The Stage He Made Himself
Producer Jack P snatched up his microphone in a hurry.
“Hold on a second, Code 4 trainee.”
Even the tone of his voice had changed.
“Did you say you could compose music?”
“No, sir. I didn't mention it.”
Yuseongwoo smiled shyly.
“I was hoping to show you on stage, if I ever got the chance.”
Beyond the mirror, Go Jaeseong's eyes met Yuseongwoo's for a brief moment.
Go Jaeseong was in a foul mood. He hadn't expected a rookie to land a hit on him like this.
Of all people, the one encroaching on his territory wasn't Han Sangyoon or Joo Han — it was a trainee who'd been here less than a month?
“Wait, didn't you say he was a rap position?”
“Jaeseong told me that……”
At those words, Go Jaeseong let out a short laugh — a sound closer to an empty chuckle than anything else.
“I never said he was a rap position.”
His mouth was smiling. His eyes were not.
“I just said he was doing rap-making.”
“Oh…… right, that's true.”
“Sorry, my mistake.”
Go Jaeseong bit his lip, hard.
He played me?
He had hidden it on purpose. And that face looked like it had calculated even this exact reaction.
More than anything, what grated on him was this:
The rookie wasn't scared. Not even a little. He didn't avert his gaze when their eyes met through the mirror — he held it, even pushed back.
Interesting.
Go Jaeseong forced his expression to soften. The cameras were still rolling.
But inside, he had already flipped the table.
“Alright then, let's hear it. What's the song called?”
“'Yuseongwoo.'”
In that instant, the judges' expressions all hardened at once.
“……Sorry, what?”
On a survival show where everyone was known only by their code number, here was a trainee boldly throwing out his own real name.
Noticing the judges' confusion, Yuseongwoo added smoothly, with an easy smile.
“I was inspired by watching a meteor shower falling from the sky.”
“……Ah, that kind of yuseongwoo~”
“Meteors falling are pretty, aren't they, haha……”
An awkward ripple of laughter spread through the room. A single trainee was manhandling the entire atmosphere of the set.
“I haven't quite finished working on the MR track yet.”
His fingertips plucked at a guitar string.
Ting— A clear resonance spread through the practice room.
“Today, I'll be performing it with guitar accompaniment.”
Watching him tune the instrument with practiced ease, the vocal trainer asked with evident interest.
“You play guitar too?”
“Yes, sir. I've been playing since I was little.”
“I'm learning a lot of new things about you today. Why so many secrets?”
Yuseongwoo smiled helplessly.
“I wasn't exactly hiding them……”
Which only made the gleam of his braces shine all the brighter.
“I think it's just because I haven't been here very long.”
“Barely a month, right?”
“Yes. Next week makes exactly one month.”
In truth, no one had ever bothered to ask. It wasn't easy to pin expectations on a rookie trainee fresh through the door — the only reason the reaction had shifted at all was the signal song.
“Alright then, Code 4 trainee. Show us the stage you've prepared.”
“Yes, sir!”
One last gentle strum to check the sound. Everything was ready.
“Code 4 trainee. We will now begin the first mission's mid-stage evaluation.”
The instant those words fell, the red light on the camera pointed straight at Yuseongwoo began to blink.
It was the moment the current of the survival show reversed itself.
A clear guitar sound spread quietly outward.
One note, then another. That simple resonance alone was enough to fill the entire space.
Messy black hair, a pair of rough horn-rimmed glasses, braces peeking out whenever he smiled. Less a polished idol on stage than the young face of a student who hadn't quite shed his schoolboy edges.
And yet, the eye kept drifting back to him.
Even the awkwardness was nothing more than a device that set his stage off to advantage.
I admired them,
those shining stars
“……?”
Vocal trainer Park Jae-hoon's eyebrows twitched, almost imperceptibly.
The very first line.
That single short line had already changed the atmosphere of the room.
Too faint a light
to light up the dark of night
What is this?
Without realizing it, Park Jae-hoon straightened in his seat.
Someday, could I too
shine as brightly as those stars?
It felt less like listening to a song than overhearing someone's story.
And in that moment, he understood.
It's his timbre.
Like an old tune drifting from a vintage radio — a voice plain and unadorned, yet somehow reaching into a corner of the heart.
His heart began to beat, slow and steady.
The joy of discovering a raw gem. Because it hadn't yet been cut and polished, the trembling of anticipation ran even deeper.
I want to teach him.
I want to help him grow.
Unconsciously, his fingertips tightened.
The judges seated beside him were, at some point, wearing the same expression.
I'm still afraid, but
I have this feeling
that it will be a wonderful journey
Before he knew it, the trainer was leaning forward in his chair.
To get even a little closer — so he wouldn't miss a single thing.
The moment you give up
is a losing game
There were no dazzling flourishes here, no explosive high notes.
Anticipate
my tomorrow
as it grows day by day,
this dream of mine
Instead, there was a story.
Watch over me
my song
Anticipate
my tomorrow
Walk with me
my journey
The song wasn't flashy. The lyrics were simple, too. And that was precisely what made them so vivid.
A song that would not look shabby even after every last bubble of spectacle drained away.
If you believe in me,
I'll burn with everything I have
until I shine —
I'll become the most brilliant star,
and come running to you!
The trainee had made this. And he'd been here less than a month.
“That's…… not possible, is it?”
Katin muttered under his breath. Jack P answered only with a nod.
The dazzling stage that had once shaken the practice room didn't come to mind at all. Only this stage, right now, filled his head to the brim.
In that moment, the main PD of Boys Code knew it in his gut.
“We got one.”
Without realizing it, he clenched both fists tight.
“Thank god. Thank god.”
It felt like a reward handed down from the heavens for taking on a program no one else had been willing to touch.
Three minutes — short, if you wanted to call it that. But it had been more than enough.
“That's all from me.”
There was simply too much of Yuseongwoo pouring out to contain.
The judges' hands shot toward their microphones all at once.
“How long have you been studying composition?”
But it was Kang Sejun who got there one beat faster.
“……A little under half a year.”
“Whoa—”
Gasp rose from all around the room.
“And this song isn't even finished yet, is that right?”
“That's correct.”
“Unbelievable……”
Kang Sejun let out a hollow laugh. He'd never imagined he'd get jolted like this on a show he'd taken out of simple goodwill for old colleagues.
He thought to himself: I'm heading to the studio after this, no question. It was a competitive fire he hadn't felt in a very long time.
“When it's finished…… just how much better is it going to get?”
Genuine, wholehearted admiration. Yuseongwoo beamed and bowed his head.
“Thank you!”
As praise erupted left and right despite this being only a mid-evaluation, a writer hurriedly hoisted up her sketchbook.
[Ease off the lavish praise — main stage still ahead!]
Only then did the mid-evaluation finally wrap up. A stage no one had expected anything from — and that was exactly why it lingered so sharply.
He was no longer Code 4 trainee.
He was simply Yuseongwoo.
The moment filming ended, Go Jaeseong came up to him.
Go away. Just go.
He'd been in such a good mood, and the sight of that guy's face had to sour it instantly.
“I was pretty sure you said rap-making.”
Go Jaeseong opened with a good-natured smile.
“Was that supposed to be some kind of surprise?”
I let my lips hover for a moment, then scratched my head.
“……Honestly?”
I gave an embarrassed little laugh.
“I was originally going to rap.”
“Mm-hm.”
“But—”
I let out a short sigh.
“It was really, really bad.”
Go Jaeseong's eyes wavered, just a fraction.
“I didn't know I was that hopeless at rap……”
“Ah……”
The perpetual easygoing smile on Go Jaeseong's face cracked. Sheer, undisguised bewilderment.
I didn't stop there.
“I really wanted to look cool, you know? Like—”
I swirled my hand through the air.
“Beat drops, BOOM! Ratatatatat, spitting rhymes! And the crowd goes wild, like—”
As my gestures grew more and more over the top, the guy instinctively leaned his upper body back.
“No, but still—”
Go Jaeseong tried to get a word in.
“So I agonized over it.”
I cut him off. No point in listening to whatever he had to say for long.
I raised my hand with theatrical despair.
“Do this and bomb?”
Then let it drop, limp.
“Or do the one thing I can actually pull off?”
After a short, empty laugh, Go Jaeseong stared straight at me.
His look said exactly one thing.
What is up with this guy?
He'd start losing the thread soon enough — unable to tell whether this was an act or the honest truth.
“……Ha.”
I seized the opening without mercy.
“No, seriously, I was so jealous.”
“Jealous of what?”
This time it was Go Jaeseong who asked back.
“Of you!”
Go Jaeseong blinked.
“You get to rap, you get to show off your performance—”
I put on a face green with envy.
“That stage was exactly the one I wanted to do.”
A deliberate pause.
“But I just couldn't pull it off……”
I closed with a look of utter devastation.
“…….”
Go Jaeseong stared at me again.
His face was completely scrambled.
Understandable. That's the same face he made when his IMPACTER stage got cut.
What despair could I possibly know greater than his?
“Well, it's just the two of us who can produce, I guess.”
I flashed a bright, innocent smile and stuck out my hand.
“Let's do great together from here on out!”
“……Yeah.”
I turned away, leaving Go Jaeseong standing there, having reflexively taken my hand.
“……So he's just a weirdo, then?”
I heard him mutter quietly behind my back.
“It's got everything.”
Until now, I had deliberately kept away from the studio — I'd needed to hide the fact that I could produce.
The studio at Nyx Entertainment, finally mine to enter, was packed to the gills with state-of-the-art equipment.
Stepping into the most familiar kind of space settled my heart at once.
“Let's knock this out, quick and clean.”
Out of habit, I rolled my neck and dropped into the chair. The time was eight in the evening; the goal was to finish mixing before midnight.
Keyboard, bass, and drums layered in, and the sound grew richer by the measure. The more tracks stacked up on the screen, the more my certainty grew alongside them.
To record harmonies, I stepped up to the mic myself.
“Done.”
I checked the clock — 11:59. Nailed it. A meaningless little victory, but it lifted my spirits anyway.
“Just a final check, then we're in.”
In the darkened studio, my own voice rang out between the glows of the monitors.
Not a falling star, but
a meteor pouring down
toward the place where you are
It was a strange feeling. Sitting in the most familiar seat in the world, listening to the most unfamiliar version of my own voice.
For a long while, I listened to the song in silence.
Everything was ready.
Only one thing remained — item creation.
No wonder I saved it all up instead of spending.
Right up until I fell asleep, I'd wracked my brain over which item would be most effective.
Yeah, that one should do it……
The next day, the moment I opened my eyes, I spoke.
“Status window.”
A translucent window bloomed into view.
Five hundred points should be plenty.
The key to this mission: highlight the strengths, bury the weaknesses. The item, too, had to be created with exactly that in mind.
“Item creation.”
▸ Item Name: _______
▸ Effect: _______
“A perfume that makes people remember only the good parts.”
The instant they caught the scent, only the 'good parts' of my stage would imprint itself in their memory. After all, nothing triggered an item's effect quite as seamlessly as a smell.
It's not even winter, so nobody's got a stuffy nose from a cold either.
Let's see what we get this time.
I was waiting with quiet anticipation when an unexpected red screen flashed into being.
※ Insufficient SP
“What?”
Hold on. That made no sense.
“What kind of item is so hard to make that five hundred won't cover it?”
It wasn't even a matter of a bad item name — my SP was lacking.
It's a glitch. It has to be.
I hurriedly pulled up my status window.
And I couldn't say a word.
“…….”
SP: 31
I blinked. Then rubbed my eyes furiously, as if even that weren't enough.
But look again or not, it was still 31.
“……Why?”
My voice came out badly cracked.
No — I had well over five hundred yesterday.
I wondered if I was still half asleep, but the number didn't change.
And then, the status window quietly answered.
S: SP is a currency derived from people's attention.
“I already knew that!”
That was why I'd saved it. That was why I hadn't spent it.
“So where the hell did all the points I worked to stack up go?”
In place of an answer, one more line appeared.
S: Do you believe people's attention lasts forever?
“Ah……”
At those words, my breath caught in my throat.