Chapter 43 |
“Seungbeom-ahhh! You should try a refreshing concept while you’re still young, even if it’s just one year younger!”1
“Refreshing concept, what’s that … Captain! Do the cute concept one more time! That’s the one you really have to do while you’re still a year younger!”
“No, let Seungbeom do what he likes! While your knees are still healthy, do a lot of challenging stuff!”
“Don’t lift your heels in front! I can’t see him!”
After finishing the final greeting, I heard the sound of fans arguing as I was going down the stairs. I couldn’t react to that, so I just nodded my head and went down from the stage.
‘Oh my goodness….’
If it were the trainees or celebrities fighting, it would have been fine, but fans fighting made me break out in a cold sweat.
“Hoo…..”
When I finally moved away from the sound of the fans arguing and out of the full reach of the stage lights, the members rushed over to me.
“Wow! It’s over!”
“Thank you for your hard work!”
“…It’s not over yet. We have to see the results.”
I struggled to escape from the sweaty members’ embrace and changed the topic. It was to shift their attention away from me.
“Oh, that’s right.”
“I’m looking forward to the result!”
Those guys, whose thought process had shifted according to my plan, started making a fuss, hitting their palms with their fists.
“Now that the voting method has changed, it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose anymore, right?”
“That’s right. We don’t have an opposing team in the first place. From now on, it’s all about the rankings.”
As the members said, it was the ranking that mattered. The first mission was held by dividing the same song into Group A and Group B to compete, with the winning side receiving additional benefits. As a result, there was a winning team for each song.
However, the second mission was conducted without considering wins or losses, with the top 3 teams receiving benefits, so all we had to do was focus on the rankings.
“I feel like I’m dying from the pressure now. Ugh, I don’t need the benefits, but I really hope we get first place. If Seungbeom’s votes are cut in half, I won’t be able to sleep at night because of the guilt.”
“Seungbeom is calm, but only we are this nervous. I’m also super nervous.”
“Even if we don’t achieve the target rank, I won’t be eliminated, so don’t worry. Even if that happens, I won’t have any regrets. So you guys should just worry about the benefits.”
I cut off the members’ whines like a knife. It was pointless to worry. I hated wasting time on something that wasn’t productive.
From the beginning, Lee Hwayoung and I had several times more votes than the other trainees, so even if my votes were cut in half, there was no risk of elimination. My undefeated streak might get a scratch, though.
‘There’s no way my team wasn’t first in the first place.’
Also, just by looking at the reactions on-site, it was already a given that our team would be in first place. There was no need to worry at all.
“What should I do with you? How can you still be worried about us even in this situation?”
“…We’ll do better, Seungbeom-ah.”
“Leada, don’t overdo it.”
Amidst the growing worries that followed one after another, the members once again hugged me tightly and spoke to me in a serious voice.
‘What?’
I stood there with a sullen expression and then pushed them away.
“…You smell sweaty.”
***
“Wasn’t it said that the rankings currently displayed on the waiting room screen doesn’t yet show our vote results?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Maybe our results will be reflected after the next performance.”
The members chatted as they reviewed what they had been told about the results announcement, and we were led to the waiting room by the production team.
“They said they would reveal the team vote rankings after everything is over, and I think they mentioned they would keep updating the individual vote rankings.”
“What if Nicholas ends up sweeping all the votes again?”
“Back then, the other members lacked recognition, which is why such an extreme result occurred, but this time it will be different.”
“You saw how people reacted to Nicholas. Maybe the same thing will happen again.”
“Whether it’s Nicholas or anyone else, I don’t care! Our Seungbeom is going to get the first place!”
‘The excitement…….’
I sighed at one of the members’ foolish remarks and opened the waiting room door without saying anything.
‘Ugh.’
Even a tiger appears when spoken of2. The first person I saw was Lee Hwayoung.
“Han Seungbeom.”
He must have heard the members talking about him just now, as he walked toward me with a fierce attitude.
“Eeek!”
Just a moment ago, they were courageously cheering me on, but now they shoved their bear-like bodies behind me.
“…….”
I shouldn’t have forgotten. These guys were cowards, pushovers who were only big in size.
“Is that all you wanted me to watch? A fake PRISM?”
With a voice filled with anger, his unrealistically handsome face was crumpled in a beautiful way.
“How does he look so cool even when he’s angry?”
“You’re right. He looks like an elf. Am I going to be exorcised?”
“…….”
I gave the members who were whispering while watching Lee Hwayoung’s face a light nudge as a warning. It was a sign to be quiet.
Then, leaving them alone, I stepped forward.
“Why are you so angry?”
“After watching a performance that can’t even reach half the level of the original singers, what else am I supposed to feel?”
“…….”
“The parts were unfairly weighted towards one person, and a significant portion of the choreography was omitted. That kind of a weak performance is an insult to the original singers. They deserve to be ridiculed.”
‘The original singer is here.’
With the original singer right in front of him, I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or annoyed that he’s getting angry on my behalf. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t raised in Korea, but his choice of words seemed so dramatic, like something from a movie.
“He even speaks in a cool way.”
“I’m going to try using more refined language from today on.”
I pushed the members’ chests with my elbows once more. Please be quiet.
I furrowed my eyebrows and deliberately looked away from the dead discouraged members, then I spoke to Lee Hwayoung, trying to sound as calm as possible.
“So you did watch it, huh?”
“…….”
At my question, he bit his lip as if struck at the core and slightly wrinkled the bridge of his nose.
‘As expected.’
Lee Hwayoung probably evaluated the Domination team’s performance quite harshly due to his intense fan loyalty toward my past self.
But that was already expected. There was no way that the stage was good enough by his standards.
‘Objectively speaking, the quality of the performance was lacking.’
No matter how hard Do Yuda and Baek Kiryang tried to cover for them, the other members still revealed their poor skills on stage. In the end, the Do Yuda’s team was unable to escape the notoriety of the ‘Idol Execution Song‘.
“I never asked you to watch the entire performance. I asked you to watch Do Yuda.”
Except for Do Yuda.
“You started watching the performance after hearing that first line, didn’t you?”
“…….”
The answer I got was silence.
And that silence meant affirmation.
“See? I won.”
I smiled with my eyes squeezed shut.
I made the guy who had boldly claimed there was no need to watch the stage end up watching Do Yuda’s performance, so I won our bet.
The guy, directly seeing my smile and hearing the declaration of defeat, stuttered like a malfunctioning robot, took a step back, and then abruptly turned around, showing me his back.
‘…..Is he upset?’
I glanced at his back, then awkwardly shifted my gaze and scratched my cheek.
He didn’t seem to be the type to easily show his inner feelings, but it seemed like he was upset that I played around with the PRISM stage. His fanaticism must have run much deeper than I’d thought, because he was getting unusually heated, unlike his usual behavior.
After standing there for a long time with his back to me and his fists clenched, he finally opened his mouth a little.
“…I wanted you to do that performance, not Do Yuda.”
And then he whispered so quietly that only I could hear him, and quickly walked away.
‘Huh?’
I didn’t understand why I was suddenly involved here. I reached out my hand belatedly, but Lee Hwayoung was already gone.
“Oh, Nicholas is gone.”
“Why is Nicholas angry?”
The confused members asked me, but I couldn’t answer.
‘I don’t know why he’s acting like that either.’
“We’ll add up the votes for the Domination team!”
While I couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling, one of the staff opened the waiting room door and shouted. I quickly glanced around the waiting room to inform Do Yuda of the production team’s message.
Do Yuda often felt unwell after performances, either needing to take medicine or unable to leave the bathroom, so I had to take care of him.
‘There he is.’
But today, for some reason, I was able to find him easily in the waiting room.
Do Yuda was just sitting quietly in the corner of the waiting room. He hadn’t even removed his uncomfortable outfit and in-ears.
‘What’s wrong?’
“Do Yuda.”
As I got closer, I could see what he was doing. Do Yuda was looking at the tablet. To be exact, he was looking at his stage that was reflected in it.
“If it were you, hyung, you wouldn’t have done this.”
“What?”
Do Yuda muttered with his eyes quietly sunken. The voice that suddenly came through had no trace of his usual playfulness.
“Here, I was so focused on the live singing that my upper body movements weren’t as flexible as they could have been.”
Do Yuda spoke to me, but never once turned his gaze away from himself on stage. At first glance, it seemed like he was consumed by regret and couldn’t escape, but that wasn’t the case.
“….My vocal tone is monotonous, so it didn’t give the same feeling as the original vocalist.”
Those were the eyes of someone who was learning.
‘It came sooner than I expected.’
I thought it was a moment that would come eventually for Do Yuda, but I didn’t expect it to come this soon.
Contrary to expectations, skill didn’t grow in the same proportion as effort.
Most of the time, it’s a repetition of stagnation that makes you feel like you’re crawling on the ground, and that’s why growth is always painful.
However, when some kind of trigger or realization occurred, it could lead to an explosive, upward growth.
It was only by observing those countless stagnations and continuous steep slopes from afar that the straight line of upward progress began to be visible.
Today, I witnessed with my own eyes as Do Yuda overcame a long period of stagnation and climbed the steep cliff.
‘No, should I say I went through that process together with him?’
“…….”
I turned my head and read the individual vote rankings displayed on the screen. Although my team’s vote ranking hadn’t been shown yet, should be able to figure out Do Yuda’s curent position.
‘First place is … of course it’s Lee Hwayoung.’
As expected, the trainee whose name was listed at the top was Lee Hwayoung.
Do Yuda was always ranked around 6th or 7th in the on-site evaluation. So, I naturally shifted my gaze to the section with the equivalent ranks.
However, Do Yuda’s ranking was not visible.
‘Did his ranking drop because the other members made a mess?’
As I hurriedly looked further down, I heard Do Yuda’s voice.
“Thank you, hyung.”
His voice was calm. Even though it was a critical moment where he could lose half of his votes.
‘….Don’t tell me.’
I slightly pulled the gaze that had been directed at Do Yuda. The text right next to his face stated,
[Joint 1st place: DO YUDA]
His face, flushed red from the afterglow of the stage, looked back at me.
And then he laughed softly.
“I think I can do better. I have that kind of feeling.”
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Translator’s Corner:
- Basically, they’re not just saying “while you’re young” but is also emphasizing that every single year makes a difference. ↩︎
- 호랑이도 제 말하면 온다더니: same proverb with “Speak of the Devil”, but I like the direct translation ““Even the tiger comes when spoken about” more so I used it. It used when someone you were just talking about suddenly appears ↩︎
I just know Nicholas is that kind of fan who bashed every group who covered his idol’s song……