Chapter 84

At last, the moment of Miro Maze's first broadcast was drawing near.

The show had held on to plenty of buzz even before airing, and now with the first broadcast closing in, the internet was pumping up anticipation every way it knew how.

- [Miro Maze Ep. 1 real-time thread (157)] - [where can i even watch that miro survivalㅠ (2)] - [ah stop with the spam and just go to the real-time thread pls (14)] - [here comes my dopamine (3)]

"Whoa, it's already a madhouse."

Bluebird handle Windy.

Dan Haru ult, Kang Hajin second-fav — but on the community boards she was better known by a different name.

Aka the one and only 'Cat Person.'

"That's right, everyone. Please, all of you, look at our Haru and Hajin. Because they're fucking amazing."

Windy — she was the one who'd posted the sighting-story about Taehyun and Hajin from the cat-finding day and, in the process, blown up Miro Maze's buzz to twice what it had been.

Today she was planning to watch the historic first broadcast with her friend (the cat's owner), who had in the end gone and become a Cheppie.

But her friend said her baby (the cat) wasn't feeling well today and she needed to stay by her side, so Windy ended up watching the broadcast alone.

'But I'm not lonely.'

Keep a running thread open, keep her Bluebird timeline up on the side, and she could have a live-viewing more fun and full than anyone else's!

- so who do y'all think the teaser ending guy is?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ > Kang Hajin > kang hajin i thoughtㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ > yeah him someone screencapped it and put it up on blue - no seriously what did they do to justify an escape-the-maze themeㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ > riiiight?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋwhy is nobody questioning this - also curious what criteria they used to split the teams... ha... isn't it 9 pm yet? - my clock at home is so oblivious would it kill it to just pretend to be 9;

Late-night snack recommendations, personal one-pick promotion, the works.

Watching the range of comments roll in one after another, she noticed it was already 9 pm.

- it's starting it's starting - the great truth of the maze finally revealed - any kind soul who'll ping me if the endup boys show up... > ㅇㅋㅇㅋ - wow shin yeram in that ad is insane pretty is that real - the adㄷㄷㄷㄷ...shin yeram what - oh they got expensive ads on this ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

The tedious ad break passed, and the Miro Maze title dropped. Once the age-rating notice cleared, what came onto the screen was a lavish but completely empty stage.

—Umm…. Back when we first debuted.

A low, cavernous voice laid over the shot as the scene shifted. As expected, the faces they were seeing during the first broadcast were all ones fans already knew well.

- omg yoon jinu - it's yoon jinu - jinu-jinu got even more tanned...seems like he had a killer vacation... > he was on an africa volunteer trip and apparently just kept slathering on body lotion thinking it was sunscreen the whole time i cant even

—Me? I just went in trusting the members, back then.

Yoon Jinu started off, chuckling sheepishly, and from there the interviews with the Upia and Enderway members cut past quickly, one after another.

—There's this basement practice room, right? Between us we called it the swamp. Too damp, and once you went in you couldn't get out.

—Just being able to put out another album, that was just so amazing to me, I think. Being able to show our music one more time.

—When we get hoobaes, I'm going to be so good to them. Really, really good.

Upia's and Enderway's stirring rise-through-hardship stories, cut together with the two groups' fansong BGMs, breezed past.

Once the emotional moment had built up enough, the production side lobbed a question in.

Then Enderway's center, Choi Yeonwoo, smiled — a smile with unmistakably shady-mastermind energy — and looked into the camera.

'Yeah, he's definitely got that look going. Arrogant-crown-prince energy.'

And the arrogant crown prince decreed—

—Um. Hoobaes.

—I don't know which of you will end up making the final debut.

—But brace yourselves.

—Surviving as a boy idol at Miro. It really isn't easy.

Really isn't easy, really isn't easy, really isn't easy….

The final line — slowed down with an echo layered on top — ended, and the screen that had been so earnest and moving a moment ago flipped clean over.

Dun, dun, duuuuuuun—

To pointlessly grandiose BGM, the camera pushed in on one trainee's utterly floored expression.

- omg it's seo taehyunㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - seo taehyunㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - why is taehyun's face like thatㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - ah no wayㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Seo Taehyun — whose disillusioned expression would in short order be screencapped and used by Cheppies as an 'anti-troll gif' — spoke in a tone of pure disbelief.

—What is this…?

A long, sustained zoom-out revealed an aerial view.

The wildly extravagant maze set that had been teased came into full view in one shot.

BOOM! With the punch of a sound effect, needlessly prettily-designed subtitles slammed onto the screen.

〈And so, we have prepared〉

〈The first gate to surviving as a boy idol at Miro〉

〈Escape the Maze!〉

- is this maze THAT maze i'm askingㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - the producers have LOST itㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - miro...maze...miro...miromiro....miro-gestalt-collapse incoming - and they built the maze so damn hugeㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - we said DEBUT them at miro not have them ESCAPE itㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Comments exploded as the screen cut over.

Bright weather and an insert shot of Miro's new company building came up, with 〈March 1, 20XX / 14:00 / Miro ENT〉 typing itself onto the screen like a typewriter.

—They're coming, they're coming.

—Trainees incoming. Hide! Hide!

The camera watching the entrance shook, urgent. Soon multiple angles came in, laid out like CCTV, and the trainees entered through those angles. Simple CG profile intros popped in beside each of them.

'Ack. It's Hajin.'

Spotting her second-fav on the screen, Windy held her breath.

'Oh thank god. So he's not, like, completely un-photogenic after all.'

Windy — who, having seen Hajin in person, had gotten hit even harder by the shock of his concept photos — was relieved that on screen Hajin looked pretty close to real life.

- ㅁㅊ the kids really seem like they had no idea they were being filmedㅋㅋㅋㅋ > pfft it's all staged obviouslyㅋㅋㅋbelieving this > no mic no wire so it kinda seems like they really did just film raw? > these days they hide the mics under the clothes fyiㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - god sculpture-oppa dresses SO on-brand in civvies knit + coat this is too much

On the screen, the trainees who'd been told to come to the fifth floor got off the elevator and were shown getting confused.

Surrounded by walls on all sides, and then a monitor abruptly instructing them to just open a door and walk through — the startled trainees' reactions were incredible.

Fitting for an in-house agency survival, the production side put the focus less on juicy-drama villain edits and more on stamping each trainee's character and appeal into viewers' minds.

〈Types of Miro trainees encountering the network bastards' pushy missions for the first time〉

〈Type 1. Sweat-Drenched Rookie Chicks〉

—Which… which way…. ㅠㅠ

—Hello, um, hello? Is nobody here?

—Umm. Umm ㅠㅜㅜㅜ

〈Type 2. I Came, I Saw, I Charged! — Chargers〉

—Hyung, could this maybe be it?

—Ah, yeah, I think this is it! This is it!

—NO! (Frantic!!) That's just a set!! That's not it!!!! Come down!!!!!!

Every trainee's response, deliberately packed with cute sound effects and CG, was quite the hit.

- they said open a door why is everyone trying to open the monitorsㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - haaa seo taehyun stopping the dongsaengs trying to rip pieces off the set walls is too funny ㅜㅠ - but no seriously where do you even get outㅋㅋㅋ? there's no door - the kids are so cute after watching upia and endup these guys really do look like baby chicks

But where the reactions truly detonated was the next scene.

〈Type 3.〉

—They're going to start with us not even wearing mics…?

—No script reading, no pre-mission meeting? Not even de-branded? They're just starting?

〈Suspiciously well-versed in what those network bastards get up to...! (Who ARE you?)〉

The image of Kang Hajin — staring at the monitor with an expression that went past stunned into something hollow — was made even starker by Lee Doha standing next to him, reading the text off in a flat monotone.

- ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ ah plzzzzㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ - come out you guys who said this was all scripted... - no seriously he looks so wronged and stunned i started crying too ㅠ producers whyd you do that - lee doha's reaction is also so funny ah kang hajin fires off like a machine gun and doha just blinks and watches him lol - dohajin combo works ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

"Huh, this oppa's kind of an oddball personality-wise?"

Slightly different from the vibe when she'd met him that day, but this side had its own charm. If anything, the unexpected lines and speech pattern made him feel more approachable.

Watching the broadcast on TV and capping Haru's clip — the moment he and Eunchan had tried to rip a wall off the set — on her phone, Windy thought:

"But no, seriously — WHERE'S the door?"

As if reading viewers' minds, on screen Hajin and Doha's eyes turned to something.

—…could it be?

Cuts of the other trainees noticing the elevator's existence were also intercut. Then came short scenes of the trainees getting back on the elevator and puzzling out where to go next.

Once again, the last angle shown was Doha and Hajin's.

And then, finally, the line everyone had been curious about arrived.

—Wait, we don't even know what floor we're supposed to go to.

—Should we head back down to the first floor?

Doha asked Hajin's opinion, and the screen once more meaningfully cut to the monitor's instructions and Hajin thinking it over.

—No, we've got to go up.

—They're telling us to reach the sun.

- ah please that IS kang hajin - what dohajin why is the vibe suddenly noir - ㅁㅊㅁㅊㅁㅊ someone please cap kang hajin's smile just now plz - oppa why suddenly the roguish superhero-movie smile did you just seduce me right now?! - so ending guy = kang hajin confirmed????? > nono not yet > lol no that was just a separate image cut they filmed to make the teaser guys ㅋㅋㅋ > ???: no script reading and no pre-meeting though?????? > that was earlier the teaser ending is an image cut for sure;; > it might actually be real why is everyone pushing the script/image-cut narrative...just watch and we'll find out > ㅋㅋㅋㅋit's all rigged and the kang stans keep pushing every scene as their kid claiming it's Kang Hajin and gushing that's why it's annoying > yeah that's it just reading this one's phrasing you can tell where they're from just report them y'all they're trolling > how is that trollingㅋㅋㅋㅋ the kang stans got tangled up with Seo Taehyun a couple times and now they're acting like they're a top-tier corpㅋㅋㅋ anything that happens is Kang Hajin? are there no other trainees at miro besides Kang Hajin??? and if you're gonna give someone the spotlight you'd give it to Seo Taehyun, not Kang Hajin ㅋㅋㅋ > this bastard was one of the ones who ran the cheppie-kang-alliance-sabotage thing pretending to be a Seo Taehyun fan... your typing style gives you away go back to your usual haunts please;;; the wording level really - anyway is the production seriously pushing Kang Hajin? look at the airtime > lines that killer, even i'd give him the airtime - btw the producers played this really smart it feels like room escape ㅋㅋㅋ i never would've thought of the elevator

'Ah, the trolls have already piled in.'

Since so much of the pre-broadcast content had been Hajin-adjacent, other trainees' toxic solo stans and a handful of haters who disliked Hajin would troll like this from time to time.

Their latest routine was to knock Hajin down by insisting that everything he'd said or done in the teasers or pre-releases that had caught any traction was either scripted or a pre-set line.

'Honestly, even I think the teaser ending was just a separate cut the producers filmed on the side….'

The truth was, Windy didn't care whether the teaser ending was an image cut, or whether it was some other trainee instead of Hajin. She just wanted to smack the wind out of the trolls acting like they had it all figured out.

'But who in their right mind would jump the Miro set wall in the middle of the broadcast, come on.'

Half believing, half doubting, Windy kept watching for the moment.

If a scene of someone jumping the Miro wall didn't come up tonight….

'My head's spinning already, seriously.'

A small worry took root in her chest — that she was in for a solid stretch of getting mocked by trolls and other-trainee toxic solo stans.