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Chapter 05
July is a month where college students have finished their semesters and have time to burn, but middle and high school students have to go to school without exception. Since all the trainees in the dorm except for me were minors, I woke up at 6:30 AM right along with Go Hyeon-seo’s alarm. …Did I even get four and a half hours of sleep?
“You can sleep a little more, unnie. Anyway, it’ll be lunchtime by the time we go to school and come back.” “Do I look like such an irresponsible human being who can comfortably sleep while leaving my younger siblings who are heading off to school early in the morning just like that?” “It’s not like that… No, that’s not what I meant.” “I know, I was just joking. I’m going to sleep more after sending you guys off, so it’s fine.”
I chuckled softly as I looked at Go Hyeon-seo, whose face had turned slightly red. Seeing her act stiff and formal, so uncharacteristic for her age, just makes me want to tease her a bit.
“What did you say the school was again?” “Ilsan, Ilsan Yeongcheon High. I have to take Line 3 to Baekseok Station.” “That’s going to take at least an hour and a half just to get there, right?” “Well, I’m a senior, and transferring schools is a bit of a hassle anyway, so I’m just sticking with it.”
With a shrug, I handed Go Hyeon-seo a simple piece of toast before she headed out the door. Then, seeing Ju Hye-rin walking out while half-asleep and changing into her uniform, I gave her some toast to eat on the way. Turns out Ju Hye-rin’s school was in Anyang, so while it wasn’t as far as Go Hyeon-seo’s, she had to leave a bit early, too. She mentioned her mom picked her up every day, which cut down travel time a little, but she still never seemed to have time for breakfast.
As for Hyun Jae-yi and Lee Han-byeol, who had a bit more time to spare, I poured them milk and told them to eat before leaving. Both of them said their schools were within a 10-minute walk, so running a bit late was fine—though even if they were lying, being late wasn’t my problem, so I just told them to chew slowly so they wouldn’t choke.
After all the kids we lived with left for school, I went back to sleep for about another hour. There really is a difference between sleeping properly and not… Since I was just turning twenty and in prime physical condition, sleeping just one more hour cleared my head right up.
By the time I finished washing up and getting ready to go out, it was around 10:20 AM. I arrived at the Music Prove agency building right at 10:30 AM. First, I planned to just shut up and practice. Quest or no quest, I needed to establish some actual skill and standing before I could bring up producing or anything else.
While lightly plucking my guitar in a corner of the practice room and checking songs I could sing, Kang Su-ah arrived around 12 PM.
“What’s this? You came really early.” “I was the last one to move in, the least I can do is show up early.”
Laughing brightly at whatever she found so amusing about that, Kang Su-ah promptly sat down next to me and began rattling off song requests one by one.
“I’m not a jukebox, you know. Do you think a song just pops out the second you ask for it?” “Ehe, but Jion, you can do it.” “Ugh, seriously, what a nemesis.” “Heehee.”
I suppose playing guitar and messing around with this girl when we were bored in the dorms around this time was the root of the problem. I let out a light sigh and stared straight at Kang Su-ah.
“What do you want me to play?” “<Without dream>” “Isn’t that your vocal academy entrance exam song?” “Yeah.” “Ah, 6/8 time signatures mess with my rhythm.” “You won’t mess it up, though?” “Geez…”
I had briefly forgotten, but she’s also an absolute pro at leaving people speechless. Not wanting to get swept up in Kang Su-ah’s pace any further, I immediately started playing the guitar.
<Without dream> is an R&B pop song where delicate technique and a strong sense of rhythm are crucial. I heard that vocal majors pretty frequently try it for their entrance exams only to crash and burn miserably, but since I’ve only ever heard the original version and Kang Su-ah sing it, I wouldn’t really know. Fast, upbeat R&B happens to be Kang Su-ah’s specialty, after all.
Kang Su-ah, who played freely with rhythm and tone over my light guitar accompaniment, is what you call a born genius. A true genius who can’t even clearly explain how or by what method she produces such vocalization and sound textures. I’m not particularly fond of the word “natural-born,” but watching Kang Su-ah always makes me think, “Ah, this is what they mean when they call someone a natural.” A diva, if you will—right around that vibe.
Well, it’s not like I’m bad at singing, either. My strong genres are just different from Kang Su-ah’s… I lean more toward a rock vocalist who is better at straight, driving rock than groovy R&B.
As we spent time in the practice room singing songs without a care for the clock, the kids who had gone to school soon returned. I heard that the weekly dance lesson took place on Mondays from 4 PM to 6 PM…
…Here comes the moment of truth: making friends with dancing, something I had never done in my life.
The dance lesson, which I had dreaded so much, turned out to be less daunting than expected.
Three out of the six of us, including myself, had learned dancing for the very first time after entering the company.
Thankfully, perhaps because of that, the dance trainer seemed to fully understand my situation. Using the full two hours to cover everything from hip-hop dance basics—the foundation of dancing—to a group cover choreography, it felt like we crammed way too much into a first lesson, but it wasn’t to the point where I couldn’t follow along at all.
[▷ Daily Quest: Practice hard and level up.][Points earned today: 4pt]
Once the lesson ended, my total earned points for today’s daily quest came out to 4 points. It seemed to have counted 4 hours based on actual practice time tracking, probably including the time I spent messing around and playing guitar with Kang Su-ah earlier.
Using 5 accumulated quest points, I bumped my Dance level up by 1. I had decided to pour points into Dance as soon as they piled up, not just because the requirement was low, but because it was currently my glaringly lowest stat…
To give an example, no matter how great your sense of rhythm is, dancing is utterly useless if your body fails to keep up with that rhythm.
“…Strange, this isn’t the timing… My head knows it.” “But your body just can’t keep up?” “Bingo.”
…As a fine example, you could point to the bizarre, dance-disguised motions I was currently pulling off. Even while Go Hyeon-seo was walking me through the cover choreography one-on-one after the lesson, this was my level. The idols in the video clearly defined the start and stop of every single movement, so why on earth was I like this?
If I debuted like this, I could clearly picture a bleak future where I’d get permanently archived on Yutube Shorts with a mocking title like “Modern Idol Dance Skills: Despair Edition.”
“Still, you memorize the movements pretty fast, don’t you?” “Because my memory is good. But isn’t being unable to output what you’ve memorized completely useless…?” “Then you just need to practice enough until you can output it.”
Seeing me stare at the newly recorded monitoring video with a dead serious expression, Go Hyeon-seo must have felt concerned and offered some consolation. Though I wasn’t quite sure if this counted as comfort or a gentle threat…
“Once you’ve memorized it, that’s already half the battle. Repeat the parts where you feel awkward or can’t follow, figure out why it feels awkward, and practice again. Just keep going until your body remembers it… Am I making it sound too easy?” “No, I get what you mean.
It’s not impossible, so…” “I’ve thought this since the first time I met you, unnie, but how should I put it? You seem kind of… unphased by everything.” “Hmm, maybe because I just went through a hellish senior year of high school not too long ago? Honestly, I feel like nothing could possibly be harder than my senior year.”
When I replied with a half-joke, Go Hyeon-seo made a troubled expression, wondering whether she was allowed to laugh at that. So I just told her she was allowed to laugh, and she let out a small smirk. I said it expecting a laugh, but I honestly didn’t think it was that funny. Still, it was a relief that it was funny enough to crack a smile.
After the dance lesson that day, I logged another 3 hours of actual practice time. Grinding through dance almost without a break, things somehow started to click. With zero fundamentals and no dance skills, the only weapon I had was sheer hard work. And when it comes to hard work,
I don’t lose to anyone anywhere. With plenty of time on my hands, I was determined to polish it up to at least a level I could personally tolerate within this week.
After spending all 14 days of the daily quest period and putting in weekend practice sessions at the company, my Dance level hit exactly Lv.23 right as Sunday’s final practice wrapped up. It was the result of combining quest point investments with a frankly absurd amount of time and effort poured into grinding.
I had always believed that for physical adaptations like dancing, working out, or playing instruments, putting in the raw volume of practice is always the answer—and it turns out that was probably correct.
Let’s engrave this in my mind once more: nothing is impossible if you just do it.
“Unnie, you’ve really improved a lot, haven’t you! Honestly, how does it feel from your end?”
Hyun Jae-yi, who was chattering away excitedly next to me, had also been a massive help. Seeing me stay late in the practice room deep into the night, this girl started sticking close to me during free practice hours starting the very next day. At first, it felt a bit burdensome, but knowing she was just naturally fond of people,
I just rolled with it. Thanks to that, my dance improvement rate sped up significantly.
For the past two weeks, most group dance practices were primarily led by Go Hyeon-seo, with Hyun Jae-yi stepping in to check the fine details.
With Go Hyeon-seo steering the overall practice by keeping an eye on big formations and major movements, and Hyun Jae-yi catching and correcting minor positional errors in the middle, practicing alongside these two made it impossible not to improve. I smiled faintly and gave an honest reply. It was true that I improved a lot thanks to Jae-yi, after all.
“Yeah, honestly, thanks to you, Jae-yi, I feel like I’ve improved tons.” “……Ah, praising me so suddenly like this is embarrassing!” “What is?” “Can’t you give me a little time to mentally prepare?” “You get that flustered over a compliment…?”
Finding my expression amusing, Hyun Jae-yi burst into a loud laugh. “No, it’s just… when unnie praises me, what should I say… It feels a bit like being acknowledged by a real adult?” “What’s that supposed to mean? There’s only a two-year age gap between you and me, you know?”
“Exactly! It’s barely any gap at all, yet it feels like a massive adult is complimenting me.” “Why on earth would that be…?” “Because unnie is good at everything except dancing? Though actually, your dancing improved super fast, too.”
What is she talking about now…? I stared at Hyun Jae-yi with a look that clearly asked what on earth she meant. Hyun Jae-yi giggled and continued.
“Well, Su-ah unnie is a total airhead, right?” “……Now that you mention it? I suppose she is.”
Over those past two weeks, Kang Su-ah had also moved into the trainee dorm. She ended up sharing a room with Lee Han-byeol and Ju Hye-rin, and just the other day, Lee Han-byeol dropped a bombshell by saying, “Su-ah unnie’s mental age feels identical to my cousin’s.”
For the record, Lee Han-byeol’s cousin is only 7 years old. Kang Su-ah, at the ripe old age of twenty, got treated like a kindergartener by a third-year middle schooler.
Well, Kang Su-ah really is bright and naive. It’s not that she lacks situational awareness, but separate from that, she just loves playing pranks and acts a bit childish… Not that she’s a bad person, but anyway.
“So when I first saw Su-ah unnie, I thought, ‘Wow, she’s such a pretty and good-singer adult!’ But after a few days, we all figured it out. ‘Ah, that unnie is a total goofball…’” “Hmm, I can kind of picture how that went down.” “Mwahaha, right?! But, unnie, you look like you have zero flaws or gaps.
That’s why you feel like an adult.” “……Huh?” “Unnie is good at singing, your dancing is improving really fast, and you’re always taking care of us back at the dorm. You cook without a fuss, you’re super used to cleaning up, and you handle other chores too. You’re great at the guitar… Ah,
Su-ah unnie told me she heard your self-composed song, and she said it was really good.”
Look at this kid. She said she was embarrassed by compliments a second ago, yet here she was casually dishing them out without a care in the world. I was starting to understand why she said she felt embarrassed…
“Umm, so being around unnie feels a lot like being around an actual adult? It’s a bit different from Hyeon-seo unnie, because that unnie… is it okay if I say this? She keeps trying too hard to act like an adult.”
As if you aren’t still a high schooler yourself. At Hyun Jae-yi’s small, grumbling remark, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. That was precisely the reason why I teased Go Hyeon-seo more often than the other kids.
“She didn’t act like that when it was just Su-ah unnie around, but Hyeon-seo unnie seems to act a lot more comfortable around you, unnie. Um… kind of like a mom?” “What is that supposed to mean…” “Hehe. To be honest, I was a bit anxious before. Like, ‘How are we supposed to survive in this harsh world on our own?’ Even if she doesn’t say it out loud, Hyeon-seo unnie probably feels the same way.”
That made sense. I nodded slightly. …And I agreed that relying on Kang Su-ah was still a bit of a stretch.
“…Um, just because I said this, don’t like… feel pressured and run away, okay? You know that, right? I’ve already given you all my heart, unnie.” “It’s only been two weeks since we met?” “Even though it’s barely been that long, it’s pretty amazing to myself that I find you this reliable.”
I smiled brightly and gently pushed away Hyun Jae-yi, who kept leaning in close. Was it because I lived up to age twenty-five and came back, or because of the seasoned survival instincts of someone experienced in living alone? To think she trusts me as reliable after just two weeks of being looked after a little… Even though Hyun Jae-yi had that friendly, golden-retriever-like personality, trusting people this quickly probably wasn’t a good idea. Above all… I wasn’t particularly someone worthy of being trusted, either.
Still, having someone you can lean on isn’t a bad thing. …Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? I still couldn’t tell for the life of me.
