Emotions Intense Enough to Be Mistaken for Love
Emotions so fierce they could be mistaken for falling in love.
"Trainees typically show their sharpest growth in the first few months of training. I'm looking forward to seeing how much Miss Yerin has improved over this past week."
He said it, but Han Siwoo wasn't truly expecting much from Ha Yerin's growth.
Barely a week.
A week was far too short for any meaningful change in dancing or singing ability.
And yet… some part of him still hoped Ha Yerin might show him something, which was why he'd said it at all.
The fresh shock of seeing her stage for the first time still hadn't faded from his mind.
And then the performance began….
—We always dream.
…Hm?
…Han Siwoo flinched at once.
—We are dreaming!
—The moment you saw us.
Ha Yerin's dancing.
That it was astonishing was already familiar to him.
That vividness that made you feel as if you were dancing right beside her.
It was her greatest charm and her signature gift.
It was the same now.
Her dancing, sometimes delicate and sometimes fierce, like a girl lost in a dream, pulled the audience into her passion until they felt it as their own.
But this time, that wasn't all.
—We open our eyes!
Her singing.
Strictly speaking, Ha Yerin's vocal ability had never been bad.
It simply hadn't matched the level of her dancing, and that mismatch had slightly undercut the atmosphere.
But what about now?
—We are dreaming!
—The moment we open our eyes.
Even now, if you insisted on comparing, her vocals still didn't stand out against the other top-tier contestants.
And yet….
—A new dream unfolds before our eyes!
Something had changed.
Her tone was clearer. Her breath had more room. Her voice melted more fully into the dance.
In other words…
She was better than before. She had grown.
In just one week…?
Barely a week.
In a span of time others might have wasted without a second thought… Ha Yerin had grown.
Is this even possible…?
In that moment, Han Siwoo couldn't properly register what expression he was wearing.
He was probably smiling.
Cameras lined up right in front of him, and he didn't even know what his own face looked like — hardly professional.
But who could blame him?
How was anyone supposed to manage their expression with a massive diamond sitting right before their eyes?
I want her.
To Han Siwoo, Ha Yerin's value was more than any diamond.
He had assumed she was focused solely on dance. Just a born main dancer, that was all.
But she was showing this kind of growth rate in her vocals too…?
If a single week of practice produced this much improvement… what would happen if she spent a few months grinding in the practice room?
A main dancer with main-vocal-level singing….
And if that talent was powerful enough to shake people's hearts….
Overturning the concrete wall of the Korean entertainment industry and reaching the world wouldn't be a dream at all.
It meant the girl standing before him could achieve the dream he himself had never managed while he was still active.
…….
Thinking that, Han Siwoo felt a strange emotion welling up in his chest.
He wanted Ha Yerin.
Wanted her so badly that if a time machine existed, he would ride it back to her childhood just to recruit her.
He wanted her.
Thump.
His heart pounded hard.
It was an emotion so intense it could genuinely be mistaken for falling in love.
"Hoo… that's all."
And so Ha Yerin finished her stage.
Swoosh—.
Han Siwoo was the first to grab the microphone.
He needed to release this pounding feeling right now.
But then….
"Miss Yerin's stage this time…"
"Hic…."
"…?"
An uninvited guest interrupted the critique Han Siwoo had been about to deliver in high spirits.
He turned his head….
"Hic…, knngh…."
"…Trainer Kim Yesol?"
Kim Yesol, the A-class vocal trainer, was covering her mouth as tears of emotion streamed down her face.
Murmurs rose.
The sudden outburst left the judges flustered and the contestants whispering among themselves.
And the production crew….
Whirr—.
Naturally, they didn't miss a second of it.
I could feel it during the performance itself.
A five-point change in stats made a more significant, tangible difference than I'd expected.
"Hoo… that's all."
I finished the stage in a satisfied mood, and sure enough, the judges were looking at me with fairly favorable eyes.
Especially Han Siwoo.
He had so much to say that he'd already been holding the mic before I'd even fully finished.
That was clearly a positive sign.
I waited cheerfully for the judges' evaluations.
But then….
"Miss Yerin's stage this time…"
"Hic…."
"…?"
Huh.
Someone cut in before Han Siwoo could even finish speaking.
"Hic…, knngh…."
"…Trainer Kim Yesol?"
She was the vocal trainer who had never been shy about hurling harsh criticism at us.
The moment my stage ended, she burst into tears as if she simply couldn't hold it in.
Of course I was thrown off.
It wasn't exactly a tearjerker of a stage…?
I wasn't the only one startled — the other judges turned to her with questions.
"Trainer Kim Yesol…. Why so suddenly…."
"Knngh…, hic…."
At the questions around her, Kim Yesol finally managed to stop crying and picked up the microphone.
"All this time…, hic…, I've been so hard on the A Rank kids…, hic…."
"……."
"Yerin must have been…, sob…, hurt by it too…. But…, hiiic…, she pushed through all of that and practiced so hard every night…, hic…, and then showed us a stage this good, so I'm just so happy and so sorry…."
…Ah.
She really hadn't looked like the kind of person tough enough to fire off those scathing remarks with a clear head.
Had she been carrying the guilt of scolding us this whole time, and it just broke now?
Judging by what she was saying, she might even have seen us carving out time to practice every night.
Swoosh—.
I turned my head slightly and checked the cameras.
The crew was happily filming both me and the crying vocal trainer.
This would be the perfect moment to show some tears or a moved expression….
But my acting stat was a mere eighteen. There was no way I could pull that off.
So I went with the next best option — the most deadpan expression I could manage — and said this:
"It's true Trainer Yesol scolded us a lot… but I never thought she did it for no reason."
"Hic…, Yerin…."
"If anything, I was able to grow thanks to Trainer Yesol's sharp advice. I want to say thank you. Ah — and to the other trainers as well, of course."
When I finished, the vocal trainer poured out another bucket of tears right from her seat.
After some time had passed and she finally seemed to calm down, she wiped her eyes and picked up the mic again.
"I wasn't overreacting for nothing. Even as a dancer-position trainee, Yerin already had excellent vocals. And through this stage, her growth in singing stood out especially clearly."
"…Thank you."
"At this rate of growth, I think we'll eventually get to see a main dancer who can really sing. The stage was already outstanding, but what comes next is even more exciting."
The vocal trainer finished her storm of praise and set the mic down as if she'd said everything she needed to say.
Han Siwoo watched her with a look of pure disbelief.
It was the face of a man whose entire speech had just been stolen out from under him.
Even so, he soon recovered his smile and picked up where the vocal trainer had left off, wrapping up the evaluation.
"Yes, I agree with Trainer Kim Yesol. Miss Yerin's stage this time was especially marked by growth in her vocals. We already knew her dancing was incredible, of course… but the vocal improvement this time was quite the shock."
Han Siwoo grinned at me and continued.
"At this rate… the day Miss Yerin threatens not just the main dancer seat but the main vocal seat as well might not be far off."
"……."
He said it with such certainty that the day would come that I couldn't help but be thrown off.
…I only have six residual stat points left.
With a mere six points remaining, there was no way I could reach main-vocal-level singing.
Ah, whatever. I was aiming for the dancer track anyway.
A dream is whatever you make of it.
I simply nodded and let them misunderstand as much as they liked.
"Yes. I'll work hard and make sure that happens."
Seeing that, Han Siwoo smiled with satisfaction once more.
"We'll deliberate briefly, then announce Miss Yerin's rank."
Honestly, what rank I would get was obvious without looking.
"Miss Yerin's rank will remain A."
A Rank.
Through the final rank evaluation, I confirmed once again that I was still among the top-tier contestants.
Clench.
My fist tightened hard.
"Cut. We'll take a short break."
Filming for My Idol Academia was a multi-hour forced march. Shooting it all in one take was never realistic.
Apparently deciding everyone was worn out from the continuous shooting, the crew turned off the cameras and gave us a break once my rank evaluation was done.
The judges slumped back in their chairs, and the contestants melted into their seats one by one.
Only two people in the room were still uneasy.
Yu Seol and Lee Hyejeong, who hadn't finished their final rank evaluations yet.
"Why, why, why… d-do they g-g-give us a b-break r-right h-here… I d-don't get it…."
Lee Hyejeong was trembling so hard she could barely get the words out, stuttering over every syllable.
"It's okay, unnie. You'll do great."
"Th-th-thank you, Yerin…."
I was comforting Lee Hyejeong, who was shaking like a café pager on vibrate, when—
Swoosh—.
…Hm?
A sudden presence beside me made me turn my head….
"Miss Yerin."
"……Producer Han Siwoo?"
Han Siwoo stood there, smiling.
For fairness reasons, private closeness between judges and contestants was generally taboo.
Han Siwoo couldn't possibly be unaware of that rule.
And yet….
"Would you mind speaking with me for a moment?"
With the air of someone who had something important to say, he suddenly called me outside.