Chapter 13: The Great Tantrum Era

Was this guy really someone who had debuted as an idol before?

Had he never taken a single acting lesson in his life?

Even with me being a complete amateur at acting, his performance was painfully bad.

No—this wasn’t even a matter of acting skill.

It was worse than an elementary school kid lying about forgetting their homework at home after supposedly finishing it.

“No, it’s my fault.

I was looking at the lyrics while walking and didn’t see.”

I wasn’t about to get mad just because a twenty-one-year-old picked a fight in such an obvious way.

It wasn’t like I’d fallen and broken a leg or anything.

I just gave a quick, half-hearted nod as if to say “It’s fine, not your fault,” then went to sit in the corner spot I’d marked earlier.

But maybe the fact that I didn’t react at all irritated him even more.

Lee Kwon’s face flushed red, then pale, then red again, and he started whispering something to the trainees around him.

Should I have just obediently tripped over his foot next time?

Or grabbed him by the collar to give him the satisfaction he wanted?

I briefly considered it before shaking the thought off.

Judging from my childhood—when people would pick fights just because I happened to walk by—and my past part-time jobs where I had to deal with customers from hell, someone like him would throw a tantrum no matter how I responded.

The best strategy with that type was to treat them like they don’t exist.

Before long, vocal training began.

A staff member carrying an electric piano and a music stand walked in, followed by vocal trainer Won Juha, who waved in greeting.

She sat in the chair behind the keyboard that had been set up while we weren’t looking, then began calling names as if taking attendance, arranging everyone into a line of seats in order.

Thanks to that, Lee Kwon ended up sitting on my right.

“Alright, let’s hear everyone one by one.

First is Taegeon?”

The trainee whose name was called stood up with a faint “Yes,” but maybe being first made him nervous—his face was already pale before he even started singing.

Juha told him not to be nervous and to just sing comfortably, giving him a warm smile before she began playing the accompaniment to ‘Me and Me’ on the keyboard.

“I… on this stage, I…”

“Project your voice.”

“A-and I—huh?!”

The moment he flinched at Won Juha’s words and tried raising his voice, the trainee’s note cracked—badly.

Startled by his own voice break, he slapped his lyric sheet over his mouth, sweating bullets.

Juha’s fingers didn’t stop moving across the keyboard as she calmly told him it was fine and to continue, but he only darted his eyes back and forth above the lyrics sheet and couldn’t bring himself to sing again.

The accompaniment finally cut off.

“You’re not going to freeze on stage going ‘Huh!’ just because you make a mistake, right?

Even if your voice cracks, you have to keep singing.”

“…Yes.

I’m sorry.”

“Let’s try it again.”

Juha started playing once more, and the trainee followed along, but after that earlier mistake, his confidence seemed completely shot.

He couldn’t project at all and only mumbled through the melody.

Juha kept pointing out what needed fixing, and it would improve for a moment before slipping right back again.

By the time he finished singing in that tiny, trembling voice, the trainee looked like he was about to cry, head hanging low.

Maybe she didn’t want to add salt to the wound, because Juha spoke in a much gentler tone.

“It’s your first time, so I guess Taegeon was really nervous.

We’ll loop around and try again later.

Next—Jaeyeong.”

Seven more trainees sang after that.

Juha gave each of them feedback, both during and after their singing.

Some of the advice—like breathing techniques or bad habits to avoid when hitting high notes—wasn’t just for that specific trainee but useful for all of us, so I listened carefully, trying to absorb everything.

“And next… Jaeseo?”

“Yes.”

Before I knew it, it was my turn.

I began singing along with the accompaniment Juha was playing.

I’d been worried—it didn’t seem easy to fix things in real time after being corrected—but once again, maybe thanks to my Intelligence stat, the issues she pointed out made perfect sense to me, and I gradually adjusted toward a better direction.

Juha seemed pleased too; she nodded here and there as I sang.

“Jaeseo, I swear you’ve improved even more since your agency evaluation.”

As I finished the last line, Juha smiled and praised me.

Whether it was the 50 stat points I’d invested through that item or something else, even I could tell that the shaky intonation and slightly off timing I had yesterday were much improved.

“Ah, your tone right now is really good, but for this song, it feels just a little too heavy.”

She then demonstrated the chorus of Me and Me twice—once deliberately roughening her voice into a raspier, scratchy tone, and once producing something lighter but still firm.

I sang following her second example, but she frowned slightly and shook her head, repeating the demonstration as if telling me to try again.

We repeated that a total of five times before she finally withdrew her hands from the keyboard with a satisfied expression.

“The last one was good.

Try to remember that feeling when you practice.

And don’t strain your throat too much.”

“Thank you.”

After bowing and sitting back down, Juha called the next name—Lee Kwon.

His face as he stood up didn’t look good at all.

“Uh, teacher!”

Music had just begun when Lee Kwon hurriedly called out to Juha, stopping everything.

She looked at him as if asking what was wrong.

Lee Kwon hesitated, then finally opened his mouth.

“I’m… a rapper.”

“Oh, Gwon, did you prep the song as a rap version then?

Okay, I’ll listen first.”

Judging by her reaction, it seemed someone earlier in the day had switched their part to rap—Juha nodded as though she understood, then continued playing.

But even as the intro passed and the opening line approached, Lee Kwon kept his mouth shut, only chewing at his lips.

The accompaniment cut off abruptly.

“…When you said you’re a rapper, did you mean you just don’t want to sing?”

“N-No, ma’am.”

“Then why didn’t you sing?”

With no answer—only his head hanging—Juha let out a small, incredulous laugh.

“If you can’t sing it because you’re a rapper, shouldn’t you at least have the decency to switch it to a rap like the others did?”

“You debuted once, didn’t you, Gwon?

Is this your first time ever receiving vocal training?”

“…I’m sorry.”

At his half-hearted excuse of an answer, Juha exhaled as though exhausted and turned her head—her gaze stopping on me for a brief moment.

Wait.

That’s… worrying.

“Even trainees with no agencies and no experience managed to sing today.

But someone who’s actually debuted tells me he can’t because he’s ‘a rapper’—I honestly don’t know how I’m supposed to make sense of that.”

…Well, that was bad.

She never said it directly, but she basically compared him to me.

At Juha’s words, the production staff behind the cameras suddenly lit up with interest.

Something similar had already happened during dance training—if they edited things cleverly, they could easily craft a sensational angle:
“A talentless, attitude-problem veteran vs. a talented, well-behaved rookie.”
Perfect for drama.

The problem was that I was not the right person to play the “talented, well-behaved” role.

If they exaggerated my abilities now, with skills this lukewarm, viewers would just say, That’s supposed to be good?, and end up disliking me.

But the water had already spilled.

If I wanted to salvage even a little of the situation, the only option was to go out of my way to look friendly with him, so the rivalry narrative wouldn’t deepen…
But judging by the way he kept glaring at me in the mirror even while getting scolded, that ship had already sailed.

I had a very strong feeling: at the first ranking announcement, either I or Lee Kwon—one of us—was definitely going to be eliminated.

Outside formal lessons with the trainers, each grade had self-practice time.

The C-rank trainees agreed that since we had received harsher criticism for our dancing today, we’d start with dance practice.

Under Lee Kwon’s lead, practice began—
and that was the start of the Great Tantrum Era.

Lee Kwon openly began icing me out, and not just me—he even pushed away anyone who had seemed friendly with me.

He stuck me in a spot where I could barely see the mirror, nitpicking nonstop: saying my movements were off, my timing was late—finding excuses to pick fights with zero end in sight.

Because he kept acting like that, we were the ones who finally gave up on group practice first and left the main training room to move to the vocal studio.

“God, he’s so annoying.

He gets scolded because he’s bad, and then he throws a tantrum at everyone else.”

“Sorry… because of me, none of you could practice properly.”

I was upset too, of course, but these guys weren’t even directly involved—getting dragged into the mess and practically kicked out of practice because of it.

I felt bad, so I apologized, but everyone waved their hands, saying it was fine.

Among them, Cha Han-ul, his face scrunched up in anger, even patted my shoulder as if to comfort me.

“Let’s just do vocal practice first.

Hyung, don’t worry too much!”

“Hey, if we blamed you for this, we’d have no conscience.

Thanks to you, we’re the only ones who didn’t get scolded by Jin-ung saem today.”

“Exactly, and it’s way better practicing by ourselves anyway.

What if we learn it over there and end up getting chewed out by the trainers tomorrow or the day after?”

As they subtly took shots at Lee Kwon, the others snickered and chimed in.

Thanks to that, the mood lightened, and after chatting and laughing for a bit, we soon arrived at the vocal practice rooms.

The floor was already full of other trainees from different grades, but we managed to find an empty room to slip into.

We spent a long time listening to each other sing and discussing the parts we’d been criticized for in class.

Quite a bit of time had passed before we realized it.

As I stood up and did some light stretching, Cha Han-ul immediately asked where I was going.

“Just going to the bathroom for a minute.”

I headed down to the second floor where the C-grade training rooms were.

Just as I reached for the bathroom door, I heard voices inside—muttering, buzzing—and then, clear as day, my full name slipped out from between the cracks.

“f*cking hell, what’s up with that bastard, Sim Jaeseo?”