| Episode 20. Clash of Opinions (2)
“Why are you both silent? Don’t tell me you were going to become idols and still get into a fistfight?”
For a moment, silence settled over the practice room.
“……”
“Did you want to debut with a controversy already attached to you? Are you two the type to take high risks for high returns?”
If that was the case, then rather than fighting each other, these two should have had a talk with me first.
I was wondering whether I needed to set their minds straight until common sense and manners were engraved into their spines when Choe Jeho asked,
“If you’re not going to stop us, why did you butt in?”
“I’m saying I’d like you to change the way you talk. You’re both old enough to express your opinions politely.”
At that, the two of them clamped their mouths shut.
Considering their personalities, where they’d immediately jump in if they thought something was wrong, it seemed like both of them accepted my words at least a tiny bit.
“I want you guys to have a healthy conversation. Not use a fight as an excuse to vent your anger.”
“……”
“You too, Choe Jeho. Now that you know Giyeon has a complaint against you, can’t you just ask him what he’s unhappy about? Let’s not waste what we learned in ethics class.”
The two of them, as if they’d been hit with a bucket of cold water mixed with latte, sighed. It was a sign that their will to fight had vanished.
‘If just stopping the fight was enough, I’d quit here, but……’
≫ Look at our Seongbin, exhausted from trying to fix the mood, sipping at a cup with not even any cola left in it with Juuㅠㅠ Main dancer line, read the room—no, don’t read it
└ SparkCoolDisease really lives up to their name, the livestream mood is fucked and they’re still trying to squeeze content out of it and pretend they’re above it all
└ If we don’t cope somehow, how are we supposed to stan them lol It’s suffocating the whole time I’m watching
└ You say it was suffocating the whole time, but you still watched the whole livestream? Congrats on becoming a fan
└ The coping is insane, seriously
Even if I set my goal as nothing more than debuting safely, I had to spend at least the next year with Spark.
In a situation like this, burying the rift and pretending not to know about it was the same as agreeing to live with the feeling of walking on thin ice that could crack at any moment.
Moreover, the ones having a war of nerves were the guys who fought the most even within Spark. It was difficult to wrap things up by pretending not to know anything.
“If it’s hard to cool your heads and talk, then get help from a third party. If someone else gets involved, your heads will cool down a little.”
“……”
“You guys have lived in groups for much longer than I have, so it must be harder, and you must have endured a lot among yourselves too. But you don’t want the others walking on eggshells, do you?”
Only then did Choe Jeho and Gang Giyeon’s gazes turn toward Jeong Seongbin’s face, which had gone pale.
This probably hadn’t happened just once or twice, and every time, Jeong Seongbin must have somehow stepped in to mediate. It was obvious even without seeing it.
“Then I hope you two come to an amicable agreement. I’m going back in.”
“You can’t go in.”
“Huh?”
Choe Jeho, arms crossed, openly looked my way and said,
“You do it. Be the third party.”
No. At that point, shouldn’t you at least act like the eldest and step up, saying, “I’ll do it, Spark’s honorary mediator”?
I had absolutely no desire to get involved in a quarrel between the two of them.
Because my social skills were already at their limit just from seeing Spark’s faces every day, talking to them, and practicing with them.
Still, I was about to calmly suggest that they resolve their own matters independently when the system appeared before my eyes.
+
[SYSTEM] A “new task” has been assigned.
▷ Resolve the dispute between members and eliminate the seed of controversy. (Stick function can be used once)
▷ Reward: Experience Points (20), Stick function activation
+
No, fuck, now I have to resolve arguments between grown kids too?
When there are several intelligent beings gathered together, clashes of opinion can happen. That’s just how it is.
However, the phrase “seed of controversy” bothered me.
I quickly ran through Spark’s biography in my head as fast as I could.
‘A controversy that could have happened between Choe Jeho and Gang Giyeon…… The attitude controversy only involved Choe Jeho, so that’s out. Both of them had personality controversies, but they weren’t tied to each other, so exclude those……’
The damn controversies kept coming to mind no matter how many I peeled away. No matter how much I was the biggest slapdash member in the team, there was no other shipwreck quite like this.
Jeong Seongbin, who had led this talkative group project for seven years, and Department Head Nam’s daughter, who must have passionately stanned the uproarious Spark for seven years, both deserved respect.
If it were me, I might have long since left the fandom when the controversy about ignoring a member broke out……
‘This is it!’
It was a controversy that had spread starting from footage captured on camera of an awkward atmosphere between Choe Jeho and Gang Giyeon about two years after debut.
If office workers fought, it would have ended after a few rounds of gossip behind their backs, but……
Despite being in the same group, the sense of distance between Choe Jeho and Gang Giyeon, who looked awkward around each other, snowballed into greater distortion with each post.
And in the end, it went as far as a personality controversy claiming that Choe Jeho, the older one, was creating a sharp atmosphere within the team by looking down on Gang Giyeon, who had not even become the center and was younger than him.
≫ If he’s like that even when there are cameras, I can’t even imagine what he’s like when there aren’t;;; The cold air is insane
≫ No matter what, he’s not a stranger, he’s a member of the same group. Can he really ignore him that openly? I feel embarrassed for him
≫ Fans have been shielding him for years, saying he’s just shy lololol So this was the result. I’m fucking disappointed, Jeho
└ No one else to blame lol You guys raised him like that, and now you’re saying you’re disappointed? Keep stanning your Jeho, whose lack of social skills you find so cute
Then even cyber wreckers got involved……
“Male Idol Who Couldn’t Stand Military Culture and Committed Insubordination,” “Idol Under Fire for Passing Over a Member…… Going This Far Against a Fellow Member?”
……Videos like that ran rampant.
They got pushed so much by the algorithm that even now, I could clearly remember the fake thumbnail that made it look like Choe Jeho and Gang Giyeon were glaring at each other.
And unfortunately, all of this happened at a point when mentions of Spark were noticeably increasing.
In other words, this still wasn’t the time for it to surface openly.
‘Why is this blowing up already?’
It was true that Choe Jeho and Gang Giyeon had kept an unusual distance right before debut.
So in terms of timing, this issue should have happened in two years at the earliest, and if taking the controversy breaking out into account, four years later.
Jeong Seongbin had suddenly failed to keep himself together too.
At that moment, the notice I had seen recently came to mind.
+
[SYSTEM] The “Cautionary Notes” are being announced to “Party B.”
▷ If the existing schedule is excessively altered, corresponding disadvantages may occur.
▷ Even if the schedule is moved up, the frequency of events scheduled to occur remains valid, and their timing will be adjusted according to the changed schedule.
+
Fuck, it wasn’t them. I was the one doing high risk, high return.
Once I realized that all of this was my karma, my stomach burned. My head also seemed to ache a little.
‘It’s fucked, but what’s already done can’t be helped.’
If time was already lacking, then it was only right to even squeeze out the time I’d spend regretting it and use it to find the best solution.
I racked my brain, trying to find the positive side of the current situation as much as possible.
As with all things, even this incident had its advantages.
‘Considering how UA failed to respond properly and set the individual fandoms on fire, it might actually be better to prevent it in advance.’
Wasn’t this better than watching Choe Jeho’s fans and Gang Giyeon’s fans get torn to shreds?
Of course, that was under the premise that I could prevent the incident before it happened.
I once again thought that I really should have applied for a career change into manager. If not that, then at least an operator of a UA-exclusive confessional.
“Guys, I don’t think practice is what’s important right now.”
“What?”
“Everyone, sit down. Let’s talk.”
Emergency. This really was an emergency.
* * *
Including Bak Juu, whom I had no idea who had brought in or when, we sat in a circle in the middle of the practice room.
“I don’t think this is something that needs to be made this big.”
Gang Giyeon expressed his dissatisfaction.
It seemed that although he had snapped and shouted, he’d been trying to smooth things over in his own way, but Choe Jeho had stirred things up without reading the room, and I had apparently added fuel to the fire, so he was annoyed.
“I said we should have a healthy conversation. Giyeon, you’re banned from speaking until your head cools.”
So I decided to just shut his mouth for a bit. When someone was angry, even good words came out twisted.
“Choe Jeho, what part of what Giyeon said did you not like?”
“……It’s not like I particularly disliked it.”
“For the sake of the effort the four of us are putting in by sitting here to hear your opinion, I’d like you to be honest.”
He tried to gloss over it vaguely, so when I smiled and asked nicely, Choe Jeho flinched.
He was a guy with no friends, so he must have been awkward with friendly conversation between people of the same age. I understood.
“He doesn’t like me.”
“What?”
No sooner had Choe Jeho spoken than Gang Giyeon reacted.
Thanks to the gazes of the two sitting across from each other, sparks seemed to fly in midair.
They really were members perfectly suited to the group name.
I asked in as calm a tone as possible so that Choe Jeho wouldn’t become aggressive too.
“Did Giyeon say with his own mouth that you get on his nerves?”
“He’s never said that, but……”
“Then why do you think Giyeon doesn’t like you?”
“Do you have to hear someone say it to know they hate you?”
In short, he meant that he had read Gang Giyeon’s nonverbal expressions.
That part was unexpected. Choe Jeho was infamous for being the kind of guy who didn’t care what others thought and lived life on his own.
There was a possibility that his personality had changed while being an idol, but the Choe Jeho I had observed while sharing food and lodging with him wasn’t much different from how he appeared in the media.
‘For a guy like that to be so conscious of someone else…… That’s unexpected.’
Gang Giyeon, who had abruptly become someone who had been shouting “I hate you” with his whole body at a teammate, also had a strange expression on his face.
“Though my life has been short if you call it short and long if you call it long, there’s something I’ve learned.”
“You’ve lived exactly the same length as me.”
I’m more used than you, you bastard. By about nine years.
“Rather than guessing someone else’s feelings based on my own standards, explaining what made me angry is more helpful in continuing a conversation.”
“It looked like he wanted to make it obvious he hated me even from a hundred meters away, so I set the stage for him to say it out loud. Happy?”
“I don’t hate you.”
Just as the conversation was about to heat up, Gang Giyeon explained.
However, it was hard to trust those words. Because Gang Giyeon’s expression was seriously awful.
“We just don’t match. And I don’t intend to try to match him either.”
Gang Giyeon was firm.
“Can I ask why you came to think that?”
At my question, Gang Giyeon hesitated briefly before answering.
“Because that hyung doesn’t intend to match anyone else either.”