Just Describe It With Words
There was one thing to be grateful for. Whether it was Jang Hyunjun or Nam Junho, their pride was stubborn, but their *ambition* was even bigger. The moment they confirmed my arrangement was good, their pointless stubbornness folded like a cheap lawn chair.
After all, those four had shared the same goal from the start. They'd only differed on how to seize it.
And above all—
‘I have no intention of shoveling the same hole twice.’
"Then we should ditch the hip-hop feel and go with something that flows more smoothly."
"Yeah. Let's just treat it like we're building the whole thing from scratch again."
Han Sangyoon added matter-of-factly, "The urban version didn't exactly get rave reviews either."
"Right."
With the direction decided, the choreography began taking visible shape. The blocking fell into place, and point moves started to emerge. I watched the process for a while.
Whoosh. Kang Yiyul suddenly glanced over his shoulder.
"……!"
Our eyes nearly met. I immediately ducked my head and scrawled nonsense onto my notepad.
I felt like a peeper who'd been caught in the act.
When I cautiously lifted my head again, thankfully, all four of them were absorbed in the choreography.
"Phew…."
Letting out a sigh of relief, I put in my earphones.
Shadow Play.
It had been a fairly famous song even before my regression, so I knew it well.
Not that I'd ever liked it. Munho, that bastard, had sung it to death.
Thanks to him, it was drilled into my ears permanently.
"…Ha."
A laugh slipped out.
‘What a pathetic memory to drag up right now.’
…That's all gone now anyway.
It had been four years, but my circumstances were effectively those of ten years ago, which meant producer *SW* didn't exist on this timeline. I didn't show up in any search results.
Honestly, it stung a little. All the work I'd built up, the copyrights—gone, every last bit of it.
‘Nothing I can do about it.’
It would all have vanished the instant I died in that accident anyway. Besides, this time, all I had to do was debut to become Kang Yiyul's personal producer. Hardly a losing deal.
But for that to happen—
‘IMPACTER has to blow up.’
Not just decently—decisively.
I pulled out my earphones and looked up. The choreography was slowly taking form, and the sound was clicking into place alongside it.
‘Good.’
In my mind, the historic first stage I would share with Kang Yiyul was already coming into focus.
"Hah… hah… I'm calling it for today."
After nearly ten straight hours of practice, the first to collapse was Nam Junho.
"It's already midnight. Let's pick the rest up in the morning."
"Yeess, sir—"
Group practice had ended, but Kang Yiyul didn't leave the studio.
The ankle he'd tweaked a few days ago looked fine now.
‘Small mercies, I suppose….’
"Hyung, you…."
I didn't need to hear the rest. He was asking why I wasn't leaving.
I shrugged. "If I rest while you're working, I'd have no conscience to speak of. I have to work hard if I want to keep up, don't I?"
He gave an awkward laugh and, without further suspicion, returned to practice.
It wasn't entirely a lie.
I needed to practice—and keep watch.
…Calling it surveillance sounds a bit weird, doesn't it?
But even today alone, far too many suspicious things had happened around Kang Yiyul. That morning, he'd nearly slipped on water someone had spilled; at lunch, a potted plant on a shelf had wobbled dangerously.
And that wasn't all. In the evening, he'd nearly been bowled over by the colts of the dorm careening through the halls.
‘That last one was genuinely close.’
Coincidence can only stretch so far. At this point, until his Danger Level dropped, I couldn't take my eyes off Kang Yiyul for a second.
Kang Yiyul's reason for helping Yuseongwoo was simple: he hated owing people.
By helping with the signal song choreography, he'd considered that debt cleanly settled.
But then Yuseongwoo had worked a remark Yiyul had tossed out offhandedly into his arrangement, and had even name-dropped him in front of the original songwriter himself.
‘This is… awkward. I can't just let it slide.’
Teaching someone a few dance moves wasn't enough to call it even.
On top of that, strange things had kept happening lately.
He'd nearly fallen off a bus, nearly slipped on someone's spilled water, nearly taken a potted plant to the head.
The strange part was that Yuseongwoo had been nearby every single time.
"……"
As if the man had been watching him constantly.
‘So that's why. That's why he didn't so much as frown at my bizarre movement earlier.’
"Is this right?"
"Watch closely. It's not one-two with the arm swinging through—you rest for one beat, then turn."
"Oh, one beat… like this?"
The movements came quickly. His timing was accurate, too.
But…
‘His movement is… unique.’
"Did I get it right this time?"
It was exactly right. Which was exactly what made it so strange.
Yuseongwoo's dancing wasn't one continuous flow—it was like separate puzzle pieces that refused to connect. Each individual movement existed, but nothing linked to anything else.
"Put a little more power into it. Like this—"
He even demonstrated it himself, but the result was similar. And that was when, for the first time in his life, he began to doubt his own teaching methods.
‘Is the problem me, or this guy?’
"Ah…."
Only then did he catch the cause. It wasn't an issue of explanation. Yuseongwoo's body and the choreography he'd designed simply didn't fit each other.
The signal song and the Round 2 refresh stage had been movement-heavy—choreography that looked passable as long as you memorized it precisely and hit your beats.
But this round was different. Fewer movements, and the connections between them, the lines, mattered above all.
Which meant nothing could be hidden. Every deficiency showed, exactly as it was.
‘If this keeps up…!’
Kang Yiyul quietly pressed a hand to his temple.
‘I'd be doubling my debt.’
What Yuseongwoo needed right now was simple: fundamentals.
But—
‘There's no time to teach him that now.’
Where in the middle of a survival show would anyone find time to drill basics?
‘Teaching fundamentals at this stage would be ridiculous anyway.’
The silver lining was that Yuseongwoo already possessed one undeniable weapon—one he emphasized himself, and one the judges had already recognized.
‘His dancing may fall short, but he'll earn recognition through his producing.’
Telling himself that seemed to shave a little off his guilt. Kang Yiyul watched Yuseongwoo's back as he repeated the movements endlessly in front of the mirror.
Awkward and stiff, but he never stopped.
"Yiyul-ah, look at this."
Yuseongwoo turned around, out of breath. "Isn't this a little more natural now?"
"…Yes. A little."
Truly a very, very little.
Kang Yiyul let out a short breath. "Hyung, you said you'd never danced before becoming a trainee, right?"
"Never had the chance."
"……"
"Ah, sorry. Feels like I'm leaning on you again."
Instead of answering, Yiyul stepped up beside him. "This is a really simple fundamental stance. It's useful to know whenever you dance this kind of genre."
He adjusted the angles starting from the fingertips.
Straighten the posture, settle the center of gravity, keep the line from breaking.
Yuseongwoo copied it immediately, and Yiyul was certain now.
‘It was the missing fundamentals all along.’
Trying to stack decorations on an empty pantry—the whole thing was going to collapse.
After a moment's thought, he showed him a body wave. "A wave isn't just flailing your arm around, either. It has to flow through like this."
The movement, born at the fingertips, traveled naturally through the wrist, the arm, and up to the shoulder.
"Whoa, let me try."
Yuseongwoo rippled from fingertips to shoulders, attempting the wave with all his might.
"…Ah."
Kang Yiyul was briefly at a loss for words.
It was unmistakably the same movement. How on earth did it end up like that?
It felt like discovering an unidentified life-form. He had the urge to record every single one of the man's movements for study.
"How was it?"
Yiyul quietly averted his gaze.
"…I'll show you the next movement."
The conclusion was singular.
Forget the fundamentals—for now, somehow making it work came first.
Yiyul's one-on-one choreography lessons were incredibly useful. Though having fundamentals shoved in out of nowhere mid-lesson did catch me off guard a few times.
Still, when I showed him the wave I'd honed by turning the Hourglass a few times, I earned a brief, genuine gasp of admiration out of him.
That's right. I may be hopeless at everything else, but waves I can do.
Anyway, all of his advice was blood and flesh to me, so I was practicing exactly as he instructed.
…Of course, practicing doesn't mean everything works.
With the concept now clear, the choreography, the structure, and the arrangement all picked up speed.
The problem was exactly one thing: my body.
This choreography was far too good for my actual dancing ability. Who knew the day would come when I'd resent Yiyul's ridiculous talent? Truly, life holds surprises for those who live long enough.
Even so, thanks to the flawlessly polished blocking, I cleared the mid-term evaluation without incident.
Three days remained.
And one final task was left on my plate.
A single devastating move to replace Kang Yiyul's stolen Killing Part.
To be fair, he was already doing brilliantly. But measured against the impact of his pre-regression Blossoming stage, it still felt lacking.
Especially since that sleazebag Go Jaeseong had even earned praise with the gesture he'd swiped.
"…Hmm."
I rummaged frantically through my memory.
Every one of Kang Yiyul's stages, fancams, broadcasts.
‘The one with the best reaction that also fits the current concept….’
Wow. Nothing. There is literally nothing.
I ran my brain at full throttle, but I couldn't find it. The ones with great reactions didn't match the concept; the ones that matched the concept lacked impact.
Then a single stage flashed through my mind.
It was from the cable English-language program Today's K-pop Star, which they'd appeared on after Go Jaeseong's first blunder. Choi Woonjo spent the entire shoot ricocheting around the set and eventually snagged the next MC seat for himself.
‘A program generous enough to grant even a Mangdol member a solo fancam… I owe it a lot.’
There was one stage Kang Yiyul had performed on it.
A pop song with an vaguely menacing atmosphere, fused with contemporary dance—choreography that was unsettling yet impossible to look away from.
For a while, fans had used that fancam as proof that ‘Impacter isn't dead yet,’ working hard to promote it. The reaction had been pretty good, too.
…Though everyone who'd dipped a toe in because of it was washed away by Go Jaeseong's center incident.
‘It was Impacter's final flicker of fire.’
At that moment, a shadow fell over me.
"Who—oh, Yiyul-ah?"
"…Hyung, do you, um, have a minute?"
My heart lurched.
Unbelievable. Kang Yiyul was approaching me first.
"I do!"
I nearly blurted out, ‘Even if I didn't, I'd make time. Is that even a question—what about you?’ but I swallowed it back.
Yiyul hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Wh-which of these two do you think is better?"
"Which are?"
"The gestures."
It came.
Opportunity walked right up to me on its own two feet.
I didn't even need to puzzle over which Killing Part to recommend.
"Ah—"
I did my best to look composed. Inside, fireworks had detonated, then escalated straight to explosives.
‘He asked for MY opinion!’
Until now, I'd always been the one barreling in first. The style recommendations, the conversations, the practice—every time.
But Kang Yiyul came to me! On his own! To ask what I thought!
This was a historic event.
"This is the first one."
Yiyul set his stance.
[Hold me tight—]
Matching the lyrics, he thrust his left arm out with force, then rotated his palm and clenched it into a tight fist.
Clean. I liked it.
"And this is the second."
This time, he tilted his chin upward while his hand lifted along his jaw in a lifting gesture. Even his eyeline was on point.
Neither movement was bad.
But I already knew the answer.
"Could I, um… recommend something else?"
"Yes."
Had his wariness toward me softened that much? The permission came far too easily.
‘Excellent!’
"I've been watching from the back this whole time, and something occurred to me—"
I sprang up from my seat.
"You flick your fingers out, like this—"
Shwish.
"Then cross both your arms."
Shwap.
"Like you're embracing someone."
Wham—I hugged the empty air.
"And then you whip your head around, just once, like—"
Whoosh.
So snapping your head back and forth like this doesn't make a cracking sound. Good to know.
Youth really is a wonderful thing.
"So, what do you think?"
"……"
Carried away by excitement, my demonstration had run longer than my explanation.
That's how seriously I was taking this.
The problem was…
…that my body was far too defective to faithfully replicate Kang Yiyul's movements as they existed in my head.
"……"
"……"
The studio fell silent.
I forced a smile and asked again. "So? What do you think?"
Yiyul considered it for a while.
Then, with tremendous deliberation, with the utmost care, choosing and re-choosing each word, he said:
"You could just… describe it to me in words."
"Uh—yeah. Sure. Right."
I hastily straightened my posture, as if nothing had happened.
‘I'm done for.’
"The—the movements are good, though!"
Yiyul's desperate little remark only made it more humiliating.
Apparently, my dance moves were utterly unfit to serve as any kind of instructional textbook.