#;egotistic

✞ MAY EVALUATION * VOCAL PERFORMANCE ; EGOTISTIC x with SPHERE BOYS ( @rkvok​ @rksungmin​ @chrxsrk​ ) june 1st, 2020

may is a difficult month. he starts it in the gutter, heavy with his hardest goodbye yet and failure in the prior month’s evaluation. he can’t help but feel sorry for himself and marinate in pity at first, paralyzed by grief and self-doubt once again, as he always seems to circle back to. was he really good enough to be a trainee? was he good enough for someone to stay? was he good enough for anything? (he kept circling back to the same answer: no.)

if he learned anything from the mgas, it was to not let his own feelings get in the way of the success of the group. one of the sharpest memories in his mind is yeji and jinyoung’s frustration with him, their scolding and scalding comments as they tried to force him off the floor into something more useful to their team. the last thing he wanted was to go back to that time, and to burden the few boys that were in sphere with the same daniel when they needed him.

so he chokes it back; he smiles, and puts on a chipper air, and if they can tell a difference, they don’t question him. besides, there is something a little genuinely uplifting about making a new arrangement for a song by one of their sunbaes, highlighting different instruments, recording a new backtrack. there’s something sincerely exciting about performing in an auditorium in the seocho complex instead of just a practice room, in front of a crowd and the ceos. 

he tells moonbok it’s funny that they’re competing against trc’s boys when trc’s concept was the other daniel had to exemplify in the mgas, and it is. funnier still is the fact that this setting isn’t so unlike the mgas without the cameras: competing audience, ceos watching from afar, ready to make their judgments. something in daniel clicks despite all of his insecurity-- some sudden determination. maybe it’s the experience falling into place, like second nature now, his mindset already shifting into what it needs to for success in a competitive setting. maybe it’s just that familiar desperation to prove he’s gotten better. maybe he wants to perform in front of the ceo judges and make them regret rejecting him for two seasons in a row.

eventually, as the month and practices stretch on, and he gets to focus on the aspects of music he likes the best, his smiles aren’t so rehearsed. he convinces himself of them, and he feels lighter. maybe part of it is woong’s reminder that god never gives you more than you can handle, and his own realization that comes hand in hand: there are still so many blessings left. 

one of them: a group of creative, talented boys he really likes singing with. it’s hard to spend time with them without thinking of the ones that left, all people he considered friends, maybe moreso than those remaining, but there’s still them. they’re still here together, and preparations for the evaluation are fun, and for as scared as he is to get used to this, he knows he could.

surprisingly, when it’s their turn to set foot on stage, he doesn’t really feel nervous. if he thinks about it, however, the nerves are right below the surface, with his ever-lacking confidence, so he doesn’t think about it. instead, he thinks about empty enigma shows, and cameo, and how much he could use him now to put on the best performance he can. 

they don’t dance, even when the music begins. instead, they hold their poses, the acoustic guitar and bass of the self-recorded backtrack ringing out in the auditorium. daniel makes sure his stare is intense, hopefully captivating, hopefully lacking in nothing.

he starts them off.