CH 29

The judges looked like they were about to say something along the lines of ‘Then, you guys, Raebin did everything wrong?’

So I had to choose my words wisely.

‘I have to make it sound like I am listing facts, not trying to fix the situation.’

“Yes. Raebin……He could create an arrangement, so we discussed it with the composer, and we all agreed on the direction of the arrangement  by sharing our own opinions.”

Kim Raebin flinched.

‘He can’t open his mouth.’

Fortunately, Ryu Chungwoo came right in.

“That’s right. We’ll talk about the issues you told us and fix it. So that on the day of the team match we will try and make it so we can give you the best stage.”

We  saved it.

Ryu Chungwoo and I didn’t add anything else.

The judges looked like they were thinking deeply, but soon nodded.

‘They probably thought that the opportunity to reprimand him already passed.’

It was a relief.

“Then you’ll have to rearrange the song again, however that means being behind all the other teams. Can you do it?”

“We’ll do it. We can do it, right?”

“Yes!”

“We can do it!”

If only it wasn’t for the guy who threw his senses to the trash can and brought us all the way here, hopefully, he wouldn’t miss the answer either.

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Fortunately, this time, the troller also came to his senses and responded vigorously.

Judge Youngrin nodded.

“Okay, but you have to know that this may be a reckless challenge under this time constraint and that you have to deal with the consequences.”

“That’s right. Changing doesn’t guarantee that the results will be better than now.”

But if we didn’t change it and the stage turned out bad, their reaction would be like ‘Why didn’t you change it despite receiving feedback?’

And since it would include something like ‘there is no challenge spirit’ it was meaningless.

After all, no matter what we did, the process would be edited and evaluated according to the results.

That was something all the participants tacitly knew, so there was a sense of discipline and tension in the team.

“Yes. We’ll keep that in mind and challenge ourselves.”

At the time when Ryu Chungwoo’s answer seemed to end the situation, his voice snapped in.

“Can I say something?”

He was the original singer with a microphone.

“Oh, yes……Go ahead.”

The judges answered a little shyly to the original singer who suddenly intervened, and the original singer lifted the microphone with deep eyes.

“On your stage……I couldn’t feel the power of the song 〈Burning like the sun〉.”

“……?”

What were you saying so out of the blue after the story was already over?

The original singer continued to run his mouth over the subtle bewildered people.

“Aren’t songs supposed to inspire courage and passion in people’s hearts? But you guys, just because you are handsome and good at dancing doesn’t mean you can properly deliver that message.”

“…….”

Ah, yes……

“When we were promoting, we tried to give off that feeling. You can’t forget the courtesy of a song just because you are a bit famous now.”

Wasn’t it embarrassing to say that to audition participants who hadn’t even debuted yet?

He seemed to mistake the old-fashioned remarks of children for advice. I think his ego was also a little biG.

However, it was a painful point to pay attention to his reaction otherwise it would be edited.

We had to come up with an alternative arrangement, but also keep that nonsense in mind?

It was annoying, but if we had refuted it, I could already see the image of a ‘Poor unknown idol original songwriter’ coming up, so everyone answered smoothly.

“Yeah!”

“We’ll keep that in mind.”

Well……It’s all about social life.

***

After all the other teams finished their midterm evaluation, we were about to start talking about the re-arrangement.

The troller hesitated and spoke to Kim Raebin.

“Hey, I’m sorry……”

Can I let him apologize in front of the camera?

Well, we had already covered for the team, so it was his job to cover his mistakes.

Kim Raebin remained silent for a while but soon nodded.

“No, it’s okay. It’s true that I was in charge of the arrangement.”

In fact, it wouldn’t be strange even if he answered ‘No you said we should do that’.

Anyway, Ryu Chungwoo finished talking by tapping both of them on the back.

“Great job, guys. Let’s talk about the arrangement as soon as we’re prepared.”

For reference, ‘prepared’ here was the camera setting of the production team.

“Yes!”

During the interlude, the participants briefly scattered with shouts.

The midterm evaluation was close so our expressions didn’t look too good, but there still seemed to be some hope, perhaps because it was settled at the end.

‘But that hope is only useful if we can come up with an alternative.’

Just by glancing at the situation, no one was saying anything, it looks like they were expecting something to just come out.

Which meant they were turning to happiness without having anything.

‘The future isn’t very bright.’

“Hey, Park Moondae-hyung.”

“Oh, yes.”

While sitting in the corner and thinking alone, Kim Raebin spoke to me.

‘It’s surprising.’

He hadn’t talked much in the past three days.

…Come to think of it, I rarely talked to anyone for three days in the first place.

It was so hard trying to practice that I couldn’t afford to chat.

Anyway, Kim Raebin knelt down next to me and spoke solemnly.

“…Thank you.”

“No. What?”

He was probably thanking me for cutting off the troller earlier.

“It’s the first time someone else helped me in that situation……”

As expected, I roughly understood the situation.

Kim Raebin was also worried.

If he can’t get used to the team again and the team keeps on fighting, he will be marked unrecoverable by public opinion.

‘No wonder he was being so low-key.’

Sure enough, he slowly started saying out his story.

“I was worried that I would be criticized for lack of teamwork following the first round, but thanks to Park Moondae-Hyung I was able to overcome the crisis. As expected, it was wise to recruit someone who has good teamwork first.”

“……?”

Looks like he was trying to say that the reason he picked Park Moondae was because of ‘teamwork’.

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When I asked whether that was the case, he nodded.

“Yes. I saw you treating your team members in a reasonable way. Of course, your singing skills were also great.”

“…Ah, yeah. Thank you.”

He was very unique in the fact that he believed the contents of the broadcast despite he himself getting smashed by the contents of the said broadcast.

To believe in Park Moondae’s teamwork ability even though he was edited as unsocial in the beginning…

It was really amazing. I would have understood better if he had chosen Keun Sejin.

‘Ah, I think he didn’t choose him since he and Ryu Chungwoo’s leader position overlapped.’

I guess he had his own standards.

Seeing me thinking, Kim Raebin spoke again.

“Ah, Hyung. You can speak comfortably.”

“…Well, okay.”

Well, there wasn’t anything wrong with talking to a high-ranking guy.

After meekly answering, I realized that I had a question I wanted to ask him in the current situation.

“Come to think of it, do you have any arrangement in mind?”

“…Actually, it’s a little difficult.”

Kim Raebin’s popular gangster-like impression softened and changed to a more depressed one.

“Even if we start arranging it again, it’s a matter of where and how much we have to fix it.”

So basically he didn’t know how many touches he had to do in order to meet the deadline, because he already practiced everything.

“I don’t think we should fix it too much……I don’t know what to do because there’s no unity in the corrections we have right now.”

“That’s true.”

So there were no particular ideas and he couldn’t decide what to fix.

It was the same as me.

Kim Raebin started murmuring his worries as if he couldn’t stop once he started.

“The original artist’s advice should also be reflected in the song, but in fact, I am not sure what it means to ‘instate courage and passion’.”

“……Yeah.”

That……really was true.

It was hard to see it as advice.

‘How can idols inspire courage and passion when they’re not some sort of American superhero from the 1980s?’

“……?”

Wait. Just now……I think I realized something.

While reviewing my previous thoughts, I realized that I had a strange idea.

But the more I thought about it, the more the idea……fitted perfectly with the situation.

A concept idea that can be arranged so that we can digest it even if we used the original notes.

We didn’t have to change the choreography of the cheering squad concept that we already practiced, and we can even catch ‘Courage’ and ‘Passion’.

Perhaps it was an amazing solution. But the problem is…….

‘It’s too much.’

It was. The only problem wasn’t the fact that it was excessive, but that it could also be childish. Then I couldn’t just fix it. It was clear that even if only one person made a mistake on the stage, it would be ruined.

Huh?

“……No.”

“Me, Hyung?

“Wait a minute.”

I ignored Kim Raebin’s question for now.

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Instead, I shouted to myself as I saw the team members slowly returning after the break time.

‘Status Window.’

And quickly looked through the stats of the team members.

“……!”

I didn’t know about the other stats, but all of their ‘talent’ stats were above B-.

For reference, entering the B grade meant that they had a level of ability that could be used for the main position.

Indeed, this was truly a team made up only of high-ranking people.

‘This……I think it’ll work.’

Somehow, the judges didn’t really care about the concept of the old cheering squad.

“Raebin-ah, it’s about the arrangement.”

“W-What?”

I spat out the idea I had to Kim Raebin who seemed a bit bewildered.

“Yes……?”

Kim Raebin seemed more embarrassed at first. However, as I kept on explaining, he became calmer, and soon a flash came onto his eyes.

The response was better than expected.

“Well, wait a minute.”

Kim Raebin ran to the keyboard installed on one side of the practice room and began to tap something out.

I thought back to Kim Raebin’s status window that I saw earlier.

[Characteristic: Maestro (A)]

: What you need is just a small opportunity

When inspired, creative speed 120%.

Similar to Seon Ahyun, he had a golden spoon within his status window.

“The ability to copy other people’s characteristics………Is there none? It happens a lot in web novels.’

I wanted to lament, but first, I had to do what I had to do. I quickly brought up the status window.

And I invested the remaining points in ‘Talent’.

With this, I also entered B-.

‘Okay. I got the numbers right.’

“Moondae, why did Raebin suddenly go to the keyboard?”

Ryu Chungwoo, who came in couldn’t talk to Kim Raebin who was busy with the keyboard, so instead spoke to Park Moondae

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I came up with a concept idea, and I guess he liked it.”

“What idea?”

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“Transformation hero.”

“…?!”

Behind the confused Ryu Chungwoo, Cha Yujin whispered to the person next to him.

“What’s transformation water in tongue*?”

(*= Yujin is foreign, so he understands the word for hero wrong

What it is = 히어로물, what he says = 혀로물)

There were five days left until the day of the contest.

* * *

And five days later, on the day of the contest.

The front of the stage set building, where the second team match for the 〈Idol Joint-Stock Company〉 would be held, was crowded.

The number of audiences hadn’t increased much. But thanks to the soaring popularity index and viewership ratings, the number of people just wandering around to try and hear the sound had increased.

People had already started handing out slogans and photo cards despite it not even being the last broadcast, making it feel a bit unusual.

‘Wow, it’s no joke.’

A woman stood in the line to wait for her entry, trying to avoid the crowd with clumsy gestures.

After being asked by a friend, both of them had applied to be part of the audience, however, she was the only one who managed to get in, so she finally canceled her class thinking ‘Shouldn’t I just go?’.

‘Because it’s so famous these days.’

Of course, this choice was also greatly influenced by her friend who pleaded to her with tears and rice saying ‘Please just tell me how Moondae does’.

Still, she had this one thought in her heart.

‘Is it that good?’

She too had seen a picture of Park Moondae with his golden-brown hair on social media.

It was quite attractive, but she didn’t think it was handsome enough to be liked that much.

After she finished her meal, she finally entered the building, thinking that she should keep an eye on him.

When doing so, she had never imagined a future where she would be begging her friend for a picture of Park Moondae after the audience was over.