Becoming An Idol Wasn’T On My Plan [EN]: Chapter 213

[Summary of BLOSSENCE’s 1st Week Activities & Behind-the-Scenes Videos]

(Numerous links. Stage videos, individual vertical cams, behind-the-scenes activities, and W app videos are all compiled. The writer’s dedication shines through.)

Ah… the K-pop scene… The day BLOSSENCE dominates is not far off…

Comments:

―Even now… there’s no one in the idol scene who doesn’t know BLOSSENCE, and more and more Muggles [non-fans] are saying they’ve at least heard of them.

└That’s because so many people know BLOSSENCE’s songs even if they don’t know their faces.

└Just God… This song is really… Ji Dong-hwa is God…

└The fact that talk about their skills has completely disappeared is truly disgusting.

└Simply, divine.

―I keep saying Cha Ha-min should have his orange hair permanently. It’s so perfect, it’s obvious his natural hair is orange and he usually dyes it other colors. I’m crying because he’s so pretty when I see him.

―Lee Deun, take off a little more. (Sternly)

└Lee Deun’s body is so beautiful ㅅㅂ… body line… really… [ㅅㅂ is a Korean slang expression, similar to ‘f*ck’]

└Lee Deun’s chest is so distracting, I can’t concentrate on studying.

―Ah, I was so annoyed watching the younger line’s pair dance. Why are they so good? It pisses me off.

[Ji Dong-hwa Official) This Song’s Inspiration is a Junkyard]

(Ji Dong-hwa answering with a confident expression. GIF)

I’m losing my mind. We hit #1 on the music charts thanks to the spring season, but I’m scared to tell anyone where I got the inspiration.

Comments:

―LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Ji Dong-hwa is so funny these days LOLOLOL I thought Lee Deun and Jun from BLOSSENCE were the gag characters, but after becoming a fan, I realized Ji Dong-hwa is the craziest LOLOLOL

└Lee Deun’s comedy is commercial, Jun’s laughter comes from pureness, Dong-hwa is just pure madness.

└Agreed. Lee Deun’s gags feel calculated, but Dong-hwa’s humor is real…

[How to Confess Love to a Male Idol]

(Morse code chart. JPG)

I’m planning to ask to marry him in Morse code at the fan signing event. If I get a nod, does that mean I have permission?

Comments:

―Ji Dong-hwa would probably understand the Morse code and apologize.

└LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL ㅅㅂ That’s so funny

―Even if you did it to another member, they’d understand and apologize instead.

―This is something you could never do with BLOSSENCE.

└Ah ㅅㅂ I imagined it and it’s already so funny I’m crying. The Daedong River’s water will never run dry [a Korean idiom meaning something will last forever].

Festival. Thanks to BLOSSENCE’s high music chart performance upon their comeback, the Luminous [fandom name] scene was a continuous festival.

If the results were bad, the community would be flooded with posts to ‘Stream properly!’, but with the scores rising on their own, peaceful topics like analysis of the stage or song took hold rather than trying to enforce discipline.

Among them, world-building analysis posts, which are quite an interesting element in idol fandom these days, began to appear frequently. This is because numerous world-building hints were released in the full album ‘in Somnia’.

[Summary of World-Building Hints Up to This Album]

1. Meaning of the Album Title

: ‘in Somnia’ is Latin, meaning something like ‘in/into dreams’. In the Cloudy Blue music video, there’s a scene where Lee Hyun-jae closes his eyes, which can be seen as a scene telling us who the owner of the dream is.

2. Lee Hyun-jae

: Honestly, I’m still not sure why Lee Hyun-jae’s dream is like this. The Cloudy Blue background is the sea world, the last start is the same, Heung is presumed to be the Joseon Dynasty [Korean Dynasty from 1392 to 1897], Weight is Western medieval, and this album’s background is a dystopian world. It’s hard to see this as one person’s story. The times and places don’t match at all. However, based on the short stories inside, I think Lee Hyun-jae either has delusions or remembers all his past lives.

: He’s the only one wearing a doctor’s outfit. The same in this album’s concept photos. Also, many descriptions follow Lee Hyun-jae’s dreams. He’s probably in the position of a attending physician treating the mental illness (or phenomenon mistaken for mental illness) that Lee Hyun-jae is suffering from. Looking at Ji Dong-hwa collapsing and hurting in this episode, or the content of the novel, it seems like Lee Hyun-jae is refusing treatment and causing a fuss.

4. Chae Ha-min

: There’s a description that he died, but he appears in different worlds every time. He’s either a being created by Lee Hyun-jae’s delusions, or a friend who repeatedly spends past lives with Lee Hyun-jae.

(Omitted)

Summary: Ji Dong-hwa is trying to treat Lee Hyun-jae, but Lee Hyun-jae goes dark and goes wild. It’s clear that the time (or delusion) spent with all the members was very precious to Lee Hyun-jae.

The number of recommendations for this heartfelt post summarizing all the hints went up like crazy.

Lee Hyun-jae nodded, collecting every reaction one by one. He had speculated on the world-building with Dong-hwa hyung [older brother or male friend], and the interpretation was flowing similarly to that.

“So, I’m the villain.”

“From your perspective, I’m the villain.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s real to you.”

Lee Hyun-jae nodded. Dong-hwa hyung and he were putting their weight on this being a past life. In that case, from ‘Lee Hyun-jae’s’ point of view, the doctor who forces him to abandon the truth can be said to be the villain.

If it were a dream, symbolism would be more prominent, but it seems better to accept both the music video and the novel as they are.

Of course, it’s still just speculation, but unless the writer suddenly changes course and writes differently, wouldn’t it be right?

“And, even if we’re wrong and it’s a mental illness, there may be people who are happier in their delusions.”

“Hmm, well, even if escaping reality isn’t recommended, from that person’s point of view, they might not want to escape.”

Lee Hyun-jae put down the tablet and turned his eyes to the common scenery of the waiting room. Because they were nominated for first place, Ryu Lee-deun was wondering what to pledge as a promise, and Chae Ha-min and Seok Jun were falling asleep leaning on each other.

And Ji Dong-hwa, as if he would die if he really slept, was listening to something on his laptop and fine-tuning the song.

Chae Ha-min had made a fuss earlier, telling him to rest, but he coldly left only one word, ‘I have to do it today.’ It’s inevitable that Chae Ha-min, exhausted from making a fuss, collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep, claiming mental and physical weakness.

“Hyung, so, are you going to go out?”

Ji Dong-hwa kept working with his hands, tilted his head once, and sighed.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll get tired and die, hyung.”

Ji Dong-hwa just chuckled at Lee Hyun-jae’s worried words.

Yesterday, Ji Dong-hwa received a formal appearance offer. As the ‘master’ role of the star coach for HBS’s new survival program ‘Idol Production Workshop’, which is famous for its bad relationship with them.

Ryu Lee-deun, who was listening to the conversation, naturally chimed in.

“Honestly, if you’re confident you can handle it, going out is unconditionally beneficial. Politically and in terms of personal career.”

What ‘needs to be handled’ here is the gaze of people who will criticize his career, which is not yet enough to be considered a senior, and the fact that he has to juggle personal and team activities.

And what he will gain is the frame that ‘Nietzsche has reconciled with HBS’ and the strengthening of his personal image as a producer. Ryu Lee-deun and Ji Dong-hwa calculated all the gains and losses together while sitting down, but Ji Dong-hwa still couldn’t make a decision.

“That’s definitely true.”

Unlike his usual self, who didn’t hesitate when a clear calculation was finished when making a decision, Lee Hyun-jae was a little puzzled.

Knock knock―

Ryu Lee-deun stepped forward at the knock. What he saw when he opened the door was God’s Eye. They were a group that was praised for their good personality, regardless of whether they were juniors or seniors these days.

“Hello, fellow members. We came to share coffee!”

Yoon Sung-ho’s cheerful voice. His face alone gave a strong impression of goodness. Most people wouldn’t believe it even if he said he came out to volunteer from a religious group.

*

‘Unconscious brainwashing ability user.’

I frowned inwardly at Yoon Sung-ho’s saint-like face. He’s a really great friend, but if I were one of those members, it would have been tough. If you try to work a little too hard, you’ll immediately have two days of individual interviews booked.

They said they were nominated for first place today along with us―of course, it’s an empty house except for us right now―so they came to share coffee.

Really, it’s a great development. Everyone thought they were a failed group, but they persevered this far. Lee Hyun-jae said that a frame of ‘a group with exceptional fan love’ has been formed. This is all thanks to Yoon Sung-ho’s brainwashing classroom.

He needs to upload a video to X-Tube too.

“Oh, Dong-hwa!”

Yoon Sung-ho came over here with Ho-yeon and handed him an iced Americano.

“How have you been?”

“I sent you a text message last week.”

“A lot can happen in a week.”

Ho-yeon nodded at Yoon Sung-ho’s words.

“That’s right. It’s noisy.”

It’s a euphemism for ‘don’t open your mouth.’ Of course, I didn’t expect you to use normal speech.

“Yeah, our agency has become very noisy these days, in just a week.”

Yoon Sung-ho naturally interpreted the words and led the conversation. Ah, that’s what he meant. It’s better to ignore everything Ho-yeon says and just talk to Yoon Sung-ho.

“Because of the survival show.”

“Oh, because the TO [table of organization, meaning available spots] is fixed, the trainees’ competition has become a bit fierce. We went to cheer them on and were so embarrassed. They were checking each other. It wasn’t a picture I wanted to see.”

Ryu Lee-deun, who was managing his connections by talking with the other members, turned to look at this side at Yoon Sung-ho’s words. It seems to be a topic of interest.

And, I’m overflowing with interest too.

“Oh? Come to think of it, some of the kids who know you applied this time.”

Because of this. That’s why I was pushing Chae Ha-min away and fighting with Ki Ji-saeng for information.

*

Last night, the management team leader and team leader Jang Hae-jin analyzed why HBS would do this with surprised expressions.

This is a declaration that ‘We won’t do any more bad things to BLOSSENCE in the future, so please appear.’ In other words, the number of broadcasts our members can appear on increases by the number of one broadcasting station.

This alone is enough of a merit to overcome the shittiness of going back to a survival show, but I’m grateful to the agency for saying they will respect my opinion as much as possible. It meant that they were entrusting everything to my personal decision.

Honestly, even if the survival show is shit, if the benefits are that great, I was confident that I could just help from an objective point of view without getting too involved.

However, a problem that had been bothering me since yesterday.

My trainee period is quite long.

No matter how I think about it, I thought there would be someone on a show like this who would try to get attention by revealing that we were trainees together in the past. What can’t you do to survive? If there isn’t one, people will make up a topic even if they have to create it.

It’s a problem because I’m young. If it were about 3 years later, I wouldn’t have to worry about this because our trainee periods wouldn’t overlap. In the worst case, if there’s really someone with a strange past relationship, I’ll have to refuse to appear.

That’s why I’ve been busy memorizing all the connections―written as connections, but read as acquaintances―of the trainee period that Ki Ji-saeng has been giving me since yesterday.

‘Ki Ji-saeng, spill more.’

I’m threatening Ki Ji-saeng to give me information while pretending to look at Ryu Lee-deun talking to Yoon Sung-ho. It was clear that he was hiding something.

[Is this hard mode? It was a privilege just yesterday, aren’t you being a gangster! What are you going to do if I really get caught like this?]

You’re not going to get caught. You damn human. You’re going to commit another bomb terror.

[(Pretending not to see.)]

Damn perfectionist tendency. Because of this tendency, it’s never easy to do anything. If it were Ryu Lee-deun, he would have chosen the easy path, saying, ‘Just appear and if there’s such a connection, face it head-on!’, but my personality doesn’t allow it, so I’m making this fuss with Ki Ji-saeng now…….

‘Please.’

[If you shout three times that I’m a gangster.]

Besides, looking at him joking like that, it doesn’t seem like there are any important connections, but the thought that there might be is eating away at my thought process. The possibility of a small error implies the possibility of escalating into a bigger problem at any time.

‘…Now?’

[Was your will that weak?]

I sighed once and opened my mouth.

“I’m a gangster.”

Ryu Lee-deun was startled.

“I’m a gangster.”

Chae Ha-min, who had fallen asleep, woke up in surprise.

“I’m a gangster.”

When everyone’s eyes turned to me, I put on my headset and fixed my eyes on the laptop. Was it thanks to Ji Dong-hwa’s mental lesson? It wasn’t that embarrassing.