Translator: Dreamscribe
-After returning home and getting some rest, you'll return to the training camp again on Monday morning.
Two weeks.
Stepping out of the training camp where I had spent exactly half of the four-week training period made me feel somewhat liberated.
Only two days were given, a short break.
Since I had to use that time wisely, I wanted to go home right away and sit in front of my computer, but there was something I had to take care of first.
“Speak.”
“Si-on... Calm down first, whoa, whoa. That knife is for cutting pork cutlet!”
A woman in her early 30s, Kim Mi-young, raised both hands in surrender upon seeing the pork cutlet knife in my hand.
“I distinctly remember our contract terms were for two weeks?”
“We're already out! Can we talk after we eat first?”
Hmm...
It was obvious she was trying to change the subject, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch the pork cutlet in front of me go cold.
I redirected the knife I was holding toward the pork cutlet and neatly cut it into bite-sized pieces.
“Why don’t they serve pork cutlet at the training camp cafeteria?”
“I don’t know either. Still, the meal plan is made by a nutritionist who’s trying to look after the participants’ health.”
So that’s why there were so many vegetables no one ate at every meal?
If it weren’t for the occasional stir-fried pork dishes, I might’ve deserted the place already.
After eating pork cutlet full of the rich flavor of the real world and washing it down with cola for dessert, I finally felt alive again.
“They eat so little, so I felt self-conscious and couldn’t eat much either.”
“They? Ah, the participants who stick around you all the time?”
“Yeah.”
My aunt replied as if she knew exactly who I meant.
There really were some participants who stuck to me like magnets.
A cheeky 15-year-old middle schooler, Lim Yun-kyung, who recently started casually mixing informal and formal speech with me.
Kim Soo-yeon, 17 years old, sharing the same dorm with me, whose nagging about me grew worse by the day, I was beginning to suspect Kim Sukja had possessed her.
And Kim Na-yeon, 19 years old, who seemed to have forgotten the favor I did by helping her overcome her stage fright and now lived each day just to pick on me.
These three were usually the ones who clung to me like chewing gum.
“Right. These days, Seo Ryu-jin has also been hanging around you, huh?”
“Could it be due to the irresistible charm of this body?”
Just as my aunt said, Seo Ryu-jin had indeed been coming around me more often lately.
Though, to be fair, most of those times were just to point out my shortcomings.
"Wait, I almost got sidetracked again."
“Huh?”
“Aunt, what were the terms of our contract again?”
While talking with my aunt after the meal, I got a sudden feeling that I was missing something.
The reason I had invested a portion of my precious break time to have a meal with my aunt.
“Si-on... So, um, could you just listen to what I have to say first?”
“Depending on your answer, I might commit a terrible crime against a family member today. I hope you’re aware of that.”
Crime against family.
It hurt my heart, but I had no choice.
No matter how close we were as family, if promises made in trust kept getting broken, then it was truly the role of family to tearfully guide the other back onto the right path, wasn’t it?
Pak!
As the memory of the heinous lie my aunt had committed flashed through my mind, the fork I had been fiddling with bent in my hand.
Property damage. I would have to include this in the list of her sins as well.
“Okay, I admit it was wrong of me not to inform you that there wouldn’t be any eliminations in the first two weeks!”
“I’m pretty sure you told me not to worry since I’d be out after the first two weeks anyway?”
“I’ll give you an extra 1 million won! So that’s 2 million total!”
Now it finally felt like we were having a proper conversation.
But even that didn’t yet show her sincerity.
“That was promised during the last shoot. You’re not trying to settle it with that, are you?”
“Cut me some slack, Si-on... That 2 million isn’t from the production budget, it’s coming out of my own pocket!”
Seeing my aunt appealing to emotion, I started to feel a little softhearted.
I also once lived on a soldier’s salary, so I understood very well just how precious 2 million won in hard cash could be to a working person.
“But it was ‘only’ two weeks, if I don’t get eliminated in the first vote, doesn’t that mean it extends another two weeks?”
“I’ll do my best to handle that!”
“How?”
I had already been betrayed by my aunt once, so I couldn’t trust her words so easily.
Her claim that I could leave the training camp after two weeks had only been half true.
‘Congratulations on completing your first stage today on Music Count!’
After the stage ended and we returned to the training camp, the participants were called to the auditorium without a moment to rest.
There, the program’s main MC, Jang Joon-seok, was waiting for us.
‘Idol Ground 100 will determine rankings over the next two weeks through advance viewer votes and live text voting during the broadcasts!’
I nodded as I listened to Jang Joon-seok speak.
That part was exactly as my aunt had explained to me beforehand.
However,
-And through the ranking announcement ceremony, the bottom 25 contestants will be eliminated. But since the broadcast hasn’t started yet during this initial two weeks, voting has not taken place, so there will naturally be no ranking announcement ceremony either!
Cheers erupted from the participants at Jang Joon-seok’s words.
But I couldn’t cheer.
If there was no ranking announcement or elimination, that meant I would automatically have to participate in the training camp for another two weeks.
“Si-on, what’s your aunt’s job?”
“You’re a PD.”
“Exactly, and I’m the main PD of the show you’re currently in, Idol Ground 100!”
My aunt spoke confidently, saying if she got involved in the editing, she could easily make it so that I didn’t even appear on the broadcast at all.
‘If the main PD steps in, cutting someone like me from the footage would be easy, wouldn’t it?’
Come to think of it, it wasn’t a bad offer.
Honestly, while filming this program, hadn’t I created a mountain of embarrassing moments?
The stage I performed at the entrance ceremony still haunted me whenever I lay down to sleep, making me kick my blanket off.
I also remembered the scene where I was collectively ganged up on by the members of Class F, it had been caught on camera.
And besides that, looking back, I felt like I had done an awful lot of embarrassing things.
So when my aunt tempted me, saying she’d edit all of that out for me, I couldn’t help but be swayed.
“Let’s start with the advance payment.”
“Okay! I knew you’d say that, so I brought it with me!”
As if she’d been waiting, my aunt pulled out a thick envelope from her handbag and placed it on the table.
Seeing that, my trust in her started to bubble up again.
Indeed, the bonds of family weren’t something that could be easily severed.
“One... two... three.”
“You’re really going to count all that?”
“Hey! Be quiet, Aunt, you’re messing me up.”
Of course, I had to check it.
***
Kim Mi-young, a 32-year-old single woman.
Holding the envelope, she watched her niece walk away with a bright smile, her heart weighed down with emotion.
‘I’m sorry, Si-on.’
Mi-young didn’t hate or dislike her niece.
She could be a bit annoying at times, but how could a child she had watched grow up from a baby not be lovable?
However, Mi-young was also a woman who knew how to strictly separate personal and professional matters.
If she had let emotion get the better of her, she would never have been able to seize the position of main PD at a broadcast station at such a young age.
Si-on once described Mi-young as a “monster who lost human emotions, driven mad by ratings” and that wasn’t entirely untrue.
‘PD Kim, you know the show gets dull if we cut her out, right?’
She hadn’t intended to betray Si-on from the start.
She had more or less forced her niece to join the survival program because of herself, either just to fill up the participant count or to give her niece a special experience.
The problem was, the niece she put in with such casual intentions ended up doing too well on the show.
'This is crazy, wow we really have to include this!'
‘If we edit out Lee Si-on, the other important contestants lose screen time too!’
‘This is driving me crazy, PD-nim, why was she buzzing around everywhere? There’s no part where she doesn’t show up!’
Mi-young had already suggested to her team that they try reducing Lee Si-on’s screen time, but the moment Si-on was removed, the show felt cut in half due to her overwhelming presence, making it impossible to cut her out.
No matter how precious her niece was, as the main PD of her very first program, and the most highly anticipated project at the station that year, she couldn’t afford to ruin it.
‘Yeah, fun has to come first.’
That’s why Mi-young had just given instructions to her team to edit based solely on entertainment and interest.
Watching Si-on devour pork cutlet in front of her, completely unaware of any of this, did prick her conscience a little, but
‘Maybe I can just give her a big allowance later?’
If the program became a hit, a hefty bonus would follow, and Mi-young figured giving a portion of that to Si-on would be enough to earn forgiveness.
Besides, the first episode would only air after Si-on returned to the training camp, so it would be at least two weeks before she found out about Mi-young’s betrayal. That thought brought her some comfort.
If Si-on happened to watch the show in real time, contract or not, she might actually try to kill her, Mi-young had no doubt.
Earlier, when Si-on glared at her holding the pork cutlet knife, she’d said it was a joke, but Mi-young had definitely felt a murderous aura.
‘Ah… but still, I have a feeling she’s definitely going to survive the first round… Surely she won’t actually debut, right?’
Mi-young was convinced that even when voting began, Si-on wouldn’t be eliminated in the first round.
She had plenty of screen time, and not only did she look fine on the surface, she stood out more than anyone else among the contestants, so getting eliminated might be the harder task.
As the show progressed, Si-on would naturally fall behind due to her lack of basic skills compared to other contestants, and eventually be eliminated around episode 2 or 3.
That was Mi-young’s ideal scenario.
In truth, if Si-on progressed further than that, Mi-young would be the one in trouble, not Si-on.
If Si-on somehow made it all the way to the final announcement, Mi-young feared just how much more money she would have to fork over for allowances.
***
“Hmm....”
I’m a homebody... no, a homegirl.
I hated going on trips, found hanging out with friends annoying, and just preferred being at home.
Among the silly posts that pop up on internet communities, like “Would you stay home for three years for 1 billion won?”, I’d probably be the one who could do it better than anyone else.
But something felt off when I returned home after two weeks.
‘Oh my, my daughter! You did great, didn’t you?’
I had more or less expected my mom’s attitude to soften after two weeks.
She had probably been bragging to the neighborhood ladies and even passing kids that her daughter was becoming a celebrity while I was rolling around in the training camp.
Embarrassment aside, I had no intention of debuting as an idol and had begged her to stop ruining her one and only daughter’s life, but it was no use.
Kim Sukja was one of those mothers who never listened to anyone.
So the best thing to do was to enjoy her sudden warmth while it lasted.
“Cola.”
“Oh, my sweet Si-on wants cola? Honey, can you go to the convenience store and get some cola?”
“Huh? Oh! Okay!”
I had definitely asked my mom, but somehow it was my dad who ended up moving, what a surprising turn of events.
And so, treated with the same level of care as a zoo panda, I was watching dramas I’d fallen behind on while playing computer games.
But.
‘Why isn’t this fun?’
Back at the training camp, I had been itching to play games, and I had been dying to watch the new historical drama 'The Chu-Han Conflict', which was based on the Chu-Han Contention.
But strangely, the drama wasn’t pulling me in, and when I played games, my hands were just mindlessly moving the mouse and keyboard.
And instead of the drama or games, the thing that kept popping into my head was the 'Music Count' stage.
-Waaaaa!!!
That day’s scene was still vivid in my mind.
At the end of the song, when I was half-hugging Ryu A-yeon, what I saw were the cheering audience members shouting toward the stage.
At that moment, I felt my heart pounding in a way I had never experienced before.
‘Should I start dancing?’
The drama was boring. The game was dull.
I even thought about heading to a nearby quiet park to practice the dances I learned at the training camp.
Well... just a thought, anyway.