WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

[ Translation - Aren ]

I'm a Reporter, Please let me get off the Stage

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Chapter 18

―Our plane has been delayed due to refueling, so we will be leaving in a bit……

Haram and I boarded the first flight out.

He had already closed his eyes and was drifting into sleep.

I wanted to catch some sleep as well, so I shifted around a bit to get into a comfortable position.

But then.

“Ouch.”

A sharp pain shot through me.

It was around my head near my temple.

As I probed the area with my finger, I found a small, tender lump.

‘Could it be……?’

A memory flashed before my eyes.

‘That crooked cross hanging on the wall.’

Was this lump on my head the result of some kind of physical confrontation?

Then this bump……

The member I hadn’t yet encountered came to my mind.

“Hyung, by the way, have you contacted Haedun Hyung yet?”

“I will soon.”

“……Don’t fight. You know, it’s obvious when you two fight, right? Did you resolve that issue from before?”

……Just how much did these guys fight?!

Were they elementary schoolers?!

* * *

If one thought about it, idol groups were inherently pretty chaotic.

They were a bunch of kids from different backgrounds, with different kinds of parents, ages and personalities thrown together into one group.

All of them wanted to be in the spotlight, so one could almost imagine what kind of potential clashes there would be.

It was almost inevitable that they would fight. It was pretty much obvious if one looked at the process of how these groups were formed.

One day, some higher-ups just decided who should be grouped together, and then, regardless of who they are or what they were like, they had to eat, sleep and live together.

Sure, sometimes there were cases when the chemistry between the members was just right, and they would become lifelong friends from their trainee days. But that was really rare. Almost like a miracle.

The reality was that every group had its own problems.

Harsh training regimens, strict diets, the pressure to succeed, and feelings of inferiority made worse from the constant comparison they faced. And yet they had to keep smiling through all of that.

In such an intense environment, even a small spark could turn into a wildfire.

If a group was struggling internally, it showed in their output, which the fans would pick up on.

When that happened, the group would start to spiral downwards.

While their desperation might still be there, they would end up lost and flounder about until they inevitably sink into oblivion completely.

……I wasn’t saying that WEEKANIZ didn’t have these problems.

They seemed a bit unruly, rude and demanding, but I didn’t recall anyone being totally at odds with Ahn Yuyoung!

‘Looks like there was……’

I subtly tried to probe Gong Haram.

“What was this thing again?”

“Come on, you were fighting with Haedun Hyung right up until you said we should disband. You didn’t really tell us about it either.”

Hmm, I didn’t get any useful information out of that.

Seo Haedun.

I knew he was the only member of the same age as Ahn Yuyoung.

He was the main dancer and apparently choreographed all the dances.

He was slightly tanned and had prominent eyebrows, giving him a masculine look.

On the other hand, his downward-slanting eyes gave him a somewhat endearing appearance.

When I saw him at showcases a few times, it was hard to even hear his voice.

He was very stoic, not saying a single word, showing no real change in expression, and only giving minimal reactions.

However, on stage, he danced magnificently, a style that seemed as if it would break his body apart.

If viewed favorably, he was a consistent person; viewed unfavorably, he seemed like someone who didn’t even want to be an idol.

Right after we got off the plane, I started my investigation.

I logged onto the anonymous K-Pop community ‘DukDuk Forest’ and searched for ‘Haedun Yuyoung’.

<Title : What’s up between Seo Haedun and Ahn Yuyoung?

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This is from today’s fansign event video.

If you go to the end of it, you can see Yuyoung and Haedun making eye contact with each other right?

But Ahn Yuyoung very obviously turns his head away……

Just seems weird…… Curious about you guys’ opinion. Not trying to stir up drama>

└Whoa

└ Ahn Yuyoung committed a sin lolol

└Ahn Yuyoung doesn’t really make eye contact with someone when he’s pissed. It’s a well-known story from fansigns

└What a brainless theory. Nah. Did you confuse this site with another one? This isn’t a hate site.

└Weird;; This is shared a lot on Pings to, so this guy should know

└Looks like someone’s trying to stir up drama, please take it down~

The post was from around October this year.

The video was a fansign event. Specifically Seo Haedun’s cam.

The members who were finished signing for their last fan stepped out in front of the table one by one.

According to the sequence, Ahn Yuyoung and Seo Haedun would be next, with them being the last ones.

The person filming must have been seated on the side, as Seo Haedun’s face appeared perfectly behind the back of a fan’s head in frame.

The camera was zoomed pretty close in so that Seo Haedun’s face was filling the screen.

However, with about 20 seconds left in the video, the camera suddenly zoomed out pretty quickly.

It seemed so abrupt that one could guess that this was probably a mistake made by the person who was filming.

The shaky angel made me focus on the video even more.

The video was now showing Seo Haedun signing, with Ahn Yuyoung awkwardly beside him, while Gong Haram, already standing in front of the table, was posing for photos.

The last fan just left, which was when Seo Haedun casually glanced towards Ahn Yuyoung. He made eye contact with Seo Haedun as he pushed his chair back.

“……What are those two doing?”

Ahn Yuyoung.

As soon as his eyes met Seo Haedun’s, he conspicuously turned his head away.

It was like he was trying to advertise that they had a fight.

Seo Haedun, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about Ahn Yuyoung and just stepped out in front of the table.

While he did seem a bit stiff, he still raised his hand and smiled, greeting the fans.

“……”

Relationships, no matter their nature, were always pretty complicated.

Simple words and small actions could pile up until they became an insurmountable mountain.

I didn’t know what specific words built the mountain between these two though.

And then there was this fancam. Something was off about it.

The person filming was clearly a pro, capturing steady shots even while being so extremely zoomed in.

But then, they suddenly zoomed out so abruptly, almost as if it was a mistake.

With that in mind, their zooming out had to be for a reason, right?

Probably to capture something that could only be seen in a wider frame.

However, after the zoom-out, I couldn’t really see any significantly interesting things from Seo Haedun for about 20 seconds.

‘……Could it be?’

Was the person filming deliberately trying to show the relationship between Ahn Yuyoung and Seo Haedun?

This punk.

……They clearly were a hardcore Seo Haedun fan.

And probably an anti-fan of Ahn Yuyoung.

This fan’s goal was to expose Ahn Yuyoung’s disdainful behavior towards Seo Haedun.

It was a highly calculated and intentionally captured piece of footage designed to highlight the tension between them.

This sent chills down my spine.

I felt like I had found the origins of my high notoriety.

“Unbelievable.”

As Park Doyoon, I have hurt many people in my life……

But I had never been so openly rejected and scorned by anyone, especially because of affection held towards someone else.

Seeing Ahn Yuyoung being so clearly despised…… was truly unsettling.

Let’s search a little more.

<Title : Yuyoung and Haedun teasing each other is so cute lolol>

This wasn’t anything significant.

Just some playful teasing during a live, which was quickly laughed off after they made eye contact.

……Let’s go to a forum that dives a bit deeper.

When it came to discussing highly sensitive issues like members fighting, the fans rarely used their real names.

One wrong word could get them branded as a ‘toxic fan’.

Getting shamed by the members of the same fandom and forced to apologize publicly even though they didn’t do anything wrong must feel pretty frustrating.

Given that Seo Haedun was the second oldest member, he should be Tuesday. so his pseudonym had to be related to that, right?

[Mon Tue fight]

[Fight between Mon and Tue]

I saw these types of things while lurking in forums.

Despite it being just a debut concept, fans still occasionally referred to the members by their assigned days of the week – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on.

Fans cleverly used these terms for their negative discussions.

When referring to more than one member, fans would write things like ‘Mon and Tue’ or ‘Tue and Wed’ to indicate the pairs.

<@ Mon and Tue, could you guys stop making it so obvious that you’re fighting? Lol If you want to advertise your fight to the whole world, why don’t you just punch each other in the face? Acting all childish by ignoring and avoiding eye contact;; Srsly, it just ruins the mood of the fans watching>

That post had been shared 300 times.

It must have been a pretty huge issue among the fans.

└ Honestly, isn’t this Mon’s fault? In the video, even when Haedun turned away or bowed his head, Wolyoung just ignored him… Some leader he is, acting like a brat lolol. As expected, he sure is living up to his reputation as a notorious jerk, frfr.

└ We don’t know what happened, so why are you throwing out speculations that can only be seen as bad mouthing Wolyoung?

└ If you’re that concerned, why don’t you go tell your idol to act better?

└ Haedun, please leave this awful group. Please, please……

They sure were fighting fiercely. 

“……Are all of them students?”

Regardless of age, seeing fans get so emotionally invested in some immature fight between these boys, to the point of feeling personally insulted and spewing harsh words, left me feeling increasingly uneasy.

I hadn’t even done these things in Ahn Yuyoung’s body, and yet I felt guilty as if I had committed some sort of crime.

Both Ahn Yuyoung and Seo Haedun, those two had a lot to answer for.

In the future, I needed to keep an eye on things and perhaps even perform some sort of public display of reconciliation by shaking hands or something. 

Their fight seemed so loud and in the open, but neither of them properly communicated it to the other members.

Not sharing such issues with the whole group was just the worst……

Moreover, if the oldest members were fighting and didn’t say anything, the younger members, left in the dark, would be unsure of what to do.

I felt like I wanted to sit those two down and give them a really stern talking to.

……Unfortunately, one of those two people was currently me.

Seo Haedun has been ignoring my texts asking to meet up.

Since I was Ahn Yuyoung, trying to call him seemed meaningless.

One wrong word could make him hate me for the rest of my life.

In fact my phone was blowing up with only increasingly urgent messages from the CEO over the past few days.

<It’s been almost a month. Have you gathered all the members?>

<Without a concept plan, storyboard, and demo song, I can’t do anything either.>

<You better get us a TV show deal or something>

……Perhaps asking for 20% of his investment plan had indeed been too greedy.

The CEO’s desperate cries, that he wouldn’t invest even one penny if this didn’t work out, were quite incessant.

But I could understand.

How could he be expected to invest in a group of which all the members had fled?

If I didn’t show some meaningful results to the CEO, our group’s continued activities were as good as doomed.

Should I come up with a plan and call him? Or should I visit him in person?

As I contemplated various strategies how I could get Haedun to come back a call came in.

“……2323?”

These last four digits stood out to me, so I mumbled them involuntarily.

This number wasn’t unknown to me.

It was the number I had to endure relentless calls from for two years up until a few days ago……

“……Reporter Kim Heetae?”

―Oh, how did you know? Right, this is Kim Heetae.

It was Kim Heetae.

“What’s the matter?”

―Haha, don’t be so nervous.

After two years of being under you, give me one reason why I shouldn’t be nervous? I almost instinctively became annoyed.

―I was wondering if WEEKANIZ will be appearing in that failed idol competition program PD Kim Youngjin is doing.

“What?”

Failed idol…… what?

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