Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Time flew, and shooting day arrived in a flash.
I wasn't in the waiting room where the cast was all crowded together right then — I was tucked away in a secluded lounge.
"......Not bad."
I admired my well-groomed face in the mirror.
I wasn't admiring my own face. I was just surprised that the company had booked a legit salon.
On top of that, I'd even gotten a pep talk before coming.
—I was thinking about what I could do for you, hyung.
—And?
—Nothing came to mind. So I at least prepared a photo of me.
—Sure, I'll look at it whenever I feel like dying.
The photo of Kim Sanho I'd accepted was stuck in my pocket.
Like I was supposed to play some dad-joke about going off to war, jeez.
......Whatever. I'd put off reuniting with Kim Sanho for a few days. For now, I needed to handle the reason I was holed up in this lounge.
'System.'
[Objective: Recruit allies and achieve debut. (1/N)]
[Progress Status: Prologue (Warning ×0)]
After entering the Prologue, the so-called guide system churned out a bunch of new features.
It finally got an ON/OFF function, and at last I could just say commands in my head and it would recognize them.
And then.
[Hint ready.]
[Currently available hints: (1)]
That hint had popped up just a few minutes ago.
That was exactly why I was avoiding everyone. In a place where relationships with the other contestants were crucial, if I got marked as some weirdo from the start, it'd be an outright disaster.
Besides, one of my goals was to coax decent trainees into coming to our company, so I couldn't afford a single flaw.
I took a short breath and steeled myself.
'Use hint.'
"......."
Nothing happened.
I awkwardly rubbed my shoulder.
"Use hint."
Nothing happened.
"What the?"
Was my pronunciation off?
Feeling baffled, I pulled up the System.
[Currently available hints: (0)]
'Zero?'
So it had been used?
"......."
I glared into thin air, about to rake my hair in irritation, then remembered it was styled and lowered my arm obediently.
And I thought,
'I blew it.'
Doesn't this thing have a rating feature?
* * *
"Sorasum Entertainment, entering now!"
My turn came up fast. I followed a staff member into a corridor bathed in bright light.
"Ah, I'm nervous."
It looked like a self-comment, but it was a line delivered with full awareness of the camera.
After all, viewers who went out of their way to watch trainees instead of active idols were partly drawn to that very rawness.
Of course, I really was nervous. This was a first for me too.
At the end of the corridor, I clasped my hands together as if praying. Tilting slightly forward, I caught a glimpse of the set's electronic board.
Once the previous agency passed, the Sorasum logo would appear there.......
'But wait, what did our company logo even look like?'
Just as I thought that, static flickered across the board and the screen changed.
[SORASOME]
"Wow, ohh. ......All kinds of different companies are coming out, huh."
"Soeo, no, Sora, Sorasome?"
"Isn't it Sorasum?"
'Why the hell did they write it in English?'
What was that even supposed to mean?
No, don't think about it. At least it wasn't in some generic default font.
Fortunately, maybe because plenty of others were in the same boat, I didn't catch many lines implying 'What's that nobody agency?'
I counted to ten in my head, then stepped inside.
"Whoa."
"What the?"
"Wow."
"No way......."
Dozens of gazes swarmed onto me.
As if reality was finally sinking in, my heart started pounding. I curled my faintly trembling fingers and repeated to myself,
'Get your head straight.'
Then I bowed deeply toward the front.
"I'm Seo Cha-gyeom from Sorasum Entertainment."
"......Hello!"
A chorus of out-of-sync return greetings followed like a staggered round song.
I pretended to make eye contact with everyone while I surveyed the seats.
The top row held seven lavish sofas called 100% Seats, corresponding to percentages from 99% down to 93%. Below them, plastic chairs were arranged in neat trapezoidal rows.
This was where the contestants faced their first real choice.
The rule was, 'After entering, briefly introduce yourself, then feel free to take any empty seat.'
They said 'any seat,' but in reality, the only choices were the 100% seats or the rest — just those two.
If I took a 100% seat, moments like...
[Trainee Seo Cha-gyeom strides boldly toward 100%]
[Trainee1: Whoa, that's some nerve!]
[Trainee2: (When asked about his first impression of Trainee Seo Cha-gyeom) He was incredibly striking. I mean, he must have some kind of card up his sleeve....... (That's probably why he sat there, right?)]
[Will he be able to hold onto 100%?]
...would guarantee me some screen time.
But over six seasons, it had already been proven that moments like that had zero impact on rankings.
You were lucky if you weren't turned into a laughingstock every time you slipped up. And a corner seat would hardly even show up on screen anyway.
"Wow, he just stepped right out of a webtoon."
"He looks like a prince......."
"Bet he's got a lot of mirrors at home. If I had that face, I'd stare at myself every day."
The contestants were still faithfully following the production team's directions to react big.
I answered with a small smile and strode up the stairs.
So, where did I end up sitting?
"Huh? Here?"
"Hello."
"Wow, hello!"
As I sat and greeted them, the trainee next to me welcomed me with exaggerated enthusiasm.
The uniformed group sitting beside him joined in one after another, like a wave. I awkwardly rubbed the back of my neck, as if embarrassed by all the eyes that showed no signs of peeling away.
"But why did you pick this seat?"
"Ah, just, because I liked it."
'Especially you guys.......'
No need to tack that on.
The fact that the debut team was pre-selected meant that, for non-pre-selected people like me, favorable editing was out of the question.
Devil's editing or total cut — the method was obvious.
What I had to guard against here was the latter first. Devil's editing could eventually flip back into public sympathy if the truth came out, but a total cut was just a total cut.
And the way to guard against a total cut was simple.
Just make it so they had no choice but to show me.
With that in mind, the first people I looked for were trainees who'd come from the same company in a group. The bigger the group, the higher the chance they'd get caught in reaction shots.
I'd noticed they were all in the same school uniforms, so I spotted they were a crew. Checking their name tags, I confirmed the agency.
[Deuz Planning]
The company from the hint.
I didn't know the exact backstory, but given the context, they were the ones who seemed most tied to the show's manipulation controversy.
One of them might even be the pre-selected member.
Which meant they were the contestants most likely to appear on camera.
So why not latch on like a buy-one-get-one-free deal and shove my shoulder into the corner of the frame? If even one second of me got caught in the fan-made 'Episode 1 Deuz Planning screen time cut' compilations, that'd be some solid exposure.
"Oh, I thought you might remember me, hyung."
"Ahaha, no, it's not that......."
I was about to clumsily scratch the back of my head to look friendly, when I froze.
What did he just say?
"Right! No way you'd remember me."
"......."
Uh, yeah.
Who are you?
My flustered expression must've been completely exposed, but I was too busy matching his face against the faces in my memory to compose myself.
And I quickly realized.
This guy.......
Was pretty damn good-looking.
Sparkling eyes, a likable mouth, and a soft impression so that even though he was staring right at me, he didn't seem aggressive at all.
For people who knew their idols, a face like this was described in one word.
"You really don't recognize me, do you? Well, I guess we were in different buildings......."
He glanced at the camera and cupped a hand around the mic clipped to his collar.
Then carefully leaned toward my ear and whispered,
"I was at Mary too."
I'd expected that. Because he had that 'Mary' look.
More than the fact that we were from the same company, Mary's casting ability was what astonished me. Where and how did they keep finding faces like this?
'More importantly... if the buildings were different, that means he wasn't in the debut team.'
Most Mary trainees commuted to a training-only building, but the debut team was an exception — they commuted to the same main building as the signed artists.
The reason I didn't recognize this guy wasn't because I'm a cold-hearted bastard; I just rarely ran into him.
We'd done month-end evaluations in the same place, so recognizing him wouldn't have been strange.
'And he probably wasn't involved in that incident either.'
Hm. I concluded there was no real need to be wary of him.
"Ah, really? Good to meet you."
"There are probably others who'll recognize you. I saw a few people from Mary."
"Ah, really?"
Ex-Mary trainees were a dime a dozen. Dozens of trainees got cycled out every year.
If someone here went 'I passed the Mary audition once,' I was confident two or three guys would chime in with 'Same.'
Maybe because of my lukewarm reaction, the other guy, who'd been sizing me up with a less-than-impressed look, suddenly beamed.
"I'm Ahn Jiwon! Pleased to meet you~"
"Pleased to meet you too."
Ahn Jiwon, reverting to a bubbly tone, readjusted his mic and turned away.
Then he giggled and started chatting with the contestant next to him. Looked like that was his concept in front of the camera.
"I'm 19. Ah, hyungs, say hi too! Why are you being so shy?"
"H-hello. You're really hand— I-I mean, you're handso......."
"Whoa!"
"What?!"
Just as another Deuz Planning trainee was timidly reaching out for a handshake after Ahn Jiwon's prodding, a commotion erupted around us.
It seemed like the next agency's logo had appeared on the board.
But first, I needed to complete this handshake before this moment got immortalized as 'Sorasum trainee ignores Deuz Planning handshake request slow-mo 0.5x speed version.gif.'
"Wow, that's insane."
"For real?"
I grabbed the shyly extended hand, shook it up and down, and turned my head.
No matter how big the agency, it wasn't like it was Mary.......
"Youth is coming out?"
Youth?
"Maybe it's 'former' Youth?"
Ahn Jiwon whispered in a voice thick with doubt.
Youth was a major player, one of South Korea's top four agencies.
I'd heard they'd been on a bit of a decline lately, but still, they weren't the kind of agency to send someone to a show like this.
I sympathized with Ahn Jiwon's guess and stared intently at the board, which could change any second.
But the board kept the Youth logo up, unchanging.
'Hmm.......'
For Youth to put a trainee on a program that was completely drained of all its juice...
I knew it was a rude thought, but honestly, I even started to suspect they were a throwaway card.
"Wow, another good-looking one."
"I should be paying admission just to be here."
But unexpectedly, the contestant who walked out was extremely solid.
"He's pure Youth essence."
"He looks like actor Lee Yewon! Right! Right!"
No, 'solid' didn't cut it.
He had a visual that looked like Youth, who were obsessed with purity, had prayed for three days and nights and finally summoned him.
While I was marveling, the Youth trainee gave a bow. He had a clear, low voice that matched the whole 'actor-like' chatter around him.
"......Pleased to meet you."
'With an agency that big, pulling strings must be easy.'
I shook off that idle speculation and clapped even louder.
Still, whether Youth actually pulled strings or not, trainees from major agencies were outside my sphere of interest from the start.
I couldn't forget it. One of the reasons I was here was 'to find a trainee who'd be willing to debut together at Sorasum.'
Not that their company would let them go easily, but logically, who would abandon Youth and choose Sorasum?
"Wow, so that's what Youth is like?"
"His voice is seriously nice."
"Doesn't he seem like he'll debut no matter what?"
Anyway, it was true that the bigger the agency, the higher the probability they were pre-selected.
Whether it was a 'Did he get a piece of the pie too?' kind of suspicion or something else, it'd be exhausting for both sides, so I planned to maintain a moderately lukewarm relationship with all the suspects, Ahn Jiwon included.
But, there was one thing I needed to keep in mind.
In this game, the size of your fandom was power.
And Youth was an agency with an incredibly thick layer of 'trickle-down' fans who supported whatever came from them.
In other words, it'd be in my best interest to toss out at least one remark into this wave of flattery.
"Wow, I'd love to be friends with him."
"......?"
Ahn Jiwon glanced at me.
I met his eyes and shrugged.