Develop (2)
Neoul tapped lightly at his ear as he spoke.
“You are quite skilled with all manner of sounds, are you not? I saw both your boundless talent and your potential in the accompaniment you made for me, and in this song as well.”
Yeo Do-bin was thrown off by Neoul’s reply. There was no way he had discovered talent in a song written as a joke. He could not understand how Neoul could be so certain of his ability.
My boundless talent and potential? Wasn’t potential something every person in the world possessed without limit? It wasn’t as if he were especially remarkable.
Yeo Do-bin believed that if everyone in the world had passion, they could do anything and become anything. He thought talent was something people made, not something they were simply born with.
Just as no baby stood up and walked the moment it was born, everyone learned things from the most basic level upward.
Talent and potential belonged to everyone, so the reason Neoul gave could not really be the true reason. He could not understand why Neoul had chosen his song when there had been other songs to pick.
Still, rather than picking it apart point by point, Yeo Do-bin nodded. Neoul, having caught the trace of doubt in his expression, added, “Your melody and accompaniment have a gift for calling forth rich images in the listener’s mind. Merely hearing them is enough to draw one in quickly.”
“...!”
“While listening to the six songs one by one earlier, I happened to observe the expressions and postures of the other contestants. In your song, I found that everyone was confused, and yet most deeply focused. It means none dared to listen carelessly. They were pulled in at once.”
“R-really...?”
At Yeo Do-bin’s dazed question, the teammates chimed in.
“Yeah! Exactly! Do-bin-hyung’s song was weird and unique, but it had this power that made you listen from beginning to end!”
“Ohhh, I remember Do-bin’s song really clearly, but the others are kind of blurry? I’ve already forgotten them.”
“Right. I hadn’t realized it myself, but I definitely...”
As Woo Cheong, Ha On-ha, and even Baek Yuri agreed with Neoul, Yeo Do-bin’s expression slowly brightened. Awkward as he was with praise and unsure what to do with himself, he could not hide how happy he was. The corners of his mouth kept creeping upward.
“Th-thank you.... Thank you, everyone....”
“Why are you thanking us? You’re the one setting the table, and we’re just going to take a spoon to it.”
Even when Neoul declared that they would coast through this round on Yeo Do-bin’s talent, Yeo Do-bin was delighted. Praise did make Yeo Do-bin dance... not really, but it did make him smile.
Yeo Do-bin’s smile, born of genuine feeling, was neither awkward nor frightening. It was simply beautiful. The camera operator, who had been filming quietly like a shadow, zoomed in on his laughing face.
“Um....”
Buoyed by the teammates’ praise and by Neoul’s, Yeo Do-bin gained enough courage to connect to the internet on his pad and say, “Actually, after I submitted this song, I prepared a developed version, just in case.”
“Huh...?”
“Eh?”
“Developed?”
Yeo Do-bin logged into his email and pulled up the file he had saved.
“I did... finish it, but I never even thought of the theme ‘breakwater,’ so I think I’d need to arrange it further to fit our concept. W-would you like to hear it?”
“Obviously~ Why would you even ask that?”
Ha On-ha shook Yeo Do-bin’s shoulders, urging him to play it already.
Yeo Do-bin played the file, a little tense. The teammates moved away from the speakers and computer set up behind them and gathered around the pad to listen. Every head tipped toward the same point.
Was their team the one with that weird song?
The camera operator, shooting the contestants in a full group shot during the discussion, scratched his chin as he recalled Yeo Do-bin’s first song.
Even if he says he developed it...
He didn’t expect much.
Yeo Do-bin’s song had been odd enough to feel as though it had been made by aliens. Like it had come from a dimension other than the three-dimensional world. Or maybe it was just too far ahead of its time.
If it had merely been difficult to parse, he would have taken it as just another strange piece, but even to him, someone with no deep musical knowledge, it sounded like something that would be very hard to sing.
Even if they’re all top-ranked trainees... can they really pull it off properly? They’d be lucky not to embarrass themselves.
Yeo Do-bin’s teammates sat there with their breath held, absorbing the upgraded new demo with grave concentration.
The camera operator kept filming with a detached look. Then—
Wheeeeeeeeng—
The intro began with an electronic tone.
[oh every morning everything
Are you ready
dededaboo dorara do babiba dodo]
A guide track in a mash-up of English he had already heard once and alien gibberish he could not possibly understand came pouring out with a full, dense sound.
This is...
far, far better than before.
“This is good.”
At Ha On-ha’s murmur, the camera operator startled, thinking he had said his own inner thoughts out loud. But then he was drawn back into the music and focused on listening.
The beat is insane.
The rough synth and commanding bass seized his ears.
Even though the guitar loop and melody from the unfinished version were still there... once it had been developed, it no longer felt bizarre. It felt hip, cool, and sharp.
The melody carried a playful yet urban feel, and when it moved into the rap section, the mood shifted into boom bap, naturally layering in the feel of a mix pop song.
The addictive chorus struck and slipped away smoothly, and the song unfolded with vivid momentum.
How the hell did this happen?
It had an electronic, trendy feel.
The earlier impression of something uncanny had vanished without a trace. All that remained was the expectation of seeing the finished stage, and seeing it soon.
He held his breath and listened, transfixed, and only after the song ended did he let out the breath he had been holding with a hard exhale.
The contestants seemed to feel the same way as the camera operator.
“Whoa...! This works! This is going to work! Hey!”
“Do-bin-hyung! This is insane!”
“Woohoo! This is dope!”
Ha On-ha, Woo Cheong, and Logan shouted in excitement, bouncing in place. Baek Yuri nodded as well.
Clatter!
“Urk!”
The camera operator groaned at the pain shooting through his leg, then, before he could even wince properly, reached out and grabbed the wobbling tripod.
He had been so absorbed in listening that, without noticing, he had knocked it with his body.
“A-are you all right...?”
Yeo Do-bin asked as he hurried over, his face alarmed. The camera operator waved his hands in panic.
“Huh?! Does that mean you’re not all right?!”
As Yeo Do-bin came closer, the other contestants also leaned in, concern spreading across their faces.
The camera operator shook his head in a hurry. Then he waved them away as if telling them not to mind him and go on. Yeo Do-bin cast him a worried look, then pulled back once he realized filming had to continue.
The camera operator quickly straightened the camera and tripod. Looking at the screen, he saw the focus was off too. Damn.
He refocused it sharply, then swung the camera back toward Neoul to catch his reaction to Yeo Do-bin’s developed song.
Neoul spoke.
“I look forward to the stage made with this song.”
“Yeah...! Me too...!”
Yeo Do-bin’s voice had grown louder, as if his confidence and courage had surged all at once.
He said, “T-then I think we need to decide the stage concept and add lyrics as well...! Does anyone have any good ideas?”
“Right~”
Ha On-ha clapped lightly and joined in. “Okay, since Do-bin says we need to decide the stage concept, let’s talk about the theme first~? Our theme was breakwater. Um. Breakwater....”
Ha On-ha got as far as the three syllables before going momentarily speechless.
“Mm....”
What am I supposed to do with a breakwater?
He could not think of a single thing. Woo Cheong was no better; nothing came to mind there either. Yeo Do-bin and Logan had to search on the pad first to find out what breakwater was in English.
“Oh. So it was seawall...?”
“Breakwater! Okay!”
Neoul also came over and looked with them.
A sea wall? Hmm. It’s something that blocks waves.
Only then did the entire team finally understand the theme.
...Why block waves? Do they dislike them because the seawater is cold?
Neoul was still somewhat puzzled.
To Neoul, waves, storm surges, and tsunamis did not carry much of a sense of danger.
For humans, they were disasters that had to be blocked, but to Neoul they were merely occasional phenomena one could avoid by going deeper below the sea surface.
The entire team thought over what kind of stage they could create from the theme of “breakwater,” and what sort of lyrics they should write.
But soon their train of thought shifted to a more fundamental question: why, exactly, did the production team keep throwing bizarre themes like this into an idol survival show?
As the team fretted over the problem, Yeo Do-bin tried asking questions to get them speaking more freely.
“F-for now... if you have any experiences you associate with a breakwater, let’s just say them out loud?”
If they started listing memories, thoughts, and words that came to mind, an answer would surely emerge. There were six of them, after all; if they talked long enough, surely something would come out of it....?
At Yeo Do-bin’s question, Ha On-ha was the first to share his experience.
“Well, it wasn’t anything special~ I went to the sea with my family and sat on a breakwater eating seafood ramyeon.”
“I watched some old guy illegally fishing!”
Woo Cheong exposed fishermen who were openly committing a crime in a breakwater zone where fishing was prohibited.
“A coast guard patrol boat came and sounded its horn and siren, but some of the old men got mad and shouted, ‘Is this your ocean?’ and asked why they weren’t allowed to fish, then fell into the water. The coast guard folks sighed and rescued them.”
“Oh my goodness, those poor men~”
Ha On-ha supplied the reaction as a verbal cushion.
Yeo Do-bin also spoke up.
“I... once went to Naruma Port with my dad, and I met some seals I knew on the breakwater and said hello to them.”
“...? You know seals?!”
Ha On-ha asked.
“Ah, yeah...! We’d seen them sometimes while free diving with Dad, and they were resting when they came up. I recognized them because they had a round bald patch on the top of their head and a scar there.”
That was the end of the Australian who talked about seals as if he were talking about acquaintances he knew personally....
“Mm....”
The others had nothing else in mind and only rolled their eyes around.
Neoul, who had been listening quietly, tilted his head. He had no memories connected to breakwaters at all. Using Ha On-ha’s and Woo Cheong’s experiences as a basis, he tried to imagine a song.
[Sitting on the breakwater
We ate seafood ramyeon
Ramyeon is spicy! Spicy things are poison! Yeah!]
[An old man went fishing! He shouted and raged!
What now! He splashed into the sea!]
Neoul rubbed his face and gave a dry wash to his features. No matter how he thought about it, for the third round of competition, where their fate was on the line...
It isn’t cool at all!
The seal story was no different. As the whole team groaned and held their heads in their hands, Baek Yuri spoke up.
“Well. A breakwater blocks waves and protects a harbor, doesn’t it? So I think it might be better to emphasize the quality of ‘protection’ rather than trying to do something with the breakwater itself.”
“Oh?”
Ha On-ha tilted his head.
“Or we could write lyrics by imagining that we’re in a position where we have to protect someone, like a breakwater protecting a harbor. I think that could be interesting too.”
At the word protect, Neoul thought of the Gyeomsa-bok police officer and the blue-ringed octopus, Dongdong Gyeomsa-bok.
The Gyeomsa-bok who served as royal guards.
They were warriors who protected the king and the Dragon Palace, and Dongdong was now carrying out the duty of protecting Neoul.
To Neoul, Dongdong was not especially reliable or cool, and his own body was something Neoul could protect on his own, so her help was not particularly necessary...
But the spear-training exercises of the military officers he had seen in the Dragon Palace had looked truly magnificent.
Should we do a royal guard concept?
But they had already worn similar outfits in the first team battle. Back then, though, they had not modeled themselves after royal guards but after the tiger hunters known as Chakho Gapsa.
Just then, Yeo Do-bin and Baek Yuri spoke at the same time.
“Ah.”
“H-how about something like this...?”
Baek Yuri and Yeo Do-bin met each other’s eyes. The two of them spoke in turn.
“Security guards.”
“The navy!”
It was a little different, but roughly the same conclusion had been reached.
“That’s good too.”
“S-security guard sounds good too...!”
Ha On-ha clapped and cheered that it was a good idea. Woo Cheong looked at them with amazement.
“What kind of chain of thought gets you from breakwater to that conclusion?”
Still, he agreed that the navy or security guard concept sounded good. Logan voted for security guards.
“Yeeees! Black suit!”
A little later, they decided on the concept by majority vote. Once the concept had been chosen, Yeo Do-bin asked, “And... is there anyone who can write lyrics...?”
As someone who had experience with composing, arranging, and writing lyrics, Yeo Do-bin knew how to write them, but there was still the matter of arranging the song to fit the concept. He did not have enough time to handle everything alone, so it seemed better to leave part of it to someone else.
Neoul considered raising a hand, then quietly lowered it again. At sea, he had only ever made up lyrics as they came to him and sung them however he liked.
[Our little brother is cute
The cutest in the world
Our clever, bright little cutie brother
Grow big and become a splendid dragon]
...or something like that.
[Do-seungji has a bald head
So smooth and shiny
Do-seungji’s son has a bald head too
So glossy and polished
Touch it and he’ll startle and hide away
A leatherback turtle father and son
May you live long and well, may you stay healthy
Turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle]
If he wrote lyrics like that here, he would probably be met with awkward, bewildered stares full of embarrassment.