Chapter 62

"Trainee Kang Hajin. When you first started prepping this song, you got a proper earful from me, didn't you?"

Taeil dredging up a weak spot before they'd even started — Hajin quietly bit down on his lip.

Tsk. Sure, I'd figured he'd ask — but did it have to be the first question?

Grumbling internally, Hajin nodded.

"Yes. Thanks to that, I gained a huge insight and was able to prepare for a big leap forward."

"I was originally supposed to check in with you separately yesterday, but I couldn't, due to fairness concerns. So right now I'm looking forward to this a lot."

"Mentor-nim, honestly, your unfailing expectations and attention leave us not knowing how to repay you."

"Ah, is that so? Then I can look forward to even more?"

"But have you heard the saying that sometimes people feel the most in moments they weren't expecting?"

"Who said that?"

"My mother."

"Ah, your mother…."

At the unexpected line, Taeil's face crumpled into a helpless look, and the studio broke into laughter again. A trainee volleying replies back without flinching in front of Seo Taeil, of all people — that was a pretty rare sight.

Wearing a 'this one's tough' expression, Seo Taeil gave a small nod.

"I have something I'd like to ask, too."

The one filling the studio's audio once the laughter died down was Enderway's Choi Yeonwoo. Mic in hand, he turned his eyes openly toward Taehyun's spot and asked:

"Honestly, I thought trainee Seo Taehyun would go with our song. You had the pick, right? Why didn't you pick ours?"

"……"

"Our song really would've suited you."

A voice carrying a bit of curiosity, expectation, and a subtle competitive edge.

Hajin quietly read Choi Yeonwoo's expression from across the studio. Setting Enderway's Choi Yeonwoo and Cherry Boy Seo Taehyun side by side, one name surfaced in Hajin's head on its own.

'That Cha Minseok bastard was in Enderway's debut lineup.'

Even in the previous life, Cha Minseok and Enderway had made a real show of their closeness. That friendship played no small part in why the two groups — with a fair-sized seniority gap between them — kept getting mentioned in the same breath.

Hajin studied Choi Yeonwoo's face again. What was Choi Yeonwoo really getting at with that question?

Meanwhile, Seo Taehyun — having quietly gathered his breath — lifted the mic.

"I think so too."

"……"

"But — you've probably already seen plenty of me doing well with what I already do well."

At his bold — but never conceited-looking — attitude, the studio's mood ratcheted up another notch. Whistles and laughter came from the mentors' seats.

"Alright then — just how new a stage have you prepared? A brief stage introduction, please."

Seo Taeil's lead-in cut through the buoyant mood. Hajin took the mic again.

"We've prepared Sarin-sunbaenim's 'To You I Declare.'"

"The original's so well-known — that must've been some pressure?"

"Yes, a huge amount."

Hajin nodded lightly.

"At first, we were pouring everything into the idea that we had to do justice to a classic. But after the midpoint check with Mentor Seo Taeil, we changed our thinking."

"How?"

"What Taehyun said just now — that's our new motto."

"……?"

"That you've already seen us do well with what we do well. We decided to sing our own kind of breakup instead."

"…Alright. I'll look forward to it. Please prepare your stage."

At Hajin's confident line, Taeil nodded. Soon the trainees could be seen heading down to prep the stage.

While the props and set pieces were being readied, one of the mentors — flipping through the evaluation sheet — let a comment slip.

"Getting past this original's feeling — that's genuinely going to be hard."

At that, everyone nodded — and she could feel their eyes flick over to her.

What kind of stage would they show?

Would these poor trainees end up as another set of sacrifices, buried under Sarin?

Under those familiar looks, Sarin just watched the stage quietly.

---

'What are they thinking of doing?'

Sarin, the original artist, thought as she skimmed the sheet of familiar lyrics.

'Already seen plenty of them doing well with what they do well?'

A cryptic thing to say.

So they're going to do well with what they don't do well? What kind of contradiction is that?

Right as her curiosity was building, along with a blackout, a light draped down over the stage.

Hmm— hmmm—

'…Humming?'

In the silence, humming in a clear, delicate voice rang out.

The light picked out one corner of the stage.

A boy with light brown hair, sitting at a desk, was humming as he wrote something down.

The soft scritch-scratch of pencil, pleasant to hear, filled the gaps like a soundtrack.

'Name's… Dan Haru. The youngest of the group.'

The trainee named Haru — round and gentle-featured, with clear eyes — soon set his pencil down carefully, as if he'd finished the letter.

At the same moment, a light came up on another spot on the stage.

A red mailbox, sitting there all on its own. But the boy hesitated.

♪♬♬♪♪—♪♪♩—

The top line of 'To You I Declare' flowed out, arranged for bells.

That familiar sound couldn't help but bring the bells of school days to mind.

Over that, with a soft synth pad laid gently underneath, the boy carefully folded the letter, tucked it into an envelope, and slipped it into the drawer of the desk where he'd been sitting.

Blackout again.

And then, along with purple lighting, an unexpected genre's intro burst out.

'City pop?'

At the flashy synth sound and the rhythmically driving electric bass, Sarin's eyes shot open.

On the LED backdrop, cherry blossom petals were scattering wildly against a sunset sky.

Five boys, each in a different school uniform, moved in unison to the song.

This is a letter to you, the one I loved

With a falsetto chorus, the boys moved lightly.

Taeil, taking each movement in carefully, realized that the choreography had borrowed from the jazz performance they'd prepped earlier.

'In that short a window, they couldn't have overhauled the choreo.'

The one thing that was different — small acting bits were woven into the light, bouncy choreo.

Even mid-move, the boys would glance at each other and laugh, or high-five as they switched positions — loose, easy, throughout.

Just like real high schoolers laughing and joking around.

This is a letter

to you, the one I loved

Are you listening

The clear voice of Haru — the trainee who'd been writing the letter at the start — rang out plainly. A polished intro, even though he was the youngest of them.

And soon after, someone strolled out to center, sweeping his hair back lightly.

A boy with something cool about his features, wearing only a school shirt and a loosely knotted tie — Hajin lifted the mic, that slightly cold look intact.

I think I might be doing okay

Even the beginnings we had, drifting up now and then,

don't hurt anymore

Hajin handled even the somewhat tricky rhythms without strain, pulling up the song's emotion in an instant.

Skill 〈What's So Me About Me?〉 — user's 'Vocal' ability improves by an additional 24%. Skill 〈Just As I Say〉 (LV.6) ▶▶▶ (LV.10) leveled up! As a passive of Skill 〈Just As I Say〉 (LV.10), user's 'expressive pull' deepens.

The power of skills he'd dumped a full 9,000 cash into.

The extremely slow verses met city pop's breezy tempo and brought the song to life. Sarin — with a bit of exaggeration — found it strange that her own signature song, one she'd probably sung several thousand times, felt genuinely unfamiliar.

Normally, teams cranked up the ballad's traits to the max to show off their vocals — but this crew had gone the opposite way and picked lightening the touch instead.

Maybe it goes like this (goes like this)

A breakup, maybe it goes like this (goes like this)

Even our ending, met without warning,

I'm growing used to it (used to it)

Park Jaeyoung and Jayden traded parts back and forth. The members who weren't on parts still made their voices heard through harmonies and choruses.

Possible only because the genre didn't demand anything hard or grueling in the choreo.

'…But when's Taehyun coming out?'

Seo Taeil, watching the stage with quiet satisfaction, shifted his eyes to Seo Taehyun — filling out formation at the far end.

Taehyun — mass-appeal-heavy and with a real knack for grabbing eyes onstage — always got his part before the first-verse chorus dropped.

That'd been the case ever since Boys of the World.

But today, they were almost at the first-verse chorus, and there was no sign of Taehyun heading to center.

"Why'd they give the B part to Jaeyoung? Taehyun could've taken this one."

"For me, more than that — the arrangement… the front part's fine, but by the chorus it needs to burst out, right? With this arrangement, that's going to be hard."

"Still, so far it's fresh, isn't it? Never would've expected them to bring city pop."

While the mentors traded remarks back and forth, the song kept rolling.

Woo— woo— woah—

The rhythm shifted, with five-part harmony behind it.

Boom, boom, boom — with a drum beat building the mood, the lights converged on a single spot.

Passing through unremarkable days, once in a while,

Clutching at time that only crawls, once in a while,

Hajin — carrying the expressive power and pull of Just As I Say at Level 10 — controlled his dynamics and hit the high note cleanly.

That much, and only that,

I'll let myself miss you

The end of our brilliant, blazing us

A fairly fast, complex string of movements followed.

With flowing motions, as if time passing and cherry blossoms scattering had been made physical, they crossed each other's paths and connected again.

And the one who slipped out through the middle to grab the mic was—

"That Taehyun?"

The moment he spotted Taehyun — the previously bright dyed hair now covered over in dark brown-black — Taeil let out a dry laugh.

However good Taehyun was at building stage immersion, handling a chorus this hard was another matter….

In that instant, every instrument dropped away — only the synth pad and bass rhythm remained.

Bye, Oh Bye!

Bye, Oh Good Bye!

And the end of us I kept sketching, over and over

Instead of the high note everyone had assumed would burst out, Taehyun's clean falsetto handled the note — an octave higher — with ease.

Just turning his head and stretching an arm on a diagonal drew every eye.

Taehyun grabbed the end of his tie with his other hand and carefully brought it to his lips. With a brief kiss on the tip of the tie as the cue, the instruments that had faded came roaring back in.

Bye, Oh Bye!

Bye, Oh Good Bye!

And the end of us I kept sketching, over and over

Taehyun's falsetto came back once more. This time it wasn't just Taehyun — on the same breath, all of them kissed the ends of their ties in unison.

The top line of 'To You I Declare' — the one they'd heard at the very start — rang out. And a short interlude followed.

"Oh my, what are these kids doing?"

At the dance trainer's remark, all eyes snapped back to what was happening on stage. Within paths that didn't get in each other's way, the boys were weaving all over the stage.

Watching the trainees move like that, Sarin realized something and let out a small "ah."

"…Time."

"Sorry?"

At Sarin's murmur, Upia's Cheong Hansol — seated next to her — asked back. Sarin laughed as if startled and pointed a finger at the stage.

"Time's flowing. Look — this one's turning into an office worker, that one's a college student…."

"Ah… oh, you're right."

Cheong Hansol, listening to Sarin, sounded startled too, as if he'd just caught on himself.

The trainees weaving all over the stage, one after another, shed their uniform jackets, put on glasses, or swept back their hair. Not dramatic changes — but enough that you could tell exactly what had shifted.

Ba-dum, boom — to a rhythmic drum beat, this time Hajin was the one bursting out to center.

In that moment, along with a brass band, the song naturally modulated up a key.

This is a letter

to you, the one I loved

The shirt, previously undone by a couple of buttons, was now neatly fastened all the way to the collar; sleeves rolled halfway up, tie pulled up snug — Hajin caught the modulated pitch as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

'This is supposed to be my song?'

Sarin let out a stunned laugh and set down her pen.

And she looked at Hajin — the twenty-year-old trainee who, thanks to pulling over a full 70% of the physique he'd worked so hard on back in his military days, wore that suit uncannily well.

You must be listening

Hajin's soft, low-register lead-in ushered in the second verse of 'To You I Declare.'