The One Who Reaches for the Sun (1)

"You got everything?"

"Yeah. I've got enough. I'll be coming home every weekend anyway."

As I picked up the carry-on and put my shoes on, Mom — who'd been watching — said alright, let's head out, and grabbed the car keys. Eat properly when you're there, keep in touch. Nodding along to the running list of instructions, I loaded my bags into the trunk of the car parked out front.

"What are you doing? Get in on the other side already."

"Huh? Ah, right."

I'd absentmindedly been about to climb into the driver's seat, and Mom was looking at me like her son had lost it from working too hard.

'Ah, right — I'm not supposed to have a license yet.'

This is why habits are scary. On my next break, first thing I do is get that license.

"So it's really starting now? What kind of break was that, seriously."

"Three days is a solid break. I've probably put on 2kg."

The three-day break was over. Which meant real, full-scale survival prep was starting from here on out. I pulled out my phone and checked the text message I'd gotten the day before, one more time.

〈[Notice] Month-End Evaluation Ranking & Survival-Related Info

Recipient: Kang Hajin

Month-End Evaluation Rank: 10th (Do not leak or disclose)

Beginning Thursday after your break, survival broadcast filming will commence. Please make sure to review the notes below before returning.

For any issues that arise from failure to review these notes,

individual responsibility may be enforced.

Absolute secrecy on filming content (no external leaks whatsoever)

All trainees participating in the survival will be housed together. (Bring your luggage when you report on March 1.)
Dorm address: ####, @@-ro, **-gu, XX-si / Once you arrive, come to the 5th floor.

During the filming period, any behavior that could cause a public incident (ex: profanity, violence, crime, etc.) is strictly prohibited.
Violations may result in dismissal depending on the circumstances.

…….〉

I'd already known I'd landed in the top ten thanks to the quest-complete window, but even so, seeing it made official like this felt a little strange.

Tenth. Tenth, huh. Kind of an unfamiliar spot to land in — but hey, decent showing.

'They're not telling us the other guys' ranks?'

For a survival, I'd figured they'd start out by slapping the full pecking order up in giant letters — but nope, we're not even allowed to say it. Sounds like they're planning to pull some kind of stunt with it.

I'd deliberately not asked Ji Suho for the concrete details of the survival's format. If I'd wanted to, sure, I could've known ahead — but going in cold makes for better reactions and skips a lot of the calculating. Easier.

Loading myself up with a bunch of unnecessary info would just mean spending the whole shoot wondering, wait, am I allowed to say this? Nothing but a headache. I turned my phone off, running through past idol survivals I'd reviewed over the break just for reference.

"I think we're almost there… ah. Is this it?"

"Mom, right turn here. Uh, I think so."

"Yeah, must be. Oh my — nice place."

Some driving later, the GPS ended its guidance and announced we'd arrived. Where the car stopped, one building that anyone could tell was newly built stood there in all its towering grandeur.

Wait. This is the dorm?

'…Miro's loaded?'

There's no way they built a new building just to run one survival, but seeing the giant Miro logo plastered across the entrance felt off.

Did they land some monster investor…? Even as I was pulling my bags out of the trunk, I kept looking up at the building only half-convinced — and Mom, who'd meticulously grabbed the scarf I'd forgotten in the car, tapped my shoulder.

"Hajin-ah."

"Yeah."

"……"

"Ah, you can stop worrying, I told you. If it really gets bad I'll—"

"Come back in first place."

"……"

"Since you've decided to do this anyway — make first, debut, hit it big, and give your mom the good life."

I was speechless. Naturally I'd figured she was going to say something like 'quit anytime it gets hard and come home.' Mom just wore the big, sturdy smile I love and shoved me on the back — get in there, already.

"Yeah."

But it didn't feel bad. Not like before — no pressure, no weight on my shoulders.

"I'll give it a shot."

If anything — my tangled head felt a little clearer.

Let's go, Kang Hajin. So Mom wouldn't worry, I moved my feet with an even sturdier stride.

---

Then, the second I stepped through the front doors with my head held high, I said out loud:

"Miro — have they actually lost it?"

Shit, was that too loud?

I hurriedly looked around, but thankfully no one was there. The tower that had already looked flashy and money-drenched from outside was even more dazzling inside. Just for starters, that fountain and topiary sculpture in the middle of the lobby weren't right in the head.

'Whose insane idea was this?'

Still — probably thanks to having seen the artificial waterfall over at Rene — the shock didn't last too long. I hadn't heard anything about a new headquarters going up.

I was staring endlessly at the fountain wondering what kind of money-torching nonsense this was (had Head of Department Son coughed up everything he'd been skimming? no way) when the color of the running water suddenly changed.

"Wow, LEDs and everything."

Thought it was just a fountain show — turns out we get a light festival on top. Iridescent aurora tones rippled through the water with sparkles scattered here and there, probably meant to be stars. Watching the twinkling weave through the water and greenery….

"Weirdly infuriating."

Somehow, on some very subtle level, deeply grating. And it looked like I wasn't the only one thinking that.

Standing across from me, on the other side of the sparkling, undulating water, I spotted a guy staring at the same thing with a face barely any different from mine, and called out to him.

"Lee Doha."

"……? Ah. Hi."

"Hey, hi."

Doha, a duffel bag with a big brand logo slung over one shoulder, spotted me and waved. Build-wise, if you told me this guy actually played some sport for a living, I'd believe it. His off-duty taste ran pretty sporty too — head-to-toe in a matching branded track set — as he walked slowly over.

'Ah, right — that.'

Seeing Doha reminded me. On the reward-collection panel that had come with the quest completion, this guy had been on it. Before I could actually claim it, Mom had told me to fold the laundry, so I'd just flagged it as important and closed it — that came back to me now.

I don't have any more nagging to hand out. I just wish you'd handle things on your own.

Sulking?

Anyway, I was digging through the system windows to check again when Doha — who had somehow rounded half the fountain on those long legs to reach me — landed the opening blow in an urgent voice.

"You in? Special class."

"Huh?"

"Did you make top ten?"

The first thing after meeting up is a rival check? This bastard was surprisingly cold too. Still — first thing you say to a groupmate you haven't seen in three days is 'did you make top ten'? Feeling a little hurt, my reply came out blunt.

"Dunno, man. They said we're not allowed to tell."

"Ah."

"Read the notice properly. Don't want issues later."

I shrugged and played dumb, and he scratched the back of his neck with an awkward look. Sorry. A short apology followed in that low voice. Not exactly something worth apologizing for, so I tapped his arm — no big deal.

"Oof."

"……?"

"…Never mind. Let's head up."

Wait, is this stone?

Unlike Doha, who didn't blink, I — the guy who'd inadvertently punched a boulder bare-handed — was the one gritting his teeth.

He's my age, supposedly? Massaging my own bicep, which was soft past soft into outright squishy, we started moving.

"We're on 5, right?"

"Yeah, said to come to the 5th floor."

The moment we got on the elevator with Doha, some kind of weird concept kicked in there too — the elevator, pitch black on entry, had light spreading fast from the floor up, gradually brightening. The button panel was mechanical, and the display was cycling media art and music videos of Miro's artists nonstop.

…Miro, you win the lotto?

But this money-torching parade — the kind of level you'd only reach by hitting the lotto jackpot five hundred times, dumping every won of it into T*sla stock, and blowing through the ceiling on returns overnight — didn't end there. Astonishingly.

[5th floor, 5th floor—.]

"What. This is it, right?"

"Yeah, 5 is right."

The moment we stepped off the elevator at the friendly AI's guidance, what greeted us was a dead-end wall. The short hallway — barely three long strides from the elevator — was blocked. And by a highly suspicious blue-black wall of shrubbery, no less.

"…Wrong place?"

Right as I was thinking that, a monitor mounted on that suspicious blue-black shrubbery wall (I hadn't even realized one was there — it was dark) flashed to life with a paff, and text that had clearly been made with a lot of care rose into view.

〜〚Welcome to Miro Town〛〜

Life, at times, is like a labyrinth without a solution.

Trainees, welcome — you who will become Miro's new wings.

Are you ready to escape this maze and reach the sun?

If you're ready, open the door and come in.

※Leave the luggage you brought exactly where it is※

"They're not even miking us and they're just cracking the whole thing open like this…?"

"……"

"No script read, no pre-meeting? De-branding not done at all, and we just go?"

Flustered enough to forget we were being filmed (well — there hadn't even been a beat to be aware of it) and yammering, I turned to see Doha — wearing the same flustered look — reading the monitor's text through one more time and glancing back at me. Shit, did I get a little too industry-real just now.

"Ah, sorry. I was thrown. No, this—"

"There's no door here."

"Huh?"

"On the wall — there's no door."

Pressing on the shrubbery wall (a fake wall, probably) here and there, Doha stated it flatly. The monitor still had only the one directive from before. Doha and I looked at each other. And at the same moment, we looked at the only 'door' in this space.

"…Don't tell me?"

The elevator, dark again now that we'd stepped off. I pressed a button and the 'door' opened, that light show unfolding again. Following the monitor's directive, Doha and I moved our bags to one side and boarded the elevator.

Miro, you bastards, just how huge is the scale you're going for?

"But — we don't know what floor we're supposed to go to."

The second we got on, I was scanning the elevator to spot where the cameras were hidden, when Doha, in front of the button panel with a stuck expression, called me over. Should we go back down to 1? At the follow-up question I briefly recalled the monitor's directive, then shook my head and hit a button for him.

The very top one on the panel.

"No, we go up."

"……"

"They said reach the sun, right?"

Ding— with a clear, cheerful chime, the elevator started moving again.

No script read, no pre-meeting, no camera director, and no PD, no writer either, on top of not even being mic'd. (That one hit hardest. How are you planning to sync this, production?)

The survival had begun!