Chapter 24
Truthfully, I'm not particularly fond of group living.
Because I find it somewhat uncomfortable to live crammed into the same space with strangers, or even with people I'm close to.
However, after spending several months living communally at the orphanage, that sort of disposition had long since disappeared.
By now, I had been remodeled into someone who could adapt anywhere.
“Oh wow. The accommodations are definitely nice.”
A villa supposedly built by some chaebol stood before us, with the sea spread out in front of it and even a court for beach volleyball.
When I went inside, I found that it even had facilities like a table-tennis room and a screen-golf room.
It was exactly the sort of place that suited a rich man's mansion.
‘It's a shame there's no bowling alley.’
Because bowling is the one sport I'm at least somewhat good at.
At the urging of people around me, I had played quite a bit of golf and tennis, but I couldn't get into either of them at all, so my skills hadn't particularly improved.
Still, I had bowled consistently since middle school, and I was good enough to average around 200 points.
Anyway, putting the facilities aside...
“Oh. The room is freaking huge!”
As someone who normally shared a room with three other people, using two bunk beds, this was practically a new world.
The moment I saw the private room, I felt refreshed all the way to my heart, and I quickly unpacked my few belongings.
I hadn't brought much in the first place, so there was barely anything inside my suitcase.
Just basic underwear, toiletries, and some clothes?
It wasn't as if I had to stay trapped here the entire time, and we had time to go into town and buy anything we needed, so there was no need to haul everything here.
“Ahh. Nice.”
Naturally, all of my reactions were being captured by the cameras.
The only spaces in the lodging without cameras were the changing area on one side of the room and the bathroom.
‘Thinking about it that way, it is a little suffocating...’
Still, considering that Neulneul Orphanage didn't have any private spaces at all, it might not be so bad overall.
It was the sort of feeling where, even after adding up the pluses and minuses, the pluses came out ahead and left you with a positive number.
After unpacking everything, I went down to the communal living room. There was a fairly large TV there, with several chairs surrounding a number of tables.
It seemed like we'd have to eat here, for all intents and purposes.
When I mentioned that thought to Yoo Seol-ha, who happened to be in the living room, she reacted unexpectedly.
“Nope? Si-yeon, there's an outdoor space where we can have a barbecue, too!”
“Huh? Really?”
It was true.
Just as she'd said, there was an outdoor space with a fairly large fire pit and quite a few chairs and tables.
Given the location, bugs would probably swarm around a little, but having a barbecue party here would certainly be romantic in its own way.
‘They really put a lot of thought into preparing this place so they could get plenty of footage.’
“Wow! I'm really looking forward to the barbecue! Are we doing it today?”
“Unni! Are you done unpacking?”
“Yeah. The room's pretty nice, isn't it?”
The person who wedged herself between us was Baek Yu-yeon.
Baek Yu-yeon, known for her dainty face and contrasting husky voice, was one of the contestants I was watching particularly closely this season.
Because her niche was utterly unique.
She had a voice and singing style that were perfect for the OSTs of historical dramas or martial-arts webtoons.
Considering that there weren't really any singers of this type in this world, she might be able to climb quite high even among the contestants who had made it into the TOP 10.
And I was looking forward to her future even after the audition ended.
‘There are a few songs that would suit this person...’
Even so, this wasn't exactly a situation where I could help a competitor.
“Hi, Si-yeon.”
“Hello, Ms. Yu-yeon.”
“Aww. You're being too formal. ‘Ms. Yu-yeon,’ really? Call me unni. Unni!”
“I'm comfortable with this. Hehe.”
I was never going to call her unni.
I'd been using the word unni to refer to myself for ages. Because I didn't feel any resistance to it.
But I would never call someone else unni for as long as I lived. Naturally, the same went for oppa.
‘Let me see.’
“It's because Si-yeon's shy! Right?”
“No, I'm not.”
“Aww. How cute!”
Yoo Seol-ha grabbed my cheeks and stretched them this way and that, smiling happily.
“Oh! I want to try cheek slime too!”
“Here, go ahead!”
“I'm not some kind of public property...”
In the end, I couldn't escape their clutches until Yoo Seol-ha and Baek Yu-yeon had thoroughly fussed over my cheeks and left me a complete mess.
There were some male cast members watching us from beside us with expressions that were strangely envious, but I pretended not to notice them.
No matter what, I couldn't share my cheeks with men covered in body hair.
Before long, nearly all the contestants had finished unpacking and either come down to the living room or started taking a walk along the beach.
I declined the Blooming members' suggestion that we go for a walk and decided to watch TV in the living room instead.
Not only was it huge, but it was a smart TV that even had YouTube!
‘Wow! A big TV!’
After watching Neulneul Orphanage's tiny-ass TV, seeing this enormous one made me feel like a tiny human standing beneath a mountain.
It was hard to explain, but either way, I felt incredibly good.
The TV was airing a rerun of the previous episode.
Unlike me, who had performed in the first week, the major talents Joo Jin-woo, Blooming, Baek Yu-yeon, and Han Seong-sik had performed in the following episode.
Now that we had a rough idea of each contestant's ability, I thought that these five or so people, myself included, were worthy of securing tickets to the finals.
There were a total of three spots available in the finals.
As things stood, the favorites were me, Joo Jin-woo, and Blooming.
The three teams assigned winning odds of 2.21, 2.34, and 3.56, respectively, were the most likely to advance to the finals, but neither of the other two had abilities that could be ignored, either.
Baek Yu-yeon clearly had the feel of someone with evenly high stats across the board, along with her own distinct color, so she was the type who couldn't help but be popular, while Han Seong-sik seemed to have only one stat—high notes—cranked up excessively high.
All I could say was that his high notes, which rose into the middle of the third octave with his distinctive clear voice, were impressive in all sorts of ways.
“Heh heh... This is embarrassing.”
“Oh.”
“My stage happens to be on right now.”
The person who came and sat down beside me as I watched the stage intently was Han Seong-sik, who was passionately belting out a song on the stage shown on the screen.
This man had the classic air of a handsome middle-aged man, and he had graduated from the engineering college of the same university as Joo Jin-woo before taking a position as a department head at a major corporation.
That was why Joo Jin-woo seemed particularly intimidated by this man.
“There's nothing to be embarrassed about. You sing really well.”
“Haha. Hearing that from a genius like you, Ms. Si-yeon, makes me quite happy.”
“You must hear that pretty often, though.”
“That is true.”
At this point, I decided to say the thing a younger person was supposed to say first to someone older.
“Please feel free to speak informally! You're old enough to be my father.”
“Would that be all right? My daughter is two years older than you, Ms. Si-yeon.”
The songs he mainly sang were ones that had been popular in the 1990s.
Most of them evoked the memories of his own generation, and Han Seong-sik also had the ability to reproduce that sentiment exactly as it was.
When I first saw him, I thought he must have swept up quite a few women in his younger days.
If he was a graduate of a prestigious university, had that face, and possessed that singing ability...
‘Fuck, he's a textbook alpha male.’
For some reason, I began to feel a little distant from Han Seong-sik.
* * *
My awkward conversation with Mr. Han Seong-sik didn't last long.
A sound like tearing metal came from the speaker installed in the living room, and then a familiar voice echoed throughout the lodging.
“All right, everyone, attention! Finish unpacking for now and gather in the living room.”
It was PD Kang Jun-hyung.
No sooner had he finished speaking than the Blooming members who had been walking along the beach and the people who had been checking out the barbecue grill in the yard all came rushing into the living room.
In an instant, the living room filled with the same tension as a television studio.
PD Kang smiled broadly in satisfaction and continued speaking.
“Does everyone like the accommodations? Those of you who have made it this far are no longer mere contestants, but assets of Singerstar. That's why we've prepared something special as the first schedule of this training camp.”
When he snapped his fingers, the enormous smart TV screen in the living room changed.
The faces of the three judges for this season appeared on it in large size.
“This mission is mentoring. It's not simply a time to learn songs. You'll have the judges personally review the songs you'll perform in the next round, then complete your stages through their production.”
Mentoring.
The contestants' eyes changed. This was an incredible opportunity.
Being coached one-on-one by the heads of the Big Three agencies or the best producers in Korea was an opportunity money couldn't buy.
“The mentors have already been assigned. Check the screen.”
The screen changed rapidly, and the names appeared in a list.
Blooming and Boyfriend were assigned to Jina, who focused on teams.
Baek Yu-yeon, So Yu-jin, and Mr. Han Seong-sik were assigned to Yoo Sang-hyun.
And the final slot.
[Seo Si-yeon, Joo Jin-woo, Lee Hye-na - Mentor: K-Sep]
“Oh.”
K-Sep.
As the president of YRK Entertainment and its active main producer, he possessed the greatest ability among all the Korean producers currently working.
How could I be so sure?
Because YRK Entertainment's stock price was the highest among entertainment stocks.
Money doesn't lie.
His personality was somewhat blunt and he was quite the sharp-tongued type, but what K-Sep demanded most strongly from artists was the ability to produce their own work.
His musical philosophy was reportedly that an artist should be able to write their own story.
‘We should be pretty compatible.’
However, it didn't take long for me to realize that I was at least a little mistaken about that.