Chapter 63 |
What kind of person was Kang Baeyoung?
“That guy didn’t even apologize for suddenly changing the stage! We deserve an apology for that.”
As you could guess from the time he was in Song Hanseo’s gang, he was not in his right mind.
But surprisingly, those who weren’t in their right minds appeared periodically in the entertainment industry.
School violence, gang fights, underage drinking and smoking. Children who got into all sorts of trouble would cause a commotion every year; they tried to appear on TV, only to get caught. Compared to them, someone like Kang Baeyoung seemed pretty mild.
‘He probably thinks that if he gets genuinely angry, he’ll look like a badass on the broadcast.’
“I’ve been letting things slide to avoid ruining the mood, but you should’ve picked up on the hint by now.”
Kang Baeyoung, who was mercilessly criticized in the mid-term evaluation, must have had his pride hurt, and he likely thought about how to recover from it. The members no longer moved according to his wishes like they did when the parts were being assigned, and crucially, after the humiliation in the mid-term evaluation, an atmosphere of subtle disregard even started to develop.
I must tighten the discipline once. That’s what Kang Baeyoung thought.
‘The production team never intervened in the trainees’ conflicts, so he must have become even more overconfident.’
However, all those actions required a premise: there had to be someone to fight with him and someone to stop him. The truly unfortunate part was that Kang Baeyoung lacked the ability to objectively assess that fact.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
No one stopped him.
All Kang Baeyoung received were cold, indifferent gazes. Standing alone in the vast practice room, he looked around at the members with shaky eyes.
However, the members turned their gazes away with indifferent expressions. Someone among them even went as far as to direct a question at me.
“Seungbeom-hyung, when do we start practicing? We have a lot of things to fix.”
“I came here to do it now, didn’t I?”
“Then let’s do it right away. We’re ready.”
When we ignored his tantrum and moved the conversation forward, he faltered, darting his eyes around nervously. He couldn’t decide what to do next, whether to just sit down or lash out in anger again.
“Stop and sit down. There’s a camera here.”
In the end, the only one who broke the suffocating awkwardness and stepped up to calm Kang Baeyoung was Do Yuda. Of course, even in Do Yuda’s eyes, there was nothing endearing about Kang Baeyoung, but it seemed he helped simply because the tense atmosphere made him uncomfortable.
“…….”
Kang Baeyoung was forced to sit down without being able to say a word to Do Yuda, whom he hated so much.
“Let’s start by rearranging the parts! We should try to keep changes to the formation minimal and focus on redistributing Kang Baeyoung-hyung’s part.”
Although I had a vague, uneasy feeling that I couldn’t quite describe, we were able to proceed with the discussion at a rapid pace thanks to Kang Baeyoung, our biggest headache, becoming quiet. And so, we began revising the performance that had so many problems.
***
As a result of the meeting, the center position was given to me. The leader sticker was still on Kang Baeyoung’s nametag, but it didn’t matter. I was the real leader anyway, and the trainers already knew that, and the cameras also had already documented everything.
Most of Kang Baeyoung’s parts were reassigned to me, as I had the fewest parts. Any parts that I couldn’t manage due to the choreography were given to Do Yuda, and he handled them all effortlessly.
Kang Baeyoung, who didn’t know how to plan the choreography, had no other alternatives to offer and could only watch as his parts were reduced.
Having roughly finished the revisions, we continued practicing until late and then dispersed.
When I returned to my room with Do Yuda, who had brought a bunch of snacks from the convenience store, I saw Woo Kangwon sitting in front of the TV.
[“Survive IDOL Season 4! Bet on Your Trainee!”]
From the sound coming from the TV, it seemed that he was watching the newest episode of Survive IDOL.
“Did you just finish the practice now? You must be tired.”
“No, practice ended earlier, but we came a bit later because this guy went to buy some snacks.”
“You worked hard. Do you want to watch the broadcast together?”
“Of course! Isn’t it the time where the filming for the second mission is being aired, right? I had so much to do in the second round, so I don’t know whether I should be worried or excited.”
Do Yuda nodded at Woo Kangwon’s suggestion and sat next to him. Then, he tore open the bag and began stuffing snacks into his mouth.
It was obvious that his expression showed more excitement than worry. It couldn’t be helped. Do Yuda had taken second place in the on-site evaluation of the second mission for the first time, so it was only natural to be excited about how it would be edited.
“Hyung, duyou wanna?”
“No thanks, you eat it all.”
“Okay.”
After being rejected by me, Do Yuda immediately offered the snacks to Woo Kangwon. Since neither Woo Kangwon nor I were eating snacks, it was about time to stop asking, but every time he ate something delicious, Do Yuda invited us to share.
‘It’s obvious that Woo Kangwon wouldn’t eat it either.’
Just as I thought that, Woo Kangwon smiled gently and put his hand inside the snack bag.
“Thank you. I’ll eat it well.”
“Huh?”
Do Yuda and I froze, doubting our eyes as we saw Woo Kangwon grabbed a snack. That guy was actually eating a snack? That crazy health freak?
Something was definitely wrong. He must have received a major mental shock, or maybe he needed calories right away but didn’t have any chicken breast.
“By the way, hyung, you said you were assigned to the Chic concept, right? That’s a relief. I’m glad you were assigned to a concept that suits you well.”
Do Yuda tried hard to change the subject in order to hide our surprise. It was clearly an action he took for Woo Kangwon, but contrary to his intentions, Woo Kangwon’s smile faded quickly.
“Oh, yeah … I’m really glad too.”
“Y-yeah, that’s right. Hyung, you look so good when you wear such cool clothes. I want to have a masculine body like like yours too.”
“Thank you for thinking that way.”
“You-you’re welcome.”
“…….”
That was the end of their conversation.
Woo Kangwon seemed to not want to make Do Yuda uncomfortable, as he put on a faint smile again, but his expression suggested that his mind was troubled.
‘It feels like we’ve completely stepped on a landmine.’
As Do Yuda noticed Woo Kangwon’s expression darkening with every word he said, he started to get restless. He glanced around nervously before poking me in the waist. It was a silent request for help.
I gritted my teeth and kept my gaze fixed on the TV. Unfortunately, I was completely incompetent at this kind of thing. I could solve problems, but I couldn’t solve other people’s emotional states.
Do Yuda’s face was filled with betrayal and shock, but I pretended not to see him. He hugged his knees and slumped down, as if he had finally let go of his desire to solve the current situation.
[“The next stage is the song that many viewers have been waiting for! It’s the team that will perform Domination by PRISM!”]
While we were having our conversation, the introduction of the broadcast, which was mostly unrelated to the actual competition filming such as the voting results, passed by. Finally, the footage for the second mission appeared.
The performance by the Lee Hwayoung team seemed to have already aired last week, and immediately after, Do Yuda’s team was introduced.
[<“The Domination team is performing a song that’s notoriously very difficult. Trainee Baek Kiryang, was the practice going smoothly?”>]
[“Uh…..”]
Baek Kiryang hesitated to answer, and then a scene of them practicing with serious BGM followed.
[<an unusual atmosphere></an>]
[“I want Yuda to take on more of the difficult parts since he’s good at singing. We can trust our main vocalist, can we?”]
[“Which part?”]
[“Well, rather than a specific part, I’d like Yuda to take on all the parts that are F4 and higher. We can’t reach the notes beyond that point. You can do this much, right? Even so, we cut you a lot of slack. Originally, Yuseong-sunbaenim did much more, but honestly, that would have been too much.”]
Do Yuda and Baek Kiryang’s faces, unable to hide their bewilderment at Song Hanseo’s words, were shown in a close-up. Shortly after, footage of the original artists followed. It mostly showed Seo Yuseong hitting extremely high notes.
[“You can do it, right? By the way, we want to do it live like Prism seniors, and I believe you’ll be fine with it.”]
Then, Song Hanseo’s voice, which sounded like he was forcing him, was heard again and Do Yuda’s expression of apparent bewilderment repeatedly appeared. The editing clearly intended to portray Song Hanseo as the villain.
[<high note parts assigned to only trainee do yuda></high>]
[“Haa … seriously, what should I do?”]
The next scene showed Do Yuda practicing alone, tearing his hair out, while the rest of the members were taking a break with relaxed expressions
‘They edited it in favor Do Yuda.’
It seemed like the main PD remembered the promise he made to me. As I relaxed and leaned back, Do Yuda bit my hand and started shaking uncontrollably.
“It seems like the editing turned out well, thanks goodness.”
[<and the rehearsal day></and>]
[“This is awful? Are you seriously going to perform like this even on the real stage?”]
[“Because of Trainee Do Yuda, the performance looks sloppy overall.”]
The harsh critiques from the trainers continued, and Do Yuda’s face, with tears in his eyes, filled the screen. And then, my face appeared on the screen, looking quite serious..
‘.…Why am I appearing here?’
“That’s just me monitoring my own stage performance.”
“I guess there weren’t any scenes to use for the narrative build-up. The part where hyung and I rolled around on the floor wasn’t caught on camera, after all.”
‘Ugh, you broadcasting people!’
Just as I was about to swallow my complaints about the broadcasting station people, Jay and Song Hanseo’s argument flowed out without a single cut. The two rehearsals had been edited together as if they were one.
[“Ah, Trainee Han Seungbeom. Can you come over here for a second? I have something to ask you.”]
At Jay’s call, I stepped onto the stage and began saying words defending Do Yuda while squeezing out tears. As I watched those scenes, I started to feel a bit sorry for Song Hanseo.
‘After this episode ends, Song Hanseo’s fandom is going to be destroyed.’
“Wow, your face is unreal. I still get surprised every time I wake up these days, hyung, because your face is so amazing.”
Do Yuda whistled while staring at my close-up shot. He completely ignored his own swollen face right next to mine.
[<trainee han seungbeom visits trainee do yuda and baek kiryang late at night></trainee>]
Then, the scene of Do Yuda, Baek Kiryang, and I practicing at dawn was dramatically portrayed. As if I had become the savior of those two people. In reality, however, I had basically just kidnapped Baek Kiryang and exploited him.
[“It’s okay. Nothing bad will happen. You can sing well.”]
With my final words of encouragement, Do Yuda’s team stage began, and throughout the performance, scenes of me watching him with a proud face followed. The whole thing, staged like some kind of genius awakening story with Han Seungbeom as the guiding mentor, was so over the top that I couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief.
“No matter how much it’s presented on the broadcast, it’s still a little less touching than what I actually felt. As expected, if you’re not personally involved, you can’t really understand the feelings.” Do Yuda, who had been quietly watching, muttered briefly.
‘I think they’ve already made it overly dramatic enough.’
The thought flashed through my mind, but I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Just as I was starting to get bored of watching the broadcast, Lee Hwayoung, who had been sitting quietly on the bed the whole time, slowly got up as if he was going to the bathroom.
Something felt off.
‘Why is he limping like that?’
I quietly watched his back. As I retraced my memories, my racing mind brought forth one question.
‘Don’t tell me.’
I scrambled to my feet and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You, are you injured?”
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Translator’s Corner:
I’m miserable because Yuda starts talking about snack, YUDA-YA I’M FAMISHED HEREEE I overslept and when I wake up, everything was already dark so I missed my timing to eat. Now I need to wait for the morning come to buy a meal. And it’s still djksdhsdkjhdkj HOURS AWAY