#behyejin

< w @behyejin >

"it's this serious?" stevie whispers to hyejin in between lessons in the workshop, looking more and more confused as they progress. stevie understands that they want people with clean images, no weird or questionable posting. images have to be upheld-- but to take a whole workshop on it? a super hard class essentially? "i can't believe there's a workshop for this. i've been here for months and i feel like i have still so much to learn."

“HOLD THE ELEVATOR! HOLD THE —” hansol hurls himself at the closing doors, squeezing in just in the nick time. “jeez, i asked you to hold the door,” he exasperates, throwing the elevator stranger an unimpressed look before turning around and smacking the button for floor nine.

the elevator doors stutter open, then close, then open again. hansol starts jabbing the close button, patience clearly not his virtue. “is this thing broken or somethin’?” after several attempts, the doors close, and the elevator begins its ascent.

THUNK!

letting out a huge breath, eunbin had a hand over her chest as she mouthed the lyrics to her part once more. she didn't think she'd struggle so much with memorizing the lyrics this much, but she blamed it on the fact that there was simply so much to keep up with.

being thrown into such a public performance only a month or two after being signed a trainee was a shock, but she really didn't want to let anybody down. performing in front of people wasn't the problem for her. no, eunbin was still learning the ropes behind singing and dancing at the same time, and that's where she struggled the most.

walking over to hyejin, she carefully cleared her throat to get her attention. from what she heard, hyejin's been at studio delta the longest, and the trainers have mentioned approaching her if they needed some extra help, and eunbin decided to give it a go.

ria could never get enough of halloween, it was an event she quite loved a lot. for ria, it always felt like the spooky season was over too soon. she’d often start thinking about her costume a year in advance, once it hit november first and halloween was over, she’d begin thinking about next year’s halloween. she’d often end up with multiple costume ideas, and had to find multiple days to celebrate halloween so she could wear them all. 

“i was hoping to find some fake blood” she says as she turns to hyejin “and i probably need some face painting as well”. she looks at hyejin shortly before returning her look to all there is to buy. “you gotta stop me from buying too much… being here, i’m getting even more ideas for costumes”. she looks at hyejin “are you searching for anything specific?”.

being a trainee was not how noel had expected, but then again, what had he expected? a lot of this was new to him, noel hadn’t been interested in becoming a trainee for long before actually becoming a trainee. he kind of just thought they’d always either be dancing, rapping or singing, but there was more to being a trainee than just that. like now, a songwriting camp, not something he'd expected. noel never really thought he’d be practicing songwriting, it didn’t interest him much, he much preferred practicing dancing instead.

but maybe it’ll be good, noel was still a bit unsure about dancing when he joined next gen, look at him now, in love with dance. perhaps he’ll find another interest during this songwriting camp.

sua kicks one foot out on the bench, a spoon digging into her ice cream as she chances a glance around the park. the weather’s nice– it’s getting hotter out, though. it feels nice to not be shivering for once, and besides– the trees give a nice layer of shade. 

attention returning back to her ice cream, sua sticks her spoon into it, then chances a glance over at hyejin. it’s been a while since she’s last had time to see the other girl. for a moment, it had felt awkward, but hyejin’s sweet. it’s hard not to kinda melt in her vicinity; and she’s pretty. sua won’t deny she’s weak for a pretty girl. 

𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐀 𝐏𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌, Seoul, SK Late May, 2023 w. 𝐌𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐘𝐄𝐉𝐈𝐍

Saem is well aware that his popular music knowledge if woefully lacking. He’d never been drawn to pop music, or whatever his classmates were listening to. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, he was just constantly surrounded by classical music; it was what he knew best, and Saem wasn’t used to leaving his comfort zone. Now, however, he’s beginning to regret not paying more attention to what was played in stores, or on the radio. He’d been trying to find things on youtube, but he had no idea what to search. Not only did it feel like a personal failing, but Saem suspected it could have something to do with his current difficulty befriending the other trainees in Studio Delta. 

It’s strange, he realises, being not the new guy anymore, as a batch of new trainees joins them in the practise rooms. He realises that he’d been a trainee now for nearing five months, and yet he’d still struggled to make any proper friends in the company. He knows he’s not like them. Classically trained pianist and ballet dancer—doesn’t really go with kpop idol. However, Saem likes to think he’d made progress, and shown he was serious, and now just there ‘by accident’, or merely for his appearance. He’s determined, however, to not let the new trainees feel as alone as he did when he first began. That’s how he begins talking to Hyejin, asking her about herself, about Next Gen (which he’d watched, but mostly paid attention to Sarang), and about her goals. 

They’d been on friendly terms for a while before it comes to light that Saem knows absolutely nothing about popular music these days, and thankfully, she offers to help remedy that. Which is how they find themselves sat in a small practise room, big enough to hold two chairs and a piano, going through old music videos of senior artists from Studio Delta, because if there was one thing it was absolutely shameful not to know, it was your labelmates music. 

teamwork evaluation.

after her recent feedback from the judges, she’s aware this will be her greatest challenge yet. she doesn’t mind being scary. as far as nayoung is concerned, she says what’s necessary and what others are too nervous to say. could she be nicer about it? sure, but the industry isn’t nice, and some people don’t get it if you don’t put matters bluntly. 

she needs to get along with everyone, though, especially her teammates for this round. 

her teammates: hyejin and eunkyung, both of whom she had the...opportunity to encounter during her practice last round. as far as she’s concerned, hyejin needs to mind her own business and eunkyung needs to take the competition more seriously, and it seems the judges at least agree with her on hyejin. on eunkyung...they have vastly differing opinions. they called eunkyung center material. she doesn’t understand that at all, and isn’t looking forward to working with her. she’s trying to be optimistic about it, though: if the judges like eunkyung, maybe she’ll be an asset to their performance. or maybe the judges will suddenly see her the way nayoung does this round, and they’ll lose. maybe then, eunkyung will get eliminated instead of she or hyejin. 

she realizes there’s no real point in thinking about that now, though. all that matters for now is putting on the best performance possible, and. practicing as smoothly as possible. 

nayoung isn’t one to waste time. the first day they have available to work together, she gets started on the line distribution, and it’s nayoung, so her poor team has no real choice but to endure her taking charge. she listens to any requests the others have as far as lines go, then listens to the song, and watches their guide video–– over and over and over, and draws up the rest of the line distribution herself. she tries her best to be fair, but above all else keeps the quality of the performance in mind.

she and hyejin have more experience and rap skill than eunkyung, so it makes sense for them to start and end off the song; the audience will likely remember those parts the best, so they need to make sure they’re as high quality as possible. then, she tries to assign the parts that seem the hardest to either herself or hyejin, and leave the simplest ones to eunkyung. it should be easier for her to learn those and perfect them than any of the others.

once she’s done, she gathers the other two girls and sits on the practice room floor with them, and hands them lyric sheets outlining the parts she assigned for them. 

“okay. this is what i settled on. does this look good to you guys?” she honestly is open to suggestions. sure, she thinks she knows best, but it is a teamwork evaluation, and even she knows it’s important this at least looks like a team decision.