Idol Hides His Military Service

“Huh? Jiwon, you’re here too?”

“Yes, it’s been a while.”

“Oh wow, I guess this school violence thing is really hot. You don’t usually come to stuff like this.”

“I was a little interested.”

A place on the third floor of the Mplay broadcasting station called the “Interview Room.”

Normally it was a space used for production presentations, but sometimes it was used for special purposes.

Like the press conference for the Lee Sion school violence controversy that was about to start.

And the cameras and reporters filling that press conference room.

Among them, Yoon Jiwon from Media Daily was calmly checking the current situation on her laptop as she exchanged greetings with other entertainment reporters she knew.

“I read the article you posted this time, but isn’t it kind of risky? The public reaction is sharp as hell right now.”

“Still, the whole story hasn’t even been revealed yet. We have to stop it from being pushed too hard in only one direction.”

At Jiwon’s answer, a colleague reporter nodded with a troubled expression.

“That’s true, but... do you think anyone here cares about that? Everyone’s going to have their eyes on fire, looking for something to rip off and chew on.”

“...”

At that last reporter’s words, Jiwon looked down at her laptop.

Then one article and its comments caught her eye.

[Is excessive, indiscriminate digging into personal information really right?]

「After an exposé post about a contestant on an idol survival program that’s been a hot topic recently was posted, people’s interest in it has been intense.

However, going beyond interest, unconfirmed, indiscriminate rumors about that contestant are spreading, as if it has already been confirmed as fact...」 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

↳Did you get paid by Mplay?

↳Here comes the Lee Sion fangirl reporter 😂 “unconfirmed rumors” my ass ㅋ

↳The documents showing she got disciplined by the school violence committee are already out—so isn’t it basically confirmed?

↳You just want to act all morally pure and look down on the public, huh? Try demanding that morality from the Lee Sion you’re sucking off.

When Jiwon saw the comments under her article, a sigh escaped on its own.

'Even if someone dies, they won’t change...'

Usually, rather than incidents and scandals like this, Jiwon focused on analysis pieces or reported features, but this time there were so many things that bothered her that she attended the press conference, unlike usual.

'It spread too fast and too deliberately. It’s definitely Park Sunwoong pulling something again.'

To people, if you say online newspaper reporters—especially entertainment reporters—they all look like trash reporters, but Jiwon was someone who still kept at least a minimum line.

Rather than dragging someone into the gutter, she had a small but lofty dream of writing articles about the culture industry as a whole, and contributing to the development of Korean culture through the power of reporting.

On the other hand, Park Sunwoong, an entertainment reporter like her who ran an online newspaper called Hot Issue Journal, was the exact opposite kind of person.

-Do you think that makes money?

That was what Park Sunwoong said when he ran into Jiwon in a private setting.

Always sensational, and not caring whether the person he wrote about fell into the gutter or not—Park Sunwoong was the kind of greedy person who was just thirsty for clicks.

-That thing with Choi Jinwoo’s drug controversy last time was Park Sunwoong too.

He stitched together footage of the actor catching a cold and getting a prescription at the hospital, ran it like he was taking illegal drugs, and seriously damaged the image of a male actor—then brushed it off as “just everyday reporting,” on top of that.

And beyond that, he was famous in the industry for always writing articles that mixed one spoonful of truth with a whole lot of lies, misleading people.

So it wasn’t strange that Jiwon felt a chill when she saw Park Sunwoong leading the charge on this Lee Sion school violence controversy.

-I’m going to go to the press room.

-What? I was supposed to go.

-I think I need to see the scene.

The press conference scheduled for 12 p.m. today, held by Park Hyungsoo, the main PD of Idol Ground 100.

She’d originally planned to send a junior, but Jiwon had rushed to attend because she felt like she needed to go in person.

It felt closer to a premonition that something was about to happen.

Getting a feeling like that and just sitting still was neglecting her duty as a reporter.

'It’s not like PD Park Hyungsoo would book a press conference without thinking.'

More than anything, it was suspicious that Park Hyungsoo, the main PD of Idol Ground 100, had scheduled a press conference saying he would personally speak about Lee Sion’s school violence controversy.

Of course, for now, it seemed most likely that he would apologize for causing controversy, abandon Lee Sion, and cut the connection to the program.

'But a written statement would be enough for that.'

There was no need to hold a press conference, call reporters in, and talk about Lee Sion’s school violence.

To Jiwon, it felt like Mplay was planning something instead.

In that sense, she felt like she wouldn’t be satisfied unless she saw today’s press conference with her own two eyes.

***

“Is there even an answer to this?”

“Honestly, no. The disciplinary documents came out last night, didn’t they?”

“How the hell did that even get spread? That’s gutsy. It’s illegal.”

Murmurs spread among the reporters gathered in the press room.

'Illegal or not, it’s only illegal if you get caught. They can’t catch this anyway. Those guys in China are really good at this kind of thing.'

Hearing their talk, Park Sunwoong, who was typing up an article on his laptop, smiled faintly.

The disciplinary documents on Lee Sion that Park Sunwoong got by feeding money to a teacher.

Posting that directly in his own article would be something only complete idiots did.

No—on top of that, the moment you get greedy and try to be the first to post a targeted hit piece like this as an exclusive, it’s bound to cause problems, so he had to approach it very carefully.

First, based on the school violence committee documents, Park Sunwoong approached the victim.

-If you post the exposé, Jang Daeseon, I’ll write it up as an article right away. Lee Sion doing well is annoying, isn’t it? Don’t you think so?

What happened between Lee Sion and Jang Daeseon, and why both sides got disciplined, didn’t matter.

What mattered was the fact that Lee Sion hit a girl named Jang Daeseon and got disciplined by the school violence committee.

So he persuaded the victim, Jang Daeseon, to post the exposé, and after that, Park Sunwoong posted an article as if he’d written it after seeing the exposé.

Then this time, he used a Chinese broker.

-For one million won, I can post it to all the Korean communities within two hours.

A perfect plan: hand over the disciplinary documents he had on Lee Sion to a Chinese broker and have them spread naturally through Korean communities.

Thanks to that, on the internet right now, Lee Sion’s school violence was basically as good as confirmed.

[Where did all the Lee Sion stans go? The fact-check you loved so much is done now, isn’t it?]

[If it’s Measure No. 3, it’s not “kids messing around,” it’s a level classified as real school violence. It’s basically locked.]

[I’m seriously pissed. Does it make sense for someone like that to come out saying they’ll be an idol?]

[The kids who got eliminated because they didn’t get votes thanks to Lee Sion must be so wronged.]

[Her aunt was the main PD, so didn’t the staff know about Lee Sion’s school violence and push her anyway?]

Up until the documents spread, public reaction toward Lee Sion had been split half-and-half, cautious.

But the moment the documents were revealed, the criticism toward Lee Sion went on a rampage, like an 8-ton truck with its brakes cut.

'You picked the wrong opponent.'

Watching that reaction, Park Sunwoong felt like a decade-old blockage in his chest had finally gone down, and his insides were completely refreshed.

Because it was obvious that Lee Sion, who had dared to knock out his own daughter Park Soyoon and lock her up in her room, would soon suffer far worse pain than his daughter.

And as a bonus, Mplay and Idol Ground 100, who had failed to recognize Park Soyoon and gave her a devil edit, were also expected to take a huge hit, so it was a perfect success of a perfect operation.

Even right now—

-Today at 12 p.m., regarding the recent controversy, I, the main PD, will hold a press conference myself and answer questions.

So desperate, he’d even scheduled a press conference with the main PD Park Hyungsoo saying he would personally respond to the controversy, hadn’t he?

Park Sunwoong had no intention of missing a festival like this, so he’d come early and was waiting on-site.

The moment the press conference started, he planned to pour out all the questions he’d prepared, and imagining Park Hyungsoo flustered and unable to even answer properly made it hard for him to hold back his laughter.

Of course, Park Sunwoong wasn’t the only hyena ready to tear into Park Hyungsoo.

“First we should ask whether they’re going to kick Lee Sion off...”

“That’s too obvious. We should ask by linking it to Kim Miyoung, who used to be a PD.”

“So we go with the angle that they knew about the school violence controversy and covered for her, right?”

The kind of people who got the most excited when someone fell into the gutter were, in the first place, entertainment reporters.

Even now, watching reporters chattering in excitement, fired up to rip into Lee Sion and Idol Ground 100, it really felt like a proper festival was about to open today.

“He’s coming in!”

And exactly at 12, main PD Park Hyungsoo entered the press conference room.

'Huh? What is it?'

From Park Sunwoong’s point of view, he figured Park Hyungsoo should be sitting there with a face like he’d eaten shit, looking like he’d given up on everything in the world by now.

'He’s smiling?'

Sitting down at the desk prepared in the press room, Park Hyungsoo’s mouth corners were lifted just slightly.

***

“Sion! It’s starting!”

Shinyu grabbed my hand and dragged me in the end right in front of the TV.

“Wow, a ton of reporters showed up.”

“Lee Sion really became a superstar.”

“But if they clear it up with a press conference, it’ll get resolved, right?”

Six contestants gathered in a tight little cluster in front of the TV, excluding me.

Seo Ryujin, Ryu Ayeon, Kurosawa Yuri, Im Yunkyung, Lee Gahyeon, and Geum Shinyu.

'If it gets out that these guys are with me, it’s going to be a complete disaster.'

Even though we were gathered at Yunkyung’s house, which you couldn’t beat when it came to security, if it got found out they were with me, it was obvious they’d take damage too, so I told them it was fine and I’d stay alone, but—

-You call Ryu Ayeon a coward all the time, and you’re the biggest coward yourself.

-That’s right! I mean—no, we believe you, Sion. You didn’t do anything wrong, so why should we hide that we’re together?

-I’m not going anywhere, leaving behind the captain who pinned lieutenant bars on me.

They dragged me to Yunkyung’s house almost like a kidnapping, forcing it through.

'This is crazy, you little punks...'

What were they even trusting to be this fearless?

They were still young enough that they didn’t know how scary the world was, so I should’ve given them a sharp scolding, for sure.

But for some reason, the words wouldn’t come out of my throat.

-What, Lee Sion, are you crying?

I wanted to throw out a line like usual at Lee Gahyeon for slandering me so brazenly, but my throat felt itchy, and my eyes stung like someone had sprinkled pepper on them.

It’d been a long time since I felt like this.

Back in my past life, during my military academy days, when I did something wrong and got punished by running laps around the drill field in full kit—

-Hey, run with me.

The image of my classmates, who ran with me around the ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) drill field until the punishment ended without adding a single extra word, overlapped with these guys right now.

And that wasn’t all.

[Lee Sion, I believe you didn’t do anything wrong. Hang in there!]

Starting with the text Hyerim sent me—Hyerim, who had been in Class F with me and got eliminated at the previous ranking announcement.

[If you need help, Sion, contact me. I’ll see if I can talk to people at my company.]

Yoo Jihye, who couldn’t come today, said she would check whether she could help through her agency.

[Sion, I’m fired up right now!]

Suyeon, who couldn’t come with us because of a family event, even sent me a KakaoTalk message with a screenshot, saying she was fighting people online in real time.

And beyond that, from old classmates to people I got to know through this program, messages kept coming in, to the point where if I didn’t keep my phone charging, the battery would die in under thirty minutes.

'If it’s like this, I can’t just give up.'

If the problem got bigger, I’d even thought maybe it would be better to quietly take everything on myself and drop out of the program before it hurt other people.

But now I realized again that, before I even knew it, a lot of people’s hands were resting on my shoulders.

The place I was standing now wasn’t somewhere I climbed up alone, and it was also somewhere I climbed by stepping on the dreams of other people who had been running toward the same goal.

-Your pack is lighter than your father’s shoulders.

A slogan I’d seen posted while marching, crossing that steep pass, suddenly came to mind.

A heavy sense of responsibility?

Even better.

I’m not someone who runs away from that.