‘What is F class’s strength?’After yesterday’s F-class disaster, I looked at the suddenly sunken mood in the practice room and thought.If you’re good at both singing and dancing, you’d have gone to A or B class, and if you’re good at even one of the two, you’d have gone to C or D.Coming to F class basically means a contestant who’s lacking in both singing and dancing; I wondered if even an F class like this could have a strength, but unexpectedly, there was one.‘At least in visuals, we don’t lose to the other classes—no, we might even be better, right?’If you think about it, the very fact that someone became an idol trainee means there was at least one standout point; if you subtract singing and dancing, what’s left?Visuals.Despite their miserable singing and dancing skills, the F-class contestants had the advantage of being selected as trainees in the first place because their looks were fundamentally outstanding.“Yunkyung.”“Yes, unni.”Just looking at Yunkyung, who scampered to my side when I called her name, the face was extremely cute.By looks alone, she stood out among the 100 contestants, hands down.“In your view, if we keep going like this, what happens to us?”“We’ll get scolded by the judges at the mid-check and stay right here in F class, won’t we?”Ho.An analytical coolness unbelievable for fifteen.“You think so too?”“Yes. I’m one hundred percent sure.”After Judge Hyeryeong’s sharp criticism yesterday, it was very noticeable that the mentality of Lee Gahyeon, who was serving as F-class leader, had collapsed.And Gahyeon’s collapse wasn’t just an individual problem; it affected all of F class.At least yesterday there had been zeal to gather around Gahyeon and try to practice; today, somehow everyone was in a state of giving up.‘Right now your choreo as a group isn’t matching at all. It’d be good to watch what A class is doing and take reference.’During the dance training in the morning.Judge Lee Jungyoon watched the stage F class had prepared, sighed, and led all of F class to the A-class practice room.And the stage A class, which must have practiced for the same amount of time as us, showed was—‘A different dimension.’Even to me, a layperson in singing and dance, the difference from our stage was incomparable.In particular, among A class’s contestants, the presence of Ryu Ayeon, who took the center of the formation with confidence, was enormous.With Ryu Ayeon in the center of the formation, the rest of A class naturally showed a unity as if one person was performing the stage centered around Ryu Ayeon.“Haa…”And that A-class stage seemed to have planted despair in the F-class contestants.After returning from the A-class observation, the practice room was full of the contestants’ sighs.Judge Lee Jungyoon’s thought was probably that seeing A class’s highly complete stage would spur us on,‘But the gap has to be within some range for you to even think of catching up.’If you show a brand-new player of Legend of Valley a pro gamer’s play video and tell them to copy it, rather than motivation you get quitting the game; from the start, it felt like they’d shown a wall that was too high.“How are the others?”“No one wants to do it. After watching Gahyeon unni get scolded so hard yesterday and today, who would want to stand center?”Shaking the head, Yunkyung answered my question.Struck groggy by the judges’ fact-bombs, Lee Gahyeon.Seeing that made me feel sorry, but at this rate, the entire F class was going to sink as-is.So I had asked Yunkyung to go sound out the other contestants to see if anyone might want to take center.Maybe everyone was terrified—no one volunteered to take center.“Do you know number 70, Kim Nayeon?”“Nayeon unni? I didn’t know before either, but we talked a bit while practicing together yesterday.”Indeed, fifteen-year-old social skill was astonishing.I still wasn’t on friendly terms with anyone besides Yunkyung, but Yunkyung had acquaintances with everyone I asked about.In truth, the only people I “fit with” in F class were Yunkyung—and among my roommates, Suyeon, Nara, and Jihae.“That’s on you, unni.”“On me?”When I told Yunkyung my doubt about why I wasn’t getting friendly with others, she answered like I’d asked something obvious.“Unni, try smiling.”Siiik.At Yunkyung’s sudden instruction to smile, I lifted my lip corners and showed a smile.“See? I know this is what you do when you smile, so that’s a relief, but if someone who doesn’t know looks at it, no matter how you look at it, it reads as looking down on them, you know?”“What?!”A shocking remark that my smile looked like a sneer.But Yunkyung didn’t stop there and kept grilling me.“Especially you, unni—don’t look into people’s eyes carelessly.”“Why?”“When your eyes meet theirs, they start thinking they did something wrong, I’m telling you?”This was slander for sure.Back in my company commander days, the company members lauded my gaze as a fatherly look full of affection.It had to be that Yunkyung was young and lacked the eye for people.“But why are you suddenly asking about Nayeon unni?”“Mm… Yunkyung, do you know Liu Bei?”“What’s a Liu Bei?”Ah.I couldn’t help raising a hand to my temple.Why don’t the youth these days read the Three Kingdoms?I didn’t even hope for reading the novel.But that peerless masterpiece exists as a comic, a game, a drama, and a film—how can someone not know it.Once again, I had no choice but to doubt Yunkyung’s discernment.“Anyway, there was this person in China named Liu Bei.”“Ah… okay.”“That person, Liu Bei, was an emperor, and when he was about to die, he tried to pass his position to a subordinate named Zhuge Liang, not to his own child.”“Eh? Why?”“Because the child was too incompetent.”Liu Bei chose Zhuge Liang as the one to lead Shu after his death, but unfortunately, Zhuge Liang, whose loyalty was deep, couldn’t bring himself to take the emperor’s seat in place of his lord’s son.“And then the state of Shu fell.”“Wow… that Liu Bei must have felt wronged.”“What lesson did you get from this story?”“Mm… follow orders well?”I shook my head at Yunkyung’s answer.That wasn’t the right answer.“To keep a country from falling, you have to pick the leader well.”“I guess that could be true. Wait—why is this story going in a weird direction?”“Yunkyung, it seems you can’t feel this new wind right now.”With my back to Yunkyung, I looked around the practice room.Contestants with hopeless expressions, heads buried in the practice room floor.Amid such contestants, F class’s leader, Lee Gahyeon, who had lost trust and was in despair.‘The southeast wind is blowing.’Romance.As a soldier, it’s something you should never do, but since I’m not in soldier status, the time had come for me to realize my romance.Time to begin the F-class coup, starting now.***Operation Name: Seventh Republic.A coup project to replace F class’s leader from Lee Gahyeon to Kim Nayeon.‘Wei Yan, so you tried to do this fun thing all by yourself!’My heart was already thumping at the thought of launching a legal /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ coup.If it succeeds, revolution! If it fails, can’t I just go home?“But why Nayeon unni, of all people?”“That kid is the best among our F class.”“Really? Uh… during practice, I didn’t notice much.”Yunkyung’s question was fair.Honestly, I hadn’t paid particular attention to Nayeon until yesterday either.But—“I saw her practicing alone in the practice room at dawn today, and that kid is really good.”“You went to the practice room at dawn?”“If you’re bad, you practice.”At the fact that I went out for extra practice at dawn, Yunkyung made a surprised face.Of course, practicing alone at dawn wasn’t for some grand reason like wanting to debut as an idol.It was just—‘Because F grade is humiliating.’Having lived life twice, in my own way I could evaluate myself somewhat objectively.Fundamentally lazy, with a modest amount of greed, and extremely vulnerable to pleasure—that was me.But since I also seem to have a personality that hates being looked down on, it’s not my style to stand out for being bad, even if I don’t stand out for being good.The middle.At minimum, I had to hit the middle.And—‘It was cool, yeah.’The stage shown by the skilled dancers led by Judge Lee Jungyoon in the auditorium was cool.It was just dancing and singing, and yet why did it make me unable to take my eyes off it?In particular, the stage shown by Ryu Ayeon—who is now acting as A-class leader—at the Entrance Ceremony still pops into my mind from time to time.Watching the figure singing as if filling that wide stage alone while striding around, I even imagined myself standing there in Ryu Ayeon’s place in my head.And for some reason, just conjuring up that image gave me tremendous pleasure.To the level of the pleasure I felt when I watched the ending of the drama Kongming Three Kingdoms, or when I super-carried my team in a crisis in Legend of Valley.For the reasons above, last night I couldn’t sleep, and before I knew it my feet had carried me to the practice room.‘Sion, you haven’t separately learned singing or dance, right?’‘Yes.’‘I think you have talent. You still have to learn more dance, but as for vocal, if you polish it just a bit more, you might be able to use it right away.’Before leaving after finishing the F-class evaluation, Judge Hyeryeong, who was in charge of vocal training, told me she could see vocal aptitude and separately taught me practice methods.I was planning to practice that and re-run the choreo, but there was a prior visitor who had arrived before me in the practice room.“Haa…”One contestant, dancing while letting out rough breaths.‘Kim Nayeon? Why is that kid…’Separate from still being awkward with F-class contestants, I’d long since memorized faces and names.Back in my company commander days, I memorized the names of over a hundred company members in two days; for me, memorizing the faces and names of just nineteen classmates was a piece of cake.What surprised me was the skill Kim Nayeon was showing.‘What is this—no difference from the A-class members… no, seems even better?’Of course I’m no expert, so I can’t gauge exact skill, but through the stages I’ve seen while participating in this Idol Ground 100, I’ve become able to tell at least “good vs. bad.”Right now, Nayeon’s skill—dancing in the middle of the practice room while singing the highlight of “Spotlight”—was beyond comparison with the other F-class contestants.I clearly remember Nayeon not having this level when we practiced together—‘If this level had been shown during practice—no, at the Entrance Ceremony stage—it would have been A grade without question.’At that, Nayeon’s Entrance Ceremony stage came to mind.Among the 100 contestants’ Entrance Ceremony stages, to be honest, unless a stage was done well it was hard to remember, but the reason Nayeon’s stage came back to me was—‘That kid cracked the note and then froze up on the spot, right?’Because it was bad in the opposite extreme.Having gone off-pitch from the very first line on stage, even though the music kept playing, Nayeon stopped in that moment and stood rigid as if turned to ice.There were many contestants who did poorly, but the one who got that nervous to that extent was only Kim Nayeon.And seeing Nayeon now, immersed in practice as if to resolve that pent-up regret from then—The current Operation Seventh Republic came to mind.Our F class lacked skill, but objectively the visuals were not bad.What if a skilled person emerged who could stand at the center of the formation and lead our F class?This was definitely a gamble with potential.

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