Chapter 148

99%.

Lee Doha's fans had a nickname.

'Living Buddhas.'

Whether their temperaments had come to mirror their ult's too, they simply never got angry over anything. They didn't pick fights with other fandoms, and even when other fandoms came at them, they stayed unbothered from start to finish.

How they'd come to be that way was itself the result of several overlapping factors. To lay it out as simply as possible, it went like this.

—first off, skill's in a different tier so debut's guaranteed (they're not going to skip debuting a self-producing main rapper, right? ㅋ)

—even if he doesn't debut here, a solo rap career's still on the table (there was even a large contingent of fans chanting just let him get cut like a mantra)

—given Lee Doha's personality, he's not really chummy with other trainees (zero close-ally fandoms to team up with and shield each other — none whatsoever)

—the fans themselves know Lee Doha can't dance (better to shut up and grind it out to the end of the survival than push his profile only to get slammed as a tin man)

For all these reasons, they'd become masters at laughing off most situations. Any time they could've spent throwing one more comment into an online fight, they used on paid votes instead. Proof of their quiet strength had shown itself clear as day at the first cut ceremony.

Despite trailing every other trainee by a huge margin in mention volume, hadn't Lee Doha still landed at 6th? Given that voting up through the first cut had been 7-picks and then 2-picks, and that Lee Doha hadn't gotten any benefits outside of round 3, it was, honestly, a jaw-dropping result.

As long as he did nothing, debut was half-guaranteed.

Which meant Lee Doha's fans going out of their way to raise their voices at this point wasn't just extraordinary — it was the sign of a fandom pushed past what it could stand.

title: [Calling out the disrespectful audience conduct at the Miro Maze guerrilla concert]

The eve of the second cut ceremony — the one deciding who advanced to the finals.

Lee Doha's fans went public with what had happened at the guerrilla concert.

The so-called 'named' fans stepped up to lead the charge, and posts uploaded to multiple communities at the same day and hour spread rapidly. Some argued that with it all already over, what was the point of making it public now — but Lee Doha's fans, uncharacteristically, went on the offensive, demanding a stance on the matter from every other trainee's fandom.

There was exactly one reason they were this fired up.

handle: @roxeeey name: Bak Jangmi ???? whatever else it was, they shouldn't have touched the stage

The reason: 'the stage' — the pride of Lee Doha's fans, and arguably the foundation of their entire fan-love — had been broken.

title: [you have no idea how much doha-stans were looking forward to this stage] from the moment the team spoilers dropped everyone was going absolutely wild saying it was 100% gonna be a rap stage miro maze doesn't have concept evaluations or anything separate so i wasn't even expecting we could see a proper rap-only rapper unit stage... but right before the final they happened to have the rap-position trainees all on one team so every doha stan around me was seriously buzzing ㅠㅠ but before it even started people weren't even paying attention to the team missions and were shouting fail for the fun of it, then hurling harsh stuff at the kids in the individual mentions... seriously... i think the doha stans had every right to call this out. - agree... but just because they weren't the trainee they were cheering for, trash-talking them and throwing fits over the team-mission fails... i was there in person and honestly it made me lose faith in humanity. - honestly the doha stans not blowing up until now is straight-up saintly, i'm not even a doha stan and every time doha-mocking posts got too intense i worried too title: [i'm not on team raebingyu but this also gave me a gasp moment] the person who yelled at kim wonho to step down apparently that phrase is used in other communities alongside a slur to mock kim wonho - really, these guys aren't even debuted yet and already have crazies attached, so damn exhausting; > probably being this way exactly because it IS pre-debut ㅠ - looks like wonho slipped up on stage because of this too, and now over there they're bashing him for having slipped up ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - if this is legit shouldn't this get called out too??? > kim wonho isn't popular so no one cares > reporting the above comment ㅇㅇ. and the callout does include wonho too so maybe get informed before you speak^^

As time passed, things kept growing.

Excluding Shin Kyungho — whose dating rumors had spread so far that his domestic fandom was pretty much wrecked — and Jayden, who'd been based on international fandom from the start, Kim Wonho's fandom joined the 'Raebingyu incident' being led by Lee Doha's fandom with Lee Yugeon's in support.

The more Team Raebingyu's stage views climbed, the louder the voices about the guerrilla concert situation grew. It was reaching a point where the people arguing over the issue seemed more likely to be non-Destis than actual ones.

Truly, a full-blown dogfight five minutes out.

"…what?"

And there, at the center of that k-pop chaos, was our protagonist — Kang Hajin.

As he slowly worked his way through the situation on his monitoring rounds, he ran into an unexpected post.

"…why is the reaction to me good?"

Hajin blinked dumbly at a situation that wasn't making any sense.

---

Now — if we roll the clock back a little here.

Before Team Raebingyu's endless-controversy-supply incident broke, Hajin's remarks had been sending out quiet ripples along a slow, gentle buildup.

title: [[MP] getting anti-vibes toward my own ult lately] already such a crucial moment and here he is straight-up lecturing fans on an official platform...ㅎ - what situation was this - this post keeps getting uploaded since yesterday, is this a buildup campaign? - ㅎ prob the same account posting over and over title: [but what was that last remark from kang hajin though?] why did he suddenly launch into his fans about being proud of him or whatever?? watched the video and he said it deadass serious, did something happen? - idk nobody poked him and he just went off on his own - he's always been a swagger-obsessed one anyway - that punk is so unpopular he chin-strapped into 9th place and somehow still always has this much to say > for real ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ the guy who'd have been cut ages ago if not for the fans who voted him in is out here caning his own fans ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ oh look who fancies himself a schoolmaster now - but he was all public-pick anyway and has zero core, probably won't debut ㅋ after pulling that whole scene, if he doesn't debut over that one line of his, that'd actually be pretty funny ㅎ handle: @kimmakhiii name: Kim Makhwi trainee out here trying to face off with his own fans pre-debut ㄷㄷ [video] [photo] [photo] [photo] engagement: shares 281 · quotes 437

The related search term '#KangHajinAnti' was quietly settling into place.

But its ripples weren't especially large.

Because Hajin's remarks had been riding an ambiguous line.

title: [eh, just came from watching the kang hajin video, wait what?] he just asked them to become proud fans, what... why... what's the problem here? - so does that mean you're feeling called out about something perhaps - they seem to be saying he's doing a face-off with fans, but honestly i don't get it either, guess they've never seen kids who actually turned anti - why is their fandom always this loud every time... i'm getting exhausted just watching > seems like a lot of the ones writing these posts right now are trolls, actually where the named kang hajin fans hang out there's basically no reaction handle: @strongjin name: Kang-Captain what i think is that, in order to become a proud kang-stan, i'll vote for hajin once a day, play only miro-maze songs at the cafe i work at, diligently keep up with all my assignments, so that when hajin debuts and i go to a fansign i can tell the story of how i got hired — i think i need to become a splendid working adult. engagement: quotes 45

Among the 45 quote-tweets that came in on that post, one had asked her directly:

'Captain-nim ㅠㅜ — what do you think of the controversy this time around over hajin's remarks? honestly i think it was rash of him... i really don't understand what hajin was thinking saying that. why go there at all? the fans whose morale was already low to begin with...'

As the named fans skillfully worked the mood and the general public wouldn't chime in, the controversy posts about Hajin's remarks got pushed further and further down the scroll.

But that didn't mean everything was fine. Less the remarks themselves, more the fandom's mood.

Hajin's fandom had been battered down until it wasn't just shattered but scattered to pieces, then revived from the brink by his tearful round-3 remarks — and had only just managed to regroup. And even so, when Hajin still only made it to a low 9th — this was a moment where the fandom, hair down, was throwing itself into voting and promotion, worrying about Hajin's debut more than Hajin himself was.

A delicate remark from their ult, landing at a moment like that, was more than enough to rub some people the wrong way.

The tightly-bound cohesion was starting, bit by bit, to crack.

title: [wouldn't blame kang-stans for wanting to quit tbh] if you haven't stanned in this fandom you wouldn't get it... these are kids who've held on through everyone grabbing hair and cussing and losing it all over the place, holding on with pure fan-love, and if the ult himself says something like that, of course reality checks in speaking as someone who burned out over that kind of thing and quit myself, kang hajin really did misspeak there, right now he's in a situation where bowing to his own fans wouldn't be enough - post a vote receipt first then write, little kid - so what reality check ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ did he tell you to stop living that way or what, honestly the longer i read this the more absurd it gets - i'm a kang-stan too and i'm honestly disillusioned, if you're going to quit then quit, we don't need glass-mental fans who mouth-stan hajin while not even voting - hey, i'm not even trying to keep anyone from quitting, why are you making everyone quit by proxy

A fandom split forming right before the second cut ceremony was a potentially fatal situation.

Right when they needed one shot to bind them back together, the 'Raebingyu incident' happened to break out.

As people's attention and eyes slid quietly over to Team Raebingyu, Hajin's fandom — having finally found a moment to catch their breath — didn't waste the chance and worked hard to police each other and bond tightly back together.

Though similar in feel, '#KangHajinAnti' and '#RaebingyuCallout' were still being seen as separate incidents up to this point.

Until one exposé post went up.

handle: @ravvingyouogon name: Raebingyu Callout @knggirir @xioxio @wltanftod @xree_jin @llioppop #Callout at the miro maze guerrilla concert this is the group that shouted at kim wonho to step down incited team raebingyu mission-fails and threw fits saying 'your stage is boring' [video] [video] engagement: shares 619 · quotes 6,888

Someone had denounced the 'perpetrators.'

The anger of the wronged trainees' fandoms — which had had nowhere to go until now — converged in one place.

Once videos surfaced of the ones hiding behind the label 'audience' who'd been trashing the trainees and giggling about it, people started to blow up.

But the exposé wasn't ending there.

handle: @ravvingyouogon name: Raebingyu Callout #Callout posting more tips we received using seo taehyun's pfp as a shield, they've been going around picking fights with doha-stans and yugeon-stans through quote-tweets and DMs at the venue they were holding kang hajin slogans, so actually presumed to be kang-stans themselves [photo] [photo] engagement: shares 2,320 · quotes 4,725

The face of a fandom no one could call 'worth being proud of' had, in the end, been laid bare.