BEHIND THE SCENES

There was complete silence as everyone went off stage, even Seowoo looked unhappy. Bomseok just didn't know what to think. Kyungtaek had been there for the past 2 weeks, a steady rock to lean on. He'd really hoped to be a part of Kyungtaek's team one day. Now he was gone.

Kyungtaek was talking to one of the staff members when Alex all but tackled him into a hug, tears still streaming down his face. "It's just so unfair!" Alex managed to get out.

Bomseok stood a little away and watched, feeling a sense of bitterness and emptyness. They needed Kyungtaek! Why couldn't the viewers see that?!

Kyungtaek awkwardly pat Alex on the head. "There there," he said. "It's okay. I guess the viewers just don't like me very much, and who can blame them when there's guys as talented as you running around?" he said gently.

"The viewers are wrong!" Alex protested.

"I expect you all to create amazing things okay?" Kyungtaek said. "And listen to the staff and be on time, don't make their jobs harder than they already are."

Then he was called to do his interviews and left a big Kyungtaek-shaped hole behind. Remnants of the birthday party remained in the waiting room like a sick joke. The empty boxes of what was left of the cake and cupcakes and singular '4' candle, burned halfway before it had been blow out by Jaemin and Inshik. The tape of one side of the bunting took that moment to disengage and the string fell pathetic to the floor.

It ing stung.

He was also pissed at Changui but that was another matter. He was unable to shake the fact that someone who wanted to become an idol so bad was being eliminated for someone who was hardly making an effort. How the was that fair?! He didn't know how they'd been able to beat James' team in the votes, but a large part of him right now wished that they hadn't. He knew that it was a thing to do, but he really, really wished that they hadn't.

There remained a tense silence in the waiting room as one by one they were called in for their interviews, nobody quite dared to break it. Even Jeongha was quiet, poking at the cake stain that was still on his shirt.

It took a long time for them to be done, and team by team they were allowed to go home. Bomseok actually found himself waiting for Kyungtaek to rally all of them together to go to the bus that took them to the dorms, as he'd done many times before, but there was no Kyungtaek. He'd already left to go pack his things.

When he got home Bomseok fully expected to see Kyungtaek in the middle of packing, but instead the dormroom was empty.

"Where is Kyungtaek hyung?" Inshik asked, entering the room after him. "Where did he go?"

Jaemin opened the closet. "His things are gone."

Bomseok approached one of the staff members. "Did Kyungtaek hyung leave already?"

"He left about 30 minutes ago," she said. 

"No!" Alex protested. "How could he leave without saying goodbye?!"

Goddamnit. Bomseok wished that he didn't feel so responsible all the time. He wished he could just sit here and be upset, but he knew that these guys were all useless and he had to be the rock now. "He obviously didn't want to drag out his own leaving. We should respect that," he dragged the words out. "Come on, everyone to their own rooms."

After seeing the others to their rooms, he got into his bed, all alone in the rapper room. It took a very long time until Bomseok finally managed to fall asleep.

 

     
 
  "But is this really necessary?" Yeonhee asked. "It seems rather cruel."

"You know we have a schedule to adhere to Yeonhee," Carver said. They were in what functioned as an impromptu office for both Carver and Seona, though Carver was the only one present right now.

He did understand Yeonhee's reservations, the plans for the next challenge were going to be rough on the contestants, but they had a strict schedule to adhere to, a schedule that Seona had already altered to the annoyance of the production staff. Changes had to be made to accomodate that schedule.

"I know that," Yeonhee said. "But isn't it cruel to have-" A knock on the door interrupted her. One of the constants, James, poked his head in.

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" He asked, looking from Yeonhee's startled face to Carver.

"No we were just wrapping up, weren't we Yeonhee?"

She took only a moment to compose herself. "Thanks for hearing me out oppa," she said. "I will see you at the next staff meeting." 

As she left the room Carver turned back to James. "What can I help you with James?" This was curious, he hadn't spoken to James at all besides evaluations and judgings. He'd only spoken to a handful of contestants away from the cameras, and none had directly approached him.

"I want you to teach me how to sing," James said.

Carver raised his eyebrows. An interesting development.

He regarded James for a moment. He was one of the most promising contestants. A skilled dancer who was also a good leader, a leader who got results. Handsome, besides. He'd been mentioned in the weekly meetings as leader material for the final group. The only thing that was holding James back was his weakness in the other areas: vocals and rap. Carver was pleasantly surprised to see that James was proactive in seeing this changed. He wondered if James saw this as well as the judges did. "Why?"

"We both know that aside from my dancing my skills are lacking," James said. "My rapping was satisfactory in 2012 but with so many skilled rappers on this show I pale in comparison. Rapping on the same stage as them does not reflect well on me."

Carver nodded. Clever boy. "If you're really serious about this," he said. "I can agree to teach you two hours every tuesday and wednesday," He always had time to teach those who were bold enough to ask.  "You would have to miss a signifcant amount of time with your team. Are you willing to sacrifice that?"

"Yes," James said. "I'm willing to risk it."

"Then we have a deal."             Haneul paced in the hallway.

He'd excused himself in the guise of a break, not wanting the editors to smell blood in the water, but Haneul had just needed to get out of there.   Despite his protests, Jaemin and Yeonin were pushing for the main lines along with Inshik, leaving Haneul behind with nothing. Why wasn't anyone actually acknowledging his vocals? It was all Yeonin this, and Jaemin that. Even Inshik and Yoonshik got more recognition than Haneul did! For sakes he'd replaced Jaemin in the first performance, why was Jaemin still being talked about as one of the top vocalists?! Had anyone else been on Masked Singer and won 5 times in a row?? No??? Then what the hell were they still talking about?!
Put a mask on him and everyone praised his voice, take it off and all anyone saw was the visual from Pandora, a quick ticket to winning this competition but a respectable vocalist? Never!
  Hell, he'd sung half of his group's lines last week and he was still being overlooked! And when he wasn't overlooked he was labelled as greedy. Haneul wasn't greedy, but was it too much to ask to get some shred of recognition??

He should get back inside but he was just so- so frustrated. 

He understood people using him. Hell, he'd been used most of his career one way or another. All he wanted in return was to not be delegated back to the role of the visual.

He sighed. They were going to miss him if he didn't go back in soon. Brooding in the hallway wasn't actually going to fix any of his problems.

As he opened the door to the practice room he was hit by a very bad piece of harmonization.

"Seowoo you're singing the melody again, you have to get used to singing something different from what you hear," Yeonin said, sounding exhasperated. "And Yoonshik, you're supposed to do the main melody but you're constantly off, stop getting distracted by the ohter voices."

Haneul sat down on the empty spot of the circle surrounding Yeonin and the keyboard. Ugh harmonies, his only weakness. He'd learned to sing when he was already out of the group. He'd never had the need to learn.

Yeonin stopped playing the piano and looked up with that awkward almost blank look of his. Haneul could never quite figure out if that was just his face or if he really was empty headed. Haneul stop being so ing salty, but he just couldn't help it. It was one of those moods. Stop being such a colossal prick, Haneul. 

This was going to be a long week.
             

​It was early in the second day and Inho was sitting in the hallway writing his rap. For the first time in the show he could show something that meant something to him. This was about him.  About his own personal experiences. 
But this. This was something else. He knew it was supposed to be one of those boasting tracks but Inho was doing it a little bit differently. He'd never been good at boosting his own ego. He hadn't really achieved much in his life, not in the way that rappers in general cared about. There wasn't much to boast about.

He could boast about other things of course, and he had written tracks about how he'd started working to help support his family when he was 16, or how he'd had to step up after his dad left when he was 8 years old. But those were not things he wanted to get into on the stage of some idol show.

Not for the first time he was wondering what he was doing here. Why had he let Hanjin drag him into this? He wasn't idol material. Didn't even want to be an idol. Why was he here?

Focus, Inho. He had a rap to write.

Okay, so, instead of boasting about something empty, or boasting about something that was too real, Inho was just going to be honest. He wasn't the greatest rapper. He had consistently been trailing behind Hanjin for basically all his life. But those bad raps were his raps and he was still proud of them. And he was proud about how he'd never given up even when he'd had no time, or no motivation. Inho always steadily - and admittedly stubbornly - kept going. That was his greatest strength and his greatest pride.

So that's what his verse would be about.
He was buried deep in his thoughts, hunched over his notebook, when a voice startled Inho out of his own thoughts. "Why are you sitting out here?" 

Inho glanced up and saw James. Inho frowned. James hadn't been interested in Inho before so, in turn, Inho had been content to ignore James. What did he want now? "Working on my rap," Inho said.

"Where is Hanjin?" James asked. "You never seem to be far from him, like a little shadow."

Inho looked up from his notebook. What was that supposed to mean? He weighed his options. "I am capable of functioning without Hanjin," he said after careful consideration.

"Really?" James asked, sceptical. "You always seem to be together, I assumed you relied on him."

"He's my friend," Inho said. "But I don't rely on him." That assumption bothered him. As if he couldn't stand on his own. Inho could stand on his own just fine.

James leaned against the opposite wall lazily. "So you're saying you're not his shadow?"

"I think I'm done with this conversation," Inho said. He closed his notebook and got up.

"Something has been bothering me about you two," James said. "I couldn't help but notice how the scales are a bit unbalanced, aren't they?"

Inho warely looked back. "What do you mean with that?"

"Just little things. He does always take care of himself first doesn't he? Picking the dance heavy songs even though he knows his best friend can't dance to save his life. Taking just the right parts for himself."

"He gave me the bridge last time," Inho said, crossing his arms.

"He did yes. And did your aggressive performance not stand out wonderfully without any other rap parts to frame it? And let me guess, he's opening your performance this week isn't he?"

Inho narrowed his eyes. "I'm going to leave now," he said and turned back towards their practice room.

"Just think about it," James said brightly. "All you have to do is think about it and observe. You'll see."

 

       

"One, two, three, four," Daebak counted while going over the moves of his part of the choreography for the rest of the group. "five, six, seven, eight," He felt proud of how well the others were following his choreography, especially Hyuk and Hugo were working hard even though the moves were sloppy. He as still proud. He wished they'd hit the moves harder and be more assertive but that would come later. With enough work it would always come, he learned that himself.

But, the again, no reasone why that hard work shouldn't come now either.

"Hit the moves harder." He instructed Hyuk and Hugo after going over the sentence in his head first. That was how he always spoke Korean. First create the sentence in his head, make sure it's correct, then throw it into the universe. He always had to translate his thoughts first. It was honestly rather tiring but he always put the effort in to make it as perfect as he could, but he knew nerves could put a wrench into all of that. Still he tried to be as perfect as he could be. This was his language and his culture and he owed it that, after all. 

 "You have to... punch.. the beat-" Was that the right thing to say? Was it that in Korean too?? Wait, wait what if they didn't get it? He should add... something.... and example? "Like- like it's freezing and beat stole your vodka." 
Daebak laughed sheepishly but his heart dropped when nobody else did. Oh no. Oh no did he mess up? Was that not funny? Oh no that had totally not been funny why had he said that?! 

"That was a joke," Daebak quickly said into the camera, hoping to mend it before it could get worse.

"We've told you before, Daebak, please don't look directly into the camera," the cameraman said. He sounded irritated. , Daebak had messed up again.

"Where's James anyway?" Hyuk thankfully changed the subject. Daebak let out a breath. "He keeps disappearing." Hyuk was great. Hyuk was fantastic. Hyuk could be counted on to help him. Daebak hadn't forgotten how Hyuk and Haneul had helped him with his Korean, which tended to get a littel muddled when he got nervous.

"Where's James?" Hyuk repeats. Oh no Daebak had gotten too lost in his own thoughts! "He's been gone for over an hour and we could really use his help."

Daebak bristled at the mention of James. He was still angry about James trying to take over. Typical American behaviour, they always had to conquer everything they saw didn't they? No this was his project. "How should I know?" Daebak asked, with more than a little bit of salt in his voice. "He just does whatever he wants doesn't he? Typical entitled American," Daebak grumbled in Russian. 

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