Chapter 30 |
As soon as I walked out of the brief conversation with the PD, I started running like a madman.
“My life!”
I felt a bit awkward doing this, considering how I’d been trying to maintain all the airs and graces. But now was not the time to be concerned about my image.
‘Please don’t choose a Prism song. Please! Please, don’t let it be a Prism song!’
The second mission was different from the first, and the trainees chose the songs themselves. I assumed a team filled with such hardworking and mild-mannered people wouldn’t go out of their way to take risks. But then again, you would never know, would you?
Although it seemed easy and comfortable to listen to, when you actually sang it yourself, there were countless songs that were difficult. Trainees, with their lack of experience, often made disastrous song choices. This happened because they failed to properly assess their own abilities as well as the abilities of others.
‘I was planning to just deal with Frick and intervene in the song selection from the start!’
I really never imagined that I would faint like that.
“Haha! Hyung, look at this. A junior group covered our song. The cursed Domination! There’s a comment saying they were the ones dominated instead. Haha!”
“How can I not laugh when they’ve ruined our song like this?”
If they had chosen a song from a group like PRISM, who competed head-on with skills, they would have been walking down the path of self-destruction.
‘Agh, this is crazy. I’m going through all this trouble because I’m performing with these chicks.’
You might think that simply avoiding it would be enough. In fact, the production team didn’t include our song in the song list for the first mission.
The problem was that most trainees entered this industry because they admired the highly skilled seniors.
I opened the door to the practice room, praying that they hadn’t chosen our song out of admiration.
“Sorry, I’m late.”
“Leada!”
“Seungbeom-ah!”
Seeing them lined up in front of the mirror, it seemed like they were practicing well without slacking off. The members, who turned their heads like meerkats, flashed bright smiles and ran toward me.
“I’m so glad you came back safe and sound!”
“I was really shocked when you suddenly collapsed.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Heuk, huhueuk, uheu, Leada…..”
“Stop, stop it. Stop.”
Zen was crying, holding onto my leg without even being able to speak properly. I forced the useless guy off me and patted his head, comforting him like a puppy.
“How far has the progress gone?”
“The production team asked us to submit the song quickly, so we decided on one for now. We were currently just learning the choreography for that song.”
“…What song did you choose?”
‘Not Prism. Not Prism. Not Prism.’
I cautiously asked for the song, hoping it wasn’t by PRISM.
“It’s Motorcycle by Cracky seniors!”
“Ah.”
With Woo Kangwon’s pleasant words, a wave of pleasure rushed through my brain. All the worries I had about the song selection throughout the day seemed like a lie.
‘Wow! This is crazy!’
I liked Motorcycle. A lot.
There was a time when I was planning a song that utilized motorcycles, but a junior group released it first, so I wiped away my tears and threw the idea away.
This Motorcycle was a song released by that junior group. Since I was trying to maintain my cool senior image, I was in a distress because I couldn’t even do a cover stage of those adorable guys’ song.1
My complicated head turned into a flower garden in an instant.
“Our members have good physiques, so I thought a wild concept would be good. I pushed for it.”
“Hyung … you are the best, hyung.”
“Yes, thank you. Seungbeom-ah, you’re really a cool kid too.”
I couldn’t contain my joy and clung to his broad back, and Woo Kangwon, laughing softly, patted my head.
“But I’m a little worried about the stage direction. It seems like the stage budget will be quite high, do you think the production team will approve it?”
“If that’s the problem, don’t worry. I’ll do my best to make up for the time I missed at the beginning.”
I’m Han Seungbeom, 20 years old.
My specialty was ripping off the production team.
Forcing myself to hold back the ideas that were already bubbling up, I calmly continued with the questions, “How far has the choreography progressed?”
“We’ve finished the choreography for the first verse. We’ve only been practicing for a day, so we haven’t even touched the formations. I think the other teams are in a similar situation.”
‘….Isn’t this fine?’
I was very blessed to be in the same group as Woo Kangwon. It seemed like he had led the members, who were anxious in my absence, and conducted the practice very skillfully.
“Then, since the choreography for the second verse is similar to the first, we should be able to finish all the choreography by today.”
“I don’t think we’ll have time for the second verse after I teach you all the choreography?”
“…….”
I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at Woo Kangwon.
“What are you talking about? You guys will keep moving forward with the choreography for the second verse, hyung.”
It was absurd to think they would waste the time to teach me the choreography. If I practiced on my own by watching the choreography videos, I could finish it before the other members complete the choreography for the second verse.
“What are you going to do then?” A member, his eyes wide open, asked.
“An hour is enough for me. I’ll finish it all by then.”
Then, I took the tablet from Zen’s hand and started watching the choreography video. The members were blankly staring at me.
Feeling awkward in the strange silence, I lifted my head and urged the members on.
“Why are you just watching me? Start.”
.
.
.
“I’ve finished the choreography for now, but can you show me what you’ve practiced so far?”
I finished the choreography in less than an hour and went to stand in front of the mirror. First, I checked the choreography the members had learned, and then I had to catch the details that were wrong and match the sharp synchronization.
‘At this stage, we can’t plan the formations yet.’
As I had expected, we shouldn’t have progressed to the formations at this point. It was better to set aside the formations for now and focus on improving the quality of the movements first.
“Are you done already?”
“Yeah.”
The members, who had been practicing in front of the mirror, wiped their sweat and gathered together. Then, they huddled and started whispering among themselves.
“I thought he was just bluffing. I never imagined he could actually pull it off.”
“We practiced all day long like crazy to learn it, but he’s catching up this quickly? What an unfair world…..”
“This is the genius I’ve been hearing about.”
“Leada, you’re the best. I have faith in you.”
As I had said many times, learning the choreography quickly was not exactly something to brag about. What mattered was how well you performed on the actual stage.
However, our rookie trainees here seemed to be simply amazed that I was able to finish learning the choreography so quickly.
“I’m going to play the song now. You have to dance like you’re really on the stage.”
“Yes! I’ll show you how hard we practiced!”
I sat in front of the mirror and played the music using the tablet connected to the speaker via Bluetooth.
“Engine, On, light, On. Broom Broom!
“Everyone, gather here. Let’s go Start the engine, see the blue light, let’s go.”
“Let’s ride without fear As far as we can go. As far as we can go.”
“Moto Moto Motorcycle
Won’t you enjoy the wind with me?”
“…….”
‘Overall, it’s not bad. They’re not cutting corners either.’
The trainees in front of me started dancing hard to the song. It seemed that Woo Kangwon took the lead in teaching the choreography. Even though they couldn’t follow all the details of Woo Kangwon’s S-Class level, the angles of the joints and the parts where they applied force were all very similar to Woo Kangwon’s.
‘Woo Kangwon’s main skill is dance. He taught them well.’
Since I planned to take it lightly anyway, I didn’t want to nitpick as much as possible.
However, there was one problem that I couldn’t ignore.
“Leada, what do you think! I worked really hard.”
Although it was partially because I had given him a heads-up, Woo Kangwon basically had a good eye. He was able to spot trainees with solid basics, even if they had a low ranking.
There was only one member that Woo Kangwon didn’t choose on his own.
“Oh … did you work hard?”
“That’s right. It’s a cool concept, and I wanted to do well, so I practiced all night.”
It was Zen.
Zen, who joined the team last, still hadn’t resolved the pronunciation issue, and his dance skills were sloppy. In particular, his hand movements were noticeably awkward.
It seemed to be true that he had practiced hard. He didn’t hesitate to perform the choreography, and he even mimicked the lyrics with his mouth.
‘I can’t say anything to the guy who practiced all night.’
However, I couldn’t ignore that there was still a sense of awkwardness in his performance. This was inevitable, really. It seemed like Zen hadn’t received proper training.
Last time, I used choreography with rhythmic movements to erase as much of the awkwardness as possible, but when it came to this professional-level choreography, it was a disaster.
‘What should I do with this child?’
“Ah, yeah, yeah, you worked hard. Hmm.”
“All trainees, please gather! We’ll be moving to the gym.”
As I was deep in thought about about Zen’s dance skills, a staff cracked open the practice room door, said a brief word, and quickly left. They didn’t explain at all why we were moving to the gym.
“All of a sudden?”
“What’s the point in being flustered? Let’s go.”
***
“Alright, the trainees who have entered, please stand by team for the second mission.”
As we moved to the gymnasium following the staff’s instructions, MC Yang Hajun was standing on stage. He was pinching between his eyebrows with his fingers, which meant he had probably received another ridiculous script today.
“What’s going on? We didn’t receive any notice of an event.”
“We just had a mini sports day not long ago, so I thought we wouldn’t do anything until the second mission was over.”
Distracted by the unplanned event, the trainees chatted amongst themselves. I couldn’t be sure, but seeing that they instructed us to wear the official uniforms, it didn’t seem like a trivial event.
‘Those damn production team…..’
I had a vague idea. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt.
The main PD, who confirmed that all the trainees had entered, nodded to Yang Hajun. Receiving the signal, Yang Hajun took a deep breath, as if his heart was heavy, and began reading from the script.
“Hello, trainees. Have you been preparing well for the second mission?”
“Yes!”
“I’m glad to hear that. But, everyone, in the euphoria of finishing the first mission, haven’t you forgotten something?”
“What?”
“What did we forget?”
The trainees began to murmur among themselves. Following the instructions of the production team, who seemed happy filming this scene, Yang Hajun delivered the next line from the script.
“The second ranking announcement ceremony and the announcement of the first eliminations.”
“…….”
“…….”
The air in the gymnasium, which had been buzzing with anticipation, instantly turned cold.
Those words meant that some of the trainees who had been working hard preparing and practicing for the second mission performance would be sent home.
The trainees had assumed that the reason the ranking announcement ceremony had not yet been held was to give another chance to those who had not yet gained attention.
‘The production team wouldn’t have been so considerate. They simply chose this order to create a more dramatic scene for the broadcast.’
The reason I hadn’t planned the stage formations today was precisely because of this.
‘F**k, if this was the plan, why bother keeping the kids here for practice? It’s just giving them false hope.’
“From now on, I will announce the eliminated trainees. Motorcycle team, please come up to the stage.”
As we stepped onto the stage, the lights illuminating the entire stage went out. As the lights went out, Yang Hajun approached and patted the back of the trainee standing next to me.
He seemed to feel guilty.
‘This is ominous.’
My team consisted mainly of trainees who were easygoing and had sufficient skills to blend in. In other words, they were the ones who didn’t get much screentime.
It was not a good sign that Yang Hajun, who knew the entire script, was reacting like that.
Bang!
With a loud sound effect, a pin light fell on some specific trainees’ head.
“The trainees at risk of elimination from the Motorcycle team are the four under the spotlight.”
“…….”
There are 8 members, and half of them are about to be eliminated. This is crazy.
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Translator’s Corner:
- In K-POP, a popular senior, especially at Prism level, won’t usually do a cover performance of a junior group (unless there’s a special occasion like they’re in the same show or it’s a really popular song that fans wanted them to try, but it’s still unlikely). A junior covering senior song would be a “tribute” to show their respect to the senior, but a senior covering junior stage could do more harm because the fanwars will be like hell. Senior usually had more experience and the popular one usually more buzz-worthy, so there’s a high chance they will “take over the song” like there will be a lot of “wow XX did it better” comment. So, in order to become considerate of his juniors, MC can’t even do cover song performance.
This was true for the opposite too. If a junior cover a senior song but did it in more flashy way (like they put so much efforts more than their own stage song or use that cover to promote or cover it on stage before the original singer can) it will cause backlash too. Survival show cover is fine because it’s the program format, but if an idol group being too comfortable with senior song in event like year-end show, it will cause trouble (this is why you usually see them cover not full songs, or the cover consisted of members from several groups). ↩︎