Chapter 3: Next, Idol Survival?

I leaned back in the chair and stared blankly at the notebook in my hand.
Even though these were sentences I had just written myself, I still couldn’t bring myself to accept them.
Maybe all of this was a misunderstanding and I was actually dreaming right now?
Clinging to that futile hope, I pinched my cheek again, but it hurt just as sharply as before.

If so, then I really had entered a place similar to the game I’d been playing up until yesterday….
Even after reaching that conclusion, I kept trying to turn away from reality.

…Of course I would.

Who could instantly accept a situation this absurd?
That said, I couldn’t just sit there denying it forever.
According to the game screen, today was Sunday.
Which meant tomorrow was Monday, naturally.
And if I woke up tomorrow morning and things were still like this, I’d have to carry out tomorrow’s “schedule” instead of taking a day off.
I wouldn’t have time to wander around like today, wondering whether this was a dream or not.
Whatever the case, better safe than sorry.

I straightened up from where I’d been half-reclined in the chair and began slowly scanning the contents written in the notebook.

‘Game Title – Please Take Care of My Son -> Please Take Care of My Idol.’

When I’d looked up Please Take Care of My Son in “reality,” I didn’t remember seeing anything related to idols.
Then was Please Take Care of My Idol a sequel released after My Idol?

‘Age Rating – All Ages, 19+.’

This part was… no matter how I looked at it, truly strange.
Why did it suddenly have a 19+ rating?
Considering that My Idol was a son-raising simulation game, Please Take Care of My Idol would probably be an idol-raising simulation game.
And even someone like me, who lived without paying much attention to that world, knew perfectly well that idols didn’t have anything to do with 19+ content.

“…Ah, could it be?”

Maybe this game also had multiple endings like My Idol, and one of them involved violence or crime?
For example, you pursue an idol career, fail miserably, fall into massive debt, get chased by loan sharks, and end up the victim of organ trafficking….
I shook my head, forcing out the horrific images creeping into my mind.
Let’s put that aside for now.

‘Character Traits – Automatically Synced with My Idol First Slot

Name – Shim Jaeseo

Age – 20

Occupation – Prospective College Student

Stats – Trash

Birthday – July 10

Blood Type – O’

My Idol’s ending occurs when the character turns nineteen and transitions into twenty.
And right now, I was spending January 1st at the age of twenty.
If this game really was the sequel to My Idol, then wasn’t I essentially playing the life that continues after the ending of the first slot?

Well, not that such speculation mattered much right now….

[Appearance – Unchanged]

The height and weight listed in the status window were the same, and even the face I’d checked in the bathroom mirror hadn’t changed.
Exactly the same me at age twenty.
And at this point, my irritation toward whoever had dumped me into this game world grew even stronger.

“If you’re going to force me to be an idol, you could at least patch my looks a little.
How am I supposed to become an idol with this face?”

As an ordinary person, I figured my looks were… passable enough.
But becoming a celebrity? That was a stretch.
I let out a long sigh as I remembered the face of that pretty, heart-drawing male idol—a student I used to tutor had shoved his picture at me, bragging, ‘Look at my baby!’
If there was any saving grace, I guess it was that at least I was tall.

[Special Notes – No Surrounding Characters]

In ‘Please Take Care of My Son’, the son character had parents who were away on overseas business trips, and there was also the pushover next-door hyung who practically raised him in their absence.
But my character had absolutely no one around.
Sure, the pushover hyung disappearing made sense since I had been dragged into the game world to fill that role—but why weren’t the parents here either?

Suddenly, a few scenes from the game floated through my mind.
The parents patting the character’s head before leaving on a business trip at the start.
The messages and gifts that arrived on his birthday.
If the game was going to drag me in anyway, they could’ve at least left the parents abroad as background characters….
I thought it was a shame, then immediately felt embarrassed and cleared my throat with a stiff cough.

Just then, that now-familiar game notification chimed.

Dding–

[Proceeding with latest version update]

The word update made me stare at the laptop, unmoving.
But then—suddenly—the same music that had woken me up this morning began playing.
The laptop screen stayed completely still, and the sound definitely wasn’t coming from it.
It was coming from the gap between the bed and the wall.
Normally, the only thing that would make noise from a place like that would be…

“A phone, obviously.”

I reached into the gap and pulled out the phone.
On its screen, the same animation I had seen on the laptop that morning was playing.
A burst of colorful fireworks exploded, then gradually quieted, the music fading along with them, and soon a darkened screen appeared with a message window floating over it.

[You are currently playing on another device]

[Automatically synchronizing game progress from the other device]

[Welcome back]

Once the message window disappeared, the phone screen brightened and the game began to launch.
Unlike My Idol, which could only be played on a computer, this “game” seemed to work on a phone as well.
Well, considering they wanted me to set up daily schedules, expecting me to use only a laptop would’ve been way too cruel.
I supposed I should at least be grateful I wouldn’t have to lug a laptop around every single day….

GotTalk–

A familiar sound suddenly rang out.
It was the notification tone from a popular messenger app that existed in “reality.”
I closed the game and went to the home screen, and—sure enough—the messenger app was installed exactly as it should be.
I tapped the yellow icon and opened it.
The friend list visible on the main page was completely empty, but at the bottom of the screen, one of the chat icons had a bright red notification badge.
When I entered the chat list, only a single newly arrived message sat there.
The sender was… Please Take Care of My Idol?

————————————————————————————–

[Vote for Your Idol!]

Please Take Care of My Idol Season 2

A massive survival show to select the nation’s idol,

Please Take Care of My Idol Season 2 is now recruiting participants.

Recruitment Gender: Male

Recruitment Period: ~ January 1

For more details, please check the official website.

[Apply Now]

————————————————————————————–

An idol survival show?

Come to think of it, the profile picture displayed next to the sender’s name looked oddly familiar.
I tried to remember where I had seen it before—though if it felt this familiar, I should’ve recalled it immediately.
Just then, a memory from a few years ago flashed through my mind.

‘Teacher, please send just one vote text! Please!’

Right—one of my past tutoring students had been obsessed with that male idol he’d kept calling his baby.
And that idol was a contestant from a famous idol survival program.
I’d been pestered endlessly to send just one text vote, and the logo I saw back then definitely had a crown drawn inside a triangle….

Yeah.
If you just flipped the upside-down triangle in this profile picture, it would match perfectly….

“What kind of crap is this game’s copyright recognition?”

First the prequel was a knockoff of Produce X, and now the sequel was basically a knockoff of Produce 101.
At this rate, the game might get shut down for copyright issues before I even managed to return to “reality.”
No matter what happened, it had better hold out at least until I reached an ending….

If so, then the next problem was this: when on earth did this game’s ending happen?
Would it take ten years to reach the ending like My Idol?
Or maybe it would only end once I achieved some kind of noteworthy accomplishment as an idol.
Something like a “Grand Prize Idol Ending” or “Billboard-Recognized Idol Ending,” that sort of thing.
If it were the latter, pulling off a successful ending would be nearly impossible, so all I could really hope for was to avoid any bad endings involving loan sharks or organ trafficking.

My speculation about an ending with no clear solution naturally drifted toward the “real” me.
If it took years to reach the ending, what would happen to my body in reality?
If I thought in the most optimistic way possible, maybe my real body wouldn’t experience the passage of time at all and would simply stay preserved until I cleared the game.
If not—something I didn’t even want to picture—time might pass the same in both worlds, and before long, my name could end up on a list of young people who died alone in their twenties.

I even considered the possibility that dying here might immediately return me to reality, but with no guarantee whatsoever, I couldn’t exactly go and test that theory by dying once.
Which left me with only one option.

“An idol survival program, huh….”

Fine.
For now, I’d just do what the game told me to do.

The contestant from that survival show—the one my tutoring student had begged me to vote for—hadn’t made the final lineup, but shortly afterward he debuted in another group and became the student’s precious “my baby.”
I had no idea how well that group was doing now, but at any rate, he did debut as an idol.

Then, in my situation, wasn’t this also the best choice I had?
If I got lucky, I might appear on the show, and maybe even get picked up by a small agency and debut.
Of course, the odds of failing the preliminary round were over 99%, but given that I had no choice but to chase this idol path anyway, even that would be a worthwhile experience.

Once my thoughts reached that point, there was no time left to hesitate.
I lifted the phone, opened the messenger, and tapped the “Apply Now” button.