Chapter 192:

Chapter 192:

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 192 Everyone’s Way (2)

[>Kuk Ho-young]

[- He’s so unlucky.]

[>Han Dae-yong]

[- There’s no way an individual trainee can make it to debut. He’s not even getting attention for his visuals, so there’s no need to bother with him. Just ignore him.]

[>Jung Min-sung]

[- He’s the easiest one among the A-rankers. His rank is just a fluke from Superface. I wonder if Enclip will take him if he drops.]Cheêck out latest novels at novelhall.com

[>Joo Seok-yoon]

[- If it weren’t for him, I could have been A-rank. How annoying.]

I knew I wouldn’t hear only good things in this competitive system, but I didn’t expect such blunt and harsh opinions.

‘What did I do, what did I do?’

The member who left a four-letter word of resentment was a C-rank trainee. All I did was help him with his posture at a certain section, as the choreographer requested, because he was lacking in intensity.

I didn’t interfere with his practice, I actually helped him.

And he kept thanking me and expressing his gratitude! I felt wronged, but I couldn’t say anything and had to swallow it.

Did the other trainees think of me like that too? I randomly opened some results and they were all miserable.

It was only the second day, but my impression was already that of an unlucky guy.

I felt conflicted between thinking that it was possible and protesting that it wasn’t fair.

I might not know what a black-haired beast thinks, even if I know the water under the bridge.

I was not in a good mood after seeing the gloomy results. I knew it would be hard to hear only good things, but it was another thing to actually experience it.

I wanted to know how Naru and the other Floss members were doing, but I didn’t have much chance to interact with them.

The only time I could was when the A-rankers gathered to practice, but I felt like a pickle among them.

‘They were so close to each other that I had no room to join them.’

I wasn’t invisible, but they didn’t bother to talk to me unless they really needed to.

They seemed to have decided who they would get along with from the start, and they didn’t even look at anyone else. There was a distance between them and me that made it hard to act friendly.

‘If I force myself in without any tact, it might not be impossible...’

But then I would probably get more comments like ‘He’s an individual trainee who thinks he can debut by acting friendly with the big trainees.’ on the card of hidden thoughts.

I could see it clearly without even checking.

Even though I was A-rank, I was excluded from the A-rankers, unlike Naru, who was always at the center of the group.

‘Well, of course, the camera has been following him around since the shooting.’

Many trainees from famous agencies, regardless of their rank, flocked around Naru to show off their relationship with him. The Floss debut members who received high ranks were treated similarly.

‘He’s acting like that because his ego is inflated by that...’

I clicked my tongue lightly as I remembered Naru, who was crying and whining like a nine-year-old when he was nineteen.

I thought it might be possible if he was treated like that for a year or two, but then again.

‘Doesn’t he know that’s not right?’

I felt a surge of discontent, like a fire in a barrel.

In the end, we were all pushed into a huge game of eyeing each other, aiming for the goal of debut.

There was no one to blame, but the system itself was absurdly unreasonable.

I had a feeling what Yu-geon meant by saying that.

He probably meant that the guys who didn’t bother to reveal their true feelings were talking behind my back.

“Yeah.”

Then, after a brief pause, wondering what he wanted to say, the conversation continued.

“...Are you aspiring to be an actor?”

I tilted my head at his sudden, out-of-the-blue question.

“What?”

What a misunderstanding. I was bewildered and retorted, and Yu-geon started to explain, flustered.

“No. You got a good grade, a high rank, and the judges seemed to like you a lot. But you don’t seem very eager to debut.”

It was a fair point. I thought I did my best, but did it show? I felt a pang of embarrassment and asked back.

“Me?”

But that’s not true. I was stuck as an assistant instructor today, helping the C, D, and F grades who had lost their sense of direction, and I was on fire.

Doesn’t that count as ‘eagerness’? I wondered why he thought that way.

“Yeah.”

“In what sense?”

Then, Yu-geon peeked out of the bed frame as if to check the surroundings. He gestured with his hand in the dark, as if to tell me to bring my ear closer.

How annoying. I moved my body and leaned my head toward the first floor. He wasn’t even a kid, but he cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered in a very low voice that was hard for me to hear.

“You don’t sabotage.”

What’s the point of sabotaging? It’s all about the votes anyway. And the re-evaluation seemed to be easy to pass, unless something unusual happened.

I was more interested in finding out what happened to the Floss members, as long as it didn’t look suspicious.

“Sabotage?”

I whispered back in a very low voice, just like Yu-geon, and he nodded.

“Survival is an individual competition. There’s no benefit to helping others, but you’re nosy and don’t socialize.”

Oh. I think I had a rough idea of what Yu-geon was saying.

If the other participants’ basic attitude was to use each other or hope that others would rank lower than them.

I was the type who did my own thing quietly and helped others if I could, even if they didn’t seem to be much help to me.

“I’m not thinking of being an actor or anything else. It’s just my personality.”

I’ve always been like that. I toned down my nosiness a bit when I ran a company. But I couldn’t say I had little nosiness when I operated a children’s foundation at the cost of billions of won in losses every year.

If helping others was not a big burden for me, and there was no risk involved, I could help someone solve their problem more easily.

There was no reason not to step up. I had lived like that all my life, and it was the same even after I became a thousand-year-old.

But here, it was considered a ‘stupid’ thing to do, and I was confused.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing. But you should be careful.”

Only Yu-geon looked at the screen expressionlessly, as if he had expected it.

It was time to disband after finishing the monitoring in such a chaotic atmosphere, but Juhyeon didn’t come over to pretend to know me like before.

‘What’s going on?’

I wondered and looked in the direction where the F-rank had been, but I couldn’t see Juhyeon’s figure.

I could see through his feelings, and he wasn’t someone I wanted to get close to, but I was still concerned.

And shortly after, when I went up to the dormitory without much thought, Juhyeon was packing his bags with a flushed face.

“What are you looking at? Do you think I’m a joke too?”

What the hell was this sudden outburst? I asked calmly, hiding my confusion. Juhyeon’s eyes were stained, showing that he had cried a lot before I came up.

“I didn’t say you were a joke. What are you talking about...?”

“Pathetic bastard.”

Juhyeon pushed me away with his luggage and left the dormitory. He ran into Hwijin and Yu-geon duo who were about to come in, and I heard them exclaim and panic, but Juhyeon didn’t care at all and just left.

“What’s wrong? Did you two fight?”

Hwijin and Yu-geon’s eyes turned to me at the same time.