Final (6)
Onstage, Neoul stood amid the uproar with a dazed look on his face.
Boom! Boom!
Colorful confetti poured down. Neoul blinked up at it, then slowly reached out, staring at the fluttering pieces as they fell.
Instead of landing in his hand, the confetti settled on his lips. Neoul plucked the bit stuck there and swallowed it in one quick bite. Victory was sweeter than he had ever imagined, but the confetti itself was terribly bitter and unpleasant.
But by then it was already gone, and his mouth was empty. He had only tried it because it was so bright and colorful, but once the bitterness hit, it felt as though he had been jolted awake from a dream.
MC Jeong Ondo said, “Contestant GalNeoul! Please tell us how it feels to debut in first place!”
Neoul stepped out to the thrust stage and took the microphone. Unaware that confetti was still stuck in a few places in his hair, he slowly began to speak.
“At first... I never imagined I would receive so much support and encouragement.”
An idle prince, pleasant enough to look at but useless all the same.
That had been me.
He had never dreamed that he would receive in this strange world on land the support and encouragement he had not even been given in the Dragon Palace. Nor that he would be given so much of it that it felt almost beyond what he deserved.
“Because you cheered for someone so lacking, every practice, every stage, every moment I spent meeting all of you became something I looked forward to with anticipation.”
At times, he felt almost guilty toward his father, the Dragon King.
Each time someone needed Neoul, each time they placed their hopes in him and cheered, a new expectation bloomed in his own heart as well.
I must do better this time. I must look more splendid. What sort of reaction will this stage receive? Every day spent preparing for the competition had been filled with that floating, buoyant feeling.
A life to look forward to tomorrow.
Once he realized that such a life existed, returning to his old one became impossible to imagine.
“Thank you for giving me a reason to look forward to what comes next, and for granting me such an undeserved honor.”
When he finished speaking, Neoul walked back to the first-class seat at the very top and sat down. Perched high above everyone else, looking down from above, he felt almost as though he were seated upon a throne.
But this seat was not like a throne whose rightful owner was determined by birth. It was a place humans had given to Neoul. One of seven precious seats.
I do not want to go back to the sea. I want to stay on land.
Neoul startled himself with the thought.
No, not now! The first priority is curing Father’s illness.
He could not forget that debuting as an idol had only been a stepping stone toward meeting the bunny candidates. His personal desire could wait until after his father regained his health.
BaeKNamu, who had vacated his seat, cut through Neoul’s thoughts.
“Lacking, undeserved. Why do you talk like that?”
He sat cross-legged and floated in the air, arms folded, scolding him.
“If you got first place, you should be jumping around and causing a ruckus. Why are you shrinking up like a dog with its tail between its legs?”
“...”
Was I frightened? Of what?
The answer came at once.
That someday, after I cure Father’s illness, I may not be able to return to land.
That while I am away for a little while, the place humans have given me may disappear in an instant.
Neoul touched his cheek, checking whether his feelings showed on his face.
[Your face doesn’t look strange. It’s fine.]
BaekNamu lounged in the air with his legs crossed, arms still folded, and lectured him.
[Stop with the pointless humility and enjoy it proudly. This is the happy moment when you got first place. Be proud. Be pleased with yourself.]
“...”
[This moment won’t come back once it’s gone. When you can be happy, you should laugh your heart out.]
BaekNamu was right. Neoul let the shadow over his heart lift, and a smile spread across his face.
Worrying about things that had not even happened yet and being afraid of them was not like him, either. He had won first place; as BaekNamu said, for now, he could afford to be happy and enjoy it.
The spotlight that had been fixed on Neoul now shifted to the final empty seat.
“Now only the final seventh-place announcement remains. Who will be Jjokbit’s last member?”
Logan, Lee Gal-chae, Son Ji-hu, Choi Liam, Daiki, Kim Ji-rok, Wang Huiying, Ko Un-gu, and Son Ji-seong’s faces appeared on the screen in turn.
“Wow. The fish really made it into the debut lineup.”
Going by the previous rankings, it had looked likely enough, but to actually pull it off.
Won Hasin clapped and clicked his tongue in amazement.
He was watching Idol Travel while sorting paperwork in the company office.
In his hands were the materials proving Kim Ji-rok’s attempted murder of GalNeoul, the evidence needed to send Kim Ji-rok to prison.
The recording of the threats he had made to Myeong I-dam had already been submitted through a lawyer. By tomorrow, a warrant for his arrest would be issued.
If he had started as an actor, there was only one possible person. Inside the screen, everyone turned their heads and looked toward the same spot.
Lee Gal-chae, who had been bowing his head with both hands covering his eyes, looked up in a daze.
“Aaaaaah!”
Cheers exploded.
Beadlike tears rolled down from Lee Gal-chae’s eyes on the monitor. They fell so beautifully that it looked like a scene from a youth drama.
The camera pulled back to show the seven members together.
For a survival show... the lineup is pretty good.
Won Hasin studied the seven members of Jjokbit, who might become competitors to H.A.D’s existing artists and to the trainees they would debut in the future.
Then Song Bi-seo knocked and came in.
“Representative. We’ve secured testimony and video evidence that Kim Ji-rok was a school violence perpetrator in middle school.”
“Good. Release them at the same time.”
He had already instructed the reporters to publish the article about the ethylene glycol incident at the same moment the arrest warrant for Kim Ji-rok was issued.
That alone would already be enough to make him irreparably damaged, but if school violence was added on top of it, Kim Ji-rok would be driven into a corner so tight he would not even know where to start clawing his way out.
Myeong I-dam’s mother was currently being guarded closely by Mun Dong-dong. Since Myeong I-dam practically lived at the company and rarely went out, security was only attached when he left the building.
“B-But the victim is...”
Song Bi-seo bent slightly, looking troubled, then carefully mentioned someone’s name.
“What? Seriously?”
Won Hasin jumped and turned back to the monitor. Onscreen, the final ranking announcement ceremony was just wrapping up.
Myeong I-dam was watching Idol Travel from a studio at the H.A.D Entertainment building. He had actually wanted to go in person and see the program to the end, but he had skipped it because meeting Kim Ji-rok there would have been awkward.
Still, the finale had not been bad at all, even while he sat in a studio filled with expensive equipment, holding a can of nonalcoholic beer in his hand.
After the final ranking announcement ended, the eliminated contestants gave their thoughts one by one.
In the middle of all that, Myeong I-dam’s smartphone rang. It was a call from Representative Won Hasin.
Myeong I-dam answered immediately.
“Yes, Representative.”
— Are you watching the broadcast?
“Yes. I’m watching.”
— We secured evidence that Kim Ji-rok was a school violence perpetrator. There’s a witness, too.
“Huh... Really? He did school violence, too?”
— Yeah. But...
Won Hasin hesitated for a moment, then spoke.
— Don’t be surprised. The victim is... one of the Idol Travel contestants.
“Pardon...?”
One of the contestants? Then that meant the perpetrator and the victim had kept bumping into each other in the same space the whole time they were filming?
Myeong I-dam stared at the monitor in shock. Onscreen, after passing through the other eliminated contestants, the microphone was finally handed to Choi Liam.
Instead of the usual empty remarks about how much he had learned through the survival show, how grateful he was, how it had been a good experience, Choi Liam said bluntly,
“Huh. No way...”
— Yes way. Choi Liam. The guy holding the mic right now.
“Th-Then what he’s about to say is...?”
Choi Liam opened his mouth on the screen.
Choi Liam pulled a small recorder from his pocket and held it up to the microphone. When he pressed play, a recorded voice flowed out.
They sounded like boys who had just gone through puberty.
Someone who seemed to be Kim Ji-rok’s friend called him by name with complete accuracy. Then came a voice trembling as if it had been scared out of its wits.
The sounds of someone being forced to drink tap water and choking painfully followed. The laughter of the perpetrators crackling in the background echoed through the microphone.
At that moment, the audience, the chat window, Myeong I-dam staring at the monitor, and Won Hasin on the other end of the still-connected phone all fell silent and froze.
Kim Ji-rok clenched his fists so tightly he looked ready to lunge forward, then forcibly stopped himself while scanning his surroundings. Every pair of eyes in the venue, every camera, was pointed at him.
But at Jeong Ondo’s doubtful question, Kim Ji-rok abruptly shut his mouth in the middle of his rant.
Choi Liam stopped the recorder and smiled. It was a pitiful smile, like tears might fall at any moment.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment all along.”
“Congratulations, Kim Ji-rok. Your real life starts today.”
Good heavens...
Myeong I-dam could only stare at the screen, his mouth hanging open.