Idol Hides His Military Service

“These days, it honestly feels like everything’s gone insane.”

“Wasn’t it always like this?”

“I’ve been an idol fan for years, and this is the first time I’ve ever experienced anything like it.”

A cafe near Jiyeon’s house, which had basically become their regular meeting spot.

Since Jiyeon was still a high school student, Jinsu came all the way here so they could talk.

“Idol fandom is supposed to be something you do inside your own circle.”

“But lately, no matter where I go, I keep seeing talk about IG100 and promo posts for the contestants.”

“People even post promo threads for other contestants in Sionism, you know? That’s bad manners of the highest order!”

Of course, the two of them hadn’t gathered here to share sweet little stories.

Their only topic was IG100 and Lee Sion.

“Did you watch the contestants’ guerilla live broadcasts yesterday?”

“I did. Honestly, I was too curious not to.”

“I was worried because Sion was so good, like, what are the other kids going to do, but everyone did better than I expected.”

Only twenty-five contestants were left in Idol Ground 100 now.

Maybe that was why the production team had given the remaining twenty-five a special perk called the guerilla live broadcast, and it had become a hot topic lately.

And it made sense. Normally, you were lucky if a contestant got five minutes of screen time per episode, but here, fans could watch them for a full thirty minutes.

So more live viewers than expected gathered to watch the contestants’ broadcasts.

-Today I want to talk about things that happened while I was filming Idol Ground 100.

Some contestants calmly told behind-the-scenes stories they’d never gotten to share on the actual show.

-This is a product from M Company, and I love it because the color payoff is great. I tried it when I did Sion’s makeup last time...

-You can carry this brand around all the time without getting tired of it. Highly recommended!

And people like Kim Suyeon and Im Yunkyung did review streams about products they liked.

“A lot of active idols can’t even do a live like that, but it looked like the kids prepared a lot.”

“Yeah. I went in thinking I’d just watch my favorites, not that it would be fun, but it was way more entertaining than I expected.”

Like Jiyeon said, it was hard to believe these were broadcasts by contestants who hadn’t even debuted yet. They were packed with surprisingly solid content, so the IG100 guerilla lives were getting great reactions not only from fans, but from casual viewers too.

If there was one live that stood out as especially famous...

-No, I’m not! I really don’t eat that much! What? Lee Gahyeon the pork cutlet bandit? That’s Lee Sion framing me... I really don’t eat that much...

Lee Gahyeon’s live, where she took one-sided attacks for a full thirty minutes and ended up going viral across every community under the title “human sandbag idol.”

And in the complete opposite direction from Gahyeon, there was Ryu Ayeon’s live, where she acted like interacting with chat was none of her business and spent the entire thirty minutes finding flaws in her own stage video, analyzing it with borderline insanity. That one was also a huge topic.

Then there was Kurosawa Yuri, who got attention for doing a “real local Japanese stream” as a Japanese person.

[Ryujin... even now, go get variety lessons from Lee Sion.]

[Thanks, Ryujin. Because of you, my insomnia is completely cured.]

[Anyone who stayed to the end of Seo Ryujin’s live is a real fan, I admit it.]

[It went past "sweetly boring" and became a third-rate sleep pill made of pure crap. How can someone be this dull?]

And finally, there was Seo Ryujin’s sleep-inducing broadcast, which went viral for an entirely different reason.

Because they got to see sides of the contestants they’d never seen before, it was basically paradise time for fans.

But for a popularity explosion like this, Lee Sion’s influence was huge—since she’d started it all by completely nailing the first broadcast.

Lee Sion’s live had hit an unbelievable record of 23,420 concurrent viewers, and it wasn’t just fans who were reacting. She was making waves in places nobody expected.

[Let’s not forget the three enemies of the Rift.]

“We must not forget the three enemies of the Rift who disgraced high-tier players by losing to a Silver.

cjftn89, Forgotten Summer, Monster Cow.

If you meet them in-game, win or lose, don’t forget to report them.”

-Please go easy on them. Ever since that day, they haven’t even logged into the game, haha.

-Honestly, if they have any shame, they should quit. How do you lose to a Silver?

-Be careful. If you talk like that, you’ll end up getting mid dueled by Lee Sion.

-Oh my god, because of Lee Sion, top-lane lunatics have been going crazy in solo queue lately.

-Top wiped every lane, right? The best player should go top, I admit it.

-Support didn’t lose, so why are they grouped in?

-Support should sit this one out.

In the Legend of Valley community, Lee Sion’s live clip was going around and pulling in massive attention.

[DB supports our gallery owner, Lee Sion, and cheers for her debut.]

And it didn’t end there. In fact, on the biggest internet community, DB, the situation had gotten so big that they even changed the main banner for Lee Sion—who had basically taken over the IG100 gallery, the overseas soccer gallery, and the Legend of Valley gallery.

Because of that, even people who weren’t IG100 viewers were losing their minds trying to get the live broadcast videos, and Sionism’s membership was skyrocketing.

[IG100 Lee Sion guerilla live broadcast video train.]

Train.

In idol fandom slang, “train” meant sharing live broadcast videos or variety show clips through torrent.

And since Sionism was the fan cafe where “train” was most active among the contestants’ fan cafes, the number of people joining just to get the files kept increasing by the day.

Sionism had already blown past 100,000 members, so it was only natural that the file quality was the best and the uploads were the fastest.

[Lee Sion and Seo Ryujin two-shot.]

(A photo of Lee Sion and Seo Ryujin getting off a bus together and waving at fans.)

-Wow... I’m seeing high-res unreleased photos in Sionism that even Ryujin’s own fan cafe doesn’t have.

-Of course it got posted here too!

-These days, all the high-res contestant photos get uploaded to Sionism.

-At some point, it feels like this became the main IG100 fan cafe.

“The ‘other contestants’ materials board’ that only existed for appearances had quietly become active, and now the place had gone beyond a Lee Sion fan cafe and become the center hub of the Idol Ground 100 fandom itself.

Of course, because of that, the staff—Jiyeon included—were getting worked to death. She’d even considered banning it, but then she worried that if she did, the other contestants’ fandoms would push back, and that could end up hurting Lee Sion. The more she thought about it, the worse the dilemma got.

But unexpectedly, a solution appeared.

-We would like to propose that your currently operated Sionism be run by our KJ side as the official IG100 fan cafe. We will send the detailed terms and discussion points ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) by email later...

A message that had arrived in Jiyeon’s cafe inbox two days ago.

At first she thought it was a scam, but when she contacted them just in case, it turned out to be a real acquisition proposal from KJ.

“I think I’ll finally be able to breathe.”

“Don’t you feel a little sad? You worked so hard to grow that cafe...”

“If I said I wasn’t, I’d be lying. But honestly, it got too big, so it’s hard to manage now. And anyway, once she debuts, it’s better not to have a personal fan cafe. So it’s probably best if KJ runs it.”

So Jiyeon accepted KJ’s offer without hesitation.

A privately run fan cafe had limits from the start, and once Sion officially debuted, maybe a small personal cafe would be one thing, but a large personal fan cafe was better off not existing.

‘The worst case is fans of the same group members fighting each other.’

Jiyeon’s old fandom, D.P, was the perfect example.

At first, fans had cheered together because they wanted the group to succeed, but over time the solo-fan wars got worse and worse, until eventually those solo fans tore the members apart more viciously than antis ever could.

The type people called malicious solo stans.

Since a malicious solo fandom was better off not existing at all, Jiyeon had already planned to pause the personal fan cafe once Sion officially debuted.

“Still, thanks to you, I’m glad we got Final stage tickets.”

“Seriously, I had no idea how we were going to get them this time, but now we can watch everything live, from the live broadcast all the way through the Final!”

“If other people heard that, they’d think you were lying.”

“Right?”

Some people sold fan cafes for money, but Jiyeon didn’t want to do that. Instead, she handed it over for free in exchange for signed goods and albums from the members of the project group that would be formed from Idol Ground 100.

And it wasn’t just Jiyeon—she made sure the other staff who’d suffered running Sionism would receive them too.

On top of that, she even secured tickets for the gymnastics arena where the Final Round would be held, and she planned to share them with Jinsu and with Hyejeong, who was currently running Sion’s personal site.

Thanks to that, Jiyeon had achieved the “watch every IG100 stage live” milestone, and she was happy that all her hard work had been worth it.

“When I watched yesterday’s concept evaluation stage, it reminded me of seeing it in person. Seriously, you have to watch it live.”

“Me too. While I was watching, I felt bad for the people who couldn’t see it on-site. That last ending scene was legendary.”

[IG100 Concept Evaluation Girlish Pop Starlight Umbrella.]

(Lee Sion winking, soaked by rain.)

Views: 2,513,425 Likes: 52,000

-I clicked the moment I saw the thumbnail, like I was possessed.

-Praise whoever planned this stage. This is perfect.

-I had no idea Lee Sion could pull off such a pure, girly stage too.

-I cursed Park Taesu like crazy when Suyeon got eliminated, but after seeing the stage, I admit it. The member lineup was good.

-At the end, all five threw their umbrellas and got soaked, and somehow it felt so refreshing. It was like a youth movie.

The two of them started talking about Episode 8 of Idol Ground 100, which had aired yesterday.

People said the concept evaluation was too cruel—only five out of ten could go on stage—but after the performances aired, those complaints had no choice but to disappear.

Not just the Girlish Pop team with Lee Sion, but every concept evaluation team had been incredible.

Nobody knew how the production team had pulled it off, but the concept evaluation stages were produced by the hottest composers in Korea right now—and the songs were dominating the charts.

[Apple Chart Real-Time Rankings]

...

Apple Chart, considered one of the metrics of idol popularity, was the kind of place where even popular groups couldn’t easily line up the rankings. Yet the songs from this concept evaluation had taken the top spots and caused a huge upset.

And it wasn’t just the music charts—YouTube, online communities, and offline conversations were all buzzing with talk about yesterday’s concept stages.

“Did you watch IG100 yesterday?”

“Of course. Lee Sion was insane.”

You could even find people in the very cafe where Jiyeon and Jinsu were sitting, talking about yesterday’s episode.

“Yesterday at the end, when Sion gave her speech and said, ‘I will become your idol,’ I got chills.”

“She’s completely different from the start. Back in Episode 1, I honestly thought we wouldn’t be seeing Sion for long.”

“Back then, I thought she was just a contestant the PD threw in for variety.”

Jiyeon and Jinsu reminisced about the first time they’d seen Lee Sion.

Back then, neither of them could have imagined she’d keep running in first place all the way to the end and have debut right in front of her eyes.

Her visuals had been dazzling, but her skills had been so terrible they made you forget her looks. They’d thought she would make some noise and then get eliminated.

But as if she wanted to laugh at them, Lee Sion showed a stage that improved beyond recognition every time.

And now, it wasn’t just Jiyeon and Jinsu. Countless people were waiting for Lee Sion’s next stage.

***

“Yoo Jihye, count it in!”

“Yes!”

“You guys keep messing up your formation in the middle. This is live. Remember: if we go out like this, we’ll look like a complete disaster.”

“Yes!”

At the sharp criticism echoing through the practice room, the trainees answered again, even though they looked like they were about to collapse from exhaustion.

“Ugh... how do the seniors even do this?”

“I don’t know. My head’s a total mess.”

The Idol Ground 100 Final Round, which would be run in a concert format.

Unlike previous stages where we focused on a single song, we had to practice multiple songs at once.

Maybe that was why contestants kept making mistakes in the moves, or getting the formation wrong.

“Are you not getting confused?”

“Huh? It’s only four songs per person. Isn’t that manageable?”

“What?”

Of course, not for me.

The first program theme song Spotlight, the second song Lucid Dive, the third the Final song Still, Our Spring, and then that song on top of it. It was only four songs.

Some of them were new, but most were songs we’d already practiced, so it wasn’t actually that hard for me to keep the moves straight or memorize the lyrics.

But as if my answer was hard to accept, I could feel sharp looks stabbing into me.

“Lee Sion... no matter how you look at it, she’s not exactly the brains type.”

“Maybe she’s just specialized in stuff like this?”

“No! Sion said she was good at studying too!”

“You believe that? Half—no, ninety percent of what our boss says is a lie.”

Everyone except earnest Shinyu was openly doubting me.

‘Was this what Pang Tong felt like?’

Pang Tong, the talent compared to Zhuge Liang, who still got mistrusted even by his lord Liu Bei because of his ugly face.

Maybe I’d tried too hard not to show off my intelligence so I wouldn’t make them feel uncomfortable. Now they seemed to think I was actually stupid.

Objectively, I was pretty smart.

I just didn’t want to study hard in this life like I used to. If I really set my mind to it, memorizing four songs was nothing.

In my previous life, I’d been the genius who carried all the school’s expectations, known as the Einstein of my neighborhood.

“The place you’ll be performing this time isn’t a music show stage. It’s the gymnastics arena.”

While I’d been talking with the other contestants, it seemed Hyeryeong was done giving one-on-one attention to Yoo Jihye, because her feedback continued.

And I could feel the contestants, panting for breath, still trying not to miss a single word.

Hyeryeong.

I was used to seeing her lately, but even so, she was a former member of what had once been the top girl group in Korea, and she was still thriving as a solo singer. Advice from someone like her was practically scripture to rookies like us.

“Up until now, we’ve performed in relatively small spaces, but this time it’s basically a concert, so everything has to be bigger, from your voice to your movements.”

And she didn’t just say it—she immediately sang Spotlight and demonstrated the choreography at the same time.

“Huh.”

I couldn’t help admiring it.

How was it that Hyeryeong dancing alone was more impressive than all twenty-five of us dancing together?

It didn’t make sense logically, but looking at Hyeryeong’s demonstration, I could feel something that overwhelmed all of us.

‘She’s relaxed...’

A kind of ease you couldn’t find even in the best contestants, like Seo Ryujin or Ryu Ayeon. Hyeryeong’s stage had that kind of composure.

I burned every detail of Hyeryeong into my eyes.

Lately, I’d been agonizing over it for days—my own personal color.

And I had a near-certainty, like a premonition, that what Hyeryeong was showing us was exactly where the answer was.