Day 2 Practice(1)

As we ate dinner, I could feel the fatigue leaving my body, the soreness that I had felt this morning had mostly faded away now, spending half the day not moving my body that much.

I couldn't say the same for Eunho though, as he chose to be in the dance group he had to endure the intense choreography for more than half a day. I could tell he was tired so I cheered him up by telling him that at least we'd do amazing tomorrow during the mentor check in.

Everyone seemed much more weary than during lunch time, so we quietly ate at the table. After our dinner, we headed back to the practice room. This time, we didn't have the energy to continue practicing so we quietly sat down to rest.

We sat for about half an hour as the trainees slowly walked in. By this point, everyone was pretty exhausted, but we'd only have a few hours left of practice today so I livened up as I stood up to make an announcement.

As I clapped to gather everyone's attention, I started to speak, "Hello everyone, I'd just like to announce that we'll be switching groups now and continuing for the rest of the day until 11 P.M. You guy's can gather up now."

I could hear some sighs throughout the room so I continued, "Let's cheer up and work hard for the rest of the night! We have to show our best appearance tomorrow so our efforts don't go to waste."

After that, a monotonous dance practice ensued, we didn't make it too far in learning the choreography as a group earlier, so we were repeatedly dancing the choreography and helping each other fix their mistakes. 

We were all pretty tired so our practice definitely slowed down by this hour, but I wasn't too worried as we were still ahead of our plans, I decided to just take it as some time to rest before we started our full energy practice tomorrow.

Time quickly flew by and I dismissed all of the trainees to rest for the night. Eunho waited for me as I quickly cleaned up any messes in the practice room and turned off the lights. We quietly made our way to our room and I sat on the bed for a moment.

The smell of sweat pierced my nose, I probably smelt really bad as well so I decided to take a shower before bed. After my shower, Eunho and the other two were already asleep, I quickly turned off the lights and dried my hair before I went to bed peacefully.

The sound of the signal song entered my ears the moment i gained consciousness. My tired body struggled to get up as I opened my eyes. "Do they really have to play this song this early too? I'm gonna get sick of it real quick." I thought.

I stretched my arms as I sat up on my bed, trying to shake off my sleepiness. I looked to my side and saw Aidan and Dohyun still soundly asleep. I shook my head wondering if they stayed up again as I walked towards the bathroom to get changed.

Eventually, I arrived at the practice room, stretching my arms and legs to soothe the soreness that I was feeling again. 

After a short wait, all of the 2-star trainees had arrived, I reminded everyone of our schedule before we split up into our 2 groups once again.

Everyone looked like zombies, it was really early and we'd be moving our bodies like hell already. I clapped my hands once as everyone got into position, telling everyone we'd have to focus for the next few hours. 

As we'd already learnt the dance completely tomorrow, our time was spent on adjusting the details and making sure that we were all in sync today. Although we had no troubles yesterday as we'd focused on getting used to the choreography, today it was a lot more difficult as it was time to fix minor mistakes. 

I happened to be struggling quite a bit this time. "Sunwoo, you still keep turning the at the wrong timing at this part." Sunghoon told me as he stopped the music to help me once again.

I felt quite embarrassed as this was the 3rd time we'd have to stop because of me at this part, but I knew that being embarrassed wouldn't help so I carefully followed Sunghoon's steps again. 

That's when Sunghoon realized why I'd been making the same mistake. "Ah- Sunwoo, I get it now, I think you're too focused on your arms for the part before this, just remember the beat at this part aligns with the arm movement so you can get the timing right." He told me while showing the difference in what I was doing and the correct timing of the movements.

As I followed his advice, I felt relieved that he caught onto my mistake as I now had a reference to follow in my head with the timing. 

After this, there were small hiccups along the way but they were resolved quickly with Sunghoon's competency in dance. I wondered why he was in 2-star but he could've just not performed that well on his audition stage.

Anyways, we safely completed our dance practice before lunch time, with the extra time we had the day before from our speed. The vocal group also seemed like they were done, so we'd be finally doing a full group practice until the mentor check-in. 

As both our groups seemed to have finished practice, I stood up to make an announcement once again, "Hello guys, since we've finished our preparations for the complete performance now, we'll be splitting into 3 groups to properly perform singing and dancing together before we have lunch."

We quickly split into 2 groups of 9 trainees and one group of 8. We mixed up the people that were in the vocal and dance groups to work with new people. The vocal parts and positions were split randomly as well. 

As the first group started to perform, something was definitely off. The trainees were quite okay individually, however when it came to moving positions, the footwork started to become messy. It also seemed like pairing the vocals with the choreography would be a big hill to overcome due to the high intensity dance and high vocal octaves. 

After the first group had finished performing, only the sounds of their panting and catching their breathes filled the room for a few seconds.

With a moment of deliberation, I spoke out, "Hm... Honestly, I wouldn't say it was amazing but obviously this is our first time actually doing the vocal dance performance so we'll need some time getting used to it. Overall, I feel like everyone was doing good individually though."

Jiho then added on, "Apart from that, I think we'll have to work on how to save energy for your breaths as well." 

"I agree with Sunwoo as well, I think your individual dance and singing was quite good, it just seemed like your dance got messed up whenever you guys had to hit a higher note." Sunghoon also added his input.

After this, the other two groups including mine also faced similar observations, it seemed like we'd just have to gain more experience performing this song. Apart from the somewhat lukewarm results, I felt that we'd still be able to put out our best performance in front of the mentors later.

Following our practice, I dismissed everyone to lunch and told them to gather at the same time as yesterday. I then headed to the cafeteria with Eunho, Haru and Riku. 

As we walked to the cafeteria, we bumped into Aidan who was taking the stairs for some reason. 

As I greeted him I asked him, "Oh, hey Aidan. Why aren't you taking the elevator?"

He replied with a blank look on his face, "Oh... it's just- the smell.. it's a bit much? You know?" which he followed up by pointing at his feet. 

I made a disgusted expression and nodded in understanding. We then continued walking to the cafeteria. 

Soon, we sat down at our usual table, this time it seemed like everyone filled their trays as much as they could. I was feeling famished too so I quickly picked up my chopsticks to start eating when I realized I didn't see Dohyun at the table. I was surprised since he was usually the first one seated, probably due to being a slow eater. 

I turned to Daeho as he was in the same grade as Dohyun and asked if he knew where he was. Daeho seemed a bit hesitant but he then told me what had happened to Dohyun during practice. 

"Dohyun wasn't doing too well during practice earlier... He was making quite a few mistakes. Although the group was pretty supportive, I could tell he was shaken since he didn't stop making mistakes. Eventually, someone in the group lost their temper and chewed him out calling him useless and that he should leave the show." 

"They what? Who was it? I think I'll need to have a talk with them." I asked Daeho while furrowing my eyebrows. Even if this was a competition, does that mean you have the right to beat someone while they're down?

"Um... I feel like I shouldn't say his name now... But I trust you won't do anything rash right hyung?" He replied with an uncertain look on his face, it seemed like my words sounded a bit harsh. 

"Trust me, I won't. Now tell me who it was." I said as I stared him straight in the eyes. Even if I'd only known Dohyun for less than a week, I felt like I should take care of him, he seemed like the type of person to bottle up their emotions.

Daeho sighed in defeat as he finally told me who made Dohyun feel like shit, "It was Kim Hajun, you know? The trainee from the really big company. I don't even know why he acted like that when he made mistakes too." 

I could feel my eye twitch as I heard that name leave his mouth. "Seriously? It's that bastard again? What's his problem?" I thought to myself.

With that newfound information, I gobbled up the rest of my meal and excused myself from the table. I asked around if anyone had seen Kim Hajun and found out that he usually stays back at the practice room for awhile. 

So, I walked over to the elevator to head to the 4-star practice room, but when the doors opened, the very person I was looking for was on the other side. 

"Oh? There you are Kim Hajun. I need to talk to you." I told him with a smile on my face.

"Huh? What business would you have with me?" He said while eyeing the 2 stars that were placed on my shirt. 

"I don't know a staff member just told me to call you for an interview or something." I lied through my teeth, resisting the urge to curse this prick out.

"Ah really? Let's go then." He instantly changed his demeanor, suddenly smiling at me.

"What a freak..." I thought, that kind of switch was not normal...

After that, I led him to an unused practice room, locking the door behind us as we entered. This felt very iffy to do but I had no choice if I wanted a private conversation.

"What the hell? Where's the staff? Also did you just lock-" Hajun spurted out, while increasingly sounding angrier.

"Shut the fuck up please?" I said, annoyed. He widened his eyes in shock, seemingly thinking, "Are you really swearing on a survival show?"

"There aren't any cameras here if that's what you're thinking" I told him while crossing my arms. His mouth was agape like a goldfish, I almost wanted to laugh at how stupid he looked but I kept my composure as I wanted to be serious.

"Anyways, the reason I called you here is to talk about what you said to Dohyun. Seriously, what's wrong with you?" I said as I glared at him.

"Ha? That imbecile? What do you mean what's wrong with me? He deserved everything I said." Hajun proudly told me as he started smirking.

"Oh really? Then you should've been kicked out of the show for your performance during the signal song reveal. I almost started to pity you, but obviously you don't deserve sympathy if this is how you're acting to someone else." I said with a grin on my face, his expression slowly becoming twisted.

"You're just a 2-star! What do you even know? It was all Mentor Aki's fault that day, I didn't do anything wrong." He started to try to defend himself.

"Oh, and what do you know, nobody got mad at you for that, but you know what? Dohyun went through the same treatment as you? Everyone saw it too, but do you see him blaming someone else and being an asshole? Nope? Yeah I thought so. I heard you also made mistakes too so what makes you think you can tell someone that they should just quit." 

Hajun seemed to be at a loss for words, he couldn't really refute what I said. I then dealt another blow by saying, "Plus, I'm sure the editors will have a field day when they see the footage of you telling him to quit the show. Good luck with that Hajunnie~" I cringed at myself a bit but I'm sure this kid would be intimidated by something like that.

I immediately left, allowing him to be drowned by his own thoughts as I now went to find Dohyun.