What the Spotlight Points Buy
By the time I got home, the sky outside the window was already pitch black. My body, having dragged itself through an entirely unfamiliar day, felt like it might melt into the floor. I toed off my shoes wherever they landed and dropped my bag onto the sofa.
“What's this—did you wear makeup?”
My sister, sprawled across the couch, snapped her head up.
“Yeah. Had my profile shots taken today.”
“Unbelievable. This is the first time I've ever seen anything on your face.”
Normally the lecture about being out so late would have come pouring down on me, but tonight she just seemed fascinated by the made-up face.
“Cleanse properly before you sleep. You'll break out otherwise.”
“Okay. Hey, can I just wash this off with soap?”
“You think? Ha. How did a guy like you end up deciding to be an idol.”
Ah. I'd stepped on a landmine.
And so began the twenty-minute cleansing seminar.
“This is the eye makeup remover, and this is the cleansing oil. There's an order to it. An order.”
“Since when does washing your face have an order—”
“Shut up and just memorize it.”
By the end, I had graduated to gently dabbing at my face with my pinky finger.
…Being an idol really isn't easy.
“If you keep washing your face like this, the sun'll be up before you're done.”
“This kid has no idea how scary broadcast cameras are. If your skin flips out, being handsome won't save you.”
One completed face wash, and I was utterly spent.
I wanted to collapse straight into bed, but moving into the dorms meant packing first. Thanks to the past me, who'd started preparing little by little the moment I regressed, it went quickly.
Past Seongwoo, I owe you one.
I packed the cosmetics my sister had sorted and wrapped by type last of all, then threw myself onto the bed—my face already slathered in the sleeping pack Yu Seong-ah had insisted on.
My eyes closed, but my mind was strangely, stubbornly clear.
The whole day played back like a panorama. The makeover, the first makeup, Yiyul's new haircut. The profile shoot, and my own face captured on camera.
“…Ha.”
A short laugh slipped out of me.
Then, at the edge of my vision, a number blinked.
“SP…”
The points that had been accumulating all day long. That number that had spiked spectacularly at the shoot. And yet—
“Where the hell am I supposed to spend this…?”
It was nice to see public attention reflected in real time, but points that only piled up and did nothing were meaningless.
At that moment, the status window responded.
[System: SP stands for "Spotlight Point."]
[System: SP is a resource converted from the attention of others.]
[System: Accumulated SP can be converted into items.]
Short, but the point landed just fine.
“Items?”
Sleep evaporated in an instant.
Before the word had even finished leaving my mouth, a new window rose up.
▶ Item Name: _______
▶ Effect: _______
“Yes!”
I bolted upright.
The survival filming was kicking off in earnest tomorrow. Which made this an opportunity like no other.
My mind spun fast.
First things first, what I need most is—
I didn't even have to think.
“To dance well.”
The status window flashed red.
I frowned.
“What's the problem? Then—Choreography Master?”
The red warning appeared again.
[System: An item's name must convey its effect intuitively at a glance.]
So there was a condition attached.
“Copy of Kang Yiyul's dancing ability.”
[System: Only items truly necessary for the user can be created.]
And one more condition stacked on top.
“Uh, that's literally all things I need, though?”
[System: ….]
“Ruler of the Camera.”
Failed.
“Born to Be Idol.”
Failed.
I cringed through waves of unbearable secondhand embarrassment naming them, and not a single one succeeded. Fortunately—or unfortunately—there seemed to be no limit on how many times I could fail. The failures stacked up, dozens deep.
“…Are you kidding me?”
I was exhausted to death already, and all I kept getting was rejection. Irritation bubbled up as I flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
“What do you actually want from me?”
The status window stopped responding. In other words: figure it out yourself.
My thoughts grew hazier, my eyelids heavier.
“Ha. This is way pickier than I expected.”
The SP number still flickered faintly in the corner of my vision. Points that had clearly been given to me, and yet I couldn't spend them—
So frustrating.
I tried a few more times, but sleep won in the end.
…Tomorrow's problem.
And I was out.
From the morning, a peculiar tension hung over the practice room.
The moment I opened the door, what caught my eye was the cameras—mounted everywhere. Beside the door, above the mirror, one wedged into every corner. The black lenses watched us like so many surveillance eyes.
“…Whoa.”
Someone swallowed audibly.
People fiddled with their hair for no reason, straightened their postures, snuck glances at the mirror. Each of us was aware, in our own way, that filming had begun.
This was the real start now. The moment we stopped being trainees and became contestants.
The door opened and the broadcast staff filed in first. Microphones, lighting, camera positions. With brisk, efficient hands, the set took shape. And then, finally—
“Is everything ready?”
With that bright voice, a tall man walked into the center of the practice room.
“Oh my god.”
“No way.”
“Is this real?”
The trainees shot to their feet almost in unison. Half of it was pure reflex.
“Nice to meet you all. I'm Kang Sejun, and I'll be your MC for Boys Code.”
He smiled easily, taking us in with a slow glance around the room. The trainees' composure, however, was another story entirely.
Kang Sejun—leader of the five-member boy group Nexty, an active idol who'd just wrapped up a successful solo run. More than ten years past his debut, and still holding top-tier popularity.
With the unexpected arrival of a heavyweight like him, everyone had forgotten the cameras, forgotten everything, and just stood there staring blankly. Faces mixed up between nerves and thrill.
Yeah, that's a fair reaction.
He was the man who had driven the early buzz around Boys Code. Said to have joined out of loyalty to CEO Song In-hyuk, he'd also used the program to launch a flawless MC career.
He was also the one who sang my song.
It felt strangely surreal—facing the same man again, in circumstances completely different from before my regression.
“Finally, time for our first shoot.”
Kang Sejun raised his cue cards with a light flourish.
“You're all excited, right?”
Awkward laughter rippled here and there.
Kang Sejun nodded as if he understood perfectly, then continued.
“What do you think is the very first thing you'll show the public?”
Answers popped up around the room.
“The profile photos?”
“The interviews, maybe?”
“Our first stage?”
Once a decent number of guesses were out, Kang Sejun shook his head.
“No.”
A brief silence. Amid the taut stillness, he spoke.
“It's the signal song.”
That one word transformed the entire atmosphere.
The signal song—the face of the survival show, the stage where the public would lay eyes on these trainees for the very first time.
At Kang Sejun's gesture, a screen lowered at the front of the practice room.
Doom. Doom. A low beat pulsed, and letters surfaced on the screen.
BOYS CODE — SIGNAL SONG
The trainees' eyes in the mirror sparkled. Of course they were excited—it was the stage where they'd make their first impression on the world.
But I knew. I knew how short-lived that thrill would be.
Boy's Code (Prod. Rowkey)
A hip-hop EDM signal song capturing the journey of boys decoding the unknown code called debut.
The brief introduction flashed by, and the sound hit immediately.
[Boom!]
Gasps of awe burst out from all around before the song was two seconds old.
“Wow…”
“Insane…”
Sirens, footsteps, rhythms interlocking like machinery. A ferocity that grabbed you by the ears and refused to let go.
[Crash-landed in this space
Right before my eyes
An unknown system
Warning
Tell me how to escape]
The melody was simple, but fiercely addictive. I almost caught myself humming along.
Most idol survival signal songs went with a fresh, youthful concept—it was the easiest way to play up the trainees' raw, boyish charm.
A free ride, basically.
But Nyx Entertainment had actually used its head. To set itself apart from the flood of idol survival shows, it had chosen intensity over freshness. Rowkey, after all, was a producer famous for powerful, hard-hitting boy group tracks.
Right after its release, reactions had split cleanly down the middle. Some called it refreshing; others called it the same old thing. As a trainee survival, it was novel—but as a boy group concept, it was textbook.
Still, there was one thing everyone agreed on.
The song was genuinely, unmistakably good.
[Keep on moving
Never stop
Break it
The only code that opens this door
Boy's code]
The soaring high notes, radiating pure release, had made this the beloved killing part of the song.
“Oh my god…”
“And I'm supposed to sing that?”
The awe lasted all of a moment.
“How am I supposed to sing this?”
“We're doomed…”
Reality came crashing in fast.
No, I can't get scared this early—
The ending faded out on a wistful piano line. That was probably where each trainee would get their close-up, one by one. The stretch where you'd have to appeal yourself to the audience with your life on the line.
Just three minutes. But it left a ferocious first impression.
“Right after this, we'll show you the choreography video.”
Choreography: Euphoria
That pairing alone told you how much Nyx had staked on this survival show. At this point in time, Euphoria was the choreography team so hot that every routine they put out spawned a viral dance challenge.
A miracle of a signal song, conjured by two rookie CEOs mobilizing every last connection they had.
“Euphoria? The team Jacob is with?”
“No way…”
“That's even possible?”
Excitement climbed one more notch.
“…Wait, what is this?”
“Wh-why is there so much of it?”
But those hopes were shredded to pieces in exactly ten seconds.
“Ah, hold on—”
The choreography was packed so dense that there wasn't a single second of rest.
Honestly, broken down piece by piece, no individual move was difficult. The problem was that the routine filled every last sixteenth note to the brim.
In a word: killer choreography.
“The beats are insane.”
“Wow… this is not going to be easy.”
Even through the video, the dancers' ragged breathing came through. In the silence, someone muttered:
“…Are we supposed to dance ourselves to death?”
Correct answer.
Kang Sejun, surveying the trainees' slack-jawed faces, clapped his hands lightly.
“Great song, isn't it?”
“Yes!”
But the finishing blow came right on its heels.
“You have exactly three days.”
“Three days from now, we go straight into the signal song filming.”
“Mo—”
After a trainee's anguished groan, a curse heroically strangled at birth, roughly five seconds of shared silence passed.
I just quietly watched them.
Now standing inside the scene I'd only ever seen through a screen.
Truly…
It felt far stranger than anything I'd imagined.