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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: I Should Have Been the Center
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On the screen, an eighteen-year-old Na Yeon-woo was singing and dancing to a refreshing electronic pop song.
She seemed a bit nervous; her voice was occasionally drowned out by the backing track, and her expressions and movements weren't perfectly smooth.
In the class evaluation at the time, Na Yeon-woo received a Beginner grade. It was the rank just above the lowest, F.
Had she performed without being nervous, she might have gotten the next rank up, Basic. Even to Hye-sung, a die-hard Yeon-woo fan, it wasn't a performance deserving of the top tier in terms of skill...
But her long hair swayed with her movements to the refreshing piano sound, and her eyes sparkled like the Milky Way. Her delicate yet clear voice seemed to sprinkle light into the bleak studio.
The harmony of it all was a truly fresh shock to Hye-sung.
“It’s like… she brought summer right before my eyes.”
The production team must have thought so too, because when they introduced Na Yeon-woo, they threw in all sorts of special effects—slowing down the video, adding falling starlight and fluttering flower petals. The captions read things like ‘The Epitome of Freshness’ and ‘Summer Personified.’
In some ways, it seemed like they had edited it well to highlight her strengths, but being edited together with another ‘visual’ trainee was a huge detriment to Na Yeon-woo.
The trainee she was paired with was so lacking in skill that it was embarrassing to watch her performance.
It was later revealed by that trainee, after she was eliminated and started selling enzyme products on social media, that the production team, dissatisfied with the applicants, had actually cast an influencer instead of a trainee.
The show cross-cut scenes of that trainee making mistakes with Na Yeon-woo’s mistakes, creating the impression that both had top-tier visuals but bottom-tier skills. Hye-sung had pointed this out as a severe case of downplaying Yeon-woo’s abilities.
“Stop holding my girl back!”
Hye-sung shouted at the monitor. Even though the show had ended a year and a half ago, her resentment toward the production team remained.
“Evil editing, that’s what it is.”
While Na Yeon-woo had made a small misstep, the other trainee hadn't even memorized the choreography.
But the malicious broadcast network magnified Na Yeon-woo’s mistake, even adding sound effects. On top of that, they threw in reaction shots of the judges with stone-cold expressions, clearly taken from different scenes.
It was no wonder Hye-sung had raged, claiming, ‘The producers are crushing our girl’s spirit.’
‘If Young-min hadn't pulled that crap, Yeon-woo's confidence wouldn't have hit rock bottom.’
Hye-sung swallowed her complaints about the main producer and skipped ahead in the video.
On the screen, Na Yeon-woo was shown during the position selection for the first competition. Her teammates were taking nominations for the center position.
Everyone on the team raised their hands, except for the leader and the rapper.
Na Yeon-woo, too, seemed to want to raise her hand, clenching and unclenching her fist. But she couldn't seem to muster the courage, only blinking her large, doe-like eyes before ultimately failing to raise her hand.
The caption [Trainee Na Yeon-woo, biting her lip, unable to bring herself to volunteer] appeared, and the screen switched to an interview.
[Q. Why didn't you raise your hand?]
[Na Yeon-woo (Management A): Well, I thought Na-na would do a great job… She’s an Ace rank, too…]
[Q. Trainee Na Yeon-woo says she didn't volunteer because she thought Trainee Hyun Na-na would do well.]
[Hyun Na-na (Shark Music): Oh, really? If Yeon-woo had volunteered, I think I would have voted for her.]
Exclamation points popped up over Hyun Na-na's head as her eyes widened in surprise.
[Hyun Na-na (Shark Music): Anyway, thanks for thinking so highly of me, Yeon-woo♡]
With Hyun Na-na leaving a video message with a smile, the screen cut away to another team in the middle of practice.
“If only she’d had the courage to go for the center position then…”
Hye-sung was certain that if Na Yeon-woo had been the center for the first competition, she could have shown that her skills weren't bad and swept up fans from the very beginning with her already-perfect visuals.
“My girl is pretty, kind, and good on stage, but that evil editing gave her an awkward image right from the start, seriously…”
In reality, Hyun Na-na, who was the center for that performance, raked in fans as if with an excavator from the get-go. She went on to win first place in the finale and successfully debuted.
With lackluster average ratings of 1%, viewers called themselves the ‘handful-of-fans club,’ and Hyun Na-na managed to convert a significant portion of that initial handful into her own fans with her center performance in the first competition.
Even if not all of them became her number one bias, it was more than enough to solidify her position with second-biases and casual supporters.
Of course, this was only possible because Hyun Na-na's skills were solid enough to earn her the top rank in the class evaluation, and her visuals were in high demand.
“She was going to debut anyway.”
Hye-sung had to admit that.
“That’s why Yeon-woo should have been the center! The rich get richer, it's true. Why would she even say she would've voted for Yeon-woo? Is she trying to mock someone?”
Hye-sung shot up from her seat. She looked incredibly wronged, as if the center position had originally belonged to Na Yeon-woo and had been stolen.
“How could not a single teammate recommend Yeon-woo? This song suits her best as the center…”
I know everyone’s busy looking out for themselves, but how could they be so blind? That’s why they lost. Hye-sung clicked her tongue.
They didn't even get the benefit points; the performance just ended with Hyun Na-na, the center, getting all the attention once again.
The thought made her blood boil again, and Hye-sung stood there, fuming for a moment. But her energy quickly drained, and she plopped back down.
“Seriously, if Yeon-woo had been the center here, she would have stayed in the debut range all the way to the finale.”
Throughout her rewatch of the Season 5 performances, Hye-sung kept repeating, ‘If only she had done this, she would have debuted.’ She knew it was ridiculous, but she felt like she wouldn't feel any better otherwise.
While running her ‘what if’ scenarios at full throttle all night to soothe her heart, Hye-sung suddenly realized she had no idea what the debut group from Supernova Project was up to.
She had a second-bias in the group, but because Na Yeon-woo hadn't debuted, she had completely cut off all interest in the debut group after the show ended.
“Come to think of it, it should be about time for them to disband. Or have they already?”
Hye-sung hurriedly searched for news articles.
[‘We will never forget these dream-like times.’ The group that debuted from Supernova Project Season 5… has disbanded after a final, tearful solo concert.]
“So they’ve already disbanded. And it was just yesterday? How did I miss this?”
No wonder a random post about the whereabouts of the eliminated Supernova Project contestants had popped up. Hye-sung felt a bitter pang at her situation—how overtime, no, how her entire life since getting a job had distanced her from the content she used to enjoy.
“Wow, Yoon Hye-sung. You didn't even know about this. You’ve really lost your touch, getting ground down by overtime.”
For years, she'd only talked about quitting K-pop, but she never thought she'd actually leave the scene like this.
“Well, you gotta do what you gotta do to make a living.”
It was a cold reality. There were times she felt like a stranger in her own skin, having suddenly become a working adult, but she comforted herself by thinking this was how everyone lived.
“I have to earn money to pay my credit card bills. I have to earn money to save, collect photocards, and enter fansign lotteries…”
…I would have.
But there won't be any fansigns, will there.
The reminder that Na Yeon-woo’s long-awaited debut was now off the table made anger surge through her once more.
“I really thought she was going to debut this year.”
Hye-sung had steadfastly built up her ‘Yeon-woo savings account,’ undeterred by comments asking if she was still going to be chasing after idols at twenty-seven.
“I hope another company snatches Yeon-woo up now. A big one, preferably. Management A was a small agency, and they didn't have any experience raising idols, so they were never a good fit…”
This time, Hye-sung began to fantasize about a now-free Na Yeon-woo being scouted by a major agency.
Imagining Na Yeon-woo standing on the stage of a sold-out gymnastics arena made her feel a little better.
“Anyway, I'll just wait a little longer for Yeon-woo's debut, and I guess I shouldn't quit my job. More importantly, tomorrow's Sunday, so I should watch Yeon-woo's compilation videos one more time… Wait, today's Saturday, and I went to work, didn't I…?”
A chill ran down her spine as the terrifying reality hit her.
“Aargh! I have to work tomorrow too! What time is it, four-thirty in the morning?!”
Work wasn't tomorrow; it was today. A today that was only a few hours away. Hye-sung quickly tidied up and lay down in bed.
“Ugh, that damn team leader. He’s the one who makes all the work, so why do we have to suffer? Maybe I should just quit.”
Hye-sung drifted off to sleep while cursing her boss and calculating how many hours of sleep she could get.
* * *
“Why now, of all times?”
A moment ago, Hye-sung had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep, and now she found herself in the land of dreams, but she wasn't happy about it at all.
Seeing herself floating alone in an empty, purple void of space, she figured she must be dreaming. And ‘realizing you’re dreaming while in a dream’ meant one thing: Hye-sung had entered the realm of lucid dreaming.
A lucid dream, also known as a hypnotic dream due to its similarity to a state of hypnosis. In this state, one is aware they are dreaming and can sometimes control the dream at will.
“I had a feeling I was about to have sleep paralysis before I fell asleep.”
Lucid dreams, which primarily occur during the REM sleep stage, were far from a healthy state of sleep.
“I’m not going to feel rested at all when I wake up. Dammit!”
Annoyed at the thought that she wouldn't get a good night's sleep, Hye-sung kicked at the empty air.
The moment she did, the space surrounding her changed in an instant, as if she had teleported.
‘Whoa, that surprised me.’
Being forcibly transported from the empty void to an unfamiliar place left her momentarily dumbfounded, like an idiot.
The place she’d been moved to resembled the waiting room of a large hospital, and Hye-sung found herself sitting awkwardly in a corner.
Looking around, she saw a few young girls, who looked to be in their teens, talking quietly amongst themselves with shy expressions. It seemed they were all strangers to one another.
‘What’s with all these kids… Where am I?’
Seeing a few ownerless bags on the empty chairs scattered about, she guessed there must have been more people here.
‘It doesn't seem like a hospital. A school, maybe?’
Knock, knock.
Almost simultaneously with the sound, the door burst open, and a young woman holding a file folder entered.
The woman flipped through the papers and spoke.
“Numbers 62 through 72, please come out and wait over there. If you pass, you’ll be contacted separately, so those of you who are finished are free to go.”
She was clearly looking at Hye-sung as she said the last part.
“Ah, yes.”
She answered instinctively, but she still hadn't grasped what was going on. Still, the atmosphere suggested she should leave, so she stood up, grabbing the bag she had been half-sitting on.
‘This is my bag, right?’
As she grabbed her bag and turned to leave the room, she heard someone call out to her from behind.
“Eonni, wait a minute!”
