Code: Braces
Oh Gyeongjin. She was a fan who had watched it all — every agency Kang Iyul shuffled through, every debut lineup that collapsed before it ever saw a stage. After his Entstar account vanished, the only traces of him came from the occasional sighting posted to the community where his trainee fans had gathered. Then one day, a photo surfaced of him heading into work at a fledgling outfit called Nyx Entertainment. But the company was so new that searching his name turned up almost nothing.
And then, at long last, today, the news broke: Nyx Entertainment's in-house survival program, Boys Code.
Gyeongjin went straight to the Boys Code homepage — and burst into tears of joy.
"This is insane."
There he was. Kang Iyul, styled in a look she had never once seen on him before.
"Whoever talked him into this genius styling, I owe them my life."
In his last known photo, Iyul's hair had been brown. But this — jet-black. And not just any black, but that deep mussel-shell black that hardly any face on earth could pull off!
"That settles it. He debuts this time. No way around it. If a face like that can't debut, then this whole industry is rotten to the core."
She scrolled rapidly through the twenty profiles. Curious detail: instead of real names, every single one was labeled with a nickname or a keyword.
"Whoa, Joo Han's here too? And Han Sangyoon?"
For a supposedly brand-new company, the trainee pool was absurdly deep — so deep it didn't add up. The trainee-fan communities had already descended into total chaos.
It had been a full two years since the last major idol survival program aired its finale. Now the dopamine-starved nomads of K-pop fandom came flooding in.
Then the reveal that Kang Sejun would be the MC sent the buzz skyrocketing.
"The other three spots, my foot."
Gyeongjin scoffed.
"Our Iyul is taking first place."
She was scrolling along absentmindedly when her finger froze.
"……What is this?"
Amid the crowd of rainbow hair colors and traffic-light roots, one natural head of black hair stood out.
[CODE: BRACES]
While every other trainee glared into the camera bristling with intensity, this one stood alone, smiling like he didn't have a care in the world. Braces, too — actual wire braces glinting in his grin.
"Braces, of all things… and somehow it works on him?"
Only two of the twenty trainees had black hair. Kang Iyul, and this boy.
She found herself dying to know who this oddball was. She searched and searched, but nowhere could she find a single scrap of information about him.
"What am I even supposed to type in?"
[braces]
[the braces kid]
[that braces guy]
When she searched, she found plenty of people just like her.
"……Something's off here."
Gyeongjin tapped back into the braces kid's profile. Once. Then once more. She couldn't explain it — she just kept clicking.
"……He is kind of adorable."
Next, she played the signal song video.
"Whoa, they shot this with real production value."
The lavish set seized her attention first.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Like figures in a museum display case, twenty boys in matching outfits stood each within his own cubicle of space. A moment later, the outermost ring of lights went dark.
"What's this?"
Then new lighting bloomed — only on the five positions at the center.
Having devoured every idol survival show ever aired, she caught on instantly.
"So those are the debut group."
Gyeongjin was looking for one person only. And she found it: Kang Iyul, occupying one of those five center positions.
"That's it, that's it!"
By the time she'd finished the individual fancams too, she was certain. Iyul-ah, there will be no more ruined debuts in your life. None!
Besides, the expression he held on the ending pose had drawn an especially strong reaction.
Gyeongjin pounced on the thread, replying as if she'd been waiting for it.
"Hsss… is that too shamelessly promotional?"
She wavered for a moment — but the other fans were already out in full force pushing their own picks. She'd just have to live with it.
"Joo Han, though? Now I'm curious about him too. Time to rewatch."
She scrubbed back through the video — and her finger stopped again.
"……Braces?"
Debut group. And not just that — the spot directly beside Kang Iyul.
The braces boy's debut-group placement had already thrown the boards into an uproar.
Of course, there were plenty of negative reactions too.
Name, age — not a single piece of information had been released about this trainee. But one thing was clear: public fascination with this boy was quietly ballooning. And Gyeongjin's instincts — the instincts that had pushed every one of her survival picks to debut — were already talking.
"I've got a feeling about this one. He's debuting."
Around that same time, in the dorm, Yuseongwoo was monitoring the public's reactions with a grin stretched ear to ear. Ever since the profiles and signal song had dropped, his SP was climbing in real time like a broken roulette machine.
SP 1,272
It didn't seem that each person's attention counted as a single point the way face-to-face interest did — but even so, the rate was incomparable to anything before. Positive attention, and even the jealous digs and near-insults from skeptics, were all being tallied alike.
"So the trick is to drive haters and stans insane at the same time."
That, too, was a dead ringer for the world of idols.
They had been given one week of preparation time — and today was the mid-point evaluation, exactly half of it spent. A tense undercurrent had hung over the practice room since morning, and our team had just completed our final run-through.
Creeeak—
The door swung open, and with Kang Sejun at the head, all of the judges filed in and took their seats.
"Has everyone prepared thoroughly?"
"Yes!"
"……Yes."
With the exception of Team Reverie, whose atmosphere had been glacial all through practice, every team radiated fighting spirit.
"Then we will now begin the mid-point evaluation for the Round 2 team mission."
Kang Sejun flipped his cue card.
"Is there a team that would like to be evaluated first?"
My hand shot up without a second's hesitation.
"Trainee Yuseongwoo, Code 6."
Kang Sejun smiled as if pleased to see it.
"First to raise your hand again, I see?"
Naturally. We'd settled this with the whole team last night.
"Phew……"
I turned to my teammates, all of them wound tight as springs.
"You know what's the best part about going first?"
All four of them shook their heads in unison.
"It means we get to take first place at least once. No matter what."
"……Ah."
Ji Dongseok burst out laughing first, and the corners of the others' mouths crept up after him.
"Right. Let's go get first place."
"Yes."
"Let's give it everything—"
Just then, Park Jae-hoon posed a question.
"Did you do the arrangement again this time, trainee Yuseongwoo?"
"Yes."
"And the part distribution?"
The moment I opened my mouth to answer—
"Trainee Yuseongwoo decided all of it for us!"
Ji Dongseok bellowed it out first, chest puffed with pride.
"He arranged the song, he assigned the parts, AND he's our leader!"
Every judge's gaze swung to me at once.
"You did all of it yourself?"
I gave an awkward smile.
"My teammates helped a great deal."
"Well, then."
Jack P crossed his arms, his eyes holding not a shred of expectation.
"Let's see the stage."
"Yes!"
We huddled close and shouted our small team cheer. Now — it was time to show them what we had.