A Paper-Thin Victory
The ranking announcement moved quickly from there.
“In fifth place, with an individual score of 102,300 points—contestant Song A-seong!”
Fifth. Compared to his fourth-place ranking last time, there had been a shift.
Because of the team score, maybe.
Song A-seong rose, bowing politely as he stepped forward. He had been on Team Angel’s second group; they had won their matchup, but overall the Devil team had taken the set 4–3, so he hadn’t received the team bonus.
“Thank you for all the love you’ve given me. I’m always grateful.”
He finished his thanks with that trademark pretty smile of his. A boy that age, looking “pretty.” I thought it every time—A-seong really knew how to use his expressions. Collections of that smiling face were already circulating online; once today’s footage dropped, there would be another one added. I wondered how many shares it would get.
A-seong was one of the contestants who generated the most memes on the internet. The contrast between his deadpan face and that pretty smile had taken off like wildfire. Combined with a personality that was sharp yet careful about boundaries, it only made him more appealing, people said.
The trend was to reply to rude comments with a picture of blank-faced A-seong, and to compliments with smiling A-seong.
I had always known he used his face well, but I hadn’t realized it would be this popular. Wasn’t a seventeen-year-old a little too shrewd? While I was still turning that over, fourth place was called.
“Next, in fourth place—individual score 100,379 points, team score 9,702 points, for a combined total of 110,081 points—contestant Han Sang-jin!”
Han Sang-jin stood and went down. With that upright face of his, he offered his thanks.
Seventh, fifth, fourth. Sang-jin was one of the contestants whose ranking kept climbing. From what I’d seen while searching online, fans called him a revolving door with no exit—he had an especially large core fandom.
And his skill keeps rising, too.
Mid-eighties wasn’t a small stat, and yet his growth never stopped. Looking at that, you could tell that under the even-tempered exterior there was a lot of fire. That was why his rank kept rising, and why his fans kept growing.
“Alright—so far we’ve covered from TOP 10 down through TOP 4.”
MC Cheon Tae-rim summarized the rankings so far, resetting the mood.
“This TOP 10 was full of twists on top of twists. Some reclaimed their places, some fell, and some climbed up for the first time.”
Looking over the upper ranks as a whole, contestants who had been on the Angel team had generally dropped, while those on the Devil team had risen.
In particular, Lee Won-yeong and Woo Cheong-hee from the Devil team had jumped hard—Won-yeong to eighth, Cheong-hee to ninth, each climbing three places from their previous eleventh and twelfth to break into the TOP 10. An Do-hyeon had also shone on the Devil side and reclaimed the sixth place he’d held at the start.
On the other hand, Han Min-hyeok and Kim Yo-han from the Angel team had slipped—based on individual scores, Min-hyeok was seventh and Yo-han twelfth. Tenth had gone to Cha Ji-heon, also from the Angel team, and eleventh to Kim Seong-min from the Devil team, if I had it right.
Honestly, from sixth through tenth the scores were so tight that a team-match win or loss—or even just airtime and narrative—could flip the order at any time.
And for first, second, and third… it’s me, Lee Jae-jin, and Kwon Do-ha again, isn’t it.
In every ranking ceremony so far, those three of us had locked down the TOP 3. Everyone around us had started treating it like a given.
“And now—the third ranking announcement of Idol Survival—the TOP 3! First, third place!”
Do-ha again this time?
Judging by last round, team scores had mattered, so I figured Do-ha would be third again—and then an unexpected name hit my ears.
“Third place is—contestant Lee Jae-jin!”
Lee Jae-jin? The surprise name threw me. How many individual points had Do-ha pulled to make this happen?
“Contestant Lee Jae-jin received an individual score of 118,324 points and a team score of 13,210 points, for a combined total of 131,534 points—ranking him third.”
Jae-jin didn’t seem particularly hung up on placements. He left a brief thank-you for everyone’s support and moved over to the qualifiers’ seats. That left first place.
The cameras were already cutting between my face and Kwon Do-ha’s.
“Yes—the honor of first place goes to an individual score of 133,421 points—”
If it was individual score, was it Do-ha? The MC paused, then continued with a gentle smile.
“—plus a team score of 13,210 points. A total of 146,631 points—contestant Lee Han-hee! Congratulations!”
Fireworks cracked open and paper petals fluttered down through the air. Thinking absently about what a pain it would be to clean up, I went down as the scores lit up on the board. My eyes went first to the number beside Kwon Do-ha’s name. A full 145,423 individual points.
Wow. The number drew a genuine sound of awe out of me.
In a round where missing the team score had been enough to drop people, Do-ha was the sole exception—he had taken second on individual points alone. If the team bonus had been added on top of that, he would clearly have claimed first.
I got lucky.
On individual points alone, Do-ha’s score was far higher than mine—more than ten thousand points higher.
That’s overwhelming.
Apparently his third-place finish at the last ranking had been a real shock to Do-ha’s fans. You could feel the gritted-teeth voting in the numbers.
With the recent surge of hate comments and attacks from every direction, even older fans who hadn’t been paying attention to the show had probably banded together and poured votes into him.
The campaign wars were only going to get worse from here. I was still looking over the score table as I took my place, and the MC’s voice rang out.
“First place is contestant Lee Han-hee. The gap with second place is 1,208 points! It was truly a photo finish!”
When they asked for a few words, I lifted the mic. No need to drag Do-ha into it—keep it short.
“I’m truly grateful to everyone who always supports me. I’ll work even harder so I can show you better stages. Once again—thank you.”
I offered my thanks with a carefully composed, clear smile and moved to the qualifiers’ seats. I dropped into the seat beside Jae-jin, traded a light high-five, and slowly looked over the rankings.
The TOP 10 ran: me, Kwon Do-ha, Lee Jae-jin, Han Sang-jin, Song A-seong, An Do-hyeon, Han Min-hyeok, Lee Won-yeong, Woo Cheong-hee, Cha Ji-heon.
Compared to the last ranking, every place in the TOP 10 except mine had changed. From second all the way through tenth—wiped clean.
It’s not easy.
I swallowed a small sigh. Back and forth, up and down. As long as the ranks weren’t fixed, the under-the-table fighting was bound to get fierce. All I could hope was that the hate comments wouldn’t cross the line too badly.
Once the upper-rank announcements wrapped, the lower ranks began. Only five spots remained until the cutoff.
“Next, we’ll announce from thirty-eighth place.”
More than thirty contestants whose names still hadn’t been called fixed their attention on the stage. There were familiar faces among them—people I’d been teamed with in the first team match.
Jeong Han-seo, Go Ju-ha, Kim Jin-su, Nam Hye-seong.
If I ran back through the previous ranks, they had been thirty-eighth, fiftieth, fifty-fifth, and fifty-eighth.
Is it possible?
If it was, I wanted all of them to land inside the safe zone—but they seemed to sense something themselves. Their faces didn’t look good.
“Thirty-eighth place—contestant Park Gi-hyeon.”
“Hah—thank you!”
He must have been wound tight; the second his name was called he sucked in a huge breath, shot to his feet, and folded himself double like a closing book. Behind the scramble of his exit, the faces of people watching with naked envy stood out sharp and clear.
And the face of Jeong Han-seo—who had been thirty-eighth last time—had gone white.
He didn’t get the team score.
The lower you went, the heavier the weight of the team points. Of those four, only Kim Jin-su and Nam Hye-seong could have received them. Go Ju-ha and Jeong Han-seo had been on the Angel team.
With every name called, more people sat blinking back tears.
“Next is forty-first place.”
Already forty-first. Plenty of people had their hands clasped like they were praying for their own name—but cruelly, only one person got called.
“Forty-first place… contestant Yu Min-seong.”
“Thank you! Thank you!”
He came down choking on tears and sobbed his way through his thanks. He couldn’t stop crying, so the MC patted his shoulder with a look of quiet sympathy while he gasped out the rest of his thoughts.
“I—I’m going to treat this like my last chance, and really, really work hard… Thank you.”
Sniffling, he moved to the qualifiers’ seats. The MC watched him go with a heavy expression, then lifted the card. Forty-second place—the final qualifier.
“….”
Cheon Tae-rim drew a long breath, raised the card—and then stopped, unable to deliver the line.
“Ah—I’m sorry. It hit me all of a sudden.”
He turned the mic aside for a moment, cleared his throat, and lifted it again.
“We’ll announce the final qualifier of this round—forty-second place. Forty-second place is—”
Contestants clung to the last thread of hope, desperate for their names. Watching them left a complicated feeling in my chest.
Especially those four. I knew how hard they had worked in practice, and that made it sit heavier. I bit down on the bitter taste at the tip of my tongue as the MC continued in a calm voice.
“Forty-second place is…”
As if the weight of twenty-eight people being cut after this one last name made it hard to speak, Cheon Tae-rim hesitated—then carefully called a single name.
“Contestant Nam Hye-seong. Congratulations.”
“Th-thank you!”
He clearly hadn’t expected to hear his own name. Nam Hye-seong looked around with wide round eyes, then sucked in a sharp, choked breath. He bowed deeply to the ones still sitting, then slowly walked up onto the stage.
The eliminated contestants sent him off with bitter applause.
Nam Hye-seong had started at eighty-sixth in the self-ranking evaluation, Iron grade—and now he had climbed all the way to forty-second. I applauded the result of that effort.
He had a narrative, plenty of screen time, and he had won. At this point, it was fair to say he had done everything he could.
He said he wanted to keep standing on stage.
After the first team match, cheeks flushed from the heat of the stage, he had said he hoped there would be a next time. I could still see his face after the second team match, too—standing on stage, looking out at the audience with his chest full.
“I’m so happy I get to prepare and show you another stage. Thank you so, so much. I’ll work hard! Thank you!”
Having earned another chance to stand on stage, Nam Hye-seong finished his thanks with the same smile as before.
Then he came over to the qualifiers’ seats—and the second he arrived he ran straight toward me and Jae-jin and folded himself into a deep bow, so I hurriedly straightened him up. A high-five was more than enough.
I slapped his still-small palm and finally let out a breath.
So the third ranking ceremony is over now, too.
Once the rankings wrapped and they cut for the next shoot, I took stock of the sharply reduced field of contestants and stood. Cleaning the paper petals scattered across the stage and prepping the next setup wouldn’t take long, but I wanted to go say a few quick hellos while I could.
“…Han-hee hyung.”
The moment Go Ju-ha saw my face up close, his expression crumpled and tears started falling in fat drops, so I pressed his head down and hid his face. Behind all the boldness and cheek of volunteering first to sing trot and begging to be picked, Ju-ha was still eighteen. Still a kid.
I rubbed his back while he buried his face in my shoulder and couldn’t stop crying—and met Choi An-seong’s eyes. After all that fighting between them, he had come over to say goodbye too.
“Come on, show your face a little, Ju-ha. You need to say hello.”
I took the tissue Choi An-seong carefully held out and pressed it into Ju-ha’s hand after he had silently cried my shoulder soaked through.
“Snff—thank you, hyung. Thanks to you, preparing To Myself was really, really fun…”
I patted the shoulder of the boy fumbling through his goodbye with red, swollen eyes.
“We’ll see each other on stage again, right?”
“…Yes. I’m not giving up.”
“Good. Then that’s enough.”
He got embarrassed about letting people see him work hard, but he never cut corners even where no one was watching.
“You’ll do well. You already work hard on your own.”
See you again. I clapped his shoulder a couple of times and moved on. Choi An-seong, who had been waiting beside us, bowed his head.
Leaving Ju-ha behind, I looked around and saw Jeong Han-seo and Kim Jin-su farther off, offering bitter smiles and small waves.
When I went over to greet them, Han-seo’s expression was especially bad. After placing thirty-eighth last time, this had to sting more than most—people who had ranked below him had made it, and he hadn’t.
“You worked hard, hyung. You too, Jin-su.”
Han-seo was twenty; it wasn’t easy to offer simple comfort. He might have truly believed this chance was the end.
“…I wanted to say goodbye to you before I left, Han-hee. Thank you.”
“….”
With nothing more added, just that thank-you, Jeong Han-seo hesitated as if there was something else he meant to say—then bumped his fist lightly against mine and walked away.
“I wanted to thank you too. For picking me for the first team match, and for looking after me so well. Thank you, hyung.”
After that deep bow, Kim Jin-su followed Han-seo out of the studio. I watched their backs for a moment, then climbed back onto the stage and returned to the qualifiers’ seats. Filming would start again soon.