Idol Hides His Military Service

"You're good to go in now!"

"Yes."

Jang Junseok checked one more time through the earphones in his ears to make sure he could hear the staff properly, then gave the script in his hand one last review.

'Hooh···.'

A script with the rankings from 1st to 50th that would be revealed through the third rank announcement ceremony.

'A ton of people are probably losing their minds because they want to see this.'

Looking back, it was a good thing he hadn’t refused when MPLAY had asked him to MC their variety program.

If he’d turned it down, he would’ve been waiting over two weeks just to confirm the participants’ ranks that he was holding in his hand right now, and imagining how much that would’ve eaten him alive was horrifying.

-We really value Mr. Jang Junseok’s showmanship.

Out of nowhere, he remembered former main PD Kim Miyoung, who had come to see him during the program’s production phase to ask him to take the MC role.

'Even she probably didn’t know it would blow up this big.'

Lately, Junseok had gotten so annoyed he could’ve snapped, because every time he had a private get-together, acquaintances kept grilling him about Idol Ground 100.

Starting with what the participants were like in real life, whether they really performed that well, whether there were any fun scenes that didn’t make the broadcast—he felt like he’d heard the exact same questions dozens of times recently.

'A story that didn’t make the broadcast, huh··· I should probably keep it a secret that my third rib cracked.'

Back during that hidden-camera bit for PPL, he’d pretended to faint and almost actually ended up getting carted to the hospital.

The humiliating memory surfaced—one of the participants, Lee Sion, had pressed her palm onto his chest and pushed down with all her strength while he was “collapsed,” and he couldn’t hold it in and screamed.

Afterward his chest felt weird for no reason, so he went to the hospital, and when they told him he had a hairline fracture in his third rib, how shocked had he been?

Still, later Junseok watched Park Hyungsoo’s press conference at home and felt lucky it had “only” been a hairline fracture.

Because if you ran into a monster who could drop seven people with one punch each, getting off with just a cracked rib was basically good fortune.

Besides, whatever the case, it had been something she did to try to save him, so he didn’t have any hard feelings.

"Great to see you again! I’m the program’s main MC, Jang Junseok!"

"Waaaaaah!!!"

Lost in those random thoughts as he stepped onto the podium, Junseok, as always, threw out his opening line to signal the start of the broadcast to the participants gathered in the auditorium.

"After the concept evaluation, which was your third mission, did you all enjoy your one-week break?"

"Yes!"

And as always, seeing the participants answer him in booming voices like elementary school kids, Junseok felt a strange emotion.

'It’s so empty.'

Back when it started with 100 people, the auditorium had been packed, but now it looked pretty sparse.

Affection between people was scary like that—Junseok hadn’t even met the participants face-to-face that many times, and yet half of the people he’d run into here and there were gone.

And,

"Today is the third rank announcement ceremony for Idol Ground 100."

"···."

Thinking that, depending on what he announced today, half of the remaining fifty would disappear, it was inevitable that his heart felt uncomfortable.

"Unfortunately, the twenty-five participants who place 26th or lower in today’s rank announcement ceremony will not be able to join us for Idol Ground 100’s final stage—the Final Round."

But he was a pro.

Setting aside his personal feelings, his job—as always—was to make them laugh and cry over the announcements of survival and elimination, to create that tension that was the whole thrill of a survival program.

"Based on the online vote results up through yesterday, plus the vote results from your concept evaluation stages and more, the rankings from 1st to 50th··· will now be announced!"

Unlike the first time, there were no cheers from the participants.

***

"The participant who placed 8th is Kurosawa Yuri!"

Clap clap clap.

At Junseok’s call, Yuri walked up to the podium, not forgetting to smile at the participants applauding her.

'Smile, Kurosawa!'

Eighth place.

It was definitely a high rank, but compared to the 5th she’d gotten at the previous announcement, it was a drop of three whole spots.

'Is it because the voting method changed?'

The number of people you could vote for suddenly shrank from seven to three.

-I’m screwed··· My votes aren’t going up.

-Haaah··· Now you seriously can’t rise without real core fans.

-Until now, if people liked you even a little, they’d vote for you, but now they’re only voting for their one pick.

Because the rankings looked completely different than before, some participants already had that panicked, mentally-breaking-down expression.

In that sense, Yuri thought getting 8th wasn’t necessarily a bad result, but—

'I have to debut.'

It couldn’t be.

Only seven people could debut through Idol Ground 100, so 8th was useless.

If she didn’t get chosen this time, Yuri would have to go back to her agency as a trainee and wait for a debut that might never come.

-Yuri, if it’s too hard, you can come home.

At fourteen, before she’d even graduated middle school, she’d come to Korea alone saying she wanted to become an idol, and she’d already spent five years here.

At WS Entertainment—her current agency—the boy idol group they’d debuted two years ago had unexpectedly blown up, and the company was focused on taking care of them.

Because of that, news about the rookie girl group originally planned for debut next year kept getting pushed back and back, and Yuri didn’t want to keep making her parents in Japan worry.

-People have expectations for a Japanese member. Like being a little clumsy but cute, and kind of quirky, you know? Is that “lying”? What an innocent thing to say. Wanting to show your true self and be loved for it is something kindergarteners do.

She remembered advice the planning team leader at WS Entertainment had given her when her Korean became too fluent.

"Thank you! Even though I’m still not good enough—no, not good enough, thank you for sending me so many votes, and also to the fans who have watched over me until now, I want to repay you! Please keep cheering with me until the day Yuri becomes an idol!"

So when Yuri stepped onto the podium and shared her thoughts on her ranking, she didn’t show any disappointment at all. And she even deliberately acted awkward, like people wanted, despite how fluent she’d become.

"Alright, next is the participant who placed 9th. With an incredible rise compared to the last rank announcement, the participant who placed 9th is Lee Gahyeon!"

"Waaaaaah!"

"Hoo···."

"Did you see her acting clumsy again?"

"Yuri is for real clumsy!"

"···Anyway, good job."

Tap!

A palm landed on Yuri’s back like a pat of encouragement.

As Yuri came down from the podium, relieved that she’d pulled off the act again, one participant had already come over and casually poked at it.

'Lee Sion.'

It was Lee Sion.

"Gahyeon’s been on a roll lately."

"If you just look at her face, Gahyeon’s totally the type to snag a ton of female fans."

"Tragic. People need to know about the violent tendencies hidden behind that face."

Hearing Sion’s voice next to her, chatting with Seo Ryujin like they were trading jokes in a Japanese comedy routine, Yuri found herself listening without meaning to.

"She’s only violent to you."

"If I’m the universe, then being violent to me can be considered being violent to the entire world."

"What kind of nonsense is that?"

"It’s a quote from one of the world’s four great sages—the Buddha."

"You’re always weirdly knowledgeable about the strangest stuff."

At Ryujin’s words, Yuri nodded in agreement.

It was an accurate evaluation of Lee Sion.

"A wise person doesn’t laugh at a fool."

"What?"

"It means I won’t laugh at your ignorance."

Smack!

The moment she finished, the sound of skin colliding rang out.

'This is so unfair.'

Watching Sion protest at Ryujin while shouting that she opposed violence, Yuri thought to herself.

'At first I thought she was the same as me, but she’s actually like that···.'

Up through the concept evaluation, Yuri hadn’t really interacted with Sion.

But from what she’d seen during filming, and the way she appeared on broadcast, Yuri had thought Sion was the same type as her.

Someone who hid their true feelings and acted thoroughly in order to look friendly to people.

However—

-Yuri, how did you come from Japan and still not know Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

-Huh?

-Can’t be helped. Just this once, I’ll give you a special Three Kingdoms lecture. First, the story of Shu and everything else is what you can call Three Kingdoms, and then···.

Shockingly, the Sion Yuri experienced firsthand wasn’t acting. It was real.

She obsessed over the tiniest things, yet when it came to big issues she brushed them off like they were nothing.

When something like a school violence scandal hit her personally, she’d be like, “Oh, I see,” but when it came to her team or other participants, she couldn’t stand it and barged in with that overbearing, meddling kind of concern.

[Lee Sion’s kind of a boomer but why is she cool?]

「When they announced that only five people could go onstage for the concept evaluation mission, everyone on her team got serious and started practicing only their own parts.

When she pointed it out with a totally dead serious face, she felt kind of like a boomer, but it was cool」

↳I forgot because she’s usually joking around, but when Sion makes that face with that face, it’s actually terrifying for real

↳Watching it made me think of when a company commander loses it and lines everyone up in the army lol

↳But honestly, she would’ve been picked no matter what, so she could’ve stayed quiet and it wouldn’t have been her problem

↳That’s why I see her differently now. After Sion got mad and chewed them out, the Girlish Pop kids snapped out of it and focused, didn’t they?

Yuri was intensely jealous that Sion could reveal her real self so bluntly and still receive so much love.

"Don’t tease her just because Gahyeon cried, okay?"

"Not even a little teasing?"

"Hold it in!"

Maybe because of that, a bright mood always hung around Sion no matter the situation.

Even now, people clustered around Sion, chattering and bright, to the point it felt unbelievable this was a rank announcement ceremony.

'Everyone’s ranks shot way up.'

Yuri remembered the storm that the so-called “Sion gang” had caused in this announcement.

Lee Gahyeon, who’d just been called at 9th, and Im Yunkyung and Geum Shinyu—who stayed glued to Sion’s side so much they’d even gotten the nickname “security blanket”—had posted the shocking ranks of 11th and 13th.

Both ranks were the kind where it wouldn’t have been weird if they’d been eliminated this time, so it was an astonishing result.

And among Sion’s “nemeses,” Kim Nayeon—known as one of them—had ranked higher than Yuri at 7th, landing in the debut-zone ranks.

'Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon go without saying.'

And the other members of the Sion gang, Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon, were fighting over 2nd and 3rd between themselves, so there wasn’t even more to say.

[Lee Gahyeon’s been really good lately. She gets overshadowed by Sion, but she’s the real growth character]

[I’m telling you, Geum Shinyu is the hidden gem. These days every group needs a producing member, and Shinyu is perfect]

[I thought Im Yunkyung was just Sion’s totem, but she still stands out even on another team. Feels like she’s good at pulling people’s eyes]

[Kim Nayeon got dropped into F class with that skill, she must’ve been so bitter. Thank god we got to see Kim Nayeon’s stage thanks to Sion]

Among the other participants, there’d been talk that with votes reduced to three, the Sion gang’s momentum might get cut.

But as if to mock that prediction, their rankings had risen even more.

At first people took interest because of Sion, and then at some point that interest shifted over to each individual participant—there was no other way to see it.

"Now all that remains is 1st through 3rd, and 25th and 26th."

While Yuri was thinking about Sion and her crew, the ceremony was already winding down.

Onstage, Jang Junseok said he would announce 3rd place first, and as he called the three participants’ names, Sion’s face—who’d been chatting beside Yuri—hardened as she started walking toward the podium.

And at the same time, Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon followed after her.

'She’s obviously going to be 1st, so what’s with her?'

What stood out most to Yuri was Sion’s darkened expression—like she’d just heard an elimination announcement.

With 2nd and 3rd constantly swapping between Ryujin and Ayeon, it made sense they might be nervous, but 1st was unquestionably Sion.

It had to be.

Sion was 1st in the online vote and 1st in the stage rankings too—there was no way the result would be different.

And yet, for some reason, Sion looked extremely tense.

"3rd place goes to Ryu Ayeon, who ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ also took 3rd at the last announcement!"

While Yuri was still wondering why Sion looked like that, 3rd place was announced.

"First, to the fans who believed in me and voted for me··· thank you so much. Doing this program, I’m happier than ever to be holding 3rd place right now. For the time we have left, I’ll show you a more improved version of myself··· thank you!"

'She really changed a lot.'

In the beginning, Ryu Ayeon had rattled off stiff, machine-like remarks at rank announcements, but now she was speaking while holding back tears.

"Before we announce 1st and 2nd, we will announce the most important positions of this rank announcement ceremony—25th and 26th. Kim Suyeon and Kim Nara, please come up to the podium."

Ah.

As soon as Ryu Ayeon finished and came down, Junseok’s next words hit Yuri like someone had smacked her head with a hammer.

'So that’s why.'

Only now did Yuri understand why Sion—who was definitely 1st—had looked like she was dying.

Kim Suyeon and Kim Nara.

They were both participants close with Sion.

"In this third rank announcement, the participant who placed 25th is···."

Like always, Jang Junseok stopped mid-sentence, as if to torment the participants—no, the viewers watching at home.

It was a very short moment time-wise, but it was also an eternity where everyone in the auditorium stared only at Junseok’s mouth and waited.

"It’s··· Kim Suyeon!"

Squeeze.

The moment Junseok finished, Kim Suyeon and Kim Nara, who had been standing side by side, hugged each other.

Because of that, Kim Nara’s face was hidden behind Kim Suyeon’s, but Yuri could tell what expression she was making just from the way her shoulders were shaking.

A difference of one rank.

It was a tiny difference, but because of that tiny difference, Kim Suyeon would move forward, and Kim Nara would have to stop.

"···, ···. ···."

Kim Suyeon, who survived at 25th, also burst into tears as she gave her remarks.

Maybe because she’d survived by beating someone she was close with—she cried bitterly, like it hurt.

And then,

"1st place in this third rank announcement goes to Lee Sion! With this 1st place, she has set a major record by taking 1st in every rank announcement ceremony!"

The final order—the announcements of 1st and 2nd—came, and it became Sion’s turn to speak.

"···To be honest, I had a lot I wanted to say today. Even with everything that’s happened, I wanted to thank the people who always cheer for me, and I wanted to brag, too···."

From Sion—who’d always smiled brightly and happily talked about how she felt at every previous announcement—unexpected words flowed out.

As the participants and staff alike stared in surprise at how different she looked,

"But right now, only one sentence is coming to mind."

-Idol. I will become your idol.

Lee Sion’s final words echoed through the auditorium.