Idol Hides His Military Service

It had already been three days since the teams for the Idol Ground 100 Position Evaluation were formed.

From the practice rooms in the dorm to every other space, everywhere was crowded with participants preparing their stages, and among them, the recording studio was especially packed.

And the engineer in charge of that recording studio, Lee Myeongsu.

Listening to the conversation between Lee Sion and Ryu Ayeon inside the recording booth, Myeongsu couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Whoa··· the mic looks weird and cool?”

“It’s a mic we use in the recording studio. It’s called a condenser mic, and it’s really sensitive, so it can capture tiny breaths and vocal nuances exactly as they are.”

“Haaaah~.”

“···We’re not recording right now, so it’s not picking that up, but still, quit it.”

Pff.

‘No wonder she’s a top-ranked participant.’

Whether it was her first time seeing a recording studio mic or not, Lee Sion was fiddling with it like a kid who’d just found some fascinating new toy, making weird noises.

Ryu Ayeon, trying to stop her, had turned beet red with embarrassment.

True to their status as popular participants, just watching them was entertaining on its own.

“Please get ready for recording!”

“Yes!”

But now it was time to work.

For the songs used in this Position Evaluation, all the dance-position teams had to pre-record their vocal parts with the voices of the team members who had chosen that song.

That was only natural, because even for active idols, singing live while doing intense choreography wasn’t an easy thing.

The production team knew it would be unreasonable to demand that from trainees who weren’t even debuted yet, so their intention was for the vocals to be replaced with recordings and for the trainees to focus solely on the choreography.

Especially in the case of the Bang! Bang! Love team currently in the booth, the song’s vocal difficulty was so high that it made you question what the production team had been thinking when they chose it as a mission song.

‘Whew··· this is going to take a lot of work.’

Preparing to start recording, Lee Myeongsu let out a sigh inwardly.

Bang! Bang! Love.

A song you’d wonder if even Korea’s top-tier female vocalists could pull off, being sung by trainees?

Just thinking about how much work it would take to polish the recording into something acceptable was already making his head spin.

“I’ll start now!”

But this was what he was being paid for, so Myeongsu pulled himself together and started the recording right away.

Soon, the backing track for Bang! Bang! Love flowed out into the booth, and

Bang bang love, shoot me straight

to your heart

Pull the trigger, baby, light up the dark

Boom boom fire, we’re never coming down

Bang bang love, let the world hear the sound

the voice of Lee Sion, who was in charge of the main vocal for the Bang! Bang! Love team, rang out inside the studio.

‘What’s with this kid?’

Listening to Sion’s vocal, Myeongsu was taken aback.

Powerful belting (a vocal technique that emphasizes resonance).

For this song, like the original singer Ash J’s vocal style, you had to explode into a belted high note, and Sion was managing to pull that off in her own way.

To be honest, Bang! Bang! Love was blatantly a difficult song.

To hit the high note cleanly like the original singer in the high sections, you needed not only abdominal breathing but also to use chest resonance.

The problem was, even while doing that, you had to pay extremely close attention to the rhythm of the song and to your diction.

The drum beat of the track was fast, so the key point was a diction that cut the lyrics precisely, and there were specific sections where you had to sing as if chopping up the rhythm for the groove to come alive.

In short, it was a very tricky song.

And yet Sion was imitating that feel at least roughly, so it was only natural that Myeongsu was surprised.

Of course,

“The part ‘Boom boom fire, we’re never coming down’ was a little shaky. We’ll go back and record again from that section.”

there were still many parts that were lacking.

She had managed to grab onto sections where she had to instantly bring out the feel of the song, but in other sections her voice wobbled slightly, and maybe because she still lacked experience, there was a sense of awkwardness in the groove.

Even so, the fact that she had captured the feel of Bang! Bang! Love to this extent alone was something that deserved plenty of praise.

On top of that.

Boom boom fire, we’re never coming down

Sion quickly corrected the part Myeongsu had pointed out on the very next take.

‘There are kids who can’t do this even if you direct them a hundred times···.’

Being able to accept directing immediately was one of the important talents of a singer.

“Okay, the vocal should be fine at this level, so next, please get ready for the rap part.”

All the other team members had already finished recording; only Sion, who was in charge of the main vocal part, and Ryu Ayeon, who was in charge of the rap part, were left in the studio.

Once Sion’s vocal recording wrapped up, it was time to record Ayeon’s rap.

‘The rap part is important for this one too.’

In Bang! Bang! Love, the rap part was emphasized as much as the vocals.

But Myeongsu felt a small spark of anticipation.

Ryu Ayeon.

The participant regarded as the most skilled among this batch purely in terms of ability had taken on the rap part.

***

“We’re going to start recording the rap part now!”

“Okay.”

Hearing the engineer’s voice announcing the start from outside the booth, Ayeon quietly took a deep breath and loosened her tension.

‘I can do it.’

Rap wasn’t originally Ayeon’s specialty, so she did feel a bit of pressure, but among the team members, she was the only one who could even somewhat handle rap, so she had no choice but to take it.

Yeah, lock and load, my pulse going quicker

Taste of your lips, that poison’s killer

Danger’s sweet, and I’m addicted

One more hit, and I’m convicted

Of course, just because no one else could do it didn’t mean she intended to half-ass it.

Doing a sloppy job just because the role she’d been given wasn’t in a field she was confident in was one of the things Ayeon hated most.

“Okay, I think that sounded pretty good?”

Pouring all her focus into the rap recording like that, Ayeon bowed her head to the engineer who’d given her the okay sign and asked to record one more time.

“I think my pronunciation got a bit tangled, can I do it just once more?”

“Ah··· sure, then we’ll go one more time.”

Even after he’d given the okay sign, when Ayeon asked to re-record, the engineer looked slightly startled and flustered through the window.

“Ayeon-ss, aren’t you overdoing it a bit?”

“I can do it.”

Even Sion, who had stayed in the booth despite her own part being finished, looked at Ayeon and asked with concern if she wasn’t pushing herself too hard.

‘This time has to be different from last time.’

For Ayeon, who had felt the previous Group Battle Mission’s bad stage was her fault, the only thing on her mind now was wanting to present a perfect stage.

***

“Ryu Ayeon is insane.”

“Was it that bad? Why did it take so long to record just those two?”

“Because Ayeon re-recorded literally dozens of times.”

Even when the engineer gave the okay sign, Ayeon would bow her head and ask, “Just once more, please,” and re-record dozens of times.

To my ears, someone who didn’t really know rap, it sounded incredibly convincing, and the engineer seemed to think so too, but even when he said it was good, Ayeon, like she was possessed by something, kept bowing her head and asking to record again.

If the engineer had been a restaurant owner, Ayeon might’ve been kicked out as a nightmare customer.

“Jihae unni, is this part of the choreography okay for you?”

“Oh, it feels good, why?”

“I thought you seemed a bit awkward when we tried it with the choreo earlier.”

“R-right? I’ll pay a little more attention to it.”

“Thank you.”

Now too, as soon as we got back to the practice room from the studio, Ayeon had gone straight to our leader Yoo Jihae to discuss the choreography.

“Jihae unni is really nice, huh?”

“Yeah. She really feels like a real unni!”

“What? Then what about me?”

“You’re our commander. You said that’s higher.”

“What a smart ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) little kid.”

Maybe thanks to my education, clever middle-schooler Im Yunkyung, who’d learned the greatness of the commander, got a pat on the head from me, and I thought about Ayeon for a moment.

‘Isn’t she pushing herself too hard?’

From the very first day, Ayeon had kept a distance from the team members.

At first, I’d worried she might end up clashing with the team, but surprisingly, even if she kept a physical distance, it was obvious she was making an effort to communicate with the others.

Even now, wasn’t she the one taking the initiative to approach and actually discuss things?

-If you end up in the same team as Ryu Ayeon, you’re screwed.

Since our team was formed, I remembered what a participant who had been on the same team as Ayeon in a previous mission had said to me when we ran into each other by chance and they warned me to be careful.

They’d vented at me about how she was self-righteous and didn’t consider her teammates at all, and then left.

But I listened with one ear and let it out the other.

You can’t know people until you collide with them yourself.

And Ayeon, as expected, was different from the rumors.

She was more like a hedgehog that curled up not because it wanted to hurt others, but because it didn’t want to get hurt.

I didn’t know the reason for that.

It was just that, when it came to Ayeon, what worried me was that she was overdoing it too much.

-I’ll try tweaking the choreography a little more.

Honestly, I wasn’t really in a position to say anything when I was also practicing until dawn every day, but to me, watching her devote herself to choreo-making almost as much as I did, Ayeon looked like she was pushing herself too far.

I knew she wanted to create a slightly better stage, but by digging into even the tiniest details and trying to personally handle every single thing, it felt like she was overloading herself.

Thanks to that, the team members were growing more and more exhausted from the constantly changing choreography and what felt like ever-increasing difficulty.

Because of this, I’d considered stepping in to stop Ayeon, but since we hadn’t even had the mid-check yet, I decided to watch a little longer first.

For some reason, whenever I looked at Ayeon, it felt like watching a glass of water filled all the way to the limit of surface tension.

It was still holding, but in a precarious state where you never knew when it might spill over.

“All right, guys, let’s start practicing again!”

“Yes!”

While I was chatting with Yunkyung and organizing my thoughts, our break time ended.

At Jihae’s words, as leader, the team members formed up in formation again and gathered in front of the practice room mirror.

And standing in front of those team members was Ryu Ayeon.

♬

As Bang! Bang! Love flowed from the speakers, the team immediately began dancing to the choreography Ayeon had created.

“Stop. Yunkyung, raise your arm, and Gahyeon unni, raise yours too.”

“Okay!”

“Yeah!”

Pausing the music for a moment, Ayeon gave them instructions, and Im Yunkyung and Lee Gahyeon quickly corrected their movements.

The music started again, and the team continued the choreography.

“Stop. Geum Shinyu, you don’t have to go any farther out there, just go exactly that far.”

“Okay!”

If there was even the slightest misalignment in the team’s choreography, she would immediately stop the music and move into corrections, so just running through a single three-minute song once took about thirty minutes.

“Then from now on, Jihae unni will take care of Gahyeon unni, and Nayeon, you take Shinyu, and I’ll take Yunkyung and we’ll practice the whole choreo.”

“Yeah, since tomorrow’s the mid-check, let’s hang in there just a little more and get the choreo matched up.”

Stick and carrot.

‘Surprisingly, the balance is exquisite.’

The combination of Jihae and Ayeon was better than I’d expected.

-When I teach others, I can’t just half-ass it. Are you really okay with that?

Until now, Ayeon hadn’t interfered in the practice of the other team members besides me, but she had now started to oversee the practice of the whole team.

Of course, as she herself had said, she didn’t let even the smallest movement slide, so the team members were having a really hard time.

Originally, the title “tyrant” had been reserved for Seo Ryujin, but watching Ayeon’s practice coaching, I wondered if I should reassign that title.

However,

-Ayeon-ah, let’s rest just ten minutes, okay? I’m on the older side, you know? Cut me some slack.

Jihae, as leader, stopped Ayeon’s tyranny at just the right timing and soothed the team members, so surprisingly, the balance worked out well.

-Once the company commander gives the troops a sharp scolding, I’ll take them out for a smoke and smooth things over.

The combo of Jihae and Ayeon reminded me of the first sergeant I’d worked in tandem with during my days as a company commander.

Thanks to that, the team members were struggling, but just barely hanging on. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

“Ayeon-ss··· why am I the only one who doesn’t get anyone assigned to me?”

“···You can handle it on your own now.”

“Huh?”

But leaving only me without a one-on-one coach felt a bit too harsh.

So I went up to Ayeon and begged her to coach me too, but without even making eye contact, she coldly pushed me away, saying I could do it alone now.

‘If I whined like this, Sluggish Ryujin would give in, she’s strict.’

With no other choice, I had to practice on my own.

***

‘What exactly is she asking to be coached on?’

From where she’d been pushed away by Ayeon and had gone off to a corner to practice alone, Kim Nayeon watched Sion with a sense of disbelief.

Right now, Sion was checking her movements in the mirror by herself.

To be honest, her level of mastery was so high she looked nearly identical to the original choreographer, Ayeon.

Of course, there were still differences in the detailed parts, but to an ordinary viewer, it would be impossible to tell what the difference was, and it wouldn’t be strange if someone asked whether Sion had made the choreography herself.

And yet she was asking to be coached on her practice.

Nayeon could completely understand why Ayeon had been dumbfounded.

“What do you think is different between what you did and my movement?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean the move you just did.”

“···Everything?”

“Not everything, but about ninety percent of it was different. Let’s try matching the angles more and putting a little more force into it.”

“Okay!”

Watching Ayeon coach Im Yunkyung for a bit, Nayeon felt an entirely new emotion.

‘You’re about to start walking my path too.’

On the surface, Ayeon still looked as expressionless as ever while dealing with Yunkyung, but to Nayeon, who’d watched her from the same team over the past few days, there was a subtly different attitude from before.

And Nayeon knew better than anyone that this was the beginning of getting unconsciously drawn in by Sion.

“It feels like something’s missing without Yunkyung’s reactions.”

Right now, Sion was muttering to herself, engrossed in the choreography.

Watching that, Nayeon couldn’t help but think that the one who should be coaching wasn’t her, but Sion.

***

“Are the kids getting ready well?”

“We wouldn’t know even if we watched them, so we’ve just been waiting for you, Jungyoon.”

In the MPlay broadcasting station lobby, Lee Jungyoon exchanged a brief conversation about the program with Idol Ground 100’s main PD, Kim Miyoung.

The broadcasting station.

Among them, MPlay was a special place for Jungyoon.

Before she became a famous choreographer like she was now, she had come here countless times as a backup dancer for singers, so it was only natural the place held a lot of memories and felt special.

‘You’ve made it, Lee Jungyoon.’

And now she was appearing on a program at MPlay not as a dancer, but in the capacity of a judge, so Jungyoon was feeling her elevated status with her whole body.

From Korea’s leading agencies that now requested choreography drafts from her,

to the point where running into people who recognized her even just walking down the street had become an everyday occurrence.

Even right now, the program’s main PD was speaking to Jungyoon gently, asking her to take good care of tomorrow’s mid-check.

A level of treatment she never could have imagined in the past.

‘All of this is thanks to dance.’

But Jungyoon never forgot that the reason her treatment had changed so drastically compared to her backup dancer days was her skill in dance.

So when it came to choreography, she could never compromise.

Especially tomorrow’s mid-check was a place to evaluate the participants’ skills by position, so Jungyoon steeled herself to prepare for judging with an even sharper and colder eye.

She felt sorry for the participants, but if they’d prepared a half-baked stage, they’d better be ready to get chewed out.