Idol Hides His Military Service

Normally, for most music programs, the very last slot of the lineup was usually taken by the most popular groups.
They would place rookies or relatively less popular singers earlier, and as it went toward the later half, the more popular singers would be arranged there, since that order, after all, made it easier to keep viewers attached to the program.
And because of that, at some point, the last stage had become practically the same thing as a measure of popularity.
Even I had received tremendous attention simply for the single reason that I had unintentionally decorated the end of this Music Count stage this time, so the ending of a program could not help but be extremely important.
“Unni··· that would definitely get us attention, but.”
Through winning this speed quiz, we’d earned the right to choose our running order.
At my suggestion that we use it on taking the last spot, the faces of my teammates, including Suyeon, were clearly tense.
“I know. The last slot is basically like the golden chair from the Entrance Ceremony.”
Of course, that kind of ending position honestly carried a risk like all or nothing.
If the stage you showed at the very end was sloppy, it would be compared to the impressive stages that had come before, and it was obvious that it would come across as a bad evaluation instead.
It was exactly the same as the golden chair from the Entrance Ceremony, which could be called the first stage of Idol Ground 100.
If you sat there, you could get attention, but if you didn’t have the skills to match it, it was a seat where you would receive criticism even more than that.
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for overwhelmingly dominant skills on the level of Ryu Ayeon, that seat would have been nothing but an execution chair openly killing off participants.
“To be honest, there’s still a lot I don’t know.”
So I wasn’t planning on forcing the last slot on my team members.
Choosing the first slot, which was the next best after the last, was also a perfectly fine choice.
Of course, our song didn’t really fit as a first slot, but still, it was certainly better than the other positions.
‘But will that be enough?’
When had it started?
It was probably back when I was practicing with the members of F class while we were all in F class.
‘Why do I want to become an idol? Well, just thinking about a stage packed full of people cheering while looking at me, that alone makes me happy.’
Even if everyone lacked skill, practicing together with people who had gathered with nothing but a single-minded desire to become idols had been fun.
And now, looking at my team members, I remembered the peers I had lived together with back at the Military Academy.
Precious guys I had suffered together with, rolled around with, and made trouble with.
‘I want to debut them.’
Even just talking about Lee Gahyeon, to be honest, my first impression of her hadn’t been good, but now that I had gotten to know her to some extent, I had realized she was actually the type of person I liked.
To avoid being looked down on, she pretended to be strong, tried to seem tough at first, but in reality she was the type who suffered more than anyone behind the scenes?
She was the kind of person who worried alone over something trivial, then later came up to apologize even though the person involved hadn’t even cared — that was Lee Gahyeon.
Next was Yunkyung.
This young brat, who ran up to anyone with a friendly, goofy manner that made her look light, was actually the type who paid a lot of attention to others’ reactions.
I hadn’t deliberately asked why she tried so hard to read people and match herself to them, but now that she had gotten somewhat comfortable with me, showing a more relaxed side, I couldn’t help but worry about Yunkyung for some reason.
And then Suyeon.
‘I’m the one who has to take responsibility for this.’
Suyeon, who had been with me since the very start of the program, was, contrary to her squirrel-like appearance, a very clearheaded kid.
She was passionate enough to join the program because she wanted to improve her own skills, and she put in the effort accordingly.
Since I knew Suyeon well, I had picked her without hesitation for our team.
And since she had joined our team because of me, I wanted to make sure I brought her victory in this mission.
And lastly, there was Geum Shinyu.
She was a participant I had picked simply because Seo Ryujin urgently told me to.
‘Shinyu, what’s with the way you talk?’
‘Ah, do you mean this? If it’s uncomfortable, I’ll change it right away.’
‘No, it’s not that it’s uncomfortable, it’s just not a way people usually talk, so I wondered if there was a reason.’
‘That is···.’
In my eyes, Shinyu was truly a multi-talented kid.

Just the fact that she knew how to do producing, including composition, at only seventeen — the same age as Suyeon — was amazing.
Compared to that producing skill, her dancing and singing were on the weaker side, but even then, from what I saw, her skill wasn’t something that belonged in C class.
Her level looked on par with the participants who had gotten B class, so at first I wondered why she was placed in C class.
‘I’m originally from Jeju Island. So my dialect used to be pretty strong.’
I heard the reason directly from Shinyu.
‘At first I tried speaking the standard Seoul dialect, but because I wasn’t used to it, I got ostracized a lot.’
After coming to Seoul to become a trainee, Shinyu said she had been bullied among the trainees because of her Jeju dialect.
Being told things like “Can someone like you even become an idol?” and even being harassed openly on the pretext that she got in the way on stage — when I heard that, I clenched my fist before I knew it.
‘I understand how the other trainees must have felt. If someone like me, who gets in the way, is mixed in, it causes trouble for them.’
The expression Shinyu had when she suggested it might be her own fault had looked very lonely back then.
‘So, the speech pattern that was easiest to copy ended up being this one! As long as I tacked da-nakka on the end of everything, I could fix it easily!’
After hearing the story behind the speech pattern I had first wondered might be a concept, I no longer found her way of speaking strange.
Rather,
‘Platoon Leader, I’ll do my best!’
She reminded me of one of my platoon members from my platoon leader days.
The company people called him hopeless and got [N O V E L I G H T] frustrated with him, but I didn’t dislike him.
He was slow to learn, and he made small mistakes, but he wanted to improve, and I could see that he was constantly trying.
I saw that old platoon member overlap with Shinyu.
‘Shinyu, was Park Soyeon one of the trainees then?’
‘Ah··· no, um··· how did you…’
And as I listened to Shinyu, one participant came to mind.
Park Soyeon.
She was the team leader of Lucid Dive B team, which had the same song as us.
‘So it was you.’
She was a participant who remained in my memory because she had been promoted to A class with me at the mid-check.
Park Soyeon hadn’t done anything wrong to me personally.
We had barely exchanged words while practicing in A class.
But for some reason, there was something off-putting in her behavior.
‘Could I take this part? Back when I was in B class, it was the part I practiced a lot, so I really want to do it.’
The way she used phrasing that made it hard to refuse was extremely irritating.
Well, it wasn’t as if there weren’t other participants who openly displayed greed about the stage, but her greed was particularly strong.
‘She was the type who didn’t care about means for the sake of her goal.’
And since I knew that she and Geum Shinyu were from the same agency, I instinctively knew that the one who ostracized Shinyu was Park Soyeon.
The Entrance Ceremony stage.
I remembered the Entrance Ceremony stage performed by the four UI Entertainment trainees, including both Park Soyeon and Geum Shinyu.
The part distribution and highlight focus that had been directed entirely toward Park Soyeon.
It had stuck in my memory because it had looked like the other members existed only to make her stand out.
Moreover, at the mid-check stage, the evaluation the B class members had of Park Soyeon, their leader and center, hadn’t been good either.
‘Soyeon unni? She took the leader role from the beginning and led practice, but when we tried to bring up awkward parts, the few people around her would shut it down before we could even speak.’
For someone like Suyeon, who had been with her in B class, to say that much was practically cursing her out.
Even when I had half-forced Suyeon into our team, she had just rolled her eyes a few times and that was it.
“I want our team to show the coolest stage out of not just B team but all the teams this time.”
I wanted to pay it back.
— Gahyeon unni? Honestly, at her age, if she’s C class, doesn’t that mean she has no potential?
— Suyeon? She’s kind of plain. Not plain-looking, but she doesn’t really have a striking charm.
— Yunkyung is still young. Even if she gets cut this time, she’ll probably do well later.
— Geum Shinyu, that kid, she’s way too stuck on her concept. What even is that way of talking?
Even if I didn’t want to hear them, since a hundred people were all living together, all these bad comments about our team still reached my ears.
I wanted to crush all those evaluations, crush Park Soyeon, and make people say our team was the best.
“Damn it··· fine, let’s do it. We didn’t come here to be average, did we?”
The first one to react to my words was Lee Gahyeon.
“I··· I like it too. Our team can do it!”
Even Suyeon, who had hesitated anxiously at first, seemed to have made up her mind and answered next,
“I wanted to do the last slot stage too. But I was scared I’d drag you all down because of me···.”
And team leader Yunkyung burst into tears as she agreed, perhaps because she felt guilty for picking a difficult song and members.
“I’ll arrange it however I need to, and make it a stage worthy of the ending slot!”
And finally, when even Shinyu answered with a determined gaze.
Without any of us saying a word, we reached out our hands, stacking them together in the air.
“One! Two!!”
“Fighting!!!”
Our hands flew apart in the air with that shout of “Fighting!”, and in that moment, I could feel that my teammates and I had truly united.
***
“No count! The running order sheet we submitted last time is no count!!!”
“Stop it, unni···.”
Suyeon was trying to calm down Sion, who was thrashing around on the dorm bed.
‘Here she goes again.’
Suyeon had seen more bizarre scenes from Sion — her dorm roommate and now mission teammate — than she could count, but she still couldn’t get used to it.
‘When I came to the dorm this time, I saw there was a convenience store about six km away.’
‘You’re not saying we should go there, right?’
‘Tonight’s dinner was grilled yellow croaker! Honestly, how can they serve something like that and then keep us from going to the convenience store?’
This wasn’t even high school, yet Sion was suggesting breaking out of the dorm to go to a convenience store.
‘Suyeon, go call out Seo Ryujin and stall her for a bit.’
‘Why?’
‘I saw snacks inside Seo Ryujin’s suitcase.’
‘Don’t tell me···.’
‘I’ll be the one to go get them, just keep Seo Ryujin busy!’
She even suggested looting someone else’s dorm.
‘Is this unni not scared of Ryujin unni at all?’
Because of Sion, Suyeon had ended up talking with Seo Ryujin a few times, but even after getting familiar with her, Seo Ryujin was not someone you could treat casually.
Since she was so skilled and thorough on stage, she gave off an aura that made her hard to approach.
‘Hey, Seochijol, teach me.’
‘Hey! I told you not to call me that! And we’re not even on the same team anymore, okay? We’re busy enough practicing, how are we supposed to make time for you!’
‘So petty, so petty. Fine, I’ll just practice alone. Because Seo Ryujin wouldn’t help me, my lack of skill will drag my team down, and everyone will suffer··· and for the rest of our lives, my team and I will remember how Seo Ryujin refused to extend a helping hand back then···.’
‘Fine, fine!!! Just come to the practice room later tonight!’
‘Thank you, teacher!!!’
For Suyeon and other trainees, who found it hard to even approach Seo Ryujin, watching Lee Sion treat her like some neighborhood friend was unbelievable.
But,
“Uggghhh···.”
“Unni··· please! There are cameras here!”
Even though cameras were clearly installed in the dorm, Sion lying on the bed groaning like a zombie had recently become Suyeon’s biggest headache.
— I rearranged the song a bit more to make it fit the ending stage!
The whole thing started when Lucid Dive A team, Suyeon’s team, used the selection right they won from the speed quiz to take the last slot for this mission’s stage.
And the beginning was Geum Shinyu, who handled the arrangement, making the song fit the ending stage.
“Sexy, she says!! Me, sexy!!!”
In the newly rearranged Lucid Dive, the one who had been given the most crucial role was Lee Sion.
Lee Sion had to take charge of the sexy, dreamy concept.