Free Web Novel-“If it’s you, I know you can do it!”
Geum Shinyu, who had come out as the second runner in Iam’s dorm deep-cleaning showdown, steeled herself as she recalled what Lee Sion had said to her.
The first match had been the Yutnori battle between team leaders Seo Ryujin and Lee Sion.
-“This doesn’t count! This doesn’t count!”
-“I can’t hear what a scrub is saying.”
-“L-Let’s call it a draw! There’s no way this can be happening, my golden right hand···.”
Just as Shinyu and Yunkyung had expected while watching, it had ended with Lee Sion’s catastrophic defeat.
Contrary to Lee Sion’s confident claim before the game started that she could control the throw with the feeling in her fingertips and make mo and yut come out, only do and back-do had come up the entire game, so the match had been decided easily.
“Shinyu unni, it has to be the two of us.”
“Yeah. Sion unni was a throwaway card from the start.”
“That’s right! If she kept Ryujin unni occupied as captain, we already got our money’s worth!”
Still, Shinyu and Yunkyung, who had chosen Lee Sion’s team, weren’t flustered by the result.
Lee Sion had unmatched planning and execution when it came to screwing people over, but for some reason, both of them knew better than anyone that she was strangely weak in a straight-up showdown.
‘Come to think of it, she’s bad at rock-paper-scissors too.’
Judging by how crafty she usually was, it wasn’t like she was stupid, but for some reason, when it came to head-to-head matches, instead of using her brain, she stubbornly insisted on taking people on directly, which was why she was especially bad in that area.
Anyway, Shinyu and Yunkyung were the ones who had chosen Lee Sion as team leader, so now it was time to deal with the aftermath.
“Geum Shinyu! Wouldn’t it save time if you just gave up and started cleaning now?”
“It’s okay! This time Gahyeon unni is the opponent, so I can win!”
“What? I’m going to make you regret that!”
Lee Gahyeon had come out as the opponent for the second match, gomoku.
‘I’m sorry, Gahyeon unni.’
Seeing Gahyeon’s face flush red at the taunt that came out of her mouth, Shinyu felt a little guilty, but it couldn’t be helped.
If she lost this gomoku match, Team Lee Sion would be stuck handling the deep cleaning all by themselves, so if it was for the sake of winning, she could say a taunt she didn’t mean as much as necessary.
Tap.
The gomoku match began with Shinyu going first.
Honestly, the Iam members were all about the same at gomoku, so there wasn’t anyone who was especially good.
So it had been expected that the match between Shinyu and Lee Gahyeon would be close, but—
“Huh! Isn’t that double-three?”
“Lee Sion, what kind of ridiculous nitpicking is that!”
“Oops, guess I saw it wrong.”
When Lee Sion, who had been watching the match, suddenly picked a fight out of nowhere, not only Lee Gahyeon, but even Ryu Ayeon and Seo Ryujin on the other team immediately pounced on Lee Sion and started tearing into her.
And in that instant, when all three of them turned their eyes toward Lee Sion—
Tick.
Shinyu’s hand quickly switched the positions of the white stone and the black stone.
“Ugh···Shinyu, did you secretly practice gomoku behind our backs?”
“As if that would happen! It just means Gahyeon unni’s skills have gotten worse!”
“That makes no sense···when did I miss four black stones lining up···.”
And so, while distracted because she was busy snapping at Lee Sion, Lee Gahyeon failed to notice anything strange and innocently kept placing stones until she was driven right to the brink of defeat.
‘Sion unni’s ability to draw attention is world-class.’
Slide.
Right now, Lee Sion was smiling in satisfaction while subtly showing Shinyu a thumbs-up hidden behind the arm she had casually folded across her chest, out of the other team’s sight.
Shinyu had firmly believed that if it was Lee Sion, she would definitely be able to pull everyone’s attention onto herself, and in that opening, Shinyu had carried out Lee Sion’s secret instructions perfectly.
-“I’ll make an opening, so when that happens, just make your move a little···.”
Before the game started, Lee Sion had secretly instructed Shinyu that she would create an opening, so when that moment came, Shinyu should seize it and show off her dream move once.
Cheating.
And that underhanded behavior···
‘Of course I’m doing it!’
If it had been the old Shinyu, she might have said she could never do something like that, but the new Geum Shinyu, dyed in Lee Sion’s colors, accepted it without hesitation.
And it wasn’t just Shinyu.
“I knew I could trust you, Shinyu unni!”
“Now it’s one to one!”
“Our Shinyu really is amazing!”
Even though Im Yunkyung had clearly seen what kind of cheating Shinyu had pulled, Yunkyung calmly celebrated the victory anyway. Yunkyung too had been dyed in Lee Sion’s colors.
***
‘This isn’t going to be easy.’
Ryujin was getting a little anxious.
Glance.
She had only taken one quick look around, but the dorm was obviously a total mess.
She hadn’t seen the members’ rooms, but it was crystal clear that they were probably just as filthy as the outside.
And if only three people had to clean a dorm like this, they would obviously be suffering all day long, but honestly, she could grit her teeth and endure the cleaning itself.
But—
-“Hey, Seo, I said scrub until it squeaks!”
When she imagined Lee Sion lying on the couch, wiggling her toes and acting smug, there was no way they could lose this match.
“It’s not over yet, Gahyeon unni.”
“Ryujin···if only I’d won···.”
“It’s okay. Ryu Ayeon is still left.”
Still, the situation wasn’t good.
In the first match, Yutnori, Ryujin had beaten Lee Sion and scored the first point, but in the gomoku match that followed, Geum Shinyu had beaten Lee Gahyeon.
Now the deciding match would be between Ryu Ayeon and Im Yunkyung.
‘In most games, Ryu Ayeon would have the advantage, but of all things, it had to be Hunminjeongeum···.’
Hunminjeongeum. It was a simple game where a set of consonants was given and you had to make words with them, and the person who got stuck lost. For Ryu Ayeon, whose strength was in physical things, it was a slightly unfortunate event.
On the other hand, it was a favorable game for Yunkyung, who, despite being young, was surprisingly one of the most well-read members.
“All right, then I’ll give you the prompt! The prompt is nieun-ieung!”
Of course, that didn’t guarantee Ryu Ayeon would lose, but Ryujin found herself thinking that if she ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) had known it would turn out like this, it might have been better to put Lee Gahyeon in the first game, Yutnori, and go out herself in the second game, gomoku.
If they had done that, then if luck had been on their side, they might have picked up two wins in a row and decided the whole thing at once, so she regretted getting swept up too easily in Lee Sion’s provocation and joining the Yutnori match.
But there was still the third match left.
“Ryu Ayeon, fighting!”
“Show the youngest how scary the older sisters can be!”
All Ryujin could do was cheer for Ayeon together with Gahyeon.
And not to be outdone,
“Yunkyung, you can do it, stay strong!”
“Captain Yoon! Ryu Ayeon dropped out of high school too, so she’s only got a middle-school diploma! Same middle-school education, so don’t chicken out!”
The other side was cheering just as fervently for their last runner, Im Yunkyung.
“Everyone ready?”
Yuri’s voice rang out. In exchange for serving as referee, Yuri had only agreed to clean her own room, the easiest room in this cleaning round.
And just before the third game that would decide the match began, with tension thick in the air—
Bzzzz.
Ryujin naturally pulled out her phone at the vibration buzzing in her pocket and checked it.
‘The CEO?’
The moment she saw the name on the screen—a name she had saved, but never thought she’d have a reason to answer—Ryujin was so shocked she nearly cried out.
The CEO.
There were two people Ryujin called CEO.
One was Kim Sanghyeok, KJ Entertainment’s CEO, whose face she saw every day at the company, and the other was Choi Hyunwoo, the CEO of Logic Entertainment, Ryujin’s original agency.
Of the two, she almost never ran into the latter even at the company. At most, she only saw him occasionally during month-end evaluations, but—
-Lee Gahyeon. Why do you still have the same habit you were corrected for last time?
-···I’m sorry.
-If your skills aren’t enough, then at least have some grit.
Whenever CEO Choi Hyunwoo showed up at evaluations, the Logic Entertainment trainees could barely even drink water.
The evaluations from CEO Choi Hyunwoo were so sharp that even the trainers, who usually felt scarier than ghosts, seemed gentle by comparison.
Ryujin remembered that Choi Hyunwoo had also been present at the evaluation when Lee Gahyeon was cut from Logic in the past.
Back then, Ryujin had suffered nightmares for quite a while because of the way Choi Hyunwoo had coldly informed Gahyeon of the cut.
Things were better now, but the shock of that day still remained a major scar for Ryujin.
‘What is this about?’
A phone call from CEO Choi Hyunwoo.
She had only learned his number for the first time after debuting in Iam, and since then there hadn’t even been a single text or phone call, so she had no idea at all what this contact could be about.
“Excuse me for a second.”
“Hm?”
“I’m getting a call.”
“Okay, go answer it quick and come back! You need to cheer for Ayeon!”
Anyway, she couldn’t just keep not answering, so Ryujin told Lee Gahyeon beside her that she’d go take the call for a moment and headed to her room.
“Hello?”
“Are you in a situation where you can talk for a moment?”
“···Yes, sir.”
And through the phone came the blunt voice of CEO Choi Hyunwoo, exactly as Ryujin remembered it.
Without so much as a simple greeting like asking how she had been or what she was doing, he just directly asked if she could talk, and Ryujin had no choice but to say yes.
“The reason I’m calling so suddenly today is because of your plans going forward.”
“My plans?”
“Yes. Honestly, it may be a little early to tell you, but you’re no longer a trainee. You’re now one of Logic’s artists, so I thought it was right to tell you in advance.”
At the words that followed from CEO Choi Hyunwoo, Ryujin’s mind started racing.
‘There’s something he needs to contact me separately to tell me?’
In that moment, something she had heard at Logic during her last vacation suddenly flashed through her mind.
The shocking news that they were preparing a new girl group centered around Ryujin, including trainees.
Because of that, even when the members were talking about contract renewals and dreaming of a hopeful future, Ryujin had been forced to pour cold water on it.
Thinking that CEO Choi Hyunwoo was probably about to tell her that directly, Ryujin answered in a slightly deflated voice.
“I know. I happened to hear about it when I went to the company last time. That when Iam’s activities end, I’m supposed to return to Logic and join a new girl group···.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Huh?”
“It’s the opposite. I’m on my way back from finishing talks with KJ Entertainment today. If you agree, our Logic has decided to join your Iam contract renewal.”
“What did you say? Then what about the girls? They’ve been waiting, looking at nothing but debut!”
But contrary to what Ryujin had thought, CEO Choi Hyunwoo said he had actually gone there to support her renewal.
At those words, anger flared up inside her in an instant, and her voice came out sharp.
The reason she had been trying to give up her own renewal and go back to Logic, even if it meant hurting the Iam members, was because of the younger trainees who were waiting for her.
And for Choi Hyunwoo to say he had gone and approved her Iam renewal meant, to Ryujin, sending all the remaining trainees back into another long, endless tunnel, and she couldn’t accept that.
‘The girls are all looking at debut and nothing else···.’
Because she herself had lived such a long trainee life, she knew how desperate debut was.
Ryujin’s anger rose all the way to the top of her head at Choi Hyunwoo, who seemed to be deciding something like that so easily.
But—
“I have no intention of simply leaving the remaining ones as they are.”
“Huh?”
“This is confidential, so don’t spread it to the girls, but MPlay is planning to launch a survival program before long. We’re planning to send our girls there.”
“A survival program?”
“Yes. Honestly, that’s probably what they’d prefer too. Even if they debuted with you right now, the balance would lean too far to one side and they’d have a hard time, so it would be better for them to get a survival program opportunity instead.”
As Hyunwoo went on to say that the trainees with more years under their belts would go to the survival program, while the trainees with fewer years would have their numbers expanded further and be debuted in a more stable way, Ryujin could finally let out a sigh of relief.
And at the same time—
‘Does this mean I can keep doing Iam?’
Only then did it really hit Ryujin that CEO Choi Hyunwoo had approved her Iam contract renewal.
“Slave!”
“Uh···um···ugh! Right! Elderly person!! An elderly person!”
“Im Yunkyung! Why are you looking at me when you say elderly person?!”
“It’s your imagination, Gahyeon unni!”
“Come to think of it! Why did Ayeon-chan look at me when she said slave?!”
At the same time, the members’ voices, loud enough to be heard all the way into Ryujin’s room, came floating in from outside, showing just how wildly they were playing the game.
Now, just hearing the members bickering was enough to make her smile first.
Listening to those cheerful voices, Ryujin could feel her heart pounding at the thought that she could continue the Iam activities she had wanted so badly.
“Anyway, the reason I called today is that KJ Entertainment is going to ask what your intentions are going forward, and before that, if by any chance you intend to refuse, then we also need to prepare accordingly—”
“I’m doing it, the renewal!”
“What? At least think about it a little—”
“It’s okay!”
Up until now, the only thing stopping Ryujin’s renewal had been the younger trainees.
But now that Hyunwoo had said their future would actually be better than it would have been with Ryujin there, that obstacle to the renewal had long since disappeared.
“···Do you really like Iam activities that much?”
“Yes!”
“I understand your intentions now, so that’s enough. If there’s another issue, or if anything comes up, I’ll contact you again.” ƒгeewebnovёl.com
Soon, CEO Choi Hyunwoo said he had no more business and ended the call.
Holding the phone after the call had disconnected, Ryujin tried for a moment to calm her pounding heart.
‘I have to tell the girls!’
Yunkyung and Shinyu, who hadn’t been able to hide their sorrow yesterday when she said she wouldn’t be able to renew.
And the other members too, who hadn’t shown it openly, but still hadn’t been able to hide their disappointment.
Ryujin wanted to hurry and tell them that she would be able to keep doing Iam after all.
Click.
With her heart racing, she opened the door and saw the members in the living room, still in the middle of making a racket.
Ryujin had been about to tell them the good news that had just come in, excitement bubbling inside her.
“Guys, I···.”
But she couldn’t continue.
“We won this round, but let’s still clean together.”
“That’s right! There’s not even that much time left for us to be with Ryujin unni anyway, so we can leave behind the memory of doing a big dorm cleaning together···.”
“I’m embarrassed to say this as someone from the winning team, but I agree. You saw Ryujin’s expression yesterday···it already sucks enough for her, and making her clean too because she lost a game feels too harsh.”
“Tch. Ryujin-scrub got lucky. If it weren’t for that whole thing about not being able to renew, I wouldn’t have gotten this soft-hearted.”
“Still, Ryujin-chan will be happy when she finds out we decided to just do the big cleaning together, right?”
It seemed the match had ended while she was on the phone, and unfortunately, the result seemed to be a victory for Team Lee Sion.
But right now, that win or loss wasn’t what mattered.
The members, each adding their own comments without even realizing Ryujin had come out of her room, had the atmosphere of people about to hold a farewell party just for Ryujin.
Even though she still had half a year of activities left even if she couldn’t renew, the Iam members were soaking in sentiment as if she were leaving tomorrow.
Suddenly, one post Ryujin had seen on the internet came to mind.
[The one thing you must never do at a funeral]
At first, she had clicked it out of curiosity, then let out a hollow laugh when she saw what it said.
It felt like Ryujin was about to do exactly that.
