As soon as he hung up the phone, Jeong Seongbin summoned the members. The kids, who had been preparing to go to school the next day—action school was still a school, after all—hurriedly gathered in the living room.

“Chanyoung hyung just called. He said that though it might be counting our chickens before they hatch, it’s something we should know.”

“What is it?”

Lee Cheonghyeon asked, slouching on the floor. I glanced at him, and he straightened his posture on his own, so I didn’t bother nagging him.

“You know Season 2 of ‘Idol Annals of the Dynasty’ starts in the second half of the year, right?”

“Right.”

“A spot has opened up for this season, so they’re planning to pick one additional team from the participants of the last season.”

“What?”

Lee Cheonghyeon frowned, looking dumbfounded.

“Weren’t Parte sunbaenims supposed to go from our season? They won first place.”

“He said a spot opened up, separate from the sunbaenims. Chanyoung hyung doesn’t know the reason either.”

“How are they picking the new participant?”

Kang Giyeon asked. The normal thing would be for Spark, who placed second, to go, but doing that would basically be announcing to the world that something went wrong during casting. So they probably wouldn’t just follow ranking.

“They’re going to put it to a vote for the group people want to see again on ‘Idol Annals of the Dynasty’.”

“Ah...”

Park Juu groaned. It seemed that even the world’s most innocent kid had now grasped the inner workings of the industry.

It was effectively forcing us back onto the grill without a chance to refuse, but there were almost no agencies capable of rejecting a broadcast station’s notice. Even less so if the company was small and the idol was still early in their career. Basically, if they say jump, we jump.

Broadcast station bastards, they found themselves a convenient excuse. This ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) way everything looked clean from the outside.

“It’ll be decided by the size of the fandom, then.”

Choi Jeho said in a carefree manner. You share a room with Park Juu and you haven’t learned a single thing?

“If it’s an online vote, the fandom wars are going to be intense. Just like during rookie award voting.” 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

“It’s hard for the fans, too, having to do alliances and verifications. It also weighs on my mind when they encourage voting by offering prizes just to get us on the show.”

Kang Giyeon and Lee Cheonghyeon, who had each experienced a survival program and an end-of-year voting system, added a word. Their comments were not much different from my own opinion.

And most of all...

“Our second half comeback...”

...would be nearly impossible. Just like Park Juu feared.

It would be possible if I split my consciousness into “Survival Iwol” and “Odd-jobs Iwol” and worked in two shifts, but there was no way these guys would allow it.

“We need to prepare for it.”

At my words, the kids’ faces turned bitter. It seemed the meaning that there was a non-zero chance of us appearing on the show had been conveyed. They were smart kids.

The company didn’t just stand by either. The next day, we were immediately informed of an alternative plan through the dedicated team.

“Since everyone is giving up their golden promotion period to appear on the show, the final round will likely be a new song release stage, just like in Season 1. We released ‘City Official’s Poem’ as a digital single, but this time, let’s assume we’ll be releasing a proper single and start working on the B-side tracks as well.”

“If we do end up joining, we’ll try to negotiate for the best possible conditions. Even if we win first place in the vote, if we turn them down saying we have internal schedules, it puts them in the awkward position. It might cause some friction, but since they’re demanding our forced participation without any prior consultation, they’re the ones who have to bend, so I don’t want you to think we absolutely have to go.”

There was nothing to add. So I just listened attentively.

“Hyung, you didn’t mop the floor with your back this time?”

Lee Cheonghyeon whispered so that Jeong Seongbin wouldn’t hear.

I let out a small laugh and replied.

“Everyone is doing such a good job, why would I?”

Lee Cheonghyeon smiled back. In contrast to his dissatisfied look at every meeting with Yu Hansu, his face looked free of worries.

Less than a week after the notice, a voting announcement was posted on the ‘Idol Annals of the Dynasty’ Season 2 homepage.

The community was in an uproar. The comments on the MeTube announcement board were a complete sea of fire.

≫ A vote for groups you want to see again? I like the idea haha.

≫ Don’t they usually just bring in the 1st and 2nd place groups for things like this? It’s interesting that they’re holding a new vote

└ It’ll probably be more fair! Judging by just views is hard because people can systematically stream videos

While the general public’s reaction was mostly like this, the idol fans...

≫ You XX bastards, stop with the XX voting

The fans were about to go on a sabbatical, why do you have to drag us out by the hair again?

Enjoy your cheap survival show—your entire proposal probably fits on one A4 page

└ They tried to hide the fact that they were just riding on the survival show craze by setting a concept, but wasn’t it just a fashion Joseon Dynasty Chronicle?

└ The writers were phoning it in soooooo hard, I’m amazed this show even got a Season 2ㅋㅋㅋ

└ Everyone who watched Season 1 knows... ㅋㅋSpark carried the whole thing on their backs ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ fr, if it weren’t for Kim Iwol’s fighting spirit despite his injury, the final episode would never have looked that good

└ He didn’t just have fighting spirit, he literally put his life on the lineㅠ

≫ They say they’ll only accept verified votes to prevent macro participation, but they open up paid voting ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

The show hasn’t even started I am already so XX pissedㅠㅠ

└ There isn’t a single new song from the program, but they’ve already released the streaming pass package, that alone says it allㅋㅋㅋthey’re definitely going to include overseas fan voting this time

└ I can already see it... a script where they’re sending off Joseon envoys... a situation where they’ll have a remote interview with Hellas Yur while one of the Hellas members is on an overseas schedule...

└ Is the person above an Idol Annals of the Dynasty writer?

≫ Has this vote been agreed upon with each group?

The lineup for Season 2 was already being revealed, and it’s suspicious that they’re holding a vote for an additional participant so late...

└ Absolutely no way. If you look at Parte, MYTH already announced their plan to have Parte on Idol Annals of the Dynasty in the second half of this year in their IR data from last year... I don’t know the exact filming start date, but picking a new group now by vote instead of contacting them earlier, at this point, shows a complete lack of consideration for the new group

...was like this. People who know too much are scary. Because they knew the inside story, they could see through everything. Thanks to this tidal wave of support, if Spark ended up joining Season 2, we’d practically enter with sympathy votes already in our pocket.

“How would you feel if you guys ended up going on Idol Annals of the Dynasty?”

I asked the boys as they were stretching, and I got all kinds of answers.

“I’d be grateful... but also overwhelmed. The preparation period is shorter than Season 1, but the sunbaenims we’ll be competing against are more senior, right?”

“That’s right. The company said they’d support us as much as possible, but our resources will be more divided than when we’re just working on an album.”

Kang Giyeon and Jeong Seongbin had a strong tendency to view the situation rationally. Maybe because of that, neither of their faces had brightened even once since the voting notice appeared.

“I’m trying to think positively. It’s not like it wouldn’t be stressful, but realistically, there’s no better way to show a bunch of performances in a short time, right? Fans worry because they don’t want us to be exhausted, but I think they’d still like seeing a lot of fun stages! And we’d get a lot of screen time.”

“Me too, I like that I can sing a lot...”

Lee Cheonghyeon and Park Juu, who like trying new things, were more optimistic.

“And this time, I’m going to sing ‘New World’ too...”

“You know that just because you go on a position competition, it doesn’t mean you’ll all sing ‘New World’, right, Juu?”

Park Juu looked noticeably crestfallen. I should make sure he got to go on the position competition this time.

Just in case, I’d been reviewing protocols for banning vote-begging and venting through live streams or Bubble Pop, when—

“Guys.”

Manager Chanyoung opened the practice room door and came in. In his hand was a phone with the screen lit.

“We need to start preparing for Idol Annals of the Dynasty appearance...”

Why?

Hasn’t it only been a little while since the voting started...?

Although an emergency countermeasures committee had been formed, I still thought Spark’s chances of taking 1st place were only fifty-fifty.

Spark had performed well on the show. Considering the purpose of the “stage you want to see again,” it would be right for us, the owners of ‘City Official’s Poem’, which had overwhelmingly ranked first in views among all the Idol Annals of the Dynasty stages, to go.

“It’s just that the market doesn’t always operate objectively.”

The fandoms of the rising group Allover and Log, who had many fans in their 20s and 30s and thus strong streaming power, had started encouraging events right from the day the voting announcement was posted.

There were even idols who were criticized after showing themselves watching the voting status during a livestream and doing self-votes.

Reactions were sharply divided between “Why is he doing that when everyone knows fans hate this situation? He’s obviously acting pitiful,” and “Our kid is going this far and you’re not voting? And you call yourselves fans?”

In the midst of all this, Spark was quiet. The Sparklers were also angry too, but in public, they quietly focused on just raising the vote count. Both we and our fans knew nothing good would come from stirring things up when we’d already received so much attention from Idol Annals of the Dynasty and held the #1 viewed stage.

In a society where the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, Spark, who had just been quiet because they didn’t want to get caught up in controversy, conversely benefited.

≫ No matter how bad the other groups get, none are worse than SPK

They set the tone strictly in the beginning and raised the quality of all the stages

They were the only ones who got an insane amount of evil editing

They got into a fight with their own company’s PD while filming this show and there was even bloodshed

In that situation, they didn’t say a single word about how hard the program was, made two stages with 5 million views, and even came in second place in the end

And now they’re caught in another vote and their position is just awkward

└ They probably wouldn’t want to appear even if they got first place

└ Seriously... if you look at the behind-the-scenes stories the other kids told after the show ended, it seems like these guys worked the most during the training camp too

└ And Spark doesn’t even mention Idol Annals of the Dynasty that oftenㅋㅋ... it was a promotion with too much unfair criticism for them...

└ The bloodshed was literally real bloodshed... they probably wouldn’t want to appear even if they’re paid to do so

≫ The production team probably wants Spark to win too

They’re the only group that preserved any identity in this sloppy show

If I were the PD, I’d be drawing water ritual and praying for them to get first place

└ If the PD really cares about the program, they shouldn’t be drawing water and praying, they should be buying 100 paid voting tickets a day and voting for Spark

└ This is the right answerㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ They say a sincere heart is expressed through moneyㅋㅋㅋ

≫ Isn’t it actually weirder if Spark doesn’t win?

There was a lot of complaint about Parte getting first place in the end, and now you’re telling me that even without Parte, Spark isn’t first?

Then what’s the point of a “stage you want to see again”?ㅋㅋ it’s just a popularity contest

└ You don’t know that survival shows = popularity contests?

└ It’s been a while since fair results meant anything... that’s why it was so amazing that Spark got those results at that time

└ This was before they even got big. Both idols and fans did circus acts to surviveㅋㅋ the program itself was boring, but I found myself watching the Spark stages separately on MeTube

Every time some fans got excited about this flow, other Sparklers would appear with lightsticks in both hands and scold them. They insisted we maintain our current stance and uphold Spark’s “no tearing other groups down” image.

And so, while all the other groups kept self-destructing over and over, and we alone received a great deal of sympathy and silently accumulated votes, the result was...

“Spark is already the sole leader.”

...if this were an election broadcast, the “confirmed winner” sticker would have been attached. It feels like just yesterday that we were using all sorts of tricks just to get cast. What an incredible rise in status.