Chapter 122:
“We’ll reveal the cheering rankings and citizen interviews for Floss soon!”
Ooh, since there were nine members, there were a few who booed.
“What, why don’t they reveal it?”
“I don’t know, maybe they’ll do it later?”
Inside Floss, I could see some members who were supposedly ‘close’ to each other flirting with each other.
Meanwhile, Yu-geon and Hwijin had a strange atmosphere around them, as if they were aware of themselves.
As if they had pushed back the main dish. They exchanged bland questions and even blander answers, and then it was time for the next group.
“Now, the next group to appear! Let’s welcome Vesper! Please come in!”
With the cheerful introduction of the MC, seven people who were clearly armed with hip-hop! walked in.
Their previous albums all had different concepts, but essentially they had ‘delinquents’, ‘rascals’, and ‘villains’ as their main themes.
‘Usually, they don’t use such concepts as their main ones for more than once.’
It was easy to attract attention, but it was not easy to maintain a bad vibe without causing controversy.
Sure enough, they seemed to be more popular in the overseas market than in the Korean market, which preferred idols who were neat, cool, and admirable.
‘Actually, some of them… had a bullying controversy when they debuted, so they turned more to the overseas market.’
I glanced at the Vesper leader who had been involved in the bully scandal. He was twenty-two now, right? He looked like that age, with platinum hair neatly combed back with a hair pick. He grabbed the microphone and greeted.
“Guys, say hello!”
“Hello, we are Vesper!”
They seemed to have prepared their greeting beforehand, as they exaggeratedly gestured like they were part of an organization.
‘They really nailed the concept of being delinquents.’
That was a concept that only those guys could pull off.
“Welcome, Vesper! Please take your seats and we’ll start with the pre-interview video!”
As soon as the seven bad guys found their seats, the screen lit up again.
[Ah, I know who they are. The group that sang Hard Game, right? Isn’t their taste a bit minor? I don’t think it matches the mainstream direction.]
Ugh, they picked a harsh criticism for the opening. Floss members, who didn’t know there was such a segment, were of course, and so were our kids, their expressions were not bright.
Of course, Vesper members were furious.
“What, why are we lacking in popularity?”
They didn’t care about the ratings, and they each muttered a word.
“Do albums sell like that without popularity?”
The member who was in charge of producing in Vesper pouted, sticking out his lips like a duck’s beak.
[It might be fun… but I don’t know if they’ll rank well.]
[Are they really suitable for broadcasting?]
[Oh, that… member… no, never mind, it might be fun.]
[They’re famous overseas, right? Their domestic fandom seems weak.]
[They’re a K-POP group, but honestly, they’re more famous abroad than in Korea…]
Just like our time, they seemed to have edited only the negative comments.
“What, that makes me feel bad.”
“What do you want us to do, so what?”
It was a blatant reaction that contrasted with the tame responses of Climax and Floss so far. Some members expressed their complaints by stomping their feet, drawing more attention to them.
“Wow… they’re harsh…”
Sunwoo glanced at where Vesper was sitting and muttered quietly, looking around.
Finally, the hour-long ordeal of harsh criticism ended and the MC asked as if pouring oil on the fire.
“Vesper, do you accept the interview results?”
Immediately, a negative answer burst out.
“No way!”
“We don’t agree!”
It could be called confidence, in a good way. In a bad way…
‘This won’t look good to the fans of other groups.’
But if they were the type to care about that, they wouldn’t have chosen the delinquent concept in the first place.
Soon, the MC continued the banter with them and Vesper’s ranking was revealed. fre𝚎w𝐞bn𝗼v𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝗼𝚖
[The team you want to cheer for]
5th [Vesper]
[The team you think will win]
4th [Vesper]
Was it because of their weak domestic fandom? They inevitably got low scores. They were average if you took the mean, but still.
There was a faint booing from within Vesper, but the order quickly moved on to the next group.
“Next, we have the prince of the idol world who captivates the hearts and ears of the public with his sweet voice! Let’s welcome AtoX!”
AtoX was originally a ballad group that debuted and focused on OSTs, but they started to pay attention to their performance since last year.
They also suffered from harsh criticism in the pre-public interview, saying that their stage would be boring if they only sang ballads. They wondered if they would make it rain from the sky again. They said they would look like they were herding cows while everyone else was having fun.
The only consolation for them was…
‘At least their ranking is higher than ours.’
They had released songs and albums of high quality so far, and they had also won over the public fans.
Their ranking was quite high on both sides.
[The team you want to cheer for]
2nd [AtoX]
[The team you think will win]
2nd [AtoX]
It was clear that the interview was deliberately edited to show only the bad comments. It became more evident after accepting AtoX’s results.
There was no way they would only say bad things when their ranking was so high on both sides.
They probably said more things like they were looking forward to their performance because they usually only did ballads, or they wanted to see a different side of them.
After that, the show went on smoothly, with P2CK and Playground following.
“Hello, we are P2CK, who catch the moment!”
“We are Playground, the rookies who are like your best friends!”
P2CK’s leader was as innocent and lively as he was when he interviewed Leader Jo, and Playground’s leader BK seemed to have overcome his nervousness a bit from last time, but…
“Ah, hello! We will show you a more hard-working side of us…!”
He still looked lost, as if he was not used to the broadcast. If the leader was like that, how would the other members be?
The camera captured the eight of us, all 17, 18, or 19 years old, still in high school and not yet graduated, floundering around.
‘Maybe… it’s better to show our weaknesses without any pretense.’
I thought it would be a smarter strategy to admit that we were inexperienced and ask for support, rather than pretending to be skilled in an area we couldn’t handle.
There were only two spots left for the team I wanted to cheer for. It was either first or sixth place. Who would take the first place?
Everyone stared at the screen in silence,
And the moment the scoreboard changed, my prediction was exactly right.
[Team I want to cheer for]
1st place [Playground]
[Team I think will win]
6th place [Playground]
[Team I want to cheer for]
6th place [Floss]
Maybe it was because the lineup was already dominated by groups that had established their positions, except for Climax.
It seemed like there were a lot of potential viewers who sympathized with Playground just by looking at the lineup.
And it wasn’t even a survey that targeted only idol fandoms, they just put up a voting board on the street and asked people to stick it.
It was only natural that there were many people who cheered for Playground out of pity.
‘This is a bit of a problem.’
Now that Climax had succeeded in their comeback with a ‘pitiful’ image, they still needed to keep that desperate image.
Not that they should do a misery battle. Climax was in a state where their skills were somewhat proven, while Playground was just a debutant who didn’t know anything.
If you asked who was more pitiful between the two… it would obviously be them.
We had the sympathy card, but even that was taken away by them, so it was bound to be disadvantageous for us.
The moment everyone was surprised by Playground’s ranking, the camera didn’t miss the expressions of the Floss members.
‘It must be shocking.’
Before the Floss members could recover from the shock of the sixth place, the pre-public interview video of Floss was played.
[Honestly… Do you feel a bit threatened?]
[We’ve seen enough of them since My Idol, do we need to see them again?]
[Ah~. Well, of course they’ll get the first place with their voting power.]
[Anyway, Floss will be the first place, so why bother?]
[Don’t you feel a bit resentful that they’re pushing them so hard as the trend?]
[I wish something unexpected would happen. It’s too obvious and boring that Floss will be the first place.]
This was also obvious. They had edited the video to pick out only the negative ones among the many positive interviews.
After Floss’s interview video, a huge logo appeared on the screen and the studio fell silent.
‘They’re trying to push Floss against Floss as the trailer showed.’
“Well, the final rankings have been revealed! It seems like you’re all surprised by the unexpected twist! Playground, what do you think?”
What did they expect him to say in this atmosphere? B.K. shivered as he took the microphone.
“Uh, thank you for cheering for us…! We, we… No, I mean… Ah, yes, we’ll do our best to meet your expectations!”
“We heard Playground’s confident comment! How about Floss? Are you satisfied with your current ranking?”
The microphone was now turned to Floss. Hwijin answered calmly with a composed expression.
“We’ll show you on stage why we’re the number one contenders for the win.”
He had a confident expression that showed no signs of being intimidated.
Even those who didn’t like Floss had to admit that he was a handsome man who could pull off such a relaxed attitude in a situation where everyone was against him.
“What a great ambition! We have six teams of different colors fighting for the throne of the king in a fierce competition that has just begun!”
As the MC announced, five letters appeared on the screen behind him.
[First Mission]
That’s right, today they would reveal the first mission and then each team would go to their meeting rooms to come up with a simple concept.
It felt like the real start. I focused on the screen to not miss any small details.
“The first mission of Boys Be Ambitious is!”
The MC pointed to the screen with a powerful gesture and then smiled mischievously.
“We’ll be back after the commercial!”
‘…’
I hadn’t watched this kind of program much. But even when I watched it for research purposes, I was annoyed. And now that I experienced it myself, I felt like my stomach was turning.
During the commercial break, the MC moistened his throat with the water that the staff gave him and then resumed the show.
“The blood-spattered battle of the representative boy groups of Korean K-POP! The first mission of Boys Be Ambitious is!”
The screen changed quickly following the MC’s hand.
[Icon of the Era: Recreate the Legend!]
“You have to recreate the legendary songs of the seniors who made a mark on the Korean popular music scene with your own interpretation!”
As soon as the mission was announced, Yu-geon’s face turned cold.
It was somewhat surprising, since he had always been playful and cheerful.
‘Why does he look like that?’
Not only me, but the other members also had the same thought.
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