A week passed by just like that.
At first, I had trouble following the choreography and didn't do so well. But as the first day passed through all my troubles, the days after that weren't so hard to bear.
Thanks to my months of daily running and years of going wherever I needed to by foot, I had plenty of stamina and became the last person standing in the practice room every day for hours.
Of course, I definitely needed that much time to prepare myself.
Thankfully, it wasn't that complicated.
There were plenty of parts where we could move as we liked. And while, of course, I had to swallow down the cringe and make silly 'cute' poses in front of tens of grown men, it made dancing easier and more fun.
Things were only a bit hard because of the expectations that came with being a grade one.
Even though in this mission we won't be meeting any instructors or judges yet, I could still feel the pressure.
I'm glad I had never been the hopeful type and underestimated things. After watching a bit of idol survival shows, I didn't necessarily understand the weight of being someone ranked high in those sorts of competitions, but I didn't just shoot it down immediately.
Well, now I do understand, though.
My range of voice is definitely okay with MYI's (a self-made acronym for Make Your Idol) theme song, plus the fact that I've always liked to sing, so no problems there.
I wasn't the most stable with singing either, but the biggest problem really was just dancing, in which it's not like I'm a completely stiff mannequin.
Honestly, I'm closer to a—
"A human ragdoll..."
"Chan..."
"No, it's not that bad. You're just very flexible, Chan," said Mahesha, who was trying his best to comfort me.
I saw it in the mirror when everyone was practicing together.
The movements of my group mates versus mine were...pretty visibly different.
Not by a lot, but I definitely looked like I was given a different style.
Okay... so maybe it is by a lot.
Still, as I weighed down the options, I thought it would be better for me to keep practicing and lay off during tomorrow's filming.
Which reminds me, Admin-nim still hasn't said anything!
How could she not know of anything? Even the lighting staff must have more information than her!
I want to scold her so bad these days. The only thing that held me back this whole time is the reminder that she pays me.
"No matter where you are, your boss owns you, I guess."
Sometimes I wish I had a pet- I mean, a subordinate of my own.
Just as I was about to go hide in a corner and video call Admin-nim while on my knees, but then Akira barged into the practice room where I said I wouldn't be.
I immediately pretended to be taking a break under the cold and refreshing air conditioner.
Akira eyed me profusely before clearing his throat, finally announcing the reason he was here, "The PD called everyone to the auditorium, Chan."
Then, in a lower voice, he spoke, "I think it must be about what you said last week."
Well, about time.
I nodded, quickly getting up and following Akira out the door. It seemed to me that everyone in the other teams had been taking a break, too. They probably planned to make up with night practice.
As I looked around the doors of each practice room, I discovered that someone else had actually been practicing too. It seems that he was alone.
He had neat and fluffy hair in silver, wearing a hoodie under the labelled blue shirt that defined his current standing. The door he left from was also marked 2-A, which reminded me that Dojun was also in this team.
- "I made a new friend today! Remember how grade 2 was divided into three teams because there were too many people? We're teammates."
The guy had said something along the lines of that. I also remembered a special trait Dojun had spoken highly of, which was his light coloured hair.
So then, that must be...
"Emery, right?"
I looked at his blue shirt just to make sure, and just as I figured, he turned his head to me.
"Oh... you must be Haechan."
And he seems to know me, too!
I gestured for him to come over, and ended up naturally walking as three along with Akira.
"I heard a lot about you from Dojun. He says you were very good at playing the variety games. You also won second place at the very first filming, right?"
"Yeah... I mean, thank you. He talks a lot about you, too."
Ah, I expected so. Dojun's method of socializing often starts with talking about a person both speakers would know of, in this case, me, to connect with the other person. After that, he would blabber about literally anything if you're close enough.
He fished me to talk by complimenting Grandpa Jung's rice cakes, and that's how we got to this friendship.
I spoke casually with Emery, seeing he was around Dojun's age, and acted like we were buddies with respect to personal space.
When we got to the auditorium, plenty of the participants were seated already. I knew this wasn't being recorded, or that even if it was, there was a low chance of this clip being placed in. Thus, I ignored Dojun's frantic waving and sat in the back with Akira and Emery, pretending to be curios.
"I wonder what the PD called us in for."
"Won't it be some talk to prepare ourselves for tomorrow?" Akira added slyly.
"Come to think of it, they haven't given much explanation about it..."
"Must have wanted to give us some time to practice without worry. Let's focus on the PD now."
"Yeah..."
And just like that, Producer Bang started speaking.
"Mic check, 1, 2, 3- Alright, can everyone hear me?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Alright, haha. This will be a quick conversation, and not many cameras are up, so no need to put your guards up."
Nobody relaxed at his words. Seeing this, PD Bang kept going.
"So, just as you all expect, this will be a small talk to remind you all that your practice time is over!"
Silence followed suit now that we didn't have to fake our reactions to a camera anymore. The producer looked confused for some reason, like we were supposed to be all jolly about the piece of information.
"What, did he want us to cheer or something?" I couldn't help but mutter it out, even if only a few guys around could hear.
PD Bang continued without care, though.
"Anyways, I'm going to brief you all on how your performance will go, got that?"
"So as you all know, today is officially the last day you get to practice. Each group here will get their own room, and each one has a stage you will be performing on, wearing the labelled shirts you wear to practice."
Okay, so for now it's giving shabby...
"The stages are a U-shape, so you have time from now until midnight to choose a center and the arrangement of participants. Don't worry, though, we'll make sure you have enough screen time."
I doubt that...
This guy sure is taking his time to explain all this. I thought we would be told everything on the day of, but he hasn't even spoken about the filming of the bonus episode at all.
I'm starting to think Admin-nim had just lied to me.
No, that can't be. Everything so far has been accurate according to some texts Admin-nim had sent these days, so I shouldn't doubt her too quickly.
I listened in, making sure everything was exactly the same as the intel I got.
I don't really care about the floor pattern or if the cameras got on me, though I am definitely pushing those in the line-up to the front. What bothered me, though, is the fact that the producer isn't saying anything about the procedure or how the results are determined.
"It will be live-streamed on our website, and the viewers can watch whichever stage they want to. It's all fair and square, right?"
This was all he said before making some empowering speech that somehow seemed to work. The participants seemed somewhat motivated by his words, which I wasn't listening to.
Dojun will summarise it for me later, anyway.
Anyway, it bothers me that PD Bang hasn't said a word about the bonus episode at all, especially since I'd whispered it to the guys in my group so confidently already. It'll be embarrassing if Admin-nim's words were proven wrong after they all trusted me over something so honestly absurd.
I can hear their reactions already...
(The image in his head)
- "Chan, I didn't know you liked to lie like that..."
- "I guess some people are just born this way."
- "How could you lie to us, Chan!?"
Maybe not that dramatic, but this is what my creative mind could think of.
As I thought of literally any possible curse words my teammates might say to me, I suddenly realized they had created a circle around me.
Once I finally snapped to reality and looked around, I found that Emery had left my side and that every other group also created a circle in random spots of the auditorium to discuss what, I'm guessing, is the floor pattern arrangement.
I wondered for a second if no one had bothered to make me stop daydreaming, but it seems they had just started the discussion.
"Alright, so how should we choose the center?"
"We have an even number of people, so let's think this carefully."
Wow, they're watching their speech despite knowing this isn't being filmed. Not even mentioning my possible mistake. How very professional of them.
Well, I'm starting to doubt the PD, too. Maybe he planted secret cameras or something.
It's not like I thought of the floor pattern. In fact, Admin-nim had even given me some ideas on how to use the stage. But as I didn't wanna come off as a genius, I ended up fishing it out of my teammates instead of saying it myself.
"Great idea, Kato!"
In the end, Kato took the bait first and got the credit for it.
"But is this okay, though?"
"if they aren't okay with it, we can just make one basic line as they say. Now let's just figure who our centers are going to be."
"Raise your hands if you wanna be at the center!"
And just like that, we settled our pattern peacefully. The centers were decided by vote, and the rest by discussion. It was truly a great sight of team work.
As Mahesha redrew the final floor pattern on a sheet of paper, I looked around the place onto other groups.
Most of them... don't seem to be having a good time.
I never thought I would see Dojun's old team from the first episode yelling at like, two people.
"That's what he meant by 'they threw complaints all over,' literal child tantrums..." I mumbled to myself. My unsurprised face made my teammates curious, and they turned their heads to the direction I looked to.
"I hope we're in the same team next time, too..."
Before I even knew who had uttered such truth, a louder voice interrupted the whole auditorium, shutting everyone up in seconds.
PD Bang came up to speak again. He had left half an hour ago telling everyone to at least draw out their visions for the stage and returned just now.
As everyone looked up at the director I now have mixed feelings of, he once again laughed at nothing and spoke,
"Break time's over. You guys can continue this discussion after this one. And now, I have a little surprise to tell you..."
Then it clicked to me.
"Oh, dang."
Five stars to Admin-nim indeed.