No Night Swimming
The production crew stuck a blue sticker on Neoul’s practice clothes that read Second Class, then seated him in the area marked by a Business Class sign.
It was a rather shabby chair compared to First Class, but still far better than Economy, which had only mats laid out on the floor.
Ha On-ha, who sat in a First Class chair, had a purple sticker on his clothes that read First Class, while the contestants in Economy wore green stickers labeled Third Class.
Of course, Neoul only understood that the letters were all different; he could not read what they meant. So, without much thought, he watched the other contestants’ level evaluations onstage.
“Contestant Lee Gal-chae. You definitely have presence. Your expressions are lovely, and your lyric delivery is good too, so this is solid… but you do look a little overwhelmed.”
“……”
“You’ve been steadily active as a child actor for thirteen years, so why did you suddenly choose this path? Of course, you’re still young, so you can change your course. I’m just curious why you made this challenge when you already have such a stable future as an actor.”
“I’ve wanted to stand on stage since middle school, so I dreamed of becoming an idol… but back then, my family situation wasn’t exactly good, so I had to choose reality over my dreams.”
He was eighteen, the same age as Woo Cheong.
At the words family situation wasn’t exactly good, several contestants curled their lips downward or put on exaggerated reactions.
Neoul found those humans strange, so he looked around and watched them. Why did they do that without any sincerity at all?
Lee Gal-chae continued speaking.
“Things have gotten a little easier now, and my younger siblings have been very supportive, so I decided to challenge myself before it was too late. So I won’t regret it.”
Unlike Woo Cheong, who was tall but still had the energetic core of a little kid, Lee Gal-chae was slightly shorter yet carried himself with far more maturity and composure.
Neoul turned his head and studied the short contestant onstage with the large hands.
When he sang, he seemed strained by the need to dance at the same time, but when he spoke, his pronunciation was very clear and his voice was pleasant.
Another voice the Sea Witch would covet…
Lee Gal-chae, who received a Business Class ranking, approached the area where Neoul sat and quietly took a seat in the empty chair a little apart from the others.
He bowed politely to the people around him, but otherwise said nothing. He seemed completely opposite from sociable Woo Cheong, like a dolphin on the one hand and a silent stone on the other.
After a few more Economy contestants were called, it was Baek Yuri’s turn.
“Contestant Baek Yuri, you’ve debuted before, haven’t you?”
“Yes. I debuted with Clear when I was nineteen.”
“Disbanding after only six months must have been really hard on you.”
These were the sort of questions designed to fish for some past hardship. The production team seemed to hope Baek Yuri would even get teary-eyed, but he gave a calm, neat answer instead.
“There were difficult times, but I’m okay now. I’m grateful to have this chance to try again like this. I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Then let’s look at the stage.”
After the brief conversation about his background, the performance began.
Baek Yuri was obviously highly skilled.
Even while dancing a difficult, fast-tempo routine, he never missed a single beat, and every move snapped into place with precision. At the same time, his vocals were solid and stable. It was a stage that made the amount of practice he had done feel almost visible.
His tone was also appealing, carrying both boyishness and maturity at once. It was a little weighty, yet clear and clean. It sounded as if he weren’t forcing any decoration into his voice, which made it all the more captivating.
But in truth, to sing in a way that sounded unadorned and comfortable, as though nothing had been dressed up at all, took even greater effort and far more refined technique.
As expected… if the Sea Witch saw him, she’d probably try to steal his vocal cords whole.
Baek Yuri, who looked like he was about to have his liver stolen by Neoul and his vocal cords stolen by the Sea Witch, naturally received a First Class ranking.
“Thank you!”
As he came down from the stage with a bright smile, satisfaction lit his face. It was a happy, delighted smile.
But the instant Baek Yuri sat down and the camera that had been following him turned elsewhere, he erased that smile. A deep shadow fell over his bowed face. It happened in the briefest instant.
When Ha On-ha spoke to him, Baek Yuri chatted back with a bright expression as though nothing had happened.
Baek Gi-yeom, who had shown sing-rap, a sticky freestyle flow, and decent dance skills, also received a First Class ranking and flashed a V sign at the camera.
Kim Ji-rok, with the missing eyebrow, and Gye Tae-seok, who looked debauched, were both ranked Business.
At first they had shown high-level skill, but after Gye Tae-seok carelessly attempted a back handspring and fell, the two of them grew flustered and shook badly, which dragged their evaluation down.
They had come from large agencies, but compared to expectations, their ability to handle pressure was deemed lacking.
Woo Cheong, whose dazzling dance skills contrasted sharply with his disappointing vocals, was also Business Class. He had apparently lost points because he cracked on a note.
Woo Cheong bounced down from the stage and sat beside Neoul.
“Raccoon Brother! High five!”
“……?”
When Woo Cheong held up his hand, Neoul copied him, and their palms smacked together with a sharp clap.
“Yes! Next time, I’m definitely upgrading to First!”
The radiant eighteen-year-old, full of resolve, also greeted a few of the other contestants and kept cheerfully high-fiving everyone in sight.
By the time the last contestant had been evaluated, there were eleven contestants in First Class. Twenty-five were in Business, and a full forty-five had been pushed into Economy.
* * *
After the ranking evaluations ended, the signal song Welcome was revealed to all contestants.
“Over the next ten days, you’ll practice and then perform this song for the passengers boarding Idol Travel.”
From the next day onward, full training began. At that point, they had to turn in their smartphones in order to focus on practice.
Neoul received plenty of praise during vocal training, but during choreography training he was corrected dozens of times.
Since he had been forced to take classes in Business, even though he would probably have ranked last in Economy, his shortcomings stood out all the more. And because he couldn’t keep up with the material, he naturally got scolded.
“Neoul! Why do you keep looking at your feet? Raise your head! Do your legs only move if you don’t look at them?”
“Too slow! You’re off the beat!”
“Do you think you can debut like this, huh?”
“Why is it that when your feet are right, your hands are wrong, and when your hands are right, your feet can’t keep up?”
“Lift your arms higher, higher! Match the angle!”
The choreographer clapped, shouted, and occasionally let out exaggerated sighs and curses.
“Are you a little kid? Did you just learn how to walk the day before yesterday? What’s the point if the same hand and the same foot go out together, huh? Let’s do better!”
He really had learned just the day before yesterday.
“Yes.”
Neoul, drenched in sweat and dizzy, barely managed to answer. His breathing surged all the way up to his throat. It was the first time in his life that his heart had beaten so fast; normally, it moved at a leisurely pace of roughly twenty-five to thirty-five beats per minute.
Even during the short break he was given, Neoul emptied a two-liter water bottle in one gulp and then dove right back into practice. The choreography for the signal song Welcome was far faster and far more crowded with movements than an octopus dance, making it difficult.
It was hard partly because he had only just come to land and was learning to dance for the first time, but another major problem was that, with his tall frame, long limbs, and heavy muscle mass, his body simply wasn’t agile. On land, he felt far clumsier than he did in the deep sea.
After the first class ended, it was time for individual practice.
Neoul recalled the parts he had been told to fix—though in truth, he had been corrected on almost every part—and kept practicing without rest.
If I can’t debut, I won’t be able to cure Father’s illness.
He could not rest even if he wanted to. He could not lie down even if he wanted to collapse. If he didn’t somehow pull this off, then Father would…
The next day, Neoul was scolded many times again. Yet compared to the day before, the number of corrections had been cut in half.
The contestants in the same Business Class training group whispered quietly among themselves.
“Wasn’t he completely unable to do that move until yesterday? What happened?”
“Did he practice all night?”
That was right.
Neoul had danced straight through the night.
Before long, after managing walking, running, and even rhythmic movement, he began to grow slowly accustomed to the land’s atmosphere, where there was no buoyancy and no pressure. He was also gradually adapting to the two new legs he had gained.
Once his body, which had refused to move as he intended, started obeying his commands even a little, he found it amusing. And once it became fun, he learned the choreography faster. Whenever a move refused to work, he repeated it a hundred times over, practicing with brute force.
As always, Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom woke at four in the morning, went out for a run, then practiced their own choreography while tossing Neoul a few tips now and then.
They corrected small details, like telling him to lift his arms higher, or that keeping his gaze on his fingertips here would make the move look more natural.
Between meals, Neoul spent the whole day drenched in sweat and buried in practice, and empty water bottles piled up beside him.
“Raccoon Brother, did you drink twenty liters of water in one day? Brother, brother, were you a hippopotamus?”
Woo Cheong counted the bottles and stared in amazement.
While eating his dinner box and seeing the sun sink outside the window, Neoul asked Woo Cheong, “I know not what a raccoon or a hippopotamus may be, but do you know how one goes from here to the sea?”
“The sea?”
Woo Cheong searched for a map on his tablet PC and showed it to Neoul.
“This is the nearest beach. Right now we’re at a pension, so if you go out to the right and keep following the road left from here, you’ll get there. It’s only a fifteen-minute walk.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“But why the beach? Are you going somewhere?”
Neoul nodded. Today was the fourth day the Sea Witch had spoken of.
It was the day he had to send Sangsangi and Byeoldtongi back to the sea. He had to reach the shore before midnight.
Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom, who kept strict faith with bedtime, were already asleep by ten o’clock. Woo Cheong simply conked out early, and Kim Ji-rok never came back in from wherever he had gone.
Wasn’t the practice room’s light turned off a while ago?
Neoul reached out toward the sharks, whose tails were flapping back and forth. He held them carefully in his arms and slipped out quietly.
He wandered for a while because he wasn’t used to reading maps, but fortunately he reached the beach before midnight.
The sound of cool waves reached his ears. The quiet beach, unpopular and lonely, had no one on it.
Neoul took off the sneakers he had been forced to wear throughout practice, then removed his socks as well. When he stepped barefoot onto the soft sand, he felt a faint sense of release.
He dipped his feet into the incoming sea. Water rose to his ankles, but his legs did not turn into a tail. So it seemed that he needed to be submerged at least up to his waist before he returned to his original form.
Neoul went a little deeper. Now the water reached his calves. Every time a wave rolled in, it sometimes climbed up to his knees.
Inside Neoul’s arms, the two sharks fluttered their tails. They seemed to recognize the sea and want to swim.
“Byeoltong. Sangsang. I shall go find rabbit’s liver and return, so you should go back to the sea first.”
Neoul hugged the sharks tightly once each, then tried to lower them into the seawater.
But the water was too shallow here, and if they changed form now, the sharks would probably not be able to swim—or even breathe.
Our Byeoltong was three meters long, after all, and quite large in build.
Neoul had no choice but to try to go deeper. But then someone came running up in a panic and shouted as they grabbed his arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Neoul flinched and turned around.
“Don’t you know night swimming is forbidden? Or were you trying to die?”
“Rabbit Teacher?”
The one who interrupted Neoul was Baek Yuri, whose face had gone as pale as a ghost.