Chapter 18
Before the heavy silence left by Im Ji-hye's ballad had even faded, all the studio lights went out.
A fleeting silence.
It felt like the prelude to a storm.
Because everyone knew. They all knew who was waiting for the next turn.
Peeeeep—!
A sharp whistle tore through the silence.
At the same time, a blinding white spotlight poured down on the center of the stage.
There stood Si-yeon, dressed in a sky-blue cropped uniform top and a white tennis skirt.
She was a tiny nine-year-old, but the air around her already belonged to someone who had seized control of the stage.
“Scream!!”
At Si-yeon's shout, a majestic brass section burst forth in a dazzling flourish. She raced toward the center of the stage on light feet in time with the intro.
-Come on, get up! Even when you're gasping for breath!
-Toward your dream, don't stop, Go, Fight, Win!
It was an uptempo song with a rocking beat.
Si-yeon's voice wasn't heavy like Im Ji-hye's.
Instead, it was sharp and firm as an awl, with a strange freshness that made adrenaline surge just from hearing it.
Her choreography barely qualified as intricate dancing; it was more like a simple routine.
She thrust her fists upward with precision, stomped her feet, and used the crisp arm movements unique to cheer squads.
Yet when those simple moves met the cuteness and explosive energy of nine-year-old Seo Si-yeon, they created an explosive synergy.
When Seo Si-yeon, who was usually expressionless, began singing with a bright smile, the audience started to stir.
Every time she moved vigorously, her white tennis skirt flew dynamically, and the supple movements visible beneath her cropped uniform top seized the audience's gaze.
-play on legacy!
-lift the trophy!
The camera zoomed in on K-Sep in the judges' seats.
His eyes were filled with astonishment.
It was a completely different kind of shock from what he had felt while watching Im Ji-hye's desperate effort.
It was a perfectly calculated, businesslike performance that paralyzed the audience's reason and stirred up their primal excitement.
Everything from her outfit to her gestures seemed prepared with the sole determination to crush Im Ji-hye in this match.
Si-yeon was perfectly embodying, in a nine-year-old body, the fully realized idol image Im Ji-hye had been searching for.
As the song approached its climax, blue and white confetti burst from both sides of the stage like cannon fire.
Si-yeon ran toward the edge of the stage through the shower of confetti and reached a hand toward the audience.
-If we're together, no trial can stop us!
-Leap over it, fly all the way to the end!
Without letting her breath waver even once, Si-yeon unleashed an explosive high note.
A live performance that didn't waver even amid such an intense routine.
Her refreshing voice climbed to its limit without a single cracked note.
That refreshing voice reached the same register as the high note Im Ji-hye had just belted out.
Actually, even I found it a little surprising that I could pull this off.
Because until last month, a high-register song like this had been impossible for me to handle.
Honestly, by this point, I was becoming convinced that Seo Si-yeon herself really did possess considerable musical talent.
For the final line, Si-yeon returned to the center of the stage and stared straight into the camera.
Among the idols I had produced in my previous life, there had been one who was fucking good at winking.
‘Producer, winking is all about conviction. You have to do it with the mindset, “I’m the cutest person in the world!”’
That's what she had said.
Maybe it was because I had known her since she was very young and was close to her.
I vividly remembered being forcibly taught by her how to wink well.
Honestly, even while practicing it, I'd wondered what use it could possibly have…
‘I never thought a moment like this would come.’
Then again, who could ever have imagined becoming a girl and entering an audition?
I narrowed my eyes and stared through the main camera directly in front of me.
That girl's nagging echoed in my head.
Conviction? Yeah, if it's conviction, that's enough.
At this very moment, there was no one in this studio shining brighter than me.
I held the song's final syllable, wearing a smile that was not merely fresh but arrogant. And the instant the camera lens filled with my face, I lightly yet emphatically closed my left eye.
“Waaaaaaah—!!!”
A second later, a roar that threatened to split eardrums erupted.
People leaped to their feet and applauded like mad, while some audience members giggled helplessly, unable to recover from the afterimage of the wink they'd just seen.
After forcing out my panting breath and looking toward the judges and the audience, I knew for certain.
I had definitely won.
* * *
The judges' evaluations came next.
I won two of the three judges' votes and 90 percent of the live audience vote, advancing smoothly to the next round.
The one thing that pissed me off, though, was this.
“That old man Yoo Sang-hyun…”
Wasn't this guy a fan of mine? Then why had he voted for the other side?
According to him, he had liked my performance too, but found Im Ji-hye's effort admirable because she had perfectly handled such a difficult vocal song…
‘Honestly, I think I sang better too.’
Actually, Im Ji-hye had sung a little better, but once you added points for being a child, I came out slightly ahead.
I had also just delivered an almost once-in-a-lifetime live performance.
“Heh… Nice.”
Anyway, I won.
That alone gave me every right to be happy.
I suddenly recalled the despairing expression I'd seen on Im Ji-hye's face moments earlier.
Honestly, I didn't feel particularly sorry for her.
After all, she had gambled on taking on me, the favorite, and had simply lost that gamble, losing everything.
But then memories from my past came rushing back.
‘A-am I really being eliminated…?’
‘You’re only being eliminated from the debut lineup. If you want, there’s always the next group…’
The girl who said that packed her things and left the dorm the next day.
‘Oppa, I’ll definitely succeed and prove your judgment wrong.’
And another girl who, after saying that, came to ask me to congratulate her at the opening of her bakery several years later, and so on.
I thought of the trainees I had driven into the depths of despair.
Im Ji-hye had probably felt something like that in the past. And she was probably feeling it right now, too.
On top of that, the harsh criticism from Jina, her former mentor, had bothered me in more ways than one.
‘You’ve lost all the colors of your past. It seems the Im Ji-hye who was once number one in my heart is gone.’
From the tone to the content, it was vicious through and through. If it had been me, I might have burst into an ugly cry onstage.
“…Should I go see her?”
For Im Ji-hye, this might have been her last chance.
No—in practical terms, it must have been her last chance.
Because of her age.
The older she got, the harder it would become for her to gain popularity. Especially because she was a woman.
If I comforted her in my current form, it might give her a considerable amount of strength.
Since I had been fairly good at pulling trainees who had hit rock bottom out of despair in my previous life, I might even be able to help Im Ji-hye as she continued making music.
Who could hate a cute little girl like me?
With that thought, I asked the VJ beside me.
“Where’s Ms. Ji-hye’s waiting room?”
* * *
Smiling, I walked all the way to the door of Im Ji-hye's waiting room.
A VJ quietly followed behind me with a camera in hand.
Personally, I felt bad about Im Ji-hye's situation, and I hoped she would be able to make her way through the rest of her life successfully.
That was why I had come to her waiting room to exchange words of encouragement.
But the moment I stood in front of the door, I felt a strange sense of incongruity.
Through the firmly shut door came rough breathing and muffled sobbing, as though something were being crushed.
I cautiously knocked.
"It's Seo Si-yeon. May I come in?"
There was no answer. But I didn't stop; I slowly turned the doorknob.
The waiting room was a mess.
The items on the vanity lay scattered across the floor, and in the mirror, Im Ji-hye revealed one eye amid her smeared mascara and disheveled hair.
As I entered, her shoulders visibly flinched.
‘Ah, fuck, I’m fucked.’
But since I was already inside, I couldn't just turn around and leave, so I cautiously began to speak.
"Unni, your stage was really amazing. Honestly, I was nervous too. Just like Judge Yoo Sang-hyun said earlier…"
"Get out."
Her voice was low.
But I pretended to have the childlike innocence unique to young children and took another step closer.
It was a bad habit from my previous life.
Refusing to listen after being told something once, and insisting with bizarre stubbornness.
That habit had helped me build my success, but pushing my stubbornness one step further this time was an obvious mistake.
"I mean it. I learned so much from listening to you sing…"
"I said get out!!!"
At the same time as her scream, something grazed past my face and struck the wall.
-Clang!
It was a metal tumbler.
If it had veered just a little farther to the side, it would have hit me squarely in the head. The VJ following behind me pulled the camera back with a short groan.
Then the VJ stared blankly between Im Ji-hye and me.
The tumbler rolled across the floor with a loud clatter.
‘Ah, I should’ve left when she told me to.’
"What do you know? What do you know to look at me with that disgusting, phony face?"
Im Ji-hye rose from her seat and shouted as though she might lunge at me. She had already lost all reason.
Inferiority, defeat, and the destructive emotion of having ten years of her life denied by nothing more than cuteness had swallowed her whole.
"It must be nice being a genius like you. Put on a slightly shorter outfit and wink once, and the whole world falls at your feet! My time? My effort? None of that matters, right? To you, I'm nothing but a stepping stone laid out for your stage!"
She grabbed the container of brushes from the vanity and hurled it. This time, it landed at my feet, sending brushes scattering in every direction.
"Comfort me? Don't make me laugh. It makes me sick even to hear my name from that smug mouth of yours, so disappear from my sight right now! Drop dead, you…!"
I stood there in a daze, staring at her. The camera lens captured every moment of this inflammatory outburst without missing a thing.
Ah, I had miscalculated. I'd gotten it completely wrong.
The resentment and inferiority Im Ji-hye held toward me were nothing like what I had imagined.
These weren't emotions that could exchange words of consolation like, ‘What a shame! You worked hard!’
My body began to tremble like an aspen leaf.
Maybe it was because this was the first time in this life that I had faced such undisguised hostility and rage.
In my past life, I would have simply sighed and gathered up the scattered items without a second thought.
Stress-ridden trainees often threw all sorts of hysterical fits when their periods came around, so situations like this were fairly familiar to me.
But tears were now running from the corners of my eyes.
“Sniff, hic…!”
The tears began streaming down my cheeks.
People nearby started asking what had happened and quickly gathering around us, while belated regret and panic flooded Im Ji-hye's face.
“W-wahhh.”
I burst into loud, sorrowful sobs right there.
They were the first tears of genuine emotion I'd shed in this life.
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