Top Girl Group Scenario Rewritten with My Own Hands - Chapter 75

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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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Episode 75
Tuesday, after the variety show shoot wrapped.
The seniority culture in the music industry is quite rigid.
Or, to put it more bluntly, it’s a system where rigid old-timers breed more rigid old-timers.
There are idols from the second and third generations who find it harder now to treat seniors like gods, but it’s safer to treat even a senior from just one week prior with respect. That’s still mostly how it works.
More precisely… it shrinks the ammunition for attacks within fandoms. Being called disrespectful cuts deeper than being called a show-off.
Anyway, that’s why.
“Hello, senior~”
“…Hello. Have we met before?”
Making a comeback means that even a rookie who’s barely passed their debut century can suddenly find themselves hearing the word “senior” from someone passing by.
I’ve heard “senior” from Ash Code back in Japan, but… suddenly being greeted in a rush like this by multiple people still doesn’t feel natural to me.
Plus, there’s nothing particularly warm about this group.
More precisely…
“We just debuted as Bellier! You’re Seo Ji-on from Evergreat, right? I’m actually close with Hyun Jae-yi…”
“…Oh, are you?”
“We trained together at PN.”
“I see.”
It’s the individual I’m wary of, not the group.
She’s putting quiet weight on PN, which isn’t even Hyun Jae-yi’s current agency, and shamelessly claiming closeness.
“What’s your name? I’ll ask Hyun Jae-yi. Your real name, not your stage name.”
“It’s Lee Da-min.”
“I see.”
The person who first spread that mysterious PN in-house bullying rumor that circulated online just before my first VMA comeback.
That’s what makes me uncomfortable.
Now that I think about it, she debuted? So she wasn’t kicked out.
She got some attention online. The original source of the rumor we identified before the VMA — I tracked down that post meticulously around summer and ended up pinpointing the defendant’s identity before the VMA.
I don’t want to be entangled with her. I could overlook the other members, but especially not Lee Da-min.
I was about to leave with just a light greeting.
“…Ah, senior. Could you maybe join our challenge? Since we’re rookies and all…”
“…Yeah, sure.”
I received a request to decline that was somehow awkward coming from another member.
Evergreat’s gotten big. This is my first comeback in this era, but it’s also my first time being asked to do a challenge by a rookie since debuting.
The fact that it happens to be from a group whose member is the original spreader of that PN in-house bullying rumor is genuinely regrettable, but…
“Sure. I’ve been busy with comeback preparations lately, so I actually don’t know the challenge at all. Is that okay?”
“Oh, of course! Our challenge isn’t that hard…!”
As a leader from another mid-sized agency group, it’s hard to ignore a leader trying to do something to make their group’s name known.
And besides, the other members seemed to know nothing about any of this. The problem is Lee Da-min, not Bellier’s other members.
In the end, I filmed a simple version of Bellier’s debut song challenge and left.
***
Across three times living through this year — including my first life when I never took the stage — I never once saw Bellier blow up in a big way.
But surprisingly, they made a name for themselves in the idol market to some degree, and apparently maintained their idol careers thin and long by riding viral TikTok trends. At least according to my hazy memories.
Lee Da-min isn’t the member the group pushes. I don’t particularly like judging others, but… if I’m being honest, Lee Da-min is an ambiguous member in both dance and visuals.
The biggest reason that such a Lee Da-min could enter PN and eventually debut as Bellier at her current agency is vocals — specifically, her high register.
Well, and backing. Honestly, I don’t think she would’ve even gotten hired without someone powerful supporting her from behind.
Put plainly: the kind of style where she thinks she sings well, doesn’t practice, and shows a lot of negligence.
I actually looked up a radio live broadcast from before, and just from hearing her sing, I got a sense of what kind of person she was — enough to irritate me a bit.
She doesn’t want to put in effort. She gets annoyed at kids who put in effort and succeed. She doesn’t have the guts to directly criticize or complain. All she knows how to do is backbite from the shadows.
So she entered PN through backing, hung around with some mediocre bad-quality clique vaguely, slipped out unscathed, and weaseled into another company through backing again.
Really… not my type at all.
The type I’d rather not be entangled with.
[r/k-pop: Stories of unpleasant experiences as a Big 3 trainee]
Hmm, the timing on this one’s a bit early.
Evergreat’s upward momentum really has accelerated. This is already surfaced.
It looks like a false rumor post that Lee Da-min wrote in English on Reddit, an overseas community, has been up for a while now.
As for me, I didn’t need to wait longer and I’m fine with it… but originally, this post seemed like it should’ve been uploaded in July, a bit further down the timeline.
Repeating the same situation three times around has taught me, more or less, how to quietly deal with a villain — if nothing else, that’s a silver lining.
I quickened my steps back to the waiting room.
***
“Do you know Lee Da-min, Hyun Jae-yi?”
“Uh… yeah, I know her. She’s a trainee from before, a year older than me, at PN back then…”
“Are you close?”
“No, absolutely not!”
I asked just one question, and Hyun Jae-yi reacted with absolute alarm.
Just from her reaction alone, I can get a sense of what kind of person that is.
“We’re really not close at all, she just acts like we are. We don’t even stay in touch, and then suddenly when she debuted she contacted me at the broadcast station asking me to do the challenge.”
“Yeah? I just met her and her group.”
“Oh no, did she ask you to do the challenge too? I’ve been desperately avoiding her?!”
“Yeah. But it was their leader who asked me, not Lee Da-min, so I did it with them. I got permission from the team lead by text…”
“Phew, I guess that’s a relief. That senior’s got a lot of pretense, likes to flaunt her connections and stuff…”
“She’s got a bit of an edge, so I deliberately avoided that friend.”
“You’ve got good instincts. Don’t get too close with that senior…”
“You think I’m as much of a social butterfly as you?”
“Hehe, anyway.”
She tried to smooth it over with some unconvincing cuteness, but I could tell that Hyun Jae-yi was genuinely worried.
Today’s broadcast, which was conducted through pre-recording, didn’t have many performers, so Evergreat’s turn came near the very end.
Once my makeup touch-up was done, I stood up immediately and looked at Hyun Jae-yi.
“Let’s go to the live broadcast. Why were you waiting here anyway? I think all the other members have already moved.”
“I was waiting so I could take you there. I did good, right?”
“…Should I say you did good? I’m not sure.”
“Come on, give me some credit.”
“Fine, you did good…”
“Yay. Let’s hurry! Evry’s waiting!”
Hyun Jae-yi, looking thrilled, opened the waiting room door with light steps.
I followed quietly behind her.
***
On Tuesday of the fourth week in June, Sound on Air’s number one went to Daylight.
Because we did our comeback on Tuesday, we performed our comeback stage on the Tuesday broadcast two weeks in — and as a result, the second-week performance that could have been a trophy sweep got reflected on the third Wednesday broadcast… or something like that.
ㅊㅋ –
– ㅎ : ㅇㅇㄱㅅ
After spectacularly exposing the mutual fantasy secret of regression, my and Han Jeong-yeon’s KakaoTalk became pretty dry.
The biggest change, I’d say, is the contact name.
In case the KakaoTalk gets hacked, we changed the contact name to something simple and unrecognizable.
Hacking is a crime, but in this game, there’s no guarantee this won’t get hacked either…
We also decided that the conversation room would be reset once a week on a basic schedule, and more frequently after important conversations.
(Reddit post link) –
Author is Lee Da-min –
There are a few more defamatory posts if you follow the account –
(PDF file) –
Send this to 001 by email –
Will it be removed right away? –
– ㅎ : ㄱㄷ
– ㅎ : She wrote it pretty openly, huh?
– ㅎ : The 001 side has a strong CEO so it should be possible
ㅇㅋ ㄱㅅ –
Exposed a lot of personal info too –
Doubt they’d treat it as a false report –
What do you think –
– ㅎ : I agree
– ㅎ : For now they’ll probably suspend for personal reasons –
– ㅎ : And the higher-ups will tell them to quit –
– ㅎ: From what I know roughly –
– ㅎ : She’s an awkwardly placed member they suddenly pushed –
– ㅎ : I’ve also heard the CEO doesn’t like her much –
Bellier is under 001 Entertainment, which isn’t even a mid-sized agency — it’s a small one.
Even if you say this one or that one, it’s a different type of company from Music Proof, which has existing connections in the indie scene and broadcast industry.
On top of that, the CEO here is a former idol producer. They probably have pretty strong pride, and I’ve actually heard that’s the case.
The characteristic of such a company is… the CEO or president’s power is absolutely enormous. Because it operates so ad-hoc, even a member who’s already debuted can get cut if it doesn’t suit the CEO’s fancy.
One thing I’ve learned going through these timelines is that handling everything loudly and dramatically doesn’t necessarily work in our favor.
[An idol spreading idol rumors… The company is outraged, the idol denies it. So what’s the truth?]
Let me look at one of the milder article titles from the previous round of coverage.
In reality, there was a whole barrage of articles with much harsher wording than this.
After it was revealed that the original spreader of the rumor was a working idol, Hyun Jae-yi, I, and Management Team 3, which handles us, were all very shocked.
If things had gone wrong, it wouldn’t have ended with just suing the rumor spreader — we victims could’ve been dragged into the gossip and swept up in internet opinion. And it actually happened.
Of course, the rumors spawned from that lawsuit died down quickly. It was because Cho Eun-bin, seeing the situation balloon bigger than expected, essentially fought with PN and directly wrote a statement correcting the facts herself, as the one who’d been dragged into the rumors.
Cho Eun-bin… I thought she was braver than I expected.
She must’ve felt awful too, getting pointless insults thrown at her.
But even after the victims came forward like that, the incident remained a hot issue online for a while. The reason, I’d guess, is simple: speculating and playing around with it is provocative and entertaining.
The saving grace was that the 001 CEO is sensitive to school violence, bullying, harassment, and such acts… and immediately got rid of Lee Da-min. There might’ve been the reason that she didn’t fit his original vision either.
What I’m trying to use now is this: quietly cutting out Lee Da-min.
The biggest thing I’ve felt in this third idol life is that there are times when not amplifying an incident and solving it quietly is more advantageous.
People like gossip more than you’d think. The past and private lives of public celebrities are practically public property.
A bullying incident where both perpetrator and victim are working idols, a backbiting incident, an internet rumor spreading incident — where else would you find a hotter issue to pile on?
So, I have no intention of dragging this incident into the light.
– ㅎ : (Screenshot)
– ㅎ : They saw it right away and got back to me fast –
– ㅎ : Sent it anonymously though –
– ㅎ : Guess it seemed credible enough –
Makes sense –
Wasn’t something I made up, it’s what she actually wrote –
So it’s bound to be credible… –
– ㅎ : Pretty much done then? –
Yeah, done –
Just delete the chat –
ㄱㅅ –
– ㅎ : ㅇㅇ
– ㅎ : ㅇㅋ
Han Jeong-yeon is a working idol too, but it seemed safer to have her send the email rather than someone directly involved.
By tomorrow’s music broadcast, Bellier will be performing without Lee Da-min. The CEO, who never wanted that nepotism hire in his plans anyway, will probably find this opportunity quite sweet.
Now I’ll hand the PDF files to the dedicated team and quietly file a false statement lawsuit. Within a few months, Lee Da-min will be forced out, and I’ll never have to see her in the entertainment industry again.
Lee Da-min’s backing is so flimsy that PN barely let her in, and 001 barely squeezed her into the debut lineup, as far as I know.
If you got in through backing, you need to not give anyone grounds to fire you — but Lee Da-min’s got all the makings of it.
While she was at PN, there’s enough circumstantial evidence of her involvement in in-house bullying, but without hard proof — now physical evidence is attached in the form of “mean comments written to a working idol.” It’ll be harder for her not to get kicked out.
Lee Da-min probably lived pretty easily up until now. Because of that, even if she’s weak, she probably won’t have arrived at the conclusion of getting expelled on her own.
But what if she gets kicked out from an already-debuted group due to problems?
Wouldn’t that become an element where the difficulty of living as an entertainer shoots up vertically?
You came this far pretty easily, right?
From now on, your unnie’s going to show you something fun.
Rewriting the top girl group scenario with my own hands
Author
: Nam Seo-rang
Production Date
: May 21, 2026
Publisher
: AcesMedia Inc.
Editor
: AcesMedia Editorial Team
Address
: Teheran-ro 325 Urban Bench Building 4F, Gangnam District, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
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Without permission from the company and the author, the contents may not be used in any form or by any means.
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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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