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Chapter 32

When Only One came up on stage, the response was good from the start. They had the advantage of being the last group, but most of all, they had Kang Hyun-Sung in the group. Thus, the atmosphere of the studio suddenly changed when it was Only One\'s turn to perform.

“Wow.”

“Crazy.”

“The audience’s expressions have changed.”

The change was so obvious that we commented about it. As soon as the lights turned on and the cameras focused on the Only One members, the audience broke out in shouts incomparable from before.

—Kyahhhhhh—!

—Wahhhhhhh—!

“Amazing...”

Shouts burst out as if they had been waiting for this moment all along and seemed to break through the monitor screen. I had thought that not as many Kang Hyun Sung’s fans had come to the set as I expected, but it appeared that my judgment had been too hasty.

‘There are a lot of them now that I see them like this.’ Hearing the cheers made me realize the difference between us and them. The lights turned on, and the Only One member appeared into view. Their color was gold-the color I had wanted at first as it was the color befitting of a main character of a stage.

However, now that I saw the quality of their outfit, I thought, ‘It was better that Only One took gold.’ The outfits clearly looked expensive and were of a whole different quality than the other groups\'s clothes. If we had taken gold, we wouldn’t be able to afford such luxury.

Overall, Only One wore an outfit that actively utilized a simple and classic color combination of black and gold. It was a combination that designer name brands often used, and as expected, it boosted their elegant and luxurious visuals to the fullest. All the members wore black suits and a golden laurel crown on their heads.

“Their outfits are cool...” Yeon-Hoon murmured while staring at the monitor screen as if he was bewitched.

“Yes, it looks cool.” I had to give it to them for this. It probably cost them a lot, and even from a rough glance, I could tell that more than half of what they were wearing were from luxury brands. Then I recalled an interview that Only One did in my past life.

‘Didn’t they say that those all came from Kang Hyun-Sung’s personal finances?’

I had seen an interview where the members said Kang Hyun-Sung used his own money for the stage outfits. Although his temporary group, Yours, did well, it was still only a year-long activity. Thus, it must not have been easy to use such a large amount of money while his future was still unclear.

‘The members said they only knew later on that Kang Hyun-Sung used his own money.’

Only One didn’t seem like struggling idols, but their situation was actually not much different from other groups as they were idols from a company with little assets. Furthermore, even if they succeeded in this program, their contract would be transferred to a joint venture with Jaeil Agency.

During the transfer process, some profits would be returned to the original company, but their trainees would basically be taken away from them. Therefore, it was very unlikely that Kang Hyun-Sung’s company would have provided the budget to support the stage. Yet, this happened all off the record, and the rest of Kang Hyun-Sung\'s team must have thought all their luxury goods came from their current agency. As I thought this, I felt a bit bad for Kang Hyun-Sung.

‘But he’s my competition now.’ I couldn’t back down just because I sympathized with him, as he was my enemy until the end of this competition. As long as there was Only One, it was going to be hard for us to reach 100,000 album sales. Furthermore, we couldn’t debut at an agency like WD Entertainment, so I had to make sure my heart didn’t waver.

“Ohh! It’s starting.” Just in time, Only One began their stage. Perhaps it was because they were trying to showcase the concept of ‘King’ but they brought out a slightly old song that was the representative song of a first generation idol group and rearranged it. However, it appeared they had invested a good sum on the rearrangement as the sound didn\'t sound tacky.

—No moment has been a mistake

—Every step I take

—DON’T HESITATE

—There’s no need to hesitate

—I CAN FIGHT IT

—Don’t be afraid

There was something grand and combative about the sound, a characteristic unique to idols of that generation. I was amazed by the way they managed to reinterpret the song in such a modern way and perform so skillfully that it didn’t make me think of the original singers at all.

They also showed off perfect synchronization in their dance movements, which they had not shown in the introductory performance. Standing in V-formation with Kang Hyun-Sung as the center, the members performed difficult movements while nailing down all the angles to their exact degrees.

—Wahhhhh—~

The atmosphere at the scene was extremely hot.

“They’re really cool.”

“Wow, they’re really good.”

“I think they prepared a lot.”

My members gave their genuine reactions without any fabrication. I thought we would get some good reaction cuts from them, and I also put on a slightly kind expression to not look so cold. Then—

“T-Tae-Yoon, what’s wrong?” Woon asked in a worried tone.

“...What?”

“Just be like your usual self. Why are you strangely twisting the corners of your mouth...”

“Ah, I was smiling.”

“Ah, that was a smile...”

It was a pretty awkward situation.

“Hahaha!” Yeon-Hoon laughed hard and hit me on the shoulder as if he found this whole situation funny. “Were you worried that you’ll look like you’re angry on the show?”

Then he asked me playfully. “It’s okay. You can just explain later that’s how you just look!”

“Won’t it be too late to explain if there’s a need to explain my expression?”

“It’s okay! Don’t worry about it too much!” The atmosphere in the waiting room changed in an instant. However, we needed to focus on the stage and not linger on other topics. The atmosphere turned serious, and we focused on Only One again.

The song passed the first verse and entered into the second verse. Then, it went through the chorus and entered into the dance break section. Frankly, this was the important moment on a competition stage. Unless it was a big or unique concept, this dance break could be seen as the highlight of the stage that made or broke the performance. However...

“What? There’s a gap...” Woon was the first to notice that there was something strange. Before the start of the dance break, Only One members had a round formation with Kang Hyun-Sung as the center. However, the gap between Kang Hyun-Sung and Young-Ho was too wide compared to the other members. Although even this point could be easily overlooked—

“He’s half a beat late.”

Park Young-Ho’s movements appeared to be getting delayed little by little in the dance break section. It was a powerful choreography, so if his movements were lagging behind the beat, his whole dance would be completely messed up. Rather, it would be better for him to skip a movement to match his movements to the beat again.

Yet, Park Young-Ho didn\'t skip a move as if he had an obsession with accomplishing all the set movements. As a result, his movements, which had been slightly delayed in the beginning, began to be noticeably off from the middle of the dance break. The dance break, which should be done in perfect formation and angle, was beginning to break because of Park Young-Ho.

Perhaps, that put too much pressure on Park Young,-Ho and while performing a movement that required using only his lower body and core while sliding across the floor...his ankle twisted.

Gasp!

“W-what!”

It would have been fortunate if only his ankle had been bent, but because of that mistake, he completely messed up the whole movement. The atmosphere in the studio quickly began to cool down. It had already begun to subside when Park Young-Ho was starting to fall behind the beat, but when he twisted his ankle and the group’s formation broke, things became irreversible.

Despite that, the performance continued. Since the group reached the end of the dance break, Only One members couldn’t stop in the middle. Furthermore, their dance movements after the dance break were not as intense as before. A sentimental outro sound rang out, and the stage ended with each member taking an ending pose.

“Ah...”

“Well.”

But the atmosphere was ruined. The members seemed to not know how to respond to the situation as they could be portrayed badly for making the wrong reaction. I was also shocked by this unexpected happening. Yet, I put my feelings aside for a moment and stared at the monitor.

As soon as the stage was over, Kang Hyun-Sung and the other members ran to Park Youn-Ho. I wasn’t sure whether it was because they were sincerely worried or being camera-conscious but Only One’s maknae went down the stage with Kang Hyun-Sung’s help. I didn’t know what was going to happen but...

‘He won’t be able to dance for at least a few weeks.’ It went without saying that it was a painful loss of manpower for Only One.

If he went to an oriental medicine clinic, took medicine, and did all kind of things to manage his injury, he might be able to perform on stage, but I thought, ‘It won’t be easy.’

I thought Park Young-Ho would likely suffer a huge psychological damage. Then I stopped thinking about this as there was no need to be too cold-hearted or too sympathetic.

“Hmm.” With a deep breath, I organized my thoughts and looked at the members. They looked very serious as a whole, and their faces looked concerned. At that moment, the hosts came up on stage and began to make comments.

—We enjoyed Only One’s powerful performance!

Even in this kind of situation, they began to say their assigned lines. I knew I sounded quite merciless, but I thought, ‘It’s not enough to stop the broadcast.’

Since these kinds of events happened often, they couldn’t respond sensitively to everything.

—Now! Please cast your votes for Only One’s performance!

Soon, a rating vote for Only One was held.

‘I wonder what will happen.’ Something completely out of my expectations occurred, and I had no idea how this would affect the outcome.

* * *

The audience, who had been deeply moved by Siren’s stage, gaped when they saw Only One’s stage. It wasn’t because the quality of their stage was overwhelming; rather, Siren\'s stage was much more worth watching from the audience’s point of view.

‘It seemed as if he really twisted his ankle.’ The reason why she couldn’t keep her mouth shut was because of Park Young-Ho’s mistake earlier. The angle in which he twisted his ankle made even the viewers squirm in pain.

—Now! Please cast your votes for Only One’s performance!

It was to the extent that the hosts\' usual remarks sounded cold-hearted. Of course, since they were only doing this because the production team made them, she couldn’t criticize them. But now, it became difficult to rate them.

‘A? B? C?’

Only One had definitely made a mistake, and a mistake that made a big impact on the quality of the stage. So if she had to give them a score, it would be a C. However, the overall quality of the performance was good so considering that, it would be okay to give them a bit higher score.

‘But it’s definitely not an A.’ She was sure of this. Then, she looked around and thought, ‘Will everyone here give an A though?’

Most of the people around her were obviously Kang Hyun-Sung’s fans, and if they all gave Only One an A, the girl thought that they might win first place in the contest today.

‘No way...Will that really happen?’ She thought for a moment that even the fans would be fairer in this kind of evaluation but soon came to her senses.

‘...There’s no way that would happen.’ She wanted Siren to win first place, and it was obvious Kang Hyun-Sung’s fans would give Only One an A regardless of whether a member made a mistake or not. Thus, she pressed C with a hopeful heart.

Of course, she didn’t know how much her vote would affect this contest, but she pressed C because of how unfair the situation was. At that time, she didn’t know that there were more people who shared the same thoughts as her than she expected, and what kind of results this would lead to.

* * *

After Only One’s rating time, a short break followed.

“We’ll now go up to the stage for the ranking announcement!” The production crew wandered around the rooms saying this.

Sigh.

“Everyone, let’s go.”

“Let’s go!”

We forcibly pulled ourselves up. It was finally the time to announce our rankings and although the results were obvious, we had to go.

‘Hmm.’ Park Young-Ho’s mistake, our successful performance, and the fact that a smaller number of Kang Hyun-Sung’s fandom had been gathered than I expected gave me hope. Combing all these factors together, I thought, ‘Maybe our ranking might be higher than I expected.’

It might be really different from what I expected. I started to think that maybe the rankings would be the opposite of what I expected, but perhaps, I was hoping for too much.

“Tae-Yoon, let’s go!”

“Yes.” I put aside my miscellaneous thoughts and followed Yeon-Hoon out of the waiting room. I just prayed and hoped for good results.