Idol Hides His Military Service

"Going without backup dancers is the right call."

At Ryu Ayeon’s words, Seo Ryujin nodded in agreement.

'VYNNIA did the stage with only four people, so we can fill the stage with just our members too.'

Even while thinking about the stage, Ryujin’s gaze stayed locked on VYNNIA’s stage video.

Swoosh.

When Ryujin turned her head for a moment, Ryu Ayeon was also watching VYNNIA’s stage video with a serious expression that was hard to see these days.

'This one’s eyes go weird the second it’s about the stage, I swear.'

With Three Kingdom’s first mission right in front of them, Ryujin and Ayeon decided to join forces and create new choreography for the song.

-I don’t want to lose.

-For once, you and I agree.

It honestly wasn’t strange at all that the two of them were teaming up to handle the choreography for this stage.

For Ryu Ayeon of TSP and Seo Ryujin of Logic Entertainment, SY was basically a wall.

'Is there even an idol trainee who hasn’t auditioned for SY?'

For trainees who dreamed of becoming idols, SY was, in a way, the final goal.

Because the idols who defined an era always came out of SY, and the broadcast industry and idol fandoms all started with SY set aside as its own separate category.

Lately, thanks to other big agencies like TSP and YH pushing up, it wasn’t the way it used to be where SY ran the table alone.

But even so, if you asked people to name the best idol agency in Korea, nine times out of ten the answer was still SY.

And Ayeon and Ryujin hated that.

Both of them had once dreamed of becoming SY idols, but now it was different.

Now, their biggest goal was to prove that Iam wasn’t just a girl group that succeeded off the popularity of a competition program, but a girl group that could be the best purely on skill as well.

"Do you think our girls can keep up if we do this?"

"...Honestly, it won’t be easy."

Even Ryujin and Ayeon were getting a bad feeling that this wouldn’t be simple.

"It’s insane."

To be honest, it was only because Ryu Ayeon was sitting next to her, but when it came to choreography, Seo Ryujin prided herself on being good enough that she wouldn’t lose to anyone.

But the VYNNIA stage she was watching right now was crushing that confidence without mercy.

Only four people.

For an idol group, it was a truly small number.

Usually, idol groups were at least five, and sometimes over ten.

But VYNNIA was doing the stage with only four.

Normally, with numbers that low, it was a basic given that you filled the stage with backup dancers.

But shockingly, for VYNNIA’s comeback stage with "Cut it clean," there were no backup dancers.

VYNNIA was showing an unbelievable sight: filling a wide stage completely with only four members.

"They must’ve gotten ground down for real."

Even Ryu Ayeon—who would feel wronged if you said anyone liked brutal choreography more than her—was worried about VYNNIA’s knee joints, the choreography was that intense.

The reason VYNNIA didn’t look empty even with only four people was simple.

'Because they’re burning the members as fuel.'

How do you fill a stage with four people?

The answer was simple.

Move nonstop along the pathways like eight people are dancing, and grab everyone’s eyes with violent, intense motions.

Of course, if you danced choreography like that, it went beyond just being tiring—you’d be aching in every joint.

And the moment you made even a tiny mistake, it would stand out, and the stage would be likely to turn into a mess.

Watching VYNNIA’s choreography, Ryujin didn’t have the confidence to force that onto their members.

The only people who could realistically pull this off were Seo Ryujin, Ryu Ayeon—

'Maybe Lee Sion, at best?'

Their members had definitely improved a lot since debut, but learning choreography like this in a short amount of time was too much.

If they had more time—if, like their own song, they had at least a month of prep—maybe.

But for a competition that was already right around the corner, it was impossible.

"Let’s go all-in."

"Huh?"

While Ryujin was thinking about how to keep VYNNIA’s signature intense performance while still making choreography all of Iam could follow, Ayeon’s voice cut in.

'Why is even the way she talks starting to sound like Lee Sion?'

When Ayeon casually said something you shouldn’t hear coming out of a girl idol’s mouth, Ryujin shot her a glare, then waited for the explanation.

"Look at this."

"What is it?"

What Ayeon shoved in front of Ryujin’s eyes was the screen of a smartphone.

'Hydra.'

On the search page for the name of a mythological monster—the theme of VYNNIA’s song "Cut it clean," the song Iam had decided to perform—Ayeon’s finger pointed to one part.

'The last head, or the middle head, is a massive immortal head covered in hard, golden scales.'

A description of Hydra’s appearance.

Specifically, what Ayeon was pointing at was the part that said: among Hydra’s nine heads, there was one most important head covered in golden scales.

"Shinyu said we shouldn’t defeat Hydra—we should become Hydra and seduce people instead."

"...She did."

After Iam’s stage was decided with VYNNIA’s song, Shinyu shut herself in the studio for three days, and finally showed the members the newly arranged version of "Cut it clean."

Hydra, hydra, bite the night

Desire smeared into moonlight

Hydra, hydra, stay alive

The more you cut, the more fire

Even if I close my eyes, I see more

Temptation looks like truth

The more the heads multiply

The bigger both love and fear grow

What Shinyu arranged and rewrote wasn’t just a new "Cut it clean"—she even changed the title.

"Hydra Venom" shocked not only Ryujin, but also the company staff and the members.

A hard-hitting concept about tempting someone and leading them to ruin, unlike Iam’s songs so far, which had emphasized bright, lively freshness.

'It really feels like it burrows in like poison, just like the title.'

Those radical lyrics and arrangement—something you’d expect to see from SY—had been circling Ryujin’s mind nonstop, from the first listen until now.

"I’m only saying this because Lee Sion isn’t here, but honestly, if we’re Hydra’s heads, Lee Sion is the golden head."

"..."

And in choreography to match that song’s concept, Ryu Ayeon was talking about making a stage where the members became Hydra’s heads.

And she meant setting Lee Sion as Hydra’s most important head—the one covered in golden scales.

'If we put Lee Sion in the center, and me and Ryu Ayeon support...'

Ryujin immediately caught the core point of what Ayeon was proposing.

All-in. It was a cheap way to put it, but it meant: anchor Lee Sion as the stage’s center, and have the rest of the members support her.

In a normal stage, where balance mattered, it was hard to try a structure like that, since so many eyes would get pulled to Lee Sion.

But in a special situation like a competition, it was definitely something worth trying.

More than anything—

"Lee Sion’s going to suffer, huh?"

"Right?"

Since it was obvious Lee Sion would have to mind everything—choreography to facial acting—because she was taking center, for some reason, a smile crept onto Ryujin’s lips.

Ayeon seemed to be picturing the exact same thing, because she met Ryujin’s eyes and smiled too—

Flick!

"Ow!"

"Ah, sorry!"

Ayeon’s sudden finger flick smacked Ryujin right in the forehead.

"Are you insane?"

More than the pain, Ryujin was flustered at what the hell was happening, so she glared at Ayeon and spat out that she was insane.

"No... I did it without thinking."

Ayeon looked just as startled by what she’d done, staring back and forth between her own finger and Ryujin’s forehead.

-Ryujin, don’t smile like that.

-Why? Is it too lethal, dangerous?

-No, it just makes me want to hit you.

-What? Ow!

-What is it? Why is Seo Ryujin so annoyingly smug when she smiles?

-You’re dead today!!!

And Lee Sion’s past crimes surfaced in Ryujin’s mind.

'Today I’m killing both of you.'

With Ryu Ayeon getting more and more like Lee Sion, and Lee Sion committing countless crimes so Ayeon could watch and learn, Ryujin thought taking down both of them right now was the correct choice for the peace of Iam and KJ Entertainment.

***

"Mirror, the shadow that multiplies, the more I cut it, the more it spreads, hello

A lie that looks like truth, poison that turned sweet stays on my tongue."

Hmmm.

After finishing the song, Yuri tilted her head.

'The feel isn’t alive!'

Kurosawa Yuri was practicing "Hydra Venom," the song they’d sing for this competition, and she didn’t like how her voice sounded right now.

[Yuri’s singing is seriously so good]

「No foreign-member pronunciation quirks either, she’s really stable」

⤷Not for nothing she was Agbaek’s only foreign contestant

⤷If you’re talking vocals, isn’t she one of the top in this batch?

⤷Yeah, Yuri’s voice is freshness itself

⤷It matches her looks too, and her pronunciation and projection are both good

⤷She’s got main vocal written all over her

Ever since Agbaek, people praised her as the obvious main vocal, and even after she was picked into Iam and debuted, Yuri had been Iam’s main vocal.

But—

-For this DON’T BLINK, I think it’d be good if Sion takes main vocal.

During this new song’s promotion period, she had no choice but to get pushed back by Lee Sion and yield the main vocal spot.

'Can’t be °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° helped. Sion’s voice fit better than mine.'

Yuri herself thought that was true, and in reality, praise was pouring in for the Lee Sion part that took main vocal in the new song.

-When did Lee Sion’s vocals improve this much?

-I miss the staccato style from "Pink Spell"...

-But her voice is really clean, it fits this song well

-Yeah, if Yuri took Lee Sion’s part this time, it might’ve been too much

-This vibe is definitely the perfect fit

But separate from that, Yuri wasn’t going to treat this main vocal swap as just a one-time incident and move on.

'I have to be better.'

Before she even graduated middle school, Yuri came to Korea with nothing but the thought, I’m going to be an idol.

-Yuri’s an elementary-school-dropout foreign laborer! If you bully her, you’re a bad person!

-H-How does she have an invincible combo like that?

-You can’t spare one jelly for Yuri, who’s suffering homesickness in a foreign country?

-I didn’t give it, you looted it!!!

-Kyaaahhh!!!

Of course, she was at the point now where she could even make jokes about that past—she was used to life in Korea, and she’d adapted.

But—

'It was hard.'

To be honest, until Agbaek, every single day had been so brutal she thought it was hell.

-Everything else aside, when you sing, your pronunciation has to be perfect! Do you not want to debut?

-No, I can do it.

When she sang, her pronunciation had to be so perfect that even someone who didn’t know her couldn’t tell she was foreign.

So after practice, when she returned to her tiny one-room apartment, she’d fall asleep at dawn after watching Korean dramas, movies, or variety shows she couldn’t even fully understand.

-Do you want to be the reason the stage gets ruined? Are you not going to do the choreography right?

-I’ll work hard.

-Not hard. Well!

-...

In Japan, Yuri had been considered pretty good at dancing, but after coming to Korea, she realized the dance she’d learned was basically kids’ calisthenics.

The level of Korean trainees who started earlier than her—or around the same time—was so high it was unreal, and just watching them was enough to crush her spirit.

How did their arms and legs move however they wanted?

How did they match angles and formations without even looking?

At first, she couldn’t understand it.

But—

-Yuri, isn’t it hard?

-Not at all! Yuri is going to be an idol!

-Yeah. Mom believes Yuri will become an idol.

Yuri didn’t just grit her teeth and endure all of it—later, she even surpassed every trainee in the company and climbed to the top.

Yuri’s family was an ordinary household in Japan.

Not poor, but not rich either—just ordinary middle class.

Even with two younger siblings besides Yuri, her parents supported Yuri’s idol dream by sending over more than a million won every month.

Thinking about that, Yuri couldn’t be lazy for even a second.

It was the same now.

'I don’t want to give up and just say I’m lacking.'

It was natural that, for the team, the better person took the more important role.

But Yuri had zero intention of simply accepting it and stepping back.

So ever since the song came out, she’d been holed up in the recording studio practicing "Hydra Venom"—

'It’s hard.'

This wasn’t easy.

It was "Hydra Venom," reborn by rearranging VYNNIA’s song, but the bones were still there, so even the vocal parts carried SY’s signature style strongly.

'No matter what I do, that feel just won’t come alive.'

A tone that felt clean to the point of being honest.

A style that emphasized pronouncing every single syllable clearly.

For Yuri, that was extremely hard.

No matter how fluent her Korean was, Yuri was still Japanese.

-For this song, I want Yuri to take main vocal!

Even so, she had no intention of giving up.

She didn’t want to show weakness in front of the members who believed she could do it.

-Yuri is a genius!

She wanted to perfectly digest the song, swagger in front of the members, and see their faces—frustrated, but admitting it.

***

"Don’t you know the saying that in Korea, your body, hair, and skin are what your parents gave you, so..."

"Shut up! Stay still!!"

"Kkkiieeek!!! My hair!!! Are you trying to turn me into Raon, like this?!"

"Huh? Why are you suddenly talking about Raon?"

"I secretly saw her worrying because she’s been getting patchy hair loss lately."

"What? For real? Raon has patchy hair loss?"

At my words, the stylist at the hair salon kept firing off question after question like it was unbelievable.

I wanted to show the patchy-hair-loss photo of PD Raon that I’d secretly taken right away, but for PD’s human rights, I held back.

-This is all because of Lee Sion!

For some reason, PD Raon had been shrieking while blaming me.

But right now, it felt like my own head was about to get plucked bald.

"Is this really safe?"

"If you want the color you want for this stage, we have to bleach it hard. Just hang in there."

Capitalism demons so terrifying they immediately started bleaching my hair, saying they were going to dye me blond for the Three Kingdom stage coming up any day now.

-Let go of me! Shinyu, how could you betray me?!

-I’m sorry, Sion. But stage quality is more important!

Shinyu lured me in saying there was a famous handmade chocolate shop, so we should go.

And the place we arrived at was a familiar hair salon.

I noticed something was off and tried to run, but manager Kim Yunsik and Jiu—who I didn’t even know were already there—grabbed me and dragged me straight inside.

So I was stuck getting dyed blond, no escape.

'Hoo...'

Of course, it was for the stage’s quality, so I was planning to accept it calmly, but still—wasn’t it a shame to just let this kind of tyranny slide?

"If you just get through this, I’ll buy you that limited-edition Zhuge Liang figure from that Three Kingdoms set you mentioned last time!"

"You have to keep your promises."

"So stay still already!"

As expected, sometimes you just had to throw a tantrum.

Only after I got Yunsik’s firm promise that he’d buy me the Zhuge Liang figure—something I wanted but didn’t want to waste my own money on—did I stop resisting and quietly accept the stylist’s hands.