Top Girl Group Scenario Rewritten with My Own Hands - Chapter 76

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

Chapter 76
Lee Da-min was a person of remarkably narrow mind. At the same time, she lacked proper self-awareness, making her the type others found suffocating to observe.
Yet her mental fortitude and situational judgment were genuinely sharp, lending her an uncanny ability to claw her way back from supposedly hopeless predicaments. One might call it a case where shamelessness became an asset.
She loved playing around, and her so-called effort was half-hearted at best—so when she joined Music Proof, all that remained was socializing and office politics. (Though most of those connections had been purged anyway, leaving her with few people to call on……)
Yet Lee Da-min alone had survived, having debuted even at a small agency—that alone spoke volumes about her survival instinct.
Recently, Lee Da-min had been in a foul mood.
She’d been raised as a well-groomed wealthy girl, and the fact that she’d barely managed a debut at a small company grated on her. (Never mind that it had been the company of a fairly renowned idol producer.)
She couldn’t fathom what was so special about it, and she resented having joined the Youth Project out of frustration—but what truly burned was that Hyun Jae-yi, who’d been subtly dismissive and had harassed her before the project fell apart, had debuted earlier than her and was doing quite well.
“Da-min, we’re going to learn the choreography for the GeuGeuNo Evergreat Arrangement Version later. You won’t be joining us, right?”
“Do you even need to ask? Go ahead without me.”
“Of course. Just don’t be late for your schedule.”
Her relationships with the other members were equally strained. The members were far too diligent for someone like Lee Da-min, who preferred pretense, socializing, and playing around. They disliked her as much as she disliked them.
When the members left her behind at the dorm like that, Lee Da-min simply picked up her smartphone and settled in for the long haul.
She leveraged the fact that she was a Korean diaspora who’d lived abroad, and began posting behind-the-scenes gossip on Reddit, a large-scale international community.
Lee Da-min knew that lawsuits didn’t look good for idols’ images. She also knew that legal action wasn’t always easy to establish.
So she became more malicious. In the posts she wrote, she made a show of hiding the subject, but carefully pointed to Hyun Jae-yi as the instigator of the bullying.
As she tapped away on her mobile phone, Lee Da-min was hardly in a rational state. Her information had leaked, true, but Bellier was an unknown rookie group anyway. Who would notice?
The only thing that could’ve drawn attention was that the new artist was from an agency founded by a producer who’d built a decent career—but even that had been buried under the back-to-back comebacks of Daylight and Evergreat.
Yes, buried. By someone like Hyun Jae-yi, of all people—me, Lee Da-min!
Lee Da-min didn’t have the nerve to get angry at the major corporation Music Proof. So she redirected her rage at Hyun Jae-yi.
Somewhere along the way, Hyun Jae-yi had become in her mind an ‘ungrateful friend her own age who went solo after disliking her, playing the victim so dishonestly.’ It was the result of her self-centered fabrications.
So it was only natural that her actions became sloppy and malicious.
The same held true on Tuesday, when they filmed the music show.
— Wait, that’s Evergreat’s Seo Ji-on, isn’t she?
— Should we say hello?
— But she probably doesn’t know us?
— But not greeting her feels rude too………
Her members were frustrating over trivial things.
Was it really something to hesitate over—greeting people, building connections, doing a challenge together?
When she actually spoke to Seo Ji-on, the woman didn’t seem particularly interesting.
Lee Da-min was itching to write about this on Reddit. She was already scheming over how to craft the post to bait engagement and get users to laugh along.
— Team Lead 001 : Da-min. Get to the company right now.
The sudden summons from her team lead came as no welcome surprise to Lee Da-min.
It was probably nothing serious anyway. If they were calling in someone who wasn’t even the leader, it had to be either individual scheduling or something the whole group needed to hear.
“It’s late, so I’ll get straight to the point. Starting tomorrow, you’re on activity suspension.”
“What? Wait, why me?!”
The light-hearted Lee Da-min who’d walked into the company was met with a bolt from the blue.
An activity suspension was something she’d never even contemplated. On top of that—she was the main vocalist!
“Is all of this stuff you wrote? We got a report sent to us. They say you’ve been spreading rumors on Reddit.”
“No, I—… What is this? Who sent it?”
“How would we know? It came from an email address that doesn’t exist anywhere.”
Only then did Lee Da-min begin to grasp the severity of the situation.
Reddit wasn’t a perfectly anonymous site, but there was no mechanism to identify a specific user’s identity.
So who, how, and why had someone deduced her identity and reported her to the company? Among the people Lee Da-min could think of, none were that meticulous.
“Either don’t make it obvious it’s you, or don’t single out one person with insults to the point they’re identifiable, or just don’t do this kind of thing at all…… That company is planning to file a lawsuit against you soon.”
“I—…”
“You’re not even trying to deny it, which tells me it really was you. What were you thinking?”
“No, I—… uh, I—… Ugh, dammit…”
“Sigh……”
The team lead kept running his hand across his face. As the one who’d pushed Lee Da-min in despite the representative’s opposition, arguing that they needed a main vocalist, he seemed particularly troubled.
“Da-min, I can help you with a lot of things, but I can’t shield you from legal action coming in like this.”
“I see……”
“Our representative really hates this kind of thing. He’s always going on about character and integrity…… If an actual lawsuit is filed, it won’t just be activity suspension. You’ll be expelled.”
“……”
“For now, we’ll announce it as a health issue. Figure out what to do as quickly as you can. Before the lawsuit is filed.”
She’d come in thinking it was nothing serious, expecting it to be routine!
Lee Da-min’s mind went blank in an instant.
Not a single thought came to her.
***
“How did it go?”
“Perfect timing. When I brought it up, they said the report had literally just arrived?”
“Nice timing indeed.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry for the late request, but thanks. She said they’d retain a lawyer today and file quietly.”
“Don’t mention it. By then she’ll be a civilian, right?”
“Maybe? Though if she hasn’t left by the time her identity is confirmed, I think our company will contact her agency too.”
The Negative Comments PDF concerning Lee Da-min was delivered to Team Lead 001, and after filtering it to contain only content related to Hyun Jae-yi, it was forwarded to Team Lead Lee Su-bin’s work email.
Since it was a private email that wouldn’t be publicly exposed, Team Lead Lee Su-bin seemed a bit flustered, but in this industry, having emails leaked is practically routine, so she seemed to take it in stride.
Thinking it through, sending this kind of material myself and going to her company directly seemed more suspicious than if anonymous reports went to both sides, and then I just happened to come across this post on Reddit afterward—that seemed more natural.
So I asked Han Jung-yeon to send one more email. It was late, so I felt a bit bad about it………
“But don’t you think she might bolt before that happens?”
“I agree. Well, if that happens, it’s actually better for me.”
One way or another, she’ll disappear from the group, and Representative 001 will kick her out the moment a lawsuit is filed.
But still, it’s better for the lawsuit to come down on a former member than on an active idol.
In fact, last time around, it wasn’t when the lawsuit came in, but when Lee Da-min was sued and tried to hide it while going through investigations that she got exposed.
From my experience, Lee Da-min is quite the coward. She acts all brazen, but looking at half her life, it’s all running away—run away, and run away again.
So my prediction is she’ll quietly quit on her own terms soon. She hates being criticized anyway.
Funny character. She gossips about others so easily, but she hates being gossiped about herself………
“Let’s head up. We’re recording today too, but our turn’s a bit earlier.”
“We’re almost right behind you guys, aren’t we? Congratulations on the win in advance.”
“We’ll have to see the scores first.”
Han Jung-yeon and I made our way up the emergency stairwell.
We’d said we were going to grab a drink, so we needed to head back soon.
“Come on, you’re selling over 150,000 in initial sales. And with the digital music too, you’re ahead of us—you’re definitely taking it this week.”
“…Really? I didn’t actually do the math myself.”
“Our initial sales are from last week’s count, so. Unless something weird happens, wouldn’t you guys all-kill this week except for Tuesday’s music show? Next week looks promising too.”
The real grind starts the week after. When the male idols who move serious album numbers come around.
Han Jung-yeon shrugged and spoke.
For a moment, I felt a sting of unfairness.
The reason we’d failed both quests we’d received twice was because of a major boy group that had come back ahead of us, and there was a slight gap in the schedule before them.
“…You said we moved up our comeback anyway. It was supposed to be July originally.”
“Right.”
“No matter how I think about it, that debut date was probably the best we could’ve done.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“If we were aiming for first place……… it might’ve been the worst timing.”
“You can’t remember every comeback schedule out there. It couldn’t be helped.”
“Even you?”
“Yeah, me too. I’ve forgotten it all and I’m just guessing at this point.”
If only we’d come back sooner……… or if we’d just gone for a speed strategy from the start instead of eyeing summer sales.
Then we wouldn’t have failed the quest in the first place, and I wouldn’t have had reason to be sick during award season.
“But unlike us, where a lot of songs are being supplied, you’re almost doing everything solo with Seo Ji-on, right?”
“Yeah.”
“If it was supposed to be July, you wouldn’t have been able to push it up that much back then, would you?”
“That’s also true.”
“Really couldn’t be helped then. What if you’d come out in July and still failed to get first place?”
“…You really hit the nail on the head.”
“Haha!”
Han Jung-yeon’s laughter echoed up the emergency stairwell. Our footsteps and laughter reverberated, and in that moment, I felt heat rise to my face.
“I know you’re pretty diligent about your work, right?”
“If I don’t work, I die—what else am I supposed to do? Even the laziest person will put in effort when it’s like that.”
“No, more than that…… You don’t like half-assing things, do you? I felt it a lot when we were doing challenges.”
Oh, bullseye.
Han Jung-yeon really does hit the mark unexpectedly well………
When I had nothing to say and just kept walking, Han Jung-yeon laughed and continued.
“You must’ve spent a lot of time making and refining this comeback song…… So pushing it up earlier than that would’ve been hard at first, right?”
“…Yeah, maybe? I don’t know. I’m starting to get confused myself.”
“There’s a limit to how much you can push things up anyway. Your members don’t worry? You guys have a pretty good relationship between members.”
“They do worry, but what can they do about their worrying? Instead, they should write me a song, or help me get a Rookie Award. I’m just shutting them all out.”
Actually, recently Kang Su-ah had tried something similar to her first-round nonsense (like that Univers threat thing she’d pulled in the first chapter), and it’d caused me some trouble.
Well, eventually Kang Su-ah got called out by Every for what she’d gain from reporting it to them, and she backed down completely.
But honestly, what do I gain by letting the fans know about my condition?
There could be posts on Twitter telling me to rest, and the Univers might worry about me.
But then a negative atmosphere spreads through the fandom. Kang Su-ah knows negative atmospheres aren’t good in themselves.
Beyond those reasons…… there’s no need to tell the people who like me that my condition isn’t great.
I don’t want my fans to ruin their everyday lives by worrying about me. I’m also worried that they might send trucks to Music Proof as a result………
“Wow…… This is something I’ll keep to myself for your image’s sake. If your members find out, one or two of them will be hurt and won’t open up to you.”
“Kang Su-ah already kind of…… But she was always like that anyway.”
“You’re being harsh for a leader.”
“It’s okay to be a little harsh with your peers.”
As we talked and climbed the stairs, we’d somehow arrived at the waiting room floor.
There wasn’t much time left before the first encore, before the broadcast.
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
: 4F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam District, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by AcesMedia Inc. under contract with the copyright holder.
The contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.
This e-book is protected under copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or copying may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260102083

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