When the Unexpected Happens (3)
From behind, they looked like people marching into battle. I gave each of them a word to lift their spirits.
Lee Taehee, dependable as ever when it mattered. Lim Seoyoung, nerves showing, but thankfully looking like she was in good shape. LJ, so locked in that I almost felt rude speaking to her at all.
And last of all, Lee Songha, burning in total silence.
"Songha. Just do it the way you practiced."
"Yes. I'll give it everything I've got."
Songha nodded and followed the others out.
And at last, the recording of Next K-Star's first mission began.
Watching the set, one thing hit me harder than all the rest.
It wasn't that a shoot forever stopping and starting wrung the life out of you, and it wasn't that the VJs thrusting cameras in to catch the managers' and staff's reactions were an unbearably irritating presence.
What struck me most was that you had no business casually ordering people to sing with no accompaniment.
Of course, some teams and members were good enough to pull gasps of admiration from all over the audience. The judges applauded and held them up as timber for the next generation of K-stars.
But a few stages were, quite literally, the kind that made you suck in a breath. They were rookies, sure, but this was a broadcast flying the Next K-Star banner. I found myself wondering whether they could really air performances like that.
And standing alone even among those was the team on the stage right now.
Sugar Cat.
"...Mm."
In the end, a sound I couldn't swallow slipped out. I wasn't the only one. The people in the front rows couldn't look straight at the stage either; their eyes kept sliding off it. No need to look far. Kim Hyunjo, who had been propping his chin on his hand, was now covering his eyes with that same hand.
He had no choice. Even granting they hadn't had enough time to practice, that was too much.
Three minutes and thirty seconds of pure shock passed, and the Sugar Cat members stood before the judges. They must have been nervous. So was I. I steadied my pounding heart and waited for the evaluation.
This moment. More eagerly awaited than a drama's first episode, more gripping than its last.
Among the three judges, the undisputed poison-tongue character. Cha Soo-ji, who had already shattered several people's composure with brutal critiques, took the mic first. I'd always thought her habit of swinging her lines too hard was a bit much, but...
"Why didn't you just call yourselves Sour Cat instead of Sugar Cat? Sour. So sour. I've never had my whole face crumple up like that just from listening to a song."
I might become this woman's fan.
The Sugar Cat kids panicked, shoving the mic at one another and stammering. Two judges were still left, though. The roasting poured out before Sugar Cat could get a single word in.
"Singing without a track really lays your actual skill bare. You've been slapping the instrumental over your weaknesses this whole time."
"Pitch wobbling from start to finish, and the timing—don't even get me started on how much you dropped. I tried counting and gave up."
"There's nothing to praise. Viewer reactions beforehand were very good for this team, though..."
"That's because they've been on so many variety shows."
Carbonation crackled through my veins.
Ah. For the first time, I felt something like peace.
Sugar Cat came down off the stage dripping tears. Two VJs latched onto them on the way back to the audience and filmed them crying, and they wailed that it was the first mission, they'd been nervous, they'd made far too many mistakes.
Once the interview ended, the Sugar Cat members returned to the seats behind us.
Sugar Cat's chief manager clicked his tongue.
"The judges are talking trash on purpose. They're trying to juice the early broadcast for shock value."
"Still, that was too much. Honestly, if we'd just had more practice time..."
"They called us Sour Cat, oppa. Were we really that bad?"
"No. You know Cha Soo-ji's style. People prop her up as the fierce unnie, the girl-crush type, so she throws her lines even harder to lock the character in. You weren't bad enough to deserve that. Look at the other teams. The evaluations will be about the same."
At that last line, Kim Hyunjo's head snapped toward the back. Sugar Cat's chief manager cleared his throat and looked away.
Because Neptune was next.
The kids, who had been sitting in the front row with the other teams waiting their turn, pumped themselves up and stood. Then, with calm steps, they took their place before the judges.
"Neptune... lowest profile of any team in the show."
"I watched the music video. The skill seemed decent."
"If we judged off that, there wouldn't be a single team left to criticize."
The judges, having already seen Neptune's preliminary footage, chatted lightly. The questions flicked their way were fielded smoothly by Lee Taehee and Lim Seoyoung.
"All right. Let's see the stage first."
"Yes!"
I gripped the armrest and stared at the stage.
Breaking the silence, the unaccompanied performance began under Lee Taehee's lead.
A bittersweet voice, deep and resonant, woke the hall. On the monitor at the side of the stage, the judges straightened in their seats. Not just the judges—the industry people and staff in the audience stopped whatever they'd been saying and turned toward the stage.
Lim Seoyoung's bright tone breathed life into the song, and LJ's rap was so powerful and fierce that my shoulders started moving before I noticed. But the most astonishing of all was Lee Songha.
I had watched her practice plenty of times, but she had never been better than she was right now. Enough to make me think that effort, in the end, doesn't betray you. Someone who didn't know might have asked what I was making such a fuss about, but I knew this stage had come out of relentless work.
Not just Songha—all four of them poured every hour, every drop of sweat, every bit of effort since the moment the mission was revealed into three minutes and forty seconds. It was a performance that didn't just avoid mistakes. It made you forget there had been no accompaniment at all.
"That's it. This one's good."
Beside me, Kim Hyunjo muttered it in an excited voice. I nodded.
"Whatever happened to Songha this morning must really have been the bad luck burning off. I had no idea she could do it like that."
"Yeah. She's better than in practice."
When the stage ended, the kids caught their breath and waited for the judges. Of course they were nervous, but watching from a distance, I was hardly any calmer.
Cha Soo-ji lifted the mic.
"That was really good. I'm curious why you haven't blown up yet. Why haven't you?"
Praise beyond anything they'd hoped for, and the faces of the kids waiting onstage lit up at once. Our side turned festive too. Kim Hyunjo excitedly thumped my shoulder and the traitor's with his palms, but I was so worked up I didn't even feel it. The Sugar Cat members grumbling behind us didn't register in the slightest.
"Taehee is a vocalist it's almost a waste to keep boxed in. No—not that it's a waste for her to be an idol. I just want to hear her sing all three minutes and forty seconds solo."
"Seoyoung locks the team's balance in perfectly. Her tone, and her image too. More than anything, she isn't even that big, but she hits the eye like the camera zoomed in, because she digests the choreography at a hundred and twenty percent. I saw in her profile she's done variety. I want to check that variety sense soon."
"Underground, people might not know Neptune, but they know LJ. So I'd been quietly looking forward to her, and seeing the stage, she went past what I expected."
Simon Lee and producer Song Baekjin traded more than a few generous remarks between them. Each time a comment ended, the kids thanked them with proud faces. The mood onstage couldn't have been better. A faint expectation flickered across Songha's flushed cheeks. I swallowed and listened hard.
Cha Soo-ji raised the mic.
"Songha."
"Yes."
"You're dragging the team average down all by yourself. Are you actually practicing properly?"
I nearly shot to my feet.
A harsh critique of skill, I could accept. I still didn't know music well, and these people had done nothing but music for ten years at the least and decades at the most. Of course they were right. But asking whether she was practicing properly was too cruel for Lee Songha.
She was the one who always stayed alone in the practice room after the others finished and went back to the dorm. To make it worse, Simon Lee and Song Baekjin each put in a word.
"That part is a little disappointing."
"The visuals are such a waste. She catches the eye so hard your gaze keeps going there, but when you look, there's nothing past that. If she had acting or variety experience, maybe. She doesn't even have that."
"The basics are there, so if she increases her practice from here..."
Songha dropped her head. Whichever camera caught that expression, her face appeared on the stage monitor. The camera director had probably been expecting tears, but Songha simply bore the cold assessment pouring over her in silence.
"Haa..."
Kim Hyunjo dragged a hand down his face. I couldn't settle the heaviness in my chest either, and only sighed. Then I realized the voices from the row behind us had suddenly brightened. Not wanting to show Songha that hateful sight, we got to our feet.
The kids came down from the stage. In the end they had scored far above average, but the mood wasn't bright. One VJ pressed Songha with persistent questions, and when there was no sign of tears, soon left.
When Songha came close, Kim Hyunjo patted her narrow shoulder.
"Songha, I told you earlier, didn't I? What the judges said..."
"I know. I'm okay, oppa."
"Good. It's still early. You just have to show them getting better."
"Yeah."
Songha nodded with a faint smile.
Looking at that face, a thought struck me.
How many times today had "I'm okay" come out of Songha's mouth?
The recording didn't wrap until after midnight.
"There's a whole week until the next recording, so don't practice today. Get some real rest."
Kim Hyunjo pressed it on them. The kids nodded their heavy heads and climbed into the van. I was debating whether to take the passenger seat or sit in the back when Songha slipped up behind me and tugged at my shirt.
"What?"
"Just a moment."
I followed the pull a few steps. Songha checked behind me, then spoke in a small voice, almost muttering.
"Oppa."
"Yeah."
"My foot hurts a little."
"What?"
I dropped my gaze at once.
"It hurts? Since when?"
"Since after I fell earlier."
After she fell. Don't tell me she meant the rehearsal in the rain. How long ago had that been? She'd been in pain since then and hadn't said a word until now?
"You—!"
"I'm sorry. Please don't tell the unnies."
Songha seized my shirt in both hands and held on so I couldn't move. Stunned, I stared at her, and she shook her head hard.
In that instant I remembered the conversation in the car that morning, on the way back after the schedule had come up empty. They'd been saying it was bad luck paid in advance, and then that if someone got hurt and it threw off the Next K-Star recording, that would be the bigger problem.
If the others found out Songha had hidden an injury, they might blame themselves. Maybe that was why she was begging so desperately.
"All right. I get it, but we have to tell Chief Manager. You need a hospital, too. I'll only tell him and come back, so let go. You're going to tear my shirt."
Only then did the fingers, gone white from the blood leaving them, loosen.