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Chapter 60

“You’re sick?” Do-Seung’s eyes became big as saucers after I told him I was sick.

‘What should I do?’ While I did feel moved that I was getting babied somewhat as a maknae, I also felt anxious that I might have caused an unnecessary commotion.

“I’m not saying that I’m physically sick. I’m just saying I’m tired psychologically because there are a lot of things on my mind,” I quickly added as Do-Seung’s reaction just now seemed like he was ready to lift me up and rush me to the hospital.

“Are you sure you’re not sick?” Do-Seung moved one step closer and asked again. He sounded so concerned that I felt pressured to say yes even if I was not actually sick.

“What’s the matter?”

“What are you guys doing?”

The members who had left the waiting room came back. I tried to mediate the situation quickly, but Do-Seung was faster. “I think Tae-Yoon is sick. What should we do?”

It was then I knew I was in deep trouble. Immediately after Do-Seung told them I was sick—

“What?”

“Tae-Yoon, you’re sick?”

“Hey! You should have told us earlier! Seriously, where are you sick? Are you okay?”

Yeon-Hoon, Woon, and Dong-Jun were all shocked and bombarded me with questions.

“I’m not physically sick, and I’m just feeling a bit of psychological pressure,” I repeated what I said to Do-Seung earlier, but even then, the members kept trying to check if I was not sick or hurt anywhere. Yeon-Hoon kept pressing various parts of my body and asking if it hurt there and if I was okay. Woon asked if the intestines in my stomach felt like they were twisting or if there was a piercing pain like a needle poking my stomach. It was only after I firmly denied that I was sick that the members finally calmed down.

“Siren! Please be on standby! We don’t have time!”

Thanks to the production team, who came out right on time, the members no longer asked me more questions.

“It’s because you\'re worried about the performance, right? If you’re hurt, don’t just endure it, okay?”

“Yes.” I nodded calmly and followed them out of the waiting room.

Then we moved backstage and waited for our stage to be set up.

Sighhh. I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. There was nothing to be nervous about; I just needed to do as I practiced.

At that moment, Do-Seung whispered right into my ear, “Are you really worried?”

I didn’t answer. If I replied here, I was worried that the same fiasco as before might arise again.

Contrary to my wishes, Do-Seung seemed to have accepted my silence as an affirmation. However, fortunately, he seemed to have realized I didn’t want to stir up a whole fuss like before and whispered an encouragement, “Don’t worry. We prepared well for the performance. We can win.”

Do-Seung was not the type to say nice words of encouragement like this. When I turned around in surprise, Do-Seung was talking with a deep scowl as if his stomach hurt to say these words. It seemed as if saying nice words like this was upsetting his stomach, and seeing this made me laugh. Then it made me reflect on myself because I thought this might be how I look to others when I try to say nice words. Was this what people called ‘mirror treatment’?

Anyway, back to the main problem at hand. Frankly, the nice words of encouragement that Do-Seung said did not ease my anxiety as they were merely platitudes only spoken to help me feel better. Do-Seung also seemed to know that his words didn’t sound very convincing. Since we both didn’t know how to comfort anyone, both the receiver and giver felt awkward.

Then, Do-Seung broke the silence after a while and continued whispering, “If you can’t trust yourself, trust us.”

I wondered what he meant, but it seemed like he was telling me this after a lot of thought, so I thought it was worth listening to him more.

“We all worked hard to prepare for this performance, the dancers worked hard, and the stage set looks great.” He was telling me that if I was not confident in myself, I should be confident in everything else.

“So, don’t trust yourself on stage, but trust us and try to enjoy the stage, even if it’s a little bit.” After saying that, Do-Seung moved away from me.

Hmm. The fact that Do-Seung said such emotionally sensitive words meant that he thought a lot about what to say to me, and even now, his face was so red that it looked like it might explode. He was trying to hide it, but I could clearly see that he was embarrassed. I reflected on what he said a little more.

‘Enjoying the stage.’ To be honest, I had never enjoyed performing on stage even once. It was the same before I regressed. Although I felt a sense of pride in accomplishing my assigned part, I had never felt anything on stage.

‘What does it mean to enjoy the stage?’ I never thought I was suitable for being an idol in the first place, and that was why I had announced I was going to quit being an idol in the beginning. I fell into thought. Although I was trying to debut to save Do-Seung, was I really suitable to be an idol?

“It’s almost over,” Yeon-Hoon said while watching the stage being set up. As he said, the set was almost finished. I took a deep breath and tried to relax my mind.

‘Enjoy.’ I was going to focus a little more on what Do-Seung said.

* * *

In the studio where the second round of The Showcase 2 was taking place, the audience was sitting there and yawning, unable to repress the boredom they were feeling. After Only One’s performance, only mediocre and uninteresting performances continued.

‘It’s about time for Siren to come up, right?’ There was only one performance the girl had high hopes for—it was Siren. In fact, the reason why she had come here as an audience was to see Siren. A few months ago, dating rumors about her ultimate bias had broken out. If it was just like any other dating rumor, she would have just endured it and tried to gloss over it, but he had gone too far. He constantly showed off pictures of his non-celebrity girlfriend on social media and deceived his fans as often as breathing. Furthermore, he even showed a positive response to deceiving his fans and acted mean and distant to his fans.

Eventually, she got tired of his deceit and attitude and finally decided to move on; and since the celebrity had created all kinds of scandals, she was able to exit his fandom easily. However, she felt an empty feeling as if there was a hole in her life. To ease this hollow feeling, she kept snooping around in various places like a ghost, but it was all in vain. Then, a Bluebird post caught her eye one day.

—I want to marry Bong.

Reply: The movie director?

Reply: Are you crazy?

It was a humorous post retweeted by her SNS friend. Since the atmosphere of this SNS platform was light-hearted and humorous, she thought nothing much about this post. However, it was her fault for clicking on that funny post. The click immediately led to the next click. She learned that Bong referred to Bong Tae-Yoon and watched all the few Siren videos that were available. As a result—

—Mr. Bong is a heinous criminal. He made me want to get married for real but hasn’t even debuted yet.

She reached the point of writing these posts herself. Naturally, she applied to be the audience for the second round of The Showcase 2 when it was uploaded. She tried not to expect much because she might not be chosen, but she received a call that she was chosen. When she received that call, she was so excited that she could feel her heart rate rising rapidly. It seemed like just yesterday when she was burning in feverish excitement, but she was now staring at the stage with dead eyes.

‘When will it end?’ Since the Siren members were coming out soon, she knew she had to raise her enthusiasm, but she had no energy. Since the previous three stages were so uninteresting, they had sapped all of her energy. She might have fared better if there were at least a few parts to raise the energy, but rather than a K-pop fan who won an audience seat, she felt like a part-timer who came to work.

The moment she thought in her mind a hundred times, ‘When will Siren appear?’—

“Wow, what’s that?”

“The stage set is intense.”

A huge sculpture came onto the stage. She stared at the set and raised her dying expectations again.

‘Is it an altar?’ A large altar that could be used as an altar for an ancient god came up on stage. However, there were some overly technological elements mixed in various places, such as a blue neon light coming from the altar, and the altar’s material was made out of metal, not stone. Expectations about what performance they prepared and what concept they chose began to creep up.

‘Did Tae-Yoon come up with the idea again?’ In the first episode of The Showcase 2, it felt like Bong Tae-Yoon was the main idea maker of the group, so she was looking forward to seeing if this performance also came from his head.

“But I heard Bong Tae-Yoon can’t perform on stage?”

“If you see the reviews, people say his physicality is good, but he strangely has no stage presence.”

While she was thinking compliments like, ‘As expected, our maknae is a genius,’ she heard conversations like this in the front.

Although she wanted to retort, if she considered their statements objectively, she thought, ‘Well, I think so too.’

Even in Siren’s introductory performance, “Sailing,” Bong Tae-Yoon didn’t stand out. In a way, it was a talent to not stand out with a face and size like that. Although he got better from the introductory performance, the general consensus was that it was not enough to throw off the image that he lacked stage presence.

But what if he lacked stage presence? Where else could they find a maknae this good-looking with a good figure like this? Moreover, his calm personality made him more likable, and he helped his group with good ideas. All these factors more than covered for his lack of stage presence in her perspective. Just in time, the hosts came up on stage.

“Uh?”

“It must be starting.”

The two hosts expressed their feelings about the previous stage and explained the next stage.

–The next performance is a group that took Only One’s introductory performance.

–We will now begin Siren’s second-round performance!

The girl sucked in her breath. She admitted that Only One’s performance was amazing, but she didn’t think Siren would lose to them. Of course, this was just her wish without any evidence, but she had a good feeling about them. At that moment—

Tap.

Then the light turned on and—

“Wow.” Lee Woon was standing on the altar, held by two people.

There was no melody yet. Setting the atmosphere only by acting without music at the beginning of the stage was a commonly used directing method these days. But the outfits were—

‘Wow, the quality is crazy.’ The outfit was a combination of cyberpunk, traditional Korean style. The long dopo was cropped and the pants gave a techwear feel. She wondered how they managed to integrate these two contrasting parts so well, but the overall silhouette was well integrated.

If two unbalanced elements were successfully combined, it naturally gave off an image of luxury. A strong smell came from the stage—the smell of money. Two dancers dressed up as cyborgs knelt, holding Lee Woon’s shoulders. Lee Woon seemed to resist but eventually had no choice but to climb up to the altar and kneel.

On closer observation, that platform was not a normal altar—or more accurately, it was not a modern altar. The girl recalled that in ancient empires, altars also played a role in executing people. In other words, Lee Woon had committed a crime and was being sacrificed at an altar. At that moment—

Screccccchhh—

Wiiiing—

Scratching sounds poured out all over the studio. Everyone flinched at the sound of sirens that followed next. At the same time—

Tap—

Lee Woon, who was being detained, turned his shoulders to suppress the two officers and escaped from the altar. His movement was so smooth that it looked like a dance. Soon after, sirens and scratching sounds stopped, and when the stage was quiet for a while, the large altar suddenly began to fall slowly.

“Whaaat?” When the girl thought it might be a broadcasting accident, a pre-recorded explosion rang out at the exact moment the altar fell.

Crash!

—GUESS WHO!

Leaving the collapsing altar behind, the Siren members slowly appeared on stage. Since then, a heavy and energetic bass sound resonated in the studio. People knew instinctively that this song was the masterpiece that had once swept a whole generation in the past.

‘Light’s ‘Traitor’?’ The girl had wondered what song Only One used in their introductory performance and was pleasantly surprised.

‘This is crazy!’ It was a better song than she expected, but the most shocking part was—

‘Tae-Yoon is the center?’ Tae-Yoon was the center from the beginning.

‘What?’ As the stage continued in earnest, the girl couldn’t hide her surprise. She wondered if the Bong Tae-Yoon in front of her was the same person as before who lacked stage presence. There was something clearly different about today’s stage.