Free Web Novel"Thank you always for cheering us on!"
"Tha—pff!—you, Ryujin!"
"Kh— I’ll eat it well!"
"Ryujin, if it’s something you made, I could even eat poison!"
It was a pretty rare sight.
The sight of Seo Ryujin—no, the chocolate-selling idol—wrapped up in a red scarf and handing out chocolates to fans was definitely not something you saw every day.
"Hey, Ms. Seo, hand them out faster! At this rate, the fans are going to collapse waiting!"
"Ryujin, I respect you! The fact you can endure even in that outfit!"
"I was the one who almost ended up like that, right? Wow...."
And the teasing pouring in at Seo Ryujin from me and the other members.
"Shut up!"
At first, Ryujin clearly heard it and ignored it, focusing on handing out chocolate to the fans, but after the nonstop mockery, Ryujin must’ve hit the limit—Ryujin turned around and shouted.
Ryujin’s face was already as red as the scarf Ryujin had wrapped around the head.
'I wanted to put Ryujin in something even more humiliating, but this was the limit.'
The reason Ryujin was handing out chocolate today in an outfit that was guaranteed to be used as teasing material for the rest of time was because of the reverse-tribute content we filmed a few days ago.
In that chocolate-making match, the penalty given to Seo Ryujin—who took dead last—was to cosplay and personally hand out chocolate to fans.
-How about a matchstick girl outfit? Put chocolate in the basket instead of matches and have Ryujin hand it out to fans. I think it’d be funny.
The penalty I suggested at first was Piccolo cosplay from Dragon Ball while handing out chocolate, but sadly, Producer Raon vetoed it.
Thanks to that, Ryujin was handing out chocolate to fans in a normal cosplay outfit, and the sight of fans happily receiving chocolate from Ryujin was genuinely nice to see.
Of course, we couldn’t hand out the exact chocolate we made during filming, so what we were giving fans now was a version that got fixed and remade properly after the shoot ended, with a professional brought in.
And to support our reverse tribute, the company also prepared coffee trucks and lunch boxes for fans at every music show during this final week four, so we were able to do a pretty generous reverse tribute for the fans.
Because of that, the vague, unplaceable sense of debt I’d always had somewhere in my chest—like we’d only ever been receiving from fans—felt like it was easing up a little.
And more than anything, it felt best of all that Seo Ryujin—who’d been the spearhead of the Anti–Lee Sion faction this whole time—was getting divine punishment through karma and suffering in humiliation.
The matchstick girl outfit was the kind of cute, tiny outfit that only someone like Yunkyung would really suit.
Which was why Ryujin, with that mature face and cute outfit mashed together, looked incredibly unbalanced right now.
It wasn’t the Piccolo makeup I’d originally planned, but even so, this was a pretty satisfying result.
The fans were cackling while they watched Ryujin in matchstick girl cosplay, so the plan seemed like a success.
'If Lee Gahyeon wore that, it would’ve been even more perfect.'
There was a lingering regret that if Lee Gahyeon—who had the most mature face and build among us—had worn it, the situation would’ve been even funnier, but I’d get another chance anyway. I could make Lee Gahyeon do it then.
"It’s time to get ready for rehearsal."
"Yes! Once I hand these out, I’m done!"
After watching Ryujin hand out chocolate to the audience fans for a while, it was already time to start the music show rehearsal.
At Yunsik saying we needed to move, Ryujin’s hands got frantic, but since Ryujin kept handing them out diligently despite the embarrassment, our handmade chocolates were soon fully distributed to all the fans who’d gathered.
We gave the fans one last group greeting, got into the van, and headed down into the broadcast station’s underground parking lot.
"Hoo... we made way too much chocolate. For a while, I don’t even want to eat anything even vaguely chocolate-adjacent."
"Still, making chocolate together every night was fun!"
"Yeah. Even though I was tired, seeing fans happy to get it made it enjoyable."
In the car, the members started talking about their thoughts on the reverse tribute that had gone on for a total of four days up through today.
For this reverse tribute, we had to make chocolate for 600 people, so it wasn’t just one day—we suffered like hell every night for three days.
But it was that worthwhile, so it felt satisfying, and like Shinyu said, it was also pretty fun to bicker with the members while making chocolate every night.
"Seo Ryujin, what’s that?"
"Ah, this? A fan asked me to pass it on as a gift for the CEO."
"What? A gift for the CEO?"
After we got in the car, Ryujin was rummaging around and taking off the matchstick girl outfit, but Ryujin was also holding something tight to the chest, so I asked—only to get an answer I didn’t expect.
"What is it?"
"Cabbage juice. They said it’s good for the stomach, so they told me to make sure he drinks it."
"Ah."
A gift for the CEO, not even for us, so I was curious what it was—but the second I heard what it was, I let out an "Ah" without meaning to.
[For modern people’s chronic illness—stress stomach health—GelsQ!]
All of a sudden, an image flashed through my mind: CEO Kim Sanghyeok holding stomach medicine and giving a thumbs-up.
[This is insane lol why is the agency CEO in the ad instead of the idols?]
That’s right.
Our KJ Entertainment set an industry-first record—having the entire company appear in an advertisement.
The CEO, Producer Raon, even the employees—everyone ended up in the ad, and of course, the trigger for that was the self-content we filmed.
-Ads came in from a pharmaceutical company and a food company.
The day after our reverse-tribute self-content went up, CEO Kim Sanghyeok called me and the members into the CEO office and, with a serious face, told us an ad offer had come in.
The chocolate-making match we did in our self-content was becoming a hot topic in a lot of ways.
First, among fans, word spread that they could receive a gift we made ourselves, to the point where we even heard that the music show audience application rate had increased by several times compared to last week.
-At this level, these are numbers you only see during an Exy comeback.
The music show production staff clicked their tongues, saying it was the kind of competition rate they only saw when Exy—the most popular group currently in existence—had a comeback.
And of course, it didn’t end there.
A food company that watched our content—where the topic was making chocolate—offered us a chocolate ad.
-We’re making this offer because we think Iam’s bright image can appeal to the main consumer group for chocolate: women.
They said they were releasing a new mint-chocolate product and wanted to select us as the model to emphasize a fresh, refreshing image, and up to that point, it was a perfectly plausible offer.
'The views were no joke.'
Our self-content already tended to get more views than other idols’ content, and this reverse-tribute episode was already past one million views, causing a massive stir, so it wasn’t strange that ads came in.
But—
-We would like to invite Iam and the CEO as the new models for our GelsQ.
Nobody expected a stomach-medicine ad.
The marketing team lead at Dongyu Pharmaceutical said it left a strong impression that the CEO calmly took stomach medicine before tasting our chocolate in the self-content.
And it wasn’t only Dongyu Pharmaceutical. Even among regular people, the CEO was getting a lot of attention lately.
[You can literally see the CEO gradually adapting to Iam]
"At first, you could see him flinch every time Lee Sion and the members did something insane, but these days he doesn’t even look surprised.
He just talks in this extremely polite tone while fact-smacking Iam members, and it’s fucking hilarious."
↳For real, the face is a tired office worker, but everything he says is a fact loaded with malice. It’s so damn funny
↳In this self-content, Raon swallowing the pill without even asking after the CEO handed it over before the tasting is insane too
↳Only Hyeryeong can’t adapt and has question marks in the eyes lmao
↳Ever since he applauded, moved, at Ryujin’s speech back during the leader selection, I knew he wasn’t an ordinary guy
↳How is it possible there isn’t a single normal person here, from idols to the CEO?
↳You have to be at least that level to handle Iam
Since our self-content was # Nоvеlight # filmed internally, company people naturally showed up a lot, and among them, the CEO—who showed up often as a judge—was already basically a celebrity among fans.
And the scene of the CEO calmly taking stomach medicine in this self-content spread through communities as a post titled "A typical semi-agency CEO," and it became a huge hit.
After seeing that, Dongyu Pharmaceutical offered our entire company an ad for their stomach medicine, GelsQ.
-Since Dongyu Pharmaceutical is a company Iam has had a good relationship with since Agbaek, accepting wouldn’t be a bad idea.
-The fee is average, but medical ads like this are usually done by trustworthy middle-aged actors, so if Iam does it, it’ll definitely be a big promotional impact.
After discussions, the company decided to accept the ad.
And so, the shocking Iam stomach-medicine ad was born.
The concept was simple.
When me and the members caused various incidents, the company employees watching, Producer Raon, and even the CEO would silently drink stomach medicine.
-We’re planning to push it out fast to ride the buzz.
I remembered what the Dongyu Pharmaceutical employee said—that it would show up on TV soon.
Usually, ads take time because there’s a lot to do from contract to casting to filming, but because everything moved so fast this time—
Yunsik, our manager, broke out in a sweat trying to adjust our schedule.
And since we also filmed a mint-chocolate ad together that would be airing soon, we’d definitely harvested a lot from this one piece of self-content.
"Iam, you’re up for rehearsal soon, so please get ready!"
"Yes!"
While I was thinking about the ad shoot, our rehearsal turn arrived before I knew it.
Back then, our rehearsal order was always that disliked middle slot, but—
"It feels like our treatment changed."
"Is this the power of terrestrial 1st place?" fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"They were always kind, but lately the staff feel even kinder!"
Now we were getting a rookie treatment so exceptional it was insane: a slot near the very end.
If you asked why the last slot was such a massive benefit for rookies—
'The first slot makes you come way too early and wait forever, and the middle slot is the absolute worst because you get wedged in and it’s bad in every way.'
Rehearsal order was extremely similar to the firewatch rotation in the military.
The only difference was that unlike firewatch—where first shift is the best—the last rehearsal slot is the best. But the fact that the middle slot is the worst is the same.
So it was that classic Confucian-style rehearsal order: veteran singers piled into the last slot, rookies wedged into the middle, and mid-career acts clustered early.
But after we took terrestrial 1st place, starting with that rehearsal order shifting, I could feel a lot of things changing.
For example, little things, like staff who used to ignore us even when we greeted them now returning greetings warmly.
And the music show production team starting to do us various small favors.
'This is when you need to be even more careful.'
I’d seen plenty of people get cocky at times like this, acting like they were something, then getting marked as an eyesore, so I was being even more careful with how I acted.
If the members acted that way, I was ready to step up and personally educate them on the Three Bonds and Five Relationships, but thankfully, it didn’t look like that would be necessary.
If anything, the members were dealing with staff and seniors even more humbly than at debut.
'When I was that age, I think I was insanely arrogant.'
It honestly made me think they were better than I was at the same age.
Anyway, since the kids were doing well, I felt the need to set an example as the adult too.
Slip.
"Huh? Lee Sion, what’s this?"
"It’s good stuff, so put it away."
"Chocolate? Ah! This has been super famous lately."
"I secretly saved some to give to the camera director."
"See, Sion does this right."
During rehearsal, I walked over to the camera director who was taking a short break and slipped our handmade chocolate into a pocket, and the reaction came immediately.
"Nobody else on staff got any, so eat it in secret."
"Man, you kids work hard too. I heard some crazy bastard came out and caused trouble?"
"You heard too?"
"Do you still not know how fast rumors move in this industry? It already spread everywhere." frёewebnoѵēl.com
"Hooh."
I nodded as I listened to the camera director.
Originally, we were planning to give our handmade chocolates to station people and seniors too.
But—
[I’m selling Iam reverse-tribute chocolates]
"No price haggling, and no in-person deals.
Only message me if you’re definitely going to buy. From the packaging to the handwritten letter, authenticity guaranteed.
(Photos of the reverse-tribute chocolates and the handwritten letter)"
↳Insane. There are fans who applied for audience seats and lost and cried because they wanted this, and someone’s out here selling it?
↳You piece of shit, you seriously better get punished
↳Yours, no matter how much you want the members’ handmade chocolates, don’t buy this crap
↳They’re trying to make money off what the kids made with their hearts for fans. I’m disgusted with humanity
That evening, after week four’s first music show ended, someone showed up trying to trade the chocolate we made through Secondhand Nation, a secondhand marketplace.
Honestly, the company and we had expected someone like this to appear to some extent.
Because if something can make money, people will even sell the empty wrapper after finishing the snack.
But this wasn’t that level of a problem.
-That one was made for staff only.
What got posted on Secondhand Nation wasn’t what we handed out to fans. It was what we’d handed out to the music show staff.
Fans, staff, senior singers.
Since we wrote handwritten letters for all of them, we made the packaging slightly different so nothing would get mixed up, and the packaging on the Secondhand Nation post was the staff-only packaging.
So when an enraged PD Raon called the music show PD and explained everything, the culprit got identified immediately.
PD Raon raged, saying how could someone do that when Iam members made gifts even for staff out of pure goodwill.
After an apology, the situation ended with the post being taken down right away, but since this could happen again, internal policy changed: from then on, chocolates would only be gifted to senior singers and fans.
'Still, if you don’t take care of people, they’ll feel slighted.'
So I’d been quietly sneaking a few anyway and slipping them as gifts to key positions like the camera director or the PD at each music show.
Even if they say it’s fine, if they don’t get anything, people still feel a little disappointed. That’s just human nature.
Even now, the camera director got chocolate from me and said, “Why would you give me something like this,” but the expression was clearly happy.
Without saying it, the camera director would definitely film us with a bit more care during the live broadcast.
"Iam, rehearsal is starting soon!"
After chatting with the camera director for a bit, our rehearsal turn was already here.
"Captain, I’m heading in now!"
"Yeah, have a good rehearsal, and I’ll see you at the live broadcast later—ah, but you just got here, right?"
"Yes, why?"
"There was one pre-recording today..."
"There was?"
"Make sure you catch it at least once on the waiting room broadcast. It’ll probably be funny."
"What?"
The camera director said it out of nowhere.
I was curious what it meant, but we had to start rehearsal now, so I left the question hanging and headed to the stage where the members were.
