“Today’s last contestant for the entrance ceremony stage. Contestant number 100, trainee Lee Sion, please come up to the stage!”The MC’s words rang out, and everyone’s gazes focused on me.“Unni, fighting!”Just as I was about to stand up, Suyeon beside me clenched a fist and sent me a fervent look.‘What if I just desert right this second, exactly like this?’I’m pretty fast at running, so people would only watch my desertion in vain without even knowing what had happened.Then I’d bolt home in a flash, cut off all contact for a while, and go into hiding.Of course Aunt would come to kill me, but surely Madam Sukja would protect her one and only daughter, wouldn’t she?‘Or not? She might actually team up with her.’A sigh escaped me on its own.If only my number had been earlier, I could’ve just gotten humiliated once and been done with it, and that would’ve been fine, but—‘Did Ryu Ayeon bear some grudge against me or what?’It felt so unfair that my stage happened to be right after Ryu Ayeon’s.‘I have nothing to point out about this stage. This might be the wrong thing to say as a judge, but, contestant Ryu Ayeon.’‘Yes.’‘Thank you for showing us a good stage.’I had never seen anything like that in my life.Honestly, it would be a lie to say I had no prejudice about idols.‘Idols? Aren’t they just kids with no skill who push through on being pretty or handsome?’That kind of prejudice.But seeing it up close today, I realized that was my shallow thinking.What Ryu Ayeon showed as she returned to her seat like she was changing shifts shattered my entire perception of idols.— A drama that sparkles like a starThe whole thing is my stage aloneIt was a song I was hearing for the first time.It was choreography I was seeing for the first time.But when Ryu Ayeon sang the highlight part of the song, goosebumps broke out all over me.How can someone dance that intensely and sing with a beautiful voice without a single strained expression?Why did the stage with just Ryu Ayeon look fuller than the ones crafted by multiple other contestants?My head filled with questions I couldn’t understand, but my eyes stayed fixed on the stage, leaving me only to stare blankly at Ryu Ayeon.“Mm… you’re the last contestant. You’re an unaffiliated individual trainee—what’s your trainee career, by any chance?”“Three…”“Three years?”“No… three weeks.”“Pardon?”But I had no more time to think about Ryu Ayeon’s stage.Unable to flee, before I knew it I’d ended up on stage, and the judges started their questions as if they’d been waiting.When I said my trainee period was three weeks, they made horrified faces.— Sion, from now on I’ll be making your story. Just follow the script I give you!Behind the flustered judges, I caught sight of PD Kim Miyoung, who asks whether she doesn’t look like she’s in her twenties but clearly looks like a woman in her thirties to anyone, wearing a fishy smile.— Your lack of trainee career will get found out immediately anyway, so it’s better to tell the truth.It was certainly persuasive, so I had no choice but to go along.“Then contestant Lee Sion, how did you end up participating in Idol Ground 100 this time?”Having shaken off the fluster, judge Hyeryeong followed up with a sharp question.Up until now, except when pointing out stages, Hyeryeong had always treated contestants with a gentle attitude, but for some reason her tone now carried a distinctly sharpened feel.— And the judges will obviously see that negatively. You could end up looking like someone who’s just trying to get on TV, not someone sincere.Kim Miyoung. Is she a seer?As things flowed exactly like Aunt said they would, I felt relieved that I hadn’t run away earlier.With foresight like this, she would definitely have dug some kind of trap in preparation for me trying to escape.“I’ve never once lived by my own will.”“Pardon?”“When I was young, I actually entered a gifted education center. My mother had a strong passion for education.”I began to make eyes like I was taking out a bad memory.I’d never learned acting, but it wasn’t difficult.Because I really was sad right now.‘Ryu Ayeon, why did you have to put on that kind of stage right in front of me!!!’At any rate, thanks to my passionate performance, before I knew it the atmosphere of the filming site was changing from a variety show to a documentary.“After that I acted only according to my mother’s wishes, but what I really wanted wasn’t studying—it was to be an idol.”“How did you come to want to be an idol?”“At first it was just curiosity, but when I saw idols’ stages I thought they were so cool. So at some point I started to think I wanted to stand on a stage like that too.”As we talked, the judges’ mood had softened considerably.Until just now they’d had eyes full of suspicion and wariness toward me, but now those eyes had changed to sympathy and warmth.— A story always needs a villain. I’m sorry to unni, but we’re going with the Cinderella-and-stepmother strategy.I sincerely apologized to Mom deep in my heart.But all of this was part of the contract process to receive 1,000,000 won, so Madam Sukja would understand.Filial piety is like vacation homework.You shouldn’t cram it, but you end up cramming it.If I earn 1,000,000 won, hit it big with Bitcoin, and then do even greater filial piety with that, everything will be resolved.“Rather than the life my mother set out any longer, I want to try living for the dream I want…”— If you can squeeze out tears here, squeeze them out!Honestly, when I first heard Aunt’s script, I wondered how I was supposed to cry when I’m not even an actor.‘It works?’As I recalled the harsh oppression I’d received from Madam Sukja all this time (back-smacks, getting my butt kicked, spoon forehead spike, etc.), I felt the tears flow on their own.“I liked contestant Lee Sion’s answer—I could feel your sincerity. To be honest, since you’re an individual trainee and have never been with an agency, I was very worried. But with the passion you just showed, I think you can do well enough.”“Well, no one is perfect from the start. I hope you learn a lot in Idol Ground 100 this time.”“Running toward the dream you want is always cool whenever I see it. It makes me want to cheer for you.”“…Thank you.”I’m going to lose it.Did I unexpectedly have talent as an actor?Seeing the judges’ faces sending encouragement with suddenly warm eyes, I felt the emotion called guilt—which had been sealed since childhood—quietly raise its head.Cheok.But even that guilt vanished completely when I saw Aunt behind the judges, wearing a satisfied smile and sneaking me a thumbs-up.That demon of ratings had surely lost human emotion.“But we’ll evaluate the stage coldly. What song have you prepared today?”The heartwarming atmosphere was brief.As if they’d now finished grasping me, the judges asked to see the stage I’d prepared.“I…”Now it was a time I couldn’t avoid.***‘This is fun!’Hyeryeong could hardly keep herself from bursting out in laughter.The stage she had just witnessed was, in a different sense, something she was seeing for the first time in her life—absurd, but beyond that, it was entertaining.“She’s completely different from how she looks, isn’t she?”“You felt that too, unni?”“Yeah. Honestly, I thought I was going to scold her after the stage, but without realizing it I just kept laughing.”Choreographer Lee Jungyoon, who was serving as a judge alongside Hyeryeong, had a fairly close relationship with her.Having handled several of G.G.’s choreographies, they’d grown close while suffering together.One reason Hyeryeong accepted the ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ Idol Ground 100 judge position was also because Jungyoon agreed to participate with her.“She’s really brazen.”Even as she spoke, the smile wouldn’t leave Jungyoon’s lips.“Exactly. Normally, if you’re that bad, you either shrink on your own or act more passive.”“And weirdly, the angles are still set, huh?”“Right. The dancing ignored the beat and the connections were a mess, but weirdly, she still hit the angles.”The stage just shown by the last contestant, Lee Sion, was shock and horror.There’s a term called vicarious embarrassment.It means that when someone other than yourself does something embarrassing or laughable, even the person watching feels shame as if it happened to them.That was exactly what Lee Sion’s stage did.A complete mess of a stage that would make the viewer feel shame on their own.‘I knew she wouldn’t be able to do it since she had no trainee period, but the fact that she brazened it out to the end is unbelievable.’But more than the lack of skill, what amazed Hyeryeong and Jungyoon was that contestant Lee Sion carried the stage through to the end.Usually, with a failed stage like this, you get discouraged by the gazes around you from the middle and the stage turns even more into a cesspool.Contestant No. 100, Lee Sion, however, left a deep impression with her expression alone—confident enough not to lose to Ryu Ayeon.“Her visual is a cheat.”“Don’t even start. Honestly, even that stage—if an experienced director cut it into shots and edited it, they’d probably make it look plausible, you know?”Skill aside, it seemed there was also the fact that in terms of visual alone, she was the best among this round’s contestants.It felt like she covered the wrecked singing and dancing with her face.“But unni, it seems you didn’t catch on either.”“Catch what?”At Jungyoon’s question, Hyeryeong put on a meaningful expression and began to tease.“This is the kind of thing only actives like me can recognize.”“Hey, what is it?”“Do you know she didn’t take a single breath during the stage just now?”“What? No… wait a second.”At Hyeryeong’s words, Jungyoon hurriedly recalled the stage they had just seen.As she went back through her memory step by step, the image of Sion not taking a single breath throughout the entire stage came back to her.“What?! That even possible?”“It’s not. Especially since ‘that song’ looks playful, but you know how hard it is to do yourself.”Hyeryeong knew that the song Sion had chosen was by no means an easy one.People might say, ‘That’s hard?’ when they hear it, but there’s a big difference between watching and doing.And this song especially was like that.On the surface it looks mild and easy—choreography that, in a way, looks like kids’ calisthenics.‘If you actually try singing it, you’re panting in less than a minute.’Because the original singer was extremely skilled, they digested it easily; the difficulty itself was far higher than most songs.Yet that kind of song—though it was a complete mess—she sang it through to the end without taking a single breath.“Can you do it?”“Me? You want the honest truth?”“Yeah. I’m suddenly interested.”“Secret.”“What is that, since when is that allowed!”Answering “secret” just to tease Jungyoon, Hyeryeong thought:‘I can’t. And if I can’t, how many female singers in Korea could sing it like that?’Hyeryeong was confident in her own skill.Back at debut, she’d gritted her teeth to erase the evaluation that she was weak in vocals, and later even took main vocal parts.But even for Hyeryeong, she could cover the song any time; to follow it the way Sion just showed, without taking a single breath—that, she didn’t think she could do.***“I had no idea unni had those circumstances… sniff.”A nasal, sniffling sob beside me.“It’s okay.”“I thought I was the only one having a hard time, but unni has been nurturing a dream even under your parents’ oppression! You’re really amazing.”Please be quiet.To shut Suyeon’s mouth, I wanted to use force if I could.F grade.The wretched grade label stuck to my number tag made me want to die of embarrassment, and on top of that Suyeon beside me was making a fuss, T-bagging that it was such a moving stage, and I was about to go insane.‘They’ll edit this, right? No matter how crazy Aunt is for ratings, she wouldn’t sell out her niece, would she?’If the footage of my stage just now were to air, I might have to live a life of involuntary seclusion rather than voluntary seclusion.Whether she knew my heart or not, Suyeon was busy just saying it was a cool stage.B grade.What made me feel even more miserable was the B grade sign stuck to Suyeon’s number tag.“It seems the judges saw me favorably.”Unlike how she had been trembling until she went out, Suyeon finished her stage stably and returned, even sounding humble.To think I’d even given clueless advice to a kid like this.I felt even more like disappearing somewhere.“They say we’re moving to the dorm now—I hope I get the same room as unni.”“…Okay.”No, I have no confidence I can keep looking at this kid’s face.I’d rather be with strangers; I didn’t want to be with someone I knew who had seen my disgrace.But—“Unni, we really are in the same room!!!”Heaven had forsaken me.

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