The subway ride home felt longer than usual.
Not because of traffic.
Not because of delays.
Because of a number.
Twenty-one.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Audience Focus Test
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Han Jiwon
21%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The notification had disappeared nearly thirty minutes ago.
Yet it remained perfectly visible inside his head.
Jiwon stared at the dark train window.
His reflection stared back.
Tired.
Sweaty.
Slightly annoyed.
Understandably.
A short laugh escaped him.
“…Twenty-one.”
The old him would’ve been satisfied.
Actually—
The old him would’ve been thrilled.
Three months ago, merely standing in front of an audience would’ve sounded impossible.
Now he was upset because people weren’t paying enough attention to him.
That felt strangely ridiculous.
The train entered a tunnel.
The reflection became clearer.
For several seconds, Jiwon simply looked at himself.
Then looked away.
Because apparently self-reflection had become dangerous lately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
An hour later.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon sat down at his desk.
Opened his phone.
And immediately regretted it.
Because the first thing he saw was today’s practice recording.
“…”
A dangerous idea appeared.
Then stayed.
Then refused to leave.
Which was usually how dangerous ideas worked.
Ten seconds later he was already watching.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Team 17 Practice
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The video started.
Hyunwoo appeared first.
Jiwon watched carefully.
This time not as a teammate.
Not as a competitor.
As an observer.
Like Doyoung.
Like the audience.
Like someone seeing the performance for the first time.
The Killing Part arrived.
Hyunwoo stepped forward.
Smiled.
Sang.
Finished.
That was it.
Nothing complicated.
Nothing impossible.
Nothing beyond human capability.
And yet—
Jiwon’s eyes had followed him the entire time.
“…”
He replayed it.
Again.
Then again.
Then once more.
The result remained unchanged.
The camera wanted him.
The audience wanted him.
Attention naturally drifted toward him.
As if doing anything else required effort.
“Tch.”
Jiwon skipped forward.
Minseok appeared.
Immediate chaos.
Immediate energy.
Immediate personality.
Even through a phone screen.
Half of his expressions looked improvised.
The other half probably were.
Yet looking away felt impossible.
Then came Jaehyun.
Steady.
Reliable.
Controlled.
Watching him perform felt like watching somebody who had already debuted.
No uncertainty.
No hesitation.
No weaknesses.
Just confidence.
Jiwon watched all three recordings.
Then finally selected the fourth.
His own.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Han Jiwon
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The video began.
Silence filled the room.
Jiwon’s eyes narrowed.
The vocals were good.
Objectively good.
The dancing was good too.
Much better than before.
The transitions looked cleaner.
His posture looked stronger.
His breathing looked controlled.
Everything looked better.
So why—
The realization arrived halfway through the recording.
Quietly.
Brutally.
When Hyunwoo appeared, people watched Hyunwoo.
When Minseok appeared, people reacted.
When Jaehyun appeared, people listened.
When Jiwon appeared…
People evaluated.
The video ended.
Silence followed.
“…Ah.”
For the first time, he completely understood what Doyoung had meant.
A familiar blue notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Problem Identified
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Stage Presence
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recommended Solution
━━━━━━━━━━━━
UNKNOWN
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
“What?”
Another notification appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
No Training Module Available
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
He stared.
Then stared again.
Then leaned forward.
“No.”
The System remained silent.
“Don’t do this.”
Nothing.
“You have a training module for breathing.”
Silence.
“A training module for singing.”
Silence.
“A training module for rhythm.”
Silence.
“But not this?”
The System responded.
Eventually.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Query Acknowledged
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Problem
Unable To Be Solved Through Repetition Alone
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
That was not what he wanted to hear.
At all.
For several moments, the room remained completely quiet.
Then Jiwon’s gaze slowly drifted toward the mirror.
Toward his own reflection.
Toward the center of the room.
The place where he had been practicing all week.
The place where he had been trying not to fail.
And suddenly—
A memory surfaced.
Minseok’s voice.
Earlier that afternoon.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The rehearsal had ended nearly twenty minutes ago.
Nobody was practicing anymore.
At least officially.
Minseok sat on the floor leaning against the mirror.
A water bottle rested in one hand.
Doyoung was still writing notes.
Which was concerning.
Hyunwoo was scrolling through his phone.
Jaehyun was reviewing formations.
Normal Team 17 behavior.
Which mostly meant nobody was actually resting.
Minseok took a long drink.
Then frowned.
“Hm.”
Nobody reacted.
A common occurrence.
“Hm.”
Still nothing.
Eventually he pointed at Jiwon.
“You’ve been staring at Hyunwoo for ten minutes.”
Jiwon blinked.
“I have not.”
“It was at least eight.”
“That’s not helping.”
“You’re trying to figure out stage presence.”
Silence.
Jiwon suddenly felt attacked.
Doyoung didn’t even look up.
“He’s right.”
“Why are both of you like this?”
“Observant.”
“Annoying.”
“Also that.”
Minseok nodded.
Then pointed at himself.
“The answer is confidence.”
Immediately everyone looked at him.
Mostly because that sounded suspicious.
Jaehyun sighed.
“This should be good.”
“I know things.”
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
Minseok ignored him.
As expected.
“People think confidence comes first.”
He took another sip.
Then shook his head.
“It doesn’t.”
Jiwon frowned.
“What?”
“It comes after.”
“After what?”
Minseok thought.
For almost three entire seconds.
A new personal record.
Then grinned.
“Embarrassment.”
Nobody understood.
Including Minseok.
Apparently.
The dancer stood up.
Still holding the water bottle.
“What are you talking about?”
Hyunwoo asked.
Minseok pointed dramatically.
“Observe.”
Immediately everyone became nervous.
For good reason.
Then he accidentally squeezed the bottle too hard.
Water shot directly across the room.
And all over his shirt.
Silence.
“…”
“…”
Doyoung slowly lowered his notebook.
“That’s your demonstration?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
More water dripped from Minseok’s hair.
His shirt clung awkwardly to him.
The entire situation was deeply unfortunate.
Then Minseok shrugged.
“So what?”
“What do you mean so what?”
Jaehyun asked.
The dancer spread his arms.
“Embarrassing things happen.”
Another shrug.
“You survive.”
Before anybody could answer, the music suddenly started.
“What are you doing?”
Jiwon asked.
“Demonstrating.”
“That’s a terrible answer.”
Minseok ignored him.
Naturally.
The Killing Part section began.
Minseok stepped forward.
Still dripping water.
Still looking ridiculous.
Yet—
Something was different.
He wasn’t thinking anymore.
Not about looking cool.
Not about making mistakes.
Not about people watching.
He just performed.
The movements came out bigger.
Looser.
More natural.
The energy exploded from him.
The wet shirt clung to his movements.
The flying droplets caught the light.
Every turn looked sharper.
Every gesture looked stronger.
Every expression felt more alive.
Thirty seconds later the music stopped.
Silence filled the room.
“…”
“…”
Minseok blinked.
“What?”
Jaehyun crossed his arms.
“I hate that you’re better when you’re stupid.”
“I choose to take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It sounded like one.”
Even Hyunwoo laughed.
Jiwon remembered staring at him.
Confused.
Because the performance had objectively been better.
Not despite the embarrassment.
Because of it.
Minseok sat down again.
Water still dripping from his shirt.
Completely unbothered.
Then he pointed at Jiwon.
“See?”
“What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“You care too much.”
Silence.
The grin disappeared.
Just a little.
“For some reason.”
Another pause.
“You keep acting like someone needs to give you permission.”
Jiwon froze.
Then Minseok shrugged.
“Just look stupid.”
“…What?”
“Then survive.”
The room immediately burst into laughter.
“That’s terrible advice.”
Doyoung said.
“Works for me.”
“That explains a lot.”
“…Rude.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
Jiwon closed his eyes.
That idiot.
For some reason…
It actually made sense.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Time Remaining:
1 Days, 16 Hours, 34 minutes, 12 seconds
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the countdown.
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t look away.
Less than two days.
That was all.
Less than two days to learn something the System itself couldn’t teach.
The ability to make people look at him.
The ability to make people remember him.
The ability to belong in the center.
“…”
His gaze drifted toward the mirror.
Toward the person staring back.
Then—
He unlocked his phone and the song started again.
One more time.
No audience.
No judges.
No teammates.
Only him.
And the mirror.
The Killing Part approached.
Jiwon stepped forward.
Then stopped.
Because for the first time…
He realized he was doing it again.
Trying not to fail.
Trying not to look stupid.
Trying not to stand out too much.
Trying not to make mistakes.
Trying.
Always trying.
And somehow never claiming the stage.
Minseok’s voice surfaced again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“You keep acting like someone needs to give you permission.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
Jiwon laughed.
A little.
Then restarted the song.
This time—
He stopped thinking about singing correctly.
Stopped thinking about dancing correctly.
Stopped thinking about making an impression.
For three seconds…
He simply acted like the center position belonged to him.
The performance ended.
Silence followed.
Then—
A familiar blue notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUEST COMPLETED]
Become a Member Worthy of Team 17
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
“What?”
The screen expanded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Evaluation
ABOVE EXPECTATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Requirements
Singing: Cleared ✓
Dancing: Cleared ✓
Daily Practice: Cleared ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reward Calculation
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Daily Practice Consistency
+2 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Training Completion Rate
+2 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rapid Vocal Growth
+3 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rapid Dance Growth
+3 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Challenge Participation
+3 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mental Growth
+3 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Competing Against Superior Opponents
+4 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Exponential Growth Rate
+5 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total Reward
+25 Free Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
Twenty-five.
That was a terrifying amount of points.
Another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points
13 → 38
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
For the first time since receiving the System…
He felt rich.
Dangerously rich.
And for once, he knew exactly what he wanted.
Tuesday was tomorrow.
This wasn’t the moment for caution.
The old Han Jiwon would’ve saved every point.
Prepared backups.
Calculated risks.
Made contingency plans.
Which was exactly why he had spent a lifetime standing still.
His finger moved.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Allocating Points…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physique +5
21 → 26
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Presence +10
10 → 20
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Confidence +5
9 → 14
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dancing +5
15 → 20
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points Remaining
38 → 13
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The adjustment completed.
Immediately, another notification appeared.
Different from the others.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Condition Satisfied
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physique Exceeded Threshold
26 / 30
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…What?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Body Development Threshold Cleared
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Synchronizing Related Attributes…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A strange sensation spread through his body.
Not painful.
Not pleasant.
Just…
Different.
Like his muscles had finally started cooperating with each other.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analyzing Physical Growth
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Improved Muscular Symmetry
Improved Posture
Improved Core Stability
Improved Body Coordination
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Secondary Growth Triggered
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Face +1
13 → 14
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
“What does my face have to do with—”
The System ignored him.
Naturally.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Face Threshold Reached
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Visual Appeal Improved
Facial Harmony Improved
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Oh come on.”
Again.
Ignored.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Presence Synchronization Activated
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Stage Presence +3
20 → 23
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s expression froze.
“…Seriously?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Presence Adjustment Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Stage Presence Limit Reached
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The System wasn’t finished.
Of course it wasn’t.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physical Efficiency Improved
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing +1
25 → 26
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dancing +2
20 → 22
━━━━━━━━━━━━
For once…
The logic actually made sense.
Better posture.
Better coordination.
Better breathing.
A stronger body supporting better performance.
Those weren’t random improvements.
They were consequences.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Additional Mental Synchronization Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Confidence +4
14 → 18
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
That one confused him.
A lot.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reason
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Performance Inhibition Reduced
Self-Limiting Behavior Reduced
Mental Resistance Reduced
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Supportive Mindset Established
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Confidence Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon sat down.
Slowly.
The System wasn’t rewarding confidence.
It was recognizing it.
Recognizing the fact that for the first time…
He had stopped asking for permission to stand on stage.
That realization hit harder than expected.
A new window appeared.
Gold.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEW SKILL ACQUIRED
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Athletic Physique Lv.1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Effect
Fatigue Accumulation Reduced
Coordination Increased
Movement Efficiency Increased
Recovery Speed Slightly Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
A skill.
An actual skill.
Not training.
Not stats.
A skill.
He stretched experimentally.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No flashes.
No transformation.
Yet his body felt lighter.
Not stronger.
Just…
More cooperative.
Then his eyes moved toward the remaining points.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points
13
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Thirteen.
Not enough to transform everything.
Enough to matter.
His gaze drifted toward a stat he had mostly ignored.
Face.
The Killing Part wasn’t only about singing.
Or dancing.
People looked first.
Judged later.
With a sigh, Jiwon tapped the screen.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Allocating Points…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Face +11
14 → 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points
13 → 2
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The system reacted instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Face Attribute Maximum Reached
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Growth Limit Achieved
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…A maximum?”
Apparently.
The System wasn’t finished.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Appearance Synchronization Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Facial Development Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recalculating Related Attributes…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…That sounds dangerous.”
It was.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skin Improvement Triggered
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Face Growth Bonus Applied
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skin +5
16 → 21
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon froze.
“What?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Explanation
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Improved Facial Structure
Improved Body Proportions
Improved Skin Condition
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Overall Visual Impression Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Visual Synergy Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Stage Presence +3
23 → 26
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His jaw dropped.
Again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reason
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Audience Visual Retention Increased
Facial Memorability Increased
Performance Visibility Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A final status screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
Host: Han Jiwon
Age: 18
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE
Face: 25 / 25
Physique: 26 / 30
Skin: 21 / 25
Style: 8 / 20
Presence: 26 / 26
━━━━━━━━━━━━
PERFORMANCE
Singing: 26 / 45
Dancing: 22 / 40
Rapping: 6 / 35
Acting: 10 / 30
━━━━━━━━━━━━
MENTAL
Confidence: 18 / 20
Focus: 9 / 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points: 2
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Guitar D+
Performer Lv.1
Vocal Trainee Lv.1
Athletic Physique Lv.1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s gaze lingered on the screen.
Then another notification appeared.
One he recognized immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Audience Focus Test
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kang Hyunwoo
73%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Park Jaehyun
68%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lee Minseok
62%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Han Jiwon
21%
↓
37%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
Thirty-seven.
Not great.
Not enough.
But no longer embarrassing.
A final notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SPECIAL CHALLENGE]
Killing Part Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Winning Probability
5%
↓
27%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
Still low.
Still difficult.
Still nowhere near safe.
Yet for the first time since accepting the challenge…
The number felt real.
Not hopeful.
Real.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Evaluation Date
Tuesday
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Time Remaining
1 Day
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the countdown.
Then smiled.
Small.
Confident.
A little reckless.
For the first time in a very long while—
Tuesday couldn’t come fast enough.