Chapter 78
After the individual evaluation filming ended, the production staff and trainees moved to the dormitory. When Juha sat by the bus window first, Taeri naturally sat next to him and put his arm around his shoulder in a way that no one would suspect if they were close friends. Juha glanced around at the others, but everyone seemed to pay no attention.
“Did your audition go well?”
Taeri asked Juha with a bright face.
“I don’t know. What kind of unmanned audition was that? Are they going to deliver the filmed footage to the masters as files?”
“Hyung, Chaemyeong hyung says it seems like an AI recognition system.”
While Juha was chattering, Eunwon, who was sitting in front, suddenly raised his head and spoke.
“AI?”
When Juha asked back, this time even Chaemyeong, who was sitting next to Eunwon, turned around.
“Yes yes. I overheard the production staff talking earlier, and they said there’s a machine made by connecting a motion capture system newly developed by a SamG subsidiary with AI that processes big data. They said Olympic representative athletes use it, it’s used for movie computer graphics, and even for job interviews? I think that machine evaluated us, don’t you?”
“Really?”
Other trainees also listened to Chaemyeong’s voice.
“So it’s not people evaluating us, but AI?”
“No, but viewers are the ones voting, so what’s the point of AI evaluation?”
Some were skeptical of Chaemyeong’s opinion, but Juha focused on his view.
Though he couldn’t be certain yet, it made sense. If they were filming with unmanned cameras to deliver to the masters, they wouldn’t have proceeded so complicatedly using symbols like ‘??’. But what he saw in the evaluation room earlier didn’t seem like simple filming.
While the participants noisily discussed the evaluation system, they arrived at the dormitory. Morning had passed and it was close to lunchtime. As soon as they got off the bus, the trainees all took their luggage and went up to their rooms.
Juha also headed to his room dragging his luggage with his name on it. He vaguely thought he’d room with Taeri again next time, but thinking about rooming with Yoo Youngin made him feel quite uncomfortable.
When Juha entered the room first, Yoo Youngin soon followed. The interior of the room hadn’t had observation cameras installed yet.
‘Haah, shit…’
Though he had been on the same team as Youngin during the last competition and shared hardships and even cheered for him in a way, it didn’t mean he wanted to become closer.
He wanted to end it cleanly with ‘our connection ends here, that’s enough now,’ but to become roommates.
Youngin also unpacked his luggage in one corner with a clearly displeased expression. Fortunately, it was a room with twin beds, meaning two single beds, not a double bed.
“Hey.”
When Youngin called, Juha turned around with a deadpan expression.
“What?”
“You want to change rooms, right?”
At Youngin’s words, Juha recalled what he had said earlier. He had told Youngin to change rooms if he could.
“You’ll let me change if I want to?”
Juha asked with suspicious eyes. As long as his roommate wasn’t Yoo Youngin, he was confident he could get along with pretty much any trainee.
“No. Don’t even think about changing.”
“Ha,”
This hyung really…
“Actually, I asked the production staff if we could change so I’d room with Junho and you’d room with Taeri for your sake, but they said we two can’t.”
“Why?”
“They said we both picked each other as the person we absolutely don’t want to debut with. Damn honest bastard, so fucking honest anyway.”
“Yes yes. You were fucking honest too, hyung.”
Juha roughly retorted and turned around to organize his luggage.
‘Of all people, why did that hyung have to be honest too.’
After hearing the reason they couldn’t change rooms, he was even more dumbfounded. The 3rd and 4th place who had cried together when they got 1st place as a team, but then shamelessly picked each other as people they absolutely didn’t want to debut with in interviews, ended up sharing the same room. Objectively speaking, there was a lot to extract from Juha and Youngin’s relationship, so for the production staff, it couldn’t not be honey bait.
So they unconditionally locked Juha and Youngin in one room to catch something.
“Manage your expressions well. It seems like the Juha’s Place people and Young Inside of You people don’t know your personality is fucking awful yet.”
“You do well too, hyung. It seems like the Youngin fans and core fans don’t know your personality is fucking awful either.”
“Ah, really. You can’t lose a single word.”
“Don’t pick fights if you don’t want to get beaten.”
Juha stood up, closing his suitcase with a thud.
“I’m going down to the hall first.”
“Hey shit, you’re going alone? Making me look bad?”
When Juha opened the door and left, Youngin hurriedly chased after him.
* * *
Eventually coming down to the main hall with Yoo Youngin attached like a tumor, many trainees were already down there. Since there hadn’t been an explanation about the intermediate mission yet, everyone seemed anxious. The hall was busy with production staff preparing for filming and adjusting screens.
Behind Juha and Youngin, Junho and Taeri were coming down talking.
With both being tall, well-built, and handsome men coming down together, they looked like they’d stepped out of a picture.
‘Anyway, his sociability…’
When Juha and Na Junho were close, he was so jealous, but after Taeri became roommates with Na Junho, he got along well as if nothing had happened. The two had been on the same team during the first ‘My Job is Idol’ title video filming, so such friendship was understandable. While it was admirable that Taeri got along well with everyone, he couldn’t help feeling inwardly disappointed. He wished he could be his alone, but if his job was being an idol, being loved would become daily life, so he could only endure it.
‘Taeri probably feels the same way.’
Juha thought about pretending to be close with Yoo Youngin to make Taeri jealous, but then imagined Taeri being on guard with fire in both eyes and gave up.
The production staff organized the hall, and Park Jusung came up on stage.
“My Idol contestants, you were very surprised by the unfamiliar evaluation method, right? Right now, we’ll reveal the identity of the evaluation.”
Park Jusung smiled brightly and pointed at the screen.
[AI Intermediate Check]
“Ah…”
“What?”
“AI?”
The participants reacted intensely as if hearing it for the first time, making their earlier discussion meaningless. It was an effort to get even one shot on screen.
‘As expected.’
What Chaemyeong said was right. The unmanned cameras filmed them for the AI check. Park Jusung exchanged signs with the production staff and continued.
“We’re currently extracting AI data, and once data extraction is complete, your rankings analyzed by AI will come out. Is it ready? Yes, it’s ready.”
Park Jusung received the cards.
“We’ll announce from 28th place. Please look at the screen!”
The screen showed photos of trainees taken in the evaluation room earlier, along with their stats analyzed by AI.
[28th Place]
Name: Choi Sangwon
Age: 21
Vocal: B-
Dance: C+
Appearance: C-
Keywords: Comedic character, Hardworking, Charming
Vote Ranking: 20th
Choi Sangwon, whose name was called first, instantly turned pale. He was a character who brought vitality wherever he went thanks to his cheerful, spirited personality and bright energy, despite his short, chubby, unremarkable appearance and lack of special skills.
He had survived so far because of his personality that made people feel good and didn’t attract hate rather than idol characteristics, but the AI analysis results were brutal.
The ranking announcements continued. Whenever names and faces appeared on screen, the corresponding trainees looked bewildered as if stripped naked.
[22nd Place]
Name: Jang Chaemyeong
Age: 18
Vocal: B-
Dance: B-
Appearance: C+
Keywords: Genius-like, Hardworking type, Promising future
Vote Ranking: 9th
Jang Chaemyeong smiled awkwardly and greeted the camera that approached him. Though Chaemyeong’s singing or dancing couldn’t exactly be called great, the fact that his appearance was rated C+ was somewhat provocative. Originally, Chaemyeong had been recognized for rap and producing rather than vocals or dance, but since AI didn’t verify producing ability, his ranking fell to the bottom.
There might be various reasons, but 22nd place couldn’t be a pleasant result.
‘So that’s why they did the ‘Ah ah’ event.’
Juha concluded while watching the continuing participants’ rankings.
The words picked as keywords for each participant were words that came from the event betting iced americanos after the last broadcast. As expected, the production staff wouldn’t do a useless event.
Other trainees’ grades continued. Since it was AI diagnosis, it only checked objective indicators without seeing the unique feelings or charm each individual had, so it was clearly different from the original rankings.
Since they were filming, no one voiced complaints out loud, but the atmosphere that had turned cold as if cold water had been poured couldn’t be hidden. As someone had quietly grumbled on the bus earlier, debut was ultimately decided by viewer vote counts, so there were definitely people dissatisfied with the AI evaluation mission method.
However, Juha seemed to understand the intention of this evaluation. It was to wake up trainees who had forgotten their real skills while being caught up in ranking games.
Certainly, seeing the evaluation results did snap him to attention.
“13th place, Yoo Youngin”
“Wow!”
When Yoo Youngin’s name was called, everyone roughly exclaimed. Yoo Youngin had never once fallen outside the top 5 throughout all the big and small missions. But when judged by objective indicators, his ranking dropped significantly.
[13th Place]
Name: Yoo Youngin
Age: 22
Vocal: B
Dance: B-
Appearance: S
Keywords: Face genius, Otherworldly beauty, Likely to win
Vote Ranking: 4th
The keyword ‘Likely to win’ was definitely given by fans. With objective skills of only 13th place, seeing such a keyword attached showed that fan loyalty was indeed high, and Juha smiled dryly inside.
Yoo Youngin looked at the screen with his ranking and awkwardly raised the corners of his mouth, but didn’t seem greatly shocked. Without the S-grade appearance, it wouldn’t be strange for him to be outside the top 20 with such a pathetic report card.
‘Did he make a mistake?’
It was true that Yoo Youngin’s skills weren’t good. However, since the judges measured Yoo Youngin’s first ranking as 2nd place, 13th was excessively low.
‘Don’t tell me he forgot all the choreography?’
It was a possible hypothesis that gave him chills.
If the AI evaluation song was ‘My Job is Idol,’ it was possible for Yoo Youngin to forget. When they were actively practicing this song, there was chaos about his limbs moving together. Moreover, from what Juha observed during the last competition, Yoo Youngin was slow at learning choreography and memorizing lyrics. The sight of him overcoming that with effort had even been somewhat pitiful.
The ranking moved on.
[12th Place]
Name: Seo Eunwon
Age: 15
Vocal: B
Dance: B+
Appearance: A
Keywords: Cute, Fresh and lively, Hardworking
Vote Ranking: 5th
‘Seo Eunwon ranked higher than Yoo Youngin.’
Looking at the data, the scores between Yoo Youngin and Seo Eunwon weren’t very different. Juha analyzed while looking at the data on screen. Then he thought, ‘Could age have been reflected?’ With similar scores, younger people would get higher scores. Especially for male idols, military service was an issue, so age was important. In Eunwon’s case, if he debuted this time, even after 10 years of activity he’d only be 25, so he’d have far more activity opportunities.
Later major rankings included Yeom Sangyeop 10th place, Choi Musin 8th place. Though their vote rankings weren’t high, it proved they had skills. Jo Munseok was 7th place, Nam Suchang, a used trainee who had already debuted once, was 6th place, Kim Namhong 5th place – those were understandable, but Andrew Son suddenly taking 4th place was unexpected.
No matter how much it was an AI grade, Andrew Son’s sudden surprise high ranking surprised not only the participants but even the production staff.
[4th Place]
Name: Andrew Son (Son Saesun)
Age: 19
Vocal: S
Dance: A-
Appearance: B+
Keywords: Charming, Storm-like vocal power, Hidden master
Vote Ranking: 14th
His vocal ability was excellent enough to debut as an R&B singer in America, his dance groove was good, and his appearance was flawless, so from AI’s perspective, it couldn’t not give high scores. The AI not scoring Andrew Son’s past struggles with Korean and loss of motivation from the last broadcast played a big part in this result.
While checking other people’s data, Juha had forgotten that his name hadn’t been called yet.
Suddenly a familiar face popped up on screen.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
