Chapter 22

"Haa, haa."

I took a ragged breath and looked at the audience, who were waving frantically.

I was supposed to pretend to be out of breath.

I was far more fit than the other contestants, so faking it was a must if I didn't want to get any weird looks.

But now that I've finished, I don't need to do that.

"Waaaaaah—!"

I'd put all my energy into creating that enthusiastic cheer.

I was confident, but it was only a prediction.

No matter how well I practiced by myself, there are many variables in the real world.

Suddenly, my steps get twisted and my tempo gets weird.

Or you can't hold a high note for six seconds because you didn't manage your breathing.

But I've done it.

I didn't make any mistakes, and I showed off the skills I'd been practicing.

'...I'm satisfied.'

I didn't take my eyes off the audience.

To relive this exhilarating moment.

To see them go crazy over the stage I'd created.

Even when I voluntarily walked into Hell and spent 50 years inside of it.

I used to only think about the cheers I'd hear at my debut, even if it was only for just a moment.

I could hear the labored breathing on either side of me.

Chae-haru, who had been a commanding presence in the center, was wiping the sweat off from under his hairband.

Yoo Ha-woon, who had recovered some of his lowest confidence, was charming the national managers with his mischievous smile.

"Thank you!"

"Thank you so much!"

When the signal was given that we were allowed to leave the stage, we bowed to the audience like folder phones.

Every single one of them beamed with pride.

Even Park Chang-joong looked atleast a little relieved.

As the 'Crash' group gathered backstage, I smiled and spoke.

"You guys worked really hard."

"Yeah…!"

"Si-hwan!"

The C-grade participant who always called me "Brother" was in tears.

As for Yoo Ha-woon, who'd buried his face in my chest... needless to say, he was already in the middle of doing a storm.

"I hope we can do the next team competition together, everyone was so grateful."

"Haru, what's wrong with you too!"

I stomped backstage, leaving my teammates to hug each other and cry.

Because I needed to check on something.

"It's the last battle round of the day, and I'd like to introduce the two groups that will be competing against each other on the song 'Evolution'. First up, Group 10!"

Led by Sung-hwi, the members of Group 10 stepped onto the stage one by one.

They were all tall, so visually, they passed with flying colors.

Among them, 185-centimeter Ma Si-hyuk, standing on the far right, had an overwhelming presence.

I frowned slightly when I saw his starting position.

"You're putting him in the corner from the start? Then who's going to play center?

Even if Ma Si-hyuk's vocals are lacking, his dancing ability is definitely an A-grade.

The same goes for his physicality and the way he styled his face for 'Evolution'.

It's clear that there is no better center than Ma Si-hyuk.

'No way, Sung-hwi, you bastard.'

I had an ominous feeling.

The contrasting personalities of Sung-hwi and Ma Si-hyuk soon flashed through my mind.

And so, the stage for the 10th group began.

"..."

I continued the same expression from beginning to end.

How could I have expected the stage to play out the way it did?

The performance itself was flawless. They didn't make a single mistake, and their movements were perfect, and the audience responded well.

However, when I looked at the bigger picture, there were a few uncomfortable corners.

'The main vocalist and the center are all on Sung-hwi. Even the parts themselves are also more vocal than all the others.'

Okay, let's say that's the case up to this point.

Of course, Sung-hwi is an A-grade, and he's ranked second in the preliminary rankings.

But that doesn't mean he had as many parts as Ma Si-hyuk, who is also in the same top tier.

Again, no.

I bit onto my lip as I stared at Ma Si-hyuk on the edge of his mind for the final ending pose.

'He's given me the parts that are way below of his capabilities, even though they're noticeably less or not at all.'

It's a feeling of discomfort that can only be felt by those who know how to read inner thoughts.

For me, who understood both Sung-hwi's cunning hand-to-hand combat and Ma Si-hyuk's timid personality, it was as clear as morning day.

'They're going to start blocking in the very first round.'

Sung-hwi probably planned his game plan based on this goal.

As the only group with two A-grade contestants among the 16 groups, he has half the battle won.

Therefore, he wanted to create a stage for 'himself' to shine as much as possible and get more of the votes.

He cleverly uses up the minutes of his potential rival, Ma Si-hyuk.

Considering this is a personal survival program, it would make sense.

It's just that for those of us who know of his character, it's just cringe-worthy.

I don't know what's happened in the past week, but there's also a risk of aggressive editing on him if he's taking his stake out like that.

And yet, Sung-hwi did it anyway.

'What an asshole narcissist.'

I shook my head once to calm my thoughts.

For some reason, the image of Ma Si-hyuk's unassuming face from the beginning flashed before my eyes.

'...Did I unintentionally end up caring that much for that timid guy.'

***

"This concludes the first round of the group battle competition. I'd like to thank all of the nation managers for joining us, thank you!"

MC Ko Hyun-joo bowed his head, and the audience that filled the studio applauded enthusiastically.

"Oh, and as you all know, you've checked the confidentiality box, so I'd like to ask you to please refrain from divulging any information about the rounds you saw today."

"Yes~"

Just like any other audition program, 'Asri 2' also insisted on maintaining secrecy from those who'd enjoyed the stage.

It was also a program with a competition prediction system, so they seemed to be even more careful in that regard.

Of course, it's impossible to prevent spoilers 100%, but I found an article from season 1 that said that they turn on the lights and track IPs.

So the voting results of these battle rounds are also not opened in front of the audience, but after everything is finalized, the contestants would get back together and re-shoot.

I clicked my tongue as I watched the trainees walk back into the empty set.

'Let's give them a chance to breathe, before they all collapse from nervousness and hyperventilation.'

As it's often the case with people their age, the 'Asri 2' contestants facial expressions had said it all.

By the end of the show, the divide was even starker between those who realized they'd lost and those who were confident on their victory.

Perhaps even more so during the first ranking ceremony.

The tension in the room seemed to intensify when MC Ko Hyun-joo appeared.

"To the contestants of 'Idol Stardig Season 2', thank you for all of your hard work in the first round."

Still, they had to react, so all 100 trainees gave a hearty round of encouraging applauses.

"Today, we're here to announce the results of the group battle competition, which you'd battled it out over eight songs. But there's still one thing you should know."

Why make them anxious, when there couldn't possibly be anything that could end up making them bleed to death.

"Didn't I tell you earlier that there's a benifit to being inside the winning group, not just the group winner?"

"What—!"

"The individual benefit results will be tallied together at the first ranking ceremony, not today. If you're curious, you'll have to be patient."

Seriously, KNet's out-of-scale plot twists are beyond imaginable.

It's not just a device to avoid releasing the big numbers early.

The first ranking ceremony is essentially the very day that separates those who are to be eliminated from those who would survive based on the number of votes they've received.

Holding off on personal benefit results until this announcement, where every vote counts, can lead to rapid ranking changes on the spot.

The winning group benefits will naturally be rewarded with at least 3,000 votes.

This means that the number of benefit votes you receive can be the difference between life and death.

In order to create such a stimulating and dramatic situation, KNet is constantly gnawing at the minds of the trainees.

"You're saying that you could be rejected depending on whether you get a benefit or not...."

Yoo Ha-woon, who was next to me, shook his head and had said that while trembling.

I barely managed to revive his confidence as we prepared for the 'Volt' stage.

I stroked his fluffy, poodle-like head once.

"It's okay, we'll win and take the benefits."

"That would be so nice!"

Eight songs and 16 group names were generated on the LED screen behind MC Ko Hyun-joo.

"Then we'll start with the first battle song, 'Fury', and we'll reveal the final vote count."

With 200 total votes, there are more than 10 contestants in the mix.

"Yay, yay, we win, guys, we win!"

"Ah..."

Some groups were really close, while others had to taste the bitter taste of defeat by only having three to four votes.

Realizing that this was their future, the trainees became increasingly deflated.

Those who were confident of victory stared at the screen in anticipation.

"Bro."

"Why, it's Haru."

With his chin resting on Yoo Ha Woon's crown, Haru spoke weakly, his eyes deadpan.

"I'm so nervous I'm going to go crazy."

"You're pretty calm for someone who is about to go crazy from nerves."

"I may look like this, but my insides are in reality actually flipping out right now."

This from the normally cool guy.

I had a vague idea on where Chae-haru was coming from.

"It's a lot of pressure just to be in the center, isn't it?"

"...Yes."

"That's because you're supposed to be the center of gravity for the team, and if you don't feel the pressure, you're not human."

I continued in a low voice, looking at the results as they were revealed one by one.

"But if you can push through with the pressure and prove that you truly really are worthy of that position,"

The words 'Volt' finally appeared on the LED screen.

I could hear my teammates holding their breath in unison as Teams 4 and 9 appeared.

"What if we could prove...?"

"Then that pressure will be replaced with confidence."

Ko smiled slightly as he looked at the cue cards with the results.

"Final vote count for the 'Volt' battle, show me."

A few seconds passed.

On the screen, the words "Group 9 WIN!" appeared in large font.

The vote count was... 179:21.

"This is an amazing result, Team 9 has set the record for the most votes in this battle round with 179 out of 200 votes, congratulations!"

Everyone froze at the overwhelming result.

I, too, was momentarily speechless.

I knew we were going to win, but I hadn't expected it to be such a large margin.

Yoo Ha-woon's eyes grew as big as the full moon, and he became like a ghost.

Chae-haru had covered his mouth and stared blankly at the screen.

"...Congratulations, man!"

It was none other than Kang Sun-woo who broke the silence.

Even though he was defeated, I had a momentary feeling of pride as he patted me on the shoulder with a wide smile on his face.

'I guess it wasn't all about the image-making when you bonded with me from the very beginning.'

I responded with a weak smile.

"Thanks."

"If you're so grateful, you'll have to join me at the next team game! You promised me then."

"There's nothing I can do if fate separates us."

"Because fate is supposed to be against you!"

The tension in our tiki-taka slowly dissipated.

"Yes, guys, that was alot of hard work!"

"Thank you so much, I feel so good!"

"...Well done, everyone."

Group 9 hugged each other in a frenzy.

One of the C-grade participants was even shedding tears of joy.

Park Chang-joong, who'd been doing things for his own greed, smiled in a way that suggested he was slightly relieved.

"It's okay, everyone did well, we did our best, there's no regrets, okay, okay!"

The defeated Team 4 nodded and swallowed their own regrets under the encouragement of Kang Sun-woo, who was showing his great leadership.

Following our battle song, the results of the final 'Evolution' were announced one after another.

With no upsets, the 10th team, consisting of Sung-hwi and Ma Si-hyuk, won with a vote of 142:58.

"Thanks for the hard work, we definitely did a good job~"

"Sung, good job."

I glanced over at Ma Si-hyuk's face, which still looked somber.

I'll just have to find out what the hell happened through the main room.

"Oh, there's one last thing to announce before you go back to your quarters."

MC Ko Hyun-joo glanced at his wristwatch.

"What day is it?"

"It's Thursday!"

"Tomorrow is Friday, which means the first episode of the highly anticipated 'Season 2 Idol Stardig' will be airing. As was the case last season, the first episode is only as good if 100 contestants are watching it together."

At long last.

I was going to watch the first episode alone in the comfort of my apartment.

My arms were sealed in strong grips as I was afraid to let go of Ko Hyun-joo's words.

"Hyung, don't you think it's going to be fun? I'm so excited for episode 1!"

"I don't think I'll be able to do all the reactions, but it'll be fun to watch together, so I'll make a note to sit next to you."

I looked at Yoo Ha-woon and Chae-haru's faces and sighed, a sigh that had become a habit of mine by the looks of it.

'Rest in peace to my eardrums in advance.'