06:57 PM
Practice Room 3-B
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The evaluation was over.
Which, surprisingly, created an entirely new problem.
Nobody seemed eager to leave.
Minseok sat on the floor.
Hyunwoo drank water.
Jaehyun was organizing papers.
Doyoung was reviewing notes.
And Jiwon…
Was staring at nothing in particular.
For several minutes, nobody moved.
Eventually—
Minseok broke first.
As expected.
“You know.”
Nobody reacted.
A common occurrence.
“You know.”
Still nothing.
The dancer looked offended.
“I feel like nobody respects my opening statements.”
“Because we know there will be more.”
Doyoung replied.
“That’s fair.”
Minseok immediately accepted the criticism.
Then pointed dramatically toward the score sheet.
“The ten still bothers me.”
Nobody looked surprised.
“The dance score or the suitability score?”
Jaehyun asked.
“The suitability score.”
“Of course.”
“Ten.”
The dancer shook his head.
“Ten is a personal attack.”
“No.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“It was a professional attack.”
“That’s worse.”
“It should be.”
“How?”
The analyst pointed toward him.
“You’re physically incapable of treating the Killing Part normally.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Minseok thought about it.
Then reluctantly nodded.
“Okay.”
A pause.
“That’s actually fair.”
The room burst into laughter.
Even Hyunwoo smiled.
Slightly.
Which somehow made it funnier.
Minseok pointed immediately.
“There.”
“What?”
“You smiled.”
“I did.”
“Everybody saw that, right?”
Nobody answered.
“Traitors.”
The dancer crossed his arms.
Then frowned.
Actually—
“You know what?”
Nobody liked that tone.
“What now?”
“If Jiwon gets any prettier, we’re going to lose all the female votes.”
Hyunwoo immediately spat out his water.
The room exploded.
“WHAT?”
Minseok pointed triumphantly.
“There!”
“There what?”
“I knew somebody was thinking it.”
“NOBODY was thinking it.”
“You literally spat out water.”
“Because that’s a crazy thing to say.”
“Sounds like denial.”
“That’s not how denial works.”
“It is in my heart.”
“Please stop saying that.”
“No.”
Even Jaehyun lowered his head.
Trying very hard not to laugh.
Failing.
Across the room, Doyoung quietly wrote something in his notebook.
Minseok pointed.
“See?
Even he agrees.”
“I wrote ‘idiot’.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Still counts.”
The laughter gradually faded.
The score sheets disappeared into Jaehyun’s bag.
The evaluation was finished.
Officially.
For real this time.
And suddenly—
A strange silence settled over the room.
Different from before.
Less tense.
More uncertain.
Nobody seemed entirely sure what came next.
Then Hyunwoo spoke.
“We only have one week left.”
Silence.
Immediate silence.
Jiwon’s expression froze.
One week.
Right.
Saturday.
Final evaluation.
Team reassignment.
For some reason—
He hadn’t thought about it.
Not really.
The Killing Part.
The challenge.
The System.
The rankings.
Everything else had occupied so much space in his head that he’d forgotten the obvious.
Team 17 wasn’t permanent.
Never had been.
Across the room, Minseok let out a groan.
“I officially dislike your habit of saying depressing things.”
“I’m being realistic.”
Hyunwoo replied.
“I preferred it when you were winning instead.”
A pause.
“I also won this time.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“See?”
Minseok pointed at him.
“That.”
“What?”
“That’s why people hate talented people.”
The room laughed.
Briefly.
Yet this time—
Nobody completely relaxed.
Because Hyunwoo was right.
One week.
That was all.
One final performance.
Then Team 17 would disappear.
The thought felt strangely uncomfortable.
Jiwon frowned.
That’s weird.
A month ago he would’ve celebrated.
Graduating from Team 17 meant getting closer to debut.
Getting closer to his goal.
So why did it feel like losing something?
His gaze drifted across the room.
Minseok was still arguing with reality.
Jaehyun was keeping everyone organized.
Doyoung was already planning three weeks ahead.
Hyunwoo looked like Hyunwoo.
Annoyingly composed.
For a while—
None of them spoke.
Eventually Minseok stood up.
Stretched.
Then looked around.
“You know what?”
Nobody liked that tone.
“What?”
Jaehyun asked.
“We should eat.”
Silence.
“A shocking suggestion.”
Doyoung said.
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t praise.”
“It sounded like praise.”
Hyunwoo picked up his bag.
“I’m hungry.”
Minseok immediately pointed.
“See?”
“What?”
“We follow the handsome one.”
“That’s not how decisions work.”
“It is in my heart.”
“Please stop saying that.”
“No.”
Five minutes later—
They were already heading toward the nearest restaurant.
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The place wasn’t special.
Which made it perfect.
Plastic menus.
Bright lights.
Too much noise.
The kind of restaurant constantly filled with students.
The food arrived.
And immediately vanished.
Mostly because Minseok treated every meal like a timed competition.
“No one touch this one.”
He pointed at a piece of chicken.
“Why?”
Jaehyun asked.
“It’s mine.”
“Based on what?”
“My feelings.”
“No.”
“My heart.”
“Still no.”
Minseok looked betrayed.
Again.
Naturally.
Across the table, Hyunwoo quietly took the piece.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Minseok stared.
Hyunwoo stared back.
The chicken disappeared.
“…”
“…”
“…”
The dancer inhaled deeply.
“Okay.”
A pause.
“That one hurt.”
Even Doyoung laughed.
A rare event.
Jiwon found himself smiling.
The conversation continued.
The school.
The final evaluation.
The other teams.
Who looked strong.
Who looked annoying.
Mostly who looked annoying.
For the first time all day—
Nobody seemed concerned about rankings.
Nobody seemed concerned about scores.
Nobody seemed concerned about the Killing Part.
Whenever the mood became too heavy—
Minseok inevitably ruined it.
Somehow.
Some way.
Every time.
And strangely enough—
Nobody seemed to mind.
They were simply…
Having fun.
And somehow that realization bothered Jiwon.
One week.
The thought returned.
For some reason—
That felt far too short.
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08:47PM
Subway
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The train was quieter than usual.
Most students had already gone home.
Jiwon sat by the window.
Watching the city slide past.
The doors opened.
Several passengers entered.
Among them—
A girl carrying a large black duffel bag.
Heavy.
The kind used by athletes.
Or trainees.
Probably both.
She sat across from him.
Jiwon glanced up.
Then blinked.
For a brief moment—
He genuinely thought the lighting had changed.
The girl looked around his age.
Long dark hair tied in a ponytail.
Sharp features.
Clear skin.
Tall.
Not delicate.
Not cute.
Striking.
The kind of beauty people noticed immediately.
And he wasn’t the only one.
A man near the door looked up.
Then looked again.
Two students stopped scrolling through their phones.
Someone farther down the carriage glanced over.
Then glanced over again.
Jiwon noticed the pattern almost immediately.
Their attention kept returning to her.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The girl herself appeared completely oblivious.
Or completely used to it.
She put on headphones.
Opened a notebook.
And ignored the world.
Definitely a trainee.
The exhaustion was familiar.
The posture.
The bag.
The faint dark circles under her eyes.
Everything about her felt familiar.
The train slowed.
A station approached.
The girl stood.
Lifted the bag.
And stepped off without ever looking around.
The doors closed.
The carriage instantly felt more ordinary.
Jiwon watched the platform disappear behind them.
Wonder if she’s from the program.
For some reason—
The thought lingered longer than expected.
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09:39PM
Home
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Jiwon had barely sat down when his phone vibrated.
<Team 17>
Doyoung:
Practice recordings uploaded.
Minseok:
Delete mine.
Doyoung:
No.
Minseok:
Human rights violation.
Doyoung:
No.
Minseok:
Dictator.
Jaehyun:
Stop bothering him.
Minseok:
Never.
A smile appeared immediately.
Before he realized it.
Jiwon opened the files.
Then paused.
A blue window unfolded in front of his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Status
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Center Candidate
━━━━━━━━━━━━
New Evaluation Categories Available
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Individual Performance
Unlocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Team Performance
Unlocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Leadership
Locked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Center Influence
Locked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Fan Appeal
Locked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared.
“…There’s more?”
Of course there was.
The System was fundamentally evil.
His eyes moved downward.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Team Performance
Unlocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The words lingered.
For a moment—
His attention drifted back to the group chat.
Minseok was still complaining.
Jaehyun was still trying to maintain order.
Doyoung was failing to care.
And Hyunwoo hadn’t written a single message.
As usual.
The screen faded.
Leaving Jiwon alone with the recordings.
For a moment he considered opening Hyunwoo’s performance.
Instead—
He clicked the full evaluation video.
The entire thing.
Minseok.
Jaehyun.
Hyunwoo.
Himself.
Team 17.
The recording played.
And slowly—
A realization settled over him.
The rankings were over.
The Killing Part was over.
The competition was over.
At least for now.
Yet somehow—
That wasn’t what mattered.
His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
On the five trainees standing together.
I want Team 17 to win.
The thought arrived suddenly.
Without hesitation.
Without warning.
And once it appeared—
It refused to leave.
The System reacted immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEAM SCENARIO
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Final Evaluation
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Team
Team 17
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Objective
Place #1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reward???
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Penalty???
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon froze.
“…”
The interface updated again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Additional Information
━━━━━━━━━━━━
This Scenario Marks
The End Of Team 17
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Silence filled the room.
He read the line again.
Then once more.
The end of Team 17.
The video continued playing.
Minseok was arguing.
Again.
Jaehyun looked tired.
Again.
Doyoung was taking notes.
Again.
Hyunwoo looked annoyingly perfect.
Again.
A faint smile appeared on Jiwon’s face.
Until recently—
He had only wanted to survive this team.
Now—
He wasn’t ready to lose it.
One final notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Main Scenario Progress
━━━━━━━━━━━━
12%
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“…Twelve percent?”
That number felt insulting.
Almost impressively so.
The Killing Part.
The hidden title.
Center Candidate.
Everything he had accomplished.
And somehow—
It only amounted to twelve percent.
A laugh escaped him.
So this really was the tutorial.
For the first time all day—
That thought was genuinely terrifying.
His gaze returned to the screen.
To Team 17.
To the final week they still had together.
The smile remained.
Small.
Determined.
Then let’s win.