One Perfect Take
"Alright, we're rolling!"
The final day of the first training camp dawned.
From the early hours of morning, the trainees moved with an urgency unlike their usual routine. Those from major agencies had their hair and makeup done by staff their companies had sent over. Ye-chan and the other independent trainees, along with those from smaller labels, entrusted their faces to the staff belonging to N-net.
"Wow, Ye-chan, this really suits you. Don't tell the other guys, but you look the most like a prince out of everyone."
"Really? Thank you."
Ye-chan smiled, genuinely pleased by the stylist's praise. Knowing she wasn't the type to offer empty compliments made the words land all the warmer.
Dressed in a pristine white uniform so immaculate he almost hesitated to sit down, he cut a striking figure. So they went all-in on looking incredible at the expense of comfort. After days of lounging around in practice clothes that had grown grimy with sweat—practically school uniforms by the end—the trainees finally looked something like idols, decked out in their glittering uniforms complete with capes.
Not long after the fully prepared trainees gathered on set, filming for the theme song began.
The S-Grade trainees were the first to take the mobile stage at the center. The trainers who had visited the practice rooms the day before had already assigned everyone their positions, so Ye-chan found his spot without hesitation and fell into formation.
Shim Sang-rok was center.
Ye-chan lightly rolled his wrists as he stared at the back of Sang-rok's carefully styled head. His own position was just behind Sang-rok to the right—close enough that his face still caught the camera even when it was locked on the center. Alongside Beom Se-hyuk, who stood behind Sang-rok to the left, it was effectively the second-best position on stage.
They rated me this highly?
The theme song filming test had clearly assessed both dance and vocals. In terms of the combined total of those two stats, the only person currently above Ye-chan was probably Beom Se-hyuk. But because the theme song stage had no individual vocal parts—everyone sang together from start to finish—dance ability carried far more weight in position assignments.
When it came to dancing, Seonwoo I-gyeong and Kang Hae-sol, both newly elevated to S-Grade, were a cut above Ye-chan. And yet both of them stood half a step behind Se-hyuk and Ye-chan respectively.
Just like Sang-rok, Ye-chan had been evaluated on something beyond raw skill alone.
The judges set the grades and positions, sure—but there's no way the production team didn't have a hand in it. I guess the Ha Ye-chan character is still scoring well so far.
With the long three-nights-and-four-days camp drawing to a close, a restless feeling had settled over him. Even as he danced to the theme song's accompaniment, his mind wandered through thoughts like these. Of course, after more than four hours of the same choreography, every last one of those thoughts had been thoroughly wiped clean.
"Hold on—we're resetting the stage, then we'll start again!"
The moment the writer's words ended, the stage floor that had risen began its slow descent once more.
"A four-minute dance… and they can shoot it this long…"
Sang-rok's half-dazed voice drifted back from the front.
Yeah. This almost never happens, Sang-rok. How do I put this… the PD has completely lost his mind.
Ye-chan was just as exhausted. This wasn't even a music video—just a stage performance. He'd approached it thinking it would be about as demanding as a music show pre-recording. That had been a dangerously naive assumption.
The warning signs had started the moment that insane PD declared he was going to film a four-minute stage video in a single take. With ninety-nine trainees participating, even if each person made a mistake only once, they'd have to reshoot ninety-nine times. On top of that, the moving stage meant that every time the flow broke, the reset and re-setup ate up a painful amount of time.
Doing all of this under blazing lights meant that after only a few retakes, the sweat pouring off the trainees left them looking anything but radiant—the very people who were supposed to shine the brightest.
It never looked this long on the broadcast, so I never imagined they suffered this much.
Ye-chan closed his eyes as a makeup staff member approached to touch up his face. At the start, everyone had been buzzing with excitement about going home the moment filming wrapped. Now the atmosphere on set had sunk into a heavy gloom. Whoever made the next mistake was going to feel the full weight of every other trainee's glare.
A few of the S-Grade trainees in particular hadn't said a word, but for a while now their eyes had been firing lasers—ready to tear apart whoever dared mess up next.
The theme song for Choose My Prince 99, Choose Your Prince, was structured so that the S-Grade trainees opened the performance, with the A, B, C, and D-Grade trainees joining in sequence from their respective mobile stages. The first full minute featured only the S-Grade trainees—which meant Ye-chan and the rest of them had been worn down to the bone long ago.
This is getting ugly.
The fact that the S-Grade trainees themselves hadn't made any mistakes only made the situation worse. If the grades started splintering into factions from the very beginning, nothing good would come of it.
S-Grade, D-Grade—to the PD and the production team, we're all just un-debuted chicks. If we start throwing our weight around this early, they'll just write us off as nasty little brats with inflated egos.
Ye-chan stepped down from the stage, grabbed two water bottles, and pressed one into Kang Hae-sol's hand before scanning the room.
Among the A-Grade trainees—who had danced nearly as many times as the S-Grades—Nam Ji-yu, their center, was waving both arms around and talking animatedly, clearly trying to lift the mood. The B and C-Grades, with their larger numbers, had more or less scattered into their own clusters. And the D-Grades… they looked like they were attending a funeral.
Their screen time was already paper-thin, and the constant mistakes only made them more conscious of the other trainees' stares—not to mention the fear that the PD might cut their parts even further. In Ye-chan's memory, the D-Grades' share of the final cut had been even more pitiful than this.
"Don't look so down! Let's push through this together, okay?"
Gi Tae-rang was cheerleading with everything he had, but the atmosphere had already hit rock bottom. There was no sign of it bouncing back.
"Thirty-minute break, then we go again!"
Even the production team seemed to sense something was off—apparently one of the stage mechanisms had developed a problem.
Ye-chan pressed his thumb hard against his throbbing temple.
The theme song stage he remembered from the future hadn't been a one-take video. He'd assumed the PD would shoot a few times, realize this was pure greed talking, and give up—so he hadn't stepped in. But more than four hours had already passed, and the PD's resolve hadn't budged an inch.
How many hours did they shoot before he finally quit in the last timeline? Did this lunatic keep those poor kids up all night? Tomorrow? Will he give up once it's tomorrow?
The thought that the training camp might never end if he just sat and watched was enough. He couldn't stay still any longer.
Ye-chan loosened his stifling collar and tapped the arm of Shim Sang-rok, who was half a step ahead, flapping his own collar to cool the sweat.
"Hyung, want to do something good with me?"
"Hmm? Sure."
Maybe ask what it is first before you answer, you idiot.
Sang-rok, who didn't look the type but was surprisingly easygoing, had agreed on the spot. Ye-chan immediately extended the same invitation to the other S-Grade trainees.
"What kind of good thing?"
"The kind where we all get to go home early."
"Okay, I'm definitely in for that."
"Woo Hwi-gyum, you?"
"I'll do it."
Only his roommates agreed without a single question, the way Sang-rok had. Most of the others approached with a wary edge—but once Ye-chan added a brief explanation, they nodded right away.
Having secured all eight agreements, Ye-chan grinned.
Once the people around them are already doing something, the rest fall in line easily. Smart move, saving the uncooperative ones for last.
With his eight new allies in tow, Ye-chan headed toward the cluster of D-Grade trainees huddled together. They had clearly been watching this side already—and they jumped like rabbits spotting a predator.
Ye-chan put on his most benevolent smile and spoke gently to Gi Tae-rang, who stood at the front.
"Want to practice with us for a bit?"
"Y-yes…?"
Tae-rang trembled like a terrified rabbit, his voice cracking on the answer. Mindful of how little break time they had, Ye-chan cut straight to the point.
"During practice, the trainers couldn't really stay and watch over every group, right? If you don't mind, how about we practice together and check each other?"
"Ah…!"
Only then did Tae-rang stop shaking and look Ye-chan in the eye.
The D-Grade roster held eighteen trainees—same as A-Grade—and remarkably, not a single one had changed rank between the first and second evaluations. In other words, these were the eighteen lowest-ranked trainees out of ninety-nine, ranked with brutal honesty. Because the lineup never shifted, they'd grown close, and their practice atmosphere was warmer than any other grade's.
Unfortunately, that warmth hadn't translated into improvement. They'd done their best, watching each other's choreography and vocals—but when mediocre skills put their heads together, meaningful progress was never going to happen. They could see with their own eyes that something looked different from the tablet's reference choreography, but no one could pinpoint exactly what, or how to fix it. So they had simply drilled the wrong choreography over and over with sheer stubbornness, and now they were standing on the actual filming stage.
The lights were scorching. The production team's faces were murderous. And the other grades were flying through the choreography so cleanly it was hard to believe they were even dancing the same song.
To Tae-rang's eyes especially, the S-Grade performances he'd watched today were every bit as good as—if not better than—the tablet footage he'd replayed hundreds of times. And yet Ye-chan had framed it as mutual feedback, out of consideration for the D-Grades. Gratitude and embarrassment hit him at the same time.
Tae-rang bowed at a full ninety degrees toward Ye-chan and the S-Grade trainees.
"We'd be really grateful if you would! Please take care of us!"
"Please take care of us!"
The other D-Grade trainees behind him bowed in unison.
"No, please—the pleasure's mine."
Ye-chan waved both hands and hurriedly bowed back.
These brats are trying to make me look like a gangster on camera, I swear.
His chest tightened at the thought that a camera might have caught the moment. Unaware of Ye-chan's inner panic, Tae-rang only seemed more moved, his eyes welling up.
"Shall we pair up in groups of three, then?"
Having stepped forward, Ye-chan resolved to finish the job quickly and cleanly. He rapidly assigned temporary teams—two D-Grades to each S-Grade.
These two just need a little polishing, so pair them with Park Na-gil, who's struggling the most… Hwi-gyum can't explain things, so put him with the ones sharp enough to pick it up on their own…
Once the teams were set in their optimal configurations, Ye-chan clapped his hands to gather their attention.
"Alright—let's run through it once, lightly."
The accompaniment began to play from Ye-chan's phone.
"Great work, everyone!"
About an hour later, all ninety-nine trainees completed the performance of Choose Your Prince in a single, flawless take—without a single mistake.