Chapter 19
The third round of Singerstar 5’s main competition was a jam-packed round with more to watch than ever before.
The three-week broadcast featured a great many stages by formidable contestants.
In the first week, the showdown between Blooming, a high school girls’ band, and Lee Hye-na, a trainee from Produce, tugged at people’s heartstrings.
In the second week, the story of Joo Jin-woo rising above his previous failure and delivering another near-perfect stage brought tears to people’s eyes.
At the same time, the stage by Han Seong-sik, a corporate employee regarded as a miracle of middle age, also received an enthusiastic response.
In the third week, the showdown between Seo Si-yeon, who currently possessed the most buzz, and Im Ji-hye, who was known to have once been part of KY’s debut lineup, drew considerable attention.
Just as people had imagined, their showdown presented a stage that delighted both the eyes and ears.
Im Ji-hye pleased people’s ears with vocal skills far more advanced than before, while Seo Si-yeon shocked everyone by bringing an entirely unexpected concept.
[Honestly, Im Ji-hye put up a good fight, yeah]
Even if losing after threatening that she would win was karma, she wasn’t bad enough to deserve mockery.
This was basically the same as getting hit by a truck, yeah.
But Im Ji-hye didn’t know that Seo Si-yeon was the truck.
-For real.
-Isn’t she just stupid?
ㄴActually, that’s true.
ㄴShe just failed to read the situation. Realistically, did they think the judges would eliminate Seo Si-yeon?
ㄴEven if the judges eliminated her, the PD would probably drag her back from the dead.
-I liked Im Ji-hye’s stage better, though ㅠㅠ What a shame.
ㄴFor real, that elementary-school kid’s belly-baring outfit was fucking gross.
ㄴ The two of you above, get back to your own fandom.
Because of the nature of a gallery devoted to the show, the Singerstar Gallery had developed an atmosphere where female- and male-dominated communities coexisted.
As a result, Im Ji-hye’s popularity among the female users was relatively favorable.
When Im Ji-hye’s stage turned out to be fairly good, public opinion even formed seriously arguing that she was better than Seo Si-yeon.
But the moment a single post went up, the situation immediately descended into pandemonium.
[The rumor spreading all over the broadcast industry right now]
A contestant who used to be a trainee apparently threw a metal tumbler at an elementary schooler after her stage.
They say it turned the broadcasting station upside down…
It’s just a rumor, so I don’t know whether it’s true.
-Huh?
-Wait, is this real?
-Gasp.
ㄴIsn’t this anon the guy who posts rumors?
ㄴYeah, he’s a Singerstar insider.
ㄴThe way this person is acting, it must be true, fuck.
-Is this about Im Ji-hye and Seo Si-yeon?
ㄴ Uh-uh, watch what you say.
ㄴFuck, how could anyone sue over this? Quit making such a fuss.
Singerstar was currently the hottest topic in South Korea.
It was so popular that if you said you didn’t know about Singerstar at work or school, it was difficult to join the conversation.
That made Singerstar extremely tasty material for the so-called cyber wreckers who lived online, earning views and money by tearing people apart.
They even went so far as to play detective based on someone’s expression, manufacture controversies, and upload videos,
so there was no reason for them not to post insider stories about the incident on related sites.
[Shocking! Assault and verbal abuse of a nine-year-old child? The shocking truth about Singerstar’s filming set!]
[300K views][5.4K likes]
-This is shocking. I hope they receive the maximum punishment.
-We need to start a Blue House petition!
-How could they do this to Si-yeon, the nation’s little treasure~ What a nasty, fat-assed bitch~
An issue had erupted in Korean society just after the Olympics ended, at a time when there had been no major issues for quite a while.
For the newly emerging cyber-wrecker industry that was just beginning to establish itself, this kind of issue was a godsend.
So, while all sorts of cyber wreckers were racing to upload videos,
the person at the center of it all, Seo Si-yeon, was—
“Si-yeon! Is it tasty?”
“Yes! It’s totally delicious!”
“Hehe… Then you’ll call me unni from now on, right?”
“Ah… I’d rather not.”
peacefully devouring ice cream.
* * *
Unni.
When I had lived as a man, it was a form of address I had never had occasion to hear, much less use.
I had heard forms of address like oppa every day from trainees and debuted idols, so I felt less resistance toward them, but unni had always seemed like an entirely unknown world to me.
But I had a feeling.
As long as I was living in a woman’s body, even if I never used the term oppa, I would have no choice but to use unni.
‘Actually, plenty of women don’t use oppa. But there isn’t a single one who doesn’t use unni.’
I looked at Yoo Seol-ha, who was smiling brightly in front of me as she spooned up toothpaste-flavored ice cream.
I couldn’t understand at all why she would pay several thousand won to buy and eat frozen toothpaste.
I, on the other hand, was eating matcha-flavored ice cream.
Unlike that toothpaste, it was premium ice cream made with high-quality ingredients.
The price was the same, but there was an obvious difference in class.
“But Si-yeon. What’s the difference between matcha and green tea? Some places call it green tea, and others call it matcha, but they always taste exactly the same.”
“As far as I know, matcha is made from tea leaves that have been aged a little longer.”
“Aha. You’re smart too, Si-yeon!”
Being praised as smart for knowing such useless trivia was probably one of the privileges of being a child.
I lowered my head, feeling my face grow a little warm.
“How are you feeling? A little better?”
“Oh… yes.”
Yoo Seol-ha had dragged me away from the orphanage, where I had been holed up preparing for the next round, and taken me sightseeing around Seoul because she wanted to comfort me.
To be honest, I had felt rather unsettled that day, but now that more than a week had passed, I didn’t feel particularly bad anymore.
If anything, I felt sorry for Im Ji-hye.
I had been at fault too for deliberately sneaking into that waiting room.
Well, naturally, no one else would think that way, but that was how I saw it.
‘I thought and acted far too much based on my previous life.’
One of my main jobs back then had been calming down trainees who had been eliminated, helping them accept the reasons, and encouraging them to continue pursuing their dreams or find another path.
Treating Im Ji-hye as if she were one of the trainees from my previous life had clearly been an act of arrogance on my part.
The Seo Si-yeon I was now and my circumstances in my previous life were simply worlds apart.
“She’s really awful too. How could she do that to a little kid like you!”
“I don’t think she’s inherently a bad person. We apologized to each other right there, too. Besides, she’s paying for it more than enough now.”
Im Ji-hye was currently being cursed out all over every online community.
Even though Singerstar had captured the scene on camera, they didn’t broadcast it.
There was nothing to gain from deliberately burying Im Ji-hye.
They would have been lucky if people didn’t criticize them for being a program that was unnecessarily cruel to a child.
With the ratings already soaring, there was absolutely no reason to create unnecessary controversy.
But they couldn’t stop the loose-lipped people involved from talking.
At first, when no one knew whether the rumor was true, everyone had held their tongues, but once it became more or less certain that Im Ji-hye had thrown some object at me, people stopped holding back.
“It doesn’t seem like she’s being punished…”
“No. Being subjected to that kind of abuse… it’s much more painful than you’d think.”
I shuddered at the memory from my past that had risen unbidden.
I hadn’t been cursed out by the entire nation or anything; it had only been idol fanboys and fangirls. But I had been terribly depressed during that period.
Still, Im Ji-hye’s incident hadn’t been conclusively proven, so she had merely become fodder for the cyber wreckers and was only being cursed out online, whereas I had made it onto terrestrial TV news and received every kind of abuse imaginable.
‘She’s like a niece I’ve known since elementary school… It’s not as though I can’t take her out for a meal…’
Even now, the more I remembered being cursed out for supposedly dating an idol from my own agency over that incident, the more unfair it felt.
“You say that as if you’ve been on the receiving end?”
“I-I just meant it seemed like it would be.”
Yoo Seol-ha looked very happy.
That made sense, since Glassy Sky, which had been released nearly a month ago, still showed no sign of leaving the number-one spot.
Honestly, I didn’t know why, either.
The Girl in the Picture, which I had sung in the first round, and Play, which I had sung in the third round, were both quite good songs.
But although those songs had made it onto the charts, they hadn’t climbed particularly high.
Ultimately, the reason had to be found in the vocals…
‘Yoo Seol-ha does sing better than me.’
I had no choice but to admit it.
Yoo Seol-ha’s vocals were an inborn gift. She might even possess the talent to reach beyond Korea and spread overseas.
Just like Park Han-su’s Black Canary.
I wasn’t exactly a great singer to begin with, so even I had no objection to the fact that she sang better than me.
‘But I sang Play fucking well, didn’t I?’
Personally, I thought my performance of Play had been practically perfect.
At the time, I hadn’t merely been a kid who could sing fairly well; I had sung extremely well even by adult standards.
And I had sung while dancing, too. Granted, the dancing wasn’t proper dancing and had amounted to little more than a routine.
Come to think of it, Seo Ina, who had modified the choreography to suit me and helped me practice, had said I clearly seemed to have talent.
‘Should I really just become an idol?’
“Si-yeon. What are you thinking so hard about?”
By then, Yoo Seol-ha had finished all her frozen toothpaste and was smiling brightly as she met my eyes.
Since she had been smiling all day, apparently in a wonderful mood, I had no choice but to hide the truth and give her a vague excuse.
I couldn’t exactly tell her that I was wondering whether to become an idol because I was so damn cute and overflowing with talent.
“I-I was thinking about the song for the next round!”
“Really? As diligent as ever.”
“There’s only a week left until the stage.”
The next round would select the Top 10.
Of the twenty contestants who remained, only ten would advance to the upper round and earn the right to compete in a live contest.
Unlike the six contestants rescued in Round 2 and the two rescued in Round 3, there would be no rescues this time; anyone eliminated would have to go straight home.
In this round, which had been dubbed the “Random Genre Round,” the contestants would each draw one genre at random.
“Hng… We got a ballad. Our band has never done anything like a ballad before…”
“That’s nice.”
“Huh? Then what did you draw, Si-yeon?”
Among the wooden sticks labeled with random genres, I—
“Hip-hop.”
Of all things, I had ended up drawing the worst possible genre for me.