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Chapter 19

The performance came to an end, and we did everything we possibly could in the 120-second time limit given to us. My heart thumped hard, and I continued to focus on the cameras until the very end. Though it was clear who would become the ending fairy* among us, I knew I couldn’t relax my facial expression since it would affect the producers’ impression of us. [1] After shooting our ending scene, my group members and I bowed deeply towards the producers.

“Thank you!” I said and checked my group members’ faces. All their faces appeared bright. While doing the performance, they must have also sensed it.

‘...We are first place.’ Perhaps, Only One’s performance had better stage quality and refinement, but in terms of the whole show and the impact it caused, we were number one. Do-Seung cautiously approached me from the side and whispered that I did a good job. He could’ve just told me later, but he appeared urgent to tell me this. Well, this didn’t feel bad.

Another proof that we were number one was the other contestants’ faces. Besides Bleshu, the rest of the three teams looked disgruntled. Members of Luminin especially looked sour, and I wondered how enraged they would look later in the show if they were showing their annoyance so openly like this now. It was hard to ignore them when all six of them were glaring at us passionately.

Only One stared at us unaffectedly. They seemed to control their expressions for the cameras and clapped and said a comment or two for the show. But among them, Kang Hyun-Sung didn’t show much of a reaction and continued to stare at me piercingly. He had stared at me after his own stage was over. It appeared something about my behavior bothered him. Perhaps, he was the type to not consider anyone else around him when something bothered him and blatantly provoked a fight like this.

“That’s the end of Siren’s performance! Their performance was so refreshing that it seemed to clear my eyes!” The hosts, Kim Young-Jin and Nahyun both said their commentaries after going up the stage. We stood like decorative figures as we waited for the hosts to finish speaking.

“I expected you all to do a fun performance as soon as I saw your sailor uniforms, but it’s more vibrant and joyful than I expected!” Kim Young-Jin said and asked. “And who can we give credit to for the wonderful idea behind this performance?”

I wondered why they had to always ask such questions when they didn’t even seem that interested.

“My group members and I all created this performance after discussing it together. I made the first suggestion though,” I replied. My group members smiled faintly like they were swelling with pride and looked at me.

“I’ve never heard this song before. Did you all perhaps produce this song?” Nahyun asked.

I had many things to say about the song we used for this performance, ‘Sailing’. First, this song didn’t belong to another singer.

“I added lyrics onto a melody that I found on SoundClown and used it,” I replied.

“Ah, then did you guys only write the lyrics?”

“Yes.”

“And who wrote...?”

“I wrote the lyrics.” As soon as I declared this, the hosts’ expressions changed. Both appeared genuinely surprised. It seemed I didn’t appear like the type to write lyrics though I used to be a web novelist in my past life. Yet, that wasn’t even the entire story behind this Sailing song.

Two weeks ago, after we decided on wearing sailor uniforms, I endlessly searched through SoundClown to find a suitable song. At least that was what I pretended to do since there was already an account that I had in mind.

The account’s name was ‘victory 0505’. It was a very small account that hardly anyone knew, but the reason why I chose this account was that the ‘0505’ at the end of this id represented one of my member’s birthdays— the birthday of Do-Seung who kept smiling awkwardly, hoping that the conversation about our song choice would end soon.

This ‘victory0505’ was a secret account that Do-Seung hid from us, and after finding it, I pretended not to know about it. When I suggested asking this account owner if we could use one of their melodies, Do-Seung disagreed at first, while everyone else agreed. It was only inevitable because that was his secret account.

Yet, he couldn’t win against our continuous pressure, and he agreed to the idea in the end. Then, he even took the initiative, saying that he would personally contact the account owner. I almost laughed at this suggestion since he was basically saying he would ask himself for permission for the song.

But that was how the song, ‘Sailing’ was created. Its lyrics were created by me while the melody was composed by ‘victory0505’ or a.k.a. Kang Do-Seung. The way I found this truth wasn’t a happy one because it was when I was looking through my deceased members’ goods in my past life that I found out Do-Seung had a secret composing account.

It seemed he wasn’t confident about his work and kept it a secret from us but simultaneously wanted to receive some feedback and made a secret public account. The ‘victory0505’ was still an unknown account, but I couldn’t let it remain that way forever.

‘I need to quickly spread the word that it’s Do-Seung’s account,’ I thought. After this shooting was over, I needed to have an honest talk with him. Anyway, that was how our performance ended successfully.

“All right! With this, the first round of performances for The Showcase2 First Chance comes to an end!” Kim Young-Jin said and declared the official end of the first event. Then, another announcement declaring the end of the first shooting rang out.

“We are going to take a short break before resuming again!” The second shooting was going to start after break time.

“Ahhh! Good job!” As soon as the shooting came to an end, Yeon-Hoon ran toward me and hugged me. “Good job Tae-Yoon.”

“I think it was a good idea for us to wear sailor uniforms.”

“I like the song choice too.”

My other group members also added. It looked like they were all confident that our concept had been effective. It was obvious by the producers’ response. Though they must’ve been tired after seeing all the previous performances, the biggest cheer exploded for our last performance.

“You guys did such a good job!” It was then the members from Bleshu approached us.

“Really? Thank you!” Yeon-Hoon rushed to them instantly and responded with a bright smile on his face. The leader of Bleshu appeared a bit taken aback by Yeon-Hoon’s brightness once again.

“Because the mood of your outfits and song was different from the others, it was more memorable.”

“It was our maknae’s idea!”

“He really is the smartie maknae.”

“...Haha,” I laughed humorlessly at the nickname they gave me.

“Mr. Yeon-Hoon, your expression and singing were especially impressive,” Bleshu’s leader began again.

“Ah no~ Don’t flatter me~”

“No, it seemed as if the song was made for you.”

“It’s because the composer of this melody did such a good job!”

“I would also like to know who this composer is.”

As soon as the conversation reached the topic of the song’s composer, Do-Seung flinched, and I pretended not to notice anything. Do-Seung was probably feeling embarrassed that his secret had been revealed to the public and simultaneously, feeling a sense of satisfaction that his work was receiving praise. I personally hoped that he was feeling more of the latter so that he would be more cooperative when I suggested revealing the identity behind his account.

“I was also really surprised that Mr. Tae-Yoon wrote the lyrics for the song.”

“Ah, thank you.”

“Did you have previous experiences?”

“Ah, yes. Because I had some interests in that area, I read some books about writing lyrics.” It wasn’t a complete lie since I read two books about the topic in two days to convince my group members to let me do the job. And the books actually helped me.

“We also didn’t know Tae-Yoon could write lyrics.”

“Our smartie maknae has a lot of abilities~” Dong-Jun approached me and moved my arms like a machine. I didn’t resist and let him be since I thought he would stop after a while. It was then I sensed something was off and looked around. Though it was break time and an opportunity for other teams to get to know each other, the atmosphere was very tense.

“Hm, are we the only ones talking?” I asked. The only voices that could be heard were Bleshu and us. Luminin, OnebyOne, and Only One sat in their individual spots in complete silence. The Only One members gathered in a circle and were discussing only amongst themselves while Luminin and OnebyOne were blatantly staring at us. It was hard to decipher whether they were looking at us warily or staring blankly in our direction. Nevertheless, it made us feel awkward that we were the only ones talking.

‘Seems like the ending of this shooting won’t be pleasant.’ I could predict the end of today’s shoot.

Then, we heard another announcement. “We are going to resume shooting!” Bleshu and our group returned to our own spots and the hosts, Kim Young-Jin and Nahyun, also returned to the set. The electronic display and the stage’s lights turned on again.

“All-righty! We just finished our first round of performances for the show! Is everyone having fun?”

“Yeeees!”

“Ohhh!”

The shooting started with Kim Young-Jin’s commentary, and we responded to it as expected of us.

“We saw each of the group’s spectacular performances just before. Is there anyone who can guess what’s coming up next?”

Who wouldn’t be able to guess?

“The highlight of The Showcase! It’s time to decide your ranks!”

“Oh....Ohhh!”

“Haha, hahaha.”

Everyone’s faces stiffened slightly hearing that our ranks would be decided. Though we expected this to happen, it still worried us when the time came. Yet, I wasn’t too nervous since I had a general guess as to what the list would look like.

“Today’s ranks won’t affect your total points which would decide the winner of the show. But if you are dreaming of being the final winner, first place is definitely something to strive for because there is a special privilege associated with it!”

As the host said, there was nothing bad about ranking first in the first meeting. Yet, that wasn’t the problem.

“Okay then, I will tell you all how the ranks will be decided,” Kim Young-Jin said and rested momentarily. “You all will be the ones to decide! Each group will decide who did the best and worst job and we will decide on the ranks by the results!”

The problem was this very unfair and cruel method of deciding the ranks. It was the method that made many people insult this show when it was aired in my past life. In The Showcase 1, the voting was more democratic since professionals and producers were the ones who made anonymous votes.

Yet, this voting method was not only undemocratic but also immoral. It was basically telling us to rip each other apart and fight. Naturally, the ranks won’t really be based on skills or performance but according to how we saw fit. My group members appeared surprised by this turn of events and scanned their surroundings.

“You all will now move to your designated voting booths behind the stage. You all just need to decide on a group that you think was the best and another one you think did the worst! Moreover, you are not allowed to choose your own teams for either of the two categories!” After finishing the explanation, the host continued, “Okay then! We will go in the reverse order of the performances. Siren! You guys are up first!”

We were the first ones to go voting.

“Ugggh.”

“This is strangely making me nervous.”

“Don’t worry, you guys~”

My group members said while moving. Then, when we arrived at the voting booth, we discussed which team was the best and worst.

“Who should we pick? Haaa.”

“It’s hard to choose.”

“It’s not easy.”

I didn’t care too much about who to choose because I could already see the general ranks. If my guesses were correct, we will probably be...

‘Last place.’ Fifth out of the five teams. It was only expected since they gave us the order that we had to make the vote amongst ourselves. It was the industry’s standard to stomp down the rising rookie before they could peak.

It wasn’t like we had some cheat code like Kang Hyun-Sung nor did we have a big company backing us. In the end, we were still just a pre-debut group that did a good job on our first performance. They must have all sensed the upcoming threat and realized that they needed to stop us before it was too late.

1. Refers to the idol group member who gets a close shot at the end of the performance. ?