A heavy silence settled over the nine of us sitting in a circle. As expected, Muscle Girls’ “I’m So Hot” was packed with rejects who’d been shoved out of other teams. The only mercy was that we had two A-rank trainees. I looked over the A-rank trainees. One was Lee Sehan. The other was that pervert bastard I’d run into in the bathroom.
That pervert bastard had come here on his own and still looked like absolute shit. He was A-rank, and he’d willingly come to this team because he was that crazy about me, yet he was making a face like he hated this so much he wanted to die. What a filthy, vicious stalker fan. I’d have to kill that bastard properly later. Clicking my tongue, I turned my gaze away, and Lee Sehan opened his mouth.
Even in an atmosphere that made a funeral look lively, Lee Sehan was calm. As if he had expected this.
“Should we listen to the song first?”
Lee Sehan played the song on his phone.
Why do you keep looking at me, whyyy—am I really that cuteee—
The longer the song played, the more the trainees’ faces rotted.
I had no thoughts about the song. Dancing on another team with this body would’ve been a fucking disaster anyway, and my real goal was elsewhere. I slowly studied Lee Sehan. His face was good enough for acting, and he was tall. It wasn’t as if his skills were so poor that he’d stood out badly during the individual-evaluation stage. And yet Lee Sehan was still a trainee.
Twenty-three years old. Seven years as a trainee. Why had a bastard who had everything still failed to debut, to the point that he was groveling around while taking sponsor money? There were a few guesses I could make. First, his luck was fucked. Second, his environment was a goddamn mess. Third, he had some shady background he needed to hide.
And fourth, the most plausible one of all…
“Would it be all right if I arranged the song?”
Once the song ended, Lee Sehan asked.
Most of the bastards nodded, looking as if they figured Lee Sehan must have had some plan in mind if he’d come here, but one sour-faced, prematurely aged bastard raised an objection.
“Hold on. Let’s think about this. Everyone here got pushed out, right? You and Shin Giyoung are the only ones who chose this team yourselves despite being A-rank. If you picked this song because you thought you could get first place here and take the benefit points, then we can’t let you handle the arrangement.”
“…If that’s really why he came, I’m against it too. I’m not sure someone who joined this team with that intention would arrange the song while considering the other members.”
The atmosphere turned brutal.
It made sense. This was a team-versus-team competition, but each team’s first-place member would receive one thousand extra votes as benefit points. It could look as if he’d come here aiming for that.
Curious how he’d respond, I looked at Lee Sehan.
His face pale, Lee Sehan opened his mouth. His low, cracked voice was obviously tense.
“That’s not why I came. I thought if we arranged it properly, it could work…”
“You thought of an arrangement in that short amount of time? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe he’s just that much more talented than you.”
I smiled brightly and cut off the rotten-faced bastard. The way he flared up and glared at me was hilarious. The end times really had come if an old-looking bastard like that wanted to be an idol. I shrugged and spoke with shameless innocence.
“That must be why you’re B-rank and Lee Sehan is A-rank, no?”
“What? You done talking?”
“Why are you talking down to me out of nowhere? Are you as old as your rotten face looks?”
“You…! Get up right now!”
“There’s a gangster bastard here beating people up! Please make sure this gets on the broadcast! Huh? Producer! You’re watching, right?!”
I stared at the bastard grabbing me by the collar and shouted with a blank face. Not that this would ever air. The producer and I had already agreed that I’d get only the bare minimum of necessary scenes, as if I were barely there at all.
I grabbed the old-looking bastard’s hand and forcibly peeled it away. Then I threw him to the floor, pretending it was a mistake. Ignoring the old-looking bastard as he stared at me with a stupid look on his face, I smiled good-naturedly at the dazed Lee Sehan.
For now, I intended to follow whatever Lee Sehan wanted to do. First I had to expose what this bastard was thinking, what shady little scheme he was planning, and what kind of weakness he had. Until then, I’d pretend I knew nothing and act friendly.
I met the trainees’ eyes one by one, their expressions half wary and half uneasy, then started flapping my mouth.
“Does anyone here doubt Lee Sehan’s skills? Is there anyone who thinks he can do better than Lee Sehan?”
“……”
“I intend to trust Lee Sehan and follow his lead. If anyone dislikes that, say so now. I’ll persuade you until you start liking it.”
“…How are you going to persuade us?”
The bathroom pervert asked while watching the mood. I cleanly erased the pervert bastard’s question from my mind and clapped once to shift the atmosphere. Then I looked at Lee Sehan, and he opened his mouth.
The way he stammered was honestly worrying. He seemed like a pretty dim bastard. Couldn’t be helped. A kind-ass person like me had to help him. It was a serious problem, really, how I just couldn’t walk past someone in need.
“The, the direction I’m thinking for the arrangement is…”
“Sexy. Hot pants and garters, smacking our asses.”
“What…? No, the concept I was thinking of was—”
“Right! Obviously the concept is ‘cunty diva.’”
It was obvious. When male bastards deliberately chose a girl-idol song like this, there was only one answer: “cunty diva.” That bastard Lee Sehan had definitely spent all this time failing to debut because he thought something like, I’m sexier than women, so why can’t I do a girl-idol song?! This fourth guess was the most persuasive one.
Fuck, my own deduction gave me chills.
I looked at Lee Sehan with certainty, and his face twisted spectacularly. That bastard must have gotten chills from my deduction too. He probably felt like I’d gone inside his head and come back out. I was about to keep talking, feeling smug, when Lee Sehan suddenly screamed like he was having a seizure.
“No! It’s absolutely nothing like that!”
“Then crop tops, hot pants, and fishnets?”
“I said no, you fucking bastard!!!”
After that spectacularly projected curse, the echo rang through the auditorium like, “fucking bastard… fucking bastard… fucking bastard…”
Then silence fell.
Why the hell was that bastard suddenly cursing at me? I stared hard at Lee Sehan, wondering what kind of bizarre bastard he was.
After staying frozen for a while, Lee Sehan coughed awkwardly, his face bright red. Then, in a crawling voice, he began explaining the direction of the arrangement.
“So… something with a band feel. We’ll make the sound heavier. In the intro, we’ll kill the backing sound as much as possible and have the vocal scream to draw attention… If we arrange it well that way, I thought it might actually stand out more than a boy-idol song, so I picked it…”
“……”
“Yes. Anyway, it is not ‘cunty diva.’”
When no one reacted, Lee Sehan emphasized it.
“No hot pants, no garters, no crop tops, no fishnets. None of that. We will not be smacking our asses either.”
For some reason, the pale-faced trainees exchanged glances, then nodded like crazy. Then they started worshiping Lee Sehan. Even the old-looking bastard who had objected patted Lee Sehan on the shoulder and said, “I trust you. Sehan, do whatever you want. Don’t listen to a single word that bastard says!” Then he glared at me like I was a traitor to the nation.
What a bunch of weird bastards.
I quietly watched as they got excited among themselves and started talking about the choreography. The bastards who’d been fighting each other a second ago were suddenly getting along disgustingly well. And for some reason, it felt like Lee Sehan and the other bastards were all deliberately avoiding looking in my direction.
But why wasn’t that bastard Lee Sehan doing the “cunty diva” concept?
He must have chosen this song with that concept in mind. Did he change it in a hurry because I hit too close to the truth? Yeah, that had to be it. He probably felt uncomfortable because it seemed like I’d read every thought in his head.
Now I finally understood. I’d wondered why those bastards were suddenly acting like that, but they’d felt inferior after my spine-chilling deduction and banded together.
After reaching a clear conclusion, I was about to focus on the team conversation when I felt someone’s gaze.
The pervert bastard was staring at me with burning eyes.
*****
The male bastards panted and collapsed facedown on the practice-room floor.
I swept up my sweat-soaked hair and caught my breath. Preparation was going more smoothly than I’d expected. Since Lee Sehan had chosen this song himself, he moved quickly. He asked what we thought of a certain arrangement and immediately kept time by slapping the floor with his palm. Over that, he sang the song with the band feel he had in mind. The quality was good enough that all we needed to do was rewrite the lyrics.
The stupid, defective idiots stared at him in admiration.
If they had heads, they should’ve used them. They were empty-skulled bastards like the monkeys in “The Monkeys and the Acorns.” Why the hell would a genius who could think up an arrangement like that on the spot still have failed to debut? Even if he hadn’t debuted, he should’ve made a pretty big name for himself as a producer.
After that, choreographing went smoothly too. Lee Sehan smiled awkwardly and suggested, “Since Yuha is a bit weak at dancing… what about choreography using stand microphones?”
Other bastards made a fuss even though it had nothing to do with them. They insisted we absolutely had to use stand microphones because one person couldn’t stick out too much. The next problem was that there were too many members, but Lee Sehan solved that right away too. He chose a format where five members entered and exited at a time, letting each person stand out more.
Watching the monkey bastards start to look at Lee Sehan more and more like they were worshiping him, I thought, If this bastard gets edited well and aired, becoming a cult leader would be free money for him.
Even in the middle of all this, Lee Sehan was checking on the team members.
The bastards who had collapsed were having enough trouble just catching their breath. Apparently deciding more practice was impossible, Lee Sehan gave an awkward smile and said, “Should we continue an hour and a half after dinner?”
“Yeah! Sounds good!”
“Sure!”
The trainees squeezed out their agreement.
I stared quietly at him, then went outside. The hallway was quiet. It seemed our team was the only one that had practiced without even eating dinner. Since we had to change everything from the direction of the song to the choreography from top to bottom, practice had been tight from the start.
I grabbed my sweat-soaked sweatshirt and fanned myself with it.
I should go to the dorm and shower first.