The First Monthly Evaluation (1)

Beep, beep—.

Thud, thud thud!

One two, again!

Shoe soles scuffed and slapped against the wood floor in a steady loop. Not one note of a melody in this place — just ragged breathing, footfalls, and a voice counting time. The practice room had gotten uncomfortably hot from all the churned-up body heat, and before long someone flopped onto the floor with a whining cry.

"Please! Stop! Stop!"

Yoon Taehee, who'd sworn he'd never lost to anyone on stamina, thrashed his arms and legs in protest. The others weren't far off — knees or backs braced, wiping sweat, catching their breath, all clearly near the end of the rope. Taehee's eyes, loaded with reproach, swung to the source of all this.

"You told us to just trust you! You devil! You — you devil!"

"Hyung goes to church."

When the source of all this — Hajin — fired back cynically, dabbing sweat with the towel around his neck, Taehee let out an "Aaagh!" and flopped over the other way with another whimper. Aigoo… how did I end up in this group…. It was a line he'd been running on repeat ever since month-end prep started, though, so nobody paid it any mind.

…okay, so how did all of this happen.

---

"Sorry, but."

"……?"

"We're not doing this song for our month-end, guys."

"What?"

"Come again?"

At Hajin's flat declaration, everyone stared at him like they couldn't believe it. The most shaken was Doha — he'd never once even imagined a track of his getting shot down (of course he'd always kept the possibility in mind, but it hadn't actually happened in the last few years, and he'd briefly forgotten it was even on the table).

And what Hajin said next was a whole other level.

"We're."

"……"

"Going to dance. Hard."

"……"

"Group choreo. You've heard of knife-sharp group choreo? That. We're doing that."

At that, Doha dropped the phone he was holding. Wonho bit his own perfectly-fine tongue, and Taehee choked on his water and had Gong Seok thumping his back. His groupmates were unraveling in real time, and Hajin stayed unbothered.

"Hyung. Uh… I mean, obviously being dance main sounds good to me, but — is that going to work?"

Even Wonho — the one guy actually pushing for a dance-main position — asking with half his stinging tongue still hanging out, couldn't budge Hajin. He had his reasons.

'Because you can.'

The system window floating in front of Hajin was the proof.

label: Gong Seok (Affiliation: Miro) Vocals: 92% Dance: 53% Expression: 81% Special: Wide vocal range (89%) Appeal Point: 'Teacher, I have a question!' — Studiousness, drive to learn label: Kim Wonho (Affiliation: Miro) Vocals: 89% (Rap 34%) Dance: 62% Expression: 92% Special: Choreo creation (86%) Appeal Point: 'A TO Z' — Fast learner label: Yoon Taehee (Affiliation: Miro) Vocals: 85% (Rap 49%) Dance: 63% Expression: 75% Special: Choreo creation (76%) Appeal Point: 'Steel heart' — Delivery, on-stage adaptability, performance actualization (91%)

The three of them had one thing in common.

Dance scores markedly lower than vocals.

'Their vocal numbers are higher than I'd have thought. Means they've all pushed vocals about as high as they can go.'

And yet none of the three got much praise as vocalists. Even Gong Seok, the one pushing for a vocal position, only came off — measured against the true upper-tier guys — as about as good as an ordinary person who happens to sing well.

On the other hand.

'On dance, these guys have more in them than they're showing.'

Three weeks. If Hajin could push those percentages up by even ten points in that window—

The trainers, who spent every day watching trainees hell-bent on climbing, would clock it in a heartbeat.

The gap. The growth.

'And I've got someone I can count on for the performance side too.'

Hajin's eyes went to Wonho, still talking with the other groupmates with a not-quite-convinced look. Every time he'd watched practice videos of the kid, he'd wondered why his eye kept getting pulled even when the moves themselves were rough — turns out that 92% Expression was doing the work.

"I'm fine with not using my song. …Honestly though, dance isn't exactly my strong suit either. I'm working on it, sure, but pulling the result you want out of a short window won't be easy."

Anxious enough to actually raise a hand, Lee Doha delivered his longest string of words yet.

'And he doesn't flinch about admitting what he can't do.'

Hajin, who knew better than anyone how hard it was to own the fact that you weren't good at something, silently thought that was pretty impressive, and shook his head at Doha.

"I'm not trying to pull off something wild right this second. Just — this song doesn't cut it. The song is good, sure."

"I'd like some more concrete feedback."

"It shows in the song. You writing around 'I'm not confident on dance.'"

"……!"

"But from where I'm sitting, I think you can dance more than that. Playing it that way lifts your rap too."

Doha's stat window pulled up in front of Hajin's eyes again.

label: Lee Doha (Affiliation: Miro) Vocals: 17% (Rap 64%) Dance: 47% Expression: 35% Special: Composition, Producing (34%) Appeal Point: 'Steel heart' — Delivery, on-stage adaptability, performance actualization (80%)

'Lee Doha's the opposite of the other guys.'

His upside on vocals was much bigger, but short of a sudden 40%+ jump out of nowhere, the current number was hopeless.

'Dance, on the other hand — grind him a little and he clears 50% easy.'

What was the point of cranking up vocals on a guy who could shut down every Miro trainee with rap alone? Even his current choreo skills weren't that bad — better to lean into that side, was Hajin's read.

"……"

At Hajin's words, Doha lost his voice for a beat, his face oddly stunned. He seemed lost in thought. The feedback had been blunt and hit the mark hard enough that the other groupmates couldn't easily jump in either.

Watching the room go flat, Hajin instinctively clocked that it was time for a carrot.

"I'm not saying we scrap everything. But I want more push than this. I want you locked in enough to pour every rap skill you've got into it — no doubt. You're the only rapper we have."

"So…"

"We don't have much time, and the melody's definitely good, so — could you develop it from here? Wonho's got the lowest range, so we need to match to the highest key that lets him sing comfortably. Seok-hyung can handle just about any key, so."

"Uh, no — I mean, I'm not really that…"

At the unexpected compliment, timid-boy Gong Seok's ears went red. But to Kang Hajin, who'd already seen 'Wide vocal range' as a special trait, it wasn't a compliment — it was flat fact.

And Doha, who'd been quietly listening to Hajin, tapped the floor two or three times with his finger and spoke up.

"Three days."

"……!"

"I need three days. To bring back an arrangement like you're describing."

"That works."

Deal struck. Doha immediately grabbed his stuff and stood. Everyone in the room caught the signal — he was heading straight into arrangement work. And that this month-end eval was going to play out exactly the way Hajin wanted.

"Wait, so until the song's done we can't do anything?"

Taehee — quick to read and quick to adjust — asked with his eyes wide as saucers. Sweet, break time? was written all over them, but Hajin, who could hardly be unaware how long arrangement work took, put on his standard 'social-life' smile.

"Not a chance."

"……? But there's no song…."

"Doesn't matter."

"……?"

"Skill level as-is, you couldn't match a song if you had one. You all know that, right?"

"S-so…?"

The moment Doha stepped out of the practice room, Hajin got to his feet. Only then did the No-Hope Trio notice how ominous Hajin's outfit was today.

A black short-sleeve tee you didn't have to worry about drowning in sweat, thin, breathable training pants and practice sneakers with grip on wood floors, and a stretchy headband that would hold his hair in place under any amount of sweat.

"Ever heard of Hell Boot Camp?"

"……"

"From here on we're dancing until you puke, so brace up, everyone."

The gates of hell had opened. Welcome to dance hell!

---

"…Hey, Hajin-ah. We're really — going to be okay, right?"

Taehee's threat that one more round would actually make him puke had finally forced a pause in the training (fine, practice). Hajin, off to one side stretching out, felt Gong Seok cautiously come over and ask. Hajin sat up from where he'd been lying and looked at him.

"I mean, not that I don't trust you… I just, was wondering if this is really okay."

"Hmm…. It'd help if you could tell me a bit more clearly what you're worried about."

Scooting over to make room for Gong Seok, Hajin phrased it as politely as he could to keep him from feeling awkward. Gong Seok was the only adult in the group and the oldest hyung, and on top of that carried a quiet undercurrent of low self-esteem, so Hajin had been putting real effort into keeping him from losing his drive.

"So… I mean, we decided dance was our lead over vocals, right? That's why Doha's working himself to the bone on arrangement, too."

"……"

"I was just wondering if… we're okay only doing basics like this."

The boot camp Hajin was running.

Its main content: 'foundational choreography.' The basics every trainee learns first when they first join an agency and start dancing.

—You know the most important thing when you dance? Angles. And lines.

—Angles! Match the angles! Hold it!

—Your gaze has to follow your fingertip. Line up the gaze.

—You have to fully straighten the arm. Not obtuse — ninety degrees!

The groupmates had braced for every kind of brutal choreography, and their confusion was understandable. Hajin nodded along enthusiastically with what Gong Seok was saying.

'Burning a precious week out of three on just this — yeah, this is about when the nerves kick in.'

Even Lee Doha, who was pulling all-nighters on the arrangement, was carving out chunks of time to run these routines three hundred times. Seo Taehyun, who shared a dorm room with Doha, was freaking out that Doha now snapped his arm straight and locked his gaze on his fingertip even opening a door.

"I was actually thinking it was about time to move on to the next stage."

"Ah… yeah? Next stage, meaning…."

"Should we talk about it when everyone's here?"

Right on cue, Taehee and Wonho — who'd stepped out for a break — came back into the practice room. Hajin called them over too and had everyone sit down. Aside from Doha, the four of them formed a circle in the middle of the room.

"First — thanks for grinding it out for a week."

"Ooh, so you do know, hyung."

"Shh, Taehee. Quiet."

"It was a grind, no arguing that. Especially for Taehee and Wonho."

Hajin's easy, disarming delivery loosened up the mood that had been just a touch stiff, and a small round of hahas rolled through the group. Reading the room, Hajin smiled and pulled out his phone.

"Now for the big announcement."

"……? Wait, no way?"

"The song is ready. At last."

One week since the first month-end meeting.

At last — the song was locked in.