Idol Hides His Military Service

[Captivated viewers! Agbaek Episode 6’s peak minute rating breaks 15%!]

[Idol Ground 100 that even an American pop star watches?]

[Avengers team! The real stage was Avengers, too]

[Bang! Bang! Love! Stage fully revealed··· the #1 trophy goes to?]

[Ryu Ayeon reveals the true worth of the treasured trainee TSP cherished]

[Seo Ryujin takes #1 in the vocal position! Logic, the famous idol house, locks in debut members for a new girl group?]

[Agbaek contestants’ pasts? School days fully revealed ①]

[‘May Girl’ Yoo Jihae aims to debut once again through Agbaek!]

"No scruples."

Seeing the articles floating up in the Naver entertainment news section, Hyejeong muttered quietly to herself.

Normally, once a trending program airs, it’s everyday life for articles about it to pour out like mushrooms after rain.

But even then, the last shred of conscience was to hold back spoilers as much as possible, and the articles up right now were openly spoiling things like they didn’t have any conscience at all.

‘Well, I don’t care, though.’

Of course, Hyejeong was watching those articles after having seen Agbaek Episode 6 live yesterday, so it didn’t really matter.

And honestly, it wasn’t like Hyejeong didn’t understand why these reporters were doing it, either.

[Ag‧Baek Episode 6 Dance Position Bang! Bang! Love! Stage]

Views: 1,472,610 Likes 63K

‘What time is it right now?’

When Hyejeong checked the computer clock, it was 11:23.

Hyejeong had confirmed the video went up on YouTube yesterday and fallen asleep around two, so in less than even nine hours, the Bang! Bang! Love! team’s stage video had easily recorded over a million views.

Seeing a record like that happen while most people were asleep, there was no way reporters could hold back from writing articles.

Ding.

[Unni! You watched the broadcast, right?]

Just as Hyejeong was looking up reactions to yesterday’s Agbaek Episode 6, a KakaoTalk notification sounded on the phone.

‘It’s Jiyeon.’

Hyejeong picked up the phone and checked the KakaoTalk message.

Hyejeong answered simply to Jiyeon’s usual fussing question about whether Hyejeong had watched Agbaek.

「D‧Porevr」

Once a fan café for the boy group D‧P that had vied for top-tier, and also the place where Jiyeon and Hyejeong got to know each other.

It was hard to call it a job, but if you had to, Hyejeong’s job was a fansite master.

No, currently it was more accurate to say an ex–fansite master, since it was temporarily shut down.

Anyway, for a one-person fansite master, following idols’ schedules, taking photos, and uploading them to a personal site was, in truth, hard to do alone.

Because unlike idols who have agencies and someone to drive them around for each schedule, idol schedules have you touring all over the country at the drop of a hat, so taking everything by yourself was basically impossible.

So a fansite master would sometimes look for a substitute in the idol’s fan café.

And that was how Hyejeong had met Jiyeon.

Now, both had quit stanning D‧P, but at one point, Hyejeong and Jiyeon were famous as so-called big-name otaku with huge influence inside the D‧P fandom.

Agbaek and Lee Sion, which Jiyeon had been steadily pitching for two months while keeping in touch now and then.

At first Hyejeong hadn’t cared, but Jiyeon begged so earnestly that Hyejeong started watching out of curiosity, and annoyingly, Jiyeon was right.

Agbaek was packed with charming contestants, and among them, Lee Sion definitely sniped Hyejeong’s taste.

‘Already a million··· yeah, something definitely smells.’

Hyejeong admired it again while checking the view count.

The Bang! Bang! Love! team’s stage video, with Lee Sion in it, crossing a million quickly despite being uploaded at dawn.

Of course, that crazy record wasn’t made 100% by Agbaek’s popularity alone.

↳Is this the stage Joanna tagged? This is seriously insane

↳I thought K-pop was something only gay guys listened to, so why didn’t anyone tell me something like this existed?

↳I don’t know their names, but I like every single member, I want to watch this show too

↳Not trying to insult Joanna, but I like these singers who covered the song more

Countless foreigners’ comments on the stage video.

Compared to other teams’ stage videos, where the comments were almost all Korean, English comments showed up pretty often under the Bang! Bang! Love! team’s stage video.

[This is the best Bang! Bang! Love! cover I’ve ever seen. Those cute girls dance like Naki!]

That was thanks to Joanna, the famous American singer and the original artist.

The original singer Joanna posted a short impression on her SNS along with the Bang! Bang! Love! team’s stage video link.

As a superstar with over 40 million followers, Joanna’s influence was no joke.

Thanks to that, the Bang! Bang! Love! team’s stage video blew past a million views in just nine hours, a record that even plenty of top-tier idols couldn’t easily hit.

With the views skyrocketing like crazy, Hyejeong could easily find cases on Twitter and other SNS of other idol fandoms already dragging down the Agbaek contestants, saying it was just “Joanna carry.”

‘That’s a good reaction. It’s better than being a community ping-pong paddle, right?’

Seeing other idol fandoms react like that, Hyejeong actually thought the debut group coming out of Idol Ground 100 had a very high chance of succeeding.

There are groups with especially good images among idol fandoms. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Groups you don’t even stan, but the image is so favorable that people don’t say bad things, and you even get support from other fandoms.

It sounds nice at first glance, but in reality it was the exact opposite.

Idol fandoms said nice things because they didn’t think it would become a threat to the idol they supported.

So in crude terms, among fans, those idols got called a community ping-pong paddle, and a representative group like that was ‘Unine.’

A girl group Unine, who had strong skill, no scandals, and already had enough years that the fandom wasn’t growing anymore, was used like this because if a fandom wanted to attack a rival idol group, attacking with their own group could invite counterattacks.

So Unine got the unofficial nickname “community ping-pong paddle,” because idol fandoms used Unine in common when beating other idols.

Like this, idol fandoms became endlessly benevolent if they didn’t think a group threatened the group they supported.

So the fact that those people were already keeping an eye on the Idol Ground 100 contestants, who didn’t even have a debut, didn’t even have finalized members, was proof of popularity that wasn’t ordinary.

In reality,

[Even rewatching it, the members seriously have no shame ㅋㅋㅋ this is the real Avengers]

[Will a stage that beats this ever come out in an audition program again?]

[I still can’t believe that’s original choreography, it’s like the song got released just to use that choreo.. seriously a perfect fit]

[What’s insane about this stage is all 7, not a single filler member, everyone brought out their individuality, it makes no sense, how is this a stage trainees made?]

Hyejeong could see, not infrequently, users with familiar IDs from back when Hyejeong did fansite work posting about Idol Ground 100 on SNS.

[Rewatched Im Yunkyung, honestly I thought Im Yunkyung was just getting carried, but this time Im Yunkyung didn’t get pushed back by the other members]

[When Lee Gahyeon first came out as center I almost stopped breathing, visuals like Lee Gahyeon really do grab your eyes]

[When Geum Shinyu danced on beat I got chills, even if you mute it you can feel the song’s rhythm]

Not just impressions of the stage itself—interest in the contestants who performed it was spreading a lot, too.

‘It was possible because the stage itself was attractive.’

Hyejeong thought the Bang! Bang! Love! team’s popularity wasn’t just because a famous foreign singer mentioned it—because the stage itself was so intensely compelling, this explosive reaction could happen.

And the top contributors who created that reaction, no matter what anyone said, were the two who finished ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) off the end of the stage.

「- Yeah, lock and load, my pulse going quicker Taste of your lips, that poison’s killer!

As the rap part started, Lee Sion and Ryu Ayeon stood facing each other at the exact center of the stage.

Then, to the music, they lifted their right hands up to shoulder height at the same time, stepped their left feet forward slightly, and started bobbing their heads.

-Danger’s sweet, and I’m addicted

One more hit, and I’m convicted

As if they were trading the rap back and forth, when one person stepped to the right, the other stepped to the left with the same step, their movements connecting into a single pattern.

In the middle, they locked eyes and matched a pose where they swung their hands, then on the last beat they lowered their waists at the same time and made finger-gun shapes toward the camera, gesturing as if shooting—Lee Sion and Ryu Ayeon.

-Kyaaaah!!!

A cheer erupted from the audience at the two people’s perfect synchronization.」

↳This stage gets completed by that scream that popped out of the audience ㅋㅋㅋ

↳These two already don’t feel like trainee level, aren’t they just pros?

↳After seeing this, I don’t know about anything else, but I think Lee Sion and Ryu Ayeon absolutely have to debut

↳It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Lee Jungyoon smile that brightly while watching the program···

↳This is seriously insane··· honestly I didn’t really like Ryu Ayeon but after seeing this I smacked my own head hard for having such an insolent thought

Reading the comments about Lee Sion and Ryu Ayeon’s final symmetrical choreography, Hyejeong nodded without realizing it.

Hyejeong had been watching the stage without any special emotion, but now it wasn’t—no, it was very different.

Hyejeong could feel that the emotion Hyejeong was feeling right now was similar to when Hyejeong first fell for D‧P back then.

More precisely, it was worse than then, and Hyejeong had a premonition that was close to certainty that at this rate, Hyejeong would start stanning idols again.

‘Get it together, Kim Hyejeong! If you start stanning idols again, you’re seriously in danger!’

Still a college student, Hyejeong had to return from a leave of absence, go back to school, and prepare to graduate.

But for some reason, Hyejeong kept reaching for a leave-of-absence application again.

‘Damn it··· this is the perfect time.’

If you asked when stanning was the most fun, all fans said in unison that debut time was the most fun—when rookies still had that fresh feeling, worked hard to communicate with fans, and worked hard on stage.

Some people said you should only become a fan after you’ve accumulated enough “stanning material,” then enjoy looking at tons of old content, but in Hyejeong’s view, that was wrong.

Stanning was the most fun when you took the fresh bait that just dropped and burned the thread together with other fans.

As if finally deciding, Hyejeong opened the box sitting in the corner of the room with a solemn face.

Inside, though it hadn’t been used recently, a Canon EOS 70D—maintained without skipping the care—shone with dignity, the thing Hyejeong treasured second only to Hyejeong’s life.

‘Mom··· I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t use it again···.’

It seemed like Hyejeong would have to push returning to school off to next year.

***

-I would sooner betray the world than let the world betray me.

"What anime did that line come from, Sion?"

"Ahh··· this is why it’s hard to talk to someone with shallow learning."

The moment to punish the traitors who betrayed me and chose another concept had finally arrived, so I was reciting a famous line in excitement, and Yuri, listening beside me, poured cold water on it.

To think Yuri wouldn’t know this line Cao Cao spat out after killing Lu Boshe.

No matter how I thought about it, shouldn’t Romance of the Three Kingdoms be part of the mandatory middle-and-high-school curriculum?

‘Ah, that one’s Japanese, so Yuri wouldn’t learn it anyway?’

I didn’t want to admit it, but I wanted to explain to Yuri—who couldn’t understand the words of that famous-line factory, that Cao Cao bastard—the background and origin of this line, but unfortunately, there wasn’t time.

"Alright, Team A will board this bus, Team B will split up and board that van over there!"

It was time to follow the staff’s instructions as they bustled around guiding the gathered contestants.

"Suyeon, go and tear it up and come back."

"Don’t worry about me, just do well on stage. You can’t fail to get first place!"

Suyeon, who said to get first so Suyeon could get some benefits too, waved with a plucky face as Suyeon moved farther away.

As announced, the concept evaluation split into Team A, who would go up on the official stage, and Team B, who would go up on an on-site stage, and we moved separately.

‘A basketball arena··· I shouldn’t get nervous.’

They said Team B’s five teams would move to different places and perform, and our Girlish Pop concept’s Team B was doing a halftime performance at a basketball arena.

"It won’t be easy. For us, it’s always a stage we do, and we perform in front of people who came to see us, but for Team B members, that’s not it."

The other team members also seemed worried about Team B, who would be performing in a new place, a new environment, but now it was out of our hands, so we could only believe they’d do well.

"Wow··· back then there were even three buses, but now there’s only one."

"Because the headcount dropped a lot."

Now it was time for us to board the bus, too.

As I got on the bus with the team members, everyone agreed with what Jaei said offhand beside me.

Before, to move for a stage, we needed three buses, but now, even with just one bus, empty seats stood out here and there.

‘Thinking about it, it’s obvious··· after this stage, it’s the final.’

We started with 100, went down to 50, and after today, only 25—half of that—would remain.

It felt like yesterday that I tried to get eliminated at the first ranking announcement, and the fact that the program’s last moment was already coming didn’t really feel real.

From the entrance ceremony over the last two months, to the live stage, to the group battle mission, to the position evaluation.

Thinking about how the time had flown by like an arrow as I boarded the bus, I saw other contestants who were already on board.

"Boss! Over here!!"

Among them, Yunkyung shouted, sitting in the back seat of the bus and waving a hand at me.

Maybe our team boarded late—Yunkyung and the rest of the team members were already there, and like magnets, they were stuck together again, sitting all piled up.

"Have you prepared to be disposed of, Im Wiyeon."

"Sion, did you really prepare the stage that hard just to scold us?"

"It’s not that, it just happened like that while doing it."

"At the final check, I was so shocked when I saw your stage!"

"That’s right! Our team members also kept talking about your stage after seeing it!"

"Yeah?"

As I naturally sat down beside them, the brats started fussing and talking about our stage.

‘Hm··· so the hardship paid off.’

A few days before yesterday’s final check, my team members and I asked Park Taesu, the producer, for new props and equipment for the stage.

-You guys came up with this?

At first Park Taesu and the production staff looked surprised when they heard our proposal, but then, maybe it seemed fine, because they prepared what we asked for in an instant.

Thanks to that, our Starlight Umbrella team had finished full preparations for the concept evaluation stage this time.