WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

[ Translation - Aren ]

I'm a Reporter, Please let me get off the Stage

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Chapter 69

After I made up my mind, I relaxed and glanced around at the team members.

“Let’s all just speak casually. The closer we get, the better our performance will be.”

“Sounds good!”

Saemi answered immediately.

I was so sure he was going to call me ‘Hyung-nim’ until the day he died, like a full-on gangster. How unexpected.

“Alright then, let’s think about what kind of song we should do.”

After a brief silence, Iho was the one to break it.

“In my opinion, we should go for something that really emphasizes masculinity.”

“Ooh.”

“Everyone here’s pretty tall, and since we’re all in a dance position, we should make sure our performance really leaves an impact.”

Listening to him, he actually made some sense.

Everyone was on the taller side.

I wasn’t completely sure, but even Ahn Yuyoung seemed to be in the higher 170 cm range.

Loop7’s Chanyoung, IONER’s Saemi, and VOV Kiwoong were either slightly shorter than me or about the same height.

Iho on the other hand was taller than me.

He was even taller than Haedun and maybe around Tae-Oh’s height. So definitely around 180 cm.

“Masculinity? Abs? Damn.”

“Ah, but I don’t have abs……”

Sami and Kiwoong mumbled to themselves. Ahn Yuyoung also didn’t have any abs either.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to show everything. Everyone has their own strengths.”

Iho calmly comforted them.

He actually seemed to have some leadership skills.

At first, I thought he was similar to Haedun, being a bit cold, maybe even distant, but when he spoke he carried himself with confidence, completely different.

Yeah, as expected from the first ranked contestant and a second-year idol, I guess. It does make a difference, huh?

“How about using this song? I can choreograph it as well.”

Iho pulled up a song on his phone we got from the production team.

It wasn’t a K-pop song, but a recent pop hit.

The beat was simple, and the hook was addictive.

‘How strange…… It’s as if he already knew this was going to be our challenge and he prepared this song in advance……’

I tried to ignore this tiny, nagging feeling of suspicion about Chenstin once again. Instead I just nodded. What else could I do?

* * *

“A little faster! You’re missing the beat, Seo Changyoung!”

Iho shouted.

Now that the practice rooms were open access the five of us immediately picked Iho’s song suggestion and were starting to match the choreography to it.

Iho after doing one or two run throughs with us stepped back saying that he already had a good understanding of the song. Now he was just supervising us.

“Ahn Yuyoung-hyung, your arms and legs look weak. You need to put more power into your moves.”

“……Got it.”

Obviously I was also getting criticized.

My current dance level was B.

Unless I used an item, my dance level was neither good nor bad.

So to someone like Iho, who was number 1 in the rankings, it was only natural that I looked like some amateur.

“Let’s take a break.”

After repeating the brand-new routine five times in a row, both my body and mind were starting to burn out.

I raised my hand and called out..

“……Already? We haven’t even memorized the choreography yet.”

Iho immediately objected.

“We still have a whole week of practice left, and we picked our song faster than the other teams. I think we should take a short break to memorize the moves visually.”

I said that while looking around at the other members.

And sure enough, I could clearly see them thinking ‘I have no idea what’s going on.’

“The fastest way to memorize choreography is through repetition.”

Iho argued back.

His tone was subtly forceful.

“……Then, at the very least, let’s plan out our practice and break times. Endless repetition like this isn’t efficient.”

“You just keep going until you get it right. That’s not inefficient.”

‘What’s this guy’s problem?’

I felt a spark of annoyance appear inside of me.

Wow. Congrats. You’re soooo amazing, you punk.

“What do you guys think?”

I turned to the other members.

“Uhm…… I……”

Saemi shifted his eyes nervously before answering.

“……I think we should keep practicing.”

“Uhm…… Me too.”

“Same……”

It was a shocking result.

Until not too long ago, they all looked like they wanted to rest, but now they suddenly changed their stance and answered differently.

‘Are they…… looking at Iho right now?’

I had a bad feeling.

If this kept up, it would turn into a fight between me and Iho.

Fighting was one of the fastest ways to start a full blown fandom war.

And compared to Chenstin’s Iho, WEEKANIZ’s Ahn Yuyoung had not even a fraction of his fan power.

In other words, if I pushed this any further, the hate comments from Haedun’s fans would look like child’s play in comparison to the one’s I would receive.

“……Alright. Then let’s keep going.”

I backed down for now.

To that Iho smiled brightly at me.

It was the kind of smile that usually made people like you.

But to me even that seemed utterly annoying.

“Hyung, this choreography is seriously cool. If we keep this up, we’re gonna look amazing!”

After a few more rounds of practice, Saemi spoke to Iho in an excited voice.

“Thanks. It’s only because everyone’s practicing so hard. This isn’t an easy routine.”

Iho threw an arm around Saemi’s shoulders as he responded in a casual manner.

“What about you, Hyung? How is it? You good? You look like you're struggling a little.”

Iho glanced at me.

I pretended to catch my breath while thinking fast before answering.

“I’m fine. Thanks to you, we’ve covered a lot of ground for the first day of practice.”

“It’s because everyone’s keeping up so well.”

Iho smiled without the slightest hint of sweat on his clean face.

“It really is great having the first ranked in our team.”

I forced my lips into a smile as bright as possible.

Right.

Right now, he was first. The perfect, prepared first ranked was part of our team, so what could possibly go wrong?

I was in 17th place. This position evaluation was important, sure, but if our team won, we all would benefit from it.

“……”

Then why did I feel so uneasy?

The members seemed happy, but……

“By the way, Chanyoung, Saemi, Kiwoong, do you guys have any ideas for the choreography?”

“Erm, not really. I already love it as it is.”

“……Same.”

Then why did it feel like they weren’t happy but intimidated?

‘……Am I overthinking?’

I shook my head, dismissing the thought.

“Hyung, are you doing okay?”

I was on my way back to the practice room after dinner when someone called out to me.

It was Baekgyeom.

“What about you?”

“I’m getting my ass kicked. That’s how I’m doing”

Baekgyeom was on the vocal team. He wasn’t amazing at either vocals or dance, but if I had to choose, his vocals were better, so this worked out well for him.

“By the way, Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

Baekgyeom looked around. Then, he grabbed onto the mic, attached to the back pocket of his pants.

“……What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he gestured toward the mic attached to my pants.

I was momentarily confused, but then, I followed his lead and grabbed my mic tightly like he did. I could feel the foam sponge get crushed in my palm.

“……This way, the audio won’t pick up anything.”

“……If you go around telling people this, you’re going to get caught.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t figure this out on my own.”

“Then who told you?”

“It was Ire.”

“Aah.”

A sigh escaped my lips.

Silent waters run deep, huh.

“Alright. So, what do you want to say?”

Baekgyeom leaned in closer. I also tilted my head toward him.

“Do you think Haram-hyung is going to be okay?”

“Huh, yeah, probably. He’s a good singer. Why?”

“That team…… feels kind of suspicious.”

Baekgyeom hesitated before speaking.

“Don’t tell Haram-hyung, okay?”

“Alright, what is it?”

“You know Kim Munsu from Chenstin who’s on the same team as Haram-hyung, right?”

“Yeah. He’s in the same dorm room as me and Haram.”

“I ran into him once at a drinking party, like, a year ago? It wasn’t anything weird. I just met him because he was a friend of a friend.”

“Okay.”

“……I got a seriously bad feeling about him. Back then, he kept trash-talking female idols, like a lot”

“At that time, Chenstin was kinda in a rivalry with this group called O’clock. They’re not active anymore, but…… He was talking about O’clock’s vocalist and said ‘I know all their weaknesses’.”

“……Weaknesses?”

“Yeah. He used exactly that word.”

“……And? That doesn’t sound like a big deal.”

“That’s what I thought too, but…… If you had been there, Hyung, the way he said it, and his expression was like…… really scary. Like he was waiting to use it against her.”

Judging by how serious his expression was, it didn’t seem like Baekgyeom was lying.

Still, just a bad feeling wasn’t enough proof.

‘Baekgyeom has pulled various types of pranks before……’

That was my first thought, but if I said that out loud, he would probably kill me, so I kept quiet.

“Hmm, I get it. But why can’t we tell Haram?”

“Come on…… He’s already feeling down. If he hears this, he’ll just feel worse. And if he starts watching Kim Munsu too closely, he might end up getting isolated from his team…….”

“……So you actually do use your brain sometimes?”

“Ah, Hyung!”

Baekgyeom was pouting.

I grinned as I said that I was just joking.

“I’ll keep an eye on him. Since I’m in the same dorm room, I’ll be able to watch closely.”

“Thanks, Hyung. Wait, no, what am I saying. You’re the leader. You’re supposed to do that.”

Baekgyeom patted my shoulder (Which was kind of weird, since he wasn’t the Hyung here) then casually saying that he had to go to the practice room to pull an all-nighter he walked off down the hallway.

“Kim Munsu……”

He was the one who would end up destroying Chenstin with his school violence scandal, so, of course, I never had any expectations for his personality, but……

“There are cameras everywhere, so what can he even do……”

There were cameras in the dorms, the hallway, and in the cafeteria.

Maybe Baekgyeom just got a glimpse of his real personality, which I already knew about.

I stretched my arms and headed for the practice room.

I was going to have to practice through the night for the whole week.

But just as I was making my way there.

“……Urgh!”

A familiar pain shot through my entire body.

……What the hell was this?

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