First Monthly Evaluation (5)

The moment Lee Doha planted his first step, Kang Hajin thought:

We've got this.

"Oh my."

"Doha's really come along."

Alongside Gong Seok's ad-lib line, Yoon Taehee and Lee Doha's dance break began. This being a song built on the motif of revolt, the choreo for this section had the two of them trading violent movements like they were fighting.

Since they weren't doing the same moves, Lee Doha didn't end up looking outclassed next to Yoon Taehee, who was the sharper dancer of the two. But on the moves where they briefly overlapped, long arms and legs snapped into exactly the same angle.

The rush of every count they'd drilled in practice hitting on every beat!

Using Doha's thigh as a launch pad, Taehee vaulted up and cleanly stuck a back tumble, and behind them Hajin and the rest — who'd been waiting — strode out into their spots like conquering generals as the final third-verse chorus came crashing in.

Watch me — grip Victory tight in my hand

The Melody that filled the shattered moonlit night to the brim

Two hands clasped tight will shine at the end

If you can see the end of this beginning

Welcome — this is NEW WAVE

The song ended on ragged breathing. The five held the ending pose a beat longer, then, on a signal from Hajin's eyes, lined back up. Time for feedback.

"……"

"……"

Unlike with the other groups, the silence dragged. The trainer panel that was supposed to be evaluating couldn't easily get its mouth open. As the silence stretched long enough for everyone but Hajin and Doha to start getting flustered—

Clap, clap, clap—.

"……!"

"Good work. You put it together well."

Taeil, who'd been watching quietly the whole time, delivered a short line along with the applause. At the praise from Seo Taeil — a major sunbaenim — the groupmates' stiffening faces brightened up again.

"I was surprised how tidy the gesture work was. First time I've seen Doha do a dance break. You practiced hard, huh?"

"Ah… thank you."

"But why Doha? Wonho's a good dancer — a structure that let him carry through after his solo would've worked too, I'd think."

"……"

"Was Doha your best call? For the dance break?"

He was smiling as he said it, but the question wasn't a soft one, and a brief silence fell. In that instant, every eye in the room turned, reflexively, on Hajin.

Because Lee Doha's dance break had been, wholly and entirely, Hajin's decision.

And Hajin, suddenly the target of every gaze in the practice room, answered with complete ease.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Wonho had moves he still had to cover in the third-verse chorus, so I judged that having him do the dance break on top of that was too much."

"……"

"Seok-hyung was in the middle of ad-libs, so participating wasn't possible, and Doha's close to Taehee in height and build, so I thought he'd fit better with the duel concept in the choreo. He also had to be able to support Taehee's acrobatics, and."

Pausing briefly, Hajin glanced once between Doha and the choreo trainer, then continued.

"He looked like he could do it. Doha did."

At that, even the trainers nodded, apparently with nothing to push back on this time. Seo Taeil, looking about half convinced, tapped his desk with his pen for a moment, then bit the pen cap and asked casually,

"And you?"

"Yes?"

"Hajin-ssi? Couldn't you have done it yourself?"

"……"

'…What.'

Hajin's mouth — which had been rattling out answers like he'd rehearsed them — closed. Watching Hajin struggle to answer easily, Suho — who'd been observing — also looked at him with a slightly flustered face. Not that hard a question — so why?

"I said I wanted to do it."

Breaking the silence, Doha hastily raised a hand and answered in his place. The No-Hope Trio, who'd been quietly watching the situation, worked to keep since when? off their faces. Fortunately, no-hopers or not, they knew how to read a room.

"Doha did?"

"Yes. I said I wanted to try. And I also thought the third-verse chorus really had to be Hajin's."

"Yeah? …That's healthy ambition. Good work either way. You prepped well."

At Doha's words, Taeil leaned back in his chair like he wasn't going to press further and wrapped up his critique. After brief additional evaluations from the trainers in each area, Hajin and the groupmates were finally allowed back to their seats.

"Hyung, hyung. I think we did—"

Wonho, taking his seat after receiving good marks on choreo he'd built himself, called Hajin in an excited voice, but couldn't finish because of the oddly cold, stiff look on Hajin's face.

"Ah, were you calling me? What?"

"Huh? No, I said good work, hyung."

"Yeah, you too."

Turning to look at Wonho belatedly, Hajin gave him an appropriate reply, but there was still some unreadable shadow settled over his face.

'He got praised — why does his face look like that?'

Wonho shrugged with an awkward look. Hajin clenched and unclenched his fist over and over, still lost in some thought.

"Alright, good work, everyone. Evaluation results will be posted on the board day after tomorrow — check them then."

"Yes!"

Thank you! With the trainees' hearty response, the trainer panel filed out of the practice room. Hajin, who'd kept his head down the whole time, also rose from his seat.

The first month-end evaluation was over.

---

That same evening, the second-floor large conference room in the Miro building.

Because Miro trainees got three days off after every month-end evaluation, everyone connected to the upcoming Miro survival — the New Talent Development team included — had gathered in the conference room to hash out this month-end's results.

"These guys are definitely locking in the top ranks."

"Well, obviously. They were on the debut track from before the survival was ever on the table."

Critiques of each group flew past quickly. To pull out the notable ones:

"Group D… was it a song-choice miss?"

"Aside from Seongwoo, hardly any of them really pulled it off. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed."

"Taehyun. He looked like he'd found some of his confidence back, no?"

"Right? Before, he looked like he was having a hard time… did he get past it?"

"He'd gone home for a bit when things got rough — sounds like it did him a lot of good."

Frank takes on the various trainees rolled on. From attitude across the past month to what they'd delivered on stage today. These being the top ranks the survival would launch with, the discussion moved carefully.

"How did everyone see Group A?"

And finally, the hot potato everyone had been putting off came to the table.

"Hmm…."

"Well, they did well. Well, sure, but."

"This one's hard."

Unlike the mostly positive feedback so far, no one could easily land an evaluation.

'What? Wasn't that group incredibly good?'

Kim — originally on the self-produced-content team for Miro's group Enderway, freshly reassigned to the next-batch content team for the survival — pulled a puzzled face at the room's reaction. From what he'd seen filming today's month-end (for later broadcast use), that team was the one that had left the deepest impression on him.

"Haaa, I'll be honest. They were good — good, but."

"……"

"I couldn't tell if that was their actual skill level, or if this particular stage just tapped some potential too hard. Are they really guys who deserve to open the survival as top-tier? Based on the evaluations up till now, not really."

Assistant Manager Yu of the New Talent Development team — famous for being the one who'd say what needed saying — let it out almost like a sigh. From there, everyone started spilling what they'd been thinking.

"Honestly, I even wonder if they really did that well. Doha pulling a dance break is genuinely surprising, sure. But if you look at the objective difficulty, wasn't it pretty basic?"

"More than that — nobody really stood out. Like, there wasn't anyone you'd point to as the one who caught your eye."

"Just — felt like watching an ordinary idol group's stage. That level."

At the pile of criticism, Kim glanced over, a little rattled, at Ji Suho and Seo Taeil, who were staying quiet off to the side. But neither of them offered any counter — they were just listening to the staff's remarks.

'What? Do they agree with that?'

Having only ever watched finished groups for years, and now evaluating trainees for the first time, Kim was thoroughly confused.

'But — they were seriously good, though?'

In the end, Kim, who'd been listening a long time, couldn't hold back — he raised his hand and pulled out the question welling up from the pit of his stomach.

"Um."

"……?"

"Isn't that the whole point of them being good?"

Every eye in the room swung to Kim. Not exactly a senior staffer, Kim broke into a brief cold sweat, but he couldn't send Group A off like this, and he pushed on stubbornly.

"They're trainees, and they looked like an idol group…. Isn't that huge?"

Kim genuinely felt that way.

'That's how polished they were.'

Sure, if you laid out each member's individual ability, they might fall well short of the top trainees in the other groups. But as a group performance, that had been each of them pushing their maximum output — you didn't have to rewind two or three times to see it.

However bad the evaluations up till this point had been, doesn't that kind of thing count?

Uprising of the underdogs everyone had written off!

From a content creator's angle, wasn't this exactly the kind of growth arc you absolutely could not sleep on!

"Even purely for the survival… I feel like it'd make a fun structure. Having one or two guys like this."

Even after cautiously getting the words out, Kim was sneaking looks around when his eyes met Ji Suho's — the same Suho who'd been watching him. Ah, scary guy. Wondering if maybe he'd overstepped, Kim was wetting his lips when—

'He's smiling?'

—he saw Ji Suho smile like he was satisfied at Kim's words.

"He's got a point."

And as if that smile had been a dream, Ji Suho — face already back to his usual poker one — spoke up loudly and reclaimed the room.

"Even if it's not enough to push out the guys who overwhelmingly dominated in other groups, let's factor in what they pulled off today."

"……"

"We need to look at it objectively — whether these guys had that potential all along and just hadn't shown it, or whether what we saw today is the full ceiling of their output. The top ten are going to be Miro's next-batch first faces to the public, after all."

At an outcome that gave both sides their due, everyone nodded. So, of the five, who do we push up? At Suho's gentle prompt shepherding the mood, everyone offered their opinion.

"No reason not to put Doha in the top ranks."

"Obviously. Writing, composing, producing — and this time he pulled off a dance break on top."

"Wonho for me? I'd like to give him a decent score too. This choreo was his, right?"

"Seok… honestly, this is the first time I've realized he could do this much. Up till now he always came in with verses and things."

Wildly varied takes on the groupmates spread out. Watching Suho keep controlling the mood without adding a single word of his own, Taeil — who'd been quiet the whole time — asked in a low voice.

"You not saying anything, hyung? Isn't Kang Hajin-ssi the one you were pushing for?"

"You're one to talk. Looks like you're really fond of Hajin — throw a little support his way."

"Come on, if I chime in it's outright cheating. I've got to stay neutral."

"Same on my end."

At that reply from Suho, Taeil laughed with an air-leaking-out kind of sound and shook his head. That's what I like about you, hyung, but you sure keep public and private cleanly split at times like this. What'll we do if Hajin-ssi doesn't crack top ten at this rate.

At the muttered aside, this time Suho smiled and said,

"Well. Not sure that's a worry we need to have."

"Huh?"

"Look. It's decided."

Taeil turned his gaze where Suho gestured with his chin — the whiteboard set up for the meeting.

〈February 20XX Month-End Evaluation Final Rankings〉

It was the first signal of an enormous shift.