Damn Idol Episode 83
Album 8. Business Game
In fancy terms, it’s called burnout.
In less fancy terms, post-nut clarity.
In even less fancy terms, a reality crash.
Or maybe post-nut clarity and a reality crash are basically the same thing.
Anyway, I once studied why reality crashes happen.
When you go through countless regressions, it’s something you inevitably come face-to-face with.
The reason a reality crash happens is because of hormones.
Dopamine, which is responsible for human motivation and a sense of achievement, is secreted in excess, then drops below the average level, causing you to lose motivation…
Damn it, what am I doing?
I’m making excuses to myself for no reason.
To put it simply, I was hit by a reality crash.
“……”
It was only yesterday that I stormed out of Take Scene, saying I would debut with Sedalbaegil.
CEO Choi Daeho got angry, and Producer Kang Seoku was dumbfounded.
But what could they do?
I said I wasn’t going to do it.
The filming ended in a chaotic atmosphere, and we drank at the mushroom farm run by Gu Taehwan’s parents.
Choi Jaeseong, who was still a minor, only sipped soda, but the mood was good.
For the record, Onsaemiro cried.
He said he’d never imagined I would make that kind of choice.
What a pathetic guy.
Choi Jaeseong teased Onsaemiro for being “real,” and Lee Ion cleaned.
As it turned out, Ion hyung’s drinking habit was cleaning.
He kept cleaning the annex that Gu Taehwan’s parents had emptied out for us so we wouldn’t have to worry about other people’s eyes.
I thought he was an employee from a cleaning company.
The only one who was completely fine was Gu Taehwan.
He seemed to have drunk quite a bit, but he had an incredibly high tolerance, so he didn’t bat an eye and just observed the members.
Apparently, Gu Taehwan’s hobby is observing people.
After spending that enjoyable time together and parting ways, the next day—
Post-nut clarity came for me.
I don’t regret the choice.
Even if the same moment came again, I’d probably make the same choice.
But as a regressor, it was definitely not an appropriate choice.
Someone might wonder why it matters, when I’m going to repeat countless lives anyway. Why not live however I want at least once?
But it isn’t that simple.
I’ve tried living however I wanted to relieve stress before.
I wanted to live off the money I’d earned, enjoying parties on the beaches of California.
But that meant excluding the possibility of selling two hundred million albums.
Having no possibility means giving up, and giving up calls forth regression.
Because that is the rule of my regression.
Of course, I can endure it by forcibly ignoring the fact that I’ve given up.
A week, fifteen days, or a month.
I can ignore it while living a life of partying every day, getting drunk, and passing out.
But even that has its limits.
Because one day, when I wake up on a mega-yacht filled with the traces of a yacht party, I’ll think this.
‘There is no paradise at the end of an escape.’
So I can only maintain my life if I keep holding on to the faint hope that I can sell two hundred million albums.
Even in a life where I can’t sell two hundred million, I have to try to gain something.
Just like how I tried to experience being a typical K-pop idol in this life.
Because that isn’t giving up.
It’s preparation.
In that sense, Sedalbaegil’s current situation was quite negative.
On the surface, Coming Up Next claims to operate under the principles of “debut immediately upon winning” and “freedom of choice after elimination.”
In other words, if you win, you have to debut under Ryan Entertainment, but if you’re eliminated, you can go anywhere.
But there’s no way things will actually work like that.
If Coming Up Next had failed spectacularly, maybe, but it was now looking at a ten-percent viewership rating.
Ryan Entertainment would just let go of contestants with name recognition known by one in every ten citizens?
When the program planning, production costs, and training costs were all covered by Ryan Entertainment?
There was no way.
That would be the perfect way to get called a sucker in the industry.
So starting now, pressure would begin on the members of Sedalbaegil.
If you leave Ryan Entertainment, you’ll never be able to debut.
You won’t be able to set foot anywhere in this industry.
It wouldn’t be a bluff, either.
CEO Choi Daeho had that much power.
There were actual cases of people who got on the wrong side of a major agency and were banned from appearing on broadcasts for years.
On top of that, we had even made M Show our enemy.
Of course, it wasn’t as if M Show had suffered any financial damage.
On the contrary, with the ratings hitting their peak, they probably made a lot of money.
The distributor of the songs that reached number one was M Show too, wasn’t it?
But what mattered was that their pride had been damaged.
M Show had promised to package the product called Han Sion nicely and send him off to Ryan Entertainment.
That was why they edited me with such care and gave me conveniences, worried that Han Sion’s marketability might get damaged.
But then, all of a sudden, I flew off.
If they stayed still in this situation, they wouldn’t be part of the establishment.
And this is just a guess, but there was a high chance M Show was receiving a share of Take Scene’s revenue.
Otherwise, why would a broadcasting station organize an in-house audition program?
In other words, because I didn’t join Take Scene, they had failed to earn money they would have originally made.
For reference, the people upstairs describe situations like this as “losses.”
Because money that could have gone into their pockets disappeared.
They completely forget about the money they earned thanks to me.
So M Show and Ryan Entertainment would now try to bring me and Sedalbaegil to heel.
Threats for me.
Pressure for the other members.
Of course, if you ask whether I had no way to deal with this situation, then of course I did.
I don’t know Korea well, but I know the logic of show business very well.
There were many methods.
But I didn’t know if the members of Sedalbaegil would believe in them.
Trusting my musical ability and trusting my way of doing business were two different things.
Lee Ion, Onsaemiro, Gu Taehwan, Choi Jaeseong.
Until now, they had been pure.
They worried about me, wanted me to debut, and simply acted on that wish.
But now, it was time for them to weigh things on a scale.
Because they would be threatened that if they stayed with Han Sion, they would never be able to achieve their dream of becoming idols.
On top of that, on the opposite side of the scale from “Han Sion,” they might place “family.”
[Sedalbaegil Lee Ion (21): I’m meeting Producer Kim Darin. With my parents.]
[Sedalbaegil Gu Taehwan (20): Producer Kang Seoku says he’s coming to the store.]
[Sedalbaegil Choi Jaeseong (18): Someone’s coming to see me too. But why are they coming from the broadcasting station? Not Ryan Entertainment?]
Those were messages from the group chat from four hours ago.
By now, the members had probably met, or were meeting, the producers.
What worried me a little was that Onsaemiro was the only one who hadn’t sent a message.
Considering his family situation, I didn’t think Onsaemiro’s parents would stay still.
Because to them, who had lived in poverty their whole lives, Onsaemiro must have been the first treasure they’d ever had.
In any case, I hadn’t received any contact at all.
It probably wasn’t because of my parents’ situation, but because they intended to isolate me.
To cloud my ability to make a normal judgment.
After thinking about that for a long while, I lay down on the bed.
Maybe because my sleep schedule had been irregular due to filming, I got sleepy even though it was only seven in the evening.
“……”
But I didn’t want to fall asleep.
I had a feeling I’d have a nightmare.
“……”
Like the members of Sedalbaegil acting like For The Youth, or Coming Up Next airing like Stage Number Zero.
I felt like I would have that kind of unpleasant dream.
“……”
It was at that moment.
My body began to move as if it were being sucked into a black hole.
Every scene around me warped, was pushed away, and brushed past me.
Blaaaare—!
Soon, I was at an intersection.
It was absurd.
So I was regressing like this in the end?
The members of Sedalbaegil hadn’t even made their decision yet…
Ding-dong!
“……
Uh.”
I could feel myself lying on the bed.
Had I regressed, by any chance?
Had I been taken to the hospital from the intersection?
But when I opened my eyes, that wasn’t it.
I had only been dreaming.
I’d fallen asleep without even realizing when, and woken up to the sound of the doorbell.
The doorbell?
As I went out to the living room and looked at the clock, it had just passed nine.
I only slept for two hours?
It felt like I’d slept for an incredibly long time.
And the moment I opened the door, I was flustered.
The sunlight was too dazzling.
I hadn’t known because the entire house had blackout curtains drawn, but it wasn’t nine in the evening right now.
It was nine in the morning.
Another thing that flustered me was that the members of Sedalbaegil were standing in front of my door.
“You were asleep, weren’t you?”
“……?”
“Wow, look how clear your skin is. Just how long did you sleep?”
I couldn’t keep up with the conversation.
As I stood there blankly, Lee Ion spoke.
“Can we come in first?”
“How did you know my home address?”
“Producer Kang Seoku told us because you weren’t answering your phone.”
“Uh, come in for now.”
I let the members into the house and found my phone, powered off, between the blankets.
It seemed the battery had run out.
When I plugged it into a fast charger and turned it on, there were more than twenty missed calls from Sedalbaegil, Kang Seoku, Choi Daeho, and even Uncle Hyeonsu.
Only then did I fully come to my senses.
What I had been thinking about before I fell asleep.
“Did you meet the producers yesterday?”
When I went out to the living room and asked, Gu Taehwan nodded.
“We did.”
“What did they say?”
“They said if I became a Ryan Entertainment trainee, they’d debut me within two years. That it was the natural order of things. That if I went to another company, it would be hard to debut.”
That wasn’t wrong.
“So what did you say?”
“I didn’t say much. My father told them to let me do what I wanted and sent them away.”
Lee Ion and Choi Jaeseong’s situations were similar.
However, compared to Gu Taehwan’s parents, who had said it in a good way, Lee Ion and Choi Jaeseong’s cases were a little different.
“My parents always wanted me to become a teacher. I think they actually thought this worked out well.”
“My parents too.”
……
I hadn’t considered this kind of situation.
Well, not all parents welcome the idea of their child becoming a celebrity.
Lastly, Onsaemiro…
“I’m going to do what I want too.”
There were marks on his face as if he’d been hit a few times, but he spoke with resolve.
At that moment, I felt a bit dumbfounded.
Only a few hours ago, I had been in a state of burnout, but all of them were firm.
Even though they were the ones living only one life.
As expected, the regressor is the biggest coward.
Unable to challenge with all his heart because he thinks there will be a next time.
But I decided to end the worrying and the reality crash here.
Now it was time for me to become firm too.
So I opened my mouth.
“Good. We’ve made M Show our enemy, and we’ve made Ryan Entertainment our enemy. Does anyone have a plan?”
“Shouldn’t we find a company that’ll take us in?”
At Gu Taehwan’s words, I shook my head.
There was no such place.
The fact that we stabbed Ryan Entertainment in the back wasn’t just Ryan’s problem. It would spread into a problem for the entire entertainment agency industry.
Because they wouldn’t want to leave behind a bad precedent in the industry.
It was similar to why a major corporation would fight a single factory worker who filed an industrial accident lawsuit as if trying to kill them.
It wasn’t that they were reluctant to pay the money owed to that one person. It was because if a precedent remained, cracks might form in their power going forward.
“Of course, it’s not as if there won’t be anyone at all who says they’ll take us in. But those are the kinds of places we have to filter out.”
They could be complete amateurs who knew nothing about the workings of this industry, or they could be proxies doing Ryan Entertainment’s dirty errands.
“Hmm……”
Perhaps understanding that the situation was more complicated than they had thought, the members let out low groans.
Then Onsaemiro asked,
“What about you? Do you have a good idea?”
Of course I did.
But I didn’t know how to explain it.
Then an appropriate word came to mind.
“A club.”
“Huh?”
“We’re an idol club.”
We wouldn’t have an agency, we wouldn’t be able to debut, and we wouldn’t be able to appear on music shows.
I didn’t know how far CEO Choi Daeho’s influence reached, but maybe our names would even be removed from the music charts.
But we would sell an enormous number of albums, and our music videos would record hundreds of millions of views.
Top-tier musicians would participate in our albums, and we would rise and fall on the Billboard charts.
I was curious too.
When that time came, would the Korean music industry still be able to ostracize us?
My original goal of becoming a typical idol had disappeared.
Now, I intended to go as far as I could with them.