Pressure

"Hello, hello and welcome back to Boot Camp!" Jongwoon is bright as ever as he gives his standard greeting. He's standing in front of the show's rented practice building. Notably, the sign advertising rental space has been removed and replaced with the Boot Camp logo.

"Last week we had something of a meltdown here at the Boot Camp studios, but we're continuing forward as scheduled! This week we're putting the final touches on our teams' performances with two tough-as-nails mentors! Will the groups be able to work out their issues, or does this mark the end of the road? Find out now!" He flashes a grin to the camera as it pans up to the sky.

The pan back down brings the scene to an external shot of the dorms, time stamped to seven in the morning.

Inside things are incredibly awkward as the participants move about in their workout clothes, making breakfast and generally trying to avoid one another. Even Eunchan has picked up on the mood and is remaining silent.

"I didn't think it would be that awkward, but after Solar and, um, the guys' mentor told us last night that we're basically failing as trainees everyone got really down." Jinyi shrugs uncomfortably in her interview. "I didn't mean to cause this, really."

Jisoo is a bit less defensive though there is a hint of remorse in her own explanation. "I was just frustrated. I didn't want everyone to stop getting along. I want this to go well you know!"

Back in the dorms, the silence continues to dominate the room until the door is tossed open and a cheery Jongwoon bounds in, closely followed by Gikwang.

"Good morning contestants! Ready to start your week?" The host ignores the tension in the air in favor of cheer, and Eunchan latches onto the positive energy.

"I am! What are we doing this week?" He replies, bouncing up off the couch as he does.

Jongwoon grins in reply. "Well your big performance is coming up in a week! So we're going to be making sure you're as ready as possible!"

"A week? We're barely able to stumble through it now! What makes you think we can do it in a week?" Akihiro's tone isn't accusatory, but his gaze is. "It's ridiculous to ask us to accomplish something like this with almost no time."

Jongwoon casts him a sidelong glace. "Idols prepare more in less." He notes. "Alright then, everyone into the vans! Your workouts are on hiatus this week at the request of your mentors, so if you want to hit the gym you'll have to do it early in the morning or late at night after rehearsals are over."

The groups quickly gather their things and exit, nearly everyone looking a bit confused by the change.

"I'll miss working out with Ahreum this week honestly, I don't really talk with anyone else." Jinyoo admits in an interview segment, fidgeting away as she stares at her feet.

"Maybe you should take this week to work on that then." Gikwang suggests.

Meanwhile, the men's van, driven by Gikwang, arrives at the usual practice building.

The group exits that van and looks around for a moment, clearly confused.

"Um, Gikwang? Where are the girls?" Hanhae asks. "They left right after we did."

However, the interviewer isn't the one who responds.

"I heard that you all walked out of your last rehearsal. I've decided we're going to finish that before we continue with this week's schedule."

The boys turn to find their new mentor standing in the doorway.

Park Jungsu grins at their surprise. "Good morning troops. Welcome to hell week."

The next shot shows the women's van pulling up to the main JTBC building.

The exiting participants look as confused as their male counterparts had upon departing the vehicle.

"What are we doing here?" Myunghwa pipes up, pulling out her schedule and consulting it in an attempt to alleviate her confusion. "We have dance rehearsal for the next five hours - shouldn't we be at the dance room for that?"

Jongwoon just grins knowingly and herds the girls past the front door and through the lobby, towards the JTBC stage where they'd had their final auditions.

"Seriously what's going on?" Even Jisoo seems a bit concerned about their unannounced diversion from their usual schedule.

But still Jongwoon says nothing as he unlocks the stage doors and shoos the girls in, before waving cheerfully and closing the doors behind them.

"Um..." Giri sounds distinctly nervous as she looks around the dimly lit room. "Hello?"

In response, the stage lights flick on, bathing the room in white light.

"Good morning girls! Sorry about that, Jongwoon didn't show me how to turn those on before he bounded off." A familiar voice sounds over the speakers, and the women look around in confusion and excitement. A moment later their mentor herself appears on the stage, practically glowing in the stage lights, and Jisoo lets out a squeal.

"Oh my gosh Kim Taeyeon? Take that guys, we get the coolest mentor!" She declares excitedly, awkwardness forgotten for a moment in favor of sheer enthusiasm for the situation.

The idol takes a moment to smile at Jisoo before regaining full professional composure. "Alright, let's see what you girls have. Up onstage. There are mic stands in the wings. I'll give you two minutes to get set up then I'm starting the music."

The women take a moment to process their mentor's sharp instructions before they scramble to get onstage.

"Leeteuk and I got an early screening of today's episode." Taeyeon explains in an interview. She's sitting with both Gikwang and Leeteuk, and a note onscreen mentions that Taeyeon is talking about episode four. "When we saw what a mess the groups were in we decided to change tactics."

"And what tactics are you employing then?" Gikwang sounds genuinely curious.

Leeteuk clears his throat lightly in order to get the interviewer's attention before he responds.

"Well, simply put, we give them an external enemy to focus on. They won't be fighting each other if they're too busy being mad at us." The SM leaders share a grin.

"You've used this tactic before I assume?"

Taeyeon laughs. "More times than I can count. And I'll warn you now Gikwang, if these groups aren't cooperating by the end of this week they're not going to ever get along."

Their plan is shown in action with the women in the next shot.

They're back in their regular practice room, but they're clearly still having issues.

Giri misses a step and Jisoo nearly runs into her. The dancer starts to get upset, but Taeyeon beats her to it.

"Giri what was that? You've had a week, even you should be capable of figuring out how to step sideways on time." Their mentor lectures sharply.

Giri stares at her feet, flushing, and Jisoo steps back, closing and looking awkwardly in the opposite direction.

Taeyeon ignores the awkward atmosphere and starts the music again. "From the top!"

The girls scramble to get back to their start points as the music plays.

"I thought our previous mentors were tough, but they have nothing on Taeyeon." Jisoo sounds uncertain as she assess their new trainer in her interview. "I actually kind of feel bad for the others. I'm the only one who hasn't been called out yet, but honestly..." She hesitates, as if the ending of her sentence is difficult for her to say, "I'm just waiting for when she does. It feels kind of inevitable that I'm going to mess something up."

"She's like this constant shadow judging every move." Jinyi is much more annoyed than Jisoo. "It's driving me crazy! Of course we won't be perfect, we aren't formally trained!"

Gikwang hums. "I'm, sure she has her reasons." He notes.

Jinyi grumbles. "And I'm sure you know what they are but won't share." She fires back.

Giwang just grins.

Back in rehearsal, Taeyeon is giving Jinyoo a dressing down.

"You're the main vocalist but I can barely hear you. Stage presence is everything in this industry and you have none. Chin up, and volume up. Show some confidence." Her instructions are sharp, and Jinyoo wilts under the critique.

Taeyeon moves on to the other vocalist. "Myunghwa I can hear you but I'm getting no confidence from you either. You want to be a singer professionally, is that correct? You have to be entertaining to watch, not just nice to hear. Again from the top!"

The girls are going with the back track played low so their vocals stand out clearly.

Jinyi is distinctly more stable in her opening lines, and the girls get through the first verse with little problem. Then Giri begins singing her section and Taeyeon waves for them to stop.

Giri starts to tear up before their mentor has said anything.

"Giri. I think you know what I"m going to say, since I've been saying it for two days now, so I'll save everyone time and jut say we're starting from three measures back."

The lead rapper nods mutely and the women silently shift formation to reflect the start time.

The men are as worn down as the women when the scene changes to show them. They're in the JTBC theater, marking out their dance to match the stage.

"Six-and-turn and Hadon no. Stop." Leeteuk's voice easily fills the auditorium as he directs the men through their choreography. "This space is slightly smaller than the practice room so you can't go that far off to the right. Our marking tape is blue, the girls' is red. Make sure you're following the right color. Take it from the top of the second verse."

"Leeteuk is a slave driver." Hadon is less than happy in his interview. "Barely any water breaks, and he points out mistakes every ten seconds."

Gikwang shrugs, attempting to appear neutral though there's the hint of a smile in his eyes.

"You know something don't you?" Akihiro is suspicious in his own interview. "About why our mentor is being so unreasonable."

"I wouldn't say he's unreasonable." Gikwang replies evenly. "Now if you could answer the question?"

Akihiro keeps his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Like I said, I think he's being unreasonable. I mean yeah, the guys mess around a lot but they've actually come pretty far in the past few weeks." He points out.

This time Gikwang doesn't try hiding his smile. "That didn't seem to be your opinion last week."

The scene transitions back to the men's rehearsal before Akihiro's response can be heard, and their mentor is pushing them as hard as ever.

"Hanhae your entire job is to pump up the audience and I'm falling asleep back here. Try again."

All five men are clearly exhausted, and a frustrated Hanhae makes it known.

"Look, if you want me to be energetic maybe don't keep yelling at me!" He snaps.

Leeteuk shows no reaction to Hanhae's anger as he simply shrugs. "I'm simply directing. Do it again."

Though there's a moment of hesitation, eventually Hanhae does fall back into formation with the rest of the group and they go again.

And then again. The scene fast fowards through nearly twelve attempts at the performance, with only a few being complete run throughs. None of the men is safe from critique, though Eunchan and Hanhae seems to garner the majority of the noticed mistakes.

Eunchan confirms this in his subsequent interview, though he's surprisingly chipper.

"Our mentor seems to think I mess up a lot more than everyone else." He states with a small shrug.

Gikwang raises an eyebrow. "Do you not think that?"

Eunchan shrugs in return. "Not really. I think everyone else is off. I don't make mistakes." He's clearly confident in his words, and Gikwang looks genuinely stunned by the response.

The next shot shows him with Leeteuk.

"All I can say is good luck. These guys are worse than I thought they'd be."

Leeteuk just smiles confidently. "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

The next shot shows the outside of the dorms. It's dark, with the moon still perched in the sky and the sun barely illuminating the tops of the lowest buildings on the skyline. A time stamp marks it as just past four in the morning on day three of the week.

Two vans pull up in front of the dark dorms and two figures exit one of them, while the other idles at the curb.

The interior of the dorms is nearly pitch black, until the front door swings open to admit the two figures. For a moment there's silence, before a loud alarm begins blaring through the space.

Jinyi's bleeped out swearing can be heard through the walls as the two teams are awakened by the alarm.

The lights flare on a moment later. Akihiro stands in the hallway, squinting blearily with one hand on the light switch and the other shielding his eyes as they attempt to focus.

"Good morning?" The Japanese man's accent is more defined than usual in his state of exhausted confusion.

Leeteuk grins from where he's standing next to Gikwang, who in turn looks quite pleased to be able to use his phone alarm again.

"Good morning Hiro!" The men's mentor is quite chipper as he responds. "Ready to start the day? We have energy bars and coffee in the vans so you all should head straight downstairs when you're ready." He pauses and then adds almost as an afterthought, "Actually be downstairs in five, ready or not. We have a big day today!" With that the idol excuses himself while Gikwang messes with the settings on the megaphone he's using to project the alarm to make it even louder.

The shot returns to the outside of the building, and on fast forward shows all ten participants exiting the building and heading to their vans within the five minute time frame.

The women's van takes off first, with the men's following shortly after. The scene transitions smoothly to one of the practice rooms, which stands empty for a moment before the women file in and get into position with no prompting needed from their mentor, who smiles and walks straight to the sound system.

"The girls are already getting the idea. Now that they're finding a rhythm that doesn't involve arguing I can start easing them into teamwork." Taeyeon sounds pleased in a brief cut away to an interview.

Back in the room the girls are going through their performance. There are some slips, but Taeyeon says nothing despite the nervous glancing over to her. When the music ends their mentor waves them into a circle.

"Alright, that wasn't your best go through. Does anyone have anything specific they want to point out?" The mentor prompts almost gently, but the women still look quite nervous.

After a moment Myunghwa gives a slight cough. "Um, during the second verse when we switch mics I was a step behind and I think I threw off Jinyoo." She looks over at the other singer apologetically. "Sorry about that."

Jinyoo shakes her head. "I'm always late at that part, it wasn't your fault." She mumbles, staring more at the floor than at Myunghwa.

Jinyi glances at Jisoo, as if debating whether to say anything, but she ends up looking away.

Instead, Giri speaks up, sounding genuinely upset. "I missed most of my steps and I still can't sing half my notes in tune."

Immediately the other women try to comfort her but Taeyeon's voice rises over their assurances.

"You've been working on that section with your vocal teacher, correct? She had full confidence that you would be able to do it by now. So why is it you're still struggling?" There's a challenge in the words, but they're surprisingly unaggressive after the onslaught of critiques Taeyeon had been firing off in the previous two days.

Giri stares miserably at the floor. "I just... I'm not a good singer. I came expecting to rap but then they had me sing and I just don't think I'm capable of doing that!" She gets dangerously teary as the sentence comes to an end. "I... I don't think I can do this anymore." She admits quietly.

Taeyeon regards her for a long moment before shrugging. "Alright then. Leave."

Giri's head jerks up to stare incredulously at their mentor. "...What?"

Taeyeon is already waving the others into formation as she responds. "Nothing is keeping you here. If you can't handle the pressure, then leave. No one is stopping you."

Giri is still stunned in her interview. "Can I... could I leave? Actually?"

Gikwang nods. "Absolutely. If training is too intense we're not going to force you to finish it. A lot of trainees realize that idol expectations are too much for them to handle and leave once their contracts are complete. Since you have no contract to honor you're free to walk out whenever you like."

Giri stares at the floor as she processes the reply.

The scene shifts back to the practice room, where the women, sans Giri, are on a water break while Taeyeon messes with the sound system.

"Do you really think Giri is going to leave?" Jisoo sounds worried. "I mean I knew she was stressed but I didn't know she was leaving level stressed. I thought it was just being tired like the rest of us."

"Since when do you care?" Jinyi grumbles.

Jisoo start to retort, and then glances over at Taeyeon and slumps back. "I always cared. Maybe too much about the wrong things and not enough about the team and I'm sorry, okay? But you have to admit it's been weird without Giri here."

All three of the others looks stunned by Jisoo's apology, and the dancer rolls her eyes slightly at the reaction.

Myunghwa recovers first. "Yeah, it has been odd. We're a team of five, not four. We should try and talk to her tonight, see if we can help."

The others agree and they begin planning their intervention.

The camera pans around to show that Taeyeon is smiling proudly as she fiddles with absolutely nothing.

In the men's practice room they're having their own crisis.

"What do you mean you can't talk? Dude I'm not taking your lines!" Hadon's tone is a mix of worry and annoyance.

Leeteuk intervenes before Hanhae can retort. "That's enough Hadon, if you don't want the lines we won't give them to you. Hanhae, keep drinking water it's good for your throat." He turns to the other three members of the male team. "Alright, let's hear what you all sound like rapping."

"Hanhae getting sick and losing his voice was not something I'd anticipated." Leeteuk sighs in his interview. "It's certainly complicating things. He can still technically talk, but this will only get worse if he doesn't rest his voice. I've seen what happens when you don't rest properly and I'm not putting these guys through that." He sighs again and runs a hand through his hair. "But it means we have to redo an entire section of the song and choreography, and they already weren't anywhere near performance ready to start with."

Back in the practice room, Leeteuk is showing none of his concerns as he briskly begins rearranging the dance. "Alright, this is actually not bad since Woojin spends so much time up front anyway. We'll focus explicitly on this section for the rest of the day and put it all together tomorrow." He claps and the men quickly fall into position, though Eunchan, for once, is frowning.

He explains why in a cut away interview. "Woojin already had a ton of lines and time up front. How come he gets the rap lines too?"

For his part Woojin is less calm than normal. "I'm not... sure how to feel, exactly." He chooses his words carefully. "One on hand it's an honor to be considered the third best rapper. On the other I have a lot more to memorize now." His eyes flick briefly to the camera. "And the lack of sleep isn't helping either."

That exhaustion is tangible in the subsequent shot of the men's rehearsal. All five look incredibly worn down, and the darkness outside the window along with the moon reveals how late it is, without a time stamp needed, though it is noted that it's day four of the week.

"The girls went home hours ago, don't you think we should-" Eunchan interrupts himself with a yawn. Rubbing at his eyes, he finishes the thought. "Head back to the dorms now?"

Leeteuk glances at his phone, and then at the group, before he sighs.

"Alright. I'll text Taeyeon and swap stage rehearsal spots with her for tomorrow morning so we can try and polish this a bit more." He sighs. "Let's get you guys to bed."

"I think we got a total of maybe twenty hours of sleep so far this week." Hadon laments. "I mean, I think the girls have been getting about the same but still. This seems to sort of go against Leeteuk's wanting us to be healthy thing. Hanhae definitely could have gotten better in two days tops if we weren't being worked to the bone day after day this week."

Leeteuk seems to have come to the same conclusion when he collects the men the morning of day five.

"Alright you got a three hours sleep in over the women." Their mentor sighs. "Which puts us behind but all this is quite unexpected so I'm winging it a bit." He turns to directly acknowledge Hanhae.

"Your personal trainer from the past few weeks will be swinging by later to bring you to our main practice this afternoon. For now, rest up. This will be the last break I can afford you for the rest of the week so use it."

Hanhae looks surprised, but he nods and immediately heads back to the bedroom.

"As for the rest of us, we're going to try and iron out the kinks in the new choreography formations before the women finish their time on the stage."

Hanhae peers out of the bedroom, back in his pajamas, to wave cheekily to the departing men before heading back to sleep.

"You had almost three hours free this morning, did you do anything other than sleep?" Gikwang questions in a subsequent interview with the sick contestant.

Hanhae nods cheerfully before carefully clearing his throat and answering verbally. His voice is raspy, and he winces slightly as he speaks. "Updated my blog."

There's a shot of Hanhae sitting at the computer monitor in the dorms grinning broadly as he types away before it cuts away to show the rest of his team in the practice room.

Leeteuk is standing in for Hanhae as they run the dance, and he's keeping up with the others incredibly well. In fact in certain areas of the dance he performs better than they do.

Woojin has clearly picked up on this and is casting glances over towards their mentor at regular intervals, checking his own form and timing against the experience idol.

"It was actually really nice to have him working with us." The actor declares in his interview. "It shows what top caliber idols are really capable of." He pauses briefly. "It puts all the work we're doing into perspective. This is just his daily life."

The men's practice goes on at a slightly sped up clip. As time passes all the guys pick up on Woojin's trick and begin watching Leeteuk when they can. Even Hadon shoots a few glances to the mentor, and even corrects his form once.

Leeteuk seems to notice, as he smiles proudly as he goes to stop the music. "Alright, there's about ten minutes until we need to head out. Take a water break and a breather. You're going to need it."

The men look at him uncertainly but go ahead and grab their water.

"So what are we doing at the stage today? We already blocked our dance for this weekend's performance, right?" Eunchan pipes up curiously after draining his second bottle.

Leeteuk smiles slightly. "Let's just say you'll be learning basic professionalism and leave it at that. You'll see soon enough"

A timestamp shows that it's early morning on day five. The women are in the JTBC auditorium, and Giri is with them.

There's a fade into her interview, where she's smiling softly. "After I left practice a couple days ago I really thought about what I wanted to do. And I don't think I really want to leave. I want to get through this, for my patients and for me." She looks up at Gikwang. "And the others all want me to stay too." Her smile brightens ever so slightly as she adds that, and Gikwang smiles in return.

Back on the stage, all five girls look rather groggy as they drag their mic stands onto the stage and match them with their blocking tape. They then wait patiently for their music to start, which Taeyeon initiates shortly after.

The music begins, and the girls go through the motions of their performance, dulled slightly by their lack of sleep.

However, they're snapped out of their drowsiness pretty quickly when one of the mics begins giving screeching feedback. The music continues, but he women stop, wincing and looking helplessly out at Taeyeon, who merely shrugs and waves for them to keep going.

Jinyi is the first one to attempt to get back on track, moving over two mics to her position and pushing Jinyoo and Myunghwa to the front of the formation.

Jisoo recovers next and joins Jinyi in their dance, with the other three finally jumping back in somewhat uncertainly as the feedback continues.

When the song is finished, Taeyeon stops the music and remotely turns off the mics. She then turns to the girls, frowning.

"Well that sounded terrible. Does anyone want to tell me what you should have done differently?"

The women look at each other uncertainly and Taeyeon sighs.

"Turn off the mics maybe?" She prompts, and immediately the group nods in realization.

"It was really obvious in retrospect." Myunghwa sounds extremely disappointed in herself in her interview. "But in the moment I was just panicking. I didn't know what to do."

The next few go throughs are sped through as nothing goes wrong, but on the fifth rehearsal one of the stage lights goes out and once again several of the women stop singing in confusion.

Jisoo, however, holds form and keeps singing, and the others quickly follow her lead and after a few seconds a different light flips on to replace the burned out one.

Taeyeon nods to Jisoo when the performance is finished. "Good job Jisoo. Everyone else, take note. If there's a technical problem you keep going. The stage crew will handle it."

Everyone nods, but when the music stutters and cuts out a few run throughs later, even Jisoo pauses, and Taeyeon sighs, shaking her head.

"We have a lot to cover today."

The men are put through several similar situations in their own rehearsal.

Their first go through is unimpeded by errors, but just after the music starts for their second run, a second backtrack kicks in, giving their sound a distracting echo.

The men all stop, confused, but after a moment the echo cuts out and they scramble to get back into their positions, with minimal success.

Leeteuk ultimately sighs and turns off the backtrack completely and the men all look to him, confusion still clear on their faces.

"If that happens in the future, listen to the first cue, not the echo. Sound techs will fix it pretty quickly. Also your headsets are tuned to the correct sound so just focus on those and you'll be fine."

Eunchan taps at his mic set curiously while the rest look properly apologetic.

Leeteuk sighs. "Sound issues are more common than you might expect from an industry that revolves around recording." He says. "Just remember that if it happens again. Let's go from the top."

"It happened again." Akihiro sighs in his interview. "All these mistakes happening are obviously engineered on purpose to test our ability to respond to them, right?"

Gikwang tilts his head. "And how would you say you're doing to that extent?"

Akihiro groans, rubbing his temple lightly. "Horribly."

"Alright guys take a five minute break." Leeteuk waves the sweating group off the stage and out of the spotlights. "If you need to go to the bathroom get your mic off first. There's a stage hand in the dressing room who can help you with that." He catches them all in a hard look. "And don't try taking them off without his help. This is expensive equipment and we will charge you if you break it."

Eunchan swallows hard and quickly scurries to the dressing room. Woojin follows at a slower pace, and the rest simply settle in the audience while Leeteuk heads to the sound booth.

When he arrives, he's greeted by Taeyeon.

"How are your guys doing so far?" She skips the formal greeting, and Leeteuk doesn't seem to mind as he walks over to the sound system and begins messing with it.

"Not bad. I think Hanhae getting sick wasn't as course-destroying as I'd expected, but they aren't really a team yet. I may end up leaving that to next week's mentor and just focus on the actual goal."

Taeyeon grins. "Poor thing. How much longer are you going to be though? You know SM only gave us one driver and I can't find Jongwoon anywhere to drive me back to the building."

Leeteuk glances up. "You're done already? Really?" He pulls out his phone. "It's only six. We're scheduled until ten at least."

Taeyeon shrugs. "None of the girls wanted to work on dance today, so I've been bored for the past couple of hours."

Leeteuk thinks for a moment, before he grins. "Want to help me out then? I could use a lady's touch with this bunch."

Taeyeon grins in return.

The scene shifts to the practice building, where the girls are each in private lessons.

Giri looks more focused than ever as she runs scales, and Jinyi is working with a vocal coach as well - specifically Myunghwa, who's pulled out her guitar again and is helping the rapper with her tone placement.

Jinyoo is with her own vocal coach, but instead of singing the two are talking.

"Projection can be tricky and is easy to do incorrectly, which will severely hurt your throat. You're still working on perfecting your basic techniques, I'm not sure you should try projecting your voice just yet." The trainer's words are cautionary, but his posture indicates that he honestly doesn't care one way or another.

Jinyoo stares at the floor, fidgeting away at te hem of her shirt. "I... I need to learn. To do better. Teach me."

The trainer shrugs. "Alright then ma'am. Let the records show that I warned you."

In an adjacent room Jisoo is also working on her vocals, and she doesn't seem very pleased.

"While I'm happy you took the initiative to come work with me despite no requirements to, I do need you to actually listen to me." Her trainer is about as happy with the situation.

Jisoo grimaces. "Well explain it better then!"

She's less frustrated in her interview, though she's still tense. "I decided to get proper vocal training so Giri and I can trade notes during water breaks and stuff, but my teacher explains things oddly so it takes a while before I can figure out what she means."

The scene transitions back to show the men working with their private teachers as well.

Hadon is quite a bit more active in his rap lesson, and Woojin is sitting in with him, working on his new sections. Eunchan is belting away with his own trainer, who almost looks pleased.

"Mr. Cho said I'm getting better! I knew he'd like me eventually!" The point of the lesson seems to have flown right over his head, however, and Gikwang just shakes his head at Eunchan's enthusiasm.

Hanhae isn't with the trainers, but instead is upstairs in the practice room with Leeteuk, going through the dance over and over.

Leeteuk watches his run throughs and points out mistakes and gives suggestions wherever he sees fit.

During one of Hanhae's water breaks, the idol sits beside him with his own bottle.

"You're improving pretty quickly. You may steal that lead dance title from Woojin at this rate." Leeteuk grins around the bottle.

Hanhae shrugs. "You're a good teacher." His voice is still rasping slightly and he winces and takes another swig of water.

Leeteuk smiles. "Most of my tips have been learned over years of screwing up dances regularly." He admits with a laugh.

Hanhae just grins back at him and they continue drinking in companionable silence.

The next shot is time stamped for day seven, and a countdown to the live performances starts in the upper right corner of the screen, ticking down the second quietly as the scene plays out.

All ten contestants are present in the JTBC theater, and their mentors are standing in front of the audience addressing the teams.

"In five hours you'll be performing live for the first time. Most of that time will be spent getting ready, but we do have time for each of you to go through your songs twice before the audience arrives. As such, the moment you're ready meet us backstage." Taeyeon pauses, and then nods to herself. "Alright, get going. Girls are in the left dressing room, boys in the right."

The two groups split, leaving their mentors alone in the theater. Taeyeon glances over at Leeteuk.

"So did things smooth out or are they still a stumbling mess?" She asks teasingly.

Leeteuk shakes his head, smiling good naturedly. "They'll do just fine. I had one of their mics go out yesterday and the response was flawless. They might not be the greatest team off the stage, but they'll handle themselves on it just fine."

Taeyeon nods. "Same with the girls. There' a foundation, but they're still awkward with one another. Especially Jinyoo." She frowns. "I worry about how she'll fare in the second half of the show."

"Not our worries to have." Leeteuk's voice is a gentle reminder, and Taeyeon sighs and nods.

"I know. I'm sure they'll be fine."

She backs up this sentiment in her subsequent interview. "I do think they'll be able to get through it. Even Giri, now that she knows she can rely on her teammates, should be alright. But it's not going to be easy."

Leeteuk mirrors her thoughts. "The guys were less dysfunctional than the ladies were at the start of the week, so they were always going to be alright in the next section. But I am somewhat concerned about Hadon and Woojin."

Gikwang raises an eyebrow. "Woojin? Really? He's been the most stable member of the men's team from the start, why would he be a problem?"

Leeteuk shrugs. "Just a hunch. It may be nothing." He looks to the camera steadily. "But in terms of a performance group, I'm pleased to say that the men are doing just fine."

Taeyeon smiles as well. "These women can certainly pull off a stage performance. We'll see how they handle the rest."

Next week on SuperStar Boot Camp...

"Now our teams know what goes into live performances."

After Jongwoon's voice quiets, the muffled sound of an audience plays over a pitch black screen. There are several flashes of the contestants standing backstage interspersed with shots of the filled JTBC theater. It ends with two flashed images of the groups standing on the stage, sweating under the stage lights.

"This week, we're shifting gears entirely."