Free Web Novel"Forty-two times."
Click.
With that, Raon changed the slide on the screen.
[Number of Times Lee Sion Escaped from the Dorm]
"Forty-two? Is that fewer than expected?"
"No. That means she escaped almost twice a week, and if you include promotion periods, it’s a number where you could practically say she escaped every day."
"Where on earth is she running around to like that?"
Normally, if an idol member secretly slipped out of the dorm, it was definitely the kind of incident that, even if not huge, was still a problem.
And yet the KJ Entertainment employees, even after seeing the record Lee Sion had set with forty-two escapes, were reacting like it was fewer than expected.
Well, that made sense, because everyone at KJ Entertainment knew that Lee Sion slipped out of the dorm whenever she got bored.
[Spotted Lee Sion at the convenience store!]
(A photo of Lee Sion brightly making a V sign while taking a picture with a fan.)
"They said if you wander around the convenience stores near the Jamsil dorm late at night, you can meet our gallery owner, so I tried it out of curiosity, and you really can meet her."
⤷ If late at night is too hard, you can also see her if you go around the good restaurants near KJ Entertainment at lunchtime
⤷ You used to be able to see her at PC bangs too, but these days so many people gather that I think she moves around regularly
⤷ But even if idols give autographs, don’t they usually not take photos like that?
⤷ Yeah, because ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) some people use them for scams and others abuse them for business, so most idols don’t take pictures
⤷ For someone like that, she sure looks ridiculously cheerful while doing it?
⤷ Seems like even the company gave up lol there are already way too many Lee Sion photos floating around
Because she would constantly slip out of the dorm or the company building and wander around, fans had even given Lee Sion the nickname Rattata.
Rattata, the Pokémon you run into nonstop while wandering through tall grass in Pokémon games.
Lee Sion had gotten that nickname because if you moved around certain fixed routes, you could run into her too.
Because of that, there were even rumors spreading online that KJ Entertainment had given up on managing its members.
'We never gave up!'
Every time Raon saw reactions like that, she felt so wronged she could go insane.
Even back during the filming of Three Kingdoms,
-"I just can’t keep up with the way things are run these days."
-"Maybe because Raon is still young, her marketing is really aggressive."
she remembered Lee Seyoon and Park Taesu expressing amazement, asking if they were deliberately exposing Lee Sion so naturally to the outside world as noise marketing.
-"Th... these days, natural is the trend, you know?"
That miserable memory of not being able to bring herself to say that even while being watched, Lee Sion broke through on her own and went out causing trouble, so she had covered it up by saying it was planned marketing.
"Four times. Do you know what number this is?"
Thinking back on that humiliating memory, Raon brought up another number.
Four times.
It was such a small number compared to how often Lee Sion usually caused something that all the employees in the conference room were puzzled, and then Raon continued her explanation.
"It’s the number of times she caused trouble while dragging idols from other groups into it too."
"Wait a second... as far as I know, it was three times?"
"One more got added the other day."
Smack.
CEO Kim Sanghyeok, seated at the head of the conference table, covered his forehead with his palm at Raon’s answer.
"The incident where she got involved with a LYNX member because of a slight misunderstanding in the restroom. The two times she pulled VYNNIA member Kaella into the convenience store unauthorized escape incident. And during this break, there was the incident where she went to the DARE; ON dorm without reporting it."
"DARE; ON would be..."
"Yes, the group made up of the contestants who were with us during Idol Ground 100. The one she also visited at the showcase last time."
"But if they’re friends, isn’t that level of thing fine?"
"It didn’t end there. She said they were throwing a party and ordered all kinds of delivery food to eat."
-"Isn’t it only right, in the spirit of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, to throw a party for soldiers after the battle is over?"
-"Why are you part of that party?!"
-"Once comrades, forever comrades!"
That was what Lee Sion had said after Raon and Yunsik, who had rushed over in a hurry after getting a call from Zero One, DARE; ON’s agency, caught her there.
When DARE; ON had successfully finished their debut promotions, she said she had gone there to congratulate them, shamelessly protesting that she was being wronged, and at that brazen sight, Raon had experienced a momentary blackout.
Afterward, when she came to her senses, Yunsik was trying to hold things together while Lee Sion was screeching and making a lightning-fast escape.
"Ah..."
As Raon recounted what she herself had gone through, Sanghyeok let out a sigh, and all the employees in the conference room could only shake their heads, each thinking, So she caused trouble again.
"This isn’t even all of it! The scary thing about Lee Sion is that her range of activity keeps growing!"
Click.
When Raon changed the screen, a mind-map-style relationship chart appeared, with Lee Sion right in the center.
"I have no idea how she even got close to all these people, but every time she does one show, she gets more friends. Among them are idols, of course, but also veteran celebrity seniors and even people at the broadcasting stations."
"When did it spread that far?"
"I don’t know. These days, no matter where we go, there are Lee Sion’s friends there, and honestly it’s gotten scary for me too."
That was not a joke. She meant it sincerely.
-"Lee Sion? I don’t know..."
-"Director! Don’t hide Lee Sion for her!"
-"No, I really... really don’t know!"
The reason it was so hard to catch Lee Sion after she caused trouble and fled around the broadcasting station like a flying squirrel was because of Lee Sion’s friends.
Sometimes they would spend forever looking for her, only to find out she had been hiding among the filming staff, or she would be in the waiting room of some senior they never would have expected, getting snacks and showing off cutely.
Because Lee Sion’s friends kept increasing day by day, all that had really happened was that Raon, along with managers Yunsik and Jiu, had gotten better and better at tracking her down.
"And it’s been a long time since the members were infected too."
Raon said this while holding up a document in her hand.
The identity of the document Raon held up with such a grave expression was a secret manual personally written by Lee Sion’s mother, Kim Sukja, for the KJ Entertainment staff.
"As you all know from reading it, even back in school, before the first semester was over, Lee Sion had already Lee-Sionized her classmates."
There had been something in that secret manual that made Raon doubt her own eyes even while reading it, wondering if it could really be true.
"And when they made her come to school during summer vacation under the pretext of self-study..."
-"Freedom!!!"
"There’s a record that she incited not just her classmates but the entire student body and staged a sit-in at school, even going so far as to hold night self-study sessions no one had ordered them to do."
-"Surely you’re not just going to leave the students at school without any administrators, right, Teacher?"
-"Kids!!! Aren’t you going home?!"
-"We have to study."
Because the students refused to go home, the teachers couldn’t get off work either, and in the end even the principal had to come out and negotiate, with the result that mandatory attendance during vacation disappeared.
It was said that after that incident, a rule spread among the teachers: Do not mess with Lee Sion.
"Lee Sion’s ability to incite people is unmatched. I don’t know why, but when you talk to her, before you realize it, things are already going the way Lee Sion wants. So the basic rule of dealing with Lee Sion is to give up on trying to reason things out with her!"
A devil’s tongue.
Raon thought Lee Sion’s truly frightening ability was her power of agitation.
You were definitely talking to her with hostility, and yet the fear of waking up and realizing you had already been led exactly where Lee Sion wanted.
When that ability to incite people was combined with Lee Sion’s natural likability, before long you found yourself playing on a board Lee Sion was controlling.
And since clips of Raon getting toyed with by Lee Sion in New York were still floating around the internet, who would know that danger better than she did?
"On top of that, based on her inhuman stamina, she is constantly in motion, and I judge her to be the type who acts more on instinct than reason."
Raon paused briefly and looked around the conference room.
"I assigned her Management Grade SSS." freeweɓnøvel.com
Compared to Ryu Ayeon’s S grade, which had previously been the highest management grade among the members, Raon had given Lee Sion the shocking grade of triple S.
"Danger level? Needless to say, it’s the absolute highest. Her influence on the members is also the highest. And considering the danger she poses even to other groups, there’s no choice but to assign Lee Sion an SSS grade!"
Clap clap clap.
During the earlier members’ management grades, there had still been employees who were uncertain, but when it came to Lee Sion’s management grade, not a single person voiced any objection.
-"What’s that in your hand? Let’s eat and survive together."
If an employee carrying food happened to pass her in the company hallway, she would casually sling an arm around that person’s shoulders and lead the person off to a dark little break room to plunder the food.
-"I’ve chosen you as my Rift partner today."
And if she heard there was an employee at the company who was good at games, she would go find that person and carry out what was basically a declaration of war in the form of a Rift kidnapping.
"Still, there isn’t anyone as warmhearted as Sion..."
While the conference room buzzed with condemnation over Lee Sion’s misdeeds, a casual comment one employee let slip rang through the room and cut through all of it.
'That’s what makes her even more of a headache.'
In truth, if Lee Sion had done nothing but cause trouble, the members would not have followed her the way they did now, and the staff would not have found themselves smiling whenever they looked at her.
-"Thank you for your service."
-"What’s with you all of a sudden?"
-"Take this home to your parents. I got it while filming a commercial, but our Lady Sukja is healthy, so she doesn’t need it."
She would say she got it for free, but later they would find out she had actually bought the health supplements herself out of her own pocket and quietly distributed them to the staff.
-"Get it together. We’re getting paid to do this."
Whenever the members, worn down by their packed schedule, started unconsciously getting sloppy on set, Lee Sion was the first one to tighten discipline, dropping the playfulness and putting on a hard expression.
For some reason, when Lee Sion got serious like that, even Seo Ryujin, the leader, couldn’t say anything and simply followed along.
'Honestly, even I get scared when she gets serious.'
Even Raon, the producer, had felt herself shrink a little the few times she had seen Lee Sion with that stern look, so there was no need to say anything about how the members felt.
"That’s why I’m proposing we purchase Lee Sion contingency supplies, sir!"
"What exactly do you mean by contingency supplies?"
Before Sanghyeok had even finished speaking, Raon put the prepared item list up on the screen.
"First, there’s a high-quality Romance of the Three Kingdoms figurine set. Next, limited-edition pudding and chocolate, and a premium sports-channel subscription. Ah! And a gaming gear company just released a Seiker edition, so we need that too!"
"So the idea is that whenever Miss Sion gets angry, we toss one of these to her. Like alligator feed."
Snap!
At Sanghyeok’s response, Raon snapped her fingers excitedly and said that was exactly it.
'The point is not to give her everything at once, but to drag things right up to the edge of the limit and then toss it to her just before she blows.'
The idea Raon had come up with was the Lee Sion-exclusive alligator-feed strategy: keep stocked the things Lee Sion usually liked, then use them to reset her right around the moment her gauge filled up.
"I’ll be honest. Lee Sion is the core artist of Iam—no, of KJ Entertainment. So our role is to let Sion express her individuality as much as possible without losing it, while handling the incidents and accidents that come along with it."
At Raon’s words, all the employees in the conference room nodded in agreement.
Lee Sion.
This renewal too had ultimately happened because Lee Sion renewed, and Lee Sion was also at the center of Iam’s high popularity and buzz.
"Not only are there the advertising offers currently coming in for Lee Sion, but maybe because of that drama last time, movie and drama scripts are coming in too. And on top of that, people on the variety side are practically begging us to let them have her just once."
If the other members were specialized in one area, Lee Sion was currently showing talent in every field, and love calls were pouring in from all directions.
That was why what Raon and KJ Entertainment had to do now was serve as the footing that would let Lee Sion continue rampaging freely the way she had been.
***
-"Senior, make sure you watch our YouTube today."
'Why is that girl telling me to watch that again?'
Miyoung had been spending her break in recent days feeling rather uncomfortable.
Recently, Three Kingdoms, which she had been in charge of and which had posted high ratings, had wrapped up successfully in great fashion.
But because the winner of Three Kingdoms, which had been produced by SY Production, where Miyoung worked, after taking an outsourced project from MPlay, was Iam, Miyoung had ended up in an awkward position.
No one said it outright, but there were subtle reactions floating around that, since VYNNIA was under the same SY umbrella, maybe she should have pushed them a bit more in the editing.
Of course, CEO Lee Seyoon had instead praised her, saying she had made the program well, but even so, Miyoung was still an employee, and it was not a situation where she could ignore the atmosphere.
Anyway, with Three Kingdoms a success, Miyoung was taking a short break.
Lately, while fully enjoying leisure activities she had not had time for while busy directing the program, including exercise, she got an out-of-the-blue call from Hakyoon, her junior from the MPlay days.
But he had said something strange—that she absolutely had to watch the video going up on their YouTube today—then hung up, leaving her in a deeply unsettled mood.
Hakyoon was the kind who would ask whether she had seen something he made, but not the kind to tell her she absolutely had to watch it, so she was curious what exactly he had made.
'Still, if I just watch it, it feels like there’s some kind of hidden motive behind this.'
Because of that strange, ominous feeling she couldn’t quite place, she felt a little reluctant.
But—
'I was going to watch it anyway.'
In fact, even if Hakyoon had not mentioned it separately, Miyoung had already been steadily watching Iam’s self-produced content.
Well, her niece Lee Sion appeared in it, and as a variety PD, not keeping tabs on Iam’s channel, the hottest YouTube channel around lately, would have been dereliction of duty.
And above all, it was fun.
So Miyoung lay comfortably on the sofa, put her laptop on top of her stomach, and flicked her fingers as she went into YouTube.
As soon as she entered the Iam channel she had already subscribed to, the video that had just been uploaded caught her eye.
'The Iam Laboratory?'
Her attention was immediately drawn to the thumbnail, which showed the Iam members with serious expressions.
'They really do have money.'
When you looked at other idols’ self-produced content, it was usually mainly cute little content that felt like an extension of live broadcasts.
By contrast, Iam’s self-produced content was characterized by the fact that they poured in enough production money and manpower that it would not be an exaggeration to call it a full-fledged broadcast variety program.
Even now, just from the background visible behind the members, it was obvious at a glance that the set was not ordinary and that they had spent some money on it.
Tap.
Seeing the views and likes climbing quickly even though it had not been long since it was uploaded, Miyoung finally clicked on the video.
