The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

I looked at Bleshu’s debut teaser. It was a short teaser not more than 15 seconds, and if I had to say my thoughts on it...

‘...What is this?’ I was taken aback.

From the title of the song, ‘Big Ocean’, I felt an ominous feeling since it overlapped with our main song, ‘Blue Ocean’. Since it was an assortment of common words, I thought it could just be a coincidence. Yet, even the main melody of the teaser was very similar to the ‘Blue Ocean’. Of course, there was a slight difference in the instrument variety and tempo they used, but none of that mattered when the melody was the same.

If the melody was the same, one wouldn't even get accused of plagiarism but blatantly stealing a song. The fundamental core of the two songs was the same. Furthermore, even the teaser’s video was similar to ‘Blue Summer Night’, and there was a scene of them jumping into the school classroom while wearing school uniforms. Anyone could see its uncanny similarity with our past music video.

The type of uniform they wore and the school they were at were different. Yet, the handheld camera moves were similar, and the sizes of some of the shots were the same. For example, there was a shot of five figures caught in one frame but cut off at the waist. Only the details were different but the general framework was like copies of each other. Of course, since we weren’t the first ones to do camera moves like these nor had ownership of them, everyone could use them but...

‘...Something feels off.’ I couldn’t shake off this unpleasant feeling, and I needed to make sure if other people felt the same. I went online to check my fandom and Bleshu’s fandom feeds.

—I feel like I have seen this framework before.

—It’s a melody I heard somewhere...

—?? Did Bleshu cover ‘Blue Ocean’?

—What in the world

Our fans were making a commotion, saying that anyone could see that Bleshu copied us. I felt relieved that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way and went to check Bleshu’s fandom’s side. I expected people there to take Bleshu’s side no matter what, but it wasn’t what I expected.

—What in the world?

—What seriously? They didn’t even give us any room for doubt haha

—Is G&B Entertainment out of their minds?

—Hahaha Fuck, isn’t the company absolutely out of their minds? Why are they just blatantly copying another group?

—Did we ask them for something super high-quality? We just wanted our guys to debut. We would’ve given our money and followed them if they just debuted but why must they make it so hard to be their fans? It’s so icky

—You think it makes sense that they have to be hated for plagiarism in their first-ever debut?

—Ha, this makes me so damn furious

Bleshu’s fans were actually angrier than our fandom. If I thought about it, it made sense. These fans must have been patiently waiting for Bleshu’s debut. Since Bleshu came from a smaller company, they probably thought it would be fortunate if Bleshu just debuted at all. And if they did that, their fandom which had increased in size thanks to The Showcase 2 could support them.

Yet, the company failed to grasp what the fans really wanted. In their attempt to produce the highest quality product with their limited resources, they decided to copy another group’s high-quality product. At that point, the quality of their product became meaningless. The moment they were marked as thieves, who stole someone else’s art, the value of their creation dropped to the pits no matter how high the quality of the goods was.

Idol fans who were especially sensitive to moral issues wouldn’t open their wallets for a creation with dubious origins. In short, it was as if Bleshu’s company, G&B Entertainment, had thrown away their most important cash-cow, Bleshu, by their own will. I felt two sorts of emotions stir-up while looking at this video. First, I pitied the Bleshu members. Second, I felt a bit of relief.

‘We won’t have any problems with the Triple Crown All-Kill.’ Though I felt guilty for feeling a sense of relief, it couldn’t be helped. I had my members’ lives on the line and this wasn’t the time for me to become swallowed up by my feelings. But pushing my feelings aside, I thought I needed to share the current situation with my members first.

“Hey guys.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“Why?”

“Did you see Bleshu’s teaser just now?”

“Ah, Bleshu’s teaser is up?”

“Awesome!”

“I’m serious!”

“Those guys are finally debuting.”

Except for Yeon-Hoon who was driving, my members unanimously pulled out their phones and looked at Bleshu’s teaser.

“Ahhh! I also want to see!” Yeon-Hoon complained regretfully while clutching on the steering wheels. But as the teaser played on their phones and my members’ faces darkened, Yeon-Hoon also sensed that something was wrong.

“...You guys? What’s with your expressions? It’s as if you saw something you shouldn’t...” The mood inside the car was so dreary that Yeon-Hoon asked worriedly. The person who looked most serious was Do-Seung. He watched the teaser video not once but repeatedly.

Then, he aggressively pulled the earphones off his ears and asked, “Is this plagiarism?”

Do-Seung was the one who produced ‘Blue Ocean’, and since this issue was about whether someone stole his creation or not, he was most sensitive to it. My other members’ responses besides Do-Seung’s weren’t great either.

“Hm...”

“The clothes, angles, settings, and...um, just everything...”

They also felt something about the video was off in ways they couldn’t fully explain.

“...Is it that serious? The plagiarism? Who did they copy?” Yeon-Hoon, who hadn't seen the video yet didn’t know what was going on. In the end, he stopped his car on the side of the road and saw the teaser video.

“...What’s going to happen to Bleshu? They just debuted...” Rather than rebuking Bleshu for copying us, he worried that their debut might be ruined. I empathized with this somewhat since I doubted Bleshu was at fault for this plagiarism issue. It was probably the company who ordered them to do this. The mood inside the car turned more solemn.

“Let’s wait a bit longer. This is just the teaser.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, we have to see the full version.”

“You can’t be sure of it yet.”

My members agreed to not make up our minds about this matter yet. After all, the full version could be completely different from the teaser or only small parts of it could be similar. There was no problem for a debut teaser video to be completely different from a music video. No, it didn’t even have to be completely different but just different enough for people to acknowledge their originality. Like that, we just decided to think positively.

***

We continued our busy days after that. This was our third week of music show and broadcast activities, and on top of that, we had to film for a music video for our follow-up activities. It was common for idols to sleep five hours or less during their activities period but right now, there were many days when we went outside not having slept even two hours properly.

In our third week of activities, we shared the first place spots with Only One again. The funny thing was that we always got three trophy wins each without one side getting more than the other. I didn’t know whether the music shows were playing a joke on us or Only One and we were neck in neck in competition. But since no side lost, we could meet Only One with less discomfort.

“Let’s work hard today too!”

“Let’s go!”

“Good luck on your performance!”

Only One greeted us amicably and we did the same.

“Good luck to you guys too!”

“Let’s have a friendly competition today too!”

“Good luck!”

“You got this.”

Though we and Only One had positive feelings for each other, we weren’t very close and remained congenial business partners.

‘But what’s with Kang Hyun-Sung?’ That guy always just smiled from behind, accepted our greetings, and disappeared. He didn’t even add a simple comment, wishing us good luck and only accepted our cheers. I thought he would respond similarly today too when he suddenly said:

“Hope you do well today.”

“...?”

“I said ‘hope you do well’.”

“...Yeah.”

He suddenly stood beside me and told me to do well in today’s performance. His gestures seemed to indicate that he would smack me if I didn’t perform well today. Eventually, we separated from Only One, and our team also walked up to the stage.

***

With today’s show, our three weeks of music show activities were over.

—This week’s first place is Siren’s ‘Blue Summer Night’! Congratulations!

We were first place. We were now able to skillfully say our thoughts on winning first and led the encore performance. Then, after finishing that performance, we returned to our waiting room. After changing our clothes to daily wear, the only thing we wanted was to quickly return home. Since we just finished shooting our music video yesterday, we just wanted to rest.

“Good work today too!”

“Let’s go to the dorm~”

Just at the perfect timing, Ms. Hyuna and Ms. Seung-Yeon came to pick us up. On the way to our dorm, my members were already falling asleep after going through everything that happened today. Since they had slept about two hours every day for the last couple of days, they now had the habit of sleeping whenever they got in the car. I also felt drowsy but didn’t sleep. It wasn’t easy for me to sleep inside the car after experiencing the accident at Sokcho.

Of course, I also slept when I was incredibly tired but I wasn’t at that level yet. I leaned my back against the seat cushion and looked at my screen. Bleshu’s teaser still hung on my mind. Since Bleshu pushed themselves into a pit for their debut, I was a step closer to my goal of Triple Crown All-Kill, but it didn’t make me all that happy. In The Showcase, Bleshu was the only group who reacted positively to us from the very beginning.

I also thought Bleshu had the skills, talents, and potential to achieve success and personally wanted them to do well.

‘I suppose they only have their company to blame.’ Perhaps, if we didn’t transfer to Next Wave, we might have suffered the same fate as them. After thinking all this, I was also planning to sleep a bit when—

Zing—

As soon as I turned my phone screen off, the device vibrated.

‘What?’ I pulled my phone back out and checked the message.

‘...Hm?’

—Did you see Bleshu’s teaser?

The message was from Kang Hyun-Sung. It had been a very long time since I got a message from him.

‘What? Why is he suddenly messaging me?’ He didn’t contact me a single time the whole time we did our activities but was suddenly contacting me out of the blue. Did he want to spend time with me or something? Since I didn’t have anything to say, I planned to ignore him today or respond to him about five hours later. I thought Kang Hyun-Sung wouldn’t send me another message after getting ignored.

—Instead of thinking about ignoring my text right away, do you want to talk for a bit?

Damn, him and his mind-reading skills. I felt goosebumps on my skin.

—I heard that you were planning to do follow-up activities right after this one. What are you thinking?

“...What is he getting at?” Kang Hyun-Sung already knew we were going to do follow-up activities right away. This was supposed to be something only we knew. If he was trying to get my attention and force me into a conversation, he succeeded.

—Who did you hear that from?

I wrote a message with a bit of a peeved tone and sent it. And I got a reply that pissed me off even more.

—As I thought, I have to get on your nerves a bit to get a reply.

This chapter is updat𝙚d by f(r)eew𝒆bn(o)vel.com