Chapter 147
Cooking, huh.
First of all, assuming Juan’s strangely untrustworthy words were true.
This, this…
With the ultimate weapon, Kang Joo-boo, on our side, all the trivial talk was over, wasn’t it?
If the event was really cooking and unless the second coming of Dae Jang Geum popped out from somewhere, winning over other groups was not just a dream.
I immediately shared this happy news with the members who had worried looks on their faces after seeing the Start Run set earlier.
“Hyung, hyung. Looks like we’re cooking later.”
“Really? Where did you hear that?”
Kang Ji-woo, who was delighted, asked.
“Juan hyung said so.”
“Ah, I see…”
Their reactions were somewhat lukewarm.
“Are you close with Juan sunbae?”
“Just happened that way?”
I added nonchalantly that it wasn’t me who approached first but mostly the other way around. Gwak Sang-hyun then spoke.
“Juan must like you.”
“Why would he like me when I haven’t done anything? He’s probably just feeling sorry about what happened before… which somehow doesn’t seem like it…”
I trailed off, changing my words halfway.
It wasn’t that Juan didn’t care about me falling down because of Pluto fans. After all, he did come to apologize in person.
But!
Juan was far from being the type to still feel sorry about it until now.
‘He’s not a bad person, really not…’
I couldn’t figure out how Juan ended up with such a useless image.
Back when we first filmed Pick Heart with Jena, Muk Hye-sung, and other mentors, he looked so cool and great… like someone from a different world than me.
“But what was the point of that thing outside if they’re just going to make us cook anyway?”
Ban Yo-han raised a reasonable question.
“I don’t know. I hope it’s just to scare us.”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
Gyun Seong-ha, who disliked frivolous talk, snapped at Kang Ji-woo. Of course, it wasn’t a sharp reprimand.
Just then, there was a knock on the door and the broadcasting station staff opened the waiting room door simultaneously.
There was no gap between the knock and the door opening, making me wonder why they even knocked in the first place.
“Orca’s leader or, if the leader is not here, any representative, please come out for a moment.”
“Yes.”
Looking very busy, Kang Ji-woo quickly and naturally stood up.
“Can I come along too? I’m not comfortable sending a rookie alone…”
“Yes, it’s nothing serious anyway, so go ahead.”
Surprisingly, the staff readily allowed the manager to accompany him. It seemed like they didn’t want to waste time unnecessarily.
“Guys, don’t make too much noise.”
“Are we elementary school kids?”
“Gyeol-ah, I’m counting on you.”
“Okay.”
“Hyung, why ask Gyeol and not me?”
Do you really need to ask?
Ignoring Ban Yo-han, Gwak Sang-hyun closed the door and left without answering.
The remaining members in the waiting room decided to quietly play Omok to restore the crumbled trust of Gwak Sang-hyun.
“Let’s record this.”
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
While I was setting up the camera at a proper angle to film behind-the-scenes footage for Idol Entertainment Battle on Witube.
Seo Moon-gyeol opened a notebook and drew horizontal and vertical lines to replace the grid of the Omok board with a ballpoint pen. Despite not having a ruler, the lines were straight and even.
“Can we play with the double-three rule?”
Ban Yo-han, who suggested Omok, twirled his pencil and asked.
For reference, the double-three rule is making two or more consecutive sets of three stones. It’s a move that guarantees a win the moment it’s placed.
“No. Double-three and double-four are both banned.”
Gyun Seong-ha looked bewildered at my words, having played multiple Omok games with Ban Yo-han to increase my intelligence stat before.
“Hey, what fun is there in Omok if all that’s banned?”
“It’d be less fun not playing at all. This guy’s an Omok demon. He probably played Omok all the time during school breaks.”
Determined to beat this sly fox at least once, I looked up Omok rules online and learned valuable information.
Unfortunately, without any handicap, I had never beaten him under the same conditions.
Anyway, after banning all the rules I mentioned, the real Omok game began.
We divided into teams of older and younger members, but Seo Moon-gyeol was surprisingly bad at Omok.
He was so bad that Ban Yo-han’s cunning setup crumbled like a weak net every time it was Seo Moon-gyeol’s turn. He wasn’t just placing stones normally; he was sabotaging his own team.
If Seo Moon-gyeol placed stones where Ban Yo-han suggested, it would have been much better if they actively discussed each move, unlike Gyun Seong-ha and me, who exchanged lively opinions on every move.
Ban Yo-han didn’t seem to have such intentions.
It was as if he was letting his younger brother do whatever he wanted. Or maybe he just didn’t care at all.
“Hey, let me take that back.”
Ban Yo-han, who was about to lose due to Seo Moon-gyeol’s continuous bad moves—more like counterproductive moves—whined.
This guy, who pretended to go easy on us, threw a fit when he was about to lose.
With his annoying aegyo, which matched his personality perfectly, a look of deep disgust and contempt flashed across Gyun Seong-ha’s face, who was facing the camera lens. My expression was probably similar.
“No way.”
“Yeah, no way.”
It was quite annoying seeing him stay silent when Seo Moon-gyeol made strange moves and only complaining now.
“So, it’s impossible with my skills alone. Gyeol-ah, follow me!”
“Why drag Gyeol into this?”
“Why drag him, you ask? What is a team? A community of fate.”
“…Is it necessary to bring up a community of fate just for Omok?”
Seo Moon-gyeol, dragged along by Ban Yo-han, turned his back on us.
“Okay, make a fist slightly…”
Ban Yo-han kept whispering something to Seo Moon-gyeol, and Seo Moon-gyeol occasionally nodded obediently.
Then, after a while, the two turned around and looked at us resolutely, linking arms and adopting a defiant posture like delinquents.
I met Ban Yo-han’s gaze and thought I heard a sound effect like “Aegyo Attack!” from somewhere.
“Guys~”
“Guys~”
“Can’t you let it slide just once? Hmm?”
“Hmm?”
The two tilted their heads, speaking in a tone overflowing with aegyo. Their tiny fists, cutely brought up to their chins, somehow reminded me of meerkats.
I should ask the staff in charge of editing our content videos to splice in a meerkat picture after this scene later… not.
What could make them go this far? They seemed crazy.
“Hyung, if you’re asking this much… I guess I have no choice but to let it slide this one time.”
“Hey.”
And the one who falls for that is really…
Returning to his original posture, Ban Yo-han glared at us sulkily.
“You guys are really something, discriminating between people like this. Gyeol isn’t the only hyung; I’m a hyung too, you know?”
“If you don’t like it, then don’t take it back.”
“Aww.”
Anyway, Seo Moon-gyeol’s aegyo didn’t suddenly improve his Omok skills, so that round ended with Gyeon Seong-ha and me winning.
“Yay!”
“Too bad. We should’ve had a penalty.”
The next round continued without changing teams. Ban Yo-han, saying that this balanced things out, annoyed us with his comments.
Eventually, Ban Yo-han even started predicting where Seo Moon-gyeol would place his stones, setting up the board accordingly.
When it was Seo Moon-gyeol’s turn, Ban Yo-han pointed to a spot on the notebook board with a triumphant face, and Seo Moon-gyeol was amazed at how he knew where he’d place his stone.
It felt like a 2:1:1 game, Ban Yo-han remarked afterward, despite losing, successfully causing suffering to Gyeon Seong-ha, myself, and himself.
How much time passed like that?
Kang Ji-woo and Gwak Sang-hyun, who had followed the staff, returned.
“We could hear your voices outside.”
Kang Ji-woo, who had been very tense when leaving the waiting room, now had a somewhat conflicted expression as if something had bothered him. Gwak Sang-hyun looked similar.
“Who likes this kind of thing these days?”
“Exactly.”
Kang Ji-woo and Gwak Sang-hyun, complaining weakly, glanced at each other and then dropped their shoulders as if prearranged.
“What’s wrong?”
Kang Ji-woo, looking thirsty, chugged a drink from the floor and began to explain what he’d heard.
Today, there were 36 teams of idols, with 18 boy groups and 18 girl groups each.
There was a reason for matching the number of male and female idols precisely.
“For the preliminaries today, we’re grouped with another girl group.”
“Which girl group?”
“Cheristine sunbaenims.”
As far as I knew, Cheristine was a five-member girl group strong in vocals. Among girl groups, they were especially strong in digital music and had won numerous awards at various ceremonies.
Kang Ji-woo briefly explained about the preliminaries as well.
The first preliminary round was a collaborative race where a member from a boy group and a member from a girl group completed a track together. The second round involved separate races on different tracks, but the two groups would cook together with the materials obtained from both races.
Of course, the fact that male and female idols did something together wasn’t a big issue, except that fans might feel uncomfortable about the fact that they were paired up.
In reality, fans feeling uneasy was a big issue in itself, but anyway.
There was no way a slightly outdated broadcasting station would miss the chance to pair up male and female idols.
They were likely to create all sorts of forced and awkward situations to produce a pink love line for someone.
This wasn’t just my imagination; Idol Entertainment Battle had a history of blatantly editing to pair up young men and women year after year.
It was just like the broadcasting station that produced many virtual dating programs such as ‘Love Villa’ and ‘We Loved’.
According to Juan, several couples had actually been formed thanks to Idol Entertainment Battle…
For this reason, some fans disliked Idol Entertainment Battle more than the Autumn Idol Sports Festival, which had a higher risk of injury, due to the higher risk of romance.