Welcome to Meritocracy My Idol Academia
Welcome to the pure meritocracy of My Idol Academia.
Once the little incident between Yu Seol and me had settled down, Han Siwoo took up the microphone again to keep things moving.
"That concludes the rank evaluations for My Idol Academia. Trainees, you've all worked hard."
"……."
Even with Han Siwoo's words of praise, there was no real response from the contestants.
Everyone was exhausted from the long shoot—and more than that, most of them had received ranks so low that disappointment hung heavy in the air.
As if reading the mood, Han Siwoo curled one corner of his mouth and continued.
"My Idol Academia will operate on a system of pure, uncompromising merit. Contestants with lower ranks… will, of course, receive poorer treatment than those with higher ones."
"……."
Many faces darkened at that. Most of them were D, E, and F Rank trainees.
Some bit their lips. Others clenched their fists, as if the reminder of their own ranks had hit them all over again.
Just as the lower-ranked contestants' hearts were filling with darkness—
"But, everyone. The ranks you've received today are not yet final."
"……!"
Han Siwoo laid out what came next.
"Until the theme song shoot one week from now, you'll practice dance and vocals through specialized classes. A Rank trainees in the A Rank class, B Rank trainees in the B Rank class, and so on."
"…Huh."
I flinched at his words.
The only people who got A Rank were Yu Seol and me…? That meant the A class would be just the two of us…?
That's a little… awkward.
Fortunately, his next line solved that particular worry.
"And… over the next week, there will be continuous class reassignments. Show something good, and you'll be promoted. Fail to, and you'll be demoted."
…So that was why the ranks had been so stingy.
Even with a harsh evaluation standard, only two A Ranks out of a hundred had felt absurdly low.
The production team must have told the judges from the start to grade harshly—for the sake of dramatic television.
"Depending on what you show from here on… even an F Rank trainee becoming A Rank isn't a dream."
Han Siwoo's words were pure gasoline.
He had just thrown fuel onto the competitive fire of every low-ranked contestant in the room.
"From this moment, the real competition begins. If you want to debut through My Idol Academia… if you want your name known… prove it with your dreams and your passion."
"……."
No one answered. No one even nodded. But the eyes of all one hundred contestants were alive.
Was this what soldiers looked like before marching onto a battlefield?
In that moment, I understood it all over again.
No one was here by accident. Everyone had put something real on the line to stand in this room.
Her too, for sure…
My gaze flicked, almost reflexively, toward Yu Seol.
She was wearing that bright, sunny smile of someone looking forward to what came next. But she had to have staked just as much as anyone else to be here.
And that meant—
I would have to give everything I had, to the point of dying, if I wanted any chance of beating her.
Of course, I couldn't just keep staring up at the person above me.
A prickle ran down my spine.
In that same instant, my eyes met Seo Yujin's from SAV—she was glaring straight at me.
She hadn't made A Rank, but the level of her stage had clearly been outstanding.
And the other B Rank contestants… they'd all shown real skill too.
Could I really suppress them with raw ability alone?
…No.
Between me and those B Rank girls, the ranking could flip at any moment and it wouldn't even be strange.
Pressure from above. Climbing from below… Just thinking about it made it hard to breathe.
And yet—
Thump.
My heart was pounding with fierce excitement.
Everyone here must have felt the same.
On the outside they looked like gentle girls, but inside they were packed full of hunger and fire.
And in the next moment, I was certain of it.
"All right, then—shall we end with the slogan together? One, two…"
"Show me your dream!!!!!"
At Han Siwoo's cue, the slogan we all roared out carried a vicious, almost poisonous intensity.
This place was a battlefield.
A battlefield of dreams and passion—
and of malice, cruelty, and every kind of scheme.
"Cut! Great work, everyone! That's a wrap for today's shoot! We'll head to the dorms now~"
With one last group shout of the My Idol Academia slogan, filming for the day was over.
"All right, trainees—please line up according to your ranks~"
Apparently Han Siwoo hadn't been bluffing about the different treatment by rank.
The second the shoot ended and the polite applause for a job well done died down, the discrimination began.
"Um… so where do F Ranks go…"
"Yes~ F Rank trainees, this way please!"
"E Ranks over here~"
The contestants shuffled around, each finding their own rank group.
I even had to part ways with Park Yujeong, whom I'd gotten fairly close to while chatting during the evaluations.
"Unni—!! We'll definitely meet again!! I'm going to climb up to A class real soon—!"
"R-right."
We said we'd see each other again… but Park Yujeong was E Rank.
Maybe we really wouldn't meet again.
Feeling a little bitter, I made my way over to the A Rank spot.
"…Ah."
Yu Seol was already there, ahead of me.
……Great.
Being alone with her still felt uncomfortable…
What kind of nerve had I even had earlier, making that whole rival declaration?
…Next time, I'll show you something better too.
The moment I remembered what I'd said while grabbing her as she headed back to her seat… my face started burning with embarrassment.
…I couldn't breathe. What was I supposed to talk about when it was just the two of us?
M-MBTI…! Do kids these days like talking about MBTI…? Wait, what even was my MBTI…?
I was pretty sure I'd taken the test once, but I couldn't remember the result.
Wondering if I should just ask about blood type instead, I approached Yu Seol.
But then—
"Um…"
Swoosh—.
"……?"
Before I could force the words out, Yu Seol raised a hand and stopped me—almost like she was blocking me off.
"Next time."
"…Sorry?"
"We're both tired today. Let's talk later."
"……."
The smile on her face wasn't the bright one she wore for the cameras. It was something tired, worn thin.
"…Ah. Okay."
When the other person put it like that, it was hard to push any further.
"All right—if everyone's lined up by rank, we'll move to the dorms."
And so the two of us—the entire A Rank—walked to the dormitory in awkward silence.
The dorms sat about a fifteen-minute walk from the set, and they were bigger than I'd expected.
Apparently the network had bought a failing resort and renovated it specifically to serve as the My Idol Academia housing.
The scale is way bigger than I thought.
For a "failing resort," the exterior was surprisingly polished.
Maybe because the show was called My Idol Academia?
Painted in white and pink, the building almost felt like a campus out of a fairy tale.
I was still admiring the outside as we stepped inside—when suddenly—
"Waaaah—!!"
"It's so pretty—!!"
"What are the rooms like?!"
An exaggerated burst of reactions exploded from the group at the front.
I knew instantly that the cameras had started rolling again, and I was right.
Dozens of cameras were waiting for us inside the dorms, just like on the set.
What are they even planning to film in the dorms with this many…
I found out soon enough.
"From here on, we'll split by rank! F, E, and D Ranks on the first floor; B and C Ranks on the second; and finally, A Rank on the third!"
"Ah…"
Rooms that varied wildly by rank—and reaction shots of the trainees seeing them. That was the point.
The quality of the F Rank rooms I glimpsed on the way past was genuinely jaw-dropping.
"W-what is this…"
The F Rank trainees took one look at their rooms and forgot the cameras entirely, giving completely real reactions.
Sighs. Irritation.
Some of them went stone-faced.
And honestly, they had every right.
A training camp…?
The F Rank rooms looked exactly like a military boot camp barracks.
I'd been an orphan in my previous life, so I'd never actually gone to the army—but I'd seen enough variety shows about it to recognize the setup.
Bunk beds, lockers, blankets and sleeping bags underneath…
They'd used light-colored wallpaper to give it a vaguely girlish touch, but no matter how you looked at it, this was just a military training camp.
"…How many people are supposed to stay in this room?"
At one F Rank girl's careful question, a staff member answered with a bright smile.
"Yes~ Twenty people total in this room."
"…Excuse me?! Twenty…?!"
"If there are no rank changes, F Rank trainees will be staying here for the full week."
"……."
The F Rank girls' faces crumpled. At the same time… they ground their teeth, as if steeling their resolve.
It was the same for the other ranks.
E and D weren't as bad as F—but you still couldn't call those rooms good.
"Here we are—the C Rank rooms!"
From C Rank on, things finally improved.
"C Rank trainees will be four to a room."
A decently sized space with ordinary interiors, and bunk beds that looked reasonably soft.
Most of the C Rank girls seemed satisfied, giving pleased reactions for the cameras.
And then I was genuinely surprised starting with B Rank.
"B Rank rooms are two to a room."
"…Whoa."
Even at a glance, the rooms were clearly larger than the C Rank ones.
Clean beds, carpet on the floor, a small desk attached. There was even a little living area with a sofa in the middle—basically a small apartment.
…This is way better than my place in my previous life.
I'd expected B Rank to be nothing special, but it was far better than I'd imagined.
At this level, every B Rank trainee should have been thrilled—
"…I-I can't share a room with anyone."
"……."
At that line straight out of a rich-girl manga, I turned around—and sure enough, there was Seo Yujin from SAV.
She was making a miserable face at the B Rank rooms, and then—
Glare.
…The second our eyes met, she locked onto me with a stare.
…She really was the kind of person whose thoughts you could read right off her face.
Still, I was getting used to it by now.
I casually ignored her gaze and turned my head the other way.
As expected, the other B Rank contestants were cheering over their rooms.
"And last of all—the A Rank rooms."
By this point, it was impossible not to look forward to them.
The staff seemed confident too; they glanced at Yu Seol and me and grinned.
We climbed the stairs to the floor with the A Rank rooms—
"Naturally, A Rank rooms are singles. This one first is Contestant Ha Yerin's. Whenever you're ready, go ahead and step inside."
Ta-da~ da-da-da~
The most excited staffer did a little mouth-drumroll and opened the door.
"…Whoa."
I walked in full of anticipation—and I couldn't help but be impressed.
A room a little larger than the B Rank ones, and I got it all to myself. A wide sofa and a TV in the center, a hammock in one corner, and a desk with an old-fashioned, elegant feel.
The biggest difference from every other room, though, was the terrace.
When a smiling staffer opened the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, a cool breeze poured in.
I went over to the bed and pressed down on the mattress.
Squish, squish.
"Soft, right?"
"Ah… yes…. It's incredibly soft."
Soft and springy—you could tell at a touch it was a high-end mattress. While I was still marveling at it, a staffer shoved a camera toward me and asked,
"So, Contestant Ha Yerin. You've seen everything from the F Rank rooms up to this A Rank one. How does it feel to be the owner of this room?"
"Uh… well…"
If they asked how it felt, of course it felt good. Nothing else came to mind, so I just said what I was thinking.
"…It's really nice."
"……And?"
"And…? Ah… the bed is soft, so that's nice…?"
"……."
The staffer's face went sour for a second.
…Was that not it?
I turned my head in a fluster—and then I saw my own face in the mirror, and understood exactly why the staffer looked like that.
My expression was so cold… you couldn't tell whether I was happy or not.
…Sorry my reactions suck.
I apologized inwardly to the disappointed crew, and they left the room with awkward smiles.
"W-well then, we'll go show Trainee Yu Seol her room! Free time until the seven a.m. assembly tomorrow, so rest well and have a good night!"
Thud.
"…Free time, huh."
The staff had called it free time, but there was a catch in that phrasing.
Whirr—.
Because the camera installed in the corner of the room was still rolling.
"I'd better not make the mistake of wandering around in just my underwear…"
I let out a sigh and unpacked the luggage the staff had already brought up for me.
After a quick shower, I put on the white T-shirt and dolphin shorts I'd packed as pajamas and lay down on the bed.
Not being able to sleep in just underwear like I did at home was a little uncomfortable, but—
Soft.
Maybe it was the bed… I could feel the fatigue slowly melting away.
"Come to think of it, how long has it been since I had a room to myself…"
In my previous life I'd been an orphan, so once I became an adult I'd always been alone.
This life was the complete opposite—I'd never had a room of my own.
Our house had three rooms: the master bedroom, Dad's computer room, and Mom's closet room.
"It's been almost nineteen years since I last had a room just for me…"
Sleeping alone again after so long didn't feel bad at all.
Lying there, I slowly closed my eyes and looked back over the day.
I'd gotten up early, come to the My Idol Academia set… finished the rank evaluations… met all kinds of people.
If I graded today the way the judges had graded me, what score would I give it?
…Not bad, I thought.
I'd gotten a better rank than expected… and someone I actually wanted to catch up to had appeared…
Yu Seol.
Thinking of her brought back the wall she'd put up earlier.
She said she was tired today and we'd talk next time…. Will there be a chance to talk tomorrow…
I shook my head before the thought could go any further.
"…No pointless thinking. Sleep early tonight."
I needed rest if I wanted my stamina back and a good day tomorrow.
Hoping tomorrow would be just like today, I closed my eyes.
And then—
"Yerin. Are you going to get your act together or not?"
The next morning, that hope collapsed immediately.