Free Web Novel“Argh! Ah··· ugh! Aaaah!!!”
“Senior! You can’t collapse!”
“Uaaahhh!!!”
The howl of a beast that had lost human language rang through the waiting room.
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
“Lee Sion!!!”
My convenience store escape, sadly, came to an end when Yunsik and Jiu came to catch me.
-You—! I told you to stay quiet for a second and you couldn’t even hol— huh?
Yunsik and Jiu showed up while I was wiping out the food at the convenience store and drinking my finishing cola.
The two of them barged in like they were about to eat me alive, then froze when they saw Kaella sitting across from me.
-···.
Kaella, who’d been finishing off shrimp ramen with red pepper powder mixed in and slurping the broth straight down, also froze when she saw them.
After that, with eyes wide, unable to say a word, Yunsik pointed back and forth between me and Kaella with a finger, asking with gestures if we knew each other, and I lightly shook my head.
And that’s how Yunsik and Jiu each grabbed one of my arms and hauled me back to the waiting room. That’s the story up to now.
“Please··· if you’re going to cause an incident, cause it alone! Why did you drag another girl group into it, and why did it have to be a VYNNIA member!”
“Whoa, whoa! If I try to explain it, it’s too complicated.”
“Explain!”
“Because of basic decency, I don’t think I can say that.”
“Uaaahhh!!!”
“Senior! Guys!! Somebody stop Yunsik!”
I couldn’t exactly say, “Kaella drank too much yesterday and was suffering from a hangover, so I helped,” because I had to keep her image in mind, so I had no choice but to keep it a secret.
But Yunsik, who’s so narrow-minded that he says he hates it because his points drop and even refuses to duo with me in LoL, didn’t seem able to understand my meaningful intentions.
Jiu and a few members were blocking Yunsik as he trembled and tried to rush at me.
“You know VYNNIA members?”
“Nope!”
“Then how were you with them?”
“It just happened.”
“So you did something again.”
“That’s how it is. Maybe it’s still too early for little rookies to understand?”
Seo Ryujin asked if I knew VYNNIA members, but how could I?
Honestly, other than Kaella, VYNNIA’s leader, I didn’t even properly know their names.
“Iam, please get ready to go in for recording!”
While I was listening to Yunsik’s wailing and thinking back on my evaluation of the MPlay convenience store special menu I’d just eaten, a staff member opened the waiting room door and announced the start of filming.
“Since it’s the program’s first shoot day, let’s all do our best and don’t cause any incidents!”
“Ugh··· urk!”
With filming about to start, I tossed out an encouraging line to the other members—let’s do well today too—and Yunsik looked unusually thrilled. freёwebnoѵel.com
He was so thrilled he was clutching the back of his neck and doing breakdancing.
***
“Idol fans across the nation. Haven’t you all imagined it at least once?”
On the dark stage, a single spotlight was shining down on one person.
The MC of the new variety show Three Kingdom, holding a mic and hosting quietly but clearly with his back turned.
“The nation’s idol Iam, who debuted through Idol Ground 100.”
Shhraak!
With that introduction, a spotlight hit one corner of the stage.
And seven Iam members appeared.
The Iam members, standing there in their ‘DON’T BLINK’ stage outfits, looked serious in a way that wasn’t typical.
Kyaaaahhh!!!
And as they watched Iam, a roar of cheers poured out from the very center section of the audience seats, which were split into three.
On the other hand, the left and right sections didn’t even twitch—so cold it was hard not to call it chilling.
“LYNX, who crossed back and forth between Korea and Japan and dyed the entire nation in the La La La craze!”
Before the MC even finished speaking, a spotlight switched on in one corner of the stage again, and the LYNX members appeared.
This time, only the left audience section exploded in wild cheers, while the center and right turned icy.
“Lastly, the rookie girl group SY is unveiling for the first time in seven years. The monster rookie VYNNIA, who achieved the all-time record for first-week girl group album sales!”
Once again, a spotlight turned on in one corner of the stage, and when VYNNIA appeared, cheers rang out only from the right audience section.
“The fans’ reactions are pretty raw. Is it okay if this goes on air?”
“Why?”
“If you look at it like this, it might look like they’re really not on good terms···.”
Watching that scene from below the stage, Raon asked Seyoon if it would look like they were fighting if this aired, but—
“They’re fighting.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what people are expecting too. And you came here to eat our VYNNIA alive, didn’t you?”
At Seyoon’s extremely firm answer, Raon lost her words for a moment.
“You’ve gotten a lot scarier, CEO.”
“My daughter ran off after stabbing me in the back, so I have no choice.”
“Stabbing you in the back is a bit much.”
“Should I revise it to: ran off with the family fortune?”
“CEO!”
“All right. I’ll stop.”
Raon shook her head and let out a sigh like there was nothing she could do.
SY’s daughter.
A nickname Raon had back when she debuted, and even inside SY, she really was treated like Seyoon’s daughter.
‘It does sting.’
Not only did Raon leave SY and settle into a new agency as a producer, she was producing Iam, VYNNIA’s competitor.
Online, Raon was being treated like a traitor.
Of course, the reality wasn’t that.
Anyway, Raon did feel guilty at the thought of fighting her old home, so it wasn’t strange for people to see it that way.
And more than anything, she got a big taste of her old home’s help today, so Raon had nothing she could say.
“If it weren’t for you, I would’ve filed an official complaint with KJ Entertainment today.”
Seyoon said it while giving Raon a sideways look, half teasing.
“···I’m sorry.”
“To coax a member of another group and feed ramen and a hot bar to a kid who was on an empty stomach before going on stage··· that’s something I never even could’ve imagined.”
At Seyoon’s words, Raon was too embarrassed to lift her head. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
-Sion, did you really feed Kaella cup ramen and a hot bar, and even cola, all neat and thorough?
-Huh? Why is that a problem?
-···Where did Yunsik go?
-He disappeared after hearing you were coming, PD···.
-I only told you to keep her pinned down!!! You couldn’t even do that, so you let Lee Sion loose?! Uaaahhh!!!
Raon had to join Three Kingdom’s first shoot late today because she had schedule-related things to handle at the company.
The moment she arrived and heard about the incident Lee Sion caused, it felt like her blood pressure was going to shoot up and burst.
‘Seriously, do I kill Lee Sion or do I save her!’
The early-days Raon, who clearly thought of the Iam members like her own kids and swore she’d only say nice, gentle things, was already dead and gone.
These days, Raon was even making time to get PT so she could smack Lee Sion’s back properly.
And there was a reason—Lee Sion didn’t just cause trouble alone anymore. She was dragging members of other groups into it too, so she was one of the main reasons shaving years off Raon’s life.
-Kaella! Why did your face get puffy in the meantime?
-···.
The origin of the incident started with Kaella’s face, after returning to the waiting room, looking a little swollen compared to before.
Kaella used to boast such sharp contours that fans called her an AI beauty, but now it was like she’d gained some strange sense of reality.
Of course, she was still so thin that she absolutely didn’t look like she’d gained weight, but VYNNIA’s manager and stylists had no choice but to be flustered by the sudden change.
They pried, wondering if it was a health problem, but Kaella didn’t say a word and tried to slide past it like nothing happened, insisting everything was fine.
-Sniff··· isn’t that ramen smell?
But the ramen smell that had soaked into her in that short gap left Kaella with no choice but to spill the whole story.
After that, VYNNIA’s waiting room went insane.
-If you eat ramen on an empty stomach, what are you going to do when you have to go on stage later!
Singers put a lot of effort into their pre-stage diet.
They have no choice, because a subtle difference in condition can make a note crack, or make the visuals you show on stage look different, so you can’t help being careful.
You only get to eat more freely after the stage ends, but before that you have to watch it, and Kaella was saying she ate not just food, but cup ramen with red pepper powder, plus a hot bar and cola—absolutely ruthless food.
-This wasn’t something KJ ordered, was it? To soak our girls?
VYNNIA’s manager being horrified after hearing the whole story Kaella finally confessed was not an excessive reaction.
Some VYNNIA staff were about to march {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} over to Iam’s waiting room, convinced they’d decided to ruin a competitor team’s stage, but—
-I’ll hear the story myself, so focus on the stage.
Thankfully, the meeting didn’t happen because SY’s CEO, Seyoon, suddenly appeared and stopped them.
After that, Raon got contacted and met with Seyoon, and how much did she struggle, sweating cold sweat, trying to prove it absolutely wasn’t intentional?
“You know you’re trying to do well, but don’t push your member that hard.”
“Huh?”
“It looks like you gave her a big-eater concept to grab a broadcast character, but if she has to digest that, how much do you think she’ll suffer behind the scenes. You’re really vicious.”
“···.”
However, in the process, it seemed Seyoon misunderstood and thought Lee Sion had been told by the company to take on a big-eater concept.
‘If I said we just gave up, he wouldn’t believe it, would he?’
Today too, while talking with Lee Sion, Raon got so heated she almost smacked the back of an artist about to go on stage without realizing it.
-Unfair, unfair!!! I just made her eat a little ramen!
-Sion! You also made her eat a hot bar!
-···I just made her eat a little ramen and a hot bar!!!
-Ah! You also said you made her drink cola.
-···Anyway, I just made her eat a little ramen, hot bar, and cola··· so what’s the big deal?
Lee Sion argued that it was nothing, that she was innocent, insisting that much was basically like a snack you eat between meals.
And since Lee Sion really did eat like that herself, Raon fell into deep thought about what she was supposed to say to make her realize that was something only she could do.
“Three Kingdom, the first-ever girl group war on earth where three girl groups will compete for the final winner, starting today! From this moment on, we announce the beginning! It’s show time!!!”
While Raon was briefly thinking back on the incident that happened before today’s program started, a very familiar voice reached her ears.
‘See? The mood comes alive when Jang Junseok is the MC.’
After Idol Ground 100, Jang Junseok was also the main MC for this Three Kingdom, and as expected of a veteran, he was showing skilled hosting.
At first, he only showed his back to pull attention toward Iam and the participating groups, then turned around and spit out the catchphrase that had become his trademark, announcing the start of the program.
Then the lights shining on the three groups on stage began turning off one by one.
Click.
When the lights came back on, only Iam was standing on the stage.
***
“Please give a big round of applause for all three groups who showed you great stages!”
Clap clap clap.
At MC Jang Junseok’s line, this time the entire audience clapped in response.
“The applause sounds murderous.”
“This is my first time on stage in a vibe like this!”
“I almost messed up because I was so nervous.”
Seeing that, our members finally seemed to relax and started blurting out a line each.
‘That’s understandable.’
Three Kingdom started with the three groups performing their representative songs.
And as the first group up, Iam performed our new song ‘DON’T BLINK.’
-Wooaaah!!!
-···.
Out of the audience seats split cleanly into three, only the center responded, and the left and right had to be faced with an audience that didn’t even twitch—no, it was so cold you could actually feel it.
LYNX and VYNNIA, who went up after us in order, were the same: exactly one third responded, and the other two thirds were ice-cold, which goes without saying.
So it wasn’t just us—LYNX and VYNNIA also felt unusually tense on stage compared to normal.
No matter what, after debuting, facing an audience this full of hostility right in front of you was the first time, so it felt more than understandable.
“Now, we’ll meet the three groups who put on those great performances and take a brief time for interviews.”
It was only because the main MC, Jang Junseok, was a seasoned pro entertainer who’d been through everything that he could keep hosting shamelessly in a vibe like this. If some awkward rookie had been running it, wouldn’t he have been shaking?
“Now that you’ve met the other two groups you’ll be competing with going forward, how do you feel?”
“Yes··· first, just getting to compete like this with our seniors is already a very meaningful experience for me and the VYNNIA members. To the viewers and fans watching···.”
Jang Junseok walked over to the tiered seating on one side of the stage where we’d gathered after finishing our performance, and he first tried an interview with Kaella, VYNNIA’s leader, sitting at the far end.
It was the first question, so it could’ve caught her off guard, but seeing her answer smoothly like she’d prepared, I felt proud for no reason.
‘She shouldn’t keep drinking just because she got hooked on shrimp ramen with red pepper powder.’
Maybe one of the fifty thousand hangover tricks I know worked properly, because Kaella, looking much better than when I first met her, finished the interview cleanly, and next was LYNX’s turn.
“With debut timing this similar, and with girl groups like this, I don’t think we get many chances to show good stages side by side, so I’m happy to···.”
Even if she was a nasty Wei fan who worshiped that Cao Cao guy, Esther was answering Jang Junseok’s questions steadily, like a leader.
But since I knew her real face, I was at the point where it was hard to hold back the urge to rip off that innocent mask of “I don’t know anything” and show the disgusting side of a Wei fan.
“All right, then lastly, we’ll do Iam’s interview. How do you feel about joining Three Kingdom?”
“Yes, first, we’re also really happy we can put on such a meaningful stage with great peers like LYNX and VYNNIA. Competition is important, but what’s even more important is that our three groups can show better stages to our fans and viewers···.”
Then it was our interview.
But as if she wasn’t called Seo No-Fun for nothing, watching her only droning on with stiff, boring answers made a sigh come out of me without even realizing it.
And then,
“Ms. Lee Sion, do you have anything you’d like to say too?”
“Huh? Me?”
“You look like you have something you want to say.”
Jang Junseok, who met my eyes, asked with a mischievous expression.
-Please, Lee Sion!
At that moment, the image of PD Raon making a face that said no flashed through my mind, but—
My hand was already reaching toward the mic Jang Junseok held out to me.
