NOVEL NEXT chapter 20 - Rest
- After going home to rest, you will return to the dorm on Monday morning.
Two weeks.
Coming out of the dorm where I’d been staying for exactly half of the four-week training period, I felt somehow liberated.
A short break of only two days.
Because I had to use that time to the fullest, I wanted to go straight home and sit down in front of my computer right away, but there was something I had to take care of first.
“Speak.”
“Sion··· calm down for now, whoa, whoa. That knife came out so you could cut your pork cutlet!”
A woman in her early thirties, Kim Miyoung, raised both hands high in surrender at the sight of the pork cutlet knife in my hand.
“I clearly remember that the terms of our contract were for two weeks.”
“Well, you’re out now, aren’t you! How about we eat first and talk after?”
Hmm···.
It was obvious she was trying to change the subject, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch the catastrophe of the pork cutlet in front of me getting cold.
I redirected the knife I was holding from my aunt to the pork cutlet and neatly cut it into bite-sized pieces.
“Why don’t they serve pork cutlet in the dorm cafeteria?”
“That, I don’t know either. Still, it’s a menu put together by a nutritionist, supposedly to take care of the participants’ health.”
So that was why there had been so many piles of vegetables every meal that nobody ate?
If it hadn’t been for the occasional meat dishes like stir-fried pork that showed up in between, I might have deserted long ago.
After eating pork cutlet that was overflowing with the taste of the secular world for the first time in a while and washing it down with cola for dessert, I finally felt alive again.
“They eat such tiny amounts that I felt self-conscious and couldn’t eat much either.”
“They? Ah, the participants who are always stuck to you?”
“Yeah.”
My aunt spoke like she knew exactly who I meant.
It was true there were some participants who stuck to me like they were magnetized.
A cheeky fifteen-year-old middle school girl, Im Yunkyung, who these days mixed casual and polite speech with me like it was nothing.
Seventeen-year-old Kim Suyeon from the same dorm, whose nagging toward me was getting worse by the day to the point I was starting to suspect my mother, Madam Sukja, had possessed her.
Nineteen-year-old Kim Nayeon, who seemed to live for the fun of riding me every day, utterly forgetting the favor of helping overcome stage fright.
Usually, about these three were the ones who clung to me like gum.
“Right, lately Seo Ryujin’s been hanging around with you too, hasn’t she?”
“Is it because of this body’s immeasurable charm?”
Just like my aunt said, Seo Ryujin had indeed been coming up to me much more often recently.
Of course, most of it was to point out my lack of skill.
“Wait, I almost fell for it again.”
“Huh?”
“Aunt, what were the terms of our contract again?”
Chatting with my aunt after the meal, I felt a sense that I was missing something.
The reason I’d invested part of my precious break time in a meal with my aunt.
“Sion··· so, about that, could you just listen to what I have to say first?”
“Depending on your answer, I might be committing the unfilial act of harming a blood relative today, so I’d like you to keep that in mind.”
Unfilial conduct.
It hurt my heart, but there was no helping it.
No matter how much we were family, if she kept breaking promises forged in good faith, then gritting my teeth and guiding my family back onto the right path was the true role of family, wasn’t it?
Pop!
The moment I remembered the heinous lie my aunt had committed, the fork I’d been absentmindedly fiddling with in my hand bent out of shape.
Breaking restaurant property—this would have to go on my aunt’s tab of sins too.
“Fine, it’s definitely my fault that I didn’t inform you there would be no eliminations during the first two weeks!”
“I distinctly remember you telling me not to worry because I’d be able to come out after the first two weeks anyway?”
“I’ll··· I’ll give you 1 million won more! That makes 2 million total!”
It finally felt like we were talking.
“That was what you promised during the last shoot, and you’re not seriously trying to pay me off with just that, are you?”
“Cut me some slack, Sion··· that 2 million’s not even coming out of the production budget, it’s coming out of my own pocket!”
Seeing my aunt appeal to my compassion, my heart started to soften just a little.
I also had memories of living on a soldier’s salary, so I knew very well how precious 2 million won in cash was to a salaried worker.
“But this is ‘at least’ two weeks in name only. If I don’t get eliminated in the first vote, that’s another two weeks added on, isn’t it?”
“I’ll do my best to take care of that!”
“How?”
I’d already been betrayed by my aunt once, so I couldn’t easily believe her words.
My aunt’s claim that I’d be able to leave the dorm after two weeks had only been half true.
‘Today, we congratulate you on successfully completing your first stage on Music Count!’
When we returned to the dorm after finishing the stage, we were gathered straight into the auditorium with no time to rest.
There, the program’s main MC, Jang Junseok, was waiting for us.
‘For the next two weeks, Idol Ground 100 will determine rankings through viewers’ prerecording votes and text votes during the broadcast!’
I nodded as I listened to Jang Junseok.
This part was exactly what my aunt had explained to me beforehand.
However,
- And through the ranking announcement ceremony, the lowest twenty-five will be eliminated. But since these first two weeks are still before the broadcast begins, there will be no voting, and naturally, there will be no ranking announcement ceremony either!
The participants cheered at Jang Junseok’s words.
But I couldn’t cheer.
If there was no ranking announcement ceremony and no eliminations, that meant I would automatically be participating in the dorm again for another two weeks.
“Sion, what’s your aunt’s job?”
“She’s a PD.”
“Right, and the main PD of Idol Ground 100, the show you’re filming right now, is me!”
She spoke with full confidence that with a little tweak in editing, she could make it so someone like me wouldn’t even appear on the show at all.
‘If the main PD steps in, cutting one person like me out of the edit would be easy, wouldn’t it?’
Thinking about it, it wasn’t a bad proposal.
To be honest, hadn’t I generated countless black marks on my record while shooting this program?
Even now, when I tried to go to sleep, the memory of the stage I’d put on during the Entrance Ceremony popped up and made me kick my blankets off.
I also remembered that the scene where I got ganged up on and beaten down by F class had been caught on camera.
Besides those, thinking back now, it felt like I’d done a lot of things that were seriously embarrassing.
When my aunt tempted me, saying she’d edit all of that out, I couldn’t help being swayed.
“Down payment first.”
“Okay, I knew you’d say that, so I got it ready in advance!”
As if she’d been waiting, my aunt took a thick envelope out of her handbag and put it on the table.
Seeing that, I felt my trust in my aunt well up again.
Family affection really wasn’t something you could cut off easily.
“One··· two··· three.”
“Are you really going to count all of that?”
“Hey! I’ll get confused, so be quiet for a second, Aunt.”
Of course I had to check it.
***
Thirty-two-year-old single woman, Kim Miyoung.
Holding the envelope, she watched her niece walking away from her with a bright smile, and her heart grew very uneasy.
‘I’m sorry, Sion.’
It wasn’t that Miyoung hated or disliked her niece.
Even if she was occasionally annoying, how could a niece she’d watched grow up since she was a baby be anything but lovable?
But Miyoung was also a woman who knew how to strictly separate public and private matters.
If she’d leaned toward sentimentality, she never would have been able to grab the main PD position at a broadcasting station at such a young age.
Sion calling her “a monster who went crazy over ratings and lost human emotion” in the past hadn’t been entirely wrong.
‘Kim PD, you know the show goes flat if you take this kid out, right?’
She hadn’t planned to betray Sion from the start.
Since it was because of her that Sion had been half-forced into joining a survival program, she’d just thought of her as someone to fill out the numbers, or maybe as a way to give her niece a special experience.
The problem was that the niece she’d thrown in with that thought turned out to be too good on camera.
‘This is insane, wow, we absolutely have to use this!’
‘If we cut Lee Sion’s footage, other important participants’ screentime disappears too, you know?’
‘I’m going crazy here, PD-nim, what was this kid doing running around so much? There’s no part she doesn’t show up in!’
Miyoung had already talked to her team about cutting down some of Lee Sion’s footage, but the moment Sion was taken out, the program was cut in half in terms of content, so there was just no way.
No matter how precious her niece was, as the main PD of her first program—one that the station was billing as this year’s most anticipated project—she couldn’t afford to tank it.
‘Right, fun comes first.’
So Miyoung had just come back from instructing her team to edit based solely on fun and interest.
Seeing Sion scarfing down pork cutlet in front of her like she was possessed by a hungry ghost made her feel a pang of conscience, but—
‘Can’t I just give her a big allowance later?’
If the program was a hit, she’d get a hefty bonus, and she figured if she peeled off a bit from that and gave it to Sion, she’d be forgiven.
Besides, since the first broadcast would go out after Sion went back into the dorm, it would be at least two weeks before Sion found out about Miyoung’s misdeeds. Thinking that far made her feel somewhat relieved.
If Sion watched the broadcast in real time, contract or not, she might really try to kill her.
When Sion had glared at her earlier, brandishing that pork cutlet knife, she’d said it was a joke, but Miyoung had definitely felt something like murderous intent.
‘Ah··· but I’m sure she’ll make it through the first round no matter what... she’s not actually going to make it all the way to debut, right?’
Miyoung didn’t think Sion would be eliminated in the first round even once voting began.
She had more than enough footage, and her looks were not just passable but stood out even among the other participants, so it would probably be harder for her to get dropped.
As the program went on, Sion—who, unlike the other participants, lacked basic fundamentals—would gradually fall behind and naturally be eliminated around the second or third round.
That was the ideal scenario Miyoung had in mind.
In truth, if she went any further than that, Miyoung would be the one in trouble, not Sion.
If Sion were still standing at the final announcement, Miyoung was terrified thinking about how much more allowance she’d try to squeeze out of her.
***
“Hm···.”
I’m a homebody··· no, a homebody girl.
I dislike going on trips, and going out to hang out with friends is a pain; just being at home is best.
I’m the kind of person who could probably handle those pointless posts that sometimes pop up on internet communities like “Getting 1 billion won to not leave the house for three years” better than anyone.
But coming back home after two weeks felt strange.
“Oh my, my baby! Did you do well?”
The fact that my mom’s attitude had gotten extremely gentle after two weeks was actually something I’d expected.
It was obvious that while I’d been rolling around in the dorm, she’d been bragging to everyone from the neighborhood ajummas to passing kids that her daughter was becoming a celebrity.
Of course, aside from how embarrassing it was, I had no intention of debuting as ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ an idol, so I’d begged her to stop lynching her one and only daughter’s reputation, but it was no use.
Madam Sukja was one of those mothers who never listened to what anyone said.
Given that, it was only right to just enjoy this mild version of Madam Sukja.
“Cola.”
“Oh my, my Sion wants to drink cola? Honey, go to the convenience store and buy some cola.”
“Oh? Oh! Okay!”
I was definitely talking to my mom, but it was my dad who moved—what a shocking situation.
I was being treated as preciously as a zoo panda, watching the dramas I’d fallen behind on while playing computer games.
It was just that—
‘Why is this not fun?’
Back at the dorm, my fingers had itched so badly to play games, and I’d been dying to watch the grand new historical drama about the Chu–Han conflict, Chu-Han War, that was supposed to start airing.
But now, weirdly, the drama wouldn’t hold my attention, and when I gamed, I was just moving the mouse and keyboard mindlessly.
And instead of the drama or the game, what kept surfacing in my head was the Music Count stage.
- Waaaah!!!
The scene from that day still rose vividly in my mind.
What I’d seen then, with Ryu Ayeon half in my arms as we reached the ending part of the song, were the audience members cheering at the stage.
That was when I realized my heart was pounding harder than it ever had before.
‘Should I try dancing?’
The drama and the game were both boring.
To the point that I was actually thinking it might be nice to go to a park where there weren’t many people around and dance the routines I’d learned at the dorm again.
Of course, it was only a thought.