Chapter 78

The vibration sound woke me from a deep sleep.

I groped around on top of the thick blanket as if swimming through it until I found my phone.

Before simply cutting the call, I checked the caller out of courtesy and realized it was someone I absolutely had to answer first.

“Uh, yeah, Baek. What’s up?”

— Do people in Seoul age three years in a single day?

“Huh?”

— If you stay there one more month, you’re going to start hearing “mister” from your own mother.

Hahahaha. I just laughed.

— What are you laughing about? You said you were going to stay over at a friend’s place in Seoul, but why did you end up on TV? An audition? What is this?

“Ah.”

Only then did my half-asleep brain fully wake up.

When I raised my upper body, the body revealed itself.

Shorter limbs than my original body, bones that had not fully matured yet.

“...Right.”

This was a fake world created to build the Plausibility of <Debut Chart>.

A replicated leg created to replace my ruined knee.

A dimension where the existence of Young Ace had been erased in order to make me a trainee, while everything else had been made similar to reality.

“They really did a good job making these legs...”

— What? ℯℯ𝑙.

“Ah, I mean you, Attorney Baek, are always the same.”

— You little punk. You make your mother find out whether you’re alive or dead through TV? When were you planning to tell me you were going on a show?

“Um, tomorrow?”

— The tomorrow you talk about seems to come every day.

“Hahaha. I like that. Should I use it as a trainee motto?”

— If I had left you alone, you probably would’ve said it at my grave. Anyway, when did you start wanting to become a singer?

“Um... since I was fourteen?”

Because that was when I debuted in the original world.

Come to think of it, the real Baek Hanje’s seventeen-year-old self should have been at the height of Young Ace’s success, finally repaying his mother’s support.

Yet now he was just a son with an uncertain future.

It was unfair.

“Mom, when I become a singer, I’ll build you a shiny office in the best building in Daejeon.”

— Oh, please. Forget it. You didn’t get tricked by some weird people and dragged away, did you?

“Come on, don’t worry so much about the son of a lawyer. I’m doing fine.”

Actually, I did get tricked and dragged here...

But since it wasn’t a person, I probably couldn’t sue them, Mom.

— Maybe it’s because you’ve cooked for yourself and gone to school alone since you were young. Your ability to take action is really impressive.

I brushed aside the faint guilt hidden in her words with a laugh.

“Even though I wasn’t very good at studying?”

— Yeah, since we’re talking about it, go find your aptitude there too.

“I think I’m pretty good at singing.”

— Sing for me.

“...Come on, making me do something embarrassing like that directly. Just watch it on TV.”

— If you can’t sing in front of your own mother, how are you going to sing in front of other people?

“......”

Hmm.

I guess I shouldn’t criticize Gowon for not being able to do it in front of me.

This situation was more nerve-racking than I thought.

Still, understand.

It’s genetic... no, it’s because I learned from an excellent mother.

— If they try to shove a contract in front of you, send it to me before you sign.

“Yesss.”

— Do your best at what you want to do.

“Yeah. Have a good day today too, Mom.”

— Alright. Keep smiling wherever you go.

The call ended.

My sleep was completely gone, but there was still some lingering warmth that made me want to rub my cheek against the blanket for no reason.

“They really made it well...”

Have a good day.

Keep smiling.

Even that greeting had been recreated.

“...Should I get up?”

Mom told me to do well, so I had to do well.

There was no harm in listening to your mother’s words wherever you were.

I stretched widely and opened the bedroom door.

An unrealistic sight appeared before me.

Beyond the huge glass windows, a late autumn forest stretched endlessly.

Under the bright blue sky, I admired the swaying fallen leaves as I slowly descended the stairs of the mansion.

When I reached the first floor, Yunjin, who was sitting at the dining table, waved at me.

“Are you up?”

“Yeah.”

“Food first? Practice first? Or do you want to hang out with your hyung?”

“Definitely not the last one.”

I ignored the creepy older brother and took out a bottle of water.

The enormous refrigerator was lined up with drinks and ingredients in perfect order, no less impressive than Kwon Taeyoung’s refrigerator.

Because my place to stay until the next filming for <Debut Chart> had become uncertain, Yunjin had brought me to a massive mansion in the outskirts.

When I asked how he managed to get this place, he answered:

‘I told you I could adjust anything except the knee however I wanted.’

I didn’t know that included things like owning a place like this...

Since the mansion was located halfway up a mountain and surrounded by tall walls, there was no chance of the scandalous scene of participants and judges living together being discovered.

‘Honestly, even if people found out we were living together, I’d have plenty to say.’

During the first evaluation, he had noticed that I wasn’t satisfied with my own singing and immediately lowered my grade to A.

He might be treating me gently now, but his evaluation as a judge would still be merciless.

Even while knowing that this quest penalty contained the ominous word “disappearance” referring to himself...

“Uh.”

Wait.

‘Quest window.’

Flower Path Senior Part 4

Correction of the Time Error

Stage 4 Goal: Secure Plausibility for the Empty Gap in the Past

Part 4 Additional Penalty — Yunjin Disappearance

“......”

Because I had been dropped into this strange world, I had failed to notice the contradiction.

The quest threatened me by putting Young Ace members on the line in order of age.

Part 1, 2, 3.

Kwon Taeyoung, Cha Yensu, Kim Yeban.

And the fourth member of Young Ace was Big Room, An Bangwon, the main rapper.

But Yunjin had cut ahead of the line.

“Hyung. There’s something you kept secret from Young Ace, right?”

“Uh... well, as you noticed this time, there’s a little something...?”

“You idiot, how could you even lie about your age?”

“Huh? My age is my age.”

“Don’t lie.”

“What’s this about all of a sudden...”

Based on everything that had happened with the quest so far, I questioned why he was the fourth penalty.

I thought I had pressed him pretty hard, but his answer was calm.

“Because if we fail in this world line, we have to pay the price here?”

“......?”

“That’s probably why the order got twisted. The situation itself right now isn’t exactly normal either.”

“...I understand that for now. But damn it, not only is the situation itself abnormal, threatening me with the older members is abnormal too. If you want to mess with me, just mess with me. Why involve them?”

“Well, that’s probably because...”

Yunjin thought quietly for a moment before answering.

“Because you played such a huge role in Young Ace’s success, the penalty was probably taking away what you achieved.”

“If that’s the case, why are the prices different for each member?”

I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

Since I had him here anyway, I might as well investigate this damn quest with him.

“Director Kwon almost died. Yensu hyung was only facing retirement from the entertainment industry, but Kim Yeban suffered an injury that left him in a vegetative state, and that one is disappearance.”

“The ranking of the members in your heart is showing through your way of calling them our youngest member...”

He casually pushed some fruit from the table toward me.

“The price probably depended on how much your contribution affected them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm. To put it simply, you produced music, right? But you didn’t create Yensu hyung’s face, did you?”

“Ah.”

The musical side was something I helped with, but Cha Yensu’s greatest asset as a star—his appearance—was his own talent.

Yunjin building his fame by endlessly appearing on variety shows would probably not count as my contribution either...

“Then why the hell was Kwon Taeyoung supposed to die? That guy worked hard living his own life too.”

“Ah, that hyung was different...”

“......?”

“He’s someone whose driving force in life is responsibility. If Young Ace had failed, what do you think would have happened?”

Thinking back to how he had recently been working overtime nonstop while managing all of Divisions Four and Five, I could somewhat understand.

“Ah. Today is the day the preview and PR videos go up, right? Let’s watch them together.”

Yunjin quietly stopped the conversation by saying he would bring over his laptop.

...Actually, I had asked him what I was truly curious about on the first day I came to the mansion.

Even after finishing the signal song filming completely exhausted, I needed to hear the answer.

‘You said you received a benefit, right? What did you get as the price?’

‘Ah, I got my life.’

‘...What?’

‘Not Yunjin from Young Ace... my life before becoming a trainee at K-Dom.’

Because of both the content of his words and the atmosphere Yunjin showed in that moment, I couldn’t ask anything more.

Once we leave here, I’m definitely tying him to the studio chair and interrogating him thoroughly.

“Let’s see how well our kid did this time.”

The preview video began with one of the judges, a member of a boy group, walking out against a grand CG background.

— One hundred boys have begun a fierce chart battle for their debut.

Boom!

— The only person who can pull your boy higher on the chart is you, Chart Maker, the person watching this very video!

The signal song stage was cross-edited between group shots of all one hundred trainees being spun around and various scenes.

During the process, several trainees’ faces appeared briefly.

Around ten people were selected by the editing.

I appeared through my back as I stood at the center, while Gowon appeared with a pure-looking side profile.

“Why aren’t they showing our maknae’s face...”

“I told you a hundred times this isn’t my cute performance festival.”

This guy was obviously way too excited to see my high school-aged appearance again after so long.

He didn’t even try to hide it.

“Now let’s watch the one-minute PR videos.”

When we entered the Debut Chart tab on the Rnet website, the PR videos were packed densely.

Four per row, twenty-five rows total.

With so many trainees, even the length of the scrolling was no joke.

At the top of the video list, there was a warning notice in an inconspicuous size.

For trainee protection, please refrain from indiscriminate profanity and criticism.

Profanity will be automatically filtered.

The video arrangement order reflects the user algorithm.

I first entered Gowon’s name into the search bar.

“I wanted to watch our maknae’s first...”

“Excuse me, the person who needs to become the winner is this person.”

“Yeah...”

Leaving Yunjin sprawled over the table like he was whining, I checked Gowon’s video.

Individual trainee Gowon (18) One-Minute PR Video

‘The editing is decent quality...’

There were already quite a few comments under the video.

Supporting you!

Oh, so he’s the one from the preview.

How am I supposed to appreciate this beauty without profanity?

Amazing, his face has a flower deer, a proud cat, and a sleek puma all at once.

ㅋㅋㅎㅎㅋㅎ♡♡ The soft fanservice is completely obvious ♡♡ but when the kids are this handsome, you just end up burying your face in it and devouring it anyway, right?

His facial talent is insane.. but he’s an individual trainee, so what about his skills..?

Noㅋㅋ they should’ve shown close-ups of him from every direction in the previewㅋㅋ Did the editing team lose all sense of aesthetics?

Student~.. I’ll say this nicely. Bring a sexy concept to the next competition~~ It’s your face’s destiny~~..!

Guys, this is connected to >Baek Hanje<’s video, FYI.

Individual trainee Baek Hanje (17) One-Minute PR Video

When I played my video, Yunjin immediately sat upright from where he had been sprawled out.

How can someone with such a damn♡ delinquent-looking face still have such a younger-brother vibe..?

♡♡ Citizens of Korea, please listen to me. “Baek Hanje” must debut for the public good of the Republic of Korea. Do you know how precious those sharp-triangle-eyed wolf delinquent types are? I’m not talking about those ugly tattooed, sweaty-looking faces^^;ㅎ Like when they wait at a traffic light for 300 changes in the middle of winter, then say “I just got here too” while acting cool, with their nose and ears completely red... (more)

Baek Hanje? Caught you ♡♡♡ Leave it to this noona. ♡♡ I’ll get you debuted and admire you for a thousand years.

↳ After writing my comment, I think we two noonas can be trusted.

↳ Hanje fan noona, let’s really work hard.

Guys, the guy who played basketball with him is more handsome. Go check him out.

↳ Then go there and talk your nonsense ♡ you damn thing, you have no sense ♡♡ Yeah, that’s why your friends made a separate group chat without you.

The atmosphere of the comments seemed completely different between Gowon and me, but either way, it looked like neither of us had received any negative reactions.

‘That should get us through one hurdle.’

When I returned to the video list, Yunjin slumped down again.

Still, his eyes were facing the screen, so I’d forgive him.

After watching another five or six videos from trainees who had stood out during the preliminary rounds, my eyes met Yunjin’s.

“...Hmm...”

Yunjin reached out and pressed the refresh button.

After repeating that about ten times—

Several faces were forcibly etched into my memory.

Every time the page refreshed, the arrangement of PR videos changed.

But there were people who appeared near the top unusually often.