Became The Leader of a Girl Group Destined To Fail - Chapter 41

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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Chapter 41.

Make a New Color Group Chat

Oh PD
Kitchen and living room cameras are ON from now

Seeing Oh PD’s message first thing in the morning made my stomach sink.
It was basically a group message telling us to be careful since cameras were rolling.
Probably to avoid any awkward situations if someone happened to strip carelessly.

“Yaaawn.”

Morning returned like clockwork, but my stamina did not.
Yun Chung’s body had virtually no muscle mass, so my thirty-year-old frame had significantly better endurance than hers.
This won’t do. Once the program wraps up, I need to start personal training immediately.
Idols can’t survive without muscle, after all.
I habitually pulled out some chicken breast and ate it.
Colors didn’t enforce strict diet management.
They never pressured trainees to lose weight or get cosmetic surgery.
But… the trainees managed their diets on their own.
Of course, not to an extreme degree. With such grueling practice schedules, weight naturally melted away even eating normally.
We just couldn’t eat tteokbokki… mostly chicken and vegetables.

“Unnie, what are you eating?”

Yeon Ju-hong crept up behind me and peeked over my shoulder.
The most infuriating girl.
She ate the most out of all of us yet never gained a single pound.
Must be her constitution.
What really annoyed me was that all that food she consumed came from my own meals.

“Chicken breast.”

Still, the cameras were rolling, so I should speak nicely.

“Ugh.”

Yeon Ju-hong immediately switched targets.

“Kim Geum unnie~ Kim Geum unnie~ What are you eating?”
“Can you stop with that weird way of saying my name…”

Kim Geum made an exasperated expression and pushed Yeon Ju-hong away with her foot.
I caught Kim Geum’s eye and gave the camera a quick wink.
Too much violence and we’d catch flak for it.
The moment Kim Geum saw my signal, she gritted her teeth and spoke with a forced smile.

“I’m just having a protein shake.”
“Can a person really survive eating only that?”
“Possible.”
“Not allowed.”
“What gives you the right to allow or disallow anything?”
“Because we’re a community bound by fate…”
“No.”

…Why do the younger ones always speak in such short bursts?
Maximum efficiency?

“Who wants to eat ramen with me?!”

Surprisingly, no one showed any interest.
Even if the kids don’t follow extreme diets, eating ramen first thing in the morning was a bit much….

“Oh, Ryu Bora unnie!”
“…What?”

Just then, Ryu Bora emerged from the room.

“Eat ramen with me. My mom certified me as a ramen master.”
“I have a recording session today.”
“Oh okay…. Bye.”

Yeon Ju-hong had been thoroughly rejected, and she sniffled as she cooked ramen for herself alone.
The ramen smell was driving me crazy.
Tears welled up inside.
Lost between the aroma of ramen and chicken breast, I found myself wondering why ramen-flavored chicken breast hadn’t been developed yet, when Ryu Bora poked me.

“Yun Chung.”

With her last name attached, it felt oddly distant.

“What?”
“Do you have anything to do this morning?”
“Nothing today. I was just planning to go to the Practice Room and stay there.”
“Would you like to come with me for a recording session?”

At Ryu Bora’s words, both Kim Geum and Yeon Ju-hong’s gazes turned toward me.
They both looked quite surprised.
…Was this really something to be so shocked about? Really?

“Uh… why?”
“If you’re busy, you can decline.”
“Oh, no. It’s not that I’m busy….”

I was just curious about her reason.
I’d been thinking about it for a while now, but why was I particularly weak to her?
Her tone was subtly similar to Kim Geum’s, yet they felt completely different.
Both were taciturn, but Kim Geum’s taciturnity felt approachable while Ryu Bora’s felt distant.
It was strange.
Even though Kim Geum was expressionless and Ryu Bora smiled softly while speaking, it was still the same.

“I was originally supposed to go with Gyeong-a, but she said she has a separate recording session scheduled for tomorrow.”
“Oh, why?”

Instead of answering, Ryu Bora shrugged her shoulders.
It meant she didn’t know.
She’s been doing a lot of solo activities lately.
Could it be….

“Anyway, will you come?”
“Yeah, I’ll go.”

I’m not sure why she’s asking me to come along, but I might as well get some footage out of this.
It’s absolutely not because I’m worried about Ryu Bora.
It’s just that filming with someone popular means more screen time, so I’m going.
Yeah.

“Are you all done with recording?”
“Yep.”

Surprisingly, Yeon Ju-hong nodded right away.

“The song isn’t easy, but it looks like you got the okay on the first take?”
“Well….”

Yeon Ju-hong’s expression was ambiguous.

“I guess we should just be grateful the recording is done, at least….”

What’s that about?
It felt unsettling, but Yeon Ju-hong didn’t seem willing to say more.
Probably because the camera was rolling.

“What about you, Kim Geum?”
“I’m not done yet. The arrangement is taking longer than expected.”
“Right… it must be tough. With two of you working on it, there’ll be plenty of parts.”
“It’s basically remaking the song from scratch, so it’s taking quite a while. Dan-ha has been working hard for us too. I’m truly sorry about that.”
“Let’s make it worth it with a great performance.”
“That goes without saying.”

That refreshingly straightforward personality of hers….
I was starting to understand why she had so many fans.
Kim Geum had high visibility on SNS and internet communities even before appearing on Make a New Color.
It wasn’t simply because she had many fans.
It was because her personality had spawned countless catchphrases and memes.
Especially from the hip-hop survival show “Unpretty Money” she appeared on before Make a New Color, she left behind some legendary quotes.
A prime example being—

[Kim Geum: Not everything that comes out of your mouth is language….]
[Kim Geum: Oh… creative nonsense…!]

…These were the kinds of things that defined her.
Because of this, opinions about Kim Geum were decidedly polarized.
Kim Geum didn’t particularly watch her tongue just because someone was her senior.
Of course, she spoke more boldly because they got along well, but to the public eye, it could come across as excessively cynical.
That’s why I heard the Company had warned Kim Geum several times about it.
Something about how idols needed to be careful with their words.
But Kim Geum didn’t seem to be exercising much caution at all.

“Hey, Yeon Ju-hong.”
“Yes?”
“Keep your body parts off mine.”
A whine.
“Not even one square centimeter of contact, okay? It’s summer—the discomfort index is climbing.”
Another whine.

Watching her like this.
But then again, when you really looked at it, Kim Geum was the only one who got along well with every trainee without exception.
She was even the only person that iron fortress Ryu Bora actually opened up to.

“Yun Chung.”
“Hmm?”
“We’re leaving in an hour. Aren’t you going to shower?”

…Right.
That iron fortress, I’m telling you.

***

Back again in Han Jae-i and Dan-ha’s Recording Studio.
The two producer-idols didn’t seem curious about why I’d come.
No, they seemed completely indifferent to us altogether.

“Trainee Ryu Bora, we’ll get started right away. Warm up your voice.”
“Understood.”

The same was true for Ryu Bora.
Feeling oddly like a sack of grain left in the wrong place, I surveyed the Studio, taking in every corner.
I wondered if I might find additional clues about the song’s interpretation somewhere.
But there was nothing like that anywhere.
Instead—

‘The Pendulum—FINAL FINAL FINAL FINAL’

I saw this.
A sheet of paper with the sheet music and lyrics for 【The Pendulum】 written on it.
…Just how many revisions did they make?
【The Pendulum】 was the song for Dance Position A.
Yeon Ju-hong, Seo Baek-young, Kim Ryeo-yu’s team.
With this many revisions, the recording is already finished?
Curious, I quietly shifted my position to where I could see the sheet music clearly.
And the moment that sheet music came into view—

“I’ll go back in. That part.”

I couldn’t help but be shocked.
It was vastly different from the 【The Pendulum】 I knew.
Originally, 【The Pendulum】 was a song with a devoted fanbase.
It occasionally made it onto lists of “hidden idol masterpieces.”
Fast beat, tense melody, grand arrangement.
It was a song optimized for performance in many ways, but it had a critical flaw.
It was an extremely difficult song.
The rapid, breathless progression and the vocal range that wildly spanned octaves.
It was quite challenging to perform while dancing.
Since it was a position evaluation, there was some tolerance for using backing tracks on Dance Position stages, but Colors was unusually obsessed with “live” performances.
The basic rule was that even in a dance evaluation, live singing was mandatory.
So in essence, Dance Position was one of the most difficult positions.
Even if vocal expectations were relatively lowered, vocals couldn’t be completely abandoned regardless.
Therefore, 【The Pendulum】 was an enormous gamble.
If executed well, it would be a stage recorded in survival history.
If not, it would be a complete disaster, utter humiliation.
However, in my past life, Seo Baek-young had surprisingly excelled, making it possible.
In my past life, Seo Baek-young, Lee Ju-seon, and Shin Yu-hyeon were on the same team.
Despite being in Dance Position, Seo Baek-young had enormous ambition for vocals, and she took all the parts her teammates struggled with, executing them flawlessly.
Of course, as a result, Seo Baek-young’s ranking skyrocketed, and she was safely selected as a debut member.
But this song was not the one I knew.
Singing had become… far too easy.
Why on earth had they revised it to this extent?
I’d have to ask Seo Baek-young about this later.
While I was racking my brain over this incomprehensible phenomenon,

“I’ll try again.”

Ryu Bora was struggling.
Pitiful enough that even I could see it.
Even after I’d given her interpretation hints before, she was still floundering.
I listened silently to Ryu Bora’s singing.
Her pitch and rhythm remained flawless.
It was hard to believe she came from an acting background—her foundation was that solid.
But.

“…Trainee Ryu Bora.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t quite put it into words, but the feeling isn’t coming through. You’d know better than anyone since you’re the one singing it.”
“…Yes.”

It was lacking.
Just as Han Jae-i had said.
Something was missing.
If even I, who wasn’t the composer, could sense a certain flatness to it, they must be feeling it far more acutely.
Ryu Bora’s expression had grown dark—she could feel it too.

“Hmm.”

The two producers whispered to each other, then suddenly called me over.

“Trainee Yun Chung.”
“Yes?”
“Come in and try it.”

What?

“…Me?”
“Yes. Would you two like to sing it together?”

Mm.
I agreed immediately.
I had a sense of what the two of them were thinking.
Once we entered the Recording Studio, Ryu Bora’s condition became far more apparent.
…She was nervous.
The lyrics sheet in Ryu Bora’s hands was crumpled.
The way she was gripping it made me wonder just how tightly she was holding on.
Despite her naturally composed appearance, she was clearly quite anxious.
I put on the headset and stood beside Ryu Bora.
Ryu Bora unfolded the lyrics sheet again.
But I,

“Don’t look at that. Let’s just try it.”

I took her trembling hand.

“Together.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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