The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

“That’s crazy! We’re in second place right now!”

“What, this really worked?”

“What the hell happened last night…”

“Wow~ Tae-Yoon has a great eye~”

After checking the view count for our application video, my group members were in a festive mood. Even Dong-Jun, who was always relaxed, was very excited. As a result, I also had no choice but to get up from the bed and join the celebration.

“Tae-Yoon! Is this real? It’s not a dream, right?” Yeon-Hoon brought his phone screen right to my face and asked.

Our video had around 100,000 views. It must be hard for them to believe our video had so many views. Frankly, it felt a little sad that they were so happy with 100,000 views in an era where first-tier idols’ music videos easily had hundreds of millions views. However, there was a saying that a thousand miles began with a single step. No matter how hard the path was, it always began with a first step, and in many ways, this was a good first step.

‘No, it’s more like a long jump.’ If we won the right to appear on The Showcase, 100,000 album sales in the first week would no longer be a pipe dream.

“No, seriously, what in the world happened? Is this all a coincidence? To upload the same concept as Kang Hyun-Sung’s team at the same time?” Woon approached me and asked. His sweet and pretty face was all smiles.

“Yes, it’s a coincidence.” Of course, it was not a coincidence at all, but I couldn’t reveal the truth.

The group that Kang Hyun-Sung belonged to was called Only One. I remembered how successful they were in my past life and also remembered how they first started. Kang Hyun-Sung’s group Only One officially began their activities by appearing in The Showcase 2 as a no-name idol group.

However, they were not completely unknown, and thanks to Kang Hyun-Sung’s fame, they became popular as soon as they uploaded their application video. Therefore, I remembered that they joined the show with a significant boost in popularity. Thus, my plan this time was as follows:

‘To take half of the attention that Only One will get.’ Only One first gained attention using Kang Hyun-Sung’s popularity, and Kang-Hyun-Sung probably joined The Showcase 2 to also take advantage of his fame and raise his group’s popularity. I thought we could jump on the bandwagon and share some of their fame. To take some of the buzz they would be receiving, I remembered what sort of video they filmed at the time and when they posted their video.

Since I had been interested in Only One as a group and admired them, I remembered their journey to fame. Among them, their first appearance was constantly talked about among their fans as a deeply emotional video, so I couldn’t help but remember it. Thus, I posted the same concept video at the same time as them.

Since I couldn’t remember the exact time their video was uploaded, I stayed on the application page and waited all day. I remembered that they were the last to post their video on the last day, but I didn’t know the exact hour and minute. And as a result of my efforts, I was able to upload the video around the same time as them.

‘It’s a relief that we got the attention together as expected.’ As I hoped, our group also received a part of Kang Hyun-Sung’s fame. If it was possible, Only One was one of the groups that we needed to keep clutching onto as we would most certainly garner attention by sticking close to them.

Only One would be the final winner of The Showcase 2 in the future where I lived. Since then, they were able to record 300,000 album sales at the beginning of their debut. If possible, I hoped to keep making contact with them without provoking them too much; that way, we would appear on air more often. Kang Hyun-Sung was someone who appeared in Select Your Idol and The Showcase. He was an idol who overcame the limits of his small-sized agency twice in total and gained fame.

‘He’s a person with an intense desire to be successful.’ Frankly, I also felt a little guilty for stealing some of Kang Hyun-Sung’s fame like this as he worked hard and came up to this position on his own. It felt like I was riding on the coattails of his passion.

However, my situation had no place for conscience. If we didn’t get 100,000 album sales in the first week, Do-Seung would die. Regardless of my conscience, I had no choice but to employ any methods possible.

“Bong Tae-Yoon, you did a great job. Thanks.” Do-Seung approached me before I realized and gave a small grin. Then he pretended to act cool by messing up my hair. It seemed as if he wanted to suddenly play big bro, so I didn’t stop him.

“Tae-Yoon, do you have some kind of foresight ability? That’s awesome.” Dong-Jun also approached me and gave me a pat on the shoulder.

It was a relief to see everyone enjoying themselves. However—

‘It’s going to get harder in the future.’ My plans to live comfortably for the second time in my life were going awry as I had no choice but to become an idol now. Considering my skills, I needed to stay up all night and practice every day. With the young body of a 19-year-old, it might be possible. I got up from my seat first and organized the blankets.

“Let’s quickly eat and go practice.” Although it was fortunate that the response to The Showcase application video was good, this was only the beginning.

If we took even one step wrong in the future, Do-Seung would die. Thus, I shouldn’t be complacent already.

“Ah.”

“Yeah, we should.”

“Let’s eat whatever Tae-Yoon wants for breakfast.”

The members began to return to their original tension.

* * *

Inside the <The Showcase 2-First Chance> staff meeting room. Park Soo-Chul, the main producer, looked at the application video page. There were a lot more groups that applied than as expected, but the group that stood out the most was—

“I didn’t expect Kang Hyun-Sung’s group to come out,” Soo-Chul said.

“Yes, I agree, sir.”

“I thought TH Entertainment’s CEO would never let Kang Hyun-Sung go.”

“Well, Kang Hyun-Sung must have made a proposal TH CEO couldn’t refuse.” Park Soo-Chul glanced at the video views. As expected, Kang Hyun-Sung’s group Only One topped the list.

However, what stood out more than that was—

Soo-Chul asked, “Come again, where did you say Siren was from?” “WD Entertainment, sir.”

“What kind of agency is that?”

“It was established three years ago, and it was originally a company that didn’t manage celebrities but just received requests for song composition.”

“Who’s the CEO?” “He’s not someone you would know, sir. He’s just someone who produced a few songs and created a group.”

“But he still decided to make an idol group?”

“Well, he must have heard that idols made money and gathered trainees that dropped out from big companies to launch an idol group.”

“Yeah, I agree.” Soo-Chul could roughly guess how it went. There were many times trainees received a boost after a group debuted from the same company. Thus, there were companies that tried to get a hold of these kids and make them debut at a cost-effective price.

“But even then, don’t you think these numbers are too high? 100,000 is too much.”

“Well, isn’t it just luck, sir? They were lucky to have the same concept as Kang Hyun-Sung’s group and were lucky enough to post it around the time.”

“You’re saying it’s all just luck?”

“Well, they are handsome as well, but it’s still luck as this is not a market where you can get famous just on good looks alone.”

“Hmm.” Park Soo-Chul looked at Siren’s video thumbnail. The man at the very front was indeed very handsome and all the members behind him were all above average as well. However, who caught his eyes the most was—

“Who’s in the back?”

“He’s the maknae of the team. His name is Bong Tae-Yoon, and he’s 19 years old.”

The man standing at the very back had long, sharp eyes and gave off a cold impression. He looked like he would take charge and rule over the older members judging on his face alone.

“Is it just luck?” Although judging by the situation, it could only be explained as luck; it strangely felt like an experienced hand was involved in all this. It felt like an artificial stage that someone manipulated.

“Let’s use them first. Well, if they’re really lucky, that luck might also help the program.”

“Shall we contact them, sir?”

“Yeah, contact them.”

“Yes, sir.” After saying this, Soo-Chul got up from his seat. This was the moment when Siren’s appearance in The Showcase was finalized.

* * *

After breakfast, I came to the practice room with my members.

“Let’s ventilate~ ventilate here and there~” Dong-Ju started to ventilate the practice room by singing a strange song.

We turned on the air purifier and opened a small window above to let out the stuffy air. Fortunately, it was not difficult to practice choreography because the practice room was equipped with a full-body mirror. Three days have passed since we posted the application video, but we hadn’t done any real practice.

On the first day, we spent all practice time filming our application video and discussing it. On the second day, we spent more time doing basic muscle training and stretching rather than practicing. Today was the day we were finally going to do some real practice. I put down the duffel bag in the corner and looked at myself in the mirror.

‘I’m in good shape.’ From what I recalled, I worked really hard to take care of my appearance during this time. Since I was lacking in skill, I had thought I should at least keep up by maintaining a good appearance. Since I was tall and big, my body was well-balanced overall.

“Let’s stretch first!” Woon led the group by stepping forward and stretching. Since he was the main dancer of the group, Woon was in charge of leading all exercises or practices that involved physical ability.

“Stretch forward like you’re making way for your muscles to extend.”

I copied Woon’s movements and warmed up. After stretching, Woon called us together and asked, “What should we do today?”

“Hmm. Yeah, what should we do?” Yeon-Hoon frowned and seriously pondered about the question.

“What about this? When I looked at what actors do, I saw them imitating objects or animals. Shall we also do that to improve our expressive abilities?” Dong-Jun just threw in any idea that sounded fun to him.

“How about a hip-hop dance?” Do-Seung wanted to do hip-hop.

However, Woon firmly shut him down. “We did that a few days ago.”

“Ah, you’re right.”

Although Woon was kind and caring to everyone, he often acted sternly toward Do-Seung. It might be because they were the same age and felt comfortable around each other.

“What about you, Tae-Yoon? What do you want to do?” Woon asked me.

“Hmm, please wait a minute.” I pondered for a moment about what we should practice today for choreography. Honestly, it was funny that we were pondering about this as usually, idol trainees had a dance trainer who decided what idol trainees should practice. However, this small entertainment agency did not even hire a separate trainer for us.

In the beginning, we did have a separate dance and vocal trainer, but they suddenly disappeared at one point, and a system where we had to create our own curriculum and practice by ourselves was implemented. The five of us, the only trainees and pre-debut group of this agency, were each other’s teachers as well. No—the other members were each other’s teachers, and I was just a student as I was not good enough to teach anyone.

‘This is the first choreography I’ll be practicing after regressing.’ I thought I should do something easy, but then changed my mind.

‘It might be even more problematic if I choose something easy.’ Currently, I couldn’t copy even the simplest choreography. After five years of rest, all my skills and knowledge of dancing and singing have been reset. Thus, I wanted to start with something easy to adjust, but my members would be shocked if I couldn’t do even the easiest choreography.

‘I’m sure I can’t even do a super easy choreography either. I’m hundred percent sure’

My members would probably say things like, ‘no matter how bad his skills are, our Tae-Yoon didn’t use to be this bad,’ and Yeon-Hoon might be genuinely concerned that there was something wrong with me. All that happened was that I’ve gotten older and years have passed.

‘So I should do something hard instead.’ Since it was only natural that I couldn’t do a hard choreography, my members would expect this and kindly help me out.

“Then I want to try the performance that the krumping dancer did recently on a show.”

“What?”

“Krumping?”

“Yes, the one that The Jack did.”

“The Jack?”

Everyone’s eyes widened. The Jack was a renowned dancer and professional krumping dancer, and he was famous for performing hard choreographies. Furthermore, krumping was a dance genre that if you do it wrong by even a little bit, you look like you’re just flailing your limbs around.

“Will you be able to do it, Tae-Yoon?”

“Yes.” Of course, I wouldn’t be able to do it. However, if I was going to fail anyway, I should completely, utterly fail.

“Then let’s learn the choreography first.” Woon brought his laptop and found some videos of The Jack on stage. I chose the one that looked the most difficult among them all.

“I think this would be hard for me to learn as well…” Woon looked a bit flustered as well but said, “Let’s first try it.”

We set up the video to play it over and over again and started to learn the choreography separately. Woon said it would be hard for him, but he quickly got the hang of it. Do-Seung seemed to get lost a bit but quickly followed along as well. Yeon-Hoon and Dong-Jun also learned the moves by looking sideways at Woon and Do-Seung. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to follow a choreography like this even if I used the whole day to practice but…

‘…What?’

“T-Tae-Yoon?”

“Whaaat?”

“What the?”

“Who are you?”

Even though I’ve only seen it once, my body was automatically dancing to the choreography. And the reason was—thanks to my ‘Insight’ ability.

[Special ability of variant, Insight, has been activated.]

When I made up my mind and began following the movements, a similar situation as when I tried to save Yeon-Hoon unfolded. Time seemed to slow down, and only my thoughts accelerated. At the same time, the way all of The Jack’s movements flowed and connected was copied and pasted into my head.

‘What really is this ability?’ This ability, called Insight, was much more versatile than I thought.