Chapter 22: First Place Nominees

In the past, even a stage that was slightly over 3 minutes long was routinely chopped down to just 2 minutes.

So now, being able to perform a whole song entirely was emotional enough, but they were even placed second to last in the broadcast order.

“I’m so nervous right now.”

Yoonbin held his broad chest and took deep breaths.

Jemin realized that even the usually calm Yoonbin got nervous.

“Me too.

It’ll feel totally different from fancams…

I’m worried they might be disappointed.”

Since blowing up through the fancam, they had done schedules like photo shoots, radio shows, and interviews, but this was their first proper stage performance.

They had to do well here.

Only then could they prove that blowing up from a fancam wasn’t just a fluke.

“Ha…”

To calm his trembling heart, Jemin turned on his camera.

He took a selfie of himself trembling like this and posted it on SNS.

[From. Jemin]

Eternitys, what are you doing?

I’m waiting for the music show right now and I’m so nervous!

Please give me strength so I can do well

#4ever #Jemin #Eternity

“Ugh…”

Since they shared a single SNS account, he had no choice but to see the posts the other members uploaded, even if he didn’t want to.

Jemin saw Woohyeong frowning as soon as he posted his photo, so he glared back with rabbit eyes—no, hawk eyes.

“What.

What.

Got a problem?”

“What is this bizarre filter.”

Woohyeong pointed at Jemin’s rabbit filter selfie and spoke.

Jemin was being anthropomorphized into a rabbit by his fans.

Jemin had simply chosen that filter to satisfy their needs.

“It’s cute.”

“Are you voluntarily trying to become a rodent?”

“Hey, stop talking nonsense and upload something yourself too.”

The fans were counting down the days you haven’t visited, calling it D-day.

Do you even know you’re getting criticized for being an unfilial bastard? Jemin wanted to lecture Woohyeong like a strict schoolmaster, but since he knew he wouldn’t listen anyway, he gave up on getting worked up.

“I’ll handle it myself.”

He spoke like that, but today too, at most, it seemed he would just slap up a single photo in full stage attire and call it a day.

Seeing Jemin busily taking photos, Woohyeong felt uneasy and fiddled with his phone as well.

He made up his mind and turned on the camera, but he couldn’t bring himself to use the same filter or make the same expression as Jemin, so he pressed the back button several times.

It felt like his finger slipped a bit, but he didn’t check.

“They say PPP seniors have arrived?”

“We should grab our signed CDs and go greet them.”

While making the rounds in the waiting rooms to greet people, Jemin’s hands were shaking intensely.

It wasn’t because they were his role models.

In fact, they weren’t really Jemin’s role models.

He had just chosen them because they were reasonably successful and free of scandals.

The reason Jemin was so tense was because of the vibe inside PPP’s waiting room when they politely knocked and entered.

“Hello, Senior! Everlasting 4ever! We are 4ever!”

As they greeted their seniors respectfully, there was a strange feeling of being scanned up and down.

Rather than welcoming them warmly, it felt like they were sizing them up, so they had no choice but to feel nervous.

“Are these those guys?”

Even though the parties involved were standing right in front of him, he spoke as if pointing at a TV.

“River snails?”

Even though they had clearly stated their team name right in front of him, referring to them as ‘River Snails’ made it ambiguous whether it was mockery or simply a bad memory.

“Thank you for remembering us!”

Setting his uncomfortable feelings aside, Jemin responded with a pleasant, friendly smile.

Taking the signed CD, Ryu Seong scanned it once with his eyes and then slapped it onto the table.

He then crossed his legs and leaned back against the seat.

After scanning the standing 4ever members up and down, he singled out Jemin to ask a question.

“Do you think you’ll do well?”

“Pardon?”

“I asked if you think you guys will do well.”

Jemin was flustered by Ryu Seong’s attitude.

He wondered if he had said something wrong to cause this.

He quickly replayed the previous situation in his head, but there was nothing he could guess at all.

“We need to do even better.”

Even in the chilled atmosphere, Woohyeong held his head up straight and spoke.

“We plan to work hard! PPP seniors, Cheer Up too!”

Whether James-hyung lacked tact or not, he gave a thumbs up in a bright voice.

“Right.

Work hard.”

After bowing once more, they stepped outside the waiting room.

Jemin tilted his head.

“They were encouraging us, right? Why does it feel so strange…”

“Today’s styling is crazy. Did Q2P pull out a pillar to hire this stylist?”

They went up on stage for the pre-recording.

The fans were already seated.

Because they weren’t allowed to make loud noises, everyone covered their mouths without even being able to scream.

At most, they could only whisper to the fan sitting next to them.

‘Looking at the fans’ expressions, they must like today’s hair, makeup, and cordi. Thank goodness.’

Even in that short time preparing for the stage, Jemin blew hearts a dozen times in all kinds of ways.

“Let me hear it.”

At some point, this became the phrase Yoonbin used to boost morale before starting the stage.

The members exchanged glances.

A grim determination like warriors going into battle could be felt.

Not only Woohyeong and Jemin, but even Eunhan and James-hyung wiped the playfulness from their faces and nodded.

“Yoonbin! James! Jemin! Woohyeong! Eunhan! Forever! 4ever!”

Along with the fans’ cheers, 4ever’s stage began.

“Good job.

We’ll go one more time~”

If even one person had messed up the song or choreography in the middle, they would have had to shoot multiple times, but fortunately, no one made a mistake.

After finishing the performance and monitoring it, they were informed that they would record one more time.

Stepping off the stage, they all replayed the performance together on a large monitor.

“Oh~ Woohyeong-i-hyung’s expression.”

Eunhan gasped in admiration seeing Woohyeong’s face filling the screen.

The camera had captured Woohyeong in the final ending shot of the song, and it gave off not only a screen-dominating presence but also a strangely overwhelming emotion.

‘Judging purely by his personality, he looks like he’d just skim through the stage lazily, but he’s surprisingly intense.’

Although it was a short time, observing Woohyeong from the side so far showed that he was genuine about dancing and singing.

It was visible that he poured all his energy into every single moment.

‘If only he had a slightly kinder personality, he’d be even more popular.’

Jemin stared intently at Woohyeong, who was monitoring with a serious expression.

Whether he felt the gaze, Woohyeong snapped his head around and made eye contact with Jemin.

“What?”

“No, just that you looked cool.”

“Ugh.”

Whether it was hard for Woohyeong to hear Jemin’s compliment, he wore a disgusted expression.

“Even when I compliment him, he acts like that.”

A curse almost slipped out, but since there were many watching eyes, he restrained himself.

The pre-recording ended after just two takes.

Since the second stage was done better, it seemed the second performance would air on broadcast.

Wanting to see them more, the fans let out mournful groans as the group stepped off the stage.

“We’ll be able to see each other much more in the future, everyone!”

Jemin waved his palms so hard his wrist almost popped as he said goodbye.

Since they had to go back on stage during the 1st place candidate announcement after the pre-recording, they were waiting in the dressing room.

“4ever, please get ready.”

After that subtle power struggle earlier, seeing PPP seniors was a bit uncomfortable.

However, Jemin decided to think it was just his imagination.

He was probably taking words the seniors said without much thought too sensitively.

“Please reveal the 1st place candidates!”

With the music show MC in the center, 4ever stood on the left, and PPP stood on the right.

Since PPP’s victory was already highly likely, Jemin finished preparing to play the role of ‘the pretty junior who congratulates the senior regardless of the result.’

“First is the digital music and album sales score.”

PPP was in the 5,000s, and 4ever was in the 3,000s.

Since it was a chart-reversing song, they were bound to be at a disadvantage in the album score.

It wasn’t during the initial sales week, nor were there fan-sign events, so even if their popularity rose, it was natural for physical album sales to lag behind.

On top of that, the opponent was PPP, a tier-1 idol.

“Next is the video score.”

From here on, it was a bit unexpected.

He had expected them to lose by an insurmountable score gap, but 4ever’s video score was higher, even if only by about 500 points.

“Next are the viewer preference score and real-time text vote score.”

PPP was hugely popular, but there were also many people who disliked them just as much.

Their extreme fandom also played a part.

PPP’s fandom, 3P, was famous for going around beating up all kinds of other idols.

Up until last year, they were neck-and-neck with an idol group named Bling Top, but after one member of that group got arrested for drugs, the idol scene turned into a PPP solo-top system.

Because of that, 3P ran wild even more.

Since even the Bling Top fandom vanished, there was no fandom left that could stand against 3P.

‘It’s higher than I thought? The difference isn’t much at all?’

At any rate, for these reasons, quite a few people disliked PPP, and it seemed they didn’t want to see PPP win 1st place.

Considering they threw their votes to 4ever, the competing candidate.

The score gap between PPP and 4ever was less than a thousand points.

“Combining all the scores, this week’s 1st place winner is!”

Jemin had already fully utilized his brain and finished the mental math.

By a hair’s breadth, PPP took 1st place.

Instantly, Ryu Seong’s face stiffened, but because the camera was zooming in on another member, it wasn’t caught on screen.

“Congratulations! PPP!”

Confetti burst open.

PPP covered their mouths with emotional faces and hugged each other.

Jemin clapped on the side and presented the prepared bouquet of flowers to his seniors.

“Senior, congratulations!”

“Ah~ thank you.”

As if what he felt earlier in the waiting room really was just his imagination, Ryu Seong answered Jemin with a bright face and warm tone.

“PPP, please get ready for your encore stage~ Then will return next week with even crazier music. Goodbye everyone!”

Along with the music show MC’s sign-off, the Jimmy Jib camera pulled away.

Jemin kept waving to the dozen or so fans who entered the live broadcast until the very end as he walked off the stage.

• Ah, feels so strange, my former main bias and current main bias are interacting lol

• Look at Jemin interacting with his role model…  How happy must he be just standing side by side as 1st place candidates with the person he named as his role model… Jemni, we’ll give you 1st place next time!

At that time on the internet, cropped two-shots of Jemin and Ryu Seong were circulating as screenshots.

Drunk on Jemin’s success narrative, a few of Jemin’s fans mentioned Ryu Seong directly and indirectly.

• RyuJem haha

  └ Take down this post, that fandom is going to swarm in

  └ When you ship Jem as a bottom, you ship HanJem, why would you do HyungJem? Don’t troll | Upvotes 1400 Downvotes 89

And somehow finding out about this, 3P members began joining in one by one.

Likely, the fact that the general public was switching from PPP to 4ever pressed their buttons.

They were already feeling a heightened sense of crisis after barely taking 1st place by a paper-thin margin this time.

Their target today was 4ever’s fandom, Eternity.

• At this rate, 4ever is going to overtake PPP soon

  └ Bullshit, I’ll take your head off first

  └ Delinquent fandom at it again

  └ I used search blocks, how did you find this? So damn creepy

  └ Jeong Woohyeong RPS only accepts self-ship | Upvotes 1187 Downvotes 52

If there was something 3P overlooked, it was that although Eternity was incomparably smaller in size than them, they were people who had endured Jeong Woohyeong’s scandals.

They defended themselves better than expected.

• Ryu Seong is doing a Fan Live~ Let’s not deal with these trouble-making bastards and go watch him, guys lol

  └ WTF, where are you coming at us

Their cyber war seemed to come to an end with Ryu Seong’s Fan Live.

However, what they didn’t know was that it was a truce, not the end of the war.