#nova:snmonth2

( a starter for @rkchaeyoung )

april 23rd. the day was finally here. solji wished that she could go out of the dorms and buy a gift for chaeyoung, but being put on voluntary “house arrest” didn’t really allow for that to go so well. she would most definitely make it up to her once they were out of these dorms and throw her a celebration grander than anything the other could imagine. but for now, there really wasn’t much she could do.

@rkyngsun

it’s humiliating, to say the least, waking up in the morning and having to put on a bright red vest that singles her out from everyone else, that screams inadequacy, that tells anyone who lays eyes on her that she’s not good enough and that she already has one foot in the grave called elimination. 

sitting side-by-side with yongsun, both of their vests glaringly obvious to the cameras in the room recording their exchange, meiqi has to admit that it’s terribly difficult to put all of her focus towards the line distribution of week one’s song when her thoughts are running a mile a minute. hyun bin’s words keep ringing in her mind, so much so that meiqi has to knock a fist against her forehead to stop thinking about it and get back to working with yongsun. they have to be perfect this month; she can’t half-ass this.

with @rkhugo

Well.

That was... unexpected yet not quite so surprising as one would’ve thought. Hyunbin CEO was notorious for being blunt and not mincing words, but to be dragged like that... Hosung felt ashamed. Hyunbin was right: he should’ve worked harder, he should’ve put more effort into bettering his singing technique, he should’ve... There were many things that should have been in done but it was too late to do anything about them. The past was the past and the only thing that he could do was take the words and have them fuel his fire to become a better artist.

So why did he feel like crying?

As soon as they had gotten back to the dorm Hosung had headed straight for his room, climbed into his top bunk and burrowed under his blanket face towards the wall. He didn’t want anyone to see the hot tears of frustration welling up underneath his closed eyelids.

this week was daunting to say the least. while it was only right for them to do a song by their legendary sunbaes, myname,, it was also a lot of pressure. they needed to do justice to the performance, after all, and myname were no joke when it came to dancing and performing live. living up to that would be more than difficult, so that meant killing himself with practice, yet again. 

this month was a never-ending cycle of that slaving style of training and rehearsing, it seemed. he had to really work to try to maintain his spot in the safe team, which meant honing in on his weaknesses so they weren’t so weak anymore. he had done his best up until the project to improve his dancing, and slowly but surely it had come to be acceptable, but acceptable wasn’t good enough anymore. 

he just hoped ricky could see how hard he was trying here, how much work he was pouring into these performances to keep up when needed, and shine when needed. ricky was one of the other trainees that he knew was stressed out over this project and definitely slaving to meet a certain expectation. if hugo thought his own situation was bad, he couldn’t imagine the pressure ricky was under right now. hugo runs through the chorus one more time, no music, doing his best to finish his moves, then looks to ricky through the mirror for confirmation, wordlessly. they had done this too many times already, he didn’t even need to speak anymore. 

MONTH 2

there wasn’t too much time left over. although weekends were possibly the best to get anything done like washing clothes or just relaxing. there was no need to travel home as their living quarters were right up stairs. for sunmi, it shaved off 30 minutes of travel time. the only downside is that they were separated by gender. so if they went upstairs to their dorms, they were only going to be surrounded by the people they just spent the entire day with.

it was maddening, just a bit. sunmi didn’t miss the boys per se (they were all in the same building after all) but she needed a bit of variety of who she spent time with or complete alone time. which, sadly, wasn’t granted now that they were here. so sunmi took a book and went downstairs to one of the studios with a couch in it. she laid across it, book in hand and started to read. it wasn’t enough to immerse herself in the story entirely but it was nice to get a few pages in.

the book was in english so she didn’t have to worry about someone reading over her shoulder (not that the book was particularly nasty. it was just a fiction novel). but sunmi wasn’t the biggest fan when people tried to read over her shoulder uninvited. with the book being in another language at least the chances of that decreased. not by much, mind you, but by enough. she was just hoping to be given some time to relax. even if it was just ten minutes.

@hyunark, @rkkaeun

Wendy suddenly questions her life choices. Sure she chose a song that she felt could benefit the group, but now she has a new problem. How the hell does she act sexy? The song they chose for the 2000′s was one that required to be playful and flirty, two things she was far from being. There’s also the fact that she’s just newly turned legal age internationally. She cringes as she tries making a flirty face at the mirror. She giggles at herself before winking at the mirror. 

now this.. this is what hyuna had been buzzing about once the whole survival show started. a girl group power house. this was it. if she could pick a girl group with such girl crush concept, brown eyed girls were the shit, and the whole group agreeing to do sixth sense was definitely a blessing in her eyes.

there was so much highlights from this performance, she struggled to pick just one, however.. the highnotes, they were it. and to  be able to show this, specific performance in front of 500 people? buzzing.

hyuna knew not everyone was ready to do this, audiences were a stressful thing, but she personally had gotten used to it. having done three survival shows, two of which had live audiences at all stages, it was only a matter of time she was even happy for other people to see her.

however, that might not be the case for others, some had never had the opportunity to do so, but she knew they would do fine. they didn’t have a choice by now.

when the day of the performance came up, they were all ready, heady make up, geared up in similar concept clothing, hyuna and her trusty hand mic. her only worry this week was, the dance being enough, would it class as a good enough dance in order to impress hyunbin and company, or would it be the live vocals that blow them away? she;d know by the end of the show.

she was stood center stage, in front of the girls as she waited for the music to begin, ready to deliver the opening line. once the music started, she did her mental calculations, to know when she needed to pull the microphone up to her lips.

feel, watch, p.l.u.s. sixth sense

and she moved away from the center, letting wendy take the stage. if last week they all got to show their more mature side, this week as all about charisma when taking the center stage, without the opportunity to have back up dancers, and most of the girls standing still at close proximity. it was all about charisma and individuality.

then came the hard stuff, the stuff that hyuna had to try and get right. it was no secret that most girl group members were flexible, could do a split without a problem. not hyuna, no. she was on the more inflexible side, always had been. so to be able to drop down to an almost perfect side split, definitely caused some issue, but she tried her best. picking herself up midway through the verse, as gracefully as the original dance showed, she got ready to sing her own part she was given once sunmi finished.

너 가지고 있는 촉을 좀 더 높이 세우고 저 차원을 넘어 오는 느낌에 널 맡기고

she did the choreography as done in the original, including the quick bend and getting up, and there wasn’t much of a waver in her voice. maybe training for two years helped her sing live better, but she’d always remember how she was told rappers didn’t really dance when delivering their verses. maybe she should have spend even more time singing live than believing than statement. maybe she would end up being a vocalist if hyunbin didn’t like her at all.

however, before hyuna had time to delve into her own thoughts and insecurities, she focused on the show at hand, and the reactions of the coaches and ceo. the chorus came and went, just like every other song they did and it was soon the rap portion. her and chaeyoung split it. it was her first time experience splitting raps with other people. even during royal survival show, her and dabin were always on two different teams. so she never had to do so. she didn't mind it, there was more thane enough rap to show both their skills.

she she quickly moved behind the girls, going down on one knee and waiting for her cue.

지금 내가 에스코트 하는 대로만 나를 따라 와봐 new world 짙은 경험할 수 있어 못 믿겠음 이걸 봐봐 (follow me) uh (say my name) 좀 더 louder you won’t forget me, sing it to me, baby! (follow me) 그렇지! (say my name) gracias! can you follow?

she followed the choreography, not that there was much, but she still did, standing high with confidence and following the flow perfectly as she lifts her hand to her head in order to salute. saying her final line, she moved moved to the side to let chaeyoung take the center stage and do the speed portion of the rap.

then came her favorite part. the highnotes. no matter how much she wanted to look at the coaches to see their reaction, she kept her professionalism up. until the end of the performance where they did the final move and hyuna kept her stance, grin on her lips until they were told to relax. 

@rkwendy

an awful singer. the words replay in his head over and over again, like a record stuck on repeat and as much as haknyeon would like to hit stop, it doesn’t work. he’d spent the last few days with those words lingering on his mind. he’s aware that he isn’t a fantastic singer; so it’s fair to call him an awful one when he’s surrounded by so many talented people.

though he takes it as a lesson. as much as the words pierce through him, he knows that he’ll need to do better if he wants to stay. and if singing is his weakness, haknyeon will do what he must to try and improve on it.