The main writer had no idea, but Han Sion was, in fact, eating his samgyeopsal in precisely that frame of mind.
He wasn’t the type to enjoy fine dining when alone, so even while staying in Korea, he hadn’t actually eaten much Korean food.
Since he had avoided Koreatown for the sake of image-making while promoting in GOTM, this was his first samgyeopsal in a very long time.
“Not bad.”
But the main writer, unaware of these circumstances, was marveling at how strangely sophisticated Han Sion seemed while eating.
Next, what caught her eye was Choi Jaeseong.
Choi Jaeseong, the sole minor (18 years old),
wasn’t merely in the maknae line—he was the perfect maknae.
He watched Gu Taehwan grilling the meat, at a loss and reading the room, then repeated taking a bite each time Han Sion ate.
It didn’t look like he was forcing a cute concept; it seemed to be his natural personality.
Aside from them, On Saemiro and Yi Ieon were eating fine without issue, but unlike his appearance, On Saemiro was quite the big eater.
He was politely picking up and eating meat, so I didn’t notice at first, but watching quietly, he was eating nonstop.
He seemed to have shoved roughly three to four servings into his stomach.
“This isn’t even a mukbang, and a big-eater concept isn’t great.”
As the writer was worrying about what character traits to assign the five members, the samgyeopsal ran out.
Blowing on the nurungji that came out for dessert, conversation that could actually be called conversation finally began.
It began with one of the writers shaking like crazy a whiteboard that said “Organizing Titles.”
“Uh, if I recall, I think I’m the oldest…… Right?”
Yi Ieon, the only one among the Team B members with experience in a debut group’s self-produced content, opened his mouth.
As Yi Ieon said, Yi Ieon was 21 alone, and Han Sion,
Gu Taehwan,
and On Saemiro were all 20.
Choi Jaeseong was two years younger at 18.
Except for Choi Jaeseong, they were all on the older side for idol hopefuls.
But they were on the younger side for audition program participants.
This was because of Coming Up Next’s abnormal planning intentions.
The cast of Coming Up Next needed to have enough talent to compete with Take Scene right away.
Otherwise, the program would lack too much tension.
But at the same time, when the broadcast ended, they needed to be able to sign as trainees with Ryan Entertainment.
Because they could be trained for a year or two and then launched as Take Scene’s successor group.
Given this situation, to satisfy both conditions, they couldn’t be too young, nor could they be too old.
That was why seven out of the ten who participated in Team B’s selection round were 20 years old.
Naturally, there were many twenty-year-olds among the final five as well.
“I’ll call you hyung from now on.”
“I’ll speak comfortably too. On Saemiro, what do your friends usually call you? Saemiro? Or Miro?”
“Almost no one calls me Miro; I think they call me On Saemiro or Saemiro.”
“Okay. Then we’ll go with Saemiro.”
Sorting out the honorifics was about as warm and harmonious as a typical university group project, but the next topic was quite serious.
Because it was time to decide on a team name after having simply called themselves Team B all this time.
Once again, Yi Ieon was the first to offer an opinion.
“How about Scene Stealer? Since the team we’ll be competing against going forward is Take Scene, I thought about it at home.”
“Oh, that’s nice?”
“I think it’s good too. Scene Stealer…… It sounds nice.”
When even Han Sion nodded that it was okay, the main writer interrupted, halting the filming.
“Everyone, just a moment. In terms of broadcast flow, you don’t know the name Take Scene yet. You only know that you’re competing against Ryan Entertainment’s debut group, right?”
“Ah……”
“Moreover, Scene Stealer overlaps with a song title that Take Scene is preparing. Let’s go again. You don’t need to act; just continue thinking about the name as you were.”
Once the main writer sat down, Yi Ieon cleared his throat once and opened his mouth again.
“Haven’t you guys thought of any team names? I thought of a few at home…… But nothing really stuck.”
The members sent Yi Ieon looks saying he’d done enough.
It wouldn’t air, but he had already presented a name he’d prepared in advance.
Sure enough, opening his mouth first at times like this was the maknae’s role.
“How about Wild Flower? Wildflowers. Since we’re not all from conventional agencies.”
“Hmm, I think it’s nice, but wouldn’t it not suit our image or a boy group?”
“Hmm, that’s true. Saemiro hyung, don’t you have any ideas?”
“Since we’re appearing on Coming Up Next, I thought of Next Boys.”
“……
Next Boy?”
“Next Boys.”
“…….”
While everyone was shocked by On Saemiro’s naming sense, Gu Taehwan opened his mouth toward Han Sion.
“Uh, Sion-ssi. No, Sion…… Ah?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you have a name you thought of?”
“Hmm…… How about
“Three months? Like three moons?”
“No, that our team is only for three months.”
“Wow…… Really no sense of romance.”
Gu Taehwan said that, then startled at the fact that he’d criticized Han Sion and covered his mouth.
Han Sion, seeing that, smirked and cracked a joke.
“It’s because I’m a T.”
“A T? What’s T?”
“MB…… Ah, never mind.”
Han Sion knew about it because Korean fans always asked about his MBTI via DM, but not knowing what year it had become popular in Korea, he closed his mouth.
Because the atmosphere was at least not that of 2017.
“Anyway, it’s saying I hope we achieve something even after three months.”
When Han Sion added that explanation, the members fell into thought.
The team name
“Then how about
“Isn’t that better than Three Months?”
Everyone seemed a bit more relaxed, evaluating each other’s opinions and continuing their exchange.
And the team name was decided.
Some staff wondered what kind of name this even was, while others thought it was fine.
Because people who were curious about what would happen after their three months, or hundred days, would watch this program.
“Alright, then shall we introduce ourselves now?”
“Introduce ourselves? Right now?”
“You're all aspiring singers, right? You should introduce yourselves through song.”
The next filming location was a karaoke room.
* * *
The atmosphere in the karaoke room was better than expected.
They had chatted while deciding the team name, so the awkwardness seemed to have subsided somewhat.
If not that, it could have been because there were no broadcasting station people around.
Inside a karaoke room spacious enough to fit twenty people, only stationary cameras were installed in place of a filming crew.
Anyway, everyone sang rather enjoyably, but what was a bit funny was that they sang in a set order.
One song from the eldest, Yi Ieon, then next was me, On Saemiro, Gu Taehwan, and finally Choi Jaeseong.
That didn’t mean only one person sang while the others watched; they skillfully joined in on songs meant for multiple singers.
What was interesting was that Gu Taehwan and Choi Jaeseong’s singing skills had noticeably improved in just a few days.
They didn’t seem to realize it themselves, but they seemed to have gained some realization during the last Coming Up Next filming.
In fact, more singers than you’d think are the type who improve through real experience.
Once they reach a certain level, many fail to achieve much through practice alone and only grow through actual performance.
Those two were probably of that sort.
Especially Gu Taehwan’s improvement was dazzling.
He said it was his favorite pop song and sang Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself,” and I was surprised from the first verse.
His rhythm in the intro was truly unique.
His singing ability itself still left much to be desired, with many parts needing training, but that sense of rhythm was innate.
However, when going up to the high register, he was so preoccupied with breathing to raise the pitch that his rhythmic charm died out completely.
Still, Gu Taehwan was someone to observe quite carefully.
Not in this life, but someday I had to gather the best members like GOTM and form K-pop.
If Gu Taehwan’s singing ability kept growing and he gained expressiveness unbound by vocal range?
He might take a spot in the team I would create.
Of course, to do that he’d have to be several times better than he was now.
While I was thinking that, suddenly the main writer opened the karaoke door, came in, and called us outside.
And handed us a sheet of paper with five song titles written on it.
“From now on, these are the songs you’ll sing. Please choose one song each.”
“There are songs I don’t know, though.”
“Since this is a list chosen based on preliminary interviews, at least one of you is guaranteed to know each song.”
Hearing the writer’s words, I thought back and seemed to recall writing down a ranking of songs I enjoyed singing at karaoke during the interview.
Sure enough, among the list the writer gave was a song title I had written.
But why was this one picked?
I think I had written this song down at a pretty low ranking.
“Now then, please choose the song each of you will sing.”
There was brief confusion as Yi Ieon and Choi Jaeseong’s lists of favorite songs seemed similar, but aside from that, everyone knew which song was theirs.
For reference, the song I would sing was
It was early-nineties city pop, and I thought Korean songs from this era were quite well-crafted.
But I still didn’t know why this was picked.
I had been wary of looking like too much of a hipster, so I had avoided pop songs and prioritized recently trending songs and K-pop boy group songs when writing them down.
Could it be the writer’s taste?
“We’ll decide the singing order with a ladder lottery.”
On the phone the staff held out, a ladder lottery app was already set up.
“Han Sion-ssi.”
At the writer’s gesture pointing at me, I pressed the button, and the order was decided in a flash.
Gu Taehwan, On Saemiro, Yi Ieon, me, and then Choi Jaeseong.
“Do we sing in this order?”
“That’s right.”
“We’re doing some kind of mission right now, aren’t we? Something good happens if we get a high karaoke score?”
“It’s similar. You’ll know the details soon, but more importantly, there are precautions.”
1. The staff will operate the karaoke machine, so focus and sing when the song comes on.
2. Don’t change the beat, don’t ad-lib, don’t change the song. Sing it exactly like the original.
3. Those who finish singing quietly leave the room and come down to the first floor.
It might have been my imagination, but the writer seemed to stare right through me while saying precaution number 2.
Well, it was true that I had never sung a song exactly like the original until now.
“Now then, go back inside the room. Focus on the screen.”
Coming back into the karaoke room, Gu Taehwan, first in the order, took the mic.
But the song wasn’t selected for quite a while, longer than expected.
“What are they trying to do? Sion, any guesses?”
“I think there are people outside watching us sing.”
“Huh? Passersby?”
“They could be an audience the broadcasting station recruited.”
In fact, there was one more possibility even more likely than that.
I didn’t say it because the team members might get nervous, but Take Scene could be watching.
Because it was about time they met.
At that moment, the title of the song Gu Taehwan would sing appeared on the karaoke monitor.