A Pension Above the Clouds
I dragged the suitcase I'd packed the day before into the meeting place.
"Ms. Han Jiyoung, you're here? We'll get a mic on you first—this way."
Following the staffer's guidance, I stepped into a temporary tent.
When I came back out, the contestants who'd already arrived were clustered together in a little knot. A few who lived farther out had already headed toward the lodging, but most of us were scheduled to board a large bus from here.
"Unnie! Over here!"
From a distance, Yoo Sia came running, waving her hand. She looked just like the gentle little lamb I'd seen yesterday. No—if anything, the way she waddled under a mountain of luggage was almost comical.
"Why is your suitcase so huge?"
"Ah, well… I packed some face masks, and vitamins, and snacks for us to share…"
Sia answered with an awkward smile.
The bus soon left Sangam-dong behind and settled onto the highway. Outside the window, the forest of buildings faded away, replaced by green mountains and open fields.
How many hours had we been driving? After climbing a long stretch of narrow, winding mountain road, the bus finally came to a stop.
"We've arrived, everyone! You may get off now!"
At the assistant director's call, contestants who'd been half-asleep stirred and blinked awake. I rolled my stiff neck and stepped down the bus stairs.
And the sight that unfolded before my eyes left my mouth hanging open.
"Whoa… no way."
"Is this really Korea?"
Midway up a mountainside that looked plenty high above sea level—high enough that clouds might catch at your feet—stood a massive luxury pension of overwhelming scale. With its grand timber exterior and modern design framed in floor-to-ceiling glass, it looked less like a pension and more like a chaebol family's private villa.
"Alright, everyone, attention please!"
Kang PD stood before us with a megaphone.
"This is where you'll be staying for the next two days. Inside, there are ten rooms prepared. Following the Round 3 matchups, each team will use one room."
Twenty contestants. Ten pairs of rivals. And exactly ten rooms, prepared to match.
"Each room has your names on the door. Unpack your things, rest for a bit, then please gather in the living room at one o'clock for additional mission-related announcements. Don't be late."
When we dragged our luggage inside, the interior was even more lavish than what we'd seen from outside. The marble floors gleamed, and the high ceilings gave an incredible sense of openness. I walked down the hallway and stopped in front of a door labeled Han Jiyoung / Yoo Sia.
Click—.
I opened the door to find a clean room with two twin beds. Beside the bed by the window, a floor-to-ceiling pane looked out over the mountain range at a glance.
"Wooow… Unnie, this room is freaking—I mean, it's really nice!"
Sia tossed her suitcase aside and flung herself onto the bed. I walked over to the window and looked out.
We're supposed to stay here for two days?
A two-night, three-day schedule. What on earth was the production team thinking, herding twenty contestants deep into these mountains? Kang PD had said the point was for rivals to get to know each other. But in a survival audition, what exactly did you gain from getting to know your rival?
What is this, a dating show?
It was an audition in genre only. At its core, the production was closer to a reality show.
"But there are quite a few teams matched as guys and girls."
Sia, sprawled out on the bed like a starfish, muttered something that could have been to herself or a question for me. Without taking my eyes off the scenery outside, I nodded.
Come to think of it, I'd glimpsed that when the matchups were drawn. Naeun had been paired with the musical actor Kang Minhyuk—they'd be sharing a room. Besides them, about three teams were mixed-gender.
"Wow, that's gotta be so awkward."
"I don't know. Doesn't really bother me."
At my indifferent answer, Sia bounced up from the bed like a spring. Then she pursed her lips into a little O and stared at me like I was something unexpected.
"Oh… Unnie, so that look on stage—that was the real deal? The one you use when you're reeling a guy in!"
"…What?"
"That vibe doesn't come from practice!"
Sia's eyes sparkled with curiosity.
"It's not like that. The stage is just the stage."
I cut Sia's fantasy off cold and opened my suitcase. Click—I unlocked it and started organizing my clothes. Before I knew it, the clock pointed to one in the afternoon.
"Alright, everyone's here?"
In the massive first-floor living room of the pension, twenty contestants sat on sofas, paired with their rivals. In front of us, Kang PD and the rest of the production crew watched from behind the cameras.
"For the next two nights and three days, you'll be living here. This is a gift from the production team to the twenty of you who've worked hard through Round 2. Enjoy yourselves to the fullest."
Relief sighs broke out here and there.
"That said, you can't just play around the whole time, right? The annex behind the pension has practice rooms with perfect soundproofing and instruments fully stocked. Teams preparing for the Round 3 performances are free to use them."
Practice rooms too? The contestants' faces visibly brightened.
"Ah, and one more thing. Meals won't be provided separately. Instead, we've stocked the kitchen fridge and pantry with the finest ingredients, so cook for yourselves. From choosing the menu to preparing the food—it's all up to you."
What, are they actually telling us to rest? This is awesome.
Once Kang PD's announcement ended and free time began, Naeun came trotting over to my side.
"Waaah… Unnie, this place is so huge and nice, right? Look at how high the living room ceiling is. You've been to places like this all the time, haven't you?"
"No, this is a first for me too."
"Huh? How come? Your family is super rich!"
Naeun's eyes went round as she asked. I thought back on the last five years of my life. After school I'd run straight to my room and power on the computer, and even after becoming an adult, aside from part-time work at a hospital café, I rarely left my bed.
"I'm a hikikomori."
"…What? You, Unnie?"
Naeun looked back and forth between my face and my figure like she couldn't believe it.
"No way, that's a lie! With a face like that, you stayed cooped up in your room?"
"You don't have friends?"
Sia, who'd been listening, blurted it out and then clapped a hand over her mouth. It had come out on pure reflex.
"I don't have friends."
"Why?"
Naeun asked with a look like the world had just collapsed, truly unable to understand. Beside her, Sia, who'd been covering her mouth, slowly lowered her hand and chimed in.
"Hmm, bad personality?"
At Sia's words, Naeun jumped in surprise and jabbed her in the side.
"It's just a hassle."
At my matter-of-fact answer, Sia and Naeun's gazes tangled together.
It wasn't like I'd put up walls from the start. A well-off family, a striking appearance. Plenty of people approached even if I just stood still. I'd tried hanging out with them a couple of times. But the results were always the same. It wasn't hard to notice that one of the cliques that roamed the bathrooms like it was life or death was passionately trash-talking me behind my back the moment I stepped away.
I thought this life would be different, but people are the same everywhere.
I asked the two of them, who were staring at me with vacant expressions, with a crooked tilt of my head.
"You pitying me?"
"No, not at all! Pity? Absolutely not!"
Naeun waved her hands frantically, denying it.
"It's just… you're such a good person, Unnie, so it's weird that you don't have friends. Your personality might be a little cold, but you're actually really warmhearted."
"Me?"
I asked back, floored.
"Of course! During practice last time, you pinpointed exactly what was wrong with my vocals, and I improved so much thanks to you. Even the teachers couldn't catch my bad habits, but you fixed them in one go."
Naeun's eyes sparkled. That sincerely grateful look made me feel awkward, so I turned my gaze away—and Yoo Sia, standing beside her, nodded silently as well.
"…I'll give you that."
Sia muttered, then added,
"Maybe it's not that you don't have friends because of your personality. Maybe you just never met anyone who was on your level."
"Stop. You're making me cringe to death."
I waved a hand and stood up from my seat. Looking around the living room, the other contestants had already paired off and headed out to the garden or toward the practice rooms in the annex.
Still, glad I was of some help.
It wasn't like I'd had some grand intention. Thanks to the musical sense I'd carved into my bones in my previous life, the kids' little vocal habits and unstable breathing just got under my skin.
"Unnie, where are you going? Let's go together!"
Naeun called me back as I stood there blankly.
"I'm gonna check out the practice rooms. See what the others are up to."
"Oh! That's the composure of a number-one singer for you! Going on recon, right? Take me with you!"
Naeun latched onto my arm.
"Recon, my foot… I'm just going for a walk."
Han Doyun sat in a corner of the annex, in a practice room no one had claimed yet, fiddling with an acoustic guitar.
His main genre was country. But in the Korean music market, country was usually treated like a ghost genre. Through Round 2, though, spending time with Han Jiyoung had taught him something—how to speak to the world without abandoning his own genre.
The spark she'd given him had lit a fire under his long-frozen creative drive, and he'd already written several songs. One of them was the piece written on the sheet music in front of him now—The Dream Barn.
A dazzling dream dreamt inside a rundown warehouse. Perhaps it resembled his own circumstances. With that song, he planned to throw down the gauntlet in Round 3.
"…Haa."
Doyun let out a deep sigh and tapped the body of his guitar. In the practice room hallway, other contestants had begun arriving one by one and scattering into the individual soundproof rooms.
Can I do this? Will this rough song even reach people's hearts?
Just as anxiety was outpacing confidence, murmuring rose from the practice room entrance, and a familiar silhouette appeared.
"What are you doing here?"
He looked up—and it was Han Jiyoung.
Doyun stared at her face as if spellbound. That sharp insight and musical sense she'd shown in Round 2. What he needed most right now might not be his own conviction, but her cold, clear judgment.
Doyun swallowed dryly and adjusted his grip on the guitar.
"Jiyoung…"
"Yes?"
"This is shameless of me, but… could you evaluate a song I wrote?"
Jiyoung looked into Doyun's eyes for a moment, then glanced at Naeun and Sia standing beside her, and answered casually.
"Of course. Let's hear it."