Chapter 199
“You are against malaxianguo...?” Dong-Jun stared at me like he was going to kill me this instance while Do-Seung looked relieved. I felt bad for ruining the team’s great atmosphere like this, but I thought I would have no other chance but now. We needed to get first place in tomorrow’s music show, so it didn’t make sense for us to have malaxianguo.
Even if the number of people doing text voting decreased a lot compared to before, there were enough people to decide between first and second place. This was especially the case when Only One and I were maintaining almost equal ranks in terms of streaming counts, album sales, music video views, and so on. In cases like this, the result could be decided on how many of our fans decided to vote by text on that day; and on such a day, we couldn’t go out with our faces puffy from eating malaxianguo.
Of course, some people could say that I was going overboard, but I was on a mission with Insight on the line. I couldn’t ignore even the smallest worries.
“Yes, I’m against it,” I repeated.
“Yeon-Hoon, please park the car. I want to get out and ‘educate’ our maknae a bit.” Dong-Jun said angrily.
“Yeon-Hoon, please park the car on the streets fast. I would also like to educate Dong-Jun hyung.” I also didn’t back down. In terms of who was more desperate, it was me. Dong-Jun just needed to hold back from eating what he wanted once while this mission had my team’s destiny on the line. I had no confidence in accomplishing all these future missions without Insight.
“What did you say!”
“I said, ‘You can’t have malaxianguo’!”
“Both of you calm down.” Instead of Yeon-Hoon who was driving, Woon tried to mediate between me and Dong-Jun. Though there was no need to calm me, Dong-Jun was genuinely heaving. It seemed he really wanted to eat that malaxianguo. Considering that he was the type to relieve his stress by eating, it was understandable why he was reacting this way. Thus, I thought I needed to appease him instead of punishing him at a time like this.
“Dong-Jun, I’m sorry for shutting you down like that with no explanation,” I said.
“...”
“But I also have my reasons.”
My members didn’t know that I was aiming for first place in tomorrow’s music show, so I thought I should share my goal with them first.
“You know that this is our second week of activities now. It’s the time when we could go up as possible candidates for first place.”
“...Yes.”
With the words, ‘first place’ the other members besides Dong-Jun focused their attention on me. Some people got first place on a music show every time, but for a newly debuted group like us, it was different. It would be a sort of proof that we had finally established our positions as idols. In a market where tens and hundreds of groups debuted and disappeared without a trace, this was especially significant.
“Though it’s not confirmed yet, what if we go up as candidates as first place? Then, wouldn’t we all come up on the camera at the end of the show? Do you want all of us to come out with puffy faces then?”
I didn’t tell them that we needed to get first place at all costs since that kind of pressure might do more harm than good. But it was important to make them think.
“If we stand next to Only One looking worse than usual, will Sailors want to vote for us?”
“...”
“We don’t have to get first place for sure, but we need to make Sailors want to keep seeing the screen.”
“...I was persuaded.” Dong-Jun sighed and declared, “I won’t eat malaxianguo.”
“Oh.”
“Really?”
“Yes...”
It was such a fast declaration of defeat that Do-Seung and Woon appeared surprised.
“It really hit me to hear this from our maknae. I’m sorry Taeyoon. I was childish.”
“No, it’s fine.” That was how our malaxianguo commotion came to an end. Now, there was only one issue remaining.
“But will we really reach first place?”
“Hmm.”
“First place...”
It was the question of whether we could really get first place in the music show tomorrow.
“Will it be possible for us to be considered as candidates for first place?” Yeon-Hoon said unconfidently.
Yet, I was sure. ‘We would definitely be able to be...candidates for first place.’ It wasn’t a problem for us to be candidates. In terms of our album sales, music rankings, music video view count, and so on which were all important standards to become candidates for first place, there was almost no group above us right now.
Furthermore, ‘Surprise Missions’ never tended to be the completely impossible types. The system threw out missions that considered the general situation and one that was within our reach. In other words, it was completely possible for us to be first-place candidates.
“I think it’s very plausible,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Then...can somebody find the score breakdown for tomorrow’s music show?” The music show that was going to air tomorrow was GBS’s ‘The Music Show’.
“Give me a moment~”
With Yeon-Hoon’s request, Dong-Jun found the breakdown of the scores and told Yeon-Hoon. This was how it was: Song Ranking-40%, Album Sales-10%, Music Video Views- 20%, On-site Voting-15%, and Text Voting-15%.
Compared to other music shows, ‘The Music Show’s score gave a lower percentage on song rankings and a higher percentage count to on-site and text voting. In other words, it was harder to get first place with just the results of one’s previous activities before the show.
“All we can do right now is try to get more text votes.”
“Yeah.”
“Hm.”
There was nothing more we could do about music rankings, album sales, music video count, and so on right now. Even if we did something more now, the people who won’t buy our albums wouldn’t go out of their way to get something like how people who didn’t listen to our music would suddenly play our song.
Perhaps, the people who listened to our song could buy more albums and listen to the song more times, but it wouldn’t be able to influence the music show that was going to happen tomorrow.
Thus, realistically, we could only bet our life and death for first place with the text voting.
“What can we do to raise the number of text votes for us?”
“Should we upload pictures and information about voting on social media?”
“Of course, we have to do that, but...I feel like we have to do something on top of that.”
“Hm.”
I began to ponder about what we needed to do so that we could all get first place.
“Should we upload something funny? We could do it as a fan service and try to appeal to the general idol fan audience.”
“A funny video?”
“Yes.”
I thought the audience we needed to target for this text voting were people outside of our fandom. Since I didn’t know how many people who weren’t part of our fandom would vote for us, we couldn’t make the video too blatantly targeting outside groups but make it funny to spread beyond just our fandom.
“The fandom size between Only One and us is similar. So, even if we mobilize everyone within our fandom, we would result in similar numbers as Only One. Thus, I think it will be important for us to try to bring in fans from the outside,” I said.
“A funny video.”
“Hmm.”
“Something funny...”
My members seemed to think about what the funny video could be.
“Tae-Yoon.”
“Bong Tae-Yoon.”
“Bong bong boroboro Bong Bong.”
My members’ gazes all fixed on me, and Dong-Jun said, “It’s funnier for the usually not funny kid to be funny.”
“Ah.”
With his foreboding words, I realized that things were going to turn from bad to worse.
***
In Only One dorm's living room, all the Only One members gathered to spend their personal time. ‘Gathered’ and ‘personal time’ sounded like an oxymoron in the same sentence but Only One somehow managed to achieve that. They each sat on the sofa and looked at their phones, watched a drama, read a book, or chatted with a personal friend. Though they were together, they didn’t do anything besides being ‘together.’
The Only One members were spending their personal time like this largely because of Kang Hyun-Sung’s doing. Because Kand Hyun-Sung was quiet and didn’t enjoy group activities unlike the rest of the members who were talkative and liked acting in groups, unrest began to brew inside the team. Thus, after the team members advocated to spend at least the evening time together like a team, this sort of paradoxical team and personal time was established.
‘If the main purpose is for us to be together, let’s each do our own thing in the living room,’ Kang Hyun-Sung had told them.
‘...But that’s not what we sre saying.’
‘I’m saying we should at least do that.’
‘...Ah!’
It was then Only One members realized that Kang Hyun-Sung wasn’t making a request or compromise but making an order. From that day on, the members all gathered during the evening and did their own thing. In the beginning, the members felt great dissatisfaction about this arrangement. They thought, ‘How could this be a group activity?’ When they first proposed this change, they had been imagining something like playing futsal, going on a walk in Hangang, or visiting an exhibition together. Nothing seemed to have changed in the end.
“Is there anyone who wants to eat a light dessert?”
“Me.”
“Me.”
“Me too~”
“Everyone calculate your calories for the day before eating.”
“All right~”
Yet, soon, Only One realized how comfortable and easy this arrangement was. With it, it was possible to communicate in a group immediately and after they finished communicating, they all went back to doing their personal activities again. Furthermore, there were other benefits. If they wanted to do something with other people, they could also immediately gather those interested.
“I am going to do a needle felt. Who wants to do it with me?”
“Oh! You ended up buying it?”
“It came in a package yesterday.”
“Let’s do it together. It looks fun.”
As Park Young-Ho took out a lamb needle felt package, Kim Ju-Hyun sat in front of the table and helped him set the place up. Like that, the Only One members had perfectly adjusted to the rule that Kang Hyun-Sung made. Furthermore, this setup showcased its greatest advantages when they had to share information.
“Uh? What?’
“What is it?”
“Did something happen?”
Only One member Kim Si-Woon gasped while looking at his phone. He made a sort of the sound one would when they saw something they didn’t expect. Only One members stopped what they were doing and looked towards him. Kang Hyun-Sung also closed his book and looked at Kim Si-Woon.
“Um...A post about Siren popped into my feed while I was doing social media...but what’s this?”
“Siren?”
“What did they do?”
Hearing the name ‘Siren’ piqued all the members’ interest. For them, Siren was the rival whom they needed to beat but also a comrade whom they felt a sense of companionship with. In a way, they felt like strangely close relatives one would sometimes meet only for the holidays. Thus, they all couldn’t but crane their ears to the news.
—Please spare me (Bong Tae-Yoon)
“...?”
“Spare me?”
“What does this mean...?”
“Did Mr. Tae-Yoon lose in a game or something?”
They couldn’t guess what was happening at all.
“Hyun-Sung, do you still keep in contact with Mr. Tae-Yoon?”
“Not too often.”
“Can you ask him what this is about?”
“Hm.” Kang Hyun-Sung took the phone from Kim Si-Woon’s hand and stared intently at the screen. Tae-Yoon was telling the camera to save him.
“It’s not really my business,” Kang Hyun-Sung said and gave Si-Woon’s phone back.
Simultaneously, he thought to himself, ‘Are they doing this for the music show tomorrow?’
But even Kang Hyun-Sung didn’t predict all the fuss that Siren would make that night to beat them in a music show.
***
I returned to the dorm with my members. I didn’t think I was a funny person but I couldn’t change my members’ thoughts.
“Tae-Yoon, you have to come out from the front.”
“The person who people expect the least needs to come out.”
“Then, you have to at least give me a rough idea of what I should do or a script. How would it be funny for me to just come out on a video?”
“I’m telling you it could. It could just be funny for you to come out.”
“What do you mean, Dong-Jun?”
“I don’t know either, but I just got a feeling.”
It seemed all my members wanted to sacrifice me for a comedic effect. At this point, it seemed the purpose of making a funny video was in the back corner of their minds and they just wanted to offer me as a sacrifice. The goal was long missing in their minds and they only strived to fulfill their heinous hopes and desires. Thankfully, we reached one conclusion after going back and forth in the meeting.
“Ah...I really can’t do this. I really don’t think this is it.” The problem was that I still couldn’t accept it.
“We don’t have time.”
“We have to upload this by tonight.”
“Sacrifice yourself for the greater cause, Tae-Yoon.”
“...”
This was probably the only team that enforced such a sacrifice on their maknae.
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