Chapter 40
Chapter 40
The answer reverted to ambiguity.
"What a load of vague nonsense."
Because Baek Gyeonwoo, who had returned, cut off Han Neuti's answer with a snip.
I wanted to shake Han Neuti's shoulders and tell him to ignore that guy and just answer, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Since what Baek Gyeonwoo said next was this.
"Whether it's a special favor or a trick, let's say it exists. Just ignore that shit and debut. The votes are from viewers anyway."
"......."
"Both of you, just focus on debuting here. Stop thinking nonsense."
And he added one more thing.
"Because I'm definitely going to debut here too."
What could I even say here?
That it wasn't just some minor favoritism or trick—the whole show would crash and we'd all be fairly thrown out?
After agonizing, I ultimately chose avoidance.
"Fine. Just work hard."
"......."
Somehow the atmosphere had become awkward.
Han Neuti, who had been looking back and forth at the two of us as only silence passed, clicked his tongue briefly. Then he pulled down the zip-up that had been hanging on the upper bunk and put his arms in the sleeves, saying,
"Yeah. A 10th-placer doesn't have time to lounge around like this. Let's go, Gyeonwoo. To practice."
"I wasn't trying to put you on the spot."
"Oh, I know, I know. I just got pricked on my own."
The mood quickly shifted, and I silently watched them go off to practice as if they were inseparable, thinking, truly.
'I envy them.'
I remembered the state of our team, which I'd been trying to forget, and sighed.
"Pick me too......"
"If I do it with you, we can't get first place in the team."
Baek Gyeonwoo, who had caught my lament, replied nonchalantly.
That meant he had picked other team members because they were easy, but then why was that guy Han Neuti nodding along in agreement?
As I flopped down on the bed in protest, the light went off with a soft click.
"Good night."
Then came the sound of the door opening and closing.
'I didn't even say I was sleeping.'
It was a bother to turn it back on, so I stared at the dark ceiling and blinked.
My chest felt tight as if I had swallowed a plastic bag.
I knew the reason.
Because Baek Gyeonwoo's words were echoing in my head.
—Because I'm definitely going to debut here too.
"......."
Those damn production crew, seriously.
* * *
The next day.
Other teams, including Han Neuti's, already seemed to have set a direction and started practicing, but our team still hadn't made any progress from the blank slate.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't completely blank... but I could ignore it. I was going to tear everything up anyway.
Sitting pitifully alone in the practice room, I glanced at the clock and recalled the schedule sheet the production team had handed out.
The training camp schedule sheet only listed morning practice, afternoon practice, evening practice, and meal times in between.
Times not marked didn't mean free time, but just that it was the crew's rest time, so filming would be irregular.
Any trainee with sense wouldn't waste this time on rest......
You can probably guess where this is going if I've said this much.
'When are they coming?'
One hour before morning practice.
The empty practice room greeted me as soon as I woke up and rushed over, making a mockery of my earlier self-reproach for sleeping too much.
I briefly considered barging into the dorm and dragging them out by force, but quickly changed my mind.
I might as well get some things done first while I had the chance.
'What the hell "sexy"? Freezing-to-death sexy.'
The concept, that is.
Let me be clear: I wasn't dismissing the sexy concept itself. I just wanted to eliminate anything that might remind people of the original singer's controversy beforehand.
Now that an SNS war where anyone who isn't a supported trainee gets mercilessly bashed was about to erupt, there was no way the behind-the-scenes story of wouldn't be exposed.
I fluttered the lyrics sheet.
I got the power
Set fire to the cold heart
Make it so you can't run away anymore my lover
With my mark, call dips
No one will dare to mess
cuz I'm strong
and your conqueror
That was the hook lyrics of .
You think it's more ordinary than you'd expect? Of course. It's the censored version.
My mind, which had opened Pandora's box, kept recalling the demo version lyrics. I wanted to forget too, really.
'I had to tear it apart completely. To the point where I wouldn't even remember the original.'
Since the mission itself was to rewrite the lyrics, it wouldn't break any rules, so let's strip out everything except the symbolic parts.
The problem was, I needed a clever idea source to persuade those guys.
Because I wasn't particularly talented at creation.
'I'd have to try something to know......'
If I had to defend myself, when I first joined, Mary was skeptical of 'self-producing idols'.
Because this self-production thing... surprisingly was a factor with mixed reception among fans.
The responsibility for planning fell on the idols themselves, making it hard for fans to voice complaints, and eventually it could become the fuse for internal fandom division...... There were many other reasons.
Anyway, after considering many aspects, Mary had opted for the safe route of having a dedicated composition team of dozens instead of adding related lessons for trainees.
But now that K-pop's status had risen and the market expanded globally from East Asia, recent idols were produced with overseas markets in mind from the start.
And overseas, self-producing idols were preferred.
So when they began preparing the 5th generation runners in earnest, Mary finally started turning its eyes toward self-producing titles.
That didn't mean more lessons were added for us, though. They merely created Team B under the name of a new project.
And the promising trainee who led that Team B was......
—Kim Yuri, they said. His name.
—Really?
—He's a year older than us, Cha-gyeom. He'll probably go to Team B.
—Too bad.
Contrary to our somewhat bland reactions, Hyung Yuri had quite a presence among the trainees.
And for good reason. He was one of the rare cases who had joined the debut class directly without going through the general class.
Of course, it wasn't just because of that; his affability that easily suppressed the subtle power struggles in the practice room must have played a part.
Probably eight-tenths of the reason we became close enough that I'm wasting time reminiscing like this was thanks to him.
'I'm pretty sure I talked about songwriting with that hyung.'
I buried my face in the lyrics sheet to try to recall the old memories.
Finding constructive advice among his countless bullshit and nonsense was extremely difficult.
But through sheer tenacity, I remembered one conversation.
—How do you write lyrics?
I'd forgotten what led me to ask that question.
But I clearly remembered the answer. He had unfolded my hand himself and placed a pen firmly in it, then said to me......
—Here, this is a pen.
—Not that.
He said that, you know.
Laughing 'keuk keuk' at my reaction, he clasped his hands behind his head and leaned against the mirror wall with a thud.
—What's there to method? Just roughly write what you want to say.
—If I could do that, I wouldn't have asked.
—Oh, wow, right. As expected of Seo Cha-gyeom, so smart.
And then he continued as if genuinely regretful.
—But what can I do? It just comes to me......
—.......
Somehow I only had memories of him being endearing one moment and irritating the next.
When I stared at him flabbergasted, he would immediately start acting cute in a way that didn't work. He probably knew it only pissed me off, and that too was just part of his teasing.
Even then, clinging to my arm and shifting his whole weight onto me, he hadn't stopped rambling.
—Seo Cha-gyeom, when you really can't think of anything......
—Yes.
—Just push the interpretation onto the listener and toss in pretty words like dream, fate, universe...... anything like that. There's a reason cliché topics are used so often...... Aack, why! This is a real practical tip!
Since I don't remember anything after that, I must have left the practice room, fed up with his nonsense.
Ultimately, it was a completely unhelpful reminiscence...... but separately from that, a not-unpleasant feeling welled up.
It was longing.
'I wonder what he's up to.'
Even if I didn't like it, I'd see him once we debuted, but I wanted to meet him at least once before that.
Though he might not welcome it.
"......."
Let's stop here before worse memories surface.
I shook my head to clear my mind and stared again at the lyrics sheet. The tiny, cramped letters finally came into focus as sentences.
'Even seeing it again, it really makes me sigh.'
No matter where I looked, there was no room to insert 'pretty words' like dream, fate, universe.
In this song, the lyrics that could be considered symbolic were just 'I got the power' and 'I'm strong'.
Because it was a song often used as background music in short-form videos, the chorus with those lyrics must be deeply embedded in everyone's minds.
In such cases, if you completely overturn the lyrics, it creates a disconnect with the lyrics in their heads and feels awkwardly detached.
The one saving grace was that the original artist wasn't a rapper praised for his diction.
If you grabbed a random person on the street and asked them to sing it, 80% would at best mumble 'I got the power, mmm mmm, Armstrong, mmm mmm'.
'......Wait.'
I stopped my finger that had been tapping on the floor.
It felt like something had just occurred to me.
* * *
10 minutes before morning practice.
The team members started trickling in one by one.
"......!"
Every time our eyes met, the team members flinched in surprise, and each time I silently looked at the clock.
Since they weren't late, it was a bit tricky to say something.
'I should expect only what I can expect.'
Anyway, it was every man for himself, so instead of wasting emotions, I'd get straight to the point.
While the production crew was filming, I beckoned the team members who were dawdling, gathered them, and opened my mouth.
"I've been thinking about the concept."
"Didn't we decide everything yesterday?"
"Everyone was tired then. Now that you've rested, I thought it'd be good to discuss opinions again."
Over Kim Han-ul's shoulder, I could see the camera director.
I said it as nicely as possible, but I didn't know how it sounded to others. I didn't care if I came off badly.
"We said we'd go with a sexy concept, right?"
"Yes, but I think it's better to change it."
"Why?"
With their mental state, no matter how long I explained about the original singer's controversy, it'd be useless.
Naturally, I had prepared another reason in advance.
"For an intense concept, visual elements are important, so we'd definitely lose to teams that chose choreography creation."
But if we switched to dance, apart from Lee Jae-young and me, no one in this team could dance anyway.
Perhaps they were aware of that, because they couldn't refute it and shut their mouths.
"So, Cha-gyeom, what do you want to do?"
"I...... want to write what we want to say."
Kim Han-ul grumbled.
"What, like talking about dreams? Isn't that cliché?"
"Why are dreams cliché? Don't you want to achieve yours?"
Kim Han-ul, seeming flustered by my irrational logic, rolled his eyes left and right.
Even I thought that was a bit much...... but what could I do? If you're pissed, refute me properly.
And without giving them time to refute, I moved on to the next point.
"And, looking at Jae-young hyung's stages."
"......You watched my stages?"
"Huh? Yes. Of course I did."
Of course. I had cram-watched them at 2x speed yesterday.
When I caught the momentary change in Lee Jae-young's eyes, I could be even more certain of my guess.
If the reason Lee Jae-young found me distasteful was 'because I ignored and discriminated against others,' then how did he explain his own behavior of socializing by dividing people into tiers?
It's simple.
This guy was just...... sulking.
So, what I had to do was also simple.
'I'll soothe him.'