Watching Episode Two with the Tyrant

Watching episode two with my sister the entire time left me squirming in my seat. It turns out that watching a broadcast you appeared in, side by side with your own flesh and blood, is a far greater ordeal than you'd ever imagine.

"God, that pathetic stamina."

Yuseong-ah clicked her tongue at the screen.

"Did you actually faint for real there?"

I almost said, Obviously. You think that was fake?

But the instincts of a henpecked little brother know better. Talk back, and in the end, you're the one who loses.

Then, for a moment, I doubted my own eyes.

"Tsk. You've gotta stay healthy if you're gonna survive this."

—because Yuseong-ah was googling supplements on her phone.

Oh.

I was briefly, genuinely touched. So she wasn't just a tyrant.

"Hey, by the way—don't go telling everyone on the show you're my brother, got it?"

Retraction withdrawn.

"Why?"

"It's embarrassing."

Full retraction. I should have wished for something realistic.

Instead of answering, I took a long drink of water.

...You never know how people will turn out.

Episode two moved fast. Without a single moment of padding, it ran straight through to the end of the first mission.

"Oh—so there are kids who can actually produce?"

"Yep."

"Your agency's roster is quietly stacked, huh?"

I gave a half-hearted answer and checked the forum where the viewers had gathered. Before my regression, I used to lament that no one had known Kang Iyul even existed back during his survival show days—and now here I was, monitoring real-time reactions to myself.

I watched the broadcast with a distinctly dissatisfied eye.

Of course. Of course it was like this.

My eyes hadn't been wrong before the regression. This was his second time around the block too—unless he was a fool, Go Jaeseong would have calculated exactly how to grab more screen time and how to make the stage feel polished. He'd have run the numbers.

So his skills genuinely hadn't improved. It was all calculation.

Yuseong-ah tilted her head.

"Oh? What's this? Weren't you nervous?"

"I was confident too, you know."

"Huh? Confident about what?"

And then, on the screen, my past self opened his mouth.

"What the—?"

Yuseong-ah was genuinely stunned.

It had been four years ago, and the only thing the world knew about Yuseongwoo back then was that he was nineteen—so even my own sister had had no idea I could produce.

And I hadn't exactly had time to mention it right after regressing, either.

"You wrote a song? Since when do you know how to produce anything?"

The public's reaction was every bit as heated as hers.

I searched my own name on the SNS account I'd logged into daily back when I was stanning Kang Iyul. All that came up was an endless parade of photos of actual stars—the celestial kind.

"Ah, right."

There wouldn't be a single search under my name yet. The most distinctive thing about me would be...

And suddenly I found myself worrying, far in advance, about what kind of search term my name would eventually become.

But for some reason, my mid-round evaluation had been edited out entirely.

"Huh?"

"What? You got fully cut?"

"No, this doesn't make any—"

The viewers were just as baffled as I was.

"This is insane."

I shot up from the sofa.

The judges' comments had been glowing, the reactions had exploded. There was no earthly reason for that segment to be cut.

"So 'let's pad the runtime first' was their strategy, huh?"

Yuseong-ah snickered beside me.

"No, I'm telling you, this is evil editing!"

"Aigoo. Sounds like you totally flopped."

"I did not!"

The injustice churned my stomach. How could they cut that?

"This is straight-up defamation."

"Seongwoo. Who exactly do you think you are?"

The words died in my throat.

"O-okay, that part's not true, but..."

"Then shut up and watch."

"Yes, ma'am."

The broadcast rolled straight from the mid-round evaluations into the main stages.

"Whoa, the bottom-rankers just get five-second cameos."

You could feel the producers' determination to pack nothing but the essence into every single second.

That's why the show did as well as it did.

And then, at last, it was my turn.

"Oh."

Yuseong-ah, watching beside me, let out a short gasp of admiration.

"They actually put some effort into the staging, huh?"

"Hey, why were you shaking like that? You looked like a dog desperate for a piss."

On camera, I looked even worse than I'd remembered.

A flood of doubts about the stage that was about to unfold.

...Ah. So that's why they did it.

I was almost embarrassed that I'd ever worried about being edited out.

Short as the segment was, the board was briefly plastered wall-to-wall with my name, thanks to the song's quality exceeding every expectation and the judges' glowing reviews.

They edited it this favorably for me?

That last line was praise I'd never even heard on set that day.

Did they record it separately just for this?

Sure enough, Yuseong-ah glared back and forth between me and the TV, deeply unimpressed.

"This kid... a genius?"

"..."

"Ugh..."

As if it weren't mortifying enough already, her reaction set the tips of my ears blazing.

"Huh. Guess the stage really was that good, huh? Look at them hyping you up already."

"I-I got praised."

"Hm. Don't think so. Sounds to me like you got some criticism in there too."

Every now and then, that uncanny perceptiveness of hers sent a chill straight down my spine.

I said it that grandly?

Watching my past self through a camera lens, after all this time, was more awkward than I could have imagined. I'd been carrying so much tension in my body that my shoulders were a hair's breadth from fusing with my ears.

Then, at last, the stage began.

And of course, the opening aired unedited—every last tremor intact. I squeezed my eyes shut at the rising tide of cringe, but the shaking in my voice reached my ears all the same.

But then the atmosphere began to shift, little by little.

The voice that had been trembling...

...steadied, note by note.

The cameras didn't miss that transformation either. The me who had started with fists clenched white-knuckle tight gradually, naturally lifted his gaze toward the judges' panel—and at some point, he was smiling.

Somewhere along the way, Yuseong-ah had dropped all traces of mischief and was watching the screen in earnest.

"You were better than I expected."

"Better than you expected?"

"Don't push it."

...And just like that, I got scolded anyway.

"Why is that guy the only one with a sour face? He looks ready to pick a fight."

No wonder they called him the Ssemmelier.

At the critique that opened with praise, Yuseong-ah tilted her head.

"Knew it. Now what's he going to say?"

She's enjoying this way too much...

"He's got a point, though."

The ranking ceremony followed, showing me rise from sixth place—all the way through to the moment the nameplate was torn right off Go ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jaeseong.

Yuseong-ah had gone quiet as the dead. The tension got to me too, and I found myself shifting in my seat for no reason at all.

Rip—!

The sound came through far more vividly than it had in the room that day. And in that instant, I saw it:

Yuseong-ah clenching her fist in a triumphant pump.

Trouble. That was a danger signal—and a very strong one.

The moment every ranking announcement had wrapped—before the preview even had a chance to roll—Yuseong-ah sprang to her feet.

"..."

"Sis?"

"..."

"...Sis?"

Hoo—

When she turned around, Yuseong-ah's eyes were blazing like twin coals.

"Let's go."

"...Huh?"

"I said let's go. Practice. Now."

It looked very much like I wouldn't be setting foot inside the house today.