Variety shows.
For idols whose careers had settled onto a certain track and who were producing results, they were the kind of schedules you naturally ended up booking.
There was talk lately that idols themselves had become much less popular with the general public, making variety-show bookings difficult even with decent results.
But TeSTAR wasn’t included in that category.
We came from <Idol Inc.>, the number-one variety-show buzz generator of last year.
If someone had even a moderate interest in the entertainment industry, even if they didn’t know TeSTAR itself, they’d probably have seen or heard the faces or names of our members who had ranked near the top of <Idol Inc.> at least once.
We’d also proved our results decisively through last year’s promotions, so I knew we’d received quite a few variety-show offers for this comeback.
Thanks to that, I managed to book the kind of reasonably suitable variety schedule I’d wanted.
“Nervous~?”
“To some extent.”
Big Sejin grinned.
“Hey, me too!”
For someone saying he was nervous, his eyes were burning with ambition.
‘Understandable.’
There were only two TeSTAR members currently heading to the filming set.
Me and Big Sejin.
Since this wasn’t the kind of format suited to the entire group appearing together, the offer had gone through several rounds of discussion, and the two of us had been chosen.
This was almost the first time we’d booked a variety appearance as individual members.
And there was absolutely no chance that bastard Big Sejin would let an opportunity to promote himself personally slip away.
‘Maybe the unit stage succeeding only lit an even bigger fire under him.’
Well, either way, it wasn’t a bad thing.
“You know without me telling you, right? Once we arrive, greet everyone properly~”
“Yes, sir!”
“Yes.”
Just as we’d readily nodded at the manager’s words, the first thing we did upon arriving was make the rounds and greet the cast.
“Hello!”
We were only in our second year, so predictably, there wasn’t anyone junior to us.
But nobody ignored us either.
“Oh~ TeSTAR!”
Our recognition and results were solid.
‘Being successful really is the answer.’
Still, the way Big Sejin managed to exchange numbers with three actors in the blink of an eye was practically a magic trick.
And in one waiting room, I found a fairly welcome face.
“Gasp! Sunbaenim~”
“Ah, it’s good to see you. Both of you.”
It was Youngrin, the female idol who had served as a representative on <Idol Inc.>.
“I’ve been hearing good things about you. It’s nice seeing you like this. It would’ve been nice if the others could’ve come too.”
Youngrin offered us a few kind words, then added jokingly,
“I’m releasing a solo album this year, so let’s not overlap promotions.”
…Suddenly, the nightmare of releasing at the same time as VTIC right after our debut came rushing back.
“Haha! Come on, sunbaenim, we’ll have to delay ours because we’re scared of you~”
“I’m really looking forward to your album.”
“Thank you.”
Youngrin smiled faintly and nodded.
And beside her was, hmm…
Someone I hadn’t expected.
It was our first time meeting, but the moment greetings were over, she visibly brightened when she looked at me.
“You’re Moondae-ssi, right? Wow, I finally get to meet you! Let’s do well during today’s shoot~”
She was…
A member of Marshmallow.
The girl group Marshmallow, who had originally sung <POP☆CON>, which I’d danced to during my first ranking evaluation, as well as <A New World>, which we’d turned into a Halloween concept for the first team battle.
And the person I was meeting now was…
Hmm.
The one Marshmallow member who was currently active as a successful actress.
In any case, in terms of career years, that made her an extremely senior sunbae, so I bobbed my head in a bow.
“I’m the one who should ask you to take care of me….”
‘Wait.’
Come to think of it, didn’t everyone currently believe I was a Marshmallow fan?
‘Don’t tell me she thinks I’m her fan too.’
Sure enough, the Marshmallow member smiled broadly and asked,
“By the way, was there one of our members you were especially a fan of? The members made a little bet about it.”
There was only one correct answer.
“……Of course, I was a fan of all of you.”
“Aww, so you weren’t my fan? Nice escape there, Moondae-ssi!”
The Marshmallow member laughed heartily and slapped her thigh.
‘She’s treating me like a younger cousin.’
Apparently I had…
Danced to POP☆CON so damn much that I’d somehow created a one-sided sense of familiarity.
“Of course I’m kidding! Thanks to you, the members and I had a genuinely fun time together for the first time in ages~ Thank you. Let’s do well during filming today!”
“…Thank you.”
At this rate, I felt like I’d walk away with a signed Marshmallow CD too.
Anyway, seeing people among the cast with whom I had some connection was good news.
‘It makes it easy for editing to create little stories here and there.’
Compared to a cast where no one knew one another at all, having something that connected us also seemed more likely to earn screen time.
And because those two had so many more years in the industry than us, there was also little risk of getting dragged into some unnecessarily old-fashioned terrestrial-TV love-line edit.
‘Still, it is more comfortable when they’re the same gender.’
Unfortunately, none of the remaining cast members looked like people whose promotions had overlapped with ours or whom I particularly knew.
……Or so I thought at the time.
But apparently their schedules were incredibly busy, because there were some guys who barely managed to arrive right before filming.
“Hello~”
Two VTIC members.
‘Fuck.’
Why the hell are those bastards here?
If the entire group appeared, these were the kind of guys who could make this show change its entire format just to arrange an exclusive special.
So why had they shown up during a non-promotional period?
At that moment, Big Sejin, already fitted with his microphone, poked me in the back and whispered,
“Wow, LeTi really works hard.”
“LeTi?”
LeTi Entertainment.
VTIC and Marshmallow’s agency.
Big Sejin flicked his eyes toward the actors whose numbers he’d gotten.
“That group of actors over there is from… Sohyun sunbaenim’s first movie as the lead.”
“……!”
“They’re under the same agency. They probably agreed to let the whole movie cast appear in exchange for throwing VTIC into the package.”
……So the cast had appeared together to promote a movie.
That would explain why two VTIC members, currently on break, had graciously come along.
They even held company stock, so they probably had more reason to be generous when promoting other celebrities from the same agency.
Big Sejin smiled slyly.
“Still, isn’t this good for you, Moondae?”
“What is?”
“I don’t see the sunbaenim who’s in charge of Moondae’s social life~”
“…….”
Apparently he’d figured out long ago that I was uncomfortable around Cheongryeo.
Though he probably only assumed something along the lines of, “Guess he was more of a preachy old-timer than expected.”
I snorted and shook my head.
“No, that isn’t particularly important.”
“Oh, really?”
Right.
It wasn’t like Cheongryeo was going to suddenly smash my skull with a sledgehammer on a crowded filming set.
It would just be…
Annoying and exhausting because I’d run into a lunatic.
‘Doesn’t really matter whether he’s here or not.’
The problem was…
The mere fact that VTIC had appeared.
We occupied the same male-idol position, but the difference in status was huge.
I spoke honestly.
“I’m worried about screen time.”
“Huh?”
Big Sejin burst out laughing.
“Wow, now Moondae worries about variety-show screen time too! But don’t worry too much~”
“……?”
Big Sejin lowered his voice even further and whispered.
“Those two sunbaenims barely talk on variety shows.”
“……!!”
“They probably just sent whoever said they were available on short notice. Hmm, I’d guess they’ll do the minimum and leave.”
He meant they were members with no particular ambition for variety, so they probably wouldn’t be especially motivated.
Honestly, I was a little impressed.
‘This bastard’s brain really works fast.’
Someone who’s good at gathering information and thinking with it really is on another level.
I nodded.
“Guess we’ll have to work hard.”
“We definitely will.”
We exchanged a rare and pointless fist bump.
The microphones turned on, and filming began shortly afterward.
“Sensational Saturday! The joy of weekend nights—we invite you to <Saturday Party>!”
“Waaaaaaaah!!”
<Saturday Party> was a full-scale variety show hosted by the nation’s top MC.
As you could probably guess from the name, it was an extremely long-running program.
It had ended in the late 2000s, then been revived a few years ago thanks to the retro boom.
A terrestrial-TV program that started at 8:50 p.m. on Saturdays and pulled good ratings.
In other words, it was a variety show with extreme mainstream appeal.
There was no need for some useless guest family history to suddenly get dragged out.
I could just show a fun, impactful character in a few scenes.
It had everything I was looking for.
However……
It required me to abandon my dignity to a certain degree.
The concept demanded resistance to secondhand embarrassment.
Dudum-chit, dududum-chit!
Right now, the MC was DJing at an eighties-style booth while swinging around a bob-cut wig.
He seemed extremely immersed.
His professionalism was impressive.
“Today’s party concept? <Two Hearts, One Body>!”
The line we’d been told about beforehand came out.
“Only~ perfectly matching pairs of identical party people, complete look-alikes, are allowed onto today’s stage! Our party people, come on~ out right now!”
Thanks to that, Big Sejin and I were wearing matching clothes and hairstyles.
……For reference, apparently conscious of this concept, one of the pairings the company had considered for the program was “Big Sejin–Bae Sejin.”
Of course, Bae Sejin’s active horror at the idea killed that option before it could even properly enter discussion.
“Our turn.”
“Yeah.”
It was almost time for Big Sejin and me to enter the set.
[Our next party people are~ Ooh~ They’re young! They’re handsome!]
We were going to walk straight onto the stage and perform the dance we’d prepared while the MC delivered an outrageous introduction.
The MC…
Recreated aloud the kind of cringeworthy old-school variety captions that had once become memes, throughout the entire time each cast member danced.
[The magic of dance! Stocks soaring upward! TeSTAR’s two shining stars descend to Earth!]
Apparently the funny point was watching the cast collapse because they couldn’t endure the sound echoing through the hall over the microphone.
But neither Big Sejin nor I seemed likely to collapse in a particularly entertaining way.
Maybe if Ryu Chungwoo and Seon Ahyeon had come.
So we decided to turn it back on him instead.
While dancing, Big Sejin and I gradually circled the DJ booth.
“…?!”
The MC looked slightly flustered.
“Wow, the nation’s greatest MC!”
“I’ll show you what hosting means! I am hosting itself!”
“A presence no booth can contain! A light that shakes the entire nation!”
“He holds Saturday evenings in his hands and bends them to his will. These are the words of a giant!”
“Only the man in the DJ booth can capture both laughter and emotion at once!”
[No…!]
The MC collapsed instead.
At first he seemed genuinely flustered, though this part looked like he was playing along.
‘Thank goodness.’
I was glad I didn’t have to keep saying even more outrageous lines out loud.
But Big Sejin, grinning beside me, dumped out every remaining line anyway.
“The history of Korean variety entertainment is divided into before and after Choi Hosu. He is the standard by which variety itself is measured!”
“…….”
That was how the dance stage ended.
After pulling himself together and suppressing laughter a few times, the MC delivered a magnificent closing line.
“They seized the stage the instant they appeared! This is variety! Passion, spirit, love and peace!”
“Thank you!”
Big Sejin and I came down from the stage.
‘……Whew.’
For now…
I’d done everything I wanted from this segment.
Even the production staff were laughing, so the impact had been decent too.
But the moment I sat down in the chairs reserved for the cast, worldly anguish came rushing over me.
I’d braced myself when studying previous episodes before appearing, but it was astonishing how thoroughly a variety show could test a person’s resistance to secondhand embarrassment.
‘There were…… a lot of people who missed formats like this.’
I couldn’t believe it.
But ratings didn’t lie.
‘Let’s just react.’
I applauded enthusiastically for the VTIC guys who went up onstage last.
Just as Big Sejin had said, they didn’t seem particularly interested in variety, and it didn’t look like they’d prepared anything major.
“Handsomeness bestowed by the heavens!”
Once all twelve cast members had appeared that way, the program finally began in earnest.
“Actually, the reason we held today’s party… was to identify the fake!”
“Didn’t you think it was weird that everyone looked way too identical?? One person is a doppelgänger! A fake!”
…As we’d been told, that was the concept that would split the pairs who had appeared together into opposing teams for a six-versus-six team battle.
“The decisive person who causes their team to lose! That person… will receive a punishment!”
And the moment the person to receive the punishment was selected during the first game, the show’s true scheme was revealed.
“Huh? Why isn’t our Juho-ssi, who entered together with him, coming out?”
“Y-Yes?!”
“You share the same body, so of course you have to receive the punishment together~ You’re doppelgängers! That’s why it’s <Two Hearts, One Body>!”
“……!!”
That’s right.
Whenever someone was punished, that person’s doppelgänger on the opposing team had to receive the punishment too.
“Oh my goodness!”
“Then I shouldn’t target the other me over there?”
“No, winning the team game matters! A punishment is nothing, let’s just take it~”
Amazingly, they hadn’t informed anyone about this beforehand, so the cast were genuinely surprised.
Amid all the murmuring, Big Sejin’s eyes met mine.
‘Let’s take a punishment once.’
‘Okay.’
A crisis like getting punished was good for extracting character through reactions.
We absolutely had to take advantage of this.
“The punishment for this team battle is…… a water-balloon bomb!”
“Gasp!”
Hmm.
That seemed mild enough.
But when the opportunity came, someone interfered.
It happened when the mirror-ball dodgeball game, this round’s team battle, came down to a one-on-one situation.
The lineup was me versus a VTIC member.
And the VTIC member who was the last man standing on the opposing team happened to have the ball.
‘In games like this, the last person eliminated gets the punishment.’
Given the nature of this program, they’d definitely do that to milk an entertaining reaction out of someone feeling wronged.
Something like, “Well~ you were the last person left and still couldn’t win, so doesn’t that make you the cause of the loss?”
They had plenty of precedent for it.
‘So I just need to get hit here.’
I prepared to take the ball.
“That’s it!”
“Hit him over there!!”
But the VTIC member on the other team started doing something insane.
He gave me an ambiguous look, pretended to throw the ball—
Then stepped on the boundary line and eliminated himself.
“……??”
“Oops! I made a mistake!”
‘What the hell.’
What is that bastard doing?
Worse, when our eyes met, he winked at me like he was sending a signal.
He had the exact face of some senior student covering for a freshman during a presentation.
‘What the hell is this supposed to be?’