Meeting My Fated Rival
Across a hundred contestants' stages so far, not a single song had overlapped.
Did that even make sense? It was hard to write off as coincidence.
So what did it mean?
It meant the production team had been controlling the contestants' song choices all along.
They must have asked everyone in advance what they planned to perform, then blocked any overlaps or recommended something else.
And yet Yu Seol's stage song had just overlapped with mine.
More than that—the production staff were watching the stage with greedy, delighted eyes.
Those ratings demons…!
They had clearly known our songs would collide and left it that way on purpose.
So they could pit me against Yu Seol and milk the footage for airtime.
Gives me chills. Seriously.
If I had put on a stage that looked like elimination material, I would have been compared to Yu Seol on pure skill and torn apart by the viewers.
Something like that, probably.
But I had already finished my stage successfully.
Now it was Yu Seol who had to prove her dancing.
So let's see just how good she really is.
Before she went on, she had picked a fight with me—provoked me on purpose.
I fully intended to watch whether someone like that could actually deliver dancing that lived up to the attitude.
And I wasn't the only one thinking it.
The other contestants… and even the judges… all looked curious about what kind of stage Yu Seol would put on next to mine.
Under the heaviest attention and scrutiny of the entire evaluation so far, the final grade assessment of My Idol Academia began.
Spend this night with me.
"……!!!"
The moment the first verse hit, everyone flinched.
The reason was a completely different tone of voice from the stage before.
"Her tone…"
"…changed."
When she had sung Cindy's Letter of the Moon and Lake just earlier, a lyrical atmosphere and a pure, clear tone had stood out.
But the voice she was using now was sticky—borderline seductive.
Like a gumiho swaying its tail and whispering right into your ear.
It was as if she had swapped out her vocal cords entirely; the mood flipped to the opposite of before.
Earlier had been an acoustic concert with a folk guitar… now it was a dance singer's performance under late-night, glittering lights.
Yu Seol's vocals really were that singular.
So was her dancing weak, then? Not even close.
Not enough—time.
I want to be with you.
"The choreography is different…"
Yu Seol's choreography wasn't the original.
The original had focused on soft gestures and a dreamy atmosphere—slow and simple.
But now—
Ssslick—
Her version had speed layered in, giving it a lighter, more buoyant feel.
And yet adding that speed hadn't broken the original mood either.
I need you.
I can't be without you.
This was where her facial acting shone.
The expression she wore—brows drawn, hungry—combined with the faster choreography… and the whole thing became the image of someone craving the person in front of her.
"……."
Until now I had thought that to be an idol, dancing and singing mattered and acting skill didn't.
Yu Seol's stage was screaming that I had been wrong.
The detail packed into that small face of hers.
It swallowed the atmosphere and the staging whole and remade them into something else entirely.
Twenty-four hours.
Everyone watched Yu Seol's stage as if entranced.
…I was no different.
…How was my stage?
Watching hers, I laid my own over it in my mind.
Had mine been that dazzling? Had mine shone like that?
…I didn't think so.
……Damn it.
A shameful feeling rose up in me.
What exactly had I been counting on when I thought I could stand on equal footing with Yu Seol? A handful of compliments from the judges, that was all…
The gap between us should have been obvious from the start.
Talent, experience… there wasn't a single thing where I stood above her.
Ah… it was embarrassing.
And…
It was frustrating.
Something surged up from my chest all over again.
I hadn't recognized it earlier, but now I thought I knew what this feeling was.
Defeat.
What I was feeling was a crushing sense of defeat.
"Kh…"
The more I watched Yu Seol's stage, the more clearly the distance between us stood out.
It hurt—badly—but I still didn't look away.
If I turned my head and looked away now… I had the feeling that no matter how much time passed, I would never catch up to her.
Growth always starts after you recognize your own shortcomings.
The defeat was hard to swallow… but I decided to use this chance to feel the exact size of the gap between Yu Seol and me.
That was when it happened.
"…!"
Right before the final chorus, Yu Seol's eyes met mine again.
She was still holding that alluring expression through the dance moves… and the second our eyes locked—
Smirk.
…she casually lifted the corner of her mouth.
Of course… she was fully aware of me too.
And… she seemed to know exactly what I was feeling right now… and which of us stood higher.
…Was Yu Seol always like this?
From the broadcasts in my past life, I had thought she was just kind, cute, and well-behaved.
Looking at her now, she was a total troublemaker—and a vicious one at that.
……Damn it.
But even under Yu Seol's little dig, I still didn't look away.
I didn't mouth any curses at her either.
Instead… I spoke with my eyes alone.
Come at me again next time.
Whether she caught the meaning in that look or not, Yu Seol—still mid-performance—broke into a bright, sunny smile as if she had forgotten she was on stage.
And that look… was seriously annoying.
"That concludes… my performance."
"……."
When Yu Seol finished her stage, Han Siwoo had to work hard to close his own hanging jaw.
That was how much her performance had been pure shock and awe for him.
This is a trainee's skill…?
In the entertainment industry, it was common enough for people with outstanding ability to never debut simply because luck never found them.
But that only applied up to a certain level.
Why the hell didn't JJ debut this kid?
Yu Seol's skill was nowhere near trainee level. No—if she debuted right now, she would stand at the front of the active idol pack.
Han Siwoo had not taken the role of overall producer for My Idol Academia lightly.
Throughout the grade evaluations, he had been sorting candidates in his head for a potential debut lineup.
And Yu Seol was, without question, first on that list.
A My Idol Academia debut team without Yu Seol was something he couldn't even imagine.
As long as she doesn't get caught in some scandal, she's debuting for sure.
With that thought, Han Siwoo lifted the mic.
"That was a stage every bit as impressive as the one before. You danced and sang at the same time without a single breath falling out of place. The choreography also seemed different from the original—did you create it yourself?"
"Yes, that's right."
Outstanding creative ability on top of everything else…
Han Siwoo couldn't help but be impressed.
"More than anything, the detailed handwork and facial acting all came together to make the stage shine even brighter."
"Th-thank you…!"
Under Han Siwoo's consecutive praise, Yu Seol put on an expression of genuine, heartfelt emotion.
Han Siwoo instinctively knew she was acting the part of being moved right now.
Not that it bothered him.
That kind of false front… was one of the virtues an idol absolutely needed to have.
So he gave a small smile and started into his final remarks—
"Anyway, well done. Of all the contestants today, the most memorable stage… …!"
…and then he stopped, something suddenly occurring to him.
Just now, Han Siwoo had been about to say:
Of all the contestants today, that was the most memorable stage.
But as the words formed, another contestant who had covered 24 Hours Isn't Enough rose in his mind.
Ha Yerin of Hyeongje Entertainment.
Objectively speaking, in terms of stage completeness, Yu Seol had crushed it.
Even giving full weight to Ha Yerin's growth potential and genius, Yu Seol's current raw skill was still higher.
But if you asked which of the two stages was more memorable…
……
"……Today, contestant Yu Seol's stage was one of the most memorable."
"Yes, thank you!"
Han Siwoo said it that way and set the mic down, and the other judges began their evaluations.
"If Producer Han Siwoo is finished, I'll go next. First of all, the lines of her dancing were so beautiful…"
Whoosh.
With Han Siwoo's evaluation done, the cameras swung away from him toward the other judges.
In that gap, Han Siwoo quietly turned his gaze toward seat ninety-nine—toward Ha Yerin.
She was watching Yu Seol with an expression that was a little dejected and a little furious at once.
Poor thing. She hit a wall on Yu Seol's stage.
Fair enough—anyone would have.
But…
Right now, there's something you already do better than Yu Seol.
How fiercely you burn into the public's memory.
In that regard, Ha Yerin's presence among the My Idol Academia contestants had a destructive power all its own.
In Han Siwoo's view, Ha Yerin's greatest weapon was a charm that bewitched everyone around her like a succubus before they even realized it.
So even if Yu Seol looked ahead of her for now…
By the time My Idol Academia ended, the result might well have flipped.
Han Siwoo was smiling to himself over that thought when the other judges finished their evaluations of Yu Seol.
The panel gathered, put on a show of deliberating, and then announced her grade.
Yu Seol's grade was…
"Contestant Yu Seol of JJ Entertainment—grade A."
…of course, A.
"M-me?! Th-thank you!!"
Even though the result had been obvious, Yu Seol reacted as if she had never expected to receive an A, then returned to her seat.
Han Siwoo laughed once more at that shamelessness and lifted the mic.
"All right—with that, the grade evaluations are—"
Yu Seol had been the last one. The evaluations were fully over, and he was about to move into the next segment.
But then—
A murmur rose.
"Get the camera on them! Hurry!"
"……?"
Suddenly there was a stir, and the production staff offstage started shooting not at Han Siwoo with the mic, but at whatever was behind him.
Han Siwoo and the judges tilted their heads and turned around—and there—
"……!"
…Ha Yerin was holding Yu Seol back as she headed for the number-one seat.
I really don't know why I did it.
Because the gap with Yu Seol was so huge it made me furious? Because that face of hers that seemed to be laughing at me was so annoying?
…I don't know.
By the time I came to my senses, I was blocking Yu Seol's path—
"……?"
—and my mouth was opening on its own.
"…I really enjoyed your stage today."
Woom—
The cameras rushed in without missing the moment, but I didn't stop the words once they had started.
"…Next time, I'll show you something better too."
It meant—next time, I was definitely going to win.
"……."
Whether she understood what I meant or not, Yu Seol's face shifted into something unguarded for a second.
Then, as if remembering the cameras, it returned to that pure expression—
"Yes. Let's both do well."
—and she smiled and held out her hand.
I took it without hesitation.
The smile on her face was warm as sunlight, but her hand was cold as her name.
Maybe that was why.
While I held her hand, it felt like the two of us were the only people left in the world.
Is this what it feels like to meet your fated counterpart? A jolt ran through my chest.
The world has no shortage of rival pairs.
Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu.
Lim Yo-hwan and Hong Jin-ho Hong Jin-ho.
And now this one…
Yu Seol and Ha Yerin.
The moment the two of us carved our names into that long, storied lineage of rivals.