Your Love Wasn't Wasted
After both teams had taken their turns performing cover stages from the previous round, the autograph session began at once. With so many trainees sporting battered faces, questions about the bruises poured in.
A fan sitting right beside fish-eyed Gi Tae-rang dropped her voice to a whisper, clearly conscious of him.
"Ye— Ye-chan… you ranked well, right? Please tell me you did? Yeah?"
"Princess, no spoilers allowed. We'll check together during the live broadcast. Promise~"
Ye-chan held out his pinky with a smiling crinkle of his eyes. The fan, finally looking him full in the face, crossed herself once over her chest. Only then could she extend a trembling finger and hook it around his.
"I… I'll definitely watch…!"
There was something almost solemn in her voice, and Ye-chan had just burst out laughing when—
"Oh my god, it's really Ye-chan!"
The voice was flustered, yet the delivery was as stiff as a robot's. Ye-chan kept his smiling face and looked up at the next fan standing before him. Her eyelids were swollen as if she had been crying somewhere, but she beamed as she went on.
"Ye-chan looks so handsome today! Absolute best. My oppa got eliminated, though!"
The ranking ceremony hadn't even aired yet, and she was stating it as fact — which meant she was almost certainly a fan of a trainee who had ranked disastrously low. Still, don't people usually cling to a miracle until the results come out? Or is she a fan of someone eliminated at the first ranking? Either way… what do I do with this.
A backhanded jab delivered under a veneer of normalcy left him with no clean way to shut it down. Back in the Lee:Spirit days he would have summoned the manager standing behind him and ended it quietly, but he had no manager now, and he wasn't pushing the extreme mystique concept he once had.
Ye-chan was still holding his smile as he finished writing the autograph when—
Is there any need to respond elegantly to low-grade aggro? Let's teach them a lesson!
― You seem to have a lot of grievances with the world.
― The ones who got cut this time weren't exactly my caliber of competition.
― Shall I try guessing what you meant by that?
……Is this thing actually on my side?
It was a horrific set of options that made last night's thoughts in the shower feel completely pointless.
Opening with any of those lines would torpedo any chance of sending her off without noise. Deciding on a different method of deterrence, Ye-chan pretended to lift his pen and selected an option.
"You seem to have a lot of grievances with the world."
"What?"
Whichever line he chose, the gossip would be the same. And this is exactly the kind of moment where the crazy image I've been building comes in handy.
Accepting that the garbage first line would be recorded and circulate online forever, Ye-chan lowered his head and spoke with a bitter expression.
"Still, please take this."
"What are you even—"
Ye-chan handed the water bottle from the table to the flustered fan. After a brief pause to steady his breath, he spoke with a carefully composed face.
"Your voice is cracking. Doesn't your throat hurt?"
With genuine concern in his voice, Ye-chan bowed his head toward the stunned fan.
"The princesses who kept cheering for us through every day of filming — me and the other trainees — are the reason we could keep going. I want you to know that the love you sent was never wasted. Thank you for watching Chumaf and for supporting us."
Ye-chan held her gaze steadily and continued with careful care.
Tears began welling at the corners of the fan's eyes again.
She moved her mouth as if to say something, then snatched up the paper and fled straight off the stage.
While Ye-chan fretted that she might climb over the barrier, Im Chae-jin — who had overheard the entire exchange — looked back and forth between Ye-chan and the fleeing fan before whispering,
"……Ye-chan, you are seriously fucking good with words."
"Chae-jin. Nice language."
Having gently muzzled Im Chae-jin, Ye-chan smiled at the next fan as if nothing had happened.
There was a brief murmur about whatever had just occurred, but after that the time passed quietly without further incident. Once the autographs were finished, the twelve trainees performed Choose Your Prince with Ye-chan at center, and the second autograph session concluded without mishap.
The trainees all agreed it was a relief that nothing major had gone wrong — but the fans, it seemed, felt differently.
On the bus ride back, Ye-chan was browsing post-signing reviews when he swallowed a low sound at the sight of an anonymous board ablaze with fury.
Actually not funny. Are these people even human?
We all knew the second ranking was yesterday, and the second the guerrilla signing notice went up I already thought these bastards had lost it. But I'm also a crazy bitch so I took half a day off and dragged myself to the venue just to see my kid's face, fuck.
At first just seeing their faces made me happy, but when I went up for the autograph the guilt made me unable to lift my head. The eliminated trainees are one thing, but you think the ones who survived feel great? There's such a thing as basic decency. Whether my kid made it or yours did, how are you supposed to smile in that room. Everyone around me was crying and falling apart.
I get that it's a survival show and some people stay and some go, but at least protect the human rights of the ones who got cut, you absolute bastards. They're going to get trauma from this.
The content was fairly measured compared to the aggressive title, but the comments underneath were pure chaos, destruction, and despair.
Somewhere in the middle, a tone-deaf hatemonger with zero eye for talent had randomly inserted a comparison between Beom Se-hyuk and Jung Chan-yang, but it was receiving absolutely no attention.
Ye-chan took screenshots for now and checked other reactions. Not just the Chumaf community — nearly every entertainment-related board was on fire over this signing.
Is this what the production team wanted?
Past its midpoint, Chumaf was still sailing smoothly today, reeling in aggro right on schedule.
The surprising part was that the fan he had fully expected to write a full-page rant about him the moment she got home had gone completely silent.
Plenty of people were curious about what had happened, but no one had an answer.
He had dropped the bomb line "You seem to have a lot of grievances with the world," so he had fully expected a fight to break out by the end of the signing — yet somehow it hadn't.
She definitely recorded it. Is she sitting on it to drop at a more critical moment?
That was when a strange review post caught Ye-chan's eye.
Like you said, I hated everything. I should have asked people around me to vote more. I should have told him I loved him more. All I had was regret, so I hated myself and I hated you and I hated everything……
Having you prove to me that everything I'd done, every feeling I'd had, wasn't wasted — I'm so happy and so shameless and my heart is a mess.
The one thing I'm sure of is thank you, Ye-chan. Thank you for understanding. And thank you for giving me your sincerity.
I'll keep cheering without getting tired. I love you.
Attached to the short, sincere post were photos of the water bottle and the autograph — in Ye-chan's handwriting. And today, Ye-chan had handed a water bottle to exactly one person.
He tapped the account profile. It looked barren, as if it had been made the moment she fled the signing venue — but from the few posts that existed, it was clear she had fallen for Ye-chan.
……So love really can start from the strangest of triggers.
Ye-chan never blocked incoming fans and always did his utmost to hold onto the ones who were leaving, so new fans were always welcome — but this was a genuinely new experience.
The bus arrived back at the dorm. The moment the trainees stepped off, the production staff gathered the eliminated contestants without giving anyone a chance to catch their breath and loaded them onto a single bus.
Through the window, Kim Ju-young's eyes met his. Kim Ju-young gave a quiet nod, and Ye-chan tipped his head in silent reply.
"Everyone! We'll be moving to the auditorium now!"
Even after the staff's call, the remaining trainees only started walking into the building once the bus had completely disappeared from view.
Only now did it feel as though the second ranking ceremony had truly come to an end.
Welcome, candidates.
MC Andrew, waiting for the trainees in the auditorium, greeted them warmly.
We will now reveal the theme for the fourth training camp of Choose My Prince 99.
The moment the MC finished speaking, the auditorium lights went out and text appeared on the giant screen. The trainees who read it stirred in low murmurs. The MC's voice rang out clearly through the darkness.
That's right. The performance theme for this fourth training camp is Concept Songs.
Based on the princesses' voting results, you will form teams of five and prepare songs of different concepts.
The screen soon shifted to the six differently styled outfit photos from the previous vote. One by one, the clothing images transformed into musical genres.
The sailor collar and beret became Tropical Pop. The sharply tailored uniform complete with cape and hat became Hybrid Trap. The ivory sweater and light brown cotton pants became Deep House.
The hoodie with a baseball jacket draped over it turned into Hip-hop, and the harness, shirt, and leather pants became Dance Pop.
Lastly, the traditional robe and gat became Moombahton.
After giving the trainees a moment to take in every genre, the MC took the mic again.
Now, announcing the teams chosen by the princesses!
The genre names that had filled each of the six screen sections shrank, and beneath them the trainees' names began appearing one by one.
So far, as expected.
With five names revealed at once under each genre, the room grew busy as everyone scrambled to find whether their own name had appeared.
Ye-chan stayed clear of the commotion and calmly focused on the trainees who had been placed in his team.
◈ Ha Ye-chan
◈ Seonwoo I-gyeong
◈ Woo Hwi-gyum
◈ Kang Hae-sol
◈ Lee Seung-heon
It was almost the lineup he had expected, though there was a slight discrepancy.
No Jeong Ui-tak.
Checking the other genres, he spotted Jeong Ui-tak's three-character name sitting under Deep House.
Given the scholar-robes concept, Moombahton had mostly drawn the cold-looking types — and Jeong Ui-tak, perhaps because of his younger age, had apparently pulled more votes toward the innocent sweater look.
Still. I'm finally on the same team as Hae-sol hyung.
Ye-chan was gazing proudly at Kang Hae-sol's name when a familiar voice suddenly spoke up right behind his ear.
"Whoa, we're finally on the same team! Looking forward to it."