The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

Chapter 152

In the future from my past life, YM Entertainment was an agency that was infamous for its spectacular criminal history. The representative of YM Entertainment was caught arranging sexual favors for high-level executives, and numerous artists were charged with using and distributing drugs. It was an agency where DUI and assault charges were common, and plagiarism and embezzlement ran rampant. However, this was all in the future.

‘It’s probably just a pretty big agency right now.’ The current public perception of YM Entertainment was probably to this extent. However, since I knew the future, I couldn’t help but have a negative perception of the company.

“Do-Seung, are the YM Entertainment coworkers you’re talking about the ones in Vision?” I thought they were probably members of the idol group that was working under the name of Vision.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Yeon-Hoon asked, “...Vision?”

“...Yes.”

Do-Seung lowered his head as if he was embarrassed at the word ‘Vision’, and Dong-Jun and Yeon-Hoon’s eyes opened wide.

“That assaulting idol gr...”

“Shh! Dong-Jun!”

“Ah...I’m sorry.”

Although YM Entertainment’s corruption was revealed only later, the group called Vision’s fall had already begun. It was a group that received a good reaction, even in their first debut. They didn’t win the Rookie of the Year award, but they competed with the leading rookie candidates until the very end. In their second year of debut, they achieved worthwhile success and sold 250,000 album sales.

Then, one of the members, Hwang Jun-Kyul got into a scandal for physical assault. He was accused of drinking and fighting with a passerby and was sued for it. The incident ended in complete disgrace because he was the one who hit first in anger but was beaten the shit out instead; and because of the assault, he had to halt all activities.

After this scandal, Yoon Dong-Hyuk, the songwriter on the team, had a controversy over plagiarism. Although he didn’t admit plagiarism until the very end, it was already an open fact among idol fans that he plagiarized famous songs from American composers.

Of course, it wasn’t only these events that led them to their doom. They had other incidents besides this, but it was too bothersome for me to list them all out. Anyways, it was a group that ended their careers by their own karma. Thus, it was bad that a Vision member contacted Woon or Do-Seung, but it would be the absolute worst if it were either Hwang Jun-Kyul or Yoon Dong-Hyuk who contacted them.

“Who contacted you?” Those two guys were the worst, so I hoped that there would be no interaction between them and my members.

“Yoon Dong-Hyuk contacted me, so Hwang Jun-Kyul probably contacted Woon.”

Life always betrayed hopeful expectations.

Sigh... It was a line-up that made me sigh. Since It already happened, I had no choice but to move on. The important part was not who contacted them but why they contacted Do-Seung and Woon, and furthermore, why did Woon lose his mind after receiving that call?

I asked, “Why is Woon so stressed after getting a call from them?”

Do-Seung seemed to hesitate a bit and replied, “It’s a little hard to say.”

Do-Seung looked sideways at the room where Woon was fast asleep and continued, “Woon and I couldn’t debut there because of Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk. That’s probably why Woon got stressed after answering the phone since it was Hwang Jun-Kyul who messed up his debut.

“Hmm...” Do-Seung and Woon weren’t able to debut because of those two. I asked, “Did they pull some kind of scummy trick?”

“Yeah...that’s the case. It’s a bit hard for me to say.” Do-Seung said and smiled with mixed feelings. “Of course, I think it was very fortunate that we didn’t debut there now. Since we met a good team and good agency...? I’m not too sure about the agency part yet, but anyway, we signed a contract with a big corporation.”

After saying this, Do-Seung seemed to ponder for a bit and said, “But...we didn’t come out of there in good condition...at that time, both Woon and I were having a hard time.”

The atmosphere grew heavy after Do-Seung finished talking. Do-Seung must have also noticed this as he tried to change the mood and tried to lift the mood forcibly.

“Oh, but it’s already in the past. And even though we don’t have a good relationship with them, it’s not like they can hurt us anymore. We should just move on without getting involved with them anymore.”

Do-Seung was right. There was no need for us to get involved, but I said, “But why are they contacting you when it’s so obvious that you guys have a bad relationship?” There were too many iffy parts to just move on from this topic and think positively about the situation. Since there was potential for things to escalate, we needed to address it before things turned from bad to worse.

But for now, I could understand why Woon’s mentality was so shaken up. I would react the same if it were me. If a person who ruined my debut called me and carelessly asked how I was doing, I would get so angry and cuss them out. However, this was not the fundamental cause of why this happened.

I said, “There’s no reason for them to call you and upset you guys for no reason. Of course, I don’t know what happened between you two and them but...isn’t that weird?” When I questioned him, Do-Seung’s expression turned somewhat stiff.

“...Yeah, that’s true. You’re right.” I supposed Do-Seung also must have thought of this; Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk had no reason to contact them unless they had some kind of ulterior motive. However, considering his reaction just now, it seemed like Do-Seung didn’t want to uncover their motive. He probably felt reluctant to do this.

According to Do-Seung, they couldn’t debut because of those two. I was too anxious about the consequences we might face if we just glossed over this issue just because we didn’t want to address it.

I said, “Shall I try finding out what their motives might be?”

As soon as I said this, Dong-Jun, who had been quietly listening, pushed the phone towards us. “Um...I did a search just in case. And...this is a bit serious?” Dong-Jun seemed to have searched Vision and our names on Bluebird while Do-Seung and I talked. Among them, there were combinations of names that came up most often:

Hwang Jun-Kyul and Lee Woon

Yoon Dong-Hyuk and Kang Do-Seung

These were the most frequent combinations. Dong-Jun said, “If you look into this...it’s a bit problematic.”

“What?”

“Problematic?”

Yeon-Hoon and Do-Seung looked at Dong-Jun’s phone in unison. Dong-Jun turned on a video he found in Bluebird. It was a post of a live clip video from DoubleU on Bluebird. In the video, Hwan Jun-Kyul was doing a live broadcast by himself.

—You’re asking who debuted later among YM Entertainment trainees...Hmmm. Someone famous among our peers...Oh! That’s right! Woon of Siren, who came out recently in The Showcase 2! I was close to Woon~

He suddenly brought up Woon’s name. Yeah, it was understandable that he answered the question this way, since anyone who was a fan of Siren knew that Woon and Do-Seung came from YM Entertainment. It was common for information like this to spread one way or another. However, this was not the problem.

—Woon was amazing~ He always won first place in monthly evaluations by himself, and he also danced really well by himself. And he’s also really handsome, as you can clearly tell.

He first talked well of Woon. This was a given, as no person with any sense in their mind would cuss someone out directly. However, it was the words he said next that were concerning.

—But you really never know about people. My friends and I all thought he would debut, but strangely, he didn’t join the debut group. So we were all like, ‘Hmm, why did he drop out?’ But I’m sure there must have been a reason~

There was a strange nuance with his words, and from his expressions, attitude, and tone, he exuded out a strange feeling that he considered Woon inferior to him. Furthermore, he kept talking with the nuance that there was some kind of problem with Woon that led him to drop out.

I guess I wasn’t the only one who felt this hard-to-describe discomfort as Dong-Jun said, “Doesn’t he sound shady?”

“...It’s annoying.” Yeon-Hoon frowned.

“This crazy punk...does he not feel any shame mentioning Woon’s name...?” As for Do-Seung, pure anger was blatant on his face.

However, the true highlight came next.

—Do I keep in touch with Woon? I wanted to contact him, but I think he’s too busy. Even when I call him, he doesn’t answer. I understand because it’s a busy time for him. We were also super busy when preparing for our debut, so we didn’t have any time to look at our phones.

This was the moment when the indescribable discomfort was actualized into clear annoyance. Of course, I didn’t know if this person actually kept trying to contact Woon. I thought he probably hadn’t contacted him before, but besides that, the fact that he revealed this to everyone in a v-live meant only one thing.

“Guys, I think he’s wary of Woon.” Hwang Jun-Kyul was trying to keep Woon in check, partly out of fear.

I could clearly see that he was desperately trying to undermine Woon’s reputation. However, as a celebrity, he couldn’t do it outrightly and was letting it out in his v-live.

“Yeah, I also feel like he’s wary of Woon.” Yeon-Hoon also felt the same.

“I also feel that a bit. Even in the later parts of the video, he kept bringing up Woon in a strange way.” Dong-Jun also said this.

And it was confirmed by Do-Seung when he said, “This guy...always had a huge inferiority complex towards Woon.”

Squeak.

Then the door opened. “...What are you guys all watching here?” Woon walked out with half-closed eyes. “I kept hearing my name...what’s this?”

I wondered if we should hide this video or not, but Woon had already seen Hwang Jun-Kyul on Dong-Jun’s phone. “Hm...?”

Yeah. I thought since it involved him, he should know. We turned on the video for Woon without saying anything. After watching the video, Woon covered his eyes with his palm and chewed his lips.

Sigh... “Seriously...”

Do-Seung’s expression darkened, seeing Woon’s reaction. An uncomfortable silence filled the living room. However, that was not the end of this problem.

“Um...Do-Seung...that person named Yoon Dong-Hyuk also talked a lot about you on DoubleU live...this is the live broadcast clip that he did before...” Dong-Jun, who had been nervously glancing around, told Do-Seung that Yoon Dong-Hyuk was talking about him just like Hwang Jun-Hyuk did to Woon.

“...What?” Do-Seung’s expression instantly got cold. In the video Dong-Jun found, we saw Yoon Dong-Hyuk trying to link Do-Seung and him as rivals.

—Ah Do-Seung! Yeah, we’re really close! We learned how to compose songs together under the same teacher! Ah, but how do I say this? Um...you know when you get lessons together when you’re young, you feel a sense of rivalry or something like that, right? Anyway, because of that, he was a bit mean sometimes. But ah, I’m not saying he’s the only one who did it-we both teased each other~ Don’t misunderstand~

Do-Seung’s expression hardened in real time as Yoon Dong-Hyuk continued.

Sigh... “...These guys are really sickening...” Woon shook his head as if he was sick of them, and both Woon and Do-Seung looked disgusted.

Then we searched around to see how many times Yoon Dong-Hyuk and Hwang Jun-Kyul mentioned Woon and Do-Seung on DoubleU live.

“...At this rate, they basically mentioned you guys at least half the time they did their v-live since we came out on The Showcase...?” I thought they would have mentioned Woon and Do-Seung just once or twice, but it was much more than that.

“Their words...sound strange...?”

The words they said seemed to imply that Woon and Do-Seung caused a lot of incidents when they were trainees since they kept emphasizing that both did really well but failed to make it in the debut group; they also said things like how Woon and Do-Seung were really talented but made mistakes when they were too passionate. They had been close and got along well, but now, Woon and Do-Seung won’t get their calls because they were too busy now.

“There are so many people who love making conspiracy theories...” I didn’t know what conspiracies and misunderstandings would spread in private accounts from their words. If such negative misunderstandings accumulated, it eventually became a potential risk factor to dampen our growth. Now I could see why Hwang Jun-Kyul and Yoon Dong-Hyuk called Woon and Do-Seung. They were doing all sorts of backhanded tricks, hoping that we would fail.

“...Do you want to hear why we failed to join the debut group...?” Do-Seung and Woon must have also realized that this problem was not going to simply end with bad feelings between them and those two guys as they began to share with us why they were dropped from the debut group.