The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

Chapter 172

Our music video was released. We checked the music video inside the waiting room before the debut show. Was it because our long-awaited debut was just around the corner or there were many good reactions to our music video? But Yeon-Hoon’s eyes were red.

“Ha...Hmph.” However, he forced back his tears to not show his weak side and said, “People’s reaction to the music video is really great guys.”

Everyone nodded at his words.

“At this rate, we really might cause a syndrome?” Dong-Jun said with a sly smile.

“It was worth staying up all night to shoot the music video. It came out really well,” Woon said while not being able to take his attention away from the music video clip. His eyes were filled with affection and love.

“The director and staff members must have suffered a lot...” Sigh... “It must have taken many sleepless nights...” Do-Seung seemed to have been shocked by the music video’s quality.

The reaction of both the public and fans was good, as well as from our group.

“We now only have to do well at our debut show.”

“We can do it.”

“Ohh!”

“Everyone, gather your hands!”

We were a moment away from going up to our debut show. Wnet reserved a time spot during the evening for us to release our music video and song. Our debut show was a live broadcast that was going to appear live on Wnet’s Utube channel at the same time.

“We can do it, Siren!”

“We can do it!”

“Let’s show them everything we practiced.”

“We can do it!”

We all put our heads together and cheered.

But why was my heart trembling? I thought I had definitely overcome stage fright by doing The Showcase 2.

‘My heart is throbbing.’

“Are you feeling nervous?” Do-Seung asked as he passed by.

Nervous? That was not it.

“No, I’m excited.” My heart was throbbing in excitement for the upcoming stage. There was still some time left before the stage. We finished our makeup, and it was now time for us to fix our outfits.

“Your outfits are here!”

“I’m sorry I’m late! The sponsor suddenly changed their mind on a whim...!” Just in time, the costume team came into the waiting room with the outfits.

*

A Siren fan, who won a ticket to the debut show, turned on the fluorescent stick that she received in front of the broadcasting station. As expected of a big company group that debuted through Wnet’s program, Siren’s debut time was specially reserved.

The girl had applied to be an audience member with low hopes but luckily won a ticket. As they said, unexpected gifts were more moving than normal gifts. She almost screamed out loud at the office when she first heard the news. And now, just in case she was late, she used a half-day leave to stand in front of the live hall of Wnet’s broadcasting station.

‘This light stick is not bad.’ The Siren fan happily waved her light stick. Honestly, she had wanted Siren’s official fan light stick instead of a standard, light stick like this. Agencies, who were on top of their game, usually made an announcement for a fan light stick as soon as a group debuted.

‘Work harder Next Wave...’ she thought. Since she was now an office worker, she could spend as much money as she wanted, but this damn agency did not even give her the opportunity to use her money. Well, it was still the early days of their debut, and there were some idol groups who came out with light sticks a long time after their debut.

‘Let’s wait a little longer.’ It wasn’t something urgent anyway.

“Please come in now~”

Just in time, it was now time for the audience to enter the debut show. The Siren fan took a deep breath and began walking inside. She could meet Siren soon, and she could watch their debut show performance directly.

‘Seriously...I don’t know where or who you are, but please accept my bow for picking me.’ This moment was one of the luckiest days ever in her fangirling life. She clasped her trembling heart and entered the hall.

*

We had to go up on stage soon. All that was left was to finalize our costumes. In today’s debut show, we were going to change our outfits three times—once on the opening stage, once on the middle stage, and once on the last stage. The second and last stage outfits have been decided, but the opening stage outfits have been delayed so far due to a sponsor issue. Of course, it was not a big problem, and since the stylist had chosen clothes for us, we just had to choose from their picks.

“I want to wear this and this!”

“Are you going to wear the same clothes chosen by the stylist?”

“No matter how much I think about the clothes combination, I’m sure the stylists must know better than me.” Yeon-Hoon chose to wear exactly as the stylist planned.

“Please just give me the exact clothes chosen by the stylist.” It was the same for me.

“Oh? Can I fold the ends of my pants a little bit?”

“Yes, it’s fine!”

“Then please fold this a bit.” Dong-Jun made small adjustments to his outfit.

“I want to put a brooch on this one.” Then Woon said, “Hmm. About here?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Oh! It’s pretty!”

Woon added a small accessory to his outfit. Our outfits were finalized in an instant. However, there was one person who was still struggling until the very end.

Sigh... “...Why am I the only one with two outfits?” It was Do-Seung.

All of us had only one piece of clothing, and there were just props and accessories to add to our outfits. However, Do-Seung had two tops to choose from.

‘But...what’s with his clothes?’

The style of the tops was completely different. Our opening performance today was <Voyage>, which we posted as a fan song before. Therefore, our outfits were more casual than the usual, fancy stage outfits.

‘One is just a shirt and the other is a knit with a low v-line cut.’ I didn’t know how the costume team interpreted Do-Seung’s character. One was a very ordinary white shirt, and if he matched it with the jeans he was wearing now, it would make him look very neat and tidy.

However, the other was a beige, patternless knit with a low v-line neckline to expose his chest. Of course, the low-cut knit was also a brand-name outfit and high-quality. Perhaps the company that made that knit released it for it to be layered rather than worn alone. At first, Do-Seung also thought it was a layered outfit and tried to wear the two clothes together.

“Mr. Do-Seung! That’s not how you wear it! You just wear one of the two! Who wears knitwear and shirt together during the summer?”

“...What?”

Due to the extreme dissuasion of the costume team, Do-Seung fell into a dilemma where he had to choose between the two.

“Which one do you think is better?” Do-Seung asked me and Dong-Jun.

“What, why aren’t you asking us?”

“Yeah, why are you leaving us out?”

Woon and Yeon-Hoon protested why Do-Seung didn’t ask them.

“You two only say nice things.” Do-Seung had his reason.

However, if Do-Seung asked us because Woon and Yeon-Hoon only said nice things, that must mean we were people who only said bad things.

‘What the?’ I felt slightly annoyed.

“Which one do you think would be better?” I carefully inspected the two tops. Frankly, the more normal-looking shirt was the white shirt, and it was a tone similar to the rest of our outfits. Thus, based on common sense, Do-Seung should choose the white shirt.

“Choose the shirt. The shirt is pretty.” Perhaps Dong-Jun had a similar thought as me and picked the shirt.

I was about to tell Do-Seung to also choose the shirt when another thought came to my head. Getting 500,000 album sales was a difficult goal even if we stepped on full accelerator right now. I couldn’t choose the normal option in all situations.

‘But above all, if it’s Do-Seung...!’ There must be a reason why the costume team picked this outfit for him.

Thus, I said, “I like the knitwear.” I chose the deep v-line cut knit.

Do-Seung asked, “...Really?”

“Yes.”

“But this one is revealing.”

“Yes, that’s the purpose of that outfit.”

“You’re...really telling me to wear this?”

“Frankly, aren’t you asking us because you want to wear that?”

“...” Do-Seung became speechless and closed his mouth. I must have hit the nail on the head.

If he really wanted to wear the shirt, he would have just worn it. However, since he knew that he would get a good reaction from wearing the knit, he was trying to check our reaction first as the knit seemed too revealing.

“There should be at least one sexy member on stage.” Thus, I tried to pull out Do-Seung’s safety switch.

“Yeah, certainly...this outfit is a bit more...” Do-Seung was leaning towards wearing the knit, but Dong-Jun bashed the idea.

“But isn’t it more sexy to cover it all up.” In Dong-Jun’s eyes, the white shirt looked sexier to him.

“Ah...do you think so?” I wondered why Do-Seung was so wishy-washy in situations like this when he was so firm while making music. He should choose that knit with the same passion as making the cola fruit punch. Why was he looking at that white shirt again?

I said, “Do-Seung, you can’t cover everything. No, why are you covering everything? You’ve put all those hours at the gym.” I touched his pride as a gym bro.

“Yeah, that’s true.” Do-Seung looked at me again and nodded.

“But isn’t this too low cut for that to be the case?” Dong-Jun refuted this once again.

“Ah, yeah. That’s also...”

“Do-Seung.” Before Do-Seung glanced at the white shirt again, I grabbed his hand. Persuasion shouldn’t be only done by words but also by non-verbal methods. I made eye contact and clutched his hand tighter.

“Why did you bench press yesterday if you’re just going to wear a shirt?”

“...!”

“If you’re going to wear something tight with buttons like that, why did you train your lower and upper chest every day, 50 sets each?”

“...”

“Do-Seung, how much do you bench these days?”

“I do 1RM 100 these days.”

“If you wear a shirt, people don’t know whether you hit 100 or 1000. They would think you are similar to me.”

“You and me?” I must have pulled Do-Seung’s trigger point really well as he seemed angry that people thought he looked similar to me.

“I’ll wear the knit instead of the shirt. I’ll finalize my outfit with this.” Without any hesitation, he put down the shirt and wore the knit.

“Wow, he really fell for that.” Dong-Jun looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.

While Do-Seung was changing, I asked Dong-Jun, “Dong-Jun, did you really think the shirt looked better?”

“Huh? No. I just kept saying 'the shirt' for fun. Since it was so obvious he wanted to wear the knit, I didn’t want to tell him what he wanted to hear.”

“...Wow.” As expected, Dong-Jun was in charge of kindness in our team.

Soon, Do-Seung came out wearing his full outfit. The effect of the knit with a low-cut V-neck was truly great.

“Wow...”

“Geez...Do-Seung.”

“Oh my goodness.”

“Hahahaha!”

It was to the point that we all reacted like this. Was this the power of a gym bro? I hadn’t realized how truly fit he was because I didn’t have any opportunities to see his chest.

I said, “Do-Seung, you must have really worked hard at the gym.”

“You and I are at fundamentally different muscle levels, Tae-Yoon.”

“I got it. Move away from me. You smell like iron.”

As expected, people who worked out loved to show off their body the most.

*

At the live hall where the debut show would be held, people were filled with anticipation and excitement while waiting for Siren to appear soon. While people murmured amongst themselves and watched the stage to see when Siren would come out—

Ziing—

They heard the amplifier go off.

“What?”

The melody of a song familiar to the fans began to ring. It was a song that was released right after filming Siren’s reality show, and it was also a b-track included in their debut album. It was the first official fan song that Siren made—“Voyage”.

The beginning of the song signaled the start of the debut show. Soon, Siren members came up on stage one by one.

“...Huh?”

“...Crazy.”

“Do-Seuuuung!”

“Wow, wait a minute.”

Whether Do-Seung was their bias or not, all the fans in that hall intuitively focused on Kang Do-Seung.

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