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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: The Master of Dance
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[Increase your choreography proficiency! Register a dance in ‘Master of Dance’ and raise the proficiency of by at least 1%.]
[Success Reward: 1 Lucky Roulette Ticket]
‘Not a guaranteed reward, but a gacha ticket? I bet I’ll get something useless… Anyway, Master of Dance… what the hell is that? The name sounds suspiciously similar to that drum game.’
[Please check ‘Jukebox’ and ‘Master of Dance’.]
‘Jukebox? What’s with that naming sense? It sounds like it’s from an older generation than me.’
[Please check ‘Jukebox’ and ‘Master of Dance’.]
‘Yeah, yeah. Jukebox.’
[Jukebox]
[Number of Registered Songs: 1]
[View list?]
[Yes / No]
‘Yes.’
[Registered Song List]
[Love is… Lilac Scent (Proficiency: 67%)]
“Hmm? This was here?”
“Eonni, what’s wrong? Need help with something?”
As Hye-sung unknowingly spoke her thoughts aloud, Na Yeon-woo, who was learning the choreography a short distance away, whipped her head around.
“Oh? No, it’s nothing. Keep doing what you’re doing. You can teach me after you’re done.”
“…Okay.”
Na Yeon-woo tilted her head, then refocused on her task.
Hye-sung pretended to watch the choreography video on the tablet and brought up the window again.
‘Master of Dance.’
[Master of Dance]
[Registered Choreography List: (-)]
‘Just as I thought.’
It seemed that things performed on stage were registered automatically, but otherwise, she had to register songs or dances herself.
[Register choreography?]
[Yes / No]
‘Yes… But how do I register it?’
[Registering choreography…]
[Synchronizing with user’s brain…]
[Progress… 12%… 28%…….]
‘What the—! It connects directly to my brain?’
Judging by the registration method, it seemed she couldn't register a dance she didn't know.
Hye-sung was a little creeped out by the brain-linking method, but since she had already memorized the entire choreography for this song, she wasn't worried about the registration failing.
[…100%. Registration successful!]
[Choreography has been registered.]
[Chance! (Proficiency: 0%)]
‘Now, how do I raise this proficiency?’
The status window sometimes went silent like a broken AI speaker, and right now, it was getting on Hye-sung’s nerves.
‘This bastard only pops up when it feels like it. Damn it, you useless piece of #@&!@#…….’
She was already fuming because of the garbage random trait, so letting out a stream of curses finally made her feel a little better.
‘…Anyway, it’s telling me to just learn it with my body.’
Hoping there might be a buff, Hye-sung clicked her tongue once and got up from her spot.
“I’ve learned all the choreography too.”
“You have?”
“What?”
Startled by the unbelievable statement, Na Yeon-woo and Im Ye-in’s eyes widened as they turned their heads toward Hye-sung.
“Well, I’ve roughly memorized all the moves.”
“You, Eonni…?”
“Hye-sung, are you by any chance a member of Mensa?”
“Not that I know of… I just memorized it.”
“Eonni! Really?”
Na Yeon-woo’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Hye-sung, thoroughly impressed.
“But even though I’ve memorized it in my head, my body can’t execute it, so I’m basically back at square one.”
Hye-sung said, scratching her head.
“Yeon-woo, let’s practice together. You can help me out a bit.”
Hye-sung smiled brightly at Na Yeon-woo—or rather, at the status window floating beside her.
[Na Yeon-woo (18/Female)]
Visuals ★★★★
Vocals ★☆
Dance ★★☆↑
Star Quality ★★
An arrow appeared next to Na Yeon-woo’s dance stat, blinking before it leveled up. It seemed her stats had risen while learning the choreography in the practice room.
‘Yeon-woo has the highest dance stat among us now. If she suffers a bit here as Class F’s teacher, she’ll get a good storyline and her rank will go up.’
“Everyone, gather over here. Yeon-woo and Ye-in Eonni have learned the choreography and are going to teach us!”
At Hye-sung’s shout, the 17 scattered trainees all gathered in one place.
“Oh, right! We need to pick a class president. It should be one of you two.”
“That’s right, they told us to pick a president.”
“Didn’t Yeon-woo say her position was dance? She should do it!”
“Ye-in Eonni is a dancer too.”
As Hye-sung casually threw out the suggestion, the trainees began to share their opinions.
“So, Yeon-woo, do you want to do it? You seem to learn choreography faster than me.”
“Uh… should I? Does anyone else want to do it?”
No one did. Just like that, Na Yeon-woo unexpectedly became the class president.
‘Hehe. All according to plan. Now I just need to look after myself.’
Hye-sung smirked inwardly, her fighting spirit ignited.
* * *
“Eonni, from there, you have to go into the ‘one and a’.”
“What was ‘and a’ again?”
“I explained the counts earlier…”
“I’m sorry…”
“Let’s try it again.”
With Na Yeon-woo leading as class president, Class F had been relentlessly practicing the choreography since yesterday. Their precision was lacking, but as they were all trainees who had received some training, everyone except one or two had a rough grasp of the moves up to the first verse.
But Hye-sung wasn’t one of them. She had memorized the entire choreography long ago, but her movements were still clumsy.
“You keep losing the beat, Eonni. It’s okay if the moves are wrong, just focus on the beat for now.”
“Sorry. I’m trying, but my body won’t listen.”
Hye-sung answered awkwardly, drenched in sweat. Everyone else had already started their individual practice, and she felt bad for taking up Na Yeon-woo’s time.
“Yeon-woo, I’ll try on my own for a bit, so you should get some individual practice in too. The re-evaluation is a live performance, so you need to practice your singing as well.”
“But still…”
*You’re so terrible, Eonni.* Na Yeon-woo’s expression seemed to say.
“Then check on me again in an hour. We’re going to practice as a group later anyway… If I’m really stuck, I’ll ask Ye-in Eonni too.”
“Okay. But if you don’t know something, you have to ask, alright?”
Na Yeon-woo stepped away from Hye-sung, her eyes full of doubt.
‘Ugh, why isn’t it going up?’
[Choreography: Chance! (Proficiency 0.47%)]
She thought reaching 1% would be quick, but she hadn't even managed that after practicing for nearly ten hours since last night.
‘At this rate, it’ll take a lifetime to reach 100%. A lifetime…’
About twenty minutes after Hye-sung began practicing alone, the practice room door opened.
“Hey everyone, how’s it going?”
It was the dance trainer, Kang Min-guk.
“Hello!”
“Alright, how far have you gotten?”
“We’re up to the first verse…”
The Class F trainees trailed off, lacking confidence.
“Let me see how you’re doing. President, stand in the front.”
Na Yeon-woo stood in the center of the front row, her face tense.
“Okay, let’s begin.”
After watching Class F dance, Kang Min-guk wore a strange expression as he shuffled through the papers he was holding.
“Yeon-woo.”
“Yes.”
“And Ye-in and Min-kyung.”
“Yes.”
“You three don’t have the skills to be in Class F. You must have made a lot of mistakes during the class evaluation, right?”
“Yes…”
“What do you need to do to move up in the re-evaluation?”
Kang Min-guk lectured them for a moment before his gaze shifted to Hye-sung.
“Hye-sung, Young-bin, and Rurika. Step forward.”
Sensing she was screwed, Hye-sung stepped forward.
“You know why you were called out, don’t you? Just the three of you, dance.”
The three worst dancers had been singled out.
Relieved that she wasn’t alone, Hye-sung focused and danced.
“Looks like Hye-sung’s finally getting her act together.”
‘Is that a compliment or an insult?’
It was somewhere between praise and a jab.
“You got almost everything wrong, but you’ve gotten a liiittle better. You’re at the stage where you’ve just started walking on two feet.”
‘So was I walking on all fours before this?’
“Alright, let’s all try it together with me. You three, stand in the front.”
Even while dancing, Kang Min-guk’s sharp eyes scanned the mirror, catching every mistake the trainees made.
“No, Hye-sung! Focus! Are you going to keep making the same mistake?”
“You’re slow! Don’t let your arms get all floppy!”
“Make your movements sharp and clean! Again!”
To Hye-sung and the other Korean trainees, he spoke loudly and harshly, as if scolding them. In contrast…
“Rurika, let’s try to be a little more confident.”
“Angela, that was good, but you need to make your movements more precise.”
…he spoke gently and encouragingly to the international trainees.
‘He’s only grilling us.’
“If you guys make the same mistakes tomorrow, you’re in for it. Practice properly. Got it?”
After coaching them for about an hour, Kang Min-guk left the practice room with that final remark.
‘I won’t make a single mistake, if only to avoid getting yelled at again.’
Feeling slightly wronged, Hye-sung threw herself into her practice.
* * *
“Waaah, Rurika can’t do it!”
A short while later, a wail erupted from a corner of the practice room.
“Yeon-woo-chan, help me~!”
Turning her head, Hye-sung saw a trainee with her hair tied in bizarre pigtails feigning tears as she ran toward Na Yeon-woo.
Fortunately, Na Yeon-woo was wearing earphones and didn’t seem to have noticed yet.
“Hey, Rurika. Yeon-woo needs to practice too. She couldn’t earlier because she was helping us. Go ask Ye-in Eonni or something.”
Hye-sung stopped Rurika.
“Rurika likes Yeon-woo-chan! I want Yeon-woo-chan to keep helping me!”
*What? Is this girl crazy? What does she think Yeon-woo is? Does she think my girl is her personal tutor?* Hye-sung was so dumbfounded that a bitter laugh escaped her.
“Don’t you think you should at least memorize all the moves before asking for help? You’re the only one who hasn’t even learned the intro properly.”
“Waaah! Hye-sung! You’re so mean! Rurika wants to memorize it, but it’s not sticking!”
“And is it going to magically stick if you go to Yeon-woo?”
*Do you have any conscience? You clumsy oaf.* The words were on the tip of her tongue, but Hye-sung swallowed them when she noticed the other trainees glancing their way.
“Anyway! Yeon-woo is busy right now. You go memorize the choreography first.”
“…Hmph.”
Rurika pouted and picked up her tablet.
Amamiya Rurika. A trainee who would undoubtedly beat Hye-sung for the number one spot as the clumsiest dancer in Class F.
‘And even with *her* around, I was the one who got singled out and chewed out.’ Hye-sung felt wronged.
The unfairness of holding Korean trainees to a stricter standard was a time-honored tradition dating back to Season 1.
Hye-sung, as a viewer, had especially loathed the practice of ‘going easy on Japanese trainees’ whose skills were severely lacking compared to those from other countries.
There were three Japanese trainees in Season 5. The other two had lived in Korea for a long time and were already fully adapted; their personalities and skills were fine, so they weren’t particularly bothersome. But Rurika was different.
‘She’s tone-deaf, can’t dance, has no motivation, and does nothing but whine. Who in their right mind would vote for her?’
Surprisingly, quite a few people did. Moreover, Rurika’s fanbase was extremely aggressive, no different from a pack of cyber bullies.
Its members were a group of so-called ‘Japanophiles.’
They disregarded everything else and liked Rurika for the sole reason that she was ‘Japanese.’ They didn’t care much for the other Japanese trainees, claiming they had become too Koreanized.
They just projected their fantasy of a Japanese girl onto Rurika and hyped her up like crazy. It was an act that was incredibly disrespectful to Rurika herself.
‘If it were any other trainee, I might understand, but Rurika had the strongest core fanbase among the international trainees. Those Japanophiles, I swear…’
Simply liking a Japanese trainee or member didn't automatically make someone part of that group of bullies. You could only be labeled a Japanophile after you became so high on your own nationalistic pride that you relentlessly attacked and belittled Korea, its trainees, and its idols.
From her time following Lunesta, Hye-sung had been burned by them so many times—they were like a malignant virus spreading through the K-pop ecosystem—that she never wanted to get involved with them again.
‘I need to hurry up and escape Class F so I don’t have to deal with Rurika.’
