The Standard Was Always There
“Code 4 trainee, please step forward.”
A brief silence. Go Jaeseong didn't move. His face said he had no idea he was the one being called.
“Code 4 trainee?”
Only at the second summons did his shoulders flinch.
“……Ah, yes!”
He managed a smile as he made his way forward. He was trying to look composed, but it was already too late.
There was no way the cameras had missed that frozen expression.
“And with that, we conclude the announcement of the Code B group.”
The air in the practice room turned icy.
“……That's it?”
Someone murmured.
My number still hadn't been called, all the way through Code B……
Am I in Code A?
The murmur spread in an instant.
“Is that for real?”
“No way. How long has he even been here?”
“I thought for sure it'd be Jaeseong in Code A……”
“What exactly are the criteria?”
Barely concealed suspicion and resentment rained down on his back.
Even though names weren't supposed to be revealed yet, Go Jaeseong's name was popping up all over the room.
Five people remained, but the eyes in the room naturally narrowed to just two of them.
Go Jaeseong, and me.
Go Jaeseong himself was busy calming the other trainees down.
“Stop it. There must have been a reason.”
Even as he played the peacemaker, he made no effort to hide how wronged he felt.
That sly bastard.
He says nothing himself, then lets the people around him voice the complaints for him. That had been Go Jaeseong's method throughout the entire survival show.
“Congratulations, Code 2 trainee.”
Amid the considerable commotion, Kang Sejun kept the announcements moving.
“You are now the one and only Code S — the very first center of Boys Code.”
“Thank you so much!”
Joo Han stepped forward and bowed deeply at the waist.
“I'll work hard!”
Once again, the center was Joo Han. Deep down I'd been hoping for Kang Yiyul, but seeing it with my own eyes, there was no denying his skill.
Still, one meaningful change had occurred.
Kang Yiyul had become Code 3, not Code 6.
Unlike the past, when he'd narrowly missed the upper ranks, this time he stood firmly inside the debut group.
His injury and fighting spirit seemed to have moved the judges deeply.
And one more thing.
85% ▼5%
Thank you, King Yama!!
Five percent, all at once. It was the result of making the debut group myself and raising Kang Yiyul's rank at the same time.
As long as it keeps going like this.
If we held onto the debut group until the very end and debuted together —
maybe I really could drive it all the way down to zero percent.
“Code 20, Code 3, Code 10, and Code 1 trainees have automatically been assigned to the Code A group.”
“Seongwoo, congrats!”
Han Sangyoon clapped me on the shoulder.
“Ah — uh, yeah. You too, Sangyoon……-ssi.”
“There you go again.”
Han Sangyoon laughed, but the mood around us didn't loosen one bit.
Nobody cared anymore who the center was.
Everyone was fixated on one thing alone.
Why am I in Code A?
“It seems some of our trainees are unhappy with the results.”
Oh, he just threw a fastball straight down the middle.
Kang Sejun's half-joking remark silenced the commotion in an instant.
“Let me explain the criteria for this signal song evaluation from the beginning.”
Kang Sejun flipped his cue card.
“Today's evaluation was never about choosing whoever dances the best.”
Several trainees' expressions stiffened.
“The signal song was revealed to you two days ago. Every one of you was given the same song, the same choreography, and the same amount of time.”
Kang Sejun's gaze swept across the Code C side of the room.
“What the judges evaluated was who, in that short window, studied the choreography most accurately and executed it most faithfully.”
“……Accuracy, you say?”
Someone ventured a careful follow-up.
“Yes. Accuracy.”
This time Katin picked up the microphone.
“Being a good dancer, and executing given choreography with precision — those are two different problems.”
He formed a short movement with his hands to demonstrate.
“The direction of your fingertips. The angle of your fingers. Trivial-seeming, right?”
The trainees stared at him in silence.
“But a choreographer doesn't put in details like these for nothing. They're movements designed to build a song's atmosphere and create its highlights.”
Katin lowered his hand.
“So missing details isn't just a simple mistake.”
His voice hardened.
“It means you didn't focus on the assignment you were given — or that you lazily smoothed it over with your own comfortable habits.”
The murmuring died completely.
So that's what it was.
In the broadcast before my regression, this explanation had been cut down to a fleeting edit.
But hearing it in person, on set, the criteria came into razor-sharp focus.
How faithfully, within the allotted time, had you completed the task you were handed from the start?
That was the standard for this signal song evaluation.
“The trainees who were called as Code A and S —”
Katin looked toward our side of the room.
“were placed in the upper ranks precisely because they accomplished all of this.”
“Ah……”
A short collective exhale rippled out, as if everyone finally understood.
“Actually…… the deliberation over the final spot ran long.”
At Kang Sejun's words, every gaze in the room swung back to me.
I know, you bastards.
It couldn't have been an easy call for the judges to move me into the A group either.
But what came next was beyond anyone's expectations.
“Code 10, who forgot the lyrics but carried the stage on freestyle. And Code 4, who missed two details of the choreography.”
And I found myself more shocked than I'd been when Go Jaeseong was called into Code B.
“Wait. So the rookie wasn't even locked in?”
“So they were torn between Choi Woonjo and Go Jaeseong of all people?”
The direction of the murmuring flipped completely.
“Both of them had clear, undeniable mistakes, which is why it was a genuinely fierce debate.”
Kang Sejun took a breath and studied the trainees' reactions.
“The deciding factor was the completeness of the stage. That's why the final spot went to Code 10.”
He smiled and looked toward Choi Woonjo, who —
thumped his own chest a couple of times with his fist. From his satisfied expression to the smirk tugging up the corners of his mouth, it was the reaction of a man thoroughly accustomed to praise.
“From here on, you'll be performing a wide variety of stages. After debut, the hours get even tighter and the stages even harder.”
He swept his gaze slowly across the trainees.
“I sincerely hope each of you gives your utmost, and sees every stage through to completion.”
Coming from Kang Sejun — a ten-year veteran — the advice landed with that much more weight.
“Now, please line up according to your code groups.”
The screen displayed the debut group's codes.
Code 2 ▶ Code 1
Code 1 ▶ Code 2
Code 3 ▶ Code 3
Code 20 ▶ Code 4
Code 10 ▶ Code 5
Joo Han — Code S, and first place — stood at the very front.
Behind him, in Code A ranking order, came Han Sangyoon, Kang Yiyul, me, and Choi Woonjo.
Me, above Choi Woonjo.
More than the rank itself — fourth place — what hit me was the electric thrill of standing side by side with Kang Yiyul. And there, one step behind us, stood Go Jaeseong too.
“The top five, please select your additional items.”
Kang Sejun closed his cue card.
“See you tomorrow at the signal song filming!”
And so the mid-evaluation ended, leaving nothing behind but shock.
“……And, cut! That wraps up today's filming.”
“Great work, everyone!”
“Thank you—”
Even after filming ended, none of it felt real.
I'm…… in the upper ranks?
Code A. The word kept ricocheting around inside my head.
My goal had been crystal clear going in: avoid the C group, the one that would get penalized during the signal song filming.
So I had practiced myself half to death — but I'd figured that even at my best, I'd land somewhere in the middle. No matter how many details I nailed down, I wasn't actually a good dancer.
“Congratulations, Seongwoo-ssi.”
“Th-thank you!”
The staff member who'd once witnessed me crying offered me a genuinely heartfelt congratulation.
“I had no idea you could sing like that.”
“Right? The crying was justified. Imagine how frustrated you must've been, being able to do that and having your body refuse to keep up.”
Singing……
The moment I heard those words, the puzzle clicked into place, late as ever.
The first one was singing.
My bar had been set absurdly high all this time.
And no wonder. Before my regression, I'd listened to finished, studio-polished vocals in the recording booth every single day.
Singers who sounded like official releases from the very first take.
Those spine-chilling live vocals bleeding through the headphones — that had been my baseline.
This much is just the minimum.
So it had never once occurred to me that I might actually be good at singing.
Hitting the notes. Memorizing the lyrics. Singing all the way through while dancing — I'd treated every bit of it as the bare minimum, nothing more.
But only after watching the other trainees' stages today did I finally see it.
Wait, these guys are still trainees, aren't they?
People too winded to get through a single line. People so focused on the choreography they forgot the words entirely. People whose voices simply couldn't reach the high notes at all.
Measured against trainee standards, I was higher up than I'd realized. Just by managing to sing all the way through while dancing, I was already solidly above the middle of the pack.
Of course, this is only possible because Nyx isn't a major agency.
This was a company that had needed to scramble every last trainee together right up to the eve of the survival shoot. In fact, before my regression they'd never even filled all twenty slots and had proceeded with nineteen — meaning a substantial chunk of the lineup was pure dead weight.
And the second thing — the details.
The judging criteria I'd just heard came flooding back.
How accurately had you completed the choreography within the same window of time?
Even before my regression, the criteria themselves had been identical. The only difference was that back then, Joo Han had been the sole person to actually meet them.
The rest of the trainees had all missed roughly the same details, and so Code A had ended up being settled by overall stage completeness instead.
Go Jaeseong, who missed only two this time, had missed more than five before my regression.
But this round was different.
Not just me — Kang Yiyul and Han Sangyoon, who had practiced alongside me, hadn't dropped a single detail either.
The moment the number of trainees executing the choreography accurately grew, the judging criteria finally flexed its real muscle.
The standard hadn't changed. The people meeting it had.
“……This is insane.”
The plan I'd built purely to survive had, as a side effect, shaken the entire evaluation board.
My heart pounded hard. Seizing a strong position in the signal song filming was, from the very start, a chance to charge out ahead of the pack.
But the joy barely lasted before anxiety crept in.
If my real dancing skills get exposed later—
I scoffed at myself inwardly.
I'll get absolutely destroyed.
The brighter the spotlight, the darker the shadow behind it.
Nobody knew that better than I did.
Which left exactly one answer.
Practice. And then more practice.
Out of pure habit, I stood in front of the mirror again.
There'd be no live singing at tomorrow's filming. My one advantage — the vocals — would vanish, leaving only the dancing. If anything, the conditions would be worse for me.
Foot placement. Arm angles. The exact instant the head turns. I walked back through the choreography slowly, piece by piece.
Having become Code A, I had to look like someone who belonged there.
But then —
My body wavered from the very first move.
“Huh?”
My center of gravity pitched forward.
I slapped a foot down to catch my balance, but something felt off.
My body was lagging behind my thoughts by half a beat.
Just nerves winding down, probably.
I brushed it off and started again.
This time it was fine. The movements flowed naturally.
Then came the highlight.
One, two, three — the instant I pounded my chest three times —
Thud.
My heart dropped hard, once.
My breath caught in my throat.
Hold on.
I froze mid-move, hand clutched to my chest.
I hurriedly steadied my breathing, but my heart refused to settle.
What's wrong with me?
Sure, I'd pushed myself a little before the mid-evaluation, but I wasn't tired enough for this.
I walked slowly toward the wall. The moment my palm pressed against it, the cold registered half a beat late.
And then it happened. The edges of my vision warped, just slightly. My focus blurred and snapped back, blurred and snapped back again.
I blinked hard.
Once. Then once more. Only then did everything return to normal.
“……Wow.”
A hollow laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
This was not simple exhaustion.
The Hourglass that Turns Back Time.
For every second I rewound, my body still carried every second it had endured. It wasn't just the memory of practice that remained — the fatigue from practice was piling up, doubled, right alongside it.
I leaned my back against the wall and let my head hang. I was dizzy, sure, but not so bad that I couldn't practice right this second.
Still, my body was sending the warning first: keep going like this, and I would cross the line. For certain.
This is dangerous.
I didn't need a status window to feel it in my bones.
I'd thought I was buying extra time compared to everyone else, when in truth I'd been racking up debt. The kind with an interest rate so monstrous it was basically a loan shark's racket.
I looked at the mirror again.
The shadows under my eyes had unmistakably deepened.
“……I'll have to pace myself.”
The items weren't something I could burn through carelessly. I could only create what I truly needed — but I also had to use them only when it truly mattered.
And making that call, in the end, was my burden to carry.
I reset my stance. This time I ran through the moves lightly, nothing more — just reviewing the key points to watch for during tomorrow's filming. In the mirror, my reflection moved, very, very slowly.
For now, I was fine.
But next time, I might not be.
That cold, undeniable fact was quietly driving me forward.