The karaoke building was only a few minutes away.
Jiwon stood outside the entrance, staring at the glowing sign above the door.
KARAOKE
He sighed.
I really came.
Behind him, Minjae stretched his arms over his head.
“Finally!”
Seojun shoved his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket.
“You’ve been saying that for five minutes.”
“Because we’ve been walking for five minutes.”
“That’s how walking works.”
“Don’t ruin my excitement.”
Hyunwoo pushed the door open.
“Can you two argue inside?”
Taesung walked past them without saying anything.
Jiwon followed.
The moment they entered the karaoke room, the atmosphere changed.
No crowd.
No referee.
No uniforms.
No scoreboard.
Just a large couch, a massive television, microphones, a table covered in snacks, and a machine filled with thousands of songs.
Minjae’s eyes lit up.
“THIS IS IT!”
He immediately grabbed one of the microphones.
“Welcome, everyone, to the greatest night of your lives!”
Seojun picked up a remote.
“Sit down.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re embarrassing us.”
“We just got here.”
“Exactly.”
Jiwon couldn’t help but smile.
They’re completely different.
On the court, they had looked like a professional team.
Focused.
Disciplined.
Almost intimidating.
Here?
They looked like a group of idiots.
Minjae was already scrolling through songs.
Seojun was stealing snacks from the table.
Taesung had quietly taken a seat at the far end of the couch.
Hyunwoo was checking the room’s controls.
“Don’t touch the volume.”
Minjae looked over.
“Why?”
“Because you always turn it all the way up.”
“I like loud music.”
“You like damaging people’s ears.”
“Same thing.”
Hyunwoo sighed.
Jiwon sat down.
He had barely gotten comfortable when Minjae shoved a microphone into Seojun’s hands.
“You’re first.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“You’re scared.”
Seojun slowly looked at him.
“I’m not scared.”
“Then sing.”
“I just don’t want to.”
“That’s what scared people say.”
Seojun stood up.
“Fine.”
Jiwon blinked.
That worked?
The music started.
Seojun grabbed the microphone.
And immediately started singing.
Jiwon stared.
It was—
Terrible.
Not slightly bad.
Not average.
Terrible.
Seojun was completely out of tune.
And somehow, he didn’t care.
He sang louder.
With absolute confidence.
Minjae collapsed onto the couch laughing.
“WHAT IS THAT?!”
Seojun pointed the microphone at him.
“Shut up!”
“You sound like a dying cat!”
“Then don’t listen!”
Hyunwoo covered his face with one hand.
Taesung quietly looked down at his phone.
Jiwon laughed.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like this.
When the song ended, Seojun dropped onto the couch.
“Your turn.”
He pointed directly at Minjae.
Minjae froze.
“Me?”
“You laughed the most.”
“That’s different.”
“Sing.”
Minjae grabbed the microphone.
“Fine.”
Jiwon already knew this was going to be bad.
It was.
Somehow, Minjae was even worse than Seojun.
But unlike Seojun, Minjae sang with so much enthusiasm that it became impossible to hate.
He danced.
He jumped.
He pointed at people.
At one point, he climbed onto the couch.
“GET DOWN!”
Hyunwoo shouted.
“THIS IS MY STAGE!”
“You’re going to fall.”
“I NEVER FALL!”
Minjae immediately slipped.
Hyunwoo caught him by the back of his hoodie.
The room exploded with laughter.
Even Taesung smiled.
Eventually, Minjae finished his song and collapsed dramatically onto the couch.
“I’m exhausted.”
“You did nothing,” Seojun said.
“I gave everything.”
“You gave us a headache.”
Minjae ignored him.
Then his eyes slowly turned toward Jiwon.
Jiwon immediately knew.
“No.”
Minjae smiled.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Jiwon.”
“No.”
“Jiwon.”
“Absolutely not.”
Minjae grabbed the remote.
“Pick a song.”
“I don’t sing.”
Seojun leaned back.
“You literally haven’t even tried.”
“Because I know.”
“How?”
“Because I know myself.”
Minjae laughed.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is.”
Minjae scrolled through the list.
Jiwon watched the screen.
Song after song.
Ballads.
Pop songs.
Old classics.
New releases.
His chest tightened.
He hadn’t sung properly in years.
Not really.
He had spent so long listening to music that he’d forgotten what it felt like to make it.
Minjae stopped scrolling.
“How about this?”
Jiwon looked at the screen.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know it.”
“You definitely know it.”
“Next.”
Minjae chose another.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Too high.”
Another.
“No.”
“Too low?”
“Too annoying.”
Seojun laughed.
“You’re making excuses.”
Jiwon opened his mouth.
Then—
DING.
A translucent blue window appeared in front of him.
No one else reacted.
Of course they couldn’t see it.
Jiwon’s expression froze.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SIDE QUEST UPDATED]
Title: Sing Before the Crowd
Objective: Sing one complete song in front of a group of people.
Sing a Ballad (updated)
Participants Required: 3+
Reward: +5 Free Stat Points
Bonus Condition: Complete the quest without leaving the room.
Failure: None.
Progress: 0/1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at it.
You’re kidding me.
The System remained silent.
Minjae waved a hand in front of his face.
“Earth to Jiwon.”
Jiwon looked at him.
Then at the microphone.
Then at the screen.
Jiwon slowly reached for the microphone.
Minjae’s grin widened.
“YES!”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“You finally agreed!”
“Just pick something.”
Minjae immediately started searching.
Jiwon stared at the screen.
His palms were sweating.
This is stupid.
Minjae selected a song.
The opening instrumental began.
Jiwon stood.
The room slowly became quieter.
Even Seojun stopped talking.
Jiwon brought the microphone closer.
The first line came out.
And—
It sounded wrong.
Jiwon’s eyes narrowed.
Too much air.
He tried again.
The next line was better.
But still wrong.
His voice was thinner than he remembered.
Less stable.
The tone wasn’t where he expected it to be.
He missed a note.
Seojun raised an eyebrow.
Minjae looked concerned.
Jiwon clenched his fingers around the microphone.
Damn it.
He knew this song.
He knew exactly how it should sound.
He remembered the breath before the chorus.
The way he used to place certain words.
The tiny change in tone.
The emotion.
Everything.
But his body didn’t.
His memories were ahead of his muscles.
His mind knew.
His voice couldn’t follow.
For a moment, frustration burned through him.
Potential 100.
He almost laughed.
What a joke.
Potential wasn’t ability.
The System had never promised that he was already good.
It had only told him what he could become.
Jiwon closed his eyes.
And took a breath.
Slowly.
Deeply.
He stopped trying to imitate the voice he remembered.
Instead—
He listened to his own.
The next line came out cleaner.
Then another.
His breathing settled.
His shoulders relaxed.
His pronunciation sharpened.
He found the rhythm.
The song moved toward the chorus.
Jiwon took another breath.
Then sang.
This time—
Something clicked.
His voice opened.
Not completely.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
The room went quiet.
Seojun lowered his drink.
Taesung looked up from his phone.
Minjae’s smile disappeared.
Not because he disliked it.
Because he was surprised.
Jiwon kept singing.
He stopped thinking about the System.
Stopped thinking about his stats.
Stopped thinking about his old life.
For the first time in years—
He was simply singing.
The chorus came.
His voice rose.
Cleaner.
Stronger.
More controlled.
There was something warm in it.
Something that hadn’t been there during the first verse.
Taesung’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He’s improving while he’s singing.
Hyunwoo noticed it too.
Jiwon finished the final line.
The instrumental continued for another few seconds.
Then—
Silence.
Jiwon lowered the microphone.
He looked around.
Everyone was staring at him.
He blinked.
“What?”
Minjae pointed at him.
“Since when can you sing?”
Jiwon opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Seojun shook his head.
“That was actually good.”
“Actually?”
“Don’t get used to the compliment.”
Taesung leaned back.
“You have good control.”
Jiwon looked at him.
Taesung rarely complimented anyone.
Coming from him—
It meant something.
Hyunwoo nodded once.
“Your second half was much better than the first.”
Jiwon smiled awkwardly.
“Thanks.”
Then—
DING.
The blue window appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SIDE QUEST COMPLETE]
Objective: Sing one complete song in front of a group of people.
Progress: 1/1
Reward: +5 Free Stat Points
Reward Granted.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the notification.
Five points.
He could feel the excitement rising.
Then another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[FREE STAT POINTS]
Available: 5
Where would you like to allocate them?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon looked at the options.
Singing.
Dancing.
Rapping.
Acting.
Confidence.
Focus.
His finger hovered.
Then stopped.
Not yet.
Five points could make a difference.
But he didn’t know where he needed them most.
And wasting them now would be stupid.
I’ll wait.
The window disappeared.
Jiwon sat back down.
He thought that was the end of it.
He was wrong.
Minjae immediately grabbed another microphone.
“Again!”
Jiwon stared at him.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I already sang.”
“Once.”
“That’s enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is.”
Minjae pointed dramatically at him.
“You were good!”
“That’s exactly why I’m stopping.”
Seojun burst out laughing.
“He’s got a point.”
“Traitor.”
“Sing again.”
“No.”
Minjae turned toward Taesung.
“Taesung!”
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard the question.”
“I know the question.”
“Sing.”
“No.”
Minjae looked at Hyunwoo.
“Hyunwoo!”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“One song.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even sung once!”
“I don’t need to.”
Seojun grinned.
“He’s scared.”
Hyunwoo slowly turned toward him.
“I’ll throw you out.”
Seojun shut his mouth.
For approximately three seconds.
Then—
“Scared.”
Hyunwoo sighed.
The night continued.
Taesung eventually took the microphone.
Jiwon expected something average.
He was wrong.
The moment Taesung started singing, the entire room became quiet.
His voice was smooth.
Controlled.
Soft without being weak.
Every note landed exactly where it needed to.
No unnecessary movement.
No dramatic gestures.
Just—
Good.
Really good.
Minjae stared.
“WHAT?”
Taesung continued singing.
Seojun looked at Jiwon.
“Why is he secretly good at everything?”
Jiwon smiled.
“I was wondering the same thing.”
Taesung finished.
Silence.
Then Minjae threw a cushion at him.
“YOU’VE BEEN HIDING THIS?”
Taesung caught it.
“I never said I couldn’t sing.”
“That’s worse!”
Hyunwoo finally gave in later.
He sang one song.
Nothing flashy.
Nothing dramatic.
But his deep voice filled the room.
Minjae stared at him.
“Hyung.”
“What?”
“That’s cheating.”
Hyunwoo frowned.
“How?”
“You sound like that naturally?”
Hyunwoo shrugged.
“I guess.”
Minjae looked offended.
“I hate talented people.”
Seojun pointed at Jiwon.
“You were literally just complimenting him.”
“I can hate multiple people.”
Jiwon laughed.
The hours passed.
Songs came and went.
Some were good.
Some were terrible.
Some were so bad that everyone nearly cried laughing.
And somewhere along the way—
Jiwon stopped checking the clock.
He stopped thinking about the System.
Stopped thinking about Star Dust.
Stopped thinking about the future.
He was just—
Having fun.
He found himself singing along even when he wasn’t holding the microphone.
He knew the melodies.
The lyrics.
The little pauses.
Music had always been somewhere inside him.
He had simply buried it.
I forgot this feeling.
The thought came quietly.
And stayed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Later that night, Minjae and Seojun left the room to buy more drinks.
Taesung went with them.
Hyunwoo followed because, according to him, “someone needs to make sure they don’t buy garbage.”
That left Jiwon and Minjae alone for a moment before Minjae suddenly stopped at the door.
“Actually, I’ll go.”
Jiwon looked up.
“You just said you were coming.”
“I changed my mind.”
Minjae dropped back onto the couch.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
The room felt strangely quiet without the others.
Minjae looked at him.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Jiwon frowned.
“Tell you what?”
“That you could sing.”
Jiwon froze.
The real answer surfaced immediately.
I didn’t know either.
But he couldn’t say that.
Not without explaining everything.
So he shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
Minjae waited.
Jiwon looked down at the microphone in his hands.
“I haven’t really sung in a long time.”
“Why?”
Jiwon hesitated.
Then gave the safest answer he could.
“I just…
stopped.”
Minjae nodded slowly.
He didn’t push.
That was one of the things Jiwon liked about him.
Minjae could be loud.
Annoying.
Impossible.
But when it mattered—
He knew when to stop.
After a moment, Minjae smiled.
“You should try something.”
Jiwon looked at him.
“What?”
“Music.”
The word landed differently than it should have.
Jiwon’s eyes drifted toward the dark television screen.
Music.
For a second, he saw another life.
A stage.
Lights.
A microphone.
A crowd.
Then it disappeared.
Minjae leaned back.
“You were good.”
Jiwon smiled faintly.
“Not good enough.”
“How do you know?”
Jiwon didn’t answer.
Minjae nudged his shoulder.
“Just try.”
Jiwon looked at him.
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a no.”
“No.”
Minjae grinned.
“Then it’s settled.”
“Nothing is settled.”
“It is in my head.”
“That’s not how decisions work.”
“It is when I’m making them.”
Jiwon laughed.
The door opened.
Seojun returned carrying a ridiculous number of drinks.
“What are you two laughing about?”
“Nothing,” Jiwon said.
Minjae smiled.
“Jiwon’s becoming a singer.”
Jiwon immediately turned toward him.
“I said maybe.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Hyunwoo walked past them.
“Keep arguing.
I’m going back to the room.”
Taesung followed.
Seojun tossed a drink toward Jiwon.
Jiwon caught it.
The room filled with noise again.
Music.
Laughter.
Arguments.
Singing.
And for the first time since his regression—
Jiwon didn’t feel like he was merely surviving his second chance.
He was enjoying it.
He looked down at the drink in his hand.
Then toward the microphone.
Music.
The word remained in his mind.
Quietly.
Waiting.
And somewhere beneath it—
Another word was waiting too.
Star Dust.
Jiwon didn’t know it yet.
But the path had already begun.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The night ended later than Jiwon expected.
By the time he finally reached home, the streets were almost empty.
He quietly opened the front door.
No lights.
No voices.
Everyone was asleep.
Perfect.
Jiwon changed clothes, dropped his bag beside the desk, and sat down.
For a moment, he simply stared at the wall.
Then he remembered the blue window.
Five free stat points.
He opened his Status.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
Host: Han Jiwon
Age: 18
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE
Face: 13 / 25
Potential: 92
Physique: 19 / 30
Potential: 88
Skin: 16 / 25
Potential: 94
Style: 8 / 20
Potential: 91
Presence: 7 / 20
Potential: 98
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PERFORMANCE
Singing: 16 / 45
Potential: 100
Dancing: 8 / 40
Potential: 93
Rapping: 6 / 35
Potential: 61
Acting: 10 / 30
Potential: 79
MENTAL
Confidence: 5 / 20
Focus: 9 / 25
Free Points: 5
CAP LOCKS: [LOCKED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Guitar: D-
Jiwon’s eyes stopped on the last line.
Guitar: D-.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Until now, it had just been another reminder of how much he’d lost.
A skill he had once possessed.
A letter.
A rank.
Nothing more.
But tonight—
It felt different.
He had picked up the guitar again.
He had played.
He had struggled.
He had remembered.
The skill wasn’t dead.
It was simply buried.
Jiwon leaned back in his chair.
Maybe that’s what the System means.
Potential wasn’t talent magically appearing overnight.
It was possibility.
A road that still existed.
He looked back at the rest of his Status.
His eyes moved from one number to another.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing: 16.
Dancing: 8.
Acting: 10.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The numbers suddenly felt much more real.
Then the blue screen changed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[MAIN QUEST]
Enter the cast of Star Dust
Difficulty: S
Current Progress: 0%
Recommended Skills:
Singing/Dancing/Acting/Instrumental Performance
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at it.
Instrumental Performance.
His eyes moved toward the guitar sitting against the wall.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Hidden Condition Detected]
Host must demonstrate sufficient potential to be considered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s expression slowly changed.
“So that’s how it is.”
The System hadn’t told him that simply entering the show would be enough.
The quest wasn’t—
Get on Star Dust.
It was—
Become someone worthy of being on Star Dust.
Jiwon leaned back.
He had spent the entire evening thinking about music.
About his voice.
About the feeling of holding a microphone again.
About Minjae telling him to try.
And now—
For the first time, he had a direction.
He turned on his computer.
The screen illuminated the dark room.
Jiwon opened the browser.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Then he typed.
Star Dust auditions
He pressed Enter.
Results appeared.
Jiwon scanned them.
Articles.
Rumors.
Forum posts.
Advertisements.
Then—
He stopped.
One result caught his attention.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STAR DUST — OFFICIAL AUDITION ANNOUNCEMENT
The first-ever season of Star Dust is now accepting applicants.
Audition Project: Star Dust
Audition Period: 29/07/20XX
Eligibility: Open
Categories:
Vocal / Dance / Acting / Instrumental Performance
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon looked at the announcement again.
Three months.
His eyes moved to the guitar.
Then back to the computer.
Then—
DING.
A familiar blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STAR DUST AUDITION DETECTED]
Analyzing Host’s current capabilities…
…
Analysis Complete.
Current Probability of Passing:5.7%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the number.
Five point seven percent.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he laughed quietly.
“That’s awful.”
Another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Current performance level is insufficient.
Potential alone will not guarantee acceptance.
Recommended Action: Improve Host’s capabilities before audition.
Time Until Audition: 90 Days
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[TRAINING PROGRAM GENERATED]
Duration: 90 Days
Objective: Increase probability of passing the Star Dust audition.
Current Probability: 5.7%
Multiple Training Quests Available.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A list appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAILY QUEST — VOCAL TRAINING]
Sing for 30 minutes.
Reward: Singing EXP
[DAILY QUEST — INSTRUMENTAL PRACTICE]
Practice guitar for 45 minutes.
Reward: Guitar EXP
[DAILY QUEST — PHYSICAL TRAINING]
Exercise for 60 minutes.
Reward: Physique EXP
[DAILY QUEST — SLEEP]
Sleep for at least 7 hours.
Reward: Recovery EXP
Failure: Training efficiency reduced.
[DAILY QUEST — SKINCARE]
Complete morning and evening skincare.
Reward: Appearance EXP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
“…Skincare?”
The System didn’t answer.
Another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WEEKLY QUEST]
Complete at least:
5 vocal training sessions5 dance training sessions4 guitar sessions5 physical training sessions7 sleep requirements7 skincare requirements
Reward: +1 Free Stat Point
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the list, his expression slowly turning blank.