Five Days of Rest

Voices calling my name rose from every direction. I waved back as I rounded up my teammates and led them down from the stage.

Once we were off, the heat of the stage still refused to fade. Nam Hye-seong’s cheeks were flushed red when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he spoke.

“It was amazing.”

Fifteen years old. A second-year middle schooler. Nam Hye-seong had followed every practice schedule that stretched deep into the night without a single complaint. Even when I told him that at his age he should be growing and could head in early, he never skipped once—a participant with real grit.

Kim Yo-han, Lee Won-yeong, and Yu Sang-hyeon had each raised their Dance stats by two or three thanks to the I’m the Producer (U+) trait. Nam Hye-seong, without any of that, had lifted his Vocal by one and his Dance by two in just two weeks on pure effort alone.

His growth curve was as steep as his potential was vast.

“I wish there was a next one. I want to keep going on stage.”

By current standards, though, Nam Hye-seong was the most precarious of us. He had received an Iron grade in the rank evaluation. With thirty people set to drop from this vote and him sitting in the eighties, there was no guarantee he would make the cut.

Still, I was certain.

“You’ll keep going up.”

As long as Nam Hye-seong did not abandon his dream of becoming an idol, he was a talent who would leave a massive mark on the industry. Perfect UR was not a grade you saw every day.

I almost hope our active periods never overlap.

His base stats were still modest and he was young, so I could not be sure, but at the latest he would debut around seventeen or eighteen. Two or three years from now. Would I still be an idol by then? For the first time in a while, I pulled up the main mission.

Main Mission 1 meant there would be a 2, and a 3 after that. Idle thoughts. Then I suddenly calculated the remaining days and realized more than a month had already slipped by since the training camp began. Had it really been that long?

“By the way, what are you all doing over the break? I’m thinking of just binge-watching shows at home.”

Someone started with how the internet reactions were too scary to look at, and the conversation opened up from there. Come to think of it, we had five full days of vacation ahead.

“I’m crashing for at least three days straight. I’m so sleep-deprived.”

“I’ve got plans to meet friends.”

After a month without rest, everyone was visibly buzzing. I was no different.

“What about you, Han-hee?”

“I’m going to sleep properly first, clean the house a little…”

I also had hospital visits to make, monitoring to do, system research waiting, and I still needed to learn more idol group songs. Busking had expanded my playlist, but most of it was a mixed bag; when I limited it to actual idol groups, I knew embarrassingly few tracks.

“I’ve got a lot to get through.”

Five days already felt too short once I listed everything, but there was no helping it. At least viewer voting for eliminations had given us this breathing room.

And so the long first training camp ended. The moment I got home I pulled out my blanket, wanting nothing more than to collapse. Instead I dragged my leaden body into the bathroom. The toll of practicing on less than three hours of sleep for days finally hit; everything felt heavy. Somehow I finished the shower and dropped onto the bed.

I was out like a light before my hair even dried. Rest, at last.

The next day I woke without rushing, pulled out the lunch box I had bought on the way home yesterday, and heated it in the tiny microwave. While I filled my stomach I sat in front of the laptop and found my way to the Idol Survival board. At the top sat a post with my name in the title.

“That’s a lot of photos.”

I scrolled down. The parade of images had no end in sight.

“Hmm…”

I had hoped the part where Kim Yo-han’s face collided with mine during Dance Mafia had been cleanly edited out. The comments below suggested I could not relax just yet.

Between the ordinary admiration, a few comments carried a more pointed weight.

Below that, savage curses aimed at the production team piled up. It was not limited to this one post, either.

The idol karaoke content had been filmed the very next day after Dance Mafia. Even with foundation covering the bruise, the awkwardness had still shown through, and that post in particular was full of furious people.

I need to be more careful.

I could see they reacted far more sensitively to participant safety than I had expected. I would have to take better care of my body.

If things that made people worry kept stacking up, the exhaustion would start hitting me on reflex later. Better to stay ahead of it.

Still, the reaction to the Sunlight and BLOSSOM music show stage was solid. People were simply impressed and happy there, without the injury talk.

I opened the video that had gone up on MeTube and went straight to the comments.

The almost embarrassing amount of affection pouring out made pride well up in my chest. I had worked hard, and the response was good, so of course it felt good. Then I found the comment I had expected.

Because my skill had jumped so rapidly in a short period, a lot of people seemed to feel suspicion about it. But this was not something I could easily excuse or inflate with a false career history. I barely knew the terminology and my dance variation range was still narrow. If I tried to paper over it with a lie, that lie would come back like a boomerang.

On the other hand, openly admitting I was a complete beginner who had only just started dancing also carried its own problems. For things like this, no comment was probably the answer.

I decided to explore MeTube a little further and clicked on an Idol Survival Episode 4 review. While a voice briefly summarized the episode, I checked the comments first again.

I was reading the excessive praise when my eyes stopped on that last comment. You’re the star of my life.

I gently pressed down the emotion that surged up from inside. Maybe the desire to be recognized really had been strong. Looking at how happy this made me, it must have been.

I pressed my burning eyes shut and kept wandering the internet after that. The official reason was checking what I needed to watch for at the next shoot, but somewhere along the way reading the gushing and the praise became the goal itself.

People who made me want to work even harder. It felt like I had gained a reliable set of allies.