The Grim Reaper Concept
“Team selection will proceed in order of debut-group ranking.”
Joo Han was the first to call his teammates.
“First, trainee Kang Yiyul.”
Ah….
It was exactly the same as before the regression. For Yiyul's sake, those two were the last people who should end up on the same team.
“Next, trainee Go Jaeseong, please call your teammates.”
“Yes! First, trainee Choi Woonjo.”
After Choi Woonjo came Hwang Geonhee and Song Wooju. Hwang Geonhee had slid neatly into the seat beside Go Jaeseong that Jang Hyunjun and Nam Junho had vacated.
Not that it matters—he's going to vanish in the next round anyway.
One spot remained, and I could see the guys hovering around, pointlessly orbiting Go Jaeseong's gaze, desperate to be called.
I simply waited. For Go Jaeseong to call my name.
“And last, trainee Yuseongwoo.”
In that instant, the air in the practice room went dead still.
“Huh?”
Someone let out a dumbfounded sound.
“…Wait, what?”
“Did he just say Yuseongwoo?”
It wasn't just the trainees—the production staff were stirring too.
“We'll go with these five.”
Go Jaeseong finished speaking as if nothing at all had happened.
I walked over slowly. And then, my eyes met his.
Still swirling with confusion.
But he'd believe it soon enough. People believe whatever benefits them most.
“Now that the teams are set, we need to decide on outfits, right?”
The time the production staff gave us was a measly ten minutes.
“Let's do suits.”
Go Jaeseong spoke up first.
“Yeah, nothing beats a suit on a man.”
Hwang Geonhee jumped right on board.
“…Wouldn't street style work too?”
Song Wooju offered his opinion carefully, but Go Jaeseong just flashed his trademark friendly smile.
“I've already got a picture in my head. Trust me, it'll kill.”
“…”
“Wooju, you've only done fresh or hip-hop concepts so far. Let's try an image change this time.”
“…Okay, then. Let's do that.”
Buttering up one scared kid was nothing to him.
“Woonjo, what about you?”
“I'm good with anything!”
“Seongwoo, suits work for you, right?”
“Sure.”
In an instant, the decision was made.
“We'll wrap filming for today—”
With the production staff's announcement, the trainees filed out in a rush.
The moment he got back to the dorm, Go Jaeseong locked himself straight in the bathroom.
Click.
Only after locking the door did the breath he'd been holding finally burst out of him.
“…Ha.”
The same melody kept looping in his head.
[Closer and closer]
The song Yuseongwoo had been humming.
It was familiar.
Too familiar—that was the problem.
“That's impossible…?”
Desperate for answers, he'd pulled Yuseongwoo onto his team. He'd figured that keeping him close was the only way to learn anything.
It had thrown off his original Round 4 stage plans, but that wasn't what mattered right now.
Munho. The producer whose identity no one knew. A man whose face, age, and every last scrap of information had been wrapped in a veil.
And the song Yuseongwoo had been humming was one of Munho's.
Go Jaeseong raked his hands through his hair. His thoughts tangled into a hopeless knot.
This made no sense.
Munho hadn't even debuted at this point in time. He'd secretly searched for him earlier, and sure enough, nothing had come up.
“Don't tell me—”
For a split second, a single possibility flashed through his mind. Go Jaeseong's eyes slowly hardened.
“He said it was an original song.”
Yuseongwoo had said it so casually. That he'd made the song himself.
“No.”
He shook his head. Impossible. No way.
“A kid like him—”
In that moment, every remark Yuseongwoo had ever made that rubbed him the wrong way began threading itself back together in his head.
—Yes. The keyword for the stage I've prepared today is 'an original song.'
—It's something I only started recently, so I thought it'd be good to show you all in this mission, and I've been preparing!
—There's only two of us producing, though. Let's do well together from here on out!
Go Jaeseong's gaze wavered.
If—just if.
What if Munho's start is right now?
What if his own regression had changed Munho's future too?
“Insane—”
The confusion brimming in his eyes slowly curdled into euphoria.
“…So this is how it happens?”
His lips trembled with something like gratitude.
If Yuseongwoo really was Munho, then he absolutely had to debut with him. With Munho's songs, IMPACTER would never flop like it had before the regression.
It was a perfect picture.
Go Jaeseong clamped both hands over his mouth. But he couldn't stop the laughter leaking through his fingers.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart pounded like mad.
“No. Stay calm. Too soon to jump.”
He knew better than anyone why IMPACTER had failed in his previous life. It had all come down to rash decisions—accepting lousy music, making his own mistakes.
“For now, I watch.”
The moment he was certain Yuseongwoo was Munho, he had no intention of letting him slip away.
The next day, the song selection meeting began.
“Honestly, the only reason I picked suits was because of this song.”
“You've already chosen a song?”
Song Wooju asked, wide-eyed.
“Yep. You all know Chase, right?”
“The pop song?”
“Yep. That's the one.”
Hwang Geonhee reacted instantly.
“Whoa, that would look insanely good with suits.”
“Right? I've already got most of the choreography mapped out too.”
Song Wooju's eyes narrowed.
“That's amazing.”
“What is?”
“How you managed to think of the outfit, the song, and even the choreography in such a short time.”
But Go Jaeseong parried it with effortless composure.
“Shouldn't a trainee always be ready for anything?”
“…”
“You've gotta be able to do it all, Wooju.”
Whatever else Go Jaeseong went on to explain went in one ear and out the other.
Suits and 'Chase,' huh….
I was too busy marveling at his sheer audacity to listen.
Chase had been the cover song from IMPACTER's first and last year-end stage before the regression.
Even back then, the sharply synchronized knife-like choreography in perfectly fitted suits had gotten a pretty good reaction.
“If we do this song in suits with knife-sharp sync, honestly, no other team can touch us.”
“Love it. We'll look straight-up sexy.”
“We're all pretty tall, too.”
Go Jaeseong and Hwang Geonhee were buzzing off each other, and in a way, they really did make a matching pair. The guy strutting around on a stolen future, and the sidekick cheering him on without a clue what his own future held.
Behind the two of them in full swing, Song Wooju raised his hand.
“But—are we doing the pop song as-is?”
Go Jaeseong glanced casually my way.
“Hmm? What do you think, Seongwoo?”
The intent behind soliciting my opinion was transparent.
“I think we should do a Korean adaptation.”
So I swallowed the bait willingly.
“Right?”
“Starting this round, the audience votes, and Korean lyrics will land better.”
Go Jaeseong smiled with satisfaction. The moment I saw that expression, I knew for certain.
That bastard. He really does think I'm Munho.
“In that case, Seongwoo—how about you handle all the producing this time?”
In an instant, Hwang Geonhee's face stiffened.
“No, hey, Jaeseong—”
Flustered, he even started to stammer.
“P-producing is more your thing, Jaeseong.”
Go Jaeseong shook his head.
“I want to focus more on the choreography this time.”
“Ah…”
“Doing both would just be greedy.”
What a shiny, polished thing to say. But the inside was obvious.
Right. He wants to verify it.
Whether I was truly Munho, or just some guy who happened to make one song that sounded similar.
That approving look of his was revolting.
“Still, that's a lot to put on—”
“And Seongwoo's good at this stuff.”
Hwang Geonhee was struck speechless for a moment. Normally Go Jaeseong would have been checking me harder, so his sudden about-face was bound to throw the guy off.
“Would it be too much on your own, Seongwoo?”
I shook my head with a smile.
“No, I'm fine. I'll work hard.”
The corner of Go Jaeseong's mouth crept upward.
“Then—do you have any ideas for the arrangement?”
“Hmm… I'll need to think it over a bit.”
Truthfully, one idea had already come to me. A concept I'd watched in that cover stage long ago and always wanted to see Yiyul perform.
“Okay. Take your time thinking it through and let me know. Hmm… an hour should do it, right?”
“An hour is enough? Wow. Is this real life, Jaeseong?”
Where the hell did he learn that one….
Whether it was a total lack of awareness or a complete refusal to read the room, saying whatever he pleased on a survival show—apparently only Choi Woonjo could get away with that.
I shrugged.
“It's enough.”
In my head, I'd long since put a gat on Kang Yiyul's head and draped him in a durumagi coat.
Hmm… no matter how I think about it, it's a shame.
Sitting around hoping your bias gets assigned a certain concept is far too passive. I go to the concept myself.
Who knows—if this stage blows up, maybe someday IMPACTER will cover it again.
After pretending to agonize for about thirty minutes, I called the team together.
I didn't need words to feel the anticipation radiating off the three of them. In Hwang Geonhee's case, less anticipation than the narrowed eyes of a man waiting to see how good this idea could possibly be.
“How about a Grim Reaper concept?”
Back then, Yiyul had walked out with semi-smoky eye makeup, looking like he could mug anyone in broad daylight.
A brief silence. Hwang Geonhee reacted first.
“Huh? Grim… Reaper?”
Beside him, Choi Woonjo's eyes lit up.
“Reaper? Like a lion? I love lions! So the lion's name is the underworld? Underworldie?”
And then he growled to himself.
“Rawr. I wanna be Underworldie.”
I barely held back my laughter.
“No. Not a lion—Grim Reaper.”
Choi Woonjo's face froze on the spot.
“Hiii—”
Told you he was a reaction goldmine.
Hwang Geonhee asked with something like a sneer.
“What does Chase have to do with Grim Reapers?”
Great broadcast material right there, Geonhee.
“Not the traditional Grim Reaper. We reinterpret it for the modern age.”
“…”
“Think about it—in a way, isn't a Grim Reaper just a civil servant working for the afterlife? Like this: a Grim Reaper who carries a cell phone around. But when they gather, they play baduk.”
The more I talked, the more Go Jaeseong's eyes changed.
“The song is hip-hop, but with traditional Korean gugak sounds layered in. Modern, yet with a strangely timeless feel.”
Interest gave way to conviction.
Gugak fusion was Munho's signature, after all.
I drove the final nail in.
“And the song's literally called Chase, right? I think it'd be fun to write the lyrics from the moment we ourselves became Grim Reapers—chasing something.”
Go Jaeseong reacted first.
“Whoa—”
Genuine admiration, no performance in it.
“That's really good.”
Even Hwang Geonhee nodded, grudgingly.
“Yeah. It does sound fresh.”
Go Jaeseong seized the momentum immediately.
“Great. Then Seongwoo, the Grim Reaper concept is in your hands.”
“Yep.”
“We'll keep working on the choreography.”
From there, things unfolded so predictably it was almost funny.
“I've already got most of the first-verse choreography done, actually.”
Go Jaeseong, pretending to deliberate while churning out choreography like a machine. And the others marveling at his insane speed.
“Once I tidy it up, I'll teach you all.”
Song Wooju did try to offer his input.
“Wooju's choreography is interesting too—shouldn't we work some of it in?”
“Hmm. But it's a little… off from what I made, isn't it? Doesn't quite fit the vibe.”
Time and again, Go Jaeseong deflected and refused.
“He's right.”
Beside him, Hwang Geonhee nodded along.
“But I'll consider it. You're okay with that, Wooju?”
“Ah—yes.”
In the end, Song Wooju shut his mouth.
Even after that, Go Jaeseong kept dutifully building choreography on his own. No—pretending to build it, dutifully.
Meanwhile, Choi Woonjo rewrote the rap verses, and Song Wooju hovered at my side.
“What?”
“I, um, have nothing to do.”
“…”
“Ah. Got it.”
One silent, steady stare and he directed himself over to Choi Woonjo on his own. And started writing rap together with him.
He's finally learned—when I glare, he reads.
So he'd reached the level of instantly picking up on 'find your own work' without a word. Impressive.
About an hour later, Go Jaeseong rose from his seat.
“Everyone, gather round.”
Confidence written all over his face.
“I'll show you the first-verse choreography.”
I watched his choreography in silence.
“That's so good!”
“Jaeseong, did you make all of this yourself?”
Amid the chorus of lavish praise from the team, I alone was fighting to keep my face straight.
Because this was…
Isn't this just freeloading a little too shamelessly?
It was exactly, down to the last detail, the same choreography as that cover stage.