Free Web Novel“Thanks, student! You make sure you get first place!!!”
“Yes, thank you.”
Clunk.
The bus rattled away down the noisy country road, making that distinctive sound only country buses have.
For some reason it felt like I had to keep waving until it disappeared from sight, so I waved hard, and that made me newly realize how much name recognition I’d gained.
‘At this rate, masks and caps really are going to become essential gear, huh?’
If other people heard me, they’d probably think I was bragging about being on some variety program before I’d even debuted, but when I thought about the autograph session and impromptu photo event that had just happened on the bus, it didn’t feel like delusion at all.
-Isn’t that that kid from TV?
-You’re right! It is! Can we get your autograph?
-Oh my, please take a picture with us!
I’d just gotten on the bus like usual to go back to the dorm when some of the passengers (mostly grandpas and grandmas) recognized me and asked for autographs and photos, so I didn’t get a moment’s rest until I got off.
Even the driver had asked me for an autograph at the end, and since I’d never imagined even older folks, not just young people, would recognize me, I’d been really flustered.
‘If this keeps happening every time, it’s going to be a problem···.’
It was definitely about time I came up with some new countermeasures, like wearing a disguise or taking taxis instead.
“Captain, you’re here?”
“What a diligent middle-schooler.”
Dragging my suitcase from the bus stop for a bit brought the dorm gates into view.
There, in what I guessed used to be the visiting ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) area out front, I spotted some contestants who’d arrived before me.
Gathered there, now sprinting toward me like country puppies, were Yunkyung, Shinyu, and Suyeon.
“Why did you all meet up with the older girls and leave just us out!”
“She’s right! I wanted to visit Logic again too.”
“And you’re the one who called me and Nara Guan Yu and Zhang Fei!”
They surrounded me the moment I arrived and suddenly started interrogating me.
“What are you even talking about?”
I had no idea what they were on about, so I frowned in confusion. Yunkyung shoved her smartphone screen right up in front of my face.
There was an Instagram post open on the screen, and the people in the photo looked strangely familiar.
(A photo of Seo Ryujin smiling brightly, Lee Sion looking a bit disgruntled, and Ryu Ayeon looking flustered like she didn’t know what to do with her eyes)
↳ How are these three even together!
↳ Ryujin, post more pics!
↳ Isn’t this the Logic practice room? Holy crap
↳ I had no idea the three of them were close
↳ Their visuals as a combo are so insane! I’m literally voting for this trio as-is
Of course they looked familiar—it was the photo of me, Seo Ryujin, and Ryu Ayeon taken at Logic yesterday.
“What, they already posted this?”
“You didn’t know, Captain?”
“Nope.” fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
I’d figured they’d post it since they said they would, but I hadn’t expected them to have posted it already.
“Well, I guess it makes sense you wouldn’t know since you don’t do SNS, Captain!”
“Shouldn’t you at least make an Instagram account, unni?”
“If Sion unni makes one, she might hit ten thousand followers in no time!”
“Nope.”
I firmly rejected the little punks’ whining as they begged me to make an Insta and follow each other.
‘I remember how annoying Facebook was last time.’
Was it in middle school?
My classmates had practically half-threatened me into making a Facebook account, nagging me nonstop until I finally caved and made one.
And after that—
[Hi, I’m Lee Dayoon from XX Middle···]
[Last time, I tried to ask for your number on the street, but···]
[Hello, we’re an idol talent agency···]
I still hadn’t forgotten how I’d gotten hundreds of messages a day from strangers and companies I’d never heard of, to the point I got so sick of it I deleted the account and quit on the spot.
“Why would anyone go out of their way to create more hassle for themselves?”
“Everyone else has one.”
“You walk a different path from others if you want a happy life, Yunkyung.”
“Then what do you want to do, unni?”
“Me?”
At Yunkyung’s question, I tried to list out the things I wanted to do.
First, I wanted to lie on the sofa at home and finish binge-watching Chu–Han Struggle for Supremacy. After that, I’d grind Legend of Valley up to Challenger, get scouted as a trainee for T2, join as a pro, win Worlds with Seiker—
And when the time came to retire, I’d go on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms tour trip I’d already planned out to perfection. That was my modest little dream.
But I figured if I said something that full of simple sentiment to Yunkyung and the others right now, they probably wouldn’t understand, so I held my tongue.
“Oh! There’s Gahyeon unni and Ryujin unni, they’re coming over too!”
Just as I was about to use the remaining time before heading inside to tell the kids the story of Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, the uninvited guests arrived.
At Yunkyung’s words I turned my head and saw Lee Gahyeon, beaming from ear to ear, walking in together with Seo Ryujin, chatting about something.
‘Why does seeing Gahyeon looking happy make me want to mess with her?’
I couldn’t help being bothered by how especially bright Gahyeon’s smile was.
- Why are you always using me as the punchline!
It wasn’t because I was twisted or anything.
With Lee Gahyeon, how should I put it—she was just more fun when she was feeling wronged.
‘It’s so satisfying.’
If my back had the special function of irresistibly inviting people’s palms, then Lee Gahyeon’s indignant expression had the special function of making you want to tease her.
And for the record, it wasn’t just me.
I just did it more often; other contestants would sneak in the occasional jab at Gahyeon too.
Especially Kim Nayeon—she was downright evil.
If you looked closely, it felt like she used me as a shield and casually lobbed whatever she wanted to say.
I could still clearly picture how nervous she’d been at first, unable to even speak properly. It was a bit sad to see how she’d grown so sharp-tongued.
“Did you kids have a good rest?”
“Yes! Did you rest well too, unni?”
“I sure did!”
While I was busy wondering why Gahyeon was so keyed up, suddenly she and Seo Ryujin were right next to us.
Gahyeon really did seem to be in a good mood; she even patted Shinyu’s head, acting like an unni for once.
“Hm···.”
“What’s with that look now, Lee Sion?”
“Suspicious.”
But unlike when she was looking at Geum Shinyu, Gahyeon snapped at me in a sharply guarded tone.
When I gave her a narrow-eyed once-over, she must’ve felt something ominous, because she tried to put some distance between us.
But I wasn’t about to allow that, and just as I reached out to grab her—
“Stop bullying her already.”
“That’s slander and Seo-fabrication!”
“Ryujin···!”
Seo Ryujin stepped in front of Gahyeon like some kind of champion of justice, blocking my hand.
“I’m not trying to bully Gahyeon unni, I’m just observing the changes in a teammate who’s acting differently from usual···.”
“Of course she’s in a good mood. Last break, all she saw was bad reactions because of somebody, and now she’s finally getting to see good ones.”
“···The guilt of Kim Nayeon is great indeed.”
“It’s you!”
After hearing what Ryujin said, I understood why Gahyeon was in such a good mood.
[The more you see of Gahyeon, the more charming she is. At first she just looked prickly]
“If you tell someone who’s only seen up to episode 2 that Gahyeon is actually a ditz, they’ll tell you to stop talking nonsense ㅋㅋ]
[Feels like we only started seeing the real her after she got tangled up with Lee Sion]
While I was reading posts about myself, I’d happened to come across reactions about my close teammates.
And people’s reactions to Lee Gahyeon were definitely completely different from before, like night and day.
To prove it, at the second ranking announcement last time, she’d leaped up to 17th place, bawling her eyes out on stage.
“Honestly, that Lee Sion just has no idea how much everyone else cares about their ranking now that she’s in 1st place.”
“Isn’t it kind of unconvincing for you to say that when you’re 2nd?”
“I’m fine, I got my 2nd place purely on skill, not on variety.”
Hmm···.
Listening to Seo Ryujin shamelessly spewing that out made a petty sort of irritation rise up in me.
Why was it that I was already cemented as a gag character online, while Seo Ryujin alone was seen as a chic, charismatic contestant?
It was deeply unfair.
Three Kingdoms had already proven you shouldn’t judge people by appearances.
Just look at Zhuge Liang’s one and only major mistake: appointing Ma Su.
Ma Su looked smart on the surface and spoke well, so Zhuge Liang trusted him and entrusted him with an important mission. But in the end, Ma Su couldn’t get rid of his mountain-climber impulses, went up a mountain, and ruined a grand enterprise.
Like that, you had to look at a person’s inner self, not just their outer shell, to make a true evaluation.
Resolving that I’d definitely expose Seo Ryujin’s petty true nature to the viewers sooner or later, I headed through the dorm gates with the others.
***
‘Why is Sion unni staring like that again?’
In Geum Shinyu’s line of sight, Lee Sion was glaring intently at Seo Ryujin.
It wasn’t the first or second time Sion had behaved strangely, but since the things she did were different every time, Shinyu always found herself inadvertently drawn to watch.
Now, there Sion was, getting caught staring, then getting smacked on the back for “looking at people like that,” like it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘She really is amazing.’
To Shinyu, Sion was amazing for never losing her true self, no matter when or where.
Even now, all the contestants gathered in the auditorium, waiting for filming to begin, were nervous—yet Sion alone was horsing around like usual. It seemed incredible to Shinyu.
-The captain? She’s great, but I don’t know about making her my role model···.
-Shinyu, snap out of it! You’re under the spell of the demon named Lee Sion right now!
-You can’t let yourself be corrupted by Lee Sion!
Whenever she told other people she wanted to be like Sion, they’d freak out and try to stop her, but to Shinyu, Sion was already an idol.
‘If it weren’t for Sion unni, I might have been eliminated already.’
Honestly, ever since joining Idol Ground 100, Shinyu had constantly questioned whether she was really someone suited to being an idol.
She might have liked idols, and liked music to the point of loving it, but that was separate from actually having talent, and Shinyu herself hadn’t been sure she had any.
And at the very moment she was doubting herself, the teammate she met—Lee Sion—had shown her the certainty she herself lacked.
-I think having you handle the arrangement is the best path for our team.
From that moment, to Shinyu, Sion became an idol.
On the surface she might seem frivolous, but when you were actually teamed up with her, she was more reliable than anyone, and being with her made you feel like you could do anything.
“All right, we’re starting the shoot!”
While Shinyu was watching Sion like that, it seemed the setup for filming had finished at some point, because a staff member’s voice announcing the start echoed through the auditorium.
“What kind of mission do you think it’ll be this time?”
“Exactly. We’ve already had the Group Battle and the Position Evaluation, so I have no idea what’s coming next.”
“The number of people has really dropped a lot too.”
Once filming started, the so-called “Lee Sion gang” gathered around Shinyu also seemed nervous, each taking turns speculating out loud about what kind of mission they’d be given.
‘They really have cut down the contestants a ton.’
Listening to them, Shinyu glanced around the auditorium.
At the start of the program, the auditorium had been packed with 100 contestants, but now, with only 50 left, it felt strangely empty.
‘Never thought I’d be one of the 50 left instead of Soyeon unni.’
UI Entertainment, where Shinyu was a trainee.
At first, four UI trainees including Shinyu had joined the program, but now, the only one left was Geum Shinyu.
-You’re doing great, Shinyu! Just keep it up like this! The company’s planning to fully back you!
Shinyu had been completely thrown off by the call she’d gotten from UI Entertainment’s development team leader during the break.
The same team leader who used to subtly pressure her to stop doing producing training had now been freaking out, saying they were going to build her her own workspace in the company. The memory suddenly came back to her.
Not that it was incomprehensible.
-I’ll make sure you regret this, Geum Shinyu.
Park Soyeon, who had spat those words dripping with malice at Shinyu after the last ranking announcement and then disappeared.
The one whose performance the company had really been counting on wasn’t Shinyu, but Park Soyeon. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Among UI trainees, leaving personality aside, Park Soyeon’s singing and dancing skills had been the best, so the company had probably expected her to survive the longest, or even make the debut lineup.
But that same Park Soyeon—
[What’s with Park Soyeon, why is she so greedy?]
[The second she shows up I want to change the channel]
[You can literally see the faces of the contestants who end up on her team dying in real time]
[She’s been getting called out since Entrance Ceremony, but she just can’t give up on hogging screentime]
Had become a target of viewer dislike, and at the second ranking announcement, she’d been eliminated at a low rank of 66th. So now, UI Entertainment’s last hope was Geum Shinyu.
“It’s great to see you all again like this!”
Shinyu’s gaze turned toward the stage at the front of the auditorium.
The show’s main MC, Jang Junseok, walked out with a smile, announcing the start of the broadcast.
At first, Shinyu had just stared blankly, overwhelmed by the feeling of seeing a real-life celebrity, but she’d gotten used to it now and could calmly watch Jang Junseok.
“Today, we’ve prepared the third mission for the fifty people here, who survived thanks to viewer votes in the second ranking announcement.”
Mission.
Shinyu still couldn’t quite believe they’d already made it through the program’s second mission.
‘It was all thanks to Sion unni.’
Looking back, Shinyu had been incredibly lucky.
She’d been able to be on a team with Lee Sion for both of the missions so far.
“Then, from now on, we’ll reveal Idol Ground 100’s third mission: the ‘Concept Evaluation’!”
But—
‘This time, I have to do it on my own.’
As she listened to Jang Junseok introduce the third mission, Shinyu finally steeled herself.
-I want to go all the way with you guys.
She remembered the words Sion had said during practice for the last Position Evaluation stage.
Back then, Shinyu had made up her mind.
For the next mission, she absolutely would not be on the same team as Sion.
‘I can’t rely on Sion unni’s help forever.’
Shinyu wanted to be a teammate worthy of standing next to Sion, not a burden that clung to her ankle.
Which was why, even if it would be hard, she had to pick another team for this mission and grow.
-That’s our Shinyu!
If she could show Sion how much she’d grown, Sion would smile brightly and pat her head.
