Chapter 3
Chapter 3
[Hint ready.]
"......"
I turned my gaze away from the floating message.
Because something far more irritating than that System coexisted in my field of vision right now.
"What?"
"The electric blanket was off."
"No, I mean, why were you staring at me sleeping?"
"I thought you might have frozen to death in the night......"
So words like that could sound like genuine concern, as long as the look in your eyes was convincing enough.
I pushed aside Kim Sanho's head, which he was thrusting toward me like a dog begging for food, and got up.
A chill ran through my whole body, so I was about to wrap myself in the blanket, but that felt too informal given we'd only known each other a few days. I properly found my coat and put it on instead.
In the meantime, Kim Sanho had diligently prepared breakfast.
Watching the instant retort-pouch meals pile up one by one on the low dining table, I spoke with something like resignation.
"You've got a microwave, an electric kettle. All the essentials, huh."
"Right?"
"Yeah, this boarding house is pretty decent."
"It's not a boarding house though......"
I took a spoonful of the instant seaweed soup Kim Sanho had so carefully heated up.
It was warm.
And I felt conflicted.
'The future's pitch black and here I am playing house.'
Beset by worries, I eventually set my spoon down and spoke toward the crown of Kim Sanho's head as he munched away contentedly.
"I'd like to meet the President today, if possible."
If the employee was fake, wouldn't the contract be fake too?
Of course I'd considered that. But even if that were the case, the System would force me to sign eventually anyway, so my conclusion was not to waste time on it.
It also meant it was time to properly assess the situation I'd been ignoring all this time.
"Should I set up a video call?"
"Where is he?"
"Jeju Island. He went on a year-end vacation. Ah, well, New Year's vacation now."
This much was within the expected range.
"What about the other staff members?"
"They're on vacation too."
Plural form meant there were at least two.
Maybe it was the sense of stability I hadn't felt in a long time, but drowsiness even began to wash over me.
"So, um, how many staff members are there in total......"
"Two."
The drowsiness vanished.
The minimum being the maximum — that was apparently a universal constant.
Well, honestly, at a micro-agency like this, having double-digit staff would be the more surprising thing.
They probably just hadn't felt the need until now. Going forward, once things got more properly set up, they'd hire more staff, build a website, and post trainee recruitment notices — unlikely as it was that anyone would apply.
Surely they'd planned all of this in advance without me needing to worry.
......
......Surely they had?
"What about lessons or personal training?"
"We go to an academy. The company covers the costs."
"Yeah?"
"Hyung, from now on, please read the contract before signing. You'll get yourself into serious trouble."
"Already in serious trouble."
If I'd been able to sign of my own free will, I would have read it. The only thing I could do under duress was, at best, some reality avoidance.
'Well, still, in its own way......'
For a small-to-mid-sized company, the financial support was fairly decent.
Outsourcing lessons to an academy was pretty common among small agencies. I'd been bracing myself for a situation where a tablet propped up playing YouTube served as the instructor.
And unlike other small agencies I'd heard about through rumors, it didn't seem like we'd be sharing a practice room with an aerobics club.
'If we could just bring in some trainees... it feels like debut could somehow happen.'
The problem was that talent recruitment was precisely the stage every other entertainment company struggled with the most.
When even the major agencies were wailing that they had no decent trainees, would anyone actually want to join a brand-new company like this?
There was only one way to cover this.
Connections.
"Is the President, by any chance, a former entertainment industry professional, or a high-level executive at an agency......"
"No."
"Don't answer so fast, think about it a little more."
"Hmm."
Kim Sanho curled his hand into a fist and rested it against his chin, deliberating seriously.
"No."
"......Then, did the President perhaps mention anything about having some kind of plan,"
"......"
"He didn't."
"Nope."
This was serious. The countermeasures for this situation were veering in an increasingly extreme direction.
I imagined myself being interviewed in some investigative documentary about trainee reality headlined 'The Dark Side of Glamour: Dreams Turned Shackles,' then quickly shook my head.
'Time to use it soon, I suppose.'
And I glanced up at the empty air.
[Available hints: (1)]
"Sanho."
"Hm?"
"Cover your ears for a second."
The first hint had been forced on me under the pretext of a tutorial, but this time it seemed I had to activate it myself.
As far as I could figure, the only way to communicate my intent to a System I couldn't physically touch was by voice.
Once I confirmed that Kim Sanho had obediently covered his ears, I enunciated each syllable clearly toward wherever the System's voice recognition sensor might be.
Hoping it would provide me with a groundbreaking method to reel in some trainees.
"Use hint."
And at that moment.
My eyes closed.
* * *
I was reading an article.
No, to be precise, I was observing someone's actions from a first-person perspective.
<QTen 'MAKE100%' 3rd Round Live Voting Rigging Scandal? Claimed It Was a 100% Viewer-Made Idol... Viewers Furious>
<Deuz Planning CEO Lee Han-min, Remains Silent on Trainee A's Revelations Regarding 'Favoritism Controversy'>
<'MAKE100%' Debut Team Entirely Pre-Selected Allegations, Final Stage Rendered Meaningless... Disgraceful Early Cancellation Decided>
Comments
─You bastards, I knew this would happen. Save our Gyumin, waaah
└He would've been eliminated even without the rigging... Still, clinging to a first-round-elim is a bit much
└Who knows if your fave would've been a first-round-elim without the rigging too, get lostㅠ
─What are the fans who had their eyes and ears sealed shut gonna do now from sheer embarrassment? lololol Push-shredder officially confirmed lololol
─And look at these QTen bastards deftly dodging the heat by turning attention to trainee poaching, legendary big-corporate-class move right there
─But was there actually anyone who didn't know it was rigged?
─Ah, I'm crying. When my baby goes back, he's getting shelved for sure. QTen, are you gonna compensate us or whatㅠㅠ
└They are
└Whoa
'......What is this?'
The article was full of content I couldn't make any sense of.
My eyes were drawn more to the other article titles listed under related articles beneath the comment section. The problem was that I couldn't control my own movements.
Nothing to do about it. I had no choice but to desperately hope that this first-person protagonist's interests aligned with mine.
Just then, the thumb that had been scrolling down the page stopped abruptly on a certain article.
<Which Rookie Girl Group Debuting in Q1 This Year Comes Out on Top? HoF 'Millie' vs Indeowol 'Kiniz' — First-Half Performance Head-to-Head Comparison>
No, not this one.
<Privacy Scandal Wonseokit Ji Seungho Posts Handwritten Apology on SNS... "Leaving Is the Answer" vs "Then Who Sings">
Not that.
<Mary Ent, Announces New Boy Group Reveal at Midnight Tonight>
Yes, that one!
'Click it, quickly......'
But at that moment, my eyes opened again.
* * *
"!"
I'd wanted to just open them normally, but apparently even the way they opened was part of the hint.
Kim Sanho flinched at my eyes flying open like a jiangshi in a horror movie, then slowly began averting his gaze.
"That's it. You can take your hands off now."
"Okay."
"You heard everything, huh?"
"......"
Kim Sanho quietly began clearing the table.
Hm. So he'd been watching the whole time as I suddenly blurted out nonsense like "Use hint" and went into a rapid trance state.
I wondered just how weird I must have looked, but whatever. We were bound by contract anyway, so neither of us could exactly run from the other.
Anyway.
'That Mary boy group teaser article.'
Back when I was around, their debut had been scheduled for Q2 of this year.
Even if the schedule had changed after I left, it would've been pushed back, not moved up. Which meant the timeframe of those articles was roughly sometime between summer and fall of this year.
In that case... what I'd just witnessed was the future.
"Hey, by any chance — the CEO of Deuz Planning, where'd he go?"
I was glancing around looking for Kim Sanho, who had vanished along with the entire dining table, when I heard the sound of water from somewhere.
He'd already gone to do the dishes.
With the answer-bot gone, I had no choice but to pull up a search bar. Seeing the future wasn't exactly shocking anymore, but I still had to verify it.
'Lee Han-min, was it.'
Deuz Planning.
A company with a decent reputation, but I'd only seen the CEO's name for the first time in that hint just now.
So if the search results showed his name exactly as it had appeared in the hint, wouldn't that mean this absurd precognition had some degree of credibility?
But I didn't even need to go that far. Because an article like this was already displayed on the portal site's main page.
<Indeowol Ent, Countdown to Next Rookie Girl Group Debut... Signals Head-on Battle With HoF's 'Millie'>
A clash between HoF and Indeowol on the horizon.
It matched the article I'd seen in the hint exactly.
"......"
Thanks to that, I'd confirmed it, but I still felt deeply unsettled. It felt like this world was nothing more than someone's plaything.
Still, I had to make use of what I was given.
If there was any information I could extract from this maddeningly vague hint.
* * *
[Seeking a KPOP specialist who can make a boy 100%.]
After staring holes through my phone screen, I flopped down onto the practice room floor.
'MAKE100%.'
A run-of-the-mill idol audition program spawned from a massively successful girl group production project in the past, and the only currently existing trainee survival series.
The reason two contradictory descriptors — 'run-of-the-mill' and 'the only' — could apply simultaneously was simple. Because everything else had flopped.
This program too had slightly veered off its initial path of massive success, and now in Season 7 it was being called by some less-than-flattering nicknames like 'Repeatal' and 'Brain-Cut 100%.'
But that was just the general public's perception. Among heavy idol fandoms, it still boasted an influence that couldn't be ignored.
However.
"So what exactly am I supposed to do about it?"
What possible benefit could I gain from knowing about this program's rigging scandal?
Was I supposed to play time traveler? Something like, 'Hey guys, I'm from the future and this show's getting canceled early'?
'......That'd be real fun.'
As you could probably guess from my reaction, I wasn't particularly surprised by the word 'rigging.'
The reason was obvious if you just typed the abbreviation 'Mebaek' into the search bar. You'd see 'rigging' following right behind as the very first related search term.
─A friend of my brother's friend's friend is an eliminated MAKE100% trainee and they said it's all rigged, the debut team is totally pre-selected
└At least show some effort and attach a fake proof shot
└Fine, next ranking announcement, 2nd half, 14th place MㅇS, 15th place GㅈH. If this turns out right, you'll believe me then?
Every single one of those had turned out to be correct, and it had caused a huge stir once.
That had happened all the way back in Season 1.
A reputation where the word 'rigging' was no longer the least bit surprising at this point. Honestly, it made me more curious about the brain structure of companies that still sent trainees to a program like this.
The reason was simple.
Promotional value.
These days, with dozens of teams disbanding without ever making their name known, securing even just one final surviving member meant getting a step ahead in terms of recognition.
Image burnout, fandom fragmentation, and so on. The commonly cited downsides weren't even issues for small-to-mid-sized agencies.
Because without any recognition to begin with, those downsides couldn't even occur.
'Is it really telling me to actually join the show and get some promo out of it?'
The thought crossed my mind, but there was still something nagging at me that kept it from being a perfect answer.
We didn't even have trainees ready to debut. In that case, getting our face out there first wouldn't that just be encouraging pure image burnout?
If we could debut before the buzz died down, maybe — but for Sorasum's current situation, that didn't seem... like it fit......
"Wait."
As I was skimming through last year's articles, my finger stopped at one spot.
<MAKE100% Season 6 'Aggyangeez Chemistry' Can Continue to Be Seen... Jeong Dayeon Transfers from Tail Media Contents to UFO Ent, Same Agency as No Eunah>
Comments
─Ah what do I doㅠㅠㅠㅠ I was literally on my way to set QTen's building on fire thinking I'd never see Aggyangeez on stage together againㅠㅠㅠ This is such a relief
─This is better. MAKE100% shitty small agencies, please, for the love of god, stop tying these kids up out of greed and just let them go. They're beyond what your plates can hold anyway.
─UFO, please, take our Song Bin too
└Song Bin is at a relatively bigger company, so it'll probably be tough. High chance they have internal plans of their own... Rumors say she's already on an exclusive contract too.
└Nooo TT TT
This......
Comments
─As expected of the trainee secondhand marketplace, absolute class
─At this point it's obvious the debut team is pre-selected anyway. Seems like they're just coming on to find a company that'll pay their penalties for them now.
─Please, let some money-loaded company just take all our kids and debut them...
└Why would a company that rich take in kids whose faces are already overexposed? Honestly, unless it's some planless shitty small agency.
└Shitty small agencies always have no plan. They just have no money.
"......"
This was a total fishing spot.