The Flawless Host

Following the Floor Director whose complexion had brightened in an instant, Ye-chan moved onto the darkened stage and checked the cue cards.

He skimmed through the same ments used at yesterday's Seoul concert and nodded. Yeah, nothing particularly difficult here. Of course, that assessment was by Ye-chan's standards — not a trainee's.

Once the Floor Director finished vigorously shaking his hand with repeated requests to take care of things and stepped back, Ye-chan opened the shop and searched for the item he needed.

Wish it had an on/off switch. The MC segments aren't that long — how many of these am I going to need? Fortunately, points had piled up quite nicely from doing nothing but eating and practicing during the training camp and after.

After quickly purchasing what he needed, Ye-chan opened the Status Window.

Dump points into Speech to get it up to A− first, then use the item.

In an instant, the stat that had been B became A+.

It was a stat he'd been planning to raise eventually anyway, so it didn't feel particularly wasteful.

The numbers were in place. Now, just like when he'd dumped points into Rap, what he needed to avoid failing was experience.

"Ye-chan-ssi! We're starting! Lights in three seconds!"

At the voice through his in-ear monitor, Ye-chan lifted his head.

Exactly three seconds later, the lights blazed on all at once, and Ye-chan raised ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the microphone.

Of course, the experience forged through real combat across his past lives was more than enough on its own.

The audience, frozen and briefly stunned by Ye-chan's completely unexpected appearance, erupted a moment later.

"Kyaaaaaah!"

"Ha Ye-chan, marry me!"

"Ah! I'm losing it! Ah! Ah! Aaaaah!"

"Ha Ye-chan, you're my staaaaar!"

Ye-chan looked out over the nearly frenzied audience with warm eyes and calmly continued.

"…What the hell. Why is he so good at this?"

The ones most stunned by Ye-chan's fluent hosting were, without question, the production staff.

The main PD — who had been fully prepared to fawn over Ye-chan even if he'd just stood there reading from a Korean textbook — rubbed his eyes once and dug a finger into his ear.

On stage, Ye-chan was still delivering a performance that would put any music-show MC to shame.

It was only natural. Memories of hosting music shows are coming back vivid and clear.

After Lee:Spirit had gained some traction and a music-show MC offer came in, Ye-chan had thoroughly analyzed every celebrity who'd held the role before him.

Pronunciation drills, calibrated facial acting, and ment research were the bare minimum — and he'd studied the idols appearing each week so exhaustively that fans would ask, Amazing, sure, but… why go this far…?

Through those efforts, he'd even earned a place among the longest-running MCs in history.

For Ye-chan — who'd leveraged that recognition into hosting K-pop joint concerts and year-end award shows — emceeing a guerrilla concert with no interviews was easier than breathing.

As the curtain concealing the trainees dropped, Ye-chan slipped naturally into the Choose Your Prince formation and, in an instant, was no longer an MC but an idol.

The main PD, who had tracked Ye-chan through the monitor for the entire opening stage, marveled again as Ye-chan returned to the MC seat and launched smoothly back into hosting.

"That kid's the real deal."

Standing beside him, writer Kim Sang-hee secretly turned away and wiped her tears. PD Shin, who can only compare Ye-chan to an object — go die. Die right now. No, wait — finish the editing, then die. Ye-chan is a god, you bastard.

In a schedule growing more murderously packed by the day, Ye-chan's existence was already no different from a religion to her.

The only person in this world who can read a corny ment like that so sweetly is Ye-chan. Kim Sang-hee casually roasted her own script as she sent a look of pure reverence toward him.

The encore was Choose Your Prince again.

With the same structure as the day before, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trainees — already a touch more polished — waved their hands energetically on stage as they sang.

After the final verse ended, Ye-chan returned to center stage with Shim Sang-rok for the closing ment.

The second day's ending ment had originally belonged to Ye-chan as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the second-place finisher from the first ranking announcement, but with Ye-chan taking MC duties, third-place Shim Sang-rok got to deliver it a day early.

"Princesses, it was so wonderful meeting you today. Let's see each other more often from now on."

Having splendidly completed his mission and stepped down from the stage, Ye-chan was met with full-body applause from the main PD.

Looking at him with eyes so intense they were almost burdensome, the PD planted both hands on Ye-chan's shoulders.

"Absolutely outstanding, Ha Ye-chan. Looking at this reaction, it seems fine for you to just keep handling this all the way through. I'll leave the remaining three days to you as well. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'm putting my full trust in you alone! Hahahaha."

I knew this would happen. The main PD, who'd smoothly dumped the remaining guerrilla concert MC duties onto him as well, clapped his shoulder with a hearty laugh, and Ye-chan calmly accepted reality.

When he headed back toward the temporary waiting room where the trainees were gathered, another shower of applause poured down.

A standing ovation.

Ye-chan accepted that calmly too.

"Great work, everyone! Board the bus — we're heading to Gwangju!"

For the remaining Gwangju, Daegu, and Busan concerts, the distances were too burdensome to travel directly from Seoul, so the production team had booked accommodations in advance.

"I've never been to Gwangju before."

"Didn't Hwi-gyum say Gwangju was his hometown? Must be nice going home after so long!"

"I came down briefly during the last training camp, so it's not that long."

"Ah."

Woo Hwi-gyum answered flatly to the thoughtlessly spoken words.

It felt like the temperature inside the bus had dropped several degrees.

The full story of Woo Hwi-gyum's false school-violence incident had already been shared in fair detail with several of the trainees.

Sensing they'd dredged up bad memories, the others started carefully watching Hwi-gyum's mood, and Ye-chan let out a small sigh. These guys really need a hand, don't they.

Left alone, this suffocating atmosphere would last all the way to the next lodging.

Ye-chan, who had been gazing out the darkened window without joining the conversation, spoke gently.

"It was resolved well, so let's not make it awkward. Hwi-gyum would find that more uncomfortable."

He turned back to meet Woo Hwi-gyum's eyes with a look that said right?, and Hwi-gyum hurriedly nodded.

Nam Ji-yu chimed in with a much brighter expression.

"Yeah! If you tiptoe around too~ much, that just creates distance, guys? More importantly — did everyone see the voting that started today? Let's talk about where we want to go!"

"Me, me! The hanbok for me!"

"I want the uniform!"

"I'd go for the harness side. Seems like it'd be a sexy concept."

Trainees piled onto the topic Nam Ji-yu had so naturally redirected.

Right after the Daejeon concert had ended a little earlier, a trainee costume vote had gone live on the Choose My Prince official homepage.

The vote — which revealed only the clothes the center would wear, without a single word about song titles or concepts — would run for exactly one week, and trainees would be divided into teams for the fourth training camp based on the viewers' results.

Six costumes had been revealed in total, and from those alone one could roughly infer the song concepts.

A sailor-collar shirt with a beret, for instance, pointed to a bright, fresh concept; leather pants with a harness had a high probability of being sexy.

Of course, Ye-chan from the future remembered exactly which clothes went with which songs.

"The concept is one thing, but I'm also curious what the songs will be."

"Wouldn't they be original songs? Audition programs always drop original tracks in the later stages!"

Correct.

Ye-chan glanced at Gi Tae-rang, who'd made a fairly sharp deduction, then turned his gaze back out the window.

The trainees' heated debate mixed with the rapidly passing scenery outside was rather pleasant to listen to.

The Choose My Prince fandom — and Ye-chan's fandom within it especially — couldn't keep their heads straight amid the flood of content pouring in.

Gi Hae-rang, Gi Tae-rang's one and only younger sister, was one of those fans.

"No, is Ye-chan Oppa even human? How is he good at talking too?"

Saving every Ye-chan photo that appeared, Gi Hae-rang marveled.

In the eyes of thoroughly love-struck Gi Hae-rang, Ha Ye-chan in the video that had been taken down at light speed after an N-net report looked like he could put professional variety-show MCs to shame.

Ha… so Gi Tae-rang is watching Ye-chan Oppa live, right next to him? For the first time in my life, I'm jealous of Gi Tae-rang…

Choose My Prince communities were already expecting the guerrilla concerts to continue, given the news that the bus carrying the trainees was heading south rather than back to Seoul.

Meanwhile, heated debate was also raging over the new vote that had gone live on the homepage.

Boards and social media were flooded with posts arguing for — or asking about — which costumes to vote for the trainees they were supporting.

Gi Hae-rang clutched her head in front of the monitor displaying Ye-chan's voting page.

"Ha… why does everything look good on Ye-chan Oppa?"

Having built walls against internet communities, she sat alone, repeatedly dressing Ye-chan in different outfits inside her head without sharing a single opinion with anyone, agonizing over and over.

A sailor collar with shorts might be a bit much — but once you put them on him, he'd be ridiculously cute.

The uniform that included a cape overlapped somewhat with existing Choose My Prince costumes, but uniforms were always right, weren't they?

And a shirt with leather pants? If Ye-chan wore those, it would be nosebleed-inducingly sexy.

She was curious about him in a baseball jacket, too, and the cozy-looking ivory sweater seemed like it had been made specifically for Ye-chan.

But the one that pulls me most is still this.

Gi Hae-rang checked the jade-colored dopo and gat sitting in second place on the voting screen again.

Yeah. Still looks good no matter how many times I look.

But the moment she tried to cast her vote, the other outfits would catch her eye all over again.

I wish I could just ask Ye-chan Oppa directly what he'd most want to wear.

Gi Hae-rang's eyes drifted to the smartphone carelessly tossed on her desk.

She shook her head hard.

Get a grip! Asking through Gi Tae-rang is cheating!

Hadn't she held out this whole time — never asking Gi Tae-rang about what happened at the training camp or about Ye-chan whenever he came home after camp ended?

She was a complete outsider to fan culture, but using a blood relation at a time like this somehow felt cheap.

Okay. Going with this!

Having steeled her resolve, Gi Hae-rang firmly gripped the mouse and cast her vote.