Chapter 5
National Idol is a music audition program whose motto is a national participation audition where the debut group is determined by the citizens' votes.
It is an idol audition program produced by MusicNet, which sparked an audition craze in South Korea.
True to a MusicNet audition, controversies over "devil's editing" never ceased, but the buzz created by the controversies rather made it more popular,
and the girl group 'Every Girl' born from that buzz achieved great success, and Season 2 was already receiving high expectations even before its broadcast.
The trademark of National Idol is the large set that descends in a pyramid shape from 1st place to the last rank.
A cruel set where rank represents everything, but because of that, it's a place where even more interesting stories are created.
Right now, before the eyes of National Idol's PD Lee Jun-hyuk, that symbolic set was completed.
However, on the first day of filming today, this PD's expression was unusually dark.
'The number of people is too small.'
Season 1 had 100 trainees participating and made a group with the final 10.
The current number of trainees for Season 2, which was intended to have a similar number of participants, was 77. It was an ambiguous number.
'Was I too greedy?'
The contract period of Every Girl, born in Season 1, was 2 years.
Every Girl, now in its debut year, is growing into a global idol based on its success in Korea, but the 2-year contract period keeps holding the group back.
With the contract period ending in a year, and each agency eagerly seeking to prepare their company's rookie group centered around the Every Girl members who had built up their recognition, they constantly wanted to send the members off to individual schedules.
So in this season, to prevent such problems in advance, they produced the program with a basic contract period of 3 years, and adding 2 years of extension contract conditions depending on the group's success, setting the total contract period to 5 years.
This PD was confident.
After the splendid success of Season 1, countless love calls came from each agency wanting to send their trainees to Season 2.
Making Season 2 a success based on a rich pool of talent. Growing the group into a global group based on a 5-year contract period.
'If only that happens, I can get the chairman's attention. Support at the group level will pour in.'
He had a grand plan.
However, the moment he talked about a 5-year contract period, the attitude of the agency officials, who had seemed willing to give up their very livers and gallbladders to him, changed.
Each agency thoroughly refused to give up their ace trainees, and their backlash was much stronger than this PD had expected.
'In the first place, agencies stake their very survival on creating male idol groups. At that time, I was blinded by the success of Season 1 and overlooked that.'
Actually, if you just forcefully increase the numbers, 100 or even 1000 people are possible.
But just having a large headcount is meaningless.
The aces of the agencies that each agency has one or two of.
Those ace trainees were needed.
He gave up on the super-large agencies early on. That wasn't a place that could be won over by persuasion.
He searched thoroughly, from small and medium agencies to newly established ones.
In the end, the number of trainees he barely gathered by coaxing, pleading, and sometimes even mixing in threats, was 77.
After filtering and filtering, he only selected trainees with decent skills.
Even this number was decided barely two weeks before the recording.
So the concept of the program was also changed to match the number 77, forcefully changing it to the number Triple Seven 777.
Naturally, the debut group also decreased to 7 members.
'The number of skilled trainees is too lacking.'
Buzz doesn't just come from good editing. You need basic skills to make a good stage, and a good stage creates buzz.
'For now, 4.'
It's before the program starts, but the list of trainees close to debut is already set.
From a large agency, already known famous trainees. Or if not, family of a celebrity or anything that can bring buzz.
In the end, votes tend to be concentrated on those who take the lead early on.
Even without giving them much weight in the editing, some trainees already have their spots in the top ranks reserved.
'And... two.'
One is a trainee whose debut is almost certain... no, a participant who is hard to even call a trainee.
And the other one is.
'A time bomb that doesn't know when it will explode.'
He will detonate it at the best timing.
Whether that will be poison or medicine for the participant, I don't know.
The group of individual trainees enters the set.
'That trainee?'
A trainee with noticeably short hair catches the eye.
Even from a distance, the atmosphere he exudes is very intense.
'Ah, that soldier!'
Now he remembers.
The guy who sang the military song enthusiastically in the test.
He kept an eye on him thinking there might be a use for him sometime.
'They're tied up like that?'
Maybe they got close while practicing together, the members look amicable.
And one person who was hidden by the military veteran trainee and wasn't easily seen.
'Who was I thinking of? It's been a while since it's been this interesting.'
***
After waiting for a long time, Kang A-jin, the Bu brothers, and I entered the set together.
As soon as we entered the set, one chair at the highest place caught my eye.
"It's still empty."
"Hey, endure it... I told you to endure it...!"
Bu Ji-seok barely calmed down Bu Ji-hoon, who seemed bewitched and tried to go up.
"Who will sit there?"
"Someone who is worthy of sitting there."
"I guess so."
Of course, if I were to go up and sit there right now, brazen-faced, I would definitely get at least one cut on broadcast.
'I can't take that much risk and challenge it.'
Sitting in the highest seat is proof of being the most outstanding trainee here.
If you fail to prove that, the loss is much greater than the gain.
"Let's sit somewhere around the middle."
I led Kang A-jin and the wandering Bu brothers to a seat that looked appropriate.
Since the set was only about half full, there was no problem like having to sit separately.
After taking our seats, the only thing to do from then on was to stand up and bow 90 degrees to greet the new trainees as they came in.
Or, like the two people next to me, react enthusiastically to get even one cut of a scene on broadcast through reactions.
"Hey, that person's head is really the size of a fist."
"Don't exaggerate, where is a fist that big? Give me your hand! Here, is this the same size as the head?"
"Not my fist, I'm saying it's similar to Lin's fist, you idiot."
At Bu Ji-hoon's words, Bu Ji-seok looked at my fist for a moment and spoke again.
"Right, you're right. Since when do you say things that make sense?"
"Hmph!"
At Bu Ji-seok's acknowledgment, Bu Ji-hoon made an extremely smug expression.
They were two people having fun playing around with each other.
Such natural reactions are probably worth doing.
If it goes on broadcast, most people will probably view it favorably.
Just thinking about doing that myself.
'My whole body cringes.'
Even just imagining it was severely a minus.
In the end, there is a method that suits oneself.
For now, rather than getting one more cut on broadcast, I had a much more important thing to do.
'What stat should I raise?'
The stats I'm considering are Vocal, Dance, and Appearance.
I excluded the already too high Stamina and the Charm stat which felt a bit ambiguous right now.
'And I'll exclude Vocal for now too.'
Actually, I wanted to raise Vocal first.
Since an idol is ultimately a singer, evaluations of singing always followed like a tail.
I learned this time, but even in the idol world, criticism and condemnation of idols who couldn't sing were considerable.
The visual member of a certain popular group became a huge controversy for not singing properly and just moving his lips on the encore stage after winning 1st place on a music broadcast,
and the main dancer of another group reached the point where even fans turned their backs on him due to singing skills that hadn't improved since debut.
The lowest stat among my stats right now is Vocal.
It was the most urgent stat that I had to raise unconditionally and quickly. However.
'Vocal and Dance stats can be raised through practice.'
Unlike the Appearance and Charm stats which are hard to raise through effort, Vocal and Dance stats could be raised through practice.
And most decisively.
This rank evaluation. And the debut song evaluation given immediately after the rank evaluation.
In these two evaluations, Dance ability was viewed with higher priority than Vocal.
Actually, in terms of broadcasting as well, it focused more intensively on dance, where the speed of improvement was visible, than on vocal ability, which takes a long time to develop.
Actually, the famous saying from last season, "Si-yeon, do you want to be a singer?" was also a remark that came out during dance lesson time.
In this program, singing is fine if only the main vocal does well. Roughly, that seems to be the thinking.
So what was narrowed down in the end was Dance and Appearance.
'Among them, I'm a bit more drawn to Appearance.'
As I said earlier, I confirmed in advance that the Dance stat can be raised through practice.
And...
'Being handsome is the best.'
Whatever it is, being handsome means you've already won more than half.
This is the truth of life, no, in the idol world, it goes beyond truth and is the bible.
'Then shall I raise the Appearance stat quickly?'
But the moment I thought I had made a pleasant decision. Something felt uneasy in a corner of my mind.
The words Kang A-jin had said about stamina being the most important. Those words kept circling in my head.
Of course, it wasn't just because of Kang A-jin's words. Kang A-jin's situation and my situation were distinctly different.
Right now, I didn't need the Stamina stat more.
However, what I was curious about was.
'What is the stat after the A+ stat?'
If A is similar to the stats of ordinary professionals, wouldn't surpassing the A stat give me superhuman abilities?
A body that exceeds my current physical abilities.
Actually, for the past few years, I hadn't been able to make any more physical progress.
I had already reached a point where I could no longer develop through effort.
I was curious about the limit of the status window's abilities.
What kind of result would appear when I raised a stat that could no longer develop through effort.
But to satisfy my curiosity, is it okay to use this precious 1 point right now?
It was a dilemma I experienced for the first time in a while.
'Hey, Status Window. Are you perhaps listening? You answered arbitrarily last time.'
The status window must know the correct answer.
Answer me, Status Window. Wasn't leading me to success your job?
Try to be a little faithful to your role... please!
Naturally, the status window didn't react to my eager question.
Right, just because I asked it to answer, it wouldn't answer right away.
Then I should safely invest in the Appearance stat.
The moment I thought so.
-Specializing in one ability also often becomes a shortcut to rapid development.
It took the bait.
Although it didn't directly mention which stat to invest in. That much was almost an overt hint.
'Should I trust it or not?'
The hesitation was short, and the action was fast.
After all, walking the path of an idol and coming out to this audition were all influenced by the status window.
Now, I trust it.
'Invest 1 point in the Stamina stat.'
-Stamina stat has become S- rank.
-Acquired the trait 'God-given Body'.
-God-given Body
Ability for all tasks using the body increases by 20%.
'W-wow, jackpot.'
***
My body was insanely light.
I even thought that if it were now, I could easily run a full marathon.
'A god-given body.'
Right away, I wanted to test how much this body had developed. And,
'Singing and dancing are also tasks that use the body, aren't they.'
As expected, my choice wasn't wrong.
While I was feeling satisfied alone about my choice, before I knew it, most of the seats were fully occupied. And the remaining seats were.
"Ugh, there's only one seat left."
Bu Ji-hoon muttered, barely holding back a yawn.
Yes, the remaining seat was one. It was just waiting for the entrance of the last person.
The later the entrance order, the trainees from famous agencies appeared.
'Then the last order?'
On the large screen, a logo of an agency floated up.
'Universe Music?'
Was there such a name among the large agencies?
At that time, a man revealed himself, and with his appearance, the inside of the set started to buzz.
"What? Why is everyone acting like that?"
"It's Eugene Kim, why on earth did he come out here?"
"Who is Eugene Kim?"
When I asked, the three people looked at me with strange eyes.
"He's the runner-up of American Idol last season. He's Korean-American so he was quite a hot topic for a while, have you really never heard of him?"
"About when was that?"
"Well, it was around March last year?"
"That was when I was receiving UDT basic training for 12 weeks."
"Ah..."
At my words, the three people were all lost for words.
"Anyway, he's an unmistakable singer who already worked in the US, why on earth did he come out as a participant here."
Bu Ji-seok said, grumbling.
Looking around, everyone was looking at the person named Eugene Kim with fully tense expressions.
In the meantime, as if he didn't care about the surrounding gazes, Eugene Kim, who had been walking steadily upward, arrived at the very top before I knew it.
The 1st place chair, situated at the highest place with a splendid figure.
The trainee from a somewhat large agency who was already sitting there had his pupils shaking violently as Eugene Kim approached him.
"I'm sorry, but can I sit here?"
In an instant, the noisy surroundings all became quiet.
To the point where someone's swallowing sound could be heard.
The face of the trainee sitting in the 1st place seat turned bright red. And he answered with difficulty in a voice that trembled pitifully.
"I, I'm sorry but. That's, going to be a bit, difficult..."
"Hmm, is that so?"
Eugene Kim, who frowned for a moment, soon smiled brightly.
"Then it can't be helped. I'll go down."
Answering with a bright voice, he turned his back without any lingering regrets and started to come back the way he came.
But...
"Why is he coming this way more and more?"
At my words, including the Bu brothers, even Kang A-jin looked at me as if looking at an idiot.
"Hey Lin hyung, could you look to the left for a moment?"
"Left? There's nothing there."
"Right, there's nothing. Because no one has sat there yet, obviously, you idiot."
Ah, my nerves were constantly focused elsewhere so I didn't know.
That the one remaining seat was right next to me.
"Hello, please take care of me. I am Eugene Kim."
Eugene Kim, who had arrived at the seat next to me before I knew it, reached out his hand to me.
Seeing him up close, he was a charming person with fair skin and two eyes that disappeared when he smiled.
He seemed friendly, but also felt like he was hiding something.
"Yes, nice to meet you."
The moment I shook his outstretched hand, for a very fleeting moment, I saw the hidden cat's claw in him.
'A puppy on the right, a cat on the left...'