Chapter 12:
Chapter 12
I should make a note of this.
The camera at the broadcasting station is the cure-all for trainees…
“Hyung, we look good on camera, don’t we?”
“Definitely. We’ll be awesome.”
I smiled as I watched our kids whispering to each other.
It was the moment when I had a great realization, after worrying about how to boost their morale that had hit rock bottom.
The moment when we became Street Boys, New Black, and We Are the World.
From the Street Boys’ side, a pink-haired guy nodded his head and gave us a thumbs up.
I guessed what he meant by that.
‘The camera is great. It’s the best. It’s thrilling.’
On our side, Kim Jung-hyun also nodded his head and raised his thumb.
Hey, don’t do that.
I was speechless.
Weren’t they the ones who were having a nerve-wracking competition just a while ago?
But they were also kind of cute, so I quietly smiled. Then, my eyes met with the leader of the Street Boys.
We had the same look in our eyes.
A feeling of disbelief as we watched our younger siblings giggling at the camera and the attention of the broadcasting staff.
‘So you’re the same.’
‘Thank you for your hard work.’
As he nodded his head, I nodded back.
***
While New Black was practicing, Yoon Seok-hwan was waiting for someone outside.
A very important person.
Soon, he spotted the person among the crowd.
A woman in her seventies wearing a mink coat.
Yoon Seok-hwan compared the woman’s face with the photo on his smartphone and approached her with a smile.
“Are you Woojoo’s grandmother?”
“Yes, I am. But…”
The other person looked him up and down with a suspicious eye.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Yoon Seok-hwan. I’m Woojoo’s manager.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of you.”
Kim Deok-soon showed a bright smile.
“That, a manager who begged my grandson to become an idol?”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what he said. He said he had a manager he knew and he asked him to please help him out, so he had no choice but to do it again.”
Yoon Seok-hwan realized the whole story.
Seon Woojoo, that bastard.
He sold me to his grandmother because he was afraid he would get scolded if he said he was doing idol again.
“Hey, why are you standing there like a statue?”
“Sorry?”
“Didn’t you come to guide me?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Then guide me! I can’t see the way at all and I’ve been wandering around this neighborhood. My legs are killing me.”
“Yes, yes, grandmother. Of course, I’ll guide you.”
Yoon Seok-hwan climbed the stairs slowly, matching the pace of Kim Deok-soon, who was grimacing with pain in her knees.
On the way to the auditorium, Woojoo’s grandmother asked cautiously.
“Are you a director? Are you a high-ranking person?”
“No, I’m not. I’m just a staff member who takes care of the kids.”
“No, I’m just worried that my grandson might cause trouble for you because I was rude to you.”
The person who was fuming with anger just a moment ago suddenly became careful when it came to her grandson.
Yoon Seok-hwan smiled and replied.
“Don’t worry about it. Really.”
“I’m sorry. My legs were hurting so much earlier.”
“It’s okay. Haha.”
“But is he really good?”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, when he joined the other company before. They only did the contract and stuff, but I never saw him sing or dance.”
“Don’t you know?”
“He never does it when I ask him. He’s so bad at it, and he’s so shy that he twists his body and says, ‘Grandma, I can’t do it.’”
“That’s surprising. He’s not like that.”
Before long, the auditorium was filled with people.
There were more than 100 people in total, including the staff from five agencies and the families of the trainees.
Yoon Seok-hwan smiled as he guided Mrs. Kim Deok-soon to a chair.
“You can look forward to today’s stage. Really, it’s a stage that your grandson prepared with blood and sweat for a month.”
“Is that so?”
“You’ll see.”
Yoon Seok-hwan gave a meaningful smile.
***
The year-end evaluation finally began, with the trainees’ families and the company officials gathered in one place.
The host was a fairly famous comedian.
“He’s on TV.”
“Oh, my, oh, my, is he the one who’s on that fishing program?”
Unlike the calm officials, the trainees’ families chattered excitedly at the appearance of the celebrity.
The audience burst into laughter every time the host cracked a joke.
Of course, not everyone enjoyed it.
“Can’t they hurry up and get on with it?”
“Have some patience, oppa.”
“Aren’t you bored? I want to finish quickly and go eat.”
Yoon Chan-hyuk, a ballad singer, yawned repeatedly.
Jang So-won looked at him with disdain.
“Oppa, you’re not even doing any events lately. What are you so tired of?”
“You try doing comeback and concert preparations at the same time.”
“Oh, right. When are you coming back?”
“Next month.”
“That’s a relief. I thought it would overlap.”
Jang So-won brushed her chest.
It was a pain to compete with a ballad powerhouse in the music charts.
She was glad she avoided that situation.
Yoon Chan-hyuk asked in a sullen tone.
“When are you releasing yours?”
“I’m negotiating with the company.”
“Still?”
“You know the company’s finances are not good these days. I want to release it around next February, but it depends on the situation.”
Yoon Chan-hyuk then remembered the project that she was working on recently.
“Are you doing a collaboration?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you find a singer to sing with?”
“No, not yet.”
Jang So-won sighed deeply.
“I made the base of the song, but I can’t find a singer to sing with. I want something fresh, but there’s no such singer these days.”
“What about me?”
“Oppa, you’re not very fresh, are you?”
“Forget it, then.”
Yoon Chan-hyuk grumbled.
“I’m too busy to do it anyway.”
***
I heard a snicker from Jang So-won at my lame excuse.
We were casual drinking buddies who often met at these occasions, so our conversation was informal.
We chatted and joked like we were here for fun, but as soon as the show started, the atmosphere changed 180 degrees.
Our eyes became sharp and focused.
We transformed into professional judges and quietly checked the evaluation sheets.
It was the end-of-year evaluation.
There were 10 teams in total, since some companies had many participants.
Unlike the monthly evaluations, there was no time for criticism or praise after each performance, because the trainees’ families were watching.
The end-of-year evaluation was an event for the families.
To show them how their sons and daughters were doing.
So it was not appropriate to ask for our scores in front of them.
Instead, we announced the rankings from first to third based on the judges’ scores.
As each performance ended, we gave our harsh opinions from the judges’ seats.
“What do you think?”
Some were negative.
“I thought they were trying to be sexy, you know? But in my opinion, they were not sexy at all. Their expressions were artificial and…”
“They seemed nervous, didn’t they?”
“It’s okay to be nervous as a trainee, but you can’t show it on stage.”
Some were positive.
“They were all good. Their voices, pitch, tone were stable.”
“They should have more confidence. They don’t need to be so humble with their skills.”
And some were general and agreed upon.
“The level is high this year.”
The judges nodded and looked at the schedule.
“Only two left, right? Lemon and DNS.”
“DNS are the ones who are debuting soon, right? Street Fighter.”
“Street Boys, sir.”
“Oh, right.”
“Who’s first? Oh, Lemon, I see. They’re coming out now.”
“Oh, they’re all handsome.”
Five trainees appeared on stage, each wearing a stage outfit.
As if it was a school festival, there was a polite applause, and the brown-haired handsome leader grabbed the microphone.
-One, two, three, hello! We are New Black.
-Please introduce yourselves.
-I’m Seon Woojoo, a 22-year-old trainee.
They each said a word to introduce themselves.
They all looked nervous.
The kids who held the microphone and stood on the big stage.
“Wow, they’re so fresh.”
“They’re all my type. So cute.”
Yoon Chan-hyuk and Jang So-won exchanged such words, but they tilted their heads when the music came out.
The music that came out of the speaker was trot.
They were not the only ones who reacted that way.
The judges, the staff, and everyone else looked up at the sudden sound.
They all showed curiosity, but the most dramatic reaction came from the audience.
The middle-aged audience who had been yawning openly until then.
They only paid attention when their own children came out, but they didn’t care about the performances of other people’s children.
Idol songs were a culture that the parents’ generation could not understand.
They couldn’t understand the English lyrics that were rampant, and the performance was only dizzying and not fun.
When there were only two teams left, the parents were looking at their watches, waiting for the boring show to end.
That’s when the trot music came out of the speaker.
They looked at the stage like bears waking up from hibernation.
It was a familiar classic for the middle-aged generation, ‘Please Be With Me.’
The arrangement was slightly modernized, but the main melody was a trot that everyone knew.
The trainees who moved to the big stage.
In the meantime, a group clap started in the audience.
The sound of clapping along with the beat.
It was a different reaction from before.
The members who had stiff faces looked at each other.
And then they all looked at one person.
To them, Seon Woojoo smiled as if to say, ‘See, I told you.’
“Let’s start with a trot song?”
Four weeks ago, in the practice room.
Seo Ri-hyuk frowned.
He couldn’t believe it.
He wasn’t looking down on trot songs.
They were popular among the older generation, and the trot singers had undeniable skills.
But that had nothing to do with the performance of the trainees.
“Are you serious?”
“It’s fresh and fun.”
“There’s a limit to being fresh. This is not a joke, this is a stage. Just like the outfits, the performance also has to suit the time and place.”
“That’s why we should do a trot song.”
Seon Woo-ju smiled.
“Think about the show time. Our stage is either ninth or tenth, right? By the time we go up, the judges and the audience will be exhausted. Our families might like whatever we do, but what about the others?”
He had a logical tone.
“It’s not bad to go safe, like you said. But the songs that the trainees choose are either pop songs or electronic songs with loud sounds. They might sound different to our ears, but to the audience, they’re all similar. But if we start with a trot song, we’ll have half of them hooked.”
He had a point.
There was a legendary singer who won a music award with a similar strategy in the past.
Everyone agreed with Seon Woo-ju’s words.
“And this is about the venue. Have you ever performed at Taehwa High School?”
“No. We performed at Chanyoung High School.”
“While you were debating, I searched for the pictures of the Taehwa High School auditorium. Look at this. As you can see, the stage is smaller than you think.”
That was something they hadn’t thought of.
Seo Ri-hyuk let out a faint exclamation as Seon Woo-ju showed him the picture on his smartphone.
“If we do a trot song, we can make the choreography movements smaller. From what I saw, the other teams didn’t consider this and they’ll stumble.”
He was right.
The teams that performed so far made a lot of mistakes.
It was because of the narrow stage.
They had prepared flashy and cool choreography, but there was not enough space to show it.
Even if they changed the movements after the rehearsal, it was impossible to avoid mistakes after practicing for a month.
Then their expressions changed.
They were distracted by the movements and couldn’t focus on the stage.
How could the audience focus when the singers couldn’t?
But New Black was different.
They had adjusted the movements beforehand, so they could concentrate on the stage, and it showed on their relaxed faces.
The audience relaxed their bodies.
They felt more comfortable than the previous stages that were well-done but somehow uneasy.
“Look at them?”
Jang So-won smiled like looking at a cheeky junior.
“Your kids, I don’t know who’s in charge of the choreography, but they’re not ordinary, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at the movements.”
“So?”
“Ah.”
As a professional singer, Yoon Chan-hyuk also realized what she meant.
“They’re not stumbling.”
“They’re good at using the space. There must be a smart kid in the team, right? You can’t do that choreography without doing some research beforehand.”
Jang So-won rested her chin on her hand and sparkled her eyes.
“Maybe we’ll see an interesting stage.”
Soon, the instrumental ended and the song began.
The first member to come out was Wang Ji-ho.
When a young middle schooler with a cute face appeared with a microphone, everyone’s attention was drawn.
Where are you, my love
Are you here or there
Why are you avoiding me
I didn’t do anything wrong
The adults smiled at the catchy trot song.
His acting was excellent.
He had the right amount of charm for his age group, without being too much.
The people felt a friendly vibe from him.
Seeing their reaction, Wang Ji-ho smiled.
Thump.
I could hear my heart pounding.
It was a feeling that anyone who had been on stage would know.
The stage was where the singer and the audience exchanged emotions.
I felt the warmth of the audience’s goodwill, and a tingling sensation in my chest and a shiver in my throat.
Trot was an excellent choice.
‘Ji-ho, you have to do the first verse. No question.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you think is the reason for doing trot? To get the attention of the people, of course. And obviously, the most eye-catching member should go first.’
That’s when Seon Woojoo said.
‘In my opinion, your strength is your facial expressions. You have the power to make the viewers focus on you with your charisma. You have to use that to your advantage.’
As he finished his part, Wang Ji-ho winked and threw a finger heart to the audience.
Everyone except the healthy males smiled.
He moved to the side and exchanged a look with Seon Woojoo, who was coming on stage.
He saw a grateful look in his eyes and responded with a gentle smile.
When Seon Woojoo appeared in the center, a different kind of smile emerged from the audience, who had been smiling like mothers at Ji-ho just a moment ago.
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