Free Web NovelThere was one shared question among the Iam members, excluding Ryu Ayeon.
-Ryu Ayeon got cut from the debut lineup?
If you asked who the most skilled member among Iam was, ninety-nine out of a hundred people would pick the same person.
Ryu Ayeon.
Ryu Ayeon, a trainee under TSP who was now under KJ Entertainment and had become a member of Iam, was not hard to name as the most skilled in Iam.
Of course, Seo Ryujin wouldn’t admit it, but objectively, even I thought Ryu Ayeon’s skills were the most outstanding among us.
'There were issues with her as a person, but even so, it was still hard to understand how Ryu Ayeon could’ve been dropped from the debut lineup.'
As for vocals, it wasn’t “goosebumps” level, but solid—she always nailed whatever part she was assigned, perfectly, every time. And her dancing didn’t even need to be discussed.
Even now, if Ryu Ayeon really committed and danced full-out, I still couldn’t copy it perfectly.
-Ayeon is good even compared to active idols!
It wasn’t just me—Shinyu, the famous hardcore idol stan, had basically vouched for her, so there wasn’t even room to doubt her ability.
And yet, a group that dropped someone like Ryu Ayeon: LYNX.
"Nine members, just like the article said."
"After G.G, weren’t companies trying to avoid going with nine members if possible?"
"Usually because it’s hard."
Seo Ryujin and Yunkyung were talking while watching TSP’s rookie girl group LYNX on TV.
"G.G aren’t legends for nothing. Before them, people even said girl groups with a lot of members were the fast track to flopping."
"But why is having a lot of members bad?"
"First, the choreography difficulty rises exponentially."
"Ah!"
"Do you remember Spotlight, the Idol Ground 100 theme song?"
At Seo Ryujin’s words, all the members nodded.
That song—the first one we had to learn after joining the program—was something none of us, including me, could forget even if we wanted to.
"If you think about the Spotlight choreography, because a hundred people had to dance it together, it was just repeating simple moves over and over."
"That’s true!"
Spotlight’s choreography really was simple. freewebnøvel.com
The hard part was singing while doing it, but the choreography itself was basically like a set of motions, so it was easy to learn—so much so that even a beginner like me could more or less follow along.
"On the other hand, the fewer people you have, the more precise and detailed you can make the choreography onstage."
"Ryujin is right! That’s why more groups lately are reducing their member count."
That apparently wasn’t the end of it. Seo Ryujin kept going, explaining the downsides of having nine members.
"Also, when you have more members, each person inevitably gets fewer parts. And that means there’s less chance for each member to appeal to the public and to fans."
"What the hell, the more I hear, the more it sounds like nothing but downsides. So why would anyone do a nine-member group?"
Listening quietly, I couldn’t help but wonder.
A nine-member girl group where it’s hard to make choreography complex, and hard to show off each member’s individual charm.
If that was the case, why would TSP choose to walk into a thorny path like that?
"If all nine members are good, that’s all you need."
"Huh?"
The one who answered my question wasn’t Seo Ryujin.
It was Ryu Ayeon.
Ryu Ayeon, who had been staring at the TV without saying a word this whole time, answered me while still keeping her gaze fixed on the screen.
"If you gather nine members who, at other mid-sized agencies, would easily be called aces, then all the disadvantages Ryujin just listed disappear."
"Ayeon···."
"It’s fine, Gahyeon. I don’t really care right now. If images overlap inside the group, or the mix doesn’t work, it’s common for someone to get dropped from the debut lineup even if they’re skilled."
Lee Gahyeon tried to stop her like she didn’t need to push ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) herself, but Ryu Ayeon replied that she was fine, and added an explanation.
"LYNX’s members were good enough that I didn’t need to add anything during practice."
"You did?"
"Yeah. I did."
Ryu Ayeon’s standards for skill were so strict they were borderline obsessive.
She’d improved a lot, but even now, when she got absorbed into practice, she would become picky without realizing it and end up driving the members hard.
Scratch.
On days like that, you could always spot Lee Gahyeon in the dorm room, pulling the blanket over her head and writing something diligently.
「Today, during practice, Ayeon told me, ‘Lee Gahyeon, fix your position again.’ Of course, after practice ended, she apologized and said it probably slipped out because it was during practice, but I think this is something I seriously need to think about. Lee Sion has always mixed informal and formal speech however she felt like it, but lately, excluding Shinyu, the frequency of the members speaking informally to me has been steadily increasing···.」
Ryu Ayeon probably didn’t know, but Lee Gahyeon’s diary already had over a full page of complaints about her.
So for that strict demon-king Ryu Ayeon to say she didn’t need to point anything out about LYNX’s members was shocking to us.
"Because the skill is there, you don’t need to lower the choreography difficulty. With a lot of members, you can use only the members—no backup dancers—to show high-difficulty choreography with varied and complex formations."
"True. Groups with fewer members sometimes look kind of empty onstage without backup dancers when they’re trying to fill the space."
"And with part distribution, because you get short parts, the more you polish your own part, the higher the overall completion gets. More than anything, each member can show only what they’re strong at, so weaknesses get hidden, too."
Hmm.
When I listened to Seo Ryujin earlier, nine members sounded like nothing but a bad idea full of downsides. But after hearing Ryu Ayeon, it suddenly sounded like a combination packed with huge advantages.
It was like having an enemy Ezreal.
If he’s on your team, he makes you want to choke him, but somehow, when he’s on the other team, he’s unbelievably annoying, like, is there really a more busted champion than that?
'So it’s basically how you use it.'
The conclusion was simple.
A nine-member girl group coming out of a huge agency like TSP—an agency with tons of trainees and tons of top talent—was a scary opponent.
Curious how good they’d be, I kept watching the screen.
***
"···."
Ryu Ayeon could feel the tension in the living room air as silence lingered.
'It wasn’t just me improving.'
Ayeon was less shocked since she at least knew what kind of skilled people LYNX’s members were, but it didn’t seem like the other members were the same.
TSP.
At one point, it was a name Ayeon took pride in.
One of Korea’s three major agencies, and the place whose trainees had produced male and female idol groups that represented their generation.
That was enough to make Ayeon, who had dreamed of becoming an idol, feel excited.
But,
-They say Ayeon got cut from this debut lineup!
Ayeon had failed to debut under the TSP name.
In four—no, now five—years of being a trainee at TSP, Ayeon had never once thought she wouldn’t make the debut lineup.
And that was because, in Ayeon’s eyes, her skill at TSP had always been top-tier—more than enough to belong in the debut lineup.
-Ayeon’s the kind of visual you always want at least one of in a group.
It was embarrassing to say herself, but she’d even heard the directing team praise her looks and say she was a member the team needed.
And yet Ayeon failed to debut.
Throw off yesterday’s me
Fill it with a new color, yeah
No matter what anyone says, I’m still just me
Ready to go, now watch me shine
Ayeon remembered the LYNX stage she’d just watched on TV.
Amazingly, LYNX did live vocals on their debut stage.
-Are they live right now?
-Isn’t that AR?
-It’s live.
-Then if they mess up, it’ll be a disaster!
-But right now, LYNX are doing it perfectly!
AR.
Short for All Recorded, meaning an audio track that includes vocals and chorus.
It was usually used when it was difficult to do live vocals onstage—if you played AR, you could focus only on the performance, so many idols relied on it.
On the other hand, on debut stages or stages where you were supposed to sing live, it was standard to lay MR (Music Recorded) underneath.
Usually, if idols had to choose one or the other, they tended to prefer using AR.
Even if you made a small mistake, the AR volume would cover it.
So rookie groups doing their debut stage mainly used AR to focus on performance, or to prevent any possible mistakes in advance.
But as if pushing back against that, LYNX finished their debut stage live.
'If even a little thing went off, it would’ve been a disaster, just like Yunkyung said.'
Of course, since it was a pre-recording, Ayeon didn’t think they did it in one take, but LYNX’s debut stage—attempting live vocals—was still shocking.
The resonance of LYNX’s vocals matching the MR flowing from the speakers like it had been measured with a ruler.
It was hard to even guess how much they’d practiced their debut song, "Sparkle Me."
At the same time, just like Ayeon had predicted earlier, to make the most of the nine-member advantage, LYNX moved nonstop around the stage space, dancing choreography like they were throwing a festival.
It was obvious, at a glance, that the audience was getting pulled into a calculated stage: grabbing attention with formations, making the point moves simple and intense to spotlight individual members.
And when you added the obviously hard-worked-on upbeat melody and addictive hook—something that clearly had Park Taesu’s fingerprints all over it—
Ayeon could see the Iam members who were watching with her unconsciously bouncing their shoulders and humming along.
'They’re a good team.'
But watching that stage, Ayeon couldn’t enjoy it as comfortably as the others.
Nine LYNX members.
When the debut lineup was first being chosen, it had clearly been seven. Somewhere along the way, without Ayeon even knowing, it changed to nine—and every face in that LYNX lineup looked familiar to Ayeon.
They were faces she’d seen to death during trainee life.
Truthfully, among them, there were about two members Ayeon had thought would become obstacles for the team.
Two members she believed would get in the way if they joined—short trainee periods, lacking skill.
So she hadn’t even viewed them as competitors, and that was part of why Ayeon had been so sure she’d be in the nine.
But the ones who made LYNX, pushing Ayeon out, were those two.
At first, it made no sense.
Why were those two—who were clearly worse than Ayeon at singing and dancing—picked for the debut lineup?
-Ayeon, idols don’t do this alone.
Sensing Ayeon’s frustration, Park Taesu explained why she hadn’t been picked, but back then, it sounded like nothing but a ridiculous reason.
Now, though, Ayeon could understand.
'If I had been there···.'
If Ayeon hadn’t been cut, and had made it and joined LYNX—when she imagined what that would’ve looked like, she could picture something pretty ugly.
With LYNX’s nine members right now, you could feel each one supporting the others.
Even the two members Ayeon had judged as lacking were playing the role of links that held the chain together, building the stage.
And the members who had already been good were showing growth far beyond what Ayeon remembered—like you could tell how much they’d practiced for their debut stage while Ayeon was filming Idol Ground 100.
Ayeon tried to imagine whether, if she had been part of LYNX, they could have shown the same stage they had just shown.
But it wasn’t easy to picture a good version of that.
"Haa···."
After the stage ended, while the other members were chattering with their impressions, Ayeon slipped away to the balcony and breathed in the outside air.
Was it regret?
When Park Taesu had once suggested she join LYNX, Ayeon had been shaken more than she wanted to admit.
And after that day, sometimes before she fell asleep, she’d even regretted whether she had refused the offer because she got swept up in a momentary emotion.
It would be a lie to say she’d never imagined herself standing proudly in a girl group under the TSP name.
That was how big TSP was to her.
It would’ve been strange if it hadn’t affected her, when it was the place she’d poured her entire teenage years into.
"Hey, coward Ryujin. What kind of pathetic mood are you in now, all alone out here?"
"How do you always manage to cut in at exactly this timing?"
"Think of it the other way. I cut in whenever, and you’re just constantly being pathetic, aren’t you?"
"It’d be nice if you couldn’t talk."
"Then ninety percent of my charm disappears, doesn’t it?"
Pfft.
Ayeon burst out laughing without meaning to, because it was so ridiculous.
Lee Sion.
With the same shameless face as always, she had shown up and was barging into Ayeon’s alone time.
"Don’t tell me you got scared after seeing their stage?"
"You don’t even know how high the completion level of that stage is, do you?"
"Ayeon, are you stupid?"
"What?"
The second Ayeon heard Lee Sion call her stupid, she felt her body temperature rise on its own.
Hearing that from anyone else would’ve been one thing, but from Lee Sion, it was impossible to just let it go.
"Our stage is better. Yeah, theirs is good too, but I think ours is better. So what’s there to be scared of?"
"Yeah. I agree with that."
Ayeon couldn’t help agreeing with what Lee Sion said next.
LYNX’s members—without Ayeon—fit together well, and they’d pulled off a great stage.
But still,
'Our team isn’t going to lose.'
Ayeon didn’t think Iam was inferior to LYNX.
Some members who, at first, had just looked like members lacking skill.
But not anymore.
Ayeon could fill what the members lacked, and in return, they were precious members who filled what Ayeon didn’t have.
There was no seat for Ayeon in LYNX, but there was one in Iam.
'Now I get it.'
Ayeon had learned that what the public truly wanted from idols wasn’t only outstanding skill.
What fans wanted was chemistry between members—harmony.
Not one person shining alone, but everyone shining brighter together.
Ayeon now knew that she shone when she was with the Iam members.
And now, preparing to debut alongside those Iam members—
Ayeon had zero intention of getting pushed back by LYNX.
"Then what are you so worried about? Ah! Don’t tell me you bullied people when you were at TSP?"
"What?!"
"With the old Ryu Ayeon, it’s possible. It can’t be helped··· Even if it’s your fault, we’re on the same team, so if they pick a fight, I’ll help. They’ve got two more members than us, but I can cover that much, so don’t wor—"
Smack!
"That’s not it!"
"If it’s not, you should talk instead. Why are you getting more violent these days?"
"Do you ever listen when I talk?"
After bringing her palm down on Lee Sion’s back for spouting nonsense, Ayeon scolded her to stop talking crap, but honestly, inside, Ayeon was smiling.
The word "we" coming out of Lee Sion’s mouth.
Lately, Ayeon liked that word.
***
"We can’t eat this cake, right?"
"Hold it in. Tomorrow is your first music show!"
"This is so messed up! How can you tell us to only take pictures?!"
The Iam members were staring at the cake in front of them like they were about to start drooling.
Especially Lee Gahyeon and Lee Sion—their eyes were one step away from losing all reason and pouncing on the cake. And Manager Yunsik and Jiu were desperately blocking the two of them.
"Five minutes left!"
Watching, Shinyu shouted while pointing at the clock on the computer screen.
11:55
Five minutes until midnight.
It was almost time for Iam’s debut song, "Something Like It’s About to Begin," to have its official music video uploaded to YouTube.
"YouTube doesn’t always go up exactly on the dot. Sometimes it comes up a minute or two later."
"Whew··· Why am I this nervous?"
"People are going to react well, right?"
Waiting for the response to the first-ever released full-version music video, the members looked restless.
And that made sense—music video views had become a popularity metric on par with chart indicators on music sites for idols these days.
So for the fans who were eagerly waiting for the release time, the Iam members had gathered together too, taking photos as a group ahead of the upload.
Manager Yunsik and Jiu were completely focused on filming: the members gathered around the computer with the cake, waiting for the music video release.
Saying it would go on the official SNS, they insisted everyone had to look as pretty as possible, and they’d already been taking photos for ten straight minutes.
'This is definitely going to do well!'
While the other members’ attention was pulled toward the cake or the music video that was about to drop, Shinyu stared at the monitor that still said scheduled for release, practically buzzing with excitement.
Because in Shinyu’s eyes, Iam’s music video was better than any idol group music video Shinyu had ever seen.
Smoothly.
While waiting for the release, Shinyu absentmindedly brushed a hand through the hair—then suddenly felt the shorter hair caught under the fingers.
'I hope the fans like it.'
The time to show fans a new version was right around the corner.
