-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Gukbap and Cup Noodles
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“What’s wrong with her?”
Han Young-won, who was in the middle of her meal, glanced at Hye-sung as if she had seen something she shouldn’t have.
“Eonni, just pretend you didn’t see anything.”
Lee Ju-ha whispered into Han Young-won’s ear as if sharing a secret on how to avoid a ghost.
“I don’t know, she just suddenly started acting like that.”
“I think it’s best to just ignore her.”
“She’s strange, Hye-sung. Really strange.”
Cha Ju-yeon, Seong-bin, and even Rurika were starting to avoid Hye-sung.
“Hye-sung eonni can’t eat pork gukbap, so I think she’s acting like that because she’s forcing herself to eat it.”
“She can’t eat gukbap?”
“Yeah. She was just saying how much she hates it.”
Only Na Yeon-woo was defending Hye-sung.
“So, you’re saying she’s role-playing to try and eat a food she can’t stand?”
“Probably.”
After hearing that she couldn’t eat gukbap, Han Young-won turned her gaze back to Hye-sung.
“She’s eating it just fine, though?”
“I know… She said she hated it earlier.”
Na Yeon-woo also seemed a bit flustered by the sight of Hye-sung, who had already mixed her rice in and was eagerly scooping up the soup straight from the earthenware bowl.
“Aha! Now that’s refreshing!”
Outwardly, she was acting all gruff, but inwardly, Hye-sung was crying.
From embarrassment. And because it was too hot.
‘Why the hell am I gulping down this scorching hot stuff! Stop posturing, the roof of my mouth is getting completely scalded!’
The “Posturing” trait was certainly living up to its name.
“What’s with that eonni…”
“I don’t know, it’s scary. Looks like the soup’s gonna splash. Let’s sit somewhere else.”
Her ravenous display made everyone slowly inch away from Hye-sung. But there was one trainee who didn’t look at Hye-sung strangely. It was Kang Hae-in, sitting right across from her.
“Oh, Hye-sung eonni, you’ve got some skills, huh?”
“Hey! Who d’you think I am! I’m Yoon Hye-sung, a woman who gets things done!”
Kang Hae-in, who was from Busan, the city of pork gukbap, seemed to have her gukbap DNA stimulated by the sight of Hye-sung gulping down the boiling hot soup and calling it refreshing. She began to slurp it down as well.
“Hae-in. Why are you acting like this too… You’ll burn your tongue, eat slowly.”
Kang Hae-in shook off the concern of the trainee next to her and shouted.
“Who d’you think I am?! I’m Kang Hae-in, a strong woman! What’s so hot about this!”
‘Seeing her act like that while sober… she’s really got a crazy amount of grit.’
“Hey! Strong woman Kang Hae-in! You’re awesome! You live in Namcheon-dong?”
Contrary to her surprised inner thoughts, Hye-sung gave a thumbs-up and responded in a coarse voice.
“Nope! I’m from U-dong, Haeundae-gu!”
“What! Udon? Your neighborhood sounds delicious! Is it seafood udon or tempura udon!”
“Eonni! It’s not that udon, it’s the ‘U’ from ‘left and right’! There’s a Jwa-dong next to it too!”
“Ah, is that right! I told ya I don’t know place names well!”
A characteristic of the Gyeongsang dialect. At a glance, it sounds like they’re raising their voices and fighting.
Right now, Hye-sung and Kang Hae-in weren’t angry at all and were having a friendly conversation, but to those around them, they seemed rather agitated.
“They’re not fighting, are they?”
“I don’t know, it’s scary. Let’s not get involved.”
Heedless of the furtive glances from those around them, the two maintained their “pork gukbap mode” until the meal was over.
Even though Kang Hae-in had no penalty whatsoever.
* * *
The day before the interim evaluation.
Practice was progressing more smoothly than Hye-sung had expected.
As a team, they still had a long way to go, but she felt a sense of relief knowing that she, who she had considered one of the weak links, had memorized all the choreography and formations before the evaluation.
[Singing (Proficiency 57.2%)]
[Choreography (Proficiency 34.8%)]
Of course, her proficiency wasn’t high enough to be complacent yet.
But considering she hadn’t even reached 1% on the first day she learned the choreography, this was by no means a small achievement.
‘Because of my trauma, I couldn’t even use Rewind since I’d start gagging reflexively.’
The slight increase in her stats made it easier to learn the choreography, but more than anything, the fact that she wasn’t alone and could constantly receive help from teammates far better than her was a huge help.
‘At this rate, I should be able to reach 70% without any issues by the recording day.’
Since she planned to use her saved hidden trait on the day of the performance, Hye-sung was confident she would pull her own weight.
‘That leaves two weak links, but Seong-bin doesn’t seem to be holding us back as much as I thought.’
[Seong-bin (21/Female)]
Visual ★★★☆
Vocal ☆-
Dance ★☆
Star Quality ★☆
‘Her dancing is just a little better than mine.’
Seong-bin’s dance stat was the same as Hye-sung’s, but her actual skill seemed closer to two stars.
Being tall wasn’t exactly an advantage for dancing, so she had been worried Seong-bin would look clumsy, but perhaps because of her previous physically demanding job, she had a knack for it.
‘Seong-bin just needs to get her vocals right. The problem is Rurika.’
Hye-sung looked at Rurika, who was sitting on the floor eating snacks.
[Amamiya Rurika (19/Female)]
Visual ★☆
Vocal ☆
Dance ☆
Star Quality ★
‘And these are the stats of someone who trained for three years.’
Beyond her unremarkable stats, she didn’t give off a particularly charming impression as an idol at first glance.
Of course, that was just by Hye-sung’s standards; there were people who found Rurika charming.
‘She probably only looks that way to the Japanophiles whose brains have been pickled by their obsession. If they’re so desperate to pick a Japanese contestant, they should just pick Ami.’
Before the upheaval, Ami was a “Royal Ace” and Rurika was a “Royal F.”
The difference in their skills was like night and day, but Ami never gained the support of the Japanophile faction, who claimed she was “too Koreanized” and off-putting. She was even criticized for hanging out with the Korean trainees instead of looking after Rurika.
‘Honestly, Ami probably hates Japanophiles more than I do.’
Rurika, who was dropping crumbs on the practice room floor while eating her snack, felt a gaze on her and turned her head toward Hye-sung.
“Hye-sung! Want some?”
Rurika held out a kelp snack.
“Oh? Thanks, but my thyroid isn’t in good shape, so I’ll pass.”
“Th…yroid?”
Rurika tilted her head.
Even in that moment, the powder coating the kelp was flaking off.
“It’s an organ in your neck… Anyway, I’m fine. You have it.”
“So your neck hurts? Okay. I’ll share some with you when you’re all better.”
Hye-sung looked at the beaming Rurika and recalled the incident from before the upheaval.
That incident which had set the cyber world ablaze for three consecutive days, eventually making its way from the society section of daily newspapers to the news itself.
‘I don’t think Rurika herself is a bad person… but I have no intention of trying to understand her.’
The break ended, and practice resumed.
Rurika seemed motivated enough, but she was still holding the team back.
‘It looks like she still hasn’t memorized all the choreography. Did Ju-ha not realize Rurika was this bad?’
She was trying hard, but she was the only one who couldn’t keep up with practice.
‘If she could at least get the formations right, we could probably hide her somehow… Since we’re on the same team, we can’t just abandon her.’
Hye-sung thought of a way to get Rurika to follow the practice well, even if just for a little while.
‘…I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a try for the team’s sake.’
* * *
“Hae-in isn’t back in her room yet.”
“Oh, really?”
“Maybe we should have practiced a little longer too.”
3 AM.
After the late-night practice ended, Hye-sung didn’t return to her own room but settled down in the room next door.
“The interim evaluation is tomorrow, so it does feel like we came back too early.”
Cha Ju-yeon, sprawled on the floor, said with her chin in her hands.
For some reason, Cha Ju-yeon was also hanging out in this room.
“We stayed up almost all night yesterday, too. We need to manage our condition. What if Hye-sung faints again?”
Lee Ju-ha, who had been lying on the top bunk, sat up and looked at Hye-sung, who was sitting on the bottom bunk across from her.
“Nah, I doubt I’ll collapse again. My body’s probably adjusted to the dorm schedule by now. By the way, Young-won eonni, did you practice a lot?”
“Yeah.”
Han Young-won’s expression wasn’t very good as she said it.
“You’re the leader, right, eonni? Who’s the center?”
“I’m the center, too. I didn’t really want to be.”
Han Young-won trailed off, letting out a small sigh.
“So, Young-won eonni, you’re the leader, center, and main vocal?”
“No. Yoon-ji was picked as the main vocal.”
A look of surprise flickered in everyone’s eyes. They had all naturally assumed Han Young-won would be the main vocal, but their expectation was wrong.
“I didn’t want to be the center. If you’re the center, you don’t get many vocal parts. But the team members kept recommending me…”
Han Young-won seemed to be keenly feeling the hardship of a team battle where one had to follow the majority’s opinion.
‘She seems so strong-willed, but she’s surprisingly soft. Is it because she has no teammates on her side that she can’t even speak up?’
It seemed the other team members, who had already formed their own clique, were already keeping Han Young-won in check instead of trying to utilize her skills.
“There are a lot of people in our room, huh?”
The door burst open.
Namgung Seol, having returned to the room, stood at the door and stared blankly at Hye-sung, who was sitting on her bed.
“Ah, eonni, you’re back? I’ll move.”
“No, it’s fine. Stay seated.”
Namgung Seol strode over to the bed where Hye-sung was sitting.
“Plop.”
With a noble face like a magnolia blossom, she approached, made an onomatopoeic sound with her mouth, and sat down next to Hye-sung. Then, she fell backward.
“Thud.”
‘What the…?’
“Shwick. Shwoosh. Shwoosh.”
Namgung Seol, now lying on her back, started waving her arms around and making strange noises.
‘Did that sound really come out of Namgung Seol’s mouth?’
Hye-sung doubted her ears.
She thought she must be hearing things from exhaustion.
‘There’s no way a sound like that could come from the mouth of Namgung Seol, the one they called the “Red Princess Statue of the Goryeo Dynasty”…’
“Shwick. Shwoosh. Cup noodles. Yu. Yuk. Yukgaejang. Gi. Kimchi.”
It wasn’t an auditory hallucination. The words had definitely come from Namgung Seol’s mouth.
Her previously empty hands now held two cup noodles. It seemed she had hidden them under the blanket.
‘What is she doing? Did her “Posturing” trait activate a Dol Hareubang mode or something?’
Hye-sung, sitting right next to her, stared at Namgung Seol with eyes wide in shock.
Regardless, Namgung Seol just kept waving the cup noodles around.
“She’s trying to choose which of the two to eat.”
Han Young-won said this to Hye-sung and Cha Ju-yeon, who could only stare, unable to ask what was going on.
“She’s always like that, so don’t mind her. The observation cameras aren’t rolling when we sleep, so her true nature comes out.”
Han Young-won shook her head emphatically as she continued.
Lee Ju-ha and Na Yeon-woo also seemed used to it, paying little mind to Namgung Seol and her strange noises.
‘One wrong move and she’ll get a weird reputation. I can see why Gil Ah-yeon keeps her in check.’
“By the way, Hye-sung eonni, are you sleeping in our room tonight?”
Na Yeon-woo, on the bunk right above, peeked her head down.
