Chapter 231

Chapter 231

I wondered why I had to do something like this, but because Yeon-Hoon insisted, I ended up taking the paper. The very top of the page had the title, ‘Siren’s Regular Attitude Check-Up’ quite grandiosely written on it. It seemed Yeon-Hoon wanted to make the document look more official, but he chose the wrong font.

No company would type this sort of document in an archaic Joseon style. It had been a while since this particular font became a meme, but I supposed Yeon-Hoon was slow to catch up in these areas.

“But how can we each write ours separately when most of us share a room with one other person?” Dong-Jun asked reasonably.

“Two people have to write theirs in the bathroom.”

“That’s a human rights violation!”

“...No, it’s not.”

“Making a person write a document in the bathroom feels like a new kind of office bullying.”

“It’s not!”

In the end, we decided who would go to the bathroom with rock scissors and papers, and unfortunately, Yeon-Hoon was chosen. Yeon-Hoon seemed to actually be glad that he got the bathroom since he was the one who proposed this activity, but on the other hand, I was also picked as the other person who would write their document in the bathroom.

‘I guess it will be fine as long as I don’t get water on it.’

I didn’t think too much about this. All I wanted was to quickly finish this task. I tried to think of how I could write this as fast as possible but not make it noticeable that I put little effort into it. And while we were each moving to our set locations, Yeon-Hoon explained the reason for this activity.

“Anyone can see that we succeeded too fast. Our ‘Blue Ocean’ release was especially fast, so I hope we can take this time to reflect on ourselves and each other at least once.”

Yeon-Hoon appeared to be worried that we would let our recent success get into our heads. It was true that the brighter the light, the bigger the shadow it would cast. I understood his perspective, but...

‘Will this even be effective?’ I decided to think it was better than nothing so that I would be able to muster enough energy to finish this activity. I took a pen and went into the bathroom. I thought about what to write and tried to recall any moments when my members showed early symptoms of ‘celebrity disease’[1]. Were there any suspicious signs?

Since celebrity disease wasn’t a real disease, it was hard to come up with anything. First of all, the symptoms of celebrity diseases tended to be the following: talking down or acting rudely to staff, treating managers badly, a noticeable decrease in fan service, dispassionate eyes, and intoxication with oneself.

I didn’t notice any of these symptoms in my members. Thus, I needed to write about lesser symptoms—the subtle kinds that one couldn’t notice without careful observation but in retrospect, should’ve garnered a bit of suspicion.

I wrote down a couple of memories I thought of. I started with Yeon-Hoon. Yeon-Hoon searched for his name every day. That was fine but he didn’t stop there and kept saving his pictures on his phone. This action was worth noting since he could be developing a sense of narcissism. The second person was Do-Seung. Do-Seung clearly showed at least one symptom. It was one I spotted before we got in the car to head to our schedule recently.

Do-Seung’s searches on his phone had been suspicious. They were about apartments belonging to famous celebrities and the price of these apartments. It seemed he had made a rough estimate of the copyright fees he would receive and searched for types of loans he could get.

He was already thinking about buying a house. Though one could think that he was simply buying a house for investment, the fact that he added ‘famous celebrity’ in his key search revealed that Do-Seung already considered himself ‘famous’.

The next person was Woon. Because of how squeaky clean he was, there wasn’t anything to write about him, but if I had to write something, there was one. He went into Utube, looked up his individual fan cam, and replayed the most watched section of the video. Then, his ears turned red while scrolling through the comments and he quietly turned his phone over. It really was nothing much.

Finally, I got to Dong-Jun. I thought Dong-Jun was in the most serious condition. After searching Siren on Utube, he replayed videos titled, ‘An explosive new rising star, Siren’, ‘Collection of Global Responses about Siren’, or ‘New Boy Group Said to be Legendary Talents’. Then, he continued to replay parts in which his name was mentioned. If he liked the video’s content, he pressed the like button and he even made the effort to press dislikes on content he didn’t like. At a single mishap, I thought Dong-Jun would become intoxicated with himself.

‘Did I go too hard?’ Then, after writing everything, I wondered. I planned to do a sloppy job in the beginning, but the content got long as I wrote it. Though I only wrote facts, I feared that my members would get hurt. Yet, since that was the purpose of this activity, I didn’t edit anything. But sure enough, after everyone came back out and gave their papers, the only person who wrote anything factual was me and I became the only bad guy in the room.

***

“Bong Tae-Yoon...I won’t forgive you...”

“...Was it such a crime that I looked up apartments...?”

“...I was just reevaluating...my dances...that was all, really...”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“Should we film a challenge video together and upload it?”

“We already did that.”

“We could upload another one where we wear special outfits like animal pajamas or a stage outfit the fans like.”

“Hm...I want to do something more than that.”

Yeon-Hoon and Woon discussed ideas. Yet, Do-Seung made a different kind of proposal.

“Should I upload another version of ‘Blue Ocean’? Like an acoustic or remix version? I think I will be able to quickly make one if I use the studio for three hours.”

If we did just that, it appeared that we would be able to reach Triple Crown All-Kill with no problems.

“Why don’t we just have a concert while we are at it? Or do a live busking or gallery concert? We could rent a small theater or just do it on the streets.” Dong-Jun’s suggestions were good too.

If we wanted to do something bigger, these suggestions were the best since in terms of fan service, the rule was: the more, the better. We would have to do a solo concert someday so this could be a great practice in the long run. If we followed all of their suggestions, it was a good plan that would please the fans.

Thus, I said, “Can’t we combine all of those ideas?” Rather than picking some of that out, I thought we could do them all.

“Oh?”

“Wow!”

“That sounds good.”

In the end, we decided to wear the outfits that our fans chose and hold a gallery concert with a new version of “Blue Ocean”. We shared our plans with Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna and the two gained permission from the company before officially diving into the work. To appear on the camera, we took a shower, received light makeup, and took our pledge video for the Triple Crown All-Kill beforehand. I desperately prayed that we would be able to keep our pledge for this video.

***

The next day, we were able to obtain the first-place trophy for our first music show of the third week. This flow of success continued throughout the week until we got first place on Wednesday and Thursday. But since the shows didn’t belong to over-the-air television networks, they didn’t influence our Triple Crown All-Kill record at all.

Of course, since we were getting consecutive wins, our fans and the company were overjoyed. Soon afterward, our winning streak continued to Friday where we won first place in an over-the-air network music show and we got another win in the following Saturday music show. After finally receiving first place in the Sunday over-the-air television network, our group’s waiting room burst with festivity and cheers.

“Ahhhh!”

“We did it!”

“Ahhhhh! Really! It’s done!”

“Ohhhhh!”

[Tenth Triple Crown All-Kill in history! Siren shows no sign of slowing down!]

[Achieved Triple Crown All-Kill with a debut album. Can Siren receive the Grand Prize?]

[Siren achieved tenth Triple Crown All-Kill. Jaeil Group is seeing a rise in stock prices.]

All the entertainment news was talking about us.

1. A sickness that celebrities are often said to catch where they get haughty or think they are superior to others because of their elevated status. ☜