"I didn’t think I’d ever be putting on a uniform again."

"Still, compared to last time, this is way better."

"That’s true."

At what Yunkyung blurted out as she flopped down into a chair, Gahyeon—who was already sitting—answered.

"Sion, give us a salute!"

"Atten! tion!"

"Whoa! Yeah, you’re so good at it!"

In their eyes, Lee Sion was reflected, standing tall and saluting smartly inside a studio decorated like a military barracks.

And as they filmed Lee Sion like that, the camera director and staff kept letting out exclamations of admiration.

"Her angles are crisp."

"She’s good. Watching it on video, I thought someone coached her."

"She’s better than most people who’ve actually served."

All throughout today’s commercial shoot, the staff couldn’t stop marveling at Lee Sion’s sharp, by-the-book drill movements.

"Nice work. Seriously, you did way too good."

"I’m a professional."

"You were the definition of a pro!"

And thanks to Lee Sion, the Nation-Love Card (Nara Sarang Card) commercial that was supposed to take all day wrapped up in just half a day.

A happy set where everyone was satisfied—both the Iam members being filmed and the staff filming.

Yunkyung and Gahyeon, who finished earlier, also got up once Lee Sion’s last cut was done and were greeting the staff who’d worked hard.

'Who knew we’d even shoot a commercial like this.'

Yunkyung thought back to the moment the offer came in a few days ago.

-Nation-Love Card? What’s that?

-Ah... you don’t know? That’s a basic item 99% of men in Korea have.

At first, the Iam members couldn’t believe it when they heard a card commercial had come in.

Because usually, card commercials weren’t something rookies like Iam did—those were typically shot by celebrities with more years under their belt, with a stable, trustworthy image.

But soon, they realized the ad that came in wasn’t a normal card commercial—it was a commercial for a special card called Nation-Love Card.

The members were briefly puzzled about why that kind of ad came in, but as soon as they heard CEO Kim Sanghyeok’s explanation, they understood immediately.

-Usually, the models for Nation-Love Card are female celebrities.

-Why?

-Um... because people are already pissed about going to the military, and if a man shows up as the card commercial model, they’ll get even more pissed.

-Ah.

Traditionally, they’d used female celebrities as models—especially celebrities popular with men in their early twenties going in for their physical—and Iam fit that perfectly.

And more than anything,

"I was already looking for a model, and the second I saw that Marine Corps camp episode, I was like, this is it!"

"An excellent choice, Director."

"She was an excellent model, Sion."

Lee Sion, somehow chatting away over instant mix coffee with the camera director—despite it being the first time they’d met.

'It really is because of Sion.'

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Iam got to shoot the Nation-Love Card commercial today because of Lee Sion.

[DaSion]

(A photo of Lee Sion pulling a red eight-point cap down tight)

「Says the instructor and assistant instructor’s drill sucks, so she does it herself lol」

⤷No, how does Lee Sion know drill better than active-duty?

⤷Did she actually serve or something? The detail in her moves is insane

⤷Yeah, I used to be a boot camp assistant instructor, and that’s exactly what my company commander taught when I was getting trained

⤷The instructor and ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ assistant instructor can’t even argue back because it’s facts

⤷What class is that bastard in the Marines? Holy shit, not even some other branch—an unserved female idol is correcting drill?

⤷My dad’s a former Marine too, and when he asked what Lee Sion’s teaching the Marines these days, he looked like he wanted to kill the instructor and assistant instructor lol

When Iam’s in-house content, "Iam Goes to Marine Corps Camp!" went up on MeTube, the fans went wild.

If they were fans of some other idol group, they might’ve gotten mad and said, why are you making them do this kind of content during promotions, but—

-Did you see the trailer? lol Iam, square up

⤷Just imagining Lee Sion rolling around like a dog on the sand already has me grinning

⤷For real, how am I supposed to wait? I’m at work and my hands are shaking

⤷The production team has taste lol dragging them to Marine Corps camp so they can’t pull any bullshit

⤷Hm... Gahyeon might be dangerous though

⤷Why?

⤷If Gahyeon wears fatigues, my heart might be in danger

⤷You crazy bastard

Iam’s fans were actually thrilled about content that was obviously going to be suffering—Marine Corps camp.

Because from experience, they knew the more vicious the content was, the funnier the video turned out.

-Idols who break out of the dorm if you feed them too poorly

⤷Idols who go to America and you tell them to find their lodging and they end up swiping a card

⤷You tell them to make chocolate for the fans and they end up making artists from another company eat porridge

⤷Is this real?

⤷Yes, it’s all real

⤷The more you grind Iam down, the funnier they get

⤷What are they, tangerines? You knead them and they get tastier?

Maybe because of that, right after the Marine Corps camp trailer went up, not just the people who only watched Iam’s in-house content, but even the fans were practically begging to see Iam get put through the wringer already.

A reckless belief that even this time, since Lee Sion and the others always slipped out through some scheme and a trapdoor of their own, they must’ve pulled something again, right?

Normally, that kind of belief got betrayed all the time, but surprisingly, their expectations were met.

At first, the viewers were thinking, they’re really going to suffer this time, when they saw the members—knowing nothing—believing they were just going to the beach, humming summer songs in the car, talking and laughing among themselves.

When they arrived and tried to sprint to the ocean, then got grabbed and put through punishment drills by the camp instructor and assistant instructor who showed up yelling, "Freeze!" people thought there was no way out this time.

But—

[Discharged soldier getting drill corrected by a girl idol]

(The Marine Corps camp assistant instructor staring blankly as Lee Sion corrects the attention stance)

⤷If this camp instructor and assistant instructor are discharged soldiers even more obnoxious than those three Gorge bastards, I’m good

⤷Not really. Honestly, the instructor and assistant instructor were above the minimum, Lee Sion’s the one demanding insane by-the-book standards

⤷Why does my favorite smell like a company commander I’m familiar with?

⤷This seriously reminded me of boot camp and gave me PTSD

⤷Lee Sion’s angles are active-duty level, minimum

⤷No matter how you look at it, this is details you only know if you served...

⤷lol Why? Just say Lee Sion served

⤷An idol hiding military service lol

As soon as the scene came out where Lee Sion started training the Marine Corps camp instructor and assistant instructor in reverse, people had no choice but to go crazy, saying this is what they’d been waiting for.

And when not just the instructor and assistant instructor, but even the members, got caught in Lee Sion’s grasp—

[Iam’s oldest member update]

(Lee Gahyeon exhausted, sprawled on the sand with drool dripping)

⤷Gahyeon... was it really that hard?

⤷The content team is actually evil, they uploaded this exactly like that

⤷Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon were both gone in the head by the end too

⤷Shinyu is the funniest lol saying she believed in Lee Sion and running in, then getting instantly suppressed and doing PT calisthenics

⤷Lee Sion doesn’t care if you’re ally or enemy

⤷She didn’t care in the Gorge either, seriously

Fans were capturing the humiliation screenshots that got generated from the members being rolled by Lee Sion and spraying them across every community they could find.

-Die, Lee Sion! Because of you, how many black-history screenshots do I already have?!

-Lee Sion isn’t the only problem! We have to get revenge on the content team people who uploaded it with no editing too!

-Yeah! We agreed we wouldn’t upload Yuri humiliation screenshots, and you broke the promise!

-So that’s why you sold us out?

-Kkkiieeek!!!

-Kyaaahk!

So right after the video went up, Lee Sion and Kurosawa Yuri got grabbed and tortured all evening by the Iam members, still furious because even thinking back on it, Lee Sion made them suffer.

Of course—

[Comforting]

(A scene where Lee Sion and Lee Hakyoon, the content team lead, get dragged by the members and staff and tossed into the ocean)

(A gif of a middle-aged male actor smiling brightly and rubbing his belly)

「Watching this scene made ten years of indigestion go down on its own」

⤷Why do Iam in-house content endings always end with Lee Sion getting hit or getting wrecked?

⤷That’s because Lee Sion caused an incident

⤷It’s fucking hilarious how they were screaming at the end that only the two of them need to snap and fight to the bitter end, then after getting dunked they’re basically best friends

⤷If Lee Sion and the content team lead are allied, isn’t that a disaster?

⤷How are the thief and the cop on the same team?

⤷Only the homeowner takes the L lmao

As expected, the ending was Lee Sion and Lee Hakyoon going down gloriously into the ocean, creating a masterpiece scene that naturally made you think of the saying “you reap what you sow,” and the viewers were all satisfied watching.

Was that why?

Even though the Marine Corps camp content was the most recent upload, it hit a million views fast and became a hot topic everywhere.

[Iam, the idol group who served! Paldo Man PD: “Casting already locked, you’ll see them soon” Popular variety show appearance teased!]

[How far will Iam’s rise go? No. 1 in buzz for four straight months]

[Citizen Bank Nation-Love Card selects Iam as its model!]

Thanks to that, not just the broadcast world, but ads and events too were flooding in.

If their current new song’s broadcast promotions weren’t over, it would’ve been an impossible schedule to handle.

-Still, out of the ads that came in this time, the Nation-Love Card has decent terms and looks like it’ll have influence, so it would be good to do it.

Of course, the company wasn’t accepting everything that came in—they were looking ahead and adjusting so their image didn’t get overused.

And among those, they decided to take this Nation-Love Card commercial, so they’d carved out a separate schedule and were filming like this.

"Good work, guys."

"Ugh... wearing uniforms since dawn made me tired."

"Hang in there a little more. Once we get back today, there’s no other schedule, so you can rest."

Once the Nation-Love Card shoot ended, manager Kim Yunsik—who’d been waiting behind them—walked over to the members, handed them iced Americanos, and patted them, telling them they’d worked hard.

Even if it ended fast, a commercial shoot still drained you, and just like Gahyeon said, Kim Yunsik knew that for some reason, when you wore a uniform, the fatigue piled up twice as much.

"Tell them to look forward to Three Kingdom too?"

"Of course. This is a secret, but only to you, Director..."

Still, once Lee Sion put on a uniform, she was the opposite—flying around—still chattering with the camera director like she had endless things to say.

'What are the other members doing?'

Watching Lee Sion, Yunkyung thought about the other Iam members who were away.

Because this Nation-Love Card commercial wasn’t with the full group—only three of them were filming separately.

***

Lee Sion, Lee Gahyeon, Im Yunkyung.

While those three members were in the middle of the commercial shoot, the rest of the members who stayed back at KJ Entertainment were also each spending the day on their own busy schedules.

Among them, in the studio that was originally made for Raon but recently had basically become the space of the new rookie producer, Lucas, an intense conversation was going back and forth.

"So you’re saying we do it the other way around?"

"Yes, exactly!"

Lucas looked at Shinyu, who’d brought in a track, saying she’d tried arranging VYNNIA’s song in her own way.

'This is totally SY style, though?'

Lucas had always been interested in K-pop, and this time he’d taken charge of Iam’s new song and pulled off surprising results, but basically, it was more accurate to say his musical base was Nordic pop and R&B.

On the other hand, the genres trending in K-pop right now could be summed up as EDM and hip-hop.

And in those two areas, in Lucas’s eyes, Shinyu’s understanding wasn’t low at all.

No—if anything, it was extremely high.

To the point that if you listened to what Shinyu brought without knowing who made it, you’d believe an SY in-house composer made it.

"In VYNNIA’s worldbuilding, the VYNNIA members are the ones who defeat monsters from mythology!"

"Right. The Nemean lion, Hydra—everything’s from myth."

Greek and Roman mythology.

For Lucas, what was more familiar was the world of Nordic mythology—recently famous through Marvel films—but it was still a mythology famous enough that even Lucas knew it.

And from that Greek and Roman mythology, SY built VYNNIA’s world using the hero Heracles as the material.

When Lucas first listened to VYNNIA’s debut song, "Nemea Roar," the memory of being so impressed he actually let out a disbelieving laugh came back—turning the Twelve Labors, the process of Heracles becoming a hero, into a song.

Honestly, songs with concepts this intense could easily go wrong—either getting too childish, or getting too cryptic—so the public’s likes and dislikes could split sharply, but SY was famous for doing that well, and VYNNIA—SY’s girl group—was exactly the kind of group that pulled it off.

'Even the music video was insane.'

The music video, which helped people understand the song so it didn’t turn too cryptic, also left a strong impression.

The content of VYNNIA’s music video—packed with flashy CG so expensive you could tell at a glance—was actually simple.

They transformed modern society’s problems into the giant monsters from Heracles’s Twelve Labors, and then told an epic of VYNNIA fighting against them.

You could question why they had to build a whole world like that, and why they had to match the songs and music videos to it, but in Lucas’s view, that was exactly SY’s strength.

Especially high album sales, even among the Big 3 agencies.

A fandom loyal enough that people said SY itself had a fandom—something like that didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

It started with the planning power that made idols not just singers, but icons representing their era by giving them narrative and setting.

And the high level of performance completion from SY idols that supported it gave fans pride, and the feeling that they shared the same story, making the fandom even tighter.

VYNNIA was at a disadvantage compared to Iam and LYNX on digital charts where public appeal mattered, but on album sales where fandom power mattered, VYNNIA was higher than the two of them, or at least neck-and-neck.

-Our song is pretty hard to pull off, so it wouldn’t be weird if you avoided it.

Because of that, SY songs were farther from public-friendly trends than other idol groups’ songs, so Kaella wasn’t saying it was tricky for no reason.

So after it was decided they’d sing VYNNIA’s song, inside the company they’d been discussing: completely strip out that SY feel and arrange it in a direction that emphasized Iam’s public-friendly appeal.

However—

"I thought, instead, I want our members to become the monsters from mythology—the exact opposite of VYNNIA."

Iam member Geum Shinyu, unlike the company’s opinions, was proposing they go head-on using VYNNIA’s worldbuilding and concept.

"...Not bad. But how did you even come up with that?"

"I thought of it because of Sion! Sion slips through people like a snake!"

"Huh?"

Shinyu had arranged VYNNIA’s "CUT IT CLEAN"—the song for the first match of Three Kingdom—not as a song about defeating monsters, but as a song where the monsters become the ones seducing humans.