"Music!" Seo-jun barked.
Nobody moved.
"Right," Seo-jun muttered, rubbing his temples. "I broke the speaker."
He pulled out his smartphone and connected it to the room's Bluetooth. A generic, high-tempo pop track began to play—tinny and quiet compared to the massive speakers, but it would have to do.
"Formation A. Woo-jin center. Eun-kyul right. Yul left. I'll take the back."
The three trainees shuffled into position. They looked less like an idol group and more like hostages at gunpoint.
"Wait," Seo-jun said, stepping forward. His eyes zoomed in on the back of Woo-jin's head.
He reached out and pinched a strand of the thug's bleached blonde hair. It crunched between his fingers like dry hay.
"This texture," Seo-jun grimaced. "Did you bleach this yourself? With what? Toilet cleaner?"
Woo-jin slapped his hand away. "Kitchen bleach. Hair salons are expensive, okay? What do you care?"
"I care because split ends lower the visual resolution," Seo-jun sighed, wiping his hand on his tracksuit. "It looks like a bird's nest made of straw. And Yul..."
He turned to the trembling boy. Yul's ash-brown hair was soft, but the dye job was patchy near the roots. "Box dye. On sale at the convenience store?"
Yul nodded, staring at his shoes.
Seo-jun clicked his tongue. Then he looked at Cha Eun-kyul. The chaebol's midnight-blue hair was silky, hydrated, and smelled of expensive argan oil.
"Of course," Seo-jun muttered. "The rich kid has hair that costs more than this building."
He subconsciously touched his own platinum silver hair. It felt dry and brittle. The previous owner of this body had clearly fried it with cheap chemicals trying to look like a star.
'First investment after debut,' Seo-jun noted mentally. 'Protein treatments for everyone. If their hair falls out, I can't sell shampoo commercials.'
"Forget the hair for now," Seo-jun commanded. "If you dance well enough, the motion blur will hide the split ends. From the top! Five, six, seven, eight!"
The practice began.
And it was a disaster.
Woo-jin moved with incredible power, his limbs snapping into place with violent precision. The problem was, he was too fast. He was dancing a solo while the others were struggling to keep up.
Eun-kyul was the opposite. He had perfect technique—likely from expensive private lessons—but he had zero energy. He marked the moves lazily, like a prince who refused to sweat.
And Lee Yul... Lee Yul was facing the back wall, mumbling the lyrics so quietly that even a bat wouldn't hear him.
"Stop!" Seo-jun cut the music.
He walked over to Lee Yul first.
"Yul. Are you singing or praying?"
"I... I can't..." Yul hyperventilated, clutching his chest. "If I look at the mirror... I see myself... and I feel like everyone is watching..."
"So the problem is visual input," Seo-jun diagnosed coldly.
He looked around the trash-filled room. He spotted a brown paper bag from a delivery meal the CEO had eaten earlier. It smelled faintly of fried chicken.
Seo-jun grabbed it, poked two holes in it with his finger, and walked back to Yul.
"Put this on."
"W-What?"
"Wear it."
Yul hesitated, then slowly pulled the grease-stained paper bag over his head.
"Now," Seo-jun said. "You are no longer Lee Yul, the anxiety-riddled human. You are a singing paper bag. The bag has no fear. The bag has no shame. Sing the chorus. Now."
Yul stood there, looking ridiculous with a chicken bag on his head. But in the darkness of the bag, his breathing slowed. He couldn't see the mirror. He couldn't see Seo-jun's terrifying eyes.
He opened his mouth.
A high, crystalline note pierced the air. It was flawless. It resonated through the basement, pure and powerful.
Woo-jin dropped his jaw. Eun-kyul looked up from his nails, genuinely surprised.
"Good," Seo-jun said, checking his imaginary watch. "The bag stays on until the survival show starts."
He turned to the other two.
"Woo-jin. You're dancing like you're in a street fight. This is a group. If you stick out, you ruin the symmetry."
"That's just my style," Woo-jin grunted.
"It's inefficient," Seo-jun countered. "And Eun-kyul. You're dancing like you're bored. I know you're rich, but right now, your body is my property."
Seo-jun grabbed a roll of duct tape from the floor.
"Eun-kyul, stand next to Woo-jin."
"Why?" the rich boy asked, suspicious.
"Just do it."
Seo-jun taped Eun-kyul's right wrist to Woo-jin's left wrist.
"What the hell is this?!" Woo-jin shouted, trying to pull away.
"Bondage?" Eun-kyul looked horrified.
"Synchronization therapy," Seo-jun smiled thinly. "Woo-jin, if you move too fast, you'll drag Eun-kyul and dislocate his shoulder. That's a lawsuit."
He looked at Eun-kyul.
"And Eun-kyul, if you move too slow, Woo-jin will basically drag you across the floor like a ragdoll. That will ruin your silk shirt."
Seo-jun walked back to the phone.
"You have two options: Match each other's speed, or suffer physical pain. I recommend the first one. Music start."
[System Alert]
Host creates [Hell Training System]. Creativity: SSS
Ethics: F
The System is taking notes.
For the next 48 hours, the basement became a torture chamber.
Yul sang blindly inside his paper bag, sounding like a muffled angel.
Woo-jin and Eun-kyul stumbled, cursed, and yanked each other around until, slowly, out of sheer self-preservation, they found a rhythm. Woo-jin slowed down. Eun-kyul sped up.
They hated it. They hated each other.
But most of all, they hated the silver-haired devil watching them with cold, dead eyes, calculating their market value every time they sweated.
[Time Remaining: 00:00:00]
The morning of the survival show arrived.
A black van—rented by CEO Park using his credit card limit—pulled up to the massive glass building of the Broadcast Station.
The door opened.
Han Seo-jun stepped out first. His silver hair was perfectly styled (hiding the damage), his face was a mask of icy perfection.
Behind him, three boys stumbled out. They looked exhausted. They had dark circles under their eyes. They looked like they had been through a war.
"Head up," Seo-jun hissed, smiling for the cameras waiting by the entrance. "Look desperate. Look tragic. But look expensive."
"I want to go home," Eun-kyul whispered, adjusting his jacket.
"I'm gonna throw up," Yul mumbled, clutching his stomach (thankfully, the paper bag was off, but his bangs still covered his eyes).
"I need a smoke," Woo-jin groaned.
"Smile," Seo-jun ordered through gritted teeth as the flashes started to pop.
[System Mission Start]
Location: Project StarPick Studio.
Current Rank: 99/100.
Objective: Survive the First Evaluation.
Seo-jun led his broken team toward the entrance.
He looked at the giant logo of the show.
'Project StarPick...' Do-hyun thought. 'In my last life, I owned the company that produced this show. I know exactly how rigged it is.'
He adjusted his collar.
'Time to rig it in my favor.'