Chapter 198:


    <b>Trantor: MarcTempest</b>


    <b>Editor: NicoleTempest</b>


    Chapter 198 Copycat (1)


    I returned to the dorm after finishing the day’s schedule and found Yu-geon already in the room.


    “Did you shower already?”


    He had a towel around his neck and droplets of water on his hair tips, indicating he had juste out of the bathroom.


    “Yeah, today’s practice ended a bit early.”


    Even if it ended early, he couldn’t havee back that soon since the schedule was fixed.


    I asked him out of concern.“Did you… have a fight or something during practice?”


    He burst intoughter without hesitation when I asked him worriedly.


    “What are you talking about? Why are you so concerned?”


    Then he reached out his hand to pat my head, but no way. I was neen, but I wasn’t going to let a twenty-something guy treat me like a kid.


    “Wow, look at your reaction speed. Am I dirty? I’m hurt.”


    He eximed in surprise as I quickly grabbed his hand and pushed it away from my head.


    “I’m sorry. Someone doesn’t like having their head touched.”


    If he was actually older than me, I might have epted it with a K-confucian mindset since I was young.


    But I hated it. I backed away with a disgusted look and heughed even more as if he found it amusing.


    “Fine, I won’t touch you. Thanks for worrying about me, but I can handle it myself, so don’t stress too much.”


    That ‘handle it myself’ was what worried me. In reality, Yu-geon had achieved his debut by choosing a self-aggrandizing strategy without any of my conditions.


    But even if this wasn’t reality, I couldn’t help but care since he was always in front of me.


    ‘I shouldn’t be worrying about someone else right now.’


    I had a mountain of worries on my own. He said he would handle it himself. I stretched and put the timer and tools I used for practice on the bed and headed to themunal shower.


    ‘If I can finish the rehearsal tomorrow well… I’m almost done.’


    It felt strange to realize that this bizarre dorm life was almost over.


    No matter how adaptable humans are. It was weird to suddenly be a 24-year-old person and then a 19-year-old who was neither myself nor someone else.


    And then I adapted and did what I could, which seemed to prove what was really me.


    ‘My biggest strength is probably perseverance.’


    I try my best until I can coldly judge that it won’t work. If it doesn’t work, I change the route and find what I can do and do it.


    No matter where I was thrown, the secret to doing better than average was there.


    ‘Let’s work hard until the end.’


    With that thought, I finished a light shower and ran into a familiar face in the hallway.


    “Hey! Long time no see!”


    It was Park Junki, a B-grade trainee who I hadn’t had a chance to talk to properly since I met him at the audition.


    “Uh. Long time no see.”


    He smirked as I greeted him with a lukewarm tone.


    “How’s your practice going? I heard the number of people there dropped a lot.”


    I wasn’t sure if he was trying to pry or just asking out of curiosity. I looked him in the eye and answered with a faint smile.


    “Well… so-so?”


    I didn’t need to give him any information. I brushed him off and he widened his eyes as if he was surprised.


    “Really? Well, that’s a relief… Anyway, hang in there!”


    He then disappeared with a group of B~C rank trainees who seemed to share the same room with him.


    What a nd guy. I looked at his back and his colleagues’ backs and suddenly felt a bad premonition. I summoned the status window.


    ‘Status window.’


    As soon as the translucent window popped up, I called up the inner thoughts card confirmation window.


    [Please select the target to check the inner thoughts card.]


    [Remaining times 1]


    I used two cards to check the attitudes of the B rank guys in the afternoon, and another two cards to update the A rank guys in the morning when I had breakfast, so I only had one left for today.


    [>Park Junki]


    [>Lee Cheon-hwan]


    [>Yu Jae-sik]


    [>Oh Du-yeon]


    [>Jo In-hyuk]


    Most of the trainees had inner thoughts cards floating above them, but fortunately there weren’t many people in the hallway, so his name was right at the top.


    I opened Park Junki’s card without hesitation.


    [>Park Junki]


    [- Should I tell him this? But if I say something and it goes wrong, I’ll be the one to suffer… Actually, we’re not that close, so let’s just pretend I don’t know.]


    ‘What… What was he going to say but didn’t?’


    I was left with a nagging feeling as if I had opened a Pandora’s box. It was toote to go and ask him what was going on.


    In the end, I had to find out for myself.


    ‘There was nothing special in the other inner thoughts cards I checked today…’


    When I came back from washing up, Hwijin was already there.


    “You guys finished early?”


    Hwijin’s expression wasn’t bad, which was surprising since I thought he would be struggling the most.


    “Yes, how about you, hyung? We still have some things to improve, but it seems like we have a rough idea.”


    I added some information that I didn’t even ask for, hoping that it wouldn’t look like I was bragging, and Yu-geon seemed to catch on to my intention and spat out the water he was drinking.


    “Ah, gross.”


    I teased him a bit on purpose and Yu-geon kept shaking his shoulders and coughing until he made an excuse.


    “No, I just heard a funny sound.”


    “You should clean that up, hyung.”


    I shrugged and pointed at a tissue once, then looked back at Hwijin.


    “Uh… well, I think it’ll be okay.”


    He looked pretty calm, and it didn’t seem like he was lying to reassure me.


    “They’re all young and ufortable with me… But I guess they’re grateful that I have some experience and they listen to my opinions well.”


    It sounded like being assigned to a group of lower ranks without any high ranks was actually a blessing in disguise.


    ‘Well, he did have some good nning skills when we did the Bobbyam missionst time.’


    He was a jack of all trades, but how did he remain a pearl in the mud until he was twenty-seven? It was a mystery…


    But then again, there was a climax at the beginning.


    People would wonder why he couldn’t make it when he had the money and the skills of each member to back him up.


    But the truth is, many things are more influenced by luck than we think.


    “It’s the same with business.”


    As the saying goes, a pearl is made by piercing a hole in it. No matter how talented a singer or how great a song, you can’t survive if you don’t stand out.


    In the red ocean where people who can sing well, dance well, and look good are saturated, it’s impossible to catch the eye unless you have luck on your side.


    You either have to fit into the icon that the era wants, or ride the trend.


    If you miss the 1% timing, even if you’re 99% perfect, you’ll sink.


    “Meeting the members who can highlight you the most andpleting the mission smoothly is also luck.”


    It was also my luck that I met the runaway members and got quite annoyed.


    I started to worry about Park Junki’s innermost card that came to my mind.


    “What did he worry about? He didn’t even tell me properly.”


    While I was thinking for a moment, I noticed Yu-geon who had cleaned up the floor and asked him casually.


    “Is there anything… that’s bothering you these days?”


    He pointed to the turned-off camera equipment with his chin and asked, and Yu-geon smiled mischievously.


    “Nobody talks to me anymore.”


    “…”


    That made sense. I shook my head as if I couldn’t help it and climbed up to my bed quietly.


    “Tomorrow will be busier because of the rehearsal, so go to sleep quickly.”


    I turned off the light after wrapping up the conversation, but I couldn’t sleep because it was earlier than usual.


    Or when did I ever fall asleep right away? I tossed and turned quietly for a while and opened my eyes, and it was already morning.


    ‘I can finally see how good the other teams are.’


    Of course, I had seen the final stage roughly, but the members had changed a bit since then, so I couldn’t rely on my vague memory.


    ‘I have to try anyway.’


    I have to do well. I stepped on the irondder with a firm determination.


    The rehearsal order of the DIY B team I belonged to was 12th. Considering that there were 14 teams in total, it was a prettyte rank.


    ‘Will it be the same order for the recording tomorrow?’


    I asked the production staff nearby, but they said they couldn’t confirm the recording order for tomorrow because it would be decided on the day.


    In the end, all we could do was sit quietly and watch the rehearsals of the other teams in the small waiting room.


    ‘The teams that finished early went straight to the practice room.’


    It seemed that the teams that included Shim Naru and other trainees who were likely to debut were mostly assigned to the front ranks.


    ‘I was also… favored by the choreographer… didn’t I get a lot of talk?’


    They couldn’t cover the order for me.


    ‘It’s a shame, but there’s nothing I can do.’


    As soon as I sat down with the other three members in the seats that were arranged like an auditorium, the rehearsal began.


    ‘Hmm…’


    Overall, they were stages that matched the level of the trainees.


    To put it coldly, I could see why they didn’t debut, or to put it warmly, they had a lot of room for improvement.


    As I looked up at the stage without much expectation, there were also some trainees who had outstanding skills among the many poor ones.


    ‘If I had to pick someone who has the skills to debut here, there’s only one person on the far left.’


    The ones who were chosen by the national managers were separate.