𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐈𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐏𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐲 ―𝐝.𝐨.𝐝

Chapter 26

[ Cho Seungmin's POV ]

I could hear people screaming my name.

Walking off stage, I glanced back once more. On stage, it was hard to see the audience, but I could see silhouettes of people cupping their faces in hopes of carrying their voices farther to us.

Cha Eugene suddenly hugged me.

"That was so exciting!" he shouted passionately, jumping up and down.

My shoulder blade still hurt. I winced.

But I could feel the adrenaline still coursing through my veins, and it made me feel good.

"Yeah," I grinned back. "It really was."

"Your flip was so cool!" he rambled on. "You really looked like a villain!"

I complimented him for his own performance with almost the same enthusiasm.

I felt like a normal nineteen-year-old then.

I continued to listen to the others' confidence in our stage as we walked to our waiting room. The staff clapped for us momentarily before giving us instructions to wait for the audience to finish voting.

I sat down in a chair for the make-up artists to redo my hair.

Moondae hyung was in the chair next to me, holding a small fan in his hand.

"Moondae hyung," I called out. "You sang so well."

He turned to me and blew the fan in my direction. There was a nice breeze.

"You too. We all did good."

There was a small smile on his face.

I was confident that we would be first. We had most of the top 10 in the same team.

Everyone waited in high spirits until we were back onto the stage. All participants were lined up in teams, waiting for the MC to announce who was first. Instead, he called the rankings starting from 7th place.

"And in third place of audience votes...<Burning Like the Sun> by Heroes Clan team!"

"No way," I could hear people whisper.

I bowed with the rest of the team, who answered to our ranking a beat late.

This was a competition, I remembered. People wouldn't vote for us simply because we were good.

"Listen," B had told me. "Having fans is more important this time. Unlike the first team match, people will have a bias now. They'll give their vote to that person. And if they think you're too good, they'll vote for another random team with their second vote, just so you won't overcome their own bias' team."

"Now all that's left is Gigantic vs. Stockholders General Assembly! The team that takes 1st place during this second team match..."

There was a long pause.

"Will be announced next week during the second individual ranking announcement! Then, shareholders, we'll see you next time!"

The Gigantic team consisted of all the other October 31 members. Sejin hyung answered, "Thank you!" to the MC as others clapped.

Our team was gloomy compared to his.

"Thank you for your hard work," Raebin murmured sadly.

"Oh my," Chungwoo hyung exhaled. He pat the others on their backs and replied, "Don't worry too much. We've done our best, so our performance will look amazing in the episode."

"The voting system just wasn't in our favor," I added with a hum.

Beside me, Cha Eugene exclaimed, "That's right! We were so good! Everyone will come to know that."