Chapter 51: Staying Feels Heavier

[Please Take Care of My Idol Season 2 Episode 7 Voting Rankings Results]

[1st Place Yeo Hyun-tae
2nd Place Seo Jun-jae
3rd Place Lee Chan-seo
4th Place Lee Woo-rim
5th Place Yoon Ji-heon
6th Place Kwak Jun-sung
7th Place Nam Jin-wook
8th Place Park Kang-hoon
9th Place Kim Woo-hyun
10th Place Na Yoon-jae
11th Place Sim Jae-seo
12th Place Park Hyun-jin
13th Place Chae Han-ul
14th Place Rohan
15th Place Park Seo-hu
16th Place Lee Ha-jin
…]

[Comments]

Wow the top ranks really don’t change at all

↳ It’s just a Ferris wheel.. lol They’re just going round and round among themselves..

↳ At least 9th place changes often

↳↳ Fr it’s the PTSD zone lolㅠㅠ

I don’t know about the week after next, but next week Seo Jun-jae will probably get 1st place

↳ Next week is the ranking announcement lol

↳↳ Ah,, the timing,,

But there are no trainees who should be eliminated, they’re all too goodㅠㅠ

↳ Nam Jin-wook will drop soon

↳↳ Huh? lol lol lol lol

Seo Jun-jae and Yeo Hyun-tae are so good, but they’re too strong, it’s boringㅠㅠ

↳ Their faces are interesting though??

↳↳ Same what’s more interesting about male idols than their faces?

Wow, look at Woo-rim entering the top ranks and not coming down lol lol lol lol

↳ It’s rare for a visual member to also be the main vocal

You should only have either good skills or good looks, but there are like 20 kids who have both, it’s too hard,,

↳ Please Take Care of My Idol 2 seems legendary indeed

↳ The mid-to-high ranks are so competitiveㅠㅠ If this were another time, they’d be guaranteed debut group materialㅠㅠ

…

***

His heart felt heavy from the morning.

Today was the day of the second ranking announcement ceremony.

What made it so much harder than the last one was the near certainty that many of the participants he had practiced with as a team over the past few days would be eliminated.

When the announcement came telling them to pack their belongings at the dorm with the possibility of elimination in mind, some participants packed their bags, forcing back tears that kept welling up.

As they went down with their bags, there were several participants whose eyes were already red, as if they had been crying earlier.

They took the bus to the broadcast station.

Lee Jun-han, who had been sitting next to him on the bus, started crying profusely from the moment he saw the now so familiar school uniform.

No matter how much he tried to soothe him, telling him not to cry, once the tears started, they simply wouldn’t stop.

Amidst everyone’s sorrow and tears, he wasn’t okay either.

It wasn’t that he felt like crying, but sighs kept rising from deep within, and he had to force himself to hold them back while getting his hair and makeup done.

“Independent trainees!”

While waiting after finishing hair and makeup, a staff member called for him and Choi Gyeom.

Fortunately, Choi Gyeom seemed to be in the safe zone still, greeting him with a decent smile.

As before, they discussed what pose to do for the entrance, decided to make a heart again, and Choi Gyeom taught him a pose.

They practiced all the way to the studio, and even while waiting inside the studio, they kept practicing.

Before they knew it, it was time to go up on stage.

‘Independent Trainee’

Standing next to Choi Gyeom under the large letters on the screen, he imagined shooting an invisible bow and arrow, stretching the space between his two fists.

Once they were sufficiently apart, he imagined releasing the bowstring, separated his thumb and index finger, and then twisted his hands to form a finger heart.

…I wonder if that came out right?

He was worried because he hadn’t practiced in front of a mirror, and sure enough, as soon as he sat down, Lee Woo-rim, who was already seated, scolded him, saying his heart was lopsided.

Soon, all the empty seats were filled, and Son Chae-i came up on stage.

Greeting them with a light smile, Son Chae-i, without wasting time again today, immediately started announcing the successful candidates from 33rd place onwards.

Today, there were no VCRs; they just kept calling out the successful candidates.

Even by the time they got down to 10th place, his name still hadn’t been called.

“Next, I will call out the 9th place trainee, which falls within the debut group.”

Son Chae-i paused briefly, swallowing as if to create a moment, then slowly opened her mouth.

“9th place!

Independent trainee Sim Jae-seo!”

As his name was called, the members of his team, despite knowing they themselves were almost certainly eliminated, hugged him and whispered their congratulations.

After receiving their congratulations, he needed to go stand next to Son Chae-i, but for some reason, his feet wouldn’t move easily.

“Haa….”

Taking a deep breath, he finally managed to force his steps forward.

With each step, his feelings for his teammates seemed to hang like lead weights on his feet, making them feel heavier and heavier.

“Congratulations.”

Son Chae-i whispered without using the microphone, perhaps reading his difficult expression.

He managed a strained smile towards her and then stood facing the camera.

“Trainee Sim Jae-seo, this is already the second time you’ve made it into the debut group, following the last time.

Could we hear a word from you?”

At the mention of a speech, he just moved his lips silently for a moment before slowly opening his mouth.

“I am truly grateful to all the viewers and fans who always support me and vote for me.

I won’t forget that it’s thanks to all of you that I’ve been given this 9th place, a position far too good for me, and I will continue to participate in this program with a grateful and humble heart until the very end.”

He hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was okay to say this kind of thing in his speech, but then forced himself to continue.

“And I also want to thank all the trainees who have been with me on this program up until now, and tell them all that they’ve worked so hard.”

It was a bit strange.

It sounded like the speech of an eliminated contestant, or perhaps of the winner who debuts in 1st place.

But instead of just saying goodbye to the teammates who would be leaving today, he really wanted to convey something, anything, from his heart.

Maybe once this broadcast airs, people will say I’m acting like I’m number one and criticize me.

At this pointless thought, a small laugh escaped him.

He lifted his head and looked towards the seats where the remaining participants were sitting.

Some were already crying.

He waved his hand in greeting to some of his former teammates who were looking at him, then went to find his own seat.

***

After the ranking ceremony ended, he shared hugs and final goodbyes with Lee Jun-han, who was now openly sobbing, and other participants who were trying hard to hold back their tears, before returning to the bus.

Unlike when they had come to the broadcast station, the empty seat next to him made his mood sink low.

When he first started participating in this program, he never imagined he would come to feel emotions like this.

It had felt like he had no choice but to participate, as if he couldn’t leave this game otherwise.

But at some point, he had started developing a fondness for the participants he spent time with, the audience who cheered for him, the stage that became a place for him, and the program itself, Please Take Care of My Idol.

…It was a strange thing.

If one day the game suddenly ended and he returned to his original world, what would he do?

No, he would find a way to live somehow, but how would he soothe this heart that felt just as empty as the empty seat next to him on this bus right now?

The bus, carrying these strange and frightening thoughts, sped rapidly towards the camp.

***

The day of the ranking ceremony was a rest day, and from the next day, preparations for the 3rd contest resumed.

Opening the door marked ‘Beautiful Hate’ and going inside, he saw less than half the previous number of participants gathered and sitting.

As he approached them, the emptiness he had felt yesterday became even more real.

All the team members who had been with him were eliminated.

The moment he realized he was standing in a space where there was no participant he could comfortably talk to for the first time, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Jae-seo, why are you just standing there?”

“He’s probably having a hard time because so many of the teammates he practiced with got eliminated.”

Listening to Nam Jin-wook and Bae Jae-hyung’s conversation, which sounded deliberately staged, his gaze kept drifting to one corner of the practice room.

It was the spot where Team 1, including him, used to practice.

Standing there like a stranger suddenly dropped from the sky, unable to do anything, the practice room door suddenly burst open with a bang.

“Hi!

Hello!”

Two participants from other teams suddenly rushed into their practice room.

As blank stares landed on them, the two gave awkward smiles, spread both arms wide, and spoke simultaneously.

“We’ve joined the ‘Beautiful Hate’ team starting today!

Kim Jae-ho.”

“I’m Na Woo-jae.

Please take care of us!”

As Kwak Jun-sung, who had been watching them, started clapping, welcoming them, Jae-seo unconsciously joined in the applause.

At the same time, he settled into a spot next to Kim Jae-ho and Na Woo-jae, amidst the others who were spreading out the circle wider.

“…Well then, we need to reassign the parts.”

As Nam Jin-wook said this, his face unable to hide a hint of displeasure, Kim Jae-ho looked at the others, not Nam Jin-wook, and introduced himself as a vocalist.

Come to think of it, Kim Jae-ho was also a member of the group Code:Kids and affiliated with the agency Coz, but he didn’t seem to have a particularly good relationship with Nam Jin-wook or Bae Jae-hyung.

…Maybe they’re actually on bad terms?

The relationship map was already a complicated tangle of strange connections here and there.

Adding one more made his head spin even before practice started, and he pressed his hand to his forehead.

“Then, since we’re new here too, shall we redraw for the parts?”

When Na Woo-jae asked this with a completely innocent face, Nam Jin-wook and Bae Jae-hyung’s expressions momentarily turned cold before relaxing.

“Except for one person, we were all already on the same team.

How about we just keep those positions as they were?

That way, the dance formations won’t change either, and we can reduce the time needed for practice, right?”

The suggestion sounded reasonable enough, purely in terms of practicality.

Na Woo-jae tilted his head for a moment, then nodded, saying he understood, quickly scanned the lyric sheet with the empty parts, and opened his mouth.

“Then I’ll take the rap part!”

The remaining parts were Sub-Vocal 3 and Sub-Vocal 5.

Assuming they’d try to give him Sub-Vocal 5 again, the part with much less prominence, he stayed quiet.

But Kwak Jun-sung, who had been watching closely all along, burst into laughter, “Haha,” and spoke up.

“Jae-seo was the main vocal in Team 1, wouldn’t it be too much of a waste to put him in Sub-Vocal 3 or 5?”

Adding that Jae-seo had also received the most praise for dancing among their group, Kim Jae-ho and Na Woo-jae looked at him with eyes full of expectation.

“Shouldn’t we give him at least Sub-Vocal 2 or higher for the viewers to understand?”