Don't Bother
Just as Ye-chan remembered, this round of the competition divided the trainees into eight teams, with two teams each facing off over the same song.
The four songs chosen for the competition were all hit tracks from popular idol groups—matchups practically designed to explode into a hot topic.
Candidates, from this moment you will each choose one of four numbers in the order of the previous Succession Ceremony rankings. Of the twelve candidates who enter the room marked with that number, six will be randomly assigned to the same team! And as we informed you before the last Royal Succession Ceremony, there will be a guerrilla fansign tomorrow, so please do not forget that either. Now then, Candidate Beom Se-hyuk, please move first.
Competition practice plus fansign prep. A sudden bolt from the blue sent a wave of sighs rippling through the trainees.
While Ye-chan wondered why they would deliberately drop talk of a fansign right when everyone needed to focus on the newly forming teams and throw the trainees into turmoil, first-place Beom Se-hyuk was already being guided out of the auditorium by the production staff.
Ye-chan watched the flattened back of Se-hyuk’s head—pressed down by his sleeping habits—and thought,
Room 1 is Heaven, Room 2 is Space, Room 3 is Strawberry Love, Room 4 is Jupiter’s song. Strawberry Love being a girl group makes it a bit tricky, but all four teams have solid tracks, so no matter which round it was, the overall stage quality was always good.
It was a competition perfectly primed for the hype to balloon.
Of course, he had already decided which team he would pick.
I’m going with Space.
Room 1 was a vocal-focused track that wouldn’t differentiate him from the last competition, and Room 4 was Jupiter’s song—which he had just performed. That left Space and Strawberry Love.
Ye-chan chose Space, the one with the harder choreography.
A confirmed main-vocal role who could also dance well was a massive bonus point.
I’m confident I can nail all four songs perfectly, so I should pick the one with the biggest advantage.
With ninety-nine people gone, the once-packed space felt wide open, and the atmosphere among the waiting trainees was noticeably more subdued than during the last training camp.
Candidate Ha Ye-chan, please move.
Apparently Beom Se-hyuk had finished choosing, because Ye-chan’s name was called.
Following a staff member to the building that housed the practice rooms, Ye-chan paused in front of the numbered doors, pretending to deliberate with a hand on his chin, then opened the door marked 2.
Beom Se-hyuk is… not here.
Ye-chan was satisfied that he had dodged the worst-case scenario he had prepared for.
The MC had called it random, but for this competition the twelve people gathered in each room were simply split in ranking order, alternating high to low into two teams of six.
In other words, second-place Ye-chan from the last ranking announcement and first-place Beom Se-hyuk could never end up on the same team.
Considering they would eventually be in the same group, he had no desire to deliberately pit Beom Se-hyuk’s already large personal fandom against his own any further in a survival program already overflowing with individual fans.
So Ye-chan wanted to avoid any direct competitive framing with Beom Se-hyuk if he could help it.
We’re already going to keep clashing just from our rankings being stuck right next to each other.
Ye-chan sat down on one of the chairs lined up against the wall and waited. Not long after, the door opened again.
“Oh, Ye-chan!”
Shim Sang-rok’s face lit up with open delight.
Tch. I wanted to avoid Shim Sang-rok too.
Ye-chan clicked his tongue inwardly, stood, and walked over.
“Looks like we picked the same room.”
“Right? It’d be great if we end up on the same team!”
That’s not happening.
Sang-rok was happy simply because sharing a room meant a fifty-fifty chance of being teammates.
Already knowing how the teams would be divided, Ye-chan just nodded appropriately.
Sang-rok glanced at the chair Ye-chan had been sitting on and said,
“Should we bring the chairs over by the door and sit there? It’ll be more fun if we’re right here when people come in.”
“Sure.”
It wasn’t any real trouble, and the watching production staff didn’t seem to mind, so Ye-chan agreed readily.
They had the chairs halfway moved when the door opened again.
“Why are you guys hauling chairs? Is this a mission?”
It was fifth-place Seonwoo I-gyeong.
“I-gyeong’s here. Not a mission—we just thought it’d be nice to wait here.”
“Yeah?”
Seonwoo I-gyeong didn’t ask further and simply brought over the remaining chairs.
The three of them had barely sat side by side when the next trainee came in.
“Oh! Ye-chan and I-gyeong hyung and even Sang-rok hyung~ This lineup is no joke!”
Nam Ji-yu flung the door open with bright energy and threw a wink.
“……!”
The one who entered after him was Jeong Ui-tak.
The moment he opened the door and locked eyes with Seonwoo I-gyeong sitting in the middle, Ui-tak flinched so hard his shoulders visibly jumped.
“Whoa, it’s Ui-tak.”
Sang-rok’s voice made Ui-tak’s head whip around.
“Oh, hyungs are here too.”
After confirming Ye-chan and Sang-rok, Ui-tak’s voice came out a full tone higher than usual.
“Wow~ Ui-tak seemed kinda shy before, but looks like he’s gotten pretty close with Sang-rok hyung and Ye-chan~ His face is totally relaxed, man!”
“I-it’s not really like that, okay?”
When the sociable Nam Ji-yu grinned slyly and teased him, Ui-tak bristled and denied it.
Ye-chan watched the two of them with lukewarm eyes while calculating the team lineup.
If they split the teams zigzag from the top ranks, then me, Nam Ji-yu, and Jeong Ui-tak end up on the same team.
“Aren’t too many high ranks piling into our team? Four of us are inside the top ten right now, right? Ui-tak’s eleventh.”
The door that had been opening nonstop stayed shut for a long while. Nam Ji-yu looked over the trainees sitting in a row and spoke up.
Seonwoo I-gyeong brushed his short hair back and agreed.
“True. Everyone must like the number two.”
Ye-chan listened to the other trainees chatting and gave a small nod.
Yeah, it did get a bit crowded. This time I’ll lock down the team-win benefit for sure and treat any other benefits as nice-to-have, not must-have.
While Ye-chan was already thinking through how to divide the parts among the members decided so far, the door opened again.
“Hello.”
It was Bae Sae-byeok, sporting the same fluffy-to-the-point-of-messy hairstyle as always.
Bae Sae-byeok, huh. Would’ve been better if we were on the same team, but at least we’ll talk this time.
After that the door opened at intervals and more trainees came in greeting, but none of the people Ye-chan was watching for appeared.
Well, ranks being ranks, most of them will drop at the second ranking announcement anyway… Ten people now, so it should be over soon.
They were going to edit most of this out anyway—wasting this much time on team division was an inefficient program.
“Hello! I’m Gi Tae-rang! Looking forward to working with you!”
At that moment forty-eighth-place Gi Tae-rang opened the door and walked in.
Ye-chan realized something was wrong.
There are only eleven people in the room so far…?
“Tae-rang, aren’t you the last one?”
Sang-rok seemed to have felt the same oddness; puzzlement colored his voice.
“Huh? Uh, I think so?”
Tae-rang nodded and started counting the members already seated.
“Seven, eight, nine, ten… Wait? We’re short two?”
When Tae-rang, who had been carefully folding his fingers one by one, looked startled, Sang-rok smiled warmly.
“One of them is you, Tae-rang.”
“Ah.”
“Keuhng.”
Nam Ji-yu made a thoroughly un-idol-like snorting sound at Tae-rang’s blank face head-on, but everyone pretended not to notice.
“Even with Tae-rang that’s only eleven. We’re still one short?”
Sang-rok turned to Ye-chan with a troubled expression, but Ye-chan had nothing useful to say either.
Then someone knocked from the other side of the door.
Knock knock knock.
In an instant the trainees fell silent and every gaze locked onto the door. Ye-chan felt an inexplicably ominous chill.
“……Hello.”
The moment the person behind the door stepped inside, the premonition became reality in a single breath.
Why the hell are you coming out of there?
Ye-chan very nearly said the thought out loud.
“Hwi-gyum!”
Sang-rok, who had already been standing, greeted Woo Hwi-gyum as he entered the room with open warmth.
Ye-chan’s insides boiled.
You again…
“But Hwi-gyum, weren’t you sixth? You should’ve been picked earlier—why are you coming in now?”
“Ah, something came up in the middle… I ended up taking the last remaining room.”
When Nam Ji-yu asked with open curiosity, Woo Hwi-gyum answered.
What kind of ‘something’ leads to this?
Ye-chan had been privately relieved when Hwi-gyum’s ranking had passed, but unless someone was deliberately trying to sabotage him, this shouldn’t have been possible.
Ye-chan quickly re-divided the teams with Hwi-gyum inserted.
Hwi-gyum ranks higher than Nam Ji-yu, so… he’s on my team?
Ye-chan’s mind went cold.
All the plans he had mapped out so far flying out the window was fine.
The problem was that Woo Hwi-gyum kept getting stuck to Ye-chan’s stages.
He could already hear the fans lamenting that they wanted to rewatch Ye-chan’s Chumaf stages but couldn’t because Mr. Woo ruined the mood.
Meanwhile MC Andrew’s voice began flowing from the speakers installed in the ceiling.
Candidates, have you all properly met the eleven other candidates who made the same choice as you? Then from now on we will introduce the song you will be preparing.
“Please look at the screen in the back.”
Because they had moved the chairs right up to the door, they had completely forgotten the screen existed farther inside.
A staff member quietly directed the trainees who hadn’t noticed the screen lighting up.
As the trainees twisted around to sit properly, Team 1’s song was revealed.
Room 1’s song is Heaven’s Gazing.
A few trainees let out sighs of relief.
Heaven carried such a strong vocal image that even the vocal members seemed to feel the pressure.
Ye-chan shot a sidelong glance at the trainees, then turned back and waited for the next announcement.
Now it was the turn of the name he had been waiting for.
Right, Room 2 is Space’s…
Room 2 is Lee:Spirit’s Don't Bother.
“……What?”
Why the hell are you coming out of there?
For the first time since filming for Choose My Prince 99 began, Ye-chan failed to hold back the thought and spoke it aloud.
Don't Bother.
It was the title track of Lee:Spirit’s second full album repackage—one of the rare songs Ye-chan had not participated in writing or composing.
The atmosphere was completely different from every previous Lee:Spirit song, so the fandom had been split on it at release, but the powerful rap had earned it a pretty solid mainstream response.
Naturally, it was a song that held deep meaning and nostalgia for Ye-chan as well.
But we weren’t supposed to meet here.
Regardless of how tangled Ye-chan’s head had become from the wrong encounter, filming continued.
Room 3 will perform Strawberry Love’s A Girl’s Prayer!
“Butler Andrew, are you a Sberup fan? Doesn’t that sound like the most excited he’s been of any voice we’ve heard so far?”
“Is that so?”
“Now that you mention it, maybe…”
Ye-chan didn’t even have the energy to laugh at Nam Ji-yu and the other trainees whispering seriously beside him.
Room 4’s song is Jupiter’s Last Circus.
The final room’s song title was announced.
The other three tracks matched Ye-chan’s memory exactly.
So why had this change happened?
The first face that floated up was Jung Chan-yang’s— the one he had researched to the point of nausea after the reset.
With Chumaf thriving unlike in the past, it wasn’t strange for Jung Chan-yang to take an interest.
And if he had confirmed Ye-chan’s name sitting right there on the participant list, of course he would have wanted to throw a wrench in somehow.
Ye-chan clenched his fist tightly. His insides were boiling, but he decided to stop thinking any further about the change that had already occurred and about Jung Chan-yang.
The top priority was making a plan instead of chewing over what had already happened.
Thinking about it won’t change anything. What I can do right now—and what I have to do—is create the best stage possible.
Ye-chan reorganized his thoughts.
It was a familiar song he had stood on stage with countless times, so that was actually better.
As intense as the track was, if he could just cover the rap properly, the chances of standing out were high.
Having steeled himself, Ye-chan looked over the faces of the trainees who would be on his team, including Woo Hwi-gyum.
Woo Hwi-gyum, Nam Ji-yu, Bae Sae-byeok… wait.
There was no rapper on the same team.