A Powder Keg Ready to Explode

April 22nd was the air date for episode two of Idol Survival—and, at the same time, the day they would film the contestants reacting to episodes one and two. Buried under personal evaluations and the looming music-show shoot practice, I had missed the first episode that had aired the week before, so I was waiting for this second monitoring session with equal parts anxiety and anticipation.

And that morning, the second I opened my eyes, I squinted hard against the grit in them. The day had barely started, and already I was looking at something I did not want to see.

It had been a while since a daily mission came with an actual ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠penalty. It wasn’t the kind that shaved points off my stats the way the first one I ever saw had, but a fatigue spike was just as much of a problem. With the mountain of schedule still ahead of me, I could not afford to be dragging.

Up until now, daily missions had mostly split into two types—hit a practice quota, or secure broadcast screen time. This one was the latter. So how was I supposed to rack up screen time on a reaction shoot? Laugh a lot?

If it’s a reaction video, it’ll mostly be close-ups.

Washing up and drying my hair, I caught my reflection and noticed the blue-green bruise blooming over the cheekbone I’d knocked two days earlier. Right—I had a few skin-care vouchers from roulette rewards. Might as well use one now. I looked in the mirror and activated a skin-care voucher. And was disappointed.

Doesn’t seem like that big a difference.

When I touched my face, the skin did feel oddly softer, but the bruise itself hadn’t gone anywhere. Because it was a beauty voucher and not a recovery voucher, maybe?

“Hyung, how do you look this good even in the morning?”

“Oh—you need to wash up?”

I was still studying my face in the mirror when Song A-seong appeared, his face a little puffy with sleep, and I stepped aside to give him the sink. The closer he came, the stronger the smell of pain-relief patches got.

“How’s the shoulder? You said it was stiff.”

“Mm, I think it’s okay.”

Ever since the dorm life had started in early April, the pain-patch smell had never really left our room. Not a single one of us wasn’t practicing until dawn, day after day. I had no idea how we’d ended up with nothing but practice addicts under one roof.

“What about you, hyung? You feeling all right?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

I was holding up relatively well, all things considered. I still had the red-ginseng packs from daily missions, and the athletic-meet title—Golden Badge, which granted +20% stamina while equipped—was doing good work.

“Ugh, I’m dying.”

“Hyung, grab your ankle brace when you go out.”

“Got it~.”

Han Min-hyeok shuffled into the bathroom with his hair a mess. He was limping slightly on the ankle he’d twisted the day before. Between the brutal schedule and everyone’s dwindling stamina, injuries had been cropping up more and more lately.

“Han-hee, your face looks especially unreal today.”

“You look great too, hyung.”

“Thanks~.”

We traded nonsense while we finished getting ready, then the three of us headed out for breakfast. Reaction filming was set for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the afternoon, but the morning still had the usual lessons and practice time.

Kwon Do-ha and Han Sang-jin had already left early for extra filming. From the look of it, they’d pulled everyone whose dance was B+ or higher this time.

Vocals yesterday, dance today…

I was gradually getting used to the nonstop extra shoots that had started with Dance Mafia. Yesterday they’d filmed content with karaoke machines; I had no idea what they were putting the contestants through today. Whatever it was, the stamina drain was no joke.

“Cereal for me.”

“Same.”

“I might just go with a salad~.”

The provided meals were excellent, but a heavy stomach before practice was a problem, so we kept breakfast light and then split at the fork in the path. It was a BLOSSOM vocal-lesson day, which meant Song A-seong and I were headed to the advanced class while Han Min-hyeok went to intermediate.

“Kids, don’t overdo it today, okay~?”

“You take care of yourself first, hyung. You look like you’re about to collapse.”

Han Min-hyeok told us not to push ourselves, pale-faced—but I wanted to throw the same warning right back at him. Don’t overdo it, from someone who didn’t get back to the room before three a.m. as a baseline.

“Well, you know me~ I’ve got to work hard.”

I was the same way, honestly. Even under the crushing chain of lessons, practice, filming, and more filming, no one around me ever really showed how exhausted they were.

Isn’t it about time someone opened a window in here?

In an environment where not a single person was slacking, the contestants had started feeding off each other, and the late-night practice culture was only getting more fevered. And the production team kept tossing kindling into that fire with extra shoots as bait, then fanning the flames for good measure.

They really do drive everyone like they’re waiting for someone to drop.

Just assigning two evaluation tracks—Sunlight and BLOSSOM—was already more than enough to resent them for, but offering extra filming as a benefit tied to evaluation performance was another level entirely.

A few contestants’ mental states were already fraying at the edges. That was especially true of the higher-ranked trainees who shared the same practice rooms but had never once tasted those benefits themselves. Empty spots would open up mid-practice from time to time, and the situational pressure of watching someone else move forward while you stayed put seemed to hit them more directly.

“All right, everyone work hard—and fighting for the shoot later!”

“Thank you for today!”

After the lesson wrapped—minus the people who’d been pulled for extra filming for Idol Survival Plus—there was a short break. One contestant bit down hard on his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lip.

“I seriously can’t do this anymore…”

“…!”

Even with cameras rolling, the complaint came out raw and open. Every eye in the room snapped toward him, but he didn’t seem to care. The words that poured out were thick with resentment.

“…Honestly. Honestly, does this even make sense? There are people who need screen time more than anyone, and they just keep pulling the ones who are already good and piling it all on them?”

It was a relatively unfamiliar face to me—Yu Sang-hyeon, the nineteen-year-old contestant who’d only recently moved up into the advanced vocal class. He was speaking hard, furious, but his eyes were welling behind a transparent film of tears that spilled down his cheeks in a steady stream. In the practice room that had gone dead silent in an instant, the only sound left was Yu Sang-hyeon muttering as he glared at the camera.

“What’s the point of practicing like this when people can’t even see you anymore…?”

It was a silence no one could easily answer. And then, cutting through that stillness, the contestants who’d finished their extra shoot walked in. Kwon Do-ha, Han Sang-jin, Cha Ji-heon—all three of them top-tier trainees with dance stats of B+ or higher and vocals that cleared 84.

“…?”

They were sharp enough to sense the wrongness the moment they stepped inside. Even with more people in the room, the quiet held. No one spoke. Before long the break was over, and one by one people scraped their chairs back and stood. After vocal lessons, most of us usually stayed put and went straight into dance practice, so even under that heavy atmosphere the intro track started as usual—and soon the squeak of rubber soles striking the floor was filling the room again.

It was a powder keg on the edge of blowing.

Pathetic.

Kim Seong-min—the middle-school contestant on Idol Survival, the one who’d already clashed with Song A-seong a couple of times since the first day of dorm life—clicked his tongue inwardly as he watched Yu Sang-hyeon dancing with his nose running.

If someone’s better than you, you should be thinking about how to crush them. Instead he’s just lying under them begging to be saved.

Kim Seong-min had started trainee life absurdly young. He was only sixteen, but he was confident that most of the people here had shorter trainee careers than he did. He himself was already on year seven.

He thought of himself as a talent perfectly prepared to be an idol. His voice had great resonance—clear, ringing, powerful—and his dance was good enough to compete with hyungs several years older.

Starting early and hitting a high skill level at a young age was a real advantage in this industry. An idol’s shelf life wasn’t that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long. Every so often some washed-up type would show up at the company talking about becoming an idol, and it made him snort.

How are you going to be an idol when you’re already old?

Having practically lived at his agency since he was a child, Kim Seong-min remembered the things people around him used to say like a mantra. There was a window when an idol could sell, and that window wasn’t long—so you had to debut as young as possible.

Growing up around every kind of person had given him clear standards for judging people, and he trusted his eye. He’d trusted it a little too much, maybe, which was how things had gotten tangled with a trouble he hadn’t wanted.

Honestly, on the first day of dorm life at the profile shoot, Kim Seong-min had written Han Min-hyeok off as a joke. Scanning the room early, he’d decided Min-hyeok had already missed his window. Too old. So he figured the guy would wash out fast and didn’t bother paying attention.

But when Han Min-hyeok actually photographed well, it had irritated him. He could see exactly what kind of person that was.

With that face and that vibe, if the singing and dancing had been good enough, he would have debuted ages ago. And if some unavoidable circumstance had derailed a debut, Kim Seong-min would have known about it. He was that plugged in on that side of things.

This couldn’t have been someone who’d always meant to walk this path. Either an SNS star fishing for followers, or someone hoping to catch industry eyes and pivot into other work. So he hadn’t hesitated to use him as a stepping stone.

Idol was just the cover story; the guy was clearly aiming for modeling or something in that lane. Kim Seong-min had wanted him to stop hovering around getting in the way and go find his real job.

Everyone seemed to think being an idol was that easy—but this wasn’t a floor you could treat as a stepping stone or a rite of passage, and he’d wanted to make that clear.

Looking back, that had been a mistake. He hadn’t known the guy was Song A-seong’s cousin.

That day, Song A-seong had stuck him with a sharp little line. Quiet, but his diction was so clean it came through perfectly clear.

Watching that retreating back, he’d been briefly speechless. Song A-seong was a famous name among trainees. A genius who’d dropped into the idol world like a comet. A natural voice with a gift for commercially sharp singing-rap that blended easily with others—and yet, solo, had a personality all his own. On top of that, a face that was the textbook “pretty boy.” Once he debuted, the result was obvious without even watching.

He’ll do fine.

Kim Seong-min didn’t exactly like Song A-seong, but he didn’t resent the fact either. Someone better than me? Sure, that could exist. For now, they might even be better.

Then I just catch up and take it.

Honestly, that level of mental management was mandatory if you wanted to be an idol. Kim Seong-min was satisfied with his own nature.

Other trainees trembled over their reputations; people who’d already debuted suffered under hate comments. He felt nothing watching that. Hate comments were just what happened when you put yourself in front of people, weren’t they?

Through years of trainee life, Kim Seong-min had stopped caring when people talked behind his back. Say what you want. No matter what they said, his success was already decided.

Even after Idol Survival had forced his company to rush-launch the group they’d been preparing and left him stranded like a duck egg on the Nakdong River, he was fine. The company just hadn’t been a vessel big enough to hold him. Skill didn’t go anywhere.

He’d entered the audition young, but he was confident. He was certain. He was a person born to be an idol.

But when he actually ran into someone who genuinely seemed born to be an idol, Kim Seong-min felt something entirely different. So this is what a real star is?

After Han Min-hyeok and Song A-seong’s profile shoots were done, Lee Han-hee had walked in next—and honestly, it was like he was drawn in a completely different art style from everyone else.

An ivory knit cardigan with long sleeves, a slightly tilted torso and one long extended leg, a small head that made his already excellent proportions look almost unreal. Against a plain white backdrop and a brown chair—the most ordinary, monotonous set imaginable—something about the atmosphere he carried made even the act of watching the shoot feel like a scene from a film.

It wasn’t only Kim Seong-min who’d felt it. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a single person in that room who hadn’t been pulled under.

A few light, dismissive voices had slipped out between the gasps, as if people were trying to deny how completely he’d overwhelmed them—but remembering the studio that had been nothing but held breath for a moment, those comments only looked ridiculous. Kim Seong-min made a quick, clean judgment. His ideal was standing right there.

Someone who makes you restless no matter how hard you try to tear them down or dig at them—that’s a star.

That was his theory. Drawing attention was a star’s qualification. Setting people on fire was a star’s essence.

Without hesitation, he would say Lee Han-hee was the closest thing to his own role model among everyone he’d seen in his not-short company life. Which was exactly why Kim Seong-min was genuinely baffled.

Why choose someone like Han Min-hyeok to hang around with?

The surface was fine enough, but neither the singing nor the dancing met the standard. Factor in the age and the idol shelf life didn’t look long either—so why get close?

Kim Seong-min turned on the faucet at the sink and stared blankly at Yu Sang-hyeon, who couldn’t hide the red rims of his eyes. Something about not knowing your place felt familiar.

“If you whine for people to look at you, does anyone actually care?”

Kim Seong-min chose to do his work quietly where he stood rather than thrash around for attention. Once you climbed high enough, understanding would come on its own.

Someone without the talent to climb should have given up early—that would have been the smart move. But he was not that someone.

“Are you doing this for sympathy points? Mm, I don’t think you’re the only one who’s desperate. Is your sob story that devastating?”

Kim Seong-min smiled nastily and kept going. Forcing people who didn’t know their place to face reality was an old stress-relief method of his.

“No need to blame other people, is there? It’s just that your skill isn’t good enough. What were you even doing all those years at your age? If you were that serious about the dream, you should’ve been working hard from the start. Saying you’re putting in effort now—is there a single person here who isn’t?”

Honestly, the words had been meant for someone else, but he poured them out clean. Then, lighthearted, Kim Seong-min turned away, left the bathroom, and hurried toward the set with short, quick steps. Whatever showed on camera absolutely had to look cute.

“Ahh~ I feel great!”

Now, when they filmed the reaction video, he was sure he could put on a good face. A firework shot into a powder keg was none of his business.