Chapter 59
I watched Only One’s stage while holding my breath. And it wasn’t just me, as all my group members focused all their attention on the stage. The waiting room felt more serious than ever.
‘This is insane...’ Only One’s performance exceeded our expectations. They just changed our song, “Walya” to “Moon Night,” but everything was shocking besides the melody. As orchestra instruments combined with the piano, it brought chills to the listeners. Among the numerous possibilities of musical arrangement, I heard with my Insight ability, I hadn’t heard of this one.
‘I guess the Insight ability isn’t invincible.’ Others could make something more outstanding than one that I could make with the Insight ability.
“...They are really good.”
“...So true.”
“Wow...the dance moves are really pretty.”
Yeon-Hoon, Do-Seung, and Woon said their heartfelt feelings. Their faces looked so genuine that I thought their scenes would be used for reaction cuts. Even Dong-Jun, who always appeared carefree, watched Only One’s performance seriously.
“I see. You can interpret the song like that too,” he said.
Only One’s “Moon Night” performance showed a completely different interpretation from our original song. Our original song had a sentimental background of scholars who walked the night in longing for their lovers.
‘Yet, I didn’t expect them to make the song about narcissism instead.’
They reinterpreted the song so that it told a tale of men who fell in a tragic love with themselves. Their dance moves showed them looking at their reflection on the mirror and stroking their faces. The most striking part was Kang Hyun-Sung and Park Young-Ho’s pair dance, which came at the highlight of the song.
–I endure this night again and again
–And for my precious self
Kang Hyun-Sung appeared with Park Young-Ho at the center. Then, he covered Young-Ho’s eyes and lips and acted as if he was slicing off Young-Ho’s neck. At that perfect timing, Young-Ho pretended to collapse and moved backward. Thereafter, Kang Hyun-Sung stood in the center and glared at the audience.
‘...Who is this guy exactly?’
Kang Hyun-Sung’s eyes clearly looked like someone suffering from deep narcissism; they were haughty and arrogant as if he thought of anyone besides him as a mere bug. It was fundamentally different from a face that a person would make while looking in satisfaction at the mirror. Others would find such behavior cringy, but Kang Hyun-Sung made the viewers understand. He didn’t simply wear a fa?ade of narcissism but deeply lived it.
‘Maybe he really is a bit in love with himself,’ I thought and wondered if Kang Hyun-Sung was truly a narcissist. The song quickly progressed until the outro.
–Moon, dear moon
–Shining blue
–My heart that I couldn’t tell you in the end
–I’ll bury my heart in this night and take my leave
When we sang the song, it sounded like the grumblings of a sorrowful scholar, but when Only One sang it, it sounded like a person reconciling himself while suffering from a curse. While all five members of Only One sang the outro, they stood in a circle.
Then, they took out black sashes from their pouches and covered their eyes with them and dropped to the floor right when the melody ended. In the end, it appeared that the narcissists had chosen to cover their own eyes to end the curse; and because they lost their will to live any longer, they fell limply to the floor. It felt intuitive and dreamy at the same time.
—Kyaaaaaah!
—Hyun-Sung!
—Waaaaah!
The audience hollered in feverish excitement. We all felt the enormous energy pouring out of the stage and became speechless.
“....Ha.”
“...That was amazing.”
“Wow...”
My group members shortly exclaimed and then finally moved their torsos back. They had been too focused on the performance that they didn’t realize that they had leaned towards the monitor. I also exclaimed while leaning my back onto the sofa’s cushion.
‘No wonder they won first place,’ I thought. That was how impressive their performance was. Not only did they utilize their space well, but the formation of the dance was also impressive, and their interpretation of the song was off the charts. And this time, each of the members did their keep and lived up to the concept. It wasn’t just Kang Hyun-Sung carrying his team again.
‘Each member did more than one person’s share.’ I saw a glimpse of the days of Only One at the peak of their career in my past life. But this wasn’t the time to just dwell in my astonishment of Only One’s performance. It was time to worry about ours.
“...What are we going to do?”
Truthfully, I didn’t think our performance lacked much in comparison to Only One’s. The quality of our performances was similar, and it was just a matter of personal taste on which one was more appealing.
We were also assessing Only One’s performance even higher than it should have because it was better than our expectations, but objectively, our performance wasn’t lagging. Yet, this could change because of the impact Only One’s performance made on us. Because of how well they did, we all felt fearful, and our morale was lower than before.
‘No, this can’t be.’ I felt suffocated. I clenched my fists so tightly that my palms turned white. I massaged my wrists to circulate the blood and said, “Um, well, should we practice a bit more right now?”
I felt too anxious to stay still, doing nothing. I looked at Do-Seung. If we didn’t get first place in this show, failed to make a new contract, and debuted under WD Entertainment, we would never be able to sell 100,000 copies in the first week. Since WD Entertainment would never come up with their own marketing strategy to promote, we wouldn’t be able to reach that number of sales no matter how hard we tried.
The reality was that even if we debuted from a sizable company, it was difficult to hit that number of sales. The best possibility was for us to win The Showcase 2, form a new contract with a big company, and release an album with their support.
‘If that’s impossible, Do-Seung will...’ I didn’t even want to imagine it. It was already enough that I experienced it once.
“Okay, let’s try matching our moves again.”
“I think it’s a good idea to recheck the difficult parts again.”
“Let’s try it.”
My group members and I got up from our spots and looked over the important parts of our performance. Yet, the more we practiced, my heart felt even more uneasy. If we did just as we practiced, our performance would be comparable to Only One’s, but in our current state, it seemed like that would be unlikely.
‘I should get it together.’ I reaffirmed my resolve again.
***
After Only One’s performance ended, Park Soo-Chul stared at the stage for a while. His surroundings were busy with cleaning and prepping the set for the next performance. Because of that, he could see the audience’s responses more clearly than before.
“Wasn’t that just straight-up crazy?”
“Wow, Kang Hyun-Sung, seriously...”
“When he did that duo dance with Park Young-Ho...”
The audience buzzed with talks about Only One’s performance. Most of them had a positive reception to it—no, it wasn’t just positive. They were wild about it. Only One’s performance today was one of the best that Park Soo-Chul had ever seen. Until now, all the performances that Only One had shown disappointed him. Of course, they weren’t a mess because Kang Hyun-Sung was in the group, and its quality was above other groups’. Yet, they had never been overwhelmingly better.
‘Kang Hyun-Sung is living up to his name.’ This was more than enough to make the audience forget all about the disappointing performances in the past.
‘But it’s concerning that this great performance is the opening.’ There were four more performances left, and the possibility of anyone upstaging them was very slim.
‘Is it even possible?’ Siren had the highest possibility, but it was basically zero. Furthermore, the audience would think even less about the other groups’ performances after seeing Only One. A boring performance would become twice the more boring, and the audience’s response would become even more lukewarm. This was something even good editing couldn’t change, and viewers would be able to tell through the TV screens.
As the producing director, he couldn’t help but want the audience to respond to each of the performances well. It was easier to edit that way and showcased how well the program was doing.
‘This is bad,’ he thought. He had to hope that audiences wouldn’t yawn while seeing the upcoming performances.
‘It can be anything. Someone, grab the audience’s attention back again,’ he thought while pressing on his temples.
In his heart, he half-wanted the audience’s response to change and half-wanted the audience to remain cold to other groups. If the latter happened, he thought he could edit and make the storyline in that direction. Then, the show could blatantly push Only One into the spotlight as they originally planned. Thus, Park Soo-Chul decided to continue watching to see how things played out and turned his eyes back to the stage.
***
While looking at the monitor, I barely held back from exclaiming out loud. After Only One, other groups’ performances continued.
‘What’s going to happen now?’ Because Only One had the opening performance, all the groups that came after them felt bland and lacking. This was expected since this was Only One’s plan all along. Luminin seemed to have become too nervous and even went off-key, and OnebyOne also made mistakes in their choreography and ruined their formation.
Though Bleshu didn’t make any big mistakes, they clearly looked tense, so they gave off an uncomfortable feeling. It appeared Only One’s plan was very effective, as they succeeded in overshadowing all the performances that came after them.
—Siren on standby!
“Haaa.”
It was finally our turn.
“We can do it, Siren!”
“We can do it!”
My group members shouted our cheer and lightly warmed up their bodies. While wearing the outfits I mended for them, they were rechecking their moves. There was nothing to fear. We solved the issue with our outfits, memorized the dance moves, and matched well with our backup dancers, and the set was cool.
‘Yet, it’s frustrating.’ It was hard to breathe, and I thumped my heart. I couldn’t feel much strength in my legs either. This was bad for the performance. There was no need for us to feel disheartened. I knew that our performance could be even better in my head, but my body didn’t listen to me.
‘Why am I acting like this? This is so annoying.’ It seemed my mind and body were in separate territories. I didn’t think I was scared of Only One. It was something else that I was scared of.
I was scared of losing Do-Sung again.
Then, just in time, Do-Seung approached me and asked, “Are you okay, Tae-Yoon? You look pale.”
“No, I’m fine.” I smiled awkwardly. I couldn’t tell my group members my fears. In the first place, they wouldn’t even believe me. After all, who would believe me if I said that I regressed, and a strange system kept giving me orders and threatened to kill Do-Seung if I failed? I organized my thoughts and was about to leave the waiting room when Yeon-Hoon called us from outside.
“Come out guys!”
And while we headed in his direction, Do-Seung grabbed my wrist.
“Tae-Yoon, are you really okay?” He asked me seriously. Because someone with an already scary face was making such a fierce expression, it was quite intimidating.
“I’m fine.” This was the only answer I could say.
“What do you mean you’re fine?” Do-Seung seemed intent on not backing down more than usual. “I saw you thumping your chest and massaging your wrist some time ago.”
I stared intently at Do-Seung.
“Are you in pain?” Do-Seung asked.
Maybe it was because I felt too emotionally cornered and stressed but I was unable to think rationally. There was nothing that could be done even if I said something right now, but the truth came out of me before I could think.
“...Yeah, I feel a bit sick,” I said.
Read 𝓁atest chapters at fr(e)ewebnov𝒆l.com Only