"...."
"...."
None of us could easily open our mouths—we only stared at each other's faces.
It had barely been twenty minutes since the team was formed, yet compared to the other teams, the atmosphere of ours was already bleak and dried-up.
And of course it was, because every single one of us could already sense the hellish group assignment that awaited us.
'…How did things end up like this?'
I let out a deep sigh. The atmosphere, which had felt fairly warm and friendly at first with everyone saying we should do well, suddenly went askew when it came time to choose the composition and creation fields.
"Let's all do our best!"
"Team, fighting!!"
"Let's take first place and grab those benefit votes!"
Up to the early stage, the team atmosphere wasn't bad. After all, the balance of the final lineup wasn't too terrible.
'Two A-grades, two B-grades, and one each from C-grade, D-grade, and F-grade.'
We had trainees from every class, but overall I expected our team's skill level to be a bit more stable than most others.
Naturally so—Joo Dan-woo, despite being in D-class, had earned the role of vocal leader and was skilled enough to have received praise from Cha Mina, and the F-grade trainee had only dropped because of a mistake during the re-evaluation; their original grade had been B.
On top of that—
"Woooaaah!""Waaahhhh!! Dan-woo hyung, you're the best!"
Joo Dan-woo, who stepped up as our representative for the running battle that determined song-choice order, showed unexpected athletic ability and secured second place.
Since fourteen teams had to divide up seven songs, the earlier you got to pick, the better. And with Dan-woo taking second place, we could comfortably think about which song we wanted without worry.
In other words, in every aspect, we began in a rather favorable position.
Above all, the presence of Aiden Lee—who had received praise even from the experts during individual evaluation—made everyone feel rich with confidence.
He had shown arrangement skills of a high level, and his vocals and dance were both rock-solid, befitting an A-class. He wasn't just the ace of our team; he was the ace of
Maybe that's why the team members were already grinning like we'd won the group battle before it began.
At least, until the very person they were openly relying on, Aiden Lee, dropped his bombshell.
"I want to do composition, lyrics, and choreography. All of them."
"Huh?"
"Mm?"
I couldn't hide my surprise either—because what he said really was a bomb.
'…Where is this guy getting that confidence?'
Whether or not we stared at him with faces stuck between confusion and horror, Aiden Lee's expression remained innocent—as if wondering what the problem was.
"If each field gives a thousand benefit votes, wouldn't picking all three give us three thousand? Isn't it better to do all of them?"
"N-no, Aiden, that's true, but..."
Park Won-hyo, a B-class trainee, scratched his head with an awkward expression. He looked like he never imagined Aiden Lee would say something like this.
"Why? You don't want to?"
"No, it's not that we don't want to..."
"Then you do want to?"
"N-no, that's not it either..."
"Hmm?"
Aiden Lee tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. At his reaction, we all shut our mouths again.
It felt like… the road to hardship was unfolding in real time right before our eyes.
'…Ha.'
Among the silent team members, I raised a hand to my throbbing forehead. Even as we glanced nervously at one another, Aiden Lee seemed unaware why the rest of us were hesitating so long.
And of course, his idea wasn't wrong. The more parts we took on, the more benefit votes we could get.
"B-but even if we say we'll take all three… we only have one week to finish all the creation tasks. What if we run out of time?"
But that only applied if we won.
"If we go on stage without doing at least one thing perfectly, that alone is a minus. If we lose, the benefits won't matter."
"I agree with Tae-young. Wouldn't it be better to pick just one thing and focus on it? If we get greedy and mess everything up… I'm already in F-class, so if we flop, I might get eliminated after the first mission."
Breaking the long silence, B-class Kim Tae-young and F-class Hwang Young-oh spoke up first. They seemed wary of upsetting Aiden—the key member and the popular one—but determined to speak their minds.
I agreed with them. Like they said, this was the time to choose what to take on and what to give up. That's where the trap of this mission lay.
'Choosing tasks beyond our ability just because of the benefits is a bad move.'
But choosing too conservatively wasn't good either. It was a chance to show our abilities to viewers, and also a chance to lose multiple benefit votes at once.
Take the risk for greater reward, or choose the safe route and focus entirely on one field—those were the two choices all trainees were facing.
We were no different, and at the moment, most of our team seemed to favor the latter.
But Aiden Lee seemed unwilling to back down.
"Hyungs, are you not confident?"
"Huh?"
"Didn't we all join
"...."
His tone wasn't accusatory. It was calm and matter-of-fact, like he was genuinely asking a question. Tae-young and Young-oh, who had spoken up, ended up closing their mouths.
Riding on that silence, Aiden continued lightly:
"I can handle the arrangement. And I thought the rest of you could take lyrics and choreography. You're good dancers, so you could handle choreography, and Dan-woo hyung raps while Yu-ha is a good singer—they could try lyrics."
Then he naturally turned to look at Zixuan, who had silently stayed out of the conversation.
"You must have something you can do too, right? Isn't that why Dan-woo hyung brought you?"
Zixuan blinked rapidly in embarrassment. Having joined the team because Dan-woo picked him, he had been quietly watching everyone, unable to voice any opinion.
"Uh? Ah...."
At Aiden Lee's question, Zixuan looked flustered for a moment, then his eyes shifted from Joo Dan-woo to me, as if asking for help.
Joo Dan-woo's face had gone stiff like he didn't know what to do, but I gave Zixuan a small shake of my head. It meant: Don't feel pressured—just do what you want.
'There's no reason to get dragged along by whatever Aiden wants.'
In the end, this was a group mission. Whatever we chose, the right thing to do was to share opinions and decide by majority.
That was the meaning behind my gesture—but upon looking at me, Zixuan wore a deeply conflicted expression for a brief moment and then—
"…I—I can do it! I can choreograph. I tried creating something during the monthly evaluation."
With a determined expression—as if he had just made up his mind—he nodded firmly, volunteering to take part in the creative evaluation as well.
"See? He can do it. That means you hyungs can do it too, right?"
Looking thrilled, Aiden Lee grinned and turned his gaze back to Park Won-hyo, Kim Tae-young, and Hwang Young-oh. The three flinched as his eyes fell on them again, and Aiden pressed once more with emphasis:
"You can't do it?"
"Huh?"
"You won't do it?"
At that, the three glanced between Aiden and the cameras positioned around us.
Under these circumstances, what they had to say was obvious.
"…N-no!"
"No, of course we can! Who says we can't?"
"Y-yeah! We can do it!"
The three trainees ended up nodding, swallowing their pride. Because Aiden had swept up the mood so effortlessly, they eventually folded. And they were probably afraid of looking timid on camera too.
The next people Aiden looked at were me and Joo Dan-woo.
"Yu-ha and hyung are okay too, right?"
"…I'll do my best!"
"…Do whatever you want."
Joo Dan-woo, too, seemed swept up by Aiden's momentum and found himself adopting a challenger's spirit. In the end, I nodded as well.
Aiden Lee had won completely.
After choosing our creative fields, the next step was picking the song for the group battle. First up was Do Ji-hyuk and Cheon Se-rim's team. Without much discussion, they took a sexy-concept boy group track.
Then it was our team's turn.
"Team 2, have you chosen your song?"
Accepting the mic from the MC, Aiden Lee scanned the signs listing the songs. Then his gaze stopped on one of them.
"I want to do Lumière sunbaenim's song."
Another bombshell.
"Huh?"
"Lu–Lumière?"
…He wanted to throw away our hard-earned early pick and choose a girl group song instead of a boy group song.
'Is this guy serious?'
I stared blankly at Aiden Lee's face, which, if anything, looked almost innocent in its confusion.
In a survival show meant to debut a boy group, using a girl group track for the group evaluation was practically a penalty.
Different gender meant different vocal range, different key, and the concepts were worlds apart. So male trainees usually avoided girl group songs for evaluations.
Obviously. Who wanted to take unnecessary risks? Boy group tracks allowed you to keep the key and concept mostly intact with only light modifications, so most
I was the same. I had assumed Aiden would choose a boy group track. Never did I imagine he'd blindside us like this.
"Team 2, is something wrong? Have you made your choice?"
Sensing our agitation, the MC urged us, looking very amused. Aiden leaned toward us and whispered quietly:
"Do you trust me?"
…Would we?
As we stared back at him with stiff, uncertain expressions, Aiden grinned widely.
"Okay, okay. I get it. You don't trust me yet. But trust me just once. I'm good."
"…I know you're good."
I finally spoke. I had intended to stay quiet, but no one was stopping him, and Aiden's reckless momentum was only getting worse.
Earlier, everyone had been swept up by his energy (and probably the temptation of benefit votes too), but for the song choice at least, we needed a real reason.
I couldn't just let everyone crash and burn because of one trainee's impulse.
'…Even if my goal is to get eliminated early.'
But that was my goal.
Many trainees here saw
"...."
Like Joo Dan-woo.
'…He personally asked me to do the stage with him. It'd be bad if this team collapses.'
Glancing briefly at the cameras, I kept my face neutral and adjusted my tone to sound like I was promoting a productive discussion, not picking a fight.
"Tell us what you're planning. We don't know what picture you're trying to draw. If you don't explain it, we're just going to stay anxious."
"Ah, hmm. I get it."
Aiden nodded readily. He seemed to accept that he hadn't explained enough.
"Well, my plan is—"
But once he started to speak, he seemed unsure how to begin, pausing.
Then, as if the answer finally came to him, his expression brightened and he pointed directly at me.
"To make Yu-ha the main vocal."
"…What?"
The final bomb dropped.