Becoming An Idol Wasn’T On My Plan [EN]: Chapter 183

We all watched the UniClipse seniors’ song on the laptop. The theme was a solar eclipse, expressing the intense attraction felt during a brief encounter, like the moment the sun obscures the moon.

It was a song that had gained popularity earlier in the year with its seductive yet sophisticated concept and vibrant stage presence.

Perhaps they wanted to try this glamorous, sophisticated, and seductive concept. TOT hasn’t explored a decadent concept yet, so maybe…

“I thought you’d be too embarrassed if I made you do it.”

Seriously?

Since there were no cameras, I frowned involuntarily.

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“No, I heard from Eden that Dong-hwa is immune to this kind of thing, so I figured…”

“…So?”

“I wanted to give you some practice and enjoy watching you squirm.”

Ye-eun, giving a thumbs-up while saying, ‘Killing two birds with one stone!’ and Jin-han, nodding blankly… I wanted to hit them both.

“…May I ask why you want to see something like that?”

As I asked through gritted teeth, Ye-eun chuckled.

“I think I caught it from Jun-seong hyung [older brother/male senior]. They say you pick up bad habits quickly. I just feel like teasing you when I see you. You’re such a serious person.”

The seniors were making a fuss in pairs. I could only sigh.

“Anyway, please take care of me. I’ll be watching your embarrassment firsthand!”

“I look forward to working with you!”

The atmosphere seemed to excite everyone except me. Well, I’ll have to bring a brick to the next practice.

We juggled schedules, performing at events and appearing on short idol broadcasts, all while practicing. Today, we gathered for ‘Solar Eclipse’ stage practice.

“I’m saying we need to decide on our team name.”

“I said I’m in favor as long as it’s not something like ‘Midwinter’.”

The changes that occurred in the meantime were that I started speaking informally at Ye-eun’s strong urging, and I started calling Ye-eun ‘hyung’ at Ye-eun’s *really* strong urging.

“Oh, look at our composer. He’s trying to deny that he was the core pillar of this team’s formation.”

“It’s not reasonable to have a name that only highlights me from the start. Godeina and Hoppin fans would be upset.”

“That’s true.”

Ye-eun, who was chattering next to me during the break, nodded.

“…Sorry, but if you know that, why are you suggesting it?”

“I wasn’t serious about doing it, of course. I just want to tease you. Do you know that your ears turn red when I talk about the center position or something?”

“Hyung, you might get hit with a brick.”

“Wow, that’s exactly what Eden said. It’s not scary at all……”

Ye-eun looked at me with a slightly sad expression, as if he was genuinely disappointed. What should I do? I want to hit him even more.

Jin-han, who had been watching our silly battle, approached and politely handed Ye-eun a water bottle. That guy seems to be living a hard life too.

“Oh, thanks.”

Thanks to Jin-han, who naturally started a conversation, I finally leaned back comfortably in my chair, enjoying the feeling of being alone. Ah, I want to go home.

“D, Dong-hwa.”

What is it, again?

“Do you want some snacks?”

Lee Ji-hyun was standing there awkwardly, holding out snacks, perhaps because she felt uncomfortable. Well, considering her past actions, it must be poisoned.

“Thank you.”

I’ll take it for now, but I won’t eat it. She might have injected them with drugs using a syringe.

Lee Ji-hyun handed out snacks to other people as well, then stood there awkwardly again, looking around, and sat down in an ambiguous spot. Really, literally ambiguous.

Lee Ji-hyun had undergone various changes that I hadn’t seen. First of all, her face had improved. Originally, she looked like a hard-boiled egg that had been grated on asphalt and mixed with clay (of course, this is a personal assessment and may not be true).

But now, I think I can say she looks decent. Well, judging by the fact that her bone structure hasn’t changed, it’s not the miracle of modern medicine.

Come to think of it, I knew from our last meeting that Seong-ho was good at human remodeling, but I didn’t know he could change faces like this.

Now that I think about it, Lee Hyun-jae said that Godeina’s fandom has been gradually increasing these days… Maybe that’s thanks to Yoon Seong-ho too.

“Uh, wh, why?”

She must have felt my gaze.

“Nothing.”

“Okay……”

Ah, I want to go home. I don’t want to be in a situation where I have to talk to someone I don’t want to be friends with.

“Watch closely, Jin-han. You can learn a lot by looking at those two over there.”

“Yes!”

“Looking at them, who seems to want to be friends more?”

“Um… Y sunbaenim [senior], right?”

“That’s right! Then who doesn’t seem to want to be friends?”

“Dong-hwa sunbaenim.”

“Right. Then you have to use your intuition here. Why would they dislike it?”

“…It’s difficult.”

Thinking that I wouldn’t be able to hear them because they were whispering, the intuition lecture began. Like a top instructor in the field of intuition, it’s a participatory class. These crazy people.

“In situations like that, it’s usually one of two things. As you said, Dong-hwa might not like making friends with people. Or Ji-hyun might have done something bad in the past that disappointed Dong-hwa. Now, it’s intuition time. Which one do you think it is?”

“Um, I think Dong-hwa sunbaenim might be a misanthrope……”

“Hey, you can’t assume that everyone in the world has the same values as you.”

“…Yes?”

“Oh, were you hiding this? Sorry.”

I listened to the conversation quietly and couldn’t help but chuckle. How did that hyung figure it out right away? He’s a really strange person. When he told me which celebrities to stay away from in the past, his evaluations were ruthless, but he seems to have a much sharper eye for people than I do.

“…Wow, this feels weird.”

“Really, I didn’t know you were hiding it. Sorry. Hehe.”

Ye-eun, bursting into a foolish laugh, and Jin-han, whose mask was shattered by being hit right on the mark. They’re both making a fuss. They both always have innocent faces.

However, the type of serpent they are raising inside is different. Ye-eun is raising something that would even eat people. We need to designate him as a harmful animal and exterminate him. A nutria-like human [referring to an invasive species known for causing ecological damage].

“Don’t bully your juniors, hyung.”

“Hey, when did I bully you, Dong-hwa? Jun-seong hyung taught me that you get closer by sharing secrets like this.”

You’re not sharing secrets, you’re exposing them. The pity I originally had for Ye-eun has disappeared, and I can only sigh at his twisted inner self.

Ye-eun probably knows that Jin-han can’t be aggressive towards him even if he says things like that, so he’s doing it. How mean.

…Wait, then there are four people with flawed personalities gathered here. I can hear the sound of morality and ethics collapsing.

* * *

Gode Entertainment practice room.

It’s a bizarre place where Yoon Seong-ho is in charge of managing the members instead of Lee Ji-hyun, who is the formal leader.

“Ji-hyun’s here?”

When Yoon Seong-ho waved his hand with a friendly smile, Lee Ji-hyun finally felt like she had returned and let out a sigh of relief, waving back.

“I was really tired.”

“Practice must be tough. Ye-eun sunbaenim said he would create the choreography, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Dong-hwa is constantly fiddling with something on his laptop……”

Lee Ji-hyun pauses before speaking, as if she is not yet used to calling Ji Dong-hwa ‘Dong-hwa’. And Yoon Seong-ho is looking at Lee Ji-hyun with a pleased expression.

“Let’s apologize properly this time.”

“That’s what I’m going to do. I gave her snacks today and she accepted them. I’m going to apologize on my knees later.”

This is sincere. Lee Ji-hyun sincerely plans to apologize to Ji Dong-hwa on her knees. She doesn’t expect forgiveness, but she’s just bothered by the fact that she’s never apologized properly before.

Ji Dong-hwa doesn’t think Lee Ji-hyun has become good. He just thinks she’s pretending to be good on the outside, and that her personality is the same as it was in the past.

However, the part that Ji Dong-hwa missed is that Yoon Seong-ho’s human remodeling skills are really outstanding.

Yoon Seong-ho is a human who can compete with Chae Ha-min in terms of goodness, and at the same time, his tenacity, persistence, and thoroughness when persuading others are comparable to Ji Dong-hwa when he’s composing.

There is a study that says that if you block external information from a person and provide only one piece of information for three to four days, a kind of brainwashing is possible.

Yoon Seong-ho had intense interviews with all the members, continuing to persuade them for a day or two, sometimes even staying up all night.

In other words, the members of Godeina, except for Ho-yeon, are in a state of being ‘brainwashed for good’ by Yoon Seong-ho.

You can see the extent of that brainwashing by looking at Lee Ji-hyun. Lee Ji-hyun is currently estranged from her father. She realized through Yoon Seong-ho how immoral it is to work as a drug broker. No, to be exact, she was made to realize it.

In other words, Lee Ji-hyun can be said to be good.

“Really, thank you so much, Seong-ho.”

Lee Ji-hyun can now express her gratitude without hesitation.

“Huh? What are you thanking me for?”

“Thanks to you… I can fix things.”

If Ji Dong-hwa had seen Yoon Seong-ho creating this level of harmony through peaceful conversation, he would probably have called him a scary person.

“Gross.”

Ho-yeon made a displeased expression while watching that scene.

“Yeon-ah.”

Yoon Seong-ho firmly signaled with his eyes not to do that, but Ho-yeon, who is the only one in this group who can fight Yoon Seong-ho, did not back down.

“You’re pretending again.”

She’s saying it’s disgusting to pretend to be nice. More specifically, it also means that it’s disgusting that you’re making her suffer so much and now she’s acting like that.

“…Sorry.”

And Lee Ji-hyun, surprisingly, has reached a state where she rationalizes that this level of treatment is appropriate considering her past. She just apologized. Like gratitude, she is now used to apologizing.

Lee Ji-hyun’s appearance, immediately shrinking at Ho-yeon’s growl, was reminiscent of a puppy.

“I’m not pretending to be nice.”

Yoon Seong-ho shouted proudly, but Ho-yeon just snorted.

“Look at the kids. Everyone is working hard now, how great!”

“It’s you.”

She’s saying that it’s all thanks to Yoon Seong-ho’s efforts that this was possible. It’s a way of speaking that’s difficult for normal people to understand, but Yoon Seong-ho is well-versed in interpreting Ho-yeon’s words.

“Of course, I worked hard too, but you and the other members all worked hard too.”

There was a scholar who argued that a true leader is someone who puts themselves in the lowest position and serves others with a heart. You can’t argue about right or wrong, but Yoon Seong-ho is qualified to be such a leader.

These days, the number of fans is gradually increasing, so Godeina is being evaluated as having avoided the fate of a failed idol group by having at least a handful of fans.

Behind that evaluation was the hard work of Yoon Seong-ho and Ho-yeon.

* * *

The process was smooth, considering that four people with personality flaws were preparing for a cover stage.

Surprisingly, Jin-han and Ye-eun got along quickly as if their codes matched, and Lee Ji-hyun was still awkward, but she became a little more confident as she became accustomed to practicing together in her own way.

However, I didn’t let my guard down because she kept trying to assassinate me by giving me snacks.

“Oh, right. The costume sketches are out.”

Perhaps because he is the de facto leader of our unit, most of the information was first spread from Ye-eun’s mouth.

“Oh, really! I want to see them, hyung.”

“Me too!”

Ye-eun took out an L-shaped file from his bag.

“The stylists got together and designed the costumes. They gave us one for each member.”

I received the costume sketch without much thought. ‘Solar Eclipse’ has a seductive concept, but since the costumes are reminiscent of a slightly fancy party from the start, there is a high possibility that they will be suits. Then there’s no problem at all.

“…Is this a fishnet pattern, see-through?”