Develop (3)
“I’ll do it.”
Baek Yuri raised a hand.
“I’ve done both lyrics and composition for school projects. I also practice sometimes by setting Korean lyrics to pop songs.”
At the statement from the practical-music student, everyone nodded in agreement. Baek Yuri was the type of person who never did anything halfheartedly. There was a quiet faith underneath it all that he would do well.
“R-right…! Then Yuri-hyeong can handle the lyrics, and if you need any help, the rest of us can back you up then…!”
With the lyric issue settled, Yeo Do-bin turned to look for the next problem-solver.
“And the arrangement is still left, but the basic framework won’t change, so it’d be good to work out a few point choreo moves in advance…. Could someone take chore—”
“Me! Me! Woo Cheong-i-yop!”
“I can too~”
Before Yeo Do-bin could even finish, volunteers came flooding in. Neoul slowly raised a hand as well, but Ha On-ha stretched an arm out from the side and quietly lowered Neoul’s hand for him.
“...?”
“Restrain yourself. Restrain yourself.”
Ha On-ha gave Neoul’s shoulder a light pat-pat. In the end, the choreography fell into the hands of Woo Cheong, Ha On-ha, and Logan.
Neoul, who had been watching the team’s roles get assigned, sat there blankly for a moment before asking, “Then what of me? What shall I do?”
“Ah…! Neoulie, I’ve got something separate for you to do with me…!”
Yeo Do-bin stood up, sounding as though he’d just remembered the perfect thing to say.
The team scattered to their assigned tasks. Woo Cheong, Ha On-ha, and Logan headed out into the hallway rather than crowd the cramped studio while they worked out the choreography, leaving only Yeo Do-bin, Neoul, and Baek Yuri inside.
Yeo Do-bin found his glasses in the pocket of his outerwear, slipped them on, rummaged around the studio, and quickly hooked up a recording mic.
“I’m thinking of doing some doubling.”
Then he pulled Neoul over to the mic.
“I’m also going to add some ad-libs and interjections.”
The look in Yeo Do-bin’s eyes when he worked was completely different from usual. Light from the screen sparkled in his focused gaze.
Neoul became Yeo Do-bin’s new instrument, making one sound after another. Tststst. Bam-bam. Boom-boom. Uuuuu— Yeo Do-bin left some of Neoul’s voice exactly as it was, and other parts he edited and used with complete freedom.
After making Neoul record every kind of interjection imaginable, Yeo Do-bin’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Then, with uncanny speed, his fingers flew over the mouse.
“Shh. Say it.”
Ah, he knew this one. It meant be quiet. Neoul thought his part was done and shut his mouth. Then Yeo Do-bin asked him to make a “shh” sound into the mic.
Is this truly going properly? What in the world does he intend to use all this for?
Doubt flickered in a corner of Neoul’s mind, but the fragments he had recorded were being fitted together in Yeo Do-bin’s hands the way Won Hasin assembled display robot toys.
Yeo Do-bin’s long fingers darted back and forth between the keyboard and mouse.
Every so often he stood up and told Baek Yuri and Ha On-ha to keep this or that feeling in mind because it would come together like this in the finished track, then sat back down and resumed clicking the mouse.
Footsteps passed constantly in the hallway. Ha On-ha, Woo Cheong, and Logan decided to make a few point-choreography sequences that would fit the concept, then attach and revise them once the song was finished.
Night deepened. The light in the studio was turned off. And yet the glow from the monitor and keyboard Yeo Do-bin was staring at did not go out until dawn arrived and morning broke.
In the meantime, Logan and Woo Cheong had collapsed on the sofa and fallen asleep.
Yeo Do-bin had left only a tiny portion of the arrangement unfinished.
Meanwhile, Baek Yuri wore a headset and listened to the song over and over again until it was burned into his mind, humming along under his breath as he finished the lyrics. The pad in Baek Yuri’s hand kept turning off and on again.
Ha On-ha wandered around complaining that he couldn’t sleep, then went to the convenience store to buy water and snacks.
He set the snacks in front of the team members, whose blood sugar must have been in free fall by then, and while stealing occasional glances at the unfinished lyrics Baek Yuri was writing, he started shaping the choreography.
And somehow Neoul, reduced to an instrument and stripped of his sense of self, kept stuffing his face with bread Ha On-ha had bought, dozing off and waking up in turns while helping Yeo Do-bin, until he was finally released when the breakfast lunchboxes were delivered.
Because production hadn’t provided a late-night meal, Neoul endured his hunger with nothing but a cream bun that held almost no nutritional value, then practically inhaled his lunchbox. Ha On-ha came over beside him and began pecking at his own meal as well.
Not long after the two of them started eating, Yeo Do-bin threw both hands up in triumph.
“I-I’m done…! Ugh, I’m starving…!”
“I’m done too. Let’s eat, then practice, then get into recording.”
Baek Yuri, too, set down his pad and let out a breath. Even when their stomachs growled, Yeo Do-bin and Baek Yuri had not left their chairs, and only after seeing it through to the very end did they finally get up and open their lunchboxes.
The sight of people who hadn’t slept—half-mad, bloodshot-eyed, and one mermaid among them—shoving food into their mouths like zombies was absolutely pitiful. And yet there was a strange satisfaction on all of their faces.
Ha On-ha, who had been the only one nibbling rather daintily, now looked sleepy at last, barely eating breakfast and then leaning against the wall to doze off.
Woo Cheong and Logan, smelling food, rustled awake and stumbled over while rubbing at their sleepy eyes to eat with them.
Woo Cheong gave all the side dishes he didn’t want to Neoul, then mixed rice with egg and seaweed and ate it that way. As he woke up a little more, he took one look at the rest of the team and nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Hyung-nims, don’t tell me you didn’t sleep a single second? And you told me to sleep! I should’ve stayed up all night too!”
Rather than worrying about his hyungs, Woo Cheong was sincerely disappointed that they hadn’t all burned with artistic fervor together like a scene out of a movie and pulled an all-nighter side by side.
Then Yeo Do-bin grinned and shakily got to his feet.
“Wanna hear it?”
He played the song, dropped back into his seat, and shoved rice into his mouth. The far fuller, richer track filled the studio.
“Could you take a look at the lyrics too? I need a final check.”
Baek Yuri held out the lyric sheet he’d finished overnight.
“Hmm…. If I emphasize the occupational aspect, it starts sounding like he’s just getting paid to do his job, so I added a bit more MSG. Like he’s trying to protect someone he loves…? I thought listeners might prefer that.”
Then he sang the melody he’d listened to until he was sick of it, now fitted with the lyrics. The response was extremely positive.
“Excellent!”
“Both of them are so good~!”
“Oooooh! Perfect!”
Relieved by the good reaction, Baek Yuri picked up his chopsticks again. Once he’d polished off his lunchbox, Baek Yuri and Yeo Do-bin both sprawled on the floor and passed out cold. Neoul, too, ate until he was full and rested a little longer.
After sleeping for about three hours, they woke and warmed up their voices while dividing up the parts. The distribution went more smoothly than ever before. They finished assigning everything in no time, then woke the engineer who had been rolling around in the next room and sleeping in late, and went straight into recording.
Yeo Do-bin, the composer, handled the directing.
The recording went fairly smoothly as well. Except for the fact that Logan’s Korean pronunciation occasionally got muddy. Even so, once they explained it a few times, he corrected it quickly.
Baek Yuri had revised the lyrics so many times that when he held the page in his hand, he briefly mixed it up with another version—but after that, he never made a mistake again.
Unlike the second round, when Neoul had changed his vocal style, this time Yeo Do-bin directed him to sing in a way that brought out his own voice, and Neoul seemed as if he had been released from a seal.
“Whoa…! Neoul! Your tone sounds even better…!”
Now all that remained was to return to the practice room, learn the choreography, and rehearse the live performance.
Everything was perfect.
No, they believed it was perfect.
* * *
Neoul returned to the practice room with the others. There, he was handed the choreography Ha On-ha, Woo Cheong, and Logan had finished.
But then—
“W-wait. Show me once more.”
“Hyung-nim! We don’t have time!”
“No, was it always this fast?”
“Huh? Fast?”
The choreography’s difficulty had doubled from before. Worse, because the others picked it up so quickly, Neoul naturally fell behind.
Ha On-ha, Woo Cheong, and Logan already knew the moves since they had created them themselves. Baek Yuri was fast to begin with, and after Baek Yuri’s special training last time, Yeo Do-bin’s dance skills had shot up too.
“But this…”
“Neoul, don’t mix up your left and right!”
At Baek Yuri’s shout, Neoul scrambled to switch the wrong hand and threw himself back into practice. The vocal part was fine even if it was difficult, but the problem was that the others were almost all top-ranked, which meant the choreography had gotten even harder too.
Ha On-ha sent words of encouragement.
“Neoul~ just a little more, fighting!”
“……”
“There’s an expectation people have of us, you know. First, second, and third place are all here, so of course we have to show them more than they expect~?”
That was true. It really was true.
Neoul narrowed his eyes into a flat, fishlike stare and looked steadily at Ha On-ha. That brat was the biggest culprit behind why Neoul kept flailing around.
“Hmm~ wouldn’t it be cooler if we went this way here? Should we revise it like this?”
How many times had they already changed it?!
Whenever Neoul practiced until he could just barely keep up, the choreography changed. It was hellish training—memorize it again, learn it again, and then relearn the new version all over again when it changed.
“Oh. Nice, nice!”
To Neoul’s eye, it didn’t seem all that different before or after the changes, but with Woo Cheong chiming in from the side to say it was good, he had no choice but to swallow his objections and follow along.
The dance genius said it was good, so it must be good. What did a dance idiot like him know about arguing?
“Hey! Neoul! Control your force! Control your force!”
Logan called out, criticizing Neoul’s pitiful, feather-light dancing.
“Neoul, you need to lift your arms higher.”
“Neoul~ your neck is too stiff! If you move your head together with the motion here, it’ll look more natural~”
“Hyung-nim! Start with your left foot! Very good, you’re doing well!”
And because the whole team was made up of top-tier contestants, Neoul ended up with four dance teachers. Even if one person only said one thing, Neoul heard four commands at once, and his head spun. Time flew by in an instant.
“Let’s take ten minutes.”
At Baek Yuri’s words, everyone collapsed onto the floor. Neoul, exhausted from relentless practice, drained a two-liter bottle of water in one go and stretched out flat on his back.
“Cheongi’s vocal practice is still lacking, so while we’re resting, let’s keep practicing your singing. If it’s hard, even just keep simulating it in your head.”
Baek Yuri’s merciless concern sent Woo Cheong’s mind whirring as he tried to buy himself some rest time. Then he realized that when everyone was talking about why they’d chosen this song, Baek Yuri was the only one who hadn’t answered.
“But why did you choose this song, Yuri-hyung?”
“To help an ally.”
“An ally? Who are you allied with?”
“Ah….”
Baek Yuri, who had answered without thinking, stumbled awkwardly at the question.
He couldn’t very well say they were an alliance formed to debut, find the reincarnated rabbit, ask him to part with a bit of his liver, and also aim for the Music Awards of the Year. Much less say that if he were the rabbit, he had already agreed to give up his liver.
Startled, Baek Yuri tried to gloss it over with something suitably secretive.
“It’s a secret, so I can’t tell you. Sorry, Cheong-ah.”
“Baek Yuri-seonsaeng is allied with me.”
But the ally wasn’t cooperating. Wonderful.
Baek Yuri gave a faint smile and pressed a hand to his temple. Somehow, the future looked as though it would not be easy.