"Hup!"

"Ah!"

"How dare you use a technique you've already used once on the Haan-dong Sharingan? Your learning ability is lacking, Kim Yuri!"

"Keugh···."

Yuri, who had tried to dropkick me and failed, then tumbled straight onto the floor, glared up at me as if she was furious.

"Dame!"

And I looked down at Yuri with all my might while bringing the pudding in my hand into my mouth.

The beginning of the incident was the snacks the production team had prepared for us in the Idol Ground 100 waiting room.

-It really feels like we've debuted!

-Wow! There's a whole pile of coffee and snacks.

-What? These are all matched to our members' tastes, aren't they?

The snacks piled high on the waiting-room table, and the treatment that had become unrecognizably different from when we had filmed as contestants, left both me and the members with no choice but to admire it.

And of course it did. When we were filming Agbaek as contestants, to get even one thing to eat, we had to secretly loot the production team's food or earn it through missions.

But now, maybe because we had come to film as idols, the treatment was extremely generous.

Should I say it felt like coming to an army training camp not as a trainee, but as the training company commander?

However, even that generous treatment had one problem.

-Eight, huh?

Maybe because the production team knew that the members and I liked pudding, they had prepared an entire set of expensive puddings.

Seven were divided up peacefully, and one was left over, so naturally I tried to eat the last one. But Kurosawa Yuri tried to obstruct that natural right of mine.

And so began the Sixth Pudding War over the pudding.

After the last dropkick incident, Yuri seemed to have taken a liking to it, because she responded with another dropkick, and I was in the middle of teaching her a lesson.

As I sat on Yuri's sprawled-out back and savored the pudding, a voice reached my ears.

"You two, stop messing around already! We came here to film!"

"Seo Ryujin is right. The CEO told us to restrain ourselves a little in front of other people too."

When I turned my head toward the sound, Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon were there, looking at me and Yuri as if we were pathetic.

It seemed they were terribly embarrassed that the staff around us were giggling while watching my pudding war with Yuri, but this was not right.

"That's an interesting thing to say."

"What?"

"Like you said, we came here to film a variety show. But what can you do, Seo No-Fun?"

"···."

"Just now, too. You couldn't spit out any notable lines to the contestants, so I filled your mic time for you. Is it all right to say such mean things to the person who did that?"

"That's because you're insane! How can you treat our seniors that recklessly!"

Tsk, tsk.

I had no choice but to click my tongue at Seo Ryujin's answer.

"We are professionals. Changing our attitude depending on the opponent is an act no different from an amateur's. Seo Ryujin, don't look down on variety!"

After all, I was absolutely not resolving the feelings I had built up toward the judges while filming Agbaek. I was merely taking on a cruel role for the broadcast alone, enduring the heart-rending pain.

Did the members understand that heart of mine?

Except for Sluggish Ryujin, who was trying to manage her image alone, the other members, united in heart and mind, generously bestowed the rod of love upon the former judges who had transformed into contestants.

-Contestant Ahn Seongho! Are you ignoring the song right now? That stage just now completely ignored the composer's intent!

-···I made this song, though?

-That is not important!

Shinyu launched a merciless offensive against Producer Ahn Seongho, who had not only carefully looked after Shinyu during Agbaek, but had recently praised Black Pearl, the new song Shinyu composed, in an interview.

-Contestant Hyeryeong, during the choreography in the chorus just now, the angle of your elbow was off by about two degrees? Just a little.

And choreography demon Ryu Ayeon, even in the middle of all this, apparently found the choreography details irritating and nitpicked the contestants mercilessly.

Other than that, Lee Gahyeon and Im Yunkyung, who would have been more than enough to fight for first and second place in terms of how harshly they had been criticized by the judges during Agbaek, returned exactly the same evaluations they had received without even taking a breath.

-Why am I suddenly remembering my seniors from the army?

Their skill at chewing people out was so excellent that the filming staff watching them unconsciously recalled their seniors from the army.

Should I say that if, after this broadcast went out, people voted on which celebrities they would least want to meet as seniors in the army, they would be more than enough to take first and second in the rankings?

"The next one is the group evaluation, right?"

"Right. The production team is seriously vicious. I didn't think they'd actually make them do a group evaluation too."

Anyway, after evaluating the Entrance Ceremony stages like that, the remaining schedule was now the group evaluation, where the three contestants would perform a stage together.

'This doesn't seem like it'll be easy.'

Just as Lee Gahyeon said, it seemed the production team had really made up their minds to be vicious.

Hyeryeong had at least been an idol, so fine, but making dancer Lee Jungyoon and Composer Ahn Seongho, who had never experienced anything beyond producing, let alone being a singer, team up and put on a stage could only look like they were openly aiming for variety-show material.

"But this really feels kind of strange."

"What does?"

"We started filming Season 1 right around this time, didn't we?"

"That's true."

As I lay sprawled on the sofa as usual, using Shinyu as a pillow, Yunkyung looked around the waiting room and said she felt strange.

"Back then, I seriously couldn't even imagine that we'd really debut."

"I did."

"Demon Ryu Ayeon, this was the timing to sympathize."

"Was it? Actually, I was anxious too."

Ryu Ayeon, who had briefly lost the heart of a human in the middle, intruded and ruined the mood, but Yunkyung paid no attention and continued talking.

"When I watched the Entrance Ceremony stages, the other contestants were so good and had prepared so thoroughly, but they still got harsh criticism from the judges. I seriously wanted to run away, you know?"

I nodded at Yunkyung's words.

Because my wicked aunt had assigned me number 100, so I had to do my Entrance Ceremony stage right after Ryu Ayeon's stage.

I remembered agonizing until the very moment I went up onstage over whether I should strike my aunt with a knife-hand blow and run away.

"If it hadn't been for your stage, I might have run away."

"Hm?"

"When I saw you do worse than me but still stubbornly go all the way to the end, I thought I should try it too."

"You've been impudent for a long time, Im Wiyeon."

Apparently, after seeing me like that, Yunkyung had instead gained courage and continued participating in the program.

"I really wanted to hang Lee Sion up."

Lee Gahyeon, too, seemed to remember the coup Kim Nayeon had carried out against her back in Class F, and her eyes burned as she looked at me.

"I knew you would definitely debut, Sion!"

"That means you saw wrong, Shinyu."

"That reminds me of Ryu Ayeon back then. She was all thorny, like, I'm different from girls like that! and tried to do everything by herself."

The other members also seemed to recall memories, and they chatted away about this and that.

'More happened than I thought.'

It had only been about a year since I met these guys, but when I thought back on the things that had happened while we were together, there were quite a lot.

"Iam, filming will be starting again soon!"

"Yes."

What woke us from being fully submerged in memories was the staff member's voice announcing that filming was resuming.

***

"I tried rearranging the progression of the song."

"It doesn't look like something you did in such a short time."

"I thought I should at least help the team with something like this. You're already suffering because of me."

The judge trio were sitting in a circle and discussing.

'As expected, you don't win a career like that by playing Go-Stop.'

Hyungsoo was inwardly admiring them as he watched.

-This time, the three contestants will have to become a team and perform a stage.

The second reverse-positions mission handed down to the judges was a group mission.

Just like the old Agbaek contestants had done, they had to form a team, choose a song, and show a performance.

-You're telling us to prepare this in only two hours?

Unlike usual, when they were given at least a week until a stage, the time given to them was only two hours.

At the absurd proposal Hyungsoo presented, the judges had shaken their heads in disbelief and all said this was impossible.

But unlike their words, they were already shaping up the stage to a certain degree.

If trainee contestants were given two hours of practice and told to put on a stage, the quality would obviously have been a complete mess, but the judge trio was different.

As if proving why he was one of the hottest producers these days, Composer Ahn Seongho finished rearranging the song they had chosen to suit the three of them in less than an hour.

"I revised the choreography. There were some parts where the original choreography was a little complicated, so I simplified it a bit. What do you think?"

"It's good."

"We actually got a proposal to make a draft for this song's choreography too. We ultimately turned it down back then, but I had worked out a concept for it."

Choreographer Lee Jungyoon showed the miracle of revising the choreography on the spot so that the team could master it within a short period of time.

And finally,

"It's okay if the other parts are a little off. From the beginning, let's focus our practice on this highlight part and match the angles. Impact is important onstage anyway."

Hyeryeong, like the leader of the legendary girl group G.G she had once been, led the stage practice at the head of the other two, for whom idol stages were new.

"At first, I thought this was too much, but experts really are different."

"I thought PD Hyungsoo gave them this assignment because he was trying to get comedy out of the judges, but did he even foresee this?"

"Would people be calling him the next Kim Miyoung for no reason? He may like ads a little too much, but in terms of skill, he's the top at MPlay."

Hyungsoo heard the filming team let out exclamations of admiration as they watched the stage that had somehow become quite plausible.

Then the short two hours of practice ended, and when it was time to begin the stage, the judge trio moved their feet with solemn expressions.

"Did you prepare well?"

At the judging seats set up in front of the stage, the demons of variety had already taken their places and were waiting for them.

"You really have no conscience! Does it make sense to give us two hours and ask if we prepared well?"

"Ahem! Zhuge Liang, the chancellor of Shu, knew that the time given to him was short, and yet, to accomplish his great undertaking to the very end, he did his best until the day he died! How can you blame only the lack of time!"

When Hyeryeong, the leader of the judge trio, blamed the lack of time, Lee Sion immediately shot back.

As always, she made an analogy to the Three Kingdoms that sounded plausible, but if you calmly examined the meaning, she was spouting nonsense, and it flustered Hyeryeong.

"Music, please."

Hyeryeong seemed to realize that arguing with Lee Sion was a waste of time, and soon looked steadily once at Lee Jungyoon and Ahn Seongho, then got ready to begin the stage.

♬

At last, music flowed from the speakers.

The judge trio's stage, for which they had chosen a hit song by a three-member co-ed group that had been popular in the early 2000s, was quite plausible.

"The experience really is different."

"They really chose the song well."

"Yeah. The arrangement and the distribution were done in a way that covers their weaknesses too."

First, they hid the weakness in Ahn Seongho's vocals, the member people had been most worried about onstage, by giving him the rapper part, while Lee Jungyoon, a dancer, danced in the center of the stage and gathered people's eyes.

Come back tonight tonight

Before the whole night is gone

Hold me right right

Please don't let go of my hand

Of course, if it had ended there, it might have become a clumsy stage where everyone played separately. But the two of them were able to shine because Hyeryeong skillfully supported them and tied it all together.

'That song sounds exciting when you listen to it, but if you try to sing it, your throat gets wrecked.'

Hyeryeong, who had almost monopolized the vocal parts, was supporting Jungyoon's dance while handling the high notes perfectly without wavering.

"Seriously, I think old songs are even more merciless."

"There was someone besides PD Raon who could sing that live."

The Iam members, too, seemed surprised by Hyeryeong's performance and were admiring it.

"Haa···."

Soon the short three-minute stage came to an end, and the judge trio embraced each other onstage while breathing hard.

"You worked hard!"

"You had a hard time because of me, right?"

"No! We all really did our best!"

They hugged each other and bounced up and down as they told one another they had done well.

It was so emotional that it was hard to believe these were the same people who, as experts in Season 1, had evaluated contestants with cool-headed expressions from their own positions.

However,

"Then, shall we begin the judging now?"

As if unable to leave such an emotional scene alone, Lee Sion picked up the microphone with a fishy smile, and the judge trio flinched.

"As you all know, the evaluation for this stage will be decided by PASS and NO. You must receive PASS from at least four of the seven judges to pass."

Gulp.

At Lee Sion's explanation, Hyungsoo saw the three judges gulp and put on nervous expressions.

-If you fail the group mission, the three of you will have to receive a penalty today.

It seemed they remembered how, before filming began, they had been warned in advance that they would receive a terrible penalty if they failed today's group mission.

"What on earth··· are they going to make us do?"

"I don't know. Seriously, if I'd known it would be like this, I would have refused the offer to appear!"

"I shouldn't have trusted a broadcasting station!"

Until now, they had only ever taken on the role of evaluating contestants, and it had truly been a long time since they had been in the position of being evaluated like this, so it was not strange that the judges were nervous.

Whether the Iam members knew how the judges felt or not, they began raising the placards in front of them one by one.

When Im Yunkyung, first in order, raised PASS, they were filled with joy, then immediately fell into despair when Ryu Ayeon, next in order, raised NO. The judges' expressions changed moment by moment.

Iam took turns raising PASS and NO one by one, making the judges' hearts tighten.

"So it comes down to my decision?"

Soon, the evaluations of the previous six were split exactly 3:3, and the only thing left was Lee Sion's placard.

Whoosh!

Lee Sion raised the placard swiftly, without even giving them time to feel tense.

"No!!!"

"Lee Sion, you really, right to the end!"

"I even danced at forty!"

At the same time, the judges' screams burst out.

The judges hurled angry complaints at Lee Sion, who had raised the placard with NO written on it, but she merely smiled shamelessly.

"Now, it's penalty time!"

Leaving the howling judges behind, Lee Sion snapped her fingers as a signal, and the lights on the filming set went out all at once.

"What is this?!"

"What are you trying to do!"

"Lee Sion, I will absolutely get revenge on you!"

The judges seemed flustered by the suddenly extinguished lights, and as they cursed the Iam members and flailed their hands around, the lights suddenly came back on and the filming set brightened.

And in the hands of the Iam members, who had gathered around the judges standing in awkward postures, was a beautifully decorated thank-you cake.