Idol of the Heavenly One - vanish into fiction

I was curious why Baek Jae-heon told me not to tell Go Hee-min.

“It’s not like Park Se-jin has that much influence anyway, so it won’t affect Go Hee-min’s character score. He just doesn’t want you to tell him and make things harder for the kid.”

Baek Jae-heon’s answer matched exactly what I had been thinking. That was surprising. Kids his age usually took a teacher’s threats pretty seriously, but this guy was just…

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“……That’s good, then.”

He felt much more mature than other kids our age. Maybe kids with mature-looking faces really did have mature personalities, too. Still, if he came to the company today, why hadn’t he come to the practice room where Kwon Ji-hak and I were?

“Why didn’t you come to our practice room?”

“I did vocal practice.”

Oh my goodness. Even with that face, he still came in on the weekend to practice vocals alone just to debut. That meant debuting as an idol was so tough that even he felt the pressure. Suddenly, I felt like I had to work even harder.

“Anyway, I’m not going to say anything, so don’t worry.”

“……Alright.”

“I’m heading out.”

I wanted to get home quickly so I could practice singing. If he was working that hard, then I had to work twice—no, three times, four times as hard.

***

For a whole week, it was nothing but planks, dance practice, and hammering away at head voice. If I wasn’t asleep, I was training or studying. Even Ji-hak, who was usually full of energy during dance practice, got tired of me. Go Hee-min had long since fled.

And whenever I had time, I watched videos of boy groups who had debuted or had been active since debut to study what kind of talents I should showcase. After studying for a while, I came to a realization. These days, most boy groups did hip-hop, so having a cool expression and gestures was crucial. Of course, singing and dancing ability, the fundamentals, had to be solid first, but once you had that, those little bits of flair could make you a popular idol. So, as exhausting as it was, I even practiced facial expressions at home. Of course, I locked my bedroom door first, just in case someone walked in.

It hadn’t even been a month since I started training, so compared to the other kids, I felt a bit rushed.

“At the end of this month’s evaluation, we’ll choose the real debut lineup. Form teams of three or more and prepare something. No exceptions—everyone will be evaluated.”

The strict-looking manager who had first brought me to the practice room came in again to gather the kids and announce the end-of-month evaluation.

“They’re really announcing it this time?”

“Ugh, I’m screwed. My evaluation score last month wasn’t good.”

“Can we do any song we want if we’re a team of three or more?”

“Doesn’t matter—vocal, dance, or dual.”

As soon as they heard that the debut lineup would be decided after this month’s evaluation, the kids started buzzing. Since I hadn’t done last month’s evaluation, this would be my first and last one. This would decide my fate.

“Want to do it as a team of three like this?”

“Then who’s going to be center?”

“I think it makes sense if he’s center, right?”

Since it had to be at least three members, most kids were forming teams of three to do the monthly evaluation.

“Should we ask Baek Jae-heon to join us?”

“Are you crazy? We wouldn’t even get noticed next to him.”

“Yeah, true.”

It was obvious that he would be center and steal all the attention from the evaluators, so he was out of the running as far as the kids were concerned. That was understandable. Baek Jae-heon, leaning against the mirror, had such an aura that he drew everyone’s eyes just by standing there.

“Go Hee-min.”

“Ugh, what now?”

“Be on my team.”

Honestly, I was about 70% sure I’d make it into the debut lineup. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have offered me such a big trainee contract. Of course, 30% was still a big enough chance that I might not debut. That meant I had to raise that chance—80%, 90%, 100%—until I could guarantee I’d make the debut team.

“With you?”

“Yeah. And I already have some other members in mind.”

“Who?”

To make that happen, I needed a strategy. Leaving Go Hee-min behind, I walked over to Baek Jae-heon, who was still leaning against the mirror.

“Baek Jae-heon.”

“What.”

“Be on my team.”

This wouldn’t just be an evaluation of skills. It was the last one, so it would be a final confirmation—checking which trainees were definitely debut material and which weren’t. For people like me, who weren’t guaranteed, we had to leave a strong enough impression to make ourselves certain picks.