10. My what brings all the boys to the yard?

Clearing his throat, Henry looks around at the various trainees in front of him. It had been a just under four days since he and the other managers had handed out the envelopes and it was now time for the evaluations. Everything would be filmed – other than their comments of course – and it seems that even after a couple weeks broadcasting, a bunch of the trainees were still nervous in front of the camera. Regarding the group with a practiced eye, Henry turns towards Jisoo and raises an eyebrow, a wordless question in his eyes.

“The girls are being taken care of by Yoo-nim and Seohyun ssi next door,” Jisoo replies. “I think Sanghee ssi might be there as well.”

“Makes sense,” Henry nods before checking that Kyungsoo was ready before turning back to the crowd. “Alright guys, listen up, everything from now until we end will be filmed, edited, and uploaded onto the YouTube channel. So keep an eye out for that. Moving on, we’ll be starting our monthly evaluations. As per usual, only one group in this room at a time – everyone else will have to wait outside. Do we have any volunteers for first?” Silence overtakes the room, until a trainee raises his hand – only to have his entire group groan.

“Looks like you guys are going up,” Kyungsoo grins, an evil smile on his lips. “Everyone out please.” Standing up, Seungcheol pulls Junho unwillingly up along with him and the rest of the boys file out of the room. Sitting down in the cramped hallway, various other trainees immediately begin studying their lyric sheets or go over choreography.

“You’re not going to practice?” a trainee looks over at Seungcheol, raising an eyebrow at his empty hands.

“Nah, why stress myself up before the performance?” Seungcheol answers easily. “It’s kind of like how you shouldn’t study an hour before an exam, ‘cause then all you remember is what you crammed in before. I don’t want to get too caught up in little things I notice now and end up messing up.” The trainee frowns at Seungcheol’s explanation, but leaves him to his own devices.

“You have some good advice despite your exterior appearance,” Junho comments as Seungcheol settles back down beside him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seungcheol says jokingly, causing Dohyun to lean over from the other side of the hallways and smack him. “What are you doing anyways? You never told me what team you’re on.”

“It’s a secret,” Dohyun grins, putting a finger over his lips. “You’ll have to find out when everyone else does – meaning you better check the YouTube page after today.”

“Lame,” Seungcheol comments. “I bet you don’t know what I’m doing either.”

“You’re definitely rapping,” Junho points out. “There’s not much else you can do.”

“This is so rude,” Seungcheol whines. The other boys laugh at his misfortune, glad to have a distraction from the overwhelmingly dreadful atmosphere that hung over them. As the three older males continue to bicker and tease each other, the tense mood between the trainees slowly dissipates.

“Next,” the door opens and Kyungsoo appears, grinning wickedly as the previous group of trainees file out. Half of them look tired, while the other half is slightly upset over their evaluation. It was the norm, so no one really reacted. It was very rare that a trainee left an evaluation room without feeling at least a little remorseful. They could have performed and prepared perfectly, yet it always seemed that they had so much more to work on. “I think we’ll go with your group Seungcheol, since we could hear you from inside,” Kyungsoo calls out.

“Sure, lets go bros,” Seungcheol shrugs. San and Taewoo stand up along with Seungcheol and the three follow Kyungsoo into the room. Standing at the center, they wait for another staff member to change the recording tape before bowing to Henry and the camera.

“Introduce yourselves,” Henry says simply, adjusting his shirt.

“Hello, I’m YRB2016’s Song Seungcheol.”

“Kang San from YRB2016 reporting for duty.”

“My name is Won Taewoo and I’m with these guys.”

“Alright then,” Henry slightly cringes at the greeting. “So what’s the basis or concept of your performance?”

“Well,” Seungcheol starts, looking back at the other two only to have them gesture for him to continue. “We were thinking about a rap that would actually match the song you gave us – which was a plot twist by the way – and so we started thinking about topics. Then someone said something about it being university application season so we thought about that and this is what we came up with.”

“We also added in some dance moves because it seemed a bit lacking,” Taewoo steps in. “They were choreographed by yours truly,” Taewoo pauses, winking at the camera flirtatiously – causing Kyungsoo to gag off camera. “And we also recruited some other trainees to help us out with the dancing.”

“That’s fine,” Henry sighs. “It would’ve been nice if you cleared it with me first though.”

“I told Jisoo hyung though?” San tilts his head to the left in confusion. He observes the trainee manager with quizzical eyes as said male pales slightly when Kyungsoo and Henry turn towards him.

“Whoops?” Jisoo shrugs, trying to laugh it off.

“Well this will affect your evaluation Jisoo ssi,” Henry narrows his eyes while Jisoo visibly gulps. Observing the scene awkwardly, Seungcheol notes in the back of his mind that, once again, this wasn’t just a test for the trainees. The managers and interns who were working along with them were being trained and evaluated just as they were, only in under different criteria. In a way one could kind of say that they should help each other, since their success or failure depending directly upon the other party. A symbiotic relationship of sorts.

“Also, I’ll be judging you guys purely, not the dancers. However, if they do mess up, that’ll be your fault – it was your decision to include them in your performance so you will take responsibility for them, got it?” Henry adds. Taewoo nods while San goes over to call some trainees in to help them. Then, before getting into position, the boy gives Jisoo the USB and scurries into his spot before Jisoo can play the song.

The dancers are just random trainees because I wanted to use this song but I couldn't find one with just them- | Seungcheol - Rapmon (jeans), San - Jin (the only one singing), Taewoo - Suga (shorts/legs for days/all black)

The performance is interesting to say the least. Not anything you’d expect from the ‘rappers’ of the group, but enjoyable nonetheless. It’s actually kind of cute, although anyone who listened to the lyrics would be hit with a sense of realism. The whole concept is an interesting mix of something bordering cuteness with some hip-hop elements and a simple yet memorable dance. As they finish, the trainee dancers leave quickly, not wanting to stay behind and hear what Henry has to say, while San, Taewoo, and Seungcheol stand in a line to await their evaluation.

“That was cool,” Jisoo compliments first, before the other two can talk. “I’m not a rapper,” Jisoo glances quickly at the other two awkwardly, “but I do like how you took a different route with the song. I guess most people – with the hip-hop craze and all that – forget that rap doesn’t always have to be harsh and dissing.”

“Agreed,” Kyungsoo says, surprising Jisoo. “However,” Kyungsoo narrows his eyes. “The cutesy act, or whatever it is, threw me off. You all kind of looked awkward while doing it, maybe because you’re not used to it, maybe because you were holding back, honestly, probably because of your age, but it didn’t really fit. Some of the dancers – who were younger than you – pulled it off better than you.”

“And you don’t want your backup dancers outshining you,” Henry nods. “The dance was good, simple but effective, but at parts it seemed like you hadn’t practiced rapping or singing and dancing at the same time enough. It was innovative, I’ll give you that, and not all too terrible, but it could’ve been better.” Finishing his evaluation, Henry nods to Kyungsoo, who steps up to stop the recording and change the tape, while he continues scribbling something in his notebook. Jisoo awkwardly smiles at the three trainees, all with varying levels of satisfaction and apprehension, before they’re dismissed.

“How’d it go?’ Taeryung asks immediately as they leave the room. Taewoo merely shrugs, grinning a bit, but not as much as he had been when he went in. San looks away from the anticipating look in Taeryung’s eyes, fiddling with his thumbs in an oddly quiet manner, while Seungcheol ruffles the boy’s hair.

“Like all evaluations,” Seungcheol sighs. “You do your best, they say you could’ve done better, and then you leave feeling like dirty laundry.”

“Relatable,” Chihu scoffs, but his words don’t have the sarcastic bite like they usually do.

“They didn’t say anything about my vocals,” San frowns. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Well it was a rap evaluation,” Myunghwan points out. “And if they didn’t say anything then that means it didn’t stick out as overly bad or good. It just was.”

“What’s he’s trying to say is,” Junho steps in. “Is that it blended well with the song and you should be happy for that. Since it’s a rap based song if your vocals took away from the rappers there wouldn’t be chemistry between the three of you. Sometimes someone has to take the back seat.”

“I guess so,” San sighs, still hung over the whole evaluation but noticeably less frowny.

“Whose going next?” Bongjoon asks cautiously, stealing nervous glances at the door. He flinches when it swings open, revealing a sheepish Jisoo.

“You guys,” Jisoo points at Bongjoon before disappearing back inside.

“Way to go,” Hyukjin rolls his eyes. “You jinxed it.”

“I-I didn’t mean to!” Bongjoon stutters, only to realize that the rest of the group had already disappeared inside. He stumbles over his feet, narrowly dodging the door, before falling into line with the rest of his group. While he had been fighting his sense of balance, Hyukjin and Taekjin had already grabbed their appropriate instruments. Junho and Taeryung were there now, shifting through the many cords and wires, but were nice enough to bring Bongjoon’s cajon over for him.

“Alright, hello my name is Bae Junho,” Junho starts after Henry explains how the evaluation will go.

“Hi, I’m YRB2016’s Kim Taeryung!” Taeryung jumps up and down, whether in nerves or excitement he wasn’t really sure himself, but waves at the camera happily anyways.

“U-uh, I’m Im Taekjin from YRT2016,” Taekjin stutters and fiddles with his shirt sleeve as his eyes switch between watching Henry and the camera but manages to finish his greeting and even flash a peace sign at the camera.

“Hello, Ok Hyukjin,” Hyukjin says simply, bowing towards the trainee managers.

“I’m Yong Bongjoon!” Bongjoon smiles widely.

“And what will you be showing us today?” Jisoo asks, gesturing towards the instruments.

“Well we’re the vocal heavy group,” Hyukjin speaks up. “And so, we decided to arrange a song to suit our best strengths. We have high and low pitched voices, combined with certain rhythm preferences, as well as varying levels of skill in terms of instrumental care and musical theory knowledge so I thought it would be best if we did something of this calibre.”

“Basically he means we’re doing a band concept,” Junho clarifies. Henry nods and motions for them to get going. “Oh, we won’t need a backing track,” Junho says as Jisoo steps forwards to take their USB. Raising an eyebrow, Jisoo steps back and watches carefully as Junho adjusts the piano.

“I thought you played the guitar?” Jisoo speaks up before the group can start playing. “And I didn’t know Taeryung played an instrument?”

“I played a bit of piano when I was younger,” Junho replies. “I think pretty much every musician has. And Taeryung’s been learning from Hyukjin.” Nodding at the explanation, Jisoo steps back, although a bit perplexed by the scenario, before the group begins to play.

The performance starts off with a mellow sound, not fully fleshed out, just Hyukjin’s vocals leading the song. Soon enough however, the rest of the instruments join in, and the song evolves into a fun, fresh, exciting sound. While not fully pop in nature, it has certain elements mixed into a more lax tone. It wasn’t anything you’d find extraordinary catchy, but somehow, it kept your attention. The song sounded like something you’d listen to on a Sunday afternoon while going about your tasks. After the final note is played, the members all put down their instruments with varying levels of care before stepping out a bit to listen to the judge’s evaluations.

“That was an interesting choice,” Jisoo starts off. “I don’t know what I was expecting but I was definitely thinking something more of a ballad to show off your vocals – but this was a pleasant surprise. Singing isn’t all about belting out high notes, I could really see how some of you controlled your tone and level of voice here. Although that doesn’t extend perfectly to everyone, all the vocals were pretty good. Then again, everyone could always use some improvement, but it’s at a decent enough level.”

“I wasn’t expecting a rap from a vocal group for sure,” Kyungsoo adds in. “Much less two. But they were, interesting enough. From what I see here,” Kyungsoo looks down at the paper in his hands – with all of the song arrangements and choices written down, “this is a cover? But Hyukjin ssi, you rearranged it yes? That’s what I thought. It’s interesting to see where you moved the raps around, rather than having them one right after the other, you split them up. That could be both a good and bad thing, sometimes raps feel awkward and out of place without other alike parts beside it, which is kind of what happened here. But it wasn’t too odd, so I’ll let it past.”

“There was no dancing other than Taeryung’s intense jamming out at the back,” Henry starts, causing Taeryung to laugh sheepishly. “So there’s not much for me to say. However, there is something that caught my attention. Three of you know how to play instruments already right? You were fine, but Bongjoon and Taeryung… I understand you didn’t have a lot of time to learn, but their parts seemed a bit lacking?”

“I taught Taeryung as much as I could in the time allotted,” Hyukjin starts. “While I didn’t have enough time to go over the basics, I basically had him run through the chords he would need to know for the performance.”

“And it showed,” Jisoo frowns. “I think it would’ve been better to show him how to hold the bass and strum, while he played the right notes, he did not do so naturally – causing the notes to come out harsh and awkward. As if he was just waiting for the right timing rather than having the sound come out continuously. And in Bongjoon’s case… I already knew he had a good sense of rhythm from dance, and that helped you somewhat while playing the cajon, but did no one try and help him to figure out where the right places to sit and hit were?”

“Uhm,” Junho looks over at the other members, before coughing. “We thought it would be pretty standard and he found a site online he ended up learning from so we didn’t pay much attention to it.”

“Another mistake,” Jisoo sighs. “I think you focused too much on your strengths and not your weaknesses. Of course, it’s great that the majority of you can play instruments, but in a band-type group, one little mistake from an instrument throws the whole composition and group off. You three should know that. Especially if one of your weaker members is keeping the beat of the song.”

“Understood,” the five trainees chorus before Kyungsoo waves his hand dismissively.

“Learn from this okay? Send the next group in,” he says as the five boys hastily put their instruments away and scurry out of the room. As they leave, another trainee group is ushered in, and their left to stand awkwardly outside the door. The other trainees who had already had their evaluations had long left – the results wouldn’t be announced until the next day, so there was no point. Most of them usually took this time to either, train more, or have a free day while they could.

“I’m sorry,” Bongjoon mumbles, kicking the ground with his sneakers awkwardly. “I messed up, I should’ve asked for help or something when I couldn’t figure out how that stupid cannon thing worked.”

“Cajon Joonie,” Junho comes over, patting Bongjoon on the head. “It’s called a cajon. And don’t worry, we all messed up I think,” Junho looks over and watches as Taeryung and Taekjin nod their heads. Narrowing his eyes as Hyukjin stares at his nails in a very ‘everyone but me’ attitude, the other male eventually sighs before nodding along as well – causing Junho to smile victoriously.

“I messed up a couple times on the keyboard too,” Taekjin offers. “We definitely didn’t get enough time to practice.”

“We never do,” Hyukjin rolls his eyes.

“But that’s fine, look at how we did! We still showed a great performance even though we weren’t at the top of our game, imagine how we’ll be like when we’re perfected,” Junho points out. “And you heard Jisoo, our song choice was good and our vocals were great! Only problem was the instruments really, and we expected that, seeing how Taeryung and Bongjoon probably haven’t touched a guitar in their entire life. And even then no one made any major mistakes, only little things Jisoo ssi was especially picky about.”

“Yeah,” Bongjoon sniffles, glad that the team wasn’t blaming him.

“We did good,” Taeryung nods decisively, throwing his hands into the air. “Let’s go celebrate!”

“With what?” Hyukjin crinkles his nose in disgust. “Shouldn’t we practice some more?”

“All work and no play makes a man old and wrinkly,” San pipes up as the rap trio comes down from the hall. “I agree with little Ryungie over here, let’s go out for milkshakes or something! Cheat a little on that terrible diet.”

“Milkshake?” an unfamiliar voice pipes up, causing the two groups to turn. Upon spotting the owner of the voice, San’s jaw almost hits the floor. “I want to come.”

“M-Myunghwan?” Seungcheol blinks. “A-are you smiling?”

“That’s rude,” Myunghwan’s small smile at the mention of the flavoured drink immediately drops off his face.

“I think it’s a good idea to go out for milkshakes,” Dohyun offers from his spot beside Myunghwan. “After we finish our evaluation of course,” he nudges Myunghwan, causing the younger boy to grumble. “You guys can go on ahead without us, we’ll catch up.”

“Nah man, we can wait,” Taewoo shrugs. “I think you’re up next anyways. We’ll be in the lobby area.” Nodding, Jisang waves goodbye as the other boys leave before pulling Chihu and the others into a group hug.

“We can do this!” Jisang cheers.

“No one said otherwise you idiot,” Chihu snorts before the door opens and Henry motions the four boys in. The four trainees walk into the room, staring at the various cameras awkwardly, before Henry gestures for them to introduce themselves.

“Hello, I’m Dohyun,” Dohyun starts off, ending with a quick wink to the camera.

“Chihu,” Chichu offers hesitantly, still not very comfortable with being recorded.

“Bang Jisang,” Jisang says cheerily, making sure to shoot finger guns at the camera (and judges) while saying his last name.

“And I’m Myunghwan,” Myunghwan says simply, staring at the camera before smirking.

“And you guys are the dance team apparently?” Henry confirms, looking down at his notes.

“Yup,” Jisang replies. “We decided on this song together and made the choreography to it as well. Everyone got to design a certain part and we put it all together at the end.”

“Well, some of us decided on the song,” Chihu mumbles, soft enough as to not get picked up by the cameras (they weren’t given mics) but loud enough so Myunghwan raises a judgement eyebrow at him.

“Interesting, shall we get to it then?” Henry prompts and Dohyun immediately steps forwards with the USB. Turning it on, he runs back to place just as the other three trainees arranged themselves accordingly. After a couple seconds, the song begins and the four dancers get ready to show off.

As a mother I'm crying | Doyhun - Jihoon (striped jacket/flannel around waist), Myungwahn - Vernon (flannel around waist/no jacket), Jisang - Soonyoung (plain white shirt/Adidas jacket), Chihu - Chan (leopard shirt)

The dance starts off with the four dancers quite far from each other. As the beat drops and they start to move, the end up forming a regular square formation in the middle of the room before occasionally branching off and doing their own solos. The song is hip hop for sure, but a more lazy version, with no fast paced rapping or heavy beats, and it reflects the group’s style of dance. There’s a subtle power lining each move, the beats are hit but not overly so, and from the way the piece was choreographed, there leaves a lot of room for freestyle motions, allowing the four dancers to appeal to the camera and judges however they feel would be best. After the song ends, the four trainees fix their clothes before standing before the judges once again.

“That was a safe song choice,” Kyungsoo notes. “Not too strong but not soft or elegant enough for the dancing style to be contemporary. I can’t give you any points for creativity and intuitiveness, but you played to your audience – so that’s something.”

“The dance itself seemed a bit lacking though,” Henry pipes in. “While it was good and the solos were well thought out, the whole group dance didn’t seem very in sync. It feels like you four practiced a lot more by yourselves than you did together – and you worked around that by having less group dancing and more solos. While that does show your individual talents, group dynamic and synergy is another important factor when dancing – especially as an idol group. I hope next time you work on a choreography that actually has you four interacting with each other.”

“I don’t have much to say because I can’t dance at all,” Jisoo says sheepishly. “But I thought it was pretty good. Of course, from a professional’s point of view like Henry’s, he notices these things. But I think the majority of the public will love it.” Nodding at their comments, the group bows before leaving. Sighing as he leaves the room, Dohyun runs his hand through his hair.

“Well that was something,” Chihu scoffs. “But really, what were we expecting? It’s always like this.”

“True,” Jisang agrees and Chihu chokes momentarily on his spit. Jisang never agreed with him, mostly because Chihu was always a negative individual and Jisang liked to look at the silver lining of things, but it still came as a surprise. “But we can just do better next time.” Rolling his eyes at Jisang’s ending positive comment, Chihu grumbles a half-hearted agreement as Dohyun nods. Just as the older male is about to start spewing out an encouraging speech that would probably last the next century, Seungcheol appears and flings an arm around Myunghwan’s shoulder – only to retreat immediately when the other boy glares him down.

“I’m not even going to ask how it went, because it was probably the same as ours,” Seungcheol starts, grinning when Dohyun nods. “But you know what we all need after something like this? Sugar. And a lot of it. So let’s get going, the others are waiting.” Laughing lightly at Seungcheol’s statement, Dohyun and the others follow him into the lobby and then out into the streets. Mistakes or not, what was done was done. There was nothing else they could do at this point but wait for the results to come out.