The Glorious First Place
"Both candidates, please come forward!"
At the MC's call, Ye-chan and Beom Se-hyuk rose from their seats.
With every step toward the stage, they drew closer to the first-place seat prepared at the back, and their eyes naturally drifted toward that chair.
Once Ye-chan and Beom Se-hyuk had climbed onto the stage, the MC stepped between them.
"Candidate Beom Se-hyuk and Candidate Ha Ye-chan, Candidate Ha Ye-chan and Candidate Beom Se-hyuk! What result will we see this time? Candidate Beom Se-hyuk, what are your thoughts?"
Beom Se-hyuk took the microphone a staff member handed him, turned toward Ye-chan, and smiled with his eyes.
"Ye-chan was really incredible during this training camp too. But for the princesses who support me—and for myself—I want to take first place."
"Candidate Beom Se-hyuk, full of spirit! Then how about Candidate Ha Ye-chan?"
Ye-chan accepted the microphone and, meeting Beom Se-hyuk's gaze just as he had, opened his mouth.
"Having Se-hyuk around always makes me push myself harder. And this time, I want first place."
"Both candidates are brimming with drive—wonderful to see! Two people who both want first place! But the first place chosen by the princesses is only one person! Right now, we will announce the candidate who will sit in the highest seat of the Second Succession Ceremony!"
Without realizing it, Ye-chan's fist clenched tight.
The MC stepped back, opened the envelope marked with the number 1, and drew out a slip of paper bearing a single name.
"The Second Royal Succession Ceremony—the glorious first place is...!"
His heart hammered violently.
It was too big a matter, too heavy with expectation, to dismiss with a simple What does it even matter?
That brief silence stretched until it felt as if it might last forever.
At last the MC's mouth opened again.
"Candidate Ha Ye-chan, congratulations!"
……Ah.
Something that had been lodged in his throat finally broke free.
How long had it been since he last felt every single hair on his body stand on end like this?
A tingling rush of pleasure swept through him as Ye-chan lifted the microphone—and that was when a hologram window burst open right in front of his eyes with a soft pop.
What? At a moment this important? Don't tell me it's a choice. Or a mission? A level-up?
Ye-chan hurriedly bit the inside of his cheek so his expression wouldn't twist, and rapidly scanned the hologram window.
Congratulations.
It was neither a choice, nor a new mission, nor a level-up notification.
Just one short, sincere sentence.
Ye-chan stared for a moment at the five characters floating blankly in midair, shook off the strange feeling that threatened to swallow him, and spoke.
"……I want to thank the princesses who brought me to this place so I could share these thoughts. I'll take you all somewhere even better. I love you."
Perhaps the hologram window's oddly bland gesture had influenced him—he had delivered a far more earnest speech than the crazy image he had built up until now, and that bothered him a little. But the studio's reaction was fiery.
"A truly wonderful speech, Candidate Ha Ye-chan!"
The MC, who always overreacted, went without saying—and Beom Se-hyuk standing beside him was holding up both thumbs. The other trainees, whether sincere or not, applauded enthusiastically.
If the fans react like this too, nothing could be better.
With a lightened heart, Ye-chan finished his remarks and pressed the microphone into Beom Se-hyuk's hand.
"Now let's hear from Candidate Beom Se-hyuk, who has taken second place."
Dropping in rank might have been reason enough to look downcast, yet Beom Se-hyuk remained as bright as ever as he proudly brought the microphone to his lips.
"Some of you might think I should be depressed about falling from first to second, and others might say that second is still a high rank and I should take it as an honor."
……Did it show on my face?
The timing was so perfect Ye-chan could almost believe the other boy had read his mind; he doubted his own ears.
No—more than that, isn't he being way too honest?
Regardless of what Ye-chan thought, Beom Se-hyuk kept going.
"But I gave everything I had on every stage, and I am truly satisfied with the answer you gave me after seeing my best. From now on I'll keep doing my utmost so that people will say I put on the best stage. Please keep watching over your prince, princesses!"
As far as Ye-chan knew, this was the first time remarks like these had ever come out of Beom Se-hyuk's mouth.
Maybe it's because this is his first time in second place.
Yet somehow it still felt thoroughly like Beom Se-hyuk.
Once the ranking ceremony ended, the trainees immediately gathered their luggage and boarded the bus bound for the dormitory. This time the eliminated trainees came along as well.
It was a precaution against the spoilers that had circulated after the first ranking, when people had spotted eliminated trainees dragging their suitcases home.
Thanks to that, the atmosphere is completely wrecked.
They had already cried, clung to each other, and said their goodbyes inside the studio—now they had to ride the same bus, and the whole thing was a spectacle.
Because the staff had simply herded nearby trainees onto the bus at random, Kim Ju-young ended up in the seat beside Ye-chan.
Their eyes met; Kim Ju-young gave an awkward smile. Then, as the bus began to move, he started sniffling quietly.
This is driving me crazy.
Ye-chan quickly checked the usual camera positions. The cameras were gone.
Unless the production team had lost their minds, they would never broadcast the sight of eliminated trainees being dragged all the way back to the dorm—so of course the cameras were missing.
Which meant that, with no cameras around, he could simply pretend to sleep and ignore everything.
While Ye-chan was weighing that option, a sound like air leaking from a balloon slipped out of Kim Ju-young as he tried to hold back his sobs.
……Hah.
Ye-chan squeezed his eyes shut, steeled himself, and awkwardly reached out to pat Kim Ju-young's arm.
"Y-Ye-chan……"
"……"
In a trembling voice, Kim Ju-young called his name.
If Ye-chan had been in Kim Ju-young's place, he doubted any words would have comforted him. So he simply kept patting the other boy's arm in silence.
Until the bus finally stopped, soft weeping continued here and there, and no one opened their mouth.
"……Ye-chan, thank you. Make sure you debut! No—if it's you, of course you will."
After they got off, Kim Ju-young approached him hesitantly. Ye-chan shook his head.
"There's no such thing as 'of course.' Thanks."
Something in Ye-chan's words must have struck a chord; Kim Ju-young scrubbed at the tears welling in his eyes with his sleeve.
With a face full of affection, he suddenly seized Ye-chan's hand.
"I'll really be rooting for you! You're going to do great!"
He's getting emotional because it's the end, I guess.
The sudden intensity was a bit much, but Ye-chan thought of his more extreme fans and answered calmly.
"Yeah. I'll be rooting for you too."
Because Kim Ju-young kept repeating the same tearful words, Ye-chan continued comforting him with different sentences that meant the same thing, making sure the sincerity came through.
"Everyone! Today you'll go into the same rooms as last training camp! I'll hand out the room keys now, so come get them from me! And don't forget—there's a second fan signing tomorrow morning!"
At the staff member's announcement, Ye-chan parted from Kim Ju-young and rejoined his previous roommates, finally letting out a breath. Im Chae-jin glanced around to confirm there were no cameras and whispered,
"Thank god no one from our room got eliminated. I thought I was going to suffocate to death on that bus."
"I sat next to Chang-hee and I got a little teary myself……"
Kang Chang-hee was the trainee who had stood with Gi Tae-rang on the knife-edge of survival until the very end and then dropped to thirty-first. Just imagining how awkward that must have been was horrifying.
Ye-chan led the two drained boys back to the room and immediately opened his suitcase to grab his toiletries.
"Hyung, you're showering right away?"
"Aren't you even tired? First place really isn't something just anyone can do."
Under their gazes—half shock, half admiration—Ye-chan shook his head once.
"The showers are going to be packed soon. Think you can handle that?"
Listening to the two of them scramble through their bags, Ye-chan slipped out of the room first.
When he stepped into the shower room, a few of the more diligent ones had already claimed spots. After a brief eye greeting with the trainees whose gazes he met, Ye-chan darted into an empty booth.
The high of taking first place lasted only a moment; under the lukewarm water, his head cleared in an instant. Ye-chan calmly recalled the hologram window that had popped up at such a strange time.
"Congratulations," huh. That ticks me off.
Now that enough data had piled up, his guess had hardened into certainty. The hologram window never offered him choices that would harm him.
I used to think this bastard was desperate to pair me with Woo Hwi-gyum just so it could screw me over……
Now that he knew Woo Hwi-gyum had been falsely accused, he could no longer deny that the hologram window held goodwill toward him.
And that makes it even more disgusting.
It hadn't been as blatant as today's hologram, but Ye-chan had taken a massive hit to the back of the head from the reset window he once believed was the opportunity of a lifetime. He simply could not accept mysterious goodwill at face value.
Wouldn't be surprised if that bastard stabbed me in the back someday and turned into a person.
For now he had no way to get rid of it, so using it was the best option. Ye-chan resolved not to let his guard down and turned the water on harder.
As expected, by the time he stepped out, the shower room was packed to bursting. When he briefly looked with pity at Jeong Ui-tak standing in the hallway outside, clothes in hand and waiting in line, Jeong Ui-tak bristled and jumped.
Somehow, peace of mind returned. The unease the hologram window had stirred settled, and he felt he would be able to sleep soundly.
The next morning, the trainees gathered at the time the staff had announced and boarded separate buses headed for the salon.
As the production team had said the day before, it was the day of the second fan signing for Choose My Prince 99.
Just like the first fan signing, the ranking ceremony had already taken place, but it had not yet aired—so the eliminated trainees came along as well.
I figured the eliminated ones would be obvious from their faces…… but there are more than a few among the ones who survived who look like wrecks too.
Most of the trainees who would be leaving had cried themselves to sleep, so their eyes and faces were swollen—yet for some reason a number of the successful ones were also noticeably puffy.
His roommate Gi Tae-rang was one of them.
"Think makeup can cover this? Doesn't look like it……"
He cried the most during the ranking ceremony, after all.
Nam Ji-yu took Gi Tae-rang's chin, turned it this way and that, and clicked his tongue.
"Tae-rang, this one's a lost cause."
"Huueng……"
"Hey, hey, don't cry. It'll get worse!"
Just as Nam Ji-yu predicted, Gi Tae-rang's face could not be saved even with makeup.
"W-well, it's kind of cute in its own way."
"Yeah, maybe being young really is the answer."
Nam Ji-yu and Im Chae-jin launched into a free-for-all of nonsense to cheer up the dejected Gi Tae-rang.
"Hyung, I'm only one year younger than you……"
"Dude, nineteen and twenty are completely different!"
Ye-chan glanced aside to escape his noisy teammates and found faces that looked even more depressed.
Today's fan signing was being held in four locations with two teams each. Unlike Ye-chan's team, where no one had been eliminated, more than half of that team's members had been cut, so the atmosphere was terrible.
If I don't manage my expression properly today, I'm in big trouble.
If he so much as smiled by accident, people would invent stories about him sneering and run wild with them. Ye-chan resolved not to spare even a glance toward the neighboring team if he could help it—when the production staff called the trainees.
"We're heading inside now!"
"Don't be nervous. Stay calm, stay calm!"
The moment they stepped off the bus and entered the building, a massive roar erupted. Faces he remembered from the previous fan signing and the concert covered their mouths when they saw Ye-chan.
Right. No matter what happens, I always have to show the fans only my best face.
Ye-chan waved toward them and climbed onto the prepared stage.