Chapter 11: Captured at the Worst Moment

Only after each grade group finished having their singing and dancing checked by the trainers did filming for the day finally wrap up.

As expected, the A-rank trainees displayed dance skills that satisfied the trainers, and the B-rank trainees earned praise for their vocals.

The rest—from C to F—were told that both their singing and dancing still needed work.

It was obvious the production team had gotten exactly the footage they wanted to elevate the A-rank.

As we were leaving the auditorium, the staff announced that the practice rooms would be open 24 hours and we were free to use them anytime.

In other words, anyone desperate for screen time could go at dawn and grind for some extra minutes on camera.

Thanks to my high stat points, my stamina was more than solid—I could easily stay up all night practicing if I wanted to.

And I did want to.

Just… not today.

I hadn’t even received proper lessons yet, so pulling an all-nighter by myself wouldn’t do much good.

I passed by the trainees already declaring they’d pull an all-nighter on day one to show their dedication, and headed back to the dorm.

The moment I saw the bed, every cell in my body begged me to just dive in and pass out.

But I still had makeup on from the early morning, and after sweating through several hours of dancing, my whole body felt sticky.

So I grabbed a small bag and trudged toward the communal showers.

I found an empty locker, tossed my things inside, stripped off my clothes, and threw them into the laundry basket in the corner of the changing room.

I planned to wash my underwear by hand inside, so I kept them on and reached for the shower room door—but someone inside pulled it open first.

A rush of hot, humid air spilled out, followed by Yeo Hyun-tae’s face emerging through the thick steam—so flawless it felt like a god had sculpted it by hand.

And beneath that, he was wearing absolutely nothing.

The sudden sight made me jolt back before I could stop myself.

Reacting like that over seeing another guy naked, especially in a communal shower, felt ridiculous.

Embarrassed, I wondered if I should say something—anything—to cover up my awkwardness.

But before I could, Yeo Hyun-tae simply gave a polite little bow and walked past.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like he found my reaction strange.

Thank god I didn’t blurt out some apology—would’ve made everything even more awkward.

I let out a quiet breath of relief and stepped into the shower room.

I picked a spot not far from the door and lifted the lever; water poured down from above.

As the warm stream hit my head and I started taking off my underwear, Yeo Hyun-tae’s body suddenly flashed through my mind.

I’d assumed only his face looked sculpted, but no—his body was just as ripped, every muscle cleanly defined like it belonged on a marble statue.

And… even that thing I caught a glimpse of… well, it seemed to take after its owner too—big and ridiculously well-shaped.

For f*ck’s sake.

Who goes through life and ends up thinking another guy’s d*ck looks handsome?

But if something looks handsome, what else are you supposed to call it?

If Yeo Hyun-tae had heard a single one of those thoughts, he would’ve called me a creepy pervert and probably punched me.

My own brain just kept spewing pervy nonsense like it had a mind of its own.

Stop it, you idiot.

Please stop.

Trying to drown out every intrusive image, I cranked the lever all the way to the right and let freezing water crash over me.

The cold shower did wipe away the perverted thoughts—but now my whole body was shaking from the cold.

I grabbed a towel, dried myself off, threw on clean underwear and pajamas, and then switched on the dryer mounted on the wall to warm myself first with its hot air.

Once I’d regained some sanity, the more I thought about it, the more the cold shower felt unnecessary.

Anyone would get a little stunned after seeing something like that for the first time.

It’s not like I was going to track him down to make dirty jokes about it.

It was just a stupid passing thought.

I shook my head at myself as another shiver ran down my spine.

When my body finally thawed enough, I lifted the dryer and started actually drying my hair.

I ruffled it with a towel first, making sure not a drop of water remained, and then headed back to the room.

Inside, it was pitch-dark and completely empty.

I guess everyone had gone to practice.

If I turned the lights off and fell asleep, the others would come back later and be stuck fumbling around in the dark so they wouldn’t wake me, so I left the lights on and lay down on my bed.

I was just about to close my eyes when—ding!—my phone chimed with a notification from Please Take Care of My Idol.

I reached over, grabbed my phone, and opened the game.

A message window was waiting for me.

A new system has been added.

The Gallery icon has been activated.

When I tapped the newly appeared frame-shaped icon, a thick album-like book popped up on the screen.

I tapped the screen again, the album cover flipped over, and the first photo that appeared was…

“…f*ck.”

This time, I truly couldn’t stop myself from cursing.

Conscious of the cameras that must be installed all over the room, I hurriedly turned my phone’s brightness to the lowest setting and force-quit the game.

Because the photo that appeared on the album…
was of me and Yeo Hyun-tae.

Exactly as we were when we bumped into each other in front of the shower room just moments ago—Hyun-tae completely naked, and me awkwardly stepping back.

The image had been captured and safely stored.

…Yes, even Hyun-tae’s thing, the very reason I’d been so shocked that I ended up taking a cold shower, was shown in painfully explicit detail.

**

“Gasp!

Hyung, what’s wrong with your face?”

Spotting me from afar, Chae Han-ul dashed over, only to freeze in shock when he saw my face.

Understandable—despite being the first one to return to the room ahead of all the trainees who’d practiced late into the night, I looked the most drained.

I told him I’d had a nightmare and lifted my spoon.

It was the aftermath of seeing the photo in the Please Take Care of My Idol gallery last night.

The shock had blown all sleep from my body, but I forced my eyes shut for the sake of today’s schedule and barely managed to doze off—only to have a nightmare.

Then I woke up, fell asleep again, had another nightmare… I lost count of how many times that cycle repeated.

After failing to fall asleep properly and being tormented by nightmare after nightmare, I felt so exhausted I thought it might’ve been better not to sleep at all.

On top of everything, every single nightmare had been… truly the worst.

In the first dream, I was crushed beneath an enormous penis, unable to move until I finally woke up.

In the second, s*x-toy–shaped objects rained endlessly from the ceiling—piling, piling, piling until they rose taller than I was, eventually filling the room to the ceiling and suffocating me.

From the third nightmare onward, it felt like I was being shown the game’s bad endings in advance.

I became an idol who’d failed so catastrophically that I had to repay the resulting debt by starring in adult films, or becoming the younger lover of a wealthy married woman and having an affair, or flying to Japan to style my hair in some bizarre shape and work in a host club—each dream more horrifying than the last.

When I first entered this game and saw the “restricted to ages 19 and up” message, I’d worried the endings might involve brutal things like organ trafficking.

But after yesterday, I finally understood.

The reason minors are barred from this game is because it contains sexual content.

With that in mind, it also made sense why the hidden stat, “Sexy,” had been so high from the start.

Of course, that still didn’t explain why the first piece of sexual content had to be Yeo Hyun-tae’s naked body.

It wasn’t that the 19+ aspect itself bothered me—I’m old enough not to be prudish about that.

If it happens, it happens.

But that only applies to normal relationships.

It doesn’t mean it’s okay to be forced into things by circumstances, to sell my body, to touch and sleep with someone I don’t love.

Even if this world is inside a game, as long as I’m living here as “me,” I don’t want to do anything like that.

I would honestly prefer organ trafficking over that kind of ending.

Now that I’d understood the true meaning of the 19+ rating, I couldn’t treat this place as just a simple game world anymore, living carelessly and going with the flow.

For at least the next few years, this will be my reality.

The easy, light-hearted mindset I’d had until yesterday hardened with weight.

Sleep is for the dead—
No, for when I return to my original world.

I can sleep all I want then.

To avoid the absolute worst bad endings, I would at least become a mid-tier successful idol.

I made that vow to myself.

The official training and practice hours for the program Please Take Care of My Idol were identical to the schedule system inside the game version of My Idol, Please—from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Which meant that before 9 a.m., I absolutely had to set my in-game schedule.

[Would you like to carry out this schedule?

Yes / No]

I tapped “Yes” as I looked at the timetable packed full with “My Idol, Please Season 2 Group Training.” After double-checking that the tiny character on-screen appeared and began its singing and dancing motions—the sign that the schedule was running properly—I turned off my phone and stepped out of the room.

When I headed to the building where yesterday’s filming had taken place, sheets of paper were posted everywhere from the first floor up, showing the location of each grade’s training room.

Following the one labeled “C Grade,” I went to the second floor and found the C-grade training room already filled with a fair number of contestants.

I joined the group of familiar faces—including Chae Han-ul—and chatted for a while, and before I knew it, 9 a.m. came and filming began.

“From now on, please select your grade leader.”

The PD in charge of C-grade read out the lines that would later be aired as a VCR narrated by MC Son Chae-yi, then instructed us to sit in a circle.

For a brief moment, everyone stayed silent—until one contestant finally spoke up.

“Um… does anyone want to be leader?

Or is there someone you’d like to recommend?”

While everyone else was still busy reading the room, a person hesitantly raised their hand.