Chapter 63
I soon realized that Precognitive Vision didn’t show an absolute future because of what happened next.
“Hmph, um...”
“Huh?”
“Mr. Young-Ho?”
Only One’s Young-Ho burst into tears as soon as the announcement was made. In the vision I saw, Young-Ho hadn’t cried but simply stood in surprise.
‘The future changed.’ Though the central part of Only One winning first place didn’t change, the extraneous details changed. This was proof that the future that Precognitive Vision showed wasn’t absolute. I didn’t know what the reason for that change was.
‘Well, there must be something I don’t know.’ An event that I wasn’t aware of probably occurred and changed the future’s details.
“Young-Ho?”
“Ah...”
Only One members appeared a bit stunned by Young-Ho’s response. Even the usually composed Kang Hyun-Sung seemed a bit surprised. They circled around Young-Ho and hugged each other until he stopped crying.
“Hahaha, Mr. Young-Ho must be really happy.”
“What a heartwarming sight.”
The show’s hosts seemed to have also been quite taken aback and threw in any commentaries that they could say. I watched the scene without much thought when I heard some whimpering next to me.
“Urghhhh...”
“Hm?”
I turned and saw Yeon-Hoon looking at Only One with teary eyes.
“They must be really happy...” Yeon-Hoon said. I wondered how high his empathy could reach. But it wasn’t only him. Do-Seung, Woon, and even Dong-Jun stared at Only One with emotional expressions on their faces.
“How nice.”
“I think they practiced a lot.”
“It’s so touching.”
I wondered why these guys would be so emotionally invested in Only One. It was as if they had forgotten that we placed second even after doing a great job in our performance. I thought they should have a greater competitive spirit rather than have so much empathy, but I kept my thoughts to myself.
Then Kang Hyun-Sung continued with his speech. “Thank you. This was a valuable opportunity, and I’m grateful that I was able to share the stage that I worked hard with my group members with the audience. We will continue to work hard to show you better performances from now on.”
His speech was also different from the one I heard in the future that the Precognitive Vision showed. The original speech was this:
—Thank you so much. I think this first place is very meaningful to us, and it’s all thanks to our fans. We’ll work harder on stage.
His original speech was bland and pretty standard. Yet, the speech he gave just now was a bit more emotional compared to it. It wasn’t like him, especially how he emphasized teamwork in this performance. At this point in time, there should’ve been no ‘teamwork’ in his vocabulary. He had been part of temporary teams made to do missions in Select Your Idol and part of a one-year, short-term project group. These were the sort of teams he was used to. There was no real team among them but just individuals who helped him gain a higher rank.
‘Something must have really happened.’ Seeing how words like that came out of his lips, it seemed something changed inside Only One that made them more united. From an outsider’s point of view, it was a congratulatory event, but from a personal standpoint, it wasn’t a good occurrence.
‘This isn’t easy.’ I wondered if, perhaps, I had pushed Only One’s career peak sooner than it would’ve been. Without me, I didn’t think Only One would’ve been able to reach this level of solidarity at this point. I sighed while organizing my thoughts.
“Okay then! I will put up the total scores on the screen,” the host, Kim Young-Jin said, and numbers appeared.
Only One— 14,200 points; Average: 94.6
After rounding to the nearest whole number, their total score was 95.
Our total point was 13,750, and our average score was 91.6. Thus, our rounded score was 92, second place. We missed first place with just a difference of 450 points. In a competition like this that worked with such big numbers, 450 points was a small difference. My group members seemed to feel more regretful after seeing the scores.
“The Sirens placed second in today’s round. Congratulations,” the host, Nahyun said and congratulated us. The mike was handed naturally to Yeon-Hoon so that he could give his speech.
“Second place also means so much to us. But we won’t just be satisfied by our rank and work harder to show our fans a better performance!” Yeon-Hoon said lines close to a standard ending line and smiled brightly. It was an energetic smile that made viewers smile just by seeing it.
Soon afterward, the mike was handed to Bleshu, OnebyOne, and Luminin. Naturally, these three groups, including Bleshu, didn’t look too bright. Truthfully, these guys were just becoming side decorations for us in this show, and it appeared that they also realized the position they were being placed into. Thus, they naturally couldn’t feel happy about their predicament. No matter how carefree or happy a person was, they probably wouldn’t feel good to be pushed back to the sidelines.
‘It can’t be helped.’ Rather than feel sorry or guilty for them, I planned to not break away from this formation. This was the only way Do-Seung would live. It couldn’t be helped if our relationship with each of the teams worsened since we weren’t here to make friends.
“Okay! Now that we heard each of the groups’ thoughts, let’s go to the next step. It might be a time that you all might have been waiting most for,” Kim Young-Jin said and exchanged signals with the producers.
“I will now announce the mission for the third performance!”
While looking at the host, I thought about the third-round performance’s mission, which I recalled from my past life. If it was what I remembered, it was the perfect mission for us, which was to compete with an original song. We had to get a song from somewhere else or create one, but the premise was to perform a song that had never been heard before.
‘But things have rarely gone according to my predictions so far,’ I thought. I also learned from past experiences and didn’t expect this mission could be different from the past one.
“The third round’s mission is ‘Our Showcase, Our Stage’!”
“What?” It was the same mission as I remembered.
“Our stage?”
“Are they telling us to come up with our own song?”
“Ohh.”
All sorts of responses poured out about the next round’s mission, and I was the only one who stood baffled. I knew I had to control my expression since I was on air, but it felt as if I had been played by the system.
‘Why the heck is it the same now?’ I thought.
“What do you think this could mean, Tae-Yoon?” It was then Yeon-Hoon asked me with a voice full of anticipation.
“Isn’t it just telling us to perform with an original song?”
“But that’s what we have been doing all along.”
“Yes. I think we should prepare as we have always done,” I answered and waited to hear the rest of the mission’s contents.
“This mission will be done in a different format than before.” Yet, came the very unexpected and surprising part: “It will be a team alliance mission, and all of you will be reshuffled Into a total of three groups to do your performance!”
“What?”
“A team alliance?”
“Wow, this is crazy.”
Gasp.
I doubted my ears. Because the missions’ titles were the same, I thought the content would also be the same.
‘Yet, they crushed my hope just like that.’ As I thought—nothing went according to my expectations. I couldn’t believe I was tricked again after everything I went through. It was at this moment that I began to have doubts about my intelligence and pressed tightly against my temples. My group members appeared surprised and stood with their eyes wide open and their mouths gaping.
“Does this mean...we will be separated?” Yeon-Hoon asked. He looked as if we was going to cry in this instance.
“I didn’t imagine having a team alliance at all.”
“If we have a team alliance right now in this tension, it will be really intense.”
“How will they even score us with this format?”
My group members also appeared worried about this mission, but the one who was most worried was me. We needed to get first place in the third round, no matter what. If Only One got first place in the third one too, that would mean that they would become the definite winners of the show. Yet, if they just separated the teams like this, there were too many unexpected variables to consider. I calmed my heart for now and listened to the rest of what the host said.
“In this mission, three leaders will be chosen to make three groups and do a performance with them.”
I still waited to hear the most important part about how each of the groups would be scored. The hosts continued to drag time by talking about other points of the mission’s format. After a while, they finally revealed the assessment method, “And now we will reveal what you all must be interested in the most! In this mission, you will be scored individually.”
I listened carefully to the hosts’ words. The assessment method was rather simple. The members of the current five groups would be reshuffled and divided into three teams. Thus, there would be three performances, but the audience wouldn’t vote on each of the performances but each of the members for three performances. Thus, the audience wouldn’t give an A, B, or C score to the performances but to each person on the team.
‘The rules are the same as Select Your Idol,’ I thought. In other words, this was basically an individual competition in the guise of a team competition. Then, these individual scores would be combined with their original groups’ scores to decide the ranks of each of the groups.
‘This format makes it impossible for one person to carry the group.’ When audiences scored according to the performances, it was possible for them to score the performance highly based on one person. But this time, all members of a group had to get high individual scores for their group to get first place.
‘But won’t this be more advantageous for us?’ I thought. For Only One, it was simply Kang Hyun-Sung’s popularity that was overwhelming, and there weren’t core fandoms for his other group members. In other words, if Only One separated, they could not score as well in total. Yet, it was different for us.
‘It’s true that Yeon-Hoon is the most popular but the rest of us don’t seem too far behind.’ Compared to Only One, we had a much more balanced level of popularity across each of the members. My group members seemed to have thought the same and I saw a faint smile on their faces as they continued to listen. Perhaps, they were already imagining them winning first place in the third round.
“Now, it’s time for us to choose the leaders of these alliance teams. Is there anyone who would like to apply for the leader position? A leader will gain the authority to choose their own teammates!”
People began to murmur, hearing the hosts’ words. I had no intention to be the leader. Yeon-Hoon, Do-Seung, or Woon were better options.
“Haa...”
“This isn’t easy...”
But it appeared they weren’t too keen about the position either. It was understandable since the position of leader just got insulted if they did a bad job and got little compliments if they did well. Who would want to do it?
It was then that one person came forth.
“I will volunteer.”
“Oh!”
“Who?”
Everyone’s eyes turned towards the volunteer and saw Only One’s leader, Kang Hyun-Sung.
“Ah.”
“No wonder...”
As expected, there was no one more fitting than him for the position.
“Oh! We got our first volunteer! Then, I will explain your privilege as a leader. You will personally choose eight or nine people as members of your group! The people chosen by you won’t have the option to refuse~”
The privilege of a leader was greater than I expected. They could gather the members they wanted and the people they chose couldn’t refuse. It was quite an appealing power. Thus, I thought about applying for the leader position too and gathering all my group members when Kang Hyun-Sung suddenly said, “I choose Siren’s Bong Tae-Yoon.”
“What?”
Kang Hyun-Sung picked me out of the blue.
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