If Necessary

While everyone was pushing hard in practice for the second team mission, a short break was called. I took advantage of the camera swap and slipped off somewhere empty. I had something to say to Kwon Do-ha.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠place I found was a lounge set well apart from the practice rooms. There was only one way in, so keeping an eye on that single approach would tell me if anyone was coming. Perfect for a conversation I couldn't easily have in front of other people.

"There's something I've been wondering about."

"Go ahead."

I'd watched his face on the way over, but the mild expression Kwon Do-ha wore made his thoughts impossible to read. He'd always been opaque; these days it was worse than usual.

"When you told me to stick with Lee Jae-jin on the first day—that was so we'd end up on the same team, right?"

"Yes. That's right."

He nodded without resistance, but he still didn't look inclined to explain why. I moved on to the second question. This was the real point, after all.

"Are you deliberately planning to lose?"

"…"

Given his background as the winner of a famous audition program, his conduct so far had been strangely quiet by any objective measure. It wasn't only that he treated allies and enemies the same way, the way a dealer lays out every card. There was a strong sense that he was deliberately dimming his own presence as well.

At my question about throwing the contest on purpose, Kwon Do-ha answered in the same unruffled voice.

"If necessary."

No particular feeling attached. An answer that treated wins and losses as if they simply didn't matter.

Apparently enough viewers had caught that lack of attachment to the competition results or to his screen time, because I'd heard the official community had started filling with posts arguing that Kwon Do-ha seemed disillusioned with the idol profession itself. Rumors that his energy was oddly low, that his answers sounded hollow, weren't staying at the level of idle fortune-telling anymore—people were even cutting comparison videos against his old audition program with real effort.

Especially a lot of opinions that he isn't very aggressive on stage…

I flinched a little myself. From the diagnosis of someone who could see status windows, "going through the motions" was exactly right for Kwon Do-ha. More precisely, looking only at the stats, he was clearly capable of more and was deliberately matching the level around him. That he was still overwhelmingly skilled even so was almost startling.

"You've seen what's going around the community lately, right? Are you okay with that?"

It was hard to dismiss as mere water-muddying meant to check a popular contestant—the volume of comments agreeing with those takes looked serious. Keep the same talk circulating from enough mouths long enough and at some point even a rumor hardens into accepted fact.

What could be so necessary that he'd put up with rumors like that?

There was no way the person at the center of them didn't know. Kwon Do-ha showed not the slightest sign of being stirred by the current. If anyone was reading the room, it was the people around him.

"I know. For now, it's fine."

He said it as if he were simply reporting a fact. Then he spotted someone climbing slowly toward the lounge through the open central stairwell in the distance, and left first.

After a short gap I slipped out of the lounge myself and sorted through my thoughts. Looking back, Kwon Do-ha probably hadn't entered this program because he wanted to become an idol in the first place. Far more likely, like me, some external factor—a system or something else—had half-forced the dream of being an idol onto him.

"…"

When I thought of the oddly detailed cautions he handed out from time to time, and the fatigue he sometimes failed to hide, I couldn't bring myself to tell him to simply give it everything he had.

"This is hard."

I couldn't advise him on guesswork alone. I wasn't even sure I had the right.

I raked a hand through my hair over the tangle of feelings and headed back to the practice room. Unanswerable worries would have to wait. The second team mission was right in front of us. For now, finishing what I could do well came first.

On the last day of May, Hyo-jeong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt as if she might lift off the ground at any second. She had won a ticket to the live audience for the second team mission of the public audition program currently running at full steam, Idol Survival.

She had prayed desperately to win, but the competition had been so fierce that she had privately written it off and set the hope aside. And then she had beaten those absurd odds. Looking only at the competition rate, getting into university had been easier.

She didn't even try to hide her excitement the whole way to her seat. She was finally going to see the kids in person. Her heart hammered at the thought of watching her biases polished and staged under the lights.

A junior in university, buried under job prep and building her resume, Hyo-jeong had been late to the show—dragged in by the relentless evangelizing of classmates, seniors, and juniors alike. She had watched episode five on the spot and signed up for K-plus before she left her chair.

How was anyone supposed to hold out after those stages.

Hyo-jeong's biases were Lee Han-hee and Lee Jae-jin. She must have looped the To Myself and Uptension stages more than twenty times each on that account alone. A late-blooming fan, she had fallen into the program with frightening speed, spending the days since then scooping up every scrap of lore that had dropped so far. Anything involving Lee Han-hee or Lee Jae-jin she swallowed whole like a woman possessed.

Job prep can go to hell.

Whether it was the reward for burning her real life to keep the fandom going, winning the ticket had earned her the envy of everyone around her. She had bragged shamelessly to classmates who seemed more jealous of her audience seat than of any job offer.

Jobs, everything else—sitting here now, she didn't envy a single person. Hyo-jeong had watched every one of the six regular episodes plus the specially scheduled plus-broadcasts without missing a single one, analyzed them down to the nano level, and already trusted Lee Jae-jin's and Lee Han-hee's abilities completely. Of course they would be good. Anticipation was already filling her to the brim.

"We're starting soon! Get ready, please!"

The voices of the bustling staff gradually thinned. Then the slate clapped.

"For the second team stages of Idol Survival—the confrontation of good and evil! Which team will open the first slot? Let's look at the screen first."

Cheon Tae-rim, someone she had once liked, was hosting, but Hyo-jeong's eyes were already locked on the VCR. Of course they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were. Lee Han-hee and Lee Jae-jin were framed together on that screen. The two of them were putting their heads together over how best to apply a devil concept, and the kids clustered around them looked adorable.

Nam Hye-seong and Woo Cheong-hee, was it? The more she looked, the more they had that endearing quality. Everyone seeming to get along was nice to watch, too. With no bickering at all, Lee Jae-jin and Lee Han-hee taking the lead, setting the direction and marching the team forward—watching that on screen made Hyo-jeong oddly proud, as if they were her own kids. Our boys even do group projects well.

Seeing every single one of them pull their weight made her want to grab every free-rider she had ever suffered through in school projects by the collar and force them to watch. This is what a team assignment is supposed to look like.

After the short clips came the interview segment with Lee Jae-jin and Lee Han-hee. And the moment that interview hit the screen, the seats around her flipped upside down.

"Aaaaaaagh!"

It wasn't even a squeal. Something closer to a raw scream tore out of the people watching the VCR. The combination of a loose shirt and skin-tight leather ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pants seized every eye at once.

"No. What the hell. No."

Hyo-jeong muttered while smacking her own cheeks, trying to yank her thoughts back from places they had no business going. Get a grip. Lee Han-hee is a minor.

"Hhhk—hhah—"

She almost envied the girl in front of her who was just openly gasping for air. Same age as him—maybe the guilt was a little lighter?

"Oh my god. Lord in heaven…"

Even so, the leather pants hit too hard. She had thought they were just skinny, but her boys had more muscle than she had expected.

She clawed her blacked-out brain back online and took the outfits in properly. Matte black leather pants toned down a shade, dark shirts heavy with ornate embroidery. Han-hee's shirt in deep navy with yellow stitching, Jae-jin's in dark wine with black—everything locked together perfectly. The styling was insane.

On screen the kids were saying something, but between the screams and the cheering the hall was so loud she couldn't catch a single word. Can you people shut up for one second so I can hear?

She pricked her ears trying to catch the concept properly, but by then the explanation seemed to be over; she only managed to salvage the greeting. Looking around, even the staff looked rattled, as if they hadn't expected the live audience to turn into this kind of chaos pit.

"Then the first stage of the second team battle—good versus evil. Antithese. Starting now."

Her worry that she might not even get to watch the stage properly turned out to be pointless. The moment five people stepped onto the stage, the seats around her went dead silent as if washed clean. Goosebumps rose along her arms. Hyo-jeong locked eyes with the person next to her, who had both hands clamped hard over their mouth.

You too, huh?

The old meme floated up unbidden as she met other eyes and felt the same silent agreement flash between them. This was crazy.

In that moment every gaze in the audience was fixed on the same point. A blond so vivid it almost seemed to shine—Lee Han-hee, hair dyed gold, eyes covered with a strip of red cloth, standing dead center on the stage. Lee Jae-jin, Woo Cheong-hee, Seo Woo-ri, and Nam Hye-seong closed around him, and then the lights dropped.

The music thudded to life, and Hyo-jeong's heart thudded with it.

A single shaft of light found Han-hee exactly. The instant he pulled the blindfold down and their eyes met, she clamped her hands over her mouth to stop the scream she couldn't control.

Lee Han-hee opened on that high, clear tone, and the other four flowed around him as if painting a picture. A formation that had spread like an angel's wings vanished in an instant, and Woo Cheong-hee took the next part.

Baby curls, a loose teal shirt, styling that looked young and somehow mature at once, lyrics that clung with an immature edge, and that open, innocent expression—together they threw off the air of a little devil.

Seo Woo-ri finished the part with a calm face even while driving through the hard choreography, then raked a hand through his hair. When he bit his lip just slightly and threw a look that was pure performance, people around Hyo-jeong sucked in sharp breaths one after another.

She barely held herself back. Lee Jae-jin was next.

Hair, makeup, styling, skill, concept, presence. From the first second to the last there was nothing to pick at. The moment that solid low voice drove the line home—I'm the one who ruined you—Hyo-jeong couldn't hold it anymore.

"Nngh—hhhk—"

Some unhinged sound slipped out of a mouth that couldn't swallow the joy and the swell of feeling, but she didn't care. There were already plenty of people around her suffering the same way. Even through it, her eyes never left the stage for a second. She was going to take every frame of this with her.

Lee Jae-jin flashed that signature crooked smile, then bolted and spun back into formation as all five of them exploded upward. Before she knew it Han-hee was center again, and her gaze snapped to him and locked.

One hand covering his eyes, he snapped his hips and rolled a wave through his body, then cut the motion clean. Under the hand that veiled his face, his mouth opened wide. It was a strange smile—like crying, like laughing.

A smile that somehow seemed ready to wear either joy or tears just as well.

The next part was already rolling on, but that expression felt stamped straight onto her retina. Turning the scene over and over in her head as if it had been branded there, Hyo-jeong thought: coming today had been the right call.

Nam Hye-seong's soft voice carried the last line, and the song ended the way a wave does—surging hard, then falling still again. Hyo-jeong stared blankly up at the stage, caught in the deep aftertaste.

It felt like she had been possessed by a devil.