The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

The video that Only One uploaded was amassing a great number of shares and views and was rising to one of the social media’s hot topics. I clicked on the video.

—Collection of Only One’s Daily Life

The format of the video was quite different from ours. As the title said, it was a collection of funny videos from their daily lives rather than an acted-out scene. It appeared that the group’s maknae, Park Young-Ho went around their dorm with the camera often, and the video showcased realistic sides of the members.

‘I thought these guys had boring personal lives.’ Since Kang Hyun-Sung held the group under his iron fist, I thought they would live mundane and uninteresting lives. Though they appeared laxer these days, it was rare for a group to act so carefree and light if someone very authoritative acted as the center of the group.

—Kim Ju-Hyun, get up. You have a schedule to meet.

—Uhughhh...ughhh...

—Kim Ju-Hyun.

—Ughuhhhh.

—If you don’t come down in five minutes, you’ll be late.

—Then, let me sleep... four minutes more...I will go in one minute...

—...Are you out of your mind?

—Ughahhhughahhhugh

—Haa...

The atmosphere in their dorm was quite different from what I expected. As Kim Ju-Hyun struggled to get up, unable to overcome his sleep, it seemed Kang Hyun-Sung went to wake him up. I thought everyone would immediately jump out of their beds on time because they were scared of Kang Hyun-Sung, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Kim Ju-Hyun showed no signs of getting up even after a warning or two.

—Young-Ho, bring the spray.

—Yes, sir!

—Don’t you remember? We agreed to use the spray if you don’t get up on time.

—Ughahhhughah

—...You really are out of your mind.

In the end, Kim Ju-Hyun pressed the lever of the spray right on Kim Ju-Hyun’s face. What Kang Hyun-Sung said while doing that was the real highlight of the scene.

—Flowers are going to grow on your face at this rate, Ju-Hyun.

—Apufuuuu

—Your face is like a flower.

—Pufuuuuruuu

—We don’t need to grow a flower here. We can just keep watering you like this.

—Uh...please spare me....

—Are you awake now?

—Yes, for real this time. I really am.

—Go and wash your face.

—Yes, sir!

—Hahahaha

How could anyone describe him as anything but crazy? Yet, it appeared all the Only One members simply thought of Kang Hyun-Sung’s behavior as funny. They all clutched onto their stomachs to hold back their laughter, and it appeared that people on social media also thought lightly of the matter. After all, it wasn’t like Kang Hyun-Sung had tortured his member with water but simply sprayed some water on his member’s face; and based on what he said, it seemed all the members had agreed to do this beforehand.

—You were filming this, Young-Ho?

—Yes!

—....Just keep this to yourself, okay?

—Okay!

This was the first video in the collection of funny videos, and as expected, there was the next video. Like the previous video, the main characters of this video were also Kang Hyun-Sung and Kim Ju-Hyun. The only difference was that their background was inside of the car now. It seemed this event took place after the water spraying the morning shown in the previous video.

—Ju-Hyun is sleeping again.

—Huh? Really?

Kim Ju-Hyun appeared to be falling asleep again but inside the car, and the person sitting next to him was coincidentally Kang Hyun-Sung. While dozing off, Kim Ju-Hyun unknowingly tilted his head towards Kang Hyun-Sung. Usually, people would have lent a shoulder at times like this but Kang Hyun-Sung stretched out one finger and pushed Kim Ju-Hyun’s head away from him.

—Pft!

—Haa!

—Hmph!

Because of how elegant and graceful Kang Hyun-Sung looked while doing that, all the members had to hold back their laughter.

—Kim Ju-Hyun.

—Uhahhhh.

—...Is he really a zombie?

—Ughahhhh

—....Sigh

In the end, Kang Hyun-Sung moved his finger away and let Kim Ju-Hyun use his shoulder. I skipped the video to scan the highlights. There were clips of Only One members sharing entertaining conversations while eating, clips of them having humorous encounters while going out on a walk in the middle of the night, and funny scenes of them exercising on the weekends. They were all funny and natural moments of their daily life, and it appeared that this video more successfully satisfied their fans’ wants.

—Our guys are playing so worry-free TTTT

—lolol Can anyone else open their eyes like Onion Koongya* like Kang Hyun-Sung? [1]

—hahaha Hyun-Sung stop looking at your members with those kinds of eyes

—Haa...I like Hyun-Sung’s soulless eyes...

—What kind of existence is Ju-Hyun in Only One? Hahaha

—I feel like Kim Ju-Hyun stole everyone else’s sleep

—How could a person be sleeping in 2/3 of the videos they are caught in? Haha

—Thinking about Young-Ho working hard to film all this makes me smile like an aunty

—Isn’t Young-Ho’s voice so cute?

—Please upload more videos like this.

The fans passionately cheered, seeing the daily lives of Only One members that were rarely revealed to the public. It appeared Only One’s strategy was to strike the iron while it was hot and revealed the conditions for the next video’s release.

—Upon winning first place in today’s music show, we will release part two of ‘Collection of Only One’s Daily Life’!

Those guys had the same condition as us, which was that they would only release the next video if they placed first in ‘The Music Show.’

“Haaa.” I turned off the video. I didn’t want to say this but... ‘They sure are seasoned pros.’

It was probably Kang Hyun-Sung’s idea to release this collection. He was probably the only one in Only One who exactly deduced the type of content that the fans wanted.

‘This is dangerous.’ We were benefitting from the early start of uploading our video first, but I didn’t know when things could overturn. Only One’s video was quickly raking in views and moreover, other fandoms who stayed updated on our news because of the rivalry storyline between Only One and us were probably going to be drawn to Only One’s video as well. In the end, even this matter could end at a standstill.

‘Do we have to do something more?’ I thought hard. I wasn’t confident about doing something in this situation. We had already done enough of appealing to other fandoms in the idol market with funny videos. Thus, where could we pull in a great portion of the text-voting pie?

‘Do I need to pull in the male fans portion of the pie?’ That was all I could think of. But how in the world could I pull in the portion of male fans who liked girl groups? Even if we danced hard enough to break the stage, those kinds of people preferred a single heart hand gesture from their favorite idols. Shooting a challenge video with a girl group seemed to be the better option but that didn’t seem all that effective either.

In some ways, the difficulty of drawing in male fans was harder than being chosen by the public. It was then that something came to my mind.

‘The public’s pick?’ I realized that I had missed something important then. Though reports said that idols were now just a culture for manias, there still had to be some people outside the idol culture who watched music shows. Trying to get their votes could be an easier task, or another good option could be to try to bring back people who had some experience in the idol culture but had left it because their lives got too busy.

‘Hmm.’ Then, I needed to think of a method to get the public’s pick.

“Tae-Yoon? What’s with your expression? Is there a lot on your mind?” It was then someone very handsome popped in front of me.

“Ah.” As soon as I saw Yeon-Hoon’s face, I realized that I had thought too hard and deeply about what the general public wanted.

‘People like things that are pretty and handsome.’ If that was what the public wanted, then there was a person who had the best mainstream asset in front of me. It seemed like I had to take one more video.

***

Kang Hyun-Sung collected his breath in the waiting room after finishing his morning recording. Since he was on the sofa, the rest of the Only One members naturally sat around him.

“Hyun-Sung, the responses for the video are really good.”

“Really?”

“Everyone is raving about how funny you and Ju-Hyun are.”

“...I guess people find that funny.”

“There’s a humorous part about you that you don’t realize.” Young-Ho babbled next to Hyun-Sung and began to monitor the video comments. As he said, the responses for the clips they uploaded today weren't bad.

Yesterday night, Kang Hyun-Sung thought Tae-Yoon had gone crazy. He wondered why a guy like Tae-Yoon was suddenly acting like this when he wasn’t the type to. Though placing first on a music show was great and important, it was nothing to stake one’s life on in Siren or Only One’s current situations. They would probably win first place back and forth throughout this whole week. One day for them and another day for Siren, just like that.

In short, there was no need for them to go so far as to secure the first place trophy for ‘The Music Show’. Yet, Kang Hyun-Sung recalled how he sometimes couldn’t understand Tae-Yoon’s behavior. There was a time when Tae-Yoon suddenly called him and requested him to pick him up at a faraway highway. Thus, Kang Hyun-Sung had planned to just gloss over the matter thinking it was one of those moments when...

‘Their view count for their video keeps increasing.’ Seeing how many views Siren’s video was gaining and how quickly they were rising to hot topics, Kang Hyun-Sung thought things could become dangerous. It didn’t matter whether the two groups went back and forth for first place, but it would be a big problem if Siren stole all the first-place spots from them. Once the public made a mental note that Only One was below Siren, things would snowball into bigger consequences. Thus, he asked each of the members if they possessed some videos for safekeeping.

‘We have loads.’

‘I have so many.’

‘Besides you, we’ve all been filming.’

‘...That’s good.’

Kang Hyun-Sung then found out that all his team members had been filming team videos except for him. Thus, they chose the funny ones among them to make a compilation video. After finishing the video, they realized that most of the videos were shot by Park Young-Ho. Kang Hyun-Sung didn’t know what was funny about these videos but his members aggressively insisted that they needed to include those videos in the final product.

Seeing how their compilation video was going head-to-head with Siren’s humorous video, it could be said this was a mission success. Thinking that he had quelled all the urgent fires, Kang Hyun-Sung decided to leave the issue of who won first place to the heavens. Yet, after they ate lunch and took a short break, Siren uploaded another video.

“Huh?”

“Sirens uploaded one more video.”

“What? Seriously? The quality of this...is no joke.”

“...Yeah.”

This video was uploaded not just on Bluebird but Siren’s official Utube channel, NewStargram, and so on. Seeing this video, Kang Hyun-Sung instinctively realized what sort of state Tae-Yoon was in.

‘It seems he will die if he doesn’t get first place today.’

Kang Hyun-Sung could tell that Tae-Yoon was more desperate than anyone right now.

***

I requested Ms. Hyuna and Ms. Seung-Yeon to rent out a studio for us. Since we finished our early morning recording and didn’t have any schedule in the afternoon, we had the time. Furthermore, the reason I asked to rent out a studio was that there was a video we needed to film at this very moment.

“They have all the instruments and everything there right?”

“They said they manage the place and do the tuning every day, so we can use them immediately.”

“Do-Seung, you said you know how to play the guitar right?”

“Yeah, since I began song-producing with guitar.”

“Then, I will play the piano.”

“...You are really going to play it?”

“Yes, I know how to.”

“I’d never seen you do it.”

“Don’t worry.”

Placing first today in a music show could decide the fate of my group members since if I lost Insight, I would be losing my biggest weapon to fight against the system. Thus, I needed to do everything I could.

“How did you say I should set the camera, Mr. Tae-Yoon?”

“Ah, I can do that personally. Please just turn it on.”

The person who boasted of the greatest price-value photocard, fame, and visuals in our group was Yeon-Hoon. Yeon-Hoon was the sort of person that even people who didn’t know idols well knew, and he was getting the spotlight as the rising star of his generation. And if I had to pick the time when he showed his coolest side, it was when he sang. Thus, I planned to fire up the social media once more using Yeon-Hoon before our music show.

“Please just trust in me one more time,” I said. I was very desperate. I prepared to make a face-cam video that maximized only Yeon-Hoon’s strengths. And if things didn’t work out despite all this...

‘It’ll be like the world telling me to just go and die.’

There were no other options.

1. A vegetable-themed animation character known for its pure-looking but crazy eyes ☜

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