WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 37: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (37)
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Truffle Candy was a new girl group that had not even been active for a full year.
Yet their leader, Yu Se-ra, was already in her sixth year as an idol.
Put kindly, she was an experienced hire. Put cruelly, she was secondhand stock nearing the end of her shelf life.
The other members were much the same.
The only differences were their years of experience and the number of times they had debuted.
Truffle Candy itself was a budget recycled product, a girl group assembled from “used products” other agencies had put up for sale at a discount and sent out to debut again.
For Se-ra, Truffle Candy was her third debut.
The producer who had brought her to her current agency had urged her to sign a new contract in a voice without the slightest trace of passion.
「How will you make your way outside this industry like this? Did you even go to school properly? Did you receive any vocational training?」
「You know nothing but dancing and singing, and now you want to start studying again? Do you know how many years later than everyone else you’ll begin working?」
「You don’t know how cruel people in this country are to those who get a late start, do you?」
「Even ordinary companies these days aren’t hiring completely inexperienced newcomers. If you submit a résumé with nothing but your education at an age when you should already have years of experience, do you think any company will hire you?」
「You’ve got three options. Go work as a bookkeeper at some shitty little company with no future and ruin your life, get hired for your face instead of your experience and live a shameful working life, or start a business, even though half of them fail within three years.」
「Most girls who trust their looks open cafés and go bankrupt.」
「Oh, right. There’s one more. Catch a good man and marry into money. So? Do any of those sound appealing?」
「This industry may be terrible, but for girls like you, the best choice is to keep doing what you’ve been doing.」
「Our group is ready to debut as soon as you join. Think of all the trainees who get cut without ever debuting. Do you know how much of an advantage it is to get multiple chances to debut and chase your opportunity?」
Anyone swayed by such a pitch could not possibly be in their right mind.
Even so, after agonizing over it again and again, Se-ra accepted the new contract with a heart full of hesitation.
As the producer said, making a life outside the industry was too frightening and uncertain a road.
(Se-ra’s parents, who were struggling financially, had no choice but to agree to the contract.
It was called a new contract, but in reality, the new agency was taking over her contract from the old one.
Contracts in this industry bound parents as joint guarantors. If the parents refused to transfer the contract, the old agency’s investment became an enormous debt that the parents and trainee had to repay together.)
When one path was familiar but without hope, and the other was frightening and uncertain, most people tended to choose the former.
Se-ra was no different.
‘...Not having gone to school is too big a problem.’
Se-ra had started training when she was in middle school.
In this country, starting life as an idol trainee meant giving up on school from that moment on.
Elementary and middle school were legally mandatory, so dropping out was, in principle, impossible.
But bad adults had found a way around the law.
They abused a provision allowing mandatory education to be deferred if a guardian applied for a postponement due to unavoidable circumstances.
The deferment period was one year by default and could be extended further.
Entertainment agencies advised guardians to replace mandatory schooling with a qualification examination.
(They attended only a third of the mandatory school days, deferred the rest again and again, then took the qualification examination later.)
They said surviving fierce competition required more than fifty hours of intense practice each week. They told trainees to think of it as another kind of entrance examination.
Bad adults had another calculation in mind as well.
「If they never go to school in the first place, there won’t be any school violence scandals, right? Isn’t that the perfect safety measure?」
「Their heads will be completely empty, but idols don’t need to be good at studying, so that’s fine!」
When an idol group that had received enormous investment fell apart over a school violence scandal, company employees and investors shed tears of blood.
So the bad adults came up with the most economical solution.
The children could shed those tears instead.
「Good, good! If the kids don’t know anything, they won’t even realize when they’re being treated unfairly! They’ll do whatever we tell them, too!」
Of course, those bad adults did not give the children a proper chance to study even for the qualification examination.
As a result, Yu Se-ra’s education was, in effect, limited to elementary school...
She was twenty-three years old.
Her next birthday, which would add another year to her age, was not far away.
That was why Truffle Candy had to succeed somehow.
If this group failed too, she would likely never be given a fourth chance.
When she thought of starting over with middle school studies at such a late age, everything before her went dark.
Not simply because studying would be late and difficult, but because she was terrified of the uncertain chain of events that would follow.
‘At least one thing the producer said was true. This society is far too harsh on people who get a late start...’
It was a society where, if someone missed the age society deemed appropriate and fell behind everyone else, they would almost certainly become a failure for good.
Se-ra had heard too many stories about people who retired from entertainment without gaining anything, then vanished down a road of despair.
(More than half of those stories had been told by agency employees to frighten the trainees. They believed scared children listened better.)
There was something even more frightening.
Two of the members who had debuted alongside her the first time had also vanished without a word.
So Se-ra clung to her current group desperately.
It was common for her to do work the company should have been doing.
The producer even shamelessly created a work email account and handed it to her, warning that they would always be watching what messages she sent and received.
In other words, Se-ra was the person who had contacted the YouTube channel 「Onik Uncle and the Hapless Chief」 about appearing on it.
“Girls! We got it! We were picked in the viewer vote!”
Se-ra, who had been watching Onik’s broadcast anxiously, jumped up and down with the other members in delight.
The channel averaged three to four hundred thousand views and was growing quickly. Appearing on it was as valuable for raising their profile as getting onto a second-tier program on a decent variety channel.
It was a rare joy in days that had only grown more depressing.
That joy did not last long.
“Oh, really? That’s good. From what I’ve seen, that channel’s growth isn’t ordinary...”
The management division head, who had summoned the producer and Se-ra to report in person, relegated the producer to the background and looked at Se-ra with a sly smile.
“Go seduce this kid called Onik. Throw your body at him or whatever it takes. Make him so crazy about you that he can’t think straight. If you have to, work together with the other members.”
“...You want me to seduce Onik? Did I hear you correctly?”
The management division head frowned at Se-ra’s question.
“You heard me perfectly, so why are you asking again? If you melt one little boy with a dick and secure a hot promotional channel permanently, do you know how much that would benefit us? Don’t you?”
Se-ra was speechless, and the management division head looked even more displeased.
“Why? What don’t you like about it? Are you defying a legitimate work order?”
A legitimate work order. The words made her dizzy.
It was all the more sickening because Se-ra herself was a devoted viewer of Onik’s channel.
“Excuse me, ma’am... How could that be a legitimate order? Onik is only in his first year of middle school. And even though he looks cheerful, he’s a pitiful child when you get to know him...”
“Pitiful? I think your life is more pitiful.”
“...”
“Se-ra, our poor Se-ra... Wake up. You need to know your place. Who are you to call someone else pitiful?
You were sold off as clearance stock, you caught what might be your last chance, and now what? Pitiful?
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. No wonder you still haven’t made it with that attitude.”
The management division head regularly spoke rudely to Se-ra and the other members.
She called them clearance stock, used products, girls sold off at bargain prices.
The management division head’s logic was that they would face reality properly and strive more desperately if they were spoken to that way.
Se-ra remembered something the management division head had said before.
「I’m only saying this because I want you girls to do well. I’m naturally a rather blunt, forceful person. So please understand me, all right? I trust you.」
Trust, my foot.
Se-ra wondered if being blunt and forceful was really supposed to mean acting like that, but in a relationship where the hierarchy was so clear, she could only swallow those doubts.
Still, this time was too much to swallow quietly.
Throw her body at him? Use her body to seduce him?
Have Se-ra and the other members work together? Against a middle schooler at least ten years younger than them?
“But he’s so much younger than me...”
Se-ra squeezed her eyes shut and made a timid attempt to resist, but the management division head crushed it without mercy.
“Kid or whatever, seduce him if I tell you to! It isn’t hard! Boys that age are all jerk-off-addicted monkeys!
All you have to do is rub up against him a little and he’ll fall head over heels, so why are you talking so much?
I’m not telling you to sleep with him! Just seduce him! If you don’t even want to make this much effort, quit right now!”
“...”
“This Onik kid doesn’t have parents, does he? Perfect! It’s a meal laid out for you!
The more starved they are for affection, the weaker they are to someone treating them kindly! How easy do you think it’ll be to melt him with your body?”
After throwing a fit, the management division head let out a long sigh as if Se-ra were hopeless.
It was the familiar sigh that made Se-ra and the other members shrink back on instinct.
“Se-ra.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I want to say things like this? I’m a woman too. Do you think it’s comfortable for me to say it?”
“...”
“Why aren’t you answering? Are you going to keep defying me? Do you not want to see me again?”
“No...”
“Think about the last event you girls performed at. Wasn’t it miserable, performing in the rain at a night market for local men and women in some rural town?
And what did you get after all that suffering? Just 600,000 won. Hm? Isn’t that enough to put some fire in you yet? The fire to succeed by any means necessary!”
“...”
“Honestly, what do you girls have left besides your bodies? Even so, I don’t send you out to private gatherings with producers, do I? I’m a person with a conscience. Aren’t you grateful?”
“Thank... you.”
“If you’re grateful, then repay me. Am I asking for so much?
Isn’t seducing one little boy much better than following producers around, chasing sponsors, acting sweet, and soliciting work? He’s much easier to handle, and safer too. Am I right or not? Answer me.”
“You’re... right.”
“Go and do well this time. I’ll be expecting it.”
“Um...”
“What now?”
“Aren’t you worried this might somehow become a scandal...?”
“That wouldn’t be bad either. You’re in no position to turn down even negative attention.
And negative attention doesn’t mean it can’t make money.
Do you know how much the company invested in you? We need to create an issue, draw attention, and make money somehow! Don’t we?”
“Yes...”
The twenty-three-year-old idol with only an elementary school education finally gave up resisting, trapped in learned helplessness.
#
‘I want to die.’
Inside the van winding down the national highway, Se-ra stared blankly at the scenery passing beyond the window.
She wondered if she should just end this exhausting life here.
Lately, Se-ra had often been consumed by bouts of mental darkness that came over her like an illness.
They had become more frequent since agreeing to appear on Onik’s channel.
At times like this, all strength drained from her body, fatigue deepened, and she felt cold slowly spreading from her extremities.
Sometimes pain flared in her joints, including her lower back.
Her ears rang intermittently, and at times her stomach clenched painfully.
Her heart would occasionally beat irregularly without warning.
When she cautiously mentioned only the physical symptoms, the producer, who also acted as their manager, answered without interest.
“Those are common symptoms among trainees. Endure that much through willpower. Going to the hospital costs money, doesn’t it? It’ll only add to the debt you have to pay back later.”
It was not a particularly disappointing answer. She had never expected anything in the first place.
When a report came in that a group member was ill, the management division head berated the producer.
How badly had they managed the girls for one of them to get sick?
The producer was a salaried worker who had thoroughly adapted to this company and this industry.
“Ah, we should’ve taken the KTX.”
Im Mi-na, Truffle Candy’s youngest member, complained.
She looked exhausted from being crammed into the narrow van seat for more than three hours.
Stopping at rest areas along the way did little to ease the discomfort.
“Dream on. What KTX? As if the company would pay for that.”
The cynical reply came from Eun So-rin, the second member. At her unni’s rebuke, Mi-na pouted.
“Do you think I don’t know that? I was just saying it. We’re almost there anyway.”
“Stop talking and watch the new videos properly.
Who knows? If we leave a good impression this time, they might give us more appearances, something close to being regulars. It’d be even better if we could get a share of the revenue.”
“Well, it was fun. The kid’s nice too. It’s sad in a way. I can see why Se-ra unni worked so hard to convert us.”
The other members did not yet know about the management division head’s instructions.
Se-ra had asked the producer to keep it between the two of them for the time being, for the sake of the members’ mental health.
It would not be too late to tell the others when necessary.
As the oldest member and leader, Se-ra thought:
‘Why should we all suffer this kind of stress? It isn’t pain that lessens when shared.’
One person who wanted to die was enough.
To Se-ra, the other members seemed a little more excited than usual.
They tried to hide it, but it showed. They were tired from the long drive, yet because the program they were appearing on was good, they seemed less gloomy than usual.
As their leader, Se-ra wanted their good mood to last.
“Wow, how could this not be staged? Does it make any sense to catch up with a water deer while riding a Sky Kong Kong pogo stick?”
“You can really understand how the water deer feels when it’s fleeing in terror~”
“They say kids have endless stamina, but even so, this is kind of scary...”
Se-ra listened to the other members’ chatter as they watched the videos downloaded in advance, letting it go in one ear and out the other.
Listening closely only made her suffer more.
It was difficult to tune it out entirely because of the shrieking cries of the fleeing water deer.
Watching internet broadcasts had once been one of Se-ra’s few hobbies and ways to relieve stress.
And her favorite was, of course, 「Onik Uncle and the Hapless Chief」.
The broadcasts of that kind rural boy made her feel calmer and warmer the more she watched. This, she had thought, was what healing felt like.
But not anymore.
The management division head’s orders kept circling through her mind, and now even hearing the sounds made her suffer.
Part of her wished they would never arrive.
Reality could not go the way she wished, though.
“We’re here!”
Mi-na, the youngest, cheered as she looked out the window.
The view of the town they had seen many times through 「Let’s Play with Onik!」 came into sight.
The street where the elementary, middle, and high schools stood close together appeared first, followed by Lotteria, which Onik had called the hottest place in town.
“Onik Uncle” and the “Hapless Chief” were waiting for them in front of Lotteria.
When the producer-manager stopped the van, all the members except Se-ra quickly got out.
They would have to get back into the vehicle to head for the village, but it was only polite to greet the hosts who had come to meet them.
Se-ra composed her expression, then stepped out of the van last.
“Three, two, one!”
“Hello! An intense fragrance that seeps into your daily life! A gentle sweetness that melts in your ears! We are Truffle Candy!”
They might have been a minor group, but they were veteran working idols giving an energetic greeting. The bad adult Legal Hunter could not hide his delight.
‘Yes, this is it! This is the brightness I wanted! This polished brightness that’s hard to find in the countryside!’
Practically melting with delight, Legal Hunter returned their greeting with the greatest possible kindness.
“Oh my, you delicate young ladies must’ve had such a hard time coming all this way. It really is far, isn’t it? Ha ha.”
The Truffle Candy members had been somewhat nervous around the two people who held the upper hand, even if they tried not to show it. Legal Hunter’s reaction, like that of an uncle who was a fan, reassured them and gave them courage.
He had only said a few words, but at least he did not seem like someone who would throw his weight around like broadcast company staff.
“Not at all! We’re so, so happy to be here!”
“We’re fans! Your videos are really fun to watch!”
“Eek! Nice to meet you, Onik! Noona really, really wanted to meet you! Give me an autograph later, okay?”
So-rin, the second member, and Ye-seul, the third member, shook hands with Legal Hunter. Mi-na, the youngest, showed unusual friendliness toward Onik, whom she was meeting for the first time, clapping their palms together with a sharp smack.
Throughout it all, Se-ra stood apart from them by herself.
‘...I can’t look him in the face.’
The moment she met Onik, guilt swept over her.
Se-ra could not look him straight in the face, though for a different reason than the boy who had grown up lonely without parents.
Then she felt the urge to kill herself.
She had lost count of how many times she had felt it just that day, but this urge was the strongest yet.
Onik stared openly at Se-ra, something he rarely did, and tilted his head once, as though something about her seemed strange.
Footnotes:
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