The Yellow Warning

“Huh. Weird. My body feels really light today.”

Han Min-hyeok sat up sharply from bed and rolled his shoulders, his expression lighter than it had been in days.

“Yeah, for sure…”

Even Song A-seong, who had spent the past few mornings sluggishly dragging himself out of bed, was sitting there with his eyes wide open and alert.

Pretty solid effect.

I had gotten up early to stretch and check my missions, and now I was reviewing their reactions. Faster feedback than I’d expected.

“Wait, Sang-jin hyung, did you already work out?”

“Felt good, so yeah.”

Han Sang-jin, who looked like he’d already been outside training since dawn, exchanged a silent nod with Kwon Do-ha as he stepped out of the bathroom, then headed in to wash up himself. Maybe it was his naturally solid base of stamina, or maybe the title effect had left him with energy to spare. I needed to get to that point myself.

“Han-hee…”

“Yes? What is it, hyung?”

Kwon Do-ha started to speak, then hesitated, the rest of the sentence refusing to come out easily. The cameras would be on around now.

“…You remember what I said yesterday, right?”

“Of course.”

Don’t reach out a hand if you can’t take responsibility. I remembered that advice clearly. It was exactly why I had been holding off on using this system more aggressively.

A producer-exclusive quest…

Even as I walked with my roommates toward breakfast, my mind kept turning over this newly unlocked ability.

If I could check what happens after registering a trainee ahead of time, that would help.

How many people ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I could register. How long the registration would last. Whether there was a hard limit, and what the penalties were. There were more conditions to consider before diving into this content than I could count.

“Do-ha hyung, are you free later?”

I stuck close to Kwon Do-ha and asked for a bit of his time. He seemed to know something about this system, which meant I had a lot of questions.

“Let’s talk after we eat.”

“Right. We’re doing all this to make a living, so food first. Let’s eat well.”

“Let’s eat well.”

People who usually claimed they had no appetite and grabbed the bare minimum had clearly gotten their hunger back. Everyone loaded up a solid breakfast. I watched Han Min-hyeok, who normally only picked at salad, scoop a hefty pile of rice into his seaweed soup—then tried a spoonful myself and froze at how bland it was.

Was this a low-sodium recipe?

The seaweed was clearly sliding around in my mouth, but I couldn’t taste a thing. I tried another spoonful. No difference. I looked around; everyone else was eating without a care in the world. I put some kimchi over my rice and tried that next. Also completely flat.

“….”

“The soup’s good today.”

“Yeah, the seasoning’s perfect.”

I stared down at my tray at the strange non-taste of it all, and the conversation drifting in from behind me left me with a very odd feeling. The seasoning was perfect?

This?

I shook my head without thinking and locked eyes with Kwon Do-ha. I must have been wearing a pretty serious face.

“If it’s not sitting well, want a banana?”

“…Thanks. I’ll take it.”

I accepted the banana he somehow already had ready, peeled it, and put it in my mouth. Still no real taste—but at least it went down easier than the rice.

“Han-hee hyung, no appetite?”

“Hm? Yeah, kind of.”

Calling it a simple lack of appetite felt a little off, but I answered Song A-seong anyway—only for another voice to cut in from behind. Lee Jae-jin.

“What, Han-hee, are you sick?”

“Who’s sick? Han-hee hyung?”

Woo Cheong-hee appeared right after him. Since we had run into each other, I swapped both of their titles as well. Golden Badge and Silver Badge.

I watched their faces carefully, looking for any real-time effect. Lee Jae-jin only flicked an eyebrow; Woo Cheong-hee didn’t change at all. Maybe the difference wasn’t dramatic enough to feel right away. Honestly, that was more convenient for me.

“Hyung, are you sick? Where does it hurt?”

“No, I’m not sick. Really. My mouth just feels weird, that’s all.”

“When you’re tired, you get those little bumps on your tongue. Working hard is good, but sleep while you practice, okay?”

“I’m seriously fine. Working hard? If anything, I’m still falling short.”

The pure concern in Lee Jae-jin’s voice pricked at my conscience—I had been coasting on titles and red ginseng more than anyone. We traded a few more check-ins, and I stood to clear my tray—when, for a split second, every sense in my body seemed to recede, a thick, hazy feeling taking over.

“…? What is th—!”

My body tipped. I grabbed the table to keep from falling and lost hold of the tray; it hit the floor, but my ears felt plugged and I heard nothing. Noise collapsed into a single buzzing blur. The dizziness held for a moment—then, gradually, sensation returned.

“You okay? You with us?”

“Y-yeah. I’m fine. Fine? I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. Should we take you to the infirmary?”

“Get on my back.”

Before I could even process what was happening, the ground dropped away from me. I was pretty sure I told Han Sang-jin—who had already hoisted me up and was walking fast—that it was just a little anemia and he could put me down. Somehow we still arrived at the infirmary.

Following the staff’s instructions, I lay down on the bed and tried to retrace what had just happened. Had I been that exhausted? Had I pushed myself so hard that my vision could suddenly blur like that?

“That’s weird…”

I had been a little tired, sure—but not that bad. I had been managing my condition with red ginseng the whole time. After reassuring the people trading serious talk about sudden hearing loss and worse that it was nothing to worry about, I buried myself in the bed and pulled up my status window first thing.

Sure enough, beneath the status window, a newly appeared meter had climbed: the risk of Game Addiction. The icon looked like an energy-efficiency grade mark, drawn in stages from green to red—and the yellow section was lit.

Game addiction…

I had definitely felt my senses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dull, like reality itself had gone slightly distant. I hadn’t expected zero penalties for interfering with other people’s status windows—but I hadn’t expected this, either.

The closer I get to being a player, the more I treat this world like a game—so the addiction value rises?

That tracked. Watching it tick slowly downward even now, it seemed like heavy short-term intervention made me lose my senses for a while, then recover gradually. A yellow that was almost orange. I squeezed my arm hard and felt no pressure at all.

This level must be pretty serious.

Maybe if I registered a trainee first and intervened that way, the penalty would be lighter. It was content designed to be used, after all—there had to be a more efficient method.

Why I had been chosen for this game, what result someone hoped to get by using me—so much was still unknown. But one thing was clear: every ability the system handed me under the banner of a “game” was anything but ordinary. A red carpet had already been rolled out. I wasn’t going to leave it untouched out of fear.

A certain amount of penalty is worth it. Research first.

I had no intention of not using I Am the Producer (U+). In an RPG, throwing away a granted ability simply wasn’t an option. I would find a way.

My heart pounded at the thought of a long-overdue game strategy session.

“How’s your condition today? You okay?”

“No problems.”

And so a day passed, and finally it was the day of the music show filming for Sunlight and BLOSSOM. The sheer number of people gathered on set kept the entire recording chaotic, but after more than two weeks of practice so intense it made me want to throw up, my body moved without issue.

“All right! One more of Sunlight, then we wrap!”

“Yes!”

I had no idea how many “one more”s this already was, but I took my place in formation. My position in Sunlight was right beside the center of the main stage. The center was Kwon Do-ha, and watching him from the side, I couldn’t help but be impressed by how dramatically his dancing had improved. Was a main vocalist even allowed to dance this well? Was the balance okay…?

Lee Jae-jin stood on the opposite side of Kwon Do-ha, so whenever we shared a frame I pushed myself to keep from being overshadowed by either of them. I poured every ounce of focus into control of intensity—hitting the points that needed force, and cleanly releasing the ones that didn’t, so that the audience would feel ease. It was a step ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beyond the textbook approach: applied technique.

In a way, this was far harder than dancing the way I used to—locking every muscle tight and powering through. To land those scattered accent points, I needed a level of delicacy I had never needed before.

I followed the camera lights with my gaze and pressed down the racing in my chest. I had already gone through three packets of red ginseng for today. After Sunlight we still had to film BLOSSOM, so I needed to manage my stamina carefully.

“Great! Short break, then we move on to BLOSSOM!”

“Thank you!”

I wiped away the sweat pouring from rounds ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of repeated choreography and straightened my clothes. The uniform had a school-uniform feel to it—not exactly optimized for dancing, but I had gotten used to it by now.

“They’re shooting way more takes than I thought.”

“With this many people, they kind of have to.”

Among the crowd shifting into BLOSSOM formation, I switched places with Kwon Do-ha. In BLOSSOM, I was the center.

When the positions had been assigned, my dance stat had just gone up by one, pushing my combined charm and dance stats to 182—so I had vaguely seen this coming. Still, actually standing center felt different. That was what the center position was. Representing the hundred people gathered here came with its own pressure.

“Starting BLOSSOM! Get ready!”

But there was something that came before the pressure. Expectation.

Standing on the special stage prepared for us, waiting for the music, my head was full of anticipation. A hunger to pour out everything I had prepared and put it on display.

BLOSSOM opened on a hard-hitting beat, and the choreography kept the feet extremely busy. Rising onto the balls of the feet and using the rebound of the knees to bounce on the beat was the key—and carrying that overall sense of rhythm cleanly into the next move was critical.

With my arms stretched out to the sides, I carefully clenched and opened my fingertips—expressing a bud bursting open—then snapped my wrists. Leaving those lightly flicked fingertips behind me, I moved into another sequence that used the feet and knees again.

A languid low-register melody settled over slow, lazy choreography, and beneath it the sound swelled, boom, boom, boom. And then—the bridge.

Wow. I found the camera, locked eyes with it, and tore a smile across my face. The brief gap I carved open by pushing my focus to the limit delivered its message with perfect clarity. Exactly like the lyrics—I am here!

And the hook that followed hit hard.

The choreography was built from simple, uncluttered waves. Arching the back and lightly rising and falling from the chest down through the hips. Simple as it was, when a large group hit the angles cleanly together, it was the kind of choreography that looked sharp from the audience.

Expression mattered here, so I lightly bit my lower lip, lowered my eyes, then looked to the camera and tipped my chin up just slightly. Following the lyrics, I let a natural smile finish the phrase—then the dance break.

I dropped my center hard, lightly swept the floor, and mixed in a wave. Then a half-turn, using hands and shoulders to steal the eye, and in that gap I kicked off the floor and rose.

It was short, which made it extremely fast—and complicated on top of that. The choreographers had taught it like it was nothing, which had given me a full-blown sense of cognitive dissonance at the time.

Pulling it off cleanly left me grinning on my own. Of course, with choreography this difficult, it wasn’t as if no one made mistakes, so the retakes for BLOSSOM went on and on—but it wasn’t bad at all.

With every single repetition, a little more detail settled into place, and I was satisfied with myself for it.

Am I actually cut out to be an idol?

I kept filming with that useless thought floating around, and before I knew it, the pre-recording for the music show was over. And at last, the first team battle of Idol Survival was right around the corner.