Chapter 393

Chapter 393

Reactions to the episodes that had been released while I wasn’t paying attention had piled up on the internet. I decided to look through them sequentially, meaning I would start with opinions about episode seven, but before that, I took stock of the overall public opinion.

Episode six had been the concept-oriented performance based on the keyword sexy, completed after Cheongryeo rescued Ryu Gunwoo from the in-jeopardy team.

- This is like the essence of what makes LeTi LeTi

- I have never felt so envious of a stage floor before… I want to be the stage

- I think they deserve my money even if they debuted right now. What’s the reason for this survival show? Just let all of them debut!

- What surprises me the most is that two of the people in this performance are from the supplementary team. I think it’s because the agency has such a uniqueness to it, and their leader, Shin Jaehyeon, knows perfectly what to do with it… [Show more]

Frankly speaking, what with the sexy keyword and all, I had been expecting more sensational comments than anything else, but it was analyses of the performance that occupied the top comments.

It means people are coming back and re-watching the video. It also meant that they were giving what they saw a story, and slowly beginning to see us as a group.

Cha Eugene has been completely accepted as well. Eugene had stood out like a sore thumb at first, but he had completely embraced the LeTi style. Doing so had created synergy and pulled more people to view the performance. The viewers were actually already making guesses as to who would debut.

- Here is my prediction: nine members will debut, picked by Kim Taein (photo)

- I think what we need to focus on is any additional members that will be accepted. Will the president do things his own way, or seek to please the public?

└ Please, everyone vote quickly so that Kim Taein gets a sense of what we want (link)

More people were beginning to get a feel for what the final debut team would look like. Even the announcement of another supplementary team that was to appear later in the show, which had come at the end of the sixth episode, didn’t affect this all that much. They only saw this as a passing obstacle and focused more on the existing contestants.

But then came the seventh episode and Ryu Chungwoo’s first appearance.

- Oh my god

- So the spoiler was right

- My god, so he’s Gunwoo’s cousin? Wait, everybody knew about this? Am I the only one who didn’t see this coming?

At first, everyone was shocked by this incredible contestant who had come out of nowhere. But they were also massively entertained. It seemed my reaction had a fair bit to do with that.

[Let’s take a look at how a person responds when their roommate and relative suddenly appears on the set as a contestant.]

The captions flowed upward in red, and a cut from one of my interviews appeared on screen.

[Ryu Gunwoo: So…]

[Ryu Gunwoo: (At a loss for words)]

[*It took Gunwoo a full day to recover from the shock.]

Sh*t. I knew they were going to do this… The camera had zoomed in on the stupid look on my face, which was shown in tandem with an interview cut in which I didn’t look so different. It served as a humorous addition to the show that cut through the tension.

- LOL the shock must have been too much

- Gunwoo is so cute. I think I would have reacted the same way, though. I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around it

└ It only gets worse from here

- So how did he end up on the show, exactly?

A truthful interview with Chungwoo and the serious and cooperative way he took part in preparations caused the online audience to react in his favor, but then spoilers began to spread.

========================

[Seen the LeTi survival show spoilers?]

Ryu Chungwoo qualifies, but Choi Taejun doesn’t. I wonder if this is really true?

========================

-??

- The president would have to be nuts.

└ They decided on who would be disqualified through viewer votes, apparently…

└ No way

- It can’t be… This is so wrong

But at this point in time, lots of people seemed to think that the spoiler was fake or an attempt to stir people up. It remained largely ignored, despite the tension it caused. The audience exploded, however, after the eighth episode aired.

- So the spoilers were right. Damn it!

- I was disappointed when he quit being an athlete and went off to college. And now he’s trying to be an idol? I wonder what he is thinking

- Frankly, it’s CT’s fault, nobody else’s LOL. It’s his fans that were trying to depict him as one of the geniuses, too

└ You shouldn’t talk like that about a disqualified contestant. That’s not fair on him, you know that?

└ LOL Get your manipulative games out of here

- It can’t be helped. Ryu Chungwoo is handsome, and he did well in the performance

└ Think about whether you would’ve said the same thing if he hadn’t been on the same team as Ryu Gunwoo

There were a lot of negative comments claiming that Chungwoo had benefited from having me on his team. Gunwoo had jumped into a battle between main vocalists, and the boldness with which he had done this made him stand out on a survival show. But people thought it was suspicious that Chungwoo had picked the same team as his cousin.

I knew there would be some nasty side effects… Some people were going too far and insisting that the situation had been manipulated or purposefully arranged, but after the general public began voicing their opinions, rather than just fans of the show, the situation changed.

- No way. Ryu Chungwoo is attempting to become an idol?

- He’s so grown up! Still as handsome as ever.

Ryu Chungwoo was a gold medalist, after all.

It’s guaranteed that the public will like him. Even if Wise was proving to be very successful, it was still just an idol survival show. And the general public did not watch idol survival shows.

- So they’re criticizing him because he won a vote? Okay, that is really strange

- LOL that is just not fair

- This is why I don’t like idol fandoms, especially those who obsess over LeTi. They are so stagnant… They wanted an idol trainee to win, so they turned against a national athlete who won them a gold medal

The fighting nearly got out of hand with people who hadn’t even watched the show joining the fray, but the controversy eventually petered out on its own. There was still animosity lingering below the surface, however, and it burst right before the guerrilla concert.

[Video of Taejun from Wise]

The nightclub guy had been spotted drinking and smoking. Somebody who’d attended a birthday party at a bar a few years ago had uploaded the video to social media. The final few seconds of that video had shown Taejun smoking and drinking. It only took a simple comparison to confirm immediately that it was the same guy.

- Wow…

- LMAO

Everybody immediately turned on him.

- Talk about foresight

- Kim Taein takes the W

- The audience who voted him out are probably in the top percentile when it comes to judgment. I’m now realizing how stupid I have been

- I can’t believe they dodged that bullet

If this had erupted while the guy was still on the show, the fans would have suffered massively. Choi Taejun was skilled, and he had quite a few fans. He’d also been chosen by the president, which meant that he usually wouldn’t be a likely candidate for disqualification.

People would have lost sleep, worried that the president would insist on somehow keeping him on the show. If a scandal erupted about a contestant, the show itself would suffer. This was a survival show that involved a single agency’s trainees, after all.

And as it turns out, Ryu Chungwoo basically sniped him before things got bad. He was being treated like a hero now.

- The Ryus… They see far into the future

- Now that I look at it, I think the national athlete has the perfect LeTi face. Prove me wrong

└ LOL top tier brainwashing!

This shift in opinion was interesting to watch, and the fans of various contestants were all chipping in with favorable opinions.

No wonder I’ve been seeing a lot of fans of contestants that had nothing to do with the nightclub guy on the show. It seemed that the people who hadn’t had much to do with the incident before were having the most fun. When a fancam of Chungwoo performing at the guerrilla concert with his TeSTAR-level skills returned to him appeared, it was game over.

- I didn’t know it was possible for someone to improve so quickly…

- Yeah, both of them should be idols

- We nearly lost him to archery! I get it now

People would not turn against Chungwoo now, not at least until the finals.

That worked out neatly. It was almost as if somebody had planned it from the start.

“Oh, come on…”

And there was only one person who could have done so.

[Shin Jaehyeon: Happy to see things are going well (^-^)]

Cheongryeo was behind this. As soon as I saw the companions list, I called him.

[Shin Jaehyeon: Taking a call from a companion (^▿^*)]

I asked him directly as soon as he picked up.

“It didn’t occur to you that this was always supposed to happen at around this time?”

“I don’t know about that. If the timing works out too perfectly, it makes me think that somebody had to be behind it,” I said.

I heard laughter over the line.

“I suppose that is one way to look at it.”

This was basically an admission.

“How did you originally keep this from happening?” I asked.

“Originally… Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the person who uploaded the video was mysteriously hacked, and it never came to light.”

All right. I can see how it happened. The bastard had completely controlled every variable in the past. That was probably how he had managed to keep his group at the top of their game for ten years.

I gotta give him credit for that.

After a moment’s thought, I asked in a friendly tone, “We’re coming up on the finals. Is there anyone else that you need booted off?”

“You want to try it yourself?”

“Why not?”

He laughed.

“There is one… but I think it would be best if he was disqualified naturally.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

What?

“I should do it myself. It’s cleaner that way. I’ll let you have the fun of guessing.”

This bastard never failed to piss me off. It was a good thing we were talking over the phone, because the desire to punch him was strong.

“Get some rest, and I’ll see you in the practice room.”

“Just get ready to tell me.”

“Haha.”

He hung up.

I have to make him tell me before we start filming again. Grinding my teeth, I dismissed the call app. A few notifications that I hadn’t seen before appeared on the screen.

[Bae Sejin: Good work. I still remember that choreography]

This was the tail end of the short conversation we’d had after he’d heard about our most recent filming session. The next was a message that had just arrived.

[Amazing Sejin: Did you finish filming? How was the guerilla concert? Haha]

It was Lee Sejin. It seemed he had waited until filming was over before contacting me this time. I had asked him a few questions about touring via text, and this was probably why he was asking something in return. I replied appropriately.

[It was short, but it was fun]

[Amazing Sejin: Yeah, right? lol]

[Amazing Sejin: But you thought it was short? Man, you’ve got ambition haha. You are going to kill it once you debut, huh?]

Are we doing this? Praising each other? I grinned and sent a reply.

[You were the one who was impressive on the tour]

He responded immediately.

[Amazing Sejin: Correct (fireworks emoji) Sejin knows a thing or two haha]

[Amazing Sejin: Oh, by the way, our tour DVD will be releasing tomorrow!]

[Amazing Sejin: If you have time at night, do you want to watch it together? Haha. You can tell me about how your guerilla concert went]

Huh? We had met not too long ago. If I was just a connection to be managed, he could probably stand to wait a little longer before trying to see me again. I hadn’t expected that he would want to meet up again until after the finals were over.

Well… Filming is done for now, so I guess I have no reason to refuse. He was great at reading public opinion, too, so there was a chance that he might’ve caught some detail that I failed to detect while watching Wise. I sent a casual response.

[If you have time, yeah]

We agreed on a meeting time quickly. Time constraints meant that it wasn’t a great idea to meet outside like we had last time, and we didn’t want people seeing us and talking about it. We would probably meet at my place or his.

He lived in a dorm, which meant there was only one place we could actually meet.

The doorbell rang.

“Hello!”

It was nine at night, and Lee Sejin showed up at our studio apartment with a gift set in hand. I wasn’t alone in the apartment, of course.

“Hello! Wow! I did hear that you lived together! I’ve been really enjoying the show,” Lee Sejin said.

“Welcome!” Eugene said, waving excitedly.

“Hmm.”

“…?”

Chungwoo studied the member he hadn’t seen in a long time, then grinned. “Make yourself at home. Or should I be a little more formal, since you’re a senior idol?”

“Not at all! Please do as you want. I know you’re older than me,” Lee Sejin said.

“Haha! All right. Thanks.”

Lee Sejin handed over the gift set and entered the apartment. Ever the social butterfly, he commented on how nice the place was and moved to the living room sofa.

“You can move the backrest like this,” Eugene explained.

“I’ll move the cushions,” I said.

“Oh… okay!”

We instinctively catered to what we knew of his preferences, and he nearly responded with visible confusion. Lee Sejin managed to hide it, however, and continued to chat easily. Soon, Chungwoo and Eugene stood up in unison.

“We’re going to go get some groceries,” Chungwoo said.

“We will bring back something tasty! Let’s eat together!” Eugene said.

I was the one cooking our late night snacks, so they were fetching the ingredients.

“Oh! Would you like me to order something instead?” Lee Sejin said.

“It’s totally okay! Have fun!” Eugene said in English, and the two of them left.

Lee Sejin stared at the door as it closed and said amicably, “Oh… They really don’t have to…”

“They’re always like that. They’re not doing it because you’re here. Don’t worry about it,” I said with a grin.

“Let’s watch your tour.”

“Hmm. Okay!”

Lee Sejin quickly switched tack and picked up the remote. The DVD he’d brought began to play, and a video appeared on screen.

[(Xyrop) - FIRST DROP: THE OPENING CONCERT]

“The captions are massive, aren’t they?” Lee Sejin said.

“It’s easier to read them that way.”

The venue seemed to be pretty sizable. The first song began.

“Wow,” I said.

There was an opening with an intense hip-hop beat. Then a light reggae dance song followed. I cupped my chin.

It’s a song selection that shows the group color, I guess. It was a typical concept—rebellious members performing a perfect group dance. I supposed it would appeal to a lot of fans, since the song and choreography were of high quality.

“Nice,” I said.

“Haha… Thanks,” he said casually, but his expression was subdued.

He didn’t seem all that excited about his own performances. I could see why.

People probably talk about how he stands out among the others. It was pretty funny. When it came to group songs, he had a tendency to obsess over balance. As a result, it was always his role to reel in and draw Bae Sejin out whenever we practiced.

That means… The other members are putting so little effort in that it shows. Their choreography was not very high effort, perhaps because they were doing it live. If Lee Sejin gave it his all, it made him stick out, since his more skilled dancing stuck out.

I could see that he was overly conscious of his large frame, and as he got more into the performance, his movements grew bigger. In a subunit song featuring only three people, it almost felt like there was a difference in quality.

Yes! Forward, forward! Just keep moving forward.

I noticed as a member who was supposed to lie down on the stage with a dramatic gesture only nodded slightly.

I asked, “It’s a shame he didn’t give it one hundred percent, don’t you think?”

I knew he would deny it, but supposed it would be satisfying to hear it from someone else’s lips, at least.

“I do,” he said. His tone was dry. He soon grew cheerful again, however. “He was a little ill that night. Both of us were disappointed!”

I nodded.

“Right.”

There was a brief silence.

“It’s a little embarrassing to watch all these performances together like this. How about a drink? You drink nonalcoholic— Oh.” He stopped short, and so did I. “Or am I wrong? I feel like you told me you don’t drink? Never mind!”

I started moving again. “Nonalcoholic sounds fine.”

“Yeah? Want me to bring them from the fridge?” he said.

“I don’t have any at home.”

He burst out laughing.

“Oh, come on!”

I just brought out some regular drinks, and he took one politely.

“Thank you very much!”

“Don’t mention it.”

We relaxed again. Sitting down, I watched the tour video again, thinking. I thought about the members of our group who had worked together like this, but were now scattered.

Bae Sejin, Seon Ahyeon, and Big Sejin, the person on that screen… I had already come to a conclusion.

There aren’t any more draws that will be useful. Unless I could get Kim Raebin, it would be more useful to funnel all the points into myself to upgrade my stats to EX, possibly cheating the system that way.

Even so, it makes me angry. It upset me to see a member of my group struggling with the garbage people he’d been put in a group with. I wondered if he would be more comfortable knowing the truth.

I have plenty to spare. Reputation points were coming in consistently. After a moment’s thought, I summoned the status window. Using subtle movements that he wouldn’t notice, I pushed the button for ten successive draws.

Lights flashed.

What if I get Seon Ahyeon? F*ck it, whatever! I would think about that later. Glittering light exploded around the TV screen.

[I-I think we’ve used around 100,000 points by now…! You’ve done a hundred draws!]

Have I? I kept on going. By the time I’d pushed the same button roughly twelve times, a powerful burst of light finally appeared.

[Huh?]

It was bright enough to drown out the TV screen. Then the stars for this new pull were revealed in the status window.

[Phew!]

[★★★★★ Lee Sejin / Main dancer]

I got him.

[Accept these draws?]

I looked at my drink and spoke to Lee Sejin.

“I have a question.”

“What?”

“What if there was some success you’d achieved, but you had no idea you’d done it?”

He stared at me.

“What if there is something that you’ve already done, but you aren’t aware of it?” I asked. “If there was a way for you to learn about it, would you want to?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

I turned to face him. He was watching me with no expression on his face.

“Do it. What is it?”

I reached out my hand.