Chapter 5 #2
Andy practically saw stars as the spotlight momentarily blinded him.
He glanced at Min Jae beside him, a wall of ice against the fire.
They had no chemistry. Worse. They had no connection.
Andy doubted he could pick Min Jae out of a crowd yet.
But the guy said he knew his part. That would have to be enough.
Andy’s eyes finally adjusted enough to see Hwa Young lift the microphone to her mouth.
“Ready?” He nodded. “Okay. Scrub the track back to an eight count before the bridge.” The bassline from the end of the second chorus pumped through Andy’s veins as Hwa Young tapped her foot and the music swelled. “And, five, six, seven, eight.”
Andy launched himself into the killing part choreography.
A rapid-fire sequence of mirrored moves into a sharp turn, pushing off each other’s backs, followed by a series of intricate, syncopated arm movements that brought them face to face.
Andy executed every step with the flawless precision he’d drilled for hundreds of hours.
His lines were clean. His timing was perfect.
And it was completely dead.
Andy wanted to scream. The space between them was a vacuum, cold and empty.
He was a dancer. Min Jae was a dancer. But they weren’t partners.
Andy tried to catch his eye, to force a connection, but Min Jae’s gaze was fixed on Hwa Young.
The tension was all wrong. There was no fiery, electric energy. Only stiff, awkward formality.
“Again!”
Andy’s mind raced as they reset. It was him. He wasn’t giving Min Jae anything to work with. He was too stiff. Too in his head. If only he’d tried a more formal greeting in the dressing room, meeting Min Jae where he was at. But, no. He came on way too strong. Too casual. Too American.
Andy pushed harder the second time, digging deep to inject more energy, more charisma. It didn’t help. He could’ve been shouting in an empty room. Min Jae’s sharp sigh when the music cut off only made things worse.
Hwa Young had finally had enough. “No!” She stomped towards them. “It’s barren. There’s no soul. Do you even see each other there? It looks like two different performances happening at the same time. Again!”
They went again. And again. Each time, the chasm between them seemed to widen.
Each time, Min Jae’s quiet huffing grew worse, shaking his head or defeatedly dropping his arms as they reset.
After the sixth failed attempt, Hwa Young stopped the music again, swearing and throwing her hands up in exasperation.
Andy stood and returned to first position, his arms shaking, a river of sweat on his brow.
“Hey, you need to relax,” Min Jae suddenly whispered into the ringing silence, not even looking over. “You’re a half-beat ahead of me on the turn. You should watch my shoulder, not my feet.” He finally glanced back, meeting Andy’s gaze. “Trust that I’ll be there.”
Trust? As if the ice king was anyone to talk about trust. Those were practically the first words he’d ever said to Andy without prompting.
But the shitty part was that Min Jae was right.
He didn’t trust Min Jae. He’d been trying to control the performance, to carry it all himself, to compensate for the distance between them.
And Min Jae’s blunt advice meant he’d felt it, too.
But he clearly wanted this to work as much as Andy, or he wouldn’t have said anything. A crack in the ice wall. “Okay.”
“Let’s try it one more time, seonsaengnim!” Min Jae called out.
Hwa Young chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before nodding.
She raised a twirling finger, signaling to reset the playback.
Andy counted down in his head as the end of the second chorus boomed.
Six. Seven. Eight. Now. He lunged into the footwork, letting his muscle memory lead him, trusting that Min Jae was doing the same thing.
Six. Seven. Eight. Turn. Min Jae’s back was there, tight against his as they pushed off and spun.
Andy found Min Jae’s gaze, locking on with almost magnetic force.
And, then, they were one, arms thrusting and waving in exquisite harmony, hips swaying in perfect rhythm, until the final half turn.
Andy dropped to his knees and spread his arms wide, trusting that Min Jae had already stepped behind him, arms raised to the sky.
“Yes!” Hwa Young called out. “Holy shit, gentlemen. That’s how it’s done. That’s how it’s done.”
Finally reaching triumph, Hwa Young excused Andy and Min Jae from the stage while she moved on with the rest of the rehearsal, focusing on the bottom third-ranked performers, who only entered for the final chorus.
Andy rushed backstage, making a beeline for the bathroom.
All the nervous energy buzzing inside him had taken its toll on his bladder.
Once he’d finished and washed up, he returned to his dressing station to towel off and change.
He desperately needed a shower, but that had to wait until he was back at the dorms. Leo, already back in his black track suit, stood at the station beside Andy’s, fixing his hair.
He chuckled the moment he spotted Andy in the mirror.
“I gotta say, Sacramento, I was worried for you up there.”
Andy huffed as he stripped off his jacket. “Believe me, I was way more worried than you. Dancing with the ice king–”
Leo interrupted him with a quick, sucking breath. Andy looked up, confused, to see Min Jae’s reflection, standing behind him.
Leo nodded toward Min Jae in greeting before stepping away. “I’ll give you two lovebirds a moment.”
Andy and Min Jae stood, silently regarding one another in Andy’s mirror. Andy screamed inside. There was no way Min Jae had missed that ice king comment.
“Hey,” Min Jae finally said. “Great job–”
“There you two are!” The PA who’d taken Andy to his morning intro and interview session appeared between them.
She held up a single finger, needlessly silencing them as she bent to speak into her headset mic.
“Yeah, I’ve got them both. We’ll be right there.
” She enthusiastically smiled as she looked up.
“We need you for a quick reaction diary in Interview Suite B. Now, please.”
Min Jae simply shrugged and nodded.
Andy mirrored Min Jae’s nod as he put his jacket back on, wincing as it pressed his cold, sweaty shirt against his skin. “Sure, of course.”
The interview suite was larger than the one Andy had recorded in earlier, but was otherwise the same brightly lit cube with the show’s logo plastered on the back wall.
The off-camera producer asked them to sit beside one another on a small, vinyl couch the same light blue as Min Jae’s collar while a pair of camera people and boom mic operators set up in the corners on the other side of the room.
They were to watch and react to video playback of their practice sessions, the producer explained, before asking them to sit closer together.
Andy scooched to the side, close enough to feel Min Jae’s simmering body heat.
He may have been the ice king, but he’d worked his body just as hard as Andy had.
A large wall monitor in front of them flickered to life. First, the producer showed them a clip of one of their clumsy, disconnected failures. Andy immediately cringed, the memory of his own frustration still fresh. “Yeah, that was on me,” he announced. “I was too in my head. My timing was off.”
Min Jae nodded. “We started off strong, but we didn’t stay in sync.” Not exactly coming to Andy’s rescue there. At least he acknowledged that they could’ve both been at fault.
They played a second clip, Andy loudly oof-ing when he watched himself miss a step. “I swear I practiced this routine at home,” he joked. “It only looks like it’s my first time.”
Min Jae nodded again. “It was our first time,” he suggested. “Doing it together,” he added.
The clip cut to Hwa Young scowling as she dressed the pair down for their incompetent performance. Andy chuckled. Seeing it on screen, she kinda looked like a cartoon villain. To Andy’s surprise, Min Jae chuckled, too.
“I’d always heard that Soh Hwa Young can breathe fire,” Min Jae joked. “This was my first time seeing it for real.”
The next clip was their final, successful run-through.
The difference was night and day. Andy saw how relaxed he looked as he danced.
You’d never have known he’d been intensely rehearsing for more than an hour.
His chemistry with Min Jae was palpable.
Their harmonious movements were easy. He felt it when he saw himself make eye contact with Min Jae. Connected.
“That was pretty good,” Andy admitted.
“It was better than pretty good,” Min Jae countered. “It was pure artistry.”
An unexpected warmth blossomed in Andy’s gut. Had the ice king finally thawed? And all it had taken was a half-dozen attempts and a furious choreographer.
“Wow, what a change,” the producer commented, warm and leading. “Min Jae, how did it feel when you two finally connected like that?”
Min Jae turned slightly on the couch, offering Andy an unexpectedly warm grin. “Andy’s a great partner. When you're performing that close to someone, you have to have absolute trust. I think in that moment, we finally found it.”
Andy was briefly struck speechless. It was like a happy, friendly ghost had sucked out Min Jae’s brain and taken over his body. Maybe he really was haunted. The producer turned to him.
“And you, Andy?”
Andy swallowed, caught completely off his game. “I’ve performed with a lot of dancers,” he finally admitted. “Min Jae is easily one of the best I’ve worked with. I can’t wait to do it again.”
The producer beamed. “Great. That was perfect, guys. Thank you.” She stood, catching Min Jae’s gaze. “We need to reshoot some of your intro package. There was a small sound issue this morning.” She gestured toward the door. “It should only take a few minutes.”
Min Jae nodded. “Of course.” He stood without looking at Andy, following the producer as she and the camera crew filed out, leaving Andy alone on the small couch in the suddenly silent, brightly lit room.
Andy sat there, his breathing the only sound in the deafening quiet.
His mind spun as he played back the moment when Min Jae called him a great partner.
Was that even real? There’d been no trace of that Min Jae when Andy had tried talking with him before the rehearsal.
Just the wall of ice. No, it had to be an act.
A polished lie because they were on camera.
He shook his head as he stood and walked away, leaving behind the echo of perfectly performed sincerity as he finally stripped off his jacket again.