The Third Ranking Announcement (1)
“But where are your parents, leaving you here all alone?”
Neoul needed to head back to filming soon. If he was late, he’d be in trouble. But he couldn’t just leave the baby alone in this empty hallway.
With a grave expression, he asked, “Could it be… you were carried off by a tiger?”
“Nooo!”
Ah. So not that.
Neoul breathed a sigh of relief and looked around. There wasn’t a speck of blood anywhere.
“I’m glad that isn’t the case… but where did they go?”
With no other choice, he sat down beside the baby and decided to wait for the parents to return.
If I leave it here alone, a tiger might carry it off.
And if he took the baby to the set without permission, the baby’s parents might come back here and start searching for it.
The baby tugged at his clothes, as if asking him to play.
Neoul started to lift the child into his arms, then remembered how cold his body temperature was compared to a human’s. Hadn’t even his teammates jumped in surprise when he’d done pair choreography with them, or even when he’d gone in for a high five?
The baby’s cheeks and hands, warm only moments ago, had gone chilly because of him.
He took off his outer coat and wrapped the baby up in it, cocooning the child so that only the face poked out—like a little silkworm peeking from its shell. That looked much warmer.
He was lightly bouncing the baby up and down, making it laugh with delighted giggles, when the baby’s mother appeared at the far end of the hallway with the production staff.
“Wooyu~”
“Mommmy!”
The baby beamed at the sight of her mother and wriggled in excitement. Neoul handed the child over and sternly reminded the mother not to leave the baby alone, in case a tiger came and carried it off.
Then, following the staff’s guidance, he headed toward the filming set where the ranking announcement would take place.
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“Neoul…!”
Yeo Do-bin, who had arrived at the set first, waved to greet him. The members of the Breakwater Team were gathered together when they spotted Neoul and called out to him.
They had been talking about the mission they had just completed.
“What was your mission, Neoguri Brother? I met a little kindergarten kid whose dream was to be a dancer and listened to his worries about his future!”
Woo Cheong said excitedly, then immediately drooped.
“But I don’t think I helped much. He just said he was happy to meet me.”
He’d apparently tried his best to give some career counseling, but it seemed like something had gone wrong.
“I had friend-relationship worries…! B-but I’m kind of shy, and I don’t have many friends, so… I didn’t have much I could say, sorry. I just shared snacks with them and told them to… approach people sincerely….”
Yeo Do-bin seemed to have had a rough time of it too. The more he spoke, the more he shrank into himself. At that moment, Woo Cheong jerked his head up and said to him, “Huh? Why would Shark Brother not have many friends? Aren’t we all your friends?”
“H-huh…?”
“I didn’t know you were like that, Do-bin Brother. How mean! So I was the only one you considered a friend?”
“Wow—really? Do-bin, I’m hurt~”
Ha On-ha eagerly joined in teasing Yeo Do-bin. Yeo Do-bin flinched, eyes going wide, and waved both hands in frantic denial. Cornered by the prank and nearly dying of fright, his voice rose higher than usual.
“N-no…! It’s really not that! That’s not it…!”
“Heeheehee, obviously I’m joking!”
“Haha, okay. I’ll believe you~”
The atmosphere among the participants was light, scattered, and noisy overall. It was as if they were trying to shake off the prickling tension in their hands with jokes and laughter.
When Neoul sat down, Baek Gi-yeom, who had been across from him with the earlier team members, waved.
“Gael-Neoul~”
Then he pointed toward the stage at the front of the set.
“Look over there.”
The number of chairs had been cut nearly in half since the last time, and the seats were flipped around so that they weren’t facing forward. The backs of the chairs had all been covered over with matching plywood panels.
With all the chairs turned over, there was no way to tell which seat was First Class and which was Business Class.
Instead of asking Baek Gi-yeom, who was sitting farther away, Neoul turned to Baek Yuri.
“Why are the chairs turned over like that?”
“Ah. Neoul.”
Baek Yuri, who had been lost in thought as though meditating, asked back a beat late.
“What did you say? The rabbit is turned upside down?”
“……”
Teacher Baek Yuri seems to have lost his mind a little. Is he all right…?
Neoul looked at Baek Yuri with concern, then muttered that it was nothing.
After a while, MC Jeong Ondo appeared, now already familiar to them. His voice was quite lively for this early in the day.
“Hello, everyone!”
Hello!
Waaah!
With applause, a wide variety of cheers broke out again today. At the start of filming, the reactions had been awkward and overdone, but by now they had become a little more natural.
“At last, the moment of the Third Class Announcement has arrived. This is the final gate on the journey to finding the top idol—the last hurdle on the road to the final stage.”
Final…!
If they survived this ranking announcement, they would make it to the long-awaited finale. The participants’ hearts swelled with anticipation and fear, then sank again, over and over.
Neoul noticed that Yeo Do-bin, sitting beside him, couldn’t keep his feet still, tapping and twitching nonstop. Baek Yuri looked no better. Even after getting first place last time, was he still that uneasy?
Neoul watched the front with a puzzled look.
Jeong Ondo continued, “With Myeong I-dam’s withdrawal, a total of thirty-one participants have now arrived here. Of those, the number who can survive this Third Class Announcement is….”
They already knew that much without being told. There were far fewer chairs now.
“Only fifteen people.”
Jeong Ondo emphasized the number slowly, then went on with the explanation.
“Unfortunately, there will be no comeback round this time. As we said last time, the Parachute Card also cannot be used. All sixteen eliminated participants will have to leave Idol Travel.”
The sound of someone swallowing hard echoed through the set.
“And there’s one more thing we need to tell you. Up until the last ranking announcement, the number of debut members hadn’t been fixed yet.”
Jeong Ondo smiled thinly and flipped the cue card.
“Since First Class seats were placed up to 8th place, it was probably expected that the top eight would debut. But today, at last, the total number of debut members has been decided!”
The seats on stage, which had been facing away from the participants, spun around from 15th place onward in a flash. As expected, every seat up to 9th place was Business Class.
8th place is…
Huh?!
8th place is Business Class too…!
The participants murmured in shock. As if mocking those who had hoped the top eight would debut, the number 8 was clearly printed on the Business Class seat.
Could 7th place be Business too…?
The next seat rotated a rapid 180 degrees.
“First Class!”
Someone shouted. The remaining chairs whirled around too.
From 1st to 7th place, they were all the same style of First Class seat. Only the 1st-place chair had its number engraved larger and with extra sparkle.
“Yes! We can now confirm that the total number of participants who will debut from Idol Travel is seven! Who will be the seven boys who become the top idols? Dear passengers, please continue with us all the way to the final round!”
The participants’ anxious, yearning gazes were drawn to the First Class seats.
“That’s too few.”
Someone whispered it in a tiny, despairing voice. Compared to the 82 who had started, seven really was a small number.
“Now! We expect there will be quite a bit of movement in this ranking announcement. Which participants will survive, who will be the fifteen who continue the final journey with our passengers, and who will enter the safe zone for debut? I’m very curious indeed.”
But there was no time to worry. Jeong Ondo gave the participants no room to prepare themselves.
“So many of our passengers took part in the voting. With thanks for your passionate support, we’ll begin the Third Class Announcement! Starting with 13th place.”
Jeong Ondo drew in a breath and turned the cue card.
“In 13th place—wow, this participant showed an enormous leap in growth. This is a participant who survived a crisis of elimination.”
Crisis of elimination…? Kim Ji-rok?
Neoul looked over at Kim Ji-rok, who was sitting calmly in the distance.
Won Hasin had told him to focus on the survival show while leaving Kim Ji-rok’s past crimes to him, so Neoul planned to keep watch only to make sure no further incidents occurred.
If he got eliminated here, that would make things easier.
Had Won Hasin found something? If Kim Ji-rok was here, then Myeong I-dam still hadn’t reported him, right?
But 13th place belonged to someone else.
“Participant Wang Huiying!”
Wang Huiying, who had survived the last elimination scare by riding Ha On-ha’s Parachute Card. When he had faced elimination, Chinese viewers had rallied around him, and a shockingly large number of votes poured in.
“Please give us a few words about how you feel.”
“I deffinitely thought I’d be elim… mmf, so I was thinkin’ about plane ticken… uh… Really, really, I’m grateful. Thank you.”
Wang Huiying finished his thanks with awkward pronunciation and sat down in the 13th-place chair.
“Next, the participant who placed 12th. This was the participant who survived through the comeback round at the last ranking announcement.”
Neoul almost let out a relieved breath. The only one who had survived through the comeback round was Kim Ji-rok.
“Participant Kim Ji-rok!”
Eyebrow-scratch Kim Ji-rok was annoyingly tenacious.
“11th place. Ah, a participant with an extremely charming appeal. He’s shown steady growth throughout the competition!”
“Gasp! That must be me!”
At the mention of charming appeal, Ko Un-gu—the youngest contestant—looked up with hope shining in his face. He always went around saying being called cute wasn’t a good thing, but now he seemed desperate to hear it.
But 11th place wasn’t Ko Un-gu.
“11th place, participant Daiki!”
The Japanese trainee Kamae Daiki turned out to be the one with the “cute charm.” Oddly enough, though, in Japan Ha On-ha and Lee Gal-chae were the most popular.
Round-faced and adorable in a pretty-boy style, Daiki had steadily shown consistent growth since the very first ranking announcement and climbed all the way to 11th place.
10th. Choi Liam.
9th. Son Jihoo.
Then 9th and 10th were called, and in no time they had moved on to the 8th-place announcement.
He had been First Class at the last ranking announcement, but now 8th place had fallen to Business Class. The participants whose names still hadn’t been called waited anxiously for their turn.
“Next is 8th place. Despite having no trainee experience, this participant practiced incredibly hard and put in every effort. He delivered a lively performance with facial expressions that changed every second!”
Gal-chae?
Lee Gal-chae.
The participants whispered among themselves, then fell silent all at once.
“Participant Lee Gal-chae!”
No one even managed to clap. Lee Gal-chae, who had been 4th place, had dropped all the way to 8th?
In Tube Team, where Myeong I-dam had withdrawn, Lee Gal-chae had been active with his sparkling facial acting, but compared to Breakwater Team, which had taken first place, the gap in performance views was enormous.
Since new viewers coming in through the stage videos also joined the voting, a gap between him and the Breakwater Team members was inevitable.
The advantage of being a well-known actor had only applied in the early stages.
Now the other participants’ core fanbases had solidified too, and many viewers were drawn to unfamiliar faces simply because they felt fresh and exciting.
As a result, Lee Gal-chae’s ranking had dropped by four whole places.