Chapter 139
“Ah. Dahin-ssi. Hello. I’ve been enjoying your new song.”
I bowed my head in greeting as well.
Then, I checked the name tags in front of the waiting room once again.
[Yoon Cheong (Steel Blue)]
[Dahin (Inleven)]
It seemed we were sharing the same waiting room.
It was common for rookies.
“I also love your song, <Blue>, sunbae. Please take care of me…!”
“Yes. Please take care of me too. Let’s do our best for the recording today.”
Whether we shared the waiting room or not, it didn’t really matter to me, so after greeting her, I sat down on the sofa.
However, I continued to feel Dahin’s gaze.
Did she have something to say?
When I turned my head towards Dahin, she quickly looked away.
…What was that about?
I decided to ignore it and put my earphones in to listen to the song I needed to sing today.
<Dear My Diva> was a bit different from the survival shows I had done before.
It was a survival show, but it was closer to a stage competition.
The format was simple: just sing your song and get off the stage.
The training process, song selection process, and other trivial scenes were mostly omitted.
This was understandable since there were ten singers, including myself, appearing on the show.
It would be challenging to show all ten performances and their evaluations in a short amount of time.
The competition was in a tournament format.
The singers randomly picked their tournament opponents and competed on stage.
Among the two stages in each round, the stage that received the most votes from the audience moved on to the next round.
Once five winners were determined, the one with the highest votes advanced directly to the finals, while the remaining four competed in the semifinals.
After the three finalists performed, the winner would be decided.
One could perform a minimum of one stage and a maximum of three stages.
In my heart, I just wanted to be eliminated in the preliminaries.
Of course, that couldn’t happen, as it would tarnish the team’s name.
Anyway, whether I won or lost, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
Saying three stages was easy, but preparing just one took at least a week.
It was only natural if one considered the level of completeness needed.
Luckily for me, I had prepared for these kinds of stages in my previous life, so it was somewhat easier.
I could endlessly reuse the stages I had done before.
However, the other contestants would probably struggle. Both physically and mentally.
Anyway.
The song I was going to sing today was .
It was one of the Italian songs.
You might wonder why an Italian song all of a sudden.
It was my own bold choice.
All the singers appearing here had excellent basic vocal skills.
Most of the audience members seemed to have been selected because they were close to ‘muggles’ rather than fans of specific idols.
So, I thought it would be good to take a little risk instead of making a too-safe choice.
I decided to sing ‘that song,’ which everyone must have encountered at least once in commercials, movies, and various media.
There probably wouldn’t be anyone else who chose an Italian song.
“Sunbae, what song are you singing today?”
At that moment, Dahin spoke to me.
“Ah, I…”
I paused for a moment before answering.
I felt like I shouldn’t answer this so easily.
“What about you, Dahin-ssi?”
“I’m singing .”
“Ah.”
She also chose an Italian song.
What a disaster.
The broadcasting station had already been trying to set us up as rivals.
If we both sang Italian songs from the first broadcast… the rival image would be too strong.
I could already see the titles circulating on the internet.
Rival image established from the first broadcast.jpg
Rookie idols choosing Italian songs (Yoon Cheong vs. Dahin)
Comparison of Yoon Cheong and Dahin’s vocal skills (Next-gen top vocalists?)
Ugh.
None of these labels were welcome.
But wasn’t it too much of a coincidence?
I quietly looked at Dahin.
Could it be… that she already knew what I had chosen?
I didn’t want to doubt her, but given that she had already followed the title concept keywords, there was a chance she was aiming for noise marketing.
“Is there… a problem, sunbae?”
However.
Noticing my doubt, Dahin cautiously asked.
…Did she not deliberately follow me?
Having dealt with so many weird people, I started doubting everything.
I scrutinized Dahin’s eyes.
“Sunbae…nim?”
She didn’t seem to be lying.
I decided to hide my awkwardness as much as possible.
“No. That song suits you well. I’m looking forward to it.”
Dahin smiled brightly at my words.
“Thank you! What song are you singing, sunbae…?”
Right. I hadn’t answered that yet.
I hesitated.
I had planned to confront her head-on, but I didn’t want to compete with the same genre.
Should I avoid it, or not?
I hesitated, then suddenly felt a bit annoyed.
Wait a minute.
If that agency already knew my mission song and intentionally challenged me with the same genre…
Wasn’t that completely disregarding me?
Or were they so sure Dahin would win?
Either way, it was quite insulting.
They were looking down on me.
In that case, I needed to prove them wrong.
“I originally planned to sing .”
At my words, Dahin’s eyes dulled for a moment, then barely lit up again.
“That means…”
“It seems our concepts overlap more than I thought. Moreover, as far as I know, Dahin-ssi and I are supposed to be opponents this time. Usually, adjustments are made in cases where there’s this much overlap. But it seems there was some sort of mix-up.”
I said this and stood up.
“May I check on this for a moment?”
“Ah, yes! Sunbae-nim… I also think there was some sort of mix-up…”
Of course, there was a mix-up.
Only, it was a deliberate one created by Dahin’s agency and the PD.
I left the waiting room and called CEO Hong’s secretary.
Fortunately, the secretary answered immediately.
“Secretary, could you connect me to the CEO?”
-Yes, Cheong-ssi. I’ll connect you right away.
***
As expected, CEO Hong exploded as soon as she heard the whole story.
She even wanted to come to SWC herself, which I barely managed to dissuade her from doing.
It seemed she was extremely upset about getting stabbed in the back after sending two of her idols to MC for them.
In fact, Colors had refused the MC casting for Dan Ha and Han Jae-i five times.
They saw no need to have them host a survival show when they should be focusing on overseas tours and music activities.
I actually agreed with that thought. At that moment, Burn Ash needed to focus on building their international fandom rather than on variety shows.
However, it seemed they reluctantly accepted due to the persistent requests from the network, not wanting to keep refusing them.
But now, not only were they treating me poorly, but it felt like a betrayal. No wonder CEO Hong was furious.
It seemed CEO Hong had some kind of conversation with the PD.
Soon enough, the PD called for me.
“Yoon Cheong-ssi.”
“Yes, PD-nim.”
“I never, absolutely never, change the stage on the day of the performance. You know that, right?”
As if I wanted to throw away all my hard work…?
You’re changing it because you and Moments conspired to fool people…?
I felt baffled by the PD’s brazen attitude.
“But since CEO Hong asked so earnestly, I’ll allow it just this once.”
“Yes. Thank you, PD-nim. I’ll work hard since you’ve accommodated my situation.”
“Make sure the stage movements are clean. Don’t try to do anything grand.”
“…I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You know there’s not much preparation time left, right? I’ve pushed your turn back by talking with the other contestants. Originally, you were supposed to go against Dahin-ssi. But now, you’ll go against Yuin of No Limit.”
This was also good news.
I didn’t want to go against Dahin from the start.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t let this happen again.”
I left the conference room quietly, feeling amazed by the sheer number of brazen people in the world.
Now I had to prepare my stage again.
There was much to do.
***
When I returned to the waiting room, Dahin looked at me like a drenched animal.
It seemed she had been waiting for me.
…Why did I feel like a babysitter these days?
I couldn’t afford to take on more strays; I already had four little ones to feed.
I ignored her gaze and sat down in my seat.
In fact, I had come up with an idea as soon as I found out our song genres overlapped.
“Sunbae-nim, how did it go…?”
“I decided to change my song.”
“!”
As the PD said, since I couldn’t change the stage layout significantly, changing to a completely different genre was impossible.
So, I just had to slightly shift the direction—
“Have you heard of the song <Falling Blossoms>, Dahin-ssi?”
I had to dominate the stage.
I decided to choose another song in the end.
But I shouldn’t be the one avoiding the competition.
I needed to be the one devouring it.