Composition Ability Contestant
The contestants stared at the line forming in front of placard number one with baffled expressions.
Why...?
It made no sense to say they had yielded their place because they felt bad about pushing another contestant aside.
Neither Gal Neoul nor the other older brothers were soft-hearted enough for that, and this was the opportunity of a lifetime, with their debut on the line. They would never give way so easily.
They hadn’t landed in the upper ranks by luck. They had gotten there because they were the kind of people no one could outlast in sheer stubbornness.
They were so overwhelmingly good that no one could possibly challenge their rankings, and they trained with a ferocity no one could even begin to predict.
Unless the pressure and stress of each successive survival round had driven them all out of their minds...
Is there something special about song number one?
The contestants came to the conclusion that there was definitely something hidden in the first song that they themselves couldn’t perceive. Ha On-ha was standing in line behind Neoul, and he cheerfully thumped Neoul on the back.
“We’re finally on the same team!”
“So it is.”
The first song, which everyone had assumed would be packed with lower-ranked contestants, had somehow produced an extremely formidable lineup. Baek Yuri, Ha On-ha, Gal Neoul, Woo Cheong, and Logan.
First, second, third, sixth, and seventh place were all concentrated on one team.
At this point, even the contestants who had chosen song number six began to wonder.
Did I make the wrong choice?
Was my ear just terrible, and I failed to recognize a good song? Maybe the song by Myeong I-dam, the one who had learned under WILDWID, was actually song number one, not song number six.
Just as ordinary people couldn’t hope to understand the minds of geniuses, maybe they were blind and deaf to the brilliance hidden in song number one.
The moment the thought arose that the choice they had made in total confidence might be wrong, their objectivity blurred and their own convictions began to shake helplessly.
After every contestant had finished choosing their song, Jeong On-do took the microphone.
“Yes. Before we reveal the composer of each song, the teams for this third-round performance have been decided. But!”
“...?”
“If the song selection ends like this, wouldn’t it be too obvious?”
At that moment, a staff member came up to the contestants and snatched the placards away. All of them, from one to six.
The expressions of the contestants standing in line turned to confusion and indignation. The stolen placards were placed on the stage.
“Wow, this was the most popular song! Song number six!”
With a playful smile, Jeong On-do rested a hand on the number-six placard.
“And song number one won hearts right at the very end!”
Jeong On-do moved a step and placed his hand on song number one as well.
“This round’s hidden mission! Seize the song you want!”
“...!”
At Jeong On-do’s words, the contestants who had been pushed aside by their rankings and failed to get the songs they wanted all had their eyes light up. The same went for the contestants who had begun doubting whether their own choice had been a mistake.
“Jongtal?”
“Capture.”
At Logan’s puzzled voice, Baek Yuri quietly translated for him.
“Ooooh. What the....”
Then Logan muttered in a daze. Neoul turned his head and found Logan’s dead eyes.
After watching the wildly shifting mood of the contestants with a dead stare, Logan soon regained the spirit of an idol trainee and hurriedly made his eyes bright again.
“So the contestants standing in the same line are one team, right? You’ll give each team one minute to discuss it! The team that guesses the composer of song number one correctly gets the chance to choose a different song instead!”
“Oh....”
As the explanation went on, the contestants kept glancing back and forth between placard number six and placard number one.
Logan’s eyes died all over again. He looked as if he were cursing the whole thing for never letting anything pass by quietly. Honestly.
A moment later, Logan recovered his sparkling-eyed expression again and raised his hand to ask a question. It was practically the equivalent of taking his eyeballs out and putting them back in.
“Question! Question! If many teams get it right, then what happens? Yo?”
“Good question! If more than one team answers correctly, then the teams will have to do a group random play dance. The team whose members survive the longest without messing up the choreography will get the song they want.”
“Oh....”
At Jeong On-do’s explanation, the members of team number one all turned in unison to stare at Neoul, the dance hole.
“Why. What?”
Neoul wore a shameless expression.
“Oh... my....”
Logan’s eyes died for the third time.
“Neoul! Your dance is so hopeless!”
Baek Yuri looked around at Ha On-ha, Woo Cheong, and Logan, then offered an encouraging opinion.
“We’ve got a good enough chance. Just pretend Neoul doesn’t exist, and if the four of us can make it to the end without messing up even once, we’ll be fine.”
Easy, right? Simple, right? Totally doable, right? Any Korean idol should be able to handle two-times-speed dance and random play dance with their eyes closed, shouldn’t they?
Baek Yuri’s benevolent smile seemed to say exactly that.
“Ooooh....”
Logan’s complexion worsened once more. He stared at Baek Yuri as if he were insane, then dragged a hand down his face.
A large timer appeared on the screen. Each team was provided with a pad.
“All right! Of the six composers, whose song is number one? You have exactly one minute to discuss it. Begin!”
The numbers on the timer, divided into minutes and seconds, began to drop rapidly. Within one minute, they had to write down the answer and send it by text to the assigned number. Go even one second past the minute, and the answer would be marked wrong.
The six teams sat in separate circles at a distance from one another, whispering and holding their discussions. Neoul’s team also gathered in a circle.
Baek Yuri said, “First of all, it isn’t Baek Gi-yeom. Baek Gi-yeom’s style fits song number three.”
“Oh, then we can rule out the cool older brother and just choose among the other five!”
After eliminating Baek Gi-yeom thanks to Baek Yuri’s cousin privileges, the team members seriously debated, trying to guess the composing styles of the remaining five.
“Who do you think it is?”
“I have no idea!”
“Should we just guess? Even if we lose the song because we’re wrong... honestly, with this lineup, I feel like we could survive whatever song we end up with.”
Ha On-ha looked around at the team members and said, “That’s true!”
Woo Cheong agreed with fervor.
Neoul quietly took the pad that had been placed in the center. Then, with a confident smile, he declared, “I know the correct answer.”
“...!”
“Neoul does?”
“Raccoon brother?”
Ha On-ha quickly looked around, trying to hush him.
“Shh...! Neoul, don’t say it, just write it down first. If you say it out loud, the other teams might hear.”
The team members sitting in a circle moved closer together, using their bodies to shield the pad from view.
The message window had already been set to the number provided by the production team. With great confidence, Neoul used two fingers to peck out the answer and sent the message immediately. One minute ago, he had been telling them to guess, and now Ha On-ha stared at the pad in utter despair.
“Hey...! Why would you send it! We were just supposed to write it down...!”
“Huh? You really sent it?”
“What the f...!”
Woo Cheong and Logan stamped their feet in a panic. Baek Yuri glanced toward the stage with a startled expression, then looked away. He couldn’t let his gaze leak the answer. Instead, he asked Neoul, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Your basis?”
“I can tell from listening.”
He knew the skill of the composer of song number one.
Neoul left the rest unsaid and smiled faintly.
“Time’s up! Shall we check the answers?”
The messages sent by each team appeared on the screen. To Neoul’s slight surprise, Myeong I-dam received three votes, Yeo Do-bin received one, and another contestant received two.
For the other contestants, it was not so much surprising that Myeong I-dam had received so many votes as it was the obvious result.
“Myeong I-dam contestant.”
Jeong On-do addressed Myeong I-dam.
“The largest number of teams predicted that song number one was your song. So, is song number one indeed your song? Please tell us directly which number your own composition is.”
“The song I made is...”
Myeong I-dam looked around at the contestants. With a subtle expression impossible to read, he moved his gaze with deliberate significance, then cleared his throat and spoke again.
“Song number six.”
“...!”
Ack! I told you so! I told you it was I-dam hyung, song number six! Why wouldn’t you believe me?
So-sorry!
Internal division erupted in the other team. Some said Myeong I-dam was number one, others said number six, and one contestant, whose nerves had been shaken by the upper-ranked teams’ choices, stubbornly wrote down an answer.
“Mm....”
Myeong I-dam seemed to have more to say. His lips moved as if he might speak, but in the end he said nothing and simply closed his mouth. The other contestant who had received two votes then announced that song number four was their own composition.
“Next, contestant Yeo Do-bin. Your song received one vote from team number one! Please announce which song you composed!”
“Y-yes...! I... made...”
Now suddenly the center of attention, Yeo Do-bin darted his eyes around awkwardly before lowering them to the floor.
“I... composed the first song....”
“Wow! I really had no idea! Man!”
“Amazing! Neoguri Brother got it right!”
Neoul’s teammates couldn’t hide their shock. Neoul had confidently written down and sent the answer, but honestly, it hadn’t inspired all that much trust.
Still, there was no taking back a sent answer, and everyone had already accepted that this was a do-or-die situation. They had all been hovering somewhere between believing it and not. And yet he’d actually gotten it right!
“Nice, Neoul!”
“Wow! We kept song number one!”
Logan and Woo Cheong jumped up and down in place, expressing their joy. Ha On-ha was excited too.
“Neoul~ not bad at all. How did you know it was Do-bin’s song? Did you two have a separate music club or something? Invite me next time too~”
“Do as you please.”
While the other team members were noisily celebrating, Baek Yuri remained quietly in place with only a faint smile. Then, during the brief break they were given, he abruptly turned off the microphone and said, “An alliance has to be built on deep trust, and I didn’t trust you completely. I’ll trust you more from now on. We have to go together.”
“Yes. We do have to make it to the Korean Popular Music Awards.”
“And find the rabbit too.”
Baek Yuri held out a hand with his palm open. Neoul now understood this simple human signal on sight and could respond just as quickly. He opened his own hand as well and brought it against Yuri’s with a light clap.
* * *
My skin feels as though it is drying out.
As the season slowly changed, Neoul could feel the humidity becoming a little lower than before. He had been drinking plenty of water, but it still wasn’t quite enough, so during the break he went into the bathroom, washed his face, and soaked his hair, hands, and arms with water.
As he left the bathroom, droplets still falling from him, two contestants came in talking to each other.
“Still, Myeong I-dam’s song is good and all, but doesn’t it feel way too much like Producer WILDWID’s style?”
“Well, it’d be similar since he learned under him.”
“No, I mean it’s not just similar; it’s practically a copy. Won’t there be plagiarism talk once this airs?”
The two chatting contestants spotted Neoul and shut their mouths. Then, after Neoul left and the door closed behind him, they started talking again.
Neoul recognized them as the contestants who had chosen Myeong I-dam’s song number six, been pushed down, and ended up with song number five.
“If there’s any controversy, only Myeong I-dam’s team gets screwed. But was it even made by Myeong I-dam in the first place? What if Producer WILDWID made it for him? Maybe they’re trying to hype him up as a production genius.”
“Wow. Could be. Honestly, even if he learned from him, what kind of composer has zero individuality and just follows him exactly? Can you really call that his own work? Isn’t that way too shameless?”
Snickering laughter drifted out. Neoul considered going back, then leaned against the wall beside the door with his arms crossed. Even without trying to listen, he could hear every word perfectly well.
On land, they said you should never speak carelessly anywhere. These humans were reckless.
“But why is he ranked so high? He’s not especially flashy like Gal Neoul or Ha On-ha. He’s not some stage-crazed lunatic like Baek Yuri either. Isn’t he just too ordinary?”
“For someone with no presence, his rank is awfully high.”
“Hey, could this be... manipulation?”
“Huh. Really? Did he bribe his way up?”
Then.
Bang!
From inside, the sound of a door being thrown open violently rang out.
“Sorry I couldn’t live up to your expectations.”
It was Myeong I-dam’s voice.