Chapter 127

The 'No. 1 acceptance speech' Taeil had sent Hajin was neither too long nor too short.

"'…we'll always be right here. Congrats on the No. 1, I.dea. Your eternal paradise, Upia.' …That's the message, delivered on his behalf. Once again, congratulations on the No. 1!"

You could tell he'd given No. 1 speeches enough times to be sick of them.

Sincerity and gratitude came through in full, and it hit its stop right before it started to drag. Even Hajin, reading it out, couldn't help admiring the craft.

"Yes, that was truly a moving acceptance speech."

"Well then — we'll be saying goodnight with the encore song!"

Along with the MCs' closing patter, the MR for * started playing.

Truth was, they'd been planning to fill the slot with the MV, but the music-show PD — for reasons nobody could figure out — had insisted the MV alone looked cheap and pushed Miro Maze to sing the encore themselves.

If we've got to sing it anyway, we sing it right.

While the other acts stepped down off the stage, Hajin signaled the trainees with his eyes.

At his cue, the trainees who'd been handed mics dropped into a clean line on either side of him, one after another.

Placard in one hand, mic in the other, they opened their mouths in unison.

I'll be there

Wherever your feet come to a stop

I'll be there

Wherever your eyes come to land

There was no way they were pulling something as cocky as carving up someone else's precious fansong into parts.

The trainees sang together with the reverent posture and expression you'd hold for a school anthem — no, a hymn.

Jayden and Jaeyoung, whose vocals weren't quite there yet, held their mics off to soften it, but the mass-chorus feel still came through loud and full.

The night of this paradise you built

we're promising forever

I'll be there

The melody, rising as a single voice —

was truly, genuinely beautiful.

Across the audience spread out before them, the glow of different fandoms' lightsticks rippled like waves.

Hajin held that scene in his eyes for a long time.

"……."

"…what are you thinking about?"

On the way back down after the encore stage had wrapped too, Taehyun came up beside Hajin, who'd been quiet the whole time, and asked.

Hajin glanced once at the trophy in Taehyun's hand, brushed a stray bit of confetti off his shoulder, and answered,

"Thinking I'd rather it not be a stand-in next time."

Someday.

Holding a trophy engraved with our own names, in front of our own fans, with our own song.

He'd started wanting to fill a room like this one, wall to wall.

Hajin smiled and gave Taehyun's shoulder a pat.

"Let's give it everything we've got."

"…yeah. Let's."

I really hope we get to debut together.

With Taehyun's small wish, A Countdown's recording came to a close.

---

Naturally, Upia's No. 1 win flipped the whole community every which way.

- [the 13-year-veteran idol acceptance speech that flipped yesterday's idol scene] - [asked for an acceptance speech, delivers a love confession — upia's leader (feat. miro maze)] - [upia seo taeil's full #1 speech from yesterday, pasted here.txt] - [why is upia's acd #1 hitting me harder than it's hitting them] - [is it too late for me to fall into upia now? please tell me it isn't]

Fans everywhere said Seo Taeil deserved to live off his lyric-writing royalties alone; the speech had every fandom's eyes red-rimmed and became a story in its own right.

Starting with the fact that in year 13, with no active promo running, they'd beaten a rookie for the No. 1 spot.

Down to the fact that the song was a fansong released to mark the group being whole again after their military-service gap — every last beat of it landed squarely on the fan-heart.

Because of all of it, the No. 1-announcement clip racked up jaw-dropping views and kept going viral for a good long while.

Which meant the footage of the Miro Maze trainees standing in for the acceptance got dragged up the same wave, with no chance to be forgotten either.

- wait these nephew boys are too cute lolololol - you could really feel they wanted to celebrate for real, i got so moved ㅠㅜ - the friend who read the speech, that's HIM right?? the one taeil said looks like him > yep same one lololol after yesterday i totally see why he said so - and the way they all sang the song together at the end ㅠㅠㅠ felt like they were standing in for us

The reaction from I.dea — the one Hajin had worried about most — was, with no need to dig any further, warmly enthusiastic.

I.dea had already gone into Yusamax (Upia-love MAX) mode after the devastating fan-love their leader had unloaded on them. Frankly, whether someone had done the stand-in acceptance or whatever else — that wasn't what mattered right now.

- huh but is nobody actually bothered that those trainee kids did the stand-in acceptance? > does that even matter right now? > this fuck1ng — our boy said he LOVES ME > sometimes a love confession delivered secondhand hits harder

Right now they were basically invincible — anything short of Upia disbanding, every troll take and screw-up just bounced off.

Plus — these nephew boys had come through pretty sincerely themselves!

handle: @u_top_world name: Toweol ah ㅁㅊ that placard yesterday the nephew boys apparently made it themselves Tael sent us the pic who wrote the copy on it please share the concept w/ me too;; [photo] [photo] engagement: shares 1,099 · hearts 2,000 title: [wait the nephew boys memorized the whole song and sang it — kinda touching] - is this...the life of a senior fandom that now has hoobae hoobaes...? is this...maybe someday a MI.RO.CON.CERT is... maybe it's even possible...☆ - what concept did she even land on lol > let her be...she's too hyped, nobody can stop her - she said "a miro concert" lmao ㅁㅊ just imagining it makes me quake - above commenter, curious in what sense you're quaking > for one thing i'd probably be a little scared > my hands are shaking already just thinking about the ticketing > ugh it just means i love the idea, you dorks

Riding the favorable mood, mentions of Miro Maze and the trainees started piling up in earnest.

'To You I Declare' stage clips and live-viewing reactions began going up.

The Destis didn't miss the chance, and started pumping my kid promo nonstop.

title: [was that seo taehyun from boys of the world on acd yesterday??] - wait taehyun debuted??? - it IS taehyun! he's on a miro survival show right now — yesterday was a special stage for winning the show's mission!! > (op) ahh thank you ㅠ! i thought he'd debuted and got so excited...taehyun grew up well handle: @kang_HD name: Kangha-D how does one stage have a bandaged-up delinquent high schooler AND a guy in a full three-piece suit ...at the same time? [photo] [photo] engagement: shares 1,045 · quotes 213 · hearts 1,773 handle: @kang_HD name: Kangha-D woke up to my rt count blown up, so scared "scared" my ass here to promote the guy in the pics miro maze's hexagon puppy-leader kang hajin, go vote right now [photo] [photo] title: [one of the kids who did the stand-in acceptance for upia's #1 yesterday] - (pic of jaeyoung and haru grinning as they flap the placard) someone tell me these kids' names ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ i just got hit HARD, they're unbelievably cute ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠ - it's haru and jaeyoung! the maknaes are so cute right ㅠ! > s0 fuck1ng cute i'm losing my mind, i want to slurp these babies right up and roll them around in my mouth

Attention on Miro Maze — which Hajin had already thought was doing plenty well — kept climbing day after day.

The official account's follower count shot up, and the view counts on the iTube videos had blown through the roof.

And at the center of the spotlight was Kang Hajin.

But that wasn't purely a good thing.

"Sigh."

"What, why the heavy sigh?"

Soda and Squishy Bear, gathered in a hotel room to watch Miro Maze episode 5 together, both looked at Gwajam at the same time.

If you had to pick, out of the three's biases, the one currently getting the most mentions and most locked in for debut, it was hands-down Gwajam's bias — Hajin.

Our Hajin's finally got a clear road to debut — we should be throwing a party, not sighing.

"There's another Hajin-bashing post up on Pentalk."

"Huh. Again?"

At Gwajam's words, Soda and Squishy Bear scowled.

Lately, one particular community had been running organized smear campaigns against Hajin, uploading takedown after takedown.

"Those people are seriously gross. Unnie, don't take it to heart. That place is a straight-up mental-case den."

"Look, I mostly don't, okay? But it's really bad lately. The other day someone posted that Hajin was a school bully, and the second they got caught making it up, they deleted the post and bolted."

"What is even going on over there? Do they get paid for that stuff or something? Actually — if you get sued, don't you end up paying money?"

"It's just loser kids who've got nothing else in life…. Propping up your self-worth by trashing celebrities is legit mental illness."

"The whole Yugeon thing before was a real faith-in-humanity killer. And after that they slowly started picking at Taehyun, and when they didn't get a rise they seem to have switched targets to Hajin."

If Hajin had actually done something wrong, at least it wouldn't feel this unfair.

The posts going up on Pentalk were, for the most part, baseless, purely-vindictive attack pieces with no logic and no evidence.

Now and then someone would pretend to be sophisticated, stringing together a long-form essay, but at the end of it the conclusion always boiled down to Kang Hajin is way too full of himself and it's insufferable.

Gwajam, upset, gulped down the drink she'd prepped in advance.

"It was better back when they were saying Kang Hajin was an agency-push and there was some pre-set debut lineup. These days it's just — no head, no tail, they just don't like him. Are these people not insane?"

"It's because he's popular, that's all…."

"Y'all know what? Actually, Destis who have Hajin as first pick aren't even that many."

"What?"

"Which is what's making the Kang-stans lose their minds even more right now."

At the unexpected words, Soda and Squishy Bear couldn't hide the shock on their faces.

Gwajam let out one heavy sigh after another and chomped through her snacks.

"I was on Hajin from day one, y'know? But Hajin's core fandom isn't actually that strong. The really rock-solid cores are Taehyun's, Siwoo's, Eunchan's — that lot. Hajin's more like… everyone's second-favorite? You know what I mean?"

Soda nodded at Gwajam's words.

She herself had Doha as her bias and Hajin as her second-pick, didn't she.

"Because Hajin's a mass-appeal pick and gets mentioned everywhere, he gets targeted from everywhere just as hard, you know? He's been getting battered on all sides, and a lot of fans have burned out and dropped off. Even the named accounts are getting slammed with DMs and anon-form messages, they're all under massive stress."

"Wow, I didn't know it went that far."

"It's genuinely no joke. But from the outside Hajin looks super popular, right? Fans whose biases are other members are all mentioning him and swooning over him too, right? So when the Kang-stans try to bring any of this up, now they get called spoiled brats on top of everything else."

Gwajam pressed her forehead like she had a headache.

Not long ago, when Gwajam's fansite account had gotten a spike in followers, she'd been hit with such a torrent of DMs that she'd blocked DMs entirely.

"So lately it's really just…. reality-checking my whole fandom thing. Of course I'm going to grit my teeth and stan K-pop until Kang Hajin hits No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100."

"It's actually kind of a shock, though. I just assumed Hajin was the most popular of any of them."

"Honestly, none of these kids have even debuted yet. Everyone's a new inflow or a crossover from another fandom or a fence-sitter, so the vibe is really…. If we push for votes at all, even though Hajin's obviously going to debut anyway, they start cursing us for being pushy. Isn't that insane? I mean, sure it's an agency-run survival, but still."

As Gwajam's upset face crumpled toward tears, Squishy Bear patted her shoulder and soothed her.

"It's because Hajin's just too good. There's nothing to pick on. That's exactly why he gets targeted this hard."

"But also — I kinda get it? Honestly, most fans who like trainees like them for that green, still-rough quality, and Hajin doesn't have any gap like that, if that makes sense…. Not that that isn't exactly why I like him."

"Hajin's way too polished for a twenty-year-old…. It's the same as why the Chan-stans (Ju Eunchan bias fans) lose their minds over Eunchan. Looking the way he does with the personality he's got."

Eunchan had rock-solid support from teenage fans thanks to a looks-and-personality combo that was pure gap-moe.

Comparing it that way, Soda sort of got what it meant for Hajin to be everyone's second-favorite pick.

"Ugh, whatever. I'll just cheer Hajin on my own end, at least."

"Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile our Doha doesn't get a single mention. Guilty of not being able to dance. Better than getting torn apart, at least."

"Ah, shit, that's sad…. No, but if we lose Doha, who's rapping? Kyungho can't."

"Kyungho can go play patty-cake with his girlfriend."

"But once the third mission airs, Doha's gonna blow up, unnie. I'm telling you. Doha ripped that stage."

"Is the third mission on today?"

"Nah, from the preview it looked like… a sports day? Something along those lines."

"No way — Little Miros who are actual PE-major types? Do those exist?"

While they were still talking, the Miro Maze title sequence rolled on the TV, its signal song playing over it.

The three of them huddled in close, buzzing with anticipation.

And soon enough, Miro Maze episode 5 began.

> ★ Miro Maze Cup ★ One-Heart Sports Day

They hadn't the faintest idea.

…that what was waiting for them was a full-scale meltdown parade of giant delinquent chicks.

Not the faintest.