Yesung pinned his chosen number to his clothes and walked out to the room he was told to go to. Following the director’s instructions, he was meant to stand under the category he had chosen in the preliminaries so, without thinking much of it, he went straight to the area labeled ‘Real Unknown Singers’.

Once he took his spot, he let out the breath he had been holding and took a moment to look around. Some of them looked familiar and smiled back at him when they made eye contact. After many years in the industry, he was bound to recognize several faces in the room. This was a singing competition for people who had already debuted after all.

They were just the unfortunate ones that didn't reach the spotlight or were forgotten.

Yesung couldn’t tell which one of those two descriptions would fit him better. Both could work.

He fell into the rhythm of reacting with the other contestants whenever someone walked in worth giving a reaction to. He saw one of the vocal trainers that taught some rookies in a competition show a while back. One of the contestants was someone he recognized to be the bass guitar player of a band he used to listen to. Yesung even saw someone he was pretty sure used to be a trainee around the same time that he was also one.

Soon enough, all the contestants of the show were in their respective categories. Lee Seunggi showed up to introduce himself as the emcee and began to explain the rules. 

Apparently, they would be referred to as their numbers now.

He glanced at the ‘4’ printed on the pin he chose earlier and sighed. It doesn’t really change much. Yesung could admit it was a pretty interesting concept. The goal of the show, after all, is to make their names known. Being referred to as numbers seemed quite insane, but it does add to the mystery that might make people want to learn their names.

And, anyway, it’s not like Yesung’s name was that well-known. He didn’t really have much to lose.

While other contestants were chatting to each other about how nervous they were or how excited they were, Yesung just quietly chose to wait at one of the seats that they had prepared and decided to take his time to calm down. Years in the industry, but he never did completely overcome stage fright.

Unfortunately for him, his category was up first and they would need to walk up to the stage as a group before they get called one by one for their turn. Yesung took a deep breath before following the others and facing the judges.

There were eight judges sitting at their own table on the platform above them. Eight A’s were placed above each of them which would indicate whether they voted for you or not, according to the director earlier. Yesung had been satisfied with the list of judges that was revealed a few days after the application opened. It was why he started to seriously consider auditioning in the first place. All of the judges were respected in their own fields and he knew there would be something he could learn from them whether he won this competition or not.

Yoon Dohyun sat near the end of the left side and Yesung couldn’t help but feel excited to see him. The senior judge was part of a band that had songs he listened to. His folk rock music was something Yesung enjoyed playing on loudspeakers once in a while. It was an honor to be judged by him.

He went further down the line to glance at the rest of the judges but stopped in the middle when he noticed the head of the junior judges looking directly at him with wide eyes, speechless with shock. When Yesung realized who it was, he sent the judge a polite smile before heading backstage again after they were signaled to do so.

When they were placed in a smaller waiting area, Yesung just kept going through the lyrics of the song he would be singing in his head. He didn’t leave room for any other thoughts and didn’t bother to talk to the other contestants because everyone was starting to feel on edge as their turn came closer.

He felt like he had been too focused on not getting nervous that he didn’t realize he was already being guided to the stage and was being told to start walking to the center. Yesung found himself blinking up at the bright lights, under the stares of the judges, almost missing the question that Seunggi had asked him. 

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. I think.” Yesung answered with a nervous smile. It was fortunate he was one of the contestants who would be having the short interview session on stage after the performance and not before.

“Fighting! You’ll do great!” One of the judges, Lee Haeri, cheered for him off-mic. Other judges sent their own supportive smiles, but Yesung couldn’t really focus on them. 

“Let’s see what kind of singer we have today. Singer 4 is…” Seunggi paused as the words Yesung had chosen appeared on the screen behind them. “‘Hidden Main Vocal Singer’? Very interesting. We’ll get to see the performance of someone who is a hidden main vocal then.” He gave Yesung one more smile before walking away.

The lights by the judges dimmed down and he could see the blurry reflection of the screen behind him on the shiny, black floor of the stage. This was all supposed to help ‘set the mood’, but the only mood Yesung was feeling at this point was stress and fear.

But the music started, the sound of drums and guitars filled his ears, and Yesung’s past experience has at least programmed him to automatically start singing the moment he was meant to. He was given the option of singing one of his songs or doing a cover. His friends suggested that he do the first song he came out with when he debuted as a solo artist, but that was something he had wanted to leave behind despite how thankful he was for how well it was received. He thought of doing one of the songs he worked on with the band, but they surprisingly rejected the idea, saying that he should at least play something people would know because a familiar song would make people more interested in listening.

한참 동안을 찾아가지 않은 저언덕 너머 거리엔
오래전 그모습 그대로 넌 서있을 것 같아

He chose a rock ballad — a compromise. He did love Boohwal’s ‘The More I Love You’ and has it on his playlist. Yesung was advised to play to his strengths in this competition, and while he knew that others would say ballad was his strongest, he often disagreed. This song should be able to display his vocal talent well while being in a genre he genuinely loved.

There was a slight desperation in the way he sang, which could be an advantage since the song was meant to be sad. The nervousness he had been feeling was pushing him to do better and it allowed him to reach the notes he had practiced every day for the past few weeks. He wanted to do this well. He wanted to do this one song with all that he can just so he can go home with no regrets no matter the results.

What was meant to be a couple of minutes felt like an hour of singing to him, but it was over after one final note he belted out. There was a spotlight on him that blinded his eyes but, once everything had settled and the lights had gone back to normal, he finally saw the votes.

“Congratulations, Singer 4! You have 7 Agains!” Seunggi exclaimed as he approached. The emcee was clapping and guiding him to stand in the center, oblivious to the fact that Yesung was close to tears.

Yoon Dohyun himself chose to comment first. “That was an amazing performance. Are you in the rock genre, then? That sounded like a performance that only someone who loves rock could perform.”

“Thank you,” Yesung cleared his throat, trying to stay calm. “I wasn’t always in rock. Actually, I’m still not completely in it because I like working with other genres. But I do love rock and rock ballads. I’m actually a fan of your music.”

“Ah,” Dohyun smiled in thanks. “That’s so nice to hear. Can I ask what genre you worked on before?”

“I was mostly working with ballads when I was a solo artist. Then, before that, I worked in a group with pop songs, I guess? But that tended to change a lot too.”

“That’s so interesting to hear because I feel like you were just made for rock. This was absolutely incredible.”

Yesung bit his tongue to stop the tears. “Thank you.” 

“It’s so cool you were in a pop group before, but now this performance? It’s not something a lot of pop singers nowadays can easily do.” Haeri commented. “But the title you went for — ‘Hidden Main Vocal’ — does that refer to your time in the group?”

“Kind of.” Yesung nodded. “It’s partially because I usually work with a band now as the main vocalist and yet we’re not really known. But yes, I was chosen as the main vocal for the group and yet most of my parts were hidden in the songs. I was singing adlibs in the back and rarely came up front, so the fans didn’t get to know me much.”

“Now, they can learn about you!” Seunggi said with a smile before turning to one of the judges in the middle. “But we should also ask the judge who didn’t press the Again button for his reasons, right?”

Cho Kyuhyun was already prepared to speak with his mic.

“For the record, I agreed with every single comment so far.” He started, trying to wave off the other judges’ teasing for not voting. “He did great. Singer 4 has done such an amazing performance. But, full context: I know him. And the group that he used to be a part of.”

Song Mino gasped from his chair beside Kyuhyun. “Is it Super Junior 06?”

Kyuhyun sent a smile to Yesung. “Not really. Singer 4 is a sunbae to me. He was in 05 and I was in 06.”

“Oh!” Kim Eana exclaimed from the other end of the table. “No wonder you seemed familiar! You’re the vocalist in Super Junior 05! I worked with you on a ballad song before! You also released a ballad after ‘gr