Do You Want to Be Special? (3)

What matters most to an idol survival contestant?

Killer vocals?

Dance skills that snap joints on every beat?

Silver-tongued patter, ready to spawn a thousand memes?

Or,

A clean past that won't ever blindside the fans?

A work ethic solid enough that you never trend the wrong way?

That warm, generous personality that keeps the fandom firmly in 'stan the human, not just the idol' territory?

Plenty of answers for that one, probably.

But my answer, first and foremost, goes like this:

'Position.'

To put it plainly — it's a character fight.

For the planners building the idol group, for fans trying to pick their 'ultimate bias' early, for every viewer who'll come across this survival.

'In this group I'll be handling this, and my charm is this — so my chemistry with the other members will play out like this, and here's what I can bring to the stage.'

That's the pitch. In an idol survival, saying the 'position fight' decides everything is barely an exaggeration.

'And there's a perfect case study for the theory right nearby.'

Seo Taehyun. Ate up all the buzz on Boys of the World and still lost the character fight.

So your 'character' as an idol matters a lot. You need a foundational image the fans will consistently associate with you, and at the same time you can't get locked into that image.

You need to keep showing unexpected sides that give people something new to read into — while still leaving them able to say, 'Yeah, that's so-and-so for you.'

And right here, right now,

"Okay, so — should we pick a leader first?"

"……"

There's a ragtag crew that starts this position fight already in the red.

"No volunteers?"

Gong Seok, the oldest of us and the one asking, sounded genuinely lost — but everyone just read the room and nobody stepped up.

If this were the actual survival broadcast, the leader role might be worth grabbing, but in a setup like this it was basically volunteering to shoulder a group project.

'Not to mention nobody here has the seniority for it either.'

I nominated the one guy who at least had the résumé to wear the armband.

"Isn't Doha the best fit? He was in the special class."

Lee Doha — the same age as me, but already making a modest name for himself in the underground scene with his own tracks. A producing-track member for sure. He was the only ex-special-class one in this ragtag lineup, so wouldn't leader be the most natural landing spot for him…?

At my line, the other four's faces went a little funny. Even the man himself, Lee Doha.

"…What? What's with the vibe?"

"Ah, um. So, Hajin-hyung, you just joined not long ago so you probably don't know."

The way this was building up already didn't sound great. The three guys glanced at Lee Doha and mouthed silently at each other, and in the middle of that, Lee Doha — looking a little cornered — opened his mouth with a distinctly awkward, sheepish expression.

"I'm not great at dance."

"……"

"I'm… not great at vocals either."

"…But you were in the special class?"

"I scored well on producing and rap."

Ah.

In a word: one-trick pony. Or put another way: that one trick was solid enough to lock down a debut spot on its own.

But at the month-end eval, him going full Emin*m-worthy rap by himself wouldn't lift the rest of us, so leader was out of the question. Once I heard that, I finally understood why a pureblood special-class kid had ended up in this scrappy combo.

"To begin with, our group is all mid or low tier by class level…"

So every one of them was somewhere in the in-between.

Which was why they'd been pushed here. Too in-between to slot into the other groups, where the 'performance' guys and 'vocal' guys had clear positioning.

"……"

That was where it went quiet for a bit. Setting aside Lee Doha — whose head I still couldn't read — the rest of them seemed to have the anxiety they'd been holding down start welling up again.

A heavy shadow settled over the guys' faces. They were smiling, but you didn't need to squint to see it was self-mocking. The bitter smile of losers who'd already resigned themselves to bombing this month-end eval. Sure, in a spot like this most people would react that way. That, I got.

"Hey."

"……?"

"I'll do it. Leader."

I've got my whole life riding on this month-end eval, kids.

"H-hyung? You?"

"Hajin, you? Come on, you're—"

"Is there anyone else who wants it?"

At my one line, they all shot startled looks at each other. Right, right. A one-month-in trainee volunteering to lead the group on a critical month-end eval — of course it looked strange.

But think about it for two seconds and you'd get there.

After special-class Lee Doha, who had the next-highest level?

'I'm the guy who's already in two upper-tier classes one month in.'

And the one who — I think — had been aware of that from the start was the first to raise a hand.

"I'm in favor."

"……!"

Lee Doha. That bear who'd been staring at me since the second the leader topic came up.

The moment I said I'd take the leader spot, almost as if he'd been waiting on it, he nodded and put his vote in. Once the guy closest to debut called it, the others — self-esteem beaten low enough to matter — started reading the room and nodding along too.

"Well, if Doha-hyung says yes…"

"S-sure. Then we'll pitch in a lot too."

"Take care of us, Hajin-hyung."

"Yes. Please, take care of us."

Amid the awkward congratulations, we had a leader. Three weeks left until the month-end evaluation.

I had to prep, with these guys, a performance strong enough to land us all inside the top 10.

And for that, the first thing I needed to do was—

"Alright, want to have a quick meeting about what we're doing?"

"Ah, before that — there's something I'd like to say first."

"Huh? Yeah, go ahead."

"On this month-end eval, I'd like you all to leave it entirely up to me."

Take actual leader-level control into my own hands.

"You what?"

"I'm not saying I'm going to do everything my way. Obviously I'll take everyone's input. But since you've made me leader anyway, trust me on this, just once."

Give the ex-express-bus of group projects a shot here, kids. I've got my life riding on this, seriously.

---

"Hyung, what time are you heading home tonight?"

Once the whole meeting was over and Seo Taehyun's own group had apparently wrapped up too, he sidled up and asked.

"Dunno."

Even just clearing my baseline practice quota would already put me on the last train home, and for the month-end eval I had a lot to analyze and a bunch of references to hunt down. I did have a mouth I'd shot off with.

About thirty minutes earlier.

—You all know I'm Miro's Zhuge Liang, right? Obviously it's mortifying to say it about myself, so no reactions from anyone.

—B-but still.

—I want to show you I actually can do this. Honestly, right now everyone feels bad, don't they? Like we got stuck as the throwaway group.

—Hey, watch how you say that!

—Am I wrong?

At my blunt line, Gong Seok bit his lip like he didn't know how to answer. I knew perfectly well how much it messed with someone to still be in this position at twenty-three, a late-starter trainee. In my past life working in the industry, I'd met hundreds of kids like him.

—Where we are, too many cooks means we're just climbing a mountain instead of sailing. I can't make you Pirate King, hyung, but I can get you riding the wave. Trust me, just once, hyung.

At the certainty in my voice and my eyes, the three of them wavered. And that was how I'd finally wrung a promise out of the No-Hope Trio (haven't come up with a better name yet) and Lee Doha to hand it over.

Of course, I fully intended to make good on what I'd said.

Roughly sorting the day's to-do list in my head, then giving up on it, I pointed at Ju Eunchan — who'd been trailing after Seo Taehyun like a puppy.

"Might be better if I pull an all-nighter at the company and then crash at their place?"

"Right? Then let's do late-night practice and head over together. I was going to Eunchan's tonight too."

Nodding like he'd figured that would be the case, Seo Taehyun latched onto my arm with real determination. Like his I'm-quitting-idol-life runaway act had been from another lifetime, Seo Taehyun was back to being his original practice-addict self.

"We've got to move before the others do. We need to grab practice room A."

"What, is there money stashed in practice room A?"

"Usually people say honey's smeared on it, no?"

"Money's worth more than honey."

At my line, Seo Taehyun made a briefly disgusted face and shook his head.

"The rollaway cot — it's only in room A."

"What about the one in C?"

"Jayden-hyung busted it the other day."

"What are you doing, not running yet? Speed's everything."

Late-night practice without a rollaway cot? Same energy as a commute without earbuds. Technically optional, functionally unlivable.

Moving carefully and quickly like it was an infiltration op, Seo Taehyun and I slipped out of the studio. Ju Eunchan, who'd been leisurely tailing Seo Taehyun, seemed to give up on keeping pace and headed back to the practice room.

"Hello~."

"Yeah, hi Taehyun. Hi Hajin."

The moment we set foot in the New Talent Development office — where you signed up for late-night practice — the staff (still not clocked out) recognized us and greeted us cheerfully.

"You two are spending a lot of time together lately."

"Hajin-hyung's obsessed with me."

"You're actually nauseating, you know that."

While Seo Taehyun — social-life mode fully engaged at some point — chatted smoothly with the staffers, I quietly added my name, Seo Taehyun's, and, just in case, Ju Eunchan's and Dan Haru's to the late-night practice sheet on the side. Aside from us, only a few other names were on today's list.

[Jung Siwoo]

[Han Seongwoo]

[Lee Doha]

……

'Lee Doha?'

Guess I'd be running into him again during practice tonight.

I set the pen down thinking maybe having an actual conversation with the still-mystery-man Lee Doha wouldn't be the worst thing.

"Ah, Taehyun, when you're done filling out your form, come see me for a second~."

"Me?"

"I'm heading out first. Goodbye!"

"Yeah, good practice, Hajin! Fighting on the month-end eval~."

Leaving Seo Taehyun behind — the staffer had called him back right at the door — I stepped out of the office alone. Then, instead of taking the hallway to the practice rooms, I turned toward the rooftop garden, deserted thanks to the freezing weather.

'There's something I should take care of right about now.'

Confirming no one was around, I dropped into a chair in the corner and pulled up the system window. I'd been tweaking little features and design elements here and there, and by now the UI looked properly sci-fi-movie-worthy.

'Kind of proud of it, actually?'

What a tenacious little— (Great work!)

Speech bubble's been updated, punk.

Skipping over the system's pointless muttering, I opened the cash window.

Current Cash Balance ‖ 7,820 cash

I'd thought I was scraping it together in tiny bits, but yeah — dust really does pile up if you keep at it. Time for a full spend spree.

'Some people would say to save carefully for a future you can't predict…'

But that's advice for someone who lives once. For a Fixed Regressor who might well end up living five lives (+α), there's no tomorrow.

Today, I spend it all.