Who Is Seo Yujin?
Seo Yujin. Who was she?
To understand the sheer, unbridled entitlement that defined SAV’s Seo Yujin, one first had to examine the life that had shaped her.
She had been born a late child to a household that had long gone without children. To a couple who had resigned themselves to living out their days alone, her arrival in their middle years had felt like a final, unexpected gift. Spoiled with love was the only way she could have grown up.
On top of that, the family was wealthy. Her father was the successful CEO of a mid-sized company; her mother was a retired music professor. Seo Yujin had been raised under their doting affection, free to do whatever she wanted and free to refuse whatever she didn’t. She hated studying, so she simply didn’t. Music, however—thanks to her mother’s influence—had interested her from childhood. With her striking looks and her family’s money, people had always flocked around her.
SAV had spotted that combination of musicality and beauty early and recruited her. Once she entered one of the country’s top three agencies, her already lofty shoulders rose even higher. A girl who had always gotten everything she wanted now discovered a new dream: becoming an idol.
The only disappointment was that SAV had already debuted a girl group two years earlier, so an immediate debut was off the table. The company therefore sent their trainee Seo Yujin onto My Idol Academia. Experience and name recognition earned there would give her a decisive advantage when SAV eventually debuted her for real. Seo Yujin understood the company’s intentions perfectly and intended to shine as brightly as possible on the show.
After all, she had always been the one who stood out no matter where she went. She had always been able to do whatever she pleased, wherever she pleased. Naturally, she assumed she would be the most eye-catching contestant on My Idol Academia as well—and that she would get everything she wanted there too.
She was wrong.
Yu Seol and Ha Yerin. Even to her own eyes, those two shone so brilliantly that comparison was impossible—whether in looks, singing, or dancing. For the first time in her seventeen years of life, Seo Yujin felt not superiority but an ugly, corrosive jealousy.
After that first week of My Idol Academia—a genuine turning point in her life—she returned home and made a vow. Starting from week two, she would surpass both Yu Seol and Ha Yerin and become the contestant who shone the brightest.
If that’s the goal, I’ll just have to work hard at everything.
That was why she had declared she would take both leader and center. Successfully handling both roles would make her impossible for the audience to ignore. And because she had always done whatever she wanted, she felt not the slightest guilt about snatching those positions from others.
Yes. There had been no malice or elaborate scheming behind Seo Yujin’s greedy actions. Only a pure, burning desire to leap over Yu Seol and Ha Yerin.
Of course… the direction and methods of that passion had been spectacularly wrong.
“…….”
“…….”
The sheer absurdity of the situation left me speechless, but I couldn’t just sit there. If I did… that slippery eel of a Leader Seo would snatch the center position too.
I forced the heat in my chest to settle and began persuading her, carefully, step by step.
“Yujin, you’re already the leader. And now you want center on top of that? That’s going to be way too much for you. The pressure alone will be brutal.”
“I’ve seen other audition shows where people do both leader and center. The pressure’s fine. I can handle it.”
Seo Yujin clenched her fist as if to prove how fine she was. Watching her, I felt a crushing sense of helplessness.
Whether you can handle it or not isn’t even the point, you little…
Right now Seo Yujin looked exactly like a toddler throwing a tantrum. I had no idea how to talk her down or what words would even reach her; I could only stand there, dumbfounded.
Then—
“…Um.”
Lee Hyejeong, who had been quietly watching our exchange, raised her hand with careful hesitation.
“Center is the one who holds the absolute middle of the formation, and she’s also the focus of the dance break. So… I think it should go to whoever dances best.”
“Yes. I dance well.”
“But…”
Lee Hyejeong was a kind person—timid, the type who hated saying anything that might hurt someone. And yet…
“Yerin dances better than you, Yujin.”
She was also a veteran who had climbed as high as seventh place on another audition program. True, that had been five years ago—when the now twenty-two-year-old had been seventeen—but the competitive fire from those days still burned in her.
“If Yerin’s the better dancer, I don’t see why the leader needs to take center as well.”
“That’s…”
Lee Hyejeong’s calm, completely malice-free logic left Seo Yujin speechless. Seizing the momentum, Hyejeong turned to me.
“What about you, Yerin?”
“…Me?”
“Yeah. I think you’d be better as center. What do you think?”
“…….”
If I didn’t take this opening, I really would be an idiot. I nodded at once.
“I want to do it, and I believe I can do it well.”
“…Tch.”
The moment I declared my candidacy for center, Seo Yujin shot me a glare sharp enough to pin me in place. I didn’t flinch.
“…….”
“…Hmph.”
I met her eyes with the same cool, unreadable gaze I always wore. Apparently deciding she had lost the staring contest, Seo Yujin dropped her gaze a fraction.
With neither of us willing to yield the center spot, Park Yujeong stepped in.
“Then how about we vote?”
“Vote?”
“Yeah. Honestly, I think both Unni Yerin and Yujin would look great as center. So let’s just decide by vote.”
A vote… worked perfectly for me. I nodded my agreement and glanced at Seo Yujin.
“I’m fine with that too!”
She nodded just as confidently.
“Okay, then let’s do it right now while we’re talking about it. First—raise your hand if you think Yujin should be center.”
Under Park Yujeong’s brisk direction, the vote began immediately. The instant her name was called, Seo Yujin shot her hand into the air.
And then…
“…….”
“…….”
No one else raised a hand.
Seo Yujin stared at the rest of the team with pure betrayal for a beat—then Park Yujeong smoothly continued.
“Now raise your hand if you think Unni Yerin should be center.”
Hands rose at once. The remaining members lifted their arms as if they had been waiting for this exact moment.
“…Kh.”
Watching every single teammate choose me, Seo Yujin wore an expression thick with defeat.
And so the First Seo Rebellion was quelled by democracy… and I finally secured the center position I had been waiting for.
Having somehow steered the potentially explosive leader-and-center selection to a successful close, we moved straight into song discussion.
To her credit, Leader Seo did not neglect her actual leadership duties.
“Alright, now that everything’s decided, we don’t have time to waste—let’s lock in the arrangement direction first. Where Is My First Love! is already a solid track, and the concept fits My Idol Academia perfectly, so we’ll stick as close to the original feel as possible.”
…There was a faint dictator vibe to her, but she wasn’t wrong.
“Sounds good.”
“Same.”
We could have tweaked the arrangement a little, but one wrong move and we’d only lose points. Everyone nodded at Seo Yujin’s call to keep the original intact.
“Okay, then shall we start with the choreography?”
Seo Yujin immediately powered on the tablet the production staff had given us. Inside was the original choreography video for Where Is My First Love!. We hit play and watched it together.
♪♬♩-!
“Hmm…”
“This is…”
Our expressions as we watched weren’t bad at all.
“It’s not as hard as I expected?”
The original choreography for Where Is My First Love! simply wasn’t that difficult—roughly on the same level as the show’s theme song, We Are Dreaming Idol!.
“Hmm…”
Once the video ended, Leader Seo thought for a moment, then spoke.
“From what I can see, we can just follow the original choreography as-is… Does anyone want to create something new?”
Her eyes landed on me. Naturally, I answered—
“No.”
—with a firm shake of the head. Raising my stats had forcibly elevated my dancing ability, but that didn’t mean my choreography-creation skills had risen along with it. Once I made it crystal clear I had zero interest in inventing new moves, Seo Yujin nodded and moved on.
“Then let’s start with part distribution.”
From that point on, everything for our team sailed forward as if we had caught a perfect tailwind.
The first team performance took place eight days after teams and songs were chosen—exactly one week later. And on day four, we had a mid-evaluation: a checkpoint where the producers and trainers checked our progress.
Obviously, most trainees couldn’t master a full stage in four days, so the mid-evaluation usually left people in pieces.
But—
“Haa… we’re done…!”
Our team finished locking down every last bit of the performance on the night of day three. That was possible partly because we were stacked with high-ranked contestants, and partly because—
Unnis—! That move is off! Do it again!
What, is this hard? This? This?
—Seo Yujin had relentlessly drilled the lower-ranked members who were falling behind. Of course, being scolded by the youngest member left them looking a little wounded… but with the stage looming, no one protested or voiced their hurt feelings.
“Alright! Everyone gather—let’s check it one more time!”
Throughout practice we had been recording ourselves on the tablet and reviewing the footage. After running the full routine again, we decided to check the latest recording.
♪♬♩-!
The moment the video started, every pair of eyes turned deadly serious, hunting for any missed detail or mistake. Seo Yujin in particular scrutinized the lower-ranked members’ choreography with merciless intensity, searching for anything she could pick apart.
And then—
“Okay. Looks good.”
When the video ended, the okay sign finally left her lips.
“At this level, they shouldn’t be able to find anything to criticize in the mid-evaluation.”
“Waaah—!”
“Huuu—!”
The lower-ranked members collapsed onto the floor as if their strings had been cut. Seo Yujin rewound the video once more, a satisfied smile on her face. Park Yujeong wore the same expression.
“Usually half the teams get chewed out in the grade evaluation just for not knowing the choreography. At least we won’t be one of them.”
She turned to me with a bright, sunny smile.
“We’re definitely getting praised tomorrow. We might even take first place in the first team performance…”
But—
“…Unni?”
“…….”
I couldn’t smile after watching our choreography video. Neither could Lee Hyejeong, who had originally been A-rank. She must have spotted the same problem I had, because she turned to me with open worry.
“Yerin… this…”
“For now… we go with it as-is. There’s nothing we can fix right this second.”
“…Okay.”
She gave my shoulder a couple of light pats, as if placing her trust in me.
Somehow I had the feeling that tomorrow’s mid-evaluation… was not going to go smoothly at all.