Continuing the pattern from the 1st Special Chapter, here follows a line-up of what would have happened if the readers had chosen differently...

CHAPTER NINE

Winning option: Mingyu activates Jeonghan’s channel

This allows Mingyu to talk to Jeonghan, Sunyeong, Hansol and Junhui, and tell them his information.

Other options: He activates Seungcheol’s channel OR Seungkwan’s channel.

Activating Seungcheol’s channel would have allowed Mingyu to guide Seungcheol’s next decision. Activating Seungkwan’s channel would have allowed for a much earlier reveal of the Syllable Chart, and Minghao’s location.

CHAPTER TEN

Winning option: Seungcheol opens the Mirror Room with Jisoo’s key

This saves Seungkwan and Wonwoo from the Mirror bomb, but allows Junhui to make the jump that both cuts the power and electrocutes him.

Other option: Seungcheol opens the Bathroom.

Doing this would have prevented Junhui’s jump and the game would have never been cut. Seungkwan and Wonwoo would be caught in the Mirror trap, which would have blinded Seungkwan completely and seriously injured them both, putting their survival on the line with the next decision.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Winning option: Mingyu refuses to turn the power back on

This allows the boys to reunite through their unlocked doors and skip ahead in the game, although it directly causes the retribution that follows the dilemma in Chapter 13.

Other options: Mingyu turns the power back on

The boys would have been unable to reunite since the doors are locked, and the struggle to reunite would have continued. Jihun’s puzzle would have started, and Minghao’s The 8th Dilemma would have happened sooner and differently.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Winning option: They go to their designated rooms

This allows the game to restart, and the Fourth Objective begins. Retribution by random selection becomes inevitable.

Other options: They stay in the Classroom

This would have activated the Classroom trap, which involves fire. Many of the boys would have been injured and you would have lost Chan, as well as very badly burning Jeonghan. They would have lost Mingyu’s books, but the Retribution by Random Selection would have never happened.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Winning option: Randomize the selection/activate the Boiler Room Trap

Since the selection ended on the Boiler Room, Wonwoo would have died either way, and Mingyu loses a strike. No clues or leads are given for this trap.

Other options: The selection ends up on another option

Had the randomizer chosen any other room with a one-strike person in it (Chan, or Junhui/Seokmin) those people would have died by the same principle as Wonwoo did. Had it ended up in a “safe room”, for example, Seungcheol in the Control Room, nobody would have died but there’s be seriously bad injuries that could have meant death in the following choice.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Winning option: Minghao eats the unknown pill

Doing this causes Minghao’s heart rate to slow down until he’s as close to death as can be without dying, and he stays in the concrete coffin for Junhui to find and save.

Other options: Minghao destroys the pill

Had he done this, the kidnappers would have taken him out of the concrete coffin and away from the game rooms. Junhui would have found an empty coffin and the Exit Room, and Minghao would have been used once more as a bait/hostage in what follows when the boys escape the game.

THE REAL GAME

Minghao was nervous—Junhui could see that from a mile away. It was nice to see him tremble in the face of something for a change, but it was also not okay. After all, this was supposed to be a game show, but now that they stood here awaiting the start of filming, all any of them wanted to do was go back home.

Lee Hanryuk approached them, clapping his hands together once and sporting the same excited smile he had when he’d showed them to the recording studio. “Everyone warmed up and ready to go?”

Sunyeong replied in a most anticipating manner, but his face fell away as soon as director Lee left them again. As the leader of the three present members and himself, he didn’t like this at all.

The game show had been described to them as a survival game, with a high physical requirement and a lot of exciting intellectual elements. The concept of the obstacle course with traps and stressful countdowns was not a new thing, but the show itself had never aired—mostly due to the fact that on their very first recording, a female idol injured herself so badly that she eventually had to leave her group. That was years ago and the production team of the game show had struggled to get another k-pop group to participate. When finally Pledis agreed to send the Performance Unit of the recently debuted Seventeen to participate, they had expected drastic changes in the game’s dangerous and straining layout.

As far as the four boys could see, that hadn’t happened. There were long jumps on hard and uneven surfaces, a high risk of falling without safety lines in many areas, and even a game that involved live electric wires that supposedly “only stings you a little”. Nothing that sparked like that could ever just sting.

It didn’t look like fun or variety-show-like in any way. But since they knew that they sometimes had to do things they didn’t want to do because they were idols, they figured they’d just struggle through it. Sunyeong initiated the Performance Team cheer right after filming started, and divided the unit into two duos—the Maknaes and the Hyungs. After a short interview and explanation of the obstacle course that they already knew, the Maknaes were chosen to go first. Sunyeong didn’t really like the idea, had much rather gone first himself to try the dangers of the course, but the Game Host, an eccentric man named Kook Kangho, insisted.

It was almost ridiculous how fast the game proved itself too dangerous and risky. Chan lost grip on the first climbing wall and fell straight down onto the hard plastic floor, losing his breath for a while and hitting his head. Minghao went on since the game was on a timer and came to the high jump.

He knew how to do such a jump. He focused, prepared himself, and ran over the ledge with perfect form. But since the ground was uneven and the plastic slippery, he lost his footing in the landing and crashed.

Junhui and Sunyeong didn’t care that they were filming and ran up to him. He was okay apart from a few lightly bleeding burns on his legs where he’d skidded across the plastic, and his hip had taken a blow. Chan’s back was hurting from his fall, too, and it was decided then and there.

Junhui asked for filming to stop, which it for some reason hadn’t the second Minghao crashed, and Sunyeong asked to talk with the leaders of the production team, which was Lee Hanryuk, Kook Kangho and the cameraman named Kim Yeongdong. He told them that they wouldn’t finish the filming, kindly and politely asking their forgiveness for the sudden decision although, in reality, he wanted to just take his teammates and walk out the door.

Hanryuk’s reaction was not nearly as sympathetic as they’d hoped. He struggled for a full half-hour to convince the boys to continue, to start the game over. They refused. During this time Junhui had to call for medical aid by himself because the production crew offered none. When even one of the sound guys came up and asked Hanryuk to stop and let the boys leave, Sunyeong realized that there really was a disturbed man they were dealing with. Hanryuk stormed off, shortly followed by both Kangho and Yeongdong. Some others from the production team helped the Seventeen members until an ambulance came to pick them up, most of them condemning the game show and its producers.

Chan needed a few days rest and was back to normal. Minghao got his scratches treated and was b-boying as if nothing had happened within a week. Pledis sued the company behind the game show and won easily—that was the end of that dangerous show for good. After a new comeback and a few months of promotion, the members of Seventeen had completely forgotten about that one time on a game show that never aired.

Two years later, one of the windows of their vacation home is busted open...