While Miro was clenching her fist and cheering in triumph,
the community also heated up almost reflexively.
[Miro passed like a goddamn dog LOLLLLLLLLL]
(Miro's default avatar picture)
What?? Miro didn't pass??
Don't bullshit us LOL
Starting today, this gallery belongs to Miro.
– So this actually happened
ㄴ She was already top-tier in viewer count, it'd be weird if she didn't pass tbh
– They picked Miro over Habin? Are you serious?
ㄴ Who the hell is Habin? LOL
ㄴ There is one, some kid who raps
[From today on, she's the gallery owner]
(GIF of Miro cheering after passing the audition)
Pretty face,
great voice,
amazing singing ability—
Just… the audition G.O.A.T.
– Cut the bullshit
– She just puts up a flat PNG and streams, how do you know she's pretty? You got Byakugan or something?
ㄴ With that voice, no way she's ugly
ㄴ (The truth is what you think it is emote)
[Miro swearing because she thought she failed]
(Clip of Miro muttering quietly after the 5th successful applicant is announced)
– Ah fuck, this actually got picked…
– She thought she'd pass for sure so she was grinding bot matches, then when it looked like she might not get picked she got desperate—so hot LOL
ㄴ What's bot matches?
ㄴ She was playing League bot games until the announcements
[Hey kids, you've played with this toy long enough, right?]
(Miro's default avatar picture)
Shall we look for a new toy now?
Kids?
– Calling the gallery owner a toy? …Bring the whip
– This guy seriously hasn't learned
[Fuck, Miro getting picked pisses me off so bad…]
The others try everything just to keep viewers—
new games, new content, singing nonstop, all kinds of bullshit—
What did Miro even do?
She just turns on stream whenever she feels like it, chats a bit, and viewers pile in.
And she passes the audition too…
This is fucking bullshit…
If I were a woman with a good voice, I wouldn't have to go to construction tomorrow, right?
– This guy's for real
– Then you should've been born a Korean woman LOL
ㄴ Even then you'd need a voice on Miro's level LOL
– Don't try to understand it, just accept it, you idiot LOL what are you gonna do about it?
ㄴ That's a bit harsh?
ㄴ So what? Miro's an audition pass and you're a nobody breaking your back at a job site LOL
– This got deep…
Even after all the successful applicants were announced, the community continued to burn with drama.
After the stream ended, Miro received an invitation to a Discord channel.
Once all the announcements were over and everyone had ended their streams late at night, the company arranged a place for the successful applicants to talk together.
At the same time, a Discord channel that they'd probably keep using going forward was created.
[Celestial Project – 1st Generation]
Calling it "1st Generation" probably meant there would be a 2nd and 3rd generation.
Or maybe it was just a fancy name to sound cool.
"Uh—ah, hello?"
Everyone else was already in the voice channel, so when I joined, I felt like I was late.
The other successful applicants greeted me warmly.
"Miro's here."
"Oh! Welcome!"
"Nice to meet you!"
"Hello!"
"Welcome!"
The moment I heard the greetings, my feelings became complicated.
Had I been influenced too much by 'Female Kim Soo-hyun'?
To be honest, the lively, crowded atmosphere felt a bit overwhelming.
"Ahaha… nice to meet you."
When I replied awkwardly, the women on the other end burst out laughing.
"What? You're like this?"
"Hahaha!"
That loud, hearty voice—
That must be Mile.
She was someone who had already been streaming for a while.
She even boldly made a brand-new Twitch account, debuted a new avatar, applied for the audition, and passed.
"You're really shy, huh?!"
That high-pitched voice—
Maho.
She'd been uploading J-pop cover videos on YouTube for a long time. Her speech pattern sounded straight out of a Japanese anime. I thought she only talked like that on stream—does she do it in real life too? Or maybe she considers this call part of her job.
Professional in many ways.
"Miro, are you really twenty-one?"
That voice—
Haru, I think.
A young-sounding voice that probably has a certain audience.
"Yes, that's right."
"Wow… could you call me 'unnie' just once??"
"Unnie…?"
***
This wasn't a title I'd even used that often for Male Kim Suhyun—
let alone Female Kim Suhyun.
Still, if we were going to be working together as the same group from now on,
surely calling someone that much wouldn't kill me.
"Haru… unnie?"
"Wow… wow… that feels kind of strange."
"In what way?"
"I'm an only child, so I've almost never been called 'unnie' before."
"Ahh… I get that. I've only ever used it with cousins, so it feels awkward to me too."
It wasn't just the honorific—
this whole situation was awkward.
Could you all maybe talk without me?
"Huh? Then call me unnie too!"
"Me too, me too. I want to hear Miro call me unnie."
"Same here."
One after another—Maho, Mile, and Roa.
Wait.
Am I the youngest here?
Well… at twenty-one, I guess I'd usually be the youngest wherever I go…
"Alright, alright—how about we make a group chat first?"
The one who rescued me from this predicament was Anna,
who seemed to be the oldest.
She laughed softly as she spoke, naturally steering the topic elsewhere.
"A group chat? Sounds good!"
"Then can everyone share their phone numbers?"
A group chat…
I suddenly remembered my profile picture.
A photo taken outside a convenience store, beer in one hand.
Personally, I thought it was a great picture—but I decided to change it.
Because if they saw it now, wouldn't it ruin the chance later for reactions like,
"Wait—Miro, you were this pretty?!"
After thinking for a moment about what to use,
I just saved a random picture of a popular anime girl and set it as my profile photo.
Too much of an otaku vibe?
Come on—when a beauty like me uses an anime profile pic, that's called gap moe.
High school classmates I barely know anymore,
or people from the university I dropped out of—
they might even message me.
"Hey Soo-hyun, did you watch that too? I saw it—pretty fun, right?"
Yeah, like that.
It was the kind of delusion you'd expect from someone in the terminal stage of main-character syndrome—
but if you saw my chat list, full of unread messages, those thoughts would vanish instantly.
After quickly changing my profile picture, I dropped my phone number into the Discord channel.
Anna saved everyone's numbers and created a group chat.
[Anna Rin has invited Kim Soo-hyun, Kim Ah-rin, Maho Hyun, Lee Yuri, and Han Nari.]
…They're all real names.
Anna Rin is Anna,
Maho Hyun must be Maho—
the rest are a bit confusing.
"Alright, everyone's in, right? Could you type your nickname in the chat? As you can see, I'm Anna."
(Lee Yuri): Mileee
(Han Nari): I'm Haru.
(Kim Ah-rin): I'm Roa.
(Me): I'm Miro.
(Maho Hyun): I'm Maho. Looks like Anna unnie used her real name too?
I carefully looked over each name and nickname twice, committing them to memory.
Except for Mile, most of them had similarities between their real names and nicknames, so it wasn't too hard.
"Couldn't we have just done that in voice chat?"
"Still, if you send it in a group chat like this, it feels like it leaves a record of the conversation, you know?"
"I see…"
While listening to the other members chatting through my headset, I checked their profile pictures one by one.
First, Anna—
it looked like she had a cat. A huge close-up of a white cat's face filled her profile picture.
Mile's was…
a four-cut photo taken with a friend.
Haru had gone all out—
a group travel photo with her friends.
Roa seemed to like cooking;
her profile picture was a photo of a dish she'd apparently made herself.
What the hell—why is everyone so… normal?
Even Maho—who constantly does J-pop covers and talks with that very "local" vibe—
apparently doing a full-on "ordinary person cosplay," had just a dog as her profile picture.
I was the only one with a profile picture showing the upper half of an anime girl character.
"Huh? Miro, is that Oshi no Ko?!"
Maho suddenly spoke up in her characteristically high-energy voice—
apparently she'd noticed my profile picture.
"Ah, yes… I liked it, so I put it up."
"Oh! I know that one too. Viewers were talking about it—what did you think?"
When I answered Maho, this time Mile jumped in.
"Uh… I think it's the best one among the recent releases."
"Ooh… Miro, aren't you kind of picky when it comes to manga or anime?"
How did she know that?
Did she watch my stream?
"You watched my stream?"
"Of course! I think everyone did."
For a moment, I was flustered by Mile's reply.
Sure, my viewer count was near the top, but I didn't stream for very long. For the other contestants who streamed for hours, it must've been hard to catch mine without overlapping schedules.
"Huh? Why?"
"Well… you always come up when we ego-search in the community."
"Ahh…"
It was Anna who answered my question.
So even Anna searches her own name, huh.
"I saw the community too. They called you the 'gallery owner,' didn't they?"
"What's a gallery owner?"
"Oh—'gallery owner' is what they call the person the community likes the most, I think."
Haru, Roa, and Mile explained in turn.
So they'd all seen me in the community and checked out my stream.
…Man, that's kind of embarrassing.
Well, I ego-search too.
Is there any streamer who doesn't?
Especially when you're participating in an audition—checking reactions is basically mandatory.
"Ah, right, right!"
While I was quietly cringing to myself, Maho suddenly clapped her hands as if something had just occurred to her.
"Miro, that song you uploaded? It was so good! I've listened to tons of other covers of that song, but honestly? Yours was my favorite."
"Oh yeah. That song made me look at you differently."
That was Maho and Anna, one after another.
Praise from a Japanese utaite cover YouTuber
and a former musical actress…
That was more than enough to make my shoulders lift.
"Ahaha… you're all great singers too. I just practiced that one song obsessively."
"You could really tell that you understood the song," Anna added.
Understanding the song?
That was something my vocal coach had said was important—and now Anna was saying the same thing.
"Really?"
"Yes, definitely. How did you choose the song, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Well… it was a song I like. Or… used to really like."
"That explains it. You could feel the affection you have for the song."
The praise from Anna—someone who could truly be called a song expert—kept coming.
She must've found my singing pretty memorable.
…At this point, shouldn't I sing it for them once?
"Ah—was it really that good? Want me to sing it once here?"
In a way, bringing it up like this felt like a natural progression.
If you've learned something, shouldn't you show it off?
Singing on stream is one thing—you want more practice and more songs before that.
But one song I'd been practicing for weeks?
That was something I could share with the people who'd soon be my teammates.
"Huh? Really?"
"That'd be amazing!"
Seeing everyone beam with excitement, I cleared my throat.
Yeah.
They're all good singers—but I should set the tone early.
This song, at least, I was confident in.
I adjusted my mic settings, added some reverb, and played the MR I'd downloaded earlier for use at vocal lessons—while recalling all the theory I'd learned.
I even pushed my chair back and stood up.
From the tips of your toes to the top of your head—
singing uses your entire body.
I straightened my back and engaged my core.
Then I slowly inhaled—only halfway—waiting for the timing.
I'd sung this song nearly a hundred times already.
I could hit the timing perfectly.
As the intro ended, I sang with confidence.
Just as expected, all the effort I'd put in didn't betray me.
"Waaah!!"
"That's insane!"
"What? It sounds even better live!"
For the first time in my life, I finished a song while hearing genuine cheers—
from people who weren't my vocal coach.
"Alright, I can't just sit back after that. Maho's going next."
"Then I'll sing after her!"
And just like that, what I'd been a little worried about—
my first meeting with the other audition passers—
continued in a warm, lively atmosphere,
until we finally disbanded late into the night.