Fucking Idol Episode 38* * *
March 3, 2017.
Today was the day I legally became an adult.
In other words, it was my birthday.
Thanks to that, I received a lot of messages.
The first to contact me was Uncle Hyeonsu, followed by cautious messages from my high school classmates wishing me strength and a happy birthday.
The reason I called them high school classmates rather than high school friends was that I didn’t remember them very well.
I might recognize them if I met them, but just seeing their names didn’t bring their faces or any memories to mind.
Lastly, congratulatory messages appeared in the Sedalbaekil group chat.[Sedalbaekil Lee Iion (21): Sion, happy birthday. Since it’s not a filming day, you’ll be able to have fun with your friends. Is there anything you need as a present?][Sedalbaekil Gu Taehwan (20): Happy birthday. I was thinking of sending you a humidifier. Do you already have one?][Sedalbaekil Choi Jaeseong (18): Hyung! I sincerely congratulate you on your birthday!! I sent your present through a private message!][Sedalbaekil On Saemiro (20): Happy birthday. Have a pleasant day.]
Messaging apps sure were exhausting these days.
Why did they advertise other people’s birthdays in giant letters?
And the funniest thing of all was…….[Great-Uncle-in-Law Bastard: I suppose I’ve done nothing but pressure you all this time. I’m sorry.]
A present had arrived from my great-uncle-in-law, along with an apology.
What an unbelievable man.
Did he really think this kind of carrot would work?
If not, then perhaps he was more perceptive than I’d thought.
Once my birthday passed, I would shed the label of legal minor and acquire the qualifications to become my parents’ guardian through the family court.
It was hard to imagine a twenty-year-old making such thorough preparations, but if my great-uncle-in-law had sent the present with that in mind, I had to give him a little credit.
However, the person I was going to meet on my birthday wasn’t someone who had come to congratulate me.
He was someone who would defend me.
Attorney Choi Jiwoon.
“It’s a real stroke of luck that your birthday is in March. If it had been around September, things would’ve been troublesome, wouldn’t they?”
“Indeed.”
“So, were you able to discuss things properly with the attending physician? Your parents need to be declared in a vegetative state now.”
I liked Choi Jiwoon’s businesslike attitude better than some clumsy consolation.
Then again, this was the best kind of business when he was charging a private client a billion won in legal fees.
“They’ll be declared in a vegetative state by next week at the latest.”
Uncle Hyeonsu fulfilled my request in every iteration.
This time was no exception.
“Then there’s no reason to hesitate. We’ll go straight in. It looks like jurisdiction will happen to be assigned to the Seocho District Court, too.”
“Are you confident?”
“If it were another jurisdiction, I’d say our odds were seventy percent. That’s still fairly high, though.”
“What are our odds in Seocho District?”
“Seven hundred percent.”
It was something I’d heard countless times, but I supposed I should act impressed here.
After that, I discussed dividing up the spoils with Attorney Choi Jiwoon.
The liquid assets whose value wasn’t likely to change much would be disposed of and divided immediately, while we would take our time selling some of the bonds.
“I’ll find a realtor and have the properties put up for sale immediately. It’s difficult to predict housing prices, so we might as well do it now.”
Choi Jiwoon showed a human expression for the first time as he spoke.
“I have to ask this as an adult, but are you sure you’re all right? That must be a place filled with many memories.”
“I’m fine. It’s just real estate, after all.”
I really did think that way, but I had no intention of selling the house.
Selling a house wasn’t something that could be finished in a day or two. While Choi Jiwoon waited the month or two it would take to sell the property, I could invest elsewhere and make a profit.
I could use that money to pay his legal fees.
After that, I told him that I was currently appearing on M Show’s audition program, and Choi Jiwoon was pleased.
He said it was a good thing to prove that I was leading a normal social life rather than suffering from PTSD due to a traffic accident.
After chatting with Choi Jiwoon about this and that, I left the law firm and found several messages waiting for me.
The first was from Producer Kang Seokwoo.[I heard from Chris Edward and HR. After listening to Flowers Bloom, which you arranged, Sion, he decided to board a flight to Korea.][He can’t come right away because he has some schedules to take care of, but he’ll be entering the country in two weeks.]
That was pleasant information.
I sent Producer Kang Seokwoo a message of thanks and checked the message from Seung Hyun, the HR team leader.[BVB and Double M have completed their payments. Please confirm.][Also, both NOP and Drop Out say they intend to leave the original songs untouched and make only minimal arrangements according to the part distribution.][They’re asking whether Sion can arrange the songs himself and whether he has any thoughts on the matter.][What should I tell them?]
They were going to leave the original songs as they were?
Were they trying something just to get my contact information?
Hmm. What should I do?
Honestly, I didn’t care if NOP rearranged the song they’d taken however they wanted.
It was a song whose appeal came more from the pleasure of its sound than from its composition.
Surely they wouldn’t touch the main melody while arranging it.
But Drop Out’s song would turn terrible if they tampered with its structure even a little.
Still, thinking about it, I found it a bit disappointing.
I’d wanted to see how the K-pop industry of this era interpreted my songs.
Would it be better if I arranged them myself?
I checked the composition fees that had been deposited, transferred half of them to Team Leader Seung Hyun, and sent a message.[I sent the payment.][I’ll handle the arrangement remotely, communicating only by email, if that’s acceptable.][No, wait. I’ll actually send you a draft today with the parts reasonably distributed, along with vocal guides, so negotiate using that.][If they agree, squeeze the arrangement fee out of them like you’re wringing a dried squid.][If they pay well for the arrangement, I’m willing to mix and master it as a free service.]
I’d been willing to let the composition fee slide since I wanted the deal to go through, but arrangements were a different matter.
It wasn’t that I needed the money. A creator’s compensation was directly tied to their honor.
And when it came to mixing and mastering, I figured it was better for me to do it than to leave it to an engineer who wasn’t up to the task.
Anyway, that was another piece of pleasant information.
But the real prize was in the final message.[Video]
A video message sent by Fade.
No, “video message” had a slightly strange ring to it.
An apology video.
—I sincerely apologize for causing a disturbance by expressing my displeasure at the filming location the other day……
Fade really was a clever bastard.
He had offered a perfect apology from a thoroughly deferential position.
This was the right way to do it. You couldn’t be vague and snippy over messages, or make it obvious that you were only apologizing because you had no choice.
Not because I wouldn’t be satisfied, but because that could become a weakness later on.
What if I made this video public?
With an apology this perfect, the public’s arrows might instead rain down on me.
I didn’t know the exact circumstances before and after the incident, but it would look as if I’d publicly released the video to mock him even after receiving an apology.
On the other hand, what if Fade uploaded a video of himself acting cocky and offering a half-hearted apology?
Only Fade would be treated like an idiot.
In that sense, Fade’s response had been perfect.
Then I had to give him a perfect answer in return.[Thank you for being mature enough to apologize first.][Our first meeting left wounds on both sides, but I hope we can use this opportunity at the next filming to build a closer relationship instead.]
If Fade’s side ever made the whole process public, this reply would serve as a shield.
Jeez, but look at those eyes.
He’d handled everything perfectly with his head, but apparently he hated me an awful lot.
I felt a little hurt.
I’d even arranged for him not to have to come all the way to Yeoksam-dong and simply send me the video.
Maybe he enjoyed taking the subway?* * *
Coming Up Next was a program whose main content was the competition between two teams, but it also took the form of an observational variety show.
The public thought they were familiar with idols as a concept, but contrary to that belief, they knew very little about the lives of idols.
They simply believed that people with outstanding looks received training, practiced songs created by others, and then had to stand onstage.
But if that were all there was to it, why would successful idols be so rare while most idols failed?
Surely the looks, talent, and training periods of every failed idol hadn’t been inadequate?
That was why Coming Up Next planned to observe the daily lives of Take Scene and Sedalbaekil and provide the enjoyment of an observational variety show.
At the same time, the producers intended to use it to draw deep immersion and a desire to support the contestants from the viewers.
For that reason, on March 5, when filming for the main format began,
all ten contestants moved into the dormitory.* * *
It was better than I’d expected.
That was my impression as I looked around the dormitory with a name tag reading “Han Sion” pinned to my chest.
The accommodation arranged by Coming Up Next was a pool villa pension in Pocheon, not too far from Seoul.
It consisted of two perfectly identical buildings spread out on either side of a central swimming pool like mirror images.
Take Scene would move into the building on the left, while Sedalbaekil would occupy the one on the right.
“Don’t unpack. Leave your luggage in the shared entrance and come back out here.”
“Yes!”
Following the writer’s instructions, the ten cast members began setting their luggage down in the shared entrance.
We were all still strangers, of course, but apparently our psychological distances differed.
As soon as I put my luggage down in a suitable spot, the other members of Sedalbaekil began setting theirs down around me.
Looking closely, I had the most luggage on our team, while On Saemiro had the least.
No, it wasn’t that On Saemiro had little. He practically had nothing.
He’d brought only a tiny shopping bag.
I wondered what was inside and took a look. Contrary to his appearance, he had the style of a real man.
Even if they had told us not to bring clothes because costumes would be provided, how could he bring nothing but lotion and sunscreen?
I was thinking that as I put down my luggage and looked toward the other side, where I could feel Fade glaring at me.
I smirked and mouthed, “Do you want to apologize again?”
Seeing him tremble, I guessed he’d understood.
He was good at reading lips.
But if he caused a scene here, the production staff would really look at him badly.
“Passionate youth can get into a fight sometimes” only worked once.
When we went back outside…….
“Oh, Mentor!”
Blue was standing in front of the pool villa with a broad smile.
The other judges were nowhere to be seen, so it seemed he had come to host the proceedings rather than judge us.
“All right, everyone, gather around. I’ll start by going over some announcements.”
The main writer standing beside Blue brought up the news that the broadcast schedule had been moved up by two weeks.
“We received two additional weeks of programming, but the schedule ended up being moved forward. Understood?”
“So it’s going to air for ten weeks in total?”
“That’s right, more or less. We originally intended to announce it last time, but……”
He glanced at Fade and me, his voice trailing off slightly.
It was a pointed reminder that we needed to take responsibility for the show.
“Anyway, that means there are only sixteen days left until the first broadcast. Nervous?”
“Does that mean we might end up broadcasting live?”
The writer laughed as if dumbfounded by Choi Jaeseong’s question, his face gone pale.
Then he added that Episodes One and Two were already almost completely rough-cut, and that whatever we filmed from this point on would be included in Episode Three or at the end of Episode Two.
“There’s a four-week gap between the broadcast and the filming, so we won’t be going live.”
Once the main writer finished explaining and stepped back, Blue looked toward the main camera and clapped to mark the slate.
Clap!
After establishing the editing point, filming properly began with a chat about our recent activities.
There was nothing particularly special about it.
They asked us for our thoughts on being selected as Team B and congratulated us, and they also asked about the team name, Sedalbaekil.
As for Take Scene, they asked about their resolve and state of mind going into the competition.
Since he was also under Ryan Entertainment, Blue seemed to be fairly familiar with Take Scene and looked relaxed.