Chapter 7 #3
They shifted into a dance rehearsal after that, propping the tablet on the floor against the mirrored wall to watch as they mapped out their parts, the first tentative steps into a long, grueling week.
Andy’s days soon began blending together.
Starting out, he was always the first one in the practice room every morning, making sure everything was set for the day.
But the others soon got the hint. They had no other reason to be at Sky Village.
Nothing else they could’ve done would be more important.
Not even sleep, since Andy usually kept them there long after the camera crews had wrapped for the night.
He knew his fire could only keep them warm for so long.
They’d need to add some fire of their own to forge themselves into a winning team.
That started in the vocal booths. Min Jun had the voice of an angel, but he lacked the confidence and, more importantly, the training to properly hit the high notes.
When his voice started cracking, Andy stepped in, not as team captain, but as the instructor he’d been for years, running him through breathing and vocal exercises, teaching him to understand his power and range.
When Min Jun finally nailed the notes–pure, powerful, and sustained–the look of shocked triumph on his face was a bigger victory for Andy than any field day prize.
The rap line found their groove soon after.
While the dancers rehearsed, Leo and Peak regularly haunted the far corner of the practice room.
Leo would be hunched over his notebook, his sweat-covered brow furrowed as he tweaked and played with the rhythm and rhymes of his verse, finding the perfect blend of timing and flow.
Peak would be on his feet beside him, a barely-contained bundle of kinetic energy, coating the mirror with spray as he literally spit his rhymes, sharpening his diction as he wrestled with some impressive runs.
Through it all, the dancers drilled and drilled.
Late one night, during a grueling session, their exhaustion started to show.
Formations got sloppy. The energy–and the mood–seriously dipped.
As they reset for the tenth time on a particularly complex transition, Sun Yi Zhe, an accomplished dancer and martial artist from Shanghai, completely missed his mark and ended up tangled with Seo Jin, an eager young dancer from Busan.
Yi Zhe collapsed in a heap and burst out laughing.
“Okay,” he admitted, out of breath. “I think my feet just revolted and divorced my brain.” The whole room cracked up, the tension instantly broken.
As much as Andy was afraid to jinx himself, he began to admit that everything was going well.
His team was only getting better. Tighter.
He felt good. Confident that he’d be leading his team to an easy victory.
At least, that’s what he remembered feeling on his way back from a bathroom break.
Practice Room One–Min Jae’s team–was closest to the bathrooms, but its door was always closed.
That evening, it was open. Naturally curious, Andy paused, glancing inside.
There was no chatter. No laughter. Just the whisper-soft squeak of ten pairs of sneakers on the polished wood floor.
Min Jae’s team moved in silent, terrifying precision.
A flawless machine. And Min Jae ruled them all from the center, stone faced, his every movement a display of brutal, finely-controlled power.
Andy walked away, shaking his head. Min Jae’s team had absolutely nailed the song, too. But they’d gone for technical perfection. Andy’s team went for heart. It was up to the Dream Makers to decide who’d chosen the right path.
But Andy also had a secret. The bridge. After a full week of all-day practices, his team had caught their own fire.
Min Jun was hitting the high notes like he was born for them.
Peak and Leo would break into spontaneous rap battles, sharpening each other's skills and tongues.
Yi Zhe, Hyun Woo, and the rest of the dancers were totally on point, their formations tight and clean.
Everyone looked and acted like a team. No, an idol group.
A single, cohesive unit ready for battle. It was Andy that had fallen behind.
Andy stayed late that night, long after the others had gone to bed, running and re-running the killing part until well into the early morning.
Practice Room Seven had become his personal torture chamber, set to the thumping bassline of DAZ3’s perfect all-kill hit single.
A fitting soundtrack. He’d hit a wall. A solid, immovable stack of bricks named Kingmaker.
The killing part was killing him. It was a fucking brutal sequence.
A series of belting, high notes that required the full, sustained power of his lungs, all while executing a sequence of dizzyingly complex, off-balance footwork.
He could do one, or the other. He hit the notes with no problems at all when he stood still.
He nailed the sharp, precise footwork when he didn't have to sing.
But doing both at the same time was impossible.
His breath would catch, his final note would crack, or his feet would get tangled.
Andy kept all this from his team, of course. He was their leader. If they saw him still fumbling this badly, this close to the performance, their own hard-won confidence would shatter. He had to fix it himself. Alone.
Andy reset, took a deep breath, and launched into the sequence again.
He focused on his core, on his breathing, on the music pounding from the speakers.
He got through the footwork, but the final note came out as a strangled, airy gasp.
A failure. He dropped his hands, letting out a frustrated groan that echoed in the empty room.
Head down, close to defeat, he walked over to the sound controls and rewound the track to the end of the second chorus.
When he looked up, his sweat-soaked, defeated reflection stared back at him. And he wasn't alone.
Min Jae leaned against the far wall by the door, half-hidden in the shadows.
His chiseled, bare chest glistening, arms at his side, with his sweat-stained t-shirt in hand.
His hair wet and messy in that perfect way it took Andy way too long to achieve in the bathroom mirror.
Probably practicing late, too. Or maybe he was cruising the practice rooms, deciding that he, too, had put it off for long enough.
Andy had no idea how long Min Jae had been standing there.
Long enough to see him make an ass of himself, for sure. And probably loving every moment.
Pursing his lips, Andy turned away from Min Jae’s silent, stone-faced gaze.
Embarrassed and annoyed, he set his jaw and ran the part one more time.
But having an audience made it even worse.
He stumbled out of a turn, nearly tripping over his feet.
A complete, spectacular failure. He stopped, loudly huffing, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Enjoying the view?”
Min Jae didn’t move from his spot by the door. “If something's not working, you should just change it.”
Andy stared at Min Jae’s reflection, his brows angrily bunched together. “What?”
Min Jae quietly sighed. “You’re the team leader.” He pushed off the wall to leave, stopping in the doorway. “You should act like it.”
Then Min Jae was gone, the door clicking softly shut behind him, leaving Andy alone in the sudden, ringing silence.
He stared at the ghost of Min Jae’s reflection, the aftermath of the advice bomb Min Jae had dropped hanging in the air, a radical, dangerous, and utterly defiant idea taking root in his mind.