A Stage Good Enough to Turn It All Around
Filming for Round 2 began early in the morning. MC Kang Sejun walked out to the center of the stage.
"Welcome to the second round of Boys Code — What Is Your Color?"
Following Kang Sejun's gesture, the letters on the giant screen changed.
"This round is a team mission. Each team will design its own stage around an assigned concept."
He slowly scanned the trainees below the stage.
"I can't wait to see how each of you expressed your own color."
"Whew……."
"Which team will go first?"
Jiing—
Once again, amid a dazzling sound effect, the first concept appeared on screen.
[Concept: SPORTY]
"Our first stage is the Sporty concept team!"
To a round of cheers, the Sporty team trainees filed onto the stage.
The song kicked in — a rapid beat, powerful choreography. It was the kind of stage where you could feel the energy just by watching. Even up at the judges' table, heads were nodding.
They're really good.
I watched the stage from the trainee waiting seats.
This team had drawn a strong response in the pre-regression timeline, too.
But if something had changed, it was Yiyul, as expected. A basketball jersey and a headband. A styling made to let mussel-haired Yiyul shine all the more.
The highlight part. Standing at center, Kang Yiyul snatched every eye in the room in an instant.
There he is!
With his cast off, Yiyul practically flew across the stage. Precise movements, eye-catching facial expressions. It wasn't bias talking — the stage genuinely left no room to look at anyone but Yiyul. He fit the concept that well, and he pulled it off that well.
I let out a breath of relief.
Thank god.
With a light, bouncy step, the stage came to an end. Applause erupted from every corner of the studio.
"Wow—"
Kang Sejun burst into admiration as he climbed back onto the stage.
"You must have been nervous going first, but you showed us exactly what the Sporty concept is all about!"
The judges were positive as well. Sharp eyes for spotting talent, it seemed, were all much the same — though most of their remarks did happen to be about Kang Yiyul.
And right after them—
"Our second performers are… the Refreshing concept team."
Our turn.
"Please come up to the stage!"
I pulled the members into a tight huddle.
"Let's do it exactly like we practiced."
At those words, everyone steadied their breathing. Even their expressions were different from the midterms.
"Okay."
"We've got this!"
They were nervous, sure — but there wasn't a trace of fear on their faces.
"Let's go."
We walked out onto the stage together.
The judges' eyes locked onto us. Their faces were full of worry, unlike the reactions the previous team had received. It was as if the midterms had already snuffed out any expectations they might have had.
Good.
An unexpected twist is always the bigger thrill.
Kang Sejun raised his microphone.
"Alright, Refreshing team! Please introduce yourselves."
I glanced sideways.
Ji Dongseok grinned and gave a nod.
"One, two, three!"
I timed it and shouted first.
"If Yuseongwoo does it—"
Immediately, voices thundered out from behind me.
"I DO IT TOO!"
The first to crack was Kang Sejun. Still holding the microphone, he doubled over, head hanging low.
"Pfft—"
Laughter rippled through the judges' table as well.
"I'm sorry, but what exactly does that mean?"
Kang Sejun asked, still laughing.
Ji Dongseok already had his head bowed, wheezing with laughter, and Kwon Gihyeon's ears had gone scarlet red.
"Uh…… well……."
In the end, I scratched my head and explained on their behalf.
"You see…… in the beginning, I was a pretty terrible dancer."
I heard snickering from behind me.
Was that funny?
Pretending not to hear, I kept going.
"But the more we practiced together, the more I kept up, and—"
I paused for a breath.
"One day, I hit every single beat better than anyone!"
The judges leaned forward, intrigued.
"So everyone started thinking, 'If he can do it, so can I'…… and that kind of stuck."
"Ah……"
Kang Sejun nodded.
"So that's where 'If Yuseongwoo does it, I do it too' comes from?"
"Yes……."
The embarrassment hit me a beat late.
I trailed off at the end, and another wave of laughter broke over the stage.
"That's remarkably honest."
"Sounds like the team spirit was good, at least."
"Yes, sir. They all bonded over making fun of me."
Thanks to that, the mood lightened in an instant. The tension melted away like snow in the sun.
"Very good."
The MC raised his microphone again.
"So what kind of stage did you prepare for us?"
This time, Song Wooju stepped forward.
"We prepared a stage that's cool and refreshing — like a fizzy drink!"
I picked up the line right after him.
"Watching it will leave you feeling completely refreshed."
One of the judges nodded.
"We look forward to it."
A short laugh.
The atmosphere was fully charged now.
Kang Sejun raised his hand.
"Alright then!"
At his signal, we each slid into our starting positions.
"The Refreshing concept team's stage begins now. Code on!"
The lights went out.
The darkness blanketing the stage was utterly still, as if it were holding its breath.
Song In-hyuk watched the stage with his arms crossed.
A team built from lower-ranked trainees.
Frankly, he hadn't expected much.
"The arrangement was decent, but the execution……"
The midterms had already settled this team's fate, in his mind.
The choreography itself hadn't been bad. There had even been some genuinely fresh touches.
The problem was that they'd lacked the skill to pull it off.
A shame, really.
The stage is merciless. Nothing can be hidden up there — everything gets laid bare, one way or another.
The music started.
Tak—
The instant the first beat dropped, the lights came up.
And then.
"Huh?"
His eyebrows shifted, barely a fraction.
The first move.
Precise. Not merely "on beat" — precise.
They're cutting through it like a blade.
A simple move — several trainees extending their arms at once. But the angle and speed snapped into perfect alignment without a hair of error. Watching it produced a strange, almost physical pleasure.
Without realizing it, he uncrossed his arms.
Were they like this at the midterms?
He searched his memory.
No. That team, back then, had clearly—
Been all over the place.
The beats had dragged, every move out of sync. A team with a good routine in hand that had failed to bring it to life.
And now they looked like a completely different team.
As the stage unfolded, certainty hardened into conviction.
This wasn't a modest improvement. They had torn it down to the foundation and rebuilt it.
Song In-hyuk's gaze drifted naturally to the center.
"Has he always danced like that?"
Yuseongwoo — as recently as the midterms, the shakiest dancer on the team. Stiff lines, and even in group formation he'd bobbed slightly out of place.
But now, every single movement was clean.
When to push power in and release it, how to press against the beat, even his sense of rhythm.
He's good now.
And what was more surprising was that it wasn't just one member carrying the stage.
With the movements this crisp, the structure of the choreography finally came into view.
It started relatively simple and ratcheted up the difficulty as it went. The point choreography tucked into the middle, the little gestures that let each member shine.
Whoever built this knew what they were doing.
He nodded along before he even noticed. His interest had well and truly been piqued.
And this team's greatest strength was obvious.
Their synchronization.
They moved as if they shared a single body.
WHAM—
The chorus detonated.
The music climbed another level, the lights flared — and in that instant, all five members turned in perfect unison.
"Oh."
He heard the judge beside him exhale in admiration.
He had to concede it too. This was pure rehearsal hours. This was not a result talent alone could produce.
They drilled this to death.
The angle of every fingertip, the eyelines, even the intervals between steps.
And yet for all their identical movement, it didn't feel mechanical.
If anything—
The energy is alive.
The entire stage breathed.
The highlight was approaching.
The accompaniment briefly subsided while the beat, wrung tight like a wet towel, drew the tension taut.
He looked to the center again.
[Oh! I'll find the courage to say it —
you were my first love]
Yuseongwoo, who had been standing at the back, stepped forward one pace. The other members spread out around him in a half circle, fanning outward like rays.
The high-note part.
He quietly lowered his expectations.
Frankly, the performance they'd delivered so far was already more than enough. Asking for a flawless live vocal on top of it would be greedy — and the anxious trainee from Round 1 was still fresh in his memory.
[I'll give you my everything—!]
The high note bloomed.
"What the—"
The words escaped him before he knew it.
That was how astonishing the vocal was. Unwavering breath, a high note struck dead-on and then driven all the way through to the end.
The sound was ripped from him with his entire body — you could practically see the veins standing out in his neck.
The other members were executing intense choreography behind him, but his eyes refused to leave Yuseongwoo.
"That's live, right?"
Beside him, Park Jae-hoon murmured blankly.
He knew perfectly well there was no lip-syncing in a competition — the words simply came out because he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Song In-hyuk rubbed his mouth.
This blocking was calculated to perfection.
The high note at center, with the razor-sharp sync wrapping around it.
The accompaniment killed dead to spotlight the vocal, the beat punched up to give the choreography momentum.
Who arranged this?
The thought flickered through him — but that wasn't what mattered right now.
The beat crashed back in and swept into full group choreography. Yuseongwoo dissolved into the formation so completely you'd never guess he'd just been belting a high note.
That transition was impossibly smooth.
"Wow……"
This time even Song In-hyuk didn't bother hiding his admiration.
The stage headed into its final stretch.
This was the zone where spent breath breeds mistakes — but even ragged, the breathing never shook the movement. Every time the five of them clicked into alignment, a jolt of pleasure ran through him.
That taut, drawn-bow tension held to the very end.
And then, the finale.
[The road I take to see you,
today again —
always, always clear skies!]
The instant the music cut, all five of them froze in place.
Silence. A short but vivid afterglow.
A faint smile touched Song In-hyuk's lips.
This is……
Completely outside his predictions.
Applause exploded, from the trainee waiting seats all the way up to the judges' table.
He picked up his microphone.
"First of all—"
He paused, looking at the five of them on stage.
Even the way they stood was different. Back at the midterms, these boys had stared at the floor. Now they were meeting his eyes head-on.
For some reason, he liked the sight of it.
"You're a completely different team than you were at the midterms."
The trainees' shoulders flinched.
Still nervous after all that, huh.
He added quickly,
"In the very best sense."
Only then did their frozen expressions thaw a little.
"The choreography was always good. But today—"
He gestured out across the stage.
"You owned it."
He deliberately leaned on that word — owned.
"This was a stage where you could see exactly how hard you practiced."
Then his gaze came to rest on Yuseongwoo.
"Trainee Yuseongwoo."
Yuseongwoo raised his head.
"Don't tell me you arranged the track yourself?"
"Yes, sir. I did."
"Ha, honestly—"
He shook his head with a disbelieving laugh.
"The highlight section was genuinely staggering."
"……"
"The song, the choreography — the arrangement made both of them shine. It didn't sound like a generic track. It sounded like this team's song."
"Thank you!"
Even as Yuseongwoo bowed in thanks, Song In-hyuk's cascade of praise showed no sign of stopping.
"You carried this team beautifully."
At that, every member nodded along.
Song In-hyuk smiled.
"But what impressed me even more — you didn't stand out alone."
Several judges nodded at those words.
"This was a stage completed by a team, not by an individual."
And then he turned his gaze back to all five of them.
"Nothing about today's stage said 'bottom-ranked team.' Not one thing."
Song In-hyuk spoke with the weight of conviction.
"At this level — you can absolutely turn the tables."
A short remark, but one that landed with real weight.
The five of them on stage exchanged a look.
This time, their eyes held not anxiety, but certainty.