Idol Hides His Military Service

Staff were removing the barricades and cameras installed throughout the dorm complex.

Watching that, Hyungsoo moved toward the filming team and started checking once more whether the recorded footage had been captured well.

“I think this should be enough, right?”

“Mm... it’s fine. There are lots of usable cuts.”

During filming he had mostly watched the DubDub members who could be called the main focus, so he hadn’t been able to check the other contestants’ exploits.

But seeing the other contestants on the footage the filming team showed, there seemed to be quite a few usable moments.

—Let’s die together!

In particular, the sight of Lee Gahyun, who, after having her balloon taken by Lee Sion and getting angry, went around ambushing other contestants, was impressive—from the way she mowed through people as if to prove that she only gets done in when it’s Lee Sion, not anyone else.

Besides that,

—Yunkyung, look at this! AirPods!

—There’s Dior lip gloss here, too! This one’s really good!

You could also see Geum Shinyu and Im Yunkyung, like kids tailing a fumigation truck, sneakily following behind the DubDub members and collecting the notes they had thrown away.

Conversely, Kim Nayeon even teamed up with Yoo Ji-hye and tried to ambush Lee Sion, but unfortunately, that brave attempt—

—Hey! Where on earth did you get handcuffs! You have to unlock these!

—ended with her instantly subdued and cuffed, though Hyungsoo highly valued that spirit of challenge.

‘When you look at it, Lee Sion’s clique has really strong survivability.’

Whether it was something Lee Sion had created that way or whether contestants who were already like that had gathered around her, Hyungsoo was very satisfied with how Lee Sion’s clique performed even when scattered.

“PD, that was excellent. We didn’t expect you to expose the brand logo this much, but it really kept showing up the whole time.”

“Haha, just leave it to us. We don’t only say we’ll air it like the drama division does.”

The sponsors who had come out to check the set today also seemed satisfied that the footage turned out better than they had expected.

“When the rough cut of this shoot comes out, I’ll send it to you by email.”

“You’d go that far?”

“Of course. Ah, and the final-stage concert still has ad slots open...”

“I’ll report it to the higher-ups! Once they see today’s rough cut, I think they’ll readily approve.”

Hyungsoo couldn’t help but smile at the sponsors’ enthusiastic response.

‘I’ll do everything I can.’

In truth, even for Hyungsoo, this Battle Field: Ground Zero had been a very burdensome plan.

No matter that it was a variety show—there was no way taking this many PPLs wouldn’t be an issue.

Even so, there had been only one reason to strain things to get sponsors and even hold an event.

To re-ignite the contestants’ motivation, worn down by the survival, and at the same time to let them do everything they wanted on the stages to come without any financial constraints.

An increase in stage quality.

That, in turn, meant the program’s success.

“Alright, wrap this up quickly and focus filming back on the practice rooms!”

“Yes!”

Now Hyungsoo had done everything he could for the contestants.

All that was left was for the contestants to do it themselves.

***

Tenji.

Real name Choi Dohee, a composer under SY.

‘The song is well made.’

Having become a producer for the concept mission on Idol Ground 100, Tenji was currently watching another team’s practice.

It was no exaggeration to say all the producers participating in this mission were the hottest in Korea lately, so he was curious about the other teams’ stages.

After Tenji took a look around each of the other producers’ concept-mission teams, the last one he came to see was the girlish pop concept team.

‘They won’t be easy.’

As expected, all the other teams were presenting songs of high completeness, as if to prove why agencies these days were desperate to hire them.

Among them were a few at a level where you’d wonder why they were being released as broadcast songs and not as official album tracks.

‘Are they really trying to have a pride match?’

It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand.

—The people we originally intended to book and the ones we ended up with ended up quite different by chance, but even so they’re all folks worthy of being called the best.

About a month ago, Tenji had received a request from Seyon, the head of his agency, to participate in a program.

Tenji was someone who usually avoided TV appearances, but just this once, it had been hard to refuse the head’s request, and he decided to participate in the end.

After all, with a lineup of producers that strong, as Seyon said, you couldn’t just send anyone out, and Tenji had to agree.

If you named SY’s most famous composer, people would usually pick Producer Yoo Hyunsoo, but Tenji was also famous enough to have his own ardent fanbase.

Some even picked Tenji over Yoo Hyunsoo as SY’s best composer.

Even so, with the other producers in this concept mission, not even Tenji could declare himself the best; a middling composer would likely get humiliated.

Under the Starlight Umbrella, just the two of us

Carefully holding each other’s hearts

Even if time grows distant, I won’t forget

I’ll smile again

Even just from “Starlight Umbrella,” the song of the girlish pop concept team Tenji was watching now, you could feel how much care had gone into making it and how much thought had gone into selecting the members.

“Do you think it’s looking good?”

“Ah... hello, sir.”

“Hello. We met before at a copyright association event—do you remember?”

“Of course.”

While Tenji was watching the girlish pop concept team’s practice, a voice from behind startled him a little.

He turned, and the owner of the voice was none other than Park Taesu, the producer in charge of the girlish pop concept.

‘So it’s true he comes in every day.’

When Tenji had heard the rumor recently that Park Taesu was coming to the dorms every day to coach the contestants,

—There’s no way President Park Taesu, who isn’t that idle, would do that...

he had brushed it off as nonsense, but it seemed the rumor was true.

“Did you come to watch our kids practice? I was actually curious about the girl-crush pop stage you took, too; honestly, the two of us basically swapped, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, I didn’t expect you to pick girlish pop, either.”

Tenji nodded at Park Taesu’s words.

Indeed, if you had to say Tenji’s main genre, it was girlish pop, while Park Taesu’s main genre was girl-crush pop.

But this time, unlike usual, Tenji had chosen girl-crush pop.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this member composition were a debut lineup for an agency.”

“Right?”

He’d wanted to try something new rather than something familiar this time, but seeing the girlish pop concept’s members made him regret the choice just a little.

‘The combination really is good.’

A team’s combination isn’t decided by just one or two elements.

“First off, having a voice like Yuna’s in the team was truly heaven-sent.”

“Ah, the contestant who took the intro vocal is named Yuna?”

At Park Taesu’s words, Tenji looked at one contestant inside the practice room.

The one with a ponytail who had sung the opening.

A member whose especially striking tone had caught Tenji’s ear.

“Yes. That kind of vocal is something we can’t manufacture, right?”

That was true.

You can train vocal skill, but a natural tone is something even a big agency can’t create, so it’s one of the key criteria when selecting trainees.

“And Jiho. Jiho’s lines when dancing are really beautiful.”

Pointing to the contestant named Park Jiho, Park Taesu continued his explanation, his expression as if in ecstasy.

‘Even I, who don’t know much about dance, can tell that this Park Jiho’s dancing stands out.’

Dance was a field Tenji didn’t know well, yet he could feel that the choreography of the contestant Park Jiho, whom Park Taesu was now praising to the skies, was different from the other members’.

The choreography wasn’t flashy, and yet the way she danced lightly, step by step, was plainly extraordinary.

“Yuri could be called girlish pop itself—her concept and image fit perfectly—and Jaei captures the audience’s gaze even in the smallest moments.”

As he explained, Park Taesu looked at the contestants in the practice room with eyes as if he were in love.

“And the best is Lee Sion. Sometimes she’s a captivating vocal like Yuna, sometimes she has lines like Jiho’s when dancing, sometimes she’s a pure girl like Yuri, and sometimes, like Jaei, she captures the stage with just expression and gesture.”

Unlike when he had boasted about the other members, when he talked about Lee Sion, there was something in Park Taesu’s eyes that wasn’t love or affection.

It was as if—

‘Desire?’

It was certain that the feeling in Park Taesu’s eyes as he looked at Lee Sion was the same as the feeling in Tenji’s eyes right now.

***

“Hmmm...”

“Unni, why are you sulking again?”

“You tell cheeky lies exactly like Im Yunkyung.”

During a short break in the middle of practice.

Taking advantage of that break, Yoon Jaei kept trying to scheme against me while I was wrestling with a serious problem.

“Hey... I’m a little more earnest than Yunkyung, you know.”

“That’s because you don’t know Yunkyung.”

“Huh?”

“No... it’s better you don’t know.”

“What is it! How can you make someone curious like that and then refuse to tell!!!”

I decided to keep secret from the chirping Jaei beside me that Yunkyung possessed wealth and power that made earnestness inevitable.

In this world there are lots of things better not known.

“But Lee Sion, why are you making a face like you’re taking a dump?”

“Can’t you call it a face of contemplation?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

No sooner had I fended off Yoon Jaei’s slander than Park Jiho fired a straight fastball.

‘With all this variety, there’s no time to be bored.’

It was as if heaven, worried I’d be lonely after being separated from the kids I usually stayed with, had stuck more strong-personality brats by my side.

“Sion, is it because practice isn’t going well?”

“No. Practice is going great...”

The hope lay in Jang Yuna, who, apart from me, had the most normal gaze in our team.

At twenty this year, the oldest among us, Jang Yuna had been binding these problem children together well, so up to now we’d been able to focus on practice without any big issues.

But—

“Doesn’t it feel like something’s missing?”

Yuna’s question—was I unhappy with practice—didn’t get a lie when I answered that it was going well.

In fact, compared to the previous teams, if you only looked at average ability, the current members might be the best; everyone was doing so well.

Even I and Yoon Jaei, the most lacking, were only lacking compared to the others; we had no trouble handling this song.

Even so, I felt something was missing.

“Are you saying the song isn’t good?”

“Park Jiho, you give off Hitler’s scent.”

“What?”

“How can your thinking be so extreme.”

To Jiho’s question whether the song wasn’t good, I felt that wasn’t it.

‘The song itself is good. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times while practicing and I’m not sick of it.’

Maybe because it has a gentle, lyrical melody, unlike the songs we practiced before, “Starlight Umbrella” was a good song you didn’t get tired of even after many listens.

Before that, Bang! Bang! Love! or Lucid Dive—should I say they were somehow uncomfortable to listen to casually? Just listening while practicing made them feel a bit tiring.

“That’s because girlish pop itself is a genre that requires popular appeal.”

“Popular appeal?”

“Mm... for example, in a song like Lucid Dive, which you did before, the focus is on watching rather than listening.”

When I spoke about the differences I felt in the songs, Yuna explained why that was so.

In the past, Suyeonimong would do this for me, but with her not by my side now, I found myself relying on Yuna a lot for the parts I didn’t know well.

She had the most experience among us and, perhaps because she was interested herself, she had lots of knowledge and explained things easily and well, which helped a lot.

“Even among idol songs that were huge successes, there are lots the public doesn’t really know, right?”

“Yes! Exactly. They win grand prizes and all, but I’ve never even heard them...”

“That’s because idols in the first place don’t aim for popular appeal or easy-listening music.”

“Huh? How does that make sense? Then how do they succeed?”

“Concept and performance. You make songs specialized in those two, and build a passionate fandom.”

Yuna began explaining that what builds an idol’s fandom aren’t songs that sound good to hear, but songs that are cool to watch.

“There are songs that are both good to hear and cool to watch. But since it’s hard to achieve both, among idol songs there are many that prioritize performance and concept.”

“But Starlight Umbrella was pleasant to listen to, wasn’t it?”

“That’s another difference—between girl groups and boy groups. For girl groups, not only fandom but also popular appeal is important. Girlish pop is one of the genres excellent for popular appeal, which is why you found it easy to listen to.”

Only after listening to Yuna’s explanation did I realize why I found “Starlight Umbrella” easy to listen to, and also why I felt it was lacking.

“Performance...”

The reason I felt something missing in “Starlight Umbrella” was the absence of performance.

On previous stages there had always been at least one representative performance element, and that alone made it fun to watch; but in “Starlight Umbrella” right now, there was a certain blandness.

Of course, saying “bland” is being uncharitable—the stage itself, not because it was our team, was fully high-quality and well structured.

It was well made enough that it wouldn’t be strange at all as an actual girl-group stage.

‘But will that be enough?’

Still, I felt this alone wasn’t enough.

“We’re not just supposed to show a good stage; we need to leave a deeper impression than the other teams.”

“...That’s true.”

If the songs that build an idol’s fandom are those for cool-looking performances, then on competition day, the songs the audience might like could just as well be the ones from teams that picked different concepts.

—A person everyone likes is not a superstar.

I don’t remember who said it, but it was a pretty striking line.

Isn’t a true star supposed to drive both stans and antis crazy?

Like Seiker, the superstar of Legend of Valley.

By contrast, our “Starlight Umbrella” was just a celebrity with a good image.

There would be almost no one who disliked it, but when it comes to picking a bias, something felt missing—a good-image celebrity.

“I get what you’re saying... but we can’t change the song now.”

“Yuna’s right. What we can do is perfect this stage.”

“Sion-chan, don’t overthink it. We can capture people just fine with this song!”

When I still wore a troubled expression, the members soothed me, saying I was worrying too much.

“I’m not talking about changing the song or anything...”

“You’re not?”

“I want to add one thing.”

One idea suddenly popped into my head.

Something that, if we used it, could give the audience an impact without greatly changing the stage.

Of course, I couldn’t decide it on my own, so it was time to talk it over with the members.