“Three days?”
“No way…….”
“And the person who receives the best evaluation at the interim check, held the day before filming-”
Kang Se-jun paused.
“Will be the center.”
The trainees' eyes, which had looked half-dead, reacted to the word ‘center’.
“Finally, the top five will receive additional items for the signal song shoot.”
Before my regression, Kang I-yul had come sixth. He'd missed it by a hair.
‘Not this time.’
Because I was going to grab I-yul by the collar and drag him up there myself.
The top five before my regression had been Han Sang-yun, Juhan, Go Jae-seong, Choi Un-jo, and…….
“Hey, move.”
Speak of the tiger, and he appears. It was that bastard Hwang Geon-hee. He had become fairly popular, but a controversy would force him to leave midway through the survival show.
“Oh, isn't this the latest model?”
The trainees marveled at the sponsored tablets. Of course, they only allowed us to check the choreography and watch advertisements.
“Too bad. Looks like we can't install any OTT apps.”
‘Oh dear…….’
Sadly, that trainee would get nothing out of that remark but the nickname ‘OTT Guy’ before being eliminated. Maybe I'd watched too many survival shows. The moment I saw a face, its ending came to mind.
‘I feel like a novice shaman.’
Kang Se-jun left the practice room, but the cameras stayed. Red lights kept blinking on the cameras mounted everywhere. That made the trainees' silent battle for the best spots all the fiercer.
‘If they catch you looking sour while you're doing that, you're out.’
I scanned the cameras' positions in the mirror.
They were familiar. Far too familiar.
Before my regression, I'd rewatched Boys Code dozens—no, hundreds—of times. Especially early on, when I-yul had so little screen time that I paused every scene to search for a trace of him.
After doing that over and over, I'd even memorized where the cameras were. To find I-yul in even the smallest glimpse, I had to check each angle.
‘He disappeared from this angle, and around here he went out of frame.’
Those memories overlaid the practice room before me.
I walked toward the door.
To anyone looking, it was the worst corner in the room.
But the real prime spot was right here.
‘It's perfect for the wide shot.’
I took my place as if it were only natural, then looked around the practice room.
“……Oh, boy.”
A sigh escaped me.
I-yul was practicing in the most awkward spot, squeezed in among the other trainees.
‘Why there, of all places?’
How could I bring him over without making it look forced?
Asking him to teach me the choreography would be the safest bet.
There was just one problem…
‘I already know all of it.’
Every last detail.
People are products of repetition. Watch your favorite fancam hundreds of times, and eventually the choreography sticks in your head.
But I hadn't stopped there. What came next was pure desperation to promote Impacter.
When our popularity started to decline, the company began pushing nostalgia for the survival show as a marketing strategy. While other idols were doing challenges to their current songs, we were doing a choreography challenge for a survival show's signal song more than a year after it ended.
Naturally, nobody cared.
So in the end, I made an account.
Wearing a mask, I posted a signal song choreography challenge with a concept along the lines of ‘What if someone with two left feet danced to the Boys Code signal song?’
Every single day.
At first, all I got were nasty comments like ‘You'll do anything for attention.’ I couldn't bring myself to argue. I just wished the attention would go to Impacter instead of me.
The early videos were truly painful to watch.
-Did a squid get reincarnated or something? ;;
-Wow, all five body parts are malfunctioning. Incredible.
-Is this AI?
-Making people laugh through sheer physicality alone isn't easy, but you've got talent. Keep going!
But my clowning around proved fairly effective at getting Impacter's name out there.
Videos that used to get barely ten comments began drawing a hundred, then two hundred. The number of shares rose exponentially along with them.
-What? Why do you suddenly have clean dance lines? I'm disappointed. Unfollowing.
-A triumph of the human spirit ;; On day 50, it actually started looking like dancing.
-I went and watched the original. Who choreographed this? It looks like it'll kill you.
-They had at least some basic training to begin with ;; The choreography itself is brutal. Following it that well proves it.
└No, that's not true. I've watched since day one, and they really looked like they came from another planet ^^;;
-They're NOT. GOOD. at dancing, but memorizing all the choreography is impressive.
Had it been about a hundred days? On the day one of my videos surpassed the view count of Impacter's music video, I quietly nuked the account.
I didn't want I-yul to find out about me through something like that. Nor did I want Impacter to be mocked.
Thanks to that whole episode, I knew the signal song's choreography and lyrics perfectly. Of course, that didn't mean I was good at dancing. My dancing wasn't a matter of ‘doing it well.’ It was a matter of ‘memorizing it well.’
‘And I can't let anyone notice that.’
As far as anyone knew, I'd seen that choreography for the first time today.
‘Should I pretend to practice a little longer before I call him over?’
‘Or just pretend I'm hopeless?’
As I weighed my options, an irritated voice reached me.
“Oh, come on……!”
“Sorry, it's because of my cast….”
“Then practice somewhere else. It's already cramped enough in here-”
“…….”
Look at the way that bastard talks.
I headed straight toward I-yul without another thought.
“Excuse me…….”
I gently tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around, startled.
“……Me?”
“Yeah. If it's okay, could you help me out?”
He looked somewhat reluctant, but gave a small nod.
‘I-yul, that place is too cramped for you.’
I'll lead you into a wider world.
***
As soon as I stood beside I-yul, one of the cameras subtly changed its angle.
‘Okay. One camera's on us.’
It was a sign that the production team had started paying attention to us.
No wonder. The practice room was already a battlefield. With only three days, everyone was fighting their own battle.
It wasn't a team competition to begin with, so in a way, that was only natural.
But what made it onto the show wasn't an individual working alone. It was a relationship with a story. So I intended to cast I-yul as the teacher.
‘And it'll give me an excuse for getting better, too.’
“Am I supposed to stretch my arm out like this for this part?”
I deliberately moved my arm clumsily.
I-yul glanced over and shook his head.
“No.”
His voice was still dry.
‘I really can't get used to him speaking so politely.’
“First, turn it inward. Then extend it on the next beat.”
Wow, our I-yul…… So there was something he couldn't do!
I hadn't understood a thing. I suppose being good at something and teaching it were different skills.
It felt like sitting in a required course for my major back in college, listening to a professor who gave no thought at all to the students' knowledge or understanding.
Maybe it was because our boy was a genius. He seemed unable to fathom why anyone would struggle with the move in the first place.
“Oh, like this~”
I gave it a rough try, and I-yul's eyebrows rose slightly.
“That's…… not it either.”
“Then like this?”
“No.”
He let out a short sigh, then stepped right in front of me to demonstrate.
“Turn it here, then extend-”
His explanation was still terrible, but his movements were precise.
I copied him once more ‘like someone learning it for the first time.’
“H-how do I do this one?”
“This one's easy. Think of connecting your joints as you link the movements-”
Wow, so easy. Really, so easy, I-yul.
If anyone other than I-yul had been teaching me, a sarcastic remark might have slipped out on the spot. If it was ‘easy’ a second time, my arm might pop out of its socket.
To think looking at my I-yul would remind me of the professors I'd hated most. Life really was full of surprises.
It went on like that. I'd deliberately get a move wrong once or twice, and I-yul would grow frustrated.
And this time—
“……Huh?”
I didn't get it wrong on purpose.
I-yul's gaze wavered for a moment.
I smiled inwardly.
“……Do it just like that.”
I-yul spoke quietly.
I shrugged.
“Maybe I've got a good teacher?”
The silence lasted a little longer this time.
Just as it was starting to get awkward, I-yul answered under his breath.
“……No.”
He denied it, but his voice had softened a little at the end.
Just then, another camera turned toward us.
‘Three.’
That was enough.
I naturally began adding the details.
The signal song's choreography was intricate to an almost unfair degree. Of course, the production team had designed it that way on purpose.
But I'd memorized every last detail. I'd been beaten up in the comments so often that I'd had no choice but to learn them, however reluctantly.
-00:24 Didn't extend the fingers properly here? ;;
-00:47 How do you still miss the detail of turning your toes inward after dancing it dozens of times? hahahaha
└They're trying hard. Why put them down? ;;
-01:05 Wow..... At this point even I've memorized that you're only supposed to turn halfway here, and you're still making a full turn ;; Seriously relentless.
-01:22 Yesterday your left foot was right and your right foot was wrong. Today I thought you'd finally got the right foot, and immediately your left foot was wrong hahahahaha. Is this a universe where both feet can never be right? T_T
Conversely, the trainees who were naturally good were more likely to miss those details. They could copy a move after seeing it once, so they assumed they'd mastered it and moved on to the next part.
That was why one of the show's entertaining early features was watching promising trainees get knocked down a peg.
‘But I can't let I-yul get dragged for it.’
The angle of a finger. The direction of a toe.
Whenever a detail was missing from a move he taught me, I casually added it as I danced.
I-yul, who had been watching closely, let his hand fall still.
“……Wait a moment.”
Then he picked up the tablet and checked the video again.
“……Ah.”
A brief flash of realization. When I-yul looked at me again, there was something different in his eyes.
I pretended not to know and asked,
“What?”
“……It's nothing.”
That was what he said, but his movements had already changed. They were a little more precise, with the details in place.
I held back a smile. This was enough.
***
Kang I-yul felt uncomfortable around Yu Seong-woo.
In fact, he had ever since they first met.
Street casting. Those two words told him most of what he needed to know.
Most people recruited that way came in brimming with confidence, then vanished within days.
Naturally, he'd thought Yu Seong-woo would be the same.
But he wasn't.
Every day, he stayed in the practice room until the very end. Not for a day or two, but continually.
‘……What's with him?’
He got on I-yul's nerves. Even when I-yul tried not to pay attention, Seong-woo kept catching his eye.
Then I-yul heard that he'd cried while practicing, and wondered what kind of guy he was dealing with.
‘Looks like he's got some grit.’
That was as far as it went. I-yul had no intention of getting involved with him.
His own situation didn't leave him that much time to spare.
“Excuse me-”
So when Seong-woo asked for help earlier, I-yul had meant to refuse. He barely had enough time to practice himself. How could he afford to help someone else?
Then he happened to glance at the mirror. Hair that fell smoothly even when soaked with sweat, a style that looked good with nothing more than a casual sweep back. He naturally remembered all the praise he'd received at the photo shoot, too.
The person who had given him that was the older trainee standing there.
“……Ha.”
He hated owing anyone a favor.
So he'd decided to help him just this once and call it even.
……Then he'd regretted it immediately.
“Like this?”
“No.”
Wrong.
“Or like this?”
Wrong again.
It took talent to make a simple move difficult.
“Have you ever…… taken dance lessons?”
“No?”
Right. If he had, these movements would be an even bigger problem.
“Oh, I got it!”
He looked as though he'd won the world just because he'd hit one beat.
‘How can he smile?’
Honestly, it was frustrating.
What had he been thinking when he entered a survival show? Debuting wasn't a joke.
Still, he'd already agreed to help. It would be awkward to quit halfway through.
“……Let's try it again.”
And so they kept practicing.
But the more I-yul taught him, the stranger something felt.
Seong-woo still couldn't dance. His joints still seemed to move independently, and he still didn't understand explanations the first time.
‘What is it?’
And yet, strangely, his movements kept falling into place.
He got it wrong exactly twice, then succeeded on the third try.
The pattern was too consistent.
‘……Why am I going this far to help him?’
It should have been a nuisance, but I-yul found himself growing more invested.
He even spotted details he'd missed in Seong-woo's movements.
“……Wait a moment.”
He replayed the video. Then he was certain.
He really had missed that detail just now.
When he looked up, Seong-woo was standing there with an innocent expression.
“……What?”
I-yul couldn't answer.
‘……It must be a coincidence.’
He tried to leave it at that, but it happened again on the next move.
This time, too, Seong-woo was right.
I-yul bit his lip.
He couldn't dance, yet he caught details that everyone else passed over? A keen eye alone wouldn't explain it.
‘It would be possible if he'd practiced this one dance like hell.’
But that was impossible.
For the first time, he looked at Seong-woo properly.
There was no doubt that I-yul was the one helping him.
‘What is it with this guy?’
Somehow, I-yul felt as though he was the one being drawn in.