By the time Jiwon got home, it was already dark.
The lights in the apartment were still on.
A familiar smell drifted from the kitchen.
Dinner.
For a brief moment, he remained standing in the entrance.
Listening.
The television.
The sound of dishes.
His mother’s voice coming from somewhere inside the apartment.
Normal sounds.
Ordinary sounds.
The kind that disappeared into the background when you heard them every day.
The kind people only missed after they were gone.
“You’re late.”
His mother’s voice arrived before she did.
A second later she appeared from the kitchen doorway.
Then stopped.
Her eyes narrowed immediately.
“Why do you look exhausted?”
Jiwon laughed.
“Good evening to you too.”
“I’m serious.”
She pointed at him.
“You look like you’ve been fighting.”
“That’s not completely inaccurate.”
“Jiwon.”
“I’m joking.”
Mostly.
His mother didn’t look convinced.
A few minutes later, he found himself seated at the dinner table.
His father sat across from him.
A tablet rested beside his plate.
His mother moved back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, adding dishes despite the fact that there was already more than enough food.
Some things never changed.
“You’ve been coming home late a lot lately.”
The comment came casually.
Almost absentmindedly.
Yet Jiwon’s chopsticks paused for half a second.
Until now, he had successfully avoided the conversation.
Not intentionally.
At least not entirely.
The timing had simply never felt right.
“Actually…”
His voice caused both parents to look up.
Somehow, that made continuing much harder.
“I auditioned for something.”
Silence followed.
His mother blinked.
“Auditioned?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of audition?”
Jiwon hesitated.
Then answered.
“A survival show.”
The confusion on his mother’s face only deepened.
His father slowly lowered his tablet.
“A singing competition?”
“Something like that.”
The room became quiet again.
Then his mother’s eyes widened.
“When?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“You auditioned two weeks ago and you’re only telling us now?”
“…”
“…That’s fair.”
“It absolutely is.”
His mother finally sat down.
Crossed her arms.
And adopted the expression all mothers seemed capable of summoning instantly.
The one that demanded answers.
Immediately.
Jiwon surrendered.
The auditions.
Passing the evaluation.
Meeting Team 17.
Practice.
The mission.
He explained everything.
Or at least as much as he could.
The story became progressively more difficult to tell because of his mother’s reactions.
Every few sentences, her eyes became wider.
Then wider.
Then somehow wider again.
Eventually she raised a hand.
“Wait.”
Jiwon stopped.
“You passed?”
“Yes.”
“You actually passed?”
“Yes.”
“You’re still in the competition?”
“Mom.”
She slapped the table.
“You passed!”
Jiwon couldn’t help laughing.
Across from him, his father chuckled quietly.
The first visible reaction he’d shown during the entire conversation.
Somehow that made it even better.
His mother looked genuinely excited.
As though she had personally survived the auditions.
Which was slightly embarrassing.
Then another thought occurred to her.
Her expression shifted immediately.
“Wait.”
Here we go.
“Is this why you’ve been practicing every day?”
Jiwon looked away.
“Maybe.”
“Jiwon.”
“…Yeah.”
“The singing?”
“…Yeah.”
“The dancing?”
“…Yeah.”
“The weird noises coming from your room?”
Jiwon immediately closed his eyes.
“We don’t need to discuss those.”
“We absolutely do.”
“We really don’t.”
His mother laughed.
His father shook his head.
For a few moments, the conversation drifted elsewhere.
Food.
School.
Practice.
Nothing particularly important.
Nothing dramatic.
Just family.
At some point, the discussion faded completely.
The television continued playing in the background.
Cutlery occasionally touched plates.
The apartment settled into a comfortable silence.
Jiwon glanced across the table.
His father was eating quietly.
As usual.
And for some reason, an old memory resurfaced.
A conversation from years ago.
Or at least the version he remembered.
Careers.
University.
The future.
For a long time, Jiwon had associated his father with a single idea.
Stability.
Be realistic.
Choose the safe path.
Looking back, he had blamed that advice more than once.
Not openly.
Not consciously.
But enough.
Enough that some small part of him had always wondered whether things would’ve been different otherwise.
His chopsticks slowed.
Unexpectedly, his father’s voice broke the silence.
“So.”
Jiwon looked up.
His father set down his chopsticks.
“When is the next evaluation?”
“Tuesday.”
“That’s soon.”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll be difficult.”
Jiwon laughed softly.
“That’s one way to put it.”
His father nodded.
Then, after a brief pause, said:
“Congratulations.”
Jiwon blinked.
“What?”
“You passed.”
The answer came so naturally.
So simply.
That for a moment he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
His father rarely praised people directly.
Especially not with words.
The older man leaned back slightly.
A thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
“When I was your age…”
For the first time that evening, he seemed to be looking somewhere far away.
“I had a dream too.”
Jiwon froze.
Across the table, even his mother looked surprised.
Apparently she hadn’t expected that either.
His father smiled faintly.
Not a sad smile.
Not a happy one.
Just a real one.
“Life happened.”
The answer was simple.
Almost frustratingly simple.
Yet somehow it felt heavier than a long explanation ever could.
His father’s gaze returned to him.
Directly.
“I’m happy you’re chasing yours.”
Something inside Jiwon stopped.
The television faded into background noise.
The room felt strangely distant.
For years, he had carried a certain belief.
His parents wanted stability.
His parents wanted success.
His parents wanted security.
Looking at his father now, he suddenly wasn’t sure where that belief had come from.
Or when he had decided it was true.
Maybe his father had never wanted him to stop dreaming.
Maybe he had only wanted him not to suffer.
The realization arrived quietly.
Then hit like a truck.
His vision blurred.
“Jiwon?”
His mother’s voice sounded far away.
His father frowned.
“Why are you crying?”
Only then did Jiwon raise a hand to his face.
His fingers came away wet.
“…I don’t know.”
Which was technically true.
Because explaining regression, regret, and a second life over dinner felt slightly complicated.
Very slightly.
His mother immediately stood up.
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
A weak laugh escaped him.
He quickly wiped his eyes.
Then looked back at his parents.
Both of them.
For the first time in a very long while, the apartment felt different.
Warmer.
Familiar.
Like somewhere he actually belonged.
And somehow…
That only made it harder to stop crying.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eventually, the conversation moved on.
Or rather, his parents forced it to.
His mother had apparently decided that allowing him to cry for the next three hours wasn’t a productive use of time.
Which was unfortunate.
Because Jiwon was fairly certain he could have managed it.
“So.”
His mother sat back down.
“Which celebrity are you competing against?”
Jiwon laughed weakly.
“That’s not how survival shows work.”
“It should be.”
“It really shouldn’t.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“No idea.”
His mother looked scandalized.
“How can you not know?”
“I’m participating in it, not producing it.”
His father chuckled quietly.
The conversation drifted for a few more minutes before Jiwon suddenly looked up.
“Dad.”
“Hm?”
“When I was younger…”
His fingers tightened slightly around his chopsticks.
“Did you want me to give up?”
Both his parents looked at him.
His mother seemed confused.
His father looked surprised.
“Give up what?”
“The idol thing.”
The older man frowned.
“Why would I want that?”
Jiwon hesitated.
“Because you always talked about stable jobs.”
His father stared at him.
Then burst out laughing.
Actually laughing.
“Dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
He clearly wasn’t.
His mother was already laughing too.
Unfortunately.
“I still don’t understand how you reached that conclusion.”
“You literally told me to have a backup plan.”
“Of course I did.”
“There.”
Jiwon pointed triumphantly.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No.”
His father shook his head.
“That’s not the same thing.”
The amusement slowly disappeared from his face.
“When you were little, you wanted to be a soccer player.”
His mother nodded immediately.
“You practiced in the apartment until you broke that lamp.”
“We don’t need that story.”
“We absolutely do.”
His mother disagreed.
As expected.
His father ignored them both.
“Then you wanted to be an astronaut.”
Jiwon groaned.
“I was eight.”
“You were very passionate.”
“I liked the helmet.”
His mother laughed.
Then his father continued.
“Then came music.”
The room grew quieter.
“Then becoming an idol.”
He looked directly at Jiwon.
“I never cared which dream it was.”
Jiwon blinked.
His father continued calmly.
“The point of a backup plan isn’t to abandon your dream.”
Silence.
“It’s to give yourself another option if things don’t work out.”
Another pause.
“You were supposed to chase it.”
Those words hit surprisingly hard.
“Seriously?”
“Of course.”
His father looked genuinely confused.
“What did you think I meant?”
Jiwon opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Nothing came out.
Because the answer sounded stupid now.
For years, he had translated concern into opposition.
Worry into criticism.
Protection into restriction.
His father leaned back.
“When I was your age, I had a dream too.”
This time nobody interrupted.
“And no backup plan.”
A faint smile appeared.
“I don’t recommend that strategy.”
Even Jiwon laughed.
His father smiled back.
Then added quietly:
“I’m happy you’re chasing yours.”
The room went silent again.
Not awkwardly.
Not heavily.
Just long enough for the words to settle.
And for some reason, sitting there at the dinner table, surrounded by ordinary sounds and ordinary people…
Jiwon suddenly realized that all this time, his parents had never asked him to be successful.
They had only wanted him to be okay.
That realization hit much harder than he expected.
“Jiwon?”
His mother frowned.
“Why are you crying again?”
Only then did he realize the tears had started all over.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The apartment gradually became quiet.
His parents remained in the living room.
The television continued playing somewhere beyond the door.
Jiwon sat down at his desk.
A familiar blue window hovered above his phone.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SPECIAL CHALLENGE]
Killing Part Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Winning Probability:
8%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
He stared at it for a few seconds.
Then opened the Notes app.
If he was going to compete, he needed to know against whom.
His fingers moved quickly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kang Hyunwoo
Pros:
Visual Center Stage Presence
Cons:
?
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon frowned.
Then moved on.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lee Minseok
Pros:
Dance Energy Audience Appeal
Cons:
Vocals
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Next.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Park Jaehyun
Pros:
Vocals Rap Experience Stability
Cons:
?
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The list looked increasingly unfair.
Then his eyes moved to the final name.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Han Jiwon
Pros:
The cursor blinked.
Waiting.
One second.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
“…”
Eventually he typed:
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Guitar
━━━━━━━━━━━━
He stared at it.
Then deleted it.
The killing part didn’t require a guitar.
The cursor returned.
Blinking.
Still waiting.
A few seconds later, he typed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Improving
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Not exactly an intimidating advantage.
Still, he left it there.
For a moment, the room became completely silent.
Then Jiwon sighed and started a new section.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Killing Part
Requirements
Attention
Confidence
Memorability
Impact
Stage Control
━━━━━━━━━━━━
That looked more useful.
His gaze drifted back to the challenge window.
Eight percent.
Not much.
But not zero.
Jiwon reached for his phone again.
If Tuesday was the deadline…
He still had work to do.