When I came to, the first thing I checked was my braces.
“Hah……!”
I hurriedly shoved a finger into my mouth.
Hard metal. The familiar feeling of something lodged in my mouth.
‘They're still there!’
Only then did the breath trapped in my chest burst out.
I'd been afraid that all of this might have been a dream. That I'd wake up back on the day I killed Kang I-yul.
“Hah…….”
No. I hadn't gone back to that hellish moment.
After I'd spent a long while doing nothing but gasping for breath, I finally took in my surroundings.
A pure white ceiling, the faint sound of a machine, an IV needle in my arm.
“……A hospital?”
My head still felt as though it might split open, but even that was a relief. I could feel pain because I was alive.
The doctor in charge said it was overwork and added that I needed several days of complete rest.
‘Isn't there an item that can boost my stamina……?’
Lying in bed, I stared into the air and muttered,
“Item Creation.”
The familiar window appeared.
“A watch that restores stamina.”
A message appeared at once.
[※Creation Failed – Conditions Not Met]
[S: You cannot create an item that negates the cost of using an item.]
“Wow, you're really stingy.”
The answer came right back.
[S: Without a cost, there can be no effect.]
To put it nicely, the balance patch was well designed. To be honest, it felt downright unfair.
“No, I’m about to die here??”
[S: No.]
“Wow. You're really blunt.”
Apparently, I could only use this in limited ways to succeed as an idol.
In the end, there was just one answer.
“Hah…….”
I closed my eyes.
‘I'll have to tough it out with this body.’
Fortunately, the recovery power of a nineteen-year-old body exceeded anything I'd imagined.
On the day I was discharged, Han Sang-yun came running as soon as I opened the dorm door.
“Seong-woo!”
His face had grown noticeably gaunt.
“……What happened to you?”
“I've just been waiting for you to come back.”
As soon as I entered the room, I understood why.
“Wow—”
I was speechless.
Even Han Sang-yun's scolding hadn't done much to cure the other two of their messiness.
“Sang-yun, you must have had a hard time on your own.”
“Yeah. A little.”
‘A little, my foot.’
I burst out laughing.
“How's your body? Are you feeling better?”
“Yes. I've been lying around so much that I'm itching to move.”
I was about to imitate the signal song choreography without thinking when—
“Don't overdo it.”
Han Sang-yun immediately caught my wrist.
“We're only just getting started.”
He was right.
But……
‘I don't have much time.’
I had to do as much as I could.
[S: I recommend it if you wish to experience being dead again.]
‘How can you say something that terrifying so casually……?’
If it had told me about the side effects in the first place, I would have used it in moderation.
[S: Nothing comes free in this world, does it?]
……It always had to get the last word in.
* * *
The next day, the trainees gathered in the practice room again.
Perhaps because of the new Code Numbers we'd been given after the signal song evaluation, the atmosphere was strangely subdued. The trainees in the lower ranks folded their arms to hide the numbers on their chests or needlessly pulled their jackets closed.
In a survival show, a ranking isn't just a number.
Attention, screen time, pride.
Everything is reduced to a number.
A place where that number feels like your worth as a person. That is what a survival show is.
“How was the signal song shoot for everyone?”
Kang Se-jun appeared, dazzling as ever. The fact that the MC had come alone, without the judges, could mean only one thing.
‘The first mission announcement.’
“It was fun!”
“I was nervous!”
Kang Se-jun smiled gently, then dropped a bomb as though it were nothing.
“For your information, your conduct on set was also part of the evaluation.”
The practice room fell silent at once.
“Unfortunately, it seems a few trainees didn't realize that.”
“…….”
Gazes shifted around the room. They were probably all replaying their own behavior in their heads.
“On the other hand, some trainees did their best right to the end.”
His gaze came straight to me.
“Code 4 trainee, are you feeling all right?”
“Yes……!”
I'd worried they might edit it out, so this was a relief. For better or worse, I'd secured some screen time.
“The reason I've come to see you today is to reveal your first mission.”
‘I knew it—’
The screen lit up.
[CODE MISSION 1: Who Are You?]
-The boys face their first gateway.
There is only one way to crack the code:
Prove who ‘you’ are.
As soon as the words appeared, murmurs swept through the practice room.
“What—”
“Is it some kind of self-introduction?”
“But it says it's a performance.”
They sounded confused.
“Anything goes. Prepare a performance that best explains who you are.”
That was the whole explanation.
But the meaning of this mission wasn't so simple.
An idol can't survive on good singing and dancing alone. What really matters is something else.
‘An objective view of yourself.’
What you're good at and what you're bad at. Which side of yourself people will like, and what you have to hide at all costs.
The ones who figure that out quickly survive.
In that sense, this mission was meant to distinguish trainees from idols.
That was also why Nix had made it the first mission. The company wanted members who could cook for themselves, instead of simply eating whatever they were served.
Perhaps that was why Go Jae-seong had been the biggest beneficiary of this mission before my regression.
‘The only trainee who can produce music.’
That was the position Go Jae-seong had claimed back then.
He'd written a rap over a beat he'd modified himself, and even earned lavish praise from Jack P, one of the judges and a producer.
That was when it began.
‘Go Jae-seong became a permanent fixture in the debut lineup.’
Of course, by my standards as an actual producer, his work had fallen far short.
But survival shows don't use absolute standards. They judge you against the others. The person with a weapon no one else has wins.
That was why it worked.
‘Of course, this time is different.’
Because I was here.
“You have just one week to prepare.”
Kang Se-jun turned over his cue card.
“Choose one word that expresses you best.”
“A word……?”
“And prepare a performance to prove that word.”
With that, he left the practice room.
“Isn't this too vague for the first mission?”
“What are we even supposed to do—”
It was like being handed a blank sheet of paper and told to draw whatever you wanted. It was understandable that they'd find it vague. Unfortunately, thinking the question was vague was itself grounds for elimination.
“Jae-seong, what are you going to do?”
“Produce something and show them.”
The ease in his answer was the manner of someone who already knew what he would do.
“Must be nice not having to worry about it.”
Go Jae-seong smiled as though he were being modest.
‘I have to crush him in this round.’
The way to keep Impacter from becoming a flop group—or, more precisely, to keep Kang I-yul out of one—was for me to take that bastard's place in Impacter.
Kang I-yul would get through this mission without trouble anyway.
‘It isn't time for me to step in and change anything for him yet.’
I glanced at Kang I-yul. Good for him: he was dancing where the hidden camera was, the spot where we'd practiced together.
‘Right. For now, I just need to do well myself.’
I found a spot in the corner of the practice room.
The truth was, I already had a song ready.
The first thing I'd prepared after my regression was an original song for this mission. Since I knew the missions for every round, there was no reason not to prepare in advance.
According to my original plan, I only needed to polish that song a little.
I'd save time and be able to practice dancing with what was left..
But after I opened my notebook, my hand wouldn't move.
‘……No. This isn't it.’
I'd experienced too much over the past few weeks. I'd acquired the hourglass, practiced to the point of death, and even collapsed onstage.
All those experiences floated through my mind as inspiration.
‘Let's make a new one.’
A week was enough. I was confident I could make a better song, too. Without regret, I erased the old one from my mind.
Then I wrote a single word in my composition notebook.
[Spotlight]
I stared at the word for a while.
The music I'd made until now had always been for someone else.
Songs that made the singer shine and lit up the stage.
I'd always been outside the spotlight, the one who created that light.
But this time, I'd stand in the middle of it.
That fact alone made my heart race.
On the first day, I used a composition app on my tablet to make the melody first. The sound was crude, but that didn't matter. A good song wasn't dependent on the instrument anyway.
The melody came quickly. The lyrics were the problem.
I wrote a few lines and erased them.
Then wrote some more, and erased those too.
Whenever I tried to write about a trainee's feelings, every sentence made my breath catch.
Debut.
Anxiety.
Competition.
Impatience.
Even writing the words made my chest feel tight.
‘Is it too heavy?’
My pen stopped.
At that moment, Kang I-yul came to mind.
How had he endured this for so long?
I'd collapsed after only a few weeks. Kang I-yul had endured it for years.
‘I expected it, but I didn't know it would be this hard.’
That feeling became the lyrics, just as it was.
By the time I had a rough draft, more time had passed than I'd realized.
I felt something like a prickling sensation. When I looked up, every trainee was watching me.
‘What?’
But I quickly realized why.
I was the only person here who was sitting down.
Everyone else was drenched in sweat. I was the only one still fresh and dry. Kang I-yul turned around a moment later and tilted his head too.
‘……Should I at least come up with a few simple dance moves?’
Embarrassed for no good reason, I cleared my throat. Then I picked up my pen again.
The key to this mission was choosing where to focus.
So I'd decided to leave dancing out of this performance.
For now, the most my dancing could manage was faithfully following set choreography. There was no need to force it into a performance of my own song.
What I did well was more than enough to show them.
Just as I was organizing keywords in my notebook—
TAP.
A shadow fell across the page.
‘Kang I-yul?’
I thought the historic moment when he spoke to me first had finally arrived, but—
“The first mission feels daunting, doesn't it?”
……It was Go Jae-seong.
He spoke to me with a pleasant smile.
“Want some help?”
I laughed inwardly. His aim was painfully obvious.
‘That bastard wants to play the teacher.’
It was a time-honored tradition of idol survival shows: a trainee cast as the teacher was guaranteed to debut. The chemistry with the trainee cast as the student was great, and it was the perfect way to look like a good person.
If the student did well, it was because ‘the teacher taught them well.’ If the student did badly, it was ‘even after the teacher helped them that much…….’
‘But was this basXard ever the type to help other people?’
I thought back carefully to the survival show before my regression. I couldn't remember him ever helping or teaching anyone, ever taking on the ‘teacher’ role.
‘I guess that changed when I joined.’
Then again, there hadn't been a complete outsider among the trainees before me. I didn't even have the basics down, yet I'd clawed my way into the A group.
Just standing next to me would make for good footage.
I wasn't sorry in the least, but that role already belonged to our Kang I-yul.
“You seemed to be writing a lot.”
“Ah…… I'm working on a rap.”
I answered casually.
“Really? I didn't know you were a rapper.”
“Yeah.”
Then I hesitated a little on purpose.
“But…… could you keep it a secret?”
“Why?”
I smiled as though I were embarrassed.
“……I want to reveal it as a surprise during this mission.”
Go Jae-seong smiled along with me.
“Ah, of course.”
He had the look of someone who absolutely wouldn't keep his word.
Well, that was fine.
‘Even better.’
It would be more fun if he believed I was doing rap, only to find out I was competing in the same position as him.
I picked up my pen again.