If Only You Weren't There...!!
“You’ll all be competing in a whole lot of different events from now on! And if you place in the top three….”
Clink—.
Han Siwoo held something high that the production staff had just handed him.
“You’ll receive these gold, silver, and bronze medals. Gold is worth three points, silver two, bronze one. The higher your ranking by medal points, the better your chance at picking a song—so you’d better give it everything you’ve got, right?”
Even though they were called gold, silver, and bronze, they obviously weren’t the real metals. Just tokens the staff had slapped together in a hurry.
Most of the contestants understood that and weren’t fixated on the medals themselves. What set their eyes ablaze was the song-selection rights those medals bought.
But right this second, there was one person more obsessed with owning a gold medal than anyone else alive….
Gold medal…! I want it…!!
…Seo Yujin.
She was the type who always fretted and fretted until she came in first. Watching Olympic athletes on TV, she’d thought, I want a gold medal too.
But gold medals weren’t something you could buy just because your family had money.
So when she saw the athletic-meet medals, she wanted that gold more than she even wanted the song pick.
It might have looked like a bratty little-kid thought—but she really was a bratty little kid.
“Alright then, how about each of you name one event you’re good at? We need to distribute people efficiently if we want good results…. So first—who wants to try arm wrestling? Anyone with strong ar—”
“Me! I’ll do arm wrestling! My arms are super strong! The rest of it too! I’m really good at sports! I’ll do all of them!”
She actually was outstandingly athletic for her age. Stamina was a bit lacking, sure, but she ran faster than most, was stronger, and had sharper instincts—back in school they’d called her a short-distance track prodigy.
If she hadn’t become an idol, she probably would have become an athlete.
From now on every single gold medal is mine…!
Seo Yujin threw down her gauntlet and burned with resolve.
And then the first round of arm wrestling….
Thud—!
“Kyaang!”
“Trainee Ha Yerin wins!”
…She was eliminated in a spectacular 0.5 seconds.
“Ah… sorry, Yujin. I should’ve controlled my strength better.”
“Tsk!”
Seo Yujin glared at the apologetic Ha Yerin and clicked her tongue.
What an annoying person…!
She’d shoved so hard Yujin’s knuckles had gone red, and now she was talking about “controlling strength”…!
After that, Ha Yerin simply overwhelmed every other contestant and casually claimed the gold medal in arm wrestling.
Seo Yujin watched with a bitter taste and promised herself the next event.
Too bad, but it couldn’t be helped…. Yerin unni is way taller than me, right? …She won unfairly with pure physical difference, so of course I lost.
Still, when she saw the next event, she already felt the gold medal in her hands.
50 m Dash
That one’s mine for sure.
Back in middle school she’d clocked an 8-second 50 m—first among all the girls in her class. She was certain she would take gold here.
Let’s see… the other teams… …Team 1 is sending that unni out again?
When Ha Yerin stepped up once more for Team 1, Seo Yujin’s eyes narrowed to slits.
This was the perfect chance to avenge the humiliation of arm wrestling.
Hmph! How well can those stilts even run?
Among all the contestants, Ha Yerin had by far the longest legs. Seo Yujin was sure her own squirrel-quick legs would leave her in the dust.
And the result….
“Waaah—!! Trainee Ha Yerin, 6.89 seconds…!! First place—!!”
…Defeat again.
Ha Yerin gold. Seo Yujin silver.
“…….”
Seo Yujin stared at the unbelievable result and sank into despair.
I-it has to be a coincidence….
Of course, cheerful girl Seo Yujin wasn’t the type to collapse over one little result. She quickly shook off the sting of defeat and entered the next event.
And then….
100 m Dash
Ha Yerin gold. Seo Yujin silver.
“Y-Yerin…! You ran 100 m in 12.63… d-did you train as a track athlete before?”
“Huh? No… not really… haha.”
Seo Yujin looked at the silver medal now in her hand and once more promised herself the next event.
Then the next one after that.
Horizontal Bar Hang
Ha Yerin gold. Seo Yujin silver.
Chicken Fight
Ha Yerin gold. Seo Yujin silver.
Speed Stacking
Ha Yerin gold. Seo Yujin silver.
Long Jump
Ha Yerin gold. Seo Yujin silver.
“Ugh…! Uuuugh…!!”
In the long jump Ha Yerin even cleared a full meter farther than second-place Seo Yujin, an utterly crushing result.
“…Grr, grrr.”
Staring at yet another silver medal hanging around her neck, Seo Yujin could only shout:
“Why is that unni so good at sports?!”
The Ha Yerin she’d already disliked became even more hated.
More, more, more!
“Waaaaah—!! Unni you’re incredible—!!!”
“Gold in the last event too? That’s insane—!!!”
“Ah… haha.”
Still, there was one real upside: the sports day had been fantastic for team bonding. Our group, which had been so awkward we were about to die, finally got some energy going, and….
1st Place — Team 1: Gold 8 · Silver 1 · Bronze 3
2nd Place — Team 2: Gold 2 · Silver 9 · Bronze 4
…we took first place by an overwhelming margin.
For the record, every single one of our team’s eight gold medals was mine. The other events had overlapping times, so I couldn’t enter them and the rest of the members had to fill in.
Still, eight golds is pretty dominating.
The body I’d been reborn into as Ha Yerin had always possessed ridiculous athletic talent. Add the muscles forged through years of part-time jobs plus regular PE, and I was basically a sports machine at this point.
Finally those years of part-time work paid off.
I’d worked myself to the bone only for the wages to vanish into living expenses and my parents’ fun money, so there’d never been any sense of reward—until now. At last I could feel proud of that part-time résumé.
I was happily admiring the gold medals I’d won when—
Stare.
…This killing intent?
A strangely familiar sensation made me turn my head….
Clink-clink-clink.
…and there stood Seo Yujin with eight silver medals dangling around her neck, glaring daggers at me.
…Oh boy.
From what I’d seen, Yujin actually had pretty solid athletic sense. If she’d just avoided me and entered other events, golds would have been well within reach, but….
That’s why you shouldn’t have followed me.
She’d stubbornly chased every single event I chose and ended up with nothing but eight silvers.
Stare. Stare. Stare—!!
Apparently that was too much to bear, because she kept shooting me looks.
In the past I would have simply ignored it, but maybe I’d gotten used to her by now.
Fiddle.
“……!”
I deliberately toyed with the gold medals right in front of her face.
“Grr…! Grrr…!”
Yujin’s glare intensified and she even started grinding her teeth.
“Pfft!”
Being on the same team for the first team performance must have built up some real closeness. Her expression actually looked cute to me now.
While the two of us were locked in that subtle little power struggle—
“Alright, that concludes the sports day—! Did everyone have fun—?!”
“Yes—!”
Regardless of ranking, the contestants seemed to have genuinely enjoyed themselves; bright answers rang out across the field.
“Then from now on we should explain the rewards by ranking! First—to Teams 1, 2, and 7, who took first, second, and third place in this sports day—we grant the opportunity to select the song of your choice!”
“Waaaaah—!”
“And the remaining five teams, unfortunately… yes, will use the cyber roulette from the first team performance to decide their song at random.”
“Aww….”
Perfect.
The moment I heard “opportunity to select the song you want,” I leaned over and whispered to Na Hanna beside me.
“Hanna, what song should we do? Got anything in mind?”
“…Mmm, too lazy to think about it… well…… roughly girl-crush direction should be fine….”
Na Hanna answered with sleepy eyes like the whole thing was a chore, but…
Girl crush, huh… not bad….
I agreed with her. Our team—me and Hanna included—leaned more toward dance than vocals. If we picked a track with strong dance performance and rode the original vibe, we could put up solid numbers.
So I started turning over which girl-crush dance song we should choose.
And then—
“Alright, now I’ll explain exactly how the song-selection opportunity works! Come on out!”
“…Huh?”
…Song selection is just song selection. Why does it need a “method”?
While I was still wondering, the production staff grunted and hauled something onto the field, then set it up.
It was a target packed solid with writing.
And what another staffer was carrying over….
…An archery bow?
Why would they… no way…?
“Did you think you’d just casually pick whatever song you wanted? That would be a miscalculation. The chance to select a song! It will be decided through archery!”
“…….”
Looking closer, the dense writing on the target was a list of recent idol-group hit songs. And the closer you got to the center, the higher the concentration of songs we actually wanted.
“From now on, one person from each of the first-, second-, and third-place teams will step up and challenge! One chance only! Choose the song you want on the target, then simply hit it with an arrow. Simple, right?”
…Simple my ass.
If we could do that, we’d be on the national team.
Swoosh—.
“Um….”
At that moment Yu Seol from Team 2—who also held song-selection rights—raised her hand and asked,
“What happens if we completely miss the target?”
“If you miss….”
Han Siwoo couldn’t answer right away and glanced toward the production staff. They held up a sketchbook and gave him instructions. He received the message, grinned, and replied,
“The opportunity is revoked, and you’ll select your song via the cyber roulette just like the other teams.”
“…….”
In that instant I realized this entire sports day had been nothing more than a ploy to pad the runtime.
At the same time….
Damn production bastards….
I felt a powerful urge to put an arrow straight between every single one of their eyebrows.