The First Assignment (2)
I checked the notice and couldn't believe my eyes.
Some of us might not even make it onto the stage after the additional evaluations?
I had no idea. I'd only ever paid attention to the people who actually made it onstage; the ones who got cut had never even crossed my mind. The broadcast hadn't covered this either—or maybe it had, and I simply didn't remember. A notice this serious should have made it on air. So why hadn't I seen it? Maybe I'd just never cared because it was about the lower ranks.
And they were posting something like this on paper? Instead of having the host announce it on camera and filming the trainees' reactions? Nothing about it made sense. My head started throbbing almost instantly.
"No way! We could actually get cut?"
Han Yu-ri practically shouted it from beside me. Down the hallway, the complaints kept coming.
"Is this for real?"
"It's a public evaluation. They should at least give us a chance to show our faces."
"Ugh, this is so stressful."
The trainees were in chaos, and I was no exception. I ran through it quickly in my head. This had to be a decision from the network and the production team—not just about individual skill gaps, but an adjustment calculated for buzz.
But no matter how I turn it over, that doesn't add up.
If this was about generating buzz, why hadn't it become a talking point? I'd never seen anyone fall apart over a notice like this. What were they even trying to do? I couldn't read their intentions at all.
And just because my rank was high didn't mean I could sit back and relax. Nobody could be sure how any of this would play out.
I glanced sideways. Yu Na-bin's sweat-damp bangs clung to her forehead, and she was biting down hard on her lip.
"...I guess we should practice more?"
Na-bin murmured it under her breath. I nearly had a heart attack.
It's already been brutal, and she wants to do more? Because of one notice?
I'd figured the really driven ones would push even harder in a situation like this, but I hadn't expected one of them to be standing right next to me.
So this is what a real trainee looks like.
I stole a glance at her and swallowed lightly. Setting aside the sheer grit, she was smart. Honestly, her skill was already good enough that she could have stopped here and been fine—that much was obvious. But if the cameras caught her still grinding away, they'd eat it up. Talent plus effort. The perfect narrative.
I don't know if she thought that far ahead, but it's a good call.
She was handing the network the kind of footage they would never, ever pass up.
"If you're going to practice, let's do it together."
"I want to keep going too!"
And just like that, the three of us headed back to the practice room.
I was genuinely exhausted. Maybe I shouldn't have practiced extra last night.
Am I the only one who's dying here?
Yu Na-bin and Han Yu-ri had bright, sparkling eyes—so fresh it was hard to believe we'd practiced together until late. Their lively faces only made the air in the training room feel heavier by comparison.
When we'd first received our A-Class ranks, everyone had been relieved. But this song's range was anything but low. On the first day, more than half the trainees had cracked on the high notes, A-Class or not, and the coaches had said that was fine. They really had.
"Did I walk into the wrong class? This is A-Class?"
A hard voice cut across the room. The vocal coach stood with her arms folded, looking over the trainees one by one.
"Be honest. Did you even practice?"
"..."
Nobody could answer.
"At first I understood the pitch breaks. You said the song was hard. But the re-evaluation is tomorrow. And you're still at this level?"
The atmosphere froze over by degrees. The trainer flicked her fingers.
"Again. From the first phrase. One at a time."
The trainees started singing, one after another. Her expression only got worse.
"You went off-pitch."
"There's no emotion in that."
"Why are you slouching like that?"
The criticism kept coming. Before long, the trainer's gaze landed on me.
"Lee Seo-yeon. Step up."
The vocal coach started moving her pen the instant I came forward, giving me no room to breathe.
"One, two, three, four."
I steadied my breath on her cue and opened my mouth.
Pick me — your one and only shining star♪
A clear, steady voice filled the practice room. Trainees who had been staring at the floor lifted their heads one by one to look at me. A smile spread across the trainer's mouth. I didn't let the momentum slip, carrying the song all the way through to the end, and she clapped once.
"See? That's how it's supposed to sound. She makes it look easy. Is it hard?"
The trainer turned to take in the rest of the room.
"Same song. Same guidelines. But doesn't Lee Seo-yeon sound completely different? The gap between her and the rest of you is obvious, isn't it?"
She looked back at me.
"Lee Seo-yeon. Which agency are you with? You don't have one, right?"
"No, I don't."
"And you're still the best one here."
The trainer let out a short laugh, then turned on the others again.
"You felt that, right? This is not the time to phone it in. If you don't wake up and start practicing now, you will not keep your seats tomorrow. You're already late. You get that, don't you?"
The practice room went dead the moment the words landed. That same atmosphere carried straight into dance training.
"You got A-Class because you were good at the songs you'd practiced to death. But the second you get a new one, it's a complete mess."
The trainer shook her head with her arms crossed. The only sound in the room was breathing. Tension coiled tight among the trainees.
"People pick things up at different speeds. Ability levels can differ. Fine. But then you at least have to show me you're giving it everything you've got."
Nobody could even lift their head properly.
"The dirty lines are already pissing me off, but you haven't even learned the choreography? More than half of you were ranked wrong. You are not A-Class. Not even close."
A few trainees clenched their fists. Some of them had tears in their eyes.
So even A-Class kids cry.
I'd assumed they just collected praise in training and climbed straight up. Apparently that was my memory doing me favors.
"Lee Seo-yeon, Han Yu-ri, Yu Na-bin. Step up."
The three of us came forward. The trainer didn't say another word—just hit play. The moment the track came in, my body answered on its own. The choreography surfaced in my head and I moved. Decisive steps. Clean lines. Dynamics, all of it. The first verse ended—short if you thought about it one way, long if you thought about it another.
The coach uncrossed her arms and let out a deep breath.
"...You see that? You three, fall back."
The dance trainer waved us off. I caught my breath as I followed Han Yu-ri and Yu Na-bin to the back. The practice room was still frozen solid.
"Look. They're the same A-Class as the rest of you."
The trainer's sharp gaze swept the room.
"What are you thinking right now? 'They were already good from the first class'? Is that the excuse you're running?"
Nobody answered.
"Fine. I'll give you the talent gap. But those three even came back out to practice extra. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
The mood was wretched. It was a strange feeling, honestly—a weird thought to have in the middle of a girl-group audition, but it reminded me of being the one person in the military who actually tried, and feeling guilty about it.
"When everyone else went back to the dorms, the only A-Class trainees who came back to the practice room were those three. Seo-yeon, Yu-ri, Na-bin."
I stood still and listened.
"Do I need to spell it out? Of course the ones who aren't good enough need to practice. But when the ones who are already good don't get complacent and keep practicing anyway—that's what a professional looks like."
"..."
"How exactly do you plan to close that gap, practicing the way you are now?"
Han Yu-ri let out a small breath beside me. Yu Na-bin kept her mouth shut and listened in silence.
"Don't even think about standing on that stage with skills like this. Has it not occurred to you that you're embarrassing your agencies?"
A wave of panic visibly spread through the trainees.
"Think hard about where you're going to end up at tomorrow's re-evaluation. If you're going to keep practicing like this, enjoy wearing those A-Class practice clothes while you still can. More than half of you are getting dropped."
The trainer dusted off her hands with those ice-cold words. I could barely breathe. Entertainment or not, this was a ruthless industry.
"That's it for today. Go drink some water. Practice on your own or don't. I don't care."
The trainees started moving, slowly. Han Yu-ri nudged me and grinned.
"When she said we were the only ones who came back to practice... kinda thrilling, right?"
I didn't let even a hint of a smile touch my face. Could she not read the room? She was so relentlessly sunny I couldn't even scold her. The best I could do was keep my own mouth shut.
"So it was just the three of us who came back out."
"Yeah."
Na-bin's words left me with a strange feeling I couldn't quite name. She had said us.
The re-evaluation began. The coaches had already seen it coming—there were going to be a lot of rank changes. Even so, watching it unfold right in front of them was something else.
"This was A-Class?"
The first trainee finished her stage, and the trainer spoke with complete detachment.
"Unstable pitch. No emotional delivery. Choreography still half-learned. What did you even do for a week?"
Silence settled over the room. The results weren't announced on the spot. You could tell from the reaction alone that she was going down—but how far was anyone's guess.
That's what makes it scarier.
The coaches could read every feeling on those trainees' faces. Then the next one stepped up.
"I remember this one having a vocal strength, right? I can expect something, then?"
"Yes!"
The contestant answered in a voice tight with nerves. The music started, and she began to sing. It was not what they'd been hoping for. Her timing drifted, and her voice shook on the high notes. The trainer pounced as if she'd been waiting for it.
"What do I do with this? Below expectations. If you can't dance, you at least have to sing—and you can't even do that."
"..."
The trainee's eyes went red.
"This is not the time to cry."
Mercilessly blunt. The mood sank even lower than it had at the start. One by one the former A-Class trainees finished their evaluations, and not a single word of praise came out.
The trainers clicked their tongues. At this rate every last one of them is getting dropped. Was this really the level of A-Class? There's no hunger in any of them.
She'll be different, though.
"Lee Seo-yeon."
A strange tension rippled through the practice room. Everyone already expected her to be good. But the moment her stage actually began, every trainer in the room had the exact same thought.
What in the world...?