From No Hair to Beauty
After the meeting to decide the debut lineup wrapped up and everyone returned to their seats to handle their remaining tasks, a publicity team employee approached CEO Cha.
“Um, sir.”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the debut team profiles. What should we do with Yeri’s superpower? Should we upload it as is?”
“Superpower… Ah. Right. There was that.”
CEO Cha, realizing a detail he had momentarily forgotten, clicked his tongue and rechecked Na Yeri’s profile. In the superpower entry field, the word No Hair sat there in plain sight. No as in without, hair as in fur. Yes, that was exactly it.
“Those damn civil servant bastards. This is what’s wrong with our country.”
When a thirteen-year-old girl walked into the Superhuman Agency and declared that her superpower was “no hair,” what were the odds it would be accepted on the spot? If the employee had possessed even a shred of common sense, it would have been rejected immediately. Yet it had actually happened. It was a perfect storm of absurdity—the ignorance of a naïve thirteen-year-old who knew nothing of the world, combined with the laziness of a complacent civil servant protected by ironclad job security.
“It wouldn’t be good if this went up as is, right?”
“She hasn’t done anything wrong, but…”
“Exactly. No reason to invite that kind of unnecessary gossip.”
CEO Cha had briefly considered requesting a re-evaluation of her superpower, but he shook his head and decided on a different approach. Na Yeri’s fragile mental state had come to mind. Her inability to open up to the other trainees was partly rooted in the inferiority complex that came from having no superpower. He didn’t want to add any more stress to the girl who would soon be undergoing psychiatric evaluations and therapy alongside her training.
In cases like Na Yeri’s—where a proper superpower had failed to manifest for a long time—re-examination usually just returned “Unconfirmed,” essentially confirming that she would never possess a real ability. There was no point in putting her through that.
“We can think about it later when we have more breathing room, but not right now. What to do… Oh, I’ve got it. List it as Beauty on the profile.”
“Beauty? Is there even a superpower like that?”
“Who knows? There are all kinds of crazy things out there. It might exist somewhere.”
“But if rumors start later…”
“It won’t matter. Superpowers registered with the Superhuman Agency are personal information. Other people can’t access them anyway. The only way it becomes an issue is if the agency itself looks into it, and those people aren’t going to waste time on something so pointless.”
“Ah…”
“And if they do contact us, we’ll just say it was a typo when the profile was uploaded.”
Falsifying a superpower was technically a crime, but the law allowed plenty of room for extenuating circumstances. Even if the truth came out, claiming it had been a simple clerical error would almost certainly prevent any real trouble.
The categories for superpowers were absurdly broad, and aside from a handful with lethal combat potential or massive societal influence, the Superhuman Agency barely bothered to regulate them. If not for that policy, something as ridiculous as “no hair” would never have made it onto the official list in the first place.
CEO Cha considered this a perfectly acceptable solution. And so, without ever knowing it, Na Yeri became the world’s first idol to possess the unprecedented superpower known as Beauty.
The day after the debut team selection audition ended, I received a sincere acceptance message from the company.
“Wow… it actually worked?”
I had expected it to some degree. CEO Cha’s reaction after I finished singing had been noticeably different from the first timeline. He had simply given a small nod, but that was infinitely better than the first round, where he had immediately launched into an apology.
Besides, my singing ability now was worlds apart from back then. All my dance skills had vanished, but my voice remained.
“Whew… this is worth five points? Is the difference in treatment real?”
In novels, the protagonist always has something special. For the protagonist of this story, that special thing was a status window. It wasn’t an overpowered game-like system that let you raise levels and dump stats freely, but it could show the current abilities and growth limits of celebrities and trainees. The protagonist had used it to gather talented trainees and debut them under his own company.
The reason a retired combat superhuman could jump into the entertainment industry empty-handed was thanks to that sudden status window. Without it, he would never have made such a bold move.
On the other hand, I—who had possessed the novel—had no status window. The only thing I had was this achievement window, whose purpose and usage remained completely mysterious. I had never managed to do anything useful with it. Even after living as Na Yeri for over ten years in the first timeline, I had earned less than ten achievement points total.
There had been no reason for me to waste time worrying about something so meaningless.
Yet the moment I was selected for the debut team, a five-point achievement had popped up. The absurd event of receiving confessions from three different men in a single day had only been worth one point. If nothing else, it was clear that this achievement window was ridiculously favorable toward idol activities.
“Looks like I chose the right direction after all.”
After suffering through every imaginable hardship in the first timeline to the point where even breathing felt exhausting, I had chosen the notoriously brutal and tiring career of an idol for my own reasons. Those reasons hadn’t included the achievement window, but the way things were unfolding suggested my instincts had been correct.
In any case, it seemed the world wanted me to succeed in this field. As long as I properly carried out my duties as the extra character 17 (villain) Na Yeri while working, there probably wouldn’t be any major problems. The instruction to complete my own history suggested the path wasn’t completely blocked, and since this wasn’t a finished novel, there should be some flexibility.
“Then maybe I won’t have to go through that shitty regression again.”
In a world where I had nothing I particularly wanted, the last thing I desired was the exhausting hassle of repeated regression. That was genuinely tiring work. Only the truly deranged could endure it.
“So, what does the debut team look like? Let’s see…”
Having gained a useful hint from the achievement window, I immediately examined the debut team members. Once we debuted, we would be stuck together for several years whether we liked it or not, so I was curious what kind of people they were.
The acceptance message from the company included photos and simple profiles of the debut team members as attachments. They had probably sent them separately as a small kindness toward Na Yeri, who had lived with her walls up against all the other trainees. Given her personality, there was almost no chance she would have known anything about them.
In many ways, the staff really were meticulous and considerate.
“Five members? The only one I recognize is Yu Hana.”
In the first timeline, Cha Entertainment’s debut group had seven members. Now it had been reduced to five. Of the original lineup, only Yu Hana remained. She was an all-rounder main vocalist who could fit into any group, but with the other four completely replaced, the previous debut team had essentially been wiped out.
Removing the aerial levitation trio had completely altered the team composition.
“The little Yeri inside me is probably satisfied too. She managed to blow away those annoying bastards using what she had prepared. It’s good for my mental health as well. It’s not without regrets, but I’ll have to accept it.”
Thinking back to the first timeline, when the Cha Entertainment debut team had achieved decent results from the start, it was a little disappointing. But it couldn’t be helped. Normal activities would have been impossible with those three around. Besides, this was better for them too.
“If they keep acting out and end up getting their skulls cracked, they’d be the ones losing out, right?”
I couldn’t imagine myself tolerating their nonsense until the end.
“Whoa. The visuals… Wait, was Cha Entertainment’s trainee pool this strong?”
Satisfied with how completely the debut team had changed, I looked through the profiles again. I had assumed a competent company would pick well, but this was beyond imagination. Just from the photos, these trainees were extraordinary. With looks like this, how had they failed to make the debut team in the first timeline?
“Wait a second. This girl… Is she actually Western?”
Among the five members whose visuals were all flawless, the most striking was the profile photo of the third trainee. She wasn’t even Korean.
Full name Anastasia Sergeyevna Lyubelyov. Activity name: Tasha.
The proud daughter of Mother Russia had reddish-blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes—a beautiful Caucasian. Yes, a genuine Caucasian. A Western trainee, the kind you rarely saw even in major agencies, had been added to Cha Entertainment’s debut team.
“Is this really okay? There’s a reason no one else does it. Of course, she’s disgustingly pretty, but still…”
An idol’s visual was undeniably important, but even more important was harmony between team members. A Westerner standing among Asians would inevitably create a sense of incongruity. Their origins were fundamentally different. The very structure of their facial features was different.
That was why, even now when people talked about K-pop conquering the world, including Western trainees in a team was still difficult. Even a child could understand that having a Caucasian from England or America would make global promotions easier, yet it rarely happened. There had to be a reason.
There was no way the Cha Entertainment staff didn’t know something even I—who had only been a trainee for about two years—understood. What on earth were they thinking?
“…No, why does this actually work?”
Feeling something was off, I captured the five profile photos and lined them up side by side. I wanted to check whether they really harmonized.
Surprisingly, they matched better than expected. It was thanks to the exquisite balance between Tasha—who, for a Caucasian, had relatively soft nose and cheekbones—and another girl whose distinct features leaned toward a Western-style beauty even among Asians.
“So the company does have some thought behind its choices.”
Impressed by the staff’s foresight, I was about to close the file. Nothing could be more shocking than a blonde, blue-eyed trainee, so I figured I could meet the rest in person and judge for myself.
But just before closing the profiles, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu from the very first photo. The face and name were somehow familiar.
“Seong Jiyeong? No way… Is it that Seong Jiyeong? Dragon Blood’s Yonghui?”
It seemed the first member of the debut team might be someone I had known in the first timeline. Of course, it was a one-sided acquaintance on my part.