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Chapter 11

Our hectic breakfast came to an end. The Showcase scriptwriter, Kim Min-Young, who was in charge of writing our story glanced at us. The Siren group members were showing their natural selves to live up to the name of no-name idols. We didn’t even clean our rooms and showed our living space as it was. The blanket we all used together was pushed to the corner, and we didn’t move the hangers away to somewhere inconspicuous but just let them be.

At first, even writer Kim Min-Young appeared taken aback. She tried not to show it out of politeness, but she couldn’t hold back the look of bafflement in her eyes. I thought she was surprised by how real our living spaces were, but at some point, the look in her eyes changed. Perhaps, she adjusted to the environment or her opinion of us changed, but she looked at us a bit more favorably from then on.

“Is this the blanket you all use?” she asked and pointed at the blanket by her side as we finished eating and cleaned up our table.

“Yes,” I replied while putting the dishes on the sink.

“And you all use this one blanket together?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable for all five of you to sleep together?”

“We don’t find it particularly uncomfortable.”

“Are all these hangers shared too?”

“Isn’t that usually the case?”

“Ah, haha. That’s true.” The scriptwriter, Kim Min-Young, surveyed our dorm more eagerly than when she first arrived. The content of her questions was based on how much information we were willing to share.

‘At this rate, maybe we will be edited as desperately struggling idols.’ I was a bit scared that our image would become idols who were so poor that they had to share all their commodities. Even if we could earn a couple of sympathy posts from the community, it was questionable if that would lead to ongoing interest and be good for us in the long term.

‘But grabbing people’s attention is our current priority,’ I thought. There would be opportunities to change our image during the program. Right now, it was most important for us to free ourselves from the grim anonymity we possessed.

“Are you all going to practice now?” As we finished washing our dishes and began to pack our belongings, the scriptwriter, Kim Min-Young asked again.

“Yes! Our practice room is right in front!” Yeon-Hoon answered this time. “It’s very comfortable because it’s only five minutes away by walking!”

“Oh, how nice.”

We each took our individual baggage and headed to the practice room. Producers and writers followed us from behind.

***

Nothing much changed even when we went to the practice room. The camera directors came inside and stationed their cameras, and scriptwriter Kim Min-Young told us to practice as we normally would. From then on, Yoon Seung-Yeon from the design team and Lee Hyuna from the administration team appeared and joined the scene. Though they told us to practice as we normally would, we certainly couldn’t do that when there were so many eyes on us.

“Okay! One! Two! Three! Four! When I’m at four, we go tadada! All right?” Woon’s voice sounded unusually loud as he taught us an especially difficult sequence of footwork. Though he usually spoke in a soft voice, he was raising his voice and teaching us passionately now. But I knew he wasn’t playing it up for the camera but was just being considerate of us so that we wouldn’t make mistakes in front of the camera. After all, if we made mistakes here, our videos could remain forever on the internet. In contrast, there was one person who was being overly self-conscious of the camera.

‘What’s going to happen to Do-Seung?’ Standing next to Woon’s side, Do-Seung kept glancing at the cameras and producers. If he acted more awkwardly than this and just kept staring at the cameras, I worried that the producers would say a word, and there wouldn’t be any cuts for them to use. But it appeared that I wasn’t the only one who realized this.

“Do-Seung, you keep getting it wrong~” Dong-Jun said jokingly and brought Do-Seung’s gaze toward him.

“W-What do you mean I’m getting it wrong! I’m the only one doing the footsteps properly!” It was as Do-Seung said. After Woon, Do-Seung was the next best dancer on the team.

“You are the one getting it wrong,” Do-Seung replied.

“What, me?”

“Yeah.”

“Whaaat?” Dong-Jun naturally made a surprised expression and slowly changed his footwork. While he danced, he very slightly missed one dance move.

“See, look. You have to go tadadada! Here but you ended at tadada. You are missing a beat.”

“Ah, okie. You are right.”

I held myself back from smirking after seeing Dong-Jun. I had always thought Dong-Jun to be a carefree, thoughtless guy, but after regressing, I realized that he had the quickest wit among the group members. He caught on that Dong-Jun was too focused on the cameras and naturally brought Do-Seung’s gaze towards himself while highlighting Do-Seung’s charms.

‘And though he showed his mistakes on camera too, he’s not the type to dwell too much on that.’ Seeing how carefreely he was smiling right now, it didn’t appear Dong-Jun was sensitive about lowering himself to let others shine.

“Come on! Let’s get back to practice!” Woon settled the room and continued the choreography.

“I’m sorry for interrupting in the middle of practice but do you all not have a separate dance trainer?” The scriptwriter, Kim Min-Young asked. Hearing this, we all turned back to her.

“Yes! We don’t!” Yeon-Hoon replied in an unnecessarily bright voice. I then clearly saw Yoon Seung-Yeon and Lee Hyuna from WD flush in embarrassment. The question was basically asking if the company did not care for their idols, and one of the members answered cheerfully that was precisely the case.

“Was it like that from the very beginning?” Kim Min-Young asked.

“No, not in the beginning.”

“So, you did have one at the start?”

“We had a trainer for about a year and a half? But after that, we began practicing by ourselves!”

“Hm.” Kim Min-Young nodded and gestured that we could continue our practice. Though her attitude was a bit arrogant, perhaps, it was only expected that a second-in-lead scriptwriter of a popular program would behave like this when dealing with no-name idols. Furthermore, nobody seemed to have thought of her behavior as particularly rude.

Besides that, this got me thinking. ‘The company’s care for their trainees dramatically disappeared after a year and a half.’ Since we’ve been in training for three years, this meant that WD Entertainment Agency gave us care that could be considered average among the industry for about half of our time.

‘It all became cut off after Yoon Tae-Hyun joined the company.’ This was all because of the head of management, Yoon Tae-Hyung. The head manager before him wasn’t bad as a work boss or a human. It had also been the previous head manager who gratefully gathered all five of us in this place.

‘Sigh.’ Yet, at some point, the previous head manager disappeared with no warning and Yoon Tae-Hyun came. I first felt betrayed when I heard of the previous manager’s departure, but I now understood why he might have acted that way now.

‘I’m sure that person also had his family to care about. He couldn’t stay in a company like this forever.’ No matter how good a person was, this place was just a workplace in the end and he probably had his family to consider.

“Okay! Everyone, focus!” As I was thinking these thoughts, Woon showed us the choreography again. I controlled my ‘Insight’ ability so that I followed the dance moves without going too overboard.

***

The Showcase’s scriptwriter, Kim Min-Young organized her thoughts while watching the Siren group members practicing.

‘There’s definitely a sincere friendship among the members,’ she concluded after questioning them throughout the day. It appeared that the members had developed a deep camaraderie with one another in their dire environment where the company provided them with no support.

Surprisingly, there weren’t many groups whose members had a good friendship with one another; this was especially so for groups who were just about to debut like this one. Most people thought members would be the closest and most dependent on each other right before their debut, but that wasn’t the case.

It was more common for group members who had seen each other through thick and thin for many years to develop a good bond. For male idols who were about to debut, they were either one of the two following types: ‘Sports team style or sand grain style.’

In the sports team style, the idol group acted like sports athletes, and the team was led by one authoritative, director-like leader. In cases like these, the group’s teamwork and collaboration were superb, but they couldn’t help but appear tense and rigid even in front of the cameras.

The second type was the sand grain style. In this case, the group members were dedicated to their craft as artists. They overflowed with artistic spirit and were deeply immersed in their own worlds. Perhaps, they were good as individuals, but they were a mess when gathered together. Thus, each of the members simply considered each other as business partners or even tools who would help them shine. Yet, it appeared that Siren didn’t fit either of the two categories.

The Siren group felt as if they had gathered a couple of close male students. They weren’t too different from ordinary guys their age except that they were all handsome.

‘And all their skills are good even without considering that they don’t have separate trainers.’ This was surprising, but what caught her eyes foremost was Bong Tae-Yoon, who was dancing lightly behind Lee Woon, leading the lesson.

‘What’s with him?’

Lee Woon was clearly good at dancing and seemed to have a natural talent for the art. On the other hand, Bong Tae-Yoon didn’t appear to show much passion for dancing and didn’t give the sense that he was very good at it.

‘Yet, his movements are the most precise,’ she thought. Tae-Yoon managed to perfectly copy each of the moves though he failed to really liven them up. He never missed a beat either.

‘What? Is he purposefully holding himself back?’ Rather than that he was incapable of livening up the dance, it seemed he was intentionally dancing without much energy.

‘They say his position is a lead vocalist.’ Kim Min-Young thought Tae-Yoon also had potential as a dancer.

Eventually, the dancing practice ended and the second lesson began.

“After a ten-minute break, let’s immediately go into vocal training guys!” The main vocalist and this lesson’s teacher, Woo Yeon-Hoon announced.

‘It’s rare for the visual to be the main vocalist,’ Kim Min-Young thought and watched them. They began by loosening up their vocals and stood in front of Yeon-Hoon and presented a song they were individually working on.

“Okay! Why don’t Do-Seung start first!” Yeon-Hoon stood in front of the piano keyboard and called Do-Seung to come forth. Do-Seung frowned reluctantly and sang in front of Yeon-Hoon.

‘He’s not a singer,’ Kim Min-Young noted. She thought Do-Seung wouldn’t be able to hit the high notes with his low voice, and as expectedly, he wasn’t good at singing. But since his position was the rapper, his singing ability was understandable. Yet, because his voice was pleasant to listen to, there was a possibility that he could be good if he really tried his best. Yet, it sounded like he was the one who was holding himself back.

“Do-Seung, you are not confident enough in your own song. Since your tone is good, you should practice on really expressing yourself and bringing your voice out boldly,” Yeon-Hoon gave advice to each of the members and continued the practice. Lee Woon had a gentle, high-tone voice. Dong-Jun’s voice was soft and pleasant to listen to, and it was hard to find any fault in it. Lastly, Tae-Yoon...

“Hm?” The producers who had been listening without much thought all turned their heads. The song that Tae-Yoon chose was a famous ballad song and all he did was sing the first lines of the song.

—You walked through long nights to find me

—My heart rises into full bloom

—These are the days I can no longer see

He didn’t even have a unique voice nor did the song have a high note.

‘But why is there so much emotion in his voice?’ Kim Min-Young wondered. Tae-Young sang as if he had just come back from a heartbreaking farewell.

“T-Tae-Yoon?” It seemed it wasn’t only the producers who were surprised but also the group’s members.

“Hm?”

“What happened to him seriously?”

***

I sang thoughtlessly in front of Yeon-Hoon. I didn’t prepare much for it since I was planning to sing a normal ballad song and try to not pop out too much. Yet, when I opened my mouth and was about to sing the song—whoosh! My Insight ability suddenly popped out. Even though I could control it sometimes, there were other times when it would pop out abruptly with no warning. Because of that, in the short period while I sang the song, I felt the song’s writer’s emotions clearly in my heart.

‘What’s the point of me understanding someone who just went through a heartbreak?’ I thought to myself and blamed my Insight ability for making me sing this song so sorrowfully. This Insight ability gave me an understanding even in unnecessary areas. Nevertheless, the producers were surprised by my singing first and then, my group members also appeared stunned. I quickly stopped singing and excused myself.

“I practiced this song a lot for this show. I didn’t think I would be able to sing it so well either,” I said.