He was still reeling in the aftermath of the brief Wave promotions when he returned to his normal training schedule and a coach pulled him aside to explain this month’s evaluations. And where he was exempt before, being neck deep in the MGAs, that would not be the case this month, now that he was back to being a normal everyday Nova trainee as if none of it had ever happened. It felt like a low after the huge high that had come from participating on the MGAs and promoting a single, and after everything, even after spending hour upon hour with them, he missed his team, believe it or not.
He was fortunate enough to get to see Wendy every day still, but somehow it felt wrong not spending days in the same practice room with just the four of them running the same routine over and over, getting fed up with each other as anyone who spends that much time together would, and then immediately jumping back into it after a breath of fresh air a few moments of freedom away from each other. It had almost been like debuting, what with being a part of what was almost an idol group and practicing for what were almost full length promotions, and he was feeling the after effects of that fact. It was like having a taste of something so delightful and wonderful and everything he’d ever wanted, a free sample of sorts, with no promises of getting the whole cake, the one still sitting on a high-up shelf behind plexiglass casing, taunting him.
The itch under his skin, the one that wanted him so badly to be someone, had been satisfied for the month he spent in some kind of spotlight, but now that it was gone again, with no hints of ever coming back, the itch was back, and worse this time, like an insatiable addiction. His mood had improved noticeably, his spirit rejuvenated, and yet such a fact seemed to conflict with that. It made him enthusiastic about the evaluations, which he knew were a chance to showcase his skills, to show how he’d improved during his time with Mnet and Team Nova, to show what he’d learned from the experience, the one that was unique to him, a long time trainee and a coach and member of the team, and to no one else the staff would see perform on the day of evals.
It felt strange coming back to it all. A month away from normal trainee schedules at Nova felt like an eternity, and by the time he was preparing for his own evaluation, it felt like all of his peers had paired up with each other to prepare their own stages, which only made him long for his time with Team Nova even more. He’d be on his own this month, and he had to show Nova that he was just as apt at that as he was working on a team.
Chatter about everyone’s personal preparations for the evaluations was constant, and he spent plenty of time debating which song he actually wanted to perform. What did Nova want from them? From him? Surely by now they knew he was capable of their idea of ‘cute’. By now, everyone knew it, and never let him forget it. He wanted to do something that he wanted to do, for once, something his style, that he could feel confident in. He’d considered Call Me Baby more than once, but he knew his peers held a similar interest in it, and he’d hate to be in the category of trainees doing the same song so many times that their own coaches would grow bored with it, or worse, compare them all and find him anywhere near the bottom of the list. It also wasn’t the easiest song to perform solo, not when half of the dance’s appeal was the group aspects of the choreography and the other half was all camera work. In a practice room lined with chairs and stern faces and a handheld camera on a tripod, a performance like that wasn’t exactly ideal.
It was easy then to narrow down his choices to one song, one he was visibly excited about. He wasn’t sure if they expected Press Your Number out of him, but if they were surprised, it could only be considered a good thing. It was a song he could put a bit of his own style into while still maintaining the steps and the feel of the choreography, and having never shaken the time a high-up staff member had called him Nova’s Performing Robot, he couldn’t help but think maybe putting his own spin on things for once would work in his favor instead of working against him.
Where he’d discovered this newfound confidence, he couldn’t be sure, but perhaps weeks of people looking to him for advice and guidance to dominate a competition and those same people winning the entire competition had done something to boost his lacking self-esteem. That, and the rapid progression of his relationship with Sohee had instilled in him a particular confidence in executing the complex routine as originally performed by the KT artist while maintaining hints of his own dance style in the process.
He felt different after it all, after the MGAs and Wave. Things felt different. Had he changed? He wasn’t sure what had changed, whether it was him or something around him, some aspect of his life that was too intangible to monitor so numerically. But whatever had changed, for now it felt like it had been for the better.
