FLD Ch 30

So this was the problem from the start. If I were going to help Han Sehee, I should’ve been prepared to throw everything into helping him, no questions asked. Or I should’ve drawn a clear line, taken the stance of “he messes up his own fate, what can I do,” and focused on securing my own interests instead. Though honestly, even that made me wonder what exactly I was supposed to gain by coming here in the first place. But instead of doing either properly, I was floundering around, unable to commit to one side or the other.

I’d succeeded in identifying the problem objectively, but I had no answer for how to solve it. What do I even do now, seriously? As I pressed a hand to my forehead to hide the ugly expression forming on my face, my eyes met Shin Woomin’s.

“…”

Clueless about the messages Han Sehee and I had just exchanged, the guy flashed me a playful grin and gave me a thumbs-up. A thumbs-up, my ass. My head started throbbing. The most tragic part was that I couldn’t even go home and rest after this—I had to head straight to the group training dorm.

***

“Waaah~ let’s do our best together!”

The meeting that began with Shin Woomin’s cheer quickly sank into silence. Rolling his eyes around, Shin Woomin alternated glances between me and Han Sehee, his expression clearly saying, What kind of situation is this?

“Anyway, since we’re practicing together as one team now, let’s all fight hard!”

“…”

And once again, silence followed. Fine, maybe it made sense for Han Sehee and me, but what about the others? Their awkward, tiptoeing reactions were absurd. In the end, I was the one who spoke first.

“Let’s decide on the cover song first.”

Maybe they wanted to avoid overlapping songs since there were only six teams. A list of previously released songs that each team could choose from was provided. We were given five songs in total. From those, we had to pick one to cover and inform the production team of our direction. Either leave the arrangement to them. Or, if there was a trainee willing to participate in producing, work on the arrangement together with everyone’s consent. So choosing the song was the first step before anything else. As I brought up what I thought was the most important point, Shin Woomin hurriedly cut in.

“No, shouldn’t we introduce ourselves first? I mean, we’ve kind of met already, but there are people seeing each other for the first time too!”

“Ah.”

Was that supposed to come first? I’d assumed everyone’s abilities would be more or less similar anyway, and that pulling them up to a workable level was something I could handle at my discretion. Because of that, I hadn’t given much thought to the individuals themselves. After all, once they were on my team, I was confident I could make even below-average trainees look above average.

“So, I’m Shin Woomin, nineteen years old. You two are both twenty-one, right? Same age?”

When Shin Woomin casually addressed the other trainees, the two of them nodded in surprise.

“Oh, yes, that’s right.”

“You remembered us?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m actually really good at remembering stuff like that.”

Thankfully, he wasn’t just good at acting friendly. The atmosphere started to smooth out almost immediately. But between Han Sehee and me, there was still something like an uncrossable river flowing through the room.

“Alright then, if you want to speak casually, feel free, and like Youngwon hyung said, should we pick the song first? But before that.”

Shin Woomin, who had been acting as the MC nonstop, paused to take a quick breath before continuing.

“I think we should choose a leader first. Anyone want to volunteer?”

During the first mission, everyone had acted as if being a leader was just a hassle with no real benefits. But after learning that the leader held considerable power—like designating the Worst—in the first mission, some tension was inevitable. At first, everyone seemed to hesitate, then two people raised their hands. I couldn’t just sit there either, so I put myself forward as well.

“Hmm…”

After scanning the room, Shin Woomin organized things again.

“Then how about you each make a little pitch? Like your strengths as a leader or something. We can decide by majority vote.”

“Oh, that sounds good.”

I had no intention of forcing anything in a situation that at least looked democratic. I nodded in agreement.

“Alright, then let’s go around from this side!”

The two ahead of me started listing their merits one by one. Long trainee experience, having been class president back in school—nothing particularly stands out. When it was my turn, I ended the entire discussion with a single sentence.

“I can compose, arrange, and write lyrics.”

Oh, then you should be the leader. And just like that, it was settled.

By the time the short meeting on the first day wrapped up, there had been some progress. After some debate, the cover song was chosen by majority vote, and everyone listed their preferred positions. Of course, final positions would only be decided after seeing everyone perform more, but fortunately, the distribution wasn’t bad. Five vocals, including me, and two rappers. If one of the vocalists turned out to be truly hopeless, we could just shift an easier rap part over to them. With so many members, the issue was more about who would get fewer lines, so there wasn’t much to worry about there. The problem came after that.

“…”

The dorm for training camp was a small villa nearby. They’d rented several small buildings in the area for the duration of the preparation, with each team assigned to a two-room unit. The larger room had two bunk beds, and the smaller room had one single bed and one bunk bed. Because the rooms themselves were small, it felt very much like a high school dorm. The interior was unnecessarily done in white and blue tones, giving it a childish vibe.

“Hyung, do you want to share a room with us? I think it’d work if we split up two by two like this.”

It was good that Shin Woomin had the sense to divide things up after noticing the strange tension. But once we actually went into the room…

“…”

Wasn’t this way too close? The gap between the beds was barely wide enough for one person to stand, making it feel like you’d be sleeping right next to whoever was in the adjacent bed. And the most distressing part was that the person using that bed was Han Sehee.

“Um, I can’t sleep on the lower bunk—it makes me self-conscious. I don’t like people seeing me while I sleep.”

“I’ve never used a bunk bed before, so it was kind of a dream of mine…”

The other two, excluding me and Han Sehee, insisted on using the upper bunks no matter what. Of all things, the usually hyper guy was being weirdly sensitive about this. I mean, couldn’t he just hang a blanket or something?

Even if there was anyone to see him, this was a four-person room—there weren’t that many people besides himself anyway—yet Shin Woomin kept yapping on for over fifteen minutes about why he absolutely had to take the top bunk. In this situation, asking to switch spots with another trainee because I didn’t want to sleep close to Han Sehee would have been far too obvious, like I was openly looking for a fight, so I had no choice but to hold back.

‘Ha…’

I’ll just sleep pressed up against the wall as much as possible.

Thinking that, I looked at Han Sehee as if to ask his opinion. He replied curtly, “I don’t mind.”

Well, that left me with nothing else to say.

“I don’t care either.”

“Okay, then I’ll take the top bunk!”

Shin Woomin immediately hauled his stuff up, saying there were no take-backs. At my answer, Han Sehee twitched, raised an eyebrow, glanced at me, then quickly looked away. You say you don’t mind, but you clearly do. Still, neither of us was really in a position to complain, so we both stayed quiet.

“They said they’ll send dinner boxes later.”

Since observation cameras were installed throughout the house, everyone was on edge.

“Nice.”

“Do we get snacks too?”

That was it for the official schedule for the day. The observation cameras would stop at 10 p.m., and lights-out with roll call was at 11, so everyone took turns using the bathroom to shower. Even while washing and eating on rotation, the living room camera kept rolling. While everyone else was awkward from being unfamiliar with this kind of filming, Shin Woomin alone seemed completely at ease.

“There’s spicy pork and bulgogi lunchboxes—what do you guys want?”

Was he this laid-back by nature, or was it just because he was young? Maybe both. It was oddly fascinating, and a little enviable, too.