The next morning, Jiwon discovered an important truth.
Dancing was a scam.
His legs hurt.
His shoulders hurt.
His back hurt.
At some point during the night, even muscles he didn’t know existed had apparently joined the rebellion.
Slowly, he sat up.
Immediately regretted it.
“…”
A groan escaped his mouth.
Then another.
Why do dancers willingly live like this?
The question felt increasingly important.
The worst part was that this wasn’t even a school day.
It was Saturday.
Under normal circumstances, Jiwon would have happily slept for another three hours.
Instead, he found himself awake before eight in the morning because his entire body felt like it had been run over by a truck.
A truck driven by Park Jaehyun.
The thought almost made him laugh.
Almost.
A familiar blue window appeared in front of him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[VOCAL TRAINEE]
Daily Training Available
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes immediately focused.
The pain in his legs became slightly less important.
Not gone.
Just temporarily ignored.
Because unlike yesterday…
Today he actually had time.
No school.
No homework.
No excuses.
Just training.
And judging by what had happened in Practice Room 3-B…
He desperately needed it.
Without hesitation, he selected the notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ACTIVATE TRAINING MODE?]
YES / NO
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Yes.”
The world immediately shifted.
Not physically.
The bed was still there.
The desk was still there.
The pile of clothes he should have folded yesterday was unfortunately still there.
Yet layers of translucent windows appeared across his vision as if reality had suddenly become software.
Then the faceless instructor appeared.
Standing in the middle of the room.
Creepy
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WELCOME BACK, VOCAL TRAINEE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…Good morning to you too.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUERY NOT UNDERSTOOD]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Naturally.”
The System, as usual, had no sense of humor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[BEGINNING DAILY TRAINING]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A countdown appeared.
3
2
1
START
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The first exercise immediately began.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
BREATH CONTROL TRAINING
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A green bar floated in front of him.
An arrow moved slowly from left to right.
The instructions were simple.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Follow the rhythm.
He inhaled.
Held it.
Exhaled.
The bar flashed red.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
POOR BREATH MANAGEMENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…Already?”
Another attempt.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
INSUFFICIENT BREATH SUPPORT
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon frowned.
The System wasn’t simply telling him he was wrong.
A transparent diagram of lungs suddenly appeared.
Glowing sections highlighted areas where he was supposedly losing support.
“Wait.”
The diagram zoomed in.
Specific muscles were highlighted.
The System wasn’t criticizing him.
It was teaching him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The next exercise focused on pitch.
A glowing line appeared in midair.
The task was simple.
Follow the line.
Exactly.
His voice rose.
The marker followed.
Then drifted.
Immediately—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
PITCH DEVIATION DETECTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The line replayed.
Showing precisely where he had gone off course.
For someone who had spent years trying to improve through guesswork…
The experience felt almost unfair.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then came tempo training.
A sequence of glowing circles appeared around his vision.
Similar to a rhythm game.
Every note required a precise vocal entry.
Too early.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TOO FAST
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Too late.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
LATE ENTRY
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Too unstable.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TONE INSTABILITY DETECTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Every single mistake was exposed immediately.
Brutal.
Merciless.
Efficient.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
An hour later.
The training finally ended.
A report window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SESSION RESULT
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pitch Accuracy: 62%
Breath Control: 49%
Tempo: 71%
Tone Stability: 46%
Overall Rating: Below Average
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared.
Then glanced at yesterday’s report.
Every category had improved.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to prove something.
The System wasn’t performing for him.
It was teaching him.
Slowly.
Step by step.
The realization made him unexpectedly happy.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Repeated Physical Activity Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
Physical activity?
Another screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Routine
• Daily Exercise
• Dance Practice
• Vocal Training
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His eyes narrowed.
A third screen followed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Long-Term Development Conditions Met
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Before he could ask anything, his Status opened automatically.
The screen scrolled downward until it stopped.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physique: 20
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon froze.
Yesterday—
No.
Up until yesterday—
That number had been nineteen.
“…What?”
For a few seconds, he thought he was imagining things.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Statistic has Improved Through
Consistent Training
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His gaze slowly returned to the screen.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physique: 20
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Only one point.
Objectively insignificant.
Yet somehow it felt more meaningful than the nine points he had just invested in Singing.
Because this one…
He had earned.
No shortcuts.
No cheats.
No instant improvements.
Just sweat.
Training.
Consistency.
For some reason, that single point made him smile.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His phone suddenly vibrated.
TEAM 17.
A new message appeared.
Of course it was from Minseok.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lee Minseok: Anybody else unable to walk?
Kang Hyunwoo: Yes.
Seo Doyoung: Same.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon immediately felt better.
Shared suffering was comforting.
Then another message appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Park Jaehyun: Good.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The chat froze.
A moment later—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lee Minseok: Why is our leader evil?
Kang Hyunwoo: I think it’s part of the job description.
Seo Doyoung: That explains a lot.
Park Jaehyun: Be there ten minutes early.
Lee Minseok: SEE?
━━━━━━━━━━━━
For the first time since practice ended yesterday, Jiwon laughed.
A real laugh.
Not because the joke was particularly good.
But because the tension from yesterday finally felt a little lighter.
And in less than two hours…
They would all be back in Practice Room 3-B.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
By the time Team 17 gathered in Practice Room 3-B, everyone looked exhausted.
Even before practice started.
Minseok dragged himself through the door.
“Morning.”
Nobody answered.
“Wow.”
He looked offended.
“We really became depressed overnight.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Hyunwoo dropped his bag near the wall.
“I’ve accepted my suffering.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
A few moments later, Jaehyun entered.
Immediately, the atmosphere changed.
Not because he said anything.
The opposite, actually.
He simply checked the clock.
Checked that everyone was present.
Then nodded.
“Good.”
Minseok frowned.
“That’s it?”
“What?”
“That’s your morning greeting?”
“You’re on time.”
“…”
“…”
“I don’t like our leader.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“You said that yesterday.”
“Because it’s true every day.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The warm-up began.
Stretching.
Vocal exercises.
Synchronization drills.
Nothing glamorous.
Nothing exciting.
Just work.
The kind audiences would never see.
The kind that actually mattered.
And compared to the day before, Jiwon noticed something.
He wasn’t as lost.
The timing markers from the Virtual Training Assistant kept replaying in his head.
Breathing.
Entries.
Tempo.
The same instructions repeated over and over.
Even now.
Like a second voice.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The first run-through started.
The music filled the room.
Everyone moved.
Everyone sang.
Jiwon’s heartbeat sped up.
Yesterday every mistake felt like a spotlight.
Today felt different.
Not easy.
Never easy.
Just…
Less overwhelming.
The first verse passed.
Then the transition.
Then his line.
The song stopped.
Immediately.
Of course.
Jiwon mentally prepared himself.
Here it comes.
Correction number one.
The inevitable criticism.
Instead—
Jaehyun looked up.
“…Better.”
Silence.
Jiwon blinked.
“What?”
“You fixed the timing issue.”
Jaehyun checked his notes.
“Mostly.”
A pause.
“Still needs work.”
There it was.
That sounded more normal.
And yet—
A small grin appeared on Minseok’s face.
“You got praised.”
“I didn’t.”
“You totally did.”
“He literally said ‘better.'”
“That’s basically a standing ovation coming from him.”
Jaehyun ignored the conversation entirely.
Which only strengthened Minseok’s argument.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The next few hours passed quickly.
Practice.
Correction.
Repeat.
Again.
Again.
Again.
This time, however, something interesting happened.
The stops became less frequent.
Not because the team was perfect.
Far from it.
But because everyone was improving.
Especially Minseok.
The golden retriever somehow became ten times scarier the moment choreography was involved.
“Wait.”
Jiwon stopped.
The music had ended.
Everyone was breathing heavily.
He looked toward Minseok.
Then toward the mirror.
Then back at Minseok.
“…How are you doing that?”
“What?”
“That.”
Minseok blinked.
“It’s called dancing.”
“No.”
Jiwon pointed.
“The transition.”
“You got it immediately.”
“Oh.”
Minseok scratched the back of his head.
“That.”
“Yes, that.”
The trainee thought for a moment.
Then shrugged.
“It feels right.”
“…”
“…”
Everyone stared.
“That’s your explanation?”
“Pretty much.”
Doyoung sighed.
“I hate talented people.”
“You’re literally ranked first in your school.”
“That’s academic talent.”
“Same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
“It definitely is.”
Soon everybody was laughing again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
By lunchtime, everyone looked exhausted.
The second practice session had gone better than the first.
Not by much.
But enough.
Enough that nobody felt like strangling each other anymore.
Which counted as progress.
The nearest restaurant was crowded with trainees.
Apparently half of Star Dust had collectively decided they needed food.
Team 17 ended up squeezed around a small table near the back.
For several minutes, nobody said a word.
Only the sounds of eating filled the air.
Then, naturally—
Minseok opened his mouth.
“Can I ask something?”
“No.”
“Too bad.”
Jaehyun didn’t even look up from his food.
Minseok pointed his chopsticks around the table.
“Why are you all here?”
Silence.
Hyunwoo frowned.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A good one.”
“It’s really not.”
“No, think about it.”
Minseok leaned forward.
“We’ve spent two days together.”
Another bite of food.
“I know Doyoung is rich.”
Doyoung closed his eyes.
“I knew this was coming.”
“I know Jaehyun hasn’t seen sunlight in three years.”
“That’s not true.”
“It feels true.”
“…”
“I know Hyunwoo probably breaks cameras for a living.”
“That’s not how modeling works.”
“And Jiwon.”
Minseok pointed.
“I know absolutely nothing about Jiwon.”
“That sounds about right.”
“See?”
Minseok looked victorious.
“We should know this stuff.”
For once, nobody immediately disagreed.
Because he had a point.
They were going to perform together.
Compete together.
Potentially spend months together.
And yet they still felt like strangers sometimes.
Minseok immediately pointed at himself.
“I’ll go first.”
“No one asked you to.”
“I know.”
He grinned.
“I like performing.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Hyunwoo blinked.
“That explains nothing.”
Minseok looked offended.
“I dance.”
“Yes.”
“I make people smile.”
“…Sometimes.”
“I enjoy being on stage.”
That made everyone pause.
For the first time, his voice sounded unusually sincere.
Then he shrugged.
“And if I can do that for a living, that sounds pretty awesome.”
The table grew quieter.
It was such a simple answer.
Yet it fit him perfectly.
“What about you?”
Minseok immediately turned toward Doyoung.
The wealthy heir sighed.
A lot.
“I’m starting to regret this conversation.”
“Too late.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
The universal sign that he needed patience.
“My family already has plans for my future.”
Nobody said anything.
Because everyone already knew what kind of family he came from.
“Medical school?”
Hyunwoo guessed.
“Probably.”
“And after that?”
“Take over part of the company.”
Minseok whistled.
“That’s kind of insane.”
“It isn’t.”
“It really is.”
Doyoung poked at his food.
For a moment, his expression became oddly distant.
Then he spoke.
“I wanted to choose something myself.”
Silence.
No jokes came this time.
Because suddenly his decision made perfect sense.
Hyunwoo became the next victim.
“Your turn.”
The silver-haired trainee thought for a moment.
Then shrugged.
“I modeled because people told me I should.”
“…That’s the most Hyunwoo answer I’ve ever heard.”
“You’ve known me for three days.”
“Still counts.”
Hyunwoo laughed.
Then his smile softened.
“At some point I realized I’d never actually chosen anything.”
The table quieted again.
“I was just following opportunities.”
“So Star Dust is your choice?”
“Yeah.”
His answer came instantly.
“I want to see how far I can go.”
Simple.
Confident.
The sort of answer only someone who believed in himself could give.
Then all eyes moved toward Jaehyun.
The leader looked mildly annoyed.
Which meant the pressure was working.
“Three years.”
Everyone nodded.
That wasn’t new information.
Jaehyun sighed.
“Three years ago I thought I’d debut in six months.”
Minseok immediately laughed.
“That optimistic?”
“I was stupid.”
“That too.”
Jaehyun ignored him.
“After a while…”
He paused.
Searching for words.
Then eventually shrugged.
“It stopped feeling like a dream.”
The table remained silent.
“It became something I couldn’t quit.”
Jiwon felt those words settle heavily inside him.
Because that wasn’t ambition.
That was obsession.
Three years in the trainee system probably required it.
Then Minseok looked toward him.
“Jiwon.”
Uh-oh.
Every pair of eyes immediately turned his way.
The problem was that his answer was complicated.
Far too complicated.
He couldn’t exactly say:
I spent years working in an office, regretted every decision I made, died with unresolved dreams, then somehow got sent back in time.
A bit difficult to explain during lunch.
So he stayed quiet.
Long enough for everyone to notice.
“Wow.”
Minseok pointed.
“That bad?”
“A little.”
Jiwon laughed.
Then stared at the table.
For a moment, memories surfaced.
Office lights.
Late nights.
Computer screens.
The feeling of wondering what could have been.
Eventually he spoke.
“I don’t want to regret giving up.”
Nobody interrupted.
Good.
Because he wasn’t sure he could explain further.
Another few seconds passed.
Then Minseok nodded.
“Yeah.”
The usually energetic trainee smiled.
A surprisingly understanding smile.
“That’s a good reason.”
For some reason, everyone seemed to agree.
The conversation drifted elsewhere after that.
Movies.
School.
Practice.
Minseok somehow spent five minutes arguing that sleeping should count as training.
Nobody supported him.
Eventually they paid the bill and headed back toward Star Dust.
The mood felt lighter.
More relaxed.
More comfortable.
And maybe that was why the atmosphere changed the moment they stepped back into Practice Room 3-B.
Because now they knew.
Not just what kind of performers they were.
But what they were fighting for.
Different reasons.
Different dreams.
Same stage.
Which made what happened next far more dangerous.
The performance still wasn’t complete.
The positions still weren’t finalized.
And one role remained unclaimed.
The killing part.
The moment audiences remembered.
The line that could define an entire stage.
No owner.
At least not yet.
It was Minseok who brought it up.
Naturally.
“You’re all thinking about it too, right?”
This time, nobody answered.
Which was answer enough.
The room became suspiciously quiet.
Minseok pointed triumphantly.
“Ha.”
“No one said anything.”
“Exactly.”
His finger swept dramatically across the room.
“That’s how I know.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It absolutely is.”
For once, even Jaehyun didn’t immediately dismiss him.
Which said everything.
Jiwon’s eyes drifted toward the lyric sheet.
The killing part.
A short section.
Yet somehow the center of everyone’s attention.
His heartbeat sped up slightly.
Yesterday, he would never have considered it.
Yesterday, he had been trying to survive.
Now?
The thought appeared anyway.
Maybe…
Maybe I didn’t want to stay at the bottom forever.
The realization surprised him.
Because it wasn’t envy.
It wasn’t greed.
It was ambition.
The kind he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
At that exact moment, a familiar blue window appeared.
Invisible to everyone else.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[HIDDEN CONDITION DETECTED]
An Unclaimed Position Exists
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes narrowed.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[OPPORTUNITY]
Challenge For Additional Lines?
YES / NO
━━━━━━━━━━━━