Just Once, Help Me
After the position assignments were finished, that same dawn. Drenched in sweat from practice, I stepped out of the practice room—only to be seized by the hand and dragged straight into the lounge by Lee Won-yeong. At three in the morning, the place was empty, as expected for the hour.
"Help me."
Lee Won-yeong lowered his head. Following his gaze, I saw the hand clutching my clothes trembling violently.
"You might think I'm shameless for this, but you're the only person I can ask."
"…."
He had always been thin, but the silhouette under his clothes suggested he had lost even more weight since. Come to think of it, I had not seen Lee Won-yeong in the cafeteria once after the controversy broke out.
"You're amazing."
In a dazed, choked voice, as if forcing down his breath, Lee Won-yeong went on.
"Even with a controversy hanging over you, you can brush it off like it's nothing—overcome rumors like that. People like you. You."
What he swallowed afterward was obvious. It was written all over his face. Unlike me.
"You're as good as locked in for debut, so… could you help me just once?"
"With what? How?"
"However you can."
Saying he had no idea what to do on his own, Lee Won-yeong laid out the situation.
"The PD and the writers just keep telling me to wait. They never give any real answer."
It was fair to say the video Jang Seon-woo had uploaded had become the kindling that set the program's fairness controversy ablaze.
With bribery rumors even being raised on the back of it, I had thought this was an area where the production team needed to step up and clarify—for the sake of the program itself. Yet there had been no response at all.
Nearly a week had gone by, and still no official statement.
"They just keep saying it takes time…."
Lee Won-yeong looked utterly despairing.
Finding the reason was not difficult. Jang Seon-woo had collapsed on his own, so they were probably hoping the whole thing would simply get buried like this.
No clarification, only the perception left behind.
From the production team's point of view, they would not want to pour more words onto a controversy that had already been put out. Maybe they had been delaying a statement all along in the hope it would fizzle out on its own.
"I felt like I was already… off their radar."
Lee Won-yeong said he had waited endlessly. But no statement had come out before this vote ended, and as a result he had taken a direct hit—an enormous drop from 8th to 18th.
Because of that, he now had to relearn an entirely new choreography in less than a week.
"Even when I ask what I'm supposed to do, they just say I was unlucky."
Lee Won-yeong gasped for a moment, as if something had caught in his throat.
"Learning the dance again is fine. I can manage that somehow. But if public opinion never recovers like this…."
He would be eliminated. As if it were only natural.
If Lee Won-yeong was truly innocent, it would be a cruelly unfair outcome.
Evaluating contestants was the examiners' job. If an inappropriate choice had been made in that evaluation, the responsibility belonged with the examiners—not the contestant.
The power to decide pass or fail never rested with the people being tested.
"Back then, they used exam assistants."
But thinking back on the audition, there had been no clear person in charge worth naming.
Exam assistants. Their names, faces, ranks—none of it was properly known. People who had never once been mentioned on the broadcast. How could such formless figures ever take responsibility for a mistake?
Separate from Jang Seon-woo's downfall, Lee Won-yeong had never been cleared of suspicion, yet the situation was already flowing as if everything were over. It was inevitable that the orphaned questions would all land on him.
If he had simply taken a test, could anything be more unreasonable? Could he accept becoming the program's official punching bag right before the finals, standing on the verge of elimination?
Is this really something you can just call bad luck?
When misfortune keeps repeating, the person living through it can only start to see it as fate.
They accept it as if they were simply born that way, and sink.
Watching the kind of misfortune I had once thought belonged to me now bury someone else's life did not sit well. No—it made me deeply uncomfortable.
Because those eyes, heavy with despair about living, overlapped like a perfect transfer print with the past self I used to see in the mirror.
Can he overcome this on his own?
In the end, Lee Won-yeong's tears fell one after another. His reddened eyes were full of raw sorrow.
"Just once. Help me."
"No."
The next day at lunch, Kwon Do-ha sat across from me, picking up a piece of steamed pumpkin from his diet tray with his chopsticks, and shook his head without the slightest hesitation.
"That was pretty firm."
"Because it deserves to be."
I had called him aside saying I had something to discuss, and we had taken a corner table, yet the noisy clamor of the room still washed over us like background noise.
"They're never going to release an official statement. Lee Won-yeong is already a discarded card."
Kwon Do-ha laid out the situation in a cold, precise voice. If Lee Won-yeong was eliminated, the controversy would die a natural death. From the production team's perspective, dropping him was the cheapest solution—no painful explanations required.
"There's no reason to pass a contestant tangled in fixed-result rumors and carry that risk forward. They might even actively block any clarification."
The company had no reason to cling to Lee Won-yeong. If anything, they would be grateful if he simply fell. In that sense, leaving him to rot was only natural.
"The public and the company alike will welcome his elimination."
Kwon Do-ha explained that this was the direction everyone could accept. The flow of it made sense.
If Lee Won-yeong fell, the program could easily deny the controversy, the other contestants would lose a competitor, and the audience could keep trusting the show.
"Is there any reason to take the long way around when there's an easy, convenient path for everyone?"
He murmured it with a calm expression. I understood the current. That did not stop the words from leaving my mouth.
"Even if one person's life sinks into the mud? An easy path for everyone?"
It was not everyone. One person was left drowning on that easy path.
"One person being sacrificed for the convenience of the majority is neither natural nor easy."
Had emotion colored my voice? Yes—I think it had. Kwon Do-ha studied my face for a long moment, as if he could not make sense of me.
"Why are you so desperate to help Lee Won-yeong?"
With that searching look, he cut ahead to reality.
"Lee Won-yeong is not suitable as a member. Even if his ranking recovers, there's a high chance the company will cut him themselves. To them, he would only look like a stain on their own reputation."
From the moment the video went up, Lee Won-yeong had already been out, Kwon Do-ha said, tilting his head. He had held a surprisingly high rank for a while, but he was never an irreplaceable talent.
"Personally, I don't find him trustworthy either. The variance is far too large."
This round seemed to have moved in a positive direction, his face said, but that had not always been the case. He looked thoroughly unimpressed.
"Honestly, he goes off the rails more often than not. Most of the time, he has. When you look closely, he isn't all that different from Jang Seon-woo. So why go out of your way?"
Besides, controversy had always clung to Lee Won-yeong like a label. Kwon Do-ha shook his head.
"The sports festival—do you not remember? If it means saving himself, Lee Won-yeong has never hesitated to trip someone else."
He was just that kind of person, so there was no need to care that much. The conclusion in his voice was absolute.
I looked at Kwon Do-ha quietly.
He never hesitated for a second when judging people by the memories he had already stacked up. His entire opinion of Lee Won-yeong could be summed up in one word: why bother.
"From your perspective, hyung, he might not be worth helping. But."
I had never seen the Lee Won-yeong that Kwon Do-ha had watched across so many loops. I could not casually contradict him. Still—
"Hyung, people can change."
How many people stay the same forever?
People who are always good, or always evil, amount to maybe one or two out of ten. Most ordinary people shift according to the situation.
I had been one of them. Someone endlessly tossed around by the circumstances and environment I was trapped in.
"You said the variance was severe."
Exactly as Kwon Do-ha had put it. The fact that Lee Won-yeong showed such large swings was, in a way, evidence. It meant he was someone who could change depending on the environment given to him.
And if a person can change that dramatically, doesn't that mean the reality they are colliding with is that harsh?
"By your own words, hyung, he isn't someone without potential."
At the very least, the Lee Won-yeong I had seen was not the worthless person Kwon Do-ha described.
He was someone who threw everything he had into not breaking.
I never should have used mind-reading casually.
It might come across as naïve, preachy talk. But if that talk could keep someone alive—
"I'll handle it so it doesn't become your problem."
It would not be grand help. I was not even sure I had the ability for that. I simply could not look away.
Just enough so I won't leave myself with regrets.
If I pretended not to see Lee Won-yeong right now, I was certain I would regret it later.
When did I start caring this much?
I could no longer treat him as just another character in a game.
The consultation was over, so I went back to the tasteless salad in front of me—only for Kwon Do-ha across the table to let out a hollow laugh.
When I looked up, he had one hand pressed to his forehead.
After a stretch of silence spent thinking, he spoke in a lowered voice.
"It would actually be better for Lee Won-yeong to drop here."
"That's what I'm saying—"
"No. Dropping is the right call. He received consistently good evaluations before the controversy. Once he falls and sheds the scandal, other agencies will come calling."
His original weakness—dancing—had improved a great deal, and the broadcast had already proven it. There would definitely be agencies wanting him. Hadn't I already trained him myself? he asked, as if reminding me.
It was true Lee Won-yeong's dance stats had risen a lot compared to the beginning, but…
"Main vocal positions are rare. As long as he doesn't lose his mind and do something stupid, he won't end up completely buried the way you fear."
The explanation that followed—that being eliminated from this program was not the end, that other paths were still open—made me realize how narrow my field of view had become. Had I gotten too absorbed?
"Rather than staying on the same team and constantly being compared, debuting with a new group would be better for his mental health too."
Better to be active elsewhere than keep having his skills measured against Kwon Do-ha's. The logic was oddly convincing. He was more secure in his place as main vocal than I had expected.
"Your self-esteem is higher than I thought, hyung."
"Does it sound like I'm talking about myself?"
The look on his face, laughing as if he found me ridiculous, seemed lighter than before.
"The person he consistently envied was never me. It was you, Lee Han-hee."
"Why?"
"How should I know?"
When he told me to ask directly if I was curious, I shook my head. I was not especially curious, and there was no need to poke at it.
"Anyway, that helped. Thanks for the talk today."
"Are you really grateful?"
"Yes."
Just being told I needed to keep multiple possibilities open and approach carefully had already been a huge help. I would have to talk with Lee Won-yeong a little more.
I was remembering those hands that had shaken so badly from fear when Kwon Do-ha, unusually, caught the end of my words.
"Is 'thanks' all I get?"
"Do you need something?"
He almost never showed desire. Holding back my surprise, I looked at him and caught a faint smile on his face.
"I've said it several times already, but I'll drive the nail in this time. I truly hope this is the last."
Speaking of "the last," Kwon Do-ha let his eyes half-lid, languid. Expectation, like new green shoots on a withered tree. I could only nod.
"I'll do it right."
Words like "I'll try hard" were unnecessary. What Kwon Do-ha needed was results.
Watching the satisfied look that said he had heard what he wanted, I crunched through the dressing-free salad and forced it down.
And at last, the final episode of the idol survival show began—the Finals.
"Alright, today we finally start the last live broadcast!"
The day of the decisive battle had dawned.