“I will do it.”
The weird creepiness of an imitation I felt when I first saw his images on the internet was almost nowhere to be found. That was understandable. He had completely erased the styling that imitated me and now presented himself in the typical fashion of a male idol.
The most noticeable change compared to when his first photos were released was his much shorter hair, styled like a typical male idol. It seemed that after facing heavy public criticism following the release of my video, which Choi Jeokhyeon posted, he started by cutting off his hair.
‘Since I always had that long, flowing hair … just changing that would have easily helped him break free from the image of Seo Yutae’s copycat.’
Tsk
, barely suppressing the urge to click my tongue, I shifted my gaze and examined his face.
‘Now that I look at him like this, there’s hardly any resemblance. Was it all just created through styling?’
When I saw the concept photo, I thought there might be one or two aspects that resembled me, but seeing him in person like this, even that was wrong.
‘…You look so much better now than you did before?’
He had a much more refined look now compared to when he was imitating my style. It was like something that had been forced into a mold had finally found its proper shape.
There were so many reactions online about how well he had changed his styling, so I was really curious for the reason. But looking at him now, it all made sense in an instant.
[No, Taeui is handsome? He has the material to be a visual center, so why on earth did he have to imitate SYT’s style? I can’t understand RH … Come to your senses, that sunbaenim is someone fans used to moe-ify
1
as a jaguar, wolf, and black panther! You will never be able to imitate that haha haha ㅠㅠ]
└ I agree. He feels like a chick trying to act like wild beast, roaring “r
awr!
” Go eat more milk first
[Here’s what you need to imitate Seo Yutae:
One tall figure the size of a door. One broad-shouldered body. One cold-hearted handsome face that makes you lower your gaze when you meet him. One infinite crazy skills in his main profession. Now that I’m saying it, it’s endless. Basically, unless you’re Seo Yutae himself, you’ll never meet all these requirements. End of story!]
[That hairstyle and those clothes only look cool because he was that Seo Yutae. You don’t need to copy him to look cool, so please don’t. No, seriously, just don’t. I’m so pissed off I feel like banning all male idols from watching Seo Yutae’s videos.]
For some reason, everyone seemed to comment more on me than on the new styling of the COMA-1’s center. But since there were no bad words, I decided not to pay too much attention to that part.
“Yes, please take care of me.”
I tilted my body to face the camera, flashing a bright smile that suited Han Seungbeom’s face as I nodded. Then, that guy’s eyes widened a bit as he stared blankly at me. He looked quite surprised, perhaps because of Han Seungbeom’s otherworldly good looks.
“…….”
At that moment, I felt someone from RH Entertainment, who was standing behind the COMA-1 members, narrow his eyes and glared at Taeui. Then, Taeui quickly snapped back to attention, stiffened his expression, and hurriedly said his stage name.
“….I am Taeui. Please take care of me.”
‘….What?’
It was such a crowded waiting room that, unless you were as sensitive and tired as I was, it would have been hard to notice such a small action. However, Taeui immediately picked up on it and followed the other person’s instructions.
I casually made eye contact with the members as if nothing was wrong, while quietly identifying the person who had given Taeui a signal.
‘I have never seen that face before.’
Judging from the expensive watch, uncomfortable shoes, and suit, he didn’t look like a manager.
It seemed like he was either someone newly hired after my death, or someone involved in Kang Hyukwoo’s dirty business that I didn’t know much about. And the latter was probably more likely. Kang Hyukwoo didn’t trust new people easily.
‘Where on earth did those guys’ manager go?’
As I turned my gaze back to Taeui with that question in mind, I could feel the tension in his stoic face. Watching that, I realized how he was able to react so quickly to even the smallest gesture from an RH Entertainment’s official.
‘It seems he’s completely made a habit of being so conscious of others.’
Actually, my impression of Taeui wasn’t that favorable.
I could never forget Cha Woon’s pained voice, and that guy was the beneficiary of that ridiculous atrocity. But seeing him like this made me wonder if there was something more going on between Kang Hyukwoo and him.
‘I expected him to be a cunning opportunist like Kim Saemyeong, but he doesn’t seem to have that kind of personality.’
His surprisingly polite and gentle attitude felt a bit out of place, too. I lowered my gaze for a moment, recalling the way he had bowed his head towards me.
Then, after exhaling lightly, I smirked.
‘I don’t care. Not my cub, not my business.’
For now, I didn’t know whether his personality was good or bad, or if he had some circumstances or not.
But what did it matter?
It wouldn’t change what I was going to do.
‘I’ll smash all the guys who lurk around me, whether they’re good or bad.’
I will protect my principles by eliminating every last one of them and stay on top.
Get your head on straight, if you don’t want to disappear without a trace in this brutal idol industry.
I stared at him with a gleam in my eyes, and then spoke as gently as possible, trying not to let any hint of inner hostility show.
“Haha, then shall we start by learning COMA-1 choreography?”
Despite saying it with a perfect ratio of 30% Choi Jeokhyeon and 70% Woo Kangwon, I somehow could hear my team members gulp. However, before I could even address it, the challenge immediately began.
***
“Wow, how did he do that?”
“I heard he was a good dancer, but I never expected him to be that good…….”
I could hear the sound of the people around us whispering.
Since we were going to mute the sound and re-edit the video with audio before uploading it, there was no need to remain silent like a dead mouse. But the conversation was so blatantly audible that the faces of Kang Hyukwoo’s associates were turning sour as if they had eaten something bitter.
Because that one-sided, unending praise was all directed toward me.
Knock knock! Knock!
“When will we be able to dance like that?”
“Umh, well……”
While I danced with ease, I could now hear Do Yuda and Baek Kiryang’s voices joining those of the onlookers. Baek Kiryang, who had hesitated at Do Yuda’s question, stared blankly in my direction before mumbling absentmindedly.
“That’s probably the realm of talent…….”
Challenge was a pretty good content, as it not only allowed people to see their idol properly dancing to someone else’s song in a well-coordinated way—something that was usually only happened in rare cover stages—but also offered a chance to witness the friendship between idols, which people were always curious about.
Of course, fans might have the best of intentions when they asked their idols to do a challenge.
However, the problem was that good intention didn’t always lead to good outcome.
The public, who couldn’t stop comparing and evaluating, would often make comments like who was better-looking, who had worse proportions, who was so much better at dancing that others were overshadowed—even in challenge videos that were taken with good intentions.
‘Normally, there’s hardly ever a chance to interact with members from other groups, but with the challenge, you have to dance right next to each other, so it’s easy to make comparisons.’
It meant that if you acted recklessly without thinking things through, you might end up strangling yourself.
“….Heuh!”
And this guy dancing next to me must be realizing that very clearly.
“Oh no … I can only see Seungbeom-ssi. He’s dancing exactly like the choreographer?”
“This isn’t Pantheion’s choreography, is it?”
Challenge was also a content where you had to learn someone else’s choreography, not your own, in a short amount of time, without having had enough time to practice and prepare. It was a matter of common sense that the original artist, who had spent more time learning the dance with the choreographer’s explanation, would inevitably perform it better.
‘That’s why I sent Lee Danbi out in advance, to avoid being targeted by Kim Saemyeong.’
However, we could sometimes see from a few challenge videos that this common sense didn’t always apply. It was really cruel, but there were people in the world who could achieved results that ordinary people worked for over a month or two in just a few minutes.
In this kind of stressful situation, where you couldn’t make up for shortcomings through effort alone and had to rely solely on the abilities you already possessed to produce results, the difference in talent became most clearly apparent.
‘What’s so hard about dancing? Just watch and you can dance.’
COMA-1 was a group that hadn’t even had their debut stage yet. The separate performance video hadn’t been uploaded, and the music video had dance scenes edited sparsely, with the lighting so dark that it was impossible to accurately learn the choreography in advance.
So, in order to film the challenge, I had to receive the choreography explanation from them and copy it right away today.
Taeui, who knew that the choreography for
Panic
was designed to be extremely difficult and complex to give off a PRISM-like feel, seemed to want to explain it to me in detail. But his good intentions were immediately stopped by a subtle gesture from an RH Entertainment’s official, and that guy clenched his fist, his blunt face crumpling slightly as if he felt guilty.
I looked at that guy and blurted out a short remark.
“It’s not a problem. I’ve already finished learning it.”
By that point, I had already finished mastering everything from the rough demonstration he had shown me.
To the level where I was outdancing COMA-1’s main dancer.
‘It’s really funny. Even if you proclaim someone who stands out outstandingly in a group as a born center, if you gather those centers together, there are still those who stand out even within that group.’
When I saw him dancing next to me, I realized that even if you gathered all the centers from groups that debuted in the past few years, they would lose their presence next to Taeui. As I mentioned before, although he couldn’t be compared to the members of Prism and Raize, who were currently in the first-tier, he was showing a very impressive performance for a rookie.
As I watched him in person, I began to understand more and more what Kang Hyukwoo was thinking when he made him the center of this group.
But unfortunately, I was the one standing next to him right now.
‘This guy too … it’s about time for this frog to get out of well.’
There’s always someone who flies above someone who runs, and there’s someone who tumbles while stepping on the heads of those who fly. Isn’t that just how society is?
“Phew…..”
Then, just as I was about to burst out laughing at the sight of my members, looking extremely proud with their shoulders raised to the ceiling, our manager shouted, just as I had requested in advance.
“Pantheion, you need to move in 20 minutes!”
I smiled brightly at him and waved a hand.
“That’s okay. Twenty minutes is plenty of time, and our choreography is easy, so I think you should be fine.”
Creak.
Soon after, I could hear the door swung open.
“Seungbeom-hyung, I’m back.”
At the perfect timing, Lee Danbi opened the waiting room door and returned. I immediately gestured for him to come over, and with a smiling face, I spoke while looking at Kim Saemyeong.
“Ah, fortunately, Lee Danbi is back. Since you said you wanted to do it with Danbi, I suppose you can do the Heracles challenge with him.”
“…….”
Today, I will properly put an end to this matter.
Lee Danbi is the one who truly deserves to be a member of Pantheion, and Kim Saemyeong, who people praise so highly, is someone who can’t even chase Lee Danbi’s footsteps.
I patted Lee Danbi, who had come running to stand beside me, on the back to cheer him up, then glanced down at him sideways and asked.
“Can you do it, Lee Danbi?”
Come and step on him, my youngest.
I’ve neatly stamped and pressed him down for you.
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Translator’s Corner:
Moe is a Japanese words that means … well, it’s hard to explain. Just think of it as cute … moe-ify usually means “to make something/someone (who’s not cute) cute”. The term that used in Korea iteself, 모에화, more like referring to a culture that
projects a person or character that one likes onto an object that one thinks is cute or suitable
. Like how fans saying their idol looked like a baby or cute animals.
The thing is … animal like jaguar isn’t cute … so when the fans level of “moe-ify” him is to portray him like jaguar, not even cat … ↩︎
This is so tedious because I don’t gaf about COMA at all omggg just kill them alllll It’s okay … hard work will lead to nice result … i will endure for the sake of next chapter …
But I need to go first now. I need to do my younger sibling’s assignment … omg whatever happened in education world now … why a high school student’s assignment is on the same level with my college assignment ??? when I was in high school, I just need to worry about chemistry reactions not some academic papers??? are they trying to torture minors…. I’m a grown up and I’m also tortured by the thought of having to do it … why I need to do it … I’m a graduate … goodbye academic life forever …
But btw … the way they described Seo Yutae … why he sounds so delicious, I want too … Seungbeom, I’m sorry but you look too pretty …. dangerous man, in other hand ….