-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: The Penalty
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“No, I should go. The bed’s too small, and it’ll be uncomfortable for you if we sleep together, Yeon-woo.”
“I’m fine with it.”
‘My girl, she’s so sweet. She’s still worried about the lie I told about being scared to sleep on the first floor. What a good kid.’
“Oh, then do you want to sleep with me, Yeon-woo?”
As Hye-sung was touched by Na Yeon-woo’s kindness, Cha Ju-yeon suddenly chimed in.
“Hey, you’re taller than me, so you’ll make it even more uncomfortable for Yeon-woo. Let’s just go back to our rooms now.”
“Already?”
“It’s past three. The eonnis need to get some sleep. Good night, then. And Namgung Seol eonni, enjoy your food. You too, Yeon-woo, sleep well.”
“Eonni, I’m really okay with you sleeping in my bed…”
“I’m sleeping here. Yeon-woo, ditch Hye-sung eonni and let me sleep here.”
“Huh? But Hye-sung eonni was first…”
Cha Ju-yeon, who had been sitting on the floor, quickly clung to the bed’s ladder.
“Ah, why not? She said she’s not sleeping here. Let me sleep here.”
“Hey, raccoon. Stop bothering Yeon-woo and come out.”
“I’m going to sleep here. You can go alone, eonni.”
Hye-sung grabbed the waistband of Cha Ju-yeon’s pants with both hands as she held onto the ladder, refusing to leave.
“Want me to snap the elastic in your pants?”
“Is this eonni crazy? Why are you pulling someone else’s pants! Yeon-woo, help me!”
“Bye, Ju-yeon. I’m on Hye-sung eonni’s side.”
Na Yeon-woo said with a smile as she pried Cha Ju-yeon’s hands off the ladder.
“Na Yeon-woo, you traitor…!”
In the end, Cha Ju-yeon was dragged out by Hye-sung’s hands like a captured pest. Pulling up her slipping pants, she grumbled.
“And why am I a raccoon?”
“I don’t know. It just came to mind. You know that meme?”
“Rascal the Raccoon?”
“Yeah. That one. You’re just as annoying as him.”
“He looks more like you, you know? And Rascal isn’t a raccoon, he’s a raccoon.”
“Hey, now that I think about it, you were the one who said I look like a velociraptor, weren’t you?”
Hye-sung once again gripped the waistband of Cha Ju-yeon’s pants tightly.
“I don’t look like some ferocious thing, okay? I look like a puppy or a baby teddy bear, something gentle like that.”
“Th-that wasn’t me. My pants are going to rip, let go.”
“Really? Then who was it?”
As Hye-sung’s grip on the pants loosened, Cha Ju-yeon muttered under her breath.
“Bears rip people apart. What’s so gentle about that?”
“That’s why I said a *baby* bear.”
Don’t you know what a bear cub is?
Hye-sung emphasized that she meant a cute, adorable young bear that resembled a puppy.
“Ah, yes, yes. You do you with your bear cub thing. Not that anyone would agree.”
“Right. I will. Now hurry up and go to sleep.”
* * *
The next day.
The mid-term evaluation began, and Han Young-won’s team, Spire, was receiving harsh criticism from the trainers.
“Why does it feel so disorganized? How did you guys decide on your parts?”
Jade looked at the team with a stiff, hardened expression.
“We each tried them out and voted,”
Han Young-won said.
Her voice was resigned as if she had expected this outcome.
“Young-won is the center, and Yoon-ji is the main vocal. But isn’t Young-won a vocalist too? Why did you take Sub-Vocal 5? Did you want the center part?”
The vocal trainer, Yoo Jung-ah, also had a grim look on her face.
“…The team members recommended me for it.”
“You didn’t audition for main vocal?”
“I did, but I didn’t get it.”
“So Yoon-ji was chosen by a vote?”
“Yes.”
Yoo Jung-ah’s head tilted slightly.
It was impossible to tell whether she was pleased or not.
‘Why did the mood have to get like this right before our turn…’
Watching Han Young-won and the six others get torn to shreds, Hye-sung trembled slightly.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what I just watched.”
Minty spoke up after sweeping her gaze over the tense, standing members of the team.
“You all have decent individual skills, but it’s just too messy. It looks like you’re all just trying to stand out, and there’s no synergy at all. It doesn’t feel like you’re a team. Did you even practice together?”
Perhaps because the result was so far below her expectations, Minty’s gaze was unusually sharp, and everyone in the room shifted their eyes nervously, trying to read the room.
“Your team has more high-ranking trainees than the previous one, and honestly, I had high expectations. But if you keep this up… it’s not just about losing, you’re going to be compared unfavorably a lot.”
*Gulp.*
It felt like she could hear the trainees in front of her swallowing nervously. The team with the ace, who carried everyone’s expectations, was receiving such a brutal critique. The atmosphere in the room grew tense, as fragile as thin ice.
“…Anyway, you need a lot more practice. We can’t force you to change your parts, but you should discuss it among yourselves again.”
“Yes. Thank you!”
“Next. My B team.”
“Yes!”
The Fun&Cool team, who had been nervously swallowing their saliva due to the grim mood from the previous team’s evaluation, shot up from their seats.
“Let’s see it.”
After the music ended, only the sound of heavy breathing filled the practice room.
“Hmm…”
It was Jade who broke the silence first.
“Putting aside the level of completion, why is there such a lack of energy? Did you guys skip a few meals? Didn’t you eat?”
“It’s not just the energy… something looks sloppy. It feels like one or two people who aren’t doing well are ruining the whole picture. You can’t do it like this. You have to give it your all when you need to and pull back properly when you’re supposed to.”
Kang Min-guk spoke vaguely of ‘one or two people who aren’t doing well,’ but everyone in the room knew who he was talking about. Everyone, that is, except the person herself.
“How did you decide on the center?”
Minty asked, her eyes wide. Her sharp gaze shot towards the team members like an arrow.
“We all…”
“‘Hye-sung!’, Seong-bin eonni, and Ju-ha eonni decided.”
Rurika cut off Lee Ju-ha and exclaimed loudly.
“The three of them took the lead and decided?”
“Yes…”
Even considering she was a foreign trainee, her statement was enough to cause the misunderstanding that the three mentioned had unilaterally assigned the parts.
Moreover, since Rurika had no problem communicating in Korean, it was clear she had some sort of intention.
“Rurika and Ju-yeon-chan wanted to be center, too, but we couldn’t.”
At her following words, all the team members were flustered.
Cha Ju-yeon, who was suddenly dragged into it, looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head. The fact that Rurika mentioned her name was proof that she considered herself on the same level as Cha Ju-yeon.
“Did the others not voice their opinions, or were they unable to?”
Minty tapped the table, her brow furrowed.
‘…I was really hoping she’d just stay quiet.’
Hye-sung bit her lower lip hard.
Rurika was currently under the delusion that just as the trainers had criticized the previous team’s part distribution, they were now criticizing the Fun&Cool team’s center as well. So she took a shot, thinking that if the center were to change, she might get a chance.
‘You just had to go and cause trouble.’
Hye-sung’s slender hands, clasped politely in front of her, trembled.
“We took volunteers and then voted. Only those who didn’t volunteer for center voted… I think Rurika’s Korean isn’t quite fluent yet, so she misspoke.”
When Lee Ju-ha immediately corrected her, the trainers nodded as if to say, ‘That makes more sense.’
“Right. So you voted, and Yeon-woo was chosen?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, th-that’s.”
As the evaluation continued with the sentiment that Na Yeon-woo was a good choice for the center, a look of bewilderment appeared on Rurika’s face.
“The center’s image fits the song’s vibe well, but your overall performance is still lacking in polish. It’s been two days, shouldn’t you be at a certain level of completion by now? Ju-ha, didn’t you make the kids practice?”
They thought they had it down to some extent, but it seemed they were still far from satisfactory in the trainers’ eyes.
“Look, everyone. This is a very energetic and bright song, right? But right now, you’re all so lukewarm. It’s not enough to just get the moves right; you have to express it. That feeling of ‘Ah, so refreshing!’—I’m just not getting that fresh feeling from you.”
Jade continued with a frustrated expression.
“It should feel like a cool, fizzy soda filled with ice, but right now you feel like a flat drink where all the ice has melted. I think you could be more energetic, you know? It’s okay to overdo it. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes!”
“Try to express more with your faces. Your tension is too ambiguous right now. Especially Hye-sung. Did you stay up all night practicing again?”
Minty looked at Hye-sung with concern in her eyes.
“No, I’m sorry…”
Hye-sung’s voice trailed off as she lowered her gaze.
Her voice volume had certainly dropped, and her movements were strange, like a car trying to conserve fuel.
“Did you get any sleep? Then why do you have so little energy?”
A look of confusion appeared on Minty’s face.
“Are you sick somewhere?”
“…No.”
“Then why are you so drained? Honestly, during your part just now, it felt like you were dragging the most.”
“I know, right? She’s usually the loudest, so what’s wrong with her today?”
Seol Han-na also agreed with Minty, looking at Hye-sung.
“Sub-Vocal 2 isn’t a small part. How can you perform like this when you’ve been given such an important role?”
Minty’s voice dropped, just as it had when she was critiquing the previous team, sending a chill down Hye-sung’s spine.
‘I did something pointless and dug my own grave…’
Biting her lip hard, Hye-sung bitterly regretted her decision from that morning—the decision to use the ‘Mystical Pill of a Martial Arts Master’ on Rurika, who was still messing up the choreography they had finalized yesterday and couldn’t keep up with practice.
Right now, Hye-sung was suffering a penalty for using an item on an outsider.
[Penalty: Vitality and stamina depletion accelerated by 1.5x, concentration reduced by 20%.]
[Time Remaining: 486 minutes 15 seconds]
The penalty was a direct inverse of the ‘Mystical Pill of a Martial Arts Master’s’ effects. By the time the notification popped up, warning her of such a penalty for using the item on an unrelated person, the pill had already taken effect on Rurika.
“Hye-sung, if I knew you were going to perform like this, I wouldn’t have promoted you to the ace rank.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t disappoint me. Get it together, okay?”
“Yes…”
At the scolding from Minty, who had once been her senior, Hye-sung’s eyes welled up slightly.
It wasn’t that she was being lazy; she was in a difficult state where her stamina was rapidly draining, and her recovery was slowed after morning practice. But she couldn’t explain that, and no one would believe her even if she did.
‘This is so frustrating and unfair… What did I do wrong?’
Meanwhile, Rurika, oblivious to Hye-sung’s sacrifice, believed that her improved focus and reduced fatigue today were all the results of her own hard work.
* * *
After the mid-term evaluation.
The Fun&Cool team sat in a circle in the practice room, discussing the feedback they received and readjusting their practice plan. After talking about reinforcing their energy and facial expressions, they were discussing how much to practice by the end of the day when Rurika brought up the topic of reassigning parts.
“Uhm… could you maybe give Rurika… just one chance?”
