Chapter 69

Meanwhile, at an outside production company where, with the first broadcast closing in, no one had time to breathe anymore.

"Jinhui-ya, you got the first teaser off to the postproduction house?"

"Yes! They said they'd have it back to us by tonight!"

"Somebody — anybody — cut me one highlight reel? It's urgent."

"I'll do it, sunbaenim!"

Not having to prep for recording for a while was good news for the cast, but for the production company, this was just the beginning.

Everywhere you looked, PDs who hadn't properly washed or slept in days were sprawled around. Like zombies, or predators, they hammered at their keyboards, going full throttle on Miro Maze first-broadcast prep.

"Chaehyun-PD, have you seen where Myeongeun-Team-Lead went?"

"Ah, writer-nim. Myeongeun-sunbae stepped out with the CEO earlier. Something you needed?"

"Just wanted to ask her about the next mission's structure…. She'll be a while, then. All right, thanks."

Writer Ko, who'd come down from the writers' room for a moment to track down PD Kwon, took in the frenzied office without much reaction.

Maybe because it was a sight she'd seen for almost twenty years now.

In Writer Ko's line of sight, a video playing on someone's monitor caught her eye.

"What's this?"

"The first teaser going up next week."

The maknae PD — visibly disciplined — asked "Want a look?" and swiveled the monitor toward Writer Ko.

"It's still a version before post-editing — CG, subtitles, all that — and mixing."

"That's fine. I'll factor that in."

Click — a tap on the space bar, and the teaser rolled out with sweeping music.

The chronicles of Upia and Enderway, Miro's own artists, flashed by in a short highlight reel.

—I'm curious.

—Just how much more can these guys grow.

—How much more can they show us.

—I think they've got real potential.

—I'm confident. I'm putting my name on it — I'd better have at least that much conviction.

Seo Taeil — Miro Maze's marquee host — laid in over the visuals in an interview voiceover.

Practice-room footage of the trainees, run in black-and-white, drifted by in stylish slow motion.

—You can look forward to it.

With Taeil's last line, scenes from episodes 1 and 2 flashed by fast.

Their awe at the massive maze set,

reactions of shock at the blurred first-mission title,

two people, faces cleverly obscured, seeming to square off….

The music, which had been thumping along at a rapid tempo, cut out.

—Time to climb.

—Reach the sun, they said.

Not Taeil's voice — someone else's.

At the same beat, on screen, slow motion caught someone's back as he leapt cleanly over a high wall.

The backlight falling on him made his silhouette look like Icarus challenging the sun.

—MIRO MAZE: In Search of Icarus's Wings

"Ah, this is because the title postprocessing hasn't come back yet…."

Even though the PD had thrown the title text on as a placeholder, the picture underneath was solid enough that it landed pretty well.

Writer Ko folded her arms with a smile.

"Nice. Once it's done, drop it in the group chat."

"Yep."

"Man, is PD Kwon going to be a while? We've got a lot to go over."

At PD Kwon's continued absence, Writer Ko let out a sigh.

'…and there's the CP Yoon stuff to talk through, too.'

Thinking of the man who was the single biggest obstacle to this otherwise smooth-sailing survival, Writer Ko let out a small sigh.

"I swear, if I ever do a survival with Ntv again, I'm not a human being."

With a pained look on her face, Writer Ko headed back upstairs to the writers' room on the loft.

Either way, there was a mountain of work to get through.

---

"Ha, Teacher."

Same moment. Back once more to Hajin's room.

Kang Hajin — who had no way of knowing he'd personally graced the ending shot of the Miro Maze first teaser.

He was currently….

"You think this is our first day in business together?"

……;;;

"Keep pulling this and it's a problem for me too, seriously."

;;;;;;;;;; ( ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )

Legs arrogantly crossed in his chair, hand pressed to his forehead — calmly shaking down a Time Administrator.

Th-the current situation is due to a highly unusual case in which a human has been granted Time Administrator permissions…. Reference precedents are extremely scarce, and that's what led to this incident….

"The Cat's Repayment quest, and now the sofa earlier too. Thirteen — you don't happen to hate me, do you?"

…a little?

"You answer 'a little' at this point, and what am I supposed to do with my wounded feelings? Who's going to take responsibility for my sickness earlier? I'm a trainee — you get that? A poor idol hopeful whose cartilage's lifespan is shrinking by the day from all the rolling and running and jumping and flipping over?"

At the machine-gun stream of grievances, the System — no, Administrator No. 13 of the Time Administration Bureau — swiftly…

☆★Ta-da!☆★ Anything you wish, at your service! ♥♡Special Reward TIME for the Fixed Regressor in need of comfort for body and soul♥♡

pivoted.

Since it obviously wanted something, of course it'd been jerking me around like that.

At the System window openly firing off apple-shaped neon effects, Hajin folded his arms and sighed.

"Real effort you're putting in."

Whose fault is that!!? (ʘ言ʘ╬) (The Fixed Regressor's joy is my joy♥)

"This little bistro has a house-special on inner voice, I see."

Hajin's easy smile came out uselessly refreshing. Arms folded, long straight fingers tapped away out of habit. Without needing much thought, Hajin opened his mouth.

"Actually, there is one thing I could really use your help with."

……?

"You know that thing from last time — where you pulled an object out from Seo Taehyun's past timeline?"

You mean memory access?

"Yeah, that. Let me use it one more time."

Hajin's request was simple. Let him access someone's memory and, once again, borrow an object from inside it.

13 — which had been half-worried Hajin was about to ask permission to break the laws of space-time and take one clean swing at somebody — responded immediately.

Calculating… Calculating… Calculation complete. A memory access pass can be issued as a special reward. Whose memory would you like to access?

At the question about who the target was, Hajin's expression sharpened noticeably. Inside the cool set of his eyes, the black of his pupils flashed.

"Ntv variety-programming's PD Yoon Giseok. I need his memory. If I can pull an object out too, even better."

Ah. B-but… if your relationship with the memory's owner isn't harmonious, access is restricted—

"If it were the memory of some buddy of mine, you think I'd be shaking you down for it like this?"

…you can't! But even so! I'll get it done!

"Nice work, Thirteen my man."

Having successfully extorted a memory access pass, Hajin gave a satisfied smile and let out a whistle.

'That's the foundation laid, then.'

Neatly running through, in his head, the sequence of things he still had to do, Hajin fired off a text to Ji Suho.

〈Hello, Team Lead. It's Hajin.

I know you're busy, but there's something I'd like to consult you on.

If you could reach out when you have time, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.〉

"…too businesslike?"

But he didn't want to give anyone else the wrong idea, either.

Shrugging, Hajin was about to shut off his phone screen when the time in the corner caught his eye, and he let out a small "ah."

〈05:58 PM〉

"Ah. The performance video."

Right — there was still that.

"Ha, no matter how I look at it, ever since I regressed I've been living way too productive a life."

I'm not usually the kind of guy who packs his day like this.

Right as he was airing that pointless complaint, he heard his mom's voice from outside the door.

"Hajin-ah, the porridge is ready. You gonna eat now?"

"Ah, yeah. One sec."

Right on cue, Hajin stepped out into the living room, and the rich smell of sesame oil hit his nose full-force.

This kind of aroma, from plain vegetable porridge? Already hungry, and now this good a smell — his mouth was watering on its own.

"What's this? I thought you were making vegetable porridge?"

"You'd have been pouting a mile out if I'd actually just made vegetable porridge. I put some tuna in, so eat slowly. As for chicken — check how you're feeling tomorrow and eat it with Hawon or something."

"Oh, if it's vegetable-tuna porridge, that's a different conversation. I'll eat it in my room."

"If washing up and doing dishes is going to be a pain, leave it. Mom'll do it."

At Mom's still-worried tone, Hajin gave her shoulder a soft nudge and answered in his most winsome voice.

"Aigo, disrespecting your firstborn's stamina? Disrespecting my domestic-life skill?"

"Nothing works around here but your mouth. Hurry up and eat, and don't give yourself indigestion again."

"Yesss. Thanks for the food!"

Hajin — hauling the whole pot of pale, thin porridge back with him — headed into his room. He set the pot and spoon on his desk, powered up his computer, and quickly opened iTube.

"Said it was going up on Miro's official account…."

Once he got to Miro's official iTube channel, familiar-yet-unfamiliar thumbnails greeted him.

The thought that these thumbnails were about to get pushed down by new visuals — ones he and his fellow trainees had made — hit him in a strange way.

'59 minutes… 6 o'clock!'

Click — with the mouse click, the refresh button spun.

"It's up, it's up. Oh god, it's up."

After a brief bit of loading, two videos with a distinctly different vibe pushed past the dark, charismatic thumbnails and appeared newly at the top of the feed.

"Oh man, I'm nervous."

For some reason, Hajin's stomach turned over — he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and dropped his head.

Wherever his eyes had drifted, Seo Taeil — never aging — was doing a never-aging vampire concept, sweeping the blood off the corner of his mouth with his thumb. Probably an MV from a solo track he'd released recently.

"……"

Watching that only made Hajin more conflicted, and he slowly scrolled down. The two newest videos, sitting right at the top.

Hajin took a look at Team A's thumbnail first. And promptly reeled.

"Wow — is whoever's in charge of this out of their mind?"

Normally, the thumbnail on a performance video like this is picked from whatever moment in the performance was most striking, or made for the best eye-catch.

But Miro Maze was — of all things — a trainee survival.

Rather than a performance shot from kids no one knew doing something no one had heard of, it made more sense to plaster the thing with visuals striking enough that idol-scene drifters, scrolling their feeds, would go 'wait, hold on, who's THIS?' and click through.

"Sure, but come on. Jung Siwoo, Seo Taehyun, Ju Eunchan? Man. Somebody really wanted to show off some faces."

Ju Eunchan — in a black denim jacket that fit him like it was tailored, buttoned all the way up to the collar, hair swept lightly back, dark eyes done up smoky and cast downward.

Jung Siwoo — pale, spotless skin, straight black hair falling neatly down, eyes closed, hands folded together as if in prayer, chin lifted just slightly to show off a profile carved like a sculpture.

Seo Taehyun — a white beret tilted rakishly over pink hair, in a cropped white denim jacket, one arm reaching wistfully out.

Three peaks of beauty, like personifications of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, all captured in a single frame. Their visuals didn't come off as any less striking than the thumbnails of their major-senior labelmates.

Full of admiration for the eye of whoever put this together, Hajin pressed a hand to his forehead in despair.

"How the hell are we supposed to beat this?"

Go easy on as mortals, you god-tier bastards.