The Director's Proposal

The world of dance runs deep.

Of course, you could say that of any field. But when the thing you are learning is right in front of your eyes, and you are the one actually doing it, the depth gets into your bones.

Hear the same song, and the way it is expressed still changes. Take a single short section, and the choreography splinters into a dozen different shapes. Where the feet land, the angle of the hands and shoulders, the gaze you want and the direction you turn—the slightest difference sets off a cascade of changes.

And somehow, one week into lessons, I was on the verge of graduating from Class C.

"Whoa! Seriously impressive. Graduating Class C in a week."

"She was in E and D for three days, wasn't she? So it's really four."

"Either way, unreal. Is that what talent looks like?"

A short break—the first chance in a while for a body that had been thrashing itself to rest. Small voices drifted in from every side.

Sorry. My hearing is better than you would think.

And the truth is, I am no talent freak. If anything, I used to be hopeless with my own body.

Yeah, no. I worked for this.

I shut the Helper's fact-bomb down cold.

Class C was, in practice, most of what an ordinary person could learn. B and A were for people aiming at idol debuts after trainee stints at agencies, or for small performance crews and backup dancers—people who meant to make a living off dance.

So for me, Class C was exactly the right stop. Right around the level where they start talking about graduation.

Of course, next to people with real careers I was still short on the ease that comes from experience, on repertoire, on the practical tricks you can actually use live. Talent does not patch any of that in a short time. And I was not treating this road as a future dream, or as a job.

Which is why I decided to quit skipping grades and practice the rolling dance I had aimed for from the start. I watched the footage, lifted the choreography, then used the video on my phone—recorded myself dancing, checked it against the original, fixed the differences, and did it again. Whenever practice jammed, I asked the Class C teacher for help and cleared the snags one by one.

"Okay. Loosen the waist a little more through there... yes! That's it."

The song ran a little over three minutes, but one pass left me absolutely cooked. I still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was not smooth enough to run it straight through from the top, so I was breaking it into sections as I practiced. It usually took ten or fifteen minutes, and I am no professional athlete. Moving without a break for that long is not an easy thing.

"Haa, haa... thank you for today."

Today, too, I had packed a solid three hours with nothing but movement. The front half of the song finally felt more or less in my body.

I bowed to the teacher and started for the showers, and my eyes met the director's. She had been waiting behind me.

Ever since I had skipped up into Class D, she had taken an interest again. A woman settling into her mid-forties, she came over with a smile she could not keep off her face.

"If you're done practicing, shall we talk a minute in my office?"

"...Let me wash up first."

"Sure. I'll see you there."

She had been piling favors on me, and somewhere along the way we had dropped the formalities. Long hours in the practice rooms at no extra charge. A word to the teachers to pay me special attention. A cut to my tuition. Things like that.

These past few days, though, her eyes had been anything but ordinary. What was this about?

The bad feeling landed dead on.

"No. I'm telling you, I have no intention of becoming an idol."

"Hani. Just this once, I'm begging you. Hm? Our academy's honor is on the line."

Shameless—a woman past her mid-forties, grabbing my side and hanging off me.

I refused to the end, firm that I was not becoming an idol, and she lowered the terms. Just sit the audition, then. That would be enough.

"As you know, JYC is one of the top entertainment companies in the country. Academies like ours are, in a sense, subcontractors for agencies that size."

"..."

They connect promising kids who show real potential with the companies. For an academy, that is both a track record and public honor—like hanging a banner on the school gate. So-and-So High School: Three Admitted to Seoul National University This Year. If a student from here passed an audition at a name like JYC, people would naturally start pouring in to register.

"Even after you pass, if it doesn't feel like the idol life, you just quit. Nothing to worry about."

"No, that would be a nuisance for them."

"Is the ant worrying about the lion now? Pass the audition and you're still just one trainee. There are dozens of them. And among those, a trainee who's only just starting—how much pull do you think you have, to be fretting like that?"

"..."

Well. Hearing it put that way, she had a point.

Stories from after debut often include five or six years of trainee life. Even if I passed and became one, I would not be dropped straight into a debut lineup, and to a company that huge, someone quitting would not register at all.

"Who knows. An experience like this might even help you later..."

I had no idea how an agency trainee audition was supposed to help my life. I was wearing exactly that lukewarm look when she played her ace.

"...!"

"And if you pass the audition, I'll throw in a fee for your trouble."

"Okay! Thank you, thank you!"

For a second I felt possessed by that character who mindlessly screams four dollars!

Should have opened with that.

My account is empty to the bottom, and I am still hungry.

She gave me the schedule.

The audition fell on the first Saturday of November, so I had about a month of breathing room. To apply, I would need to prepare one song and one dance. She said she would help with anything I needed for preparation or practice, which meant all I had to do was put in the time and the work.

Once I get through this weekend's Penalty Broadcast, I'll have plenty of time for a while anyway.

A chance to learn singing and dancing for free.

At first I had meant to stop at Class C, master the rolling dance, and pick up a few other routines good enough for reactions. This shifted the math a little.

This audition run might even make decent content. Experiences like this aren't exactly common.

I could feel the YouTube angle snap into sharp focus.

On the way home I called Yoonjae and laid the whole thing out. He lit up at once—pure YouTube material, he said, a total jackpot.

I had spent the points I had scraped together this week to push Natural Link up to level 2, but this was not some pocket agency. This was JYC. Stand me next to competitors aiming at a trainee spot in a company that size, and I probably would not catch a single grain of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠judges' interest.

Pass the audition? Please. I'm just farming a YouTube angle and getting nearly two months of lessons for free.

Nothing to lose, only profit. My mood was light.

"Hm?"

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last main road before home. Even in the daytime, it carried a fair amount of foot traffic. I was hurrying along when a soju bottle rolled up to my feet.

What? The cap was off. An empty, nothing left inside. A few more empties came rolling this way.

"Agh! That scared me!"

"Ah, what the hell?"

The people ahead dodged the bottles with sour faces. They must have been dumped out with the rest of the trash; grime was smeared on them in patches.

Farther up, a flustered old woman was scrambling to gather the bottles spilled around her. Threadbare clothes. A bent back. People curled their lips and quickened their steps.

"..."

I did not say a word. I just picked up the bottles rolling nearby, one by one.

"M-miss. Leave them. You'll get your hands dirty."

She had spotted me and hurried over, waving me off.

Please. This was nothing. In the army, scrubbing out the chow bins, I had handled food scraps with my bare hands.

But it was not only the grandmother. The people around us looked startled too.

And that was when it hit me. I was not twenty-eight-year-old Lee Kangjun anymore. I was Lee Hani, twenty-four, with a face so pretty it had no business doing work like this.

So what?

"It's fine. I live nearby anyway, and I'm on my way back from working out. I was going to wash up."

"Th-thank you. Thank you."

The grandmother and I gathered the spilled bottles together. Once I stepped in, the people who had been watching the air joined too. The street was put back together in no time. I said goodbye to her and headed home.

"Then how about some points."

I left the Helper, mouth shut on the spot, washed up lightly, ate dinner, and turned the broadcast on.

"No—since when am I a cam girl? I started as a chat-and-gaming broadcast from the beginning, and my first cam broadcast was a month after I went live."

Discontent was spreading through the viewers. I could feel the need to patch this up somehow. So I decided to use the Penalty Broadcast they had just brought up.

"There's hardly any time left until Saturday anyway. The good stuff tastes better if you save it for last. So you can all hold out, right?"

"What about that is sexy! You people are the ones with weird heads."

While I talked with them, I slipped in a brag about the past week's results.

"Honestly, I've been hiding it, but I think I have a talent for dance."

"Honestly... just get ready to apologize once you see my rolling stage on Saturday."

"No—how exactly do you people see me!"

I had thrown off that old klutz of a past ages ago, and these foolish viewers were still looking down on me. We bickered back and forth like that until someone in the chat even suggested a bet.

"A bet? What bet."

"You're going to regret this. All right—if I win, what are you all going to do for me?"

"Aigoo! What did I even expect from you people. Then let's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do it this way. I was going to do it anyway."

The viewers' nonsense free-for-all drained me a little. Getting worked up at friends like these only hurts me. I decided to make a generous offer.

"Actually, in about two weeks—it's a stretch to call it cooking... confectionery, maybe? Anyway, I was planning to make some Pepero."

The eleventh of next month was Pepero Day. Valentine's Day, White Day, Pepero Day—the day people gift those thin chocolate biscuit sticks. In the internet-broadcast world, it had been a fairly common custom for a long time: on anniversaries like those, a female BJ would send viewers homemade chocolate, candy, Pepero, and the like, as thanks for their usual love.

My sense of myself as a man kept me hesitating for a long while. What won, in the end, was professional pride. I was a BJ receiving a great deal of love from my viewers, and I wanted to answer even a little of it. Set the question of man or woman aside—this was something a person ought to do.

"Originally I was going to push myself, make a lot, and draw about fifty people to send them to... but if I win the bet."

The chat became a battlefield in an instant. I put the uproar down and declared it in a low voice.

A serious showdown with the viewers had begun.