"Caiman crocodiles···they weren’t easy opponents. Unlike in Korea, they live in the Amazon, so their wildness is still fully intact. But if you know what kind of creature a crocodile is, it’s definitely a fight you can take on···."

"Stop!"

The moment break time started, Lee Gahyeon, who had been approached by Lee Sion as she launched into Let Me Tell You About Catching a Crocodile, screamed in revulsion.

"Do you realize that ever since you got back from the jungle, you’ve told that crocodile-hunting story three times a day without missing even once?"

"I do. So listen. These crocodile bastards all share the same trait even if they’re different species— their bite force is strong, but···."

"The force they use to open their jaws is weak, so if you press down on the top of the mouth, they can’t do anything!"

It was a tale of glory Gahyeon had already heard dozens of times, so she unconsciously cut in and stole Sion’s line.

-Come here, everybody, I’m gonna tell you an insanely awesome story!

-I told you to make your language prettier! What do you mean, insanely awesome story?!

-That’s because there’s no other way to describe it except insanely awesome.

Lee Sion, who had suddenly run off into the jungle with Shinyu.

Normally, if a member of your own team went somewhere dangerous like a jungle, you’d worry, but Gahyeon and the rest of Iam hadn’t worried at all.

-If it’s the boss, she’d probably survive even if you dropped her right in the middle of the Amazon.

Just as Yunkyung had said, even if Sion got stranded, it felt like she would somehow come back perfectly fine and excitedly tell everybody about the experience.

But there was one thing even the Iam members had failed to predict: that Sion would hunt a crocodile barehanded.

Lee Sion, who used to jokingly say ridiculous things like how, if she were prepared to die, she could probably hunt a tiger too.

At the time, Gahyeon had just written it off as nonsense from a crazy bitch, but when Sion cheerfully showed them the photo of herself wearing a crocodile around her like a championship belt, Gahyeon remembered getting chills all over.

'How do you catch a crocodile with your bare hands?'

Sion was so irritating that Gahyeon would sometimes lose her temper without realizing it and smack her across the back, but ever since seeing that photo, Gahyeon had been careful not to lose control.

Of course, the only member Sion ever really used force against was Yuri, but still, you never knew.

"A crocodile’s biggest weapon is its teeth, but the tail is incredibly dangerous too. But it had bad luck. The moment I spotted it, I got right on its back and took mount position—"

"I got it already, so please, let’s just practice!"

The apostle of justice had appeared to save Lee Gahyeon, who had been forced to listen to Sion’s crocodile-hunting story for the exact thirty-eighth time.

"Seo Ryujin, stopping my crocodile story? Don’t tell me you’re jealous?"

"What?"

"Of course, the experience of hunting a crocodile isn’t common, but no matter how envious you are, that kind of petty attitude isn’t good."

"Are you insane? Why would I be jealous of that?!"

Iam’s leader, Seo Ryujin, had appeared and tried to stop Lee Sion’s rampage.

Which made sense.

Yuri was watching Sion’s tyranny with a relaxed expression that clearly said, As long as it’s not me, I’m good.

Ryu Ayeon, by nature, didn’t interfere much unless it had something to do with practice, and ever since the zombie content, she had quietly been showing that she and Sion weirdly got along.

There was no need to even mention Geum Shinyu and Im Yunkyung.

The youngest duo were the sort who, if Sion did something, would follow along first and think later, to the point that calling them her left and right arms wouldn’t even be an exaggeration.

So in the end, the person who could usually stop a rampaging Lee Sion was Seo Ryujin alone.

"Quit acting like a menace and get up! It’s time to practice again."

And, just like the professional Lee Sion suppression expert she was, Seo Ryujin moved in to subdue her, nagging her while nudging and kicking at Sion’s butt with her foot.

But—

"Ack! Surtler is hitting people!"

"···You."

"How can you discipline a fellow member with violence? Surtler who hates scallions?!"

"Stop it···!"

Today, though, was different.

"Yunkyung, do you happen to know what food Hitler hates?"

"That’s obviously scallions!"

"What a clever little brat. Yuri, then what food does Hitler like?"

"Cheese desu!"

The moment the collaborative skit between Sion and the others began, Ryujin turned her head away as if she simply couldn’t bear to watch the mockery.

But even turning away couldn’t hide how red her face already was.

"Ryujin, have you heard that rumor by any chance?"

"···."

"No, but apparently an idol went on an educational program and told an insane joke. Supposedly she asked what Hitler says when he’s picky about food, and then said, 'Fascism? Nah, cheese!'"

Ryujin covered her ears against the relentless taunting, but Sion went right on as if it didn’t matter.

"There are really so many bad people in this world. Spreading absurd rumors like that! That’s not a joke a human being could tell! There’s no way any idol would actually say something that awful on broadcast, right?!"

Ryujin was definitely covering her ears, but every time Sion spat out another line, her shoulders twitched.

Was that just Gahyeon’s imagination?

'This is my fault.'

Looking at Ryujin, who had become Sion’s prey, Gahyeon let out a sigh inwardly.

-Unnie! I’m going to say this on Today in History today!

-···That?

-Yeah! Isn’t it super witty? Fascism? Nah, cheese! First, to understand this pun, you need to know the background. Fascism is an extreme totalitarian ideology, but in Korean, pa-sijeum sounds kind of like pa sireum—like hating scallions—so···.

It was the killer joke Ryujin had proudly shown Gahyeon before going on Today in History, saying she had prepared it over the past few days.

The moment she heard it, Gahyeon had wanted to clamp a hand over Ryujin’s mouth and stop her, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Ryujin had been adding explanation after explanation to the joke she had prepared, far too bright and innocent about it, and then—

-Isn’t it funny? Don’t you think this will definitely work?

-Uh···yeah.

—clapping her hands and asking if it wasn’t funny.

Gahyeon simply wasn’t cruel enough to tell her it was unfunny and that she should drop that crap and just go be a decorative flower vase on set instead.

But—

"I realized Sluggish Ryujin—no, Seo No-Fun—isn’t human."

"Boss, isn’t that a little too harsh?"

"No, Yunkyung. Look at this."

Swwish.

When Yunkyung, after mercilessly joining in on teasing Ryujin all this time, started trying to back off a little and say Sion was going too far, Sion pulled out her smartphone and showed them the screen.

"See this? Seo Ryujin’s face, completely overflowing with anticipation?"

"Oh my God···."

"Even after blurting out a joke like that, she had the nerve to look at people with that face, begging for a reaction··· Kiiieeek!"

Smack.

In the end, it seemed Seo Ryujin’s reason had finally snapped.

*** 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Why is Lee Sion lying over there like a bug now?"

"A thing happened."

At the words Raon blurted out as she entered the practice room, Seo Ryujin answered casually, and the other members simply nodded as if in agreement.

'Now this is just normal.'

Watching the whole sitcom-like sequence of events, Ayeon suddenly realized she had grown used to this kind of playful atmosphere.

"Lee Sion, quit rolling around and get over here. We’re going to let you hear the new song."

"This is unjust, unjust! So now that you’ve caught the fish, you don’t even worry when you see a member being wronged!"

"You must’ve done something again. Want me to hit you too?"

Shuffle.

"The new song? I’m looking forward to it."

Up until just a second ago, Sion had been lying on the floor of the practice room playing the victim, but Raon’s sharp warning—one Sion clearly knew better than to test—had her strolling back over to the others as if nothing had happened.

"Hahaha, Sion’s cheerful no matter when you see her."

"As expected, Mister Lucas really does know how to see people properly."

"Well, of course."

Watching Sion instantly start chatting naturally with Lucas again, Ryu Ayeon secretly shook her head to herself.

'I could never copy that.'

Ayeon did think that, after promoting with Iam, she had improved a great deal in her relationships with other people compared to before.

But acting as shamelessly natural around others as Lee Sion did was something she couldn’t even imagine pulling off.

If Ayeon tried to imitate that, it was obvious she’d only cause disasters, like Seo Ryujin—who couldn’t do jokes but weirdly had a strong desire to make other people laugh.

"All right, now that everyone’s here, I’ll introduce the new title track."

While Ayeon had been lost in thought for a moment, Raon clapped her hands and drew everyone’s attention as she announced today’s schedule.

The reveal of Iam’s third mini album title track.

Ever since the title-track selection meeting, the members had only heard that Lucas’s song and Shinyu’s song had both been selected and were being combined. This was the first time they would actually hear it.

Normally, Shinyu would have let the members hear bits and pieces of it along the way, but for some reason this time she had hidden it away completely, saying it was a secret until it was finished.

Even now, she was standing with Raon, looking excited as she got ready to play the track.

Looking at Shinyu, Ayeon once again fell into thought.

'Already the third one···.'

She had been at the previous title-track selection meeting, so she had known the time had come to release the third mini album, but now that the title track was actually finished, the feeling hit her differently.

[Fuck, I want to smash the jewel box]

"We’re not even asking them to come back every quarter.

Just let us know the girls are alive, fuck.

Why is the only way to see them through ads?

At that point, send them to events or put them on variety shows or something"

⤷ fr I think stanning is most fun when they’re rookies. Once they get popular their activities drop and you can’t even see them anymore

⤷ What pisses me off even more is that they still hold concerts every single year without fail

⤷ They’re already in year four and only one full album, seriously?

⤷ We’ve still got it better than some. A group that debuted with them still hasn’t even gotten a full album

⤷ Not even one mini album a year is seriously too much

⤷ I’ll pay!! Please just promote more

Some idols had fans tearing their hair out because company policy kept them from promoting properly, but Iam—who hadn’t even been debuted a full year yet and had already released three mini albums—had an activity volume that was truly unheard of.

It had gotten to the point where even the fans were horrified by how, no matter how much they watched, there was always new material surfacing.

-The trend is changing.

Of course, they weren’t simply forcing comeback after comeback with no thought.

There had been a time when the members asked if they were repeating comebacks at too fast a pace, and Raon had personally explained the reason.

'It doesn’t matter as much when the total number of idols is small, but these days, when new idols debut every other day, you have to keep the hiatus as short as possible—that’s what she said.'

The number of idols, which had already felt large before, was growing more by the day.

Not just in Korea, but in Japan and Southeast Asia, and recently even in Latin America, the market had widened thanks to the response K-pop was getting, so everyone was jumping into the idol industry chasing the hope of a huge hit.

Just like the gold rush that had once happened in America, countless idol groups were debuting in search of the vein of gold some major idol acts had struck.

In times like these, if rookie idols promoted as little as veteran groups, they wouldn’t even have time to build a fanbase—what fans they did have would be perfectly poised to drift away.

More than anything, although all the members had now extended their activity term through re-signing, Iam had originally been a one-year short-term project group, so they had needed to stay even more active than most.

Even so, for comebacks this frequent, it wasn’t only the members who needed determination. The company did too.

Because even if it wasn’t a full album, what the company had to invest to release an album wasn’t just money, but time as well.

-Have we still not found a designer to handle the album cover?

-We’re in contact right now, but their schedule is backed up, so we’re coordinating.

-We need to start with the album cover before we can decide the other things too, so try to finalize it as quickly as possible.

-Yes!

KJ Entertainment was exactly the sort of company where every single employee, without exception, poured everything into supporting Iam’s activities.

'It’s something to be grateful for. Which means we have to do even better.'

Coming from TSP, Ayeon knew very well how the system worked at major agencies.

And because of that, she also knew that the support Iam was receiving right now was something even a major agency couldn’t easily provide.

That was why, no matter how hard or grueling the schedule had been, she had never once complained up to now, and had no intention of starting.

"The title is 'Black Pearl.'"

At last, apparently finished with the setup, Raon touched the touchpad of the laptop connected to the practice room speakers.

Then music began to fill the room.

♬

'Black Pearl?'

Literally translated, it meant a black pearl, but it was also famous as the name of the pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean, and while Ayeon was wondering what meaning the title held, the song truly began.

Who owns the sea?

WE DO.

Who takes the crown?

WE DO.

Black flag up—

The moment she heard the intro, Ayeon realized that this part was from "Trace," the song Lucas had shown them before.

'I thought it was good back then too, but still···.'

A slow tempo built on minimal trap, like something floating serenely across the sea.

Unlike most trap-based songs that were popular these days, which tended to be fast, this one used a low-set bass and dry snare to open up space for the vocals.

Even if I fall, I rise again

The more I’m shaken, the stronger I become

I don’t need any map

Because my name will become the road

Once the song moved past the opening and reached the middle pre-chorus—the section between the verse and chorus—the sound Ayeon had heard in "Pirate," the song Shinyu had composed, began to emerge.

The quiet sound slowly split apart, and at the same time the song’s whole identity flipped upside down.

It felt like a completely different track from before, yet the tempo was maintained, and the unfamiliar sensation made Ayeon let out a quiet gasp without realizing it.

Raise the black flag, higher

Burn up like flame

Even in the endless storm

I become king in the end

Crown on my head now

Climb even higher

Above every sea

Black flag queen, that’s me

The heavy low melody tore open and exploded, shifting into an EDM-based big-room sound as the highlight section began.

'This is insane.'

A chorus this intense wasn’t just difficult for a girl group to pull off—even for a boy group, it was the sort of music only concept-heavy groups could really handle.

Clap.

Ayeon, completely absorbed in the new title track, hadn’t even realized the song had ended and was just staring blankly ahead until Raon clapped her hands and she barely came back to herself.

"What do you think? It should feel completely different from the songs we’ve done so far. Of course, that also means it’ll be that much harder, and especially this time, the choreography difficulty is going to rise dramatically. The defining trait of this song is···."

Raon went on explaining the song, but her words didn’t really reach Ayeon’s ears.

'This is it.'

It wasn’t that Ayeon had disliked Iam’s songs up until now, but she had always felt thirsty for something.

A thirst for choreography that was intense, difficult, and grueling.

And for the rush that came when a group pulled that kind of choreography off in perfect formation.

To be honest, Iam’s choreography up to now had, to some degree, been designed with consideration for the members, and at times Ayeon had felt a little unsatisfied because it also had to match the mood of the songs.

'We can do it now!'

But this song didn’t call for powerful group choreography just because it suited Ayeon’s taste.

It needed it.

The members’ skills had improved so dramatically compared to when they first met that Ayeon felt certain that, if they worked for it, they could absolutely put on a truly powerful group performance.

And if they couldn’t?

Then they would just practice until they could.

Unlike back during Agbaek, they had plenty of time to practice now, and if they got Lee Sion’s help, they could even keep the members from fleeing.

Thump!

Ayeon’s heart pounded.