My deepest apologies for the incredibly infrequent updates. I was on vacation until the 25th. 

I'll be starting school in a week, but I'll still try to finish the story soon. Thankfully, I have Chapter 7 and 8 prepared already so stay tuned for that. 

Anyways...

“Annyeonghaseyo, Say the Name imnida!” We introduce ourselves using Seventeen’s catchphrase, standing onstage beside our opponents.

              We get into our positions nervously. We’re the last team up, and none of us are that popular. It’d be amazing if we could get any audience response at all – if anyone was even in the audience this late in the night.

              The music begins. “Yeah! All right! Say the Name! Let’s goooooooo ~” I shout out as confidently as I can.

              Hadon and Yul light up the stage with their experienced dancing skills. Sungwook charms everyone with his bespectacled look. Eunbi makes the fanboys scream with her silly expressions on-stage. And Yongjin, despite being a rapper, manages to sing sweetly and hit the high note. I do admit we’re a bit off-beat with our delivery, but at least we’re enjoying ourselves. Plus, none of us forgot our lyrics or choreography, which was a plus.

              Finally, our performance ends. To our surprise, the audience cheers, although not as loudly as for Woodam’s team. Understandable – Woodam had totally slayed that high note, more so than Yongjin did, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, the other team was a lot more cohesive.

              Both of our teams are gathered back to the stage, where BoA asks us a few questions regarding our performance.

              “Alyssa Kim, how did it feel to perform as the underdogs of the competition?”

              I take a deep breath, trying to think of a good answer. Too many thoughts are floating in my head right now. My first performance in front of such a large audience. I wish I could experience this feeling forever. “It actually worked out. We had no expectations going in, but it looks like we got a pretty good response.” I smile at the audience. “I still feel like we could have done a bit better. I hope this isn’t our last performance.” At that last comment, Hadon starts to tear up. I make sure to comfort him once we’re off the stage.

              “You guys did really well!” Jinyoung cheers upon spotting me backstage, squeezing me in a hug.

              “You too!” Yongjin exclaims, shaking Woodam's hand. “But Woodamie-hyung did the best out of everyone.”

              “Guys, let’s check how many votes we got,” I propose. We head over to the TV screen to await our results.

              Chanyul only gets 7 live votes, but he doesn’t cry or anything – he just looks a bit disappointed. Yongjin doesn’t do much better, only scoring 22. Sungwook and Hadon surprise all of us by picking up 51 votes each. That’s still quite a lot considering not a lot of people knew about them. I get 64 votes to my name, and Eunbi’s expressions give her a solid 95 votes. We might have a chance.

              Or not. Woodam amasses a whopping 270 points. That’s like, almost more than all of us combined.

              Accepting defeat, all six of us flock over to Woodam to congratulate him, and he melts into high-pitched sobs. Taedong chuckles, “He’s always like that. It’s cute.”