Chapter 48: Beautiful Hate

Before he knew it, he was back at the broadcast station for the fourth camp.

Unlike usual, the destination wasn’t inside the building but the station’s parking lot.

Circling around the broadcast station building, he saw five buses parked in one corner of the lot with several cameras set up in front of them.

After confirming the familiar faces of the staff, he approached.

A production team member handed him a tablet PC with a video playing.

When he pressed the play button, Son Chae-i appeared on the screen.

[Hello, trainees!

Starting today, preparations for the 3rd contest begin.

The 3rd contest mission is the concept evaluation.]

Along with an explanation that they would participate in the contest with one of five different concept new songs, the five new songs began to play briefly in order.

Song number 1 had a strong, heavy beat.

Song number 2 felt rhythmic and sticky.

Song number 3, for a dance song, was a bit slow and emotional.

Song number 4 had a bouncy beat and a retro feel.

Song number 5 felt refreshing and cool.

Listening to the songs, each playing for about 10 seconds, he formed impressions—this song was like this, that song was like that—but if the 3rd contest proceeded in the same way as Please Take Care of My Idol Season 1, his own opinion on the contest song selection didn’t matter.

[And the viewers have already directly chosen your contest songs for you.]

Just as he thought, it seemed to be the same method as the previous season.

[Please open the envelope on the table in front of you, check the number, and board the bus marked with that number.]

The video ended with the message that they would find out which song it was upon arriving at the camp.

After returning the tablet PC to the production team, he opened the envelope.

Inside was the number ‘3’.

He flipped the paper to show his number to the camera once, then approached the buses parked in the back and boarded the middle one.

“Oh, it’s Jae-seo hyung!”

Participants he had practiced with in C grade during the first camp recognized him first.

After exchanging greetings, he moved further inside and spotted a more familiar face.

“Jae-seo, you’re on this team too.”

It was Bae Jae-hyung, who had been on the same team with him during the 2nd contest.

During the preparations for the 2nd contest, Bae Jae-hyung had blocked him from taking Vocal 2, and Jae-seo had, in a way, taken Jae-hyung’s Vocal 1 and given it to Nam Jin-wook.

Perhaps because of that, facing each other like this felt quite awkward.

Just as he was wondering how to respond, thankfully, he heard the sound of the next participant boarding the bus.

Before he could even turn to see who it was, someone called out the new passenger’s name.

“Jin-wook hyung!”

…Thankful?

It was the moment an even greater misfortune arrived.

***

Arriving at the camp, they changed clothes and headed to the hall.

Soon after arriving, the words ‘3rd Contest Mission – Concept Evaluation Mission Song Reveal’ were displayed largely on the screen.

As they approached the screen, a staff member instructed them to gather together with the participants who had ridden the same bus.

After waiting like that for a while, Son Chae-i soon came up onto the platform.

“Hello, everyone!

It’s been a while since we’ve met in person, right?”

At her joking rhetorical question referring to the video they’d watched before coming to the camp, the participants answered affirmatively and let out small laughs.

It seemed like a kind of social etiquette, dealing with the MC and senior figure in the music industry.

Son Chae-i, smiling back at the participants, continued with her questions.

“You’ve all been assigned a number.

How is it?

Do you think you’ll get to do the song you wanted?”

“Yes!”

As the participants shouted with sincerity and hope, Son Chae-i smiled and nodded.

Saying she hoped everyone would get to do the song they wanted, she flipped through her cue cards and brought the microphone back to her lips.

“Without dragging this out any longer, I’ll now play the five new songs, the evaluation songs for the 3rd contest!”

At the same time, as Son Chae-i stepped aside, the text on the screen changed to ‘VILLAIN’.

And along with the number 1 song from the preview video they’d seen before coming to the camp, a choreography video began to play.

As soon as the first song ended, the text on the screen immediately switched to ‘Beautiful Hate’, and the number 2 preview song played along with a choreography video.

After watching number 3 ‘Into the Moonlight’, number 4 ‘Want It’, and number 5 ‘Over the Sky’ all the way through, Son Chae-i stood back at the center of the platform and raised her microphone.

“Then, I will now reveal which song the numbers assigned to you all correspond to.”

She then took out five envelopes, identical to the ones they had received earlier.

The numbers 1 through 5 were written on the outside of the envelopes.

Son Chae-i handed the envelopes marked with the bus number each team had ridden to the participants of that team, then straightened up and continued.

“From now on, please go to each team’s practice room and check the contents of the envelope.”

As Son Chae-i finished speaking and stepped down from the platform, staff members informed them of each team’s practice room location.

Finding the assigned practice room and sitting in a circle, Kwak Jun-sung, who had received the envelope from Son Chae-i, turned the envelope towards them and slowly pulled out the paper inside.

‘Beautiful Hate’

As the writing on the paper was fully revealed, some people cheered and raised their arms, while others looked frustrated and collapsed onto the floor as if in despair.

Meanwhile, Lee Jun-han, one of the participants he’d practiced with in C grade, cautiously looked at him and asked.

“Hyung, are you okay?”

Not knowing what he was supposed to be okay about, Jae-seo looked at him with a bewildered expression.

Jun-han made an “oops” face and avoided his gaze, saying it was nothing.

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s just that I saw your fans saying they absolutely wouldn’t pick this song.”

So, the people supporting him hadn’t voted for this song.

The thought crossed his mind that maybe people who didn’t support him had intentionally voted him into this song, but he shook his head, thinking that was probably too much of a stretch.

No way….

If it were someone like Seo Jun-jae or Yeo Hyun-tae, maybe, but who would go to such trouble for him?

Then suddenly, a rather plausible thought occurred to him.

What if people had intentionally voted for him to be in a different team so he wouldn’t end up on the same team as their favorite participant?

Even if that were the case, he wouldn’t mind, but knowing that the people who liked him wanted this song the least made him feel uncomfortable.

Not knowing how many more stages he might get to perform, he wanted to show them as much of what they wanted as possible.

Having the very first step go wrong like this felt regrettable.

“Hyung, are you really okay?

Ah, it’s because I said something useless….”

He had only been silent because his thoughts were running long, but Jun-han seemed to think his words had hurt Jae-seo, making him lose his words.

Jun-han wore a deeply self-reproachful expression and added an apology.

“Uh, no.

I’m really okay.”

Even though he quickly answered that he was fine, Jun-han seemed to think he was lying for his sake, and with a darkened face, he lowered his head.

There was no way to clear up the misunderstanding, so Jae-seo ended up lowering his head as well.

“Uh, there’s something written on the back.”

Bae Jae-hyung, who had been examining the back of the paper with the song title, gathered them and began reading the text written on the reverse.

“The current total number of people per team is twelve.

However, the number that can perform in the 3rd contest is seven per team.

The thirty-five people who can be on stage will be decided at the second ranking announcement ceremony, which will be held in four days.

Until then, please arbitrarily divide into two teams, decide on positions, and practice.”

Since it had been done the same way in Please Take Care of My Idol Season 1, he already knew this fact, but experiencing it firsthand felt completely different.

Even for him, who had fewer attachments compared to other participants, imagining being eliminated during practice felt devastating.

Everyone else seemed to feel the same way, or even more deeply, as they remained silent.

Nam Jin-wook, who had received the envelope, cautiously opened his mouth.

“Should we just do as instructed for now?”

At the sound of him tapping the last sentence on the paper with his finger, everyone nodded.

Since they had to divide arbitrarily anyway, Bae Jae-hyung suggested dividing based on where they were sitting and split the circle in half.

Looking at the division, on the opposite side were participants with ranks likely to make the cut, like Nam Jin-wook, Kwak Jun-sung, Rohan, and Bae Jae-hyung himself.

On his side, except for him, everyone’s ranks were outside the safe zone.

It seemed like a rough split, but it was clearly intentional.

He wanted to say something, but worried it might hurt the participants outside the rankings, he suppressed it and just nodded.

Following the split Bae Jae-hyung had made, he led the participants sitting on his side to one corner of the practice room.

The other side had two A-grade trainees, but on this side, he had the highest grade and rank, so he had no choice but to step up, regrettably.

“Shall we decide our positions first?”

Receiving a tablet PC with the audio and choreography video for ‘Beautiful Hate’ from the production team, they played the audio and divided the positions.

As he prioritized accommodating the other participants’ desired positions, before he knew it, only the main vocal spot remained.

It was just an arbitrary decision for now, so nodding, he wrote his name in the slot for main vocal.