Concept Evaluation (2)
Composer Yu Jin-woo held his silence, his gaze locked on the monitor.
"Hmm..."
A few seconds passed before he spoke again — the words coming easily, yet carrying more weight than anything he had said all day.
"It's good. Almost too good... but she's the only one who pops."
I went still.
I stand out too much?
"Let me listen through first."
He replayed my recording over and over, mouse darting as he compared the sections before and after my part.
"It's good, but rather than flowing as one complete song... the emotion only surfaces in Seo-yeon's section, so the consistency falls apart."
The composer pressed his lips together, as if reassessing the track's overall atmosphere.
"Tsk... If this had been Seo-yeon's solo song from the start, it would've been so much better."
The trainees listened in silence.
Then, all at once, the composer flicked his wrist and walked his own words back.
"Ah — wait. I don't mean the rest of you weren't good. I should explain exactly what I mean."
He added the clarification with a faintly flustered look.
"Being able to pour real emotion into a song like this is an enormous strength. The problem is that only one person did it — and that actually disrupts the flow of the track."
The trainees nodded.
"A song has to come out consistent. If the emotion spikes in just one part, the overall completeness takes a hit."
The staff nodded along as well. Even so, Yu Jin-woo couldn't quite shake the expression of a man who felt he'd put his foot in his mouth.
"So everyone did well — it's just that the direction was already locked in to match the trainees who recorded first. If we shift everything to Seo-yeon's feel now, you'd all have to re-record. Which means Seo-yeon would need to pull the emotion back and—"
"We'll try again...!"
Se-rin offered the words carefully, a thread of confidence running through them.
The composer seemed to make up his mind. He clicked the mouse a few times and spoke.
"Then would the rest of you be willing to try again too? If we take this in Seo-yeon's direction, it's going to be harder than what you just did."
"We'll give it a shot."
The team steeled themselves. This was another new attempt — their best effort toward a better result. I could feel the resolve in every one of them. Nobody was going to phone this in.
The recording started over. This time, the beat and rhythm were a given. What we had to pour ourselves into was the emotion inside the lyrics. Far more re-takes followed than the first round had required.
"...Okay!"
Silence settled over the studio once more. The composer laced his fingers together and stared at the monitor for a long while, lost in thought, before he finally spoke.
"This is perfect. It's better than I was hoping for. Honestly, I came in thinking we'd just lean into the rhythm."
Yu Jin-woo studied the screen, lining the team's newly recorded tracks up against each other, and muttered under his breath.
"I think my song might take first this evaluation."
He dove straight into the edit — a few quick adjustments, then the speakers came on. We all leaned in and listened.
Wow. This isn't the original Overdrive.
This had become an entirely different song. What had been an intense, beat-driven performance track had transformed into something that carried emotion — no longer a song meant simply to dress a stage, but a song that told a story from it.
"Oh! The feel is completely different."
"Is this really us?"
"This is like a whole different song, isn't it?"
The trainees buzzed among themselves. Yu Jin-woo laughed, loud and bright.
"That's it. That's the one!"
He snapped his fingers.
"This is going to explode when it airs."
I had no idea those words would come true.
The mid-evaluation began.
We stood in the center of the practice room, half tense and half hopeful, waiting on the trainer's cue. In the wall of mirrors that filled one side of the room, the faces looking back at us carried a strange, quiet confidence.
"Alright. Let's see it."
The music started, and my body answered the familiar melody on its own. For the first few beats there was a tremor in it.
You're doing great, Se-rin.
Maybe it was because I couldn't stop thinking about her. I could feel my heart beating faster than it ever had in practice. But at some point the stray thoughts fell away, and my body simply moved the way we had drilled it.
When the performance ended, the trainer folded his arms and nodded.
"Okay. Not bad."
A breath of relief left all of us at once. He looked us over and went on.
"This team's clean, no question — you've already done this song before. And Seo-yeon goes without saying."
The look he gave me made the others huff out a laugh. The trainer grinned too, then uncrossed his arms.
"But the one who surprised me most is Se-rin."
Every pair of eyes on the team swung toward her at once. Se-rin flinched, glancing from me to the others and back again.
"You went at it like your life depended on it, huh? See? You can do it."
Se-rin hesitated, fidgeting with her hands.
"I can't see a trace of the girl from the individual evaluations. How hard did you work?"
At that, something flickered at the corner of Se-rin's eyes. Beside her, Han Yu-ri and Eun-bi gave her shoulder a light pat. The trainer added, smiling with genuine warmth,
"Your teacher is so proud. Take this with you and keep going — with your head up. Got it?"
Only then did Se-rin unclench her mouth.
"Yes...!"
Her voice shook. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes once, then bowed her head again. The rest of us smiled at the sight.
The trainer swept his gaze over us one last time.
"Good. Now go show them what you've got in front of a real audience."
The air in the practice room tightened all over again. This was the final check before the broadcast stage — the moment to prove everything we had built.
Performance day.
We finished the final rehearsal and stood there catching our breath, looking at one another.
"That was so good, everyone! Let's just take that onto the stage."
Eun-bi gave a light clap. Han Yu-ri beamed.
"I think we're the best! Every other team's a joke!"
And then it happened. Se-rin, who had been watching the monitor playback, had gone red around the eyes.
...What?
It was a bewildering sight. Had she gotten so much better that even she was moved by it?
I was the first to go to her.
"Se-rin, what's wrong?"
She ducked her head, flustered, then finally couldn't hold it in.
"I think I'm the only one standing out... because I'm not good enough."
"What?"
"Everyone else's angles are razor-sharp, and mine don't even line up... I can see myself dragging the team's completeness down..."
Surprise crossed every face around her.
"That's not true, Se-rin."
I said it without a shred of hesitation.
"I didn't think that for a second. All I could think was how cool you looked."
Se-rin wiped at her eyes and looked at me. I took her hand carefully and kept going.
"We've been practicing this song longer than you have, and I still couldn't feel a gap. We looked like one team. And how hard you worked to match us — that showed in everything you did."
Eun-bi nodded and chimed in.
"She's right. And that voice that detonates the highlight? Nobody else could have done that. Without it, this song wouldn't have come alive the way it did."
Se-rin looked at us without a word, then quietly bit her lip.
"...Do you really mean that?"
"Of course we do!"
The others gave her back a light pat.
"You've got this, Se-rin. You're already more than cool enough."
Only then did her expression begin to ease. I gave the hand I was holding a gentle shake.
"Don't worry. Let's just show them what we prepared."
Se-rin hesitated a moment longer, then gripped my hand hard and nodded.
It was time to actually take the stage.
Brilliant lights flickered, and the center of the stage bloomed bright. Lee Seo-yeon and her teammates walked out to meet it. The cheers and shouts swelled.
Seo-yeon let her gaze drift naturally toward the audience — and found a familiar face there.
...Park Hye-in?
She wondered if she was seeing things. Then the MC's next line drove the certainty home.
"And we have some special guests in the audience today! The trainees who were unfortunately eliminated have come out to cheer each other on!"
A roar went up from the seats. The eliminated trainees were waving. And among them, the one who caught the eye first and last was Park Hye-in.
The moment Seo-yeon saw that face, something ached in her chest. Only then did it become real. They were no longer people who stood on the same stage. They were people who watched it from the seats.
She forced a smile, but a strange feeling kept rising. Her eyes went hot all at once, and she turned her head in a hurry, blinking hard until she had the feeling back under control.
"Oh? Trainee Lee Seo-yeon looks like she's tearing up, seeing the girls she used to practice with!"
A murmur rolled through the audience, and then the voices gathered into one.
Before Seo-yeon could even answer, Han Yu-ri grabbed the mic and cut in, playful as ever.
"Hey, we've got a stage to do — why are you making her cry even more?!"
Laughter burst from the seats, and the tension dissolved as if it had never been there. Seo-yeon drew a breath and pulled herself together.
Right. This isn't the time to get sentimental.
Meanwhile, the mood in the monitoring room — where the trainers had gathered — was climbing just as fast.
"Finally. Team Overdrive's stage."
This time, even the composers who had written original songs for the concept evaluation were all in one place. And one of them, watching Lee Seo-yeon appear on the stage, opened his mouth.
"So Seo-yeon went with that song. I'm jealous."