The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

Chapter 112

I looked at the six watermelons that were dragged out of the cart. Frankly, Do-Seung had never made 20 servings of fruit punch before, so he had made a rough estimate and asked for six watermelons. There were about 20 people remaining at the site, including Only One and us. I thought that everyone at this site would be able to eat till they were stuffed. The sight of watermelons being dragged out of the cart must have been quite a sight, as we got strong reactions from Only One.

“Are you serious?”

“How did you get watermelons in spring?”

“Mr. Tae-Yoon...?”

“Haa...”

Even Kang Hyun-Sung, who rarely reacted much, looked at the watermelon and me with shock. Park Young-Ho’s eyes widened so much that it almost looked like they would pop out of their saucers, and all the other Only One members looked stunned. Then they secretly hid the white chicken on their cutting board.

‘...We won in terms of visuals.’ When I asked for a list of ingredients, I purposely asked for six watermelons.

‘A fruit punch has a weaker impact than cooking chicken during the cooking process.’ We had to be ahead of Only One in the number of retweets in today’s mission. We couldn’t miss a chance to get buzz in any one section. Thus, that was why I had purposely aimed to bring in shock value. Since it was difficult to have a fun cooking process for fruit punch, I thought I should fight with quantity. However, in hindsight, I thought bringing six watermelons on a cart might have been overkill.

Nevertheless, I successfully accomplished my goal to shock viewers. Yeon-Hoon was biting his lips with his head down, and Woon, looking troubled, was staring at the watermelons with his hand covering his mouth. Dong-Jun let out a hollow laugh as if he found this entire situation ridiculous. However, there was one person—Do-Seung—who looked eager and ready to jump in.

“I’m happy that I will be feeding everyone here today a unique dish that my family enjoys.” At Do-Seung’s words, the chat box blew up.

I sneaked forward and checked the chat.

—This is not some bizarre food disguised as home cooking?

Most of the comments were like this. On the other hand, Do-Seung’s fans responded positively.

—Our black cat is so cute awwww

—Do-Seung, were you this type of character?

—aww if Do-Seung gives it to me, I’ll gladly accept even cola fruit punch

Regardless of people’s reactions, I was sure that we were controlling the bigger share of the chat rooms, and people were talking much more about us than about Only One.

Then Do-Seung must have read the comments as he said with a rather serious face, “Cola fruit punch is really good. If I make this at my house, we will eat all six of these in just two days.” He said this with a really sincere expression. “Furthermore, it’s even made with zero cola, so the calorie is significantly lower than a normal fruit punch.”

I wondered how I would be able to stop such a cola fruit punch fanatic. No, I wondered how someone who usually only cared about exercise, music, and disciplining Park Dong-Jun could be so obsessed with cola fruit punch.

I said, “Then, we’ll start cooking now.”

Like this, while Only One made jjimdak, we started making cola fruit punch for 20 people.

* * *

Siren’s fan looked at the screen with a mesmerized expression and eventually rolled on the bed while laughing her socks off. When she first heard that Siren was going to do a V-live broadcast, she hadn’t expected that she would burst out laughing like this. Usually, the charm of these live broadcasts was to see her idols’ faces and listen to their daily conversations about what happened today. She had thought there would be nothing to laugh about except the joy of seeing their faces, but—

“Six huge watermelons...this is crazy, guys.” She laughed so hard that her stomach felt weak.

—Then, we’ll start cooking now.

Bong Tae-Yoon said and started a full-fledged watermelon dismantling show. The five Siren members all put watermelons on the cutting board and held their knives up.

—Guys, be careful because it’s dangerous.

Woo Yeon-Hoon told the members to be careful so they wouldn’t hurt themselves, but—

—Yeon-Hoon, be careful!

—Yeon-Hoon looks so cute in an apron aww

—I can’t believe our sweet peach is cutting a watermelon! No way!

—Our softie is going to cut watermelon aww

Frankly, Woo Yeon-Hoon’s knife-holding form looked the most awkward among all the members.

“Ah, so cute...” The Siren fan unwittingly pressed the capture button on her phone. Woo Yeon-Hoon looked unbearably cute as he awkwardly held his knife while wearing an apron on top of his school uniform. However, a big event broke out right away; it was such a ridiculous sight that she immediately forgot about Yeon-Hoon’s cuteness and shifted her focus to another member.

—We have to put the watermelon in this large rubber basin.

“Pffff!” It was all because Bong Tae-Yoon brought a humongous rubber basin that was usually used to make huge portions of kimchi.

—crazy hahahahahahaha

—wtf Tae-Yoon

—Who makes fruit punch in a rubber basin lol

—I think Yeon-Hoon can even go in there and take a bath.

—ah that will be cute

The viewers’ reaction went crazy once again when Bong Tae-Yoon brought out tools that seemed totally unfitting of fruit punches. As the live broadcast heavily leaned towards Siren, it almost felt like Only One was being neglected. However, even Only One was more interested in the cola fruit punch than their steamed chicken.

—All we have to do now is put the chicken that we washed into a clean pot, add the cola, and boil it down...wait, is that a rubber basin? Oh my gosh...

Kim Ju-Hyun, who was in charge of cooking in Only One, stopped cooking in the middle to look at Siren’s rubber basin. And the strange sight did not end with just the rubber basin.

—Let’s wash the watermelon~

—Don’t hurt your hands!

—Be careful, careful~

Five Siren members stood in a line, holding the watermelons and slicing them out.

—Isn’t this a watermelon-slicing factory?

—Who cuts this much watermelon?

—No way haha these guys haha

Was it because there was so much watermelon? The red flesh of the watermelons was getting too much exposure on the screen.

—It’s not summer yet, right?

—Who the hell makes and eats fruit punch in the spring? Lol

—Look at how the rubber basin is filled with watermelons haha

The watermelon even filled up the rubber basin, which I thought we would never manage to fill up. While everyone couldn’t hold back their laughter at the strange sight—

—Ah, it looks so delicious.

Only one person—Kang Do-Seung—was whetting his appetite to try the cola fruit punch.

—Please stop Do-Seung

—I really had no idea Siren had these types of personalities

—Our idols are sea fairies...but they turned out to be people crazy about fruit punch...

—How much is...their monthly food bills, our precious babies??

When people thought all the funny parts were over and were beginning to get sick of seeing the Siren members making so much fruit punch—

—Let’s now get to the last highlight part.

Bong Tae-Yoon suddenly said this.

—What? There are more shocking parts?

—There’s a highlight?

—Why is there a highlight for making fruit punch, Tae-Yoon...

People were wondering what the hell he was talking about when—

—Colas and mentos make a golden pair.

Bong Tae-Yoon opened the lid of Pepcola, put a huge amount of mentos in it, quickly dropped the cola in the rubber basin, and ran away. Soon enough—

—Swoooooosh!

The cola sored through the air. Since the rubber basin was so big, the cola beautifully poured out from between the watermelons without anything spilling to the ground. The size of the cola fountain was so big and beautiful that everyone present in the scene stood still and looked at it in awe.

—Fuck it really was the highlight hahaha

—I thought he opened up a champagne bottle haha

—Look at Yeon-Hoon crouched down on the ground in surprise aww

—It’s my first time seeing our Hyun-Sung so surprised lol

—hahaha wait hahahaha oppa looks so aloof and cold but acts like a clown hahaha

Like this, the cooking process of the cola fruit punch reached almost its end. While the energy was at its peak from Bong Tae-Yoon’s mentos cola, Do-Seung, the cola fruit punch ambassador, walked out by himself and said in a calm voice.

—Now we just have to add the cocktail fruits and the ice and stir them together.

—Don’t pretend like it’s a normal meal now lol

—I think our idols are crazy

—Wow, our black cat Do-Seung was actually crazy

—I can’t imagine what a cola fruit punch will taste like...

After all that fuss, the cooking of this cola punch was finally finished, and just in time—

—Um, we also finished our cola jjimdak. Haha.

Only One also finished their jjimdak. One of the broadcast staff members captured the two dishes on one screen to show the finished dishes well, but...

—The braised chicken is too small!!

—The difference in portions between the two groups is almost twenty times??

—This is insane

—Siren is insane. Do you like cola fruit punch that much?

The normal-sized steamed chicken of Only One lost its luster in front of the cola fruit punch in the rubber basin. What followed next was tasting time.

—Ah, the chicken has been seasoned really well.

—It’s good!

—I wish I had a bowl of rice.

Only One’s braised chicken was well received by everyone. The next tasting menu was cola fruit punch.

—Will that be good?

—How does it taste??

—Is it good??

People wondered if the cola punch would be delicious, and someone showed an intense reaction to satiate their curiosity.

—No, look at that, wow.

Only One’s Kim Ju-Hyun took a bowl of cola fruit punch and ate it and his whole body shook.

—What, it’s that good??

—Ju-Hyun, you like it that much?

—What hahahahahaha Is that really good?

Kang Do-Seung sat in front of the camera, grabbed a cola fruit punch, and seriously dived into a mukbang* with 100% sincerity. [1]

—In this menu, this cola’s carbonation has a taste that cider can’t ever imitate.

—The flavor of cola permeates between the watermelon pulp...

—The combination of carbonated soda popping in your mouth with water is...

—Make sure to make this at home. I swear, it’s definitely worth it.

The chat window turned upside down once again as he closed his eyes and seriously savored the cola fruit punch.

—hahahahahaha isn’t he seriously crazy hahahaha

—please stop this cola fruit punch madman

—our cool cat was actually a cola fruit punch fanatic

Afterward, there was a scene where the Siren members put the cola fruit punch in a bowl and passed it to all the staff. The camera didn’t capture the staff eating, but the sounds from outside the screen were clearly audible.

—Wow, this is really good...!

—This is amazing?

At these reactions, people began typing away again.

—This isn’t a prank video, right?

—I think I’m trapped in a cola fruit punch universe

—I should try making it once.

After that, there was a one-hour-long broadcast where the Siren and Only One members chatted with the viewers while eating. The setting was different from when cooking, as the production staff brought chairs and held one tablet per team to speed up reading the chat. Both teams continued to safely broadcast live without making any controversial remarks.

—The last person to get up in the morning is—

—It’s Park Dong-Jun without question.

—...Yeah, that’s right.

—I guess there’s no such thing as privacy here.

—Ju-Hyun usually cooks breakfast or Hyun-Sung sometimes gets us sandwiches after his jogs early in the morning.

Each team released TMIs that usually came up on live broadcasts. By the time we talked about all the things that we could talk about, the broadcast was over.

—See you next time~

—Bye~

—It was fun!

“Wow, that was really fun.” It was only then that Siren’s fans took their eyes off the screen and looked at the ceiling. Because she had been so focused on the screen, her eyes were blurry. She habitually entered Bluebird and checked how much today’s v-live was talked about today. She hoped that Siren’s fans would increase through this V-live today.

—Real-time ranking

—1. Kang Do-Seung cola fruit punch. 12, 646 tweets

—2. Siren Fruit Punch 10,426 tweets

—3. Kang Hyun-Sung in uniform 9,879 tweets

Bluebird’s real-time ranking was filled with topics about today’s live broadcast.

* * *

The live broadcast was over. I did everything to grab people’s attention like putting mentos in colas and bringing the rubber basin. Thanks to those efforts, we took all the share of the chat window throughout the cooking process; we ate up the V-live to the point where I felt a bit sorry for Only One. Of course, when we were reading the chat in the second half, we lost our monopolization of views to Only One, but it was not a situation where we were pushed back either. Perhaps thanks to all of my efforts—

[Mission success.]

[Reward will be given.]

[Control over Insight has increased.]

With the mission’s success, my control of Insight has been strengthened.

[Please beware as there may be temporary pain.]

As before, the pain began.

1. Eating show ?