So that was why. Those few words made everything clear.
SP, Spotlight Point.
Points generated by people's attention.
And attention never lasts long.
“Ha—”
[S: SP remains available for up to 7 days from the moment it is generated.]
[S: It may expire sooner depending on the type of attention.]
“A week?”
I felt deflated.
Just one week. Even if I killed myself trying to draw attention, that was all I got. In this world, a name that filled the news yesterday could vanish without a trace a few days later.
The system reflected the entertainment industry's ecosystem with cruel accuracy.
“Still.”
Until now, I'd spent SP as soon as I earned it. I'd turned the hourglass over and over, until I'd even passed out.
It hadn't occurred to me to save any.
So I hadn't realized. No, I hadn't thought about it. Attention had an expiration date too.
I let out a hollow laugh.
‘What the hell is that bastard King of the Underworld playing at?’
At this point, he wasn't addicted to roulette games. He was addicted to the entertainment industry.
“You could've told me a little sooner, couldn't you?”
I tossed the words out, but the status window stayed silent. Normally it would've had something to say. Today it was strangely quiet.
The silence irritated me even more. I dropped back against the bed and sat there.
The plan I'd made had fallen completely apart.
“This is going to give me a headache.”
It wasn't a disaster. The interim evaluation I'd prepared without an item had received decent reviews.
The problem was the actual performance.
I'd been a producer and an idol fan, never an idol.
I'd been the one ‘watching’ from below the stage, never the one ‘standing’ on it.
“This is driving me crazy…….”
When I closed my eyes, I pictured the stage.
Nix Entertainment had staked everything on this survival show. They had literally pulled in every bit of capital they could from wherever they could find it.
Maybe that was why, as I'd noticed even before my regression, the stage was absurdly large from the first round onward.
Fill that enormous stage by myself?
“…….”
Just imagining it made it hard to breathe. No matter how strong my nerves were, there was no way I wouldn't be nervous.
That was why I'd planned to use the item. Even if I made a mistake, I wanted the judges to remember only my strengths.
‘What if I make a mistake?’
‘What if nerves trip me up?’
‘What if my pitch slips?’
One worry led to another.
That was when a memory from long ago suddenly came to mind.
My older sister, Yu Seong-a.
That woman, a dancer and famous choreographer, had been different from other kids ever since she was little. School festivals, talent shows, local events—she never passed up anything called a stage.
And she always dragged me along by the wrist.
‘She was crazy from the start.’
That day had been no different.
I was only in third grade then. It was the day of a school performance, with the entire student body watching.
I fought to stay off the stage, and Yu Seong-a dragged me up there.
The result was disastrous. The moment the lights came on, I burst into tears.
All the kids stared, and the teachers panicked.
[Hey, you followed every move even while you were crying, remember?]
I didn't want to admit it, but it was true.
Brainwashing was a frightening thing—I performed the choreography faithfully even as tears and snot streamed down my face.
‘No wonder I still haven't forgotten it.’
And the funnier part was—
[Hey, I was the one who busted my ass without getting a single move wrong, but you were the one everyone talked about!]
It was true. Yu Seong-a, then in fourth grade, had torn up the stage like a fish in water. But I was the one the audience talked about.
The video a teacher uploaded to WeTube even became fairly famous.
A little boy who sobbed his eyes out beside an elementary school girl who danced suspiciously well, all while his body dutifully went through the choreography.
People focused on me instead.
-Aw, the little kid cries well and dances well too.
└Shouldn't that be “doesn't cry”? lol
-Looks like his sister forced him to go up there with her lol
-The girl is obviously a much better dancer, so why do my eyes keep going to the boy next to her? lol
-The little boy next to her has some devilish star quality. It's insane.
Years later, when Yu Seong-a became famous and the video drew attention again, the reactions were the same.
-If that's Yu Seong-a, didn't her little brother become a dancer too? lol
└Nah, the kid is trying hard, but he's weirdly clumsy lol
-I keep coming back to watch this… It's so funny how the boy next to her gets better and better.
-02:17 I come back every day because the way he wipes away his tears and strikes the ending pose is so cute lol
I hadn't known it then, but I thought I understood now.
People admire someone who's perfect.
But when someone keeps going to the end despite their shortcomings, people root for them.
And that support leads to attention.
In that instant, an idea flashed through my mind.
“That's it.”
The item I'd been trying to make.
[perfume that leaves only my strengths in their memory]
The answer was already in those words.
For people to remember only my strengths……
“I need weaknesses first.”
Light is visible because there is darkness, and perfection stands out because there is imperfection.
All this time, I'd only tried to hide that.
I'd tried not to make mistakes, to cover my shortcomings as much as possible.
But that was a producer's approach.
A player onstage was different. Especially in a survival show.
The person who survived wasn't the one who was perfect from the start, but the one people kept watching despite their shortcomings.
People were more excited by growth than by results.
‘I never needed to hide it in the first place.’
I thought back to the interim evaluation performance. It had been polished, and I'd done well.
Its one striking feature was the surprise. A kid no one expected had performed an original song. That alone had made it a surprising performance.
But that strategy had worked because it was the first time.
Without the element of surprise, the performance had been ‘too steady.’ Especially compared with the other contestants, who'd been dancing, tumbling, and doing all sorts of things.
A story always beats spectacle.
A protagonist who's perfect from the start? Hard to get attached to. Isn't the pleasure of a survival show watching a clumsy newbie grow little by little?
Then I had one weapon.
‘Showing them everything, without hiding a thing.’
I'd go onstage as nervous as I was. Then I'd build the performance up, draw the audience in, and finally let everything loose at the climax. I'd create a change within a single performance.
I wasn't an idol. I was someone who watched idols.
That made me all the more confident. I knew exactly what kind of performances drove people wild.
“……This could be fun.”
My performance would probably be completely different from the other trainees'. After all, I was the lowest of the low levels, the authority on newbies, the king of beginners.
***
The day of filming.
The air on the bus was heavy. In their seats, the trainees warmed up their voices or waved their arms and legs around as they checked their choreography.
“Oh, Seong-woo. Over here.”
Han Sang-yun waved.
“Yes!”
Eyes followed me as I made my way to the seat. The reaction had definitely changed since the interim evaluation.
I was disappointed I wasn't sitting beside I-yul, but I was only two seats away. A huge bag occupied the seat next to him.
‘……It holds a seat better than a person does.’
“Did you prepare a lot?”
“Yes. More or less.”
“Wow, why am I so nervous?”
Choi Un-jo poked his face out from the seat in front of us.
“Oh, are you feeling soy sauce too?”
“Nervous, not soy sauce.”
“Right. Nervous!”
Choi Un-jo grinned.
“What about you, Seong-woo?”
“A little?”
I pretended to be tough. In truth, I felt like I was going to throw up.
I glanced to the side. I-yul had his earphones in and was lightly going through the choreography. Maybe it was because his cast had come off, but even the way he moved his hands was remarkable.
‘Of course.’
I'd spent most of the preparation period in the studio, so I'd hardly seen him practice this time.
Well, Kang I-yul wasn't someone I needed to worry about.
“We're here. Please get off—”
“Yes!”
We piled out at a large studio somewhere in Seoul. Even from the outside, its scale was extraordinary.
“Whoa, no way.”
“Wow, it's huge.”
The trainees' mouths fell open. Mine did too.
‘They poured money into this.’
No wonder people ended up calling them a cost-effective group after their debut.
“Everyone's here, right? Please come this way for hair and makeup.”
We followed the staff member's directions to a waiting room.
“We meet again?”
I turned at once toward the familiar voice behind me.
“Wow, I was hoping you'd be here on the way over.”
“Really? Then I'd better do a good job today too—”
She smiled as she asked,
“What look are we going for today?”
“I'd like to keep it simple again, like in my profile photos.”
Flashy styling would actually hurt this performance. I'd chosen ‘a beginner's growth’ as the concept from the start.
“So I brought this too.”
“What is it?”
I took a glasses case out of my pocket.
“These don't have a prescription?”
“No.”
Of course they didn't. Real glasses that made your eyes look half their size only got called ‘X-glasses’ and used in mocking memes.
Of course, someone could look cute even wearing those glasses. But that only worked after debut, once people were already looking at you through rose-colored glasses.
“And please curl my hair just a little.”
“……Curl it?”
“Yes. Just a little.”
She chuckled.
“You're nineteen, right?”
“Yes!”
“Sometimes you talk like you're thirty-nine.”
Calling it a perm seemed too grand, so I'd just asked her to give it a little curl.
“There's a b-i-g age gap between my sister and me.”
“Ah—”
I prayed this conversation wouldn't make it into the broadcast, even by accident. If Yu Seong-a saw it, she might put on “Dream of a Square” and say, ‘Am I that old? Anyone would think we're twelve years apart.’
The styling was perfect again.
“What do you think? Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
Lightly curled hair and a pair of chunky horn-rimmed glasses. Even the braces that peeked out when I smiled. It was exactly the look I'd wanted. With jeans, a checked shirt, and a guitar in my hands, I looked every bit the nerd.
“But will you be okay?”
“What do you mean……?”
“The other boys look really flashy.”
I looked around and saw that she was right. Bold makeup was the minimum, and one of them was even wearing a crop top and a choker.
‘Just how badly do they all want to succeed……?’
Sadly, it wasn't a good choice. All it had earned them were nasty comments asking whether they were trying to attract attention with their outfits instead of their talent.
“This mission is about showing who ‘I’ am.”
I shrugged.
“This suits who I am right now.”
She nodded as if she understood.
“I like it.”
As soon as my styling was done, I headed for the set. Our seats were assigned in code order. The lower the number, the closer the seat was to the camera.
“We'll begin filming—”
CLACK!
Recording began with the sound of the clapperboard. The lights went dark, and majestic background music filled the room.
[Nix Entertainment's survival show to select its first boy group, Boys Code!]
Kang Se-jun's outfit was unusual again today.
“A pilot this time……?”
He was clearly planning to wear every kind of uniform there was over the course of this show.
‘This is practically KidZania.’
But that was another part of the survival show's appeal, so I couldn't complain. He appeared every week in a crisply pressed uniform with that handsome face of his. How could the women not love it?
“Hello. Find the boy who will unlock your heart. I'm Kang Se-jun, the MC of Boys Code.”
“Waaaa…….”
Cheers erupted as the lights burst on.
“Today, the boys have prepared their first self-introduction performances to knock on your hearts, Code Makers.”
“Yes. Then shall we start with Code 20's performance?”
Code 20.
Code 19.
The atmosphere grew a little more heated each time someone stepped forward.
One trainee lost the beat to his nerves. Another went onstage with a fierce look in his eyes.
And after each performance ended, my turn drew closer.
“Next, Code 8, please get ready.”
My fingertips turned cold. I slowly curled the hands resting on my knees into fists.
My heart was pounding strangely hard.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
I could hear my heartbeat echoing deep in my ears.
‘Don't get nervous, don't get nervous…….’
I'd already run through it countless times in my head.
When to walk on with my guitar. The first strum, where to look, my breathing.
I'd thought of everything.
And yet my throat was parched.
“Next is Code 7's performance.”
I picked up my water bottle and took a sip.
At that moment, the stage lights blazed on.
The glare dazzled me.
It wouldn't be long now.