Body Synchronization

The moment Ye-chan tried to pull his hand free from Beom Se-hyuk's grip, a hologram window burst into existence once more.

He lunged.

Before he could even finish reading the text, Ye-chan hastily reclaimed the half-released hand.

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Now he understood why the hologram had forced him to shake Woo Hwi-gyum's hand earlier.

It tried to show me this, then freaked out when I picked that weird option and never got the chance to explain.

The unnecessary human touch left a sour taste in his mouth.

"……?"

Beom Se-hyuk tilted his head in confusion, but that was the least of Ye-chan's concerns right now.

Status window!

Another person's status window had actually appeared.

Whatever the hologram was babbling about, Ye-chan's attention remained locked solely on the status window floating before him.

These stats were absurd for a mere six-month trainee.

"Um…… Trainee Ha Ye-chan?"

He had been staring at the stats for so long that Beom Se-hyuk started fidgeting with the captured hand.

Woo Hwi-gyum, seated beside them, was also eyeing Ye-chan like he was some kind of suspicious character.

Ye-chan hastily released the hand and scrambled for an excuse.

"Ah, sorry. Your hand."

What am I supposed to say?

I wasn't asking you.

Ye-chan swallowed the words that nearly escaped his throat so he wouldn't look like a lunatic talking to himself.

For something that had only offered bizarre options, the selection window was even shorter than usual.

With no real choice, Ye-chan raised a finger and forced the most harmless smile he could manage.

"Your hand was so warm I grabbed it without thinking."

"I have cold hands, though."

"Ah."

A profound silence settled between Ye-chan and Beom Se-hyuk.

Woo Hwi-gyum, who had been watching the two of them with a blank expression, half-raised his hand and cut in.

"I have cold hands too."

……

So what?

After a brief break, the individual trainee interviews continued.

The atmosphere had loosened somewhat now that the main filming was over, but Ye-chan never released his grip on concentration.

Min Entertainment's Lee Yun-cheol, independent trainee Park Tae-su, Mirae Music's Song Jae-gyun…….

The numbers on the hologram window only Ye-chan could see climbed at a steep rate.

The "7 days" stuck at the end felt particularly spiteful.

The next filming was a week away, so once today's shoot ended he would have no more face-to-face contact with the trainees for the remainder of the quest period.

On top of that, the trainee profiles were scheduled to be released only after the first dormitory stay, meaning they would not appear anywhere for the next two weeks.

In other words, the real deadline was the end of today's filming.

Once I bury Jung Chan-yang, I'll bury this hologram bastard too. I'll bury it for sure. I'll bury it no matter what.

Trainees who finished their interviews were free to leave immediately.

His heart pounded violently with the anxiety that his name might be called at any second.

Ye-chan kept his eyes wide open, desperately searching the clusters of gathered trainees for the final unfamiliar face.

"Trainee Ha Ye-chan!"

Cold sweat trickled down his back.

The very instant he silently recited the final name, a staff member called for him.

I still managed it somehow.

Ye-chan hid his hands—now trembling finely from the release of tension—behind his back and followed the staff into the interview room.

After countless twists and turns, Ye-chan finished the first day of filming and returned to the one-room apartment that had already grown familiar over the past few days.

Sitting still all day playing the role of a professional applause bot had left him horrifically exhausted.

After a shower, Ye-chan sat on the bed and decided not to fight the sleep that had been waiting for him.

"I'm wiped……."

The thought that every causal thread he had carefully stacked through repeated resets had slipped through his fingers like grains of sand drained the strength from him.

As fatigue piled up, the negative thoughts he had deliberately postponed threatened to rush in all at once.

To escape into sleep as quickly as possible, Ye-chan closed his eyes and began counting sheep.

One sheep, two sheep, three sheep…… one hundred and two Jung Chan-yangs, one hundred and three Jung Chan-yangs…… Wait, what am I counting?

Ye-chan, who had been half-asleep, bolted upright.

Sleep fled in an instant.

The image of Jung Chan-yang lounging atop a magnificent sandcastle built from the grains Ye-chan had let slip away filled him with the sudden urge to smash that castle to pieces right now.

Energy flooded a body that had been as listless as a sick chicken.

Falling asleep in this mood would only lead to dreams of being surrounded by a hundred Jung Chan-yangs, so instead of lying back down he sat in front of the computer.

The moment he opened iTube, the face he had just been thinking about—and never wanted to see—barged onto the screen without warning.

Apparently the algorithm had started randomly recommending idol channels after he spent the past few days searching for anything that might have changed from the world he knew.

Ye-chan stared for a long time at the thumbnail that featured Jung Chan-yang's mug instead of his own face.

He wanted to teach that reset-window bastard right this second that life was a live-fire exercise, but the timing was still wrong.

An independent trainee on a survival show taking a shot at a top-tier first-tier idol group?

That would be suicide. No matter what the content was, our—no, their side…….

The moment he referred to Lee:Spirit as "their side," a vein stood out on his forehead.

Ye-chan took a deep breath and continued the thought.

If their fandom marks me, first place is out of the question—debut itself becomes difficult.

They would dissect every single word and every single gesture of his down to the nanometer, chew it up, and spread it across every community without rest.

It would start at the mild level of "Am I the only one who finds this uncomfortable?" but the snowball would grow, and within a week Ye-chan would have become the single most garbage human being on the planet.

He could already see the future in which viewers who had felt a flicker of goodwill toward him would dip a toe in, take one look at the frothing antis, and flee as far as they could.

Instead of picking a fruitless ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fight right now, Ye-chan imagined kicking a wailing Jung Chan-yang off a cliff and searched for the songs he would need to sing at the karaoke tomorrow to clear quests.

"Oh, Ha Ye-chan!"

One week later.

A trainee who had also just stepped out of a taxi cheerfully called out to Ye-chan as he arrived at the dormitory by cab.

Ye-chan paused while pulling his suitcase from the trunk and turned around.

"Senior Nam Ji-yu."

"Ah, you know me! Haha, that's embarrassing. Don't call me senior—just call me hyung!"

Nam Ji-yu, whose baby face was so extreme he could have passed for a middle-school freshman, waved both hands and beamed.

Nam Ji-yu had debuted seven years ago when he really was a middle-schooler.

And as his presence on this program made clear, the group had crashed and burned spectacularly.

Fans claimed the debut date overlapping with Jupiter was the reason, but in Ye-chan's view the team would have flopped regardless.

They had limped through seven years and disbanded only recently; fans were currently in an uproar claiming Nam Ji-yu's appearance on Choose My Prince was why the re-contract fell through.

Despite being cursed at nearly the level of a national traitor, Nam Ji-yu's smiling face remained completely unwrinkled—whether from excellent expression management or simply a rock-solid mentality.

Or maybe he just doesn't think about anything…….

"Yes, Ji-yu hyung."

Despite the rude thoughts in his head, Ye-chan's voice remained kind.

"Wow, Ye-chan. Your smiling face is insane too."

"Thank you. Please speak comfortably."

"Ah, should I? Then you speak comfortably too, Ye-chan~"

The two of them pulled their suitcases side by side up the hill road.

Thanks to the sociable Nam Ji-yu's continuous chatter, no awkward silence ever formed.

"After I got that B-grade, I went to the bathroom during break and just spaced out for ages."

Nam Ji-yu heaved deep sighs as he continued his lament.

"It was like the words 'Trainee Nam Ji-yu is B-grade' were on endless loop in my ears. I don't even remember if I filmed properly after that."

"Really? It didn't show at all."

"For real? Ha, that's a relief. I need to do better during the dorm stay……."

Nam Ji-yu's eyebrows and shoulders drooped as his voice trailed off.

Seeing him in person made the cartoonishly rich facial expressions hit even harder.

"You'll do well."

"Even if it's empty words, thanks. Getting encouragement from someone good makes me feel like I actually might."

It hadn't been empty words at all.

After the first grade evaluation, Nam Ji-yu had displayed solid skill on every stage and made the debut lineup in most rounds.

His old group fandom tried to drag him down, but there were so few of them.

Even that had gone quiet as if by magic after the former members posted a video of themselves cheering for Nam Ji-yu on social media.

"Hearing hyung praise me gives me energy too."

Ye-chan offered a gentle smile toward the future sub-dancer he had already half-marked.

Nam Ji-yu was one of the trainees Ye-chan was considering as a debut member.

An idol industry veteran had entered the trainee playground; he had no intention of simply grabbing first place as the quest demanded and calling it a day.

If he did not debut with what he considered the absolute best combination, the numbers simply would not add up.

When they finally reached the top of the fairly steep hill, the dormitory building came into view behind a wide open lot.

They had arrived with a comfortable margin before the assembly time, yet a considerable number of trainees were already there.

"Ye-chan, looks like something's posted over there."

Following the direction Nam Ji-yu pointed, the density of trainees was clearly higher.

Approaching and checking, they found the room assignment chart taped to the wall.

"Found my name! What about you, Ye-chan?"

"I found mine too."

Ye-chan answered while keeping his eyes fixed on the chart.

Whether they had grouped same-grade trainees together or not, every single one of them was S-grade.

"Whoa, your room is completely insane."

Nam Ji-yu, who had followed Ye-chan's gaze, marveled. That was probably exactly the reaction the production team had wanted.

"Just filming your faces would be pure entertainment, right?"

Unlike Nam Ji-yu, who for some reason seemed even more delighted than the people actually assigned there, Ye-chan was not pleased about being tangled up with Woo Hwi-gyum again.

If he was not careful, he was going to end up packaged as a set with Woo Hwi-gyum and become the guy who got beaten up together.

If I were Jung Chan-yang, I would never miss an opportunity like that.

Ye-chan decided he would have to keep his distance from Woo Hwi-gyum and stay cautious during the upcoming filming.

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Of course, the way of the world rarely flowed exactly as one intended.