The next day arrived faster than Jiwon expected.
Maybe because his mind never stopped working.
The song.
The positions.
The team.
The mission.
Every time he thought about it, he reached the same conclusion.
The producers hadn’t given them freedom.
They had given them responsibility.
Which was far more dangerous.
Five people.
Five opinions.
One stage.
A combination that rarely ended peacefully.
Fortunately, Team 17 had already avoided their first disaster.
The leadership issue.
Jaehyun had stepped forward.
Nobody objected.
That alone spoke volumes.
Now all they needed was a song.
Simple in theory.
Potentially catastrophic in practice.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The biggest challenge had been finding a place to meet.
Nobody lived anywhere near each other.
Minseok lived in the north.
Hyunwoo practically lived on the other side of Seoul.
Jaehyun needed multiple transfers.
Jiwon’s neighborhood wasn’t particularly convenient either.
After twenty minutes of discussion inside the group chat, Doyoung had finally sent a message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEAM 17
Seo Doyoung: You can come to my house.
Lee Minseok: Is it easy to reach?
Seo Doyoung: Three subway lines stop nearby.
Park Jaehyun: Then let’s meet there.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
At the time, nobody had thought much about it.
That turned out to be a mistake.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stepped out of the station and checked the address on his phone.
Then he checked it again.
A few seconds later, he stopped walking.
“…No way.”
His eyes slowly moved upward.
Tall black gates.
Stone walls.
Private security cameras.
Perfectly maintained gardens visible through the metal bars.
And beyond them—
A mansion.
No.
Calling it a mansion felt inadequate.
The place looked like it belonged in a drama about chaebols.
Jiwon checked the address again.
Still correct.
A minute later, Minseok arrived.
The moment he looked up, he froze.
“…Why?”
Jiwon looked at him.
“Why what?”
“Why does Doyoung live inside a final boss area?”
“…That’s actually a good question.”
Another minute passed.
Then Hyunwoo appeared.
The silver-haired trainee adjusted his backpack before following their stares.
His expression remained calm.
For approximately two seconds.
“What the hell?”
Even that was enough to impress Jiwon.
Up until now, Hyunwoo had seemed almost impossible to surprise.
Then Jaehyun arrived.
The future leader stopped in front of the gates.
Looked upward.
Paused.
“…Interesting.”
That was apparently the strongest reaction he was willing to show.
The gates slowly opened.
And Doyoung walked out wearing a hoodie and glasses.
Looking exactly the same as he always did.
No expensive suit.
No luxury watch.
No dramatic entrance.
Just Doyoung.
“You’re here.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Finally, Minseok raised a trembling finger.
Pointing toward the estate behind him.
“Doyoung.”
“Yes?”
“What is that?”
“My house.”
Silence.
The kind of silence that physically hurt.
Minseok looked at Jiwon.
Jiwon looked at Hyunwoo.
Hyunwoo looked at Jaehyun.
Then all four turned back toward Doyoung.
At exactly the same time.
“THAT’S A HOUSE?!”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Things somehow became worse after entering.
Marble floors stretched across a vast entrance hall.
An enormous chandelier hung overhead.
Paintings lined the walls.
A staircase curved upward like something from a movie.
Jiwon’s apartment could probably fit inside the entrance hallway.
Possibly twice.
For the first time in a while, he genuinely felt poor.
Judging by everyone else’s expressions—
So did they.
Then footsteps echoed across the floor.
A middle-aged man wearing a perfectly tailored suit approached.
He bowed slightly.
“Welcome home, Young Master.”
The room froze.
Doyoung visibly flinched.
“…Hello.”
The man turned toward the guests.
“I’ve prepared refreshments in the sitting room.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course, Young Master.”
Another bow.
Then the man left.
For several seconds, nobody said a word.
The atmosphere became increasingly heavy.
Eventually, Minseok could no longer resist.
“Doyoung.”
“Yes?”
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“The Young Master part.”
A dangerous level of suspicion appeared in Minseok’s eyes.
“Actually, let’s start with the butler.”
“He’s not technically a butler.”
“THAT IS NOT THE IMPORTANT PART.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A few moments later, everyone had gathered inside an enormous living room.
Drinks appeared.
Snacks appeared.
At one point, Jiwon briefly wondered if servants materialized from thin air whenever Doyoung thought about food.
Across from him, Minseok sat perfectly straight.
Like a student trying not to touch anything expensive.
Which, considering the surroundings, was probably a valid concern.
Meanwhile, Doyoung looked completely normal.
As if this wasn’t strange at all.
Eventually, Jaehyun decided to address the elephant in the room.
“Doyoung.”
Doyoung sighed immediately.
Apparently he already knew what was coming.
“Yes?”
“Explain.”
The response came after a long pause.
“My father owns a pharmaceutical company.”
Nobody reacted immediately.
That sounded normal enough.
Plenty of successful people owned companies.
Jiwon was already about to move on.
Then he noticed something.
Doyoung looked uncomfortable.
Not proud.
Not embarrassed.
Uncomfortable.
As if he knew the conversation would only get worse from here.
Which usually meant the real answer hadn’t arrived yet.
Minseok narrowed his eyes.
“How big?”
Doyoung hesitated.
“…Pretty big.”
“That’s not a size.”
Another pause.
Then—
“My great-grandfather founded it.”
The room froze.
Jiwon blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Surely he’d heard wrong.
Across the room, Minseok’s soul visibly left his body.
“My WHAT founded it?”
“My great-grandfather.”
“That’s not normal!”
Doyoung pushed his glasses upward.
The motion had become familiar.
Every time he did that, either something smart or something ridiculous followed.
Today it was both.
“The company is still managed by my family.”
Silence returned.
Jiwon suddenly understood.
The grades.
The pressure.
The expectations.
Everything made a little more sense.
A family that owned a pharmaceutical empire probably didn’t imagine their heir becoming an idol trainee.
No wonder they were furious.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The rich-heir discussion somehow continued for another ten minutes.
Mostly because Minseok refused to let it go.
“Can your family adopt me?”
“No.”
“What if I get good grades?”
“No.”
“What if I become famous?”
“Still no.”
“What if I become really famous?”
“Especially no.”
Hyunwoo laughed so hard he nearly dropped his drink.
Even Jaehyun was smiling.
Eventually, however, someone had to bring them back to reality.
That person turned out to be Jaehyun.
He placed his cup on the table.
The soft sound immediately drew everyone’s attention.
Leader.
Jiwon suddenly understood.
Jaehyun never demanded control.
He simply possessed the kind of presence that naturally gathered attention.
“Okay.”
The room quieted.
“We need a song.”
Just like that, the atmosphere shifted.
Back to business.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suggestions started flying almost immediately.
Performance songs.
Vocal songs.
Popular songs.
Safe songs.
Risky songs.
The discussion steadily grew more complicated.
And amid the chaos, another thought entered Jiwon’s mind.
Analysis.
The newly unlocked function.
If Team 17 was going to survive this mission, understanding everyone’s strengths would be useful.
Extremely useful.
Carefully, he activated the skill.
His gaze landed on Minseok first.
The loudest member was the easiest target.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Lee Minseok
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE: 63
SINGING: 48
DANCING: 68
RAPPING: 35
STAGE PRESENCE: 54
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Natural Rhythm Lv.4
Crowd Energizer Lv.3
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
Sixty-eight.
That was easily the highest performance stat he had seen inside the team so far.
His gaze rose from the window.
Across the room, Minseok was currently attempting to stack three cookies on top of each other for reasons known only to himself.
And yet—
The System considered him their strongest dancer.
Unexpected.
Very unexpected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Next came Doyoung.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Seo Doyoung
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE: 19
SINGING: 52
DANCING: 50
RAPPING: 47
STAGE PRESENCE: 49
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Fast Learner Lv.4
Analytical Mind Lv.4
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon immediately understood.
No weaknesses.
No overwhelming strengths.
Just consistency.
Reliable numbers everywhere.
The definition of an all-rounder.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then Hyunwoo.
The window appeared.
And Jiwon nearly choked.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Kang Hyunwoo
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE: 92
SINGING: 50
DANCING: 54
RAPPING: 41
STAGE PRESENCE: 89
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Visual King Lv.5
Camera Attraction Lv.4
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
His eyes lingered on the screen.
Ninety-two.
Eighty-nine.
The numbers were absurd.
Yet…
Something felt wrong.
Jiwon frowned.
The others weren’t bad-looking.
Far from it.
Even Minseok and Doyoung looked objectively attractive.
Then why were their appearance stats only in the sixties?
And another question followed immediately.
How had he even passed the audition?
A singing stat of sixteen.
A dancing stat of eight.
By these standards, his numbers were terrible.
Almost as if responding to his thoughts, a blue notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Statistics are measured according to entertainment industry standards.
Comparison to the general population is not recommended.
A score of 50 indicates debut-level competitiveness.
A score of 60 indicates talented professional-level ability.
A score of 70 indicates elite-level ability.
A score of 80 indicates exceptional-level ability.
A score of 90 or higher indicates top-tier industry potential.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
Suddenly everything made sense.
A visual score of sixty did not mean ordinary.
It meant attractive enough to debut.
A singing score of fifty did not mean average.
It meant capable of standing on stage as a professional idol.
Which meant—
He looked back at Hyunwoo’s status.
Appearance: 92.
Stage Presence: 89.
The guy was a monster.
Another thought occurred to him.
Why didn’t you explain this before?
The answer came almost immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
The Host did not ask.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
Jiwon stared at the message.
“…Are you serious?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Affirmative.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His eye twitched.
Of course.
Of course the System worked like that.
Then another question surfaced.
One that had bothered him since seeing the rankings.
If fifty already represented debut-level ability…
Then how had he passed?
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Host Han Jiwon’s selection was heavily influenced by song compatibility.
The evaluation considered overall performance rather than individual statistics.
Reminder:
Current evaluations are for selection into the televised program.
Final debut evaluations have not yet begun.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon froze.
Then slowly relaxed.
Right.
He had forgotten something important.
This wasn’t the survival show yet.
This wasn’t the debut lineup.
This wasn’t even Round One of the broadcast.
The judges weren’t looking for finished idols.
They were looking for contestants.
Potential.
Stories.
Growth.
People worth putting on television.
And his audition song had perfectly matched his strengths.
The realization was both comforting and terrifying.
Comforting because he finally understood why he had passed.
Terrifying because it meant his current level was nowhere near enough.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon slowly exhaled.
Then turned toward the final member.
Park Jaehyun.
The leader.
The screen flickered once more.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Park Jaehyun
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE: 77
SINGING: 82
DANCING: 46
RAPPING: 78
STAGE PRESENCE: 71
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Leader’s Aura Lv.3
Vocal Control Lv.4
Performance Sense Lv.4
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes narrowed.
As expected.
Strong vocals.
Strong rap.
Good visuals.
Excellent presence.
But surprisingly mediocre dancing.
For the first time, he understood something.
Jaehyun wasn’t talented because he could do everything.
He was talented because he had taken what he was already good at and pushed it into another category entirely.
Eighty-two.
According to the System’s standards, that wasn’t merely talented.
That was exceptional.
Three years of training suddenly made perfect sense.
At that moment, Jaehyun looked up.
Their gazes met briefly.
“…Something wrong?”
Jiwon immediately looked away.
“No.”
Thankfully, Jaehyun didn’t push further.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The discussion continued.
Ten minutes.
Then fifteen.
Then twenty.
Long enough for snacks to disappear.
Long enough for Minseok to somehow finish an entire plate by himself.
And long enough for Team 17 to get absolutely nowhere.
“What about EXO’s Growl?”
Minseok suggested.
“It’s popular.”
Doyoung immediately shook his head.
“The vocal distribution is uneven.”
Hyunwoo nodded.
“Half of us would barely get any lines.”
“Fair.”
Minseok crossed it off.
“Then BTS?”
“Which song?”
“Dope?”
Jaehyun thought for a moment.
“Too difficult.”
Minseok blinked.
“You’re the trainee with three years of experience and you’re saying it’s difficult?”
“I’m saying we’ll have two weeks to prepare.”
“…Ah.”
That shut him up immediately.
Another title appeared.
Then another.
Then another.
Every option ran into the same problem.
Too vocal-heavy.
Too rap-heavy.
Too dance-heavy.
Too risky.
Too safe.
At some point, Doyoung grabbed a notebook and actually started listing pros and cons.
Jiwon was both impressed and concerned.
The guy really was a top student.
Meanwhile, Jiwon’s thoughts were elsewhere.
His eyes drifted toward each teammate.
Minseok.
Best dancer.
High energy.
Good stage presence.
Average vocals.
Doyoung.
Balanced.
Reliable.
No obvious weaknesses.
Hyunwoo.
Living weaponized visual.
Strong stage presence.
Good enough everywhere else.
Jaehyun.
Exceptional vocals.
Exceptional rap.
Decent presence.
Weakest dancer among the stronger performers.
The more he looked at the pieces, the more obvious the answer became.
The issue wasn’t choosing the strongest song.
The issue was choosing a song that hid weaknesses.
And amplified strengths.
Because survival programs weren’t won by showing everything.
They were won by showing the right things.
His gaze landed on the list one last time.
Then he spoke.
“What about Love Scenario?”
The room became quiet.
Everyone looked at him.
Minseok tilted his head.
“iKON?”
Jiwon nodded.
Immediately, Doyoung’s eyes lit up.
“The dance isn’t overly demanding.”
“Exactly.”
Jaehyun leaned forward.
“The vocal range is manageable.”
Jiwon nodded again.
“And the rap sections are clean without being overwhelming.”
This time Jaehyun seemed genuinely interested.
Hyunwoo stared at the title.
Then slowly smiled.
“The concept is easy to sell.”
Jiwon looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s memorable.”
Hyunwoo tapped the table.
“People remember performances that feel natural.”
That made sense.
The discussion suddenly became far more focused.
For the first time all afternoon, nobody was immediately pointing out fatal flaws.
Instead—
They were finding advantages.
Doyoung spoke first.
“Minseok gets room to stand out during the choreography.”
“True.”
“Jaehyun can handle the difficult vocal moments.”
“True.”
“Hyunwoo’s visuals fit the concept.”
Hyunwoo grinned.
“As expected.”
“No one asked.”
“Rude.”
Even Jaehyun laughed.
The atmosphere lightened considerably.
Then Doyoung looked at Jiwon.
“What made you think of this song?”
For a brief moment, Jiwon froze.
Because the truthful answer wasn’t exactly available.
I secretly analyzed all of you with a supernatural system.
Not ideal.
Instead he pointed toward the notebook.
“We don’t have a main vocalist capable of carrying an extremely difficult song by himself.”
Jaehyun nodded.
Fair assessment.
“We don’t have multiple rappers.”
Another nod.
“Our biggest strength is balance.”
This time everyone fell silent.
Because it was true.
No member completely overshadowed the others.
Not in performance.
Not overall.
They worked best together.
Jiwon continued.
“So instead of choosing a song that highlights one person…”
His gaze moved around the room.
“We should choose one that lets everyone look good.”
Silence.
Then Doyoung slowly lowered his pen.
“…That’s actually smart.”
“Actually?”
“Very smart.”
“Thank you.”
Minseok pointed dramatically.
“I vote for Jiwon’s song.”
“That’s not how voting works.”
“I vote anyway.”
Hyunwoo raised his hand.
“Same.”
Doyoung nodded.
“Same.”
Three votes.
All eyes turned toward Jaehyun.
The leader looked at the title again.
Then at his teammates.
Then back at Jiwon.
A small smile appeared.
“We can win with this.”
That was the final vote.
Unanimous.
For the first time that afternoon, Team 17 had reached a decision without arguing.
And as the evening sun slowly disappeared behind the enormous windows of Doyoung’s mansion, Jiwon realized something.
The producers weren’t testing performance.
Not really.
They were testing teamwork.
Communication.
Compromise.
Trust.
They hadn’t chosen the strongest song.
They had chosen the song that fit them best.
And somehow, that felt far more important.
For the first time since Team 17 had formed, they no longer felt like five strangers sitting around a table.
They felt like a team.