The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

Turning myself in? What kind of person was I in Dong-Jun’s mind? Didn’t people usually ask if you were hurt if they saw you coated in blood from head to toe instead of asking who you hurt?

“It’s my blood. My blood,” I quickly explained myself, baffled. In movies or comics, main characters usually said the common line, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not my blood.’ But I was saying the opposite this time.

“Ah, thank goodness. For real.” Damn Dong-Jun appeared relieved after I clarified that this was all my blood. I didn’t know what he was imagining but I stared at Dong-Jun with disappointment. Dong-Jun simply evaded my gaze with an awkward smile.

“But why do you have so much blood? Don’t you have to go to the hospital? Did you get sliced somewhere?”

“No, it’s just a nosebleed. I don’t need to go to the hospital. Since it’s a type of side-effect from the system, the hospital can’t fix it.”

“A side-effect?”

“Yes.”

“Side-effect of what?”

“Hm…” I didn’t know how I should explain. If it had been Woon or Do-Seung, I would’ve immediately said that it was the side-effect of using Insight but Dong-Jun wasn’t a regressor.

“Hm…It seems the system really strains your body.”

“That’s right.” It was true that the system was straining me in many ways; it was to the point that I wanted to get rid of it as fast as possible. Still, I felt all right since it felt like I had found a new path.

‘Yeon-Hoon’s worlds.’ If I absorbed Yeon’s Hoon’s worldlines into my side, I thought it would be possible to stop the system since it appeared that Yeon-Hoon possessed some of the system’s powers. And if that didn’t work…

‘I will have to think about it then.’ I thought a way would open up if I kept searching for it. At least, that was what I wanted to believe.

“At times like these, I think it would’ve been nice if I had memories from my regression days like Do-Seung and Woon.”

“Really?”

“Then I would be able to talk to you more deeply.”

“It’s deep enough even right now.”

“Still.”

Dong-Jun seemed to have a lot of thoughts going through his head. It appeared he thought the team’s maknae was bearing too much of a burden.

“Do you think the Triple All-Kill and the Billboard missions are progressing well?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Even from my perspective, I think we would be able to achieve Triple Crown All-Kill with no problem. Do you have anything you thought of for the Billboard mission?”

“Ah for that…” I was about to tell him that I combined the two missions into one and stopped. I thought I would just make him more worried if I revealed that, but in that short momentary pause, Dong-Jun caught on that I hesitated and gave me a look that I should fess up the entire truth.

“Well, I combined the two missions into one.”

“…What?”

“I thought ‘Blue Ocean’ was gaining quite the transaction so I thought it would be easier to enter the Billboard Hot 100 with the song.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. You know you can hear ‘Blue Ocean’ pretty often on TikTakTok.”

“…That’s true but…”

“That’s why.”

“Hm…Well, it’s not like you made your decision thoughtlessly,” Dong-Jun said and took a step inside the bathroom. Then, he took out some more tissues and wiped the blood stains on parts of the wall that I missed.

“Everyone would be shocked if they saw this in the morning. Let’s quickly clean this up and go to sleep.”

“Yeah.” I put more force into my hands and twisted the clothes. It gave me a weird feeling that every time I squeezed the clothes, a load of bloody water poured out, but I did the hand laundry to the best of my abilities. Thanks to that, I was able to successfully get rid of most of the color on my towel and clothes so that it became a faint stain.

“Good work, Dong-Jun,” I said while seeing the cleaned bathroom. We cleaned the blood in the living room too so that there won’t be any issue about that.

“No, you are the one who did all the work.”

“Ah, but you said Blue Ocean was trending on TikTakTok, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“But we didn’t do a challenge or anything like that yet.”

“Yeah? We didn’t do anything yet.”

“Don’t people usually make a challenge to promote things like this—especially with celebrities to garner more buzz?”

“…That’s true. But what about it?”

“I mean, we are aiming for the billboard after all…so, I thought maybe we should film a challenge with a celebrity who is more known globally.”

“We don’t know anybody with that kind of connection though.”

“Not anybody we know but you know.”

“Someone I know? Who…?” I was about to ask when I realized. “Are you talking about Kang Hyun-Sung?”

“I know it might sound a bit shameless but why don’t you try asking? It can’t be helped if he refuses,” Dong-Jun said and returned to his room.

I thought over what Dong-Jun said and also lay in my bed with an icky feeling.

‘Kang Hyun-Sung…’ While lying down, I went into Kang Hyun-Sung’s SNS. I searched to see which foreign celebrities followed him and he also followed.

‘What? Why are there so many?’ There were more diverse people than I imagined. During his activities in Yours, Kang Hyun-Sung had gained quite the fame overseas. Famous global DJs strangely liked his voice and made proposals to do a remix together. Furthermore, there were a couple of times when Yours’ songs entered Billboard Hot 100 though of course, most of those song had been remixed by the DJs in question.

Nevertheless, it seemed Kang Hyun-Sung had developed these connections through his past idol activities. He even appeared to be quite close to one or two of them seeing that they messaged each other back and forth on a recent post.

‘…What? This is insane.’ There was one person in Kang Hyun-Sung’s connections who hadn’t been so big during Yours’ activities days but recently shot up dramatically in the entertainment world. He was a black R’n’B singer who was securing a first-place spot in the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in a row and enjoying an explosive popularity in the United States.

‘Moreover, why is he so good at using TikTakTok?”

I went into the singer’s personal TikTakTok page and saw that he was making use of each and every trending memes on the internet; moreover, it didn’t even seem like somebody had forced him to make these videos but he enjoyed making the content. His characteristically exaggerated and goofy expressions drew in positive responses and because his overall character was so appealing, I also found myself scrolling through his content.

‘When did it already became 3am?’ I was so focused in his videos that I didn’t realize how much time passed. I turned off my phone and closed my eyes. I needed to quickly go to sleep. If I slept and woke up, it will be the reveal date of ‘Blue Ocean’ and a lot of things were on the line with this one song now.

‘I can do it.’ I decided to firmly believe that if I completed each step one by one, I would be able to escape the system’s clutches.

***

Today was July 25th. It was the date that had been on not just the Siren fans but the general public’s mind. This was thanks to the fact that Siren’s pop-up zones had spread widely throughout this entire week through social media sites. It was to the point that even people who didn’t know Siren well said something like, ‘Aren’t those guys releasing their music video today?’

Because of that, Siren fans were more nervous than usual.

—If something sucky comes up today, everyone in the company should smash their heads to the ground

—Next Wave…I believe in you…even in your state, you are part of a big corporation after all…

—They did such a good job in marketing, I believe in their music video

The fans desperately hoped that the music video that was going to be released today wasn’t of subpar quality. Moreover, it had already been revealed that the music video that was going to be released on the 25th wasn’t for a new song but for a past mini album track list. And though it wasn’t revealed yet, the group would do their new activities with one of the songs in the tracklist. This was information that company hastily released after the public’s attention grew explosive since it could disappoint people who expected something else.

—Which song do you think they would use for their activities?

—Based on the charts, wouldn’t it be Blue Ocean?

—It will be nice if they did something like ‘Sailing’ so it would have a similar feel to The Showcase

—Isn’t ‘Voyage’ okay too?

—Whatever comes out, I’m confident that I will like it

Reply: Yeah I think it will be amazing

People discussed which song would be used for the main activities. Finally at ten minutes before 6pm in the evening, people came to the music video waiting room and chatted with one another.

—Ten minutes feel so long…

—Haa…the thumbnail is driving me crazy

—Please somebody, click fast forward for the next ten minutes

—Can’t there be an error in Nutube and they release the video ten minutes earlier?

—Siren ^^ Looking forward to a good song ^^

—Hahahahha

—Stop making such a huge fuss you idiots. You all only pay attention to their faces anyways hahaha

—Hahahaha f*** u

—We can all smell your jealousy

—Lol

—Your insults have no creativity

Unlike Bluebird, the chatrooms became a bit fiercer because all sorts of people gathered in Nutube.

—Did you all see the thumbnail?

—What’s up with it?

—Hahaha I was enchanted by it

—Who was the one who created the thumbnail? You did great!

—Wow, the thumbnail is crazy hahaha

The thumbnail that had been placed for the music video was shocking to many viewers. Considering how important thumbnails were these days, Siren had pondered quite deeply about this one thumbnail. The first suggestion was to just zoom into Yeon-Hoon’s face. Though it would’ve garnered clicks, it would be impossible for the fans to guess the contents of the video.

Then, the next suggestion was to take a wider shot so that all the members’ faces came out together but this was also shot down for the same reason as the first suggestion. Thus, the members agreed that they should gather impactful images from the music video first and choose one among them; rather than discussing whose face was better or whose to use, they thought it would be better to use a picture that brought the most shock value.

The result of that discussion was a side shot of all the members on a boat looking up at the setting sunset. The picture held all the members, the sunset, the ocean, and the boat together. Though one couldn’t see each of the members’ faces well, the atmosphere the picture exuded emitted a subtle power. And because the background didn’t contain a normal sunset but one created by CG, it drew more attention.

The sunset didn’t burn with reddish and orangish light but emitted a strange mix of purple and bluish light. Perhaps, a rainbow would’ve shone this kind of light if it burned like the sunset. The ocean also flowed in five colors and created a mystical colored shade over the Siren members’s faces. The picture looked like the overlap between fantasy and reality and looked like it belonged to an art exhibition; that was the Siren music video’s thumbnail.

People poured in compliments about the thumbnail for ten minutes long until the music video was revealed.