The music restarted.
For a brief moment—
Nobody moved.
Then Jiwon stepped forward.
The center position waited.
The same spot Minseok had filled with energy.
The same spot Jaehyun had filled with confidence.
The same spot Hyunwoo had somehow made feel inevitable.
Jiwon took a breath.
Then another.
The opening notes began.
And the performance started.
Immediately—
He felt the difference.
Not in the choreography.
Not in the vocals.
In himself.
A week ago, he would’ve been thinking about mistakes.
About timing.
About posture.
About whether he looked awkward.
About whether he belonged here at all.
Now—
The thoughts were still there.
They just weren’t in control anymore.
The first verse arrived.
Jiwon moved with the rhythm.
Not explosively.
Not perfectly.
Just naturally.
His body followed the music.
The movements remained clean.
Controlled.
Sharper than they had been a few days ago.
Yet something had changed.
The dance no longer felt like a test.
It felt like communication.
Like he was trying to tell them something.
The room remained silent.
Watching.
Evaluating.
But for the first time—
Jiwon wasn’t performing for their approval.
He was performing because he wanted this.
Desperately.
The realization settled over him midway through the verse.
He wanted the Killing Part.
Not because of the score.
Not because of the challenge.
Because he genuinely wanted to stand at the center.
The choreography continued.
A turn.
A step.
A transition into the next sequence.
His movements weren’t bigger than Minseok’s.
They weren’t cleaner than Jaehyun’s.
And they definitely weren’t effortless like Hyunwoo’s.
But they felt honest.
Every action carried intention.
Every expression felt real.
Nothing appeared manufactured.
Nothing appeared calculated.
Jiwon wasn’t trying to look cool.
He wasn’t trying to look talented.
He wasn’t trying to look worthy.
He was simply trying.
And somehow—
That made it harder to look away than he expected.
The Killing Part approached.
The moment everyone had been fighting over.
The reason they were here.
The reason he had spent days practicing until his muscles hurt.
The reason he’d stared at videos late into the night.
The reason he’d stood alone in front of a mirror.
The lyrics arrived.
Jiwon stepped forward.
No hesitation.
No second guessing.
No asking for permission.
The line left his mouth.
His voice remained steady.
Not perfect.
Steady.
His eyes lifted.
Not toward an imaginary camera.
Toward the people in the room.
Toward the teammates standing only a few meters away.
For a brief moment—
Jiwon forgot about the competition entirely.
There was only the song.
The performance.
And the feeling he wanted to share.
Hope.
Longing.
Determination.
The stubborn desire to reach something that seemed slightly out of reach.
The same feeling that had followed him ever since he stepped into Team 17.
The same feeling that had followed him through two lifetimes.
A strange silence settled over the room.
Not because the performance was overwhelming.
Not because it was flawless.
Because it felt sincere.
Painfully sincere.
Jiwon wanted this.
Everyone could see it.
The song entered its final section.
His breathing grew slightly heavier.
The choreography remained stable.
The vocals held.
The performance continued.
And for the first time since entering Team 17—
Jiwon stopped worrying about whether he belonged on stage.
Instead—
He acted like someone who intended to earn his place there.
The final movement landed.
The music faded.
Silence followed.
Jiwon stood still.
Breathing.
Waiting.
The room remained quiet.
A second passed.
Then another.
Nobody spoke immediately.
Across the room, Doyoung’s pen had stopped moving.
Again.
Jaehyun sat slightly forward in his chair.
Minseok wasn’t smiling.
And Hyunwoo—
For the first time that afternoon—
Looked directly at Jiwon.
Not as a teammate.
Not as a challenger.
As competition.
Slowly, Jiwon stepped back from the center.
His heart hammered inside his chest.
The performance was over.
Now came the terrifying part.
Finding out what everyone else had seen.
Silence lingered.
One second.
Then two.
Then three.
Minseok was the first to break.
“…Huh.”
Jiwon immediately didn’t like that.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
The dancer scratched his head.
Still staring at him.
Which somehow felt worse.
“You were different.”
Jiwon blinked.
“Different how?”
Minseok opened his mouth.
Paused.
Closed it again.
Then pointed vaguely in Jiwon’s direction.
“Like…”
Another pause.
“…you actually meant it.”
The room became quiet again.
Not because the comment was particularly deep.
Because everyone immediately understood it.
Even Jiwon.
Especially Jiwon.
Across the room, Doyoung looked up from his notebook.
“That’s surprisingly accurate.”
Minseok straightened.
“Finally.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.”
The smile appeared instantly.
As expected.
Jaehyun folded his arms.
“You stopped thinking halfway through.”
Jiwon looked over.
“What?”
“You were overthinking at the start.”
Another pause.
“Then you weren’t.”
“…”
“I could see the change.”
Jiwon wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or criticism.
Knowing Jaehyun—
It was probably both.
Then all eyes turned toward Hyunwoo.
Naturally.
Because his opinion mattered.
Probably more than anyone else’s.
The silver-haired trainee remained silent for several seconds.
Thinking.
Which somehow felt more intimidating than speaking.
Finally—
“You were easier to watch.”
Jiwon blinked.
“…Easier?”
Hyunwoo nodded.
“The first few times you performed, I felt like you were trying to convince yourself.”
A pause.
“This time you were trying to convince us.”
Silence.
Nobody joked.
Nobody interrupted.
Because that one landed.
Doyoung wrote something down.
Then nodded slightly.
“I agree.”
Minseok pointed dramatically.
“Okay, that’s two useful comments from me today.”
“One.”
Doyoung answered immediately.
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
“Even ruder.”
Jaehyun sighed.
“As entertaining as this is…”
He reached into his bag.
And pulled out several sheets of paper.
The room immediately became suspicious.
Especially Minseok.
“What is that?”
“The scoring sheets.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
The leader handed one to everyone.
Including Jiwon.
Minseok stared at it.
Then looked up.
Then back at the sheet.
Then back up.
A growing sense of betrayal appeared on his face.
“We’re using paperwork?”
“Yes.”
“We’re evaluating emotions with paperwork?”
“Yes.”
“This is how creativity dies.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“This is how objectivity survives.”
“I hate objectivity.”
“We know.”
Minseok looked back down at the sheet.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Evaluation Categories
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vocal
Dance
Performance
Suitability For Killing Part
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Score
1 – 5
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Can I give myself perfect scores?”
“No.”
Jaehyun answered immediately.
“Can I give Hyunwoo a one?”
“No.”
“Can I give Doyoung a one?”
“Also no.”
“This process feels very restrictive.”
Nobody felt particularly sympathetic.
As expected.
The room settled.
Pens began moving.
And suddenly—
The final judgment felt much closer than Jiwon had expected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The room settled.
Pens began moving.
Nobody spoke for a while.
The only sounds came from paper scratching beneath pen tips.
Even Minseok was taking it seriously.
Which felt slightly unnatural.
Jiwon looked down at his own sheet.
Four names.
Four categories.
Four performances.
A week ago, he would’ve known exactly what score to give himself.
The lowest one.
Today—
That answer didn’t feel honest anymore.
Slowly, he began writing.
Across the room, Hyunwoo finished first.
Of course he did.
Naturally.
Minseok was the last.
Also naturally.
The dancer stared at his sheet.
Then stared again.
Then sighed dramatically.
“I hate responsibility.”
“You’re grading four performances.”
Jaehyun replied.
“Exactly.”
“That’s not difficult.”
“It is emotionally.”
Nobody felt particularly sympathetic.
As expected.
Eventually, the final sheet was collected.
Doyoung gathered the papers.
Then immediately froze.
Everyone noticed.
Including Jiwon.
Minseok pointed.
“See?”
“What?”
“Something happened.”
Doyoung ignored him.
The notebook closed.
Then opened again.
The sheets were rearranged.
Checked.
Checked again.
Then passed to Jaehyun.
The leader reviewed the numbers.
Once.
Twice.
Then nodded.
“…Interesting.”
Minseok immediately sat up.
“Is that good?”
“No.”
“Is it bad?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say it like that?”
Jaehyun looked at him.
“I see why teachers get tired.”
“That’s fair.”
The room laughed.
Briefly.
Then the tension returned.
Because now came the part that mattered.
Jaehyun looked down at the paper.
“The scores are in.”
Nobody spoke.
“Lee Minseok.”
The dancer immediately sat up.
Finally.
Recognition.
Validation.
Justice.
“Vocals: 8.”
“Disrespectful.”
“Dance: 20.”
“Correct.”
“Performance: 15.”
“Also correct.”
“Suitability: 10.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total: 53
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“I thought we were a team.”
“We are.”
Doyoung replied.
“Then why am I being attacked?”
“Park Jaehyun.”
The leader looked surprisingly calm.
Naturally.
“Vocals: 16.”
“Dance: 14.”
“Performance: 15.”
“Suitability: 12.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total: 57
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Minseok immediately pointed.
“See?”
“What?”
“Responsible people are overrated.”
Jaehyun sighed.
“As expected.”
Silence returned.
Two names remained.
Jaehyun glanced down at the sheet.
Then continued.
“Kang Hyunwoo.”
Nobody looked surprised.
Not even slightly.
“Vocals: 16.”
“Dance: 13.”
“Performance: 20.”
“Suitability: 19.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total: 68
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Even Minseok nodded.
Reluctantly.
Painfully.
But honestly.
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“That’s annoying.”
Hyunwoo looked up.
“What is?”
“You.”
The room laughed.
Briefly.
Then fell silent again.
Because only one name remained.
One.
Jiwon’s heartbeat accelerated.
Unexpectedly.
Ridiculously.
The result was already obvious.
Hyunwoo had won.
Everyone knew it.
So why was he nervous?
“Han Jiwon.”
His name echoed through the room.
Jaehyun looked at the final row.
Then raised his eyes.
“Vocals: 12.”
Jiwon nodded.
Fair.
“Dance: 13.”
Also fair.
“Performance: 16.”
His eyes widened slightly.
Then came the last category.
The important one.
“Suitability: 17.”
Silence.
True silence.
Even Minseok stopped joking.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total: 58
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Second place.
Only ten points behind Hyunwoo.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“Last week…”
The room immediately quieted.
“…this wouldn’t have been close.”
Nobody disagreed.
Because nobody could.
Doyoung tapped the paper.
“Hyunwoo still won.”
Another tap.
“But not a single one of us expected this score.”
His eyes settled on Jiwon.
“You weren’t competing a week ago.”
A pause.
“Today you were.”
That hit harder than the ranking itself.
Hyunwoo looked toward him.
Then nodded once.
“Good job.”
Simple.
Direct.
Sincere.
For some reason…
That felt terrifying.
Then Minseok sighed dramatically.
“Too bad.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What now?”
Jaehyun asked.
The dancer pointed toward the rankings.
“If Jiwon had won…”
A pause.
“I could’ve blamed the System.”
“…”
“Or corruption.”
“…”
“Possibly both.”
The room burst into laughter.
And for the first time that afternoon—
Second place didn’t feel like losing.
It felt like proof.
Right then-
The air in front of him distorted slightly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SPECIAL CHALLENGE]
Killing Part Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Result
FAILED
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The smile on Jiwon’s face froze.
…
Fair.
The next window appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Challenge Objective
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Acquire The Killing Part
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Result
Failure
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reward
None
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the screen.
Then nodded slightly.
Understandable.
He had lost.
The difference wasn’t enormous.
But it existed.
Hyunwoo had earned the position.
The System was simply acknowledging reality.
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Special Reward
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Unavailable
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reward Condition Not Met
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Killing Part Ownership Required
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Expected.
That one hurt a little more.
Not because of the reward.
Because of the reminder.
Second place was still second place.
For a moment, silence returned.
Then—
The blue screen flickered.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
Jiwon frowned.
“…?”
That had never happened before.
A golden notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hidden Condition Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The room vanished.
Jiwon’s eyes widened slightly.
Gold.
The System only used that color when something important happened.
Very important.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recalculating Evaluation…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analyzing Growth Rate…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analyzing Relative Performance…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analyzing Position Eligibility…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A familiar feeling settled into his stomach.
The System was thinking.
Which was never a comforting experience.
Finally—
The answer appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hidden Condition Cleared
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Become A Recognized Center Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Status
Completed
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon froze.
Recognized?
Another screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recognition Sources
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Team Leader
✓
Main Competitor
✓
Performance Analyst
✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Candidate Status Confirmed
━━━━━━━━━━━━
For several seconds—
Jiwon simply stared.
Then the meaning hit him.
Not the System.
Them.
Jaehyun.
Hyunwoo.
Doyoung.
The people whose opinions actually mattered.
The people who had watched him fail.
Improve.
Fail again.
And improve again.
They had acknowledged him.
Not as dead weight.
Not as a project.
Not as someone trying to catch up.
As competition.
A second golden window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEW TITLE ACQUIRED
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Center Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Effect
Stage Presence Growth Rate +25%
Confidence Growth During Evaluations +15%
Audience Recognition Growth Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Description
You are no longer chasing the center position from behind.
You have stepped onto the stage.
Whether you remain there is your responsibility.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s breath caught.
Then—
One final notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Evaluation
━━━━━━━━━━━━
One Week Ago
Not Considered
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Status
Legitimate Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A long silence followed.
Legitimate.
The word lingered.
For some reason, that single word felt heavier than any reward.
He hadn’t won.
He wasn’t the center.
He wasn’t even close to Hyunwoo.
Not yet.
But for the first time—
Nobody could pretend he didn’t belong in the conversation.
The System wasn’t finished.
Of course it wasn’t.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Challenge Assessment
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Objective Failed
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Growth Assessment
Extraordinary
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Final Evaluation
Continue
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Continue.
Jiwon laughed.
A small laugh.
A tired laugh.
A genuine one.
Somehow—
That single word felt less like an order.
And more like a promise.