By nature, I was the kind of person who had very few things I actively disliked.
Even in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, if you excluded the people from Wei and Wu, I liked pretty much everyone.
Maybe because of that, there wasn’t much I really disliked in the Idol Ground 100 we were currently filming either.
Well, except for things like the occasional no-at al, or the ranking announcent ceremony that was happening right now.
“With this, we will conclude Idol Ground 100’s second ranking announcent ceremony. Among the contestants in this ranking announcent, those who placed 51st to 75th, unfortunately, will no longer···.”
Unlike the survivors, who were called one by one, the eliminated contestants were revealed all at once on the screen in a brutal system.
There were currently two contestants standing up on the platform.
The contestant who had placed 50th and the contestant who had placed 51st.
When the final rankings were announced, both of them burst into tears at the sa ti.
One was sobbing out loud like soone who had lost their country, while the other lifted their head, closed their eyes without a word, and cried quietly.
The one who survived was the forr, and the one eliminated was the latter.
“I really hate this.”
“You have to accept it. Even if it looks cruel, reality is even crueler.”
“You’re right.”
The words “I really hate this” slipped out of my mouth before I knew it, and Yoo Jihae, standing beside , patted my shoulder as she spoke. Her words stuck with .
Was it because she had actually debuted as an idol herself?
Jihae was also sad watching the contestants get eliminated, but unlike the other contestants, she didn’t show any obvious signs of being shaken.
Of course, I didn’t think that being eliminated here ant the contestants’ dreams of becoming idols were over.
They could go back to their agencies and debut there, or use the recognition they’d gained here to find another path, or maybe walk a completely different road altogether.
The problem was that sotis, that thing called reason and that thing called emotion ran on completely separate tracks.
There were tis when you understood sothing in your head but couldn’t accept it emotionally.
For example, when Liu Bei lost Guan Yu, if he had acted rationally, he would have compromised with Sun Quan.
That would have been the more stable option for the future of Shu.
But Liu Bei couldn’t endure, and he went charging in, and that eventually returned as the disaster known as the Battle of Yiling.
In a way, it was a textbook example of what happens when emotion cos before reason.
However,
‘If he’d held back there, he wouldn’t have been Liu Bei.’
If Liu Bei had held back there, would he have been the Liu from the house of Liu, or just another Cao Pi-type figure? Would he have been the eldest of Liu, Guan, Zhang?
That’s why I liked Liu Bei.
These days, there were people who called Liu Bei stupid and said he didn’t have the qualities of a ruler.
But I preferred soone who, even if he got called foolish, jumped into the fire together when his brother died, rather than soone who stayed cold and calculating.
“Everyone, thank you for all your hard work in today’s filming. Starting today, you’ll have a two-day break. Just like with the previous break, anything that happened during filming must absolutely not be revealed to the outside. As for the return ti···.”
While I’d been spacing out for a bit, the program was announcing that filming for the day was over.
At the sa ti, the staff started going over the rules the contestants had to follow during the break.
It was the mont they announced that, now that the second mission, the Position Evaluation, was over, the break period had co around again.
Idol Ground 100’s operating thod: force them to live together for two weeks, then give them a two-day vacation.
Thinking about it now, it really was exquisitely calibrated.
“Ah, I just want to get out of here and lie down on my bed in my room.”
“I want to go ho and watch Idol Ground 100 episodes 3 and 4!”
“The first thing I want to eat once I get outside is spicy stir-fried rice cakes. With extra cheese on top, like the ones from that super-spicy place···!”
“Hot dogs! We absolutely have to order hot dogs too!”
Watching my teammates and the other survivors, who had been sunk in gloom over the eliminated contestants just monts ago, suddenly regain their energy, I couldn’t help but admire the production team’s use of the stick and carrot.
‘This is exactly like a platoon getting weekend leave.’
One of the company commander’s main roles back in the day had been accompanying the platoon mbers on overnight leave.
In the unit I’d been in, once every half-year they allowed each squad to take a group overnight trip within the restricted movent area, and at that ti one officer or NCO had to accompany them.
Honestly, it was a hassle, but unlike , who could go out every weekend, the kids only got that squad overnight once every six months, so I had no choice but to go with them.
And the looks on the platoon mbers’ faces the day before leave were exactly like the expressions on my teammates’ faces right now.
Starting with making plans for what they were going to do once they were out, then excitedly chattering about what they’d eat, what they’d do for fun.
‘There’s definitely soone who did their military service involved in planning this program.’
It really was a wise choice.
If they had made them live together until the end of the program with no breaks for the sake of security, there definitely would have been so serious accidents in the dorm.
But if, even when things were hard or rough, you could think, “If I just hold out for two weeks, I get leave,” the contestants could throw themselves into the effort with burning motivation.
And like now, even when sothing sad happened, using the vacation as an excuse to flip the mood again was a really good thing.
“Now go back to the dorm and pack your things, then we’ll give you back the electronic devices you turned in, and you’ll get on the buses right away.”
While we were all chattering about what we were going to do during the break, a staff mber told us to get ready to leave, and my teammates and I left the auditorium and headed toward the building with the dorms.
Since the dorm was in a remote place, even if they made us all co by ourselves when we checked in, at least when we checked out, they moved us to the MPlay broadcasting station by bus. That was a relief.
If they didn’t, we would’ve had to go back using public transportation, and in that case there would have been a lot of annoying, tiring things.
“Right. Last vacation, there were people who recognized .”
“I thought no one would recognize because my ranking was low, but there were people who did, so I was really surprised!”
“There were even people who asked for an autograph, but I didn’t have a signature yet, so I just wrote ‘Im Yunkyung’ in block letters··· I’m going to make an autograph this break!”
Ever since Idol Ground 100 had beco a hot topic and blown up, a lot more people had started recognizing the contestants, which made it awkward to just wander around public places.
[Our gallery bias’s “natural” concept, right?]
(A picture of Lee Sion in a hoodie with pajama pants on, glancing around inside a convenience store)
↳Now this is a real individual trainee
↳Since she doesn’t have an agency, we get to see this side of her
↳Honestly, if it weren’t for her face, that outfit would be identical to my kid sister lazing around at ho, and that creeped out a little
↳She’s just trying not to make fans feel distant from her
Even I still had a shot of , taken when I went to the convenience store in front of my house to buy cola, floating around the internet.
“Ugh··· I wanted to at least have a al just with us, but that’s not going to happen, huh.”
Nayeon’s regretful voice.
Just a mont ago we’d been saying we should at least go eat together as a team, but once we thought about how, the mont we all went out to eat together, we’d imdiately beco the center of attention, we realized it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Then how about hanging out at my house?”
“Your house?”
“Yes!”
But then Yunkyung suggested that in that case, we could just hang out at her house, and sure enough, she really was still a kid.
“There are seven of us just in our team, you know, Yunkyung. We’re not shaless enough to do that.”
Bringing not one or two friends, but seven, back ho?
If I had tried sothing like that, I would never have let those friends go ho again.
Because the mont they left, there would have been a very high chance that the furious Lady Sukja would make that day my funeral.
Besides, even if you got your parents’ permission to have seven people visit at once, once you were actually at the house, there wasn’t really anything for seven people to do together.
There’s a reason that whenever people feel like there are too many of them, they automatically head to a PC bang, a billiards hall, or a karaoke room.
It’s not that there are so many places to go that they pick those.
It’s that there’s nowhere else to go, so they end up there.
“It’s fine! My house is really big.”
But even after I said that, Yunkyung answered that it didn’t matter because their house was big.
‘What, do they live in a fifty-pyeong apartnt or sothing?’
I was about to tell her we’d go another ti, thinking it was too much to just show up at soone else’s house with no warning, when,
“That’s right! I went to her house with Suyeon last ti, and I think you could fit a hundred people in there just fine!”
Shinyu’s follow-up comnt made go speechless.
***
“Um··· so, Yunkyung?”
“Boss, what’s wrong?”
“This is your house?”
“Yes!”
Gulp.
Before I knew it, I swallowed.
I wasn’t the only one who was thrown by Yunkyung’s answer.
From our leader, Yoo Jihae, to Lee Gahyeon, even to Ryu Ayeon—everyone had gone blank, like they were at a loss for words at the sight in front of us.
Hannam-dong.
One of the neighborhoods in South Korea where housing prices were the highest—that was where Yunkyung’s house was.
–Company commander, people who don’t know anything think the rich all live in Apgujeong or Cheongdam, right? But the real rich live in Hannam-dong. You can’t just move in there just because you have money.
Staff Sergeant Park, who called himself the Warren Buffett of the 7th Division and whose mood supposedly rose and fell in real ti with the stock charts during working hours, which was why the soldiers called him Roller Coaster Park.
Among our company’s officers and NCOs, Park had especially strong interest in investing, and if you ignored everything he said that was about investing, he actually had a surprising number of useful things to say.
Maybe because he always went looking for that kind of information, whenever the talk turned to money, facts popped out of his mouth like so kind of walking wiki.
In my past life, after lunch with the company’s officers and NCOs, we’d been chatting and the subject of Apgujeong building rents had co up by chance, and I rembered Park launching into an impassioned speech about how the real rich weren’t in Apgujeong, they were in Hannam-dong.
And right now, I was starting to think that maybe what Staff Sergeant Park had said back then really was true.
“Are these your friends, Yunkyung?”
“Yeah, Mom! You said you wanted to see the boss’s face in person at least once, rember?”
“Oh my, you’re even prettier in real life. It’s nice to et you.”
“···Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, I left our guests standing outside. Co on in.”
“···Yes.”
A mansion that looked like sothing I’d only ever seen in dramas.
And when the front gate of that mansion opened and a middle-aged woman, who looked rich no matter how you looked at her, ca out to greet us, introduced herself as Yunkyung’s mother, and smiled and told and my teammates to co in, I couldn’t help but answer “Yes” without thinking.
“What kind of family is Yunkyung from?”
“Hey, Geum Shinyu, so you ca here before and didn’t say anything?!”
“It’s just··· Yunkyung wasn’t saying anything, so wouldn’t it have been weird if I did?”
The teammates whispering.
Even soone like , who’d already been through my share of ups and downs, couldn’t get my head on straight at the sight of this place. How much worse must it have been for my teammates?
“Well then, have fun and make yourselves at ho.”
“Mom! That Yupgi Tteokbokki, right? Please order that and so other stuff for us to eat.”
“Yupgi Tteokbokki? Okay.”
The outside of the mansion was overwhelming, but the inside was like soone had transplanted a hotel as-is.
Paintings that looked expensive at a glance were hanging everywhere, and the central staircase right in front of the entrance when you ca in.
For the record, just this room of Yunkyung’s that we were in now felt about the size of my whole house.
Click.
Once Yunkyung’s door finally closed and we heard her mother’s footsteps receding, we imdiately surrounded Yunkyung.
“Yunkyung, what does your father do?”
“My dad? He works overseas, and he said he does so kind of consulting.”
“And your mother?”
“Oh, my mom is the president of XX Departnt Store. But why are you asking, Boss?”
“I’m not the boss anymore, Yunkyung.”
“What?”
“From now on, you’re the one who should be boss.”
In my heart, Second Lieutenant Im Yunkyung had been promoted to four-star general long ago.
***
Tap, tap.
[What’s the point of talking to people who didn’t watch this recording?]
(A photo of Ryu Ayeon and Lee Sion bickering with each other)
「I really want to spoil it for you all, but I can’t, so it can’t be helped. But this stage is sothing you can’t describe with words anyway.
Just look at the pictures.
ㅋㅋㅋㅋ How are you out here calling yourself the gallery bias’s fan when you didn’t even see that stage?」
↳Board owner!!! Please just ban this bastard!
↳If I get banned, I’m not posting the rest of the pics, bye
↳How about we ban the guy who said we should ban this one?
↳Are you really sure they were actually on the sa team as our gallery bias and Ryu Ayeon?
↳No spoilers
↳Why are all the audience reviews like, “If you missed this stage, you’ve lost half your life”?
Kim Jinsoo felt satisfied as he watched the comnts pile up in an instant on his post in the Lee Sion gallery.
The overwhelming sense of superiority created by an imbalance of information was not sothing you often got to experience.
‘My tongue is seriously itching.’
Honestly, if it weren’t for the strict non-disclosure agreent, Jinsoo would have already been spoiling how amazing a stage Sion had shown. But if he did, he’d probably get sued, so it took real effort to hold back.
‘Anyway, it’s a relief we’re at least allowed to post pictures.’
The one saving grace was that as long as the photos weren’t of the stage itself or the inside of the broadcasting station, there was no particular restriction on uploading them.
Thanks to that, the internet was currently buzzing with pictures being scattered by the 500 fans who had gone to the Position Evaluation recording.
[You’re telling Ryu Ayeon and Lee Sion are on the sa team?]
[From the sound of the reviews, that’s basically confird. Everyone’s saying it was insane.]
[The one who’s going insane is ! How am I supposed to wait another two weeks!!!]
[Show what you saw, let see it too]
Jinsoo lost track of ti, snickering as he read the reactions of the fans who had seen the photos.
Of course, Jinsoo had posted his own pictures too, and one of them had spread beyond the gallery and was circulating around other communities.
[How our gallery bias reacts when she runs into a Real Madrid fan]
(A video of Lee Sion doing Cristiano Ronaldo’s celebration and shouting “Siuuu”)
「A fan at the recording told her they beca a Real fan because of her, and she answered with a “Siuuu” right away」
The post Jinsoo had put up on the soccer board was already pinned as an announcent by the board ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) owner.
[Lee Sion’s fan service on her way into the broadcasting station]
(A video of her making a heart over her head and asking people to vote for Lee Gahyeon)
↳Is it even legal to act that cute with that face?
↳I’m going crazy··· I’m already a taken fan! Stop seducing !!!
↳Okay, I give up, just debut already. I’ll go to a fansign even if I have to go into debt.
↳ㅋㅋ Right after this, Lee Gahyeon covered Sion’s mouth and Kim Nayeon and Ryu Ayeon dragged her off by force
↳No one got footage of that? I want to see it too!!!
There were even photos that captured monts he hadn’t seen in person or things he hadn’t been able to photograph himself, so Jinsoo was frantically hopping around Idol Ground 100-related communities.
‘Huh?’
And then one particular post caught his eye.
Sionism.
Lee Sion’s fan café, which had now passed sixty thousand mbers—first place by far among Agbaek contestants, and even compared to idol fan cafés in general, it had a very high mber count. A giant fan café by any standard.
Among the posts there, one title in particular stood out.
[I can’t hold it in anymore, so I’m blowing the whistle]
「I can’t reveal my full personal details, but I work at MPlay.
Recently, I’ve been working on producing Idol Ground 100, and sothing happened during that process that I just couldn’t bring myself to overlook, so I’m here to blow the whistle.
The main point of my accusation is that the program’s main PD gave an order to edit out a specific contestant’s screenti.
I’ve blurred faces and muted parts where nas are ntioned to avoid causing harm to the contestant in question or to innocent production staff if their identities get exposed, so I ask for your understanding.
The attached materials are an audio recording I secretly made and a eting video that contains···」
“What is this?”
At first, Jinsoo had thought it was just another typical troll post, but the more he read, the more he realized it wasn’t trolling at all, but sothing written in earnest.
Before he knew it, his hand had moved to the attachnt the writer had posted.
Unable to resist his curiosity, he clicked it and saw an audio file and a video file pop up in a download window.
***
–Miyoung, even if you step down, Lee Sion can’t.
Miyoung was thinking about the words of variety departnt head Kang Hyukjin.
They were a little hurtful, but true.
Even if she left Idol Ground 100, the program could still keep going, but if Lee Sion left, there was a high chance the entire program would collapse.
‘So even quietly resigning on my own isn’t an option?’
After the Position Evaluation ended, when she had gone to see Kang Hyukjin and revealed that Lee Sion was actually her niece, his face had turned pale.
For the main PD of the country’s hottest, highest-rated program and the contestant who was running in first place with overwhelming popularity to be blood relatives—that was no small problem.
Because of that, Miyoung had originally planned to quietly resign and wrap things up that way.
–Lee Sion is going to go all the way to debut. But if this cos out then, it’ll cause problems all over again. If we’re going to deal with it, now is the ti.
But Kang Hyukjin refused, saying that would just be a stopgap asure, not a solution.
So in the end, Miyoung had no choice but to make a decision.
To choose Operation “Pearl Harbor Attack,” sothing she would never have chosen unless it was the last of the last resorts.
–Then how far can you back up?
–Back you up? If it solves the problem, I’ll do anything!
–Then first, please prepare two tickets for a European cruise.
–What’s that for?
–Because I need a bribe.
When Miyoung made that demand, Kang said that in that case, at least tell him what she was planning to do, and Miyoung went into detail, laying out exactly what Operation Pearl Harbor Attack entailed.
Ring.
“Hello?”
“Senior, it’s Hyuksu. I, uh··· uploaded the thing you ntioned.”
“Okay, good work.”
“But··· are you really going to be okay with this?”
On the other end of Miyoung’s answer, Lee Hyuksu’s voice trembled as he asked.
“Don’t worry. The departnt head already reported everything to the president. I’m busy, I have to get ready, so I’m hanging up.”
Click.
Before Hyuksu could say anything else, Miyoung hung up and steeled herself once more.
‘I’ve already sold out my sister, and I’ve sold out my niece. I can sell myself too.’
It was the mont when the Devil of Ratings finally decided to offer up even herself as a sacrifice for the sake of ratings.
User Comments
0 comments from readers