Individual Evaluation (3)
Once the decision was made, the embarrassment vanished as quickly as it had come. My body began to answer the music on its own.
These were not simple movements. Every step was built around an imagined camera path — something I could picture even without a single stage credit to my name. I had been the kind of fan who never missed a music show.
If this is a close-up, the gaze goes here.
The beat was shifting, so the footwork had to pick up. This next phrase needed to land clean on the downbeat.
My body kept moving, but my head never stopped calculating. Imagining the camera's path was one thing. Those finer, more precise calculations were something else entirely — even I had no idea how I was doing them.
Lee Seo-yeon's stats, then?
I sank into the rhythm and let the beat take me, and before I knew it the song was already over. I held the ending pose a beat longer, letting the aftertaste linger.
The studio went quiet.
"Thank you!"
The signal that it was finished, and applause broke loose. The dance coach was the first to react, a short sound of genuine surprise.
"Whoa..."
She pursed her lips and shook her head. It seemed like a good sign, but I wasn't about to get ahead of myself. The evaluation still had to be heard.
The judges murmured over their score sheets. Some scribbled notes in a hurry. Others seemed to be marking stars more than writing anything down.
"That was a free dance, right?"
"She didn't actually prepare this song beforehand?"
"The amount of practice that would take..."
"Is she really an independent trainee?"
Their brief chatter carried across the floor. Unmistakably positive. I hadn't even heard the official comments yet, and the verdict already felt settled.
"That's a dance that knows exactly how a stage should be shown."
"It's hard to believe that was improvised. There's such a clear picture in it. The eye work, the use of space — all of it was perfect."
The dance coach tapped her pen a few times, then stopped.
"Honestly, I didn't expect much when I heard it was a free dance. But that was really good."
"Thank you!"
Before settling on a grade, the judges set their microphones down again and went back to conferring. Calling it a discussion was generous. It was a string of compliments.
"Pulling a hip feel out of an image that clean and pure couldn't have been easy. That's impressive."
"The mood just flipped in an instant."
"Her range is huge. A team full of kids like her could change album concepts whenever they wanted."
One of the judges picked up the microphone.
"We'll now announce Lee Seo-yeon's grade."
I swallowed without meaning to.
"Lee Seo-yeon, A-Class."
I had seen it coming, but I let my mouth fall open in a show of mild surprise, then bowed with a voice that still sounded dazed.
"Th-thank you! I'll work hard!"
The judges chuckled.
"What? You danced like that and you didn't know?"
"She's a gem. An absolute gem."
"If an independent trainee pulls that off, how are the kids coming after her supposed to handle the pressure?"
I listened through to the end with a bright smile, then crossed to the contestant seating and took a spot somewhere in the middle. Sitting too far forward would look cocky, and the stares would be uncomfortable. Sitting too far back would look like I had no pride — or I'd simply disappear. So, the middle.
The seats on either side were empty. No one to worry about watching me, and the perfect place to sit with the moment a little longer.
Whew. Looks like I cleared the first gate just fine.
The odds of getting completely cut from the broadcast were basically zero. An A-Class with Lee Seo-yeon's face? Case closed.
I was still muttering that to myself when a voice came from behind me — startlingly bright.
"Seo-yeon? That's cheating, isn't it?"
I turned on reflex. A trainee in the row directly behind me.
"How do you even practice like that by yourself? You really never took a single lesson? That doesn't make any sense!"
The first thing that caught my eye was her hair — a bright, shining orange, falling in waves. Sharp, vivid features, and eyes that sparkled with unusual brightness.
Who is she?
A face that did not exist anywhere in my memory. A personality and a look like that, and she had still been edited out completely? The hair color alone was enough to catch a camera, and she was lively enough that you'd think the editors would lock onto her.
And she's pretty cute, too.
She kept going before I could get a word in.
"Are you even the same species as the rest of us? I'm actually a little shocked right now? You're already a goddess and then you go and do that!"
Okay. That was a bit much. Uncomfortable, even.
Wait. Is this why she got edited out?
It was definitely over the top — almost enough to feel fake. A simple "great stage" would have been one thing. Gushing this hard at a first meeting? It sounded like a line designed to get airtime.
I should probably be grateful they cut her.
If that had made it to broadcast, it would have backfired. Better than failing to debut and collecting nothing but hate comments.
"Thank you. It really wasn't that big a deal."
The two sitting beside her chimed in.
"It really was that good. We were gasping the whole time, I swear."
"Especially that last part of the dance... it was so cool I fell for it."
All faces I had never seen before. At least those two kept their compliments relatively straightforward.
Same agency, maybe?
I couldn't be sure, and it didn't matter right now. I smiled with an embarrassed look.
"Thank you."
The trainee who had been laying it on so thick grinned wide and held out her hand.
"My name's Han Yu-ri."
I took her hand lightly.
"Lee Seo-yeon."
"I know! I just heard it! How could I forget the name of an independent trainee who's this pretty, this innocent, this hip, this cool, and does it all by herself?"
Han Yu-ri beamed and shook my hand a few more times.
...Haha.
She was draining my energy. Was she running some kind of life-absorbing technique through our handshake?
As the hours wore on, the fatigue started to pile up. Trainee after trainee took the stage, received an evaluation, and stepped down. At some point the drowsiness hit hard. I could feel my eyelids growing heavy, and I forced them wider on purpose.
If I fall asleep here, I'm done.
A single shot of me nodding off during someone else's stage, and I knew exactly how that would play. It would have been rude to people who had prepared so hard — but more than that, it was about image. Skill or no skill, the second you got filmed looking like you didn't care, the evaluation changed. So I gritted my teeth and held on.
Then there were the moments that snapped me wide awake. Not because of the stages, exactly — because of the trainees. Familiar faces started appearing, one by one.
Wait. That person...!
Memories of the future clicked into place like puzzle pieces. Right now they were just fresh-faced trainees, but in a few years they would be the ones commanding the stage.
Right. They came from this audition.
They didn't feel like celebrities yet. Awkward movements, unpolished eye work, tense expressions. But they were definitely trainees who had something. It was strange, watching the future cores of fifth-generation girl groups — the ones who would shake the industry — performing these raw, unripe stages right in front of me.
I was still lost in that thought when her name was called.
"Yu Na-bin, please come up to the stage."
Her entrance.
The air changed in an instant. The room went quiet. Every gaze locked onto the stage at once.
I swallowed.
...It's Na-bin.
Those long, stretching proportions. Slender arms and legs. Even a single step carried elegance. Her long black hair caught the light with every sway and gleamed. A small face. Perfect proportions. It went beyond simply being pretty. Just standing on that stage, she pulled every eye toward her.
She was, simply, a celebrity. She hadn't debuted yet, but she was already complete. She was on a completely different level from every trainee I had seen so far.
So this is what a born star's aura looks like.
The stage began. Song and dance. Honestly, from that moment on, I don't really remember how I watched the performance. I just sank into it. Without a single thought, my soul was pulled straight into the stage.
That was how perfect it was. No — there was something beyond perfection. Overwhelming skill? No. Solid fundamentals? Not quite. I couldn't explain why. I just couldn't look away.
And then, at some point, it was over. The result was, of course—
"Yu Na-bin, A-Class."
The moment the judge finished announcing, a murmur erupted among the trainees. Only then did I let out the breath I had been holding.
I'm so glad I came on this show.
I had just watched a stage you couldn't buy a ticket to see. I could die without regrets.
Ah — that does not mean I am okay with dying. Absolutely not.
After the level test, the trainees moved into the dorms. I picked up my room assignment in the lobby, my expectations swelling.
What if I end up in the same room as Na-bin?
Rooms were divided by grade. I had gotten A-Class. So had Yu Na-bin. The odds were more than good enough. Living in the dorms, talking naturally, getting close, practicing together... hehe. To think I would get the chance to watch Na-bin's daily life from right beside her. And if we went beyond that — if we became close friends — my heart felt like it might explode.
Then I could save Lumiere, too.
I barely managed to keep the corners of my mouth from twitching as I dragged my suitcase toward the assigned room. I took a breath in front of the door, then opened it — half expectation, half excitement.
A trainee was already inside, unpacking. She turned her head at the sound of someone coming in.
And our eyes met.