words: 319
recap: raekyung’s picked to debut in hydra
Raekyung can remembering being picked to debut in Hydra vividly - mostly because the process was long and the amount of times he had lost hope was uncountable.
There had been an announcement that a new boy group was debuting with, originally, ten members. That in itself had given Raekyung enough hope; in the year or so before he had constantly been amongst the top trainees and now he had a chance to prove himself - and he had it. Some twenty trainees were singled out by the coaches, unbeknown to them, and were monitored. Raekyung, being one of them, had noticed the extra attention but paid it no real attention, brushing it off as them wanting to see his progress more.
Then some fifteen trainees were taken out of group training sessions and trained on their own. Being one of them, Raekyung went into every session filled with determination and joy; he was getting closer and closer to debuting, closer and closer to making his parents proud of him. He remembered how, one by one, a trainee would be pulled and it was obvious that they made the final group. First went Cian, then Sebin and then Sieon. He got worried, mostly because he was the ninth one out of ten picked.
The feelings he had after being picked were - and still are to this day - indescribable. He felt joy, speechless half of the time, and also a little sad; he enjoyed trainee life for all the struggles it brought. The phone call to his parents was emotional, again, full of joy. They were proud of him and reassured him multiple times, almost to the point where he was crying over it. He loved his new group mates, loved his manager and the dorm was decent. He was content with the road his life was going down but, in a matter of months, all of that would crash around him.
Hana went into this week within higher hopes than the last. Last week, her outlook had been weighed down by her drop in rank, but this week, back at number two and within the top four, she felt ready to take on the world. She’d had a wake up call, had worked her ass off to get back where she wanted, and now she was raring to go to make sure she stayed there.
She was excited to hear that this week’s tracks, rather than being existing group covers, would be songs created especially for the show, and was even more excited when they brought out the producers who would be helping the trainees. Those she recognised, she admired, and those she didn’t she assumed were good, or they wouldn’t have been asked. With people like Shrines up there, they evidently were not scraping the bottom of the barrel with the producers they had chosen.
When it was announced that her group mates for this week would be Hyunjoo and Raekyung, Hana felt pleased. She got on relatively well with both of them as people, Raekyung being a, though Hyunjoo was also good company when he wasn’t hitting on every girl in sight, too. They were also both talented and at a similar level to her, having been usually in a similar rank in the boys ranking as she had been in the girls. The fact that between them, they covered all three main training disciplines (vocals, dance, and rap) was an added bonus, as was the addition of Ghost as their producer. Although Hana knew him better as a vocalist than as a producer, she respected and admired him as an artist, and she figured that anyone who had made a living as a producer and writer for so long before debuting as an artist had to be good at their job.
Hana went into the studio brightly optimistic, but she found her high hopes somewhat dashed when she heard the song the were supposed to be putting lyrics to for the first time. It was very poppy and reminded her somewhat of an Aura song, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just not really her style. She expressed this to their producer at the end of a particularly long session trying to figure out lyrics, who in turn admitted that he’d been commissioned to produce a beat in this style, and that it wasn’t really his favoured style either, but if the group worked hard then they could all make the best of it. After this, she decided to give her all to make the song as tolerable as possible, and threw herself into helping write and learning what they’d written as quickly as possible. Their theme, though a little cheesy, was something she could get behind, and although Hyunjoo likely wasn’t all too pleased with the lacking choreo, Hana was pleased there wasn’t a lot of dance to learn.
By the day of the performance, Hana was feeling fairly confident - if not wholly in the song, at least in her ability to execute it well. They’d practised not stop, and worked really well as a team, to the point where the work they’d put in and how they’d made the song fit them to the best of her ability actually made her like it better. She encouraged both her teammates before the performance, particularly Raekyung as he had seemed somewhat nervous during the week, and to her surprise, Hana found herself actually enjoying the song as they performed it, an unforced smile on her face the whole time. Somehow, the song had grown on her more than she had realised.
Overall, she was happy with their take on the week’s challenge. It hadn’t been the best week for her, but it also wasn’t terrible, either, and that was always a good thing.
When Yena was informed of the week's plans, she was happy, to say the least - everything about it seemed so much easier and more fun than the week prior. What she wasn't so happy about, however, was the team she would be working with. Two of them were absolutely fine, and then... Chanmi. Yena didn't have any personal beef with the girl, but she had experience working with her for the second episode, and.. Oh boy. She was really a handful. Yena had had a hard time keeping her cool. However, she was still going to try her best to only focus on helping the team and improving herself, not picking fights - that wasn't who she was or who she wanted to be known as.
The first day that the team got together, Yena was all smiles and motivation. She wanted nothing more than to make her teammates feel comfortable and content with her. But, after the lines and positions were distributed, she became a bit more serious. Her mind switched into work mode, rather than play mode, and she knew it was going to stay that way until their performance. She watched the choreography video a few times - at regular speed, sped up, slowed down, and at regular speed again. She wanted to make sure that nothing went unnoticed by her or any of the other members; she wanted it to be as good as it could be, even though she knew they wouldn't present it as perfectly as SPICA had.
That first night, she stayed in the practice room long after the others had filtered out. She wasn't keeping track of what hour it was, or how long she'd went without a break, she only focused on dancing and sharpening her moves. She wanted to be impressive to the judges and to anyone watching from home and she didn't think she was at a level where she would stand out in her group if she didn't try hard. When she couldn't dance anymore, she ran over her lines - although they were easy enough, she still had to memorize them.
The following day, her limbs ached something terrible, and she was really regretting her decisions. She didn't say anything about the pain- she kept a smile and offered pointers to her teammates where she thought they were be useful, and accepted pointers that were thrown her way, as well. When night approached, although she wasn't satisfied with herself, she left at a reasonable, yet still late, hour. She didn't want to injure herself for trying too hard when it was only the third week, and not even a difficult song - that would be embarrassing. Plus, she'd have to admit that it was because she had an inferiority complex, and that wouldn't be good for her ego or her image, either, probably.
For the rest of the week, she was a lot more quiet and solemn that she had been the previous weeks, but she still made an effort to be kind and friendly when she was approached. She started what she hoped would bloom into a friendship by conversing with Minah a bit, who wasn't even half as frightening as Yena had assumed - and that was great, but she still felt a little out of place and just not like herself, though she wasn't sure why. She tried her best to keep smiling, but she'd find herself frowning before she even realized her expression had changed. She only hoped that people watching from home wouldn't notice and make a big deal out of it when she didn't even know what was going on with herself.
When the day to perform arrived, Yena was back to grinning and being social. She was still feeling so incredibly strange, but she knew that if there was one day that she should truly be careful, it would be the performance day. The cameras would be everywhere, so she might as well put a great amount of effort into keeping that happy expression on her face.
Yena was critical of her performance afterwards. She made sure to control her expressions and as far as she knew, she hadn't made any mistakes - visible ones, at least - but in her mind, she felt as though she wasn't good enough. She had been distracting herself from negative thoughts since she had woken up, but the strange feeling she'd had throughout the week was making its return now that the hype was gone.
The worlds 'biggest' disaster
Episode Two
Weekly Challenge
Word Count: 639
With episode two of idol project three a lot of problems break out. First the shocking news of learning eight different songs at once, with strong dancing moves, as well high-key vocal parts. Not that any of the vocal parts were a bother to Eungi in any way. But it always was very difficult for her to remember any kind of choreographies. Probably the main reason she wasn’t able to debut yet. While sitting together with her team the girls spend a lot of time discussing which song to perform practice at first and so it comes that they came up with the idea to start with the choreographies of the songs at first.
The day of the performances came closer and closer, the tension inside Eungis body raise to a whole new level of wanting to cry and run away. But neither one was an option for the eldest trainee on idol protect. Many years the girl spend her time watching her friends debut and losing trust in herself. Switching her company after eight years, like leaving a part of her family, was one of the biggest and most hurtful steps in the entire live of a twenty-two years old girl. Spending the last days in the practicing room Eungi barley let it to focus on her main weakness, dance!
Eungis mind was blank the moment she was looking up on stage, facing her stage fear was nearly the biggest disaster of all the problems she had to face in some minutes. Feeling like she want to throw up soon the team was told to go on stage. Knowing what song they have to perform didn’t helped the girl to get her mind back. Walking up on stage, looking down to the trainers Eungi felt like she’s faint in one minute. All the color of her skin disappears in seconds and she couldn’t hide the shock and fear in her eyes.
White night was the first song to perform and like everyone already knew, Eungi messed up half of the choreography. Her vocal parts/rap parts where a mess as well, pretty shaky and unprofessional, the girl was dripping over her own feet not once but twice. Trying to keep her head up but couldn’t really focus till she forgot some pats of the lyrics. Feeling more than sorry towards her team they worked so hard on helping her. After the first performances the girl left the stage and Eungi couldn’t hold back and break out in tears, bowing several times towards her members not able to say something, and that’s was pretty rare since she always is a smooth talker.
After the pause the girls had to prepare the next performance she finally was able to catch herself again and walk on stage for the next battle. Doing ‘sorry sorry’ this time was more or less a disaster, beside of almost falling from the stage while looking neither, cool or sexy she was able to hold her vocal parts and didn’t forgot any of the lyrics. It looked like she only was able to remember the lyrics and singing strong beside of remembering any part of the choreography. With ‘I like u too much’ day two came to start, her body was more confident over moving smooth beside of stiff, doing a stable performance she was ready for the final performanc.
Before day two came to an end Eungi teammates helped her with the last performance. . Showing Eungi the steps again before they had to head back on stage for the last time. More confident about the songs since she loved it a lot. Eungi shows a powerful rap performance that drives people crazy after the low quality shit she did before. Missing some step pats of the choreo wasn’t bad in her eyes, since she only was a bit too slow. But during her rap and vocal act she showed a whole new stage appearance, since she got used to it, even though it might only be for this night.
Bowing to the jury the girls of team two left the stage and were waiting for all the resultants together with the other teams.
ahyung’s daily schedule looked a little something like this
she woke up at 6am on the dime. she showered, fixed her hair up into a bun. did her makeup, put on clean clothes. made sure she was presentable-- 7:00.
she made her bed. put her pyjamas away. went to the kitchen. open the blinds and the window to get fresh air moving. turned on the stereo so classical music played. got out the ingredients to make whatever breakfast was scheduled for that day-- mondays were pancakes, tuesdays were scrambled eggs and sausages, wednesdays were oatmeal, thursdays were french toast, fridays were fresh fruit salad, saturdays were eggs benedict, and sundays were waffles. she would make sure there was enough for all three family members. she would make sure everyone had what they liked-- coffee for her dad, milk for her mom, and orange juice for herself. by that time, it was 7:30. once the table was all set and ready, she woke up her parents, and they all dug in.
After they were done eating, it was usually about 7:45. while her parents went back to their room to get theirselves ready for the day, ahyung went about cleaning the kitchen. ingredients went away. all surfaces were scrubbed. all dishes were washed, dried and put away. all garbage was thrown out. 7:15.
sewing. if there wasn’t anything that needed to be altered or fixed when it came to her daily outfits, then she worked on embroidery, or on building a quilt for her nana, who she only saw thrice a year. she did that until about 11:30, and then broke to make lunch for herself and her mother. usually soup and toast-- things that were light.
after lunch was school work. she had a textbook. she took notes. she did that until 4:00
then it was time for housework-- be that laundry, vacuuming, dusting, washing things, organizing-- there was always something to be done.
5:30-- she started to help her mother make dinner. it was usually more extravagant.
6:15-- she excused herself to make sure she looked presentable.
6:30-- her father got home
6:45-- dinner began
7:30-- ahyung helped clean up and put things away
7:45-- time to wind down-- get into pajamas, take makeup off, get into bed, read
words: 400
recap: raekyung thinking he let his parents down by not debuting with hydra and how he wants to win ip3 for them
Not debuting in Hydra had meant that Raekyung felt disappointed in himself, the feeling of letting himself down had consumed him and for a few weeks that was all he could think about. But, more importantly, he felt like he had let his parents down. They had been so excited, so proud of him when he called them to tell them he was debuting and he had to face the music and tell them that he wasn’t, destroying all that joy. The phone call was hard and he didn’t expand on it more than just telling them he had been pulled from the lineup. It was hard, so hard that he didn’t visit Busan for a few months when given the opportunity to either.
Whilst, after a few months, he had been able to repress those feelings, his father’s passing brought them up and cut open old, seemingly healed wounds. That had brought him into a whole new slump, one separate from not being in Idol Project 2 and Hydra, one that made him realise the only father figure he had in his life was a manager that he didn’t even get to see that often. His father passing had made Raekyung put a lot of things in perspective but it killed him to think that his father wasn’t proud of him.
When he got picked for Idol Project 3, Raekyung’s main thought was winning. Not for him, no, he knew that even if he didn’t win he’d get a debut soon enough because the hype around him would allow for that. No, he wanted to win for his parents. His mother and father who he felt he had disappointed when he wasn’t one of Hydra’s members.
He told himself from day one that his win would be dedicated to them, dedicated to his deceased father that never got to see him on stage. Raekyung dedicated a lot to them, so much so that on the day of the first episode he wore his father’s wedding ring and an earring of his mother’s so that they would be there with him.
He didn’t care what would happen throughout the competition but he knew one thing - he’d make his parents proud or destroy his reputation trying.
“you looked pretty damn good on that stage, even if you were a little nervous. i could always give you a private lesson if you wanna get better, though. show you a few tricks” -- @rvmyungji
