🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 4
PD Oh, clearly excited, decided to make the situation even bigger.
I could already see it coming.
Ace Trainee VS Black Hole Trainee. Their First Showdown?!
He was obviously planning to compare Seo Baekyeong and me with captions like that.
According to Yoon Cheong’s memories, Seo Baekyeong was the undisputed ace trainee.
She had trained at Colors longer than anyone else and was the very definition of a well-balanced trainee.
Her desired position was main dancer.
But she sang well enough to compete for lead vocalist too.
If you put a trainee good enough to be the team’s main dancer together with someone who couldn’t dance at all…
The comparison was inevitable.
Anyone with common sense would avoid a setup like that if possible.
“…Ah, from the very beginning—”
“Yes! I’ll do my best!”
But I was an idiot.
“Cheong, you—”
“I’ll do my best to learn from you, Unnie.”
“Uh… o-okay.”
Seo Baekyeong looked at me with a bewildered expression.
She was definitely thinking,
Has she lost her mind?
Which was understandable.
It had only been three days since this choreography had been assigned.
Learning a four-minute routine—
and not an easy one—
in just three days?
Even Seo Baekyeong, who was confident in her dancing, couldn’t promise perfection.
So someone like Yoon Cheong, who had two left feet?
“There we go! Let’s begin!”
At the PD’s words, the trainees stepped back to clear some space.
“Always we are…”
One of the trainees started the music.
And just like that, this ridiculous showdown began.
“…”
Several minutes later, the song ended.
But no one said a word.
Once the silence dragged on long enough, people slowly began to come back to their senses.
Of course, it wasn’t because I’d danced unbelievably well.
I knew better than anyone that I hadn’t.
To begin with, I’d never been famous as a dance-focused singer.
Everyone was simply shocked because…
Yoon Cheong… didn’t mess up the choreography?
And even standing next to ace trainee Seo Baekyeong, she doesn’t look outclassed…?
What’s going on…? Actually, Baekyeong Unnie still skipped a few movements here and there…
But Cheong hit every move without missing anything…
Did she secretly get the choreography earlier than everyone else?
The trainees looked even more stunned than the camera crew.
After all, they knew Yoon Cheong personally.
The fact that she hadn’t made mistakes was surprising enough…
But in some ways…
She had actually danced better than Seo Baekyeong.
That was what shocked them.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
I bowed quickly.
Everyone was misunderstanding something.
Yoon Cheong couldn’t dance.
That much was true.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t know the choreography.
If anything, because she knew she was bad at dancing, she’d practiced harder than anyone else.
She always memorized choreography perfectly.
…
Her body just couldn’t keep up.
The moment a camera—or even people—looked at her,
her body froze.
That’s why Yoon Cheong couldn’t dance.
But Baek Nokha was different.
I hadn’t looked at Seo Baekyeong once.
I’d only stared at the mirrored wall in front of me.
She’d been a trainee for nine years?
I’d survived this industry for twenty.
Thirty, if I counted Cheong’s memories.
A choreography that’s considered difficult by trainee standards…
Compared to the solo routines I’d been performing all these years,
it wasn’t even worth mentioning.
I hadn’t become famous because of my dancing.
I wasn’t the industry’s greatest dancer.
But that didn’t mean I was bad.
If I couldn’t even outperform trainees who hadn’t debuted yet,
I’d have to hand back every Daesang I’d ever won!
Talent is surpassed by hard work.
And hard work is surpassed by sheer experience.
Seo Baekyeong definitely danced well.
Just looking at her lines, you could tell she had natural talent.
But her control over dynamics and facial expressions still lacked polish.
And in those areas…
I was confident I wouldn’t lose.
“…”
PD Oh watched me with an unreadable expression.
Then he whispered something to another writer before calling a stop to filming.
“Great work, everyone! We’ll be doing individual interviews now. Please come over when your name is called!”
Before filming had begun, the production staff had already conducted preliminary interviews with every trainee.
They’d asked everyone what they thought about the other trainees’ personalities and skills.
For example…
Staff: What kind of person is trainee Seo Baekyeong?
Geum: “An ace.”
Staff: “An ace?”
Geum: “Nothing more needs to be said. She’s just an all-around ace.”
Bora: “She’s like the emotional pillar of all the trainees. She’s always helping everyone. Especially with dancing.”
Staff: “Oh, she’s good at dancing?”
Bora: “Yeah. She’s probably the best dancer among all of us.”
Staff: Then what about trainee Yoon Cheong?
Juhong: “Cheong Unnie? Um… she’s a really good singer!”
Staff: “And dancing?”
Juhong: (awkward)
“Hahaha…”
Ryeoyu: “Cheong… she hasn’t been at our company for very long, so I don’t know her that well… but dancing doesn’t really seem like her specialty?”
Staff: “So she’s not very good?”
Ryeoyu: “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! Just… I wouldn’t call it her strongest point.”
Baekyeong: “She’s bad.”
Staff: (Everyone is shocked.)
Caption: Blunt Baekyeong… Does she have a scary side too?
Baekyeong: “But she’ll be okay. No one sings better than Cheong.”
Staff: “But dancing isn’t really her thing?”
Baekyeong: “She still needs to work on it.”
After the Baekyeong vs. Cheong showdown, the production staff asked the trainees what they thought.
Geum: “I was shocked.”
Ryeoyu: “Seriously, when did she practice that much? I’ve never even seen her practicing.”
Juhong: “It was insane. Look—see this? Goosebumps.”
Haeun: “I don’t think there was anyone who wasn’t surprised.”
Staff: Why were you all so surprised?
Suin: “Cheong Unnie… got an F in dance during the last evaluation. Colors grades every evaluation from A to F. She got an A in vocals… and an F in dance.”
Juseon: “We always used to say that if she could only dance, she’d have debuted at sixteen.”
Yuhyeon: “Cheong Unnie is a really nice person, but…”
Staff: “But?”
Yuhyeon: (awkward smile)
“During evaluations… she’s kind of the person you hope not to be teamed up with. Her dancing never matches.”
Ryeoyu: “We’d all get scolded together because of it, so she was everyone’s number one person to avoid.”
Caption: The harsh evaluations surrounding trainee Yoon Cheong…!
Bora: “Really? I wasn’t surprised.”
Staff: “Oh! You’re the first trainee who wasn’t surprised.”
Bora: “Really?”
Bora laughed before continuing.
Bora: “I don’t know about anything else… but I knew one thing.”
“Cheong Unnie wanted to debut more than anyone.”
Staff: “Isn’t that true for everyone?”
Bora: “It is.”
“Which is why I wasn’t surprised.”
“If someone wants to debut that badly…”
“They’ll do whatever it takes.”
When it was finally Baekyeong’s turn to be interviewed, the production staff immediately began laying a trap.
“Earlier, you told Yoon Cheong that you were worried about her dancing.”
“Ah… yes.”
Baekyeong nodded nervously.
No matter how long she’d been a trainee,
a trainee was still just a trainee.
This was her first time facing so many cameras alone.
Especially in an interview like this.
“Why were you worried?”
“Well, Cheong…”
“Have you ever had conflicts with trainee Yoon Cheong over choreography during evaluations?”
“Huh?”
Naturally…
she wasn’t experienced enough to handle questions like that.
“We’ve heard from the other trainees that Yoon Cheong used to hold the team back because she couldn’t keep up with the choreography. Is that true?”
“I wouldn’t say she held us back…”
“Then what was it?”
“It was just…”
Baekyeong panicked.
She hadn’t expected them to ask about Cheong so directly.
She was also surprised to hear that the other trainees had said things like that.
“In your preliminary interview, you said Yoon Cheong couldn’t dance. Was that based on the group evaluations?”
“…Yes.”
“Then how was she today?”
“Did she dance the same way she normally does?”
The staff kept pressing.
Fishing for even a single provocative answer.
“She danced much better than usual today.”
Everyone else had been surprised.
But the person most shocked was Baekyeong herself.
To be honest, she’d never intended to perform the whole choreography.
She’d only planned to dance the chorus with Cheong before teaching her a few moves.
But over the course of those four minutes…
She had actually found herself wondering,
Shouldn’t I be the one learning from her?
“So during the group evaluations she couldn’t dance, but suddenly today she can?”
“…You could say that.”
“Oh? Then do you think she was hiding her real ability?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far—”
“If she wasn’t hiding it, is it really possible for someone to improve that much overnight?”
Baekyeong couldn’t answer immediately.
Could anyone become a great dancer overnight?
Logically, it made no sense.
Someone bad at dancing could certainly become good.
With enough time.
With enough effort.
But in one day?
Impossible.
“That would be difficult.”
“Then could you please look into the camera and say this for us?”
The producer smiled warmly as he made the request.
“‘I even wondered if Cheong had been hiding her real abilities all this time.'”
Of course…
there was nothing warm about his intentions.
Naturally, the last interview was mine.
By now they’d probably gathered plenty of material from interviewing the other trainees.
…Provocative material.
The trainee everyone expected to finish near the bottom suddenly becoming good at both singing and dancing?
Anyone making a TV show would want to use that as bait.
“So then, trainee Yoon Cheong.”
“Yes.”
PD Oh began the interview in an unnaturally gentle voice.
Creepy.
“Do you know what the other trainees think of you?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure.”
“We’ve almost finished all the interviews, and everyone’s saying the same thing.”
So the groundwork begins.
“Oh? Really?”
“They’re saying that someone who used to struggle so much with dancing she earned an F suddenly danced well enough to deserve an A today.”
“Ah, I can understand why they’d wonder.”
I answered without letting my smile disappear for even a moment.
If my expression stiffened even once,
they’d definitely splice that reaction into something else.
“Oh? Then could you clear up that mystery for us?”
“Of course.”
I smiled as brightly as I could.
“Baekyeong Unnie and I practiced together a lot.”
“She helped me so much.”
Bait?
If there’s bait…
I’ll bite it first.
So no one else can.
