“Hyeong-Jun, you ready for today?” Mark’s voice filtered through the low current of pain burning Hyeong-Jun’s muscles as he stretched in one of the practice rooms at WSM Entertainment the next day. Mark was one of the few American-born trainees in the company and Hyeong-Jun had found himself defaulting to English instead of Korean whenever they spoke.
“Will we ever be?” Hyeong-Jun couldn’t help but counter as he reached for his foot, his back muscles protesting only slightly as he did so. His trainers squeaked against the fake wood floors.
Mark made a noise of dread.
They’d been split into teams to perform covers of some of their senior groups’ songs but any of them could be plucked from a group at a moments notice.
It was useless to get attached.
If he were plucked out, he only hoped it was because he stood out, not because he’d disappointed.
Mark paused between stretches to lean conspiratorially closer to Hyeong-Jun. “Did you hear that it’s not just President Min who’s going to be checking our auditions today?”
Hyeong-Jun blinked. “Are they recruiting for one of the company’s subdivisions?”
It wasn’t uncommon for trainees to be shuffled around to one of the subdivisions if they felt a trainees vibe fit better there.
But debuting mattered, not the company you did it with.
“Ever heard of Choi Byung-ho?” Hyeong-Jun nodded. He was a businessman and former musician who had his own hotel chain and music company － just one of the many chaebol’s1 in the industry. Still, it would’ve been strange had Hyeong-Jun not heard of him. “Well apparently it’s his son who’s gonna be checking out the auditions. Looks like he’s gunning to start his own group.”
“But wouldn’t that mean President Min is helping a competitor?”
Mark shrugged. “Word is it’s basically a favour to a friend or something.”
Hyeong-Jun glanced around the practice room that hummed with whispers. A layer of tension built as more and more trainees found out about the unexpected guest.
Hyeong-Jun grimaced. A debut was a debut, and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
The room filled with chatter so loud that Hyeong-Jun didn’t blame Mark when he put on some music to distract them. The song was a soulful ballad called ‘I Can’. It wasn’t the kind of song Hyeong-Jun would use to hype himself up with, but to each their own.
The audition time dragged it’s feet and anxiety was added to the cocktail of tension.
“Can one representative from each team please come forward.” Park Mi-sun, one of President Min’s assistants called as she entered the room, breaking the suspended fear.
She held a clipboard and pen at the ready. A guy around Hyeong-Jun’s age hovered behind her, clutching a jar in hand so tightly Hyeong-Jun half expected it to shatter.
Definitely a new intern.
“You go,” Mark said from his almost-split on the ground, snapping Hyeong-Jun back to attention. A glance over at Mingi and Por, his other two team mates, had both of them nodding their assent.
“Fine,” Hyeong-Jun hauled himself to his feet and strode over to Assistant Park to greet her.
“Please draw a piece of paper,” Assistant Park indicated to the poor jar still in the intern’s grip. “Numbers,” she added by way of explanation.
Hyeong-Jun reached in and fished out one of the few pieces of paper folded inside, wary despite his familiarity with the process.
He flicked open the paper to reveal the number four. He grimaced.
They were six groups in total. Hyeong-Jun simultaneously liked and despised the idea that they’d be one of the last groups to audition.
“Team members?” Assistant Park asked automatically.
“Kang Mark, Jung Mingi, Sangthong Por & Park Hyeong-Jun.” Hyeong-Jun recited and watched as she marked four, next to each of their names on the clipboard.
“Next.” Hyeong-Jun went to let his teammates know about their number in line before moving over to one of the mirrors to do a quick walk-through of the dance routine.
“First group, be ready in 15 minutes,” Assistant Park called once all the numbers had been drawn. With that she exited the room and the tension seeped back into the space she left behind.
It was almost time.
***
The waiting was always the most painful part.
When group two was called a weight started to press on Hyeong-Jun’s shoulders. His footwork suffered. He might as well have been a duckling learning to walk for the first time.
Stress prickled across his skin.
He forced himself to stop reviewing when group three was called into the audition room, and instead went to sit next to Mark. His leg bounced as they waited.
He reached up for his earring － it wasn’t there. He thumbed at the, by now, distressed band-aid still clinging to his thumb. A shadow moved in the corner of Hyeong-Jun’s eye. He glanced over. One dancer frantically revised a small part of their choreography.
Hyeong-Jun turned his attention back to Mark’s music.
Time slogged on.
“Are you guys ready?” Mark made eye contact with all of them, whisper-asking it as if it were some big secret he was sharing with them. Nerves fractured the easy smile usually present on his face.
Hyeong-Jun could only nod in reply.
He could do this, after the events from two nights ago, this would be nothing, right?
A shudder worked its way through his body.
“Ready or not, here we come,” Por attempted to sound upbeat.
There was the click of a door opening and an excited buzz of chatter as group three exited the practice room where the auditions were being held.
“Did you see the look he gave us?” one of the members from group three muttered as they passed Hyeong-Jun.
“Group four!” Hyeong-Jun jumped at the call.
With a glance at the other three, he quickly leaned down to double check the ties on his sneakers before he stood and followed the other three out the door.
Assistant Park stood outside the audition room with a stack of papers. She handed each of them two pages as they waited to enter.
“Be sure to give one to President Min and Mr Choi once you’re inside,” she instructed.
Hyeong-Jun glanced down curiously.
Oh. His introduction sheet. It had their ages, names and past training experience listed. Hyeong-Jun grimaced at the blank space where his previous training was supposed to be.
His neck burned. Both Por and Mingi had been back-up dancers to well-known groups before they joined the company and Mark had studied dance in America.
Self-taught skills and five years here were nothing in comparison to those who’d started when they were thirteen.
“You can go in,” Assistant Park’s voice broke Hyeong-Jun out of his spiral.
He swallowed.
They filed into the room and stood waiting just inside the entrance.
A male staff member sat to one side, next to a table with a laptop and speaker.
President Min occupied a metal table at what would, for today, be considered the “front” of the room, dead centre. Even without his title as President of the company, he would have stuck out with the neatly pinned shirt sleeves, formal pants and dress shoes that spoke of subtle wealth. Papers were piled to one side of the table, all from the other groups that had already come through.
The mirrors behind President Min had been blocked out by temporary curtains.
Next to him sat someone who Hyeong-Jun would’ve immediately considered to be the visual of any group he was part of.
He had surprisingly delicate features that somehow made him look both youthful and elegant even as he simply sat there, feline-like gaze glancing over the previous groups’ papers. His full lips pressed together as he considered something, a small frown puckering his brows.
A single black strand had slipped from his neatly styled short hair to touch the side of his temple.
He looked about the same age as Hyeong-Jun.
He had to be the person everyone had been talking about. Choi Byung-ho’s son.
It was ridiculous, Hyeong-Jun had met many idols in his time here, yet he’d never felt so self-conscious about his own looks as he did at that moment.
Should he have had his hair cut before today’s audition? Were his clothes neat enough?
He resisted the urge to tuck his own hair behind his ear.
President Min looked up from his papers with a smile. “This is Choi Seonghwa, he’ll be evaluating your performance today as well.” President Min indicated to the man.
They chorused a greeting to both President Min and Mr Choi before hurrying forward in a line to hand over their information sheets.
President Min smiled as Hyeong-Jun handed over his paper and Hyeong-Jun hurriedly bowed his head. Choi Seonghwa was already watching Hyeong-Jun as he shuffled towards him. Hyeong-Jun attempted a smile as he handed the second paper to Choi Seonghwa.
He reached up to take the paper but as Hyeong-Jun watched, a flicker of shock crossed his face and startled dark brown eyes met his.
Hyeong-Jun blinked.
Had he done something wrong?
Was it because he didn’t have any former training? Would it be a problem? Someone with Choi Byung-Ho’s resources was probably not used to having to deal with someone who could potentially still be seen as an amateur.
Hyeong-Jun pushed the thought away and gave a quick nod. He let go of the paper and hurried to his position, aware of the heavy weight of Choi Seonghwa’s gaze on his back.
Don’t be ridiculous.
He knelt down, his back towards both Choi Seonghwa and President Min.
Mark shot him a questioning look from his position that mirrored Hyeong-Jun’s own.
Hyeong-Jun shook his head. He couldn’t explain. They couldn’t afford being distracted right now.
Mingi joined them first, positioned between the two of them and facing forward. Finally Por knelt in his position in front of Mingi, also facing to the front.
There was a quiet moment where all of them settled in, and a sense of calmness cloaked Hyeong-Jun.
“You may start when you’re ready,” President Min informed them and Mingi nodded at the staff member to start the music.
Hyeong-Jun breathed in.
The backing track started.
A simple beat with a slight tremble in it.
Hyeong-Jun and Mark popped their shoulders in unison, arms moving up like wings while their backs arched, their fronts pressing even closer to the ground.
The music sped up and Hyeong-Jun tucked his arms in from their wing-like position.
Using the momentum he fell away from Mingi and Por, tucked into a side roll and rolled easily to his feet.
The tremble halted, silence.
Another beat.
“I’m here all alone, ready to fight,”
Hyeong-Jun started off the song.
“Lay myself bare, my ambitions and plights”
He pushed his voice as deep as it would go so it merged and reverberated with the music, like he’d practiced a thousand times.
“I don’t know how to ge-et there
But I have to do it right”
As he came to the end of his lyrics, he reached out to Mark, their palms clasping together for a quick moment, handing the music over to him.
Mark broke into a rap as Hyeong-Jun fell to his knees, looking up at the sky, all hope lost.
Dun.
Hyeong-Jun slammed one hand forward.
Dun.
The other hand. As if he was crawling out of hell.
On the third dun, Hyeong-Jun got onto one knee.
The music changed again as Por took over and Hyeong-Jun jumped to his feet as the dancing truly began.
Hyeong-Jun’s movements flowed with the music, a natural extension of it.
Every move felt smoother than it ever had before, allowing Hyeong-Jun to push all his emotions into his dancing instead.
His heart followed the music as they harmonized in both dance and melody before the split back up, Por and Mingi taking up solo bars one after the other.
Soon, Hyeong-Jun found himself on the floor again, waiting.
Por and Mingi rushed forward as soon as their solos ended. They crouched in front of Hyeong-Jun.
Their arms reached over each other like they were forming a bridge.
Next was the jump.
He could do it.
Hyeong-Jun, placed his right foot behind him, a sprinter about to take off.
He launched himself from the ground and over the two huddling team members.
He came up from the perfect roll.
He breathed in deep.
And sang.
“I’m here all alone, hanging on for life
Ca-an’t seem to get anything right,
I stretch my wings, close my eye and brace myself for the flight,”
The moves had never felt so easy.
The song was the air he breathed and the lyrics the emotions he felt.
All of it flowed together to guide him and soon Hyeong-Jun found himself nearing the end.
“I spread my wings and fly!”
There it was － the ending pose. He knelt in prayer to the gods of dance, arms once more arched backward like wings.
The melody faded out. The song ended. Their loud breaths echoed in the room.
Exhilaration burned his lungs and limbs.
Hyeong-Jun’s mind flashed to another instance, a different burn of lungs, limbs －fear.
The sweat cooling on his back and arms turned to icy drops.
An arm bumped his own.
Hyeong-Jun blinked back to the present and hurried to stand in line with the others to execute a bow to President Min and Choi Seonghwa.
“Thank you,” President Min said before they were ushered towards the exit by Assistant Park.
Only once they were outside did reality and nerves crash back into Hyeong-Jun. His stomach turned.
The only small mercy was that Hyeong-Jun had been too focused on President Min to even wonder about Choi Seonghwa, but if his reaction before the performance was anything to go by it was better that Hyeong-Jun didn’t pin any hopes on him.
As if the man himself had heard his thoughts, Hyeong-Jun saw Choi Seonghwa exit the room as group five entered. His phone was pressed to his ear as he whispered furiously into it.
“What’s up with him?” Mark slung a sweaty arm over Hyeong-Jun shoulder as they watched Choi Seonghwa’s figure disappear around the corner. Hyeong-Jun shrugged. “Wanna grab something to drink while we wait?”
He didn’t think he could stomach anything. “Sure.”
Assistant Park looked up from where she was analyzing her clipboard. “Just be sure to be back by 12 pm. The announcement will be made then.”
Hyeong-Jun nodded. The weight was back on his shoulders as Mark guided him to where they’d left their bags.
Footnote:
- chaebol: a family owned wealthy conglomerate
