge of music production and told the producer that if he was chosen, he could complete this song as the title song. And the producer chose Yoon Dong-Hyuk as a pre-debut member because he liked the song.”

“And that song was a copy of yours?”

“Yeah. There were slight differences but the composition and melody were over 90% the same.”

“And how did you find this fact out?”

“I learned it thanks to my song-producing teacher, who always took my side. When he went to make an anonymous vote for Vision’s title song, there was a song so similar to mine that he asked who wrote it and heard that it was Yoon Dong-Hyuk’s song.”

“Wow...”

“And the teacher told me that was when he heard the process of how Yoon Dong-Hyuk became part of the pre-debut group.”

If this happened in Vision’s pre-debut days, they must all have been underage. It was unbelievable that these were actions done by someone so young. On second thought, perhaps, it was more understandable. At that age, one’s moral standard wouldn’t have been set in stone yet and could easily be tested to achieve some goal. However, this was going too far.

“You didn’t protest about what happened with your teacher?”

“I did. But the pre-debut was already decided then, and they were already practicing.”

“Ah...”

“Also, even though it’s true that he copied my song, it wasn’t a song officially released to the public or anything but just made for practice. Thus, it wasn’t like I could legally claim plagiarism of my song.”

“I guess in the end, the company took Yoon Dong-Hyuk’s side.”

“Yeah...my song-producing teacher seemed to have been really disappointed by what happened and quit too.”

“Ha...”

After listening to the whole story, a heavy silence circled the room. I knew that Woon and Do-Seung both had difficult pasts and they must have gone through all sorts of troubles to transfer from YM Entertainment to WD Entertainment. But I didn’t imagine stories like these.

“Hm...”

“It’s not like you can just reveal all this to the public...”

“Haa....”

If I could, I just wanted to proclaim everything to the public and fight Vision head-on, but that would set Siren back. After all, Vision was our senior in the idol industry, and even though they were beginning to lose steam, their fandom was sizeable. If we brashly rushed against them, it would be us who would end up crushed.

“All we can do is just...not pay attention to these guys and hope that things will all quietly pass by.”

“Yeah.”

In other words, our only option was to keep our mouths sealed.

“Yeah, we just have to live our lives and not bother with them. If they keep talking about us strangely in live broadcast, well...if it gets worse, it will be cleaner to send a complaint through YM Entertainment.”

“We are only telling these stories to you guys so that we won’t have any misunderstandings. Don’t bother yourself about it too much,” Woon said.

“Let’s watch how those guys act first. If things become so big that it might affect our group.... then, we can personally go out and explain our side,” Do-Seung said.

The two tried to settle the situation like that. I also knew that keeping our silence was the easiest and safest method. These sorts of rumors and levels of gossip usually passed away if no more attention was given, and I doubted that Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk would talk about my members forever on a live broadcast. They probably mentioned the two because Siren looked like they would do well and were also aware that things would backfire if they went any further than this.

‘But is this really the best we can do...?’ Though keeping our silence was the safest method, I didn’t know whether it was the best one. ‘For instance, what is the trainee who told Woon that the floor was waxed and the song-production teacher who took Do-Seung’s side doing?’

There seemed to be clear witnesses to the events. I didn’t want to go so far as to publicize the event by securing witnesses, but...

‘Won’t there be more people who know about what happened?’ Then, it appeared that the case could be solved even without us doing anything. Furthermore, the characteristic of evil people was that they continued their heinous actions and had more than one victim.

Perhaps, they would’ve committed all sorts of crimes against most of the people they interacted with. In the first place, the song-production teacher and Woon’s companion could’ve taken Do-Seung’s and Woon’s sides because they had some ill feelings about Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk too.

‘That means... they could just fall over by themselves.’

By just creating a little opening, the other side could fall to their doom without us going out of our way.

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