The performance of the girls’ team ended.
Applause echoed through the speakers.
Then the monitor switched back to the stage logo.
For a moment, nobody in the room spoke.
Minseok was the first to recover.
Naturally.
“Okay.”
Nobody looked at him.
“Okay.”
Still nothing.
The dancer pointed at the monitor.
“I’ve reached a new conclusion.”
“What?”
Jaehyun asked.
“I definitely hate them.”
“As expected.”
“Seriously.”
Minseok slumped back into his chair.
“I don’t like competitors.”
“That is the point of the show.”
Doyoung replied.
“Unfortunately.”
A staff member passed through the room.
Another team was called.
The monitor changed again.
Five boys stepped onto the stage.
Different song.
Different concept.
The atmosphere shifted immediately.
The vocals were stronger.
The choreography sharper.
More aggressive.
Nobody in Team 17 joked this time.
The closer they got to their own performance—
The more focused everyone became.
Jiwon found himself watching differently too.
Half trainee.
Half competitor.
Every performance revealed something.
A good formation.
A clever transition.
An expression held slightly longer than expected.
Moments.
Tiny moments.
The kind audiences remembered.
The kind that decided rankings.
Another team finished.
Then another.
Time passed strangely.
Too fast.
Yet somehow not fast enough.
Occasionally, staff members entered the room.
Adjusting microphones.
Checking batteries.
Calling team numbers.
The tension continued growing.
Little by little.
Until eventually—
Even Minseok stopped talking.
…
That was concerning.
Very concerning.
Jiwon looked over.
The dancer was staring at the monitor.
Quietly.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Understandable.”
“Thank you.”
The room laughed.
Briefly.
Then the monitor changed again.
A new team appeared.
The music started.
Nobody from Team 17 spoke.
Everybody watched.
Everybody waited.
The performance ended.
More applause.
Then a producer appeared on screen.
A clipboard in hand.
The camera zoomed slightly.
The room became still.
Jiwon’s stomach tightened.
Somewhere beside him, Jaehyun sat a little straighter.
Doyoung stopped writing.
Minseok stopped fidgeting.
Hyunwoo lifted his head.
The producer looked toward the next card.
“Next up…”
Nobody breathed.
“…Team 17.”
Silence.
Complete silence.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then Minseok stood immediately.
“Oh.”
“What?”
Jaehyun asked.
“It’s happening.”
A pause.
“It’s actually happening.”
The reality finally seemed to hit him.
The evaluation.
The stage.
The audience.
The judges.
The last performance.
Everything.
At once.
Hyunwoo stood next.
Calm.
As usual.
Almost annoyingly calm.
Then Doyoung.
Then Jaehyun.
Finally—
Jiwon.
The five of them looked at each other.
Nobody said anything.
For a moment, words felt unnecessary.
They’d spent an entire week preparing.
An entire month together.
The music.
The arguments.
The practices.
The mistakes.
The improvements.
Everything had led here.
Minseok pointed dramatically.
Naturally.
“If we lose.”
“We’re not losing.”
Jaehyun interrupted.
“If we lose.”
“We’re not.”
“If we lose.”
“…”
“…”
“…Continue.”
Minseok nodded.
“Thank you.”
Then he pointed at Hyunwoo.
“I’m blaming you.”
“Why?”
“You’re talented enough to prevent failure.”
“That isn’t how responsibility works.”
“I disagree.”
“Of course you do.”
The room laughed.
One last time.
Then the laughter faded.
A staff member opened the door.
“Team 17.”
The atmosphere changed instantly.
No more jokes.
No more complaints.
No more delaying.
It was time.
The five of them followed the staff member through the hallway.
Past rooms filled with trainees.
Past cameras.
Past cables.
Past dozens of people moving in every direction.
The closer they got to the stage—
The louder everything became.
Audience chatter.
Staff instructions.
Music.
Applause.
The entire building seemed alive.
Eventually, they reached the side entrance.
The stage was just beyond the curtain.
Bright white light spilled through the gap.
Jiwon’s heartbeat accelerated.
Beside him, Minseok rolled his shoulders.
Jaehyun adjusted his microphone.
Doyoung checked his in-ear monitor.
Hyunwoo stared toward the stage.
Silent.
Focused.
A familiar blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEAM SCENARIO
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Objective
Place #1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Progress
0%
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Time Remaining
Current Evaluation
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at it.
Then slowly closed the window.
For once—
The System wasn’t important.
The stage was.
The curtain began to open.
Light flooded the entrance.
The announcer’s voice echoed through the hall.
“Please welcome…”
A pause.
The crowd responded.
Then—
“Team 17.”
The five of them stepped forward.
Together.
One final time.
The lights hit immediately.
Jiwon flinched.
For a moment—
He couldn’t see anything.
An ocean of white.
The stage lights swallowed everything.
The audience disappeared.
The hall disappeared.
Even the other members vanished.
All that remained was brightness.
Blinding.
Overwhelming.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then gradually—
His eyes adjusted.
The white blur began to break apart.
Shapes emerged.
Colors.
Movement.
Rows upon rows of seats appeared beyond the lights.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
People filled the auditorium.
A sea of faces stretching into the darkness.
Some were talking.
Some were looking down at programs.
Others were already watching the stage.
Watching them.
The realization sent a jolt through his spine.
That many…?
The audience looked impossibly large from up there.
Far larger than it had seemed on the monitor.
For a brief second, the old Han Jiwon resurfaced.
The version of himself that hated being seen.
The version that wanted to disappear into the background.
Then his gaze shifted.
Toward the judging panel.
Four people sat behind a long illuminated desk.
Professional.
Expressionless.
Evaluating.
Waiting.
The logo of the program glowed across the front.
STAR DUST.
The silver letters shone beneath the stage lights.
A circular comet-like star surrounded the words.
The tail wrapped around the logo in a complete arc.
As if protecting it.
Or trapping it.
Jiwon’s eyes lingered there for a moment.
The symbol felt strangely intimidating.
Because everything led back to that desk.
Every practice.
Every evaluation.
Every elimination.
Every dream.
The judges looked back calmly.
Pens ready.
Notes ready.
Waiting.
For Team 17.
A murmur rippled through the audience.
The stage lights continued burning overhead.
The music had not started yet.
Yet somehow—
This felt scarier.
The silence before the performance.
The moment before everything began.
Beside him, Minseok rolled his shoulders.
Jaehyun adjusted his stance.
Doyoung pushed his glasses slightly higher.
Hyunwoo looked completely calm.
Naturally.
Jiwon took a slow breath.
Then another.
The opening position approached.
The music waited.
The audience waited.
The judges waited.
And for the first time that day—
The reality finally settled in.
This wasn’t practice anymore.
This was the real stage.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The audience settled.
The judges exchanged brief glances.
Then a staff member handed something to the panel.
A tablet.
Kang Taejun checked the screen first.
Then smiled slightly.
That immediately terrified Jiwon.
Because legends should not smile before evaluations.
At the center sat Kang Taejun.
For over twenty years, every aspiring vocalist in the country had heard the same warning.
If Kang Taejun noticed your mistake—
Everyone else would notice it shortly afterward.
People joked that the man could hear a cracked note from another building.
Nobody laughed when he was in the room.
“It seems we have some interesting footage.”
A murmur ran through the audience.
Minseok looked confused.
Jiwon instantly became nervous.
Neither reaction was surprising.
To Taejun’s left sat Yoon Haejin.
Singer.
Producer.
Songwriter.
The woman responsible for turning trainees into artists and artists into stars.
Stories about her were everywhere.
Most of them terrifying.
Many contestants feared criticism.
Most feared disappointing her.
A little farther down the table sat Han Seongmin.
The oldest judge.
The most relaxed.
Which somehow made him the scariest.
Generations of idols had grown up listening to his songs.
Some of those idols now had trainees of their own.
And Seongmin was still here.
Still relevant.
Still smiling.
Lastly—
Rex leaned back in his chair.
The rapper looked bored.
He always looked bored.
That didn’t make him any less dangerous.
He had clawed his way out of underground clubs, built a career from nothing, and turned himself into a living industry success story.
Whenever Rex complimented someone—
People remembered it for years.
“I think we should show them.”
Seongmin smiled.
Immediately.
Everybody in Team 17 became nervous.
The giant screen behind the judges lit up.
Jiwon’s soul left his body.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEAM 17
Training Footage
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
“…”
“…”
“OH COME ON.”
Minseok shouted.
The audience immediately laughed.
The first clip appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Practice Room 3-B.
Wednesday.
Minseok standing in the center.
“No.”
“What?”
“The entrance.”
The video showed him demonstrating the movement.
The stomp.
The turn.
The aggressive transition.
“When you enter, commit.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Back on stage, Minseok froze.
The audience laughed again.
A few people even applauded.
The dancer looked horrified.
“They weren’t supposed to see that.”
“They absolutely were.”
Rex replied.
For the first time all morning—
The rapper looked amused.
Which was somehow terrifying.
The footage shifted.
Hyunwoo’s advice appeared next.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“The audience doesn’t know the next part exists.”
“Let them absorb the moment.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The screen showed the group repeating the formation.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Taejun nodded slightly.
Haejin scribbled something in her notes.
Then Doyoung appeared.
Standing beside several pages of diagrams.
Charts.
Arrows.
Statistics.
The audience immediately started laughing.
“I reviewed recordings from twenty-three other groups.”
The laughter doubled.
Even Han Seongmin lowered his head briefly.
Trying not to smile.
Failing.
On stage, Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
Completely unashamed.
Naturally.
Then the final clip appeared.
The Killing Part evaluation.
The room immediately became quieter.
This footage hadn’t been shown publicly before.
Jiwon’s heartbeat accelerated.
The screen displayed his performance from a week earlier.
The old version.
The one still struggling to draw attention.
Then the image split.
A newer rehearsal appeared beside it.
The version from Thursday.
Silence spread across the auditorium.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Rex leaned forward.
His eyes fixed on Jiwon.
“Interesting.”
The rapper tapped his pen against the desk.
Once.
Twice.
Then pointed toward the giant screen.
“Same guy?”
The audience chuckled.
Jiwon’s ears immediately became hot.
Rex wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I mean it.”
The room grew quieter.
“The voice got better.”
A tap.
“The dance got better.”
Another tap.
“But that’s not the biggest difference.”
Even Minseok stopped moving.
Rex pointed directly at Jiwon.
“A week ago…”
A pause.
“…you looked like somebody standing outside the practice room.”
Silence.
The words landed immediately.
Hard.
Rex pointed toward the screen.
“Today, you look like somebody opening the door.”
For a second—
Nobody spoke.
Not the audience.
Not Team 17.
Not even the other judges.
Because everyone understood exactly what he meant.
The old Jiwon on the screen moved carefully.
Cautiously.
Like somebody trying not to get in the way.
The newer version didn’t.
He stepped forward.
Occupied space.
Expected to be seen.
Rex leaned back in his chair.
“The improvement in your skills is nice.”
A pause.
“But that’s not what people remember.”
His gaze remained fixed on Jiwon.
“The confidence is.”
Jiwon’s chest tightened.
Because somehow—
That felt more meaningful than any score.
More meaningful than any statistic.
For the first time since joining Team 17—
Someone had noticed the change that mattered most.
A small smile appeared on Rex’s face.
Brief.
Barely visible.
“Good improvement.”
Coming from Rex—
That sounded dangerously close to praise.
Kang Taejun looked toward Team 17.
“Looks like this team spent their week well.”
Yoon Haejin closed her notebook.
“I hope the performance is as good as the preparation.”
Han Seongmin smiled warmly.
“I think everyone here is curious now.”
The giant screen faded.
The practice footage disappeared.
The stage lights brightened.
The audience settled.
The judges picked up their pens.
Waiting.
Evaluating.
Ready.
Kang Taejun looked toward the five trainees.
Then smiled.
“Team 17.”
A pause.
“Show us what all that effort looks like.”
The music cue appeared.
And suddenly—
Every practice.
Every correction.
Every argument.
Every late night.
Every improvement.
Led to this moment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The music started.
A heartbeat.
Then another.
The opening notes of Love Scenario spread through the auditorium.
And an imaginary camera came to life.
It opened on darkness.
Then movement.
Minseok entered the frame first.
Exactly as he had demanded during practice.
Not drifting into the choreography.
Arriving.
His foot struck the floor.
The beat landed with him.
The camera followed naturally.
Not because it was forced to.
Because the energy coming from him felt impossible to ignore.
A grin.
A shoulder roll.
A sharp movement.
Then—
Before the moment could grow old—
The camera moved.
Jaehyun was already there.
Waiting.
The transition felt seamless.
One member handing the spotlight to another.
His voice entered first.
Stable.
Warm.
Reliable.
The camera moved backward slowly as he advanced.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
The audience could breathe.
Could settle into the performance.
Could trust him.
That was Jaehyun’s strength.
Watching him felt safe.
Nothing felt rushed.
Nothing felt uncertain.
Everything happened exactly when it was supposed to.
The choreography turned.
The formation shifted.
The camera slipped between two moving figures.
And found Doyoung.
For a second.
Only a second.
Yet it was enough.
A quick harmony.
A precise movement.
One perfectly timed step that connected two formations together.
The audience would never notice.
Which meant Doyoung had done his job correctly.
The camera moved again.
The music flowed.
The voices layered together.
One line ending.
Another beginning.
No empty space.
No hesitation.
Only momentum.
Then—
Hyunwoo appeared.
A simple turn.
Nothing more.
Yet the frame suddenly felt smaller.
The camera drew closer instinctively.
His voice arrived.
Soft.
Confident.
Controlled.
The line wasn’t louder than anyone else’s.
Wasn’t more difficult.
Wasn’t more impressive.
Yet somehow the audience leaned forward anyway.
A glance.
A smile.
A pause.
Half a second.
No longer.
No shorter.
Exactly the amount of time needed.
Then he let the moment go.
The camera followed.
Because he wanted it to.
Because that was what centers did.
Not keep attention.
Guide it.
The first chorus arrived.
The choreography expanded.
The imaginary camera pulled back.
All five members entered the frame.
Denim.
Movement.
Voices weaving together.
The stage suddenly felt larger.
The harmony filled the room.
Minseok’s energy pushed forward.
Jaehyun stabilized it.
Doyoung connected it.
Hyunwoo directed it.
And Jiwon—
For the first time—
Didn’t feel like someone trying to catch up.
The camera found him naturally.
No special effect.
No dramatic zoom.
No miracle.
Just timing.
The exact right moment.
His voice entered.
Clear.
Confident.
The red hair flashed beneath the stage lights.
And for a brief second—
The line from Rex returned.
A week ago, you looked like somebody standing outside the practice room.
The camera stayed with him.
Not because the choreography demanded it.
Because there was no reason to look elsewhere.
Today, you look like somebody opening the door.
The old Jiwon would’ve looked away.
Hidden inside the formation.
Wondering if he belonged there.
The current Jiwon didn’t.
His eyes remained forward.
His movements remained open.
Certain.
Honest.
The camera lingered.
Then moved on.
As it should.
The transition arrived.
The one they had argued about for days.
The one that used to feel empty.
Dead space.
Not anymore.
The music softened.
The choreography slowed.
For a moment—
The camera stopped chasing movement.
And simply watched.
One member crossing behind another.
A glance.
A breath.
A shift in formation.
The audience had time to feel the song.
Then the next section hit.
Harder.
Better.
Exactly as planned.
The final chorus exploded.
The camera swung wide.
Capturing all five.
Not individuals.
A team.
The vocals overlapped.
The choreography accelerated.
The energy climbed.
Minseok laughing through the performance.
Jaehyun grounding everything beneath him.
Doyoung never missing a position.
Hyunwoo pulling every eye in the room wherever he wanted.
Jiwon standing among them.
Not behind them.
Not beneath them.
Among them.
The camera drifted between the five members one final time.
And for the first time—
It didn’t feel like anyone was chasing the center.
The center was the performance itself.
One last line.
One last formation.
One final movement.
The music stopped.
The frame froze.
Five figures beneath the lights.
Breathing hard.
Motionless.
Together.
Then—
The applause began.