The First Monthly Evaluation (3)

A week out from the month-end evaluation.

Time you couldn't afford to spend on anything but practice — and I was in a café.

"…Are you under a lot of stress?"

With Ji Suho, who'd probably lost about 5kg to handling the Head of Department, HR duties, month-end prep, and survival prep all at once.

"Sorry?"

"You know you just downed a whole iced chocolate in one go, right?"

Oh. Had I.

At Ji Suho's worried aside as he brought over the cake we'd ordered, I found myself weirdly self-conscious and scratched at my forehead. He even smoothly slid over an iced tea he'd apparently pre-ordered, like he'd seen this coming.

'I'm not that… full-on sugar addict, though.'

"I was just thirsty."

"Then I can move the iced tea away?"

"…Come to think of it, I actually think I'm getting a bit stressed."

I quickly grabbed at Ji Suho as he tried to take the iced tea back. Cheap of him, giving something and then swiping it back.

Ji Suho gave the iced tea back, wearing an oddly sour face. Then, as if he understood completely, he slid the cake plate over with a sympathetic look thrown in for good measure.

"Well… it is your first month-end evaluation. That's why I set up the meeting — figured this was how it'd be."

A private meeting between me and Ji Suho — who had judging authority for the eval — right before the evaluation could've been an issue, but today's was billed with the official purpose of a 'pre-eval individual check-in.'

Called a check-in, but really it was the stage for gauging trainees' condition and headspace before officially heading into the debut survival. First TV exposure for the trainees, so there was plenty that needed a heads-up.

"How's eval prep going? I heard you're the group leader."

"Well… whether I should call it going well or not…."

At Ji Suho's blunt question, I swirled the straw through my finished iced chocolate, tormenting the innocent ice.

I'd been steadily uploading practice videos to the company cloud for consistent feedback, so he had to already know exactly what feedback we were getting — but Ji Suho played dumb and asked anyway.

"I heard you had your midpoint check recently."

"…Yeah."

"Heard there were a lot of problems."

See? Knew everything already, this guy.

Nothing left to hide, so I answered right away.

"Yeah, well."

"……"

"We got wrecked, the midpoint check."

Thinking back on the recent (and hair-raising) midpoint check day… I ended up picking up the iced tea beside me and shooting it in one go.

---

The month-end midpoint check was held with all the trainees present. The point being — get tense watching other groups get torn to shreds, and get a little wake-up call watching them get praised out of their minds.

Among all that, which side did our group land on? Absolutely the former.

—Wh-what are you all trying to show me right now.

—……

—Hajin, you tell me. You going to have this finished in a week? You said you were the one who called for this.

The choreography trainer's irritated voice filled the practice room. What had already been an icy vibe grew a whole layer sharper.

Not that it wasn't warranted. Lee Doha still couldn't get halfway through the dance break, Gong Seok was scrambling just to keep up with the whole choreo, and Yoon Taehee's live-vocal ability was nowhere near enough. Even to my eye, the group as a whole was unfinished.

—Kids who'd be halfway there just doing what they usually do — what's going on with them? Doha, why the sudden ambition to actually dance? Stick to what you do, kids. Stick to what you do. A critical eval right before a survival, and who the hell approaches it like this?

…isn't that a bit much?

The longer the choreo trainer's chewing-out went on, the further the mood spiraled south. I'd tried to side-eye the choreo trainer — who was somehow going harder on us than usual — and gave up. Making eye contact right now meant death.

In the end, we got to show one four-minute performance and then stood there getting hammered for a solid twenty minutes. Only after we'd gotten back to our spot did I clock that it had been a made-an-example flogging, but by then the other kids' mental states had already been shattered clearer than powdered glass.

—See? I told you this was too much! This is all Hajin-hyung's fault!

—Are we — are we okay? Should we swap the performance out now while we still can….

—Y'all agreed to do this together — you gonna start blaming people now? We just gotta grind harder and show them, no?

The moment the midpoint check ended, the grind it took to steady the kids whose nerves had been demolished and get them practicing again….

The one saving grace was that Lee Doha — who'd caught the concentrated fire in that eval — surprisingly barely reacted.

—Let's just practice.

—Huh? Doha-yah, but—!

—We got chewed out today because we performed something that wasn't finished. So instead of standing around, we should be drilling one more thing and getting it finished.

Then, with a face that plainly said his pride was wounded, he'd quietly taken Kim Wonho aside and been getting private coaching on the dance break section — and watching that, the other kids couldn't help but shut up too.

The guy with the hardest assignment was pushing that hard — if they couldn't match Lee Doha on this performance, that came down, plain and simple, to their own capability.

---

And back to the present.

To Ji Suho, still watching me with that worried face, I said with a smile,

"We're fine. Ditching the midpoint check was in the plan from the start anyway."

"You can pull it together in a week? Especially Doha doing the dance break — I have real concerns there too. Not sure if you know, but Doha has always—"

"I know. Not dancing, rap only. Tucked in the back, or fed easier moves."

"……"

"Isn't that pretty funny though? He's an idol trainee."

Ever since Lee Doha first told me about squatting on his special-class spot, and ever since I'd made up my mind — while working out the choreo with Kim Wonho — to hand him the dance break, this thought had stuck with me.

How does an idol trainee not dance?

"Sure, up till now — an ace like Lee Doha, you can't afford to lose him, so maybe okay, dance rough, dance not at all, just rap, just write songs. But debut survival's around the corner now, and it's time for him to graduate out of those excuses too."

"…That's."

"Don't worry. These are guys who can pull it off by the month-end. When I was coaching a teen performance troupe I got teams worse than these guys to place."

This performance can absolutely land — 'as long as we finish it.' It was built with that in mind from the start. Ji Suho, briefly zoning out, asked again in that same slightly bewildered voice.

"Hajin-ssi, seriously, what did you do in a past life?"

"Well… a bit of this, a bit of that?"

"Is idol really the one thing you haven't tried?"

"Which is why I'm taking a shot at it this time around too. I'm heading out first. Got practice."

I flashed Ji Suho — who clearly had a lot to chew on — a bright smile, forked up a big bite of cake, and stood. I was about to give him a quick head-bow and head out, laughing off his exasperated chuckle, when I back-stepped and came back around in front of him.

"But if you're worried about us, there's a more practical way you could help. What are your thoughts on that kind of support."

"……? Yeah, sure. What is it?"

"How about swiping that card of yours nice and generously."

Wait for me, kids. Hyung's bringing snacks.

---

Wonho was helping Doha with his choreo practice again today. Taehee, who'd already mastered the dance break section, had moved to the vocal room with Gong Seok to work on the vocals he was still weak on.

In the practice room with just the two of them, only breathing, footfalls, and Wonho's admiring voice broke the quiet.

"One, two, one! Jump!"

"……!"

"Whoa, hyung! You got it! Got it just now!"

"…Ah."

By now, Doha was hitting the dance break clean about one out of ten. Of course, this meant only 'the moves' cleanly. Feel and interpretation still had a long road ahead, but even so — Lee Doha was pulling it off! That alone was enough for Wonho to see real hope.

'First time seeing hyung look this pleased with himself, too.'

Catching the faint smile settling on the mouth of Doha, who was usually a stone statue, Wonho — himself pleased and happy — laughed along and flopped flat on the floor.

"Hyung, take a break. Dance is a stamina fight. Practicing tired ups injury risk."

"Yeah. …Thanks."

"Never thought I'd hear a thanks out of a special-class hyung in my lifetime."

Doha slowly folded down next to Wonho, like his knees had gone out from under him. Even without being told, Wonho could tell his legs were shaking, all the strength drained out of them. He nudged the water bottle beside him over to Doha and floated the thought he'd been carrying since they'd started building this choreo.

"…Can I be a bit honest?"

"Go ahead. Except telling me I can't do it."

"Hyung, you can crack jokes too?"

"I'm serious. Getting feedback right now would kill my drive."

At the earnest look on Doha's face, Wonho shut up. Yeah. Can't have that. What he'd wanted to say was something else anyway.

"Couldn't say it around Seok-hyung or Taehee — they still look like they're struggling…."

"……"

"But honestly? This stage's kinda fun for me."

"……"

"Same for you, right? Come on — the dance break's fun, isn't it."

At Wonho's words, Doha, about to drink, paused mid-motion. Not seeming to be waiting on an answer, Wonho picked up his own thread again.

"How do I put it — I was general class, right. Getting to choreograph to a track of yours, hyung — that's, in its own way, a rare shot for me."

"…I'm just as much a trainee as you. It's not exactly a 'shot.'"

"Still — honestly, without this month-end we wouldn't even be talking like this."

"Well. Won't deny that one."

Doha nodded. On top of everything, this was pretty much the first time he'd held a conversation this long with anyone besides Siwoo and Taehyun from special class.

"When Hajin-hyung asked me to choreograph this, honestly, I thought it was crazy. I'm no Lee Yugeon or Ju Eunchan. If my choreo tanked the whole thing, who was I gonna pin it on."

"……"

"But actually doing it… now I kinda feel like a real idol trainee for the first time…. Feels weird. Weird feeling. Even after getting torn to shreds at the midpoint, doesn't even feel bad. Nobody said the choreo was off, did they?"

Wonho really did feel that way. It was a feeling he'd hit for the first time getting month-end ready with Hajin.

Up till now — the general class, shoved aside by the special class, and among the general class, the mid-and-lower-tier loser shoved aside even by the aces. It had always felt like he was walking somewhere in there. Which was why, checking his month-end group for the first time, he hadn't been particularly sad or disappointed either.

"Honestly, survival or whatever — a shot at this coming to us? With all those crazy-good hyungs around? That was my thinking. But prepping this thing, how do I say it…"

"You saw a possibility?"

"Yeah. Like — turns out I've actually got this much in me. So honestly, sorry to you hyungs, but I feel like it's fine if we don't make top ten this month-end. Just…"

The words that had been tumbling out cut off. Wonho couldn't quite bring himself to finish with 'Having a chance like this at all is enough for me.' The moment he said it, it would feel like giving up on his own dream and losing before the buzzer. That defeatism he'd gotten far too used to.

That he was only now clocking that defeatism was, to Wonho, kind of a shock.

"Same for me."

And being met on it by Doha, who'd come out of special class — that shocked him even more.

"I never thought I could dance this much."

"Pfft — hyung, come on. That's a little too self-deprecating, no?"

"I only realized this time around that I'd been limiting my own composition because I thought I couldn't dance."

Wiping off sweat with a towel, Doha calmly confessed as he moved into stretches before his body cooled. Wonho followed along into stretches beside him and didn't pile any more words on top. Both of them were sitting inside their own feelings.

"Wonho-yah."

"Yeah?"

"I'll do it right. The month-end."

"……!"

"It's choreo you built. I'll deliver on it. Thanks."

"I brought cake—!!!!"

Wonho didn't get to answer Doha's low 'thanks' in time. Because Hajin came kicking through the practice room door.

Already with Gong Seok and Yoon Taehee tucked under either arm and both hands loaded with cake boxes, entering like a conquering general, Hajin had the practice room noisy again in an instant.

Watching Doha quietly get up and go over to join them, Wonho felt something swell in him that he couldn't put into words.

A week out from the month-end evaluation.