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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Time to Show Results
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So the dawn comes, even when you wring your diploma’s neck.
The morning I lost my family home and my degree had dawned. Brilliantly sunny.
“It’s over.”
“What is?”
“Everything.”
“Are you okay?”
Lee Cheonghyun, who had watched my passionate emotional rollercoaster from the top bunk last night, asked.
I wanted to say that I was very much not okay. Because I really wasn't.
But I couldn't. The worst kind of person is the one who ruins the team's atmosphere with their personal feelings.
Besides, Lee Cheonghyun was the one who'd lent me his composing laptop last night while I was in a frenzy.
If I were a proper adult, I should know how to distinguish between who to be angry at and who not to.
I forced myself to say I was fine and wiped my face, only to find my skin was moist. It seemed that kid Lee Cheonghyun had put a face mask on me last night.
Damn it, a guy who's even more beautiful because he's so diligent. At this rate, he's destined to have the most expensive photo cards.
Still, after agonizing all night and denying reality about 230,000 times, I reached enlightenment.
I will debut, no matter what.
And wash away this humiliation.
And find a way to make a living.
To do that, I will master the basic choreography from start to finish today.
From now on, it's debut or nothing.
I resolved firmly.
* * *
And a short while later.
They say a dog at a village school learns to recite poetry after three years, and an idol makes a comeback after three months. And I, too, was able to make remarkable progress in just three days.
About 30 hours of official practice, excluding breaks.
An additional four hours of personal practice.
Plus, intensive training from five private instructors.
After a total of 34 hours dedicated to memorizing the choreography with a great deal of help, I was finally able to perform the four-minute routine without a single mistake—even if my form resembled the New Millennium Calisthenics.
Once I summoned the fierce resolve of my rookie days, nothing was impossible.
Though the light in my eyes was probably dead.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.
▷ Reward: Experience (20) granted
▷ Accumulated Experience: 80
▷ Accumulated Points: 0
+
I’d also earned points by successfully mastering the choreography for one song.
‘Just you wait. One more point, and I'm getting Dance Proficiency to 3.’
After falling into hell once, only spite and grit remained in my heart.
Humans were always meant to discover their hidden abilities in extreme situations.
I, too, had realized my potential when Department Head Nam ordered me to write a report he'd forgotten about in four hours.
Though I never thought my past experiences would give me courage in a place like this.
‘Whatever comes next… I'll just pretend I'm dead and get it done no matter what.’
I made a grim resolution.
But damn it, it wasn't just dancing I had to practice, but singing too.
K-trainee life is tough.
* * *
They say man is an animal of adaptation.
I was no different.
In just a few days, I reached a state where I could enjoy a meal among these noble faces—faces that had been praised for having no “visual holes” since their debut—without once showing that it was my first time seeing celebrities up close.
And I was even savoring the seasoning of a slightly overcooked jjolmyeon.
Me, enjoying jjolmyeon for breakfast surrounded by dazzling faces. I must have nerves of steel.
The sight of boys with bedhead, gathered together on the practice room floor eating snacks, was somewhat reminiscent of my school days.
It's just that there were no kids with faces like these.
If you divide idols into two types—the approachable and the not-so-approachable—Spark was clearly the latter.
Eighty percent of the reason for that stemmed from their faces.
Recently, idol groups have tended to gather members with different types of visuals into one group.
In a market where the motto is “one of these has to be your type,” entertainment agencies' visual goal has evolved towards creating groups that make people say, “How did they gather all these kids in one place?”
But UA was ignorant, and therefore brave.
A cold, sharp-featured handsome man? → Good-looking.
Lots of good-looking members? → Good.
Did they really simplify it like that? Or did UA just have a preference for cold, handsome men?
UA had turned Spark into a group that was “good because it has a lot of sharp-featured, cold, handsome men.”
In other words, they had gathered only the ultimate ice princes in one group.
First, there was Lee Cheonghyun, Spark's official visual, whose face looked like it was born at the dawn of creation.
You could believe he only ever washed his face with water scooped from Cheonji Lake on Mount Baekdu; that's how flawless Lee Cheonghyun's face was.
If Lee Cheonghyun had a clear face imbued with a cool breeze like an autumn morning sky, his same-aged friend Kang Giyeon's face was a blizzard.
He looked like he could easily down a bottle of tequila in a raging blizzard… No. That was an inappropriate metaphor for a kid who was starting high school next month.
Kang Giyeon, who looked like he could down a whole bottle of hot, unsweetened ginger tea in one go, boasted visuals unbelievable for the team's youngest member.
The situation with the faces of the middle line, a year older than Lee Cheonghyun and Kang Giyeon, wasn't much different.
The main vocalist, Park Juwoo's nickname was “Human Dawn Mountain Mist.”
In the past, I thought this nickname didn't really suit Park Juwoo. That's because about 80% of the expressions I saw while monitoring him were blank stares.
But after seeing Park Juwoo in person, I immediately accepted the nickname.
Park Juwoo's pale, bare face was the kind of visual that wouldn't look out of place appearing in a mountain forest at dawn, dressed in a hanbok like a mountain spirit.
The leader, Jeong Seongbin, was a slightly better case.
Unlike Lee Cheonghyun, whose otherworldly looks were often assessed as him giving a cynical sneer whenever he smiled, Jeong Seongbin's smile was, to anyone's eyes, an idol's smile.
≫ Honestly, isn't Jeong Seongbin a warm handsome guy?
Look at his smiling face, how is that not a warm handsome guy
└ (Photo of Jeong Seongbin sandwiched between actual warm handsome guys)
└ Nvm our baby isn't a warm handsome guy, I must have been blind
Even so, Jeong Seongbin was still called a definite “cold handsome guy” by outsiders.
The fans' efforts to somehow push Jeong Seongbin—whose eyebrows were angled down even one degree more than the other members'—into the “warm handsome guy” category were something that even I, a third party, couldn't watch without tearing up.
Of course, I didn't actually cry. I had dry eye syndrome from staring at monitors too much.
Finally, the center representing Spark and the man guilty of captivating Department Head Nam's daughter, Choi Jeho.
This guy… looked like he was born in the North Pole.
His features practically had “I am not an easy guy” written on them in 13-point Batang font. He was, quite literally, the type of person you wouldn't want to run into on the street.
Indeed, his aura was so influential that it made perfect sense he'd contributed to about two hundred of the eight hundred times I'd visited the Ministry of Labor's complaint submission page.
If it weren't for that bastard, my average monthly overtime would have been reduced by at least 20 hours.
Every single one of them had a remarkable face.
And then there was me.
I recalled my face in the mirror this morning.
From any angle, it was the common face of a man in his twenties, just a bit less worn down by society.
‘Is there no such thing as a Visuals Proficiency?’
It feels like it has all the useless things and none of the ones I actually need.
It was as if the system didn't know how important visuals are to an idol. I guess I'm a disposable card to be thrown away after debut.
Perhaps I was pondering the meaning of my existence too seriously, because Lee Cheonghyun, who had been watching me, asked.
“Hyung, you don't like the jjolmyeon? Should I get you something else?”
“No. I was just thinking about something else.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“That I'm already a lost cause…”
“What are you talking about in the middle of a meal?”
Then, Lee Cheonghyun went back to focusing on his food. It was a morning full of worries. Not that anyone would understand me.
* * *
If dance class was somewhere between chaos, destruction, and despair, vocal class was a bit better.
Because there was no unfortunate incident where I had to demonstrate my ecstatic wooden doll dance.
Instead, I had to do my best to hide the soul of the tragic office worker who used to sing with a spoon stuck in a soju bottle.
“Iwol, can you try to relax your body a bit more when you sing?”
“Yes, I'll be careful.”
“Try not to be so tense. Your singing isn't bad.”
If I'm not tense, Department Head Nam's favorite song medley will come right out, so I have to be careful. Because I'm quite the trot singer.
Still, to meet the teacher's expectations, I clenched my fists and did my best to sing as instructed.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.
▷ Reward: Experience (20) granted
▷ Accumulated Experience: 100
▷ Accumulated Points: 1
+
Thanks to that, I also got experience for completing my first vocal lesson.
Unfortunately, since I couldn't raise my Visuals Proficiency, I invested the newly acquired 1 welfare point into Dance Proficiency. I guess handsome men really are born, not made.
+
Performance Evaluation (100)
― Vocal Proficiency: 4/20
― Dance Proficiency: 3(▲)/20
― Self-PR: 12/20
― Attendance Management: 18/20
― Adaptability within Organization: 10/20
Accumulated Experience: 0
Accumulated Points: 0
+
Seeing my proficiency levels slowly but steadily growing didn't make me proud, but it did put my mind at ease, at least a little.
If things keep going like this, I might be able to escape being a broken-down dance locomotive before debut…
+
[SYSTEM] A work directive from the ‘Person in Charge’ has arrived.
▶ It would be a problem if an employee with a title worked the same way they did as a new hire, wouldn't it? Let's see some performance now. You need to show some improvement so I have something to report to the higher-ups.
[SYSTEM] As the ‘Task’ adaptation period has ended, the obtainable experience will be adjusted.
▷ Previous: Base experience 20 granted
▷ After Change: Base experience 10 granted
+
Damn it.
You might as well hold a ritual praying for me to quit. Huh?
Just mix up the three-colored vegetables and serve me my funeral meal already.
* * *
It didn't take long to adapt to how things worked in the practice room.
Thanks to my experience surviving for about 1,400 days while reading Department Head Nam's mood.
Ah, I did occasionally make eye contact with Choi Jeho through the practice room mirror.
Perhaps because I'd gotten so used to walking on eggshells, I could now hear a voice in Choi Jeho's gaze.
‘If you're stiff again today, I'm really leaving you behind.’
‘It hurts my heart, but what can't be done, can't be done.’
Choi Jeho's brow furrowed like a piece of dried filefish jerky. It seemed he had read my ocular telepathy as well.
While the two of us were exchanging this heated gaze, someone came to the practice room. It was the person who had scouted me for UA, the one who had visited before.
Min Jukyung from the Management Division, I believe.
After the usual, sharp greetings were exchanged, Min Jukyung spoke.
“You all know the monthly evaluation is coming up, right? I came to announce it again since I thought Iwol might not know yet.”
I didn't know the details, but I knew about the existence of a monthly evaluation. It was pretty much the only thing Spark talked about when they shared stories from their trainee days.
Still, I was grateful for UA's consideration in announcing it more than ten days in advance.
Compared to Department Head Nam, who threw me into an afternoon meeting on the same day and then ran off using a half-day leave, UA's conduct was a shining beacon of light.
“The evaluation will be conducted the same way as last time. As for the details… Seongbin, could you explain it to Iwol?”
“Yes!”
Good-natured Jeong Seongbin energetically answered, even though he'd been handed the task of briefing me in an instant. He was truly the type to excel in the professional world.
If he shows that side of himself already, people who've sold their conscience will only try to take advantage of him.
People like me, for instance, who plan to bolt as soon as we debut.
“The only difference is that the CEO will be coming this time. You know what that means, right?”
While I was worrying about the future of Jeong Seongbin, who was on his way to becoming Spark's spokesman, Min Jukyung added.
“We're going to start finalizing the lineup for the debut team. So do well.”
