Chapter 40

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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I was a bit flustered.
Given Seon Ahyun’s personality, I thought he would be blubbering and huddled in a corner, but his face looked more composed than I expected.
How should I put this. Rather, it seemed like he had gotten his act together.
He wasn’t even holding his smartphone.
When I didn’t say anything after calling him, Seon Ahyun finally looked scared and asked back.
“W-Why…?”
“No, well…”
There was no need to stir up trouble for no reason. I trailed off and instead took out a chocolate bar from my bag.
It was an action learned from the Cha Yujin incident.
“Want to eat?”
“Y-Yes! Thank you…”
Seon Ahyun took the chocolate bar with both hands as if handling a sacred treasure and carefully put it in his bag.
“……?”
Is he not eating it?
Conscious of my doubt, Seon Ahyun said hesitantly.
“I-I have to manage my weight… If my b-body gets heavy, my dancing gets weird. I shouldn’t g-get used to late-night snacks.”
“Really?”
Someone who majored in dance was indeed different. I was about to accept it and move on when I suddenly found a contradiction.
“Didn’t you give me a chocolate bar past midnight during the grade evaluation?”
“M-Moondae is okay! At t-that time, you were too thin…”
“…….”
Was there such a backstory?
While I was feeling absurd, I heard a laughing sound from the next bed.
“Right, at that time Park Moondae was so thin that I thought he was managing to the extreme.”
“But it turned out to be his constitution? When I see you eat, wow… You don’t gain weight compared to what goes into your mouth. If it were me, I would have become a pig long ago.”
Lee Sejin and Gold 1 each added a word. Geez.
‘I purposefully ate a lot for the sake of stamina, but I was being misunderstood like this.’
It was unpleasant, but thanks to this nonsense, the atmosphere in the room seemed to have loosened up a bit.
Seon Ahyun also laughed softly from below, then when he met my eyes as I was cooling down, he was startled and started coughing as something went down the wrong pipe.
“…….”
Truly… a unique guy.
Without a word, I threw him the water bottle from my bedside.
Seon Ahyun caught the bottle after a few clumsy attempts and drank.
And he muttered softly.
“I, I want to do well. This time, even more.”
“…Right.”
Looking at that remark, it seemed Seon Ahyun had checked the internet public opinion after all. However, it seemed he hadn’t looked into it deeply, so he was maintaining his composure.
I pondered for a moment, then subtly brought it up.
“…Since it might only make you unnecessarily anxious, let’s not look for anything else on the internet and just do data research.”
“Ah…”
Seon Ahyun let out an exclamation with a mysterious face, then suddenly answered with spirit.
“I-I already knew about it, so I-I’m okay. I’m p-prepared.”
“Hm?”
‘What kind of talk is this again?’
Seon Ahyun muttered with an embarrassed expression.
“B-Before filming, I had already seen all those posts. S-Since I kept looking, they kept coming out…”
“…….”
So that’s why he looked so miserable when we met on the first day of filming.
At that time, public opinion wasn’t as bad as it is now, but isn’t the internet where all sorts of things come up under the surface anyway?
Perhaps because Seon Ahyun wasn’t very familiar with the internet, he had looked into everything without knowing when to stop.
‘Just how far did he search?’
I had a feeling he had even checked the most unhinged communities where only posts cursing at idols are uploaded all day long.
Seon Ahyun added words like an excuse.
“I k-knew it would turn out like this someday. I also p-prepared my mind. I’m o-okay. I-I’m used to it too.”
“Is that so?”
“Y-Yes!”
Seon Ahyun nodded his head quickly, but I felt subtly troubled.
‘Talking about being used to it probably means getting cursed at for his stuttering symptoms.’
I had thought about it before, but it was certain that he was a guy who had tasted hell in his peer relationships. Teenagers these days are scary.
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
“Don’t worry, it won’t last long. Once you do well on stage, it’ll disappear again.”
“W-Will it?”
“Yeah. It’s a survival program.”
Unless it’s a guy who really deserves to be cursed at, keyboard warriors are all like that. Since reality is shit, it’s fun to bite someone you’re allowed to shout at on the internet.
Once another celebrity becomes a hot topic, they’ll flock over there.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I might be the one getting cursed at from tomorrow.”
“Huh? N-No…! Y-You haven’t done anything wrong…”
“You haven’t done anything wrong either.”
“…….”
When Seon Ahyun fell silent in embarrassment, Lee Sejin answered instead.
“So you want to say to Ahyun, ‘Don’t think getting cursed at is natural,’ like that? Kya~ Isn’t Moondae so cool. If I were a viewer, I would’ve already bought his stock.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Wow. This doesn’t work anymore either?”
Lee Sejin chuckled and rolled around on the bed. Gold 1, who used the bottom bunk, was horrified but didn’t spare words of encouragement for his teammates.
“Stop it, you crazy guy, the bed’s gonna collapse! …Right. Let’s just work hard. Let’s definitely do well this stage!”
“Let’s do that!”
Constant efforts to somehow sublimate the situation into motivation lifted the atmosphere of the bedroom. A harmonious atmosphere was energetically fostered.
And Kim Raebin, who had been keeping his mouth shut all along, muttered in a small voice.
“Yes. In that sense, I’ve found and organized example materials for costumes and patterns for props. Is it okay to upload them to the group chat now…”
“……Ah.”
“Ah.”
That’s right. That was the purpose of looking at the smartphone.
Apparently, he had found them long ago but couldn’t bring it up because of the atmosphere.
Then again, from Kim Raebin’s perspective, since he had been cursed at in all sorts of ways during the 1st team match, the current internet atmosphere would rather be a saint. There would have been no problem in exploration.
“……Ahem, of course.”
“Yes. I’ll upload them.”
At the same time as Gold 1’s sound of clearing his throat echoed in the bedroom, vibrations came into smartphones here and there.
I checked the materials Kim Raebin uploaded.
[Colors_Materials_Patterns List_Pattern Base.xlsx]
[Prop Patterns_Details List_No Base.xlsx]
When I clicked on them, they were organized exactly by category, showing no ordinary skill. Perhaps the production team hadn’t expected this level either.
‘He has good skills.’
Exclamations and simple praises were exchanged, as everyone seemed to have similar thoughts. Lee Sejin even whistled.
“…Thank you.”
After Kim Raebin’s sheepish thank you, the teammates continued the discussion about costumes and stage props until 3 AM.
It seemed as if the will to somehow make a good stage was being expressed through the action of ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’
Even if I had the Status Window, they were truly amazing guys.
* * *
After spending another two days like that, clinging to labor and practice from dawn to dawn, the damn mid-term evaluation time came again.
This time, the stage director, music director, and even the costume team sat down to evaluate together with the trainers.
First, if I were to evaluate myself, the current direction of this team was fine even thinking as objectively as possible.
Still, I wasn’t particularly expectant. Because I had never received a good evaluation in mid-term feedback until now.
But this result was… overtly good.
“I loved it.”
“Let’s just keep going like this!”
First, the feedback started with these sentences.
Watching the grinning trainers and the impressed guest judges, the teammates realized the situation in a gradation.
First, the choreographer.
“Who choreographed this? Everyone did it together? No, there must be someone who led it. …Wow, did you guys coordinate your words? You really all did it together? ……Fine. Who did it will show up on broadcast. Anyway, you did well, so I have nothing to say.”
Next, the vocal trainer Mudie.
“First of all, I’m so proud that your pitch doesn’t shake while moving like that! And in line with the newly interpreted parts, the fact that the way you sing changed from the original is very attractive. Let’s go for the full song with this feeling!”
Even Youngrin rarely praised openly.
“I know it’s a stage that took a lot of thought and practice, but the most excellent point is that it doesn’t feel like it’s being revealed like an amateur. Even though it’s a mid-term evaluation, it already has completeness. I want to see it on stage soon.”
Up to this point, the teammates became ‘Thank you’ bots, repeating their thanks.
Amidst the succession of favorable reviews where it wouldn’t be strange for anyone to burst into tears of emotion, the director and costume team also didn’t spare their praise.
“Looking at the draft you wrote here, we could immediately feel that you paid a lot of attention to the details. Looking at what you’ve prepared now, I think it will suit the stage well.”
“This is a team that proceeded with the arrangement very smoothly. There is a friend who already knows a lot, and since they organized exactly what they wanted without saying different things among themselves, pulling out the sound was enjoyable for us too. Seeing it today, the stage is as cool as our expectations.”
“This team entered the production stage for costumes very quickly. The concept was clear and there were few ambiguous parts. I want to see you perform in the clothes we made on stage soon~”
After this whirlwind of praise ended, the teammates’ faces were really worth seeing.
Because they were just nodding with stupid expressions, perhaps because they were happy but it didn’t feel real.
Even Lee Sejin couldn’t do the closing remark properly.
“Team, no, uh… thank you. We will work harder!”
“Don’t hurt your bodies by working too hard!”
Clap clap clap. And with the sound of the judges’ applause, we returned to our seats after a group greeting.
The teammates, who were completely out of it, only gave off reflexive reactions following the trend while watching the other teams’ stages. They were nothing but an audience.
I was also dazed.
‘It’s going this smoothly?’
Having been immersed only in completing this without sleeping properly for a few days, I couldn’t be sure how good this would look.
At most, ‘it should be okay’ was the end of it.
‘…Anyway, I feel good.’
I was even slightly elevated by a sense of accomplishment.
I just gazed at the other teams’ performances and enjoyed that sense of accomplishment for a while.
The mid-term evaluation ended completely at a time close to midnight.
“It was so good.”
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
The teammates muttered from their beds. Whether they only realized it properly after everything ended, a sense of happiness that hadn’t been there before flowed from their voices.
“I think we can really do well.”
“R-Right.”
This pattern of agreeing flowed a few more times.
‘Is it bedtime as it is today?’
I could sleep for more than 4 hours for the first time in a long while.
I quickly closed my eyes. But at that moment, work talk came up again.
“Ah, we haven’t decided on the color of the costume sleeves.”
“Oh, right.”
They were truly persistent guys. I forced my eyes open. Damn it.
“I’ve also looked at a few things, hold on a second.”
A small sound of Lee Sejin tapping and operating his smartphone screen echoed.
“I saw it here……”
However, the next words did not follow. Lee Sejin was just frozen while holding his smartphone.
“What is it?”
“Why are you like that?”
Lee Sejin, whose face was frozen white, was looking at some screen.
The smartphone screen glowing in the dark bedroom clearly showed the color even though the distance was quite far.
‘It’s a gossip board.’
It was a message board famous as a hotbed for all sorts of conflict materials, rumors, and controversial posts, linked with portal sites.
Without saying anything more to Lee Sejin, I accessed that board with my smartphone.
And I saw a post that had already entered the rankings even though it had only appeared 30 minutes ago.
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[3rd place! I’m accusing Lee Sejin from Idol Inc. of school violence. (425)]
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It was a big and beautiful landmine.
‘Son of a…!’
No wonder my luck was good today.