Split Decision

Three hours had passed since the meeting began. And yet we were still circling the same conversation. At this point it wasn't even treading water — it was sprinting full-tilt on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a treadmill.

"I still think it should be hip-hop."

Jang Hyunjun, that hip-hop-obsessed bastard.

He lived for hip-hop, would die for hip-hop, and grew thorns in his mouth if he went a day without it. No wonder Go Jaeseong used to drag him around as a lapdog.

The guy sagging his training pants off his ass told you everything you needed to know.

"No. Wouldn't it be better to go with a clean, urban feel?"

The real problem was that Han Sangyoon refused to back down either.

He'd been Code 2 until he crashed all the way down to Code 8 overnight.

Even for Han Sangyoon, that had to sting.

"Clean might just make it... kind of ordinary?"

Ah, so now he's putting us on the same level.

With Nam Junho chiming in too, the conversation reset right back to square one.

Hip-hop.

Urban.

Hip-hop.

Urban.

I'd lost count of how many times we'd ping-ponged between the damn two.

"Hold on."

Finally, I raised my hand.

"Let's just split it."

"...Split it?"

I pointed a finger at either side of the table.

"One hip-hop version, one urban version."

Everyone just stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

"We prepare choreography for both, and decide at the mid-round evaluation."

"......"

A silence settled over the room.

"Oh..."

Of course Han Sangyoon got it first.

"You mean pick whichever gets the better reaction?"

"Yes."

I nodded.

"At this rate we're never going to budge on anything, so why keep going in circles?"

Kang Yiyul gave a small shrug in agreement.

"Wait, so—"

Jang Hyunjun's brow furrowed.

"We're supposed to prep both?"

"Yes. Well, technically half and half."

"Who's going to do all that?"

"...We are?"

What kind of question was that, asked like it was some profound revelation.

"Does that even make ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sense?"

"What we're doing right now makes even less."

I rapped my knuckles lightly on the table.

"Three hours and we haven't decided a single thing. Every other team is already learning their choreography—"

Nobody could argue with that. You had to admit, three hours of nothing was pretty hopeless.

"And besides—"

I swept my gaze slowly around the room.

"If we flop at the mid-round evaluation, it's over anyway."

Not that I was flying entirely blind, mind you.

Because Go Jaeseong had gutted the team roster, the outcomes of this round were completely unpredictable now.

Son of a bitch.

Who took which part, where the reaction would blow up, who survived to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the end — every scrap of the future I remembered had been warped beyond recognition by a single choice of his.

And yet exactly one thing remained unchanged.

The original artist's surprise evaluation. They must have wanted to go out with a bang for the final round of Survival Part 1, because it was a surprise event that had only ever appeared in Round 3.

All I have to do is hold out one more day.

I'd said we'd decide at the mid-round evaluation, but the call would come by tomorrow. Getting torn apart in front of the original artist would be humiliating — which was exactly what would make it so effective.

"Of course, if one side comes out—"

Back to reality.

"—overwhelmingly better, we go with that one."

This time the silence stretched on considerably longer.

Butthurt? Then come up with something mind-blowing.

"Hm..."

After a short sigh, Han Sangyoon spoke first.

"...Fine. Let's try it your way."

"Hyung, why are you going along with this?"

Jang Hyunjun pushed back immediately.

"This is just doubling the workload."

"We're burning the time either way," Han Sangyoon replied flatly. "And deciding nothing."

"......"

"Might as well do something, don't you think?"

This time Nam Junho spoke up.

"Will we even have enough time to prepare for the stage?"

As he said it, he tilted his chin my way.

That rude little bastard.

He was practically announcing that I was the reason time was running short.

"You're right. By that logic, I'm the biggest problem here."

I fired back without missing a beat.

"You'll all move faster than me anyway."

A suffocating silence fell. Everyone started stealing glances at one another.

"I'll be handling the arrangement regardless, so I'll tailor it to whichever version we pick."

"Wait, you'd go that far...?"

Nam Junho could only gape at me, thrown off balance.

Right. When the least skilled guy was volunteering to work himself against the clock, there wasn't much left to say.

"Fine."

"...Alright."

One by one, they all nodded.

Gotcha.

It wasn't a perfect solution — honestly, it was inefficient for a team. But right now, it was the best play available.

Force a bunch of guys this proud, this genuinely talented, into one bucket? Forget cooperation — the thing would blow apart at the seams.

Let them get schooled by someone better.

Strut around all you want. Tomorrow, those high-and-mighty noses were going to get thoroughly broken.

We were all deep in practice when the speakers crackled back to life.

"Again?"

"We barely have time to practice as it is..."

"Isn't this the second assembly today alone?"

I ran back through the timeline. If there was a reason they'd suddenly summon everyone to the studio around this point...

The teaser dropped.

Sure enough, the screen lit up with a teaser thumbnail.

"What, the teaser's already out?"

"No way..."

Everyone's faces lit up with excitement, and the cameras busily panned across them.

Capturing reactions, of course.

Doom—

The video opened with a grandiose sound effect, because why not.

[Idols? There are way too many these days...]

[Male idols all look the same to me.]

Helium-distorted voices rattled out one after another.

[Isn't every idol survival show rigged from the start?]

[Hard to find a truly well-rounded idol these days.]

[It's an era where only the big agencies survive—]

The voices piled up, and then a glittering cascade of CG delivered the BOY'S CODE logo with a thunderous boom.

KRA-KOOM!

"Whoa, hell—"

[A true survival show arrives to open a new horizon for idol survival!]

"Ooh..."

Honestly, you could tell they'd thrown real money at this. Dazzling transitions and a heart-pounding, epic BGM.

[Rigged survival? Here, we judge on skill and star power alone.]

As the narration rolled, the faces of Joo Han, Han Sangyoon, and Kang Yiyul flashed by in sequence. They'd clearly cherry-picked nothing but visual certainties.

Three ruthlessly handsome faces in a row made the whole show's production value seem to leap upward out of nowhere.

[Oh, right. You do know looks are a skill for idols too, don't you?]

Joo Han with his textbook, polished idol visuals. Han Sangyoon with his warm, soft-hearted handsome-guy charm. And Kang Yiyul, cool as frost — until he smiled and the whole atmosphere flipped.

He was, quite literally, a walking collection of "surely one of these is your type."

Around me, the trainees burst into admiration.

"Wow, insane."

"They're seriously good-looking."

I caught myself nodding along.

Those three? No arguments here.

Then, in the very next moment, my own face popped onto the screen.

"...Huh?"

My brain short-circuited.

"Me??"

The shock came straight out of my mouth.

What in the world was this Joo Han, Han Sangyoon, Kang Yiyul, and Yuseongwoo situation?

Beside me, Han Sangyoon grabbed my shoulder and shook it.

"Seongwoo, you're in it!"

I was genuinely flustered.

It was already on my mind that I'd been seated between Han Sangyoon and Kang Yiyul, but— was I dreaming?

Are they... pairing me up with them?

[The well-rounded idol? Right here.]

This time, too, Joo Han and Han Sangyoon were non-negotiable inclusions. Choi Woonjo appeared as well, and a rowdy cheer erupted from his team's corner.

"Ohhh— Choi Woonjo~!"

"Wait, well-rounded? What's that mean?"

"It means he's good at everything. All-rounder—"

"Whoa!!"

I was a little less thrilled about Go Jaeseong showing up too.

[Miracle of the underdog — please remake it with your own hands!]

"Am I not in this one?"

"You'll be in the back half—"

Squeezing all twenty of us into a short video was no easy feat. Even a few pathetic seconds of screen time earned gratitude. Some trainees whooped with joy at catching nothing but the back of their own head on camera.

[On the day five Codes are complete, the door to debut will open!]

Seriously... cringeworthy direction, every single time.

[The trainees' friendship]

[Their rivalry]

[And their tears!]

Given how much everyone had cried until now, even the guys who'd whined about not getting enough airtime made an appearance.

"So I did make it in..."

About ten seconds remained. I figured they'd announce the broadcast date and time and wrap it up.

But then.

Oh no. Please.

A memory I'd been trying hard to forget.

[I want to do well, but...]

A familiar voice rang out.

[my body won't keep up.]

My face — eyes and nose red and swollen from crying — filled the screen, larger than life.

"So that crying thing really happened?"

"It was real?"

"Whoa, I thought that was just a rumor."

They'd even added a slow-motion shot of my tear-streaked face. How thoughtful of them.

My face burned so hot I thought I'd lose my mind.

[COMING SOON!]

And what made it worse—

Hah...

The SP was climbing. Climbing like a maniac.

I ended up burying my face in my hands.

Somewhere in the meantime, Nam Junho got talked around by Jang Hyunjun and joined the hip-hop choreography team.

Kang Yiyul said the urban side appealed to him more, and he threw himself into building that choreography with Han Sangyoon.

"Let's each put something together by tonight and compare."

"Yeah."

While the two teams worked out their routines, I went back to rethinking the arrangement from scratch. Judging by the mood in the room, neither version was going to suit the original song very well.

Everything I'd planned ahead until now had been for the "blossoming." I'd intended to sharpen Yiyul's killing part and weave in Eastern-inflected elements for a more polished stage.

Instead, I was starting over from zero.

Normally I'd have finished the arrangement long ago — and with it in hand, I could have pushed a lot harder against these stubborn mules.

Whatever. Water under the bridge.

I decided to start by tearing the original song apart again.

"Yiyul was right."

Overpowered by the bright, bouncy sound, the lyrics themselves were oddly obsessive and sinister. That dissonance was strangely compelling.

Maybe I can build something around this—

Ideas began surfacing one after another, chasing their own tails.

Soon the two teams finished their choreography and showed me what they'd prepared.

Pride compounded by competitive spirit had produced absurd results in a shockingly short time. The problem was that neither routine suited the original song at all.

My review could be summed up in one line.

Are you sure a human being made this dance?

A wave into a step, then pop after pop without a single breath — wait, your arms and legs were supposed to move at the same time, right?

Jang Hyunjun panted, out of breath. "Whew, whew... That's it for now. The choreo's solid, right?"

Even here, each team's stubbornness showed through. They'd gone out of their way to build routines the other side could never possibly pull off.

The urban team's choreography was definitely less complicated than the hip-hop version — but it was, if anything, far harder to make look good.

Without rock-solid fundamentals, it was precisely the kind of dance that came off looking ridiculous.

I could already feel the tears coming. I could picture us all flailing like the squid I'd just hauled out of the water.

Actually, why were they taking this so seriously?

Huh. Didn't expect that.

Before the regression, I'd almost never seen Han Sangyoon charge at anything with this much ferocity.

So a crisis changes a person, does it.

So even this can change.

I'd thought knowing the future meant everything would sort itself out — but apparently even King Yama hadn't planned for this part.

Right then, a status window flickered into view.

Is this some kind of surprise item?

Ears even sharper than I thought.

"Alright, shall we start practicing the choreography?"

"Which one do we do first?"

Nam Junho tossed the question out casually.

"Honestly, don't we just need to teach it to him?"

Fair point. Simultaneously, a punchable point.

I rose from my seat, loosened up, and smiled at Nam Junho.

"Well, you'd better teach me really well, then."

"...?"

"Whichever side dances better is going to score better in the evaluation—"

In that instant, the corner of Nam Junho's mouth froze.

That's right. This wasn't the moment to write me off as the weakest link, buddy.

"...We'll teach you first, then."

Jang Hyunjun, at least, was quicker on the uptake than Nam Junho.