If Only I Could Erase It
Done.
The instant Jeong Ui-tak sang the opening phrase, Ye-chan hastily pulled down the corners of his mouth that had started to lift. This was not a song you performed with a smile on your face — he needed to manage his expression.
After that, Jeong Ui-tak — to borrow a tired phrase — flew.
The team's atmosphere, which had been stiff with the unspoken fear that Ui-tak might slip up, came alive. Their breathing locked into place far more tightly than it ever had in practice.
Cheers and eyes pressed in from every direction. Savoring the rare rush of a stage ringed by a live audience, Ye-chan stretched one leg toward center stage for the part that was coming next.
That was the moment Kim Su-young was supposed to fall back and Ye-chan and Woo Hwi-gyum were about to step into the center.
Kim Su-young's foot slipped as he tried to retreat one step further.
"……!"
Every pair of eyes on the team snapped to him. Kim Su-young tipping forward looked as if it were playing back in slow motion.
In that fraction of a second, the instincts of a man who had stood on stages thousands of times and weathered hundreds of sudden disasters reacted faster than anyone else on the stage.
Ye-chan gave a short squeeze to Woo Hwi-gyum's arm beside him, broke from the formation in a flash, and reached for Kim Su-young. Reach him! His outstretched hand seemed to brush emptily past the back of Su-young's neck — then, by a hair's breadth, closed on the collar of his shirt.
"Ghk!"
Kim Su-young made a grotesque choked sound as his throat was yanked tight, but it was swallowed by Woo Hwi-gyum's voice as he launched into Ye-chan's part in his place.
In the scramble they hadn't even managed a single glance, yet somehow Hwi-gyum had read Ye-chan's intent.
Ye-chan put power into his arm and set Kim Su-young properly on his feet.
Still too stunned by the suddenness of it all to fully register what had happened, Su-young wore a dazed look as he rubbed his throttled neck and found his way back onto his path. Recovered……. Only then did cold sweat roll down Ye-chan's back in a sheet.
The shirt plastered to his spine with icy sweat raised goosebumps. His body had moved ahead of any conscious thought, and only now did the reality of it hit him.
He returned to his original position as if nothing had happened, just as his part was winding down. Woo Hwi-gyum gave the approaching Ye-chan the barest nod. ……I really don't want to do nonverbal communication with that guy, but I understand him way too well. Ye-chan swept up the bangs his movement had knocked into his eyes and slipped seamlessly into Hwi-gyum's part.
And so Vocal Team 5, despite the small incident, finished Choose My Prince 99's first performance stage without any major mistakes through to the end.
"I—I'm sorry."
At Kim Su-young's apology, the team members stopped mid-step on their way to the waiting room.
Only after the stage was over did the crisis that had skimmed past them seem to sink in. Su-young, who had been deathly pale through the entire interview, was still trembling faintly even after coming down from the stage.
The team's gazes drifted naturally from the bowed Kim Su-young over to Ye-chan.
"You didn't do anything wrong. What are you apologizing for?"
"B-but……."
Come to think of it, this kid's only eighteen, isn't he. He was so much sharper and more put-together than Ye-chan had been at eighteen that it hadn't fully registered until now — but it really was a young, unfinished age.
Watching the sly little operator deflate completely over a single mistake was not particularly pleasant.
Ye-chan let out a small sigh and lightly ruffled Kim Su-young's hair.
"Skip the apology. Let me hear something else."
At Ye-chan's words, Su-young slowly lifted his head. Tears stood thick in his bloodshot eyes.
"Th-thank you, hyung……."
— Thank you, Ye-chan hyung……!
The watery sound of hyung overlapped strangely with a former member's voice.
Instead of frowning, Ye-chan gave a small smile.
"Sure."
Back in the waiting room, Ye-chan looked at the monitor. Other teams' stages were already rolling on.
The rap teams that followed were, as expected, more intense than the vocal teams.
The ones that stood out most were Team 2, which included Kang Hae-sol, and Team 3, which included Shim Sang-rok. Purely on rap skill, Sang-rok falls short of Hae-sol hyung — but thinking in terms of a team battle, they're about even. Factoring in current popularity and name recognition, Team 3 with Sang-rok on it had a strong shot at taking first among the rap groups. Hae-sol hyung's going to be furious enough to die again. Ye-chan clicked his tongue inwardly at the living embodiment of competitive fire that was Kang Hae-sol, who was staring past the monitor at Rap Team 3 with burning eyes.
After the last rap team's stage ended and a short break, it was the dance teams' turn.
Pretending to focus on the dance stages while never taking his eyes off the monitor, Ye-chan ran the calculations hard. With only four rap teams, they're the most advantaged in team voting — but if Teams 2 and 3 split the votes, we've got a shot. The problem is dance…….
"Mirror team, we're moving!"
The production staff called out the final dance team to wait backstage.
Ye-chan watched Beom Se-hyuk rise from his seat.
He was wearing overalls, his hair curled like a poodle's, and grinning for no apparent reason.
Then the house lights went dark again.
Dance Team 5 — Garuda's Mirror
Gong Du-chan (Giuncha) · Bae Sae-byeok (Aube) · Beom Se-hyuk (Rubel Entertainment) · Shim Gi-cheol (Taegeuk) · Yoon Yeo-ul · Lee So-won · Jang Hee-gyu · Han Jeong-su (Blanche)
"Kyaaaaah! Beom Se-hyuk!"
"Se-hyuk!"
The moment Beom Se-hyuk's name was called, the audience's roar carried all the way into the waiting room. Ye-chan felt, all over again, that he was still in the challenger's seat. Right. For now, at least. Having the staircase he needed to climb laid out this clearly was an exhilarating thing.
Just got back from Chumaf's 1st performance.
Doors opened at 6 p.m. and with 14 teams it didn't wrap until 2 a.m. Production staff are out of their minds. Absolute lunatics, no question.
Order was Vocal 1–5, Rap 1–4, Dance 1–5, and overall it was Dance > Rap >>> Vocal.
I saw Beom Se-hyuk's Chumaf clips and went "damn this kid is handsome," then saw him in person and looked at the clips again and got mad.
That they can only capture a face like that this poorly means our country's filming tech still has a long way to go. Outfit was total little-rascal fashion. Hairband and everything.
Security on the way in was worse than an airport checkpoint and they confiscated phones, so I couldn't write anything down and honestly forgot more than half of who was on which team and what they sang. Anyone going to the 2nd performance, at least bring a notebook.
What I remember, in order: for vocal, Team 2 had Yoon Ji-woo and they did BST's "For You."
The rest of the vocal name-drops were all piled into Team 5 so it was transparent which team would take first.
Team 5 members: Ha Ye-chan, Woo Hwi-gyum, Park Na-gil, Jeong Ui-tak, Kim Su-young, Kim Ju-young
Outfits were just white shirts + black pants
Song was Yute's "Erased"? Their audio isn't out yet so I settled for the original on the way home.
Yes that means they were insanely good ^^
Anyone who called Jeong Ui-tak overhyped should prepare to eat dirt. Woo Hwi-gyum is handsome, Park Na-gil is sexy, and the Young Brothers I don't really remember but they seemed to work hard.
And lastly Ha Ye-chan was main vocal, and……
Effective today I withdraw my support for Ha Ye-chan. Ha Ye-chan and I are one body. Any attack on him is an attack on me, got it?
I said at the start that dance was overall the best and vocal the worst, right? Vocal Team 5 is the exception.
Also Ha Ye-chan looks like a paper doll but his arm strength is ridiculous
Too lazy to write about the other teams so bye
On the bus back to the dorm after the performances, Ye-chan read the first review of the 1st performance that had just gone up on the community. Wrote it on the way home? The upload speed is no joke.
He was browsing the comments that multiplied with every refresh when the bus came to a stop.
"It's gotten far too late today, so we'll announce today's performance results tomorrow morning! Everyone, great work!"
"Thank you for your hard work!"
The writer sitting in the front row stood and spoke, and the trainees answered in unison.
Ye-chan slung on the bag he'd prepared in advance and got off the bus quickly.
"Filming wrapped at two, so more shooting now really would be pushing it."
Shim Sang-rok, who'd been on the same bus, had somehow already fallen into step beside him.
His face looked more worn than usual from the late filming, but his voice was oddly lively.
"Right."
"How does it feel, finishing your first stage?"
First stage, my ass. Ye-chan clicked his tongue inwardly and gave an honest answer.
"It was fun."
"Same. This is why the seniors shone so much after debut — I really felt it."
While Ye-chan briefly wondered whether the seniors Sang-rok meant were the ones from Olympus or the ones from GE, Sang-rok stretched and went on.
"With today, the second dorm stay is over too. Next shoot will be the ranking announcement, I guess?"
Ye-chan ran the dates in his head for a moment. The 1st ranking announcement would be filmed after Chumaf Episode 4 aired, so there was a fairly generous stretch until the next shoot.
"Want to grab a meal sometime in between?"
That seemed to have been the real agenda — Sang-rok's eyes lit up.
Ye-chan gave a light nod.
"Sure."
A trainee sighting floating around at this point wouldn't be bad either. Ye-chan, who had been planning to hit a coin karaoke with transparent doors on his own, smiled contentedly at the better picture that was shaping up.
"We will now begin the results announcement for the first performance."
The next day, at MC Andrew's words, the ninety-nine trainees gathered in the auditorium broke into applause as one.
"First, we will check the individual vote counts for Vocal Team 1, the 'If I Could Love Again' team. Candidates, please come forward."
The seven Vocal Team 1 trainees seated toward the front stood up.
With tense faces they approached Andrew and lined up beside the prepared monitor. Confirming that all seven of Team 1 had received roughly similar votes with no one exceptionally high, Ye-chan clapped outwardly while privately estimating his own count.
Whether by skill or popularity, there was no way he would lose — but having two S-grades on the same team was a major variable. And Ui-tak properly stamped his presence as center too, so he'll probably land close to the two of them.
While Ye-chan turned over various possibilities, the vote checks for Vocal Teams 2, 3, and 4 after Team 1 all finished in turn.
Once Vocal Team 4 had returned to their seats, the MC gestured toward where Ye-chan and his teammates were sitting.
"Last up — the individual votes for Vocal Team 5, the Erased team candidates."