Let it be said that Daehwi was not an avid watcher of anime and other cartoons. While he knew in his logical mind that there was a wide variety of genres within not everyone did, and if there was one thing he didn’t want to be branded as it was ‘a kid with his silly cartoons’. He was very self conscious and had been probably since he reached his teenage years and felt as though he had to be more adult now.
His brother however was another matter entirely. He saw no shame in the animated films and watched them regularly at home on the big screen, often with Jiyoo in his lap who probably didn’t understand much of what was happening, but it was kind of cute to look at all the same. One would never hear Daehwi say it out loud, but Dowoon was a good big brother. Either way, the one he had watched recently had caused a lot of thought within Daehwi as it had been about a boy and a girl exchanging bodies. It was silly but had made him wonder about something a lot, and there was only one person he could ask beside his mother about this. Or technically there were many, but Yoona was the one who was near him while he was pondering in the Nova building cafeteria. “Hey, noona,” he called out to her. “How does it feel? You know, to be a girl.”
Lee Daehwi ft. @rksxngyeol, @rktaeyang & @rkxskm
Performing Boy in luv & Danger & I need you by madtown
Guitar arrangement by Sungyeol ft Taeyang & Seokwoo
Lyrics reference
The prospect of a competition within the companies was kind of exciting to day the least. Daewhi would have thought he’d have enough of competitions by now, but he could feel the bubbling sensation in his stomach whenever he thought about having to pit themselves against other people. In the end there was probably nothing to lose but the prize for winning seemed pretty interesting. It wasn’t that he had been a trainee for long and was already longing for the time off that wasn’t granted to them usually, but he was sure that some of his seniors that he had to work with had such a sentiment. So he was definitely going to do his best. Only problem was just that at the end of the day, Daehwi was more of a dancer than a vocalist and this time he would not be evaluated for it even if he did dance.
Instead he had got to watch very closely as his seniors were working. Quite quickly they had decided to do an acoustic medley, using Taeyang and Seokwoo’s skills on the guitar as well as Sungyeol’s knowledge when it came to music arrangement. Everything almost went down too easily as they already had decided upon songs and theme before the day of the announcement was even over, leaving only the deal of actually composing the acoustic arrangement and figure out how to do the harmonisation.
But Daehwi couldn’t help but wonder what his part in all of this was. He couldn’t do fancy things like the others could when it came to making music, he couldn’t hit the high notes Seokwoo could, didn’t have any knowledge on how to uphold second voice and could only really do the base vocals. But one thing he could do, he came to realise, was make sure the mood was good between everyone. Daehwi was a boy with practically endless energy, and he liked to believe that his high spirits were contagious to the rest of the group.
But was that enough for him?
He felt rather much like a side character, not in the spotlight, not getting to show off what he could truly do. And that kind of sucked. But Daehwi also knew that this time wasn’t his, that he still would have lots of time to show off in the future. He couldn’t win every time after all. As long as they got the overall win he didn’t care about not having been of much overall use. Not everyone in an idol group could procure the same results every single time after all, so he just had to get used to being a smaller character.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take it seriously. Everyone had worked so hard to get a good result and the last thing he wanted to do was be the one who ruined it. In a way it also felt like a huge burden to carry on the legacy of Madtown of all groups, but Daehwi believed that if anyone could do them, it was them. They were the future of Nova after all. And suddenly he realised that for the first time since getting signed, Daehwi actually felt comfortable by calling himself a Nova trainee. For once he hadn’t thought about being a better fit to Royal. For once he thought that he would actually want to be together with these hyungs in the future.
In between a tight schedule of going to school and idol training at the same time, it was incredibly nice to get a change of pace. When he had first heard of the Speak Up event, Eric had been excited and anticipated it greatly, and figuring out which classes to sign up for had been an incredible challenge for the boy who wanted to do everything. His first thought had been a very greedy want to see the members of Luxe up close as many times as he possibly could. But when the actual schedule was announced he actually started considering more thoroughly which classes might actually interest him.
Eric was proud of himself. He had managed to set aside his personal bias for what might be profitable to him.
One such class was this current one. Eric wouldn’t by any means call himself a beginner in singing, but it was no secret that people existed who were better at singing than he was. The teenage boy was more of an all rounder which fit his mentality of wanting to do everything rather well, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t get better at things that he already knew. So even if it was a beginner’s class Eric had decided that there would be something to learn and it seemed that he wasn’t the only one who had that thought. The person he had come to realise (and remember) as Sungyeol (a fellow trainee and not some creepy old man walking the buildings) was there too.
For the entirety of the class, he had stuck to the older nova trainee like glue, not because he was particularly nervous, but because the familiarity felt nice. And around every five minutes he had whispered to the other “aren’t we so lucky to be this close to Eclipse’s Jennie?!” The class was nearing its end and with the noraebang party announced, Eric had grabbed Sungyeol’s sleeve. “Hyung! Let’s do a song together, okay?!”
It felt weird to say the least. It wasn’t the first time he had walked the hallways of an entertainment company, but it was definitely the first time he could say it was the start of a new adventure. Nova trainee, Eric Sohn; how cool a ring didn’t that have to it? He had already managed to push the disappointment aside and look at things afresh -- regardless of his biases, this was a fresh beginning and finally a step taken towards his goal, and Eric in his silent mind challenged his brother that he was going to debut first. Three years, he said to himself, and that was the time it’d take at most before he could call himself an idol.
Either way he had to get to know the dos and don’ts of trainee life as well as being able to navigate the building. So far he had got lost twice trying to get to the cafeteria, and just as he was about to do it a third time, he stumbled across an older male with quite possibly the most unfashionable sweater Eric had ever seen. “Ah, wait up ahjussi!” he called out, thinking the guy was staff in the company. After all, how could an aspiring idol possibly dress like that? “Help me out please!”
Although he tried not to think too much back on the past and the failures he had made so far, Eric still couldn’t help but linger at the what ifs. What if he had got signed back then. Would he have let the rush of the moment get to his head instead of remaining humbled? Or at least as humbled as one could be when one was Eric Sohn. But he also pondered about the people he had met on his journey, those who deserved better than they got. One such person was Yoo Taeyang, a young male some years older than he was, and someone he had crossed paths with during his mga adventure. Perhaps it was because he too was a dancer, but Eric had taken to the guy and felt immense regret when he had been eliminated.
Naturally he never anticipated to see the other again, and especially not in the other end of the Nova training room, onlt just entering before Eric yelped out a loud “hyung!” and took off. With stomping steps he closed the distance between them in an instant and quite literally jumped at the other, not thinking about whether he’d be caught or not. His simple thought at that moment was to latch on to Taeyang and squeeze him out of sheer happiness to know that he too had made it somehow while Eric had been busy in America.
Daehwi had always been and still was the type of boy to speak his mind before he really put thought into his words. Many times this had caused him to unintentionally disrespect people, but some habits were incredibly hard to change, and so he kept putting his foot in his mouth. Calling Sungyeol ‘ahjussi’ had been just one of many mishaps, and it seemed like it was time to make a fool of himself again.
The thing was that he clearly remembered the face of this woman. She had been the lecturer of the very class at the speak up event that had cost him the opportunity to see Luxe up close and personal with their new song. How could he possibly forget her.
Her name, on the other hand, was a different matter. Daehwi clearly remembered his senior male trainee lecturing him on the matter, but what he had actually said escaped him right now. Thus, when he stepped up to her, hands in his sides and face in a pout, the name that escaped his lips was the first and the best one he could think of starting with a W. “Wanda sunbaenim!” The moment he said it, he knew he’d made a mistake. “No wait, that sounds wrong. Anyway!” Shoulders raising in a huff, he clearly let it be seen with his body language how upset he was. “You still owe me an apology!”
