The morning of the showcase arrived, grey and heavy with unspoken pressure. The phone call from Ji-ho's mother echoed in Yoo-jin's mind, a constant, chilling reminder of the true stakes.
Failure wasn't just an option; it was a death sentence.
He walked into the broadcast station's waiting room, a small, windowless box assigned to them, and found his team in a state of controlled chaos. Eun-bi was pacing nervously, muttering lyric cues under her breath. Min-hyuk stood guard by the door like a stone gargoyle, glaring at anyone who dared to walk past. Ji-ho was huddled in a corner with a laptop, making last-minute adjustments to the sound levels, his face pale with a mixture of artistic focus and sheer terror.
And in the center of it all sat Mina.
She was in front of a brightly lit makeup mirror, a whirlwind of stylists and makeup artists buzzing around her. She was staring at her own reflection, her expression unnervingly calm. The frantic energy of the room didn't seem to touch her.
Yoo-jin walked over, his own heart pounding a nervous rhythm. "How are you feeling?"
Mina met his eyes in the mirror. "Quiet," she said, her voice a soft murmur. "It feels like the moment right before a storm."
He checked her stats. The numbers were unlike anything he had ever seen before.
[Anxiety: 50%]
[Confidence: 50%]
[Synchronization with 'Monster': 99%]
[Status: Perfectly Balanced]
She wasn't afraid, and she wasn't arrogant. She was perfectly, terrifyingly centered. She was ready.
A sharp, arrogant voice cut through the room. "Well, well. Look at the little charity case, all dressed up for her execution."
They all turned. Lee Hana was leaning against the doorframe, already in her own stage outfit from a previous recording. Standing beside her was Isabelle Moon, the S-Rank leader of Aurora.
Isabelle was even more intimidating in person. She was tall, flawlessly beautiful, and radiated an aura of effortless, expensive superiority. She looked at Mina not as a rival, but as an insect.
"So this is her," Isabelle said, her voice smooth and dismissive. "The girl from the grainy video. You've certainly caused a lot of trouble for someone with so little experience."
Mina didn't say a word. She just continued to look at Isabelle's reflection in the mirror, her expression unchanging.
Isabelle's smile tightened. She had expected fear, or anger. Mina's unnerving calm was getting under her skin.
"A piece of advice," Isabelle said, her voice turning sharp. "A whisper can be interesting for a moment. But on a real stage, in front of a real audience, you need a voice that can roar. And a whisper can't compete with a thunderstorm."
She and Hana turned and walked away, their laughter echoing down the hallway.
Two hours later, it was time.
Yoo-jin stood in the wings, his hands clenched into fists, watching Aurora's performance on the monitor.
It was breathtaking. It was perfect.
Their dancing was so synchronized they looked like a single entity. Their vocals were crisp and powerful. The stage exploded with lights, smoke, and perfectly timed pyrotechnics. It was a display of overwhelming corporate power, a performance polished to such a high sheen that it was blinding.
The crowd was going wild, the sound of their cheering a physical force that shook the entire backstage area.
When they hit their final chorus, Yoo-jin watched the monitor like a hawk. Just as Hana's note had predicted, a massive burst of fireworks erupted from the front of the stage, completely obscuring the group for a few seconds. And Isabelle's voice on the broadcast was just a little too perfect, too clear for someone executing such a powerful dance move. She was lip-syncing.
Their one, tiny, invisible flaw.
Aurora struck their final pose, and the arena erupted. The performance was a massive, undeniable success.
Backstage, a staffer with a headset yelled at Yoo-jin. "Two minutes! Get her ready!"
Yoo-jin turned to his team. Eun-bi was pale, Min-hyuk was grim-faced, and Ji-ho looked like he was about to be sick. They had all just witnessed the performance of a monster.
He walked over to Mina, who was standing in the darkness of the wings, ready to go on.
"You saw that," he said, his voice low.
"Yes," she whispered.
"They were perfect," he stated.
"Yes," she agreed.
He looked her straight in the eye. "Don't be perfect, Mina. Be real."
She gave him a small, fierce nod.
The MC's voice boomed through the stadium. "And now, making her highly anticipated official debut, please give a massive welcome to CHOI MINA!"
Mina walked out onto the stage, a lone, small figure in a simple, dark outfit. The contrast with Aurora's dazzling, glittering spectacle was immediate and stark.
The stage was dark. A few nervous, excited screams rippled through the audience. Then, silence.
The dark, pulsing, predatory heartbeat of "Monster" began to throb through the massive speakers. A single, blood-red spotlight snapped on, illuminating Mina in the center of the stage.
She wasn't looking at the audience. Her head was bowed, her hair falling over her face. She looked like a broken doll.
Then she lifted her head, and the camera zoomed in on her face, projecting it onto the massive screens. Her eyes were lined with dark makeup, and her expression was not one of sadness or fear. It was a cold, furious glare.
She began to sing, and the voice that filled the arena was not the sweet, angelic whisper from her leaked video. It was a snarl. A wounded, angry, defiant sound that clawed its way into the hearts of everyone listening.
She began to dance. Her movements were sharp, aggressive, and filled with a raw, desperate power. It wasn't the synchronized perfection of Aurora. It was a story. A fight.
The audience was stunned into a confused, intrigued silence. This wasn't the fragile ballad singer they had been expecting. This was someone else entirely.
She hit the final chorus, the one where Aurora had used their fireworks to hide their flaw.
"You created me, now you're scared of me, you point your finger and call me a monster!"
There were no fireworks. No special effects. There was just Mina, in the center of the stage, her voice raw with rage, her eyes burning with a fire that seemed to consume the entire arena. She held the final, impossibly high note for a full ten seconds, a sustained scream of pure, unfiltered emotion that was both terrifying and beautiful.
It was a live, raw, and utterly undeniable display of vocal power. A direct, unspoken challenge to the lip-syncing perfection of her rival.
The song ended. The stage went black.
For a moment, there was only the sound of Mina's ragged breathing over the microphone.
Then, the arena exploded. It wasn't just cheering. It was a raw, primal roar of shock, of excitement, of people who had just witnessed something they had never seen before.
Backstage, Yoo-jin stared at the monitor, his own breath caught in his throat. In the wings, Isabelle Moon was watching the stage, her perfect, confident smile completely gone, replaced by a look of stone-cold disbelief.
He had done it. His monster had taken her first bite.