Chapter 35: Survival Entertainment Show - Unit (3)

"We've arrived. Let's get off here."

The moment the car door swung open, a camera deftly maneuvered inside, capturing a shot of me stepping out. I disembarked with a cumbersome suitcase in tow, squinting against the relentless sunlight.

"This place... is utterly isolated."

We were deep in the countryside, seemingly severed from the outside world. My manager had assured me that we would have cable TV at least. Yet, the lack of any stores nearby confirmed that it was practically the wild.

"I'm staying here for two full weeks, correct?"

"That's right! Make the most of your two weeks!" The camera director's voice was bright, a sharp contrast to my sinking spirits.

"I see." I half-resigned myself to the reality of living in such conditions and examined the lodging, which appeared reasonably tidy for such a remote location. With a strained smile, I posed my next question

"Just out of curiosity, how are we handling meals...?"

"You'll be cooking for yourselves! Don't worry, though. We'll ensure the fridge is always stocked!" The director's cheerfulness was almost too much, intensifying the impact of the news I feared most.

'This is a nightmare. Trainees cooking? Isn't it a given for trainees from any agency to subsist on black bean noodles delivered at their whim? How are we going to cook for ourselves?'

The part that I worried the most became reality.

"Hyun-Woo, you are here?"

"Ah! You gave me a fright!"

I had been so engrossed in conversation with the director that Ha-Yoon had successfully crept up on me, clearly aiming to catch me off guard. I then shot him a fake glare, and he responded with a mischievous chuckle, nudging me toward the house.

"You should head in now that you're here. I was curious since you were still outside."

"I was just getting a feel for the place," I said with ease. My camaraderie with Ji-Hyuk and the others from Street Center had been building up even before my arrival here, mostly through constant contact. This made our second in-person encounter feel unexpectedly comfortable.

After putting on a microphone, I entered the house. The team members who had arrived earlier were bustling around in the kitchen.

"Oh, Hyun-Woo, you are here? Did you know that we have to cook our own meals?"

"Yeah, I heard. Does anyone know how to cook?"

"What do you think? Haha."

"Ah, okay." I nodded at Woo-Jeong’s words immediately and then headed to the kitchen.

"Let's eat something to start our day," I said.

The fridge was well-stocked.

"There's meat. Should we grill some?" asked Woo Ji-Hyuk.

"Hey, Ji-Hyuk, grilling meat is nice, but I don’t think it's a good idea to eat in smoke on our first day."

"There’s ramen. Let's have ramen."

After a serious discussion, we decided to cook ramen. While waiting for the seven packets of ramen to cook in the large pot, Ji-Hyuk looked at me and made a shooting gesture.

"You haven't looked around the place yet, right? Go take a look and place your stuff in an empty room."

Woo-Jeong then added as he was cooking ramen, "We had assigned the rooms before you arrived. There’s only one empty room left. It’s your fault for being late."

"It’s fine. The empty room is on the second floor, right?"

"Yeah, it's in the middle of the second floor. Go ahead."

After leaving the kitchen, I took a good look around our temporary accommodation. It seemed to be an Airbnb, spacious and with a very neat interior. After a quick tour, I headed straight to the second floor with my luggage. "Wow, this is nice!"

Although the members said that it was a penalty for being late, the room was surprisingly well-furnished. It had large windows and seemed even better than our dorm. The sun shone brightly into the room, and it was all mine to use.

Feeling quite satisfied with my living space for the next two weeks, I started to unpack when a pungent smell suddenly wafted through the air. "...What is this?"

It was undoubtedly the smell of cigarettes. There was no way any of the team members would dare to smoke inside our camera-filled accommodation. I instinctively held my breath and opened the window to investigate.

'...This audacious guy.

'

Kim Jin-Wook was smoking behind the building. Such audacity.

‘Smoking itself would already be a problem for a trainee, but to do it during a shoot?’

I sighed deeply, watched him for a moment, and then leaned out of the window frame. I then took a deep breath and shouted, "Jin-Wook hyung! What are you doing over there!?"

Kim Jin-Wook was startled by my shout and looked around in surprise.

I yelled again, "Hyung, second floor!"

To an onlooker peering through the camera lens, my call to Kim Jin-Wook probably appeared like a joyous recognition of a friend. However, for Jin-Wook, the moment was fraught with anxiety. He was perilously close to being captured by the camera.

"I will come in soon," he said hastily, extinguishing his cigarette and dusting off his hands.

His discomfort was palpable, as if it radiated from the top of his head. I then grinned slyly and nodded.

"Come on in! We are making ramen right now!"

The reality was that we hadn't developed the kind of brotherly bond—the hyung-dongsaeng relationship—that the other members shared, nor had we been in regular contact.

Jin-Wook's face contorted after piecing together my intentions. I then dismissed his intense stare and closed the window indifferently.

After all, it was his fault for smoking there. No matter how many times I thought about it, it was clear that Kim Jin-Wook and I could never become close friends.

"Hyun-Woo, have you not finished unpacking yet?" Ha-Yoon entered the room, and his expression suddenly sourned.

He seemed to mistake the lingering smell of cigarettes for mine, so I quickly shook my head and pointed to the window behind me. I then mouthed “Kim Jin-Wook”

.

Just by mentioning his name, Ha-Yoon let out a deep sigh and nodded, seemingly aware that Kim Jin-Wook had smoked a few cigarettes here.

"The ramen is ready. Go ahead. I will call Jin-Wook."

"Just leave him. He said he would come in soon," I replied.

"Really? Well, okay then."

It seemed that Jin-Wook wasn't too eager to join us. With a quick nod, Ha-Yoon left the room.

Kim Jin-Wook, who had entered unnoticed, was helping to move dishes and shot me a glare in the kitchen. I then took my dish with a pleasant smile. "Hyung, when did you come in? I thought you'd hang out a bit more before coming in."

"...I came to eat ramen," he replied curtly.

The smell of perfume—not cigarettes—wafted from him. He seemed very displeased every time I called him “hyung.” However, it would be equally strange to address him as “Mr. Kim Jin-Wook”, given that our ages only differed by one year. So, I pretended not to notice.

"By the way, now that we are in the dorm, shouldn’t we start selecting our song?"

"Ah, I was just thinking the same thing. We click really well, right Ha-Yoon?" Ji-Hyuk commented, and Ha-Yoon stared at him as if he was annoyed.

"Ah, really, hyung! You always say we click, but no! Stop joking around."

"No, your reactions are just too funny," Ji-Hyuk chuckled.

He was a completely different kind of leader compared to Joo-Han. While Joo-Han was a trustworthy leader, respected and followed by the members, Ji-Hyuk enjoyed playing pranks and eliciting groans from his group members.

Nonetheless, when it came to discussing the stage, he became serious. "Alright, I'll stop joking now. Hmm, let’s put song selection aside for now and think about our concept first."

Concept... The concept had already been decided for the two previous competitions, so we only had to focus on song selection and performance. Now, determining the concept ourselves felt like a free yet unsettling battle of capabilities, with no framework to guide us.

As all of us remained silent, Ji-Hyuk broke the ice. "I was really impressed by Chronos's stage performance this time."

"Our stage?"

"Yeah. Both the vocals and the dance part were great, but I felt overwhelmed from the start just by looking at the number of performers."

I nodded in agreement. "Right. We tried our best to give off that overwhelming feeling. Since the theme was ‘king’, we thought it would be best to be as domineering as possible."

"Did that idea come from you too?"

"Not all of it. Only some parts. The choreography and use of props were ideas from the other members."

Ji-Hyuk looked impressed. "Wow, I see why Joo-Han trusts you so much."

“...Do you know Joo-Han hyung?”

"Not before this show. We just had a chat recently and found out we were quite similar."

In my mind, it didn't quite make sense as they seemed quite different, but I decided to let it slide for now.

"Anyway, I was thinking maybe we could go for a similar vibe this time."

Upon hearing Ji-Hyuk's suggestion, Woo-Jeong asked, "What kind? A king concept?"

"No, no. We can't do the exact same concept but something along those lines, something that can overwhelm the crowd with numbers. Let's all think about it."

‘Hmm, how can we surpass the grandeur of the king concept? Something both intimidating and well-coordinated... Maybe a military-themed synchronized choreography?’

"How about the military concept?"

"...Wow, that's great. Hyun-Woo. You are really smart. That's actually a brilliant idea."

Ji-Hyuk tried to cling to me, but I pushed him away with a stern face.

"Please, no. It's cheesy. Anyway, when I think of a large group, the military is the first thing that comes to my mind."

"I like the military idea, but personally, I'd also like to try a musical vibe. Last time, the Street Center concept seemed really fun. We wanted to try it out among ourselves," On-Sae added. While having a large number of people could be restrictive in terms of choreography, there were actually many things you could do with numbers when you thought about it.

"What about the opinion of the Street Center masters? What do you guys want to do? And what about you Jin-Wook?"

As Ji-Hyuk asked this question, the Street Center members clamped their mouths shut. It seemed that from the first meeting until now, there had been a consistent lack of participation from Kim Jin-Wook. And today, they seemed determined to get some sort of opinion from him.

"Right, Jin-Wook, don't you want to do anything?"

'Please, just say something, anything.'

That was the collective hope of all the members at this moment. Caught off guard, as he was fiddling with his ramen, Kim Jin-Wook put down his chopsticks.

"Uh..."

He seemed to contemplate for a while before he finally murmured, "Horror... would that be too strange?"

"Horror?"

Kim Jin-Wook nodded. "Just a random thought, don't mind it."

Kim Jin-Wook spoke curtly with a slightly annoyed tone and then picked up his chopsticks again. Just as the atmosphere was cooling down again...

"I think horror is a good idea."

"Right. How about we mix everything we've talked about so far?"

The duo from Street Center started to eagerly align their thoughts.

"So we mix military, musical, and horror together."

"We should include just enough acting from the members not to make it cringy and set the scene as well."

"What should we do? What does it sound like to you?"

As the Street Center duo exchanged ideas, something suddenly came to my mind. If we were talking about the military and horror... "How about zombies?" I asked.

Zombies.

I added, "Ah, of course, we can't be zombies. We have to be soldiers."

However, the dance would be synchronized to the zombies—grotesque, fast, and intense. Even so, the other members looked uncertain.

‘The concept of horror was fresh, the musical would be fun, and the military dance would look cool, but zombies?’

"Will that really work...?"

The enthusiastic Street Center duo suddenly sat back down. In my mind, it was a concept that worked really well, so I wondered why they were hesitating.

I looked at Ji-Hyuk, who seemed to have some expertise in stage planning, but even he looked unsure.

'Why? It is as good of a concept as the king, a real wild card. I've never seen a group with this concept get a bad response...'

And then it hit me. The zombie concept only started to become popular about two years after this. Oops, I was being anachronistic. I then hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should back off but then shook my head.

"Can we go with this concept just once? I guarantee it will get a good response."

"Really...?"

"Yes, I'm sure it will. I will make sure of it. I promise you won't regret it."

Everyone was hesitant about the zombie concept, but not because it was a bad idea. It just hadn’t been tried yet. Two years later, someone would finally give it a shot, and it would become a hit. There was no way this concept wouldn't work.