The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

My members woke up earlier than I expected. I stared at the two blankly, not knowing what to do. I didn’t know how to explain the situation when they were already awake.

“What...?”

“Tae-Yoon...?”

Woon and Do-Seung looked at me for an explanation. They probably couldn’t comprehend the situation at all.

“Ah...” But I knew I couldn’t panic. I needed to improvise a plausible reason somehow that could explain why they were lying in the living room in the middle of the night.

“Did I sleepwalk again?” Fortunately, Do-Seung found his own explanation.

“Ah...yes, that’s what happened.” I took the opportunity and nodded.

“Haa...I must’ve been really stressed. But I only recall good things happening recently...? What is the deal?” Do-Seung pondered but I was able to avert the crisis this time. I only had one more person to tend to now.

Woon was looking half-dazed. He didn’t say anything to me or ask me for a reason. I wished he would just say something instead of just staring into space.

“Woon?” I worried if there was a problem and called Woon’s name.

“...” Woon didn’t respond. Fear crept into my heart then, and I wondered if something went wrong in the process of connecting the semi-transparent figures into them. Thus, rather than memories passing into Woon, his head could’ve become screwed because of the overload of information. I kneeled and matched my eye level to Woon to confirm this.

“...I remember it now.”

“What?”

Woon’s words were foreboding. Was there already an effect to connecting the memories? But why was this effect only showing on Woon and not on Do-Seung? All sorts of thoughts passed through my head in that instant.

“I came out to go to the bathroom...then, I suddenly got sleepy and slept on the sofa. Isn’t that right?” Woon asked.

Contrary to my worries, Woon had made up a whole tale to explain why he was out in the living room.

‘That’s not it all...’ I thought to myself. Woon had neither come out to go to the bathroom nor slept on the sofa. He simply made up a story to connect the pieces to a puzzle, but I thought there was no need for me to refute him.

“Yes, it’s as you say.”

“I used to do that when I was young...this is my first time doing that after becoming an adult.”

“Maybe you are also overexerting yourself too, Woon,” I said.

“I think so.”

Like that, Woon and Do-Seung came up with their explanations for finding themselves unconscious in the living room.

“We should quickly go to sleep since our schedule is packed tomorrow too.”

“I feel like I needlessly lost sleep time.”

Do-Seung and Woon left to return to their rooms. Since I used the same room as Woon, I followed them and lay on the bed.

“Good night, Tae-Yoon.”

“You too.”

Woon and I pulled the blankets over ourselves and closed our eyes. Though it had been a long day, it was finally over.

‘It was really hectic.’ It had been crazy to meet two regressors at once, but I was satisfied to have gathered all the necessary information in the commotion. The only thing that hung on my mind was whether the system would hit me with a counterattack.

Woon’s and Do-Seung’s warnings remained in my mind. With control over my Insight ability, I was challenging the system in many ways. I changed the mission’s content according to my will and connected regressors from other universes to this world. All of this was probably not the direction the system wished for.

If that were the case, it could be the start to an unpredictable mission. I didn’t know what the system would do, but...

‘I need to prepare myself.’ I needed to affirm my heart and my mind so I wouldn’t fall into a panic in an important situation.

***

It was early at dawn. There was a 24-hour convenience store brightly lighting up a hill packed with one-room villas. As expected of a residential convenience store, there was little traffic early in the morning but the pay was much higher compared to noontime. Though more supplies came in during this time, the fact that one didn’t have to deal with customers, which was the toughest task that came with the job, made this time frame more appealing to workers.

The part-timer at this time, Kim Won-Joong sat in front of the stand while looking at his phone screen.

Creak. The convenience store door opened, and a customer came inside. Kim Won-Joong took a quick glance at the customer and turned his eyes back to his phone. He was playing a mobile RPG game. While collecting the items that had fallen around his characters’ surroundings, he didn’t even spare another glance toward the customer.

“Check out please.”

“...”

“Check out, please.”

“...”

“Excuse me? I need to check these out.”

“...Ah.”

Kim Won-Joong was so focused on the game that he didn’t notice the customer asking to check out his goods for a while.

“It’s 12,500 won. You can stick your card in the front,” Kim Won-Joon said. Then, after the customer had paid and left, he murmured to himself while looking in the direction where the customer left. “Ha...what a bastard. Pressuring me for the smallest things. I just got to the counter after organizing the supplies.”

Kim Won-Joong then got his phone to play his game again when the convenience store opened.

Creak.

“Ha...” He sighed. He couldn’t believe another customer was coming so soon, and his expression was about to sour.

“I saw your face turn to shit because you thought I was a customer.”

“Ah, you surprised me there.”

“I came 'cause I was bored.”

Then, seeing that it was his buddy from middle school, Kim Joong-Yeon, his face brightened.

“What are you up to?”

“I am just sending my players to dungeons.”

“How much money did you spend on that game?”

“Not much. About thirty or forty.”

“If it was me, I would’ve just bought a nantendo with that money.”

“It’s up to me.”

Kim Won-Joon and Kim Joong-Yeon continued their conversation about games. It was then Kim Joon-Yeon finally brought up the topic he had been meaning to bring up.

“Hey, have you been keeping up with the news?”

“With what news?”

“You know about that annoying rich kid.”

“...Ah, Park Dong-Jun?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, it’s been so long since I heard his name. What about him? Did he get hurt or something?”

“Do you think I would come all this way to tell you something like that?”

“Then, what is it? Is he zipping in and out of Gangnam with a Ferrari?”

“No, listen to me,” Kim Joon-Yeon cut Kim Won-Joong off and continued.

“That bastard is an idol now.”

“...Are you kidding me?”

“He’s in a group called Siren or something.”

“Siren?”

“You never heard of them?”

“No, I did hear of them...”

“The song that’s coming out of the convenience store right now is their song, you idiot.”

“What? I just clicked the loop button for the chart’s top hits...?” Kim Won-Joong searched ‘Park Dong-Jun’ and saw thousands of pictures and hundreds of articles at once. They all seemed to be praising Dong-Jun.

“Why are there so many posts going crazy over this guy saying he’s so cute and all that?”

“He had always been pretty good-looking.”

“But it wasn’t to this level. Looks like he got some work done.”

“I supposed he could’ve done some touch-ups since he’s a celebrity. You know his dad is loaded. His dad could’ve paid for the surgeries.”

“Wow, but...he’s seriously an idol?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he just do a broadcast with a girl group?”

“He even did a challenge with them.”

“...Fuck, I’m so jealous.” Then, Kim Won-Joong continued while looking at the phone screen. “I bet people don’t know how fucked up his personality is.”

“I doubt it. He acts all cute for the cameras. Look at the posts he uploads on social media. I bet his fans think he is an absolute angel.”

The two looked at Park Dong-Jun. Neither of them had good feelings about Dong-Jun.

“Wish someone would just bring this guy down.”

“So true.”

“Aren’t there other people besides us who can push him to his doom?”

“But seeing how nothing came up yet, that doesn’t seem like the case.”

“Then, are we the only ones who know how messed up his personality is?”

“Seems like that is the case seeing how he’s just working with no problems.”

Saying this, Kim Won-Joon and Kim Joong-Yeon smiled at each other. It was then, that a secret plan began to form in the convenience store at such an early hour.

***

The next day after I met the fifteenth and the twenty-seventh regressor, we repeated the same schedule as before. We got our makeup and hair done at the salon and moved to our morning recording location. We were already becoming used to rising early for our music broadcast schedule. It had been only one week, but it felt like we had been doing this for a month. And today, we also did a short, mini-fan meeting after finishing our morning recording.

“Yeon-Hoon!”

“Tae-Yoon! Bong Tae-Yoon!”

“Dong-Jun!”

“Woon!”

“Kang Do-Seung!”

It was a mini fan meeting that unfolded in a small place behind the broadcast station. Since we had only met our fans on stage or in the fan meeting rooms, it was our first time doing an event in a place like this with our fans. We had a short conversation with them and played all sorts of games. I never thought I would enjoy these fan service-like activities and previously thought I would engage in these activities like a job as an idol.

But now that I was doing them, ‘...It’s actually quite fun.’ It was a stream of light in our frantic and busy schedule. After doing a broadcast, doing events like this with our fans offline gave me more energy. Then, after our mini fan meeting ended, we moved to Yeouido to do a short schedule there before our music program in the afternoon.

“We have to move quickly to get there on time before lunch.”

“’Ahhhh! This is crazy! So hectic!”

“Be more careful and stay calmer the more frantic you feel~”

We took off our broadcast outfits and erased our makeup a little bit before getting into the car. This was what every day was like these days. After our morning recording, we rushed into the car like we were getting chased by somebody, completed our next schedule, and returned to the studio again. There were hardly any days where we had only one program per day and we usually did more than two a day.

“Did you get the content of today’s program through mail?”

“Yes.”

“You all will have to wander the streets and interview pedestrians. Then, go to a nearby famous restaurant. Don’t be so nervous. Just think that you are going to have a tasty meal.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Yes, I understand!”

“Park Dong-Jun, stop smiling so much.”

“...This is my usual expression?”

“You are smiling so wide after hearing that we going to eat.”

Today’s program at lunchtime was searching for tasty restaurants. Titled ‘Neighborhood Eateries’, it was one of the programs that were doing well these days. It also attracted a good amount of public attention and shots of the program often circulated the internet before the program even officially aired.

‘I won’t get insulted if I eat the food too unappetizingly, right?’ At this point, this had been my biggest worry. I wasn’t the type to eat food ravenously, and I thought I should observe how Dong-Jun ate and attempt to copy him–it was then that the system gave me a sudden mission after a while.

[Sudden Mission Activated]

“Hm?” I had been closing my eyes with my head leaning against the headrest, but I immediately sat up straight with this warning. I waited to hear the next words.

[Settle controversies over Park Dong-Jun’s attitude.]

[Upon success, no rewards]

[Upon failure, halting of Park Dong-Jun’s activities]

“...Damn it.”

“Huh?”

“What, Tae-Yoon?”

“You want a...Donut?”

My members’ warning that the system could counterattack was already becoming a reality.

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