Chapter 35
Naturally, the moment the winners and losers were decided, the people eligible for the loser revival were effectively decided as well.
Lee Hye-na and Joo Jinwoo. The two strongest contestants, with the strongest fandoms, would advance to the next round.
Everyone thought so, and I was practically certain of it myself.
That was why Hye-na and I had watched the remaining stages together in the waiting room.
‘I naturally assumed Hye-na would advance through the loser revival, but…’
-Lee Hye-na-90,893 votes
-Joo Jinwoo-189,875 votes
-So Yu-jin-56,098 votes
-Baek Yu-yeon-97,893 votes
By a narrow margin, Baek Yu-yeon had overtaken Lee Hye-na in the viewers’ votes.
The first thought that came to me was simple.
‘Is this rigged?’
Of course, Baek Yu-yeon was also a singer of exceptional ability. She possessed a unique timbre that no one could imitate, and she certainly had a promising future, but…
‘Her vote count actually went up from last time?’
The previous round’s individual vote counts had not been revealed to the public, but each contestant had been told their own result.
Baek Yu-yeon had told me the number while we were eating together, and it had been roughly twenty thousand fewer than this round’s total.
Twenty thousand votes had suddenly dropped out of nowhere.
Naturally, I couldn’t help suspecting rigging first.
However, I learned the truth before long.
“Wow. Counter-voting? They went this far?”
Starry Light had the largest fandom both in Korea and abroad.
That fandom, bristling with hostility, had dumped votes on Baek Yu-yeon to eliminate Lee Hye-na.
A Starry Light fan account that had taken the lead by posting a tweet encouraging counter-voting had roughly sixty thousand followers, and the tweet had already been viewed well over two hundred thousand times.
“They’re crazy. In more ways than one.”
* * *
The TOP 6 of <Singerstar 5> had been decided.
The process had caused a major controversy, but… well, it was legally ambiguous enough that no one could really be punished for it. And they couldn’t simply advance Lee Hye-na and eliminate Baek Yu-yeon, either.
Once her elimination was confirmed, Lee Hye-na shed tears of regret.
Her entire life had been one long string of absurd injustices, so I completely understood her tears.
“They’re really awful people.”
“I know. Even if they were going to counter-vote, I thought they’d do it against you… I never imagined they’d target Yu-yeon in anticipation of the loser revival.”
I walked with Lee Hye-na all the way to the parking lot, twenty minutes from the dormitory, to see her off.
We walked together as a morning stroll, and I didn’t feel particularly bad.
Despite being eliminated, Lee Hye-na actually looked a little relieved.
Was it because she had perfectly performed the stage she wanted? Or had she simply become numb after growing sick of this industry?
If it were me, I think I would have felt the latter.
She had failed to debut because of rigging in the idol audition she entered as an unaffiliated contestant, then been unfairly eliminated a year later on <Singerstar> because of her anti-fans’ counter-voting.
Her entire career in the entertainment industry had been one injustice after another.
‘These kinds of ordeals do forge stronger fandoms…’
This incident would probably make Lee Hye-na even more famous and earn her an even larger solo fandom.
But if these repeated trials made her lose her desire to become an idol, that growing fandom would become meaningless.
That was why I had no choice but to ask her in a somewhat concerned voice.
“Unni. You haven’t given up, have you?”
“…What kind of question is that? Honestly.”
She hesitated for a moment, but as I could tell from her eventual answer, she hadn’t been broken yet.
However, she wore a somewhat precarious smile, as if another bout of unfair treatment on her third attempt would truly break her.
‘Surely that won’t happen?’
Honestly, any company would welcome her.
If they launched a rookie group with her in it, its starting point could not possibly be the same as that of other idols.
A name-brand trainee who could single-handedly gather the equivalent of a third-tier idol’s fandom.
That was the value of Lee Hye-na as a person.
If she properly investigated the company and stayed cautious, there was little chance she would truly be screwed over again this time.
With those slightly uneasy feelings, I saw Lee Hye-na off from the dormitory.
* * *
Two weeks passed, and another one-on-one round was held, determining the TOP 5.
As expected, there were no major surprises, and Choi Seong, who had made it this far thanks to a lucky run of matchups, left the dormitory.
I sang a song I had considered for the previous round but hadn’t used, comfortably defeating Choi Seong and advancing to the next round.
From here on, two stages would be held one week apart.
One contestant would be eliminated each week, determining the three finalists, and then the final would be held after a two-week break.
It was a grueling schedule, leaving very little time to prepare each stage.
That was why, this time, I decided to move quickly on song selection, with no time to do things like help Blooming.
“The song I’ll use for the finals… I’m working on it. That means I have to bring over songs from my past life for the two stages.”
In the previous round, I had given “Child of the Waves” to Blooming, and Blooming’s performance of “Child of the Waves” still hadn’t managed to beat Glassy Sky.
Glassy Sky had been forced to give up first place because of Starry Light’s comeback, but it was still holding firmly to second place.
Watching that strange phenomenon, I realized something.
‘Ah, so the Seo Si-yeon of this life writes songs better than even the me of my past life—and even the other composers from that life.’
That was why, if possible, I wanted to compete with original Seo Si-yeon songs in every stage, but… as expected, I didn’t have enough time.
I already had a vision for the competition song for the finals, so I had entered the production stage.
Now, no one was left to interfere with my decisions, and there were no genre restrictions, either.
I could simply do whatever song I wanted, or whatever suited my timbre.
“Still, I do want to do something unusual.”
Honestly, the last round and the one before it? The stages hadn’t been all that fun.
They had merely been utilitarian song choices I had made to advance safely to the next round.
I rested my chin on one hand and slowly browsed the songs on the USB while sucking on chocolate milk.
Everything from songs I had written in my past life to various famous pop songs I had restored.
“Wait, how many carols are on here?”
The songs that particularly caught my eye were carols that seemed meant to be sung only during the Christmas season.
Naturally, there had been countless carols in my past life, and there were more famous ones than I could count on one hand.
That was why I had restored a few songs I considered masterpieces, but…
There were more of them than I had expected.
“A carol in summer?”
It was my own voice saying it, yet even I found it ridiculous.
Outside the window, cicadas were assaulting my eardrums, and heat haze was rising from the asphalt in the middle of summer.
If I said I was going to sing about Rudolph or Santa in this weather, the production crew would ask whether I had lost my mind.
‘Honestly, I had considered trying a summer concept with one, but…’
Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off the list of songs on the USB.
Several carols I had restored by dredging up memories of my past life.
One of them in particular made my finger stop.
A solo song by a male idol I had known in my past life.
‘It wasn’t as flamboyant as Mariah Carey’s carols (she exists in this world too), but…….’
There was something peculiar about this song.
Even the intro alone made my heart go soft, and it was a refreshing pop-style carol, cool enough to chill one corner of my heart even when heard on a snowless summer night.
In fact, it was closer to a standard pop progression than a carol, but its winter release had given it lyrics forcibly packed with Christmas imagery.
The overall concept was also about longing for Christmases past, making it a carol that somehow felt more suited to any season but winter.
“Wait, what if I think about it the other way around?”
I chewed the straw of my chocolate milk into little pieces as I sketched out a vision in my head.
Up to this point, <Singerstar> had followed the textbook path of an audition show.
Explosive vocal ability, heartbreaking lyricism, or flashy performances.
But perhaps what people exhausted by the summer heat needed wasn’t a blazing stage like that.
‘Christmas in summer… They really do have Christmas in summer in the Southern Hemisphere, right?’
It was perfectly defensible.
It would be easy to make it unexpected in several ways, and it would draw plenty of attention.
And this song, too, was less suited to winter than it was to listening to on a rainy summer night.
And regardless of whether there was a proper justification or not, I simply wanted to do it.
To put it crudely, I was craving a carol.
Even though it was summer.
People had to live by doing what they wanted to do.
And so, in the middle of summer, I began scouring the internet for a child-sized Santa suit to use for cosplay.