Chapter 97
“Isn’t that song a little too old?”
Jaehun objected. Suyeon’s expression did not change, but he still thought he had gotten through to her somehow. He couldn’t trust everything shown on television, but judging only by what had been broadcast… that girl merely had an expression like that. In reality, she was quite gentle and vulnerable.
“Is that so?”
“Rather, wouldn’t it be better to go for a twist like this? Something calm and laid-back.”
There was a slightly vacant look in Suyeon’s eyes. Jaehun stared straight into them as he answered, trying to make his opponent shrink back from his opinion.
Of course, Jaehun also knew that the song he had suggested was not particularly suited to this competition. Going for a twist, something calm and laid-back… It was nothing more than nonsense meant to rationalize his opinion. He did not genuinely think that way.
The reason he was doing this… was not because someone had put him up to it. This was something he was doing of his own accord.
More precisely, it stemmed from a joint decision by the bands he belonged to, [Muzaku] and [Velvet Monochrome]: “That fucking PD is such an asshole, so let’s mess up this round!”
“That fucking PD is a real asshole, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
On the evening they made that decision, the members of Muzaku and Velvet Monochrome suddenly had that thought while drinking. At first, they had been discussing how to get through this round, but after a few drinks, the conversation had turned into, “Isn’t this whole thing being run completely wrong?”
After a few more drinks had gone around, they seriously began planning how to wreck the audition. The leaders of each band would audition seriously, leaving themselves at least some chance of passing, while the members would subtly join other promising-looking bands and sabotage them. Troll a little, then take the points if it looked like things would fail, and sabotage them if it looked like they might succeed.
“We definitely need to screw over those Group Sound kids. What a bunch of fucking rude assholes~”
“Looking at how they haven’t gotten a single bad edit and the PD keeps protecting them, maybe all four of them gave him sexual favors. Kekeke.”
“That Ha Suyeon girl has a face like that, so if you really pushed her, she probably wouldn’t be able to refuse, right? That’s how she came across on television.”
“You believe what you see on TV, you fucking idiot~”
“Wouldn’t she only come across that way because there’s something going on? I’ll bet fifty thousand won that there is.”
After making even comments that vulgar, they agreed that, if they did nothing else, they would definitely screw over ‘Group Sound.’ They did not have any particular grudge against the individual band; their resentment was aimed at the PD, who edited them as though they were the final boss and kept coddling them.
Suyeon remained silent at Jaehun’s words. To Jaehun, it looked like she was conflicted—wondering whether to follow what he was saying or not.
“That’s how I see it. I think we might be able to make full use of the charm of a twist.”
To put an end to that conflict, Jaehun pressed the point one more time. He wanted her to choose his opinion so they could fail spectacularly.
And the answer that came back was…
“That doesn’t seem right at all.”
It was a completely unexpected answer. Suyeon looked at him as if asking what nonsense he was talking about. Jaehun was slightly flustered.
“Doing a calm performance…”
“Are you perhaps under the impression that we’re supposed to put on some kind of performance that leaves us with a dignified ending in the loser-revival round? Does it make any sense to do shoegaze on an audition stage? Did you watch *I’m a Singer* Season 1 last night?”
Suyeon’s merciless sarcasm made the members fidget uneasily. But Suyeon continued to shoot down Jaehun as if saying, ‘Be grateful there’s a camera here keeping me from being harsher.’
“This would be one thing if it were at least a one-on-one battle. But this is a ranked performance, we don’t know where in the lineup we’ll perform, and the audience score is also important. And you want to do a song that leaves a faint impression on the audience?”
“No, wait a minute. What I mean is…”
“We could make a highly polished song, sure. The original is already polished, after all. But we don’t even know what songs the other bands will perform. If the band before us puts on an exciting, impactful performance and then we follow it with a calm, ‘polished’ performance like that, do you really not know how the audience will take it? Have you ever actually been to a band performance? Are you unpopular or something? Or are you doing this on purpose? Did someone pay you?”
“Now, now, it doesn’t seem like he meant to do it deliberately…”
Suyeon’s words were ice-cold as she lashed out at him. Jaehun had just been openly chewed out to his face by a high-school student more than ten years his junior. Seeing his face gradually turn red, the members hurriedly intervened to calm the conversation.
“I’m not saying he did it deliberately. I’ve been sitting here listening to him say that calm is better, and it’s so absurd I couldn’t hold it in. What kind of amateur nonsense is that, like someone who does nothing but count in songs and play safe gigs?”
“That’s enough! You’re being way too harsh. Jaehun, our leader only said that because he got emotional. He didn’t mean it, right?”
‘This is ridiculous.’
After the mood settled down a little, the song chosen by majority vote was Myeongjeon’s ‘White Room.’ Afterward, the rhythm guitarist went outside, saying he was going to smoke, leaving only the other members behind as they gauged Myeongjeon’s mood.
“You didn’t have to get that angry…”
“But it’s ridiculous. He only put it gently, but in the end, it was no different from saying we should ruin the competition.”
While the temporary band members, who had thought Jaehun’s song choice was ‘a pretty good idea,’ flinched, Myeongjeon continued speaking.
“Fortunately, it was a majority vote rather than a unanimous decision, so… it seems to have worked out somehow. All we need to do now is assign parts and practice. As for the parts, we can just follow our positions, right?”
“Then what about him?”
“If he doesn’t cooperate, we can talk to the PD and have him excluded. There’s no reason to drag him along. If he smokes and clears his head a little, he might be able to handle rhythm guitar.”
At Myeongjeon’s firm response, someone muttered, “He’s different from how he is on TV.” Of course he was. On television, he had only treated the members of Group Sound gently because they were his friends.
There was no way he would speak kindly to people with whom Myeongjeon had no connection, who would not listen to a word he said, and who had absolutely no skill. This had been true not only of ‘Ha Suyeon,’ but also back when he had been ‘Seo Myeongjeon.’ Myeongjeon was famous for his skill, not for his character.
* * *
After the first night of camp ended and they had eaten breakfast, the members of Group Sound gathered on a bench in front of the women’s quarters. While everyone else was drinking Americanos or café lattes, Suyeon alone was sipping Maxim coffee.
Iseo looked at her and asked, “Does that taste good?” Then she muttered,
“It’s really not very good.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it this time?”
“No, it’s just all bad. I really think doing things among ourselves is the best. Seriously.”
“Well, of course it is…”
Seha was in a fairly comfortable situation after being chosen by Mystica’s vocalist. Iseo, on the other hand, was in quite a troublesome situation.
“You know how he told me to play nothing but the root notes on bass? He says he thinks bass is just a root-note shuttle. So I asked him why he picked me as his Round 1 pick if that was the case—couldn’t he just pick any bassist? And he said he picked me because he needed visual appeal. Isn’t that guy fucking crazy?”
“Hey, the cameras are filming all of this.”
“Let them film it or not! He started it! Do you really think the PD would show only me swearing while leaving out what that bastard said?”
“That… does seem possible, I guess…”
Iseo had been listing her grievances in every possible way. But at Hyuna’s words, she muttered, “Oh no, then aren’t we fucked?”
“What about you, Suyeon?”
“We’re still not entirely sure.”
Suyeon took a hearty drink of her coffee, tossed the paper cup into the trash, and plopped down.
“When we were choosing a song yesterday, he said something so strange that I chewed him out. But at first he went off huffing and puffing to smoke, then came back and said, ‘I think I was wrong. I’ll do it properly.’”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Something about it still leaves me uneasy. But he does things fairly well when told to, so I don’t think we can cut him entirely… and we don’t have grounds to exclude him.”
Suyeon said this with her arms crossed. Seeing her like that, Hyuna spoke with concern.
“Even so, I think we should prepare for it…”
“Prepare? I’m not sure there’s really anything to prepare for… but we should think about it.”
“What about you guys?”
At Iseo’s sudden question, Hyuna recalled what had happened the night before.
“I think we should just use the song as it is.”
The band Hyuna had been picked for was a jazz-oriented band, an area she specialized in. For that reason, Hyuna thought she would be able to score quite highly, but…
The atmosphere during the meeting was not particularly good.
“Even so, we’re entering an audition. Going in without any arrangement at all is a bit much.”
“I understand what you mean. But we don’t have time to arrange anything right now. It’s not like there’s anyone here who’s good at arranging, either. Is anyone here capable of arranging it right now? No, right?”
The song designated by the team leader had been rejected by majority vote. The problem was that the team leader still wanted to do jazz-oriented music. The team members had compromised enough to say, “Then let’s find a suitable song!” but…
Thanks to the team leader, who had picked the members without thinking anything through, the band had become completely disorganized.
“This is a disaster. A complete disaster.”
Someone muttered that amid the heated argument. Hyuna thought she agreed. But regardless, they had to somehow sort out the situation if they wanted to receive a score.
“Um… honestly… I don’t think this argument is very important right now…”
The increasingly loud voices gradually died down at Hyuna’s murmur. The band members looked at her as if asking what she meant.
“I’ll arrange it… You just need to follow along…”
“Is that even possible? You’re going to do it all by yourself?”
“I’m sorry, but if you’re not good at it, could you at least stay quiet for a while… No, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant to say…”
The verbal abuse had slipped out unconsciously, perhaps because Suyeon had rubbed off on her. As she apologized to the band member who had opened his eyes wide, Hyuna thought,
‘But if you can’t do it, you should stay quiet…’
“Nothing much happened… I think it’ll work out…”
“Really? That’s a relief.”
At Hyuna’s words, Iseo smiled brightly. In any case, two of them were having trouble, but the other two were doing well, so that was a relief.
‘Suyeon still needs to put in more effort. If things fall apart on her side, we’re screwed.’
There was no reason to doubt Suyeon’s skill itself. But this mission required the cooperation of other people as well. Iseo felt vaguely uneasy, but she shook her head and dismissed the thought.
Whatever happened, Suyeon would do everything well. She was their great leader, after all.
* * *
“What’s today’s mission?”
“No idea. They were making a huge fuss about it being confidential and all.”
At the words of someone wearing a baseball cap pulled low, a masked woman grumbled,
“I don’t know what’s supposed to be so confidential. Apart from our boys, there’s nothing worth watching anyway.”
They were fans of the recently formed boy band WEKIDS. More precisely, they were fans who had only recently decided to switch allegiances after their ‘bias’ ended up on the front page of the society section not long ago…
Everyone was like that, but everything burned hottest at the beginning. Their sense of betrayal toward their previous fandom target and their interest in their new one combined to create a powerful synergy. The two of them had even applied for tickets to the audition stage where WEKIDS was participating… and somehow won, so they had ended up here.
“My nose keeps running. Do you have any tissues?”
“I don’t have any…”
“Here, use this.”
A helping hand reached out from beside the woman suffering from her rhinitis. “Oh, thank you,” she said, then glanced at the person who had given it to her. They were wearing 2MAJOR merchandise.
‘She’s a fan of has-beens… Does she have no eyes?’
It was a slightly ungrateful thought, but that was what the masked woman thought. Gratitude was gratitude, and taste was taste. But perhaps it was only natural. Surely she was still holding on to those has-beens because she was that kindhearted.
‘But she’s taking pictures of completely different people?’
But if she were filming 2MAJOR, the camera angle was rather strange. The camera was pointed in an entirely different direction. At the end of it stood a cold-looking girl.
‘Was she… the leader of the band they called WEKIDS’s strongest rival?’
She had forced herself to watch the boring broadcast episodes so she could attend the recording, so she had at least a little background knowledge. The band was treated as WEKIDS’s strongest competitor, with WEKIDS being the favorite to win… Was she the leader of that band? She hadn’t seemed very pleasant. And she did weird music, too.
She muttered this while looking at her phone, intending to kill time until WEKIDS’s stage came around again.
Little did she know that before long, she would end up throwing away not only her phone, but everything else as well.