Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“Yeah, baby! This is great! Our team is full of talent and good looks!” exclaimed the gold Lee Sejin with a grin. Everyone nodded shyly as if they agreed. It was to be expected since this was the stage in the game where everyone desperately wanted to get along. I was relieved to find that all of them appeared to possess at least a little tact.

“Oh, by the way, Sejin,” the gold Lee Sejin called to the former child actor. “We have the same name… Should we come up with something to make it easier to address us?”

“Huh?” the former child actor said.

“That’s a fantastic idea!” one of the gold-ranked guys cried.

“I know, right? How about we call you Actor Sejin, given your background?”

The gold-grade contestant who’d been the first member of the team added with a grin, “Hey since all you have going for you is your size, you can be Big Sejin.”

“Big Sejin? Hey, that's pretty good! What do you think, Sejin?” the gold Sejin asked.

The surly boy bit his lip as if holding back what he really wanted to say, before finally settling on, “I prefer to just go by my name.”

“Oh… okay.”

The mood soured instantly, and the gold Lee Sejin quickly jumped in, “That’s fine. Everyone, please call me Big Sejin from now on!”

“Sure thing!”

“Nice nickname!”

The conversation came to an end with a quick round of applause. We’d begun introducing ourselves to one another when the emcee spoke through the microphone again.

“Contestants, have you had time to become acquainted?”

“Please, let us choose our own song,” one of the members of my team muttered desperately. That wasn’t to be the case, of course.

“Now then… Each team will be assigned a song!”

“Wow, really?”

“The songs are random, too?”

Everyone already looked tired. The emcee waved his hand, placating, and said playfully, “Come now! You’ll be assigned a hit song from the agency you selected! No need to be disappointed!”

Hearing this seemed to improve the general mood of the room a little.

“Now then, the wheel up front will spin and your team will press the button to stop the wheel, hopefully on the song of your choosing! Contestants at the front of each line, please come forward!”

My team members suddenly became excited.

“Bro! You can do this!”

“Choose an amazing song for us!”

“Oh, man. Looks like I’ll have to show you what I’m made of,” the first contestant muttered arrogantly as he stepped forward.

“Ready… go!”

“Ugh!” the guy said, pressing the button far too quickly. Big Sejin—I decided to call him this since he’d come up with the nickname himself—muttered from beside me, “Couldn’t you have at least looked before you hit the button?”

The wheel spun slowly, and we could make out a few of the song titles as they went by.

[Sangun / VTIC]

[LIFE / VTIC]

[Eternal Song / VTIC]

VTIC was a male idol group that currently held the record for the highest-selling album.

“They’re all not bad… Please pick a good one!” Choi Wongil muttered plaintively.

I quietly waited for the wheel to slowly grind to a halt.

[To a New World / Marshmallow]

A terrible silence fell over us, and everyone but me stared at the wheel with disbelieving eyes.

“Wh-what the hell? Is this for real?” the guy responsible for pressing the button said. The production team behind the camera gave no reaction, however—which meant that there had been no mistake.

“Wait, songs sung by female idols are included?”

“There are girl group songs, too?”

The other teams were talking all at once, asking similar questions, though they weren’t nearly as flummoxed as us. My team members looked overwhelmed.

“Uh… wait. That song is about flower fairies, right?”

“Yeah, it was… their debut song.”

“To a New World” was an innocent, dreamy song, conceptually based on flower fairies. What was more, it was their debut song. The song hadn’t reached the top of the charts, as it had been released before Marshmallow had adopted their cheesy-cutesy concept.

“Ah! Thank you!”

“No way!”

I could hear another group cheering. Perhaps they’d been given a good song. It wasn’t surprising, since the wheel was full of good songs. Then came the real kicker.

“Aaaah!”

“Yes! You did it!”

The team who had gathered behind the same sign as us had drawn VTIC’s “Sangun.” The song had been the title track of the album that went on to receive artist of the year, awarded to them by the largest music site in the country. It was the biggest hit song out right now.

Our rival team jumped up and down as they hugged, cheering. They were acting like they’d already won, in contrast to the worry that previously hung over them since most of them were of a lower grade.

As for us, our team had fallen completely silent. None of my teammates seemed able to handle the shock. And how did I feel, you might ask? We actually managed to dodge a bullet. I was relieved since I’d realized that I’d been stupid to choose this agency in the first place.

“Sangun?”

I’d have done just about anything to avoid that song. We were incredibly lucky. In that sense, things were looking up for us in this round. Though none of them seem to realize it yet.

As I watched my teammates gather, all wearing glum expressions, I decided this was a good thing. They would probably be more willing to cooperate if they thought they’d found themselves in the middle of a crisis.

***

“I can’t get the key right.”

Had I really hoped they’d be cooperative? Strike that—I’d clearly expected too much from them. One of them was even behaving as if we’d already lost.

“Wongil, we shouldn’t give up hope…”

“I’ve tried it over and over. It’s obviously impossible…” Choi Wongil stared at the floor gloomily, before suddenly saying with false innocence, “Uh, I think it’s because it was originally a girl’s song so when it’s changed into a male’s key it doesn’t sound right. I could probably do a part with a higher key…” He glanced in my direction.

He’s asking for my part. I’d been slated for the position of main vocalist right from the beginning thanks to the enthusiastic recommendations from the three gold contestants on our team. No doubt because Choi Wongil’s grade was so low, he hadn’t been able to say a peep when I put the badge on.

But, now he’d seen his opportunity. I grinned at him. “Should we change then?”

Big Sejin slapped my leg. “Hey, don’t get his hopes up like that. You should be helping him get his part down, man! What are you thinking?” He was able to turn my comment into a joke with casual ease. It was clear he wasn’t new to this game.

There’s obviously more to him than just a big mouth. Hiding my doubts, I reiterated. “No, it’s really all right. If we’re going to switch, we should do it early before we start practicing the moves.”

“Y-you mean that?” Choi Wongil asked.

“Sure,” I replied calmly.

The younger boy looked suspicious, but he quickly nodded, worried I would change my mind. “Then I’d like to take the chorus of the first verse…”

“Okay. I’ll do the bridge, then.” I agreed easily.

“Huh?”

“You wanted to switch, didn’t you? That’s the part you’re having trouble with, isn’t it?”

Choi Wongil nodded reluctantly. He seemed loath to part with the portion of the song he’d claimed he couldn’t sing. He’d obviously just wanted the chorus, but apparently, he didn’t want to lose the bridge, either. Thinking back, he hadn’t been this messy in the past. Maybe being assigned a silver grade had really rattled him. He seemed like he was coming apart at the seams a little.

Big Sejin glanced at me, then at Choi Wongil. He sighed imperceptibly. I guess he was really hoping I’d do the chorus for the first verse. He spoke cheerily, hiding his disappointment. “Okay, we can distribute the lines like that.”

That meant one main position remained for us to assign, and I could feel the gold contestants tensing even though they tried to hide it.

“Now all we have to decide on is who’ll be the main dancer.”

I raised my hand before Big Sejin could say any more. “I have an idea.”

“What?”

“If it’s okay with all of you, I’d like us to think about how we’ll arrange the song before we choose the main dancer.”

“Huh?”

The arrangement was the most crucial part of our performance, but up until now, everyone had avoided thinking about it subconsciously. “To a New World” was an innocent song meant to be performed by female idols. And that fresh, girly innocence was… going to be very difficult for us to execute, to say the least. Many people assumed that all you needed was to be pretty, but that was totally off the mark.

It wasn’t easy to make a strong impact with such a concept. In order to leave an impression on the audience in a survival show with a song like this, you either had to be a ridiculously good performer or have some sort of special charm. My whole team seemed to know this much, at least. The first opinion one of them offered was this:

“Well… Why don’t we change the lyrics to be more powerful?”

“Give it a stronger beat?”

“Yeah. We could change the ‘to a new world’ part so that it’s more forceful.”

The first gold contestant… I was getting tired of all these qualifiers. I resolved to just think of him as Goldie #1.

This was his opinion—making the song more impactful was an idea that any contestant with their wits about them might be expected to consider. The only problem was that it would be very difficult to make this song sound more forceful.

The lyrics went something like this:

I knew it out of the blue

I was lost in an unfinished timeline

It’s a maze I have to get through

Save me, help me untwine

I’m wilting

This little space in my heart (little flower)

Is waiting to bloom again

Come find me, I need a fresh start

This was the first verse. If we wanted the song to feel more ambitious, we had to change the lyrics so that the singer was the subject, but that would cause a disconnect from the rest of the song’s lyrics.

The chorus was an urgent request, begging the listener to find the singer quickly.

Step by step

I hear your strides

Ringing in my ears

Don’t hesitate to be my guide

To a new world

Come to me

Come to me

It’s dazzling, your paradise

Come to me

Come to me

A melody of love will be your asking price (it never ends)

“Would we have to change the ‘come to me’ parts as well?”

“Uh, we could change it to something like ‘come to you,’ maybe…”

Goldie #1 trailed off, scratching his head. He was probably realizing that this was hardly the only problem.

“Then we’d have to change everything from the ‘help me untwine’ part, wouldn’t we?”

“Hmm…”

Because the chorus focused so much on the listener’s actions, changing the lyrics to say “I’ll come to you” or something similar wouldn’t match the nuance of the next part of the song.

“If we do it like that, we’ll have to change all of the lyrics.”

“Yes… But I’m not sure that would be fair.”

And we had no way of knowing if the production team would allow us to give the song such a major facelift, either.

As they slowly realized the gravity of the situation we’d found ourselves in, they fell silent. Big Sejin quickly changed the subject.

“Why don’t we decide on the arrangement after we’ve spoken to the trainers? I think it’d be better to practice the moves so we can get some feedback from them while we’re at it. What do you think, Moondae?”

“That sounds fine. Let’s do that,” I said, agreeing with him.

The only reason I’d brought up the arrangement was that I wanted to unsettle them. The more desperate our situation seemed, the less likely they were to argue with my suggestions. Though even if I hadn’t tried to shake them up, I supposed they were all about to realize the trouble they were in once they saw the choreography.

“Okay! I’m playing the dance video!” Big Sejin said.

Everyone crowded around the tablet he was holding. Though most of them had probably heard the chorus before, none of them seemed to remember the dance moves all that well. As expected, it didn’t take more than fifteen seconds for them to begin voicing their complaints.

“Oh no…”