The Same Song
Lee Gal-chae, the eighteen-year-old child actor who had once been the nation’s beloved prodigy, sat quietly during a break in rehearsal and let only his eyes do the work, rolling from side to side as he watched his teammates.
Second place, Baek Yuri. Third place, Neoul. Eighth place, himself. Forty-eighth, Park Da-han. Fifty-first, Yeo Do-bin.
Top-tier and bottom-tier, all jammed together in one team.
The balance was absurdly off. It was a combination he had never even imagined before.
How did it end up like this?
And yet, oddly enough, they meshed better than he’d expected, which only made it stranger.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Several days earlier, after the ranking announcement ceremony, it had been time to choose team members for the second team battle.
The theme was matching as many old song titles as possible.
Bibip—!
The music cut off after a one-second intro.
“Ah! Ah! I know this one! No, wait, what was it?”
The moment the contestant who’d raised his hand first collapsed in frustration with his head in his hands, Lee Gal-chae shot his hand up.
“The Thirteenth Flower’s Meaning.”
“Correct!”
Since it was a game about identifying songs that had been popular nearly twenty or thirty years ago, older contestants had the advantage.
Even so, eighteen-year-old Lee Gal-chae was already on his fifth correct answer, an unexpected showing.
“Why Did I Give You a Dried Pollack Head as a Gift.”
“Correct!”
“Twenty-Six Hours a Day.”
“Coooorrect!”
The songs had been popular before he was even born, so how could he guess them from a single second of audio? Simple: on set, he had always been around actors old enough to be his parents.
Just by listening from the side, the old songs had naturally lodged themselves in his ears.
Thanks to that, he made it into the top eight and earned the right to choose two teammates.
Neoul first, at least…
Neoul seemed to know little about Lee Gal-chae, the child actor famous to the public, and because of that he had no prejudice and no questions. Of all the contestants, Neoul was the easiest person for Gal-chae to be around.
Comfortable… and there’s a lot I can learn from him.
He had also been impressed by Neoul’s rapidly improving dancing and natural stage presence. He himself worked hard, but he had never seen anyone improve so quickly. He wanted to watch from close up and figure out what the secret was.
Starting with first place, the contestants called out the names of the two teammates they wanted.
Gal-chae prayed Neoul’s name wouldn’t be called before his turn, his eyes darting nervously in every direction.
Perhaps because most of the people who’d gotten many old-song titles correct were middle-ranked contestants, those same mid-ranked contestants were called first.
By the time the fifth-place contestant still hadn’t said Neoul’s name, Gal-chae let out a little breath of relief.
Then—
Right in front of him, Kim Ji-rok, who had placed sixth in song-title guesses, snatched Neoul away.
Gal-chae had been seventh. He had missed Neoul by a single question. That stung.
After a brief hesitation, Gal-chae chose Baek Yuri.
He had been deeply moved by the way Baek Yuri, though constantly busy playing the role of ten people, still took the time to train his teammates as well.
He had even felt touched by the way Yuri gently soothed the lazy, troublesome teammates he was trying to drag along without once raising his voice. Though he did seem flustered and put in an awkward spot, Baek Yuri never once lost his temper to the end.
Kindness matters.
Whether what Baek Yuri showed was really kindness, patience, or responsibility, Gal-chae couldn’t have said.
Kind people have space in their hearts…
He remembered how he had been left standing on the edges with his last set of teammates.
When he couldn’t understand a move just by watching the video, he had carefully asked the others for help several times. But they were all too busy practicing themselves, so they brushed him off with shallow apologies and passed the responsibility back and forth.
Late at night, with the cameras and microphones all switched off, his teammates had said:
— Honestly… I wish you’d fail, Gal-chae.
— Even if you’re bad, you’ll still get votes anyway, so why should we help you?
— That’s cheating.
To them, Lee Gal-chae wasn’t a teammate but a very threatening rival. They envied “actor Lee Gal-chae,” who had high recognition and an existing core fanbase. They resented him for being born on a different starting line.
— You already have something you’re good at.
— Exactly. You can always go back to acting. But this is all we have.
In their eyes, the eighteen-year-old boy struggling to reclaim the dream he had once given up didn’t exist.
— Sorry for saying this. I don’t have the right to interfere with your choices or anything.
His teammates apologized, but Gal-chae couldn’t bring himself to say it was fine.
His heart wasn’t generous enough to soothe them with forgiveness he didn’t feel.
And they were right, in a way—they had no duty to help him either—so he never asked again.
That was how they finished the first team battle, acting passably decent in front of the cameras and awkwardly, uncomfortably around one another when they were off.
Do the other contestants all think the same way? Do they think it’s unfair that I’m even on this program?
It seemed likely.
Lee Gal-chae was an actor. He had spent years training himself to observe people closely—their gazes, expressions, gestures, tones of voice—so that he could portray them more vividly and truthfully.
So he knew.
Many of the contestants disliked him.
He didn’t think they were wrong to feel that way. Of course they could have those feelings. Still, there was no helping the sick, sour discomfort that lodged in his chest like something he’d swallowed badly.
Baek Yuri and Neoul were among the few who didn’t seem to dislike him.
That was why Gal-chae had wanted to build a stage with them.
Besides, those two seemed close, and if he ended up on a team with them, he thought he could learn plenty in peace.
But the moment Neoul went to another team, his plan began to fall apart.
He chose Baek Yuri and one Chinese contestant whose name was something like Wang Huiying or Wang Huing, and tried to calm himself. At least he’d gotten one of the two. He made an effort to see the bright side.
Then—
The moment the randomly chosen Chinese contestant picked the next teammate by relay, the peace he’d barely managed to gather started to creak and splinter.
— I’m choosing this one. Yeo Do-bin.
A face frozen cold. Black eyes impossible to read.
A chilling presence, as if if you let your guard down for one instant he’d bite into the nape of your neck and drag you down into the deep sea.
Gal-chae knew in his head that beneath Yeo Do-bin’s frightening appearance was a very fragile person curled up tight inside. He had seen Do-bin sacrificing his own share just so he could give more to the team.
But knowing something in your head and feeling it in your body were two different things. That ferocious shark- or hunting-dog-like face made his heart shrink to the size of a pea all on its own.
Besides, Yeo Do-bin was a contestant wrapped in messy public opinion.
— Forget being dumb, how do you even give up that much in a survival show? Does he even want to be an idol?
— Doesn’t seem desperate.
— Came here for a Korea tour, lol.
The Chinese contestant seemed to have chosen Do-bin out of some fellow feeling and pity as another foreigner. Even if Do-bin was Korean-Australian and Wang Huiying was born and raised in China, there was still a kind of kinship there.
That much made him uneasy, but fine—up to that point, it was still okay. Do-bin’s mistake had only been innocently playing along with the card-flipping game. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything wrong, or meant to hurt anyone else.
It was unfortunate that the result had been bad, but he had at least shown consideration for the team and made an effort. He wasn’t fit to be a leader, perhaps, but as a teammate he wasn’t bad at all.
And then Baek Yuri, whom he had trusted all along, chose the next teammate—and the peace Gal-chae had just barely gathered shattered to pieces.
— Da-han, want to do this together?
The very same troublesome teammate who had shown the sacred trio of laziness, avoidance, and storming off in anger during Baek Yuri’s first team battle.
The teammate who had been cursed out like mad after episode 3 aired, his ranking plunging until he barely survived by the skin of his teeth, Park Da-han—Baek Yuri had picked him.
Gal-chae fell into gloom.
The first team battle preparations had been rough enough with the atmosphere as stale as old dishwater; it seemed the second team battle wasn’t going to be cheerful either.
What can you do. I’ll just keep my head down and do my job well.
He steeled himself that way, and then—
— May I use the teammate exchange pass now?
At that moment, Neoul used a teammate exchange pass.
Teammate Exchange Pass (1 use)
When you meet a teammate you don’t want, or fail to land on the same team as the teammate you do want! You may exchange teammates once!
(It can also be used on yourself. If you don’t like your team, move to another one!)
However, because it was literally an exchange pass rather than an additional teammate pass or a transfer pass, it could only swap one teammate for another one-to-one.
Neoul slowly looked around the room once, then turned his gaze toward Gal-chae’s team—toward Baek Yuri and Yeo Do-bin.
— I’ll swap Wang Huiying and me.
— Huh?
The Chinese teammate was suddenly sent to another team, but since Neoul had pronounced his name correctly, he was deeply moved and gladly moved over.
And so the extremely lopsided team composition that existed now was finalized.
Gal-chae’s lips twitched where no one could see. He’d gotten both Baek Yuri and Neoul!
It felt like buying a single sticker bun and finding not one but two stickers inside—except both of them were the exact stickers he’d wanted.
“Gal-chae. H-hello…! I’m Yeo Do-bin…!”
“Hello.”
On top of that, the two people he’d been worried about were, surprisingly, both fine. Oddly enough, they were brighter and more enthusiastic than he’d expected.
On the way to the dorm after the team was assigned, before they’d go unpack and change clothes and then head to rehearsal, Yeo Do-bin was high-energy the entire time.
“The weather is…! So nice…! The whole world feels warm! I love summer!”
He’d been walking beside a sidewalk with asphalt steaming like a furnace and still looked genuinely happy.
“The dorm is so cozy…! Best dorm! Good friends! Perfect!”
He even seemed delighted by the sight of three bunk beds squeezed tightly into a tiny room the size of a palm.
He got dragged through the mud in the last team battle. Did he not read the comments?
Of course, he had to be happy to survive the knife’s edge at fifty-first place, but even accounting for that, his cheer was bizarre. He had to be suffering from heatstroke or have eaten something wrong. There was no other explanation. Still, a positive attitude was probably a good thing.
“I’m so happy I get to go on stage one more time…! Neoul, thank you! You made me lucky!”
That was already the tenth time he’d said something along those lines.
Could someone’s appearance and personality really stand at such perfect opposite poles? The moment he closed his mouth, he seemed as if he’d freeze solid in a blizzard; the second he opened it, spring flowers bloomed and butterflies fluttered everywhere.
For a different reason now, Lee Gal-chae found Yeo Do-bin a little frightening.
He seems a little crazy.
While Do-bin was happily acting like a slightly unhinged person, Park Da-han looked amused in a different way.
“I’m not planning to be an idol!”
“What…?”
“I realized it while doing the first team battle with Yuri hyung. This is what it takes to succeed—people who live that intensely. But me? I think I could maybe do this once or twice, but I don’t think I could live like this every day. I’d be happier sleeping in, playing games, reading webtoons, and just living a little more loosely.”
Park Da-han looked strangely relieved.
“Of course I’m going to work really hard for this stage. I’ve already gotten cursed at a lot, and I’m probably going to be eliminated anyway. I’m treating it like my last stage, so I want to throw everything in, leave with no regrets, and wash my hands of it cleanly. Thinking of it as the last one actually makes me feel better.”
“What if it isn’t the last one? You might do well on this stage and survive.”
At Baek Yuri’s question, Park Da-han shook his head.
“You know that’s hard too, hyung. And I know you picked me because you were worried I was getting hate. You were trying to help me fix my image before I leave, right?”
Baek Yuri froze, mouth closing in embarrassment.
“Ah, no, that’s not it…?”
He tried to deny it a beat too late, but it was useless.
“But I’m not fragile enough to get hurt by that kind of malicious comment. So you don’t need to fuss over me like this. Don’t worry, and just focus on your own stage.”
...said Park Da-han, the same Park Da-han who had tripped onstage, come offstage, and burst into tears as though his soul had come apart.
He looked as if he’d fully set down a burden.
It was the mindset of someone who figured that if debut was impossible, even making it to the next round would be hard, so they might as well let go and enjoy themselves.
The game isn’t over until it’s over…
That was what Gal-chae thought, but he kept it to himself.
In any case, the atmosphere being better than expected was a great relief.
After they dropped their luggage in the room, the staff member in charge of guiding them led the team to the rehearsal room set up near the dorm.
It turned out the lodging had been placed in some remote, isolated spot unlike the place they’d stayed before, apparently to cut off any chance of encountering other teams on the way.
“For the second team battle, you are not permitted to interact with other teams until stage rehearsal.”
After giving the instructions, the staff member handed them a sheet of paper listing the songs for the second team battle.
Baek Yuri took the paper, read it, and said, “There are four songs here, and we can choose freely among them.”
Then he furrowed his brows as though thinking deeply about something.
“Why only four songs?”
“Huh?”
“What do you mean?”
Baek Yuri pointed at the list of songs, which had apparently been selected by the judges.
In the first team battle, twelve songs had been assigned to match the twelve teams. But this time there were eight teams and only four songs.
“Uh, wait… come to think of it….”
And this time, they could choose freely.
“I-is it possible… if another team picks the same song, two teams have to compete with the same song?”
Yeo Do-bin’s face went pale.
Baek Yuri said calmly, “They may have given each team a different list. Since it says the judges selected them, maybe they chose songs that would suit us. But if every team received the same list….”
Baek Yuri swallowed dryly and went on.
“Then it may not be only two teams choosing the same song.”
“……!”