Idol Hides His Military Service

“Is it because they’re still trainees, after all?”

After enduring the 60-second wait, the Entrance Ceremony stages of the Idol Ground 100 contestants finally began.

At first, Jiyeon had looked forward to seeing what kind of stages they would show, but maybe because they were still just trainees, there weren’t many stages that really stood out, which left her disappointed.

In fact, the judges’ evaluations were more interesting than the contestants’ Entrance Ceremony stages.

— Contestant number 4, Yoo Haeun? This stage was an overall disaster. You didn’t even consider your own vocal range, you just wanted to show you can dance, is that it?

Especially Hyeryeong, who had been a member of G.G, was giving such sharp critiques that broke the contestants’ mentality that Jiyeon was shocked, since it was the complete opposite of the image she knew.

‘But she’s not just scolding them, she’s pinpointing exactly what they did wrong, so it actually looks really cool.’

As they evaluated the Entrance Ceremony stages, the judges were kneading the contestants like dough with their professional critiques, proving they weren’t called the best in their respective fields for nothing.

— Hello. We’re trainees from Logic Entertainment. My name is Seo Ryujin.

‘Seo Ryujin? Isn’t she a pretty well-known trainee?’

Around the time the Entrance Ceremony stage was halfway through, a contestant named Seo Ryujin appeared, and Jiyeon focused her eyes on the TV screen again.

Normally, regular people would have no reason to know trainees, since they’re not even debuted idols yet, but among idol fans, there were often people who had even the trainees mapped out.

And for good reason. Since trainees were future idols, there were fans who “pre-claimed” them and cheered them on in advance as if raising their own children.

Of course, Jiyeon wasn’t that deep into it, but in Seo Ryujin’s case, she had appeared several times as a backup dancer for Logic Entertainment’s artists, so she was a trainee with some level of recognition, which was why Jiyeon could recognize her.

‘She’s good.’

And once Seo Ryujin and the other Logic Entertainment trainees started, they showed a high level of performance, unlike the stages that had come before.

At this level, it didn’t feel much different from an actual active idol group putting on a stage.

Sure enough, the judges, who had only been giving harsh critiques until now, gave them very generous evaluations.

— Thank you!

Seo Ryujin was able to proudly receive an A grade and return to her seat.

After that, it was like a blocked artery had been cleared; skilled contestants began to appear one after another.

Most of the contestants who appeared starting from the middle were trainees from famous agencies.

‘This is why trainees all have to get into a major company.’

They had such skills that Jiyeon thought, no wonder all the trainees were trying to get into one of the Big 3 or at least some agency with a decent name, as if their lives depended on it.

First of all, famous agencies didn’t just pick trainees recklessly. And once they picked them, they kept the competition going inside as well, honing and polishing their trainees.

On top of that, the scale of investment for trainees was on a completely different level.

They said the cost to raise a single trainee at a major agency could approach hundreds of millions of won in a single year, so it was clearly an amount that most small and mid-sized agencies didn’t even dare to attempt.

‘So they deliberately put the skilled ones toward the end, huh?’

Jiyeon got the feeling that the production team had intentionally structured the Entrance Ceremony running order like this to show the difference in ability between contestants from small agencies and those from famous agencies.

‘Sion hasn’t come out yet··· she’s definitely going to be a skilled one!’

And Jiyeon’s expectations for Lee Sion kept growing.

Even though more than half of the Entrance Ceremony stages had already gone by, there was still no sign of Sion’s stage, but she didn’t think it had been edited out.

‘They’re giving her reaction shots that often, there’s no way they would have cut her stage, right?’

Idol Ground 100 was substituting the audience’s reaction to the Entrance Ceremony stages with the expressions of the contestants sitting in the audience seats.

And among that huge number of contestants, the one whose reactions were shown particularly often was Lee Sion.

The way Sion looked at the other contestants’ stages with a cold gaze that seemed to say,

— That’s all you’ve got?

had the eyes of a lion, the top predator of the savanna grasslands.

Along with her, Ryu Ayeon was also sitting in the golden chair, watching the other contestants’ stages with a blank expression, exuding an aura like a final boss.

— Hello. I’m TSP trainee Ryu Ayeon. The song I prepared today is senior Rion’s “Pop Star.”

The long Entrance Ceremony of the contestants was now heading toward its end.

‘What, is Sion seriously the last stage?’

Contestant number 99, Ryu Ayeon, had just stepped onto the stage.

Only then did Jiyeon realize that the Entrance Ceremony stages were being run in order of contestant number.

Since the contestant number of her one and only pick, Lee Sion, was 100, she naturally realized that meant Sion would be the last stage.

‘Just how skilled do they think she is to place her at number 100?’

Forcing herself to hold down her rising expectations, Jiyeon focused on Ryu Ayeon’s Entrance Ceremony stage for now.

Pop star (pop star)

A drama that sparkles like a star

Every part of it is my stage

Watch me now, I’m your pop star

‘She’s really good···.’

Unlike the other contestants from big agencies, who had been on stage in groups, Ryu Ayeon was alone on stage, and she was presenting a perfect performance that showed exactly why she was such a talked-about contestant.

Honestly, Jiyeon couldn’t help but wonder if even an active idol could show that level of skill. Vocals were vocals, dance was dance.

Ryu Ayeon’s stage, with every single element executed at a high level, was on a different tier compared to the previous contestants.

‘The only ones on her level I can think of are···’

If she had to name contestants who were on a similar level to someone like that Ryu Ayeon, the only ones Jiyeon could think of were Logic Entertainment’s Seo Ryujin or Yoo Jihae, who had the prior career of having debuted as an idol.

And the judges as well seemed to find nothing to nitpick in Ryu Ayeon’s stage just now, showering her with praise that went beyond simple compliments.

‘Hmm··· this isn’t betrayal! You can vote for up to seven people anyway, and besides, I have to think about the member composition for when Sion debuts.’

Even Jiyeon, who had been chanting only Sion’s name, found herself considering whether to give one of her remaining online votes to Ryu Ayeon after seeing her stage.

— Lastly! Contestant number 100, Lee Sion, please come up to the stage!

While she was briefly thinking about the members who would debut together with Sion, MC Jang Junseok’s words snapped Jiyeon back to attention, and she focused on the TV screen again.

‘She’s coming out!’

Jiyeon had watched this long Entrance Ceremony without even going to the bathroom, just in case Sion appeared in the middle, keeping her focus the whole time.

And finally, the image she had been waiting for so desperately appeared on TV—Sion walking out onto the stage.

In the way Sion slowly walked onto the stage at the MC’s call, there was not a hint of nervousness.

Just how outstanding was her skill that the broadcasting station had placed her at the very last slot?

And just how much of a powerhouse was she that she didn’t even get nervous despite the pressure of going last?

Questions sprang up endlessly in Jiyeon’s head, but the priority right now was to focus on Sion, so she even swallowed her saliva carefully as she watched the screen.

— Contestant Lee Sion is an individual trainee. How long have you been a trainee?

— Three···

‘Three years? Oh··· so she really has had a decent training period.’

That was what Jiyeon was thinking in that moment.

— Three weeks.

The instant she heard Sion’s follow-up answer, Jiyeon’s mentality nearly shattered.

‘What?! Three weeks? Even if that’s true, you should at least lie a little!’

At the answer from her ultimate bias, Sion, Jiyeon’s insides almost exploded.

For the other trainees, one year was the bare minimum, and some of them had been trainees for five or six years. If someone said they’d only trained for three weeks, both the judges and the viewers would be at risk of feeling no sincerity from Sion about wanting to become an idol.

In a panic, Jiyeon hurriedly took out her smartphone and opened Twitter.

Just as she had expected,

↳Isn’t that Lee Sion girl just here to get her face out there?

↳You can tell just by looking. Why did they shove a kid like that in among people who are really desperate?

↳Ugh, I seriously hate it. She just got in on looks alone, right? A kid like that is going to mess up the whole show later.

She could already see a stream of negative comments from people who were watching Idol Ground 100 live and posting their reactions in real time on SNS.

-I’ve never once lived according to my own will.

But soon, the mood started to turn around.

‘Was your mother really that obsessed with your education?’

‘···Yes, ever since I entered the gifted education center when I was little, I think she was especially fixated on my studying.’

Before she knew it, the program had switched over to Sion’s solo interview.

“Hng··· sob.”

As Sion calmly confessed that, because of a mother who had forced studying on her since childhood, she had never even been [N O V E L I G H T] allowed to look at anything else and had lived a life like being locked in prison, Jiyeon deeply sympathized. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Her own mother also hounded her every day to study, practically gripping her by the scruff of the neck.

-I don’t want to live the life my mother decided for me anymore. I want to try living for the dream I want···.

↳Where did all the people go who were cursing Sion? Isn’t someone like that exactly the kind of contestant that fits the purpose of this program?

↳Did you see her crying at the end while she was talking? I seriously almost cried.

↳I’m going to start rooting for Sion to debut from now on!

After Sion’s backstory was revealed, the reactions on Twitter flipped 180 degrees.

The people who had been cursing Sion were suddenly busy deleting the tweets they had posted, and people who weren’t anyone’s fan yet started frantically sharing clips of Sion’s interview video, tagging them with things like #LetLeeSionDebut and #CheeringForLeeSion!

-But we’ll be evaluating the stage itself coldly. What song did you prepare for today?

The judges also seemed moved by contestant number 100, Lee Sion’s heart-wrenching personal story, offering her warm words of encouragement, but separate from that, they clearly intended to evaluate the Entrance Ceremony stage itself with a cold eye.

‘Her skills are definitely going to be insane too!’

Normally, Jiyeon would have been watching nervously, but she wasn’t worried about Sion’s Entrance Ceremony stage.

After all, she had already seen the Music Count live broadcast stage in person earlier, so she had witnessed with her own eyes that Sion’s skills were pretty decent.

On top of that, why would the production staff not edit Sion’s stage forward and instead deliberately place it last in order?

‘She must have shown a ridiculously amazing stage!’

She was sure Sion had shown a fantastic performance that wouldn’t lose out to the earlier stage by Ryu Ayeon.

-The song I prepared is “Pink Spell.”

As Jiyeon waited for the stage, she froze for a moment like she’d malfunctioned when she heard Sion introduce her Entrance Ceremony song.

‘Pink Spell? That insane song?!’

Pink Spell.

The original singer was Jihyun, a member of the girl idol group High School Girl.

-The downfall of Korean music.

-I’m going crazy, why does this melody keep popping into my head!

-Is Jihyun giving up on being an idol from now on or what?

With lyrics and choreography that were unprecedentedly shocking, it was a song that had once taken the Korean music scene by storm.

A secret spell hiding

in everyday life

Love, laugh

But don’t come on too strong!

And now the screen was showing Sion singing that song in front of the 99 other contestants and the judges.

Sneakers instead of high heels

A phone instead of a wand

But strangely enough

the timing for me to step out

is fixed every single time, huh?

Watching that stage with the expression of a small investor staring at a plunging stock market, Jiyeon came to understand one thing.

‘Jihyun actually sang it really well, huh···.’

When even Jihyun, the original singer and a well-known “skilled idol,” had sung it, it had been so cringe-inducing it was hard to endure. So now she knew just how much of a train wreck it became when someone with lacking skill tried to sing it.

The me in the mirror

might seem a bit over the top

But this isn’t a concept

It’s real, I mean it for real

As the song’s highlight drew closer, Jiyeon’s face began to flush red.

All she was doing was watching the stage, but it brought back the memory of when she had dozed off in class in middle school and farted.

It was a performance so painful to watch that it dragged up a memory she had sealed deep in her mind, from a time when she had seriously considered dropping out of school.

‘Why··· why are you dancing so hard!’

The one who was now pushing Jiyeon to the brink of death by embarrassment, Lee Sion, had a completely unwavering expression, like an actor immersed in an intense role on a theater stage, and that only made it more mortifying.

Just looking at her face, she was on par with Ryu Ayeon. How could she sing Pink Spell this disastrously and still shamelessly maintain her composure?

Pink Spell, my sparkling magic

Funny yet serious, that’s the real charm

This spell I shout under the moonlight

“World, get a grip today too!”

Pink Spell, the strangest rule in the world

I can’t explain it, that’s just how it is

Today that’s even funnier than yesterday’s me

That’s exactly the magical girl style

Sion actually sang all the way through to the end of the first verse of Pink Spell, and even copied the ending pose of the song: making a V sign with her fingers, bringing it up to her face, winking, and sticking out her tongue.

‘Okay okay··· today you’re not touching the computer or your phone, once the program ends you’re going straight to bed.’

Jiyeon decided to go to sleep early just for tonight, because she didn’t have the courage yet to face the reactions that would erupt after people saw this stage.

And so, it wasn’t until the next day that she learned the fact that, after the broadcast ended, the number of new membership applications to “Sionism,” the fan café she had made for Sion, had surpassed ten thousand.