Idol Hides His Military Service

"Lee Sion! Requiem is music you pray with when someone dies!"

"Isn’t that basically the same thing?"

"In a situation like this, you call it a tribute piece, you idiot!"

"Then should I, for now, take down Raon PD?"

Swoosh.

Lee Sion, now putting on the shadowboxing that even the fans all know is basically her trademark.

Haa.

Seo Ryujin, at Lee Sion’s shameless attitude, let out a sigh without realizing it, and her hand went up to her forehead.

While they were discussing the stage concept, Lee Sion had gotten fixated on the word “requiem,” no one even knew from which part.

And while the other members were horrified at Lee Sion’s violent word choice, Lee Sion continued, saying her explanation had been lacking.

"Just singing Raon PD’s song feels like it’s missing something."

"It’s not the song—she’s saying we should talk about Raon as a singer!"

"That’s exactly it! So shouldn’t we repay Raon PD’s grudge for her?"

"She’s saying there has to be something Raon PD regretted during her singer career, and she wants to show that part on this stage!"

Thanks to Geum Shinyu standing next to Lee Sion and translating the comments in real time, Seo Ryujin also started to get a sense of what Lee Sion was trying to say.

"First of all, we are going with one of Raon PD’s songs."

Once things calmed down to a certain extent, Ryujin cooled the noisy practice room atmosphere and started organizing the opinions that had come out so far, calmly.

Up to now, it had managed to proceed in a way that fit the frame of a “meeting,” but if it went on much longer, Lee Sion would start causing a scene like she was bored.

And Ryujin had learned through experience that it would spread to the other members and turn into instant chaos.

-Why does Seo Ryujin love explaining things so much?

Of course, it was also because Ryujin herself liked stepping in and organizing the situation, to the point Lee Sion sometimes called her an explanation addict.

"Since we’re a girl group directly produced by Raon PD, you could say we’ve inherited her musical universe more than SY—no, more than anyone. This perfectly fits Heritage, the theme of the second mission."

Anyway, the rest of the members nodded at Ryujin’s words as she started organizing the situation.

"Here, Lee Sion said we should focus on Raon PD herself, not the song. Does anyone have a different opinion?"

Swish.

Ryu Ayeon raised her hand at Ryujin’s question.

When Ryujin gave a small nod like she should go ahead, Ayeon started sharing her thoughts.

"The concept of mourning···no, dedicating it to Raon PD is a good idea, but how are we going to express it? Just reinterpreting a song doesn’t automatically carry the meaning of a tribute."

And at Ayeon’s words, the members’ heads started nodding again like roly-polies.

A tribute.

This word, meaning the act of respectfully offering an item, a work, a song, and so on with feelings of respect or gratitude, was a harder topic than you’d expect.

Sometimes people simply sang the person’s song as-is, but honestly, that alone would be lacking for this competition.

"I’ve already got something in mind."

"What?"

But despite the members’ concerns, Lee Sion spoke up boldly, saying she had a plan, and Ryujin was a little taken aback.

Even for Ryujin, who had experience studying stages for a long time, this wasn’t an easy topic—so how could Lee Sion be this confident?

"We install a pillar on the stage."

"Install a pillar, and?"

"We tie Raon PD up to it and do the stage around her."

"This crazy—!"

But at Lee Sion’s suggestion—so fresh it went past “creative” and into “revolutionary”—Ryujin couldn’t hold back and had no choice but to swing her hand at Lee Sion’s back.

***

"Have you seen Raon PD?!"

"Uh···no, I haven’t."

"Ah, shit, where did she run off to. I need to catch her fast."

Lee Sion’s voice, filled with madness, coming through the door.

Hearing that voice, Raon felt goosebumps rise along the back of her neck.

"Do you not think it’s okay to go out?"

"What?"

"They’re looking that desperately—maybe you should go out once···."

"CEO!"

"Just kidding."

Raon shot a sharp glare at Kim Sanghyeok, the CEO of KJ Entertainment, who had delivered the joke like it was the truth.

'Seriously! You weren’t like this at first!'

Raon remembered the first time she met Sanghyeok, who was now slyly pretending to look over paperwork like nothing was happening.

-Hello. I’m Kim Sanghyeok, and I worked at KJ Media.

Even though she was a famous celebrity, he’d greeted her with a calm expression, and he always looked like a stereotypical office worker soaked in fatigue, like he didn’t even sleep, so for a while, Raon would flinch every time she saw him.

But it had been a long time since that version of Sanghyeok became a memory.

-Making the members suffer under a part-time job concept is nice, but if that’s the case, how about putting them up for auction and selling their schedules instead? Of course, we’d donate the proceeds.

At some point, Sanghyeok started tossing out proposals that would make not only Raon but even the content team—who spent 24 hours a day thinking about how to work the members—jump in shock.

'It’s a different kind of madness from Lee Sion, but it’s still madness.'

Just as Lee Sion was now running around searching for Raon and making the ridiculous demand that Raon let herself get tied up just once, Raon could see a similar madness peeking out of Sanghyeok too.

Of course, it was only comparable enough to remind her—Sanghyeok didn’t even come close to the original.

-Just let yourself get tied up! That’s how we’ll do the requiem!

-Hey! I’m still alive, okay? And you’re casually talking down to me too!

-Agh! I’m doing it all for you, PD!

Raon didn’t have any clue what Lee Sion was trying to do, but it seemed like if she got caught, she wouldn’t end up looking good, so Raon quickly dodged Lee Sion and the Iam members and fled all the way to the CEO’s office.

"Still, isn’t it admirable they’re trying to put together a stage for you, Raon PD?"

"···It is, but."

Sanghyeok’s voice, reaching Raon as she recalled Lee Sion with her eyes briefly rolled back.

At Sanghyeok’s sudden words, Raon trailed off awkwardly, avoiding the point.

Because the reason Lee Sion was making that fuss right now was Raon herself.

For Three Kingdom’s second mission, which would be done under the theme of idol history, Raon had suggested picking one of her songs so they wouldn’t choose some other senior idol’s song and end up with an unnecessary headache.

After that, the Iam members held their own meeting, then suddenly declared they were going to put together a stage for Raon.

'They only sync up perfectly at times like this.'

Usually, no matter how much you told them to unify their opinions, they didn’t even pretend to listen, but when it came to the stage, they always unified their opinions like they were one body.

And now, no matter what Raon’s opinion was, it was obvious they were going to put together a stage for Raon.

"If this happens, it’s going to look like I suggested picking my song because I was aiming for this."

From Raon’s perspective, she was grateful for the members’ feelings, but also burdened by them.

She hadn’t made an official retirement announcement, but she was basically retired, and if they put together a grand stage just for her, it could look like too much in people’s eyes.

And on an important stage where they had to compete with rival groups, what if they ended up getting a bad result because they were busy worrying about her?

Raon was honestly worried about that.

But—

"So what if it does."

"What?"

After hearing Raon’s concern, Sanghyeok asked back like that wasn’t even a problem.

"Until I took over KJ Entertainment, I actually didn’t have much interest in the music industry."

"It showed."

"And even so, I knew about Raon PD’s singer days."

"What? Really?"

Since Sanghyeok had never said anything like that before, Raon doubted whether he was telling the truth, but even under Raon’s suspicious stare, Sanghyeok only nodded calmly.

"I still clearly remember seeing a girl younger than me on TV, performing on a stage."

And at Sanghyeok’s continued words, Raon couldn’t say anything.

Because what Sanghyeok was talking about was obviously her, no matter who heard it.

"A few years passed, and then that singer was on the TV news too. They said she was the first singer to conquer not just Korea, but Japan as well."

Listening to Sanghyeok, Raon suddenly remembered her past—back when she had no infrastructure at all from the moment she debuted, and still went into Japan.

"A few more years passed, and when she said she was going to the U.S. next, I’d never even met that singer, but I cheered for her in my heart."

"···."

"Failure? That’s just a standard people decided on, isn’t it? To me, that singer was always someone who took on challenges, and always someone who opened up new places."

Swish.

Raon turned her body without realizing it and wiped at the corner of her eyes with her hand, because she felt like if she kept listening, tears would spill out shamelessly.

"Common people always mock the one who challenges. I don’t even know who said it and there’s no source, but I agree with that line. No one has the right to mock someone who challenges."

Three years—no, now four years ago, after feeling the tall, thick wall of the U.S. market and returning to Korea, Raon had lost all motivation.

'I was confident.'

It wasn’t because life in America was physically hard.

If you were talking about hard, the Japan push—when she slammed into things and climbed up from bare ground with nothing—had been harder.

But what was truly hard for Raon during the U.S. push was that she no longer knew what she was supposed to do.

'I was confident in both dancing and singing.'

Even by her own standards, her singing and dancing skills back then had risen to the point you could call it her prime.

On top of that, SY had pushed her all-out, so she had the best production team and even cooperation from local production—yet when she saw her songs still get buried, Raon couldn’t imagine that even if she did more, she’d be able to succeed.

Maybe that was why.

She gave up on being a singer and immersed herself in studying music, something she’d been interested in for a long time.

Then by chance, she accepted a proposal from a junior, Hyeryeong, and participated as a producer for the first time in Idol Ground 100.

Meeting Iam’s members there, lately Raon had been thinking of the past more and more.

-Oh, PD, you can dance. How did you just do that?

-If you want to copy it, you’re ten years too early.

-It’s not that big of a deal. Honestly, it feels kind of old-school, so I could probably learn it in a day.

-Lee Sion, do you think an idol senior is easy? Get over here, I’ll carve hierarchy into your body myself!

-Kkyaaak!!!

As she taught Iam’s members, who were constantly thinking about how to do the stage better, Raon would end up thinking, Yeah, I had days like that too.

"Raon PD is someone who deserves to receive a stage filled with the members’ respect."

"···Seriously, Lee Sion and you both—your words just keep getting more and more, day ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) by day."

"I mean it."

Sanghyeok wasn’t the first person to comfort Raon about her failure, and Iam wasn’t the first group of junior singers to say they respected her.

But Raon didn’t know whether it was because those comforts and that respect—things that used to sound like empty echoes—were sounding different now.

Tap.

Raon placed her hand on the wall in front of her.

"Then I’m really going to work the kids mercilessly for this stage."

"What?"

"No matter if it’s my kids doing it—if they’re putting together the last chapter of superstar Raon, I’m not planning to just let things slide."

"Raon PD···."

Now that she’d calmed down a bit, Raon turned around and looked at Sanghyeok calling her.

Then she saw Sanghyeok staring at her with a strangely ambiguous look.

"What is that look? Don’t tell me you just fell for me again."

"No···I just thought saying ‘superstar’ out loud about yourself is a little embarrassing."

"···."

Raon’s face turned bright red.

***

"I really felt miserable watching last week’s broadcast."

"···."

Pinch.

Kaella forced her drooping eyelids back open again and pinched her thigh hard.

'Hyeryeong was this kind of person?'

Hyeryeong’s back-in-my-day lecture had been going on for nearly a full hour, and it felt like she might lose her mind if she slipped even a little—but she couldn’t show herself nodding off in front of a great senior she respected.

It wasn’t just Kaella. It seemed the other VYNNIA members were the same—each of them had their eyes trembling as they listened to Hyeryeong’s long speech.

-Anyone below me, all of you gather!

The first thing Hyeryeong said when she showed up at SY’s practice room right after Episode 2—the first competition of Three Kingdom—aired, and saw VYNNIA.

After that—

-I absolutely cannot stand seeing my direct juniors go around losing!

Hyeryeong stayed with VYNNIA in a half-live-in arrangement and made them prepare for the next stage.

'It’s something to be grateful for.'

Of course, having to hear Hyeryeong’s talk about grit and how she prepared for stages in the past every break during practice was brutal, but this really was something to be grateful for.

G.G.

VYNNIA’s direct seniors, and an idol group evaluated as the best girl group in Korean history.

Since Hyeryeong had been the leader of that group, there was nothing more helpful to VYNNIA than having Hyeryeong personally watch their stage practice.

Of course, it wasn’t easy in return.

-Again.

In front of Hyeryeong, who showed directly why G.G was called the greatest girl group of all time across eras, VYNNIA felt like they’d gone back to their trainee days.

Hyeryeong pointed out even the slightest disorder in their movements, and if anyone relaxed even a little, they had to meet Hyeryeong’s icy-cold gaze.

Thanks to that, for the past few days, a sharp tension—like walking on ice—had been circling through the practice room. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Don’t underestimate your opponents. Not just LYNX—Iam’s members also debuted after breaking through fierce competition just like you."

Even now, Hyeryeong was emphasizing to VYNNIA that they needed to drop their pride about being under SY and prepare the stage with everything they had.

'Iam···Lee Sion.'

Hearing Hyeryeong, Kaella suddenly thought of Iam and Lee Sion.

-Try!

Because of Lee Sion, who had taken Kaella to a convenience store and smiled brightly while recommending food, Kaella’s eating disorder had been improving lately.

Eating was still scary, but whenever Kaella remembered Lee Sion devouring food in front of her like she was possessed by hunger, Kaella’s appetite would come back.

[Iam-Lee Sion] : Next time I’ll tell you a ridiculously good convenience store combo, so sneak out.

[Me] : No... I got yelled at so badly by the managers last time, and this time Hyeryeong is with us too.

[Iam-Lee Sion] : Don’t worry. I’ll tell you an escape route. Don’t spread this anywhere, I’m still developing this route...

'What is she going to tell me this time?'

After they exchanged numbers at the convenience store last time, Kaella had occasionally kept in touch with Lee Sion.

Thinking about Lee Sion’s message—saying next broadcast recording she’d tell Kaella a secret convenience store food combo only Kaella would know—made Kaella smile without realizing it.

"Kaella! You’re listening, right?"

"What?"

"This won’t do! I guess I have to start over from the beginning. So, what I’m saying is···."

But Hyeryeong noticed Kaella spacing out like a ghost, declared she was going to start from the beginning again, and the other members’ murderous glares poured toward Kaella.

'Ah, I’m hungry.'

Kaella got hungry.