‘Ah, f-ck. For real.’
As if by habit, Go Youngin murmured a curse inside his head and buried his face in both hands. A groan slipped out on its own.
[ Loading……. ]
[ Processing……. ]
[ ……. ]
[ Reset complete. ]
The flashy 3D hologram floating in midair blinked as if to tease him, printing out letters in light.
The hologram looked exactly like the kind of status window you’d see in a game.
The eyes peeking through his fingers rolled toward the hologram and then went unfocused, as if his reason had slipped.
The deep shadows under his eyes and his pale complexion were full of a sickly look, like someone who hadn’t slept properly for days.
It was a reset so many times over he couldn’t even count anymore.
He had been sent back to the past yet again.
He had no idea how long he would have to keep doing this wretched thing.
Go Youngin let out a long sigh.
‘F-cking status window.’
This time, there really was nothing to do but sigh.
***
─Ding
[ < 100 Conditions for Becoming the Perfect Idol > ]
[ We help you become the best idol. ]
“…W-what is this.”
Young Go Youngin made a dazed noise and stared blankly up at the translucent something that appeared before his eyes.
Appearing out of the blue with no sign at all, the thing just popped up in front of Go Youngin.
‘Am I dreaming right now?’
A translucent screen floating in the air?
On top of that, it sparkled pointlessly in three dimensions and looked just like the interface people in games call a status window.
Even as he saw it with his own eyes, it made no sense, so he couldn’t properly grasp what was happening.
He had just been walking down the street like always. So why?
“I must be crazy.”
[ Condition 18│A perfect idol does not make reckless remarks or act carelessly anywhere. ]
“Excuse me…?”
Go Youngin blinked stupidly.
So what was he supposed to do about that?
‘Don’t make reckless curses or actions? And why an idol, of all things?’
He wasn’t an idol, and he’d never once thought of becoming one. It was outside his interest from the start.
“What does it matter to you if I curse or act carelessly? And if I do, what are you going to do about it.”
─Ding
No sooner had he finished speaking than the suspicious hologram—the status window—answered, as if in reply, chiming and outputting a new line.
[ If you violate a condition, you will be penalized. ]
“…You talk back? What kind of crazy nonsense is this.”
[ Condition 18│A perfect idol does not make reckless remarks or act carelessly anywhere. ]
[ Caution! ]
Go Youngin scrunched the bridge of his nose.
It felt ominous. He didn’t know what this was, but instinct warned him that that word “Caution!” wasn’t going to be anything good for him.
[ Accumulated: Cautions 1, Warnings 0 ]
“Are you f-cking kidding me.”
He was so flabbergasted a curse popped out before he knew it.
The moment it slipped out, he thought “ah, damn,” and stared at the status window with a nervous expression.
[ Condition 18│A perfect idol does not make reckless remarks or act carelessly anywhere. ]
“W-wait a second!”
He shouted in a hurry, but the status window had already dutifully put up the text.
[ Caution! ]
[ Accumulated: Cautions 2, Warnings 0 ]
“What the hell is going on. What is this! At least explain it before you hand out cautions!”
Did his aggrieved cry reach it? The status window chimed again.
After staring holes in the window for a long moment, Go Youngin could only make a dumbfounded face.
[ ‘2 Cautions’ will be converted to ‘1 Warning.’ ]
[ Accumulated: Cautions 0, Warnings 1 ]
[ When warnings accumulate 5 times, a ‘Reset’ will occur. ]
[ Each time you violate a condition, you receive a ‘Caution.’ When 2 ‘Cautions’ accumulate, they become 1 ‘Warning,’ so please take note! ]
Ha… ha……
“Haa…….”
‘Ah… I get it.’
Go Youngin let out a small laugh.
He must have gotten heatstroke or something.
He didn’t know what it meant to reset, but he was clearly seeing things because his strength was spent.
Right then, a sun strong enough to stab his whole body was beating down on him from above. It made his head ache for no reason.
‘Right. If I keep paying attention to it, I’ll be the only one who looks crazy.’
Something in his chest felt unsettled, but he ignored the status window and started walking.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’
Thankfully, the apparition didn’t follow him; it just blinked quietly in place where it had appeared.
It simply existed in silence.
─Ding
[ Each time warnings accumulate, a penalty is applied. The effect and duration are random. ]
[ Status Ailment ‘Headache’ has been inflicted. ]
[ Time remaining: 12 hours ]
He felt like he’d heard something, but maybe that was just his imagination?
Maybe he really had gotten heatstroke; his head suddenly started pounding.
Clutching his throbbing head, Go Youngin gave a light shake side to side, then turned the corner into an alley.
At the same time, the strange status window floating in the air quietly vanished, as if it had never existed.
***
It was nearly a week after that somewhat strange incident.
“Hey, kid—have you ever thought about trying to be an idol?”
“Sorry. I’m not interested.”
“It’d be such a waste of that face… I’m the kind of person who can really support you to become the very best idol if you just set your mind to it, you know? Mm? Here, at least take my card. If you change your mind later, would you give me a call?”
Go Youngin stared straight at the business card shoved right under his nose.
DD Entertainment, Rookie Development Team, Assistant Manager, Kang Bada.
Ordinarily, he would at least have offered the polite “I’ll think about it” and taken the card, but just hearing the word idol reminded him of what happened the other day, and he hesitated for no good reason.
“No. I really won’t. My parents would oppose it, too. But thank you for the kind offer.”
Adjusting his schoolbag on his shoulder, Go Youngin bowed his head and slipped past Kang Bada.
Kang Bada clicked her tongue, watching his retreating back.
That face could make it doing anything……
Whatever she was thinking, Go Youngin wasn’t interested. Without even looking back, he disappeared in a hurry.
Walking a bit fast, he checked that no one was around and slowly let out a breath.
‘This is really weird. Why do I have such a bad feeling?’
Isn’t it said that humans instinctively sense incongruity? Ever since seeing that hallucination, he’d felt off.
It felt like something had gone seriously wrong.
‘No way… right?’
But his “no way” hit the mark with goosebump precision.
And it didn’t take long for Go Youngin to realize it.
“Student, I’m in the business—do you like singing by any chance?”
“Excuse me. I was just passing by and it felt like a shame to miss you. Are you already signed to an agency?”
“Don’t you want to be a shining star on stage? You’ve got potential! You’re basically an uncut gem!”
A ton of people who said they worked at agencies approached him as if they’d coordinated it, one after another as he walked by.
Then they immediately grabbed him to ask if he’d consider becoming an idol.
It wasn’t like he’d been hanging around near any idol agency buildings or anything—he was just walking his usual routes.
Every time, Go Youngin spat out a refusal and hurriedly ran away.
Some of them kept coming even after being turned down, and some followed him like stalkers all the way on his route home.
When he started taking different paths than usual, they somehow found out his school and were even standing in front of the main gate.
He could still vividly remember the fright he had when he saw them and bolted out the back gate.
‘Please… why are you doing this to me? Who said I’d do it? If you behave like this, even someone who wanted it would run away on their own two feet!’
Grinding his teeth on the inside, Go Youngin fumed.
He’d been so hounded that now even hearing the “i” of “idol” made his stomach flip.
“Come out, you crazy bastard! Come out!”
He figured he wouldn’t feel satisfied unless he at least demanded what the hell it had done, so he shouted a curse at full volume to call the status window out—but if it really had been a hallucination, nothing showed up.
Even after that, the strange people kept coming, and each time, he did his best to flee.
He wondered if he should’ve just shut his eyes and pretended to go audition at an agency, but by then he’d gotten stubborn; he absolutely didn’t want to lose.
He started dodging even more carefully and desperately.
As he kept avoiding and refusing, it got worse to the point the world around him started turning bizarre, too.
If he walked even a little bit without thinking, or if he lost his way, he’d suddenly find himself standing in front of an idol agency.
If his classmates didn’t talk about idol stuff, they wouldn’t include him in conversations.
He’d walk into a random shop and there’d just happen to be a certain idol member as a customer.
As if that wasn’t enough, a close relative got a job at a broadcasting station……
At that point, Go Youngin felt outright haunted.
‘I’m going to lose my mind.’
How long did the torment last?
Whether it was a relief or a misfortune, like the status window that had suddenly appeared and then vanished, all those persistent situations stalking him disappeared all at once at some point.
‘This is its own kind of unsettling.’
He still couldn’t relax. He didn’t know when it would come back to torment him.
When nothing happened, his nerves got even sharper. It felt exactly like being in the eye of a storm.
But as if to say his worries were unfounded, the strange phenomena didn’t reappear.
Only after a few years passed could he finally relax and stop thinking about it.
And so, in Go Youngin’s mind, that bizarre, freakish happening gradually faded away.
Before he knew it, he became an adult.
As a college freshman, he applied for enlistment as soon as he finished his first year and went to the army quickly.
Get the whipping over with first—he figured he’d be better off hurrying through what he didn’t want to do.
Thankfully, he completed that wretched military life—where a day felt like a year—without any major incidents or accidents and was discharged safely.
He met up with friends who gathered to celebrate his discharge, had a light round of drinks, caught up, went home, stretched out on his bed, and finally fell into a peaceful sleep for once.
And the next day—
─Ding
“…….”
After waking up, Go Youngin looked down at his smaller hands. His pupils trembled without rest.
‘No way… right? No way, no way no way.’
Thinking it was a dream, he opened and closed his fist.
The faint push and release of strength in those smaller hands felt much too vivid to be a dream.
─Ding
[ < 100 Conditions for Becoming the Perfect Idol > ]
[ We help you become the best idol. ]
“…W-what is this.”
The younger Go Youngin made a dazed noise and stared blankly up at the translucent something that appeared before his eyes.
[ Reset complete. ]
It was Go Youngin’s first “Reset.”