Whispers Behind His Back

It wasn't as if the gossip had never existed. Plastic surgery rumors, claims that he was fake, that he wasn't even human — I knew the big and small talk that circulated because I'd seen it for myself. Still, I hadn't paid it much mind. None of that talk could ever become a real weakness of mine. I knew it, and so did everyone else.

But this time is different.

A wound on his side. The moment a weakness appeared that anyone could see with their own eyes, the way people rushed in to tear at it felt all too familiar.

"Honestly, what was that — that thing. Ah, a cartel. Didn't it look like a cartel?"

There was real sincerity in the voices saying they couldn't stand watching them boost each other, pulling and pushing one another along.

"He just rode the right line, that's all. Ha, I'm jealous. I should've hopped on earlier myself. Then I'd be sitting pretty in the finals safe zone by now."

"Look at Woo Cheong-hee. He got the Lee Han-hee buff and his ranking shot up dramatically. And it wasn't just rank camping either — he kept climbing. He'll probably go up again this time, too."

I leaned against the wall and listened to them chatter on. It seemed worthwhile to learn what was being said behind my back while I had the chance. Between preparing for stages and grinding stats, I'd neglected this more than I should have.

"It's true, Lee Han-hee was famous for buffing his teammates' rankings~ I thought maybe I could finally get some of that juice myself, but then that bas—…"

Laughter followed the curse tossed out like a joke.

"If you look at Round 1, of course people fall for it. How many kids grabbed the rope Lee Han-hee threw down and flew up the charts?"

"God, Nam Hye-seong made me so bitter. The screen time he got was just… wasn't all of that a picture Lee Han-hee painted for him?"

"Ugh, same. Gold ranks are dying out there and some Iron trash is still alive through Round 3? How?"

One by one, the Purple Team members who'd shared my team in Round 1 got put on the chopping block. Yu Sang-hyeon, they'd assumed, would just keep sniveling and burrow out early — but he'd held up surprisingly well. Choi An-seong was bottom-tier same as them, but had the nerve to act high and mighty hanging around the top ranks, which made him unbearable.

"Lee Won-yeong? That guy's on a confirmed path to hell soon. Plenty of people are waiting for him."

"Ah~ that thing?"

"You know about it too?"

"Doesn't everyone who should know already know? I bet someone even has the video saved. You know, it was famous. 2145."

The voices were excited, talking about how they expected it to blow up properly any day now.

"And Kim Yo-han? Isn't he basically the poster boy for the Lee Han-hee boost? His ranking shot up the second he got on the same team as Lee Han-hee, then the juice wore off and he crashed."

"How high did he get? Seventh? Eighth?"

"Seventh, I think."

"That's a big jump."

"Just a flash in the pan. He dropped all the way to twelfth after that. Wonder where he'll land this time."

Their evaluations went on. The targets were mostly top-ranking contestants. Ahn Do-hyun was so busy looking after his little brother that he was losing his own share of the pie; Cha Ji-heon looked soft but was actually ruthless — and with the chatter showing no sign of ending, I left. Listening any longer would just be a waste of time.

Instead of hunting down a practice room, I went up to my room and turned on my phone. Then I started searching. Something had been bothering me.

I flicked past the meaningless false information without much thought, scrolling down — and then I found a certain account.

The internet was the kind of place where hundreds of posts a day claimed so-and-so was close to so-and-so, or that their relationship was this or that — but the fact that Lee Won-yeong had been put on the same team as me for the finals had only been decided today.

It could just be a lucky guess that happened to land…

I scrolled through the account's posts.

Some of them were wrong, but information ordinary viewers couldn't possibly know was woven strangely into the agitation and fabrication. I stared blankly at posts that gave off a staff-member vibe — dropping words like embargoes and the like — before pulling away. I made a note of the account name. I couldn't trust it completely, but I'd remember it and keep watching for now.

After that, I searched "2145" and skimmed a few more of the posts that came up. Sure enough. From what I could tell, it still hadn't spread to the general public.

The first audition, where people had poured in from every corner of the country — the skill controversy from back then. Number 2145 and Number 2157.

The people who knew about the controversy seemed to be keeping quiet. It was retrospective thinking, but Lee Won-yeong was a contestant whose strength was singing, not dancing, so the prevailing opinion was that he'd come too far for anyone to tear him down now over a lack of skill. I agreed, but I couldn't shake the ominous feeling either.

I'd read the malice in the tones of people snickering about how it was going to blow up properly. Just imagining how they'd spin this already made my head hurt.

"There's never a quiet day, is there."

I sat on the floor with my back against the mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling, then decided that as long as I was searching I might as well dig deeper. This time I swapped my name for a search-filter keyword and kept going. I needed to check how far information about me had leaked, too.

Googling "Hanh" dumped out thoughts far less filtered than anything that showed up on the official boards or when you searched his real name on MeTube.

Posts asking about his past, posts analyzing his expressions pixel by pixel — they were everywhere, and still multiplying in real time.

"…."

I scrolled a little further for no real reason, then turned off the phone screen. There really were all kinds of people in the world.

Still, from what I'd searched, there were no posts about the wound yet. Two days since the cut on my side, and silence — which meant the audience members who'd been there fortunately hadn't noticed anything off.

"Hmm…"

I sat up on the bed and checked the wound, which gave off a quiet, subdued presence. Getting my side torn open hadn't been completely without lessons. I supposed I'd learned that painlessness wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as purely good as it seemed.

For one thing, without pain, it was hard to track your own recovery process when a wound appeared. My game addiction stat still hadn't fully dropped, so right now I barely had anything that could be called sensation — and because of that, I couldn't draw a clean line on how far I could push this body. That was a problem.

I should sit out practice today, at least.

Even if I insisted I was fine to practice right now because it didn't hurt, it would only look like I was overdoing it out of anxiety. One wrong move and I could make things worse.

If the wound opened up mid-practice, the fallout…

Thinking of all the people who'd kept glancing my way during practice like they couldn't stop worrying about it, I needed to be more careful on my own.

Fortunately, there was something that could stand in for the missing sense of pain. Instead of the yellow-glowing game addiction graph, I checked the crisis detection traffic light, which was lit green.

The crisis detection traffic light — an item that warned you of danger. I should have activated it before getting stabbed in the side, but I'd been turning it on and off while chasing memories and then forgotten to switch it back on.

Still, I wasn't particularly disappointed. To be precise, I'd deliberately pushed it aside because its performance was so mediocre it barely helped whether it was on or not.

Short as the time had been, it had been enough to grasp just how crude this item was.

Even when the crisis detection traffic light signaled danger, it never told you what kind of crisis it had sensed. All I got was a change in my field of vision, like playing a color game — with no clear standard for exactly when or how the danger was approaching.

Take this wound as an example. I'd been stabbed from an angle I couldn't see, in a crowded, confined space. Even if I'd had it active at the time, I probably would have floundered at the sudden shift in vision and only realized the crisis had already passed after I got hurt.

So the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠conclusion was this: activating the crisis detection traffic light let you know in advance that danger was approaching, but when, how, and from where was something you had to figure out yourself.

If it would at least visually mark which objects were dangerous, it might have been a little more useful.

As it was, it just painted everything it considered dangerous all at once, so you couldn't tell what the actual threat was. When your vision turned red, were you supposed to move and dodge, or stay completely still? There was no way to tell. It wasn't even a clean binary choice inside the danger.

On top of that, it occasionally mixed in meaningless signals like a boy crying wolf, which made it perfect for giving someone neurosis. Right now I'd turned it back on because I was injured and had no better substitute — but it still wasn't a pleasant item.

With the luck it took to pull this white elephant, I'd rather have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gotten a few Injury Recovery Tickets instead.

For something that had only occupied a tiny sliver of the original pool, with a low draw rate, the crisis detection traffic light wasn't worth the cost. Far more than this, I desperately wanted the Injury Recovery Ticket that had only given me a taste before vanishing.

It might upgrade like a trait does, but…

For now, that was a distant story. And following this exact line of thought, the fact that the crisis detection traffic light was all shine and no substance was proven the very next day. Right before a live broadcast with Pass tickets on the line as prizes, no less.