The Difference of Languages
“Wow! I really love Surf!”
“The Luma seniors’ song! I want to do the first one!”
“Whoa, Over is totally mine! I know that choreography!”
The contestants erupted into noise again.
Woo Cheong, who had become Neoul’s team leader, seemed to have a song he desperately wanted as well.
“Jealous! Let’s do our Jealous! Let’s show them what real men look like!”
After giving everyone a moment to check the song titles, the names on the screen folded themselves into paper-like notes. Twelve identical slips were created.
“Huh?”
The twelve slips began shuffling around, sliding past one another in a chaotic blur.
“A shell game…?”
In an instant, the contestants clamped their mouths shut and focused hard, their eyes darting everywhere. They didn’t want to lose sight of the slip with the song they wanted.
“Ah! I lost it!”
But one by one, contestants began missing their slips and crying out in despair. The order in which they could pick was the same as the order established when the team members were chosen.
Baek Yuri reached out without hesitation and drew Donkeys.
Woo Cheong, waiting for his turn, reacted as if he’d been shot the moment he lost the song he wanted, then collapsed weakly to the floor. Baek Yuri spotted the over-the-top display and smiled apologetically, his eyebrows bending in a worried arch as he slipped inside.
“What does our team want to do?”
Ha On-ha asked his teammates for their opinions, and when they split, he put it to a majority vote.
“Over? Got it~”
He had boldly stepped forward, saying he’d pick Over, only to draw Under and slam his head down in defeat.
“Sorry! I must’ve mixed them up!”
Ha On-ha’s team welcomed it cheerfully, saying Under was fine too.
A moment later, it was Woo Cheong’s turn.
Woo Cheong clasped his hands in prayer and made a grand show of gathering the energy of the entire universe before drawing, meaning he had no idea where anything was and was simply leaving it to chance.
“Hyah!”
With a fierce shout, he chose the slip at the far left.
[I’ll Come Get You — SAIM]
When the paper unfolded and the song title appeared, the pupils of the teammates huddled around Neoul began trembling wildly.
“Oh….”
Only one foreign teammate from Japan and Neoul himself had no idea why, and they tilted their heads in confusion.
The song Woo Cheong had drawn, I’ll Come Get You, was by the female solo artist SAIM. Not an idol song, and not even a dance track, but a band-based pop-rock number.
Because they would have to create choreography and arrange the song as well, it was extremely difficult and tricky for trainees to present as a first stage. Compared to that, the benefits of choosing it were low.
It was the kind of song that was either a total triumph or a total disaster. More often than not, it turned into a half-baked stage that landed somewhere in between, so unless you were absolutely certain you could pull it off insanely well, it was the kind of song best avoided.
In a survival program, luck was skill too. Among all those idol songs, this was the one trap the production team had slipped in.
There were teams who drew girl group songs, too, but their atmosphere wasn’t nearly this serious.
Neoul looked at the teammates seated in a circle around him.
Woo Cheong, Baek Gi-yeom, and the youngest contestant, the fourteen-year-old Ko Un-gu, who had introduced himself as still being in middle school, along with the nineteen-year-old Japanese contestant Kamae Daiki.
Ko Un-gu and Kamae Daiki were Economy Class.
Everyone had been laughing loudly and introducing themselves brightly, but the Korean contestants still couldn’t hide the shaken look in their eyes.
“You and Daiki said you don’t know this song, right? Then why don’t we all listen to it once first?”
The oldest, Baek Gi-yeom, spoke up first. Neoul suppressed his confusion and listened carefully to the song drifting from the tablet.
Tick. tick. Tick. tick—
The sound of a clock hand, along with a gentle but lively guitar riff and drumbeat, struck his ears.
[Time seems to be moving slower and slower
Why is that? Well.
You already know the reason, don’t you]
[Don’t pretend you don’t know, just look at me
Don’t play dumb, just listen to me]
Hmm, this voice…?
Neoul realized it was the same voice as the owner of the song Baek Yuri had sung on the beach.
Her stage name had been SAIM, and her real name was Seoseim, if he remembered correctly.
Even in that other song, the lyrics had begun with “Should we turn back the clock?” She seemed to enjoy writing lyrics about time.
[Ummm I feel—
Without you, the whole world is gray
We need to be together, that much is true
Honestly, you know it too
Tell me the truth, boy]
At first the melody had been calm and bright, but in the pre-chorus it flowed into a livelier, sweeter mood.
Then came the chorus.
[I won’t wait anymore
I’ll come get you
Take my hand, hold on
Don’t let go and follow me]
[Shall we walk all the way to the end of the earth
Just like this
It feels like we could go
All the way to the end of the world, doesn’t it—]
Above the fuller drums and piano accompaniment, clear high notes soared outward.
It was a melody that felt refreshing, with just a faintly seductive edge.
[We’ll cross beyond the borders of light
And prance along with light steps
Just go wherever our feet take us
Fall in love, just by feeling]
[Feels so good, don’t stop
Let’s keep walking like this
I will be over the moon]
[I can feel your breath even in my dreams
We’re already tangled together so deeply
A maze we can’t escape
We have to walk this path together]
Even the sweet singing-rap part featuring a younger idol.
The song itself was wonderful, but the faces of the teammates listening to it were clouded with concern.
Even after listening seriously, they all still looked like they had no idea how to build a stage around it.
“First, let’s lower it to a male key... then maybe make the choreography feel sweet, like a confession, to match the mood?”
Baek Gi-yeom offered a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Woo Cheong looked uncertain.
“Hyung, hyung, is this a confession song?”
“Hmm... It’s about two people who like each other, so they stop measuring the distance and decide to stay together. Isn’t that basically a confession?”
At that moment, the middle schooler Ko Un-gu shot his hand into the air.
“Wouldn’t it be a little boring if we just kept the original vibe?”
Neoul thought Ko Un-gu’s bright, alert eyes and round little head made him look exactly like a penguin he’d once seen in the Antarctic sea.
Woo Cheong immediately agreed with him.
“Right, right! Other teams are definitely going to do something powerful and cool! The teams are going to have super tight choreography, and they’ll probably wear leather jackets or suits and look amazing!”
What’s more, their match-up wasn’t a lucky one.
They had, of all people, been paired against a team with an addictive melody and an explosive performance.
And the team leader was Baek Yuri, of all people. There was no way they could win by doing anything half-hearted.
“I guess so... But we can’t exactly wear leather jackets for this song, can we?”
It felt more suited to a fresh campus look or a cute boyfriend style.
As for the dance... the best approach was probably to start with something light and flowing, then build toward bigger, more open movements in the highlight.
“Still, the chorus is pretty lively. If we can make that part shine, wouldn’t that be good?”
Baek Gi-yeom replayed the chorus and then asked, “Or do you have a concept you want to do?”
“Yes, sir! I want to do a super cool power sexy concept!”
The team leader Woo Cheong’s eyes sparkled. Baek Gi-yeom’s eyes widened, and he looked around at the rest of the team.
A tiny middle schooler, two high schoolers, and one guy whose body was big but whose behavior was like a child.
“Ahem. Tsk. There are three minors here, so what do you think you’re saying? And Neoul is only twenty, right? The only person here who can do a sexy concept is me, little ones. Rejected.”
At twenty-two, with legal authority to be sexy, Baek Gi-yeom shook his head and patted the backs of the little ones seated on either side of him.
“I’m not a little one.”
“I’m not a little one either.”
Woo Cheong and Ko Un-gu pouted in unison and glared at him, but it didn’t matter in the slightest.
“Yes, yes. Rejected.”
“That’s so mean!”
Neoul had spent his whole life being treated like a baby beside the Dragon King, who had lived four thousand years, and the Sea Witch, who had survived two thousand. So this caused him no damage at all.
A twenty-year-old is a baby, yes indeed.
In front of those two, even a human elder over a hundred would still be a baby.
I am Father’s proud baby, of course.
Neoul felt proud of how far he had come—from a tiny baby who had only barely managed to wiggle his fins, to a large baby who had climbed onto land alone to cure his father’s illness.
Baek Gi-yeom amused himself by pressing the palms of his hands down on the heads of the teenagers on both sides.
“Funny how babies always insist they’re not babies. Adults, on the other hand, are the ones who actually want to be kids.”
“I’m not, though. I’m a hundred percent the original real thing, a true manly man.”
Woo Cheong shoved Baek Gi-yeom’s hand away and sprang to his feet, flexing his biceps and triceps to show them off. Ko Un-gu, the middle schooler, also protested, saying he had a black belt in taekwondo and even knew kumdo.
But standing beside Baek Gi-yeom, who had maintained his body through steady workouts and a strict diet, and beside Neoul, who had simply grown muscular from swimming and roaming around the sea, the two skinny teenagers looked pitiful.
Only they themselves seemed not to realize it.
While they bickered, the Japanese contestant Kamae Daiki could only watch, unable to fully follow their banter.
Daiki had studied Korean for about six months to join this program, but he was, frankly, not very bright.
In the end he had only managed to memorize a handful of basic phrases before filming began.
Still, things had been manageable so far because one of his roommates was Japanese too. But now that he was surrounded by Koreans, his Korean-speaking anxiety was turning his stomach.
And now that it was team competition, his roommate would probably change, too. Anxiety and worry were already darkening his vision.
“Okay, okay, I get it. Fine, let’s do the real-man thing. Still, save the sexy concept for a few more years and just do the real-man thing for now.”
Baek Gi-yeom firmly but kindly soothed the two teenagers back into their seats. Then he noticed the look on Daiki’s face.
“Daiki. Are you hurting somewhere?”
Daiki shook his head.
“Um... Daiki, what kind of concept do you want to try? Do you have any ideas?”
Baek Gi-yeom asked slowly and clearly, pronouncing each syllable with care to consider the Japanese contestant.
Daiki understood him, but when it came time to answer, the words clogged in his throat.
“Seisyun. I don’t know in Koreannn.”
“It’s okay. We can just use a translator.”
Baek Gi-yeom was about to look for a translation app on the tablet when—
“Seisyun?”
Neoul, who had understood instantly, asked Daiki back. Daiki’s eyes went wide at the native-like pronunciation.
[You there, Mr. Gal. Do you speak Japanese?]
[Who is Mr. Gal, and what is Japanese?]
[I mean the thing Mr. Gal just said now!]
[Is Mr. Gal speaking here?]
Neoul looked around, searching for this “Mr. Gal,” but could not see anyone. The language sort of worked, but the conversation did not.
[You’re the one I’m calling Mr. Gal!]
[Me?]
One person called him Raccoon, another called him Mr. Gal. Gal Neoul had only one body, but many nicknames.
“Neoul, you can speak Japanese?”
“Raccoon hyung, you speak Japanese?”
Baek Gi-yeom and Woo Cheong asked in surprise.
“Ah... I think I spoke Human language... but, well, perhaps so.”
“Hah! What even is Human language?”
Baek Gi-yeom laughed, saying Neoul always came out with weird things from time to time.
Only then did Neoul realize that the feeling of the language spilling from his mouth when he spoke to Koreans was somehow different from when he spoke to Daiki. The same went for listening.
He had learned that the language Daiki used was the one called Japanese.
[Mr. Gal! The answer to Mr. Baek’s question from earlier was “youth.” Please translate for me!]
“Neoul. What did Daiki say?”
“He says someone called Mr. Baek asked a question, and the answer was youth.”
“Who’s Mr. Baek...? Ah, me? It’s me!”
Baek Gi-yeom got it immediately and nodded.
“Youth. That’s nice too.”
[Mr. Gal. What did Mr. Baek say?]
[He says youth is nice too.]
When Neoul spoke to Daiki, Japanese came out automatically; when he spoke to Baek Gi-yeom, Woo Cheong, or Ko Un-gu, Korean came out just as naturally.
At first the two languages had seemed utterly indistinguishable, but the more he went back and forth, the more clearly he could feel the difference.
So not all Human languages are the same kind of Human language.
Come to think of it, dolphins in different seas used different dialects to communicate too, and when they met, they couldn’t understand one another. There was no law saying humans had to use only one language.
Just as he was quietly coming to terms with that, Rabbit Teacher Baek Yuri’s voice flashed through his mind. And come to think of it…
Had it never been Rabbit language even once?