The Future That Was Stolen, and the Future I'll Build
I couldn't properly remember how the remaining stages had passed.
“You really prepared well, didn't you?”
By the time I came back to myself, feedback for the Blooming team was in full swing.
“Especially you, Go Jaeseong.”
The original artist traced a gesture with his hand.
“Like this— the way you drag your fingers down your face. It suited you so well.”
“Thank you!”
Go Jaeseong beamed.
I stared blankly at that smiling face.
The moment that had rocketed Kang Yiyul into the safety zone of the debut group overnight after the broadcast.
The scene fans replayed hundreds of times as GIFs, the one that sent his fancam view count into orbit.
A stage even the judges had praised, saying, I had no idea Kang Yiyul had such a bold side to him.
“When we were promoting, we always said— if only we had ONE killing part like that, it would've been perfect.”
The cheerful chatter didn't reach my ears. My head had already filled to the brim with a single question.
Could it be— could even this be some prank King Yama is pulling on me?
[S: King Yama does not meddle in the affairs of the human world. Refrain from reckless and disrespectful conduct toward King Yama.]
Unbelievable. One flip remark about King Yama and he'd probably drag me back to the afterlife.
[S: That would not be impossible.]
My posture straightened on its own. Right. Even if it takes the form of a System, I must never forget what it fundamentally is.
The king of the underworld, who holds human lives in his grasp— and the administrator of this wish.
I shook my head quickly.
Yeah. Ridiculous. A hand sweeping down the face is a common gesture.
Yiyul's moment went viral because he made a common gesture feel special, right?
Maybe the song Blooming itself just evoked that kind of movement. Anyone could have landed on a similar point.
That's what I tried to tell myself.
Right. There's no way Go Jaeseong is a regressor—
Go Jaeseong's suspicious behavior kept creeping back into my mind, but the stage in front of me was what mattered now. Struggling to empty my tangled head, I drew in a deep breath.
“Nervous?”
“Ah, yes. A little.”
Calming my startled heart was priority number one. When I'm tense, my throat is always the first thing to seize up.
If the main vocal can't even sing, it's all over.
“Next, please have the Shadow Play team get ready.”
Ah, please.
I should have just raised my hand first. I regretted it, but the water was already spilled.
Robin moved to the center of the practice room.
“Looking forward to a good stage.”
He waved with a grin, and honestly, it felt like the word IDOL was written across his forehead.
And I had to perform a stage that would no doubt flop in front of a pro idol like that. There was only one thing I could do right now.
Dance my absolute hardest.
But the two guys on the hip-hop part didn't look pleased at all.
Their eyes were already saying it.
—That guy? Evaluating US?
Well, I didn't bother calling it out. They'd find out soon enough why the maknae had come out as this team's representative.
“We prepared two versions of the choreography. So the moods of verse one and verse two might feel a little different.”
“Ooh, interesting—”
With Han Sangyoon's clean explanation, the stage began.
Verse one was a hip-hop-based choreography.
Nam Junho and Jang Hyunjun charged out hard from center.
The moves were flashy, but it felt like hip-hop choreography had been forcibly jammed in. The beats lagged ever so slightly, and the dynamics fell out of sync.
And each time, Robin's expression shifted with brutal honesty.
His face is really something else.
Verse two began, and the positions shifted naturally.
The fast beat and urban dance actually suited each other decently. It was like a dish made from a combination that seemed like it shouldn't work— and turning out surprisingly edible.
Robin's expression softened a little too.
But when he looked at me, it hardened again.
…Fine, old man. I'm fumbling my way through it, aren't I?
Even so, I gave it everything I had. If there was one thing I wanted him to recognize, it was this.
The two-minute-something stage came to an end.
I swallowed nervously.
I can pretty much guess what's coming.
“Hmm…”
Robin opened his mouth slowly.
“First of all, the fact that you put together choreography of this level in a single day is impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“But— this IS choreography for our song, right?”
The air went ice-cold in an instant.
“I'll be honest with you.”
Only the voice is soft.
“It feels like you just crammed in moves that look cool.”
The content was sharp as a blade.
“Verse one especially— you built it with a hip-hop feel, yes?”
“…Yes, that's right.”
“The choreography is intense, sure. But so what?”
The faces of the two hip-hop guys froze.
“There's no reason for it to be intense. No reason at all.”
“Honestly, if you danced this exact choreography to the original, it'd probably fit better.”
It was an accurate assessment. Jang Hyunjun's choreography looked impressive, sure— but honestly, it had nothing to do with Shadow Play.
“Verse two is somewhat better. It matched the song, at least.”
A slightly gentler tone.
“But there's no impact.”
Han Sangyoon's mouth started to curl upward— then stopped dead.
“Your formations and structure are decent, but there's no single piece of choreography that sticks in the memory.”
The practice room fell completely silent.
“Most of all—”
Robin tapped the back of his hand with his fingertips.
“I think you need to rethink what your theme even is. This is a reinterpretation of the original. Reinterpretation.”
“……”
“Right now, I genuinely can't tell what's been reinterpreted at all.”
Bullseye. The hip-hop section, the urban section— different directions, but in the end, the same problem.
They hadn't interpreted the song.
They had simply draped the dance they were good at over it.
“I think you'll need to rethink the stage concept from the ground up.”
The atmosphere was so tense that even the original artists of other songs were glancing around nervously.
You'd go this far to help us?
But for me, this was an opening.
I had originally planned to make my proposal after the evaluations ended, but with the table set this perfectly, it was worth throwing out right now.
I quietly raised my hand.
“Um, excuse me—”
Every teammate's gaze snapped to me at once.
Now?
That was the exact look in their eyes.
I opened my mouth, pretending not to notice.
“What if we tried a concept like this?”
“Like what?”
Robin tilted his head slightly.
“What if we built the stage around the feeling of being slightly obsessed with your lover?”
“Obsession?”
At the completely unexpected keyword, I heard Jang Hyunjun exhale a sigh.
Please let that get caught on camera—
“The song is bright and cute, but the lyrics are scarier than you'd think.”
In that instant, Robin's eyes went wide.
“Wait— have you heard our guide vocal?”
“Sorry?”
“Or did someone tell you?”
Now it was my turn to be flustered.
A guide vocal— don't tell me this guy knows I used to be a producer?
Instead of suspecting Go Jaeseong of being a regressor, maybe I should be suspicious of this side. So many absurd things kept happening that the thought actually crossed my mind for a moment.
“No, what guide vocal?”
I forced my expression back into order.
“The truth is, the guide version of this song was completely bleak and gloomy.”
“Seriously?”
“Robin, this is something you won't hear even on another show.”
The practice room stirred at the unexpected exchange. Even digging through my pre-regression memories, this was news to me.
Nothing like this ever aired on the broadcast either.
Beyond the camera, the main PD's eyes lit up. Well, of course— a first-ever reveal on broadcast. I could practically see the buzz climbing in real time.
“Interesting.”
Robin looked at me.
“How did you catch that from just the lyrics?”
“Actually, Kang Yiyul said at the very beginning that the lyrics sounded a little scary.”
Kang Yiyul's eyes went wide. His face clearly said he had no idea his own name would come up here.
“Oh, you've both got good instincts.”
“After hearing that, I chewed over the lyrics again, and the whole feeling was completely different.”
Robin's expression shifted into one of clear fascination.
“That's right. The original was actually much heavier— it only became bright like this when it came to your team.”
Then he added, looking at me:
“Though if we'd gone in the direction you just described, the guide version would have fit perfectly too.”
The faces of the two hip-hop guys went completely rigid.
“Worth trying to bring it back, wouldn't you say?”
With that single line, the verdict was settled.
After the evaluations ended, no one spoke first.
Finally, some peace and quiet.
They'd been so full of swagger earlier, and now they wore the faces of men who'd been thoroughly beaten down by Robin and had their souls leave their bodies.
Even before the regression, Robin's savage tongue had been quite the talking point. Back then, he was even harsher than this.
This much counts as gentle—
But for the guys who didn't know that, the shock must have been immense.
“Haah……”
Nam Junho let out a deep sigh.
“For now, we should use the choreography Sangyoon built as the base and think harder about the point choreography.”
Using his words as a springboard, I opened my mouth too.
“Since Robin said it was interesting, I'm planning to try the arrangement with the obsession concept kept alive. What do you think?”
“But what does that even feel like?”
Nam Junho frowned.
“He's right. Honestly, I don't get it either. The song's just bright— what part of it is supposed to be scary?”
Jang Hyunjun nodded along.
Instead of answering, I opened my laptop.
There was no point in a long-winded explanation. Playing it for them would be faster.
Tap. The first note dropped.
From the very start, the texture was different from the original.
A gloomy, quiet sound. Then, one beat late, a low chord layered over it.
I had left deliberate empty space.
Suffocatingly, utterly silent.
“Huh?”
I repeated the bass-rooted chord once more, then laid a melody on top.
I twisted the original line ever so slightly. All I did was drop the parts that sounded purely bright by a half step and drag them a touch— and the feeling transformed entirely.
Something that seemed to be smiling, yet strangely made your skin crawl— that razor's edge.
“Wh-what is that?”
Nam Junho leaned forward.
The second section I'd prepared was the highlight.
The melody built and built— then bang— it cut off with the force of shattering glass. If the point choreography came in here, it was a structure guaranteed to seize every eye in the room.
I'd deliberately played them the two most powerful sections first— the intro and the highlight.
“……Whoa.”
And the result was unmistakable.
Pure, unfiltered awe, spilling out of them.
Only then did I stop.
A handful of bars.
All I'd done was give them a taste of the atmosphere, and they were already wearing the expressions of people who'd glimpsed another world.
“…So this is what it could become?”
Han Sangyoon let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Hold on, play that again—”
“That part just now, one more time—”
The words overlapped. Teammates who hadn't agreed on a single thing all this time had, in that moment, said the exact same thing.
I chuckled and pressed play on the arrangement software again.
This time, I layered in a bit more craft.
Uneasily trembling chords, a melody repeating until it smothered you.
Bright, yet inexplicably cold.
The intent came through far more vividly than before.
“This is insane…”
Amid the flood of exclamations, one line from Kang Yiyul rang out with unusual clarity.
“It's like magic.”
Han Sangyoon lifted his head. The look in his eyes had changed.
“We're going with this. No question— we have to.”
Jang Hyunjun nodded in a daze too. Not a single word of objection this time.
Their gazes, always scattered in five different directions, aligned toward one place for the very first time.
“Seongwoo.”
Han Sangyoon called out quietly.
“Finish this all the way to the end. Quickly.”
“Yeah. We'll rebuild the choreography from scratch.”
Nam Junho picked up the thread right away.
“So come on.”
Jang Hyunjun grinned.
“Hurry up and play us the next part.”
Laughter broke out all around.
Guys who'd been brawling just hours ago, each insisting he was right, were now hanging on every single note I pressed.
A strange thrill ran down my spine.
Yeah. This is the power of music.
In my mind, a Shadow Play stage that would be nothing like the one from before the regression drew itself in sharp, vivid detail.
If Go Jaeseong stole the future— then I would build it.
A new future.