Chapter 10: Level Test (5)
Only after confirming he had completely disappeared back into the set did I finally exhale the breath I’d been holding.
“Just what the hell did I do wrong…?”
If he’s going to be this vicious, I can’t even ask him about it.
To be completely honest, no matter what the past version of Lee Kanghyun had done wrong, I fully intended to bear the weight of it and accept the consequences. Even if the current me wasn’t the one who committed the offense, I was more than willing to apologize to anyone I’d hurt.
After all, it would be hypocritical to eagerly take advantage of my new body’s looks and wealth while turning a blind eye to its bad karma, pretending the mess wasn’t my problem.
But what was I supposed to do when I didn’t even know what my crime was? Was my best option to just stay out of Yijun’s sight as much as possible? Even so, I couldn’t exactly just ‘go drop dead’ for him.
With a heavy heart, I returned to the studio and sank back into my seat.
“You came back late?”
Yijun, who had just been deep in conversation with Trainee 97, flashed me a radiant smile. He spoke as if absolutely nothing had happened.
“Uh… yeah?”
“The restrooms were pretty crowded, right? Actually, that’s why I was a bit late too.”
Why is he suddenly acting like this? He practically cursed me out just minutes ago.
“Right. It was… pretty packed.”
“It’s a good thing filming hasn’t started yet, huh?” he beamed.
Am I losing my mind? Was everything that just happened in the hallway a hallucination?
Unable to process his blatantly two-faced behavior, I just blinked at him sluggishly. First he was ice-cold, then he spewed venom at me, and now he was sickeningly sweet again. I had no idea how to handle him.
“Oh, come to think of it, how old are you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m twenty-one…”
As if we were meeting for the very first time, Yijun shamelessly carried on the conversation.
“Ah, I see. I’m turning twenty this year.”
He gave me a bright, beaming smile. It was the signature Sung Yijun smile I’d seen countless times in my past life.
Seriously, what is his deal? Earlier, he clearly ignored me on purpose and only talked to Trainee 97. Now he’s suddenly playing the friendly neighbor. Did he have a massive change of heart in the last five minutes?
Did his soul get swapped while he was in the conference room threatening to quit? Or did our run-in out in the hallway trigger something in him?
What the hell is his true personality? Is it even biologically possible for a person to flip a switch like this in a matter of minutes?
“Sorry, my greeting is a bit late, isn’t it? I’m actually really shy around new people, so I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you earlier.”
At his brazen performance, I let out a hollow scoff instead of giving a proper answer.
“I look forward to working with you, Hyung.”
I had no clue what had transpired between the two of them in the past, or what kind of mistake the original Lee Kanghyun had committed against him.
However, I had just learned one vital piece of information: Sung Yijun was absolutely not the purely kind, innocent angel I had always believed him to be. Judging by the utterly shameless act he was putting on right now, that much was a stone-cold fact.
* * *
“It’s already the last performance.”
“Oh, this guy. He’s one of our most highly anticipated trainees.”
At last, the protagonist of this entire show, Sung Yijun, was up for his level test.
“Hello. I’m Sung Yijun from Miracle Entertainment.”
Even standing up there alone, his presence was so immense that the massive stage felt completely full. It was powerful enough that even the exhausted, slumped-over trainees straightened up one by one, fixing their eyes on him.
“My goodness, I don’t know why this batch of trainees is so incredibly handsome,” one of the judges gushed.
“I’m telling you, the visuals this season are going down in history.”
At the blatant shower of compliments, Yijun offered a shy smile. The tips of his ears flushed a delicate pink from embarrassment, elevating his boyish charm even further.
“Hmm. But it looks like you haven’t written down a desired position on your profile?” another judge noted.
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“Why is that? Is Trainee Sung Yijun’s best skill also ‘hard work’ by any chance?”
Excuse me? Are you out of your mind? Why the hell are you dragging me into this?
Unable to openly voice my outrage, I just flinched in my seat.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Yijun replied smoothly. “I just didn’t know which one to choose between vocals and dance.”
“Why? Because you excel at both?”
Yijun simply smiled without saying a word. That quiet confidence was all the answer they needed.
At that moment, the first episode of Pick Your Fantasy that would inevitably air in the future practically played out in my head. They were absolutely going to edit this to blatantly compare the two of us. Yijun would be portrayed as the flawless genius who dominated every position, while I would be the absolute idiot who couldn’t manage a single one. There wouldn’t be a bigger laughingstock on national television than me…
“Great. Then we’ll evaluate you twice as strictly,” the judge playfully threatened.
Yijun just flashed another shy smile in response.
“Oh my, look at his expression. How is he so cute?”
With that final, highly biased comment out of the way, the judges set down their microphones. Yijun stepped into the dead center of the stage and took a deep breath. A heartbeat later, the stage lights shifted, and the instrumental track for his audition piece began to echo through the studio.
In a flash, the look in his eyes completely shifted. The timid boy was gone, replaced by someone who had been ravenously waiting for this exact moment for a very long time.
His bashful demeanor vanished like a cheap illusion. Yijun commanded the stage with the sheer magnetism and skill of a veteran performer with twenty years of experience. Not only were his pitch and rhythm razor-sharp, but his gaze was fiercely intense, burning with an almost venomous drive.
The lie hidden within the word eternity
People despairing at the end of the gray darkness
In stark contrast to the dramatic lyrics, which sounded like they’d been penned by an edgy middle schooler deep in their late-night angst, Yijun’s voice was flawlessly, crystal clear. It wasn’t a heavy, soulful belt, but rather a soft, pristine vocal that had become a rarity these days. It was undeniably gorgeous. The tone suited him perfectly.
“How crazy. He’s actually singing this song?”
“Isn’t this an Xcatcher song?”
“Wow, shit. If it were me, I’d never have the balls to sing this in front of Jo Youngwoong.”
The track Yijun had chosen was one of Xcatcher’s flagship promotional songs: a track titled ‘Dawn’, released a whopping fifteen years ago.
“It’s a completely unprecedented song choice…”
It certainly wasn’t the kind of song a trainee readily picked for an idol survival show. With an endless supply of trendy, modern hits available, very few possessed the sheer audacity to dust off a track from a decade and a half ago.
“But he’s so incredibly good.”
If my regression had happened even a month or two earlier, giving me the chance to choose my own audition piece, I would have absolutely opted for a safe, upbeat pop track. It would be trendy, sound impressive even to untrained ears, require far less intense choreography, and allow me to show off my vocals to my heart’s content.
In a situation like Yijun’s, a solo track would have been the infinitely smarter play. Performing a song meant for multiple members all by yourself required more than double the stamina and breath control, after all. Above all else, I would have avoided high-energy boy group songs at all costs. Even if executed well, you merely broke even. The skill gap between polished professionals and raw amateurs was always so glaring that it ultimately just felt like watching a cheap cover performance.
But Yijun was different. He didn’t need anything as trivial as a ‘strategy’ in the first place. When you already command an army of tens of thousands with a fleet of heavy tanks, why bother getting a headache strategizing against a few hundred foot soldiers?
Make rain with tears
Throw you into the dark clouds
It was a continuous string of overly dramatic, meaningless lyrics, but none of that even registered with the audience. He was simply perfect. So much so that the word ‘perfect’ felt like a massive understatement.
Despite executing incredibly dynamic choreography, his pitch didn’t waver a single fraction of an inch, and his facial expressions were expertly controlled from start to finish. Just like in my past life, it was an absolute certainty that this performance would go down as the legendary viral video that single-handedly drove the early hype for the show.
[PICK! YOUR FANTASY/Episode 1] Miracle’s ‘Sung Yijun’ ♬Dawn — Xcatcher @Level Test
The memory of that video, which surpassed ten million views based on pure, unadulterated talent alone, and the endless stream of fawning comments beneath it naturally flooded my mind.
‘How is he still a trainee with these skills?’ ‘He could debut as a soloist right now, why even bother coming on an idol audition show?’ ‘Why on earth did DGN Entertainment miss out on a talent like this?’ Those same sentiments were echoed in countless foreign languages as well.
Most trainees chose songs that were mainstream, or ones that comfortably showcased their vocal or dance abilities, or at the absolute very least, made them look cool.
‘Dawn’ fit into absolutely none of those categories. First of all, the track was wildly experimental, not mainstream. Its genre was vaguely defined, and the melody violently shifted several times throughout its runtime. I’d heard it received highly polarizing reviews from music critics upon release. Honestly, it sounded like they’d taken three completely different tracks and mashed them together haphazardly.
It wasn’t a song that let you get away with showing off merely ‘adequate’ skills, either. Practically speaking, the track was nothing short of a high-octane talent showpiece tailored specifically for the members of Xcatcher. After burning through a punishing, all-out dance break, the singer had to immediately transition into an impossibly demanding high note. Pulling that off all by yourself didn’t just require talent—it bordered on being a physical acrobatic stunt.
Since the track threw every melody imaginable into a blender, it naturally strayed far from anything conventionally “cool.” Sure, it was obviously a massive hit back in the day since it was the title track of a top-tier idol group, but now it was little more than a relic of a bygone era. At best, it might occasionally surface on a guilty pleasure playlist, but that was about it.
Still, if a singer actually had the vocal chops to back it up, there was no better song choice to show off their skills. Xcatcher was a group that had ushered in a new horizon for the second generation of idols, creating a sensation through sheer talent alone. So, simply by pulling off their song flawlessly, Sung Yijun had already proven a great deal.
<center>I can no longer see our future…</center>
He executed the final measure, and the agonizingly difficult high note that came with it, to absolute perfection. Perhaps stunned by how he pushed through the sequence entirely in the original key without a single voice crack, the studio grew so silent that, for a moment, even the sound of breathing seemed to vanish.
