Idol Hides His Military Service

“Come to think of it, I still remember when Sion unni sang Pink Spell!”
“Why are you suddenly thinking about that!”
“How am I supposed to help it when that’s the Entrance Ceremony stage that stuck with me the most.”
Ah.
Was it because I did a Doraemon impression for a moment this morning when Suyeon’s face was all swollen?
‘Suyeon-emon~ help me~.’
‘Please don’t.’
I did stop right away when she told me not to, but I guess Suyeon must have still held a grudge.
While we were all waiting in the auditorium before getting evaluated, Suyeon suddenly brought up the Entrance Ceremony stages.
“To be honest, when I saw that, I thought you were out of your mind.”
“It was a bit··· shocking, I admit.”
“Didn’t the judges also sound shocked, and just tell you to work hard?”
And like a school of piranhas that had just spotted prey, my teammates swarmed in and started tearing into me.
‘Fine, go ahead and ridicule me all you want.’
Was this how celebrities felt toward the haters who criticized them?
They probably wanted to dig up my embarrassing memories and make me feel humiliated, but unfortunately for them, right now my teammates’ voices were nothing but sweet candy to my ears.
Because ‘that footage’ was already gone from the world.
Who is the main PD of Idol Ground 100?
It is Ms. Kim Miyoung, 33rd-generation descendant of the Deoksu Kim clan.
And Ms. Kim Miyoung’s older sister just so happens to be my mother, Ms. Kim Sukja, born in ’65, the Year of the Snake.
There’s no way these little brats in here would know about the ancient Korean tradition of blood ties, regional ties, and school ties.
Once my aunt had agreed to edit the entire existence of me, including my shameful moments, out of the broadcast altogether, I was invincible.
‘The thing I only did because it was the only thing I knew how to do almost ended up being my lifelong shame.’
If my aunt and I hadn’t managed to dramatically reach a deal, it really would have been awful.
Pink Spell.
It was the only idol song whose lyrics and choreography I knew from beginning to end, but honestly, the reason for that wasn’t anything special.
We came all the way out here, what are we gonna do, Lieutenant Kang. We can’t just let our company be the only one that gets away with nothing, right?
It was something that happened during the battalion sports day that was held once a year back when I was in the army.
Normally, during sports day, it was standard for each company to have a talent show segment between events.
Most companies would have their soldiers prepare for it by trading talent performances for leave passes.
Let’s see a little bit of the fighting spirit of our new lieutenants!
When the battalion commander said he wanted to see the freshly assigned officers’ stage, that holy word was passed down to the company commanders like a Bible stuffed full of God’s sacred commandments.
And we, the new platoon leaders including myself at the time, had to put together a stage with no right of refusal.
‘You gotta be funny to survive.’
Honestly, what kind of amazing special skills could little baby lieutenants who had just been assigned to their units possibly have?
None of us had anything to show off in front of others, so we decided to go to the extreme and just chase pure comedy.
Of course, if we went too far and made clowns of ourselves, we might get chewed out for tarnishing the dignity of an officer, so rather than doing something blatantly silly, we decided to go for situational comedy and cover Jihyun’s then-trending Pink Spell stage.
And that experience ended up being surprisingly useful more often than you’d think.
‘All I had to do was bust out Pink Spell once at company dinners and everyone went nuts for it.’
I’d used it here and there afterwards, too.
“But putting on the stage outfits really does make it feel like we’ve become actual idols or something.”
“I feel that too. Even at last week’s mid-check it didn’t feel like this, so why am I so nervous now that we’re in costume today?”
“It’s okay! Our team practiced harder than anyone this past week, didn’t we?!”
I’d been reminiscing for a moment, but at some point the topic of conversation had apparently shifted to the final check.
In the first week of the mission, the judges had each conducted evaluations and training separately, but in the second week, with the broadcast stage just ahead, the three judges were jointly doing a final check on the teams.
And the order for the final check was the same as the actual stage order, so since our team was last, we were all sitting together in one corner of the auditorium waiting for our turn.
Unlike at the mid-check, each team member was now dressed in an outfit that fit their concept for the final check, and as the evaluation drew near, they were showing their nerves—biting their nails, or shaking their legs.
‘It would be weird not to be nervous.’
It’s not like I wasn’t nervous.
It was just that, more than nerves, the excitement of standing in front of an evaluation was stronger.

‘I didn’t know I’d find this kind of thing fun.’
It was still hard to explain clearly.
Even back in F class, it had been like this, but going through a process together with several people to achieve a single objective was more enjoyable than I’d expected.
Thinking about it, it had been that way in the army too.
Back when I was a soldier, even when I went out on grueling work details with my platoon members, it was annoying and tiring, but when we saw the results of the work, I’d feel strangely proud. And as we suffered together, some kind of indescribable bond would build up between us.
I liked that.
“Ryujin unni’s team is really amazing.”
“Seo Ryujin keeps saying it’s not just her, but anyone can see she’s the perfect leader type.”
At some point, maybe because their tension had eased or maybe because they didn’t want to act nervous, my teammates shifted the topic.
Now they were talking about the other teams that were getting evaluated before us.
The team currently up on the platform being judged was Ryu Ayeon’s team, and my teammates were all chattering about the stage they’d shown.
‘Their song was NO SIGNAL, right.’
Even to me, the stage of Seo Ryujin’s team, which had chosen NO SIGNAL, a song by the boy group UMAX, looked cool.
I think it was especially because it stood in contrast to the team that had gone on right before them with the same song.
That team had shown NO SIGNAL rearranged in a more girl-group-like way.
No signal, no mercy
The fire inside me doesn’t go out
No signal, no safety
This warning toward you is just the beginning
A scream ripping through the night
Don’t step into my zone with no transmission
No signal, you’re in danger right now
Right now, as she sang the highlight of the song, Seo Ryujin was overwhelming the stage with a rearrangement that was even more powerful and intense than the original boy group’s.
“Seochijol really is good.”
“That’s more than just ‘good.’ It’s hard enough for a girl to just copy a boy group song, but she went and did something crazy like adding more intensity on top of intensity.”
At my words, Gahyeon unni shook her head like it was hopeless to even try to compete.
“But aside from Ryujin unni’s team···.”
As we were all watching the stage together, something almost came out of Yunkyung’s mouth, but she stopped herself when she noticed everyone’s eyes on her.
‘It’s not something you say in front of the cameras, that’s for sure.’
Even without hearing the rest, I knew what she’d been about to say.
‘Our team is better.’
In truth, we’d thrown ourselves entirely into practice without having time to watch the other teams’ rehearsals, so it wasn’t strange that my teammates were feeling anxious.
Sure, we’d received a good evaluation from the judges at the mid-check, but separate from that, our team’s overall grade wasn’t exactly on the high side.
‘We’re not beef; if everything ended based on grades, there’d be no need to call it a survival in the first place.’
Watching the other teams’ stages now, I felt certain.
That the all-nighters my teammates had pulled this past week, just to fulfill their own roles, had absolutely not been for nothing.
“Oh? It’s the BOOM BANG BURN team’s stage!”
While other teams were doing their stages and we were checking our team’s performance again, Suyeon’s comment as she looked up at the platform drew all our gazes that way.
“That’s the song Ryu Ayeon’s team picked, right?”
“Yeah. That song’s a total girl-crush style dance track, so I think the reaction’s going to be huge.”
“If she even gets a good song matchup, isn’t that cheating for Ryu Ayeon?”
“She earned it with skill, so there’s nothing to say.”
Hm.
For some reason, Suyeon’s words pricked at me.
-Unni! If you become team leader, you have to pick BOOM BANG BURN no matter what! I really love that song!
That had been what Suyeon said when I’d told everyone before the team leader chicken fight that I’d be team leader anyway, so they should just think about what song would be good to pick.
I had a faint, painful memory of not being able to grant that desperate wish because of Seochijol and her little underlings, but it didn’t matter.
‘Auntie will delete this too.’
Records that don’t remain in history might as well have never happened.
“They’re starting.”
As Ryu Ayeon’s team went up onto the platform, Gahyeon’s quiet comment made our whole team shut our mouths and focus.
We were all staring at the platform with our lips pressed tight, as if we were watching some kind of explosive device, tense and rigid.
‘If they get this nervous, it’s going to affect our stage.’
Even Seo Ryujin, whose pride in her own skill was rock solid, had acknowledged that Ryu Ayeon was above her. So my teammates, who had to get their final check right after a stage by that very Ryu Ayeon, were frozen like frogs in front of a snake.
I understood how they felt, but there was no question this was going to affect our team’s stage.
“Everyone, snap out of it. We didn’t come here to spectate Ryu Ayeon’s stage; we came here to show our own.”
Only after I said that did they seem to realize just how tense they were, and they all tried to calm themselves down again.
Of course, it didn’t seem like our team was the only one on edge.
I could feel that the teams that had already finished their final check and come down, and the teams still waiting for their turn, all had their eyes glued to the platform.
Girls go wild like dynamite
Blow up this city’s night
Click click, ignition
We’re on a mission
Move like a queen, no permission
And finally, Ryu Ayeon’s team’s stage began.
Just like the stages she’d shown before, Ryu Ayeon handled both the singing and the dancing flawlessly.
But,
‘Why can’t I see the other team members?’
What caught my eye before anything else wasn’t Ryu Ayeon, but the other team members.
Even though they were clearly on stage together, the others besides Ryu Ayeon just looked like they were desperately trying to keep up with the choreography and the song.
“They took a song that was already hard and made it even harder.”
“I agree. You can tell they put a lot of thought into it, but this is··· if it were me, I ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ don’t think I would have been able to do anything besides just dance the choreo.”
“There are people who can pull that off, though···.”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
My teammates, who were watching along with me, also seemed to see the mismatch between Ryu Ayeon and her team members at a glance.
‘This is··· not it.’
Yunkyung was looking impressed as she watched Ryu Ayeon pull off such a high-difficulty choreography, but among all the stages so far, I found Ryu Ayeon’s team’s stage the most disappointing.
And even though we were too far away to hear the judges’ comments, their expressions looked strangely dark.
***
“The stage is not a place to show off individual tricks, Ayeon.”
“···Yes.”
Seeing Ryu Ayeon answer in a trembling voice with her head lowered at her words, Hyeryeong felt a pang of sympathy.
‘Don’t you think this might be too hard for you all? It might be better to rearrange it in an easier direction···.’
‘I think this is the way we can show the best possible stage.’
At last week’s mid-check, she’d been worried because they’d rearranged the song at such a high difficulty, but because of the skill Ryu Ayeon had shown, Hyeryeong had decided to trust her and let it go.
But the stage they showed today at the final check turned out just as she’d feared.
Because of the overly intense choreography, no one except Ryu Ayeon was able to properly pull off the stage, and BOOM BANG BURN A team had ended up showing a performance where everyone else was just barely chasing after it.
“I know contestant Ryu Ayeon handled this rearrangement. I personally think rearranging is something you do not only for the audience, but also for the singer. So that the person singing can sing better. In that sense, this rearrangement wasn’t a good one.”
“I think the choreography itself is excellent. But the stage isn’t made up of choreography alone, right? If all you want to show is choreography, you should become a dancer, not an idol.”
Not only Hyeryeong but also the other judges, Ahn Seongho and Lee Jungyoon, were giving harsh critiques of BOOM BANG BURN A team’s stage.
‘It’s a mistake that exceptionally talented kids sometimes make.’
There were always people who thought that a high-difficulty stage automatically made for a good stage.
Just like Hyeryeong herself back in her girl group days.
As the leader of G.G, Hyeryeong had pursued perfection from the members of the group to a harsh degree.
But,
We’re not machines. If we’re not enjoying the stage, how are we supposed to make the fans happy?
At first, the members had struggled but followed along with Hyeryeong’s demands. Then, at some point, they turned their backs on her, and after that, G.G headed down the road to disbandment.
That incident had remained a deep wound for Hyeryeong to this day, so she sincerely hoped that Ryu Ayeon wouldn’t make the same mistake she had.
“Ayeon, I wish you’d look around you a little more.”
“···Yes.”
With Hyeryeong’s final words, BOOM BANG BURN A team stepped down from the stage.
“It really shows in comparison with Seo Ryujin. Ryujin knew exactly where her team’s limits were when she prepared their stage.”
“For sure, right? I think Seo Ryujin’s team is going to end up the main character of this group battle mission.”
“I don’t know. There’s still a team we haven’t seen yet.”
When someone said that Ryujin’s team would probably be the main characters of this stage, one particular team popped into Hyeryeong’s mind.
“The last turn goes to the A and B teams that chose Lucid Dive!”
The song Lucid Dive, the track for this mission.
Among those, the one Hyeryeong wanted to see was A team’s stage.