"Was it not this bad during the last music video shoot?"
"Back then, at least the weather was good."
"Ah."
Arica was huge.
In Korea, you could go from Seoul all the way down to Haenam at the very southern tip as a day trip, but in Arica, that was out of the question.
-A night flight, shoot, then a morning flight back to New York and the shoot continues.
In the blazing dayti, we fild the music video in Central Park, and at night, we crossed over to Missouri on another nearly five-hour flight and fild the music video at an amusent park—an insane schedule.
I understood the capitalist logic that “we had to go all the way to Missouri” because we were looking for a small but pretty amusent park, but that didn’t make the schedule any easier.
We had to get by on catnaps during flights, and from morning to night, music video filming continued nonstop.
The staff who had to film everything were suffering too, but we mbers, who had to keep acting and dancing over and over, were dropping like flies.
-We need to hurry and go practice. The concept stage evaluation is coming up, so even a little more···.
-Get it together, Yunkyung. This isn’t the Idol Ground 100 dorm.
-Then where is it?
-Hell.
-So I got dragged into hell with the boss?
-Yeah, hurry up and go film.
-I don’t waaaant to!!!
Yunkyung kept insisting she couldn’t sleep on the plane and held out to the very end, and the forced-march schedule was so brutal that she even ended up “leaping through ti and space” by herself in the middle of filming.
It wasn’t just Yunkyung. The other mbers looked exhausted too.
"Ryujin-scrub, you’re holding up better than I thought?"
"Keep an eye on Yunkyung. Earlier, her eyes were glazed over."
"She said she feels like she’s about to fall asleep, so she went to wash her face for a minute."
At least Seo Ryujin, maybe because she felt the responsibility of being the leader, was keeping her eyes sharp and taking care of the other mbers even during the short breaks in the middle of filming.
"You should rest too. They said filming starts soon, so at least lie down for a bit."
"I’m fine."
"Yeah, your face doesn’t look fine."
"Do you know sothing?"
"What?"
To , she looked like she was pushing herself too hard, so I told her I’d keep checking on the other mbers and she should rest, but she shook her head and refused, then suddenly asked a question.
"This is what I wanted."
"Harsh labor?"
"···Not that. debuting, and a lot of people needing ."
After she finished speaking, Seo Ryujin stared at the set with an expression like she’d fallen into thought for a mont.
"When I was a trainee, I thought once I debuted, I could do anything, and if I got first place, I thought I could sell my soul to the devil if I had to."
"Bold."
"But I don’t want to miss the miracle that happened without selling my soul to the devil."
For a second I wondered if she was taking it too far, but I could understand, to a degree, why she thought that way.
'She must’ve been desperate.'
Logic Entertainnt, Seo Ryujin’s original agency, was definitely a major company, but I’d heard their boy group that debuted a few years ago did better than expected, so the company was pouring all its attention into that side.
Because of that, the rookie girl group Seo Ryujin was supposed to debut with a long ti ago still hadn’t debuted, and they were stuck just practicing.
And Seo Ryujin had said before that she felt frustrated in that situation and decided to join Idol Ground 100.
So was that why?
In our group, there were two mbers who were especially full of vicious drive, and one of them was Seo Ryujin.
The other one was,
"Move over there a bit!"
"No. Gahyeon’s lap is the softest."
"Is it?"
"Yeah. With the other mbers, all I feel is bones."
"Wait, are you saying I gained weight?!"
"It’s fine. Even if Gahyeon is squishy, she’ll still be cute."
"What do you an squishy!!!"
It was Kurosawa Yuri, resting with her head on Lee Gahyeon’s lap.
'She’s the one who has to act, too.'
On the outside, Yuri acted clumsy and pretended she wasn’t good at the language, but surprisingly, she was the most strong-willed out of all of us.
Just thinking about how she ca to Korea alone as a middle schooler because she wanted to beco an idol, her drive was no joke.
"For this scene, it’s a shot of you sitting and dancing inside the bus! We’re going straight into filming!"
While I was talking with Seo ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) Ryujin and thinking, filming ti had already co again.
'This reminds of marching.'
How long had we even been resting? It was so fast it was ridiculous, and I suddenly rembered marching back in the military.
Fifty minutes marching, ten minutes rest.
The rest ti was clearly one-fifth of the ti you walked, but the miracle-like sense of ti and space where you loosened your gear, lay down, close your eyes—and the rest ti was already over.
"Uh··· Judge Hyeryeong said we have to polish vocals by today, though."
Looks like wandering through ti and space wasn’t only Yunkyung.
***
"You worked hard! It’s late, but everyone, get so good rest!"
"Thank you for your hard work!"
3 a.m.
It was already a ti we should have been asleep, but for the last shoot, the staff and the Iam mbers were gathered in an Arican high school gym.
Finally, all filming from the last three days ended, and with the final cut sign, cheers rang out through the gym.
"Thank you for your hard work!"
"Man, the mbers worked harder than we did."
Ayeon went around to each staff mber, including the director, and thanked them one by one.
'They’re people to be grateful to.'
These three days of forced marching were so intense that even the staff were clicking their tongues, saying it had been a long ti since they’d fild on a schedule like this.
The Iam mbers could at least encourage each other and do their best because we were filming our own new song’s music video, but the staff had nothing to gain even if this music video did well, and yet they worked hard like it was their own job. Ayeon couldn’t help being grateful.
So, dragging bodies that looked like they might collapse and fall asleep at any mont, the mbers—including Ayeon—kept going around and thanking the staff.
And it wasn’t just Ayeon. The other mbers knew the staff had put their whole hearts into this shoot, so everyone was giving their thanks in their own way.
"Next ti we et, let’s do a can of cola."
"Sure, I’ll treat you to cola."
"Hey, don’t make into so shaless person! I’ll buy it."
"I’ve got a Music Count shoot too, so buy it for then."
Especially Lee Sion—maybe she still had stamina left—was chatting away with the staff like she was about to throw a party.
"Guys, the staff need to rest too, so let’s head back to the hotel now."
"Ooh!!"
At Raon PD’s words about moving to the hotel, the mbers started bouncing around again like they were excited, and Ayeon was dumbfounded.
'Does Lee Sion not get tired, either?'
They’d been filming together for three days and nights, barely sleeping, so it was amazing that she still had energy to be that loud.
After the closing greetings, the Iam mbers got into the van.
"I could sleep for 24 hours."
"Ah··· I have to shower before sleeping, but can I even do that?"
"I don’t have confidence."
"Yuri is just going to sleep!"
Listening to the mbers share their thoughts after getting into the van, Ayeon closed her eyes for a mont, thinking it was funny how they were thinking the exact sa thing she was.
The other mbers were just as tired, too, so the voices gradually died down, and all that could be heard was the faint sound of the car from outside the window.
Before she knew it, Ayeon fell asleep using that sound as a lullaby.
"Guys, we’re here."
"Where are we? This isn’t the original hotel···."
When the managers woke them up and Ayeon opened her eyes, she was still in the car. It felt like a lot of ti had passed since she’d fallen asleep, so it was strange they were still in the car.
But—
"Uh··· the hotel changed for today. We’re only staying one night, so we only got one room."
"Okay···?"
Thinking maybe they’d spent too much on this New York trip, Ayeon and the mbers got up without thinking much, and like zombies, they shuffled into the hotel, following the guidance.
After that, Ayeon’s mory cut out like a blackout.
"Ugh···."
When she opened her eyes again, Ayeon felt sothing was off.
She definitely rembered getting out of the car and moving into the hotel, but the room was still dark like it was night.
"How long did I sleep?"
Only then did Ayeon realize she must have passed out and slept, and she was only now waking up.
So Ayeon started to get out of bed to go turn on the lights, but—
"Aaaah!!!"
"Lee Sion?"
"Ugh··· what is this noise? Guys, did sothing happen?"
"Ugh··· I feel like I slept for a second, so why does my body feel so stiff?"
The room had been too dark to see, but when Ayeon’s foot touched the floor, she felt the texture of skin.
She jerked her foot back in shock, but the scream of Lee Sion—who Ayeon had stepped on—rang out, and maybe that woke them up, because the other mbers’ voices followed.
'Why is she sleeping on the floor?'
Ayeon was worried whether Lee Sion was okay, but more than that, sothing felt strange and ominous, and it kept circling in Ayeon’s mind.
When she first woke up, her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark, so she couldn’t see, but now the outline of the room was slowly coming into view.
In different corners of the room, Ayeon could faintly make out dark shapes of sothing.
With a sinking feeling, Ayeon pulled out her phone and quickly turned on the flashlight to shine it around the room.
And then, the scene under that beam of light.
Yuri, Yunkyung, and Shinyu were still asleep, while Seo Ryujin and Lee Gahyeon looked like they’d just woken up and were rubbing their eyes.
And Lee Sion—maybe Ayeon had stepped on her stomach—was clutching her belly and rolling around on the floor.
She couldn’t understand why only Lee Sion was on the floor when everyone else was on beds, but that wasn’t the important thing right now.
Ayeon forced herself to focus and, relying on the flashlight, found the room’s light switch.
Click.
The mont she turned it on—
"Kyaaah! Turn the lights off!"
Lee Sion scread again, and the room finally ca into full view.
A fairly large room with three beds.
"What, why did you suddenly turn on the lights?"
"Huh? When did we co here?"
"Ayeon, what’s going on?"
"Ugh··· Yuri wants to sleep more."
Under the ceiling lights, the other mbers seed to co to their senses one by one and each blurted sothing out.
"Cara···."
As expected of Ayeon, who was the first to fully get it together, she ignored the mbers’ babbling and scanned the room first.
The first thing she saw was a cara installed inside the room.
And a suspicious gift box sitting on the room’s table.
"What is that?"
The other mbers noticed the box too and started paying attention.
Of course they would. A single box sitting alone on a table in the room was impossible to miss.
"Hmm··· so they finally did it?"
Just as everyone’s eyes were locked onto the box, Lee Sion—who had only just gotten up—clutched her belly and headed straight for the table.
"Hey! You don’t even know what it is—why are you trying to touch it!"
"Lee Sion, do you know sothing?"
"Boss! Do you know what’s going on?"
Everyone was confused by the absurd situation of waking up to a cara installed in the room, but Lee Sion looked unusually calm.
'Did they tell Lee Sion sothing separately?'
Ayeon asked because Lee Sion’s relaxed attitude made it seem like she knew sothing, but—
"Nope. I was asleep too, then Ryu Ayeon threw a stomach punch and woke up."
"That wasn’t a stomach punch, it was an accident···."
"But I can guess what this is."
"You can tell what this is?"
"It’s obviously our self-content. Looks like they’re telling us to earn our keep now."
After speaking, Lee Sion flashed a grin.
***
"Team Lead, what do we do? We didn’t see this coming."
"What on earth is this···."
Hakyoon felt like losing it.
"If you don’t co out, we’re coming in~ boom-chicka boom-chick! We know you’re watching everything. We might seriously just grab a taxi and leave, you know?"
Through the cara and mic they’d installed, Lee Sion’s cheerful voice ca through as she sang and threatened the content team.
And in Lee Sion’s hand was a single card.
-For this New York trip, we want to try filming the mbers’ self-content.
Hakyoon stared at it and tried to understand how things had ended up like this, and then rembered the mont the first plan was made.
The day Iam’s music video shoot was decided to be in New York.
Hakyoon, the content team lead, planned self-content that fit New York and submitted a proposal.
-First, find your way back to the hotel from a remote place. Second, a guerrilla concert in Central Park···.
The first one was the “find your way back to the hotel” content.
The plan was to convert the total cost of the als the mbers ate after arriving in New York into “distance,” drop them off that far away, and make them find their way back to the hotel.
Of course, they couldn’t just dump the mbers alone in the middle of Arica, so the original goal was to build the content so the content team would follow along and film, give missions along the way, and if the mbers cleared them, they’d get hints and spending money.
To do that, while the mbers were completely knocked out from the brutal shoot, the production staff secretly moved them to a hotel in Connecticut, about 100 kiloters away from New York.
By car it was a place that would take, at most, two hours, and they’d even prepared excuses to fool them just in case the mbers woke up on the way.
But the mbers were so tired they didn’t wake up even while moving to the hotel, and they didn’t question the changed hotel either, and they fell asleep again.
Seeing that, the content team congratulated themselves, thinking this content was a perfect success.
So while the mbers slept, the content team secretly installed caras and waited in the next room, watching the mbers in real ti and waiting for them to wake up.
Then Ryu Ayeon being the first to wake and start figuring things out went exactly the way they expected.
The mbers’ flustered reactions to waking up sowhere unfamiliar, and the natural mont where their eyes went to the box the content team had prepared on the table.
Inside the box was an explanation of what had happened and the mission telling them to find their way back to the hotel.
A beautiful plan where, after the mbers read it and act shocked and wronged, the content team would pop out with a “ta-da,” and filming would begin smoothly.
But all of that had fallen apart.
-Find your way back to the New York hotel on your own?
-This is Connecticut?
-How do we get there? We got played again!
-I knew sothing was up with how Raon PD and the content team were treating us so well in New York!
-Right! We should’ve known from the mont that variety demon Team Lead Hakyoon stuck to us the whole shoot and kept handing us drinks and stuff···.
When Lee Sion opened the box and explained what was written inside, those were the reactions they expected—except Lee Sion was smiling instead.
-I knew it. The content team whispering about sothing was suspicious. I told you from the start it was shady, didn’t I?
-That’s not the important part right now, how do we get back to the hotel—
Click.
Before Ryu Ayeon could even finish, Lee Sion rummaged through the back pocket of her pants and pulled sothing out, holding it up.
-A card? What card is that?
-Raon PD’s KJ Entertainnt corporate card.
-What?!
Shockingly, it really was KJ Entertainnt’s corporate card.
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