Chapter 27
Chapter 27
"Hyung!"
"......Huh?"
I spotted Han Neuti sitting as if shoved into that corner and immediately peeled off the two people at my sides, striding over.
The head that had been gloomily staring at the ground lifted at my call. Han Neuti's expression cleared up in an instant, like an introvert who was overjoyed to meet a familiar face, and he spoke first.
"Been well?"
"What about you, hyung?"
"Me? I'm getting by, I guess......"
"No one gave you trouble?"
"What the....... Ah, Park Hyeong-tae?"
Han Neuti glanced around sharply and lowered his voice.
"That guy's a total weakling, so he's fine when there's no camera."
"......Hyung, you didn't, like, throw fists in the past, right?"
"Hey, no, it's not like that! He just got all deflated after he lost an arm-wrestling match to me, that's all!"
Under my suspicious gaze, Han Neuti started spilling his past in a long-winded confession.
I listened silently to his explanation, and by the time his story about growing up getting thrashed by his older sister hit Season 3, I nodded.
Han Neuti's expression turned relieved, and he turned to greet the Grays.
"Hello, Cha-gyeom's hyungs!"
"Hey."
But wait, this seemed like our team's concentrated area, so why was my seat so isolated like that?
I tore off the team member numbers I hadn't had the chance to exchange due to bad timing, and then finally returned to my spot, because the MC walked in and announced the start of recording.
"Wow, oh no, I'm seriously so nervous~"
With An Jiwon's voice that didn't sound nervous at all in the background, a countdown appeared, and then Episode 1 started.
'Felt like getting a report card.'
Let's see how the results of all my tumbling and scrambling turned out.
[Is this it? The final place to spread my dream.......]
A trainee going for a gag role concept entered first, and scenes of trainees filling the seats one by one followed.
The entrance scenes were clearly divided into 'agencies shown with painstaking detail from arrival to seating', 'agencies that flew by at 2x speed', and 'agencies where you just blinked and they were already seated'.
First off, Deuz Planning was in the first category.
O Yun-hwan and Hyun-i hyung were the second.
The Grays were the third.
And as for me.......
[SORASOME]
I was in the first category.
[Wow, seriously. Whoa.]
[Sooo handsome. Wow, wow.......]
[Trainee Seo Cha-gyeom. If this weren't a broadcast, I would've confessed. For real.]
That last line was from the interview of the trainee who had first appeared as a gag role.
When I turned around, I made eye contact with the trainee who happened to be looking this way. He buried his face in his hands as if embarrassed and slid down smoothly.
I gave a nod with a smile and returned my posture to its original position.
'Why are they treating me so well?'
It bothered me a little that they only showed the surrounding reactions and not a single bit of my voice, but anyway, it went all the way up to the scene where I exchanged greetings with An Jiwon.
It felt a bit off. I'd naturally expected devil's editing or being completely edited out.
'What on earth are the producers thinking?'
Before I could figure it out, the next entrance scene followed.
According to the original order, Baek Gyeonwoo should have appeared after me, but instead a group from another well-known agency took the turn.
The order had been jumbled from the start, so it wasn't something to take seriously. However.
"Wow, that's me!"
The fact that one of the participants from that agency was Lee Jae-young, sitting next to me, was a bit significant.
......No, was it?
Come to think of it, it wasn't really that important. I just reacted sensitively because I found him unlikable.
I hid my indifference and clapped. This entrance scene also had long reaction shots of the seated trainees.......
[Seo Cha-gyeom: I really want to debut together (with trainee Lee Jae-young).]
What the, broadcast?
"Haha, Cha-gyeom said something like that to me?"
No, I'd only just learned of Lee Jae-young's existence today.
"You wanted to debut with me? Really?"
Moreover, this guy... he clearly knew just moments ago that I hadn't known who he was, and yet here he was acting all chummy like that.
I leaned as far away as possible from Lee Jae-young's face that was pushing in on me and gave a wry, forced smile.
At a glance, it might look like bashful behavior. People would interpret it however they pleased.
'Should I start enunciating the subject clearly from now on?'
But that would be useless if they just snipped it out in editing.
First, let's keep watching the broadcast.
The very last to appear were, as expected, Youth.
But on this side, there was some rather chilling editing.
[I'm Baek Gyeonwoo.]
[.......]
Back then, everyone had clearly gone wild, even cheering and making a huge fuss.
With the audio abruptly cut and cold gazes from who-knows-where sweeping past, it was almost...... enough to mistake it for a scene of collective bullying.
[Why would Youth come here.]
[Wow, so that's what a major company looks like.]
[That guy's definitely going to debut.......]
Even the lines that had been warm were slathered with all sorts of cold effects, making them look purely sarcastic.
If I had been those trainees, I'd have jumped up feeling completely wronged.
'Is that a gain or a loss for Baek Gyeonwoo?'
Originally, this kind of editing is mainly applied to trainees who already have a debut history and hold a uniquely advantageous position from the start.
But this season, there wasn't a trainee with that kind of prior career. So they probably just applied the same repertoire to Baek Gyeonwoo.
All the entrance scenes ended with Baek Gyeonwoo walking up quietly through the silence.
'The seat fight that appeared in the preview didn't even show up.'
I tried to recall which trainees had sat in the 100% seat at the time, then quickly folded my recollection.
Once the mentor and MC introductions were over, the contestants rose from their seats and all bowed their heads deeply.
[Then, a greeting to the K-Specialists!]
[Please take good care of us!]
And then, a commercial break.
"Aaaaaaah!"
"Ah!"
The trainees clutched their heads and reacted dramatically, and as soon as the writer gave the signal, they all collectively grabbed their phones.
It seemed they couldn't stand not seeing the real-time reactions.
Of course, it was the same for me. I turned on Wit, went into a highly visible account, and scrolled down.
―that damn commercial break lol i'm boycotting all the ads airing right now
I scrolled down a bit more.
―It's their own fault they couldn't get into a major company, what's Baek Gyeonwoo's fault? Are you gonna say the same thing to someone who busted their ass and got hired at a big corporation? So ridiculous, for real
―Ugh, the inferiority complex of a crappy company is timeless ㅠㅠ our Gyeonwoo's spirit is crushed, what do we do ㅠㅠ
―Baek Gyeonwoo, not a single nerve fazed by the checks around him, heart-fluttering development...
I guess this person's ultimate bias was Baek Gyeonwoo. They'd reliably shared and liked every Wit post that mentioned him.
'So was his spirit crushed or not?'
I scrolled further down, and soon other topics appeared.
―Seo Cha-gyeom Lee Jae-young? This is a viable stock, our Cha-gyeom says he wants to debut together, guys let's definitely vote
└What are you on, it's clearly fabricated by the production, pretending to fall for it while slyly promoting LJY, not buying it
―I like Lee Jae-young, to be honest Airplane-z was boring ㅎ
└Delete your account
└Baek Gyeonwoo Airplane-z Connection-z Backseat-z ㅎ
―Cha-gyeomie feels like a betrayal, was he an easy guy who goes around saying stuff like that to anyone
└Mebaek guys fabricating things, is it once or twice? lol 100% just the [ ] staging lol
All the replies were written by this person themselves.
'They suddenly became cool-headed.......'
I was grateful that they resolved my supposed injustice, at least.
I scrolled down further and finally found Wit posts written during my entrance scene.
―The trainees' eyes looking at Seo Cha-gyeom are exactly like my eyes
―Cha-gyeom was already famous at school, good-looking, nice personality, and kind, so even teachers liked him, and he was super popular among kids, please debut him for sure!!!
―I'm still in shock that Seo Cha-gyeom left Mary and entered a shitty small agency, let's definitely debut him and hear the agency tea... if he got caught by some weakness, I'll open a Gatling gun fund
It was nice that they were all favorable reactions, but.
Why didn't you press like on my Wit?
After pressing like on Baek Gyeonwoo's?
'So I'm not the ultimate bias, then.'
Feeling a bit ambiguous, I turned off my phone, because the commercial ended and the main broadcast started.
[Joo Yeonhee: Trainee Park Ha-jun is in the 2nd Squad.]
[Park Ha-jun: Thank you!]
[Park Hyeong-tae: I believe you can rise much higher. You had charm.]
The grade evaluation scenes started with moderately decent stages.
Even stages that were really nothing more than talent show level looked quite like idol trainee stages once they added cut editing and post-processing. The production team's efforts to inflate the contestants' average were tear-jerking.
After they'd appealed that there were many decent contestants, they immediately followed with a string of 5th Grade stages that were just bursting with laughter.
[Joo Yeonhee: Ugh, ah, ah tears are coming.......]
[Kim Ik-hyeon: I thought you brought in a lugworm. Why are you squirming like that?]
[Licks Hour: But it's oddly addicting.]
But being bad was just being bad, no matter how they failed.
[Park Hyeong-tae: (bleep) what kind of (bleep)]
[Kim Ik-hyeon: This is a big problem.]
[Joo Yeonhee: What on earth do you all think an idol is?]
As the mentors' expressions gradually turned serious and a viewer drop-off began to happen.
It was right at that timing that I appeared.
[This is Sorasum's Seo Cha-gyeom.]
After the short introduction, they immediately inserted an interview from another contestant.
[I saw him earlier in the waiting room, and he's really handsome.]
[(In response to the question of which contestant you're most wary of) Trainee Seo Cha-gyeom? It's like his face already has 'I'm debuting' written on it.......]
[(Raising his thumb) The best.]
"Wow, Cha-gyeom is handsome for sure."
"Fresh-face guy! Fresh-face guy!"
Unknown voices from behind chanted my name.
I smiled bashfully and thought.
'Cold.'
Aren't they showing way too many compliments on my looks since a while ago?
'Would people feel backlash like "Is he that handsome? I don't get it?" I wasn't worried about that. The problem was something else.'
[Park Hyeong-tae: Trainee Seo Cha-gyeom, do you know you're handsome?]
[Seo Cha-gyeom: (awkward laugh)]
[Park Hyeong-tae: Don't just laugh. Do you know you're handsome or not.]
[Seo Cha-gyeom: I think a lot of people see me favorably, but.......]
[Joo Yeonhee: Okay. Then let's see your stage.]
It wasn't entertaining.
The conversation back then definitely hadn't ended like that, but on screen I had somehow become the epitome of humility, to the point of a documentary.
Everyone knows that on variety shows, entertainment value directly translates to charm. So, the intent of this edit was clearly.......
[Seo Cha-gyeom: Thank you.]
Thankfully, the stage turned out alright.
It was a production where the mentors' stiff expressions gradually warmed up, like a rain shower after a drought.
[Joo Yeonhee: This reminds me of my debut. You know I was called the miracle of a mid-sized agency, right?]
[Kim Ik-hyeon: No, this is like looking at me when I was 20? I was called a genius.]
A scene of Joo Yeonhee and Kim Ik-hyeon competing to give praise followed right after.
'Wasn't that evaluation from after my freestyle?'
I retraced my memory, trying to dismantle the puzzle the producers had arbitrarily pieced together again.
Thud.
Along with a mood-shifting sound effect, Park Hyeong-tae picked up the mic.
[Park Hyeong-tae: It's way too obvious you're trying to outsmart this.]
[Seo Cha-gyeom: .......]
[Park Hyeong-tae: I can see you tried to patch up your lacking dance skills with the song choice. It might be fine for now if you gloss over it like this, but what about later?]
The me on screen lowered his head.
[Park Hyeong-tae: I think trainee Seo Cha-gyeom needs a bit more of a challenge-seeking spirit. I enjoyed your stage.]
[Trainee Seo Cha-gyeom, who received criticism for a lack of challenge-seeking spirit.]
[Will he?]
I clenched and unclenched my fist repeatedly, focusing on the broadcast.
The important part was this.
Back then, I had raised my hand myself and requested a freestyle, and in the end, I succeeded in overturning Park Hyeong-tae's assessment.
But if, as I suspected, the freestyle was truly a privilege of pre-selected members.
'Then what becomes of me?'
Whether that fact would come to light later or not, I couldn't know yet, but if I assumed the worst, there was a chance I'd be lumped in and suspected as well.
It meant I'd end up with a result worse than not appearing at all.
But that worry was resolved so simply it was laughable.