The Staircase Ambush
“H-hey? What’s going on? Why are you grabbing me by the collar?”
Every eye on the stairs swung toward Song A-seong, who had forced his way upstream against the current of people. The familiar, aggrieved voice that rose from the middle of that chaos belonged to Jang Seon-woo.
“You jammed your elbow into the exact spot where Han-hee hyung’s injury is.”
The low, rolling tone made him sound like a hunting dog that had finally locked onto its prey. Jang Seon-woo shook the hand off and gave an incredulous little shake of his head.
“Come on… I got shoved by the crowd, okay? You think I did that on purpose?”
“I saw you aim and drive it in with my own eyes. And you’re calling that ‘getting shoved’?”
How exactly do you get shoved so that your elbow lands squarely on someone’s waist? If you’re going to talk, at least make it sound plausible. A-seong’s diction was razor-sharp, every syllable driven home like a nail.
The staircase wasn’t particularly wide. According to A-seong, Jang Seon-woo had used the blind spot created by the moving bodies to drive his elbow straight into my wound.
“You aimed for it?”
I remembered him being farther back. Han Sang-jin, who had come down closer at some point, asked the question. The two of them had been on the same Rose team, after all. Jang Seon-woo’s face twisted into something half-awkward, half-defensive.
“No, hyung. It was a real accident. I got pushed.”
“It wasn’t an accident. Why do you keep lying?”
Song A-seong clearly had no intention of letting Jang Seon-woo waffle his way out of this. Sensing the situation turning strange, Seon-woo twisted around to fish for witnesses among the people still coming down behind him.
“Hey, you saw me stumble, right? Right?”
“Uh? Yeah, I saw it, but…”
The answer was lukewarm, the kind of response that said the speaker wanted nothing to do with this mess. Seon-woo’s voice climbed higher, thick with fresh injustice.
“I’m telling you I was just trying to catch my balance after getting shoved!”
And the injustice flipped into pure rage.
“Ha, this is real classy. Just because your rank is higher, you think you can treat people like this?”
“You’re getting treated like this because you did something that deserves it.”
“Did something? Treat me like this? Listen to the way you talk… Bottom line, is there anyone else who saw it besides you? No one. How do I know you didn’t just make this up to frame me? Am I supposed to roll over and say ‘yes, sir’ just because you say so? And why the hell are you butting into another team’s business in the first place?”
The words spilled out faster and faster as Seon-woo worked himself up. He was genuinely furious, spitting the accusations, yet Song A-seong’s expression never shifted. He simply kept that same cold, glacial stare fixed on Seon-woo and asked, almost mildly,
“Is this really the time to be drawing lines between ‘your team’ and ‘my team’? And what exactly would I gain by framing you? I barely even know you.”
A faint thread of genuine bewilderment leaked into the words. Seon-woo’s face crumpled.
“What he’s saying is, you’re not even worth worrying about.”
“More precisely, you’re not even worth keeping an eye on. Pitiful. Honestly, it hurts my heart.”
Someone in the crowd was delivering running commentary like they were watching a movie. Seon-woo ground his teeth and glared in that direction—then his eyes met mine. The moment our gazes locked, he jerked his head away.
I followed the path of his eyes and found Song A-seong’s stare locked on him, lethal enough to draw blood.
“Judging by the way you’re dodging and making excuses, you’ve got no intention of admitting anything. Fine. I’ll report this to the production staff.”
He turned on his heel with the finality of a man who would not be argued with. Seon-woo lunged after him, hand outstretched.
“I’m telling you it was an accident!”
At that rate he was going to hurt someone. Before the desperate fingers could close on A-seong, Seon-woo’s whole body jerked backward. Han Sang-jin, who had been watching from behind, had seized the extended arm in an iron grip.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I was just… trying to stop him…”
Seon-woo shriveled under the hold, stumbling over the words. Song A-seong clicked his tongue. A brief lull settled over the stairs, silence stretching thin—until a dry, expressionless voice drifted down from higher up.
“Even if it was an accident, there’s still an injured person here, and you haven’t offered a single word of apology.”
Not someone who usually stuck his nose into other people’s fights. Kwon Do-ha stood there with a face utterly devoid of humor. Seon-woo’s expression turned sour. The faces of the people flanking Do-ha didn’t look any friendlier.
Seon-woo chewed his lip under those unfriendly stares. Then a new, unfamiliar voice rose from below.
“Excuse me, contestants? What are you all doing here? You need to move, now!”
A staff member had come looking for the participants who still hadn’t arrived.
“Can you walk?”
Han Sang-jin released Seon-woo, glanced at the closed-mouthed man once more, then came over to me. I had been leaning against the railing the whole time, watching. From the grim look on his face, he must have thought the pain had rooted me in place. He actually started to turn as if he meant to fetch a stretcher; I barely managed to stop him.
“It’s not that bad. Just give me a hand.”
I said it to keep Sang-jin from overreacting, but Nam Hye-seong—who had been fretting and hopping from foot to foot, insisting I needed the medical room—immediately thrust out his arm.
Here, grab on and come down.
…
The forearm I looked down at was as thin as a twig. Does this kid even eat properly?
“I’ve got him.”
Han Sang-jin offered his own arm with natural ease. Thank god. I took hold of both the railing and his arm and descended one careful step at a time. Truthfully the pain was gone if I just walked normally, but with so many eyes on me I deliberately slowed my pace.
Beside us, Nam Hye-seong kept glancing between Sang-jin’s arm and his own, then mumbled dejectedly,
“I want to grow taller…”
“Sure.”
“And build muscle too…”
“Good luck with that.”
Even while he was sulking, I could see his hand trembling. He must have heard I was injured, but he’d never actually seen the wound, and no one had given him the full details. He’d only been guessing—until the sudden sight of blood had clearly shaken him hard.
“If you want to grow, you’d better start going to bed early.”
At fifteen he was right in the middle of a growth spurt; he needed sleep during the hours that mattered. He was always practicing until all hours of the night—no wonder he wasn’t getting any taller.
We traded light scolding as we walked, and the tension finally eased enough that the perpetual pout on his face softened a little.
“I’m going to end up taller than you, hyung.”
My height? Last time I measured I was 181 cm, and at this rate 183 cm looked easy. So he was aiming for something over 183?
“You’re not even 170 yet, are you? Big dreams…”
Of course he was still a second-year middle schooler and could shoot up any time, but I said it to tease him on purpose. He snapped right back.
“I’m just a little short of it!”
If you rounded the decimal he’d be 170, he insisted, voice firm. The height talk had him so thoroughly distracted that his hand finally stopped shaking.
We shook off the people who tried to trail after us and reached the medical room as a trio. The moment the doctor saw the blood seeping through the bandage, she nearly jumped out of her skin. That morning she had sent me off saying it was healing nicely—and now, only a few hours later, this.
“Fortunately it doesn’t need re-stitching, but you must keep movement to an absolute minimum. Any more stress on this wound and we’re going to have real problems.”
She cleaned away the blood, inspected the injury, sighed once, and delivered the warning with iron emphasis. Strangely, it felt like she was talking more to the people behind me than to me.
Her face said she would have happily admitted me for bed rest the entire day if she could, but I stood up anyway. There simply wasn’t enough time to lie around whimpering over a little torn skin.
To put everyone at ease I accepted the painkillers, swallowed them, and headed back to the set. Nam Hye-seong, whom we’d sent ahead during treatment, must have explained everything well; no one asked why I was late or what I’d been doing.
“How’s the injury, Han-hee-ssi?”
I told the staff member who’d come to check that I was fine and listened to the precautions for filming. Behind me, Han Sang-jin was already being dragged off for hair and makeup. Forty-two people. Hands moved busily, styling hair and applying cosmetics.
“We’ll have you change here.”
Oddly polite speech. Guided by a friendly gesture, I peeled off the bloodstained clothes and pulled on a spare T-shirt.
The program-issued uniform was a clean sky-blue short-sleeve tee; most people layered something underneath. I had originally worn a white shirt under mine, but both were soaked through with blood today, so I had no choice but to wear only the spare sky-blue one they’d given me.
It felt strangely off-size. The loose neckline gaped, leaving my collarbones and the line of my throat oddly exposed. I rubbed the bare skin self-consciously as I stepped out—and was instantly seized and marched off to have my hair washed. A professional shampoo and scalp massage later, I found myself blinking in front of a mirror, still a little dazed.
A hair designer whisked away the moisture with expert hands, tamed the floating strands, and pinned the parted bangs back. The face that appeared in the mirror looked as smooth and glossy as a peeled egg. Because I’d been told there would be a live broadcast today, I had used a skin-care voucher the night before.
Wait—does that voucher work on open wounds too?
Thinking back to how unusually good the medical room staff’s reaction had been this morning, maybe the skin-care voucher had helped the waist injury as well. It never did anything for bruises, though.
Guess torn skin is a different story.
If so, the item was even more useful than I’d thought. How many of those vouchers did I still have left? Something like a dozen, if I remembered right.
My sudden sunny expression made the makeup artist ask if something good had happened. I rolled my eyes, then answered that I was just looking forward to the live broadcast, and closed them. A soft brush began to tickle across my lids.
“My goodness. Your skin is incredible. The makeup just melts right in.”
“Thank you.”
Clips still clamped in my hair, I sat blankly receiving makeup when I noticed a camera filming us through the mirror. Come to think of it, they had hung lights everywhere in here too.
A sudden curiosity struck me. Were there actually people who wanted to watch this kind of preparation process? There must be, if the crew was working this hard to capture it.
It was true that every time those skilled hands moved, my appearance shifted in tiny, almost magical increments. Maybe that was the fun of it. I watched my own reflection with mild fascination until the makeup was finished.
The artist met my eyes in the mirror, looking thoroughly satisfied.
“Mm, perfect. Han-hee-ssi, once you debut you absolutely have to film a Get Ready With Me.”
She added that even though both of us were good-looking, the before-and-after difference depending on how we were styled was endlessly entertaining. I gave an awkward smile. Get Ready With Me? So, showing the whole process of getting dressed up?
No wonder the camera sitting on the shelf looked especially expensive—they must have wanted to capture as many usable shots as possible.
Honestly, when they said “pre-recording,” I had braced myself for another content that would have us running and fighting ourselves half to death. A content where you just sat still and got fussed over was a refreshing change of pace.
Feeling a little like the protagonist of a doll-dressing game, I sat through the rest of it until the clock hit 2:30. Live started at three—only thirty minutes left.
Contestants whose makeup turns had finished, still wearing the clips in their hair, gathered in a loose cluster to wait.
“Hyung, are you okay? How’s the pain? Does it hurt a lot? Are you all right just sitting?”
Woo Cheong-hee, who had finished early and been waiting, launched a barrage of question marks the second he saw my face. The moment he laid eyes on me he crumpled into a worried pout over the reopened wound.
“Who even does that—deliberately jabbing an injury?”
Given how absurdly short the warning window had been, pure accident wasn’t completely impossible. But whether it had been deliberate or not, I had zero desire to waste energy getting tangled up with that guy.
“It’s really nothing.”
Even after I added that I’d taken painkillers and it wasn’t that bad, Cheong-hee’s face refused to clear. If anything, the longer we sat the paler he became.
“Is there something else you’re worried about?”
He couldn’t keep his hands still; the restless fidgeting looked like pure anxiety. When I asked, he startled.
“W-well…”
He dragged the word out, eyes darting. The outer corners of his brows drooped.
“What is it?”
“I mean… what if I can’t clear a single mission and the broadcast ends in one minute…?”
The live would keep extending every time we cleared a mission the production staff threw at us mid-stream, but no one had any idea what those missions would actually be.
His face was pure gloom as he admitted he had no confidence being thrown into a situation with zero preparation. He had rushed into things unprepared before and paid for it.
“Everyone’s under the same conditions. I don’t want to whine, but I’m just… really not confident…”
Outwardly it might not have been obvious, but Woo Cheong-hee was the type who practiced with iron thoroughness. Only then did he feel at ease.
A live broadcast that simply started and forced you to wing it did not match his nature at all; worry was written all over his face.
“No. You’re good at that kind of thing. I’ve seen it.”
“Huh? Me? When?”
“When you sang at the Han River.”
He had been waving his hands, insisting he’d never been good at anything like that—then he froze. Sure, he got scared beforehand, but once he actually started he always pulled it off.
That impromptu live performance by the Han River. From Cheong-hee’s perspective it had been sprung on him with zero warning, like roasting beans over a lightning strike, and he had still nailed it.
“Try having some confidence. If you freeze up in advance, even the things that would work won’t.”
Cheong-hee’s eyes went round; he carefully nodded. If the memory of failure scared him, the cure was simply to overwrite it with a better one.
“By the way, when do we take these clips out of our hair?”
“Oh, they’re just to keep everything in place. They’ll probably pull them right before we start filming.”
The face looking back at me was a good deal lighter than before.