Conflict Resolution

Just the day before. After the live broadcast ended and we'd finished dinner, I'd meant to head into vocal practice with Han Sang-jin the way we'd planned—but the crowd of people pressing in around me forced me upstairs to my room early. They told me I'd already pushed myself in every way that mattered while injured, so the best thing I could do now was go up and rest. There was nothing I could say to that.

Everyone had seen my wound tear open before the live stream started, so any claim that I was fine fell completely flat. They looked ready to walk me all the way to my door, and in the end I shuffled back to my room without a fight.

So I went to bed early, only to open my eyes again in the small hours of the morning. From now on, it was nothing but practice.

The moment I sat up, though, the window floating in front of me made me frown on pure reflex.

What is this?

The Daily Mission roulette vending machine was gone. In its place sat a Sudden Mission.

Conflict? What kind of conflict was so serious that failing to resolve it meant getting cut from the show? If they were going to slap a penalty like that on me, the least they could do was tell me which conflict they meant.

A mission with no success reward at all—just a failure penalty hanging there by itself—wasn't so much lazy as it was malicious.

I'd come too far to drop out now. With less than two weeks left until the first Main Mission—"Become an Idol"—ended, they wanted me to leave the program? Failing this wasn't just a setback. It was a death sentence.

Kwon Do-ha was spoiling for a real finish this time. I couldn't let things end this emptily. The bolt of lightning that had struck before dawn set my head spinning. What was this supposed to mean?

Is there even any conflict left?

Granted, Jang Seon-woo had been sniping at me—but calling that a conflict was generous. It had been one-sided provocation at best, and even that was already over. Last night I'd heard the news that Jang Seon-woo had voluntarily left the program.

According to what Song A-seong told me over dinner, Seon-woo hadn't even shown up for the three o'clock live stream. He'd packed up and left the lodging immediately.

I'd known the lower ranks were basically locked in and that he'd be eliminated soon enough, but I hadn't expected him to go like this. It was a disappointingly anticlimactic ending.

I figured he'd collapse on his own if I just left him alone.

It had been even easier than expected. I'd only looked at the river, and the corpse had floated by of its own accord.

So the conflict with Jang Seon-woo was effectively finished. The problem was that there wasn't anything else that even looked like a conflict.

Then what conflict is it talking about?

I thought it over carefully, then picked up my phone. I needed a hint of some kind. Figuring something might turn up, I opened the Idol Survival board—and hit the jackpot on the first try.

That was it. The second I saw the title, I slapped my forehead.

"Seriously, is there a single day this thing doesn't explode…?"

Outside the window the sky was still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a pale blue. Han Min-hyeok cracked his eyes open, took one look at his phone screen, and dropped his head. When it was time to go work out, Han Sang-jin had bolted upright and grabbed him for a conversation, which ended up waking Min-hyeok too—so every roommate was up at the crack of dawn.

"What time even is it? Do these people not sleep?"

Still half-asleep, eyes only half open, Min-hyeok scrubbed a dry hand over his face.

Five in the morning—too late to call night, too early to call morning. The community boards were already packed solid. The post looked like it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been mirror-shared everywhere; within a few hours, when Sunday morning rolled around, it would own every HOT board on the internet. Or maybe it already did.

"…"

Han Sang-jin's face was grim as he hit refresh, and a fresh flood of posts poured in. Dozens of new threads every second.

"It's been one thing after another since Friday—yesterday, today, nonstop."

As if we needed more. On Friday, Vesta had sat down as a full group for the first time in ages to review old footage and boost the program. Then Saturday's live stream had ridden the news cycle through every mouth that would talk about it, raking in three hundred million won over three hours like it was nothing and earning the nickname 33 Live. And now an insider exposé.

It was the perfect crowning scandal for a fire that was already roaring.

A rigging scandal—or a predetermined-winner scandal. In the survival-show world, that was the finishing stroke that turned the fire into a wildfire.

"So what's it actually say?"

Sang-jin wordlessly held out his screen. A familiar face was on it.

The first photo alone made Min-hyeok's face twist in disgust. The screen was a long string of captured video stills with burned-in captions, and the face that kept appearing was one he knew.

"Jang Seon-woo? Didn't this guy already leave?"

"He left, went home, and apparently ran his own personal stream last night."

Sang-jin scrolled down the post until a link to the live stream appeared. He clicked it, and the same face showed up again.

On screen, Jang Seon-woo wore a carefully measured, calm expression. What he showed next was first-round audition footage, shot from above—a gymnasium with thirty people dancing in a line.

Seon-woo added that the network's uploaded version had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deliberately cut Number 2157 out of the frame, then turned the audio up. A noisy clamor of voices spilled out.

He wasn't wrong. Back then the room had been full of raw talk—if a pretty face was all it took to be an idol, if this was a PD pick, if somebody had clearly paid money. There hadn't been any close-up cameras, so the cursing had been even less filtered than it was now.

"Did people already know about this?"

"Anyone who was going to know already does. A lot of people saw it."

I nodded at Min-hyeok's question—he sounded like he was hearing it for the first time.

From what I'd checked beforehand, fans had treated it as a "buried topic" and quietly let it rest. Something people had been tacitly hushing up now had a solid body of evidence attached, thanks to Seon-woo releasing the footage.

On screen, Seon-woo used the unfair-judging controversy as a foundation and kept building from there.

The expression he wore as he described the stark contrast—privileges heaped on the top ranks, discrimination aimed at the bottom—throughout life in the lodging was pure theater. It was staged so that anyone watching would start spinning their own stories without being asked.

It was the kind of thing where a single change in wording flipped the whole meaning—and the way he framed it made the production team sound thoroughly corrupt.

"It was that bad, the way he's telling it?"

Min-hyeok muttered, half incredulous.

There was no question Seon-woo was talking as if every story the show had put forward so far had been manufactured by the production team alone. There might have been some friendly editing, sure—but they hadn't packaged unpracticed work as if it had been practiced.

"…"

The word left out made Sang-jin's brow tighten.

Watching the video, Seon-woo's skill at weaving a few incidents and scraps of circumstance into a single tight knot was better than expected. The man had a gift for agitation.

"This is a problem."

Whether people got popular because they were edited well, or got edited well because they were popular—it was the same old chicken-or-egg loop.

There was something unfair about it, though. Contrary to the implication Seon-woo was pushing, the production team hadn't just invented stories out of thin air and forced them together for the sake of a push. There had been raw material. That was why a dish had come out of the kitchen.

Still, if there was one point where we didn't have much of a defense, it was the screen time. I couldn't know for sure, but among the lower ranks there must have been good ingredients that simply never got cooked.

"Ugh. That damn Plus."

Min-hyeok didn't even try to hide his irritation, pressing hard at his temples. Idol Survival Plus. The friction around that one ran deeper than people thought.

"Just thinking about the time and stamina it stole for Plus shoots makes my teeth grind…"

The low voice was thick with pure exhaustion. Min-hyeok wasn't special in that regard. Most of the top-rank contestants hadn't exactly been thrilled about Plus filming.

It made sense. Practice time was already scarce, and then Plus shoots ate what little was left. How was anyone supposed to feel good about that?

"I'll admit it. It wasn't exactly welcome."

Even Sang-jin, who had more physical reserve than most of us, couldn't hide his fatigue whenever word of another extra shoot came around. It wasn't just the body. The mental drain was real. Broadcasting was more draining than it looked from the outside.

To lower-rank contestants desperate for even a single second of face time, though, that would have sounded like the complaining of the overfed.

"I won't deny it was an opportunity—but we didn't do it because we loved it, and hearing him spin it like this just feels wrong. Plenty of people would have handed those slots off if they could have."

The muttered voice carried a real grudge. How hard must it have been?

In an era when some people would pull every stunt imaginable just to get their face in front of someone, it was obvious that exposure helped popularity—but that didn't mean it was always worth the cost.

"We're already losing sleep trying to make up for the practice time we lost, and he's talking like we were just sitting there sucking down honey. It pisses me off."

"The schedule was overstretched from the start."

"Exactly. Higher-ups made a reckless call."

Sang-jin shook his head, and Min-hyeok jumped in right on cue. It was the same opinion circulating among contestants and a few of the staff: the Plus program itself had been forced in from above as a reckless promotional push for the OTT service.

"Doesn't matter how much money they throw at it from the top. Time is finite."

He was right. Cramming two things that were already brutal on their own into a fixed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠schedule had turned grinding people down—contestants and crew alike—into the default setting.

"The people making it will get their performance bonuses, I guess. As for us…"

When they say jump, you jump. What else can you do? I laughed hollowly, and Sang-jin sighed. It had been a while since I'd seen him do that.

"Atmosphere? What atmosphere?"

Looking thoroughly fed up, Min-hyeok restarted the video he'd paused and clutched his head.

"Ugh. My head hurts."

He wouldn't be the only one holding his skull like that. I swallowed a sigh and watched the rest of the video through to the end.

And at that same hour, a bomb went off in the directing team as well.

"Get me the evaluation-assistant personnel manager. Now!"